I locate the fortune teller’s tent—not really an enormous challenge considering it’s in exactly the same place as it was the first time I found it—and I stay on the periphery of the room, edging around the bodies pulsing on the dance floor. As I draw closer to the panels of purple velvet, I try to swallow down the ball of spun sugar that seems to have lodged itself in the back of my throat. Last time around, I barreled inside the enclosure with a clown in hot pursuit. But now, I cautiously pull aside one curtain and slip inside, standing as straight and rigid as the tent poles holding it up.
The same tiny old woman with the same shiny red scarf tied over her long gray hair sits behind her table. Her crystal ball rests in exactly the same spot as it did during my Very Bad Year, and her scarlet-and-gold peasant dress rustles as she moves. I’m soothed by the familiarity of it all. She might be the only person in the world who understands this strange time loop I’ve gotten myself into, and I’m hoping for a moment where I’m not the only one holding the secret.
The fortune teller glances up from her crystal ball, takes one look at me, and mutters, “Oh, it’s you,” in a flat, disinterested voice.
I take a couple of stumbling steps into the middle of the room. “So, you know who I am?”
The fortune teller gives a small nod. “You’re one of the ones who wanted to go and change the past.” She looks at me straight on. “I knew you’d be back.”
“How did you know?”
“Because you people are always back.” She waves a dismissive hand. “You think if you can just go into the past and change yourself, change the people around you, you’ll win some golden ticket to your image of a perfect life. And then a year later, you realize it’s all smoke and mirrors, and you end up standing here—wah, wah, wah,” she moans in a baby voice. “I want to switch it back around again.”
“Can I do that? Can I switch it back around?” Somewhere in the far corners of my consciousness, I realize I’m probably missing the point. But after the year I’ve had, it’s too hard, it’s too much work to go there, and I’m too tired to try. So, I seize on what I want to hear.
She sighs deeply, rolling her eyes as if she expected better of me, and I’m nothing but a massive disappointment to her. Join the club, lady. “No.”
I take that in. No? “Um, no isn’t really going to work for me.”
She gives me a bored shrug, examining her manicure.
“What if—?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Final sale, no returns or exchanges.”
I throw my hands in the air. “But you sold me a defective year! Nothing turned out the way it was supposed to. The job turned out to be horrible, the guy was all wrong for me, and the right guy fell for someone else.”
She looks up at me, her eyes wide and bright, mouth twisted with pity. “Wow, that really does sound like a problem.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. Finally, she gets it. “Thank you. So, can we fix it?”
The fortune teller leans back in her chair. “Still no.” From under the table, she produces a hardback book with a royal-blue cover and a title in embossed gold. Spells and Curses for the Self-Employed Practitioner, Volume IV. She slides a pair of reading glasses on her nose and opens the book.
“Are you kidding me?”
She licks her finger and flips the page.
I stand there, incredulous, while she ignores me, nodding along with the bass from the hip-hop song playing out on the dance floor and studying her book. I throw up my hands. “So, what am I supposed to do then? You’re the one with the crystal ball and…” I wave at her book. “… potions. You tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“You want to know what to do?” she asks, keeping her eyes on the page.
“Yes. Yes, I want to know.”
The fortune teller slams the book down on the table so hard the crystal ball rattles, threatening to pop off its stand and roll away. She pulls her glasses off her face, and then looks up at me. “Quit fiddling around in the past. Quit trying to change things that don’t need to be changed. Figure out what you want. And go get it.”
I’m silent as her words sink in. Figure out what I want.
When I wished for this second chance year, I thought if only I could tone myself down and smooth out all the rough edges, I’d land the perfect job, the perfect guy, and finally, my parents’ acceptance. But it turns out that in pursuit of those things, I twisted myself into someone I don’t recognize. And I lost all the best parts of myself.
I shake my head. “I’ve spent the last year molding myself into this person I thought I was supposed to be. The one who’s not too loud or opinionated or not such a big mouth. And somehow along the way—” I wave my hand with a bitter little laugh. “That girl who stood up for kids on the playground and people at work… and who stood up for herself… I don’t know where she went. She’s gone.”
The fortune teller huffs in annoyance. “She’s not gone.” But then she pauses, cocking her head and meeting my eyes. “Maybe she got lost along the way, but”—she flicks a bejeweled hand in my direction—“she’s still in there.”
“How do you know?” I whisper over the lump in my throat, slowly lowering myself on the stool across from her.
“Because,” she says. “You get to choose.” Like it’s that simple.
“What if I choose wrong?”
“Listen, honey,” she barks at me like a grumpy grandma, and for a moment, I wonder if she and Mrs. Kaminski are related. “If you need to be anyone other than exactly who you are—for a shitty restaurant job, for some Wall Street doofus, or to win your parents’ love—”
My mouth drops open, because how did she know about all that stuff at Xavier’s, and Alex, and my parents? I never told her any of that. She gives me a narrow-eyed stare, looks down at the crystal ball, and then back up at me with even more contempt, if that’s possible.
Oh right. Fortune teller with actual magic. Forgot about that little detail.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” she continues. “If you need to be anything other than exactly who you are—for anyone—then the problem is with them, and not with you.”
I bite my lip, as the past year rolls past me like a movie trailer of my life. The poop-emoji cakes and Rob Thurmond’s hand on my thigh. Brett and Zach and the designer clothes. My parents’ disappointed faces. It turns out the job and the guy weren’t so perfect after all. And maybe I don’t really want my parents’ acceptance if I can’t earn it by being myself.
But then there’s Zoe and José Luis and Mrs. Kaminski. My chest swells with pride over everything I’ve built at Higher Grounds. The success of our private events, the buzz over my pastries.
And Jacob.
I falter a little when I think of Jacob. Because maybe I do know what I want. The problem is that I’m terrified I figured it out too late. I turn back to the fortune teller. “What if what I want is gone? And I can’t get it back?”
“Well.” This time, all traces of annoyance are gone. Her gruff exterior has softened, face lined with compassion. “I guess you won’t make that mistake again.”
And with that, I know that she’s not going to look into her crystal ball, and I’ve used up all my wishes. I’m planted here, for better or for worse, on this day, in this year. I can choose to stay stuck, to keep looking back at yesterday, at what could have been. Or I can move forward. To tomorrow.