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In order to be considered as an ultra-depth hypnosis test subject, Jamie
had to lie about being married. She needed money, and the $35 per session Dr. MacIntyre offered volunteers sure beat five hours waitressing at the Campus Cafe. So she did
-- even though she didn’t know exactly what the testing entailed.
“Jamie Hamlyn, 32, divorced,” the crew-cut, young male interviewer read
from her application. “You attend school mornings, work as a data processor afternoons. No boyfriend, right?”
She shook her head. “Is that important?”
“Doctor Mac wants unattached subjects.” He scanned the rest of the form.
“If accepted after testing, you’ll be asked to participate Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7 to 10 PM for eight weeks.” He looked up to catch her reaction.
Jamie nodded, brushed fingers through her long black hair. “What kind of
tests?”
“Hypnosis susceptibility, brain-wave, ESP and compatibility tests with your
counterpart.”
“Counterpart?”
“You’ll work with a psychically compatible partner, be hypnotized together
and asked to carry out joint tasks in an altered state of consciousness.”
“Thirty-five dollars a session?”
Nod. “All you have to do is lie back and be hypnotized into ultra-depth.
We’ll let you know,” he said, standing.
In the adjacent room, three students waited to be interviewed. Jamie
recognized Caitlin from journalism class and smiled.
“How many volunteers do they need?” Caitlin asked.
“Four to start. Then, if the results are promising, the original four will
be replaced with four new subjects every eight weeks.” Jamie took her ski jacket from the coat rack, slipped it on.
“It isn’t weird stuff, is it?” Caitlin wrinkled her nose.
“Just testing psychic ability in a deep trance, I think.”
“This psychology department has been known to explore some really strange
stuff,” Caitlin said. Jamie shrugged, waved goodbye.
Jamie’s boots echoed in the empty skyway connecting the psychology building
with the cafeteria and student lounge. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass, the sun appeared, a fiery ball caught in skeletal trees. The snow-covered landscape glowed
luminous pink.
In the cafeteria, Jamie purchased black coffee to go, then made her way
through the lounge where students gathered around a circular fireplace in the center of the room. The aroma of coffee mingled with the scent of burning oak logs, and she
stopped to inhale deeply before leaning into a door that opened onto the parking lot.
“Bessie, please start,” she whispered, twisting the ignition key in her
1982 Honda. A low groan became a sputtering cough that finally caught, slamming the loose muffler against the bottom of the vehicle. “Bless you, Bessie.” Jamie sat,
shoulders hunched, hands hugging the coffee cup, her breath fogging the windshield, waiting for the car to warm up.
Two hundred eighty extra dollars a month would help her to stay in school,
but if she were accepted in the ultra-depth program, Trevor would yell about the two nights out each week. Not that he didn’t leave her alone more often than not, but
logic didn’t apply to their relationship. They had met at community college night classes; she was studying data processing, he was learning to use a computer to speed up
his construction company’s bidding process. They were married in 1989, shortly before the country slid into recession and construction jobs dried up.
After three years of subsistence living and a lot of meditation, Jamie
decided to go back to school to study writing and computer programming. Combining the two abilities would somehow result in a high-paying job.
“Where’d you get such a stupid idea?” Trevor said.
“In meditation.”
“Weirdo New Age crap. Go by that, you’ll end up in a white robe selling
flowers on street corners.”
She didn’t argue with him anymore. Rocks were hard, water was wet, and
Trevor was Trevor. In the early days, they talked about having a family and planned to build a house on the banks of Crescent Lake. Today, they seldom had sex and the
mention of children was taboo. Jamie decided to create a life of her own.
* * * * *
“Your brain wave is alpha seven, just a point off the average,” Dr.
MacIntyre said, switching on the overhead lights.
Jamie rubbed her eyes. She had been sitting in the dark, staring at a
strobing Brain Wave Synchronizer until the color purple appeared within the white illumination.
Doctor Mac, as the students called him, was fifty but looked younger. He
had electric blue eyes and curly, gray-streaked brown hair. His attire varied little from day to day: faded Levi’s, running shoes, denim shirts, splashy ties and a tweedy
sport coat with classic leather elbow patches.
“Is that good or bad?” Jamie said.
Doctor Mac laughed and held up a set of ESP cards. He explained how the
test would be conducted and asked Jamie to pull her chair closer to his desk. Then she closed her eyes and began to breathe deeply until he said, “Let’s begin.”
She waited for words to come into her mind. “Star. Waves. Star. Square.”
“Next line.”
“Circle. Triangle. Waves. Star.”
The test took 20 minutes. When it was over she said, “How did I do?”
“Very well. Tell me about your metaphysical background.” He leaned back,
lacing his fingers behind his head.
“My dad always said I was a ‘great guesser,’ but looking back, I think I
was being psychic. I don’t normally use it on demand, but I do pay attention to my hunches. Plus, I read a lot of metaphysical books; and I’m a novice astrologer.”
“What are your feelings about reincarnation?”
“I consider karma my philosophical basis of reality.”
Doc Mac smiled. “I want you in the program, Jamie. I’ll computer-match you
to the other volunteers to come up with your counterpart. Can you begin next Tuesday?”
* * * * *
“Well, if you’re going to play psychic two nights a week, I guess I’ll just
spend those nights at the Rodeo Club.” Tall and stocky, Trevor leaned against the bedroom door frame looking down at Jamie who sat doing homework at a desk by the window.
She turned to face him. “You already spend a couple of nights a week
anyway. We need the money, Trevor.”
“We wouldn’t if you still worked full time.”
“At a dead-end job.”
“Welcome to the club,” he grumbled, walking away.
* * * * *
“Jamie Hamlyn, meet Evan Shipley, your ultra-depth counterpart,” Doctor Mac
said when she arrived at the psychology department’s laboratory.
Evan stood, extending his hand. Tall, thin, his rugged looks were softened
by shoulder-length, sand-colored hair. Forty to forty-five, she guessed. Warm smile. “The good doctor has been telling me about you, Jamie.”
She smiled. “Then it’s my turn to learn about you.”
“I’m a lawyer who would rather write books, so I’ve been taking classes on
how to become the next John Grisham.”
Doctor Mac added, “And Evan’s an alpha six, with an ESP test score
identical to yours.”
Jamie looked from Doctor Mac to Evan. “I feel like maybe we’ve met before.”
She shook her head as if to clear cobwebs.
“Me too, but I didn’t want to sound corny,” Evan said.
“Did I sound corny?” Jamie asked, smiling.
“No, no, not at all. Not ...”
“Okay. Take a seat both of you, I’m going to explain the process.” Doctor
Mac sat on the edge of his desk facing their two chairs. “You’ll both sit side by side in lounge chairs, and I’m going to ask you to join hands with a special quartz
crystal between your cupped hands.”
“What’s special about the crystal?” Evan asked.
“It’s been programmed to enhance subjective impressions. I’ll direct the
hypnosis over the sound system and you’ll each wear headphones. Following a body relaxation, we’ll do a chakra-link. I’ll ask you both to imagine an arch of deep purple
light connecting the crown chakra of spirituality on the tops of your heads to each other. A blue light will connect your third-eye brow chakras, and a silvery blue light
will connect your throat chakras. The link increases the potential of joint explorations. That won’t happen tonight unless by some chance you’ve shared a past life, and
even if you have, I won’t be directing you to choose a shared incarnation.”
Doctor Mac took two glasses of water from the desk, handed one to Jamie,
the other to Evan. Next he gave them each a vial of honey and two vitamin E capsules. “The honey and E will help you remain awake and alert for the long induction process.
Ultra-depth is a nickname for plenary hypnosis. It takes anywhere from forty-five minutes to two hours to complete the induction. I’ll make it interesting by having you
imagine different environments enhanced with three-dimensional sound effects.”
“You’re going to regress us into a past life?” Jamie said.
Nod. “Have either of you been regressed?”
Both Jamie and Evan shook their heads.
“All right, let’s get ready. If you need to, go to the bathroom before we
begin. The session will be in the next room.”
A few minutes later, Jamie and Evan settled into the lounge chairs. While
putting on the headphones, their eyes met and they smiled. Evan whispered, “This may be an E-ticket ride.”
The tiny room was walnut paneled, overly warm, and dimly lighted. A
windowed booth faced the chairs. “Comfy?” the doctor asked as he clipped lapel microphones on the volunteers. They nodded. “I’ll direct the process from the booth.” He
took a double-terminated quartz crystal from his sportcoat pocket and placed it in Evan’s hand. Jamie cupped her hand over his. The crystal seemed overly warm; for a
fleeting moment she felt dizzy and mentally fought for equilibrium.
She looked at Evan, who appeared equally confused.
“Close your eyes; and let’s begin,” Doctor Mac said. He stepped into the
booth and closed the door.
Jamie closed her eyes, then opened them to see Doctor Mac slide into a
chair and begin snapping switches and turning knobs.
“Is this volume acceptable?” he asked. “You can respond verbally.”
“Fine.”
“Yes.”
“All right, it’s time to begin to breathe deeply and relax completely. Take
a very deep breath, hold it as long as it’s comfortable, then let it out slowly through slightly parted teeth. When you feel the breath is all the way out, contract your
stomach muscles and push it even further out ... and then repeat the process.”
Jamie felt herself relaxing a little more with each breath. Evan’s hand
felt warm in hers, and although the crystal felt like a heating element, their hands were not sweating. By the time Doctor Mac had finished the body relaxation and chakra
link, Jamie could hardly feel her physical body.
“And it’s time to vividly imagine yourself outside on a warm summery day,
standing at the top of a stairway that goes down, down, down, twisting around as it goes down, down, down, through the grass and trees, down, down, down ... and you now
vividly imagine yourself going down, down, down the stairs as I count backwards from twenty to one. Vividly imagine going down these stairs that lead eventually to a
beautiful garden. Number twenty, down, down, down ... .”
The garden appeared before her inner eyes as a vivid dream. As real as
if I were here, she thought, watching butterflies flutter from flower to flower.
The stairway continued down, down, down, until she was in a mountain
meadow. She no longer clearly heard Doctor Mac’s words, but felt them inside her head, compelling her to act and to see the magically created environment. “In one
direction, far below is the ocean, and in the other direction, snow-capped mountains disappear into the distance in diminishing shades of blue.”
Jamie felt a breeze in her hair and noted a scent of wild sage. Then to her
surprise, she saw someone on the other side of the meadow. It was Evan. She waved. He waved back.
“... and now walk across the meadow to the place where the stairs continue
down, down, down.”
Evan was ahead of her, waiting at the top of the stairs. When she reached
him, he opened his arms, and they hugged like old friends. She looked deeply into his eyes and smiled. He smiled, took her hand and led the way down the stairs. Twenty to
one, then a landing. Twenty to one again, over and over, down the stairs holding Evan’s hand until they finally reached the beach.
“Go ahead and walk along the beach as a mist rolls in off the sea. It feels
good to be here.” Overhead Jamie noticed seagulls wheel and dive. Waves rolled across the sand, splashing their feet as they walked hand in hand.
“... and there’s a solace in the sound of the surf, a mental tide of
tranquillity, as the waves come in and out, leaving in its wake a sense of rediscovered peace ... as you drift deeper and deeper into the deepest possible hypnotic sleep
... sleep ... .”
Sandpipers darted in and out of the surf, and in the distance a chain of
pelicans skimmed low over the relaxing, rhythmic waves.
“... and you notice among the rocks what appears to be the mouth of a cave,
so you decide to go investigate.”
She tightened her grip on Evan’s hand as they walked to the cave opening.
“... and you know it’s perfectly safe to enter the cave ... perfectly safe
to enter the darkness where a wonderful adventure awaits. And you’re ready to explore, so you boldly enter the cave ... moving from the light into darkness ... deeper and
deeper into darkness.”
Jamie hesitated. Evan put his arm around her, gently guiding her into the
darkness -- footsteps echoing -- a far-away voice saying, “In the memory banks of your subconscious mind is a recollection of everything that has ever happened to you ...
.”
Complete blackness.
“... and it’s time to bring forgotten awareness to the surface so that you
may better understand what influences, restricts or motivates you in the present.”
Evan’s arm around her felt warm and protective.
“... as you move through the cave, you begin to see a light in the
distance, and as you walk toward the light, your higher mind is choosing a past lifetime that will be of value for you to explore at this time.”
They approached the light together.
“Number two ... and as you step out of the cave on the count of one, you’ll
perceive yourself in an important situation in this past lifetime. Number one.”
Jamie turned to Evan ... Eva -- no no ... Joshua. Joshua yelling at her.
“Damn it, Pauline, what do you expect?”
“I expect you to treat her nicer,” Pauline said, turning to look down the
stairs and across the boardwalk to where her best friend stood crying beneath the flashing ballroom sign. Beyond was the pier, black waves reflecting fragments of
moonlight. Palm fronds rustled in the warm breeze, barely heard over trombones and saxophones.
“You know how she treats me.” Sadness in Joshua’s voice.
“I’ll talk to her,” Pauline said. Lifting the hem of her dress, she
descended the stairs. Joshua and Sarah brought out the worst in each other. They fought, broke up, and got back together as regularly as most people took out the garbage.
“Are you all right?” Pauline put her arm around Sarah.
“I hate him.”
“You have to accept him the way he is, Sarah.”
“If he loved me, he’d change.”
“What if he asked that of you?”
“Are you taking his side?” Sarah said, pulling away and glaring at Pauline.
“I’m trying to be your friend.”
“The two of you would get along great.”
“Sarah, that’s uncalled for. Let’s go to the ladies’ room and redo your
makeup.”
Sarah looked up the stair landing to see Joshua watching them. Face clouded
in anger, she grabbed Pauline’s arm, and growled, “Come on.”
“Sarah, that hurts. What’s wrong with you?”
“Come on.”
Without resisting, Pauline allowed herself to be led up to where Joshua
waited.
Trembling, Sarah grasped Joshua’s hand and slammed Pauline’s hand into his.
“Here! I give you each other -- a union sealed by fate.” Turning, laughing maniacally, Sarah bolted down the stairs, tripping once and catching herself. Once on the
boardwalk, she kicked off her shoes and began to run toward the pier.
“Joshua?”
“Let her go. When she gets like this there’s no reasoning with her, you
know that.”
They watched her run down the nearly deserted pier, past the merry-go-round
and game booths to the railing, which she proceeded to climb. Teetering on the top rail, she turned, looked up at Joshua and Pauline. Slowly extending her arms,
Christ-like, she fell backward into the dark water.
When Pauline screamed, Jamie trembled in the lounge chair. Doctor Mac
didn’t notice. He sat in the control booth preparing to voice the next suggestions.
Sirens. They were standing in the sand surrounded by a semicircle of people
in party attire, speaking in hushed whispers. Joshua was wet, shivering as he held Pauline in his arms. Flashlights. Shouting. Men carrying Sarah out of the surf. A white
sheet was placed over her body.
Pauline felt dizzy and began spiraling into darkness to the up-tempo beat
of the Charleston. The music faded away and the midnight sky turned to indigo, to blue. She was leaving the funeral ... driving ... talking with friends, Sarah’s parents,
she was so sorry -- the same words over and over again. Escaping to the yard, she noticed Joshua in the gazebo.
Wearing a long black dress, Pauline sat on the loveseat, drew her knees to
her chest, and locked her arms around her legs. The breeze blew her chestnut locks across her face. Below, stretching for miles, Los Angeles glistened in the afternoon
sun.
“Do you want to know what set her off, Pauline?”
“Does it matter, Joshua?”
“After we were supposed to get married next spring, she wanted me to work
for her father. I told her I wanted to work for myself.” Joshua, dressed in a black suit, walked to the edge of the yard and stared into the distance.
“Sarah was high strung. Everything took on more importance than it
deserved,” Pauline said, massaging her temples.
“But I feel so guilty,” he said, turning to face her.
“Me too, and neither of us have reason.”
Strolling back to the gazebo, he sat across from her, and placed his hand
on her hand. “Before she jumped, did she bless us or curse us?”
“She was just being dramatic like the women in moving pictures.”
“Someday I’ll tell you ...”
From far away, another voice intruded, saying, “It’s time to let go of this
and return to the present. On the count of three you’ll be back in the present, remembering everything that you just experienced. You’ll remain in a deep, altered state of
consciousness, but back in the present. Number one.”
Jamie felt herself float off the loveseat and begin to spiral through time
and space into a limbo world where she was being instructed to awaken, at peace with herself, the world and everyone in it.
“... and number five, wide awake. Open your eyes and feel good.”
Jamie opened her eyes to see Doctor Mac step out of the control booth. She
turned to look at Evan, met his eyes and shivered.
“How are you doing?” Doctor Mac said, unclasping the lapel microphones.
Jamie nodded, trying to find her voice.
“Did you both have vivid experiences?”
“It was as real as this,” Evan said, pinching his own arm.
“Me too,” Jamie said.
“Don’t compare notes about what you experienced. Not here or anywhere else.
Agreed? And I’d like you to use the last forty-five minutes of the session to write a detailed report.” He handed them both a clipboard. “Take a few moments to stretch,
then use the desks in the next room.”
Jamie looked at her watch. “We were in hypnosis two hours and fifteen
minutes?”
“Seemed like a few minutes,” Evan said.
Reports completed, they left the building together. “I’d love to buy you a
cup of coffee,” Evan said. “The Campus Cafe on Main Street?”
Jamie hesitated. She wanted to accept. Trevor wouldn’t be home before
midnight. Her homework was finished. “That would be nice. Will you wait to make sure my car starts.”
The aroma of grilled onions and the sound of soft-rock music wafted out the
front door of the cafe. Students in brightly-colored ski jackets were arriving, leaving. Some hunched over coffee. Others cuddled together, studying. Jamie and Evan made
their way to a back booth.
“We’re the oldest ones here,” Evan said.
“I’m used to it,” Jamie replied.
They ordered coffee and decided to share a piece of pecan pie.
“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” he said.
Jamie smiled, shook her head. “Wish we could talk about it.”
“One of the people in the regression was my ex-wife.”
“We can’t compare notes.”
“I’m just offering an unsettling statement of fact.”
“But she looked different?” Jamie couldn’t help but ask.
He lifted the mug to his lips and looked at Jamie over the top of the
steaming cup. “Soul recognition, maybe. I knew it was her.”
“Karma, huh?”
“I’m letting go. Our only problem today is over visitations with my
six-year-old son.”
“What’s his name?”
“Joshua. Too Biblical for me, but Susan insisted.” Evan slipped a billfold
from his hip pocket and opened it to show a photo of a smiling blond-haired boy standing next to his kneeling mother.
Jamie shuddered.
“I understand you’re divorced, too, Jamie. How long?”
“Uh, not long. Do you really want to write novels?”
“A good lawyer is aggressive, which takes too much out of me. Writing is
pure pleasure.”
“I’m studying journalism and non-fiction writing in hopes of combining wise
words with computer programming.”
“Why not?” Evan toasted with his mug. “To our writing careers.”
* * * * *
“We may have accidentally happened upon a unique situation,” Doctor Mac
said to Jamie and Evan at the beginning of the Thursday night session. He was holding the separate reports each had written following the first experience.
“Do you believe in accidents, Doctor?” Evan said.
Doctor Mac met Evan’s eyes and slowly shook his head. “My research assures
me that destiny is always in play when it comes to important encounters.”
“Can you tell us about it?” Jamie said.
“Soon. But let’s do a session now.”
Minutes later, Doctor Mac was counting them down the long twisting stairs
to the garden. Joshua was there. They hugged, laughed and enjoyed the idyllic environment. After descending to the mountain meadow, instead of lingering as instructed,
they went directly down the many flights of stairs to the beach, where they built a sand castle until instructed to go to the cave.
“Push, my dear, push!”
Pauline opened her eyes to see a ceiling fan spinning above. Joshua held
her hand, saying, “You’re doing fine.” She was lying on her back, legs in the air, covered with a sheet. A nurse patted her on the arm and smiled.
I’m having a baby. My God, I’m having a baby. The realization overwhelmed
her.
“Push, Pauline,” a man said.
Moments after the baby’s first cry, Joshua kneeled beside her. “We have a
son, Pauline.” Tears welled in his eyes.
As the nurse laid the baby in her arms, the environment began to swirl
around her, moving from light to darkness to light again, and finally stabilizing into a Spanish-style living room. It was night. Fireplace embers glowed orange. The baby
cooed at her breast. “Auld Lang Syne” played on the radio, and Joshua leaned down to kiss her on the lips, saying, “Happy New Year, my love.”
“Happy 1925, Joshua,” she whispered. “And Happy New Year to you, my little
James Charles Monet.” She kissed the baby on the head.
“It’s going to be a wonderful year ... year ... year ... year ...”
“Where’s Joshua? I can’t believe he’s late for James Charles’ sixth
birthday party,” said a white-haired woman carrying a tray of cookies to the garden table.
Pauline stood in the midst of a dozen children, directing a game --
twirling a blindfolded little girl three times before pointing her in the direction of a donkey sketched upon the trunk of a palm tree.
She looked up minutes later to see the white-haired woman talking to a
policeman. He nodded, turned his head and walked in her direction.
“Husband ... accident ... sorry.” The key words hit her like bomb
fragments, knocking her to the ground and dragging her soul into darkness.
“... number five, wide awake. Wide awake. Open your eyes and feel good.”
Jamie opened her eyes, looked at Evan, and burst into tears. Putting his
arms around her, he whispered, “I know, I know.”
Doctor Mac’s concerned pleas were unheard.
“You died on me ... Joshua died on me and we had such a wonderful--”
“Please, I need separate reports,” Doctor Mac interrupted.
Jamie pulled away from Evan and turned to Doctor Mac. “No separate reports.
We need to talk about this.”
“But for the sake of the research ...”
“Our Tuesday reports were identical, weren’t they, Doctor?” Evan said.
“Yes, but --”
“And they’ll be identical tonight,” Evan said. “So wouldn’t research be
better served by verbally comparing experiences while they’re still fresh in our minds?”
Doctor Mac tape-recorded Jamie and Evan’s story, which took nearly an hour
to relate. “It’s not unusual for couples to interact in plenary hypnosis, but not this fast. They also occasionally tune out the hypnotist and go off on their own as you
did in skipping the mountain meadow experience to build a sand castle on the beach. After another session or two, you may not need me at all.” Leaning back in his chair,
Doctor Mac looked from Jamie to Evan. “I think the two of you shared a 1920s incarnation ... that somehow destiny arranged this present meeting.”
“At this moment,” Jamie swallowed hard, “I feel like we’re still back there
in the twenties. I as Pauline, feel I’m deeply in love with Joshua ... and we should now go home together.” She looked at Evan. “Sorry, but I think it needs to be said.”
“I feel exactly the same way.” Evan took her hand.
“This is why I insist volunteers be unattached,” Doctor Mac said. “The
plenary bonding factor has been intensified by your spiritual lineage.”
“What’s a plenary bonding factor?” Jamie said.
“Over a period of time, subjects who share this experience tend to bond.
The initial Northern California university experiments were responsible for a lot of divorces.”
Jamie repressed any visible reaction, but felt her stomach tighten.
“What will we explore in the next session, Doctor?” Evan said.
Doctor Mac shook his head. “This situation is so unique I’ll create
something special.”
Jamie and Evan left together. Without speaking, they crossed the skyway and
descended the stairs to the nearly deserted student lounge. Oak logs smoldered in the circular fireplace. Evan took Jamie’s hand, led her to a bench by the hearth.
Staring at the glowing embers, he said, “My ex-wife in this life was Sarah
in the twenties incarnation. You and I were later married. I was killed in an auto accident, leaving you with a son the same age as my son now. Why? What the hell is going
on?”
She shrugged, didn’t reply.
“I’ve known you three days. And I love you, Jamie. Maybe our experiences
accelerated the process, but I would have loved you anyway.” He placed his hands gently on her cheeks, leaned forward, and kissed her on the lips.
Shocked by her own eager response, Jamie gave herself freely to the passion
of the kiss.
“Jamie, I --”
“Evan, I’m married.” The words released a floodgate, and tears filled her
eyes. “I have to go.”
* * * * *
When Jamie didn’t show up for the Tuesday evening ultra-depth session,
Doctor Mac called her home. “This is Steven MacIntyre at the college. Is Jamie there?”
“Doctor Mac, right?” Trevor said.
“That’s what the students call me.”
“My wife’s always been a New Age loon, but you pushed her over the edge,
pal.”
“Your wife?”
“She’s in California checking out her past lives, if you can believe that.”
“Do you have a number where I can call her?”
“Hell, no!”
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Whenever she does, she’d better have an explanation for all this crap!”
“When she returns, please have her call me.” Doctor Mac hung up the phone
and turned to Evan.
* * * * *
Friday afternoon, Jamie sat at a table on the Santa Monica pier reading
grainy photocopies from microfiche records of newspaper stories she had already read a dozen times.
- July 27, 1922
Suicide at the Byzantine La Monica Ballroom
Last night at 11:30, after a
fight with her boyfriend, 21-year-old Sarah Dever of Venice jumped from the Santa Monica Pier into the bay. Her body was found two hours later by ...
- New Arrivals -- December 16, 1924
James Charles Monet -- Born to Joshua and
Pauline Monet
Joshua Monet is a cub reporter for this newspaper. The happy parents reside in Santa Monica. Their seven-pound, three-ounce son arrived ...
- December 16, 1930
Joshua Dean Monet -- Killed in Auto Accident
Popular columnist Joshua
Monet was killed when a car ran a red light at Pacific Coast Highway and the California Incline, striking Monet’s vehicle ...
Jamie sipped coffee from a paper cup, closed
her eyes and relished the sunshine and warm breeze off the sea. She noted the scents of popcorn, hot dogs and fish-and-chips. The merry-go-round’s calliope filled the air
with music from another, all too familiar era.
Picking up the next newspaper story, she read:
- March 24, 1931
Pauline Monet to Continue Her Husband’s Column, Beginning Today
Following the tragic accidental death in December of popular columnist Joshua Monet, his wife Pauline decided to continue her husband’s work. As our readers will
remember, Monet featured human-interest stories emphasizing positive aspects of Los Angeles.
Pauline Monet’s first column (Page 13) documents the efforts of Sister
Mary Therese of the St. Vincent’s Orphanage. In this initial offering ...
“Can I sit down?”
Jamie turned in her chair to see Evan
standing, silhouetted against the sun.
“Evan, how did you --” She jumped to her
feet and threw her arms around him. He lifted her off the ground and spun her around.
“Private detectives. Use them all the time in my work.”
“But how, in such a big city?”
“Believe it or not, there aren’t many people
researching the 1920s at the Los Angeles Times or in the UCLA research library.”
“You traced my identification to check out
the microfiche? But that was three days ago!” Jamie said, amazed.
Holding her tightly around the waist, Evan
pointed to a man in a sport coat standing by the merry-go-round.
“I’ve been followed?” she laughed.
“Didn’t want to lose you.”
“I feel at home here, Evan.”
“So do I.”
“I’m not going back.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Then I’m not going back either.”
“Can you do that?”
“Don’t they need lawyers in Los Angeles?”
“No, Evan. They need writers ... like you.”
“We might starve.”
“We won’t.”
“You sure?”
“I have an idea for a newspaper column ... .”
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