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Jessie opened the magazine to the article on Divas, her eyes immediately drawn to Taylor Andrews’s crystal blue eyes on the page. She devoured the article on Ms. Andrews. It highlighted her career and discussed her hobbies and pastimes. Apparently, Taylor Andrews enjoyed skiing, gardening, golf and reading. She admitted a fascination with history and currently was reading Tituba—Reluctant Witch of Salem, about the Salem witchcraft trials.
In that moment, Jessie wondered if her dream was about Salem.
As Jessie drove to the post office the following morning, she listened to Karmic Debt. She couldn’t get Taylor Andrews off her mind.
She was listening to the third song of the CD when she noticed a sensation of fullness in her chest. It wasn’t objectionable, or painful. Jessie realized she was lost in Taylor Andrews’s voice. Don’t listen to the words, she told herself. Listen to the voice; listen to the person. With this thought, the fullness increased and warmth formed in her heart. Jessie could feel her face warm, and the tingling from her own energy surrounding her face. This startled her and she was having difficulty concentrating on her driving. When she saw that she was passing a park she took the entrance and parked away from other cars, under the trees.
Jessie opened the car windows, turned off the ignition but left the CD playing. Her attention to her physical needs had caused the sensation in her chest to stop. She closed her eyes and concentrated on Taylor Andrews’s voice. It wasn’t long before the fullness and warmth returned. Then there was a feeling of connection. She couldn’t explain it any other way, except, somehow she felt connected to the singer through her heart.
Since Jessie had met Ellen, Ellen had tried to enlighten her about metaphysics. She had dragged Jessie to classes, given her audiotapes and books to read. She learned about energy vortexes in the body and as she experienced the sensation she wondered if she was feeling her heart chakra open. The more important questions in Jessie’s analytical mind were, Why? and What does this mean?
Back at her house that evening, Jessie worked on Deceptions. At ten o’clock, she got on the Internet and as she typed in www.taylorandrews.com, she thought about the singer and immediately experienced warmth in her heart. Now why did that happen? She wondered.
Jessie scanned the singer’s website searching for answers to her connection to Taylor. On the “About Taylor” page she learned the singer grew up in Connecticut. She was the middle child of a lower-middle-class family; her parents divorced when she was in junior high school. Based on Taylor’s graduation date, Jessie placed her about eight years younger than herself. She had been in the Los Angeles area since college graduation. Kurk Warner, the movie star, and Taylor had been seeing each other for five years, with rumors of marriage plans.
It was after midnight and Jessie debated whether to read the last section of the website, “Newsworthy Events.” She hesitated; then clicked the icon, revealing three articles. The first was “Taylor Changes Management.” Jessie followed the hyperlink, but wasn’t prepared for what she saw.
“Oh my God,” Jessie whispered. She looked at a picture of a man escorting Taylor Andrews at some event. Then read the caption below the picture aloud, “Taylor Andrews and her new personal manager, Mark Rutledge, arrive at MTV Music Awards.”
As she looked at the picture of Mark, she remembered.
Mark Rutledge had just finished setting the dinner table in their tiny apartment. He lit the candles then returned to the oven to check on the steak. He was determined to make this evening special.
“Dinner in five minutes,” he called into the living area.
Jessie lifted her head from her studies. She pushed her long hair away from her eyes. “What’s for dinner?”
“I told you, it’s a surprise.” Mark grinned revealing his perfect teeth and charming smile. He walked up behind Jessie, his tall and slim frame towering over her. Mark had run track through undergraduate school; his body remained slim yet muscular. Gently, he placed his hands on Jessie’s tense shoulders and started to massage them.
“Hmm, forget dinner,” she said.
Mark leaned over and gently kissed her neck. “This is a preview of dessert,” he whispered. “But you need to have the main course first. Why don’t you get ready for dinner?”
Jessie pulled away from her desk and stood in front of Mark. “Okay,” she agreed. She gently kissed him on the lips, then turned.
Admiringly, Mark stared at Jessie’s attractive figure as she walked away. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, a Julie Redmond called.”
Jessie turned. “Really? When?”
“This afternoon. She didn’t leave a phone number, do you have it?”
“Yes.” Jessie walked away deep in thought.
At 23, Jessie was finishing her graduate degree at Pennsylvania State. She returned to the kitchen and sat at the small dinner table in their eat-in kitchen. Mark quickly served dinner. When Jessie realized they were having steak she spoke up. “Steak? What’s the occasion?”
Mark smiled as he served the dinner. “Today is a special day.”
“Have you heard from any medical schools?” Jessie asked. Mark had been studying pre-med, had applied to medical schools, and was now anxiously waiting.
“No. Today doesn’t mean anything to you? January 28th?”
Jessie shook her head. “No. Should it?”
“Three years ago—at the campus center? The two of us ran into each other—”
“And I ruined a perfectly good sweatshirt.” Jessie laughed as she remembered their crashing into each other in front of the campus center. Mark’s soda had spilled all over the front of Jessie’s new sweatshirt, but the two immediately bonded.
“It was destiny,” he said.
“It was something,” she agreed. Jessie smiled. “This is sweet that you remembered the day we met.”
He raised his wine glass and offered a toast. “To us.”
As they finished their main course, Mark got serious. “I’ve been thinking about what will happen at the end of this school year.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll get your masters and move on to finding employment. I’ll go to some medical school, someplace.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Jessie said.
“If we follow this path, what are the chances of us staying together?”
“The chances of your finding a med school and my finding employment near each other are not good. But stranger things have happened.”
“I think we should manipulate destiny,” Mark said.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s get married. Then wherever I go to medical school, I’m sure you could find employment there.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am. What’s stopping us? We love each other. We’ve been together for going on three years. Why leave it up to medical schools or employment on whether we can stay together?”
“If it’s meant to be—it’ll be,” Jessie said.
“How can you remain so detached from this?”
“What makes you think I’m detached?”
“The thought of losing us is…is terrifying. You’re not scared of the thought?”
Jessie looked into Mark’s eyes. She admired him so for his honesty, which made her feel all the worse. He had always been good to her; now Jessie felt terrible because of what she was feeling. She could no longer look him in the eye.
“Mark, we’re still so young to consider marriage.”
“We’re not that young, Jessie. Tell me, what is your hesitation? Do you still love me?”
“Of course I do.” Jessie turned back to him. “Mark, I’m not sure you’re going to understand this, but I’ve been looking forward to graduation and moving on.”
“Moving on from us?”
“I think I need time to get to know me and sort some things out.”
“What’s to sort out? We love each other. We don’t want to see others, and we’re still attracted to each other. Right?”
But Jessie’s silence concerned Mark. “Right?” He pressed. “You don’t want to see others, right?”
“Mark, something happened last week that I don’t understand. I know I’m going to have to sort it out.”
“What happened? Jessie, are you seeing someone else?”
She shook her head. “No. But someone did make a pass at me.” Jessie studied Mark for his reaction. As she expected, his face reddened, and his jawbone clenched. Jessie placed her hand on Mark’s hand.
“Who? What’s his name?” Mark asked calmly.
Jessie shook her head. “That’s the confusing part, Mark. It’s not a he.”
Mark stared at Jessie with disbelief. “A woman made a pass at you?”
Jessie nodded. “Yes.”
“I see.” Mark became quiet. “No, I don’t see. What are you telling me, Jessie?”
Jessie looked into Mark’s pain-filled eyes.
“Big deal. A woman kissed you. You didn’t kiss her back—did you?”
“Yes, I did. Initially I did, then I stopped it.”
“What are you telling me? Are you a lesbian?”
“I don’t know. I know that whatever happened felt too…too real to just ignore it. I think I need some time to do some soul searching. I think we should go our separate ways after graduation. If we’re meant to be together, we’ll find each other again, and we’ll be stronger from our experiences.”
Jessie stared at the picture of her ex-boyfriend and Taylor Andrews on the screen. What the hell does this mean? What are the chances of this happening? She stood and walked around her desk. She wondered if she was losing her mind. Maybe I’m reading too much into this stuff. Jessie knew the connections to Taylor’s life were distracting her from her work and her life. I need to understand what all this means, but how?
Chapter 4
When Jessie got up the next morning she wasted no time. After a sleepless night, she knew she needed to talk with someone about what was happening in her life. While her coffee was brewing, she searched her Rolodex for a business card. A year earlier, she had picked up the card from the instructor of an intuition workshop she attended with Ellen. During part of the workshop, the instructor spoke on past-life issues and karma. Here it is. Jessie pulled the business card from the sleeve. “Carrie Butler, Counselor, Business Consultant, Readings.”
Later that morning Jessie called Carrie and left a voice mail. Ten minutes later Carrie returned her call.
“Hello, this is Carrie Butler; is this Jessie?”
“Yes, it is. Thank you for returning my call.”
“How can I help you?”
For a moment, Jessie hesitated. “To be honest, I’m not sure. Things are happening in my life that I’m having a hard time understanding. I figured I’d try to speak with a psychic before I saw a psychiatrist or something.”
“Is it psychic phenomena?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just losing my mind.”
Carrie sensed that Jessie was troubled. “I have some time this afternoon around one. Would you like to come in and talk about it in person?”
As Jessie waited for Carrie to come back to the living room, she questioned her intentions. Why am I here? How would a psychic help me with this?
Carrie brought in drinks and rested them on the coffee table. “Now Jessie, tell me—what is troubling you?”
Jessie hesitated. “I’ve been experiencing connections to a person.”
“Connections?”
“Yes, connections. That’s the best way I can explain it.”
“Can you give me some examples?”
Jessie took a deep breath, wondering where to start. “It started with a recurring dream. In the dream, I can remember a very specific conversation. After I had the dream for the third time I woke to a song that has the same phrase as the dialogue in my dream. Then I realized that wherever I went, in the car, in the grocery store, at home, I kept hearing the same song. Or I kept coming across something that had to do with this singer. I had another dream that suggested that I would find answers to my questions in an unusual picture. The next day, I came across the newest CD of the singer I was having connections with. Well…the cover of the CD was the picture in my dream.”
“And the song that you keep hearing is on the CD with this cover?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting,” Carrie said.
“I found the lyrics to this song. I’m not quite sure what the song means, except there’s a phrase, ‘try, judge and eradicate.’ In my dream, there was a trial and a verdict.”
Carrie smiled and took a sip of her tea.
“I didn’t know much about this singer up until this past week. I didn’t even like her music. But, because of all this, I’ve read a lot about her in magazine and Internet articles, and I keep finding connections between her life and my own. I’ve also found that if I listen to her voice and concentrate on her voice, not the lyrics, I experience a feeling in my chest.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“I wish I could explain it better. I’ve noticed a fullness or warmth develop in my heart area. It’s like…my heart gets filled with something. I don’t know how to describe it.”
“That’s okay. Anything else?”
“Yes, and it’s freaked me out. I recently learned that this singer’s new personal manager is my ex-boyfriend from college.”
“Really? And how did that end?”
“Our relationship?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind sharing it with me.”
“It ended in our last semester of graduate school. I needed some time away from him to answer some questions about my sexual orientation.” Jessie was surprised at her own directness. “He was great during the transition. Very supportive.”
“And you got your answers?”
“Yes. I’m gay. We had a great friendship, but he couldn’t handle maintaining the friendship. We’ve been out of touch for close to fifteen years now. We always joked about our relationship being destiny, and if we appeared in each other’s lives again, it would confirm it.”
“So you want to know if the signs are for your ex-boyfriend?”
“I want to know what all this means. Does it mean something? Or is it just a coincidence? I need to get on with my life. I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on my work.”
“The universe talks to us all the time with signs that are a lot less obvious than the ones you’ve described. These signs aren’t subtle; they’re pretty apparent.”
“Well, when the universe gives us…signs, what is it telling us?”
“It can be telling us a number of things. Signs can be a confirmation that we’re on the right path, or can indicate that we’re going in the wrong direction. But your signs are very direct and seem to have urgency about them.”
“Could they have anything to do with past-life issues?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How can I figure it out?”
“There are a number of ways for us to explore our past lives. Certainly, the obvious is our everyday life experiences. This is where we learn to recognize clues from our everyday life that could relate to our previous lives.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can learn a lot about your past lives by cataloging some very basic elements of your present life. For example, what are your fears and phobias? Do you have an attraction to or interest in any historical periods? What type of foods do you enjoy? Do you have any birthmarks? What type of clothing do you feel comfortable in? What are your talents? What climates do you enjoy? There are a number of ways we can find information regarding past lives, without going any further than here and now. But also look to your dreams. Every dream gives us secret messages not only about this life, but also about past lives.”
“It sounds very subjective though.”
“It is the slowest and probably most subjective road to past-life recall.”
“What else can I do?”
“Past-life r
eadings by a psychic. Here, you get the information very quickly, rather than the first method.”
“How do you know if what you’re told is accurate?”
“You’ll never have proof of its accuracy. The real test is—how does the information feel to you. Try it on for size. Does it feel right? If it does—there’s a good chance it’s pretty accurate. If it doesn’t feel right, wait. If in time it never feels right, then it probably isn’t. No psychic is perfect. Everybody has an off day.
“But if you use a psychic, look for one that suits you. It’s like any professional you use. If you hire an attorney or accountant, you check out their references. If you use a psychic, don’t be afraid to check them out. There are a lot of good and accurate psychics as well as a lot of bad ones. Just like any other occupation.”
“Is there anything else I can use to recall past lives?”
“Oh yes, your subconscious mind. Think of our subconscious mind as being a reservoir of all past-life memories. The key is trying to access it, and there are a number of ways to do it.”
“How?”
“Meditation is the most obvious, but also hypnotic regressions.”
“Regressions? How?”
“Hypnotic regressions can be facilitated by psychics as well as psychiatrists. Past-life therapy has become a documented method to treat patients.”
“How?”
“By exploring past lives, we can confront past-life issues that manifested fears in our present lives. A patient suffering from claustrophobia may learn that he or she was buried alive in a previous life. To confront such a fear in a regression can cure them from their condition in this life.”
“What happens in a regression?”
“Basically, someone would hypnotize you, and ask you to recall past periods of this life. But they’ll take you back past this life into other lives.”
“Is it safe?”
“With a trained person, yes. But whoever facilitates a regression should have experience in past-life regressions, not only hypnotherapy.”
“Does the person feel like they’re actually there? Or do they just see it?”