The Witch and the Gentleman Read Online Free PDF Page B

Bernie was just wrapping up a story.
    “ ...so I told him that I saw him living in Florida at the beach.”
    “ He must have liked that,” I said.
    “ He said he burns easily and has to do all he can to stay out of the sun.”
    “ But you saw him living at the beach,” I said, “in Florida?”
    “ Right. Working as a, you know, one of those smartly dressed young men who serve you drinks on the sand...”
    “ A cabana boy?” I laughed. Loudly. I might have even snorted. Some at The Whisper Lounge looked at us and frowned. On second thought, maybe coming to The Whisper Lounge, with its dark mahogany walls and high back booths, wasn’t a good idea.
    “ Right. A cabana boy. Serving drinks on the beach. Not a care in the world. Living in paradise.”
    “ What does he do now?” I asked, sipping from my drink, and enjoying the hell out of this conversation. Perhaps too much. Yes, I thought I enabled her. Did that make me a bad person?
    “ He works in radio. Has a nice voice. Sounded familiar, actually.”
    I nodded and tried not to smile. “Would you say he works his dream job now, maybe?”
    “Well, maybe,” said Bernie, shrugging her rounded shoulders. “But he’s obviously not happy. Why else did he call me?”
    “ True,” I said. “Why did he call you?”
    “ He said he had a question about his love life, wondering if he would ever find ‘the one.’”
    “ And you told him to quit his radio show and work as a cabana boy in Florida, a man who says he needs to stay out of the sun because he burns easily?”
    Bernie shrugged again and finished the rest of her mangorita. “What can I say, Allie?” She had her nickname for me, too. “Spirit works in mysterious ways.” She waved until she caught the server’s attention. “I’m only the messenger.”
    “You are something,” I said into my own drink. Luckily, she didn’t hear me.
    “ So, what’s new with you, Allie Cat?” she asked after placing another drink order with our server, this time requesting that the bartender be a little more generous with the booze.
    When the server was gone, I said, “I’m working with a client.”
    “A client? What kind of client?”
    “ I met him through the Hotline—”
    “ We don’t meet with clients through the Hotline, Al. You know that. It’s against the rules .” She stressed the word and laughed and hiccupped, and now I laughed, too. One thing was certain: Bernie didn’t hold her liquor well.
    “ I know,” I said, still laughing, “but he needed help. More help than I could give him over the phone.”
    “ You could get in trouble for that. I’m being serious. It’s frowned upon, taking clients away from the Hotline.”
    “ I’m not taking any money.”
    “ Still, they would rather he spend his money on the phone, with experienced psychics. No offense, Al.”
    “ None taken,” I said, and stifled a smile.
    Bernie truly thought that I wasn’t in her league. I was fairly new to the Psychic Hotline game, and she had been doing it for a number of years now.
    “Be that as it may,” I said, “he wanted to meet me to see if I could help him further.”
    “ You should have asked me to come along, Al. You’re new to all of this, you could have, you know, made things worse.”
    “ Luckily,” I said, “I don’t think I did.”
    “ Luckily,” she said, shaking her head in a sort of big-sisterly way. “You newbies think you have all the answers. You should listen to us old-timers.”
    “ You’re younger than me,” I said.
    She waved that off and accepted her new drink from the waitress. “You know what I mean. So, what did this guy need—wait, I know.”
    “You do?” I asked.
    “ Of course. Geez, Al...who do you think you’re talking to? It’s me, Bernice Jepson, Psychic to the Stars.”
    “ Only one star, Bernie,” I said, “and it was the neighbor on Desperate Housewives .”
    “ But he lived on Wisteria Lane. Wisteria Lane , Allie Cat. The most famous lane, like,