Blind Date

The dog beside her barked and the door behind her swung shut, the force of it making the skull light flicker and go out. Annie started, gasping, and her hand went to her throat. The dog licked her other hand as if in apology and trotted off behind the desk where wisps of smoke were coming out of the skull’s eye sockets.

“I heard you!” came a muffled voice.

Annie turned at the sound of a door, and a girl entered the room looking like she should be going to a funeral. Annie understood the whole goth-girl rebellion thing, but she had never found it attractive. I guess that’s the point? The girl was wearing the requisite black lipstick, heavy make-up, dark eye shadow.

Her long hair was dyed a deep black with red streaks. Annie eyed her combat boots and Beetlejuice-striped thigh highs and suppressed a smile.

As the girl stepped under a glowing black light that Annie hadn’t noticed on the ceiling, her black t-shirt glowed with a purple ghoulish image of a skull.

Annie took a step back in surprise as the girl advanced. The skull disappeared as she moved to stand under the fluorescents.

The girl smiled at her and extended a tiny, almost childlike hand in greeting. Annie noticed her nails were long and painted like some bizarre reverse French manicure, black on the bottom and white on the tips. “I’m Kora. You were looking for me?”

Annie looked down at the girl, whose head barely came to her shoulder.

She wasn’t as young as she looked, Annie judged. The tattoo and the belly ring and the eyebrow stud make her look younger somehow.

“Yes. I’m here to pick up something for Dita-” Annie stopped, realizing that she didn’t even know Dita’s last name. Not that mattered. People seemed to know who she was, regardless.

“Ah, Dita! She said you were coming.” Kora smiled and Annie saw the flicker of a tongue stud. “You want the beauty box. Stay right here!”

Annie waiting, wondering how Kora had known she was coming if they had no phones. In fact, how did one run a business without a phone, exactly?

Kirby came trotting back around the corner in her direction. He stopped for a moment to be petted before going to sit by the entrance, as if waiting for something.

Kora returned holding a wooden box about half a foot square. It was carved with an intricate pattern, something that seemed familiar to Annie, although she couldn’t say why. It was unrecognizable as any concrete image, and she thought perhaps it was something Celtic. She reached out her hand to touch it.

Kora offered her the box. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Annie took it and tucked it under her arm. “Thanks.”

“Oh, she told me to tell you not to open it.” Kora headed toward the desk, her boots treading hard on the basement floor.

Annie closed her eyes and threw her head back toward the ceiling, slapping her forehead. “Like mother, like son?” she muttered. Unbelievable!

“You mean Eric?” Kora asked, lifting the skull on the desk and re-lighting the candle.

Annie moved toward her. “You know Eric?”

“Oh, yes!” Kora watched the flame, a small, secret smile on her lips. “We all know Eric.”

“Is he here?” Annie leaned over the counter as Kora knelt behind it to pick something up off the floor.

Kora put some papers back on the desk, using the edge of the skull as a paperweight. “I thought he was supposed to have clients here today. Check in the office upstairs. Do you know where that is?” Annie nodded, already heading for the door. Her heart was racing.

“Thanks for your help!”

* * * *

Annie glanced up as the door opened, half rising to meet him. It was a stocky bearded man with glasses and a goatee. He glanced at her, his eyes moving over her blouse and skirt and heels. She felt out of place here. This guy was the most average-looking person she had seen walk through the door yet.

The tattooed, long-haired biker guy just before him had eyed her, too, and then asked a lot of questions at the window about a Reiki class. This stocky guy wanted an application for something he called the “Medical Intuitive Program.” He sat in the chair across from Annie with a clipboard and filled it out while he hummed. Annie glanced at the clock again and sighed. The woman at the window, a patient redhead named Polly, had told her he was due in any minute.

That was almost an hour ago.

The box was heavy in her lap and she wondered what was in it. Her mind wandered as she traced the pattern on the box again, like some grooved finger labyrinth. The trials of the week had exhausted her: meeting Dita, the spilling of the beans, Virgil and the killer bees, Herman and the secret monastic sect, the old man and the Black Death, and now this strange odyssey into The Elysian Fields. The thought of seeing Eric again, the object of every action she had taken lately, made her stomach clench. What would he say? Would he welcome her?

Would he want her?