The Quack Job [1x1]

Lilly took the wipe, though her hands were slightly trembling. The waitress had shaken her up more than she was willing to admit. That was probably what she'd been meaning to do, which was just plain cruel. She was totally silent as she cleaned off the thick mask of makeup, even for a few seconds after Jesse offered to listen. Eventually, she shook her head. He'd just tell her what she already knew; that the girl was just trying to trick her. So she shook her head stiffly. "No," she said. "Just...just a difficult session," she lied, her voice soft


Olive blinked a few times, face full of honest shock. "Hey man, what're you even talking about? I can't...I can't even think of a time when I've not believed you off the top of my head!" She pointed out. She watched Sydney violently rush the car into movement, and gently reached across and put a hand on her elbow. "Dude, chill. You'll crash if you're that crazy with it."
 
Jesse looked on and after a moment, he nodded, wiping at his own face with a wipe. "Chinese for dinner?" He suggested, assuming they would eat together, like usual. He was pretty sure that this had been more than a "difficult" session. He had seen Lilly have difficult sessions, but she clearly didn't want to talk about it and he wasn't going to push.

Right now.

....
Sydney took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. She eased her foot off the gas and loosened her grip on the steering wheel. "You're right. Sorry." She shook her head a little. "I don't know what I expected, but I had really hoped that she was the real thing." How nice it would have been to have someone else understand how odd she sometimes felt. Her grip tightened and loosened as she tried to organize her thoughts. "I'm going to tell you something and it's going to seem ridiculous, but please try and keep an open mind, okay?"

She took another deep breath. If she hadn't been driving, she would have closed her eyes for a brief moment of peace. "I am a psychic. That woman is a fraud, there's no doubt about it. But... Olive, I am a psychic."
 
Lilly thought about the question. '...you're not going to be able to keep anything down for a few days...' The warning echoed in her head. Maybe it would be safer to cook? But neither of them were the strongest chefs, so what if the cooking was what was going to make her sick? Was there any way to avoid it

She gave the tiniest shake of her head. She had to stop thinking like that! The girl was surely just trying to freak her out. Her jaw set, she nodded. "Yeah, that would be nice."


Olive carefully pulled her hand back, as if the second she moved Sydney was going to slam her foot back down on the pedal. "She's just a scammer. I know you were sorta hopeful about her, but that's just the way the world is." She shrugged. She leant into the door, turning her head to look at Sydney. She smiled. "Hey man, don't worry about it. Hit me with your best shot."

When the truth actually came it out, she froze. What. The. Hell.

That was psychotic. There was no way that Sydney was a psychic. Olive had already had enough experiences - read, one - with psychics to know that they weren't legit. "Hey...don't hate me for this dude, but...that sounds a bit crazy, you know?" She forced a bit of a chuckle at the end, nervously glancing between Sydney and the windscreen.
 
He was dying to know what had happened in that meeting of hers, but Jesse kept quiet and instead went about closing up for the night and rescheduling the later appointments. Soon enough their take out had arrived and Jesse, starving, began chowing down and talking a lot of silly nonsense trying to get Lilly to smile.

...
"I know, I know it does." She chuckled a little, though it lacked any real mirth. "I've never told anyone, though I think my parents suspected. I always had a knack for when someone important was going to call and when someone was going to drop by unexpectedly. Sydney glanced at her friend out of the corner of her eye. "But it's true. It's not vague 'you'll have great fortune this year' bullshit and it's not something I can control or force. When I was in there, the so-called Psychic asked me to take her hands. When I did, I saw me storming out and throwing those wipes on the ground. I saw her her, without her costume and make-up by the way, puking her guts out--my guess would be food poisoning but who knows. She was talking to someone else saying that I knew she was a fake and that she'd be ill. I get very specific images sometimes and more often than not, they come true."
 
As soon as the building was locked up, Lilly retreated to her bedroom. She jumped into the shower, violently scrubbing her skin until it turned lobster-pink under the hot water. She was scared, intimidated, maybe a little bit angry. What frightened her the most was the chance that the woman somehow knew that she wasn't genuine. If she had proof, she could tell everyone.

She switched the water off and stepped out. She wrapped her baby blue towel around herself, breathing in the comforting clean smell of detergent. The room was full of steam, so she walked to the window and opened it a crack. The cold wind hit her in the face, shaking her slightly from her fear. What kind of proof could the waitress really have? She and Jesse were very careful about covering their tracks. There was no way to prove they were faking it, maybe only things to suggest it, and that could be debunked. She took a deep breath, the hot steam filling her lungs and warming her up from the inside. Surely, things were going to be alright.

She went downstairs with her soaking hair pleated down her back, and her housecoat over her body. With anyone else, she would have been uncomfortable, but Jesse was her best friend. There was no such thing as shame in a friendship built mostly over scamming people.

She settled down at the dinner table with her sweet and sour chicken. She ate it carefully, dancing around things that didn't look quite right. After realising that the food tasted pretty fine, she relaxed, willing herself to joke around with Jesse and laugh with him. The scare had been just that; a scare, nothing more.

---
Olive stared at Sydney, trying to force her brain to believe her friend. It wasn't working. She didn't understand. Anyone who claimed to be a psychic was a cut and dry liar, at least, that's the rule Olive had put down after her own incident. Her rule was backed up by hundreds of cases of scammers, and all the videos on YouTube: 'Dr. Phil Embarrasses Fake "Psychic" on National Television', '10 Psychic Sally's Best Fails and Mistakes', and 'Ultimate psychics / mediums exposed: fakes, frauds and fails'. Really, everything pointed to there being no such thing as psychics. But here Sydney sat, telling her that that was what she was. Olive couldn't think of anything that her fellow waitress would have to gain.

She took a deep breath. She wasn't going to believe it right away. That'd already gotten her in a bad position. "Can you prove it?" She prompted gently.
 
Jesse was worried about this friend, but he gave her the space she needed to decompress from her psychic persona to the person she hid underneath. By the time she came back downstairs, their food had been delivered, and he was busy setting up the plates. "Dinner is served," he said with a flourish and a bow, smiling at Lilly.

He'd wanted to get her to crack a smile, but she barely even bothered, still tense from her last session. He sighed and took his seat, observing her, noting that as she began to eat, she relaxed. Maybe she'd just been hangry. "Want my eggroll?" He offered, trying to do anything to help. He was relieved when his best friend started to smile.

---

Sydney shrugged a shoulder, "I don't know. Maybe not right this second, but I'm sure I could." She considered it, "I could start sharing my visions with you and let you come to whatever conclusion. Look, you don't have to believe me. I probably wouldn't believe me if I were in your shoes, but that's the truth." She relaxed her grip on the wheel, beginning to charge normally. "More importantly, what are we going to do about her?"
 
Lilly looked up, her eyes falling on the offered egg roll. She remembered the waitress's warning, very clearly in fact, but surely Jesse wouldn't give her anything he might have thought would make her ill? Besides, she really liked egg rolls...

She smiled. "Yes, please. Thank you," she said, her fork moving across the table and piercing the deep fried food. She moved it straight from the plate to her mouth. It tasted great; she couldn't notice anything wrong about it. She continued on with her own food, eventually finishing everything on her plate. "That was nice," she said, running a hand over her stomach. "I'll do the washing. You go set up the TV?" The Bachelor was in half an hour or so, and Lilly was very dedicated to her reality TV.

---
Olive was going to keep quiet for a little while, to let what Sydney was saying roll over in her head, when the other waitress said something that sounded pretty appealing to her. "What, about the faker?" She asked. She laughed. "There's nothing we can do, the whole town is brainwashed. Even if we got proof, everyone would just brush it off, or whatever. Believe me, I tried to tell people after my deal. Everyone just said I was bitter."
 
Jesse happily munched on his food, only slightly missing the eggroll he'd so graciously given away. They talked and they laughed. "Sure!" He was eager not to have to do the dishes while he got the TV set up. He had the better end of the bargain, in his mind, and so he hurried to the living room, getting the TV on, finding the pillows and blankets they usually piled on and curled under, respectively. He put the remote in reach to where Lilly usually sat and then plopped himself down, switching the television to the right channel.

---
"Well, maybe there are other people who feel the same and haven't spoken up because the town is brainwashed. I'm sure if everyone were faced with proof that she's a fake, then they'd have to face the belief." She could always do accurate predictions, but as it wasn't an exact science like Lilly made it out to be. She giggled at the idea of opening a competiting shop where it was completely normal, none of that aesthetic that the fraud had, and charging only if she had a prediction worth charging for. They'd be out of business in a week.

"But we can't just let her keep doing this, getting rich off of people who honestly believe she's telling them the truth."
 
Back
Top