Hits & Mrs. Page 5

  Gil shivered. “I’m so cold.” The color drained from his lips. “I’m feeling nauseous like I’m going to vomit,” he said as he held his stomach. “My head is spinning… I’m so dizzy.” Gil lurched like he was going to topple over. “I’m finding it very difficult to stay awake.” He gasped. All of a sudden the trance was broken. “…I sense that Daisy died of a drug overdose,” he said.

  “That’s right,” confirmed Rainbow.

  “She’d taken a fatal cocktail of barbiturates, amphetamines and alcohol,” explained Sunshine.

  “Her trip sitter abandoned her in the restroom to go hear Frampton perform Show Me The Way,” added Breeze.

  “She says she’s sorry she left you,” said Gil, as the three sisters started crying softly. “But she’s never really left you. She’s with you always in spirit.” He looked around the room. “Another relative has joined the family reunion,” Gil announced. “It’s a young woman…She’s showing me an “I” name.” The three sisters looked at each other in suspense. “I think her name is…India or Indigo…”

  “Indigo is our aunt!” Rainbow confirmed.

  “Good.” He paused. “…I feel like I’m moving at high speed,” said Gil. “I’m very cold…I see blinding whiteness everywhere… It’s snow…” He made an expression like he’d been struck in the face. “I just hit something very hard… What does this mean to you?”

  “Indigo died in a skiing accident in Tahoe,” Rainbow explained.

  “She hit a tree,” Sunshine said.

  “And died on impact,” added Breeze.

  “She’s coming in with a warm, caring energy… I’m getting that she cared for you after your mother passed,” said Gil. The women nodded. Indigo became their mother figure. “I also feel that she kept you three sisters from feuding with each other,” he said. It was constant war of rivalry and jealousy between the siblings. Now that Indigo was gone they were at each other’s throats constantly. “The way they were in this world is the way they are in spirit on the other side,” said Gil. “She wants you to stop your bickering. Love each other. She keeps saying, ‘We are family’.”

  Rainbow, Sunshine and Breeze all screamed in unison, “I got all my sisters with me!”

  Gil jumped back in surprise.

  “You know, the song by Sister Sledge,” explained Rainbow. “Indigo always sang this to us when we’d fight. It was her way of bringing us back together again.”

  A confused expression spread across Gil’s face. “Your mother keeps saying something…‘But it’s the truth, even if it didn’t happen’.” He paused. “Something isn’t making sense here.” His eyes widened. “Indigo wasn’t your aunt…she was your sister,” he revealed.

  “What?” Rainbow cried.

  “Um, no…” said Sunshine.

  “You’re probably just thinking that because we each had a different father,” said Breeze.

  “No, your mother is very clear about this,” insisted Gil. “She gave birth to Indigo when she was only 14-years-old.”

  “Hmm…there was a 14 year difference between Mom and Indigo,” Rainbow realized.

  “Your grandmother raised Indigo as though she was her daughter,” said Gil. “It was a family secret that your mother took to the grave. She says you need to check her real birth certificate to verify what I’m saying.”

  “Why didn’t mom tell us?” asked Rainbow.

  “She was ashamed,” Gil explained.

  “Did Indigo know?” asked Sunshine.

  “No.”

  “How could mom lie to us all of those years?” asked Breeze.

  “She said she’s sorry that she hid the truth from you,” replied Gil. “But she did what she thought was best at the time. She hopes that you will eventually forgive her, and that you will heal and learn from this experience.”

  Rainbow, Sunshine, and Breeze were stunned. They sat quietly throughout the rest of the group reading, thinking about this revelation.

  When the session was over, Rainbow offered Gil a glass of champagne and invited him to stay but he declined politely.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Woods, but I must go home,” he said. “I have a client who’ll be coming soon,” he explained. Before Rainbow could say anything else, she’d wanted to ask him out on a date sometime, Breeze grabbed Gil by the arm.

  “I’ll show you the door, Mr. Godsend,” she said as she dragged him from the room.

  Just because Gil left didn’t mean that the party was over. It went well into the night. After drinking ice cream cocktails the girls went skinny-dipping in the pool. They ended the night with cups of coffee, pot brownies, and a few rounds of snooker. As she chalked her cue, Rainbow thought of her secret tryst with Gil and smiled to herself.

  When all her friends had gone, Rainbow dragged a heavy wooden trunk across the carpet into the living room. It was made from mahogany and covered with large brass studs. The trunk had belonged to their mother.

  “Let’s see if we can find Indigo’s birth certificate,” said Rainbow.

  “But where’s Breeze?” asked Sunshine. “We need to wait for her.”

  Breeze entered the room at that moment. “Here I am!” she cried. She looked slightly disheveled. The top buttons of her blouse were undone, and she patted down her hair.

  Rainbow grasped the small brass handle and opened the trunk. A musty old smell wafted out of it. The three sisters rifled through the contents. The trunk contained a treasure trove of memories. They found faded photographs, letters, and drawings the sisters had done when they were kids. It was like a time capsule. There was a vintage silver vanity set and a collection of 1960’s jewelry, including a rhinestone brooch, orange Lucite clip-on earrings, and a chunky turquoise necklace that was so retro it was fashionable again. Breeze snatched it up for herself. Finally, they found a folder that contained the family’s important papers. With trembling hands, Rainbow flicked through them until she found Indigo’s birth certificate. She held her breath as her eyes scanned the document.

  She let out a noisy sigh of relief.

  “Her birth certificate says that grandma was Indigo’s mother,” she confirmed.

  “Indigo was our aunt!” exclaimed Sunshine.

  “Gil was wrong,” said Breeze.

  “But he was right about everything else,” said Rainbow. “Including the fact that my lovely sisters are cheaters,” she said with a scowl.

  “And he was right that you hold grudges,” added Sunshine.

  “Well,” said Breeze as she poured herself another glass of champagne. “That’s the end of that…”

  Rainbow continued to search through the trunk. She found a stack of dog-eared books that were Daisy’s favorites. She could still see her mother flopped on the couch at night, a glass of wine in one hand and a book in the other. She picked up a copy of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, the 1960s cult classic written by Ken Kesey who was a personal friend of her mother’s.

  “Hmm… Gil said, 'But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen'… Isn’t that a quote from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest?” she asked.

  “I dunno. I never read it,” replied Sunshine as she popped another pot brownie in her mouth.

  As Rainbow flicked through the pages of the book a folded piece of yellowed paper fell out. She unfolded it and read it, her eyes scanning back and forth in disbelief.

  “Oh my God!” she gasped. “I’ve found another birth certificate for Indigo, but this one says that mom was Indigo’s mother!” She was in such shock she felt like she was about to faint. She took a few deep breaths. “Gil did say something about a ‘real birth certificate’. The first one must have been a fake!”

  Sunshine snatched the document from her. “Indigo was our sister!” she screamed. “This explains a lot. I knew it!”

  “Oh, you did not know that!” argued Breeze. “None of us did. Mom lied to us all those years…and she lied to Indigo…She never knew the truth while she was alive.”

  Rainbow sighed. “Gil was right. He was right
about everything.”

  “Well, he read me like a book,” said Sunshine with a sly smile.

  “Me too,” said Breeze with a giggle. “He really knew how to turn my pages…”

  The sisters looked at each other in confusion. Then the penny dropped.

  “You slept with Gil too?” Rainbow asked them in dismay.

  “What do you mean ‘too’?” Sunshine demanded to know. “If I’d known you both had sex with him I never would have…”

  “That didn’t stop you before,” hissed Rainbow.

  “You both fucked him?” cried Breeze. “You filthy sluts!” She threw One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at Rainbow who threw the chunky turquoise necklace back at her.

  “You traitors!” screamed Rainbow. “First my husband and now Gil?”

  “Gil was never yours…nor was Adam!” Breeze yelled at her. “He didn’t love you. He was going to leave you for me.”

  “You fucking bitch!” sobbed Rainbow.

  “Stop it!” Sunshine pleaded. “Stop it! Indigo wouldn’t have wanted this! She would have wanted us to get along… We are family!” she sang. “I got all my sisters with…”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up,” spat Breeze as she picked up her chunky turquoise necklace and stormed out of the house.

  Chapter 5

  As she stumbled towards the espresso machine in her kitchen, Claudia thought about her “date” with a pilot from Denver the night before. She was hired to track the guy because his wife was convinced he had a woman in every port, or airport, as the case may be, and she was suspicious that he was getting laid on his layovers. He arrived at the location where his wife guessed he’d be, which was a bar where the two of them had met only a year before. He made quite an entrance wearing his pilot’s uniform, flanked by a gaggle of giggly flight attendants. Claudia sat right near the group and, after joining in with a few well-placed giggles herself, she was invited to their little party. Over Blue Hawaiians that turned their lips a neon blue color, the guy told her predictable jokes about his cockpit and how everyone in the Mile High City is a member of the Mile High Club. He wasted no time in inviting Claudia to fly with him to Hawaii the following weekend because the weather is beautiful there at this time of year. He knew of a charming little cottage on the Kohala coast, which Claudia later discovered was where he and his wife had spent their recent honeymoon.

  With bleary eyes, Claudia fixed herself a double espresso and gulped it down like it was medicine. She looked at the grandfather clock in her living room and it read 2:03 am. Her cell phone argued that it was 7:10 am instead. The old clock had clearly stopped again. It had defective gears and she’d have to be a clockmaker to keep it running smoothly. For her, it was a great-grandfather clock; it had once belonged to her great-grandfather and was passed down to her by her father just before he died. It was a strange and sad coincidence to her that the clock always stopped at this same time, which was the exact moment of her father’s death.

  “There are no coincidences,” interrupted a familiar voice from the television. “That’s a sign from your loved one.” It was Gil Godsend on the Sunrise morning show.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Claudia groaned. What was he doing on TV? She dropped down on the couch to watch him reluctantly. It was too early to fix a stiff drink, right?

  “The dead are always trying to get our attention,” he added.

  Claudia felt as though Gil was a ghost from her past trying to get her attention. After laying low for several years he was obviously returning to the public eye for some reason, but she didn’t know why. She hadn’t seen him during that whole time and she had to admit he still looked good. Gil was a handsome guy, even if he was a big fat fraud. He hadn’t aged a single day, although his suits kept getting more expensive.

  Bella and Jack, the show’s hosts, were interviewing Gil about some new book of his called Messages From The Other Side. Okay, so he was laying low to write a book and now he was back in the limelight again to promote this…ahem…work of fiction. Claudia cast a frown at the pile of Gil Godsend books in her library. Great. Here was yet another one that she needed to add to her collection. For someone who didn’t believe in psychics at all, she had visited more psychics and bought more books about the paranormal than any believer.

  “There’s an invisible world of spirits who are trying to make contact with us from beyond the grave,” said Bella with a flip of her bottle-blonde hair. “A few talented people, such as psychic medium Gil Godsend, can help us to communicate with them. Gil, how do we receive messages from the other side?”

  Claudia thought she saw Bella fluttering her fake eyelashes at Gil.

  “I have many clients who ask me to ask their deceased loved ones to send messages to them so they know they’re okay,” said Gil. “I’ve found that many spirits are doing this already, but you don’t always need to see a psychic to receive them. Not everyone has the ability to tap into intuition to talk to spirits for others, like I do, but we all have the ability to tap into intuition for ourselves. You see… we all have psychic abilities.”

  “I’m a bit psychic,” agreed Bella. “I often think about someone and then they call,” she said pointedly, as though she was hinting that Gil should call her.

  “That’s an excellent example of an everyday psychic ability,” praised Gil. Bella beamed like a teacher’s pet. “Other psychic experiences include those moments when we say the same thing at the same time as someone else, when we wake up just before the alarm goes off, when we experience déjà vu, or we meet a person for the first time but feel as though we’ve known them in a previous life. Have you ever turned on the radio or walked into a store and heard song lyrics that speak to you personally?”

  “That happens to me all the time,” replied Jack as Bella nodded vigorously in agreement.

  Claudia rolled her eyes.

  “A spirit compelled you to turn on the radio or walk into that store at that exact moment to hear that message,” Gil explained. “I wrote Messages From The Other Side to teach people how to pay attention to these messages. The spirits have a lot to say, to those who know how to listen.”

  Claudia noticed that Bella had shifted closer towards Gil on the couch, her knees pointing towards him. Her tight little skirt also seemed to be rising higher too.

  “Can you tell us how our loved ones send us these messages?” Bella asked him in a way that made her sound like she was asking him out.

  “Sure, Bella,” Gil replied in a way that made him sound like he was saying “yes”. “One of the easiest ways spirits communicate with us is via our dreams. Visitation dreams are common. Our loved ones appear in our dreams to offer us advice, warn us of possible dangers, or when they have unfinished business and can’t rest until they’ve communicated something important. They often come to us in our dreams to say their final goodbyes soon after their passing.”

  “I have a friend who had a really vivid dream that her father was sitting on her bed,” said Jack. “He’d been sick for years but he suddenly looked younger and healthier. He said he’d found peace and that he loved her. Later that day, she received news that her father had passed in the early hours of that morning.”

  Gil nodded wisely.

  “We often receive these kinds of messages from our mothers and fathers who have just crossed over but still have a parental impulse to comfort us and reassure us that everything is alright,” he explained. “We wake up from these visitation dreams feeling peaceful, happy, and loved. But some spirits do more than just visit us in our dreams; they actually visit us on this plane. It’s common for the living to sense the presence of a recently deceased loved one, to hear that person’s voice, or even see their apparition. Science hasn’t been able to explain this phenomenon.”

  “Bullshit,” said Claudia to the television. “It’s a common reaction to grief. It’s called a bereavement hallucination.”

  “But it isn’t an hallucination,” Gil added, as if he’d heard her explanation. “In these cases
the loved ones weren’t made aware of the death by ordinary means. It’s a supernatural sign.”

  “Last night a framed photograph of my parents fell off the mantelpiece,” said Bella. “It hit the floor so violently that the glass smashed! Mom and dad are both deceased. Was that a sign?” She asked as she twirled a lock of her hair playfully.

  “Yeah… It was a sign that there was an earthquake last night…” replied Claudia. The minor quake knocked over bottles of perfume on a shelf in her apartment.

  “If you’ve ever had something happen that makes you stop and ask yourself, ‘Was that a sign?’ Then that is your answer,” Gil explained. “The very fact you asked that question is confirmation that it was a sign. Spirits send them to us all the time. A sign might be something like a clock that stops dead at the exact time of a loved one’s passing.”

  “Or maybe it’s just a defect in the gears!” Claudia yelled at him.

  Gil ignored her this time. “Spirits send us meaningful numbers or words that we see on license plates, bumper stickers, billboards, and in books and emails.”

  “That reminds me of the time I resolved to lose weight because my mother died of heart disease,” said Jack. “One day I was tempted to buy a chocolate chip cookie until I read a license plate with the word FITNESS on it. I haven’t eaten a cookie since that day!”

  “That was definitely your mother’s spirit reminding you to stay on track with your diet,” Gil assured him.

  Claudia was so annoyed that she went into her kitchen and got herself a cookie in defiance.

  “There are numerous signs of spirit but it can be like learning a new language to identify them because they’re often cryptic,” Gil continued. “Our loved ones are trying to communicate with us when lights flicker, when appliances turn on and off, when we smell perfume, a favorite flower, cigarette smoke, or some other smell we associate with them, when a pet behaves strangely, when feathers, rocks, keys, or coins appear out of nowhere, when an object goes missing or is moved, when a lost item resurfaces, when broken equipment suddenly starts working again, when we feel a breeze or a cold chill, when we get goosebumps, when we see butterflies, dragonflies, and rainbows, when a stranger smiles at us, when we have a sense of being watched, when a thought just pops into our minds, or when a phone rings and we answer, but no one is there…”