She climbs up and settles down in the passenger seat. All slumped over into herself. Janice looks worn down. She pulls out a beat-up purse that’s losing rhinestones by the second and from it she pulls out a cigarette. “You mind?” she asks.
I wave an okay and she lights up. Her white dress, it suddenly doesn’t looks so nice. The ice sculpture’s quickly melting away.
After two long drags she says, “Katrina didn’t tell you everything. We’re connected, you know? I can see what she can see.”
“You said that.”
“She’s the best at the readings, knows how to navigate, but I’m there for the ride too. I see everything she sees. Know everything she knows.”
Another drag and a deep cough and Janice informs me that she and her sister saw just about everything I’ve seen over the past few months. “Just because Katrina went in to see that drowning, it doesn’t mean she didn’t see more. When she’s in your head, she can read it like a book. Just flip the pages back. When we’re in your head, Ade, nothing’s sacred.”
She tells me that she knows about Vauxhall. She tells me that she feels bad about my home life. The slumped-over psychic next to me says, “You’re much more messed up than anyone could even imagine.”
“Why were you really in the backseat of my car?”
Janice rolls down her window and chucks the cigarette. “Your new girl.”
“Tell me.”
Janice smiles. “I know what you really think of me, Ade. I repulse you. You think I’m stupid. The dumb sister.”
“I’ve never even met you before tonight! This is crazy, you’ve got me confu-”
“Don’t bother, Ade,” Janice interrupts. “Won’t matter. Here’s the thing: I’m a spiteful person and, honestly, I’d very much like to hurt you.”
“I’m sorry, but seriously, I think you-”
“Won’t matter, Ade. You were in Boulder just a few-”
“Yeah. I party. I… I was… What is this about?”
Janice puts a finger to my lips to shush me. Her nails sparkle. She says, “At Roger’s party. You’d banged your head up something pretty bad earlier and when I saw you, you were all dazed. Drunk and all out of it like from the concussion. Didn’t stop you from being incredibly sweet. I think you said something about having seen me before, about how you saw me in a vision years ago. Very poetic. Very sweet, Ade.”
“Really, Janice, I don’t think… It wasn’t about you, it was…”
Looking at Janice, her sinking into the seat next to me, I can’t recall a single image, not a moment, from the scene she’s describing. No recollection of spending time with her.
She says, “We kissed a lot.”
“Who?”
“You and me, silly.”
“Nothing more, though, right?”
“Depends how you define more.”
I groan and feel bad doing it, but it just escapes. “It’s not you,” I say. “Just that I don’t remember any of this. I think I was confused and… Please, Janice, tell me about Vauxhall. Tell me what you know.”
“Horrible,” Janice coos. “You have no memory at all of it, do you? The things you told me, you would never believe how sweet they were.”
“I’m sorry, Janice. Please. Tell me about Vauxhall.”
Janice starts with, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve forgotten most of your life. I wonder just how much of what you think you see is real. These visions of the future, how do you even know they’re yours? Just ’cause you see yourself, how do you know that’s you? Amazing what the mind will come up with. Even more amazing what the mind can will itself to forget. Jimi Ministry was with you at that party, Ade. He talked to me. Asked me to look at something inside his head. Something, well, very bad for you and Vauxhall.”
My heart tumbles. My mind is electric with anger. All the things I’m thinking are so ugly. So many of them brutal. The churning is breaking me apart.
“What is it, Janice?”
She laughs. “You sure you want this?”
I’m not, but I’m having trouble breathing.
Janice is like, “It’s really sad stuff.”
Bracing myself, I say, “I need to know.”
“It will change everything.”
“Tell me.”
“You will never forget again.”
I nod. I need to know this, but as soon as Janice starts speaking, I want to plug my ears. I need to know what she’s going to tell me, but I don’t want to hear it. Not from her and not like this.
Janice says, “You’re here because Jimi wants you here. All of this, it’s his little game. You’re the pawn, Ade. He’s been planning it, well, I can’t even begin to imagine how long. And the thing is, you’re just so messed up that he’s made it work. Whatever I tell you it’s already too late. Vauxhall is his. I’ve looked into his head. Jimi’s been to Grandpa Razor, he’s gotten the future. His future and, not surprisingly, you’re not in it. Vauxhall and Jimi have a great little family. A nice home. Jimi one, Ade zero.”
I’m biting my lower lip so hard it’s ballooning out.
“Doesn’t make any sense-”
Janice chuckles to herself. “That’s just the thing, Ade. You have no idea what you’ve actually seen. You’ve forgotten us getting, well, cuddly, just a few weeks ago. Can you imagine the other stuff you’ve forgotten? Can you imagine the visions that maybe you’ve forgotten?”
“Everything I’ve seen I’ve remembered.”
She laughs loud. “Not at all,” Janice says. “Remember, I’ve been in there.” And she taps my forehead with a cold finger. “The time you went to the ER, got hospitalized, surgery, you had a vision. You remember what you saw?”
I try. “Jimi’s dad.”
“And after?”
“Something really far out. Me looking in a mirror. And, I couldn’t see-”
“You could see, though, Ade. You could see just fine. Only you forgot. Want me to show you what you saw?”
I’m in a daze, biting back my tongue. I nod.
Janice, stroking the back of my neck with her sharp nails, she says, “Your past catches up with you, Ade. All those concussions, all the damage, it has to go somewhere. To say you change is putting it lightly. The anger, the violence. You go a little nuts, frankly.”
She touches my face, runs her fingers with both hands through my hair just the same as her sister did and my skin tingles. My eyes roll back. Janice’s digging into my memory, cutting through the cloud of damage and mental scar tissue. It feels like she’s swimming inside my skull.
The vision comes up quickly. Me again in front of the mirror. I’m focused in and older and I’m sitting in a wheelchair. The reason I had trouble seeing this, the reason it was so fuzzy, is easily explained by the look in my eyes. It’s dull. It’s the look of a fish in an aquarium. The dead-eye stare of an insect. This future, it’s me as I’ve always worried I’d become. Me trapped in a failing brain. What’s worse, I’m clearly in a hospital. The walls are white and the floors are white and the ceiling tiles in this place are white. The reek of ammonia is strong. At first I’m sure I’m just watching myself in this mirror, but it quickly becomes clear it’s not actually a mirror, it’s a window. Not watching myself, I’m staring through me to the parking lot below where a man and a woman are leaning against a car kissing. The man is an older Jimi. The woman, gorgeous and bright, is an older Vauxhall. I scream so slowly that it hurts my jaw.
Janice takes her fingers from my head. The vision evaporates and I’m back in the car with my ears buzzing, my fingers bloodless from tension.
And Janice says, “Jimi’s under the impression that they do that, sit out in front of your special person’s home and make out, on a monthly basis. It’s cruel, but from what I hear Jimi’s kind of a vindictive person, so-”
“Impossible,” I interrupt. “What I see, it happens. Either Jimi dies or I change the future and I save him. But if I save him it won’t end up like that. It can’t end up like that.”
“Can’t win all the time, can we?”