Psychic Junkie (29 page)

old just wouldn’t be right.

Okay, here we go. I pulled the first card: Happiness. Huh, good start. Now just two more. Second card: Attraction. Wow. I snuck a peek at Rebecca, who was grinning widely. Crap. Just hold on, Rebecca, don’t get too excited, there’s still one more. And lastly: Love.

The cards were lying. I knew this, with sinking certainty. A psychic had once told me that sometimes the cards told you what you needed to hear, even if it was not the truth. At the time I’d figured the psychic had just been covering her ass for having been so wrong with her past readings, but now I knew. Sometimes you
do
need to hear something. I looked up at Rebecca, who was now leaning forward with such excitement that I worried even one word from me would serve as a sort of release mechanism, and off she’d go, springing toward Ryan, knocking him over and taking out the sushi bar in the process. I had to be careful. I couldn’t toy with her heart, but clearly the cards wanted her to believe in herself.

Remembering my own experiences with boys at that infuriating age (though, who was I kidding, boys are infuriating at any age), and that a girl could measure how much a boy liked her by the intensity of his torment, I tried a different tack, one that could work if he didn’t like her at all, as well as if he did.

“So,” I said, still smiling, “what the cards are telling me is that he does like you, a lot. However, and this is something you’ve got to remember, sometimes boys don’t admit things like that. Sometimes they even act just the opposite. So he may never admit that he likes you. He may even act like he doesn’t. But don’t worry. Secretly he does. A lot.”

She beamed at me and then was gone, floating across the dance floor and sneaking furtive glances at übercool Ryan. Ah, what the hell. I figured, she’s thirteen. It’s not like what I said was going to keep her waiting around for a proposal. I had given her hope and confidence, and that was a good thing, right?

Before long another little girl—one obviously from the Britney camp, with an exposed midriff, perfectly applied eye shadow, and a Gucci purse I knew, with jealousy, was real—made her way to my table. I prayed she wasn’t going to ask me about the resident heartthrob as well, but then sized her up as more of the career type. Many kids wanted to know what they were going to be when they grew up, and hours before, I’d made peace with inventing wonderful and exciting careers for them. Why not? There was no way they’d track me down in ten years to give me an earful, so if a girl wanted to be a fashion designer, she’d be a fashion designer.
Poof!
You’re a fashion designer.

This one, a girl who was thirteen going on twenty-five, looked like the type who’d want to work in the entertainment industry. Then again, for all I knew, her dad owned a studio and she
already
worked in the entertainment industry. I was about to ask her what she wanted to know, when faster than the speed of light Gucci Girl spat her question. I blinked.

Her chin rose just slightly. “I
said
, will I ever see my father again.”

The way she resisted lifting her voice at the end, refusing to turn her words into a question, told me we both knew the answer. In her eyes was the truth: Despite her bravado and polished facade, she was a scared thirteen-year-old girl who missed her father.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

She didn’t break my gaze. “Five years ago. No one knows where he is.”

I nodded, desperately wanting to get up—to hand Gordon my cards, scale the nearest ten-foot perimeter wall, and jump back down into a world where I wasn’t responsible for anyone but me. This girl didn’t need a not-so-successful actress in a beehive wig pretending to be a tarot card reader; she needed a therapist. What could I say? “No, you may never ever see your father again, but I do see a bright future for you as a movie producer”? None of this was right. And where was that hot gay bartender when I needed him?

I had to give her a reading, so I pulled some cards, making damn sure I approved of them before I laid them on the table. There was no way I’d slap down the Death or Disappointment card in a case like this. And though nothing frightening appeared, neither did anything hopeful. I needed to be encouraging, but I didn’t want to doom this girl to years of waiting by the window.

“To be honest, I don’t know if you’ll be seeing him soon. The cards aren’t telling me that, but what they
are
telling me is that he wants you to know that he loves you. He thinks about you all the time. You should always remember that, even when he’s not here, that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about you, or missing you, or wishing he was with you. Always remember that your father loves you. That’s what the cards are saying.”

Though her chin was still tipped upward, barely, just barely, I did see her nod.

“Thanks,” she said as she got up. “I like your wig.”

What happened to only fun and glitter mattering to people this young? I stood up, about to voyage to what I feared was a spicy-tuna-roll-ransacked sushi table, when a couple—in their midforties, impeccably groomed, and exuding the word “rich” down to their no doubt buffed and manicured toes—appeared out of nowhere and announced that they wanted a reading on their marriage.

I sat back down. I
really
didn’t want to read adults. Adults cared. That I knew, and I’d been hoping to get through the entire evening without journeying into such dangerous, mine-laden territory.

“Is there something in particular you’d like to ask?”

They looked at each other, smiled, and shrugged. Of course not. A question would be too easy, too fast; they wanted an entire reading. They wanted me to be left with just the mounds of ginger, gobs of wasabi, and chopsticks I could do nothing with—other than stab myself over and over in an attempt to end my misery.

I decided to do a general relationship spread—a spread I’d mastered over the years, though sadly had had no reason to use as of late—just to see what surfaced. What surfaced was the Three of Cups, otherwise known in my deck as the love triangle card. Great. My wig was itchy, I was tired, I was denied sushi, and now this? Adultery? Then again, if it was in the cards, maybe I was meant to tell them? Whatever. I decided I was just going to be honest. I’d say what I saw and let them take it how they would. For a second I pictured the table uprooted, cards flying, man and wife screaming, designer clothes ripping, and children running. The bright side of such an outcome, I figured, would be that I might get fired, escorted out, and be wigless on my couch within the hour.

Here went nothing. “Are you aware…of a third party?”

There was silence, and I braced myself for an earsplitting scream or the wet slap of a drink hurled in my face.

“Yes,” the wife said, her eyes wide. She squeezed her husband’s hand. “It’s okay. I know about the third party. Go on.”

Oddly, her husband looked excited, and he too nodded me on. I stared at him in silence, affording him a chance to regain his sanity, to try to change the subject so we weren’t all forced to dwell on his infidelity, but he quickly added, “It was during our separation. We just got back together. Sorry, it’s just amazing that you picked up on that. But yes, please go on.”

So on I went. And the rest, I must say, was actually a breeze, all good fortune with only a few obligatory bumps along the way. By the time I’d finished, they were exhilarated, gazing into each other’s eyes, and commenting on little things I’d said, completely impressed with the reading and their future.

Two hours and one measly California roll later, I was finally packing up my tarot cards to leave when the husband approached my table. The wife, I noticed, was nowhere to be found.

“Can I just ask you a quick question?”

I nodded and smiled as visions of couches and food, any kind of food, danced in my head.

“I’d like to know,” he said, then looked over his shoulder quickly, “if I did the right thing leaving my girlfriend, or if I made a mistake getting back together with my wife.”

I was tired, I was hungry, I wanted to go home, and now, on top of all that, I was just
done
with the entire species of men. I mean, was he kidding me? There he’d been, all lovey-dovey with his wife, holding her hand and gazing at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world, and yet now, just two hours later, he was asking me, a perfect stranger, if getting back together with her was a mistake?! I literally wanted to leap across the table and beat him with my wig. I took a deep breath. Why was I this upset? Suddenly I heard the question again, only this time with a German accent. Right. Wilhelm asking Dustin if he’d made a mistake getting back together with me.
Men.

“I don’t even need the cards for this,” I said firmly. “I feel it very strongly. Absolutely, without a doubt, you made the right choice going back to your wife.”

The next day, as I counted up my twenties, I thought of that man’s question. There he’d stood in expensive Italian shoes, his suit perfect and pressed, a man with a watch that had cost more than I’d made that whole year, a man who no doubt had a very important and respected job, and who was friends with the owners of that estate—that mansion with a view of the world—and yet he’d stood there asking me, a girl often not responsible enough to pay her bills on time even when she did have money, if he’d made the right decision or if his heart had led him astray. Never had I fully understood the control psychics had, the trust people placed in them, or the opportunities to abuse that trust and influence. Sure, I’d been on the other side, I’d been the one asking the questions and believing and imploring, but the understanding of the
power
really only sank in when I myself had become the maker or breaker of dreams.

And when he asked if he’d made the right choice in going back to his wife, what was I to say? I’m human. All I’d had to go on were the looks of love I’d caught them sharing, my instinct, and my own personal feelings on the matter. What was psychic about that? Absolutely nothing. Sure, it was strange that the Three of Cups had popped up when there had indeed been a love triangle, and there were a few other times when the cards had been eerily accurate, but for the most part there was nothing psychic or strange about what I’d done. I’d simply spoken whatever had come to mind, just hunches and feelings and the advice I would have given a friend.

And that’s when it hit me.

I could do this. I could read cards. I could give advice.

I could work as a psychic! I’d go undercover at a psychic hotline and wield my tarot powers for good!
I
understood the power psychics had. Callers would be safe with me, because I’d never abuse that power! Instead I’d tell people to trust their instincts and stop calling!

Right away I found a want ad for readers, and within ten minutes was waiting for my “interview” phone call. My interview was, of course, a reading, so my preparation involved sitting on my bed with my tarot cards and staring off into space. I was actually trying to clear my mind, trying to not worry that Angelique, my interviewer, would see right through me and realize I was a sham of a psychic, nothing more than a bored girl in her bedroom trying to save the world one caller at a time. Yet all I could think was,
Why have I never painted my apartment?
I’d been there for years. Did I not care about these things? At one point the walls had been white, but now they were that strange dusty age-sooted white, some corners and spots mysteriously darker than the rest and adorned with fossilized spiderwebs posing as cracks. I couldn’t for the life of me think of a fitting name to describe the hue of the walls within which I’d been living, as even the diplomatic “off-white” was too kind. No, my walls were simply “not-white.”

I needed to do something about my apartment. The home that lived in my mind looked so different, a shocking comparison: clean and decorated with plants, fine rugs, painted walls, candles, matching plates, and curtains. I mean,
curtains
. I had curtains only in my bedroom, and those were purely for function and certainly not for appearance, while the living room was practically a greenhouse, all windows through which neighbors and stalkers could monitor my every move.

Granted, my future home was a
house
, not an upper-level living-room-floor-sloping apartment. But when would that future begin? Why force myself to live in an agonizing interim? I would have loved to buy a house, and I would have loved to live with someone, but was I really going to exist like this, just skimming above the surface of functionality until that mysterious time of love and success arrived? What was I waiting for?

Okay, we know damn well what I was waiting for: a man. With Wilhelm, any amount of investment into my own style would have been futile and wasted, as his tastes overrode mine. But
why
had I thought that? Why had his sparse, boring, sterile style become more important than my own? Sure, if either of us were going to throw a tizzy fit over interior design, it would’ve been him, but still, I’d rolled over and played dead. I’d been so determined to keep him happy that I’d conveniently forgotten that
I
had style too—and style that I actually liked. And now, now that I was single, I’d somehow continued to forget about myself as I put my entire life on hold waiting for a man who might never come.

I thought of Gina joyfully passing up the shoes she’d been coveting when she’d discovered an oak mission-style bookcase that was “the perfect size to fit in that corner that just needs something.” Yes, as a woman obsessed with decorating, she had
corners
that needed something, while I had an apartment that needed everything. Before she’d met Mark, we’d all accused her of nesting—the if-you-build-it-he-

will-come theory—and had liked asking her what she’d do if her future man didn’t like her style. She never gave it a second thought. “Then he won’t move in, will he?” And while that attitude could certainly have backfired, in her case it hadn’t. Mark arrived, fell in love with her and her couch, and never left.