Naomi’s expression went from warm to chill. “My Tuvali friends would argue the reasonableness of that skepticism. They live their lives surrounded by the mystical—as did my ancestors.”
That observation ended the conversation. Terri Mendez swept her cousin away with nervous glances at Ken, while Lissa, hot-faced, made her way to the buffet table.
“You probably think I’m going nuts,” she murmured to Ken over hors d’oeuvres.
“No.”
“It’s just a vivid imagination coupled with exhaustion.”
“Is that what Dr. Van Owen thought it was? Her office left a message for you at home, asking if you wanted to make another appointment. What’s this all about, Lissa? Is it the sleepwalking?”
“That and some other stuff.” She told him then, about the weird bouts of déjà vu that seemed to occur with increasing regularity. “I’m thinking someone is going to say something and in the next second, the words pop out of their mouths.”
“Or not, as the case may be?” He was looking into his punch glass, not at her face.
“What?”
“You’ve always accused me of saying aloud what I was only thinking. But lately, it seems to happen all the time.” She stared at him, trying to peek beneath the veil of caution that covered his face. “Always? I’ve always done that?”
He nodded, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “When we met, I thought it was cute. Special, like we were on the same wavelength. I’ve always liked it. Sometimes I know what you’re thinking, too. Proximity effect, I suppose.”
“Ken, that’s absurd. It’s irrational and it’s unscientific.”
He shrugged. “So’s human attraction. I’m not going to knock it, though. It brought a balding, nerdy guy together with a hot young journalism major. I should argue?”
He was trying to jolly her. She appreciated and resented it simultaneously. “How can you joke about it? How can you… court such irrational beliefs?”
“What beliefs, Lissa? They’re not beliefs, they’re observations.”
Lissa put her glass down before her shaking hands could spill its contents. “Maybe I’m going crazy.”
“Nonsense. What did Dr. Van Owen say?”
“She was leaning toward post traumatic stress disorder, brought on by childhood trauma, I’m pretty sure.”
“Your father’s death? The plane crash?”
Bingo. “I… I didn’t tell her about that.”
“Why ever not?”
“Just being perverse, I guess. And private. She said my dreams sounded to her like a—quote: classic out-of-body experience—unquote. She wanted to refer me to—you’re not going to believe this—your friend, Dr. Genoa.”
“You could do worse. Maybe you should see her.”
“Absolutely not. The woman stands for everything I despise—irrationality, pseudo-science, mysticism.”
“Why do you despise it?”
She stared at him. “How can you ask that? I thought we were involved in the same crusade.”
He set down his punch. “Do you hear yourself, Lissa? ‘Despise,’ ‘crusade.’ Those are words from a zealot’s vocabulary. I’m not sure they should be in a skeptic’s.”
“What words do you recommend I replace them with?”
“ ‘Doubt,’ maybe. ‘Question.’ And I’ve always felt we were involved in more of a quest than a crusade. A search for reality, but a search in which we try not to indulge fond, superstitious fantasies about the outcome.”
“I don’t do that,” Lissa denied. “I’m not superstitious and I don’t indulge in fantasy.”
“You don’t? You had no foregone conclusions about what your NDE investigation would reveal? You had no prejudice about the veracity of Julie Pascale’s experience?”
She could not swear to that, and knew it, but attempted to anyway. “No. I had no preconceptions about Julie Pascale. I didn’t label her a fraud. She might have been the victim of hallucinations, or delusion; she might have experienced the perfectly explainable effects of what happens when a brain shuts down for forty-five minutes then… reboots. Or she might have been dreaming.”
“Like you’ve been doing?”
“I… I suppose.”
“But she couldn’t really have passed into the next world and returned.”
“She was on a gurney in ER.”
“Don’t be obtuse. ‘Her,’ meaning her soul or spirit or whatever you want to call it. You don’t believe a spiritual state after death is a possibility, hence you conclude, at the outset, that her story is false.”
“Yes.”
“That’s prejudice, Lissa. You don’t see her story as evidence for a possible reality that we simply haven’t plumbed yet. You see it as a lie to be debunked. Prejudice.”
“Rationality.”
“Bull shit.”
She did not sleep well. The photographs returned to haunt her and came to vivid, waking life. At some point, she began to have another of the flotation dreams, but rode it only as far as the ridgepole before forcing the dream to suck her out of the ether and back to bed.
Sunday night was no better. Monday morning she called Petra Genoa’s office.
“May I ask what this is in regard to?” asked the young man who answered her call.
“I, ah, it has to do with a case Dr. Genoa was involved in some years ago. A young woman named Julie Pascale had a near-death experience. Dr. Genoa was her therapist. Julie recommended I interview Dr. Genoa as part of my investigation.”
Genoa surprised her by seeing her that afternoon. She surprised her further by being an attractive young woman in a dashiki suit and musically trimmed dreadlocks. The suit was topped with an open white lab coat.
“Are you a medical doctor too?” Lissa asked, shaking the other woman’s strong, tapered hand. (Gold fingernails.)
“Oh, no. They just like their professors to look professorial. Since my taste in attire runs to the, ah, individual, they’ve asked that I retain the coat.” She tilted her pocket name plate up and glanced at it. “Well, at least I can’t forget my own name.”
Seated in Professor Genoa’s sunny office, Lissa was caught up in the anticipatory tingle of journalistic nerves. She lived for that sensation. It peaked as she slipped her notebook into Record Audio mode and readied her first question. If there was a heaven, Lissa thought, fleetingiy, it was this moment—perpetual interview.
LS: How clear are your memories of the events surrounding Julie Pascale’s near-drowning?
PG: Crystal clear.
LS: This was eight years ago. I have trouble recalling what happened eight days ago.
PG: This was an event that wrought major changes in my life. I’m not likely to forget it.
LS: Were you on duty when Julie Pascale was brought in?
PG: I was just coming off duty. I got waylaid in the hall and asked if I could counsel the family of a drowning victim. I was told they were still trying to revive the girl but that her chances were slim. I got to the Emergency Room just as Dr. Mead pronounced Julie dead.
LS: Then you overheard the altercation between Drs. Mead and Harris?
PG: Yes.
LS: And how close was Julie Pascale’s recollection of the confrontation?
PG: Nearly perfect. You said you interviewed Dr. Harris; I’m sure he told you as much.
LS: Why is it necessary to attribute that to a supernatural cause? Couldn’t Julie have overheard, say, a couple of nurses or interns discussing the events in ER as she was coming around in ICU?
PG: Ms. Shaw, we’ve all been party to conversations that attempted to describe other conversations. How often is the format of such a dialogue “he said-she said” interspersed with verbatim quotes? One thing Julie Pascale demonstrably possesses is an eidetic memory. I have to at least entertain the idea that she heard an actual conversation, saw facial expressions, observed actions no second-hand conversation would have detailed, even if it had been carried on within her hearing.