Chapter 11
Grant: Beasley Tells All
“Mr. Grant, your feng shui is bad.”
This is the first thing Mrs. Beasley says in hours and it almost makes me laugh. It seems so out of place in this clusterfuck, and so out of place coming from the mouth of a demented old lady suffering from some post traumatic stress.
“Did you know I was a reader, Mr. Grant? You did know that, didn’t you?”
What I know is that Mrs. Beasley often entertained strangers in her house while her husband worked. I know what that sounds like, but it’s not what you think. Most of the strangers were women who came from other towns. Women with expensive cars and botoxed lips. Women with pedigree. For a long time I thought Mrs. Beasley was a social worker or therapist and these women were coming to her for advice on keeping their marriage together or their kids from falling apart. Later on, when I was in college, I thought the old lady was nothing more than a sideshow huckster. The rich women paid her ridiculous amounts of money to tell them things that she pulled out of her ass, which the women would interpret as having meaning in their lives. She called herself a reader, but in my mind she was nothing more than a fraud. When Mrs. Beasley’s husband died in his sleep, I just assumed he died of embarrassment.
“Your back door is lined up with your front door.” She frowns, looks concerned. “Good luck will come in the front door and go right out the back door. There’s no way to trap it. You’ve let all your good luck out, Mr. Grant.”
“You’re mistaken, Mrs. Beasley. I’ve never had any good luck to trap or otherwise.” Even in the depths of a twilight zone style disaster, my self-pity has amazing stamina.
“You’re wrong, Mr. Grant. I see good fortune all over you. I see heroism and selflessness and I see that all paying off for you. You’ll see.” She is still sitting on the couch, still absentmindedly stroking Sasha, still speaking in a shrill voice that veers off occasionally into an accent that can only be described as crazed.
“I’m not much into fortune telling, Mrs. Beasley, but thanks anyhow.”
“I’m not a fortune teller, Grant.” Suddenly her voice is normal, any trace of cracking, shrillness gone. She sounds angry and whole, not at all like a woman who was hours ago walking around in a daze with a kid pawing at her leg and a dog pissing at her feet. She stands up and shouts “I am not a fortune teller!” and it’s so abrupt and her voice so cold, Terri gasps and I shudder and the only one who seems unmoved is Sasha.
“I see things, Grant. I know you all picture me as some batty old lady who just steals people’s money for a living, but I don’t lie. I don’t make things up. Whatever I tell those ladies, those are things I really feel and hear and see. That’s why they all come back. That’s why we were able to live in that nice house and keep our nice things even though Mr. Beasley spent every dime of his paycheck at the off track betting parlor in the city. I was the breadwinner, Grant. I made my money honestly. Those women came into my home with their lives dripping off of them like wet shadows. That’s what I saw. I saw their shadows slide from them and dance against the wall and whisper to me things that would happen. The shadows would hiss and talk and tell me everything, Grant. I don’t know why I can do this. I don’t know why God chose me to be able to see this and sometimes I think it’s the devil that chose me, but I am not a fortune teller, damn you. I just read those shadows and tell the women to watch out for certain things. I don’t give them lottery numbers or predict the sex of their baby. I tell them, maybe you should look in your son’s coat pocket tonight, or maybe you should not believe that man you’re cheating with had a vasectomy because the baby in your belly is not your. husband’s. I don’t tell them why, I don’t elaborate. I just listen to the shadows and watch them and tell them what I figure out. I don’t tell fortunes. I keep lives from being more in ruins than they already are. And that’s the worst thing about Greener Valley, Grant. Everyone thinks they know everyone. They think this is all some wonderful little slice of suburbia where everyone lives perfect little lives inside their perfect little houses, but they never really try to get below the surface. They never really know anyone. We all go about our days thinking life is beautiful and filled with catchy songs and parades and warm smiles, but you have no idea what lurks inside every house Grant. I see the shadows. I hear them. I know. I know what this little slice of idealism is really made of. I know what happens past the white picket fences and perfectly parked cars. I know it all, Grant.”
I stare at her, unsure if I ever heard Mrs. Beasley speak more than five words in a row in my entire life. I half expect her to start reading my shadows and the thought fills me with dread. I don’t want to hear about the drinking, the drugs, the sex, the lies, the lack of integrity and the way I sold my soul to sell my art. I don’t want to know if I should look in the pockets of the jacket Cherilynn left here and I certainly don’t want Terri to hear any of the shit that is my life. It amuses me that I’m worried about my reputation when anyone I want to shield my real self from is probably dead or in the process of being murdered by screeching kids.
I look at Terri, expecting to see her white faced, in shock or at least expressing some kind of surprise at Mrs. Beasley’s outburst. This hasn’t exactly been an easy day for me to process and I’m sure this nervous wreck of a teenager is pretty close to a mental breakdown after what she witnessed this morning.
But Terri just moves to the front window, looks out at the carnage of Greener Valley and says, “This was inevitable, you know. Suburbia isn’t a place. It’s an affliction.”
Mrs. Beasley smiles, the way a teacher would smile at a student who finally got the geometry lesson. I’m stunned. It’s all too much.
“I saw the shadows in the town center yesterday, Grant.” Mrs. Beasley has her arm around Terri’s shoulder as they look out the window. “They were saying and doing horrible things. And there was a woman with them. At least I think she was a woman. She could have been anything. Just a thing that looks like a woman.”
Terri turns to Mrs. Beasley. “We’re all fucked.”
“Yes, dear, we are.”