Claire, Short for Clairvoyant
an excerpt

Claire was folding clothes when the first call came in. She dropped the T-shirt she was folding, reached for her headset, and pushed the answer button before the first ring ended.

"My name is Claire." She poured honey into her voice as she crossed the room to her desk. "Thank you for calling. What is your name please?"

The woman cleared her voice. "Um ... Karen. Do you need to know my last name?"

Claire sat down and pulled her script from the drawer. "No. All I really need is to hear your voice. I would just like to be able to call you by your name."

"Oh. Karen, then. Just Karen."

Placing her forefinger on the script, Claire noted the polish was chipped as she read. "Hi, Karen. I'm really glad you called today. The moment you spoke, I could see you, and you have the most beautiful aura! You are surrounded by all the colors that come with noble qualities, integrity, honesty, goodness. I can feel you are a very special person." She took a breath and started into the next statement, but Karen interrupted.

"Should I tell you why I called?"

"Oh, yes, absolutely!" Claire slipped back into the introduction script. "I'm really excited about this reading. It's one of the most exciting readings I've had in ages. I know I'm exactly the person you needed to speak to, to receive the help you need at this critical time in your life."

"Thanks." Karen interrupted again. "I felt really stupid calling."

"Oh, no, not at all!" Claire checked the clock. One minute thirty seconds. Half of Karen's free three minutes was gone, and in 90 more seconds, Claire would start earning her rent. "That's what I'm here for, to help you with whatever you need, or just to listen if you need to talk."

"No," Karen said. "I don't need to talk. Listen ... really, the only reason I called ... God, this is so stupid!"

"No, nothing is stupid," Claire said in her practiced voice. "Especially not asking a fellow human being for help. We're social creatures, and we need each other."

"Actually, I just need to find my keys."

Claire stopped. "What?"

The caller laughed, a nervous laugh. "I lost my keys. This is the third time this week, and my husband will give me all kinds of grief if he finds out. I've searched everywhere, and I'm desperate! He'll be home in an hour. I just need my car keys."

"Your keys." Claire's voice had gone flat. She might as well have said, "You called a psychic hotline for help to find your keys?!" She hurried to fix her mistake. "Well, I'm glad you called. I specialize in remote sensing." This wasn't strictly true. If Karen went onto the hotline's website, she'd see Claire listed as a Tarot Card reader who specialized in divining outcomes. But most callers never went to the hotline, so Claire gambled that Karen didn't know. "Finding missing items is what I'm best at."

"Oh, good!" Karen's relief was almost palpable, even through the phone.

Ka-ching! Three minutes had passed. Dropping the script, Claire stood and stepped into the kitchen, where she picked up the T-shirt and began to fold it. "Can you describe the keys for me? What kind of ring are they on? How many keys, and what types?"

As Karen described the ring -- heavy, with probably 20 keys and decorative doodads including a two-inch stuffed Snoopy -- Claire folded the shirt and set it aside. She lined up white socks, and picked up the first two that matched.

"That's about it," Karen wound down. When Claire didn't respond immediately, she added, "Can you see them?"

Claire hummed and picked up two more socks. When she spoke, she hollowed her voice. "I'm getting an image. I can feel them in my hands. The ring is heavy."

"Yes! That's them!"

"I'm holding the keys ... " Claire said as she set the rolled socks with the others. "I'm ... I'm unlocking the front door. It's ... wooden. Your front door is wooden."

"Yes, it is! That's incredible!" She breathed out a sigh of relief. "That's me. You're seeing me. That was the last time I had them. I unlocked the front door, and ... "

"I'm stepping inside. The keys are in the lock, and I'm holding my purse and ... and ... something else."

"Groceries," Karen volunteered. "I had one arm wrapped around a big paper bag of groceries, and I was holding a 5-pound sack of potatoes in the other. That's the hand I unlocked the door with."

This is too easy, Claire thought. How the heck am I going to keep this woman on the phone? "Right," she said. "The groceries are heavy, very heavy. I carry them inside, into the kitchen and set them down on the counter ... "

Karen made a little noise.

"No! Not the counter, the table." Claire paused for half a second, but when Karen didn't respond she went on. "I had to swing the potatoes to put them on the table. Then I stopped and rubbed my hands."

"Oh, my goodness!" Karen said. "You're right." She laughed. "I know where the keys are."

Claire sighed. She shouldn't have said that last bit about rubbing her hands. It was too obvious. Even Karen realized her hands were empty when she rubbed them. "The keys are in the front door lock," Claire said in her ghostly voice.

"Stay right here!" Karen clunked the phone against a hard surface, and footsteps echoed away. Seconds later, the footsteps returned, accompanied by the jingle of keys. "You were right! I can't believe it."

"I did mention I specialize in divining lost objects, right?" Claire said.

"Yes, but I didn't actually believe you. I only called because I was desperate. I looked everywhere. I even took all the cushions off the couch because I thought they might have dropped out of my pocket."

"I'm glad I could help," Claire said. "I knew, the moment I heard your voice, that I would be able to ... "

"Thank you so much," Karen said.

"Please call again," Claire said. "And ... "

"I will!" Karen said. "Bye!"

"And ask for Claire," she said to the dial tone. Walking to the desk, she pulled off the headset and shook her curls loose. She flicked a finger against her laptop's touchpad to wake it up. Eight minutes. Little more than $2. With a sigh, she headed back to the laundry.

The phone rang when she was halfway across the room. She reached for the answer button on her headset, only to realize she'd left the headset on her desk. She dove across the carpet. "Hello? Hello?" Her voice sounded breathless, and she hurried to smooth it, to erase the hurried sense she may have left in her caller. "I'm so glad you called. What's your name?"

"Claire?" The voice was thin and wispy. It wobbled. "Is this Claire?"

"Yes, this is Claire." She silently pumped one fist. YES! Old people were the best. Lonely for a live person to talk to, and this woman had specifically asked for her! "I'm so glad you called today," she said. "You know, the moment you spoke, I could see you have the most beautiful aura! You are surrounded ... "

"Claire?" The woman made four syllables of her name. "Is that you, honey?"

Oh, dear Lord. Claire blew out all her breath in exasperation. "Mama! I've told you not to call me here. It costs money! Call the regular number. Or my cell. Does the nurse know you're on the phone?"

"But Claire, honey, I need you. Professionally. I ... I've ... " Her voice began to fade.

"Mama? Are you OK?"

"I've lost something." Now she sounded like a petulant child wandering in a wilderness. Claire could almost see her trembling lip and rapidly filling eyes. "It's lost, and I can't find it. You ... you can find things. Help me. Help me find ... "

Claire rubbed her eyes with two fingers. "Mama, what have you lost?"

"I ... I'm not sure. Something important."

Brisk steps sounded, and phone crackled. Claire heard an efficient voice in the background scold, "What chou doin', Mrs. Harris? You callin' them phone psychics again? You know your daughter said not to do that."

"Wait!" Claire shouted, but once again she found herself talking to a dial phone. She slapped the touchpad: two minutes, 57 seconds. Whew! That was close. Too close.

Pain settled in the base of her skull and seemed determined to expand. She pulled off the headset and reached for the computer to log out of the network.

A rattle at the front door announced the arrival of her roommate. She breezed in, smelling of salt air. "You eaten?" Emily asked. "I brought you chowder." She held out plastic bag from which steam arose.

"You're a doll," Claire said. She carried the bag into the kitchen.

"You get any calls?"

"Lady looking for her keys."

Emily giggled. "In the door?"

"Yep." Claire took a bottle of analgesic from the cupboard and shook two tablets into her hand. She swallowed them with a lukewarm glass of water.

"You able to keep her on the line?"

Claire shrugged. "Eight minutes is all."

"Eight ain't nothin'," Emily said. "Anybody else?"

"Just my mother."

Emily's face brightened at the mention. "How's she doing? Was she lucid?"

"So-so. She was at first, but then she drifted." Claire poured the soup into a ceramic mug and carried it to the table with a tiny bag of oyster crackers and a spoon. Sitting down, she picked up the spoon, then set it back down. "You know, it was kind of weird. I just now realized ... I told my caller I specialized in finding lost things."

Emily snorted. "Like a hair stylist! You ever call a salon and ask to speak to somebody that specializes in something? It's always the person who answered the phone. Amazing circumstance, that!"

Claire laughed. "Right. I didn't think anything of it when I said." She frowned. "But Mama ... she called me intentionally. She said she needed to speak to me 'professionally.'"

Emily's eyebrows shot up. She'd plucked them recently, over-plucked them really, so they were a thin, straight line or sometimes an arrow pointing up. "What did she mean by that?"

Claire shook her head. "I don't know. She'd started to drift by then. But she said ... she said I could find things."

Emily's face shone. "Oh, Claire! Maybe that's your Gift! I've always known you have one, and your mother would know if anybody did ... "

Claire raised her hand and held out her palm. Stop! "Emily, please."

"But Claire! You know your mother and your grandmother both had Gifts. It's in your genes!"

Claire's headache bloomed in a red explosion. "Emily, stop. Please." She pressed her fists against her eyes. "I don't believe in that. You know I don't." She stood and stumbled into the bedroom, where she collapsed on the bed, hands still pressed against her eyes.