Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest

5.

Leda and Niki were going against the flow of rush-hour traffic, thank God. Even on a Thursday afternoon, the city core was a still life of cars—with a soundtrack of horns honking and people swearing in a dozen languages. They’d started out a little south of town, in a neighborhood called Columbia City; Capitol Hill was only a few miles north, but any road closures or wrecks could stretch the drive to an hour, if luck wasn’t with them.

Jason the Accord made it up the hill in thirty minutes, and he was successfully parked in another ten. The parking wasn’t metered after six. It was a quarter till then, but Leda and Niki decided to risk it rather than spring for the paid lot down the block.

The hill was crawling with cars, bicycles, jaywalking pedestrians, homeless people with signs, rats, hipsters with tiny dogs in neon harnesses, street musicians with open guitar cases, preachers wearing sandwich boards, skateboarders, and the occasional drag queen. Cap Hill had once been known as the city’s main “gayborhood,” and it still had a few clubs and bars that catered to the old clientele. These days, Niki called it the “stayawayborhood” because she’d been priced out of the apartment she’d shared there with Matt for a couple of years. She was still sore about it.

But Castaways was still there, so they didn’t stay away as much as she pretended.

In truth, Leda and Niki found their way to the dark little club at least two or three nights a week, and often more frequently than that. It wasn’t the strong drinks that brought them back again and again, and it wasn’t even Matt—a lean, good-looking guy who was a couple of years younger than his broken-toed beloved.

The main appeal of the place was, as Niki had suggested, the klairvoyant karaoke.

Leda walked slowly so Niki could keep up, thumping that plastic boot as she scaled the steep sidewalk. “I told you, you should’ve kept the crutches.”

“They rubbed my armpits raw. Forget it. I’ll stick with a really loud limp.”

“Doesn’t your foot hurt from doing that?”

“Not as bad as my armpits did. Crutches chafe, Leda. They chafe.”

When they reached the entrance, Leda held the door and Niki strolled in like she owned the place, because being the girlfriend of the manager had its privileges. They were small privileges, like one or two free drinks and a front-row seat if there was a good act for the little round stage, but she was happy to take advantage of every single one.

“Tiffany!” she called to the bartender.

Tiffany toasted her from halfway up a very tall ladder, where she was adjusting the stock on the high-stacked shelves. “Ladies,” she said with a wave. “Come on in and make yourselves at home. You’ve got the place to yourself for the moment.”

“Hey!” a guy at a corner table protested.

Tiffany went back to teetering on the ladder and topping off the booze. “Except for Justice, over there. He’s on his third glass of fizzy water,” she said in his direction.

The man’s real name was Justin, but he didn’t like it—and he’d gone full anarcho-communist after the 2016 election. He used the bar as a base of operations for his zines and newsletters due to the free Wi-Fi and generally tolerant management. But as long as he left the other customers alone—and as long as he paid for his nachos and the occasional Shirley Temple—he was allowed to stay.

Sometimes he was low on cash, and then it was fizzy water until someone took pity on him and bought him something else.

Matt would let almost anybody hang out, if the hanging out was peaceful and quiet. Homeless folks who wanted water on a hot day? No worries. NIMBY protestors wanting to put something in somebody else’s backyard? As long as they didn’t make a stink, but no, they couldn’t post their signs—no matter how meticulously they explained that their newest opinions totally weren’t racist, this time. Eager college students collecting signatures for ballot initiatives? Don’t interrupt the show, if there is one—but knock yourselves out.

Festive SantaCon drunks? Lock the doors, flip the sign, and turn out the lights. Pretend it’s the Purge, and pray they leave without breaking anything.

Castaways was a hole-in-the-wall in the old-school Cap Hill tradition: neither bright nor clean, but cozy and often crowded after 8:00 p.m. The decor was loosely “golden age of Vegas,” which was fitting—for it’d been named for a long-gone casino on the old Sin City strip. Showgirl feathers, neon lights, mid-century modern fixtures, and blown-up photos of the Rat Pack rounded out the setting. If you looked real close, you could see famous gangsters in the background of some of the pictures. Once upon a time, pointing out grainy figures that were supposedly Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky had been Matt’s favorite flirting move, and that’s how he’d ended up with Niki. Now it was just a thing to talk about, because he was officially locked down.

Leda dropped her purse onto the far side of the bar, where she knew it was safe with Tiffany. “Anybody cool on deck tonight?” she asked.

The bartender was a curvy, brown-skinned, green-haired member of Generation Z who was barely old enough to hold the job she rocked on a nightly basis. Nobody knew where she’d learned her impressive hooch-slinging skills, but the day she’d turned twenty-one she’d shown up with an application in hand, and her timing had been good. Matt had sprained his wrist trying to Tom Cruise it up, Cocktail-style. He’d needed the help. She’d needed the gig. It was a match made in heaven.

She came back down the ladder again, picked up a bar rag, and tucked it into her apron. “Nobody’s scheduled for the stage, if that’s what you mean.”

Niki flopped into her usual seat at a tiny round table, just to the right of the stage.

“Can I get you anything? It’s almost six o’clock,” Tiffany hollered. The music was on, but it wasn’t turned up all the way. Leda thought it sounded like last decade’s dubstep, but Tiffany had weird tastes and Matt was nonconfrontational enough to let her run the playlist. It wasn’t too loud to talk, but it was too loud to talk across a room.

“Can you make me a mai tai?” Niki called back.

“I can, but I won’t. You can have…” She peered around the shelves beneath the bar. “You can have a rum and orange juice. I’m still setting up.”

Enthusiastically, Niki declared, “I’ll settle for it!”

“How about you, Leda?” the bartender asked. “What’s your poison tonight?”

Leda climbed onto the nearest stool, one butt cheek at a time. “I don’t know, Tiff. It’s been a weird day. Just give me a rum and Coke and let me think.”

“You want to read me? Do an easy one, to get started?”

Justice looked up from whatever antifa site he was annotating at the moment. “Ooh! Do me! Do me!”

“She’s not that desperate,” Niki told him from the peanut gallery.

Leda waved her hand in the trust-fund punk’s general direction. “Later, dude. I’m not working tonight.”

The bartender asked, “You’re not singing?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What? I don’t have to do it every single time I come in here.”

“But you pretty much do. I mean, come on.” Tiffany gave her a coaster and a glass to sip on. Something about Leda’s slouch or maybe her frown gave the bartender pause. “Are you okay? Because you don’t look okay. Your weird day must not have been a good kind of weird.”

“Meh.” Leda drew the skinny brown stirring straw around to her mouth and sucked on it without any joy. Then she sneezed and shook her head. “Damn, Tiff! How much Coke did you put in this rum?”

“You looked like you needed the booze more than the caffeine.”

“You’re an angel, Tiff.”

“Thanks, Leda. You’re a good customer.”

She grunted again. “I guess. But I’m a real shitty psychic.”

“Says who?” Tiff leaned forward on her elbows, showcasing an award-winning bosom that was covered in tattoos. She credited that outstanding rack with half her tipped income, and she went to snug, low-cut lengths to keep it visible.

“Says everybody.”

“Nah. You’re just having an off day. Is it something about Tod?”

A pang hit Leda in the torso, just above her belly. It never stopped being strange, hearing his name. Even after all this time. How much time? Not that much, now that she thought about it. Three years? Some days it felt like thirty minutes. She stared down into her very strong drink. “Kind of.”

“Anything new? A break in Tod’s case?”

“No, nothing like that.” She took a sip that was too big to really call a sip. If the straw had been any bigger, it would’ve drowned her. “He came up, that’s all. And I mean, come on. Elephant in the room, right? If I were worth a damn as a psychic, I would’ve totally seen his murder coming.”

“Aw, hell no.” Tiff shook her head and pulled a bottle of Captain Morgan onto the counter. She pushed the bottle into Leda’s space. “That’s garbage, and you know it. None of that was your fault, and you have to quit beating yourself up about it.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, you should.”

“I’m trying! That’s why I’m here.” Leda took the rum and topped off her drink that was already 80 percent alcohol. “That’s why I’m usually here, anyway.”

“I thought you were usually here to practice.”

“That, too. The karaoke is actually helping, I think. When I get flashes now, they’re often a lot stronger. Or else they’re a lot clearer. It must be like a muscle—and the more you work it, the better it gets. Unless I’m fooling myself. I’ve been doing this for what, six months? Honestly, there’s no strictly empirical evidence that my psychic abilities are improving.”

Niki appeared at her side. If it hadn’t been for the too-loud dubstep, Leda would’ve heard her clomping across the club, and she wouldn’t have jumped half out of her skin. “She’s not fooling herself. She’s obviously upping her skill set. Leda, go on. Tell her about the cop.”

Leda slumped down on the bar, her chin atop her hands, and her drink looming large in front of her face. “I don’t want to tell her about the cop. You do it.”

Niki was all too happy to oblige. She laid out the tale in graphic, unlikely, exaggerated detail—but she nailed the gist.

When she was finished, Tiff’s eyes were wide. “This is great news! You’re going pro with your parlor trick!”

“Not really. I feel like I’m taking advantage of him.”

The bartender shrugged. “He knows what he’s in for. Do your best and see if it helps. Hey, look.” She tilted her head toward the door, where a party of three was coming inside. “More people for the audience.”

Leda balked. “I didn’t come here to sing.”

Tiffany waved away her protests. “Yeah, but we know you will. Go ahead and get the sound set up. You don’t want to do it while the place is packed.”

Niki looked around and asked, “Where’s Matt? He can check the sound levels for you.”

“He went to the bank for a cash drop before it closed. I’d say he’ll be back any second, but you know rush hour.” Tiffany slipped Niki another drink before she even asked for it.

“Thanks!” she said, swiping it into one hand and lurching back to her seat, spilling only a few drops on the way.

“Go on,” the bartender gently pushed Leda. “Settle in. I’ll see what these new folks want, and then I’ll turn everything on. The boss’ll show up sooner rather than later. Take a couple of items from the audience, do your psychic thing, select a meaningful song for someone… and see if it doesn’t make you feel better. If you still feel like garbage after a request or two, then call it a night.”

Leda surrendered to the inevitable and nodded glumly. “Fine. You win. You all win. Everybody wins, except for me.” She glanced at the trio who had just come inside. Two men, one woman. She recognized one of the guys as a regular and shot him a head nod. He returned it and flashed her a wave.

She didn’t know his name, but she knew he was thinking about proposing to the woman beside him. Not that he’d told her out loud, but when she’d been up on the stage—holding a plastic bobblehead from an anime she didn’t recognize—she’d closed her eyes, concentrating on the contours of the odd little toy, and felt the leftover warmth where his fingers had been squeezing it.

As clear as day in her mind’s eye, she’d seen the woman’s face, and a purple lace bra. A hiking trip. Her backpack, as she climbed some trail ahead of him. A small box in his pocket. A flutter in his heart.

But when she looked at them now, she still didn’t see a ring on her left hand. He must’ve chickened out, right? Surely if he’d proposed and she’d said no, they wouldn’t still show up together. He might still be working himself up to it. That night a few weeks ago, when she’d sat on the stool and held the microphone, the lights of the stage shining up into her face, she’d used her psychic intuition to pick a song for him: “In Your Eyes,” the old Peter Gabriel number that everyone associates with the movie Say Anything, if anyone remembers it at all.

His lips had quivered. His eyes had been damp.

God, she hoped she hadn’t talked him out of proposing on accident. Unless, of course, getting married would be a huge mistake.

That was the problem with being an inconsistent psychic who took karaoke requests like a fortune-telling jukebox. At best, you told somebody something they probably already knew. At worst, you played God and pushed somebody in a direction that turned out to be arbitrary. You never knew if you were actually helping.

Okay, you usually never knew. Once in a blue moon, someone would pull her aside after the stage went dark and tell her that she’d really been on the nose. They’d been wondering about what to do about a crappy day job, and hearing Leda sing “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” by the Smiths had given them the push they’d needed to put in notice. Or they’d been worried about a health problem, fearful of a damning diagnosis. But when they’d given Leda their reading glasses to hold, she’d launched into “I Feel Good,” even though it was way out of her range and she was no James Brown.

Every now and again, it meant something.

It might’ve been her imagination, but she was increasingly convinced that yes, her instincts were steadily improving. So perhaps it was true, what Niki had so strongly implied—her “exercises” were honing her skills, and that’s why she was able to keep Grady Merritt from becoming part of an airborne fireball.

Unless she was overthinking it.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

By the time the microphone and sound system were ready to go, and enough people to call a crowd had wandered in, it was around eight. It was late September and the time hadn’t changed yet, so eight was only kind of dusky—a hint of gray and purple still highlighting the overcast skies. Leda could barely see it through the windows that faced the street, and she let it distract her from the stage lights down at her feet. She liked those lights. They made it harder to see the audience, which made it easier to pretend she was alone up there, nobody watching, nobody making her nervous.

The door opened, and a party of four strolled in. They’d take the table beside the hallway where the bathroom was—but it didn’t take a psychic to see that coming. It was the last open table.

Grady Merritt had said that people wanted a detective who noticed everything. Leda was beginning to suspect that it went the same way for psychics. The more she noticed, the more puzzle pieces she picked up—plus whatever woo-woo vibes came along for the ride.

Niki was beside the stage, running point on the sound equipment with Matt—who had come back from the bank with burgers and fries from Dick’s. They were still picking at the last of the fries.

They each flashed her a big thumbs-up.

She brought the mic to her mouth and sat up a little straighter. “Good evening, everyone. My name is Leda Foley.” A smattering of applause went around the room. “Some of you have heard of me. Nice.”

From what little she could see past the lights, at least half a dozen faces were familiar, and they’d brought friends. Word must be getting around. Was that a good thing? She couldn’t decide, and it was too late to bail tonight.

“Well, thanks so much for coming out, and thanks of course to Matt Cline for letting me commandeer his stage for a little while. I’ll let this run for an hour or two if I’m feeling it, and cut it short if I’m not. Does that sound fair?”

The crowd murmured in response.

“Good. For all you new folks, here’s the drill: I’m a thirty-two-year-old travel agent, born in Tacoma, Washington—”

Which got a solitary whoop from somewhere toward the back.

She pointed toward the sound. “Tacoma! Represent. Just the one guy, though? No other fugitives from the Tacoma aroma?” That got a few giggles. “We moved when I was about ten years old, but it’ll always be home. I guess. Okay, it’s just us, then. Let’s start with you, shall we? Stand up back there, Mr….?”

“Cory!”

“Mr. Cory from Tacoma, okay. Mr. Cory, do you have any loose objects upon your person—anything you’d be willing to let me hold for a minute or two? I’ve got a touch of what some people call ‘clairsentience,’ which means that sometimes I can pick up information by touching objects. Or call it psychometry, if you like that better. It’s a fiddly, silly, inconsistent superpower, but I’m doing my best to develop it. Practice makes perfect, right?”

The audience murmured agreement, and Cory from Tacoma shimmied around the tables until he made it to the foot of the stage. He was a cute young black guy, probably lured to town by a tech job. His clothes said business casual, his beanie hat said it’s getting colder, and his shoes said I was a skater boy, and I’m not ready to give it up yet. He had a great smile, big brown eyes, and a flattened penny from a novelty machine in the palm of his hand. He held out the penny, and she took it.

“Thank you, Cory. I appreciate your trust in this ridiculous performance, and I hope it will not go unrewarded. Are you familiar with how this works?” She leaned down, to better hear his answer.

“Yeah, my friend Debbie brought me. She said you’re amazing.”

“Wow. Thanks, Debbie!” She waved to a nebulous spot in the back of the room, from where a faint “woo-hoo!” had come. “And for everyone else, this is what happens next: I’m going to stand up here looking real thoughtful for a few seconds, maybe a minute, while I hold this souvenir penny from…” She squinted down at it. “The Woodland Park Zoo. Then I’ll choose a song just for Cory. If I do it right, the song will mean something to him. It might just be a line or two of lyrics, or it might be a tune that he heard with his one true love, years ago, on top of the Ferris wheel down at the pier, I don’t know. But if it’s meaningful for him, he’ll tell me. He doesn’t have to say why,” she added quickly. “Just… tell me if I’m reading him right.”

Cory gazed up at her, beaming. He was a true believer, she could see it all over his face. She hoped she wasn’t about to disappoint him.

“All right, here goes nothing,” she said softly, her voice barely registering in the mic.

She closed her eyes and rubbed her thumb gently over the penny. It was warm in her hands. The scene on one side was from the bears exhibit. On the other side, she found the logo for the zoo. It was the same kind of smooshed penny anyone could get from any turn-crank machine in any theme park, zoo, national monument, or roadside attraction. Nothing to mark it as special.

But she thought about Cory, smiling and young and feeling strong. Yes, that was it. A feeling of strength. Not just physical strength, but something else. Something survived, something overcome. Something in the pit of her stomach that said he’d had a near-miss with something dire.

A tune welled up in the back of her mind, a song she didn’t know that well. She recognized it from a few years ago but didn’t know much more than the chorus. That was okay. That’s what the scrolling karaoke lyrics were for.

“Got it,” she said. “Nik, hand me the catalog?”

It was a hefty thing, the catalog that went with the karaoke equipment. It had something like five thousand songs in it, and Matt checked for new downloads once a week, to keep it current.

“Here.” Leda tapped her finger on one song, and showed it to Niki and Matt. “This one. Cue it up.”

When the music came to life and the lyrics appeared on the big screen at the back of the room, Leda started to sing. She wasn’t the world’s greatest singer, but she could carry a tune in a bucket with a lid on it; and if she wished to flatter herself, she would’ve admitted that these Castaway exercises were improving her singing, along with her weirder abilities. She didn’t struggle so hard with the highs or lows, and she was faster to nail a quick key transition.

She made it all the way through “Helena Beat” by Foster the People, then took a little bow and returned the penny to Cory—whose eyes were full of tears. His smile was wobbly but bright when he said, “Thank you, Leda Foley from Tacoma. That was lovely.”

Over the chatter of the crowd and the filler music that played in the background between songs, she asked, “Did it make sense to you? Or was I way off base?”

He put one foot up on the stage, to hear her better—and all the better for her to hear him. “It’s the bit about the poison and taking a sip but holding on tight. I finished chemotherapy this week. I have that album, and I blared it through my headphones on the bus, on the way to and from the cancer clinic in Ballard. That’s been my fight song.”

“Oh my God, congrats on the not-having-chemo anymore!”

“Thanks, it was brutal. But it’s over now, and my odds are good, and you made my night. I wanted to say that.” He offered up his hand, and she took it.

They exchanged a half squeeze, half shake, and he took his penny back to his seat.

Leda exhaled hard, relieved. The first one of the night was on target, and that boded well for the rest of the evening.

Next up was a woman with a tube of lip balm, and she got a rousing rendition of “Walk the Line.” Then came an older man with a war medal that she didn’t recognize. He got “Violet” by Hole, surprising everybody and exhausting Leda with all the Courtney Love scream-singing—but drawing a big thumbs-up from the man with the medal. After that, a strung-out-looking punk girl offered her a patch off her jacket, a white anarchy symbol on a black background. She received “It Will Come Back” by Hozier, and Leda didn’t know if that one had worked or not. The girl had left the club hastily, as soon as she got her patch back.

After that, Leda took another couple of requests, and then ceded the stage to anyone else who wanted to take a turn at the karaoke machine, but about a third of the audience left right away.

Matt joined her at the bar and put his hand over her purse when she went for her wallet. “No way, lady. Your money’s no good here. You’ve become our star attraction, and it’s not like we’re paying you.”

She laughed and tried to swat his hand away. “Come on, man. Let me support my favorite independent business!”

“Nope! I won’t have it. That was a great set you did just now, so consider it payment—if you’d rather do it that way. The boss would never forgive me if I took money out of your pocket.”

“I sing for my supper! Or my booze, at least. But I feel like I ought to be paying you, for the use of your stage.”

“Girl, you know nothing about how the freelance creative professional world works, do you?”

“No, I do not.”

“We’re gonna have to get you an agent, aren’t we? A talent agent for a travel agent, right?”

She cackled and accepted the drink that Tiffany slipped down the bar with the grace of a Hall of Fame pitcher. “Your lips to God’s ears, as they say.” Then they toasted each other, and Leda downed her drink in a set of long, deep swallows.

Day-job business might have been slow and Tod was still dead, but she had klairvoyant karaoke and the folks at Castaways to keep her company—and maybe, if she gave herself a tiny pat on the back, everything might not be completely hopeless after all.