Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn by Kris Radish Read Free Book Online

and run three miles without skipping a beat. I held my grandmother's hand to my own healthy breasts when she was dying of breast cancer and I have been to the funerals of friends, my favorite aunt and a neighbor man who blew me a kiss five minutes before he was hit by a car. I was once nearly raped in a parking garage and have a scar that runs down the inside of my left thigh from where I fell on the glass from my car window when I hurled a rock through it to get the attention of a cop who was breezing past drinking a can of Pepsi—I will never forget that can of Pepsi. All of this and more, so much more, and I cannot get off the goddamn bed.
    I think I need help. Elizabeth will be pissed even though she would also forgive me forever, so I lurch for the phone in Shaun's bedroom and I call Bianna. She is a funky spirit-guide woman who worked with me at the University for just a few weeks, felt the “repressed” energy of our academic world and took off so fast you'd have thought there was anthrax on every desk. Bianna now connects the living to the dead. Really. This woman has a master's degree in marketing and has worked for everyone from the Girl Scouts to the Harley-Davidson Company and she now runs a business aptly named “Rising from the Dead,” where she swears she can help people by reconnecting them to loved ones who have died.
    Bianna does have a gift. She's definitely intuitive. She hears the phone ring before someone dials her number. She can predict illness and weather and events like major traffic accidents, political disasters and a marriage and life that has fallen apart at the seams, the collar, the hem and the buttonholes.
    “I will come to you,” she announces as if she has been waiting for my call.
    “I think that would be a good idea, because I cannot get off the bed in my son's bedroom.”
    “Is this the son who no longer lives there?”
    “Yes?”
    “Then it is not his bedroom. This is a no-fault state, darling, half the bedroom is yours and half now belongs to your husband.”
    “Husband.”
    “You are still married, and very confused. Did you not see this coming?”
    “Apparently not.”
    “Meg, you are a bit of an ass.”
    “An ass?”
    “Yes, and you have forgotten how to form your own sentences. Do you want me to bring Elizabeth?”
    “Elizabeth? No. Don't call Elizabeth. I was at her house for three weeks and I came back here ten minutes ago. She'll kill me.”
    “Well, this explains everything. Don't you get how messed up I am either?”
    “I cannot even drive a car. Are you kidding me?”
    Bianna, believe it or not, is more—what? More normal than Elizabeth. She is married to a man, childless, accepted by everyone from the local garden club to the sports boosters at the high school, who have her speak once a year at their breakfast meeting. She makes house calls. She has a small office downtown with a little hand-painted sign and people think of her the same way they think of the local dentist, the guys at the bakery and everyone in town who belongs to the PTA.
    Bianna drops the bomb just when I am thinking how she will save me.
    “You did not let me finish,” she says loudly.
    “What?”
    “I will come to you when you are ready to listen. You are not ready to listen.”
    “What?”
    “See.”
    “This is not the time for humor,” I say, raising my voice just a bit. “I will pay you. I need a house call.”
    “You need to think. You need to sit in that bedroom or go for a walk and think.”
    “Think? What the hell should I think about?”
    “What you want and how you ended up on a bed in your son's room, which is really not his bedroom, calling a psychic to make a house call when you are one of the most intelligent women I have ever met.”
    “Bianna . . . something, give me something.”
    The pause is terrifying. I am underwater and waiting for someone to pass me a thin line of air. Just a simple breath. That's all. Then I will be able to get out of the car by