Nick

Go in. Talk to her.

She’s serving heaping plates of—beef stroganoff?—to an elderly couple dripping with Old World elegance. They’re laughing, definitely at something she’s said. She’s smiling too. Relaxed. In her element.

C’mon. It’s not like she really stood you up.

The old lady picks up her fork and makes a show of examining it. They all laugh again.

She had to work. She didn’t have your number. She’s probably hoping you’ll show up.

Lina leans in conspiratorially and says something that has the geezers in hysterics. The old lady’s still snickering into her handkerchief long after Lina’s retreated to the kitchen.

She was never like that with me—never that effortless, at ease.

She’s got a life, and I’m horning in on it. Kidding myself. The other night, that was—hell, maybe she was having a bad day too. Maybe we were both after any port in a storm, and now she’s waiting for me to figure it out and fuck off. Well, this is me. Fucking off. Off I fuck.

My feet aren’t moving.

Lina comes out of the kitchen again. She’s got a tray of glasses brim-full of some kind of bright red drink. It’s not even sloshing as she walks. Bet she’s an amazing dancer. We could’ve—

I spin on my heel. The longer I linger, the harder it’ll be to walk away.

I make it all the way to the end of the block. There’s a weird, narrow storefront I didn’t notice before, hung with carpets and sparkling crystals, screening off whatever’s inside. Got to be some kind of New Age joint: there’s a sandwich board chained out front, with a crystal ball and tarot cards painted on it. There’s one word underneath, printed in stark block letters: FATE.

If that’s not a sign, what is?

I don’t believe in signs.

I turn around anyway. Fate, desire, loneliness—who cares? Worst she can do is kick me out. Or have that angry guy do it, I suppose. Whatever. I can take rejection.

Lina spots me right away this time. I’d hoped her expression would tell me everything I need to know, but she’s flashing me the customer-service smile. At least she comes right over.

“Nick! I’d ask what I can get you, but I guess that’d be an explanation.”

Well, she’s not outright hostile this time. That’s an improvement. I slap on my best confident grin. “Think I got that covered: like an idiot, I didn’t give you my number, so you couldn’t call and cancel when you had to cover this shift.” I add a little brow-waggle. “Somewhere in the ballpark?”

She nods. “Couldn’t have put it better myself. Still, I do feel bad enough to feed you on the house. You can even have that borshch today.”

Admitting I’m not a hundred percent sure what borshch even is, that it’s the only Russian dish I could name off the top of my head, doesn’t seem like a great idea. Besides, I’ll probably like it. The thing I had yesterday was great. “Yeah, sure—let’s have that. And a raincheck? After your shift? Probably too late for the gardens, but we could still....”

Lina’s brow furrows. Here it comes: the awkward brushoff, made worse by the fact that I’ve now committed to lunch. “Uh...can I get back to you on that when I bring out your food? Gotta check with my—check how late they need me.”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely. Take your time.”

The borshch proves to be a thick red soup with a dollop of sour cream swirled in. Not bad at all. Comfort food for a cold day. And the raincheck’s a go—even better.

She meets me outside at quarter past four. She’s changed out of her uniform, into a long-sleeved green dress that looks so warm I’m tempted to go in for a hug. But something tells me to use my words. Feels like there might be an elephant or two haunting the room.

“So, the other night....”

Lina shakes her head. “Could we save that for later? I thought... Let’s do something fun first. On me.”

“What’d you have in mind?”

She looks around. “Well, you’ve already eaten, so....” Her gaze lights on the fortune teller’s sign. “You know, I’ve been working here three years, walking by that place every day, and never gone in. Wanna get our palms read, or our cards, or whatever?”

Got to admit I’m curious. “Sure.”

I’m pleasantly surprised when she slips her hand into mine for the short walk. It had crossed my mind she might’ve said yes to avoid having to serve me after turning me down—but no one holds hands to be polite.

The fortune teller’s shop’s pretty much what I expected: kind of musty and Halloweeny, with shelves upon shelves of woo-woo nonsense. There are crystals and brass bells, animal skeletons, shriveled things in jars, books that look like they might’ve been new when the printing press came out, and more carpets and beads hanging from every wall and rafter. A massive crystal ball dominates the room. It’s lit from below, presumably to give it a magical air.

Lina nudges me, jerking her head to one side. I turn to look, and come face to face with—

“Shit! Is that...?”

“Hope not!”

Because... It looks like a shrunken head.

“It’s gotta be fake.” Lina’s shrinking against me, like she doesn’t want to be anywhere near it.

Bells tinkle in the depths of the store. A sweet-looking middle-aged lady comes out. Apart from the rings weighing down every single one of her fingers, she’s dressed kind of boringly, for the surroundings. “Ah—admiring Horace?”

She named the thing?

“It’s really....” Lina catches my eye, like, a little help?

“Fascinating,” I finish.

The lady takes a seat at the table, and starts shuffling a deck of cards. “Couples reading?”

We exchange glances.

“Sounds good,” I say. A second later, it hits me—what if she gives us a terrible reading? Even if Lina doesn’t believe in this stuff any more than I do, that kind of thing tends to stick. Like when you meet someone with a doofy name, and forever think of them as a dork or a goofoff, no matter how serious they are.

“So, what do we do?” Lina’s already taken her seat. Nothing to do but follow suit.

“Shuffle the cards three times each. Think of a question, but keep it to yourself.”

Right. Sounds simple enough. While Lina’s concentrating on the deck, I shoot the fortune-teller a look, like make it a good one, or else! She stares back impassively. Fantastic.

It occurs to me to try to stack the deck, somehow—at least keep the Death card out of the mix. I’ve read enough horror books to know it’s in there somewhere, biding its time, getting ready to laugh in my face.

Before I can so much as sneak a peek at the top card, the deck’s being snatched from my hands. Maybe it’s not too late to grab Lina’s hand, run out of here—would that look totally psycho?

Okay, stall. Say something. “What’s your name?”

“Floria.” She lays out five cards in an X shape, face down.

“Oh, is that—“

“Ssh.” Floria turns over the first two cards. No Death. Well, that’s—

“The Five and the Nine of Pentacles.” She points at Lina, then at me. “You’ve lost everything. You’ve built everything from nothing.”

That cannot be what it says.

“You—“ She’s on Lina again. “You thought you’d found everything you could want, only to see it revealed as illusion. Your burden is great. Debt and obligation stoop your shoulders. You can only see the light at the end of the tunnel when the sun is up... And for you, it’s been a long, long night.”

Maybe I can derail this with a joke. “What about moonlight?”

Floria stabs her finger at me. “And you! You’ve fed your hunger, but you can’t forget what it’s like to starve. You should be on top of the world, but all your passion, all your self-denial, have only got you nine-tenths of the way. There’s a void at the heart of it all.”

She’s...not totally wrong.

“Next card!” She flips it over with a thwip. “This one’s for both of you: the Seven of Swords. So much unsaid between you! Everyone has their dark places, but you—what do you think you’re protecting? Grasp the nettle, or see the weight of those secrets break your backs!”

“Hey, now! That’s—“

“And your last two cards represent the keys to your future. Turn them over yourselves.”

I’m tempted to refuse, but Lina’s already flipped hers. There it is: the fucking Death card, like my obsession summoned it to the top of the deck. Mine shows a hand holding a sword.

“Death, and the Ace of Swords, reversed. Transformation or chaos; a new beginning or a confusing end. It’s quite clear: if you don’t know what you want, you won’t stand a chance of getting it. You can confront your secrets and stride forth together, or go round in circles and lose your spark. And it is quite a spark; that would be a shame.”

“Wait—was Death the good card, out of those two?”

“It signifies unavoidable change—the shedding of the superficial, the unnecessary, that which is holding you back.”

“And the other one?”

Floria waggles her finger at both of us. Her rings sparkle in the glow of the crystal ball. “Lack of clarity. Forty dollars.”

The shift in subject’s so abrupt I don’t think to go for my wallet till I see Lina fishing out a couple of bills.

“No—forty dollars from you.” Floria’s looking me dead in the eye. “Weren’t the cards clear enough?”

I feel myself turning bright red. I was going to pay! Worst fortune-teller ever! Couldn’t she have said we’d have two kids, a Golden Retriever, and a house by a stream? Would that’ve been so hard?

Lina seems to be finding the whole thing hysterical. She’s barely reining in her laughter as she ducks under the hanging beads in the doorway. “Tell us something we didn’t know, eh?”

“Huh?” I’m glad she’s not taking it hard, but I’m still kind of reeling.

“Well, I mean, she went straight for the low-hanging fruit, didn’t she?” She ticks the points off on her fingers. “One—my coat was nice when I bought it, but it’s seen better days. Yours is a new Brioni. So my star’s falling; yours is rising. Two—we had to look at each other before we agreed to a couples reading. So we don’t know each other that well. Obviously, there’s going to be secrets. We haven’t had time to tell each other much of anything, let alone everything. So—shocker!—we should see more of each other. What’s that, cold reading 101?”

Can’t argue with any of that. “Still. I felt judged. Didn’t you feel judged?”

Lina snorts. “Everyone’s judging everyone all the time.”

“Oh? You judging me right now?”

“Guilty as charged.” She winks.

I’m still kind of up in a bunch. I blame that stupid Death card. Plus, even if it was nothing but cold reading, I feel oddly exposed. Embarrassed, even. And it’s way too soon for money to enter the conversation. Time to change the subject. “Okay, so...tell me a secret, then.”

“A secret....” The WALK sign comes on. Lina steps out into the street. “I always make a couple of mistakes when I post on Facebook, so people won’t think I’m stuck up. Like, I’ll put it-apostrophe-S, when I mean, y’know, ‘its’.”

“Oh, lame secret!”

“What? I thought it was pretty juicy! I mean, isn’t that the pinnacle of insecurity?”

“Well, when you put it that way....” I pretend to think it over. “Nope. Still lame. Gimme another.”

“No way. It’s your turn.”

“Fine—okay. Here’s how it’s done: I almost didn’t come into the restaurant today. I was standing outside, looking in, and I couldn’t shake the idea that...maybe you did stand me up. Like, on purpose.”

That seems to catch her off guard. She breaks stride for a moment, and when she starts walking again, she’s definitely put some distance between us. “I did.”

Wait...seriously? I hate this secret.

She’s not looking at me. “It’s not that I didn’t want to see you. It’s just... This is going to sound insane, but I got home last night, and realized I’d almost burned my building down.” There’s a low note of horror in her voice. “I’ve been distracted since—since... I’ve had a week you wouldn’t believe, and then that happened, and I thought...what the fuck am I doing? I don’t have time for—I don’t have room for— It’s not fair to you.“

“But you didn’t tell me no when I showed up anyway.”

“Guess I’m selfish.” A car whooshes by too fast, sending up a plume of slush. There’s barely room to dodge. We wind up squished together under a yellow awning. I can’t resist the temptation to tuck her hair behind her ear. She leans into the touch, and I feel it again, that sense of rightness, of connection.

I’ve got to get to the bottom of this. “Selfish? Selfish how?”

“’Cause I’ve got—that woman was right, about the debt, the obligations, the—the crushing weight, or whatever. I’ve got two jobs, classes; I’ve got... I’ve got no room in my life. It’s like... You’re this great dress I keep seeing in the window at Bloomingdale’s, but even if I could afford you, I’d never get the chance to wear you. I’d be fooling myself.”

“So, I’m...a backless Vera Wang?” I wish she’d smile.

She shakes her head. “You’re a luxury I can’t afford. But I....”

My confidence is kind of flagging, but hey, fake it till you make it. I grin nice and wide. “But you’re going to splurge on me anyway.”

“You’re cocksure.”

“That’s because I’m not some ballgown you’d never have anyplace to wear.” I lean in and lower my voice. “Think of me more as...a slice of chocolate cheesecake: rich, creamy, fattening... And you can gobble me down any time.”

“Gobble you—oh my God!”

“Mm, and I’m good with everything. You can have me on your lunch break, in between work and school—with your morning coffee.” I waggle my brows. Finally, finally, she laughs.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You totally want me.”

“God help me, I do.”

Now seems like a good time to try for that hug. She melts into it. This can’t be a mistake.

I’m not letting her get away.