Glamorous - A Grace Bishop Novel - Chapter 8
© Denise Bossarte
Grace sat fidgeting on the
sofa, her undamaged leg bouncing as she jiggled it. As they waited for Sophie
to arrive, she was having second, third, and fourth thoughts about sharing
their situation. Grace glanced over at Danny who was sitting crosswise on a
chair across the room from her. Legs dangling over the arm of the chair, he was
pretending to read a book on his Kindle.
She noticed he hadn’t “turned” a page for the last five minutes,
he eyes scanning the one page over and over again. She wasn’t the only one
nervous about the evening. But she was the only one not pretending to hide it.
Wondering what this evening
would mean for her and Danny moving forward, Grace thought about what she knew
of Sophie. She met Sophie somewhat by accident and because of Billy.
Grace and Bill always tried to outdo one other with the most
outlandish gifts for each other’s birthdays. The amount of money spent didn’t
make them outlandish, but the actual present did, often coming with an implicit
dare to use the gift.
Billy got her on her first birthday after her parents died. It
was his quirky, offbeat sense of humor to give her a gift card to a medium that
year to try to “contact her parents in the beyond.” Not willing to back down
from the dare implied in the gift, she went, even though she considered it a complete
farce at the time.
Sophie’s shop was in a strip mall in a somewhat seedy part of town not
far from the convention center. Grace expected an old woman with wrinkled skin,
and piercing eyes, dressed like a gypsy. Instead she found a young, vibrant blond
woman near her own age, more hippie than gypsy. Dressed in a flowing skirt,
needle-worked blouse, and without an air of mystery, only a sense of solid
presence.
Grace mentally chided herself as she sat down at Sophie’s
bidding, and the next hour passed in a flash as Sophie did a tarot reading for
her. Grace found the process fascinating as she tried to figure out how Sophie
was coming up with her information.
Sophie got the basics right about Grace’s family and occupation.
But Grace figured it was something anyone could pick up from a bit of searching
on the Internet. She then went into predicting Grace’s future. At the time, it
felt like vague warnings of major life changes, losses and challenges, but with
positive gains to be had in the end.
All in all, it was not a convincing experience for Grace. She
left still confident in her stable world view where she was the director, if
not maker, of her own destiny, and didn’t give it much thought from there. So
much for that world view, it turned out!
Sophie and Grace crossed paths 6 months later when she and Danny
decided to sell their parents’ home and start fresh in a new place all their
own. They fell in love with a small community of townhouses near the University
and were happy to settle in there.
It turned out that Sophie lived a few doors down from them and
Grace and Danny got to be friendly with her in the following months. Danny more
so than Grace, as Grace tended to not connect well with other women,
particularly the more girlie types.
Sophie opened her doors to Danny whenever she didn’t have
clients to read and Grace was on duty, and they became close. Grace was
grateful for their friendship as Danny often had problems making friends,
particularly female friends, because of how smart he was. Sophie wasn’t
intimidated at all by Danny or his adult level interests in various topics. She
enjoyed learning from him about whatever was his current area of interest even
if she didn’t understand everything he would tell her.
The accident and Danny’s death devastated Sophie. Despite her
own grief, she was always there to help Grace whenever she needed errands run
or a pep talk. She stopped by the hospital often while Grace was recovering and
then going through rehab. Sophie knew when Grace needed to talk or when she
wanted someone there without needing to have conversation. Sophie was better at
it than Billy.
But Grace never talked to Sophie about her abilities, of the
initial terror of not knowing what was happening to her or why. She wanted one
person in her life who didn’t think she was crazy. The doctors thought she was
until she learned to keep what she was experiencing to herself.
She didn’t tell Sophie about the ghosts, or the readings, or
Danny. Feeling it was safer for now to keep it between herself and Danny, with
Billy the one person beyond the two of them who knew. But he had been family
for long enough it wasn’t dangerous to share it with him. Tonight that was all
going to change, for better or worse. She prayed for the better for Danny, if
not for herself.
At that moment, the doorbell rang cutting through her musing.
“Ready?” she asked Danny as he kicked into motion, swinging his legs
over to the floor and putting the Kindle down on the table.
“Born ready,
Gracie” he said with his usual bravado, his special
mischievous grin springing to life across his face. He rushed upstairs to his
room to wait for Grace’s signal.
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