Amalia…

I started working for Kyle’s boys. I knew it was the right thing to do the moment we walked through the shop’s front door. This place was serious business. Right on the strip in Old Town across from The Spot, a bar that’d been popular and a destination dining and watering hole for as long as I could remember.

The place was all black and white checkered tile and a riot of color on the walls. The flash art was serious – all original hand drawn designs by either Trig or Revelator. Some was in the classic Sailor Jerry motif, some clearly geared towards the military, but none of it was out of a book or catalog.

When I stepped up to the counter, my portfolio was already there, except the piece of label tape on its front declaring it Lexi Duran’s work was gone, and instead, there was a much shorter strip that simply read ‘Mali.’

It hit me right in the feels and I don’t know why. It was one of those moments, though. The kind that felt like a gift from the universe and they were so rare, and beautiful, you didn’t reject something like that. So I’d joined up, right there on the spot.

That had been 19 days ago. For some reason, the significance of that number tickled the back of my brain, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why. I leaned back from my customer, a guy that was actually one of Trigger’s regulars by the name of Donnie. He had an arctic fox on one shoulder and had wanted some Japanese cherry blossoms and branch work done down his arm to make the shoulder piece into a sleeve.

Trigger had shown him my watercolor style and Donnie had dug it. This was his first appointment with me.

“So I gotta ask, and I’m sure you get asked this all the time but –“

I cut him off, “Am I single?”

“Yeah,” he sounded disappointed, the answer already clear on my face.

“You’re either very brave or very stupid asking me that when I’m grinding ink under your skin,” I said dryly.

He laughed, “Pain is an old friend of mine, gimme your best shot.”

“Famous last words,” I said teasingly, as I dipped more ink, hit my pedal and dug back in.

He chuckled, and said, “He’s a lucky guy.”

“Mm,” was my noncommittal reply; Kyle wasn’t the lucky one. I was… and I knew it.

I ground ink into Donnie’s skin for the better part of two hours before his session was up. He looked down at it, his eyes widening a little, mouth down turning in the classic expression of being rather impressed as he nodded.

“You want a picture or anything?” I asked.

“Nah, I’ll wait ‘til it’s done for that. I don’t like half-finished shit.”

I shrugged and patched him up and launched into the aftercare instructions but he put up a hand, “I know the drill.”

“I’m sure you do, just doing my job.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but Trigger’s deep voice rolled across the shop from his corner, stopping him, “You might want to think about whatever you’re gonna say before you open your mouth, Donnie. Otherwise, that tat is gonna stay just like it is. Mali’s the only one around these parts that can finish that style.”

Donnie stopped, his eyes sparkling with barely suppressed entertainment, and asked me, “When’s our next appointment?”

“That’s all Sunshine…” I muttered and he went up front to pay and book.

I cleaned up my station and went over to where Trigger was working on a girl’s ankle piece.

“Could have handled it,” I said. “Not my first rodeo.”

He looked up at me and winked, “Yeah, but that’s part of doing business under guys like me and Rev; you could have handled it, but in our shop? You don’t have to.”

I nodded and called out to Ashton, “What have I got on deck?”

“You’re good,” she called back, “Unless you want to stay in case of a walk-in.”

“Nope!” Rev called and got up from his station. He snapped off the pair of black nitrile gloves he had on and tossed them in the wastebasket, shaking out his hands. Picking up an envelope on his counter, he came towards me.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“M’ lady, you have a quest…” he said and took a flourishing bow. He held the envelope, which was an odd size, out to me.

I frowned and took it from him. It was white, and the flap was on one of the shorter ends on the back side. I stared at the fancy wax seal, red wax, dusted with gold powder and it almost broke my heart that I was going to have to break it. It was a beautiful large cabbage rose. My middle name…

“What is this?” I asked.

Revelator just winked at me, turned around and walked away whistling. Ashton’s golden eyes were wide and so there was no help there, while all of a sudden Trigger and Disney were way absorbed in their work.

“Ooookay,” I said to no one in particular. I went back to my station and shut out my light. I smoothed the snowy-white, expensive-feeling paper of the envelope between my fingers and sighing, cracked the seal.

It held a single tarot card, not one of mine, but The Fool none the less. Across him, in Kyle’s black printing, it said ‘follow me…’ and nothing else. I turned it over, and on the back, there was an address in silver marker, which showed up much better against the card’s dark background.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

I had full use of his 4Runner now, and he’d bought me a cell phone on his plan. It was nice having the little computer with me. One, I knew he could keep an eye on me and that he did… I was learning just how technologically savvy he’d become and it was holy shit impressive. Two, after having been away for seventeen years, I was finding it hard to remember certain streets and how to get around, especially considering back then it had been all on foot or by virtue of a bicycle. The rules of the road hadn’t exactly applied, and there were streets now that I could have sworn weren’t one-way back then. Not to mention the high yellow curbs in the middle of the road weren’t always there, I mean, were they?

I got into the 4Runner in the lot behind the shop and carefully plugged the address on the back of The Fool into the maps feature. I pressed the screen to have it start my route, and followed the directions carefully.

Twenty minutes later I was on a familiar stretch of highway, perking up a bit when the GPS declared that indeed, my destination was ahead on the left, through the iron gates of the MC’s compound. I drove up into the lot and parked, and went to the front door, hauling it open and going inside.

“About time you figured it out,” Dragon said around the cigarette in his mouth. He sat alone, in the barroom, a bottle of tequila on the table with a glass. An ashtray perched next to it. He folded the paper he’d been squinting at and set it aside. He pulled another of the mysterious envelopes from the inside pocket of his cut and held it up. I watched the envelope rise and fall as he set it on the table and slid it across to rest in front of the empty seat in front of him.

I went to it, and pulled out the chair, taking the seat. My ass wasn’t quite covered by the short, plaid skirt I had on. I kept my knees together, my knee-high Doc Marten’s flat on the cement floor. I wore a black girl’s tee shirt over the skirt, a retro sort of punk look that was more to beat the August heat and humidity.

We stared at each other for a long time and he huffed a bit of a laugh, “Ha, well open it!”

I slid the envelope off the table and cracked the seal, withdrawing the card. The Hanged Man. I swallowed hard. The Hanged Man was one of the most important cards in the major arcana. Where The Fool signified the beginning of a journey, The Hanged Man represented feeling overwhelmed by circumstances. I couldn’t argue the sentiment. I knew, by the silver sharpie in the corner, that it was meant to be taken as being in the upright position which meant the need for a time-out. I swallowed hard and my eyes flicked to Dragon’s.

“A time-out… am I in some sort of trouble?”

He chuckled and shook his head, “That ain’t all it means, is it?”

“No, it also means a change of perspective is warranted.”

He arched his eyebrows and said, “Ahhh, does it now?”

“Is that why I’m here? For a change of perspective?”

He smiled at me and it was probably the kindest I had ever seen him. It caught me off guard. “You sure it’s about you?” he asked me and I was getting a little tired of each of us answering our questions with more questions.

“No.”

“You know, I’ve lost count of how many late nights it’s been just me and Data, alone in this room together.”

“Yeah?”

He cocked his head and considered me. “Yeah, and in all that time, he not once mentioned you…”

“I don’t know what that means…”

“Means out of all things, he kept you a secret. I didn’t know why until you showed up. Now I’m thinkin’ that I understand it a little better.”

“Care to enlighten me, then?”

“I have a feeling,” he ashed his cigarette in the tray and put it back in his mouth, “that it was because he knew, wherever you were, that you might not appreciate it much him talking about you.”

I thought it over, running it through my mind, over and over, finally leveling him with a look and asking, “Is this the part where you tell me that I don’t have to be so closed off and secretive? That this is a safe place, and I can just be me here, without fear of reprisal?”

He chuckled and said, “You don’t seem to fully understand what this brotherhood is about, now do you?”

“I guess I don’t,” I said softly.

He drew in a long breath and let it out slow, scanning my face as if fishing for just where to begin.

“This here is a family, honey. Not like your daddy, either. This is what all those families out there in the citizen world pretend they are but aren’t. We don’t hurt each other. We don’t fuck each other over for love or money. One of us says we’re gonna do something, we do it. You belong to Data.” He raised a hand and waved me off before I could protest.

“Now, now! You do. Not like any piece of citizen property, like a cage or a house. That’s just stuff. You’re property in the MC sense of the word, which means that any man here would defend you to the last, just as if he were Data himself, for Data, simply because you belong to Data. Now I want you to sit there and think about that before,” and he reached into the other side of his cut, “I give you this.”

He held up another envelope, my eyes following it as he set it down with its pretty rose wax seal on the table in front of him. He kept his two blunt fingertips on it for an extended few seconds before he went for his cigarette and ashed it again.

“Where is this all supposed to lead me?” I asked.

“Well, Sweetheart, I do believe that’s up to you…”

The choice was indeed mine. Be open to the possibilities here, or walk away. I could do either… but Kyle had gone to all of this trouble for a reason. He had never done anything in all the time I had known him – even when we were kids – that wasn’t deliberately thought out.

He was trying to show me something using a language as old as time that he knew I would listen to. Dragon searched my face and nodded after several moments of silence between us, and slid the card across the table.

I picked up the envelope, feeling the weight of what lay inside and knowing that this one would be different. I cracked the seal and withdrew the universal card for change… Death.

Not of the physical self, but of situations. It signified endings and new beginnings. When death occurred it was typically a time for reflection and a time to embrace the change it brought. I turned it over, and on the back was another address.

“As much as that means change, I want you to know – whatever form that takes, we’re here.”

I raised my eyes from the card in my fingers and nodded slowly.

“Thanks, I think…”

“Don’t mention it. Go on, now. You’re keeping them waiting.”

I went back out and with shaking fingers, plugged in the next address. Back to town… great. I thought about it as I drove and wondered just what Kyle was playing at. I ordered my phone to call him and it went to voicemail. The outgoing message made me smile.

“Ah, ah, ah, baby… That’s cheating.”

“Smartass,” I said after the beep, but I didn’t try again.

To be honest, this scavenger hunt was actually kind of fun, for all the fractured ache I was feeling. I didn’t know where this was going to lead, or if I would like it, but he was taking me somewhere and I trusted him.

The next destination was Soul Fuel, which, at this hour should have been closed, and was, but the old ladies from the club were all inside and comfortable, laughing and chatting over coffee and wine… without a single one of their kids in sight. Weird but okay, let’s do this, Mali.

I got out of the SUV and chirped the alarm as Everett came to the door. She unlocked it for me and immediately handed me another envelope. I opened it and slipped Temperance out of it.

The Temperance card typically represented the needs in life that arise when going through a monumental change. At least, I believed that was the case here. Kyle was trying to tell me to incorporate these new things into my life as I was going through this new growth. Of course, for me, this time of growth had been exceedingly painful, so I had been doing what I always did when I was hurt. I hid and licked my wounds.

He was asking me to do something here, he was asking me to give these women a try. One of the other things that Temperance stood for? Patience, moderation… obviously, and balance. Temperance was about control and I took this as a none-too-gentle reminder that mine had been slipping. Of course, I knew that. It was the main reason I felt like I was going crazy.

“Come on in, I’ll make you some coffee,” Everett said when I finally pulled myself out of my thoughts long enough to look up from the card.

“Thanks. Coffee is the blood, is the life…”

She laughed and said, “Don’t I know it?”

I went over and took a free chair and sank into it. All of them were smiling, but it was Shelly who broke the brittle tension in the air by asking, “What up, girlfriend?”

“Uh, I got a job at the guys’ tattoo shop and now my boyfriend has me going around on some whacked-out scavenger hunt… All right, after spending the last seventeen years on the run from some crazy Irish asshole crime boss figure for killing his son before the doucheweasel popped my Pops…” I swallowed hard. No one said a word, I mean, you could hear a pin drop, but they were all being politely attentive, so I tried, which was what Kyle was asking me to do.

As much as I hated admitting to a weakness out loud, I steeled myself and said the truth, “I don’t think I’m dealing or adjusting very well, or whatever.”

“All of us have our stories, chickadee, yours ain’t nothing new in this circle,” Shelly said rolling her eyes.

The steam from the espresso machine went off and I jumped, nearly hitting the roof, but I wasn’t the only one. Dani shot me a shy smile and shrugged her shoulders. Maybe it wasn’t so far off, what Shelly was saying.

“Who wants to go first?” Doll, er, Hayden, asked.

“I will,” Ashton murmured and I blinked. Where had she come from?

She smoothed the skirt of her cute little Havana dress under her and took a seat. Everett came back over and handed me a saucer with a cup on it that might as well have been a bowl. I wasn’t really comfortable with the sharing is caring group therapy vibe that was going on, but as long as they were the ones sharing and I was the one caring, I could deal.

Holy shit, did they share… Ashton’s ex was a piece of work. Shelly had been through hell and back because of a rape. Mandy had grown up in an ultra-religious abusive household, and Everett, well, for as tough as she seemed to be, she divulged she didn’t really feel like she was due to her circumstances. I mean, she’d had a normal childhood save for her parents dying young, her mom while she was being born and her dad right as she got out of high school.

Maren’s mom was a nut-job, as in certified institutionalized, and she was raising her brother. Bailey and Hayden were both born rich girls, and the way you heard them speak, that was its own special kind of hell despite the money. Hayden fully admitted she had it easy, but Bailey's own brother had tried to have her raped into compliance.

“Wouldn’t mind giving him a Falcon Dick Punch,” I muttered.

Hayley was normal comparatively, just working poor like me. I could relate and appreciate, but then she got into Duracell, who I guess was a brother who had died recently. She belonged to both him and Blue and they had a baby on the way that was more than likely Duracell’s. The grief was palpable and I did everything to ground and center myself so I didn’t burst into tears just from what was coming off of her.

Melody, too, was working poor but had everything but the kitchen sink happen to her. Mostly back in Arizona where she’d come from. Douchebag ex, fucked up family, pretty much the whole nine yards.

Throughout it all, Dani was silent, watching me and I got a real uneasy feeling that whatever her story was, I wasn’t going to like it and that I was about to eat feeling sorry for myself.

I was right. Her story was almost as bad, if not worse, than Faith’s back in Florida. Like, damn. I had nothing to really whine about. More perspective… these women were just as damaged if not more broken than I had ever come close to being. I stared into the bottom of my coffee cup and swallowed past the lump in my throat.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Everett said and I gave her a scathing look that said, really bitch? Y’all are gonna spill and not expect a fuckin’ thing out of me? There was nervous laughter and Shelly spoke up.

“She means it. Just because we showed you ours, doesn’t mean we expect you to show us yours.”

“There are a lot of bad people in the world, Amalia. We aren’t any of them,” Ashton murmured.

I nodded slowly. I was starting to get the idea, and now I was starting to feel bad. I didn’t trust anyone as a general rule. The last solid chunk of my life, I didn’t get close to anyone, either. I could do those things now, but old habits die hard…

“Oh, you crafty bastard,” I whispered. Habits… 19 days… Kyle had said it takes 19 days to form new habits and I’d been at the shop for 19 days. I guess he was trying to open me up to the potential of some new habits.

Shelly grinned over the rim of her teacup and shared a glance with some of the other women. All of them glanced at one another and my unease grew. Dani spoke up.

“Sometimes, you have to go backward, to move forward,” she said, and produced a white envelope from the seat beside herself. A trickle of dread went down my spine as she reached across the space between us with it. I handed my cup and saucer to a pair of hands nearby, waiting to take it. My entire focus on that red rose seal, dusted in gold.

I plucked the envelope from her fingers and cracked the seal. I had a feeling. I knew, I just knew… I closed my eyes as The Tower slipped free.

I turned it over and on the back?

Go back to the beginning…

Shit. He was right. All had fallen down. It was rubble at my feet and I had to start all over again. What was left when the tower or your house collapsed? The foundation.

Where did Kyle and I first meet? The school. Whose house did we go to first? His. I rolled my lips and sighed.

“And I’m off…” I said and dragged myself to my feet. “Thanks for the coffee and the reality check.”

“Anytime, Sister.” Shelly winked as she said it and I smiled even if it was a bit wan. Everett let me out of the shop, and I realized that the guys all had to be at home with the kids so that they could be. That was some more food for thought as I got back behind the wheel of the 4Runner.

I went back to Kyle’s house, and taped to the garage door? Another fucking envelope. I got out of the SUV and went to it, snatching it off and tearing it open.

The Hierophant.

The card represented change and expansion, a balance between old and new. I looked up at the familiar old house with its new paint and new windows. This place, here, was surely that. I pulled The Tower out of the bag at my hip and read the message again.

Go back to the beginning…

Maybe he didn’t mean this place, maybe he meant another. The fact that there was a bicycle leaning against the garage door referenced that enough. I shut off the 4Runner, and locked it, chirping the alarm. I pulled the bike away from the garage door, went up the driveway with it to the street, and swung a leg over.

There was only one way to find out if the old adage, it’s like riding a bike, were true. I hadn’t been on one in probably twenty years, but he was right, there was no other way I would remember to get there.

I took off and pedaled and had the hang of it in no time. I guess it was true. What was also true? I was really out of fucking shape. The short ride between our houses had me winded in no time. My heart was pounding with the unfamiliar cardio, and a light dew of sweat broke out over my skin.

I pulled up in front of the empty lot where my old house used to be and felt a desolation creep in. It was empty, razed to the foundation; the only thing left was the old, rusting mailbox at the curb. I opened it, not expecting to find anything but surprise! There was a white envelope waiting for me.

“It’s like the game that never ends,” I muttered and broke the seal, tipping the card inside to the street light so I could see it.

The Wheel of Fortune – and the game show had nothing to do with it… The 10^th card of the major arcana meant a lot of things. In this incarnation, I took it to mean a change in fortunes and he wasn’t wrong. My dad and I, moving to this house, had changed my fortunes. I had met Kyle… I had met Kyle and that had made all the difference in my life.

I turned it over and on the back, it said, still the wrong beginning. Try our beginning. Our real one. Just you. Just me and our…

Tree. “Just you, just me, and our tree…”; it was a rhyme we’d made up and laughed like dorks over and was code for basically “Fuck everyone else and the world. I just want to spend time with my favorite person.”

I turned the bicycle around and rode hard and fast, my heart pounding, through our neighborhood, two streets down, four houses over… I stopped pedaling and let the bike coast.

The old house was gone, but our tree rose into the night, twinkling with light. I got off the bike and walked it by my side through the field. As I got closer, I realized what the lights were.

Lanterns – dozens of old farm lanterns hung from the tree branches, illuminating the underside of the canopy. I dropped the bike and walked past a plaid blanket on the ground, a picnic basket next to it. White fluttered against the trunk, an envelope, and I needed to see, I had to know...

I looked around, but I didn’t see Kyle. Still, I felt him. I knew he was watching, and I had to know what he thought of just him, and me, and our tree, so I plucked the envelope from the ribbon holding it, dangling from the trunk.

When I pulled the ribbon away, the seal broke and I slipped the card from the stellar, bright white paper.

The World.

I felt my eyes tear up, not only at the blatant implication of the card, that he thought the world of him and me… but also about the deeper meaning behind it.

The last card in the major arcana, the last stop: The World stood for the triumphant conclusion and the path to inner peace. I looked up at our tree, at the gentle twinkling little lights and heard the grass rustle behind me. I whirled, and just like magic, there he was…

My world.