Connie Willis - The Best of Connie Willis

“That can’t be it.”

I opened the door. “Why not?”

“Because it’s happened at least twice before,” she said, walking in and sitting down in the only good chair. “In Berkeley and Seattle.”

“How do you know?”

“My publicist’s ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend saw her in Berkeley—that’s how my publicist found out about Ariaura—so I got her number and called her and asked her, and she said Isus was talking along about tribulation and thee being the universe, and all of a sudden this other voice said, ‘What a bunch of boobs!’ She said that’s how she knew Ariaura was really channeling, because if it was fake she’d hardly have called the audience names.”

“Well, there’s your answer. She does it to make her audiences believe her.”

“You saw them, they already believe her,” Kildy said. “And if that’s what she’s doing, why isn’t it on the Berkeley videotape?”

“It isn’t?”

She shook her head. “I watched it six times. Nothing.”

“And you’re sure your publicist’s ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend really saw it? That you weren’t leading her when you asked her questions?”

“I’m sure,” she said indignantly. “Besides, I asked my mother.”

“She was there, too?”

“No, but two of her friends were, and one of them knew someone who saw the Seattle seminar. They all said basically the same thing, except the part about it making them believe her. In fact, one of them said, ‘ I think her cue cards were out of order,’ and told me not to waste my money, that the person I should go see was Angelina Black Feather.”

She grinned at me and then went serious. “If Ariaura was doing it on purpose, why would she edit it out? And why did the emcee and the ushers look so uneasy?”

So she’d noticed that, too.

“Maybe she didn’t warn them she was going to do it. Or, more likely, it’s all part of the act, to make people believe it’s authentic.”

Kildy shook her head doubtfully. “I don’t think so. I think it’s something else.”

“Like what? You don’t think she’s really channeling this guy?”

“No, of course not, Rob,” she said indignantly. “It’s just that… you say she’s doing it to get publicity and bigger crowds, but as you told me, the first rule of success in the psychic business is to tell people what they want to hear, not to call them boobs. You saw the woman next to you—she was all ready to walk out, and I watched her afterward. She didn’t sign up for a private enlightenment audience, and neither did very many other people, and I heard the emcee telling someone there were lots of tickets still available for the next seminar. Last week’s was sold out a month in advance. Why would she do something to hurt her business?”

“She’s got to do something to up the ante, to keep the customers coming back, and this new spirit is to create buzz. You watch, next week she’ll be advertising ‘The Battle of the Ancients.’ It’s a gimmick, Kildy.”

“So you don’t think we should go see her again.”

“ No . That’s the worst thing we could possibly do. We don’t want to give her free publicity, and if she did do it to impress us, though it doesn’t sound like it, we’d be playing right into her hands. If she’s not, and the spirit is driving customers away, like you say, she’ll dump it and come up with a different one. Or put herself out of business. Either way, there’s no need for us to do anything. It’s a non-story. You can forget all about her.”

Which just goes to show you why I could never make it as a psychic. Because before the words were even out of my mouth, the office door banged open, and Ariaura roared in and grabbed me by the lapels.

“I don’t know what you’re doing or how you’re doing it,” she screamed, “but I want you to stop it right now !”

He has a large and extremely uncommon capacity for provocative utterance…

I hadn’t given Ariaura’s acting skills enough credit. Her portrayal of Isus might be wooden and fakey, but she gave a pretty convincing portrayal of a hopping-mad psychic.

“How dare you!” she shrieked. “I’ll sue you for everything you own!”

She had changed out of her flowing robes and into a lilac-colored suit Kildy told me later was a Zac Posen, and her diamond-studded necklace and earrings rattled. She was practically vibrating with rage, though not the positive vibrations she’d said were necessary for the appearance of spirits.

“I just watched the video of my seminar,” she shrieked, her face two inches from mine. “How dare you hypnotize me and make me look like a complete fool in front of—”

“Hypnotize?” Kildy said. (I was too busy trying to loosen her grip on my lapels to say anything.) “You think Rob hypnotized you?”

“Oh, don’t play the innocent with me,” Ariaura said, wheeling on her. “I saw you two out there in the audience today, and I know all about you and your nasty, sneering little magazine. I know you nonbelievers will stop at nothing to keep us from spreading the Higher Truth, but I didn’t think you’d go this far, hypnotizing me against my will and making me say those things! Isus told me I shouldn’t let you stay in the auditorium, that he sensed danger in your presence, but I said, ‘No, let the unbeliever stay and experience your reality. Let them know you come from the Existence Beyond to help us, to bring us words of Higher Wisdom.’ But Isus was right, you were up to no good.”

She removed one hand from my lapel long enough to shake a lilac-lacquered fingernail at me. “Well, your little hypnotism scheme won’t work. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am, and I’m not going to let a pair of narrow-minded little unbelievers like you get in my way. I have no intention—Higher Wisdom, my foot!” she snorted. “Higher Humbug is what I call it.”

Kildy glanced, startled, at me.

“Oh, the trappings are a lot gaudier, I’ll give you that,” Ariaura said in the gravelly voice we’d heard at the seminar.

As before, the change had come without a break and in mid-sentence. One minute she had had me by the lapels, and the next she’d let go and was pacing around the room, her hands behind her back, musing, “That auditorium’s a lot fancier, and it’s a big improvement over a courthouse lawn, and a good forty degrees cooler.” She sat down on the couch, her hands on her spread-apart knees. “And those duds she wears would make a Grand Worthy bow-wow of the Knights of Zoroaster look dowdy, but it’s the same old line of buncombe and the same old Boobus Americanus drinking it in.”

Kildy took a careful step toward my desk, reached for her handbag and did something I couldn’t see, and then went back to where she’d been standing, keeping her eyes the whole time on Ariaura, who was holding forth about the seminar.

“I never saw such an assortment of slack-jawed simians in one place! Except for the fact that the yokels have to sit on the floor— and pay for the privilege!—it’s the spitting image of a Baptist tent revival. Tell ’em what they want to hear, do a couple of parlor tricks, and then pass the collection plate. And they’re still falling for it!”

She stood up and began pacing again. “I knew I should’ve stuck around. It’s just like that time in Dayton—I think it’s all over and leave, and look what happens! You let the quacks and the crooks take over, like this latter-day Aimee Semple McPherson. She’s no more a seer than—of allowing you to ruin everything I’ve worked for! I…” Ariaura looked around bewilderedly. “…what?… I…” She faltered to a stop.

I had to hand it to her. She was good. She’d switched back into her own voice without missing a beat, and then given an impressive impersonation of someone who had no idea what was going on.