Detail, titlepage, The Yellow Book, Volume 1, April 1894

Devoted to the truth as I am, no matter how unsavory or difficult, and since she will play a not insignificant role in the coming story, I feel I must clarify certain aspects of the portrait I have thus far crafted for you of the young lady Pam.  I admit that I may have possibly (inadvertently) given you the impression that she is nothing more than your average self-absorbed, sassy, clever but shallow teenaged girl, disturbingly worldly for her age, dismissive of authority, irreverent and cynical and even heartless as only the young can be.  Of course, as a veteran who saw active duty in more than one private girls school, I think I may be forgiven for drawing upon my hard-won experience to present you with this basic unvarnished sketch, but then any of you who have encountered a pack of these creatures, roaming in the afternoon, blond and ruthless and uniformed, forcing you off the sidewalk near Gracie Square or pushing you out of line at the Larchmont Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, will easily recognize the type. 

To be fair, however, Pam is atypical of the species, at least in one or two respects.  She is, first of all, exceptionally well-read. 

She is also a tiny bit psychic.  But not, I hasten to add, in that melancholic, unpopular, bags-under-the-eyes way that cries out for heavy medication.  On the contrary, she is the last person you'd expect of anything more than a superficial happiness undisturbed by deeper currents of thought or emotion.  And yet the fact remains that she is capable of flashes of insight into the minds of strangers and is visited by premonitions and snapshots of future events in such a fashion that, once having witnessed her "gifts," one will be reluctant to dismiss her altogether as just another five-foot-two texting terror with instant access to a platinum card.

It was, for example, on a casual walk down a residential West Hollywood side street one afternoon shortly after her arrival that I first had a glimpse of this startling side of her character.  As old family friend, I was giving the young creature a tour of the local points of interest and had decided to head toward Melrose Avenue where I had seen others of her ilk loitering and deduced, not unwisely, that she would feel at home there, sipping a nonfat soy latte and picking at a cranberry muffin perhaps at Urth Cafe or else shopping for something unspeakably expensive at Kitson.  Perhaps, I mused, we might run into one of those young up-and-coming actors who had recently traded his job as waiter for a series-regular gig on the CW network.  Visitors always enjoy a celebrity spotting, the minor the better it seems.  As we passed one more overpriced bungalow shrouded by a towering hedge, Pam turned to me and in the most matter-of-fact tone of voice said, "Very bad men live there."

Refusing to be ruffled by this non-sequitur and uncertain as to what she could possibly have caught sight of through that inpenetrable growth of densely trimmed ficus I countered quickly with something to the effect that West Hollywood was indeed full of a wide variety of men, including no doubt a few bad apples, but that one needed to cultivate a live-and-let-live attitude in this busy metropolis full of social and sexual diversity... and so on.  Yet she paid no attention to these reasonable words of caution.

"Their kitchen smells bad and their dogs are going to hurt a boy with a blue rubber rug," she replied nonchalantly, and, since I could think of no snappy rejoinder to these cryptic words, and since no response seemed expected nor required, we continued on our way in awkward silence, and it was not until several weeks later that I learned, through a local contact, that a mutual acquaintance of ours, while on his way to yoga class with mat rolled under his arm, had been recently pounced upon and attacked by two pit-bulls escaped from a house rented by crystal meth dealers.  Neighbors had previously complained of the dogs and the toxic odor coming from the renters' kitchen, not to mention the constant foot and vehicular traffic at all hours of the day and night, but to no avail.

One could argue, of course, that given the ubiquitous presence of crystal dealers in West Hollywood and moreover, given the nature of their business, it would hardly be any stretch of the imagination to suppose they would keep aggressive guard dogs for protection and as an incentive for prompt payment by their customers, and hence it would not require a psychic to predict these sad but inevitable events.  The added detail, however, of the yoga student with his "blue rubber rug", not to mention confirmation of the precise street address, did give me pause and led me to broach the subject with Pam.  

Her reaction was an unexpectedly heavy sigh, followed by a reply in a weary tone that  yes, she saw things sometimes, this admission followed by a request to please not mention it to her mother, since it would only stir up "trouble" again.

All this, I might add, transpiring well before Didier came on the scene.  Just so you know.  Because as you might imagine, the next time she brought up the subject of "bad men" in conjunction with our dear beloved Didier, I was quick to pay attention.