Without A Pail

by Michelle Marra

  “Anything you like, I can wrap up for you while you’re in session.” A girl seemed to magically appear by Jill’s side and the voice suddenly appearing out of nowhere nearly made Jill jump out of her skin.

  With a loud gasp, Jill placed her hand over the center of her chest, “Wow, you scared the shit out of me. Where did you come from?” she asked as she regarded the young girl about seventeen with curly black hair and shimmering brown skin.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ve been standing here for a few minutes. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Jill smiled, she was in another world. “I guess maybe I’m just a little nervous about this whole thing. I’ve never been to a psychic before.”

  “Don’t worry, Drina is awesome. Anything here you like and want me to wrap up for you?”

  Jill regarded the mystical looking girl and nodded. She pointed out three out of the ten items she wanted. Step one! While following Jasmine through a door toward the back of the store, she imagined what this fortune teller would be like…maybe a woman in her sixties with a cigarette hanging from her mouth sitting at a table with a crystal ball lodged in the center of it. Then she imagined some weird European gypsy hack with a pack of Tarot cards and a book of psychic gibberish.

  The corridor was beautifully lit up with warm and soothing colors, royal blue, deep purple and greens blended perfectly together to ease any troubled soul. Artwork adorned the walls with simple yet stylish paintings of trees and mountains. Jill was captivated by the entire experience, she could sense this was going to be something different than she had ever experienced before.

  Jill sat on an extremely comfortable chair in a small waiting room just outside what she thought would be the room of elucidation. Again she imagined there would be several psychics, and ‘Madame Drina’ would not be a specific person, but a barrage of those dime store hacks. Now only seeing the one door, Jill was completely nervous and thoughts poured through her head like a wrecking ball. Maybe this person is for real. Maybe she will see all my secrets. Maybe she will tell me who I am. Then Cher’s hit from the 70s Dark Lady began to play at top volume through her head.

  The door she stared at was two beautiful French doors of what appeared to be mahogany. Both with a carving to display a wolf prowling through a full moonlit winter night in a landscape of hills, rocks and barren trees.

  “Impressive.” she whispered as the doors slowly began to open causing her heart to immediately thunder in her chest.

  “Jillian Warner?” A toe-headed woman appeared through the doors with what looked to be a fog or mist following her, but Jill knew her nervousness was making her eyes see things that were not there.

  “Yes,” Jill said as she stood up. She thought it might be a good idea to use her maiden name…news of this getting back to Bill would surely give him some kind of ammunition to try and prove she was unstable or something. And she also thought about changing it back…once she was free of him and gotten what she was owed; she wouldn’t want another thing that was his…especially his name.

  Jill walked through the opened doors with a very blank look on her face, she didn’t even look directly at the so-called Madame Drina.

  “Please have a seat anywhere you’d like.”

  Jill looked around the room, it was more like an office…like a psychiatrist’s office. The décor was a bit different than she would expect to see in a psychiatrist office and she smiled as she sat down on the sofa as the crystal ball caught her eyes. She eyed the woman who sat directly to her left. She had definitely dressed the part of some type of gypsy-psychic, but her eyes were like daggers and when her eyes found Jill’s it was like they ripped right through her soul.

  “I am Drina it is nice to meet you, Jillian,” she said as she extended her hand.

  When Jill took her hand to return the gesture, she could feel some kind of energy, almost like an electric shock which made her hand tingle. “Call me Jill…please,” she said as she looked down at her own palm to see if something had stung her. “That’s quite a handshake you have.” Jill smiled as she regained her focus on the frost blue eyes searing into her soul.

  “Jill, you are deeply fractured. A sorrow has cast its darkness upon you for so long now it has grown roots into your soul.” Joni continued to keep her gaze pinned on Jill forcing the returned eye contact like a deer caught in head lights. This was her gift, she could see past someone’s eyes and into their heart…she could feel their emotions. This was also her curse because many didn’t want the truth even if they came looking for it. And there were times when she could feel and see things in people she wished she didn’t. Oblivious is how she preferred to be, just like the rest of the world…but she was unlike the world.

  Joni paused for a moment and took a deep breath to quell the nausea building. “Love has betrayed you.”

  Jill’s eyes instantly filled with tears. She didn’t say your husband betrayed you…she said love. Jill wiped the moisture from her cheeks with both hands and narrowed her eyes at the gypsy. “What do you mean by love?” Jill asked even though she knew exactly what gypsy meant.

  “Something within you died causing you to shut down. You turned your back on love.”

  Jill’s eyes flew open wide. “I never turned my back on love…love kicked me in the face after it ripped my heart out and torched it.” Her tone was wavering on agitation.

  “That may be true, but it is also true that you gave up on love. Once the sorrow began to burrow deep within you…you let it.” Joni placed a comforting hand on Jill’s knee.

  “Not true!” Jill stood up in a huff ready to run from the room.

  Joni pinched her eyes shut, she wanted to help, but these kinds of people were so deeply complex and fought the truth, while many others would call her a hack and a liar. These were the times when her gift was her curse and she hated it, but she always gave her clients what they came for…whether they accepted it or not was a different story. But she could see something else in Jill, a small light inside. It was a glimmer of hope which was restoring her slowly. Giving her something to grasp onto. Normally she would just let the client leave and give them a refund…she knew she couldn’t force help or even the truth on anyone that didn’t want to have it, but Jill was different. Something in her spoke it in volumes.

  “Jill, wait.” She stood and closed the distance to the door which was where Jill was now standing. “I know this is hard to hear, but it is what you came here for…yes?” She placed a hand on each of Jill’s shoulders. “You may have let sorrow in, but I see something inside you fighting its way out of the darkness it has created. You are here for answers, but first you must hear and accept the truth.”

  Jill’s head dropped with an anguished moan. She absolutely knew what she was hearing was the truth, but to accept it was another thing. How was this her fault? Love did this to her, it hurt her beyond repair. She loved her husband and he chose to leave her for another woman and another family. She loved her beautiful son James only to lose him days after he was born. How else was she supposed to feel? She was abandoned and betrayed. Any family she had outside of Bill was distant and estranged at best. So she was alone with nothing or no one to make it better…so she made it better for herself. It was either that or put a bullet through her head; and at times she wondered why she didn’t. Her only reasoning was that she would not give Bill the satisfaction.

  “It’s hard.” Jill’s voice cracked and her resolve wavered as she fell into the arms of her gypsy and wept uncontrollably.

  “Well, I see your aura is a bit lighter now,” Joni said after they had sat back down.

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “Yes, an excellent thing,” Joni grinned as her eyes regained their focus on Jill’s.

  “You don’t have many friends do you?” Jill giggled feeling the gypsy’s eyes once again dig into her soul.

  Joni’s head fell back against the chair as laughter poured from her throat. “No, actually…I don’t.”

  “I’m sorry,
just the intensity of those eyes. You should have gone into police work or something. I’ll bet you could get anyone to confess.”

  “Is that what you think you’re doing? Confessing?”

  Jill shrugged her shoulders, “No not really, maybe more like admitting.”

  “Jill, it isn’t helpful to admit the truth unless you accept it as well.”

  Jill rolled her eyes, “Fine…whatever! I accept the truth.”

  “Ah!” Joni knew the cleansing was only going to last so long. It was time to stop the idle chit-chat and get back to it. She could see through Jill’s weak ability trying to derail her from the probing. It was natural for anyone not to want the other cheek slapped since the one being slapped was red and swollen. She fixed her gaze on Jill again. “I see a small glimmer of hope and purpose. You have desire again…desire for life and…” Joni paused and smiled “and love. But you are struggling with something.” Joni’s brow furrowed, “An uncertainty.”

  Jill’s body went rigid. How the fuck…? she thought as she continued to stare back into the face of what she would now call ‘her healer’.

  Joni stood up and walked over to a cabinet, “Your uncertainty seems to be focused around attraction. If you desire sex, then attraction is a very easy thing to decipher; for example, this is the person I’m attracted too, therefore, this is the person I want to have sex with. But love is a different animal because it is hearts and souls that attract us more than physical appearance. Sometimes it just takes looking into someone’s eyes to know they are the one. But so many follow physical desire and wind up with the wrong person and spend years being miserable.” Joni was quiet for a moment while she processed the super charged force coming from the woman sitting anxiously at her table and she smiled…this was her gift. “We all have a twin flame, similar to a soul mate, the twin flame is the other half of our soul.”

  Joni returned to her seat with a brand new, unopened deck of playing cards and handed it to Jill. “Open and shuffle these. Shuffle them for as long as you like and when you’re done, give them back to me.”

  Jill raised an eyebrow, wondering if this gypsy was going to perform some type of card trick or do some predictable card reading.

  “I know what you’re thinking…but just trust me on this.”

  So Jill opened the deck of cards and shuffled them for about a minute before handing them back to Drina. “Please don’t pull the death card out and tell me I’ll be hit by a bus or something.”

  Joni’s eyes narrowed with a smirk. This was a common misconception. “No…no, this isn’t by any means a fortune telling device.” She placed the cards on the table and fanned them out in one motion. “Pick three cards…doesn’t matter where in the deck.”

  Jill looked quizzically at Madam Drina, unsure if she should take it seriously or not…after all, wasn’t this a fortune teller’s staple. But in keeping with how this woman was for all intents and purposes looking right through her soul, she figured ‘what the hell’ and pulled three cards from the deck and slid them face down, one by one, into the center of the table.

  “Okay, now I want you to flip over one of the cards…doesn’t matter which one.”

  Jill turned over the two of hearts.

  “Wow, guess it is really in the cards for you.” She winked when Jill looked up from the card and into Joni’s twinkling eyes.

  Joni took a deep breath as she glared deep into Jill’s eyes, “Hearts represents love and a new beginning. The number two represents union. Together as the two of hearts, it is representing a desire for a union in love; a new beginning in love…but what I see in your eyes is a fear of this particular new beginning. You desire a new chapter in your life, you are ready to seek love…but you are afraid of the unknown, of taking that first step into the dark abyss because you don’t know where to start. More than that, you are afraid of trusting yourself to surrender to this desire and attraction you are now realizing has been with you your entire life.” Joni paused for a moment trying to give Jill a moment to absorb all she was saying. She could see the stoic expression on her face and the extreme rigidness of her body language. She knew that Jill was battling with something and she pretty much knew what the struggle was. But this was something she would have to come to terms with, no amount of encouraging words would be helpful here. Jill had to accept what was in her heart and take the first step.

  “You are ready for a new beginning in love. Turn over the next one.”

  Jill turned over the seven of hearts with a shaky hand.

  Joni’s grin grew wider, “The seven represents a completeness and perfection in both the physical and spiritual. This is wonderful, the glimmer in you is not only your readiness, but there is already a foundation that has been laid. Whether you know it or not, you have met your perfect soul mate…your twin flame. As the two of hearts was professing you are searching for your soul mate…but in actuality, you have met this person.” Joni watched as Jill’s eyes wildly flicked back and forth as if she was searching her brain for the mystery person. Then a shade of crimson began to envelop her face and Joni knew realization hit her like a bullet to the brain.

  “While the pain you have experienced in the past may have depleted you…you are not willing to give up. You have faith in yourself, the tests you’ve encountered throughout your life have given you the strength to flow with the ups and downs and while you have a deep fear in you, you also have a brighter light and the strength to rise above that fear. If you have an open heart and mind you will not only see the transformation but you will feel it and you will transform right along with it.”

  “But…” Jill looked at Joni…she was taken aback and didn’t know how to respond to everything her gypsy threw at her; after all, it was a lot to take in. Everything she was seeing and saying was right on the nose of what Jill seemed to be struggling with. Now it appeared that Madam Drina had found her last secret which was buried deep within her own denial. Something she was struggling with, something she was on the fence about…but something she’s known all along. “How could I have been so blind?” Jill whispered as she turned over the last card terrified what Drina was going to tell her next.

  The last card was a six of spades. Jill looked over at the wide-eyed look on the gypsy’s face. “I gather by the look on your face this isn’t a good card?” Jill asked feeling defeated. She was ready to go home and hide herself away with only Molly to help fight off her demons.

  “No…no. There are no bad cards. With a spade, it is referring to a winter, like a hibernation or dormancy and it can also be referred to as an end or a conclusion. The number six is a display of human weakness. This number signifies exhaustion from struggles and the unwillingness to move forward. So even though you want to move forward, you have become content to keep the status quo. It is a security for you…a comfort if you will. You are afraid of change. That is the bottom line here. With everything I see in you, the light and the desire which is in your spirit and heart; your mind just won’t allow it to be.”

  Jill’s eyes began to fill up, she knew that the gypsy was seeing everything within her and as much as it was scaring the shit out of her...she wanted the change; she wanted the love and was ready to take the first step. If there was someone out there for her, the soul mate or the other part of her soul…then she wanted to find this person. “Fuck!”

  Joni placed a hand on Jill’s shoulder, “I know realization can feel like a wrecking ball with spikes trying to obliterate you…but, with realization will come the desire to push past the fear. I don’t suggest that you take this battle on yourself…maybe go see a therapist. It helps to talk things out…it really will make things clearer.”

  Jill’s chin quivered as she shook her head. “Thank you,” her voice eeked out as she tried to muster up a small smile.

  “You can come back here anytime. But maybe take some time to absorb all of it.” Joni stood, her eyes were reassuring and her grin was genuine.

  Jill stood and pulled her gypsy with the las
er beam blue eyes into a hug. “Thank you so much. I needed to hear the truth.”

  Joni enjoyed this part of her job and her gift when she actually helped someone. It was nice when her client didn’t think she was a fraud or call her a liar to her face. As they separated from the hug, Joni caught Jill’s eyes in the light right before she turned to walk toward the door. Caramel eyes! Her hand found her mouth to muffle the gasp which fell from it. “Oh shit!” she said when she closed the door after Jill left.

  Jill tossed and turned in her bed unable to sleep as she mulled over the session with the very insightful Madam Drina. Yes, many things were difficult to hear and ripped through her like a lightning bolt. But it was something she needed to come to terms with…her attraction to women. She had spent her entire life down-playing it, like it was normal to be turned on by other women, to fantasize about girl on girl…she wasn’t gay, just liked to see girls kissing. After all, didn’t most women? And many times it was the only way she could get through a sexual event with Bill.

  “Casey was right, straight women don’t fantasize like this.” Jill rolled over to see Molly perched up on a pillow next to her fast asleep. “Maybe I’ll see if she would introduce me to one of her friends.” Jill’s heart began to beat rapidly at the mere thought of going on a date with a gay woman. What would be the expectation of the night? A kiss…more than a kiss? Who pays or is it dutch? Jill wasn’t ready for anything more than a kiss if she was even ready for that…this was all new to her and something she needed to dip a toe in the water before jumping in all the way.