Spoiler Alert

9 - Starving

Marina and I had met at a bar a year ago, the kind where they served food in addition to the fizzy dizzy stuff. Both of us were underage, both of us were dressed to the elevens (me in a gingham shirt dress from the 50's, and she in a sleek track suit) and we were both starving--but starving for two very different reasons.

I usually wouldn't sit at a bar that already had a pretty girl attached to it. I wasn't the winning type. But it was three in the afternoon and there was no getting around it. I had to eat, and if that meant I had to scratch out the eyes of a skinny blonde to get to my meal ticket, so be it.

Look, I know how this sounds, I want to be a feminist as much as all the other roaring bra-burners, but these were desperate times. Times when I didn't have an insurance scam going on. The only choice was to hustle. The only choice was to charm some fella into buying me a meal and a drink. I would never touch the drink, as that made my powers (and my head) all hazy, but I would eat just half of the meal while listening to this dumb dude drone on about his stock portfolio, and save the other half for home only after giving him a fake number. It worked more often than not. 

But that day, the joint was sleepy, filled only with the dead-eyed bartender and another guy who actually looked dead, the way he was slumped on the table in the back corner. 

And . . . the blonde chick. Not an ideal situation, but I figured it was that awkward time between lunch and dinner and so I might as well sit wait a few hours for the corporate robots to start arriving. 

The girl sat, poised at the bar, pushing a full Devil's Tower of mashed potatoes around a plate, looking morose.

I ordered some complimentary water and stared for a minute, eying her plate and getting more and more annoyed by the minute. "You making a mosaic or something?" I finally muttered.

"Huh?" said the girl, turning distractedly toward me. 

Crap! I hadn't noticed her mascara-smudged eyes. She had been crying. I tried to take out the poison from my words. "Well, it's just that your food is getting cretaceous."

The girl slid the plate across the counter. "Here, take it."

It was by a heroic strength that I didn't gobble the potatoes, steak and steamed broccoli in one hiccup spasm of joy. Instead, I played it cool. "You're not eating this, which usually means something's eating you."

The girl nodded. "Boyfriend. He called me 'blubs.'"

I almost spit out my water, laughing. "Blubs?"

"As in blubber-butt. Then he got me a gym membership. Supposed to be a gift for our one year anniversary."

I laughed, but I could tell she did not think it was funny.

"Sorry," I said. "It's just that, you weigh about a hundred pounds."

She sighed. "Yeah, but my boyfriend is a triathlete and he is at, like, four percent body fat."

"Mostly in his head?" I said.

The girl laughed. "Could be. I'm Marina, by the way." She extended her hand. I took it.

"Lydia," I said, genuinely surprised that I hadn't used any of my fake names. "Is that why you aren't eating? Because this pie hole of a man sucks at girl-speak?"

Lydia nodded. "To tell you the truth, I haven't eaten much since we started dating." She reached into her bag and pulled out a driver's license and handed it over. Though the ID was obviously fake, like mine was, the picture showed a bright-eyed girl of normal weight. 

I held up the picture to compare with the real thing--which looked skeletal. I handed the ID back. "So why buy this big meal if you're in starvation mode?" 

She shrugged. "Dunno. A game of chicken? Thing is, I love food more than anything."

I slid the plate back. "Do you even know how utterly common love is? Common as dirt. And that's where you'll be if you keep this up. The world is literally full problem boys and you pick one that wants you to be the little matchstick girl? I don't think so. No guy is worth torturing yourself over. Let's both take a bite at the same time, what do you say? Girl power, and all?"

Marina smiled. It was as if she had been sitting there all day, waiting for permission. "Okay, but you too. One, two, go!"

I snatched a fine bit of broccoli while she went for the potatoes. We both savored them, licking the buttery remains from our lips.

"So, you're skipping school today, too, huh?" Marina said.

I blushed a bit. Did I not look twenty-one? "No way, I'm too busy with my job."

"And what job is this?" she asked, taking another bite of potato.

"Reading people's deaths, becoming their best friends and then bilking the insurance company for cash after they're gone."

I don't know why I spit it out so abruptly--and truthfully--maybe it was because she had shared something shameful and embarrassing about herself and I felt like reciprocating. Maybe it was just that I was tired of lying to everyone. I wanted, just this once, to have someone know me as I really was. Of course, she would laugh it off. That's what I expected anyway.

But I was wrong.

Marina's eyes went wide. For a moment she just chewed. "You're serious?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

Another long silence. Finally, she whispered, "Read mine."

"What? No way."

"Why not?" 

"Um, because you're nice, and I'm not scamming you, and . . . that information will seriously screw with your head."

"What if I promise that I will use the information for good?" she pleaded. 

"Not likely. I can't even use it for good, and I'm the one with the power!"

She chewed and seemed to think a moment. "Alright, then I'll trade you for it."

"Yeah, what do you have?"

At that moment, the bartender began to wipe the bar in front of us, silently listening in. We chewed and waited for him to pass.

"I have heard of people like you. There are more. Lots more. I can tell you about them."

I almost choked. "Wait, what? You're serious?"

"Dead serious," she said. We both chuckled half-heartedly at the dumb pun, then I leaned back, sizing her up. I had never read someone and then actually told them what I saw. What if that prevented their death? Would I blow up the universe or worse, loose my power? Was there some sort of cosmic law I was about to break?

But if she was telling the truth--if there were others out there like me--that would change everything.

"Deal," I said, "Under one circumstance."

"What?"

"You have to accept what I tell you. No trying to change it."

She smiled. "Of course."

She had agreed far too quickly. I couldn't quite tell if she was pulling my leg. But, what the hell.

I placed my hand on her arm and closed my eyes.