I nod at him and actually want to disappear into the room, but he stops me. “Would you like a little diversion from your life, young lady?”
I hesitate.
“It’s free.”
Maybe he’s offering because I smiled at him, if he even remembers it. I glance into our room. River is still in bed. I could leave the door open.
I don’t speak, I write on my notepad and show it to him. This is amazing to me because it would have been unthinkable three weeks ago.
He merely shrugs. “One does not speak; another talks a lot without really saying anything. I’ll let the cards do the talking.”He grins and pushes one of his long dreadlocks out of his face. I look at him. His colorful batik pants look harmless, as do his patched vest and blue T-shirt. Maybe he just wants to be nice.
I shyly sit down next to him on the wooden sidewalk and pull my legs up. The guy collects the cards again and shuffles them so quickly it makes me dizzy.
“We’ll make a simple divination. Past, present, and future,” he says, but it sounds like a suggestion, so I nod. I don’t believe in this mumbo jumbo anyway. “I’m Tom, by the way.”
“Tom” doesn’t suit him at all. Tom sounds so lifelike somehow, while this guy looks like he’s floating through life in a cloud of marijuana smoke.
Mariah, I write.
“Mariah?” He seems as surprised by my name as I am by his. “You don’t look like a Mariah at all.”
How do I look?I write.
“No idea. A Rosemarie, perhaps.” He smiles and spreads the cards out on the wooden sidewalk in a fan. “So, now you draw three. And use the left hand—that’s the one connected to your inner self.”
I only consist of an inner self, so it doesn’t really matter. But I do as he says and draw three cards with my left hand.
“So, let’s take a closer look at your life.” He adjusts his headband. “The cards show what you’ve experienced over the last few weeks, what you’re currently experiencing, and what the future holds.” He turns over the first card over.
“The moon,” he says mysteriously, and I only think of point three on my list; kissing a boy in the moonlight.
“In tarot, the moon represents the subconscious. It makes it more real and brings out deeply hidden feelings. It also represents all the fears that one should face.”
I allowed closeness, I think. I kissed River.
“The moon is also a symbol of the transition from the waking phase to the sleeping phase.”
I think again about River, who is apparently in a moon phase, and about how everything seems so dreamlike at the moment.
Tom turns over the next card. It shows a sinister Grim Reaper. “Death.” He laughs. “Don’t look so frightened. In tarot, death represents parting. You have to get rid of something lifeless to make room for something new. Consider it a transformation.”
I nod. That’s actually fits; it must be a coincidence.
Tom turns over the next card, and a wonderful smile spreads across his gaunt face. “The sun.”
A fixed star.
“Usually a pleasant card. The sun symbolizes a positive circumstance in life that brings about a new consciousness. My goodness, your three cards fit together perfectly.”
I look at him.
“Old fears must be overcome because from this arises a new will to live. The sun represents happiness and a yes to life.”
Was that why I wanted to be a fixed star?
Thank you, I have to check on my boyfriend, I write so he doesn’t get any stupid ideas.
“All right, Mariah.”
