Psychic Junkie by Sarah Lassez Read Free Book Online Page B

Finally I was able to sneak back inside my building, hoping my neighbors wouldn’t identify me as the one who’d elicited such an aurally offensive compliment. After that, I vowed to take a break from the dating world, just a temporary one, but a break nonetheless.

    China, The Bathtub Destroyer, was not pleased with the friend I’d gotten her, and she began to unleash her skills on other parts of my apartment, depositing little presents by windows or tucking them into corners. With each discovery I’d recoil in horror, as she lay innocently in her leopard-print bed, quietly plotting, a well-fed cat who clearly had issues.
    “Go to a pet psychic,” Gina said as she watched me frantically scrub the carpet.
    I glanced back at her, trying to ascertain her expression. Face turned openly toward me. Smiling. Eyes clear and wide. But then one eyebrow twitched slightly, and I was on to her.
    “No, seriously,” she continued. “I bet she has issues from her childhood. Neglect and abandonment. Sibling rivalry.”
    “I hate you. I’m traumatized, and you’re making jokes.”
    “I’m not kidding; I really think Miss Shitsalot needs therapy.”
    Pet psychics were far too expensive, and sadly I knew this because I’d already looked into the option. My reliance on Aurelia and her readings had grown and grown, and I was beginning to see that psychics were a great place to turn for just about any problem. Need to know how that audition went? Ask for a reading! Curious if you’ll be able to pay your rent next month? Bust out the cards! Want to find out if that freak will stop singing “Your Skin Is Like a Song” into your answering machine? Do a spread!
    “Don’t worry,” Aurelia said one night on the phone, after she’d told me that no, she could not read my cat’s energy. “Things are going to really improve for you. I’ve been feeling a shift in energy coming on, a massive swing for the better.”
    I needed a swing for the better. Though just a year ago life had seemed so promising, with my face in publications and a hail of praise from critics, nothing much had materialized. The only result was that I now had a box full of cutout articles under my bed, with the magazine that featured twelve actors to watch hidden at the bottom. I’d kept the magazine whole as a way to torture myself, as every girl other than me had apparently been worth watching. Right across from my page was a girl who’d soared into stardom almost immediately, while the girl on my flipside was currently in at least two movies. Meanwhile, there I was with my guitar, painfully wedged between them, evidently nothing more than an upset musician with no hope of an acting career. Surrounded by success, I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell I was doing wrong.
    Just to be certain of this swing for the better, I demanded a reading. I heard the shuffling begin, such a wonderful, comforting sound, and curled up against the pillows on my bed.
    “In five days,” she said, “you’re going to lose something.”
    I sat up.
    “You’ll lose something or have to sacrifice something on the material level. You’ll be upset about it.”
    “What? Where’d my swing for the better go?”
    “I’m still sensing that, but this does appear to come first. Sorry.”
    And that was that.
    Five days after the reading I was running late for an audition for a guest spot on a lame-ass show, a job I hoped I’d get as much as I hoped I wouldn’t, and couldn’t find my keys anywhere. For about ten minutes I’d been kicking mounds of clothing around on the floor, shoving things off my bed, and generally redistributing the mess to try to unearth the keys, an activity that obviously got in the way of China’s people-watching at the window, because she turned and glared at me in a way I didn’t know was possible for a cat.
    At last the keys came out of what I can only imagine was invisible mode, appearing in plain sight on the table by the door, and I was outta