“Are we still talking about my home life here? My marriage?”
“Whole reading is about the same Big Question. We have never changed the subject. What is troubling you so deeply and where is its source? That is question on the table. From looking at your very first card, the Empress, we have concluded that the source is your home and not your job. Your family and not your clients.”
I pointed first to the Nine of Pentacles and then to the Two of Pentacles. “So, let’s say we are in fact referring to my marriage. You’re telling me that it used to be stable and rosy, but something has happened; Eli—the Emperor, I mean—is bored and restless, and there’s a lot of strife and upheaval to be dealt with up ahead, which I can only imagine is somehow related to the discontented Emperor.”
Mala Sonia kept a poker face. “Strife and upheaval is a good way to interpret—but remember your destiny, your Magician card. You will be able to use your strengths of willpower and self-confidence to see you through the upcoming storm.”
Small compensation, I was thinking; then realized I would probably encourage one of my clients to do the same thing in a parallel situation.
“We have card number seven now. This card has often been interpreted as representing you, the questioner. It helps illuminate also how the near future will evolve for you. The card that comes up in the seventh position reveals the way in which you’ve responded to the near future and how or in what way your future is evolving.”
I gasped and pointed to the card. “That’s Death!” Assuming this reading was shaping up to represent a portrait of Eli’s infidelity and the resulting fallout, visions of him butchering me in our bed—or the other way around—danced across my brain. God, my head was in one of his lurid comic books. This wasn’t pretty.
Mala Sonia held up her hand as if to assuage my darkest fear. “Death is not always what you think it is.”
Yeah, Anna. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, to paraphrase Freud.
“The Death card—another one from the Major Arcana—can indicate a transformation, a clearing away of the old to make way for the new. So you see, it can mean the end of one thing so that another can begin, bearing in mind that the card also can represent an alteration in your life as you know it; an abrupt change, or loss of financial security.”
Swell. Fuck him. So, we’re going to get divorced when all is said and done? Is that what’s in my near future? I’ll demand alimony and child support, if I have to fight him for it. I’ll get the judge to saddle him with the kids’ college tuition!
Shit! I was jumping to conclusions; overanalyzing. I was hating myself. This was ridiculous. What was I doing here wasting my time, and Faith’s—the innocent witness to all this Gypsy folderol—by listening to Mala Sonia’s prattle? I suddenly realized what all this was about. It was Mala Sonia’s little joke on me, nasty payback for my nay-saying during her attempts to suck money out of my laundry room therapy clients. She was pissing on my psyche. That’s what this was. But I decided to let her finish the reading. We only had three more cards to go.
Mala Sonia rapidly blinked her eyes, and I spied a tear running down her cheek, drawing a fault line through her makeup. “Are you crying?” I asked incredulously.
“No. False eyelash has come unglued. I must fix later.” She peeled it from her lid and placed it on the table, where it lay, curly and inert, morbidly resembling a dead centipede. “We continue, yes?” Mala Sonia said. Funny, she didn’t look either as pleased or as malevolent as I had thought she might, since she was giving me such an unpleasant drubbing. “I add something about the Death card, so that you don’t feel so bad,” she said to me. “Death card can mean that you must be brought very low before you can be raised up. Think of Our Lord and His resurrection.” At which point she fervently crossed herself—backward.
“Your eighth card is another Minor Arcana card: the Three of Cups. Three of Cups indicates a resolution of a problem, a conclusion. There will be solace and healing, and a compromise will be reached. Number eight position in the ten-card spread refers to the environmental factors regarding your situation, a new turn of events, and the effect of others on you. So we are looking at the Three of Cups to represent new developments or unexpected changes that will alter your course or shed new light on existing situations. Are you with me?” I pursed my lips and nodded. “Good. This particular card also puts a spotlight on friendship among women. So we will see that your friendships with women will both enable you and encourage you to reach a resolution regarding your situation. They may provide you with the solace and healing that you will need to help you get through your difficulties. On this card, three women carry cups that are overflowing with abundance, symbolizing happiness and togetherness. Three of Cups is a card of celebration, of parties and gatherings where the guests or the members of a family come together to celebrate something new. A renewal, even.”
Well, that left the door open for some hope on the horizon. But hadn’t Mala Sonia told Alice that she too would experience a resolution to her question during a time of celebration and renewal? I was beginning to wonder about stock answers. Maybe Mala Sonia really told everyone the same thing, with slight variations on the theme, depending on what the client wanted to know. For Alice, a single woman, it was job and career-related. For the wives and mothers—Amy and me—it was all about hearth and home and husband.
Mala Sonia tapped the next card: the High Priestess. “She is the ninth card, representing your inner emotions and how your surroundings will affect you, and also how you will think and behave in times to come. So, yes, Major Arcana card number two—the High Priestess—symbolizes wisdom and sound judgment. You will be able to handle the problems facing you with serene knowledge and with common sense. If you look closely at the card, you will see that she bears a scroll with the word ‘Tora’ on it. While some interpret this word as an anagram for ‘tarot,’ for me that is a complicated and silly explanation of its meaning. ‘Tora’ is much closer to Jewish ‘torah’—the law—so can be also a Hebrew connection here. This card—ninth one—also describes the questioner. The High Priestess—you at the moment—is a practical person and an analytical one—”
“Well, that’s true enough,” I said, despite my recent notion that this reading was born only out of Mala Sonia’s desire to prove to me that her tarot interpretations were as valid as psychoanalysis when it came to assessing a troublesome issue presented by the client, and giving that client the tools to handle and overcome it.
Mala Sonia shifted in her chair and adjusted her breasts. Her push-up bra was working overtime. “Now, finally, we come to the last card. This is your outcome: the summation of everything. Once again, we have a Major Arcana card. We have Justice. So the outcome of your situation will seek to achieve balance and harmony, provide everyone with fairness and their just reward. It can also refer in the more literal sense to a court case and to adjustments in marriage or a partnership.”
“Like divorce court,” I muttered.
“There is always more than one way to interpret anything in life. Am I right?” Mala Sonia didn’t wait for an answer. “What the Justice card is also symbolizing is the need for you to balance things out.”
I immediately began to interpret that as the need to find a better balance between my work and my home lives. Did I give more of myself to my clients than I did to my own family? For fifty uninterrupted minutes a week, each client received my undivided attention, while they revealed their most personal secrets and we tackled their most deep-seated neuroses. Did I give the same kind of attention to Ian? To Molly? To Eli? In a word, no. Where at work I had a single focus, at home I considered myself the consummate multitasker. I oversaw homework while I stirred the soup, checked on the chicken, and conversed with my mother over the cordless phone. My family had to content themselves with receiving pieces of me, while my clients were awarded the whole. Ian, model child that he is, once asked plaintively if he had to make an appointment to tell me about the kids who were teasing hi
m at school for being a “faggot” because he wore puffy shirts and makeup in Les Misérables. And since Ian is not a complainer by nature, in fact is the relative who presents the least amount of trouble, I should have listened even more closely to what it was he was really saying. No wonder Eli had become remote, Molly’s acting out had manifested itself in criminality—if that isn’t a cry for attention, what is?—and Ian felt shortchanged.
Maybe this whole reading, were I to take it seriously, was all about my home life suffering because of my disproportionate attention to my career. After a long day’s listening to clients, I wanted to—needed to—chill out and let someone else do the heavy lifting for a few hours, but I lacked that luxury. When I got home, I was still expected to be the caretaker; yet by dinnertime there wasn’t much left of me, to be honest. I was fried and my family was stuck receiving second best.
But…this new interpretation of mine didn’t seem entirely on the money either, for some reason. Funny, how many people’s first instincts always veer toward the worst, rather than the best scenario. Psychologists are not immune from this doomsday behavior.
“You have learned many hard things from the cards. I am sorry to acknowledge that my vision was correct: that something very big was indeed hanging over you. Let me give you a summation of reading,” Mala Sonia said. “In the beginning I told you about Major and Minor Arcana cards in terms of long-term and short-term duration of the situation surrounding the question.” She waved her arms over the cards. “Six Major Arcana cards out of ten suggests to me that situation could be long-term, but,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “it’s close enough to fifty-fifty, so it could really go either way. You don’t look too happy, Susan.”
“Well, my future doesn’t seem bright enough for me to need shades,” I said, in a feeble attempt at lighthearted humor. “If, as so many of these cards suggest…and I hate myself for even thinking this…but if…let’s say you’re telling me—the reading does indicate—that Eli is cheating on me…” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I think I want to know something more. I think I want to know who the woman is.”
Mala Sonia grew tight-lipped. “I am not sure you do. Maybe it’s not a good thing. Si khohaimo may patshivalo sar o tshatshimo. There are lies more believable than the truth.”
“I think I want to know.”
The Gyspy frowned and fretted. “All right, I give you final card. One card to answer ultimate question: who is your husband’s mystery woman?” She palmed the top card off the deck and flipped it over.
“What?” I asked, trying to decipher her expression. “What is it? Who is it?” I couldn’t believe I wanted to know this, but it’s part of my training. We always risk pain as we face our issues and fears and then take the necessary steps or make the behavioral modifications to overcome them; but it is easier to face the known rather than the unknown. In fact, how can you surmount your issues if you can’t even identify them?
“The final card is the Queen of Pentacles.”
“And who is she? What does she mean, I mean? Signify?”
“How interesting. This is your only card in the reversed position in the entire reading. The Queen of Pentacles is a dark lady. She is an earthy person. Perhaps not bright in terms of intelligence or education, but she has great depth of feeling and is a vibrant personality too. In reversed position, also known as ill-dignified position, she can be an untrusting person, maybe even a vicious one, who is suspicious of what she cannot understand or what is new to her, and…who…”
Mala Sonia seemed to have a difficult time getting the words out. “Who…is unable to see beyond material possessions, so she is enjoying what is nothing but a false prosperity. She can also symbolize neglected responsibilities. The suit of Pentacles also represents the domestic sphere, so the Queen of Pentacles can be someone close to your home.”
Mala Sonia took my hands in hers—holding me so tightly that her rings began to cut into my skin—and looked deeply into my eyes. Hers glittered in the amber candlelight, but I couldn’t fully analyze what I saw there. It could have been triumph or it could have been the start of tears. Or neither of the above, frankly. Years of observing Mala Sonia’s behavior had convinced me that everything she did or said, each inflection, every gesture, was both calculated and choreographed. She was simply a full-time performer. I’d have a field day with her as a client. Getting her to be “real” would be a Herculean task.
“Final card,” she said quietly. “Yes. I hope you have learned what you needed to.” Then she blew out the candle and left the laundry room, leaving me sitting in the dark.
“Susan?” Faith whispered. Neither of us moved. “Are you all right?” When I didn’t respond right away, she rose and turned on the light, then came over to the table and seated herself in Mala Sonia’s chair. “Ehrmh! It’s still warm from her tush,” she commented, then gently laid her hand on my arm. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine. I’m fine. Now that you turned on the light. I feel like someone who’s gone for the ride in the haunted mansion and got very scared while it lasted, but once I exited the tunnel into the light, all my fears were left behind on the rickety little cart. I’m just experiencing the usual wobble in the legs that you get when you step out onto solid ground.”
“Are you certain?” Faith asked sympathetically. “I have to say, that was quite intense.”
“Did you believe any of it?”
“I’m a rather pragmatic sort, Susan.”
“Was that a yes?”
“I think it’s a lot like psychotherapy. If you believe that something works for you, then it will work. It you demonstrate no faith in the methodology, then it’s going to be powerless.”
“Very astute, Faith!” A little dose of my own medicine might have been just what I needed at that moment. Now…the next big question was…did I believe Faith…or Mala Sonia?
16
ME
Lucky for me, the rest of the day became unexpectedly busy, so I didn’t have a spare moment to waste obsessing over Mala Sonia’s psychic reading. I did, however, spend the rest of the day making a conscious effort to be Supermom, so I certainly had internalized at least some of the Gypsy’s message.
Ian was going to be the seventh-grade star of Fieldston’s annual Christmas-Chanukah-Kwanzaa pageant, and needed drilling on his lines after school. Molly was in the homestretch with her college applications, which were due on January first. She did in fact invest some extra effort on her Bennington application. She hadn’t been kidding about her “a slacker mind is a terrible thing to waste” campaign. Her cell phone “movie” was a pretty masterful production. It was clever, edgy, offbeat, and totally Molly; though I wasn’t very pleased during the “screening” when I saw the haunts she had frequented in order to make her point. And to my utter astonishment, she had elected to write the “toads” essay after all. I’m not sure whether it was what the Bennington admissions committee had been thinking of when they devised the assignment, but Molly had written a story called “The Ambivalent Amphibians” in which a princess is presented with an array of suitors—all toads.
She’d heard the old wives’ tale that by kissing a toad, it would turn the warty creature into a handsome prince, so she bought into the cliché and started smooching. Lo and behold, the old wives had been right! Each toad turned into a handsome prince. Some were more handsome, more charming, and more accomplished than others, but they all shared a single trait: every time the princess began talking to them about marriage and commitment and little princelings all decked out in adorable velvet suits and feathered caps—just like miniature versions of their father—and what a wonderful wedding they would have with a seventy-five piece orchestra and elaborate floral centerpieces and a Viennese table that would rival that of even the most prominent Jewish American Princesses, and a gown made out of cloth-of-gold, and how wonderful it would be if they spent their Sunday afternoons antiquing together, or maybe even furniture-or tapestry-shopping, instead of staring st
upidly at the TV, watching the NFL or Nascar, the toad-princes would hop like mad for the hills.
The princess was quite puzzled. She removed her pointy hennin so she could scratch her head. Why was it, she wondered, that each one of the toad-princes had exactly the same reaction to her endless rhapsodizing about domestic bliss? While in many ways the toad-princes didn’t resemble one another in the least, being tall or short, muscular or wiry, dark or fair, athletic or creative—not to mention the fact that some were better kissers than others—they shared this common trait. When she quietly sat with them side by side; or silently strolled with them through the kingdom’s deep and verdant woods or along its many beautiful powdery beaches; or while she and the toad-princes were engaging in a bit of nookie, where only nonverbal expressions of contentment were exchanged; or indeed when the princess was inclined to compliment them on one of their many favorable attributes, or indulge them by ardently rooting for their favorite sports teams, the toad-princes were the very models of modern, major chivalry. But every time, without fail, that the toad-princes heard the princess raise a subject that had anything whatsoever to do with commitment, or heard her wax lyrical imagining what their coat of arms might look like once their two households were connubially conjoined, the toads bolted, even though they acknowledged that the nookie with the princess had indeed been very, very good.
Why did each of these toad-princes respond so positively to her cheers of “Go, Knights!” but experienced a fight-or-flight (invariably flight, actually) response when she tried to tally aloud the exact number of times that they would wish one another a good night during the long and happy years of their marriage? The answer soon became as clear as the well water in which the princess washed her flowing hair. Evidently, the toad-princes hadn’t liked what they’d heard.
Spin Doctor Page 20