your age. We do have a few older operatives who volunteered their unique services for America. By and large, though, our program is new, which makes it exciting. We haven’t yet gotten regulated to death.” Her gaze rakes across me. “I’ve seen all kinds of psychics, but I’ve never met anyone with an ability quite like yours.”
My touch—she means my touch. I cement my hands to my sides. “Did you also … ‘volunteer your services’?” I ask, hoping to shift attention away from me. She looks like the ‘Ivy League Spooks’ Winnie’s warned me about. They come from New England money and New England colleges—they have wealth coded into their DNA as surely as psychic powers are coded in mine. They created the Central Intelligence Agency seventeen years ago, after World War II, to put their college educations to good use. I start fabricating a backstory for Cindy. Finishing school and horseback-riding lessons and dinner parties with the Kennedys. College degree, a rare thing for women in America, I hear. Clapboard beach homes on—what did Winnie say again?—Martha’s Vineyard. The Hamptons.
Cindy smiles again—it’s like a camera flash going off—and herds me into an elevator. “They found me telling fortunes in a New Orleans brothel.”
“Brothel,” I echo. I’m not sure if Winnie and I went over this word, but I think it has something to do with soup.
“A whorehouse,” she says, not missing a beat. “I had the mystical voodoo priestess shtick down pat. Good money, too, until I told the wrong mob boss he was going to die.” The elevator doors slide open. “Our office is right this way.”
I clamp my dangling jaw shut. So much for Ivy League Spook. I watch Cindy’s measured, flawless stride down the corridor, looking for any hint of whatever sort of girl deals with prostitutes and mob bosses, but it’s all 18 karat–plated confidence and command. I admire her for the transformation she must have undergone, but her seemingly effortless ability to suppress her past also tightens a fear in me, like a clock’s spring winding up.
Our “office” looks more like the Bali beatnik jazz lounge Valentin and I visited last week than the sober black leather and wood-paneled affair I’d anticipated. Fringed velvet curtains sweep down from the drop ceiling, tucked under the asbestos tiles to anchor them. They turn the large room into a claustrophobic labyrinth. All the fluorescent lighting tracks have been draped with thin sheets of silk in various colors, casting kaleidoscope swirls around the den.
“Ladies! Our new friend is here!” Cindy flutters toward a marble-topped bar and pours herself a glass of something amber and reeking of smoke.
One of the curtains billows as something moves behind it; a hand wraps around it from behind and shoves it back. One girl steps forward, short and lithe, her eyes contracting as she studies me. “I’m Donna. Donna Willoughsby,” she says. “Boy, have we been waiting for you.”
Donna’s glossy blond hair sweeps into a ponytail that forms a perfect inverted question mark. Her skin looks brushed with powdered sunlight; her smile could jam radio frequencies—she looks exactly like I imagine the Beach Boys’ “Surfer Girl,” though instead of a scandalous bikini, she wears a fluffy turquoise skirt and creamy blouse, with a faint rose cardigan draped demurely over her shoulders.
“It is nice to meet you. I’m Yulia.” My right hand twitches at my side. Should I move in to shake? I lurch forward, but then realize I look like a shambling beast from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and decide against it.
“ Dobro pozhalovat ,” Donna tells me, in a Russian accent that’s not flawless, but still cheerful. “I understand you’ve been working with Sergeant Davis?”
“She’s the best,” I say. “Anything I … misspeak? Is entirely my own fault.”
Donna takes my arm in hers, like I’m her oldest, dearest confidant. “She’s good. But she
My touch—she means my touch. I cement my hands to my sides. “Did you also … ‘volunteer your services’?” I ask, hoping to shift attention away from me. She looks like the ‘Ivy League Spooks’ Winnie’s warned me about. They come from New England money and New England colleges—they have wealth coded into their DNA as surely as psychic powers are coded in mine. They created the Central Intelligence Agency seventeen years ago, after World War II, to put their college educations to good use. I start fabricating a backstory for Cindy. Finishing school and horseback-riding lessons and dinner parties with the Kennedys. College degree, a rare thing for women in America, I hear. Clapboard beach homes on—what did Winnie say again?—Martha’s Vineyard. The Hamptons.
Cindy smiles again—it’s like a camera flash going off—and herds me into an elevator. “They found me telling fortunes in a New Orleans brothel.”
“Brothel,” I echo. I’m not sure if Winnie and I went over this word, but I think it has something to do with soup.
“A whorehouse,” she says, not missing a beat. “I had the mystical voodoo priestess shtick down pat. Good money, too, until I told the wrong mob boss he was going to die.” The elevator doors slide open. “Our office is right this way.”
I clamp my dangling jaw shut. So much for Ivy League Spook. I watch Cindy’s measured, flawless stride down the corridor, looking for any hint of whatever sort of girl deals with prostitutes and mob bosses, but it’s all 18 karat–plated confidence and command. I admire her for the transformation she must have undergone, but her seemingly effortless ability to suppress her past also tightens a fear in me, like a clock’s spring winding up.
Our “office” looks more like the Bali beatnik jazz lounge Valentin and I visited last week than the sober black leather and wood-paneled affair I’d anticipated. Fringed velvet curtains sweep down from the drop ceiling, tucked under the asbestos tiles to anchor them. They turn the large room into a claustrophobic labyrinth. All the fluorescent lighting tracks have been draped with thin sheets of silk in various colors, casting kaleidoscope swirls around the den.
“Ladies! Our new friend is here!” Cindy flutters toward a marble-topped bar and pours herself a glass of something amber and reeking of smoke.
One of the curtains billows as something moves behind it; a hand wraps around it from behind and shoves it back. One girl steps forward, short and lithe, her eyes contracting as she studies me. “I’m Donna. Donna Willoughsby,” she says. “Boy, have we been waiting for you.”
Donna’s glossy blond hair sweeps into a ponytail that forms a perfect inverted question mark. Her skin looks brushed with powdered sunlight; her smile could jam radio frequencies—she looks exactly like I imagine the Beach Boys’ “Surfer Girl,” though instead of a scandalous bikini, she wears a fluffy turquoise skirt and creamy blouse, with a faint rose cardigan draped demurely over her shoulders.
“It is nice to meet you. I’m Yulia.” My right hand twitches at my side. Should I move in to shake? I lurch forward, but then realize I look like a shambling beast from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and decide against it.
“ Dobro pozhalovat ,” Donna tells me, in a Russian accent that’s not flawless, but still cheerful. “I understand you’ve been working with Sergeant Davis?”
“She’s the best,” I say. “Anything I … misspeak? Is entirely my own fault.”
Donna takes my arm in hers, like I’m her oldest, dearest confidant. “She’s good. But she
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