Speechless

At first I paid fifty dollars a session and cringed over his carnival-barker–style delivery. Now he gives me the ten-dollar “family” rate if I meet him at a boy bar and buy him a drink. I’ve grown to find his performances hilarious. Although he never makes me feel great about myself, he’s frequently dead-on with his predictions. For example, Elliot said that Bruce and I wouldn’t last two years; we survived only twenty months. Mind you, anyone who saw Bruce and me together might have predicted that. My brother, for example, said, “Pay me five bucks and I’ll predict your future with ‘Bwuce.’”

“Tell me all about the Minister, first,” Elliot says. “Has she mentioned me yet?”

His crush on Clarice Cleary predates my employment. She’s all about appearances and he respects that. Besides, Elliot is an artist as well as a psychic and has been the grateful recipient of several Ministry arts grants.

“She hasn’t even acknowledged I exist yet, but I do have some news.” He leans forward with unexpected focus, given the constant parade of handsome men past our table. “She’s been shopping—two Armani suits and an Ungaro ball gown this week alone.”

“Jewelry?” Elliot is practically drooling.

“Not this time, but last week she picked up a stunning tennis bracelet and two new Kate Spade handbags.”

“And you didn’t call me?”

“I wasn’t speaking to you.”

“Oh right, you were still in a snit. Look, it’s not my fault if the universe sends me messages you don’t like. I am merely a medium.”

“Yeah, but would it kill you to keep your mouth shut if you know I won’t like the message?”

“It would.” Elliot is smiling over my left shoulder and I don’t have to be a psychic myself to sense that fresh prey looms on the horizon. “Oh my, the man of tonight’s dreams,” he says, already out of his chair and gliding toward the men’s room.

I have a moment of worry that he’ll be too distracted to give me the good news he’s coaxed out of the cosmos about me, but he’s back presently, with a beautiful, bashful youth in tow.

“Libby, this is Zachary,” he says, “never Zack.” It takes another hour and a second martini before I can get him to focus on the reading. “Okay, Libby, if we must talk about you, fine. I intuited something remarkable about you today, which intensified as you walked through the door. Something different from anything I’ve picked up in months…years, even. In fact, since I’ve known you. Zachary, you would not believe Libby’s luck with men.” Zachary smiles in silent sympathy.

“Elliot, get to the point.”

“Don’t interrupt the energy flow.” Which means he wants to put on a show for Zack. “It’s been a long time since Libby’s had sex, if you must know, Zachary.”

“Must he know, Elliot?”

“He must.” Elliot’s hand is now resting on Zack’s forearm. “How else will he appreciate the significance of this news? Because, Libby, honey—(pause for dramatic effect) you are going to get laid.”

I’m silent for a moment, then, “Really?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. It has happened before—just not in recent memory.” Zack is giggling and gazing admiringly at Elliot. “But what’s truly amazing, is that it’s going to happen more than once. And with different people.”

I’m staring in stunned disbelief.

“I absolutely feel this in my bones,” Elliot continues, voice rising. “You will have several opportunities in the coming months, some of them quite unorthodox. And for a change, I actually see you taking them.”

“Can you sense anything about the men?”

“Who said anything about men?” Elliot says, laughing, but then his brow furrows. “I also sense conflict, and on many fronts.”

“What else is new?” I shrug, undaunted. This news was worth a dozen martinis.

Zachary excuses himself and I taunt Elliot about his penchant for youth. “You’re a cougar,” I tell him.

“And you’re jealous,” he responds.

“I don’t know how you do it,” I sigh. “You were gone less than five minutes and returned with Zachary clinging to your arm. What am I doing wrong?”

“I told you, it’s the sign. Take it off.”

“Don’t start with me.”

“Okay, leave the ‘I’m available,’ and strike a line through the ‘Fuck off.’”

“And we’ve been getting along so well…”

“Actually, you need to get along home.”

“Fine,” I say, becoming huffy in an instant.

“I just want to woo Zachary. You know I’d do the same for you.”

He would, too, but it’s never been necessary. I slip my coat over my raised hackles, reach for my purse and grudgingly kiss Elliot goodbye. On the way home, I stop at the drugstore and fill my prescription for the pill. Best be prepared for all that sex.

I hear my admirer long before I see him. That’s because he is singing—and quite loudly—in the dreary halls of the Pink Palace. Not the worst item in the catalog of male flaws, but it’s unusual, even by government standards. Every day for two weeks, he’s warbled up the long hall to my cubicle, stopped abruptly, then started again ten feet past me. Since male birds sing to attract a mate, I put two and two together.

No doubt sensing I’d prefer to remain anonymous, Margo hastens to introduce me to my songbird, Joe Connolly, an analyst with the Ministry’s policy branch. After a few days of dropping by with policy papers and arias, he gets the nerve to leave me a note inviting me for a drink. Elliot’s predictions in mind, I pick up the phone. Joe might be a weird opera lover, but he’s the only canary chirping by my cubicle; I can’t afford to send him down the coal mine just yet.

We meet at a pub up the street and I am pleased to find, on closer inspection, that Joe is actually cute in a nerdy sort of way. Unfortunately, it becomes clear with the first pint that we have very little in common. The man loves a debate, and the more heated, the better. I, on the other hand, loathe debating because I exhaust the full extent of my knowledge on any issue within five minutes. Besides, I have a tendency to cry during a heated discussion, which rather undermines me in an argument, even of the recreational variety. When his efforts to engage me on political issues fall flat, he takes another tack.

“So, how do you feel about marriage?”

I inhale a lungful of beer but this doesn’t deter Joe from interrogating me about my wifely qualities. By the time the second pint arrives, I tell him I’m uncomfortable, so he switches to the abstract, as in, “Is a good marriage possible in these difficult times?”

There isn’t a third pint.

I can tell from the expression on Margo’s smug, slappable face that she has something on me and mentally scroll through my sins.

“I saw you with Joe Connolly last night,” she blurts.

Who knew she ever left the building? No matter when I shut down at night, she’s still at her desk, and she beats me in every morning. I’ve assumed she just hangs herself up in the corner like a bat and catches an hour’s sleep at dawn.

“And?”

“And it’s inappropriate to date colleagues.”

“Dating isn’t the word, Margo.”

“Well, you were talking about marriage when I walked by, so you can see how I got that impression.”

“We’re not dating.”

“Maybe he thinks so. He came by this morning singing.”