“This coming Tuesday?”
“That would be the Tuesday in question.”
“Sure.” I sat down at the counter. My body felt heavy. “Well, you finally made an appearance in my dream.”
“Did I?” He put the iPhone down and expertly shook a pan. I could see a salmon fillet flipping obediently and an arugula salad sitting in a bowl. “It’s about time.”
“I don’t understand any of this.” I put my head in my hands.
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“If you saw me, then you saw your mother, Juliet’s mother.”
“And that bizarre ritual.”
“That! Well, that wasn’t just any ritual.”
It was nice—him making himself at home in my kitchen. I remembered the touch of Juliet’s hands on her dresses and the smell of the cherry sauce. He was right, of course. But I knew that already. I’d had a sense of dread about what I thought Juliet’s mother had done that night. Before I could ask him more, he plated a gorgeous pink salmon and slid it in front of me with an equally colorful arugula salad. “You need to eat.”
He scrubbed the pan and placed bowls into the dishwasher with the casual efficiency of a chef. I met his eyes.
“You could save me the trouble and just tell me everything.”
“I know I could,” he said with a laugh. “But it doesn’t work that way. Just keep dreaming, Helen.”
I turned as he passed by me on the way to the hall. “You don’t strike me as a rule follower, Luke Varner.”
He returned to the kitchen, adjusting the strap of the soft leather briefcase over his shoulder. “Well, let’s say I’ve been in trouble enough as it relates to you. I try hard to follow the rules now. Plus, it’s better for you to see your own lives for yourself, don’t you think?”
He sounded exactly like the Lucian Varnier from my dream, offering little information. I’d have to find my own answers.
“So what opera are we seeing?”
He leaned forward on the counter like he was going to let me in on a secret. “That is a surprise.” Grabbing his keys from the counter, he ran his hand over my head like I was a six-year-old. “I have to get going. I have a painting to sell.”
Before he passed into the hallway, he turned. “The opera… treat it like an opening night.”
“So you’re saying a gown is in order?”
“I am,” he said. I heard the front door click behind him.
After he left, I reached into my bag and pulled out the book of Auguste Marchant’s paintings that I’d bought yesterday on my way home. It was sad, really, and I felt a little bad for Marchant—his books had been relegated to the sale bin in the Barnes & Noble in Georgetown. The store seemed to have an abundance of these tossed-off coffee table books, like last year’s cat calendars. I thumbed through the book and felt a pang of familiarity seeing the paintings of the children in the countryside. It wasn’t so much the faces as the locations.
One plate showed a stone well and a small girl sitting in front of it. Near the back, I reached a painting and my hand drew back like it had been burned on a hot pan. The nude girl—me—looked back in ecstasy, her dark-red curls pooling around her head, which was at the bottom of the painting. The painting was intimate. The girl was staring up at the viewer—or was it the painter? This painting was familiar. Not the painting, but rather the scene, the atmosphere it was painted in. Closing my eyes, I could feel the folds of fabric surrounding the girl’s cold naked body. I knew how the room smelled and that a breeze would come over her head through the window to the right, blowing her hair forward and sending a chill through her, yet she didn’t dare cover herself. This was the scene from the dream I’d just had. I read the plate. The painting was titled Juliet—the very painting Luke had mentioned to me, now owned by a private collector.
Thinking about the opera and trying to take my mind off everything, I rummaged through my closet but found nothing worthy of a surprise opera. I called Mickey for an emergency shopping trip. We stopped at Rizik’s on Connecticut—which was a bit of a rush since the store closed at six on Saturday. After looking at several options, I found a gorgeous Reem Acra steel-blue silk gown with tulle overlay and elaborate gold beading—it looked like a dress from another time, inspired by the interiors of Versailles. Perhaps the memory of Juliet lingered, because the dress reminded me of the gowns she had found hanging in her armoire on Boulevard Saint-Germain.
While I was changing, Mickey checked the Kennedy Center website and found that a production of Jules Massenet’s Werther had just left, but there were no signs of another opera coming on Tuesday. “This is so romantic,” he said as he ran his fingers through my hair. “You who knows everything going on in Washington are being surprised.”
“Go.” I pointed to Connecticut Avenue. Gentleman that he was, Mickey carried my gown in a heavy bag. I stopped mid-block. “Do I seem like an old soul to you?”
“Nah, just an old broad.” He smiled.
I shot him a cross look. “Do you believe in past lives?”
“Oh shit. Are you getting all spiritual on me since Roger? Just don’t turn into one of those cult people… or worse… a Baptist. Don’t go there, for God’s sake. You’ll never have good sex again.” He stopped. “You know, there is this psychic that everyone’s recommending in Georgetown. We should go and check her out. I had an aunt in Georgia who went all the time to psychics. She told her my mother was dying.”
“But your mother is alive, Mickey.”
“But my aunt died.” He raised an eyebrow. “So the psychic was close.”
“I beg to differ on that theory, Mick. They’re two different people.”
“They were twins, Helen! Twins. Trust me, it was close.”
The nice thing about Mickey is that once he sets his mind to something, you’re off on an adventure together. We were in a cab headed to Georgetown for an appointment with Madame Rincky at six thirty.
At six twenty-five, we pulled up in front of the True Religion store on M Street.
“Um, Mickey? This is a jeans shop.” I pointed at the window.
“She’s upstairs, you nut. Plus, we can get you some Becky jeans when we’re done. Those don’t make your ass look fat. Not that it is! In fact, I was saying the other day to someone that divorce looks good on you.”
“Not sure I agree. And who do you talk about me with?”
He shrugged, opened the door to Suite 202, and pointed for me to go ahead of him. As I walked up the wooden steps hearing the echo of my shoes on the wood, I realized that Mickey was checking out my ass and not in a good way.
Madame Rincky, a large Jamaican woman, greeted us warmly and offered us a cup of tea. Her waiting room was littered with National Enquirers, a 1992 Washington, DC, yellow pages, and a display selling various crystals for $13.25. Behind a beaded doorway, she led us into another room that faced M Street. I knew because we could hear the cars honking with the weekend traffic.
Mickey went first, and Madame Rincky gave him a tarot reading mixed with a bit of palmistry. “I see a child in your future,” she told him. “The large man with the dark eyes. You love him, eh? But it will not be without problems.”