【Written by Jill Schuck】

Ice baths are my favorite. 

The way the cool slime water rubs against my skin makes me feel like I’m skinny-dipping with eels, like I’m on some Norwegian getaway. And I’m naked. Of course I am. Ice baths are such a luxury for me because they’re one of the only times, besides sex, that I can be nude and numb at the same time. Whatever emotions I’m holding onto whirl down the drain. Trickle, trickle. Gone. Done. I feel nothing now, just as I like it: cold, empty, new. I fan my arms in the water and pretend I am Ophelia, wild-eyed and nymphish, singing pretty songs of pain. Or maybe I’m something less tragic: a supermarket bag floating shitfaced down a canal. 

Noon, and I am on my second bath of the day. The ice has trouble stuffing itself down the pipes as I rise; the doorbell rings, assertively, five times. Having spent an hour depriving my brain of any sensation, I forget about Doris Mately, the rough-throated woman who is also my twelve-ten appointment. 

I say to myself that this woman is the Devil because she interrupted my bathtime. How dare she. She knocks twice more before I dry and dress myself. People are more inclined to tip me when my clothing does not match. If I wear two patterned scarves simultaneously, they think I am unhinged enough to communicate with spirits. For unlicensed psychics, scarves hold more merit than a PHD. Two scarves! How bohemian. She must be the real deal.  

I can sense Doris’ finger against my bell, poised to strike again, and so I rush to the door. Maybe I am a psychic after all: there she is, her thumb flexed in the air. There is the ghost of a cheap mascara underlining her eyes, which blink at me once, twice, three times.  

“Doris,” I say. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Come inside, please.” 

When Doris no longer knows what to do with herself, I lead her into the kitchen. My kitchen, hallway, living room, and bedroom are all confined to the same space, but I have dimmed the light over the dining table to create a separate ambiance. The air in there is cryptic. Tempestuous. Deliciously macabre. She loves it, in spite of her mournfulness. 

We’re both at the table now, mantis-handed, with our wrists curling inwards. The scene follows as such. Me: sitting there, luminous from the water, coughing intermittently. Her: blubbing already, red-nosed, sweat stains necklacing her blouse. She pulls tissue after tissue from her purse, and I feel like the witness to some sad magic trick. I half-expect a dove to fly from her mouth when she says:  

“My Ernie. He always loved spring—such a nice day outside.” 

I bow my head, squeezing her hand in mine. “Let’s begin.” 

An old paperweight sits in front of me that I use as a transcendental orb. My white noise machine mimics the beat of a flatline. For good measure I wave a hand above my head, as though Ernie is a taxi cab I must hail. I light sage, which is really an artificial eucalyptus plant stolen from my sister. To buy up time, I give Doris ten minutes to bask in all the sounds and smells. Then I hum, lightly, witchily, and though my eyes are closed, I know she’s buying every last bit of it. They always do.  

I lick my lips and lie, “I’m getting something. A vibration. A voice. Tell me, did Ernie sound like Hugh Laurie?” 

I don’t even know what Hugh Laurie sounds like, but Doris’ eyes are puglike and she nods slowly.  

“Now that you mention it,” Her voice gurgles, like a fish choking on bait. “He did. My God, he did. Can he hear me?” 

I pretend to consult the paperweight, and I tell her, “Yes, he can. He says ‘hello,’ and that he loves you very, very much.” 

She blinks. “Even after the divorce?”  

Another cough bubbles in my throat that I have to fight to suppress.  

“All is forgiven.” 

“My God,” she says again, as if that is the only message she has for Ernie. “Ask him about Heaven. Do angels really play those long trumpets, like in the movies?” 

“Unfortunately,” I frown. “Your twenty minutes are over. I have another client on the way, but you’re welcome to schedule another appointment.” 

“Yes,” she says, but I don’t hear her. I listen instead for the shuffling of her pocketbook, for the subsequent scribbling of the numbers 85/100 on a check. “Perfect. When are you next available?” 

•  

A procession of sad, miserable, and simple-minded people have come to my door that day, and rearing them is my sister. Ruddy-faced and frail, she could easily pass as one of the widows. Only their typical look of dolefulness is lost on her; instead, she’s fuming. 

“Four clients in one day?” she says with a snarl.  

I bite my teeth into a smile. “Won’t you come in?” 

If I had my way, I would ban my sister from my house. It sounds cruel but it’s true. Whenever she’s over, she’ll gush all about the latest yoga class she taught and who in it couldn’t keep up. (Usually Denise). She also has an endearing tendency of asking if my couch is made of “vegan leather” and what pieces of furniture I own are “recycled vintage.” This habit began after she announced last January that she was “into sustainability,” and that I should be too. According to her, I might look less poor if I wear organic hemp.  

“I got your text,” she says in the kitchen. “‘Can’t talk, with client number four.’ I can’t believe it.” 

“I know.” I stretch my neck and grin at her, all defiant and assholeish. “Isn’t it incredible?” 

She shakes her head an absurd amount of times. I fear that she will unintentionally decapitate herself, with her head snapping off and rolling around my carpet and Jesus, I’ll have to clean it all up. At least then I can honestly say there’s a dead person in my house.  

“Your customers are vulnerable,” she says, “and you’re exploiting them. For what?” 

“Money,” I say, which I feel I shouldn’t have to explain.  

“Does that fulfill you?” Now she’s using her yogi voice—I can almost smell the incense on her tongue. “Does that leave you feeling good about yourself?” 

0“It does,” I’m quick to answer. “I make these people so, so happy.” 

“By lying to them. Can’t you understand how wrong that is?”  

Her eyes fix me in a scathing way. “You’re a scam artist.” 

I know I’m supposed to object to this, but I can’t help but beam. I’ve always liked that expression, “scam artist.” The insertion of “artist,” I think, is very generous and oddly rewarding to hear. “Artist” implies that I mold lies with a certain focus, a craftsmanship, as though I am twisting clay into lewd statuettes. In my head I thank my sister for recognizing my skill. I am the Monet of the morbid. The Da Vinci of the dead. Was he the one that hacked off his ear, Da Vinci? Or was that Monet? 

I’m eying my sister’s left ear when she speaks again. “I think, secretly, you’re jealous of your clients. They have something to believe in, and you have nothing.” 

“I don’t need to believe in anything.” 

“That’s what you think. But what gives you hope? What gives you a will to live?” 

Picking up on my annoyance, she softens her tone.  

“Does it pay, at least?” There’s a pitying inflection to the word “pay.” “How are you handling the hospital bills?” 

My throat tightens, so I give a little cough. “They’re fine.” 

“I came to check up on you. You look thinner. Are you thinner?” 

“I’m healthy.” 

We both know it’s a lie; neither of us try to challenge it. My sister and I established this arrangement where I try to ignore my lung cancer and she reminds me of it constantly. Two months have passed since the initial diagnosis, yet my negligence hasn’t changed. If I don’t give the cancer attention, maybe it’ll go away. The same goes for the afterlife: if I don’t believe in one, then I can avoid eternal damnation. Apathy is my key against suffering. 

“If you can’t pay your bills,” she says, “you could always go back to acting.” And then she adds, all too seriously, “The world always needs more actors!” 

“I never left acting,” I say. “I’m just experimenting with different mediums.” 

“Jesus. There’s a difference between acting and conning people.” 

“Not really.” 

“I would just think that in your state, you would have a little more sympathy…” 

I lift my chin, daring her to finish. Now she’s quiet; she lost, I won. To diffuse the tension, she pretends to busy herself with her coat, buttoning it to her chin. The silence disperses when she announces “she should go.” (“Good,” I want to say but don’t). 

You would think I have a knife at her neck, the way she scrambles for the door. But when her hand is at the handle, she takes her time to twist it open. She glares at me and sighs, indicating that I am pathetic, I can’t take care of myself. What a horrible woman, the sighs says. What dirty nasty shit scum.  

Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am horrible dirty nasty shit scum. More reason for me to draw another bath.  

•  

I feel the least like a human when I’m bathing in ice water. That could explain why I like it so much. 

It’s exhausting, this whole human business. I wish I believed in ghosts, so that someday I might become one and not have to worry about silly mortal affairs. But the truth of the matter is that I’ve never believed in anything, except that I’m a bad person. Believing in a God makes me feel old. I’d much rather die than become one of those cheek-kissing, pew-hogging meemaws at Church. Overtime I found that I could use my lack of empathy and spiritual indifference to my advantage. Hence why I became a con/psychic. 

A thought laces in my mind when I’m in the tub that night. Looking back, I owe my high school teachers for my conning. Anyone else would have persuaded me to leave Salem for college or a performing arts school. At either of these places, I would have failed before I started. Such opportunities are reserved for the affluent and affected and I am neither of which.  

Thanks to my teachers’ lack of faith in me, I stayed in the same house I grew up in. I scrapped for cash at burger places and mall kiosks. In my own time, I marathoned Mirabel the Medium. I was enchanted by the way Mirabel spoiled rich peoples’ fun. She knew how to dampen parties with just one question. It’s simple: you go up to every guest and ask whose mother just died, and if by chance someone says “mine,” you pretend to contact her. She really was inspirational.  

I learned everything I needed to know about scamming people from this show. For years I waited until my area was overrun with yuppies and hipsters and self-righteous spiritualists. Soon they would become my clientele. If Mirabel taught me one thing, it’s that the upper class are all born with an immunity to tragedy. If someone is wealthy they have nothing to mourn. Your wife died? Big deal, you’ll find another in a week. Your peacock was eaten by a hawk? So what, you’ll buy yourself a menagerie. Money is the medicine to any of life’s catastrophes, and it is unfair for those without it to hear the rich complain.  

Now the water wobbles just beneath my nose. I’m so determined to remember Mirabel’s theme song that I don’t notice the tub overflowing. Pruney, calm, and comfortably numb, I get to my feet.  

When I dig into the drain, there’s the typical blockage. Instead of ice, something coarse grazes my skin—I pull back immediately. Then it dawns on me: it’s hair. My hair—strawy, soapy wads of it. I don’t dare touch my head. I don’t dare find the bald spot. All I can do is turn away, take a few slow steps, and reach for my towel. I shove my face into it and scream. 

The following day, I use one of my scarves as a headwrap. 

•      

Whenever I’m on the phone with the doctor, I imagine our conversation taking place on a Ouija board. Ouija boards are only entertaining if you lie a bit, blaming spirits for every little movement. I talk to my doctor with the same amount of honesty. They ask me to rate my pain: I maneuver my imaginary planchette to spell “T-H-R-E-E” instead of “S-I-X.” They question me about my medications: I write, “M-O-R-E P-L-E-A-S-E.”  

It’s early in the morning—the doctor’s voice shows it. Scratchily, they ask, “Are you still vomiting?”  

I am sitting frog-legged at the kitchen table, my phone in one hand and a donut in the other. Sluggish, sleepless, I move the planchette to “NO.”  

“Are you getting a lot of rest? Nutrients?” 

I yawn and bite my donut as I answer “YES” to both.  

Then comes the big question: “Do you feel like you’re getting better?”  

The planchette hesitates between “YES” and “NO.” I translate this over the phone as a “maybe.” Before the doctor can ask me to explain my “maybe,” there’s an agitated knock at the door. Mitch Yardley (thirty-eight, just lost his cat) presses his face against the window. 

Even with the cat dead, Mitch still reeks of its piss. This is my first impression of him as I open the door, unwillingly inviting his scent into my house. Mitch’s movements are skittish, soft-pawed: I take note of this as he trots to the kitchen. But something else demands my attention. It’s my chest, throbbing and burning hellishly. As I prepare the white noise, I wince at the shock of pain.  

Seated so that his back is to me, Mitch mews, “My Pierre. Nine lives just weren’t enough.” 

Someone is inside my chest: I am sure of it. Someone is sitting at the top of my ribcage and pounding on it with two tiny fists. They want out, and so the pounding intensifies, thrump thrump thrump. Oblivious to my discomfort, Mitch continues to babble.  

“Pierre was an Ashera—very rare. I have three others, of course, but none of them get me like he did.”  

I gag, hoping to vomit the little demon out from my body. No luck. Now I’m staggering towards Mitch, woozy and sore in all places. There, I flounder through my routine: the white noise sputters, I hum unwitchily, and the eucalyptus gives a lazy-eyed flicker.  

Mitch’s face puckers with concentration. He leans in to ask, “What’s Pierre saying?” 

Before I can consult the paperweight, I pause. “What?”  

“Well, can’t you hear him?” 

I blink hard. “He’s a cat.” 

“Yes. And?” 

“He’s a cat,” I repeat. “Cats can’t talk.” 

Poor Mitch cocks his head, still not getting it. “Are you mocking me?” 

•  

Three weeks later and I’m half-drunk at the edge of my bed, debating whether or not I should answer the phone. The imaginary Ouija board respawns in my head; once again, I’m tottering between “YES” and “NO.” YES: pick up the call, you need to talk to your doctor, they’ll give you pills goddammit. NO: don’t ruin your half-drunkenness, doctors only make you sad, ignorance is bliss. 

The minute the doctor starts to speak, I immediately regret choosing “YES.” 

“So,” they go. “I have some news for you.” 

I am already sitting down before they ask me to, though I can’t manage to keep still. My face bloats as if I am suffocating. In concert with the phone static and my heavy breathing, the doctor delivers their message: 

We found something else. Big lump in your lungs. Fist-sized. Lethal.  

Dumbfounded and drunk no-more, I can only respond with “NO.” 

•  

Seven hours pass. Can’t sleep. Too many thoughts. Too much stress in my muscles. Muscles feel like shackles. Is this torture? Penance for my cynicism? This must be a precursor. My Hell-before-Hell. What’s even down there, anyway? Pitchforks? Flames? Just dirt and worms?  

Maybe Heaven’s one of those gated communities. Six-car garages. Indoor pools. Nothing I can afford. They’d only let me in to do the angels’ housekeeping.  

•  

That Friday, I spend Doris’ appointment trying to imagine Ernie’s face. I don’t care about the man in any respect. His death means nothing to me, and yet I’m obsessed with picturing him. 

“He was always so gentle,” Doris says, to which I nod and stare absently into the paperweight.  

Did he look old when he died? I don’t want my death to age me. If I don’t die looking at least somewhat tragically beautiful, I might as well not die at all. 

All I can visualize is his head. It’s as if he stops being a person below that point. Ernie has no hair, as is my fate. I rub my knuckles to texturize his baldness. It isn’t completely bare up there. Flitting above him, angelic and cliche, is a halo. Or is it a tumor? Did a tumor detach itself from his brain, circling him now like a vulture? 

Without meaning to, Doris’ foot kicks mine under the table. Ernie’s image vanishes abruptly, leaving my question unanswered.  

•  

Before my first client on Monday, I find myself on the couch, clenching my asscheeks rope-tight. I can’t tell if it’s a new symptom of my condition, or maybe a nervous tick I developed. But what do I have to fear? I am the great Lady Delphi, the purveyor of prophecies, the renowned spirit whisperer! If I can cheat the rich out of their money, I can certainly cheat death. Certainly. 

When Frida Dell (twenty-eight, recently motherless) rings the bell, I waddle towards the door. I peel it open with hunger: I am ready to fool her. The Great Lady Delphi will take another rich pig as prey.  

Frida stands under the ghoulish light of my bug zapper. I’m taken aback by the wideness of her eyes. She uses them to ogle me. Though her face is teary, she manages a smile.  

“Sorry I’m late.” 

I wince at the squirrelish sound of her voice. Frida has an anxious air to her, conspicuous in the way her hands fumble. My eyes follow her, curiously, from the door to the kitchen: her posture deteriorates with each step. I want to look away, for fear that my stare will somehow make her more jittery. But I can’t bring myself to do so.  

At the table I clear my throat and say, “You mentioned you were here for your mother.” 

“Yes. Her name is Susan Dell.” 

“Susan.” I can’t stop clearing my throat—at some point it becomes a compulsion. “If I may, when did she pass?” 

Something I said makes Frida drum her foot against the floor. She takes a moment, tapping and thinking, before she says, “Well, she isn’t dead.” 

I choke on phlegm. “What?” 

“Not yet,” Frida adds. “That’s actually why I’m here. You can talk to spirits, right?” 

“Sure.” 

“So I was wondering—” She contemplates her next sentence. “—I was wondering if you could ask them what the afterlife is like. You know, if it’ll be nice for my mom. I just want to be at ease when…” 

Using both hands, Frida shields her face. It’s then that I notice her lack of accessories, with her wrists and neck completely naked. The rest of her clothing is just as drab: she wears off-the-rack slacks and an eyelashed sweater. She doesn’t look rich. Maybe she isn’t rich at all. Maybe she’s just desperate.  

I ask, “What’s her condition?” 

In her squirrelish voice, she shares all that she can. Soon enough I am sick of hearing her talk. Sick, sick, sick; my stomach tenses and everything in it flops around. I close my eyes as if to alleviate the weight of her words, but nothing eases. Nothing helps. Hair loss, chest pains, constant coughing…Susan’s story is a familiar one, only none of us know how it will end. 

Frida’s waiting for me. She wants my reassurance. There’s a hungry twitch to her ears as she expects me to soliloquize about God and cherubs and eternal peace. But all I manage is: “I’m sorry. I can’t help you today.” 

Frida rises slowly. “But my mother?”  

“Please, just leave.” I sink deeper into myself. “I’m sorry.” 

•  

Two weeks pass without any appointments.  

Only my sister comes to visit, though we never make it past the front lawn. Today we sit right on the grass, caught in a heavy silence. Rain comes down as if its intention is to drown us. It’s a storm that I hesitate to call “biblical,” as nothing biblical is in my expertise. Nonetheless it is a storm of great proportions, hot and restless, humid and brash.  

I’m the first to speak. “I got a call from the doctor.” 

She leans forward. “And?” 

My silence answers for me. She recoils, somber yet unsurprised. I hate that she’s pitying me, and I hate even more that I’m letting her. Here I am, just as milky-eyed and mournful as my clients. I want to exorcize it out of me, every last emotion.  

“When it happens,” she says, “where do you think you’ll go?” 

I pick at a strand of grass, thin as time.  

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Nowhere.” 

“Try to think of something.” A brightness sneaks into her tone. “Somewhere. Anywhere. It’ll help you relax.” 

She realizes how to coax a response from me: “Pretend you’re in the tub.” 

It could be that I’m humoring her, or that I have so little dignity left that I go, what’s more to lose? Either way I close my eyes and make a hollow attempt for a spiritual awakening. With my eyes closed I can easily burrow in my head, though it’s such a dank and scummy place to be. I think of Ernie and Pierre and my grade school teachers. I think of Frida and her too-wide eyes. Above all I think of my business, what saved me from a fate of flipping burgers and copious debt. The only way out of poverty was lying and scamming and if this is my punishment for that then so be it, I don’t care.  

My mind hums me into despondency.  

Tss, tss. Neurons fizzle.  

In time, I find myself in a blank white plane. The white is of the cleanest kind, reminiscent of bleached bones and enamel.  

Flickering, buzzing, the vision struggles to take full form. I concentrate harder. Color springs up in shy post-mortems, painting the sky a necromantic red. An angel toots a long horn that sounds vaguely similar to my white noise machine.  

In this place I exist as nothing. Not quite a ghost, not quite a person—I fall somewhere in between. I am skinless and without a body. There is nothing more to me than an outline, fluid and opaline, capturing each curve, each point, each invisible feature. I relinquish all physical sensation so as to give way to one feeling and that is numbness, my favorite. A light sheathes me; I am gone from this world and onto the next. Wherever that may be. 

But when I open my eyes, I am in my body again. I curse my luck for that. It was wonderful, being nothing. Now I’m back on the ground with my fingers digging dirt and my sister watching me blink. I return from my imagination to the silly mortal world and all of its silly mortal matters. Back to reality, where the rich stay rich and everyone dies.  

“Well?” my sister says, but I don’t hear her.  

I don’t hear anything: not the rain, not the wind, not my own heart pitter-pattering. Myriad sounds are all around me, from the distant cries of Frida Dell to the dribblings of my tub. My ears tune to only one noise. I cradle my knees, listening closely.  

From somewhere I can’t identify comes a low, constant meow. There is no breath to it.