Elaine Maguire O’Connor
Snapped
Sage said I’m after messin’ everything up and that there’s rumours going round that the dead husband is somehow my fault. Fuck off yeh old crone, I says to her, and she shrunk down ‘cause she’s not used to me answering back like that. Sage doesn’t like to be reminded of her age either, gettin’ old ‘round here is a worse sin than killing your husband. She’s fifty-seven and her name isn’t even Sage – it’s Ruth – seen it on her driving license when I was rifling through her handbag looking for cash that time she shortchanged me on my tips. A right stingy bitch when she wants to be.
They’re sayin’ it was me who caused that woman – Taylor Timmins – to lose sight of her senses and there’s whispers of witchcraft even. Witchcraft? I says to Sage, laughing. But at the same time, the nerves are beginning to unravel. I can feel the worry tingling on my skin and I’m thinking is it time for a career change. I seen a production of The Crucible one time back home in the community centre, so I know what these Yanks are like when they take agin you. Mad hoors altogether.
Some cheek of Sage blaming me when it was her who got me set up in in this business when I first came out here to California three months ago, me with no papers. A fat auld Mexican offered me work in his motel, said I could move in there too, but I knew he was undressing me with his squinty eyes, so I declined his offer and tried a few of the restaurants down the beach instead. We’re not hiring servers right now, some tanned and toned ken doll told me, but they could do with a dishwasher he said, to which I told him to get fucked. Sage was walking by and heard the exchange and said I could work with her. I had the gift, she said, she could tell by just looking at me. I didn’t argue. It’s your teeth, she told me later, they’d scare the customers off – that’s why he wouldn’t hire you in the restaurant.
Out here they all have the Turkey teeth only they don’t go to Turkey to get them done; they go to an orthodontist in Newport Beach who charges ‘bout ten times the price. Looks like they have a mouthful of Tic Tacs but that’s all the style along with the ironed-out foreheads and skinny little, hairless bodies. None of this stops their husbands cheating all the same, and that’s why they’re neurotic and wanting me to tell them that it’s not true and that the future looks rosy. Never works out like that though.
The first time I did an aura reading I felt pure thick and was full sure the woman would either laugh out loud or demand her money back, but she seemed happy enough and gave me a thirty-dollar tip. Sage sits up front, makes the appointments and takes the money. I’m out back draped in a stupid looking velvet shawl, surrounded by candles and crystals telling these rich bitches they’re got white auras– spiritually pure and filled with peace and love –which is what Sage taught me to say. You have to tell them what they want to hear. One time I got pure pissed off with this stuck-up bint from Dana Point. She had big hair and a snotty attitude, so I insisted her aura was brown, which is just about the worst colour yeh can have – sure nobody wants the aura of shite on them. She wasn’t happy one bit and complained that I was aggressive and demanded a refund. Eventually Sage talked her out of it with the promise to do an aura cleanse on the house and I bleached yer wan’s aura until it was pure and white, just the way she wanted. Sage gave me a sharp smack across the face and said to stick to the script.
There’s no shortage of psychics, clairvoyants or fortune tellers out here but my accent gives me the edge. There’s no shortage of gullible eejits with too much money either. I play up the paddywhackery, throw in the odd words as Gaeilge, a load of auld babble mostly, but sure they don’t know that. Pure ignorant a lot of these women are, think the Irish live in mud huts and have no electricity but for some reason they think this enhances my mystic abilities, so I don’t bother correcting them. The work’s mostly easy, gazing into the distance like I can see the future and the truth is I can. Divorce, Valium and facelifts is what’s ahead of them though I don’t tell them any of that.
Were you born with the gift, they ask, and I says yes, though if that was true wouldn’t I have seen what a useless prick Skinner was and I wouldn’t be halfway across the world selling hope and lies and chakra gemstones, three for two, to a crowd of rich bitches. He was a gorgeous lookin’ man to be fair, you wouldn’t think a person with a face that kind could do the things he did to me.
I married him when I was twenty-one and he was the meanest man you’d ever meet. Not just with money, though he did keep a ledger of everything I spent – even the doctor’s bill for my cracked ribs- but tight as fuck with his affection, measuring it out like he did them little packets of white powder he sold to young lads in the jacks of Nolan’s bar on Mainstreet. Then he cheated on me with Sandra Martin and something in me snapped. Seen a video on his phone, Sandra in a hot pink bandage dress and thick frosted lip-gloss, so shiny she looked like she’d been dipped in lacquer. It had taken a few seconds for me to realise what Sandra’s sticky lips were wrapped around and why Skinner’s voice, low and urgent, was whispering good girl in the background.
Afterwards I got the train up to Dublin and flew to New York. I was checked into a shitty hostel near Time Square before anyone back home noticed I’d even gone. The August humidity was brutal and thick, syrupy air forced down on my lungs, sweat beading and pooling between my tits. Place was full of Irish. On my second night there I got chatting to a lad from Kildagan who quizzed me on what school I went to, and didn’t I look quare familiar and maybe I was in the Gaeltacht with him in 2005? Coláiste Lurgan. No, I said and made a quick exit. Next day I caught one of them Greyhound busses and made my way out here to California. There’s no Irish in this town, and the only so-called Irish bar serves green wine and has a picture of the 1966 World Cup winners on the wall, so I know I won’t be running into anyone from the Gaeltacht there.
Had been working here with Sage a few months when Taylor Timmons, yer wan they say killed her husband, came into me. I did a quick google search and scanned the socials for any information I could use before I saw her. Likes her wine. Loves the Instagram too so she does – full of affirmations and pictures of herself doing yoga poses at the beach and #PositiveEnergy; #LoveAndLight #Loveatfirstsip. Doubt she’ll be putting the mugshot up there though. It was printed in the paper, and she looked fierce well in fairness to her, not a wrinkle or pore visible, roots done n’all.
Sage had taken the appointment and soon as Taylor came in, I could tell she was lookin’ down her little plastic nose at me. Do you mind washing your hands, she said, and I swallowed down the shame before it turned to anger. Thought I was dirty just ‘cause I’m not primped and primed like a prize cow the way she is. Right, I said, and I washed them, and then took one of her perfectly manicured paws and circled my chipped and bitten fingernail around her palm. Then I winced. What?, she asked. I’d say she woulda been furrowing her brow only she can’t move her forehead with all the stuff she injects into it. Is there something wrong? Again, I made a pained expression and shook my head. Tell me, she said.
I told her that I saw trouble in her future. That I could see a young woman who would be the source of her torment. Her eyes darkened black and I could almost see the rage bubbling up inside of her. Tell me more, she insisted, voice even and steady. I’m seeing a man with the girl, a Mick, Michael? Her husband’s name is Mike, I saw it on her Instagram. Big horse of a lad, drives a flash car with a customised reg plate that reads GR8MKE. I fucking knew it, she roared. They must be stopped, I said, getting real into it. Held my hands up like I was pushing back some dark force, whooping and hollering. Awful gullible, she was. Truth is, I was enjoying seeing the uppity bitch get all riled up like that. Uachtar Reoite, I screamed out in a sort of climax to my little act. Then I told her I could see Mike with a baby, and I’d say that’s what snapped her cause she stood up, took out her wallet and threw a handful of fifties at me and stormed out of there.
She killed him with a Glock-19, two shots, close range, as he stepped out of his Lexus RX350 outside their home on Orange Drive. Allegedly killed him; innocent until proven guilty and all that. Though they found her with the gun in her hand, standing over the body screaming that nobody cheated on her and got away with it, so I’d say now there’s not much doubt. I was right about the affair too – some young wan he worked with – the usual story. The bit about the baby wasn’t true, mind.
Business has dried up now and they’re giving me a wide berth around the town. People are talkin’ ‘bout my powers and how I drove Taylor Timmins to do what she did, wasn’t she full of positivity and living a joyful life until she came to see me? Blame the blow-in with the crooked teeth and the funny accent. They look out for their own ‘round here but I won’t let them Lizzie Proctor me. Sage’s refusing to pay the wages she owes me on account of me ruining her business when she knows full well it’s me who is the business– amn’t I the one they think has the gift?
There’s nothing they can do me for out here- tellin’ some snooty lush a few home truths isn’t a crime- but now I’m worried they’ll start digging and what they’ll find won’t do me any favours. Sage’s not the only one with a fake name but at the same time, I’m not taking any chances. Did a google search of myself last night for the first time since I left home. An article lamenting the death of poor Skinner Flynn, poisoned by his crazy craythur of a wife, popped up. An awful coincidence that Taylor went and done the same thing but sure you can only push a woman so far before she snaps. Some strange karma that they’re blaming me for big Mike’s death all the same.
The Greyhound to Arizona smells like piss and the dry heat causes my lips to chap and eyes to itch. But I’ve got experience now and I’ve also got the content of Ruth’s wallet in my bag so I’m moving on. Just need to keep the temper in check and tell them what they want to hear.
Elaine Maguire O’Connor
Elaine Maguire O’Connor is a writer of fiction and non-fiction from Dublin. Her short fiction has been published by literary journals including Sans Press and Frazzled Lit and her novel, Time To Leave, has been longlisted for both the Marlow and Christie 2024 Novel Prize and the 2025 Exeter Novel Prize. Her non-fiction work focuses on the intersection of law and the arts.