Freudian Slip (16 page)

“D
R
. T
OBIT
?” K
ATE
reclined on his couch, legs draped over the arm, staring at the ceiling.

“Yes, Kate?”

“I'm nuts, aren't I?”

“No, Kate.”

“Well, then you're the only one who thinks that.”

“Why? Have you told other people about the voice?”

“Are you kidding? They'd have me committed.”

“Do you think you're crazy?”

“Not crazy so much…as losing it. Don't get me wrong, I prayed for help. I just didn't expect my help would be…something supernatural. Something I can't explain.”

“All right, let's assume for the moment that…well, that this voice of yours is real.”

“So you believe me?”

“Doesn't matter. Let's talk through this. Let's
assume this voice is real. You have a dilemma, don't you?”

“Yes.” She looked up at Tobit's bookshelves, and a smaller bust of Sigmund Freud stared down at her. Mocking her. She shut her eyes and listened to Dr. Tobit's fountain. She wanted to go to her “happy place”—but lately her “happy place” was also an insane place.

“And that is?”

“I told you…. Today…I wanted someone to hold me. For real. I wanted a hug with real arms. Arms I can feel. I wanted to make love with—no offense, Dr. Tobit—a real penis.”

“No offense taken. Don't worry. You can say anything here. Dr. Freud won't tell.”

“That statue up there?”

“No. The goldfish on my desk. Dr. Freud. He keeps secrets. He and I have heard it all.”

“Well, I am pretty sure you haven't heard this precise story before. And neither has your gold fish.” She turned her head to see the fish swimming lazily in an elaborate glass vase with clear blue stones at the bottom and live plants.

“You'd be correct there.”

“But it does make me feel better. I have a ghost companion. You have a goldfish one.”

“Yes, but I have to tell you, Kate…I don't sleep with my goldfish.”

She smiled, despite how depressed she felt. “So…stay with Jules and have an almost-perfect relationship? Or…send him away, and risk that I may never find something like that with a real person? What if what he and I have is so extraordinary that I don't ever find it here on earth?”

“I suppose that's what we all fear.”

“Really?”

“Let me tell you something, Kate. When people come to a psychiatrist or an analyst or a therapist, they're coming to them, looking, much of the time, for someone to listen to them without judgment. For someone to ‘get' them and their particular neuroses. They want to figure out the difficult journey we call life.”

“And do they?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes all they get is confirmation that the journey is hard, and growth is even harder. But beyond that, Kate…modern man is so utterly lonely. We're looking to condense the search for a soul mate into a short paragraph we can run with a photo on E-Harmony. We speed date. We want to cut out the courtship and just find what it is we're looking for. Instantaneously. A soul mate in a nanosecond.”

“I know what I feel for Jules is special. But it doesn't seem right that my soul mate should be a soul without a body.”

“No. It doesn't seem right. And maybe that's part of the process you're working through.”

She felt tears stinging her eyes and she rolled onto her side.

“And what if I accept that this is my soul mate and I just have an unusual relationship?”

“You wouldn't be the first to strike a compromise.”

“I don't think other people compromise by being with a ghost. More like they accept that their husband isn't a morning person, or their wife is a bad cook.”

Tobit laughed. “All right. An exceptional compromise.”

“You still think this is all in my head?”

“I think you're still under a great deal of stress.”

“I was lonely today. For the first time since my voice came, I was lonely.”

“Did you do my assignments?”

“I did some grief work. I went out to my father's grave.”

“With him?”

“Yes. And he was wonderful. Supportive. But…as for the other half of your prescription, my sense of fun is a little warped right now. It
consists of staying home and making love to a man I can't see, but can only hear.”

“I can't give you the answers, Kate. But it's pretty clear-cut. This voice only lives in one realm. Your choice isn't between two men who have a list of attributes. Your choice is between one of this world. And one of…”

“My imagination?”

“I didn't say that. Like I said, let's suppose there's more to this world we live in than meets the eye. It's still a very clear choice. Of this world. Or that one.”

Kate sat up and looked for his box of tissues. “I just feel so torn.”

“It's not an easy decision you're facing. I think you're saying goodbye to many things all at once. David. Leslie. Unresolved grief for your father. Even the illusion that your apartment is totally safe—never underestimate the effect of being a victim of a crime. But you're strong, Kate. I have faith you will figure this all out.”

“Thanks, Dr. Tobit.”

Clutching a tissue, she wiped her eyes. And as she left his office, walking past all his statues of angels, she felt more alone than ever before.

“I
LOVE YOU
, J
ULES
.”

“I love you, too, Katie Girl.”

“Make love to me. Make love to me the way you do. I don't ever want to leave our world here together.”

“Feel me, Kate. Feel me touching you.”

Gus watched the video on Albert's computer screen feeling increasingly queasy. He pulled out his pocket handkerchief and dabbed at his brow. He didn't sweat in Neither Here Nor There, but he felt the sensation of sweating just the same, a cloying dampness on the back of his neck. Albert tugged at his hair, which was wilder than usual.

“Turn if off,” Gus pleaded. “Take a Chance on Me” was playing in the background. He wondered if Benny Anderson and ABBA were secretly in league with Satan. Their tunes were so damn subversive.

Albert shook his head. “Not before
this
video
clip. It's worse than the first.” Albert pressed a button and Balam appeared on the screen. “Look here.” Albert zoomed in on the legal contract.

“Please tell me the poor lovesick boy doesn't take it.” Gus felt uneasy at even the thought of demons. Nearly every time a suicide occurred on earth, a demon had convinced some utterly bereft soul that God's arms weren't waiting. Hope was lost. Gus held his breath.

“Oh, he does.” Albert fast-forwarded to the part where Julian stuck the contract in his back pocket.

Gus materialized a shot of whiskey and drank it fast and neat. “What are we to do, Albert?” He made the shot glass disappear and wrung his hands together, nervously knotting and unknotting his silk handkerchief.

“Give me one of those whiskeys, will you?”

Gus materialized another one and handed it to his supervisor, who sipped it while poring over formulas. Gus was lucky he had ever mastered long division. Albert's equations were like a foreign language.

“I have gone over these equations a thousand times. I can only assume Julian and Kate—on some quantum level—knew each other in a past life. Particles reacting to one another.” He turned a notebook around. Squiggles and notations were
scrawled across the page in a handwriting Gus could barely decipher with formulas he most definitely couldn't decipher.

“A quantum level?”

“Yes. You see, Gus, the atoms that make up the universe have been here for billions of years. And it's my theory that when two souls meet each other and feel an unnatural pull toward one another—an immovable force, if you will—it's because their particles recognize each other. It may not be a previous life in the way the Dalai Lama has been reincarnated but a previous life in that their particles are drawn to each other.”

“Fine. Suppose their particles did know each other. It still doesn't solve anything. What if he actually signs that contract, Albert? Julian has been a real trial and tribulation to me, as you well know, but his heart is in the right place. He is changing. Has changed. I don't want him to end up in Hell, Albert. The thought terrifies me. We have him this close to Her arms again, he signs that and…” He shuddered. He really couldn't bear to think of it. Gus knew no lakes of fire burned in Hell but the idea of being separated from Her unceasing love for all eternity made him feel actual pain—the only real pain he could feel in Neither Here Nor There.

“We have to hope the Boss sends him back to his body before then.”

“What is the latest medical report?”

Albert pressed a button on his laptop, and all of Julian's charts appeared. The two of them went over each chart, one by one. Vital statistics, body temperature, medications, oxygen levels.

“Nothing extraordinary. I don't see any signs of real recovery,” Albert said. “But She performs miracles all the time. The world just doesn't pay attention. Julian could wake up tomorrow. We'll just have to wait for word, Gus. In the meantime, keep him from signing that contract!”

“I'll stick to him like glue, Albert. You can count on me.”

“I know I can, Gus.” Albert finished his whiskey and sighed.

“What is it?”

“Look at this picture.”

The final screen shot on Albert's computer was of Kate, her face illuminated as she was kissed on the sidewalk by Julian.

“She looks so beautiful.”

“Yes,” Albert replied. “She looks the happiest I've ever seen her.” He clicked through a photographic file. Kate appeared as a tiny little bundle in a pink blanket in a hospital bassinette. Kate
taking her first step in little white baby shoes. Kate as a little girl holding her father's hand on the first day of kindergarten, wearing a tartan plaid skirt and a white blouse from Catholic school. Her first kiss on the playground in third grade. As a teenager with braces. On prom night in a beautiful black gown with tiny little roses embroidered in its tulle overlay. On 9/11, face pressed against her TV, Mallory next to her, the two of them sobbing. At her father's funeral. With David in Central Park in a hansom cab. And finally…with Julian.

“She glows.” Albert sighed.

“You think the Boss really knows what she's doing?”

“Yes, but you've heard of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?”

“No.”

“It…examines the uncertainties of hypothetical, infinitely precise measurements.”

“Oh, of course,” Gus said, feeling, as he often did with Albert, completely lost.

“Basically,” Albert said, “there is the most minute uncertainty in the quantum mechanics of the universe.”

“What does that have to do with Kate and Julian?”

“It means even the Boss can have a degree of uncertainty.”

“That's never good.” Gus didn't like to think that the Boss, even in the most tiny, most minute little chance, didn't know precisely what she was doing. He liked to cling to the verse from Matthew. The one about the sparrows. Surely Julian and Kate were as important to her as sparrows.

Now he had the uncertainty principle to deal with. He hoped quantum mechanics could help him keep Julian from the clutches of Balam. But now, Gus was filled with uncertainty of his own.

D
ON'T SEND ME AWAY
, K
ATE
.

She sat in bed, clutching her fifteenth tissue. “It's not that I want to, Jules…but…I don't know if this is enough. I thought once you were involved in my life, everything would be perfect. But it's not. The real world still sucks sometimes. Only I don't have a real man here to help me. I mean, Jules…it's not like I can take you as my date to a wedding. We can't go on vacation together like real couples.”

We can vacation together.

“With me hiding in my hotel room so people don't see me talking to you. And what if one day I want to have a baby? We can't marry, can't have a baby.”

So we choose a sperm donor. You have the baby. I raise the baby with you.

“Listen to you, Jules. What are you saying to me? This isn't right. I can just picture it. On Father's Day, I'll have our little girl making cards for a ghost father.”

And then, at those words, she began sobbing. “I can't do that to my child. Because on Father's Day that's all I'll have, Jules.”

Don't cry, Katie Girl. Don't. You don't understand. All I have is eternity stretching out in front of me. And I would spend every minute of every day until the end of time being here for you. Trying to make sure you never cry. Loving you. It's all I want. I get you, Kate. I get all your quirks, your eccentricities, your sweetness. I understand you. I know what you're thinking before you think it. I don't know how. I don't know why. But we're connected. And I love you. And…treasure you.

She sniffled. “You know, Dr. Tobit said that's all anyone wants. Someone to be there for them.”

Tobit's a quack. I told you that. I don't trust him.

Kate dried her eyes and blew her nose. “I must look a fright.”

You look beautiful. You know, when I first arrived, I thought I needed to make you a little sexier. Now, don't get me wrong, I think you in a thong is the sexiest woman I've ever laid eyes on. But when I love you most? When I love you most is when you first wake up, no makeup, sleepy-eyed, bed head. All natural. My Katie Girl. And you know why I love that best?”

“No, why?”

Because I know I'm the only soul who gets to see you that way. It's
me
you share your life with. I am privy to you blowing your nose, to your sleepy eyes, to the way the sunlight comes across your face at dawn. I get to see that. No one else. And that makes you and me…special.

“Oddly enough, Jules…maybe I have it all wrong.”

What do you mean?

“I think I want a pair of arms. I think I want a real-world lover. But what I really want…is what we have. At the end of the day, total acceptance. My soul mate.”

That's all I want, too.

“Kiss me, Jules.”

She felt the brush of his cold air against her now hot cheeks, wet with tears.

You won't send me away?

“No. I won't.”

She lay down on her bed. “Spoon around me, Jules. Let me hear you near my ear.”

How's that?

Though she couldn't feel him, his voice was whispering and seductive in her ear. It gave her chills.

The telephone rang and startled her. She grabbed the receiver and looked at the caller ID.

“Hi, Mal.”

“Are you crying?”

“No.” Kate sniffled. “Allergies. I'm fine.”

“Since when do you have allergies?”

“Hayfever.”

“I don't believe you. Come out with me.”

“Sorry, Mal,” Kate said, holding the telephone receiver on her shoulder, featherlike caresses tingling up and down her neck as Julian kissed her. “I can't go tonight.”

“Why?”

“I have a pile of work to do. I brought home a stack of manuscripts. Mmmmm.”

“Mmm, what?”

“Huh? Oh…nothing. I'm just tired. Distracted.”

“I'm coming over tonight.”

“No. Don't.”

“I'm worried about you. You haven't taken David back, have you?”

“Haven't even thought about it,” Kate said honestly.

“Is there someone new?”

“Not exactly.”

“Wait,” Mal said. “The ghost. You still think your place is haunted?”

“I don't know if haunted is the correct term.”

“Look, it's almost the anniversary. I just want to know you are okay. I love you, sweetie.”

“I'm okay. I'm better than okay. I am deliriously wonderful. Swear it.”

“Aren't you doing anything for Labor Day? Maybe get out of the city? Jack Davis invited me—and you—to go out on his boat. It's docked over in Piermont. We could sail the Hudson.”

“Nope. Staying put. I'm fine, Mal. Swear to you. Cross my heart.”

“You sound fine, except for the sniffles, but…Hey, how was Dr. Tobit?”

“He actually helped me figure it all out, Mal.”

“You sound stronger.”

“I am.” Kate smiled and looked over her shoulder in Jules's direction, at least where she thought he was. “Let me run.”

“All right. Have a good long weekend.”

“You, too.” She said goodbye and hung up the phone.

“Well, Jules…it's you and me tonight, darling.”

My favorite kind of evening.

“Mine, too.”

Kate stood up. “I'm going to get a glass of wine.”

Right behind you. And what a fucking hot behind you have.

Kate laughed. “Jules, there is definitely still a lot of naughty boy in you.”

You bring it out in me.

Labor Day Weekend. Three days of Jules 24/7 and no work, no phone, no TV—she had never replaced the one that got robbed. Just them.

She padded to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of white wine, and then ran back to her bedroom and put it on the nightstand and flopped back on the bed and laughed. She had made her choice.

I never tire of that smile.

“You put it there.”

And I intend to keep it there.

“What's to become of us, Jules?”

I imagine we'll grow old together in this apartment.

She frowned. “Can you grow old?”

I don't know. I need to ask you something, Katie Girl.

“What?”

Do you believe in Hell?

“Fire and the devil and all that?”

Yes. Well, no. Apparently that lake-of-fire thing is a myth. A rumor to keep humans in line.

“Why? Are you about to tell me you're a demon?”

No. Just asking. Do you believe in Hell?

“Am I going there?”

You are paranoid today, Kate. No. Just answer the question.

“Well, no. I don't. I guess I picture God—when
I picture God when I say my prayers—as a loving God. And so I don't picture burning in Hell and all that. I picture God as wanting us to do good. To love one another as ourselves, that sort of thing.”

What if I told you that demons exist, but they're really…No pitchforks. And Hell was just not going to Heaven.

“I don't know, Jules. I guess I would say that eternity is a long time to be without God.”

Eternity is the minutes I'm not with you.

“You're so sweet, Jules.” She furrowed her brow. “You have me a little worried. No Hell for you, okay?”

Sure.

“Why don't I believe you, Jules? I can hear it in your voice. Something's on your mind.”

No. I have choices to make. About eternity.

“I guess we both do, right? Now—” she sat up and pulled off her top “—make love to me, Jules.”

You're a sight as beautiful as Heaven. I'm sure of it.