The Misfortuneteller
Chapter 1
Nick was not disillusioned when it came to understanding what attracted him to a woman – beauty, period. Oh, she had to have some kind of warm personality or he'd lose interest after a while. He'd learned that lesson the hard way, and he wasn't sorry to learn it. But when he was honest with himself, he admitted he wouldn't get very interested in the first place if she were not really beautiful.
His mother rolled her eyes over that character trait more than once, and Jarrod and Heath kept telling him he was losing out by being so single-minded. Now and then Nick thought they were right, and once or twice he'd even become attracted to a woman who was not particularly beautiful – Jennie Hall being the most recent. But he'd always come to know those women as friends first. The attraction came slowly, after he'd gotten to know the woman some other way. With Jennie, it had been guilt over making her the butt of a cruel joke. There was also a girl name Anne when he was fresh home from the war, and that attraction had come because she was so attracted to him and treated him like the best-looking man in the valley.
All right, maybe he was a little vain, too.
So, Nick was not surprised when he spotted the new young woman in town – auburn-haired, tall and shapely, dressed as if she had money of her own. She was walking toward the green-grocer's, and Nick was just about to leave his brothers and the buckboard in front of the mercantile when Jarrod caught the direction he was looking in. "Give it up, Nick," he said. "She's not going to be in town long."
"How do you know?" Nick asked, still smiling her way.
"Haven't you seen the sign at the Gaiety?"
Nick turned his brothers' way. "What sign?"
"Mademoiselle Sophiette," Heath said. "She's a performer. Here for a week." And he stared a little longer after her himself, looking a bit more carefully than Nick was, a little more curiously.
"She sings?" Nick asked.
"No," Jarrod said, "she talks to the dead."
"She does what?" Nick blurted.
"Talks to the dead, tells your future, that sort of thing," Heath said, still watching her.
"I saw her in San Francisco a few months ago," Jarrod said.
"YOU saw a fortune-teller?" Nick asked, not believing his intelligent, down-to-earth brother would do such a thing.
"Well, it was something the young lady I was seeing at the time wanted to take me to," Jarrod said.
"You never mentioned you were seeing anyone in San Francisco, Jarrod," Heath said.
"I'm not anymore," Jarrod said. "My date had Mademoiselle Sophiette do a reading for her and the Mademoiselle told her to dump me, so she did."
Nick and Heath both laughed out loud.
"I don't think my date was expecting that kind of advice," Jarrod said. "I think she was expecting just the opposite."
"Did you get her to do a reading for you?" Heath asked.
"For me? Why would I do that when she gives such lousy advice?"
"I wonder what advice she'd give me," Nick mused.
Jarrod and Heath looked at each other, and then in unison said, "'Get lost.'"
Nick gave them a sneer.
Jarrod said, "I have to get back to the office. Heath, I'll leave Nick to you. If he tries to get his fortune told, it's on your head."
Jarrod headed for his office as he brothers climbed into the buckboard and Nick took the reins. "I wonder what she would say," Nick mused again.
"Nothing you'd want to hear, Nick," Heath said, watching the girl and then watching Nick watch the girl. "Drive."
Nick drove.
XXXXXXX
Jarrod worked late at the office and was leaving just before eight when he spotted his brother Nick going into the Gaiety. "Oh, no," he said to himself. He debated what to do, if anything, but the wicked side of him just had to go in and tell Nick he had caught him entering the theatre. Jarrod crossed the street, bought a ticket, and went inside.
Nick was at the bar inside, being served a beer. He didn't see his older brother walk up beside him and almost jumped when Jarrod said, "You don't recognize good advice when it's handed to you on a silver platter, do you?"
"Just curious," Nick said, self-consciously. "And – she's awfully good to look at."
The first act – two jugglers who tossed sabers to each other while a pianist played – were local mainstays who were here fairly often. Jarrod ordered a beer and pretty much ignored what was going on on the stage. "I won't deny that," he said, responding to Nick's interest in the woman's looks.
"Why haven't you headed home yet?" Nick asked.
"I worked late," Jarrod said. "I saw you come in here and had to needle you a bit. Are you going to ask her to tell your fortune?"
"Is that the way it works? You ask her, or does she just come to you?"
"She did both when I saw her. My date made an appointment for a private reading. I assume she's doing that in Stockton, too."
"So how does she do it, you think? Does she just see things while she's talking to you?"
"Yeah, she sees dollar signs. She makes it up, Nick. Maybe she decides what she thinks you want to hear, or maybe she just pulls it out of thin air, but it's all an act, Nick."
"Why don't you ask her to read you and see if she tells you that girl in San Francisco shouldn't have dumped you?"
Jarrod laughed. "I don't need a fortune teller to tell me that. But it was all for the best. We wouldn't have gone anywhere with or without Mademoiselle Sophiette."
"Pretty name, isn't it? Sophiette."
"It's different."
They chatted idly until the jugglers were finished and the stage emptied. Then the lights in the house dimmed a bit, a stage hand brought a single chair out center stage, and the lady in question came out. She sat down in silence, closed her eyes, and lifted her face up slightly. The conversations going on in the house quieted down.
She said nothing at all for a long minute, then, her eyes still closed, she said, "There is a man here – an older man. I'm seeing a name that begins with the letter – J. Not John. Jason, I think, or Joshua. Jason or Joshua. He doesn't live in Stockton. He's passing through. He'll be gone tomorrow. He should be careful when traveling. He's going somewhere to the south of Stockton. He should be very careful when he's in Modesto."
Pretty general, Jarrod thought to himself. He looked at Nick and decided Nick was not particularly focusing on what the woman was saying. Jarrod agreed, she was very pretty, but he wasn't sure he'd pay good money again just to look at her.
Mademoiselle Sophiette was quiet again for another long minute. She still hadn't opened her eyes. Nick wondered what color they were.
She spoke again to someone with a name that began with a T who was troubled because he had lost something valuable. She suggested he look in the sofa in his living room for it. Then she opened her eyes and she looked Nick's way. Nick's smile grew, and he straightened up attentively.
She looked away from Nick again and said, "There is a man here whose wife's name is Madeline. Yes, Madeline, or Amanda, something with a 'ma' sound in it. His wife has lost her mother and she's very sad, still very sad even though it has been some time. He should tell his wife that her mother is happy. She is with her father again. That should make his wife feel better."
Jarrod said quietly, "I think I'll head home in as soon as I finish this beer, Nick."
"Yeah, yeah, see you later," Nick said, still smiling at Mademoiselle Sophiette.
She did a few more readings. Nick noticed her look his way a few more times. He was getting his own premonitions when Jarrod finished his beer and said, "Don't spend too much money, Nick."
As Jarrod began to leave, Mademoiselle Sophiette finished her set and stood up, and then, out of the blue, she said, "There is a man here named Nicholas – Nick. Yes – Nick." And she leveled her gaze on Nick again.
Jarrod stopped, noticing it. He waited.
She suddenly began to lose her breath, and then she abruptly left the stage without saying anything else. Nick looked at his older brother, who looked just as confused as he did. "I wonder what that was about," Nick said.
People in the crowd began wondering, too. A lot of people were looking Nick's way, and then Jarrod noticed the theatre manager, a man named Markey, was coming through the crowd toward them.
"Nick, Jarrod, can you come backstage for a minute?" Markey asked. "Mademoiselle Sophiette asked to see you privately."
Nick and Jarrod looked at each other. When Nick smiled, Jarrod knew he had to go with him because his brother was about to get suckered into something. Jarrod pointed the way and followed Nick and Market backstage.
They went to Mademoiselle Sophiette's dressing room, where Markey knocked on the door. She told them to come in, and Nick and Jarrod did. Neither one of them knew what to expect, but neither one of them dreamed it would be what they saw.
She had been crying.
