by Ilana Masad
She parks outside the café and spends a good five minutes sifting through the contents of her backpack and duffel before accepting that she must have left her planner back in Oxnard, though she could have sworn she’d brought it with her. Annoyed, she grabs her phone and hopes that caffeine will help her feel better.
The inside of the café looks like a gift shop threw up on a bar. The furniture is all deep, dark wood, and glass-fronted cases full of model fire trucks, hydrants, and firefighters sit next to racks bearing bags of potato chips and peanut-butter cookies and bags of M&M’s and snack packs of Oreos. The coffee is thankfully delicious, once it cools down enough for her to drink it.
For the first time since she posted the announcement, she starts looking at the comments on her social media feeds. It’s amazing, how little she’s cared about the goings-on in other people’s lives in the past few days. Usually, she’s an hourly or so checker—for notifications, for messages from her friends, for announcements in various queer groups she belongs to, as well as some of the local activist ones Lucia has shared with her.
She’s shocked to see the little red notification icon reads 99+. If they have room for the plus sign, she thinks, why not for a three-digit number? She clicks through and begins to read the comments upon comments.
So sorry for your loss, is what most of them read in one way or another.
My mom/aunt/grandpa/cat also died in a car crash and . . . is another common refrain, though these tend to be from people she’s not sure how she knows exactly, whose names are familiar to her but whose faces she can’t conjure up from their tiny circle avatars.
The messages that mean more to her are the ones that her real friends have left—though many, like Harper and Blair, have messaged her directly and privately instead, and she’s not quite ready to check those yet—and the few long memories of family members she barely sees. One of her step-uncles’ wives, a woman named Kristen who’s a Lutheran pastor, leaves Maggie in tears.
Your mother was a wise and gentle and hilarious soul and she lived a good, full life. It was cut short, and I am so terribly sorry. I am glad, Maggie, that you take after her so much. Did your uncle ever tell you about the first time I met her? It was at our wedding, before you were born, just a little bit after she and your father married. Our wedding was a disaster. The catering truck’s refrigerator broke and everything spoiled while they were stuck on highway traffic so we didn’t have any food. Your mother, bless her soul, walked around with a Lebanese fast-food menu she had somehow, I don’t know where from, and she asked people what they wanted. Thank God it was a smallish wedding! Then she got on the phone while I was putting my makeup back on (I cried buckets, I thought my wedding was ruined!) and by the time I walked down the aisle she already ordered food for everyone. She never let us pay her back! She said she got a good discount and to consider it a wedding present. The next week your daddy called and told us she was pregnant.
“Hey, you okay?”
Maggie is jerked out of the world of her phone’s screen and the imagined images of a younger Iris ordering Lebanese takeout to a wedding. A long-haired, red-rimmed-eyed white teenager has two fingers on her table and a look of concern furrowing his orange eyebrows. “Yeah. Yeah, thanks,” Maggie says.
“Okay, if you’re sure. If you need anything, though—” He pulls a card out of his pocket and puts it on the corner of the table where his fingers were, a respectful distance away from Maggie’s own hands. “My aunt, next door,” he says, and walks away.
Maggie isn’t sure what his deal is, or what the hell he means, but she picks up the card. It’s beautiful, heavy card stock with rounded edges. One side is a picture of the Milky Way, a path of dense white dots shining against the black night sky. On the other side, purple calligraphy font spells out MADAME FAUSTI, PSYCHIC, NUMEROLOGIST, STAR CHARTS & TAROT READINGS.
She puts the card down and returns to her phone. A new message from Allison appears. hey M how is things
Terrible and sad, Maggie replies, smiling. It’s a question and answer from Winnie-the-Pooh, which both she and Allison had as books on tape as children. When they first met in college and were exchanging odd facts, this was the best one they had in common.
U taking care of urself? Did u reach ur gf?
Yeah, thanks, Maggie types. And then, impulsively, Thinking of doing a psychic reading. Think I should?
Hell yeah
Which is as ringing an endorsement as Allison is capable of giving in written format as far as Maggie knows. She picks the card back up. Taps it to the table. With one last swig, she finishes her coffee, then places the mug in the brown bin by the door and exits. To the right she sees a barber, but to the left is a private house, a bungalow really, with a triangular banner hanging from it. Maggie walks down the sidewalk so she can see it from the front. The banner says the same as the card, in a more readable font.
She’s never been to a psychic before and doesn’t think she’s going to believe anything she hears, but her head still hurts, and the goth kid was kind of spooky in a way that makes her feel like she should see this through, for the story if nothing else. Plus, she sometimes feels like the last millennial holdout on astrology and energy healing and other things she’s been raised to think are nonsense—half her friends seem to be wholeheartedly into it—so she might as well test it out for herself.
She climbs up the steps leading to the wraparound porch and bright blue door. An OPEN sign dangles on the inside of the windowed glass, making it look more like OF–N, but it’s ajar, so Maggie pulls it and enters.
“Yoohoo!” a voice calls out.
“Hello?”
“Take a right, please! You don’t want to go straight, the kitchen is a mess.” The voice has a soft accent that reminds Maggie of her Italian grandfather. She turns right and steps through a thick beaded curtain and into a room that both does and doesn’t look like what she thinks a psychic’s den should. There’s a crystal ball on a shelf and a short, stout woman wearing flared jeans and a floaty purple top sits at the table beneath it. A deck of cards rests on the table, and beside it a miniature set of drawers. But there are also plants everywhere, mostly different shades and shapes of green, though a few carry flowers. A fat cactus holds center stage on a coffee table, and there’s a TV in the corner, half-covered with a red scarf. On the walls are painted renderings of tarot cards. “I designed those,” the woman says.
“What?”
“Those cards, on the wall. And these.” The woman gestures to the deck on the table. “I was an artist long before I was a psychic,” she says. “I am Madame Fausti, but you can call me Carolina.” She pronounces it in the European way, not like the north or south state.
“Uh, hi.” Maggie sits in the chair across from Madame Fausti—she can’t possibly call her by her first name, she decides; it would ruin the whole atmosphere.
“You are on a journey,” Madame says.
Maggie almost rolls her eyes but manages not to. How often do people make Needles their destination rather than a stop along the way? Plus, surely this woman knows the locals. But Maggie nods.
“You are a skeptic, I can see that. And so tarot will do you no good; you need to believe, and you will think I am just spinning tales. Let’s do something more scientific for you, shall we? A star chart. Come.” She pulls out a slip of paper and hands it to Maggie with a blunt pencil that looks like it’s been chewed on more than once. “Write down your birth date, time of birth, and place of birth.”
“How much for the reading?” Maggie asks. She’s hoping the woman will say that it’s on the house because Maggie is a skeptic, and that she can tip at the end if she likes what she hears. That’s the sort of thing that would happen in the movies. But this isn’t, and Madame hands Maggie a laminated price chart. “Aren’t psychics different than astrologers?” Maggie asks, running her eyes down the list of services. She notes with some p
leasure that a star chart is cheaper than a tarot reading—at least the woman isn’t trying to squeeze her for every penny she’s got.
“I am both,” Madame says, and smiles. She has two teeth missing on the right side, but the rest of her teeth look so neat and white and permanent—Maggie can see her gums when she smiles, and they’re wet and soft, not the hard look of dentures—that Maggie is sure she must be getting them replaced. Madame Fausti slides the tiny chest of drawers toward Maggie and opens the bottom one. “Please pay now, and then fill out the paper.”
Maggie’s glad that she has cash for once, procured to pay Gina for the weed. She puts two twenties in the drawer, which Madame then shuts and puts aside. Maggie wonders why she couldn’t have just taken the money from her hand and put it in her jeans pockets, but then focuses.
SEX AND/OR GENDER (Maggie appreciates the distinction here, and that the options are for F/M/OTHER): F
BIRTH DATE: 1/21/1990
BIRTH TIME: 7:51 AM
PLACE OF BIRTH: Oxnard, California
Madame takes the slip and pulls out her phone. She opens an app and plugs all the info into it.
“Seriously?” Maggie asks, getting pissed at herself for spending the money. She could have done this on her own. “An app?”
“Do you know how to read this?” Madame Fausti holds up her screen. It’s a star map, and as she swipes down, Maggie sees tables full of symbols, planet names, asteroid names, and on it goes, blurring together. Madame yanks the screen back. “This is a shortcut,” she explains, her voice as even as it’s been the entire time, calm and soothing, as if trying to tame a wild thing. “This way, neither of us is spending time or energy on the math and science and geometry part of the process.”
“Okay,” Maggie says, and waits as Madame Fausti scrolls up and down her phone.
“Your sun was in Aquarius at your time of birth,” Madame Fausti says, looking up from the screen to make eye contact with Maggie. “Which means you don’t like to follow the usual way of doing things, but at the same time, you do have some outmoded ways of thinking that you cling to.”
Maggie can relate to the first part of this—she’s been called blunt before, and she doesn’t always adhere to rules. Iris certainly thought Maggie was trying to rebel, sort of no matter what she did. As for the second . . . well, she considers, it’s true that she does have a nine-to-five job, a rarity in her group of friends, and she does like the stability of that, which allows her to do whatever she wants elsewhere. She nods, and tries to keep her hands from twisting in her lap.
“You need your space and freedom, and anyone in the past who has tried to keep you in a box has failed miserably,” Madame Fausti continues. “Your exes all wanted something from you that you couldn’t give.”
This is true enough, Maggie thinks. Iris tried to box her into being a straight girl who wears dresses to prom, and that didn’t work. Sasha wanted her to accept the cheating, which Maggie wouldn’t, and Allison wanted her to be poly, which Maggie couldn’t, though she did try. But, she reminds herself, this isn’t exactly a shocking revelation, is it? Doesn’t everyone think their exes were unfair?
“Your sextile sun is in Moon—unlike many people you know, you had a good upbringing. It was calm, for the most part. Your parents instilled good values in you, harmoniously, and they loved each other and you a great deal.”
Maggie can’t help interjecting, “Yeah, well, apparently not.” She looks away quickly, her eyes filling.
Madame Fausti reaches down and comes up with a box of tissues, proffers it to Maggie. She takes one and blows her nose loudly as Madame Fausti smiles gently. “I was getting to that,” she says. “Your square sun is Lilith. You’re concerned about being betrayed, or that you have been betrayed, and your significant other—a woman, yes?—isn’t entirely convinced of this betrayal.”
Could that be true? Maggie wonders. Is Lucia skeptical about Iris’s betrayal? Why would she be? Thinking back, she can’t recall a single moment where Lucia condemned Iris for her behavior. She’s just been sympathetic to Maggie’s feelings, confirming that her reactions are normal, acceptable. So maybe Lucia isn’t judging Iris—no, Maggie catches herself. She has no idea what Lucia is or isn’t thinking or feeling, because this is a psychic’s guess, nothing else. She vows to ask Lucia what she thinks next time they talk.
“Uranus was in Capricorn when you were born,” Madame Fausti says, and Maggie can’t help snorting, thinking of how, if Allison said something like this, she’d respond with No, your anus is in Capricorn. Madame Fausti narrows her eyes at Maggie, as if she doesn’t approve of such second-grade humor. “This means making friends comes naturally to you, it’s even something you enjoy, and you gravitate toward people like you, progressive thinkers, community makers, but you keep these people at a distance. A shame.”
“I don’t, really,” Maggie says, without much conviction. She doesn’t—does she? She doesn’t feel like she does. She hangs out with her friends a lot. But a voice—it sounds a little like Lucia, Lucia with her annoyingly sexy maturity and insight that she turns on Maggie ever so delicately, without judgment—asks her why she lost touch with Anthony, who seems like he’s pretty rad now, and why she doesn’t talk to Gina more often when she knows Gina’s been having a hard time for years, and why she hasn’t answered the texts from Blair, and Harper, and even Simon from work, and Jolie, her once booty call, who checked in so sweetly. But no, Maggie thinks, this is overwhelming, this is for another time, this is—and she shuts it away somewhere, and tries to listen.
“Your moon is in Sagittarius,” Madame Fausti continues. “You like throwing yourself into the unknown and discovering things no matter the possible cost, because you feel like the experience is always worth it.”
Maggie’s attention wanders as Madame Fausti continues, her thoughts stuck on this last pronouncement. It’s true that she’s thrown herself into this letters business, and it’s true that the reason she’s still going is that she has to know the truth. She thinks of last night—is it possible she went out with Nelly and her friends in order to figure out whether she wanted to cheat on Lucia? That she was testing herself to get at this truth? Or did she think that it would be worth it if she had? She thinks of all the times she’s gotten high on a whim—on a lunch break at work, occasionally; before a test in college; the morning of the funeral—and then sort of regretted it, but sort of not, because it was interesting to look back later and think of how she dealt with the situation in an altered state. She’s yanked back to the present when Madame Fausti says, “. . . goal, slowly and surely.”
“Sorry, can you repeat that?” Maggie asks.
“Yes, my dear, of course. I was saying that you are goal-oriented but very patient. You can save money over long periods of time, and you don’t lose sight of what you want.”
“Financial independence,” Maggie says, nodding. “A good pension.” She remembers the fantasy she had before she fell asleep last night, of supporting Lucia, taking care of her, so she can dedicate her time to the art and the causes she cares about.
“Yes, security,” Madame Fausti says. “For yourself, but more so for others, I think. Well, Venus was in the twelfth house when you were born, which means you care about the sick, the needy, the poor. You maybe work in social services or in the medical profession?”
Maggie snorts. “Wow, no. Never even wanted to be a doctor.” But she does, she thinks and doesn’t say, want to care more about the world around her, volunteer more. It’s why she went to that meeting at the new Pride center—she feels like she’s been complacent for too long, coasting, and the political reality of recent months has reminded her that she really can’t afford to.
“No, of course,” Madame Fausti agrees, as if Maggie’s annoyed response didn’t even register. “No, that’s not quite right, is it.” She taps a long nail on her bottom teeth for a moment. “No, you work in something more prac
tical, but there is a service element . . . Ah, insurance maybe?”
“What the fuck,” Maggie says, creeped out. She stands up. “What, did that kid you shill out to promote your little operation, did he like steal my wallet or something? Use facial recognition software to get some intel? Fuck this, I’m leaving.”
“Ah, yes, with Mars in Sagittarius, you want to run when you’re angry, don’t you?” Madame Fausti is leaning back, but isn’t smiling anymore. Maggie thinks of Peter and his behavior, of the shiva she’s escaped. “Oh dear, you have suffered a terrible loss recently, haven’t you? You’re running from that too.”
“You’re wrong,” Maggie says. “I’m not running from anything.” She sits back down, to prove her point. Madame Fausti waits a beat, as if to make sure she’s really not leaving.
“Where were we? Mm, yes, with Venus in the twelfth house. So, I’m seeing there’s a chance of secret love affairs—perhaps you’ve been tempted to stray?”
Maggie jumps up again. “No. Nope, that’s it. I’m done. Thanks and whatever.”
She slams herself out of the house, where the early-afternoon sun beats down on her. She almost expects to see the goth nephew standing there, watching her, maybe urging her to go back inside. Then again, she’s already paid, so why should Madame Fausti even care?
In the car, Maggie can’t stop sweating. The temperature has gone up, she’s sure of it. Something about the desert and heat being released from the ground. She read about the phenomenon once but can’t remember what it was called. The air-conditioning vents are all pointed at her, even the ones meant for the passenger seat, but for the first few minutes they just blow hot air and she leaves the window open too. The sandy smell gets stronger as she gets back on the highway.