“The ten of pentacles,” Madame Olenska says. “Upright, the card symbolizes prosperity and wealth. But here it is reversed, signifying financial strain or debt.”
I glance at Hope.
She looks stressed.
“I thought we were talking about matters of the heart,” I say to Madame Olenska. “This is about money.”
“Yes,” she says sagely. “But the two are often intertwined, are they not? The card could be a warning not to be seduced by the riches of a lover. Or a warning that you already have been. Let’s explore this. Pull another card, dear.”
Hope shakes her head and abruptly scoots out of the booth. “No, that’s okay. We’re late to meet our friends. Thank you very much for the reading.”
“It is when the cards provoke a strong reaction that they have the most to say,” Madame Olenska says sternly.
“You’ve been great,” I tell her, following Hope.
“Thanks again!” Hope calls over her shoulder.
“Well that was a crock of bullshit,” I say as soon as we’re out of earshot.
I expect her to laugh, but she screws up her mouth.
“Actually,” she says, “I don’t think it was. Can we get some air? I can hardly breathe in here.”
Hope
I march us straight out of the cigar bar and through the corridor to the doors leading outside to the deck.
“Wait up!” Felix calls.
I slow down. “Sorry. It was getting claustrophobic in there.”
He’s looking at me like I’m a sudoku puzzle.
“What is happening?” he asks. “You seem freaked out.”
“I didn’t like what she was seeing in my card,” I confess.
“Hope,” he says, with kindly amusement. “Dear. You can’t think a psychic actually just read your future.”
“Not my future,” I say, feeling too weary to even bother denying it. “My present.”
“What do you mean?” Felix asks. “Money’s causing you relationship troubles? Aren’t you single?”
He’s kidding, I know, but I don’t have anyone to talk to about this particular problem, and I feel like if I don’t get it off my chest I’ll explode.
“I think it’s about me and Lauren,” I say. “She makes a lot of money, and I don’t, and sometimes that causes conflict.”
“Oh,” he says. There’s a pause, during which I realize he was not the rightperson to say this to, and now he’s uncomfortable. But I’m too embarrassed to think of a way to recover, so I don’t fill the silence, and we both just stand there.
“Uh, what is it Lauren does?” he finally asks.
“She’s a lifestyle influencer,” I say, not wanting to get into the details of the “finding a rich man” angle, which could sound alarming out of context. If I get into it then I’ll have to give the whole backstory, and that’s not the point.
“She always wants to do these fabulous things,” I go on. “Vacations, spa treatments, expensive restaurants. And I can’t afford it—like, at all—so she’s always offering to pay. She’s very generous, but I feel guilty that I can’t reciprocate. And then last fall I had to borrow money from her to put a deposit on an apartment after my breakup, and I haven’t been able to pay it back yet. She keeps telling me not to worry about it, that it was a gift. But I feel uncomfortable she had to bail me out.”
I know I’m saying too much. Felix isn’t my therapist or my financial advisor, and I’d rather he not think of me as some impoverished waif in debt to her best friend.
I don’t even get into how the card could also be about Gabe. The pressure I felt to fit into his upper-class world, and my insecurity about not belonging there. The way he too insisted on paying for everything.
