Page 46 of Maid of Dishonor
I nod slowly. “Yeah, I remember it.”
“Right. So what if we somehow deliver a fake horoscope to her? What if we write a horoscope that says exactly what we want it to say? She would take that seriously, right?”
I turn to look at her. “A fake…” I trail off, thinking of the implications, the possibilities. “Sam, that’s brilliant,” I breathe. “That’s brilliant, and she would definitely take it seriously. How would we do it?”
“I’m not sure,” she admits. “But we could figure it out if we needed to.”
“Okay.” I nod vigorously, adding the idea to my memo. When I’m done, I say, “Anything else in that beautiful mind of yours?”
Sam blushes at that, and I realize I might have gone a little too far there. Thankfully, she doesn’t comment on it.
“Here’s something else I was thinking,” she says. “We send her a warning with tarot cards. Like we place a card where she’ll definitely see it, somewhere in her house.”
“Huh,” I say, mulling the idea over. “Okay, yeah. We could do that. What do tarot cards say? Aren’t they just like fortune telling? What’s that going to say to her?”
Shaking her head, Sam says, “Not exactly, I don’t think. There are different cards with different meanings. If we can find a card that says roughly what we need it to say, we could use that one.”
I look skeptically at her. “So there’s a card that says ‘Don’t marry your boyfriend’?”
She laughs. “No, not that specific. But there might be some sort of warning card or something.” She looks at me briefly, biting her lip. “You think she knows about tarot cards though? Enough to know what the card would mean?”
“Oh, yeah,” I say immediately, tearing my gaze away from her lips. “I mean, I think so. Let’s go with…85 percent sure,” I say. “I’m 85 percent sure.”
Sam gives a hum of approval. “We can deal with those odds. At the very least, she would look up whatever card she saw.”
“Agreed. All right. In that case…” I add it to the list, then look it over. “That’s only two ideas, but they’re good ones. I think that’s good for now, yeah?”
“I think so,” Sam says.
I smile, tucking my phone away.
We have a plan.
* * *
Our meetinglater that week with the caterer from the venue goes fine. Since Maya hates seafood, I’m tempted to order a buffet of nothing but shrimp and sushi, but Sam manages to talk me out of it. I’m only half convinced it’s a bad idea until Sam points out that some types of seafood are bad for pregnant women. That gets me to put the brakes on right away.
I don’t want this wedding to happen, but no way am I going to compromise Maya’s baby to achieve that goal. I’m already very sure that he or she is going to be the cutest baby in the world. With me as a family member?
Yeah. That will be one adorable child.
When I tell Sam this, she snorts and then tells me to deflate my ego a few levels or ten. I just grin.
“What are you up to now?” I say as we drive away from the wedding venue, our stomachs full and another session scheduled soon for cake testing at the bakery they contract with.
Sam sighs as she puts on her blinker and glances at her side mirror. “Winifred is going to teach me how to meditate.”
I choke on the swig of water I’ve just taken from my bottle. It takes me a second of coughing and spluttering before I’m able to speak. “Winifred?She’s teaching you—”
“How to meditate, yeah,” Sam says with a nod. She sounds resigned as she goes on. “It’s recommended for people who want to live more in the present rather than…you know.” She swallows. “Living in the past or dwelling on the future.”
Ah.That’swhat this is about. I figured she would have read the article I sent her, but I didn’t want to push, so I didn’t ask her about it. She’d talk if she wanted to.
“I didn’t know Winifred was qualified to teach meditation,” I say, my brows furrowed as an image comes to mind—Wini, seated cross-legged on a yoga mat, surrounded by incense and looking more peaceful than I’ve ever seen her.
It’s a totally weird mental picture, because I can’t see how that would ever happen. Wouldn’t she break her hip or something? And is she even capable of making anything other than a sour face? But I guess—
“Hey, do you want to do it with me?” Sam says suddenly, sounding excited. “Then I wouldn’t have to be by myself, and you could learn how to meditate.”
