by Emma Scott
“Great.” Kacey slipped off the chair, still moving a little slowly, as if she were breakable. “I’ll get ready.”
We drove into the French Quarter and parked near Jefferson Square. Her arm linked in mine, Kacey pointed out various landmarks—the St. Louis Cathedral, a museum, an art gallery. Every other minute my eyes were drawn to her. She’d put on dark jeans and an oversize, dark gray sweater that left one shoulder bare—she seemed to like that style. Her hair fell like brushed brass and she’d put on some kind of perfume that made it hard to think.
She was beautiful. Walking arm-in-arm with her, it was easy to pretend her bloodshot eyes, thin face and the hoarseness in her voice were because she was getting over an illness. Just a bug that had knocked her out a little while. All was fine now. We were out for a walk. We were…
Together?
Rein it in, I told myself. Before you do something stupid.
It was hard to be subdued in this setting. New Orleans was alive in a different way than Vegas felt alive. My city was wide open and filled with lights. New Orleans held you tight in the past. City center was a maze of old buildings with wrought iron lattices and French fleur de lis. We walked past clubs and cafés, restaurants and bars. A bar on every block. A watering hole on every corner.
“Basically the worst part of town for recovering alcoholics to wander around in,” Kacey observed.
“You want to leave?” I asked.
She chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “No. I want to go there.”
I followed her pointing finger to a tiny shop with beads and colored lights strung along the window. On the glass was a hand in white paint with an eye in the palm. Above the palm, red neon said Palm & Tarot Readings. Below, it read, Love, Fate, Destiny
I frowned. “A psychic?”
“Just to check it out,” she said. “I used to love Tarot cards when I was a teenager. And there’s something about New Orleans. The Cajun history, the voodoo traditions.” She jerked her shoulders up. “I think it’s neat.”
It was the first time she sounded a shade above sad since I’d been here. That was enough reason to let her tug me into the tiny shop.
A bell jingled above the door as we stepped inside and the scent of incense hit me hard. The dimly-lit entry looked like the front foyer of a house, with a heavy, purple curtain with gold fringe separating the shop from the residence. A small, round table with four chairs stood to the right of the front door. An even smaller table displayed trays of beads, rough-cut crystals, and pieces of wood carved with runes. Old books lined the shelves, and between the shelves hung with dream catchers, straw voodoo dolls, and colorful drawings of sugar skulls—large, laughing faces, some wearing top hats and smoking, some wearing wedding dresses with straw hair and sewn lips.
Palm readings and psychic powers sounded like bullshit to me, but I liked the vibe of the place anyway.
“Isn’t this cool?” Kacey said, letting go of my arm to trail her fingers over the purple crystals in their slot on the tray.
The heavy curtain was drawn aside and the owner of the shop stepped out. I’d half-expected a woman in a turban with a crystal ball under her arm. Or maybe that googly-eyed professor from the Harry Potter movies.
This woman was neither a cliché gypsy nor a crazy-haired weirdo. She looked in her mid-forties, with long cornrows that ended in colorful beads that clacked with every movement. Her clothes were billowy silk but modern. Thick gold hoops dangled from her ears.
“Welcome,” she said in a smooth voice. “My name is Olivia. You have come for a reading?”
“We’re just looking,” Kacey said. “You have a beautiful shop.”
Olivia smiled and swept across the room to the small table. “That is kind of you to say. But that is not why you stepped inside, no?”
It was an effort not to roll my eyes. I knew the opener of a sales pitch when I heard one.
“Come. Sit.” Olivia gestured to the two empty chairs at her table and pulled out a deck of oversized cards from a pocket in her robes. “You are curious, yes? Maybe a little intrigued?”
“Not really,” I said at the exact same time Kacey said, “Yes, a little.”
Kacey and Olivia laughed, and the fortuneteller tapped long, red-painted nails on the stack of cards. “A full reading is $20. Three card-draw is $10. One card is only $5. A small taste of what I offer.”
“The one-card reading doesn’t sound too bad,” Kacey said.
“$5.00 each. That is cheap, yes, for guidance and wisdom from the Other Side.”
The way Olivia’s voice wrapped reverently around the Other Side told me it was a real place to her. I felt Kacey’s hand slip into mine, then she was tugging me toward the table. “One card, Teddy. It’ll be fun.”
Feeling like an idiot, I sat beside Kacey at the too-small table while Olivia shuffled her deck. The backs were black with gold edging. Once shuffled to her liking, she fanned them out on the table.
“These cards tell the future?” I asked dubiously.
“A full reading tells us where you have been, where you are, and where you’re going,” Olivia said. “One card gives us a snapshot of the present. By understanding where you are now, you are able to see more clearly what lies ahead. Clarity is the goal. Wipe away the fog of uncertainty…sometimes that is all it takes to bring a little relief to a troubled soul.”
She said these last words to Kacey, and Kacey nodded hopefully.
“So,” Olivia said, beaming. “Who is going first?”
“He is,” Kacey said.
“I’m not going at all,” I said. “This is your deal.”
Olivia laughed heartily as Kacey jostled my arm.
“Come on, Teddy. What have you got to lose?”
I looked over at Kacey, at her eyes punching bright and blue through the dim shop. I huffed a sigh of defeat. “Fine, okay.”
Those damn eyes.
Olivia trailed her fingers over the card. “Choose one, and lay it down in front of you.”
Figuring most people picked cards from the middle—and Olivia probably counted on that—I chose from the far right of the deck. I flipped over a card, revealing a sketch of a man hanging upside by one foot from the limbs of a T-shaped tree.
“The Hanged Man,” Olivia said, scooping the cards back into a neat stack, leaving my card on the table in front of me. “This does not surprise me.”
I suppressed another eye roll. Beside me, Kacey leaned forward in her seat. “What does it mean?”
“The Hanged Man represents ultimate surrender.”
I blinked. “What?”
Kacey elbowed me in the side. “Ultimate surrender, Teddy. Sounds kinky.”
Now I did roll my eyes and Olivia laughed heartily. “The ultimate surrender of the Hanged Man,” she continued after a moment, “is the surrender of self for others. Personal sacrifices made for the greater good. Putting self-interests aside, or giving up goals in favor of that which he perceives to be higher causes.” She fixed me with a strong gaze. “You put the needs and wants of others first, always, and without complaint. Yes?”
I sat back in the old wooden chair, not sure how the hell I was supposed to answer.
“Yes,” Kacey said. “Yes. That’s Teddy, one hundred percent.” She looked at me, her eyes soft and warm. “You’ve always been that way.”
I shifted in my seat and turned to Olivia. “So where does the guidance part come in?”
“The Hanged Man looks content,” she said. “Note the calm expression on his face. Yet, he is tethered to this tree. Suspended. A life suspended.” She settled back in her chair. “You content yourself with the belief what you’re doing is best for those around you. Yet your own dreams and goals suffer for it. You must choose a path. Finalize a decision that has been looming before you. Take action for your own sake, not for the sake of others, or remain forever suspended.”
Kacey nodded as if she knew exactly what Olivia meant, and they both looked to me, expectantly.
“
Yeah, okay,” I muttered, just to get the reading over with. Hell, who isn’t facing major decisions in their life? Who doesn’t want to feel like they’re selfless and always put others first? Olivia probably had a generalization memorized for every card, with a little ego-boost thrown in.
Granted, the Hanged Man’s meaning hit a little closer to home than I wanted to admit. Fine, I admitted it. Didn’t make me a believer.
As if she’d read my thoughts, Olivia returned the Hanged Man to the deck and began to shuffle again, her expression smug and satisfied. She fanned the cards over the table in front of Kacey. “Choose your card, sweetheart.”
Kacey bit her lip, her eyes scanning the cards, and finally chose one toward the middle of the deck and flipped it over. She sat back with a small gasp. My hands clenched into fists under the table as my heart skipped a beat.
On the card was a sketch of a skeleton using a scythe like a broom, sweeping up gold crowns and jewels. XIII was inscribed at the top. At the bottom…
“Death,” Kacey whispered.
Olivia watched her closely. “It is not the card you think it is, my dear.”
“No?” Kacey’s eyes were fixed on the sketch, her voice small. “Seems like it’s exactly the card I think it is.”
I leaned into her. “We don’t have to stay.”
“No, it’s fine.” She looked at Olivia. “What does it mean?”
“The card of Death is a harbinger of change,” the psychic said. “It is the closing of one door, and the opening of another. Transition. You feel cast adrift, no? Trapped in an in-between state that has left you unsure of how to proceed. You cannot go back, and yet…”
“I can’t go forward,” Kacey murmured. “It’s true. I’m stuck.”
“No, my dear,” Olivia said. “You can’t let go, but that is not the same as stuck. When you hold tightly to something behind you, you cannot move forward. The answer is to unclench your heart from the past. Close the door. Open a new chapter. Only then can you be free of the pain that haunts you.”
The psychic paused for effect, and goddamn if I wasn’t hanging on every word.
“Acceptance, child,” Olivia continued. “That is the key. Accept that which has ended and let go so you can move on. So you may grow. So you may thrive. The light in your eyes—in your heart—has dimmed, but it is not put out. Let it roar once again.”
A moment of breath-held silence. Then Kacey exhaled and sat back, her eyes shining. “Thank you.”
We left the shop after I slipped Olivia $20. Five bucks for each card, another ten as a tip for how Kacey hugged the woman, declaring how relieved she felt.
“Wasn’t that amazing?” Kacey said, her arm tucked in mine. “I mean, you can chalk it all up to coincidence, but I felt some real truth there.” She looked up at me. “Did you?”
“A little,” I said slowly. I’d felt hope as well as truth. Hope that the new chapter in Kacey’s life might include me in a meaningful way.
So much for putting self-interests aside.
“The big decision you’ve been putting off must mean the tattoo shop, right?”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“How come you haven’t bought your own place yet, Teddy?”
I could’ve told her I was in the process of getting a business degree, but that would only make her feel like shit if she knew I’d missed my exams to be here.
I shrugged again. “Haven’t found the right place yet.”
Kacey frowned, then shivered a little, even though the night was warm. “I’m getting a little tired. I’d like to go home.”
By the time we reached Kacey’s house, I was regretting tipping Olivia or even stepping foot inside that psychic shop. Instead of lying down for a nap, Kacey curled up on the chair in the living room. Hugging the pillow tight and staring at nothing.
I sat on the couch and reached over to tap her knee. “You okay?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Look, these so-called psychics—”
“She was exactly right,” Kacey said.
“About what?”
She looked up at me, her eyes drowning in tears. “I can’t let go of Jonah.”
I sat back, nodded. “Yeah, I hear you.”
“Sometimes, when I’d come home drunk,” she said. “I’d fall into bed, and just before I passed out, I swear I could hear his voice. Telling me to let go. And I’d wake up feeling so guilty. Like maybe Jonah can’t live in the stars until I let him go.” She plucked at a stray thread on her pillow, the tears dropping onto the orange fabric. “I always brush it off as a dream. I’m not ready to let him go, and it doesn’t feel like a choice anyway. It feels…impossible.”
I wished I knew how to talk to her, to make her feel better. But I was struck mute, my own grief trying to rise up and swamp me.
“And how can I ever let go when there was still so much I didn’t do?” she demanded with sudden fire “Because I could have done more. I should have done more. I should’ve married him. Did he want that? A wedding? Or I could have had his baby. So he could know that a part of him would go on forever.”
“Kacey—”
“I could’ve done it,” she said fiercely. “How can I let go when I didn’t do enough?”
“Bullshit,” I said. “Was Jonah ever not honest with you about what he wanted? Ever?”
She sniffed and shrugged.
“He wouldn’t ask you for those things,” I said. “He wouldn’t legally bind you for the sake of a stupid ceremony. He wouldn’t ask you to have a kid and leave you to raise it on your own.”
“I know he wouldn’t, but…”
“No regrets, right? Isn’t that what you told him?”
Kacey nodded. “It is. And it’s true. Except the regret I didn’t do enough. The regret I couldn’t….”
Don’t say it, I thought.
Her eyes overflowed. “I couldn’t save him.”
Kacey’s hair fell over her face as she bent over, weeping.
I couldn’t save him. What I had felt every day of my life since Jonah got sick. Only I couldn’t cry it out like she could. If I touched her, if I touched her grief with mine, I’d rage and howl and lose my fucking mind.
Jonah… Come back, you asshole.
I sucked in a breath, used it to push the pain down. When I trusted my voice, I said, “You did everything right. Everything.”
Kacey lifted her head. When she brushed the hair from her eyes, the look within their depths was desperate.
“You made him happy,” I said. “Right at the time he needed it most. You made him happy. Quit worrying about what you didn’t do, because what you did do was everything. Okay?”
She dragged the sleeve of her shirt across her face. “Easier said than done.”
I could tell my words had helped to make her feel better. And making her feel better was as close to happy as I was ever going to get.
That night, we watched Sixteen Candles with a pizza and soda. Kacey sat beside me on the couch, half a cushion separating us, close enough to feel the warmth of her body.
“You’re still flying back to Vegas on Sunday?” she asked as the credits rolled.
“That’s the plan.”
“Change of plan: I’m flying back with you.”
I looked over at her. “Are you sure you’re up for that?”
She sniffed a laugh. “No. But I need to see your parents. And Oscar and Dena. Put those wrongs right. Isn’t that one of the steps in recovery? Make amends?”
“I guess,” I said, staring at this woman who was so riddled with regret and shame, and so oblivious to her own strength. That’s part of the insidiousness of addiction, I thought. You remember the depth and blackness of the hole you were in and not the strength it took to pull yourself out.
“I have a lot of apologizing to do,” Kacey said. “I have to face Vegas at some point. Look the memories in the eye… Otherwise I’ll hide out here forever, avoiding my feelings. Which is what drove me to drink in
the first place.” Kacey smacked the arm of the chair, her eyes shining. “See? Thousands of dollars’ worth of therapy breakthroughs for the price of one Tarot card reading.”
Before I could answer, she was out of the chair and climbing into my arms.
“Thank you, Teddy,” she whispered against my neck.
My heart crashed against my chest. “For the five bucks? Easy money.”
“No, you big dummy,” she said, her laughter warm and soft on my skin. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“It wasn’t me, Kace,” I said, and let my hand rest on her hair. “It was you. You did all the work—”
“Theodore,” she said. “Just say, ‘you’re welcome’ or when we get to Vegas I’ll have someone tattoo the Hanged Man on your forehead.”
“Well, when you put it that way… You’re welcome.”
Kacey
The flight attendant smiled benignly at me. “Would you like something to drink?”
“That’s a million dollar question,” I muttered.
“Pardon?”
I smiled thinly. “Diet Coke, please.”
The attendant popped a can for me and poured a bottle of water for Theo, then pushed her cart further down the aisle.
“You good?” Theo asked.
“I want to puke, my skin feels like it’s a size too small for my body, and then there’s that.” I pointed to my jouncing leg. “I should’ve given you the window seat. I’m going to see Vegas get closer and closer as we land. We’re crashing right into everything I’m scared of.”
“Maybe it’s too soon,” Theo said. “It’s only been a few days since you quit.”
I shook my head. “I have to do this. If I stop to think too much, I’ll chicken out. Plus, I’m already on the plane. Too late to have them swing around and drop me off in Oklahoma.”
“Nobody’s mad at you,” Theo said after a moment. “My mother, especially. She’ll just be happy you’re okay.”
“It’s more than that,” I said. I glanced out the little window where Texas was a vast, flat space of pale green and brown below us. “It’s Vegas. And Jonah.” My throat constricted and I gripped the armrest of my seat. “How do you do it?” I asked. “So many memories…”