As for living next door to a psychic, it's far more boring than you'd think. I always dreamed of running into her in the hall and getting unsolicited insight: "Roman! How are you? (Pause.) Are you cooking Chicken Paprikash right now? I see you cringing from too much tarragon." Or "I'm getting a flash from the great beyond. (Pause.) Avoid the Gap today. God, those pants make your ass look huge."
Over the years "Clarissa" and I became friends but she never shared any of her psychic power. I tried to rationalize away my irritation: generally, one doesn't intrude on their neighbor's occupation. Sure, if you had a plumber living next door and your toilet turned into a fountain, maybe you'd knock on his door. If there was a doctor nearby and you started choking on an jalapeño, maybe you'd drop by.
As for psychics, though, there aren't any emergencies. I couldn't exactly knock on her door and ask what my dead granddad thought of my new Celica.
In fact, over the nine years we were neighbors, I only saw her in action only once. I switched on Montel Williams one afternoon and found her doing psychic readings. "I see the letter R," Clarissa announced to an audience member. "Is there someone close to you who's passed whose name starts with R?"
The woman thought for a second. "No," she finally said.
"Hmm," mused Clarissa. "How about L, N, T, or S?"
I watched the rest of the show in horror, startled by how lame it was. These weren't messages from the Great Beyond: they were guesses on Wheel of Fortune. Still, everybody has bad days, I thought. Clarissa wouldn't be pulling down $400 an hour if she was incompetent.
I finally got a small personalized reading when Raoul and I told her we were moving to New York. "I see a fantastic future there for both of you," she said. "You're going to have a fabulous time."
Which, you know, wasn't exactly like finding my lost car keys, but for a freebie it wasn't too bad.
A year later we're settled in Brooklyn and I'm reading the paper when I see she's coming to Manhattan to promote her new book. Naturally I'm ecstatic. I can't wait to go. I picture seeing her again after all this time, and I imagine what she'll say: "Roman, you look great! Of course, I knew you'd do terrific! I see you getting drunk with Kathy Griffin tonight!"
Even Raoul is excited, though he can't make it to the bookstore. "Give her my business card and tell her to call me," he says. I join the audience and I'm literally shaking when Clarissa appears. About five minutes in, she glances up and spots me.
I'm beaming. She scrunches up her face. "Do I know you?" she asks.
It's not exactly what I imagined. "I used to live next door to you," I say.
"Oh." She continues talking about intuition and how to develop it and then swings back to me. "Oh, in Hollywood!" she says, and I nod.
I don't actually hear the rest of her lecture. In terms of what I've been expecting, this is pretty much the worst case scenario. I sit there hoping the ground will open up and swallow me but at the end of the lecture I still go up to say hi. She hugs me and acts excited to see me and I hand her Raoul's card. "Raoul!" she says. "I always had trouble remembering your name."
I wish her well and say it's great seeing her and then I hit the road. Despite all the evidence, I'm still giving her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she has a lousy memory. That doesn't mean you can't talk with the dead. Nobody could be that nice for that long but be a fraud behind closed doors.
And sure, she's never had a message for me from any of my dead relatives, but maybe this explains that.
Maybe my granddad's been talking to her for years, saying, "No, I'm looking for Roman, you idiot."
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