"Sorry. I've gotta ask these things."

We looked at each other.

"So tell me where it is you're supposed to go to find your twin?"

"Your analog."

"Huh?"

"That's what you are. You're an analog of my boyfriend."

"So where do I go to find my analog?"

"You don't. I just fluked out. I have a friend of a friend who works in the place where the facial data's stored." He sat down beside me - too close beside me - on the crumbling concrete front steps. He touched the small of my back and I jumped out of my skin, at which point a black martial-artsy club smacked him on his forehead. It was Sheila.

"You stinking son of a dog - "

"Sheila - this isn't what it looks like."

I ran for my car, and luckily Sheila ignored me. Paul still must have a goose egg on his forehead, and I doubt Sheila's ever going to believe his story. On the other hand, Reg thought it was kind of funny, which made me feel better.

Saturday night 11:45

It's almost midnight, and the kids have finally passed out from sugar fatigue. They must be diabetic by now.

I spend my life in court hearing people yammer away and for once I want to be on the stand. Forget my crazy trip to Portland. I want to talk about what happened yesterday, because that's what's gotten me to writing here. I'd have told Reg, but I have a hunch he doesn't go in for this kind of stuff.

But first, you have to understand that my life before Jason was dull. Not insignificant, mind you, but not many kicks either. I grew up in North Van, seven years ahead of Jason. Have I mentioned that I'm seven years older than he is? At the time of the Delbrook Massacre I was living in Ontario and had just earned all the papers I needed to be a court stenographer. I was already working part time, in Windsor -a friend got me a job there. I was always a good typist, but stenography? It works by phonetics, not letters, and when it's flowing properly, it's as if the things people are telling each other in court are emerging from my own brain in real time. It's like I'm inventing the world! Other stenographers say the same thing - it's like catching the perfect wave. And it's funny, because one of the side effects of being a good stenographer is that you can tell right away when someone's fibbing. Oh yeah: the presiding judge and jury might miss it, but not this gal. I suppose if you asked me what was the one thing that made me different from all other people, that might be it - that I'm a living lie detector.

That's how I "met" Jason the first time. On TV back in the 1980s; he was at a press conference just after he'd been absolved of any wrongdoing. I was homesick in Windsor, watching TV at my place with two neighbors who were also from Vancouver. We were drinking beer and feeling alienated from the massive quilt of autumn leaves outside. My neighbors said Jason was lying his ass off, but I said no way, and I stuck up for him, even back then. Imagine telling the truth about something as gruesome as that massacre, and having only half the world believe you; I don't think you could ever trust people again. So when I encountered Jason at the Toys R Us, he looked familiar as well as sad, but at first I couldn't peg why.

But I was going to discuss Friday. It's what started me going on this. I was downtown on my lunch break from the courthouse. I was in a drugstore getting a few things for this weekend with the kids. My cell phone battery was dead, so I went to a pay phone and checked my messages, and there was just one, a woman's voice - nice enough, maybe fiftyish - and she had something to tell me she said was both unusual and urgent. And then she hung up, no phone number or anything. Well what was I supposed to make of that? I listened to the message again. She didn't sound evil, and believe me, I've seen and heard so much evil in the courtroom that by now you could use my blood as an anti-evil vaccine. Who was this woman, and what exactly was she on about - telemarketing?

If it had been something to do with Jason, I figured she would have used a different voice with a different tone. Meaning what, Heather? Meaning, this woman didn't sound like the type to deliver ransom instructions or notify the cops to go looking in the Fraser River for a corpse rolled up in a discount Persian carpet. I know that voice, and it wasn't hers.

So I spent the rest of the afternoon slightly distracted, trying to pinpoint the nature of her voice, in the process even making some boo-boos on the court transcript - but it's a dull-as-dishwater property suit, and the chances of anyone consulting the record are zero. I could sit there pumping out the Girl Guide Pledge all afternoon, and nobody would ever know. This is both a plus and a minus of my job: my work is important, and yet it isn't. To be honest, they should just wire everybody up, stuff the room with cameras and fire me, except that the electronics would cost far more to maintain and service. So my job's safe for a while yet.

At five o'clock, I made the dash across the bridge and got to Barb's just in time to take charge of the twins as Barb raced out to the airport. The two boys were ravenous. Dinner became the next thing, and then they wanted to show me their computer games, which was a snoozer for me, and then I headed back to the kitchen for a sip of white wine and my first calm moment since the morning.

I phoned and checked my messages. None. So I call-forwarded my number to Barb's and sat at the kitchen table where I picked at the kids' leftover hot dogs and tried to enjoy the silence. Then the phone rang. It was the woman.

"Hello, is this . . . Heather?"

"Yes, it is. Who's this?" I kept my tone friendly.

"I'm Allison."

"Hello, Allison. You're the one who said you had some information for me?"

"Well, I do and I don't."

"You're losing me."

"Do you have five minutes?"

What the heck. "Sure." I poured another glass and sat on the bar stool by the flecked black marble counter.

"I guess I should tell you right off, Heather, I'm a psychic."

I was about to hang up.

"Don't hang up."

"You're a good psychic. You read my mind."

"No. It's common sense. I'd hang up, too, if some woman saying she was a psychic called me."

"Allison, I'm sure you're a nice person, but . . ."

"Oh, I say."

"What?"

"Oh, I say."

"Oh, I say" was Gerard T. Giraffe's unfunny entrance line, like the ones people have in sitcoms which are supposed to be funny, but really aren't, like when Norm enters the bar on Cheers, and everyone says, "Norm!" She was even using the correct Gerard tone of voice, baritone and bumbling.

" 'Oh, I say' . . . Does that mean anything to you?"

I kept silent.

"'Oh, I say."'

"Who are you, Allison? What do you want?"

"I don't want anything. I don't. But all day I've been getting this voice coming through my brain in the middle of whatever I'm doing, saying 'Oh, I say,' and it's freaking me out, and I'm supposed to be used to this sort of thing."

"How did you connect the voice to my name?"

"That's almost the easiest part. I emptied my head and used a pencil on white paper in a dark room and your name and number came out. It's not too far a stretch to get a phone number when you get such a weird, specific message like 'Oh, I say' delivered in a Rex Harrison baritone."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Heather, I'm sorry you feel this way. But there's no game-playing going on here. I don't want money. I don't want anything. But there's still these words pumping out of wherever. I just want to make sure I'm not cracking up. Oh, I say. Oh, I say. Oh, I say."

I was silent. In the other room the kids were bickering.

"Heather, look. I've never told anyone this before, but I'm not really a psychic. I'm a fake psychic. I look at people's faces, their jewelry and scars and footwear and shirts and you name it. I pretty much feed them what they want to hear. You don't even need too much intuition to do it. I'm surprised there aren't millions of psychics out there. It's a total racket."