A Special Place for Women

by Laura Hankin

  TEN

  So at 7:59 p.m. on Monday I was back on the corner of Perry and Greenwich, waiting to be blindfolded. A different young woman came to meet me but the same procedure unfolded—the confiscation of my cell phone, the dizziness and disorientation, the silent elevator ride—until my blindfold was yanked off and the clubhouse appeared before me again.

  The vibe was different than it had been the last time, with many fewer women around. No sign of Libby or Caroline, only a few of the business-casual crowd networking and talking at the tables. A Beyoncé song played softly from a speaker system. Someone was burning incense that smelled like eucalyptus. The lights were lower, like at a restaurant when it switches from the family diners to the date-night crowd. No billionaires would be giving a talk on this particular evening. This was a typical night at the club.

  Margot sat on a velvet couch next to Vy, a pack of cards spread out between them. Candles flickered on a nearby coffee table. At first I thought they were playing a game, and laughed to myself: The true secret of Nevertheless was that its members sat around and played go fish! They went through all that hoopla and secrecy just so they could play card games without being interrupted by any men! (Or any poor people.) But Vy’s and Margot’s bodies were too charged with energy, too engaged with each other, to be playing a casual game. Margot was barefoot again and wearing a camel-colored shirtdress, hugging one leg close to her chest, the other one dangling off the couch. Vy curled toward her, her upper body a parenthesis, her short hair mussed and spiked as if she’d kept running a hand absentmindedly through it. High-stakes gambling? No. I looked closer. They weren’t using a regular deck of cards.

  I cleared my throat and Margot registered me, then smiled as if she hadn’t known I was coming tonight. (Bullshit. Through my limited time at Nevertheless, I had gotten the sense that she was consulted on everything. She held a place of prominence in the group, was probably one of the founding members.) “Jillian! We’re reading tarot. Come join us?”

  Ah, tarot cards. Not a surprise that Margot was into them. Like astrology, they seemed a method by which one could read far too much into random information, could pick out a droplet of truth from a bucket and then profess that the whole thing was pure. I’d never had mine read before. The closest I’d gotten was going to a storefront psychic with a friend during college spring break. The woman had stared at my friend’s palm and pronounced that she was going to live until age ninety-three and have a healthy marriage and successful career, that she had the kind of truly amazing energy that didn’t come around very often. Then the psychic had taken my hand and told me that I was dangerously blocked, and that I needed to buy a special candle to cleanse my aura. She’d waved the candle in my face. It smelled like blue cheese, looked like a lumpy penis, and cost $250.

  I didn’t buy the candle. I’d known she was making it all up. But still, I’d been unsettled. She’d seen something in me that made her think I was vulnerable, an easy mark for her racket. Some energy that I was giving off—some expression on my face, some tightening in my shoulders—had made her think, This one. This one is weak. I’d had no desire to ever do anything like it again.

  But for tonight, I could pretend to get a kick out of it. “Oh, fun,” I said to Margot, determined to participate in this bonding ritual like we were all girls huddling around a Ouija board.

  Vy harrumphed in my direction, then stared down at the cards, turning over a final one to reveal an image of a woman draped in cloth, wearing a sort of floppy crown, her gaze intense.

  “The High Priestess,” she said in a low voice. She and Margot met each other’s eyes, something coded passing between the two of them.

  Then Margot shook it off, whatever it was. “Jillian, you want me to read yours?” she asked, and although I worried that maybe they’d also try to sell me a $250 candle, I saw that if I said No thank you, I’d be closing a very important door. Libby had mentioned passing their tests, and this was one of them. How I reacted to the cards I drew, what I revealed about myself, even just in my body language: this was part of how they’d decide if I was worthy. Turning down this reading would be like refusing to do the math section of the SATs and expecting Harvard admission anyway.

  I plastered on a smile. “Sure.”

  Vy grabbed a mug of tea off the coffee table and moved to the side, making room for me between her and Margot. “I think a simple past, present, future,” Margot murmured to Vy, and Vy nodded.

  Margot turned her gaze to me. Some people can make you believe that, in a crowded room, you’re the only person who matters. Margot had that gift. Her attention gave you the feeling that, at any moment, she might lean forward and kiss you.

  Now, getting hit with the full force of Margot’s powers sent a buzz through me. “All right, Jillian,” she said, stretching out her arms, rolling her wrists in circles like an athlete warming up, even as she kept her dark brown eyes locked on mine. “First, we need to pick your archetype. The card that will represent you in this reading.” She shuffled a stack quickly. The backs of the cards were navy blue, with thin gold lines weaving across them. Margot paused, then drew out a picture of a man in a dark cloak thrusting one hand up to the sky, the golden background behind him faded. the magician, a label at the bottom of the card read.

  “Hmm,” Margot said as she placed the card down in the center of the couch. “Resourceful. Skilled.”

  “Cunning,” said Vy, and even as I kept my expression neutral, my stomach churned. Vy’s vengeance on the man who had ruined her menstrual hut installation flew into my mind. I pictured her leading a silent fleet of women onto his lawn with bags of bloodied tampons, leaving them there as a warning. Vy, looking up at his window while the women did their work behind her, wishing she could climb inside and draw a different kind of blood. What would she want to do to me if everything worked out the way I hoped it would with this exposé?

  “Now,” Margot said, handing the deck to me, “think of a question you have, something that’s been aching to be answered.” The cards had a weathered feel to their ridged edges. This was not a deck that Margot had just purchased. This was a deck that had seen some action over the years, that had absorbed the sweat of all sorts of hands. “Hold that question in your mind, concentrate on it, while you keep the deck between your palms.”

  Vy took a noisy sip of her tea, sucking it through her teeth like a malfunctioning pool filter. Margot smiled at me gently. “Closing your eyes helps concentrate the energy too.”

  I tried to make my face serene. “Okay,” I said, shutting my eyes. I didn’t have an Important Question, in part because the whole thing was silly, and in part because all that was running through my mind was a series of panicky thoughts: What am I doing here? What the fuck will happen to me if they find me out? I’m sitting very close to Margot—can she tell how much I’m sweating? Should I buy a prescription deodorant? Seconds ticked by. A new Beyoncé song began piping over the sound system. At a nearby table, a woman was talking about the promotion she’d just gotten while her companion shrieked, “Oh my God, yass, queen!” My panic momentarily faded, and I rolled my eyes behind my eyelids.

  “Open your eyes now,” Margot said. “Shuffle the deck eight times, and then cut it into three stacks.” I did as directed, laying the stacks out facedown on the couch where she pointed, below the watchful gaze of The Magician.

  “So what was your question?” Vy asked, brusque, her lips downturned. I’d thought my own Resting Bitch Face was bad, but I had nothing on her. She blinked very slowly, and very rarely. It was unnerving.

  “Oh, I didn’t know we were supposed to say them out loud,” I said.

  “Well, you don’t have to,” Margot replied. “Sometimes we can dig deepest when we seek answers in the privacy of our own hearts. But I can help you interpret everything so much more accurately if you do tell us.”

  Right, she just wanted to help me. Not have me reveal the inner workin
gs of my heart and mind in the guise of a fun little reading. “My question was . . .” I began, then blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Am I on the right path? You know, just generally, in life.”

  “Mm,” Margot said, sympathetically. “It’s so hard to see that clearly sometimes. Let’s get you some clarity.” She tapped the stack of cards on the left. “This first stack represents your past.” In a graceful, fluid motion, Margot turned the top card over to reveal a fleshy crimson heart, violently pierced by three swords. Cool, promising start. “The Three of Swords,” she said, biting her lip. “This card generally means heartbreak. Sorrow. You’ve come through something difficult.” She looked up at me. “Oh, that makes sense. Your mother, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and then to Vy, “She died.”

  Vy sucked her teeth. “Sorry about that.”

  “That must have been so hard,” Margot said, giving me her trademarked You Are the Only Person in This Room Who Matters™ look again. “Was it very recent?”

  Dammit, she wanted me to talk about it, to cut myself open and show her my own pierced heart just like the one on the card. This was what cult leaders did: made you vulnerable as a way of binding you to them. I’d come here to make these women vulnerable to me, not the other way around. Besides, it felt cheap to use my mother as a tool for my own advancement any more than I already had.

  “Yeah, it happened a few months ago, and it was awful,” I said, then redirected my attention to the stacks on the couch. “Here’s hoping my present card is more promising.” Vy blinked at me, probably picturing a seagull, refusing to swoop beneath the waves, beating its wings in great bursts of effort to stay above the spray.

  As Margot went to turn over the next card, my stomach churned in anticipation. It wasn’t that I believed the card was going to change the course of my life. If anything, the power of these cards was that you read into them what you wanted to see, which helped you get more in touch with what you were feeling. Margot and Vy handled the cards almost as if they held a mystical strength, but they weren’t going to pull one over on me. I knew their game: the more they acted as if the cards could reveal something deep about my soul or destiny, the more authentic my reactions to them would be. The more they could gauge me, judge me. I sent up a silent prayer for a card that I could spin in some impressive way, featuring a warrior lady with a cool pet leopard, or maybe a gorgeous princess surrounded by abundance. Anything besides more bloody swords.

  Margot laid the card out. Just a bunch of sticks, flying through the air in some harmonious motion toward their destination. “Huh, Eight of Wands,” Vy said. “Which usually means forward momentum.”

  Hey, who didn’t like forward momentum? Margot bit her lip again. “But the card is reversed,” she said. “That can mean that you’re rushing into action without fully considering steps you need to take, leaving you likely to make mistakes or even bad decisions. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Um,” I said, struggling to keep my body language neutral. “I don’t know.”

  “It could also mean a more general frustration,” Margot said. “Feeling blocked or stuck.”

  I gave a vigorous nod. “Yeah, frustrated! It’s probably because I’m trying to edit my novel and can’t tell if what I’m doing is helping or hurting,” I said, and then, desperate to lighten the mood, joked, “Or maybe I’m frustrated because I haven’t gotten laid in a long time.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized my mistake.

  Margot and Vy exchanged a look. “Oh, but I thought—you and Raf aren’t . . . ?” Margot asked.

  “Well,” I said, grasping at straws. “We’re together and things are going really well, but we’re taking it slow, physically.”

  “Of course,” Margot said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “We totally do stuff! Hand stuff.” I scratched the back of my head. “Um, mouth stuff. He’s got a great mouth!” It was true, actually. Raf’s mouth was one of his best features. Vy snorted—it wasn’t a laugh, I’d never seen Vy laugh or even smile—and stared down into her tea. “But I feel like I’ve rushed into sex too much in the past and because I really like him, I wanted to . . . take our time, you know?”

  I was fumbling, but Margot’s eyes grew sympathetic and she reached out to clasp my hand in hers. “I do know,” she said. “Please, don’t feel like you have to make any excuses to me.” She hesitated. “I was . . . Keep this private, please, but I was in a relationship for years where I often had sex just to please my partner even though it could be painful for me. Occasionally I would have to go to the bathroom afterward and cry.”

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  She nodded. “I think I had undiagnosed vaginismus, not that my gynecologist at the time was taking any of my concerns seriously, which is why I’m never going to a male gyno again.” I hadn’t seen Vy touch anyone before this, hadn’t even necessarily thought her capable of tenderness, but now she rubbed Margot’s back protectively as Margot went on, her voice a little shaky. “But if I didn’t have sex regularly and pretend that I liked it, my partner would get . . . well, he wouldn’t be happy. Not that he ever forced me, but the whole night would be off. I felt that I had to keep him content, even though that meant making myself miserable.” She blinked a few times. “So I admire you for setting those boundaries. I wish I could have.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, simultaneously grimy from hearing a secret I hadn’t earned and grateful for the new Margot unfurling in front of me. I’d imagined her whirling from fling to fling, letting whatever man caught her fancy fly her out to Paris to woo her. She radiated so much self-possession that I’d assumed she was one of those women who could just cum seven times in a row, who were so sexually in tune with themselves that they had orgasms doing yoga, silently quaking with ecstasy in pigeon pose. “Is it better for you now? Oh God, sorry, you do not have to answer if that’s too personal!”

  “It’s fine,” Margot said. “Things are better. I know who I am, and I try to only have sex on my own terms. Maybe it’s not that often, but men just have to deal with it.” I rearranged the picture in my mind: a man flying Margot all the way out to Paris, taking her on a whirlwind tour of the city, buying her the fanciest champagne, and then her pecking him on the cheek and shutting the door in his face. “Most of the time, they deal with it gracefully. And if they don’t, well . . .” Something flickered in her eyes. “I have ways of making them sorry.”

  We all sat in silence for a moment. Vy gave Margot’s back one more solid pat. “I’m so glad I’m a lesbian,” she said, then took another pool filter sip of her tea. “Now finish the reading. I have to go home and feed Anais.” (Was Anais a dog or a kid?)

  “Of course!” Margot said, tossing her head as the elevator dinged in the background. “This is supposed to be about you, not me. Let’s see your future card.” She leaned over and began to turn it over when Caroline motored off the elevator and toward the unmarked door that I’d assumed led to a greenroom/office area, walking furiously, stress radiating from her in an almost visceral way. Vy tapped Margot on the shoulder and they watched as a hapless club member attempted to engage Caroline in conversation.

  “Caroline!” the club member said, catching up to Caroline right as she passed in front of the other door, the one that Margot had acted so strangely about during my first visit to the club. Caroline turned and plastered on a smile.

  “Hi,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I wanted to propose an activity,” the member went on, leaning casually against the door. Caroline stiffened, her eyes darting to the door as if to make sure it wouldn’t swing open. Weird—so it wasn’t just trials like me who weren’t supposed to go inside. This door was off-limits to members too. My mind whirred through possibilities of what could be behind it—Secret files? Male prisoners?—as the member kept talking. “My friend would love to come in and teach this awesome workshop she does, How to
Spell Your Success.”

  “How to spell what?” Caroline asked, her voice tight.

  “Your Success—”

  “It’s only two words. It doesn’t seem like it would require a whole workshop.”

  “Oh, no,” the member said, laughing. “Not spell like letters. My friend’s a witch! So, like, how to pick the best crystals for getting the promotion you want, or lighting a certain kind of candle and sending your energy out—”

  “Great initiative, but I don’t think that’s the right fit for our members.” Caroline’s smile was frozen and tight on her face.

  “Oh, I’m sorry—” the member began, coming out of her casual lean, a little flustered.

  “No worries! Now, excuse me, I have some work for my gala I need to do.” Caroline waved the member away from the door and back to her seat, and then Caroline marched off too. As she passed us, she shot a pointed look at Margot. The message seemed clear: Look at what you’ve done, what you’ve accidentally encouraged. Then Caroline continued her march away, a very sensible queen, watching her subjects be taken in by a charlatan, not at all happy that they were making fools of themselves. This odd-couple partnership between the two of them clearly had its problems. Why in the world had these two very different women decided to team up?

  Vy raised an eyebrow at Margot. Margot nodded, then turned to me.

  “Sorry, Jillian, give us one second? We’ll be right back. Don’t move!” She and Vy whooshed off toward the door, whispering furtively to each other, and I sat, twiddling my thumbs. There wasn’t any casual way for me to sneak over to the door and listen to whatever was unfurling with Caroline. I briefly considered making a break for the secret door and trying to get inside, but there were too many people around, so instead I looked down at my future pile. It didn’t matter what this last card turned out to be. It didn’t.