“It’s called the hanging man.”
“Oh Jesus.” Kesha’s hands twisted in her lap.
“See how he’s suspended by his feet?” I pointed to the illustration. “His card represents seeing the world from a different perspective. It’s not a bad card.”
“I don’t get it, Skye. What does that have to do with Darren and me?” Sara was leaning so far forward, her nose was practically on the table.
I smiled and spread my arms. “Don’t you see? That card gives you the possible solution.”
Sara exchanged glances with Kesha to see if it made more sense to her. Based on Kesha’s expression, it didn’t.
I sighed. “Tarot isn’t about any one card. It’s about how they work together. Look at what you have here, what cards you drew.” It never hurt to remind the person that if they didn’t like the outcome, they were partly to blame. “We started with you as a creative person. Then what’s opposing you at this point is that Darren is undergoing a journey. That makes sense if he’s going away in the fall. Then there are two forces—?this card meaning change is coming. That tells me this can’t be avoided.”
Sara nodded. “I feel like I’m already losing him, and he hasn’t even graduated yet.”
“I understand,” I said. “But how the situation turns out will depend on your ability to make him see you in a fresh way. Maybe change your look, or do something out of character that makes him rethink your role in his life.”
“He always wants me to go camping,” she mumbled. “It’s usually not my kinda thing.”
“There you go,” I said, pointing at her chest as if she’d just solved a really tricky problem. “Doing stuff outside your comfort zone is exactly the kind of thing you should be doing if you want to keep him.”
Someone a few aisles over tripped and dropped a tray with a loud crash and the shatter of exploding dishes. A cheer went up from the crowd in the cafeteria. Pain and humiliation is always amusing when it happens to someone else. Other psychics never had to work with these distractions.
“So, if I reinvent myself, then Darren and I will stay together?”
I shrugged. “That’s what the cards imply. Not that he needs someone different—?just that he needs to see you differently.” At least I was giving her good advice, regardless of Darren. Everyone benefits from shaking up their routine once in a while.
The corners of Sara’s mouth started to turn up. “You know what this means . . .”
Kesha let out a squeal. “Makeover!” The two of them hugged. “We’ll go to the mall after school. When he sees you he’ll already be planning his first visit home before he even leaves.” Kesha’s face was determined. The woman was on a retail quest to help her bestie.
“There’s another way you could read the cards,” I said, kicking myself for not just leaving it alone. “Your card is creativity and strength. You could also see this situation as change is inevitable, but you’ll be fine no matter what Darren does. That you have the inner strength to move forward in a new direction on your own.”
Her mouth pinched. “But there’s still a chance for me to work things out with him, right?”
I gave up. If she wanted to waste all that energy on a boy, it wasn’t my problem. None of their problems were mine. I had plenty of my own. “Sure.”
Sara leaned back in her chair as if all of her energy had rushed out like air from a balloon. Now that she had a plan, she was exhausted.
I shuffled the cards back into a tidy stack. I took my time. Sometimes people decided once the cards were out that they might as well ask a few more questions. Fine with me. I charge for each deal, but after a beat I could tell Sara wasn’t going to ask anything else. Now that the great Darren mystery had been put to bed, she wasn’t interested. She was too busy plotting how to remake herself into Darren’s ideal. She could do better, but that wasn’t the question she’d asked.
That was always the awkward moment—?when it came time for them to pay. I hated asking for the cash. It felt slimy, but not so distasteful that I was willing to do it for free. My mom made it easy with a sign by our door noting that she accepted both cash and PayPal. I cleared my throat and turned my hand palm up.
“Oh, sorry.” Sara pulled a ten out of her wallet and slid it over as if she didn’t want to touch me. “Thanks, Skye. That was awesome.” I shoved the bill into my pocket. She watched me tuck the deck of cards into the small paisley fabric bag I kept them in. “That was pretty cool.”
“The gift chose me,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t point out that the reason she thought I was amazing was because I told her exactly what she wanted to hear. I knew Darren well enough to know he followed his dick around like a dog on a leash. Sara wasn’t done crying over him. I’d have bet money on it. No psychic ability required for that prediction.
Sara wasn’t some cheerleader cliché. She was on squad, but she was also an honor student. I’d heard she was in AP chemistry and calculus, and she was only a junior. You would think someone that smart wouldn’t be so stupid. But they were all like that.
She waved to me over her shoulder as she scurried across to her friends, and I smiled back. Another happy customer. With any luck, a few of those friends would decide they wanted their own readings. They tended to come in clusters.
My stomach rumbled. Even with the ten bucks, I shouldn’t make a Subway run. I was still way short of my goal. I should have saved the money, but it wasn’t like ten bucks was going to make a huge difference. Screw it. I could already smell that fresh-baked bread.
Two
The bright spring sun blinded me, and I had to use my hand to shade my face as I searched the parking lot of the school. My best friend, Drew, honked the horn of her polished silver VW convertible Bug as soon as she saw me. I bolted down the front stairs and into the street.
I held up the ten-dollar bill as if it were a golden ticket. “I’ve got a hankering for processed cheese that only Subway can satisfy.” I smiled as I squeezed into the front seat and pointed to her cheek where a tiny smear of blue pastel from art class could just be seen on her dark skin. Drew glanced in the mirror, licked a finger to wipe it off, and then hit the gas.
“Hi-yo, Silver—?AWAY,” we yelled at the same time. It was a lame joke, but we’d made it ever since Drew got the car as a sixteenth birthday present. We had a million inside jokes dating back to when we first met in third grade.
I didn’t have any siblings, but Drew felt like my sister. I liked how she smelled like oil paints and how she left smudges on everything from the charcoal pencils she used. She was irrationally scared of hamsters, but totally fearless when it came to doing a backflip. She actually enjoyed all the old books they made us read in English class, and swore like a sailor when there weren’t any adults around. I knew her better than any person on the planet, and she knew me too.