Between Here and There

She let out a sigh of relief when her client crossed the threshold as she felt the man was on to her. The client got up from the velveteen upholstered armchair and strode out into yet another rainy San Francisco afternoon. He wasn’t a regular, thank god. Her regulars would not have stood for the performance she just cobbled together. Well, David, your aunt tells me she is proud of the man you have become. “What was that?” she demanded of herself. The various mauve tapestries and oriental rugs strewn around the studio dampened her outburst. Ever since that woman called her a hack last week, she hadn’t been able to tap the signal. The pathways to the other side were constricted and every tether she cast into the ether returned with loose traces to the physical world. That woman wasn’t wrong, a psychic with no connection was a hack, but that wasn’t her. She poured herself a glass of whiskey from the vintage cocktail cart by the staircase. “At least I still know how to call on one spirit.” Her particular brand of celestial humor that had secured loyal clientele in the city for over a decade couldn’t distract from the feeling that something was irrevocably off.

She woke up the next morning with resolve. At least that’s what she told herself as she tossed her hair into the brightest scarf she could find and walked out the door of The Metaphysical Messenger with purpose. The city felt electric that day, vital. She walked toward her favorite flower shop and thought how people often mischaracterized her profession; it wasn’t about conversing with the dead, but rather understanding what it was that made them so alive. The boundaries drawn between here and there seemed less absolute to her, they always had.

Her florist didn’t open for another fifteen minutes, but she saw someone inside and decided to take her chances. She liked getting there early before the waves of bodies sucked the moisture and gentle scent out of the air. It might have seemed paradoxical for a psychic to flock to a flower shop in times of crises, but to be connected to the dead, she surrounded herself with life. It also helped that the vibrant hues amplified her aura.

As she took in the sweet dew and low hum of the freshly cut blooms, she sensed the air inside the shop change. For a brief moment, she felt it. The pulse of a familiar, departed soul. The frequency shift left her a bit unsteady and she backed up into the figure standing near the refrigerator case. A little black book dislodged from the old man’s coat as she regained composure. It fell open to a smudged drawing of her profile. She was not shaken, but rather captivated. She was very beautiful so it wasn’t unrealistic to think she had admirers. Her advertisements were also all over the city for her spiritual services – there were any number of explanations, but none that dissuaded her from introducing herself to the stranger. Before she looked up from the sketch to greet her assumed devotee, she noticed the details in the kohl shadows on the page. This drawing was not of her at her present age or even years earlier - she was grayer, softer, happier. As she fought back tears that seemed to originate from outside her body, she blinked open her eyes to meet the gaze of the man she was now indebted to. How did he see her? She had to know everything.

He reached out his sun-soaked, wrinkled hand, “I hope you’ll forgive me, flowers put me in a trance.” He introduced himself as Amos and explained he was there picking up flowers to put on the grave of his wife. She asked what type flowers and he replied, “Dahlias”, with an unrelenting glint of bittersweet longing and peace in his liquid eyes. The florist handed both of them generous bouquets of buzzy orange and syrupy pink dahlias. “You a Dahlia disciple like my wife?” he asked when she reached for the parcel. “They seem to lift the spirits.” She flashed an eager, breathy smile. “Also, I was named after them so it seems fitting.”

Dahlia followed Amos out of the shop and all but cornered him at the crosswalk. He took the air right out of her lungs when he asked if she would accompany him to the gravesite. In the fifty-four blocks between the flower shop and the cemetery, Dahlia was determined to get her answers. Amos was like no one she had ever met – he had a subtle sweetness that made her want to know more, but she knew she had to focus on the notebook. He held the parchment wrapped stems as though they had just been born. She was taken with him.

He started, “You know I have never felt at home here.” “Well,” she thought, “we just met, so no, I wouldn’t know that.” But something about his disposition softened her wit and she gave a knowing nod. Due to her cosmic proclivities, Dahlia did wonder which ‘here’ he was referring to. “I grew up in the country and always wanted to get out. Now I’m here and I can’t wait to leave. Isn’t that just how it goes?” He laughed generously as if they were both in on the joke. She followed along and caught the cadence so that she could seamlessly pivot to the drawing. Before she could ask about the book, Amos began depicting his early life in the country and Dahlia was transported.

“I thought I would never get out of my town. I didn’t take to school, but I made a decent living fixing the claw-footed tubs and brass tiger doorknockers of the estates in the city over the hill.” Amos reminisced about how the families would ask him to stay for dinner and he would regale the kids with his embellished tales of taming a wild stallion and seeing the milky way clear as day in his village, as if he came from a far-off land. “The horse wasn’t wild, just had a bad attitude.” Amos laughed at the idea of himself as a real cowboy. “I was always like that, you know, a daydreamer. The fancy families loved my stories, but I never thought my daydreams would end up getting me out of there.” Dahlia was picturing a young Amos and wanted so desperately to accompany him on his adventures; she was hanging on every word.

“I saved enough from my handiwork, and mostly my storytelling, to get out. I had always wanted to go somewhere that made me feel more alive – more connected to my fellow man.” Dahlia was trying to put together why the pacing and feel of this stranger’s origin story seemed so familiar, yet the words were brand new. “I packed up what little I had and headed to a place that seemed the furthest away from where I was standing: Morocco. I figured to feel more like myself I had to get out of my own way. What better way to do that than learning how to live from scratch – language and all!” His words were plain, powerful.

Dahlia had never left the city, but she felt well-traveled by the nature of her work. The sandy, exotic landscapes of Morocco that Amos described were otherworldly in a way she had not considered, but wanted more of. “There is magic in that place. Well, I am a little biased because that’s where my wife and I met.” His tone became strained, but his eyes were aglow.

He described her presence and the way the earth moved to meet her as she glided in and out of spaces. She was an ex-pat like him, but, as he described, “you wouldn’t have known it.” “That city fed her and she it. I think I followed her around for a week before asking her out for tea. I couldn’t believe she agreed.” Dahlia was enamored with the idea of this woman and wanted more than anything to connect the two souls.

He carried on about their life together. They stayed in Morocco for a time, but her nature abhorred stagnation. “We went everywhere. Even when I thought I knew a place; she would add texture and color that I never would have seen on my own.” They were each other’s foils. Amos was lost in his own recounting of his life. “It feels too good to be true sometimes so I write everything down.” He patted his oversized sweater pocket which held the book. This artifact was of great importance to both of them, it seemed. For one, it held the delicate threads to a lived fairytale and for the other, clues to a life not yet realized. They were almost to their destination and Dahlia still had no clarity as to why her aged countenance graced his pages. She remembered her mantra from this morning: resolve. The words leapt from her lips as they reached the entrance to the graveyard, “Why am I in your notebook?”

Amos reached into his pocket without a word and handed the black book to Dahlia. He cradled his flowers and reached out for hers. She handed them off without glancing up from her newly minted obsession. She held it closed for a moment and felt the connection again. This time, she grabbed onto it. Graveyards were usually rife with the signal, but this was singular – emanating from the book. The connection was hazy. She lost it again as Amos’s voice broke through her attempt.

“She’s just over that hill.” The sun began to set and the bursts of color were echoed in the blooms they had carried to this spot.

Dahlia stood still and opened the book. It was overwhelming – a living, breathing memory. This man’s life encapsulated within the confines of a leather-bound ledger. He instructed her to turn to the page that had an envelope sticking out of the top. Dahlia carefully removed it and placed the book on the mossy floor. Inside was 100 one-hundred-dollar bills: ten thousand dollars. Dahlia looked at the envelope and looked back up at Amos. “We promised each other that we would never stop searching for life.” He pulled out a matching envelope from his other pocket – 100 one-hundred-dollar bills. Dahlia was speechless. At the same time, she failed to see what any of this had to do with her.

Amos handed the envelope to Dahlia as they crested the hill. “You found your connection last time when you stopped trying so hard.” Dahlia didn’t hear Amos’s words, or anything for that matter. A flourishing patch of Dahlias greeted them as the hill evened out. Dahlia was moved to tears by the beauty, the heavy silence. Every color imaginable mixed together and swaying ever so slightly to the beat of the earth. A narrow path led to a fountain at the center of the patch. Amos led and Dahlia followed, running her hands through the knee-high flowers. Amos placed both bouquets in the fountain and spread them out around the rim.

“I don’t know how to thank you for today.” Dahlia was wiping away tears as she handed Amos back his keepsake. “I can’t take your money, but I would love a copy of your art.”

Amos looked down and laughed the same laugh he had at the beginning of their journey – Dahlia wasn’t in on the joke this time. “Half of that money is yours, but we agreed it would go to whomever needed it most at the time.” Dahlia was, once again, at a loss. She pieced together the most coherent thought she could muster. “What do I do with twenty thousand dollars?”

“Well,” he hesitated for the first time since the beginning of their exchange at the flower shop, “I hear Morocco is lovely this time of year, at least that’s what you told me over tea.”