Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [65]
“No. He was here. I woke up. He was right there.”
Julie hugged her daughter. “Oh, baby, it’s all right. Maybe it was on your brain radio.” Julie tried to block her own strong sense of seeing Hut standing behind her, in the bathroom of the master bedroom.
Standing there, just watching her.
“Something’s wrong with him,” Livy whispered, as if her father might hear her.
9
Joe Perrin and his husband had come out to the ’burbs one Sunday when the weather was perfect, and they had a little barbeque out on the patio. Burgers and corn on the cob and Rick brought some great French wine from the place in the Chelsea Market and they brought their big friendly German Shepherd, Dutch, which both Matt and Livy took to right away. After the meal and some retreading of old memories, Julie sent the kids into the front yard, playing with the dog, and Rick opened the wine.
Joe and Julie and Rick hung out on the picnic table, blue plastic cups in hand, looking over the back lawn, beyond the neighbor’s house to the dip down the hill and the bit of lake they could see through the trees. They talked about anything and everything and eventually, third or fourth cup of wine in, Julie brought up Michael Diamond and Amanda Hutchinson.
“Joe, but he said I had a connection with her. A woman. And then, his wife is dead.”
“Sounds psychic to me,” Rick said, grinning.
“Oh, you,” Joe said. “Rick doesn’t believe in it.”
“It’s nonsense. Julie, if we could get into each other’s minds, wouldn’t we have solved the greatest problem in the world?”
“What’s that?” Joe asked.
“The distance between two human minds,” Rick said. “If we could really get inside somebody’s head, would we have wars? Would we need territory? Wouldn’t we understand each other so well that we’d just support and help everybody?”
“Rick’s theory of the benevolent universe,” Joe laughed. “No, Ricky, I think if some of us got inside the heads of people around us, we’d probably try and manipulate things. Take control. Turn people into, I don’t know, love slaves. I mean, now, I’m saying this if I were single, so don’t take it personally, honey, but if I could get inside other guys’ heads, I’d just have them take off their clothes and dance around for me all day long and do my wicked bidding.”
Julie grinned, having drunk a little too much wine. “If I could get inside people’s minds, I’d probably try to get them all to give me a dollar. All I’d need would be a million people, and then nobody would be hurt, would they?”
“You think people are greedy,” Rick said, nodding.
“No, I think I’m greedy,” Julie said. “My point is, if I were psychic, I’d do all kinds of things. And I think I’m a nice person.”
“So do I, baby,” Joe said, lifting his plastic cup in a toast. “Just imagine if the people who aren’t so nice could do this. Well, maybe they’d all become the Michael Diamonds of the world.”
“I just don’t buy it at all,” Rick said. “It’s like believing in ghosts. It’s like once you open up yourself to that kind of magical thinking, you’ll swallow anything.”
“I believe in it,” Joe said. “With some restrictions. I don’t believe that psychics can really see anything you don’t want them to. I think our own minds can block things.”
“Hon, I love you, but that’s magical thinking,” Rick said. “That’s like, if I think about flowers, suddenly I’ll get flowers.”
“It is not,” Joe said, ticked off. “Maybe you should consider things outside of your narrow view.”
They got quiet, too suddenly.
Julie reached out and touched Joe’s hand. “I don’t know if I believe in this stuff or not. But I could’ve dismissed everything that happened with Michael Diamond. Except that he told me that Hut’s ex had killed herself. I don’t know. I feel like I’m becoming surrounded by all this psychic crap. From the whole thing about the school Hut went to, to this.”
“What school?”
“Oh. God. I feel a little awkward talking about it. My husband was tested for psychic ability as a kid. In some program. It’s all been news to me. I guess that’s why I was willing to see Diamond. Hut must’ve wanted to put it all in