Sharp Shooter

Sharp Shooter Read Free

Book: Sharp Shooter Read Free
Author: Marianne Delacourt
Tags: FIC050000, FIC022040
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shelves of ghastly, luminously glazed china. I could just imagine my mother’s reaction, and it made me want to giggle. The Queen of Wedgewood and Royal Doulton would be appalled.
    Mr Hara jogged my elbow. ‘You like Wembley Ware?’ he asked.
    I opened my mouth and shut it again. How could anyone like anything so kitsch? How could anyone ask anyone if they liked anything so kitsch?
    ‘Very nice,’ I squeaked.
    Mr Hara walked along the shelves telling me about the collection of lurid frogs, gross open-mouthed fish, toadstools complete with gnomes, tomatoes and lettuce leaves, reclining kangaroos and a sinister black cat’s head . . .
    ‘Have you been collecting long?’ I asked politely, hoping my aura wasn’t showing my distaste.
    ‘Not me. Mrs Hara. I buy her one for every birthday. Still many, many pieces to go,’ he said. He grinned at me, like he knew what I was thinking. ‘You want to get on her good side? You find the marron or the platypus plate.’
    ‘I’ll remember that,’ I said, dumping it straight into my mental rubbish bin.
    Mr Hara finished his loop of the shelves and pointed me to a chair before settling into the other one. ‘You bad liar, Missy Sharp. Now you tell me what you see. What colour am I?’
    His question surprised me but I answered it without thinking. ‘Your aura is yellow with some purple specks through it. I’ve never seen anything like it before.’
    He raised an eyebrow. ‘What else?’
    ‘What do you mean “what else”?’
    ‘Eliz’beth not send you to me for no reason.’
    It took me a moment to realise he was talking about Bets. ‘I . . . err . . . read too much into things. I see into conversations. See energy between people – I mean really see it.’ I hung my head. It sounded too kooky to say ‘psychic’.
    Before he could reply, Mrs Hara bustled into the room with soup on a tray, which she placed on her husband’s lap before tucking a napkin under his chin. She left without giving me a glance.
    Mr Hara picked up the spoon and slurped down a mouthful. ‘So, Missy. What you see then?’
    ‘Your wife brought you soup and ignored me.’
    He blew on the spoonful. ‘What you really see? What colour her aura?’
    ‘It’s mottled,’ I said. ‘Purple and grey.’
    ‘What else?’
    I mused on the way Mrs Hara walked, the way she’d put the tray down. ‘She loves you, but . . .’
    Mr Hara leaned forward. ‘Yes?’
    I blushed. I didn’t want to say what I’d really seen. I hesitated, trying to think of a way to put it. ‘But she treats you more like a child. Not a husband.’
    I waited for his face to crease in annoyance, or for him to throw his soup at me. Instead he said, ‘You not a psychic, Missy. But you got BIG empathy. Off the scale. You come learn with me here. Maybe you use it, instead of it use you.’
    ‘I don’t want to use it. I just want it to go away.’
    ‘Can’t hide from what you are, Missy. You learn things, get better at it,’ he said. ‘You know about kinesics and proxemics?’
    I shook my head. ‘Are they fungal infections?’ I said with a straight face.
    He did his lamb laugh, then put his soup spoon down and leaned forward out of his chair until his breath was almost glancing across my chest.
    ‘This is proxemics. People got four distances: intimate, personal, social, public. You gotta know which one to use, but you also gotta know why other people choose one or other. We got another way to say it . . . propinquity.’
    ‘Well I got another way to say it too. How about, Get your face out of my cleavage. ’
    He lamb-laughed again, then leaned back into his chair and resumed his noisy soup slurping.
    ‘One thing you gotta know first is what culture you dealing with. You got an Italian like Mrs Hara, she like to stand close. You got some Swede, you gotta stand on the other side of the room if you wanna have a conversation. If you got a half and half then you got a problem.’
    ‘So you’re saying body language is all about

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