Laurel King - The Matchmaker's Medium

“Why would Victoria’s grandmother want to tell her to—ohhh.” I caught herself in mid-sentence, when I realized Victoria’s son could be in very real danger, if he—

“Oh, my God! I have to tell Esteban! What if his son—“

“Now you see what we’re workin’ with,” Jamal said, walking quickly toward her purse on the front table. “Go on, get that sale-phoning thing and call him up. Tell him to get The Man over there and cart him away.”

“It’s a cell phone , Jamal. How many times do I have to explain it to you?”

“Till I get it right. Which is probably gonna be never. So don’t get yourself all worked up, foxy thang.”

I scrambled through her purse ( so much crap in here ) and finally managed to grab onto my phone. Dialing the number, I sent up a silent prayer that he wouldn’t yet be asleep from all his ‘exertions’.

“Nah, he’s still up. Get him hip to the groove, so we can make it right.”

“Hey, there, Esteban. Long time no talk to,” I said, when he answered with a sleepy-sounding ‘hello’.

“Hey, you. Do you miss me already? Wanna make it round three?”

“That would be great, but I have something else to tell you.”

“Oh, this sounds kind of serious. Okay, let me get serious with you,” he cleared his throat, scratched his face across the phone a couple of times, then finally came back on the line. “Ready.”

Oh, Lord, give me strength.

“Remember that story about Marcus?”

“Oh, yeah, I remember. Sad.”

“Right. Well, there’s a little, um, problem.”

“With what?”

“With you.”

“Me.”

“Well, not exactly you , but—God, this is all wrong. Okay, remember Victoria?”

“Yeah, the chunky southern lady with the wrecked car?”

“Her, yeah. Well, remember the whole ‘the ghost of her grandma keeps showing up’ thing?”

“Oh, yeah. You never did tell me why that was happening.”

“Because I didn’t know. But now I do.”

“Good, cuz that was gonna keep me up all night.”

Smartass, I thought, smiling to myself.

“Ha-ha. Anyway, her grandma’s ghost kept trying to warn her because—well, the kid who killed Trevor is working at your shop.”

Silence.

“Hello?” I asked, after a few minutes.

“Oh, I was waiting for the rest of the joke,” he said.

“Esteban, it’s not a joke. It’s the truth.”

“I don’t have any killer kids working at my shop. Just a bunch of hard-workin’ stiffs who are trying to make a living.”

“Well, he’s not a kid anymore, I guess he’d be about—“I looked at Jamal, who answered with upturned hands and a shrug. No help there . I counted on my fingers: let’s see, 2009, so about 4 years ago—“maybe 18 or 19 years old.”

He was silent again. Hopefully, trying to figure out which guy it was, so we could call in the feds or something.

“Where was this guy from, again?”

“The D.C. area; Trevor and his family lived in Northeast, and this kid was their neighbor, so, yeah. Not a great neighborhood.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. He was a minor, so they never showed his face or picture or anything. They never even released his name.”

“Then how the hell— you know what, maybe this isn’t a good time to have this conversation, Amber.”

I felt a cold shiver creeping its way up my spine, around to my stomach, into my upper chest. Like an icicle flowing through my veins, slowly making its way to my heart.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked, terrified of the answer.

“Not mad, really, just annoyed, I guess. I mean, how do you know this killer kid guy is working in my shop? You don’t even know what he looks like, or what his real name is.”

The icicle had reached my heart, and a splinter had broken off to wend its way higher, to my throat.

“I, but, you know about my gift—“

“Sure, but you just tell people their love match and crap like that, right?”

Seriously?

Now, I felt the pleasant burn of my best friend—anger—arrive just in time to melt the iciness trying to take over my body.

“No, that’s not all I do. Which is a damn good thing, because I obviously don’t even know how to choose my own love match, do I.” The fiery warmth of my rising fury was nice, compared to the fear of dealing with some new guy’s issues .

“Whoa, look at you, all hostile again.”

We said nothing for a few minutes, each lost in our own thoughts, fears, and insecurities. Finally, he broke the silence.

“Well, that about wraps it up for the day, huh?”

“Sure does,” I said, pushing the ‘end’ button. I sure do miss the physical satisfaction of slamming a phone down when I hang up on a douche like that.

“Now you know how great it was back in my day ,” Jamal said, with a new shit-eating grin plastered all over his face.

“Why are you so happy? That idiot doesn’t believe me, so now we have a child murderer at the local repair shop. It’s like a bonus service that people will want— never .”

I tossed the phone in my purse, purposely listening to the buzz-buzz of an incoming call, until it stopped.

“Was that a call?”

“Yeah, so what?” I said, stomping down the hall to the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower and wash this stink off me. So stay out you big perv!” I slammed the bathroom door.

Jamal smiled really, really big, and did one of his signature disco-dance moves.

“It’s dyno-MIIIITE!” he shouted, hands to the air like a religious man.

Today is turning out to be pretty damn good, he thought, settling himself onto the couch, waiting for his sexy mama to get out of the shower.

Fresh out of the shower, in clean clothes and completely lotioned, body spritzed, deodorized, hair sprayed, and brushed, I felt much better.

“Hoo-wee! Look at you, shinin’ all over the place!” Jamal was waiting in the living room, one arm draped on the top of the couch. He patted the cushion with his free hand, “Come sit next to me, pretty lady.”

I frowned a little, trying not to think anything.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his smile fading a little.

“Why are you acting so weird?” I asked, sitting on the love seat, instead.

He got up and walked over to join me.

“You can stand.”

“Why?”

“Until you tell me what the heck is going on with you. Moving things, hiding stuff, being all happy when I have to break it off with my new lover.” I saw him wince a little at the last word. “See? That’s what I mean. Why does that bother you?”

“What?”

“You know what I’m talking about, stop playing stupid. The word ‘lover’. Why did it make you cringe like that?”

He walked away from me, towards the kitchen.

Why do I suddenly feel like I’m in a soap opera? I thought.

“Maybe because you’re acting like a whore.”

What the—

“What did you just say to me?” I jumped up off the love seat, looking for something to throw it him, until I remembered he was a ghost and that wouldn’t do anything.

“Look, girl, you and I both know you were diggin’ me till this—this—Ricky Ricardo fool came along.”

“Ricky Ricardo is a fake guy on a black-and-white sitcom in the fifties, who was from Cuba , you dope.”

“That’s just geography, baby,” he said, coming around to meet me. “Come on, you don’t need that man draggin’ you down, just be cool with it. We could do so much together.”