Solemnly, Niki said, “Publicity leads to work, and work leads to money.”
“It also leads to bizarro emails from dudes who want to know if I’m single. As it turns out.” With a cringe, Leda opened her email and waited for the internet to deliver whatever fresh hell was new on deck.
“Has that actually happened yet?”
“I’ve gotten three of them so far, and one was really freaking creepy. The guy’s obviously been to my shows at Castaways. His email started out with three paragraphs about what I was wearing, where I was sitting when I wasn’t on the stage, and what drinks Tiffany had made for me in my downtime… but then wrapped up by saying that he didn’t want to come say hello because, and I quote, ‘That would be weird.’ ”
Niki laughed. “Seattle dudes are the worst.”
“Maybe some dudes are terrible everywhere, just like some ladies are. Oh my God,” she said suddenly, shifting gears. “I have a lot of emails.”
“Clients? Skeevy dudes? Long-lost relatives who’ve passed away and left you their fortunes?”
“No emails from dead relatives, no, but… hang on.” Leda opened one and skimmed it, then skimmed the next one. “But hey, if all twenty-four of these emails are from people wanting travel arrangements—and I think they might be, except for the spam—then holy moly, I might be able to make rent and feed myself for a few weeks!”
“Hot damn!”
Leda skimmed more emails as fast as she could. “It’s almost, like, if you keep a cop from getting on a plane that’s going to blow up, people want to trust you with their travel plans! Oh God, oh no…”
“Oh no?” Niki asked.
“Oh no!” Leda repeated. “What if I book these people for their vacations, and one of them dies? On a plane, or in a rental car, or in a hotel fire… oh man, there are a billion ways a traveler can die on a trip. What if I send someone to Florida, and they get eaten by alligators? What if I send someone to Aspen, and they die in an avalanche?”
“You can turn literally any good thing into a Greek tragedy, I swear to God.”
“But I’m not wrong! Look,” Leda insisted, turning the laptop around so Niki could see the screen. “Most of these people are afraid to fly. This guy, right here…” She tapped the touch screen to load the email. “This guy is terrified of boats, but his wife wants to take a cruise. He thinks that if I book it, I’ll keep him from any ship that’s going to sink! I don’t know if I can take this kind of pressure!”
“Leda, babe. Your job is to make sure that their flight details are correct, their layovers are doable, and their rental cars are waiting for them at their destinations. You aren’t God. You can’t guarantee that anybody will go anywhere and come back in one piece.”
“But these people don’t know that!” She whipped the laptop back around and scowled at her screen.
“Who cares? The only thing that needs to be true is that you’ll make their arrangements correctly and support them if they run into difficulties. It’s not like your website offers them a money-back guarantee if they die en route.”
“I don’t have the money for a website.”
“Sounds like you will after this.”
Leda mumbled, “Yeah, maybe. Speaking of, Grady finally paid me. I told him he didn’t have to, but he insisted on honoring our original agreement, and he paid me out of his own pocket for helping him with the Gilman case.” She sighed and closed the laptop with a soft click. “Nik, I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”
“For greatness?”
“For the worst tragedy of my life and the second-worst day of my life to become the seeds of that greatness. I’ll never get away from Tod dying, or from the feel of Abbot Keyes’s gun at my side.”
Niki rolled her eyes. “Nobody ever really puts the past behind them, no matter what anyone says. Yes, bad things happened to you—really bad things. But you survived them! Now that chapter’s closed, and you can… well, you don’t have to forget any of it. You don’t have to pretend it never happened. But you’ve got the whole rest of your life to live, so how are you gonna live it? As a psychic psongstress? A travel agent? I vote for some combination of the two.”
“You think you get a vote?”
“I damn well better.”
Leda laughed. “Yeah, okay. You get a vote. And since I don’t have any better ideas…” She might have said more, but a knock at the door stopped her. She and Niki looked back and forth at each other. Niki mouthed, “Grady?” but Leda shrugged. “Come in,” she said, with what she hoped was an appropriate measure of confidence and professionalism.
The door opened.
A silver-haired, heavyset, black-clad white woman let herself into the office. She left one hand on the doorknob while she gazed around the little space, taking in the posters, the desk, the love seat, and the two younger women. “Hello,” she said. Her hand slipped from the knob, and she drew the door shut behind her. “My name is Avalon Harris, and I’m looking for you, I believe. Leda Foley?”
Leda rose to her feet. Something about this woman called for decorum, and she wasn’t sure what it was, exactly. Avalon Harris wasn’t very tall, and she looked tastefully like a grandmotherly version of the kids who hung around the Goth bar on Capitol Hill. Black head to toe; silver jewelry; sleek, short hair that looked like spun starlight. Leda held her hand across the desk to beckon her inside.
“Yes, that’s me—hello, and it’s a pleasure to meet you. Please, come in and have a seat.”
Ms. Harris took her hand and shook it, then took one of the two office chairs that faced the desk. There was precious little room, but she sidled into it neatly, and then crossed her feet at the ankles. “Thank you so much.”
“This is my associate, Niki Nelson,” Leda added, hoping it made Niki sound less like “random hungover person who accidentally slept in my office” and more like “coworker or perhaps employee.”
Niki waved. “Hello!”
Leda said, “What can I do for you? Are you interested in one of our travel packages?”
Avalon Harris folded her hands in her lap. “Well, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, so, no—that’s not it. I’ve actually come to see you about your other specialty.”
Niki said, “You must have read the article in The Stranger.”
“What? No. I learned of your existence through the flyers on Cap Hill, about the shows you’ve been performing at the Castaways bar. I’d been meaning to attend one, but last night I was called away at the last minute—and I’m afraid that I missed your show.”
Leda closed her laptop and pushed it aside. “Oh, I’ll do another one soon.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said with a small smile. “By all reports, you’re terribly talented. My ex-husband went to one of your shows and reported that you were absolutely the real deal.”
“You have an ex-husband? Who calls you and gives you hot entertainment tips?” Niki asked.
Leda flashed her a look that said she was being rude, but that’d never stopped Niki before and wouldn’t stop her now.