The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho by Anjanette Delgado Page A

swinging her bony ass out the door as quickly as she could.
    I watched her go with a feeling of doom.
    She’d never been a great tenant, but lately it had gotten worse. It was as if she no longer cared about a thing. When she moved in, she’d been a young girl wanting independence from an overbearing mother. I’d wanted to help her, keep an eye out for her. She’d been polite, apologetic even, when I’d talked to her about putting her recycling in the right place and not throwing her cigarette stubs out the window and onto my front garden. But lately she’d become rude, looked a bit dirty, and acquired an expression of unfocused defiance that unsettled me. I wondered if she was doing drugs. I know people think social drugs like marijuana are not “that harmful.” But if it makes people be someone they’re not and not care about things they’d normally care about, it can’t be all that good, can it?
    The worst of it was I couldn’t afford the expense of a vacancy just then. It was as if God were hitting me on the side of the head: Hector’s odd behavior today, Olivia’s comments, catching them going out on a date, and Ellie’s being “on to me” were all signs that I needed to end the affair. Of course, that would mean running into Hector constantly at the building, while staying away from him for decency’s sake. But where was this decency line, really? Wasn’t I breaking it now by being with him?
    This is what happens when you’re the “other woman.” You lose all perspective and spend precious energy thinking about whether being his landlord makes it more or less decent to see a married man who still cares enough about his wife to cut an afternoon with his mistress short in order to take her out for an evening on the town.
    That night, I sat at the metal desk in my living room/dining room/office/library, looking out the window at the city that held Hector and Olivia somewhere and trying to write a breakup letter even as I imagined them celebrating their anniversary or some other important thing. I was feeling jealous of them for knowing with a certainty I’d never know for myself that, despite everything and everyone, they’d be together until death did them part. Yes, mistresses are always jealous of the wife, and I was no different.
    I was pretty sure I wasn’t in love with Hector, at least I didn’t think so, but I did know that it was time to stop because whatever I was feeling was obviously defeating the purpose of dating married men as an antidote to heartbreak.
    The worst thing was I’d had a hundred opportunities to decide this before, but no. I’d waited until he’d tired of me. Damn it. He was a married man having an affair. What else did I think would happen? Had I subconsciously hoped things with Hector would be different? And if not, then why was I so surprised?
    Well, for starters, the abruptness. After putting so much effort into building a connection beyond our bodies and working so hard to get inside my head as a bridge into my pants, he’d just suddenly lost interest. That day. But why? For the first time in years, I considered trying to coax my gift, my clairvoyance, back from the oblivion to which I had condemned it so long ago. I needed to see the future, to know for sure that, Hector or no Hector, loneliness would not be in the cards forever. I realized I was no better than my clients, hanging on to look-alike love in fear the real one would never show up.
    It started to rain over Little Havana’s Coffee Park, the air going from warm to chilly quickly, as is common in Miami. I put away the letter I’d been writing and made myself a cup of spicy-sweet, milky chai, my omelet and wine fantasy forgotten. It warmed my stomach as I sat on my windowsill, watching the windy rain make dancers in dark green glossy skirts out of tree branches.
    Soon, the window became blurry, while the