Moondance

by Black, Karen M.

  “Will they be happy together?”

  She had not asked the question because she wanted them to be happy. She wanted them to be wracked with guilt. She wanted the cards to confirm their betrayal by picking a dark, ugly card. The nine of swords, a chilling card with a man on his knees in surrender, nine swords stacked horizontally over his head. It conveyed pain, remorse and depression. She wanted to pick the ten of cups in the reversed position, a card that depicts a beautiful young couple with their arms around each other, a rainbow of cups above, and which upside down indicates failed relationships, sorrow and strife. She wanted to know that they would be punished for what they did.

  “Pick a card.” Michelle said.

  From the speakers, Althea heard a swoosh as she chose a card, and a crisp click as she placed it on the table. She listened as she finished her beer, and poured herself a scotch. She’d feel this tomorrow. Today, she felt apathy. Michelle’s recorded voice slowed, like a melody gently revealing its notes.

  “You know this card, don’t you Althea?”

  Sitting in her living room, knowing what was coming next, Althea’s anger and resentment grew as she listened. Her finger poised over the stop button, her heart aching as she remembered.

  In the tarot deck, a card can be pulled either right side up, or reversed. The reversed meaning of a good card is generally bad and a reversed negative card, is generally good. The four of wands was the card of marriage partners and families and a working together for a harmonious life. And the only card in the deck that meant the same thing reversed.

  “This is a beautiful, loving card. Their relationship is likely to be a good one.”

  The words hurt as much as the first time.

  “I want to pull a card for Tori.”

  “A general card?”

  “Yes, general, where she’s at right now, what the cards think of her.”

  She wanted to give the cards another opportunity to place blame. Court cards, the queens, kings, knights and pages, described individuals. She wanted a regal Queen that had fallen into reverse, a Queen who was selfish and spiteful, upside down.

  “Pick a card that represents what we don’t know about Tori,” Michelle said.

  The card clicked. Althea drank some scotch and lay down on her living room floor, remembering, a silent tear welling up, her chest heavy. The room spun and she felt nauseous. Michelle’s voice.

  “The Empress, which represents the nurturing mother, women and fertility.” Michelle had stopped to let the idea sink in. “Is Tori pregnant?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know,” Althea had replied. Having kids had always been a bone of contention in her relationship with Kevin. He thought she’d grow into it. She thought she wouldn’t — she not only didn’t want kids, she hated the idea.

  During the session, Althea had continued to be self-indulgent. She had pulled a card for Kevin, and another one for their happiness, for their relationship — will it last? — asking the cards for some reassurance, some indication that she had a right to be angry. Michelle played along for a while — more than she usually did.

  “Enough about Kevin and Tori. The cards are getting tired. Let’s ask, why did this happen?” Click. Althea remembered the card that came up: a man lay on the ground, dead, ten swords buried in his back.

  “It’s a test. Part of your growth in this life. I want you to read this for me.” Michelle had passed her a well-used book, its pages soft.

  “‘You may have pinned your faith on someone who betrayed it,’ she read. ‘But now is the time to let go.’”

  There was a pause on the tape, then Althea’s voice.

  “This is bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit, Althea. All experiences that we have happen for our growth. This card also says that if you fight this, nothing good will come. That’s not to say you shouldn’t express what you feel. Have you confronted them?”

  “Once when he showed up at the apartment. Once when she called — I hung up on her. I also wrote them, more than once, but —”

  She remembered that she had shrugged.

  “Okay, well that’s good. Let’s ask, once you get through this, what’s in store?” Click.

  Michelle’s laugh and her hands clapping. Althea had pulled the King of Cups.

  “This had to happen because there’s another man, supportive, kind, artistic, compassionate, maybe a bit dreamy, but full of love, who will come to you. Someone you may not know yet.”

  She had forgotten this part. On the living room floor, she thought, was this George? Or someone else? It didn’t sound like George, though George was creative in a business sense. He did stimulate her creativity, her writing. She thought about the green-eyed man whom she had encountered just two days before this tape had been recorded, the man whose hair had stayed dry in the rain, the same man from whom, a few months later, she had run in a blind panic. Michelle was still talking. They were coming to the end of this reading.

  “Now. How could you screw it all up?” Michelle asked. Althea had pulled a card depicting a woman bound and blindfolded, eight swords surrounding her. “By not removing your blindfold, by seeing only what you want to see, by not understanding that you have a choice. What’s the warning? Pick a card.” Click.

  “By being the victim, by holding on to ‘poor me’ and not looking at the hidden meaning. This is also a card of initiation, of rite of passage. Let’s ask: when you get through all of this: what’s your hidden potential? Pick a card.” Click.

  “I know you don’t feel like it with all this going on right now, but this says that you have the potential to create something that touches people. How’s your writing coming?” Michelle’s voice asked.

  “I’m not writing, I can’t even think about that right now.”

  “Okay, I understand, but don’t forget about it. Let’s ask for your card of fate. Ahhhh, the Hanged Man is a lovely card, I think, one of the most misunderstood cards of the deck. It’s associated with Pisces, like your moon. Read this paragraph for me, the upright position. It’s quite beautiful.” Michelle had handed Althea the worn book describing the card, and Althea had begun to read.

  “The Hanged Man card offers ...”

  In her living room, Althea felt a lump in her throat as she remembered what she had read and the argument that had followed. She fast forwarded the tape and randomly pressed play. She didn’t advance the tape far enough. Even a year later, Michelle’s words felt like a knife in her gut. Her tears welled up as she remembered, and the ache behind her eyes took hold. She sat up, and the room spun. She wanted it to stop. She held one hand over her mouth and one on the floor to steady herself.

  “No Althea, you tell me, it’s your life. Why did you create a lover and best friend that betrayed you?” Michelle’s words were direct but her voice was soft, compassionate. On the tape, Althea heard the muffled click as she pulled a card, and then silence. Michelle had not been looking to the cards for the answer, she had been looking at Althea.

  “Why did you?” Michelle repeated and Althea interrupted, her voice rising.

  “I didn’t choose this to happen to me. Why would I choose this for myself? They did this to me and they should pay for it.”

  Michelle had made three taps on the table, pulling Althea’s attention to the card she had pulled, the Queen of Cups, reversed.

  “The card isn’t about them, Althea. This is you. The Queen of Cups is you.”

  chapter 20

  ALTHEA NURSED HER HANGOVER the next morning by devouring a McDonalds sausage and egg McMuffin and hash browns on her way to the GO Train. This morning, despite her sweet talk, her Omni didn’t start. She watched the buildings as the train whizzed by the waterfront. Streaks of grey and brown flashed into blues and greens.

  Sophie’s represented a safe haven to Althea, even more so since Tori and Kevin. Whenever Althea visited, Sophie made a fuss. Everything was prepared in advance. Not just the meal but also, Althea suspected, the evening itself: the c
onversation, even the music. Though Kevin had liked Sophie, she used to unnerve him. He used to say her eyes were like probes that could see into him. Michelle would say it was her Scorpio Sun, Moon and rising sign — a triple astrological whammy.

  “The loss of control is a special hell to people with heavy Scorpio in their charts,” Michelle said on one occasion. Control was crucial to Scorpio, as was penetrating thought, getting below the surface of everything. That was vintage Sophie.

  She visited Sophie to escape from her life, and if Sophie wanted to take care of everything when she came to visit, Althea was happy to let her.

  • • •

  ALTHEA STEPPED FROM THE train to the platform and was greeted by the aroma of wet, fresh-cut grass. It had rained here recently, though it hadn’t in the city. The humidity had broken and the sun was trying to peek out. Encouraged by the cooler air, she started to walk. After five minutes, she got into a rhythm.

  This weekend, she could relax, something that had been foreign to her recently. It was like Christmas holidays after her first MBA term, knowing she had survived the storm, yet in the silence, not knowing if she’d survive the next. Focus step focus step it’s permission to let go, just for a while just until the blood flowing into her leg muscles, the smell of green and the warmth of the sun doing its work.

  Walk, breathe, walk, breathe, breathe the green, that’s your objective for the day. The tension fell off her shoulders in waves. As she walked, the knot in her back lessened and her mind wandered. She scanned the image fragments in her mind, as if she were skimming over food at a buffet table, some of the morsels more appealing than others, from Michelle’s voice The Queen of Cups is you, to Tori and Kevin and the scream of a wine bottle shattering.

  On the quiet suburban street, she walked and breathed, feeling the damp air and the sun on her face, smelling the blooms, newly watered, enjoying the quiet, so unlike the city. Images hovered, from Simone’s taut face as she arrived in the office the morning after she’d walked out, the angry exchange when she got back to the office, the late nights that followed, to Celia, who was in Europe working for the summer, to George’s voice on her cell phone, and the shower she took after he left, as hot as she could stand.

  She remembered the most recent time they were together, her going down on him. Every time he had thrust into her mouth, a jagged spiral had appeared behind her eyes, glowing yellow. She had grasped his hips, fighting the spiral’s dreadful radiance, desperately wanting him to fill her with everything he symbolized, his thrusts like a thrashing live wire, illuminating her future.

  As she walked, she pushed the memory away and tried to conjure up the desire she had experienced before, the fulfillment of her post-MBA future, a future in which doors opened and she walked through with confidence, a place where opportunity came in tangible form and where abundance waited.

  She walked and breathed and slipped remembering the water pulsing over her body, stinging hot, tepid, then ice cold, re-focusing on work and the task at hand. As she walked, the jagged spiral came again, eclipsing her vision and revealing the truth, as she had been that night, her face down this time, George behind and inside her, her hands gripping her pillow, moving with his every thrust, and the truth was that she wasn’t reveling in sensual pleasure, she wasn’t any closer to her dreams, her goals, or aspirations, she wasn’t engaging the illustrious future she wanted to lead. The truth was simpler than that: she had just wanted him to finish.

  As she walked, a sense of disappointment flowed through her, tears welling up. If not this, then what? Her mind ricocheted, toward another time, another walk, and the beautiful man with blue-black hair who emerged, smiling at her from the driveway of the grinning Victorian house. It seemed so long ago now and she pondered the longing he had created within her as if the experience belonged to someone else. Twice now, he had approached her always at times like this.

  A red-winged blackbird flashed past her, perching on a telephone line and disappearing, carrying with it a message. I am ready for you now. She thought about this as she walked, feeling her legs, her hangover dulled, listening to the bird’s silent song.

  Though she had only seen him twice, she thought of him as her pursuer. It was not the way he’d approached, but the way she’d reacted. She was unsure of his motives. Was it violence, curiosity or seduction? She walked and breathed, thinking about as much of him as she could remember: his warm, open face, his graceful walk and bright-green eyes. He was so beautiful. Yes.

  As she walked, she imagined herself as ready, ready to see him, to touch him, to taste him, to look him in the eye as they made love, listening to his voice, touching his long, dark hair, dry in the rain. She visualized her head as if it was a magnet, drawing him to her. She thought about his lips and his hands and imagined kissing him, their tongues intertwining. Yes.

  She imagined his amber scent, the softness of his hands and his lips. She tried to conjure him up in that moment, opening herself up to him, imagining how it would feel if —

  A soccer ball bounced off her arm causing her to jump. She blinked at a thin Asian boy with a black AC/DC sweatshirt and baggy jeans.

  “Sorry, lady,”

  “Hey, Rain, you dufus. Give it back!” The black and white ball hovered, and as Rain kicked it, it morphed into a grainy streak. Althea looked around, scanning the street, the houses, looking for a sign she recognized. She frowned at the boy.

  “You lost?” he asked.

  • • •

  AN HOUR AND A half after she left the bus stop, an hour longer than it should have taken her, Althea walked up the familiar interlocking pathway leading to Sophie’s house. Always concerned with her privacy, Sophie let the garden run wild in the front. The grass that sprouted between the rocks was clipped. The untamed grasses and sprawling wildflowers that grew on either side created a natural potpourri.

  The dreaminess Althea had felt earlier was gone. Instead, she felt sad, defeated, close to tears. Her feet hurt.

  She tried the solid oak door and finding it locked, she rang the doorbell, wandered across the recently painted, curved veranda and peered in the front window. Finally, she heard Sophie’s steps down the hall and as her mother opened the door, Althea smelled bread, and heard the soft swirls of jazz piano.

  • • •

  “DO YOU BELIEVE IN soul mates?” Sophie asked.

  They were sitting in the solarium drinking vodka martinis, after a dinner of gazpacho, leek and lemon-stuffed sea bass, scalloped potatoes and greens. Off the solarium was a stone patio with a rambling rock garden. The back yard extended gracefully, one oak and four willow trees providing gentle shade. At the far end of the yard was a shallow ravine, and beyond that, the well-worn path to the lake.

  “Do you?” Sophie’s round, sea-blue eyes were locked on her.

  “What, like there’s only one for each of us? One perfect union?” As Althea spoke, a gentle breeze moved through the screens. Crickets sang.

  “Yes.”

  “I haven’t really thought about it,” she lied.

  Althea finished her martini. She didn’t know where Sophie was going with this, but she knew that Sophie had a destination, and when Sophie was ready, she would tell.

  “I believe that our soul mate invokes our passions.” Sophie leaned forward. “I believe that when you meet that person, you’re prepared to transform heaven and earth to be with them. I believe that kind of passion is unstoppable and lives forever.”

  Althea’s arms prickled. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone like that.”

  “The man who dropped you off last Christmas?” Sophie said.

  Althea laughed, almost choking on her martini. “Christ, Sophie, you don’t miss a trick, do you?”

  “And you’ve been holding out on me.” Her mother smiled, leaned back in her chair, and plucked the glass from Althea’s hand so that she could re-fill it. Then, sipping a new, ice-cold martini, Althea told Sophie about George. Sophie nodded and looked up from her own drink.


  “Do you think about him constantly?”

  “Sometimes it’s more intense than others. It builds up when I don’t see him, so when we do get together, it’s like everything’s there, all at once.”

  “How’s the sex?”

  “It’s powerful sexually, like we’re locked in this dance, you know? It’s the most physical relationship I’ve ever had, but there’s more too, it’s like ...” The control he has over me is intoxicating. I welcome the pain. Sometimes, when he leaves, it takes a while to return to a place where I can make my own decisions. Instead, she said:

  “It’s not just the physical — it’s the intellectual. I learn from him, from his sophistication. Sometimes I could see myself with him.”

  “Could you see yourself having a child with him?”

  “I can’t see myself having a child with anyone Sophie. You know that.”

  “You will. You just haven’t met the right person.” Sophie had always completely ignored Althea’s protests about children. Althea chose not to fight because Sophie was the only family she had. She also figured that Sophie’s feelings came from an honest place. After all, Sophie had lost a child of her own. Perhaps it was natural to want to fill that gap.

  “You keep saying that and you’re wrong.”

  “When I got pregnant with your brother, I never pictured myself wanting a child. Your father changed that.”

  Althea felt the old anger building up. If Sophie saw it, she made no sign.

  “This George,” Sophie said. “Would you do anything for him? To have him?”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “You don’t know. Are you holding back with him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I am.”

  “With a soul mate, there can be no holding back.”

  “Does George sound like my soul mate?”

  “I think that you’re preventing yourself from finding out.” Althea was quiet.