The Reluctant Fortune-Teller

by Keziah Frost

  “Me? I have no gift, Birdie.”

  Birdie smiled and shook her head at Norbert. “Then how do you explain the reading you just gave me?”

  Norbert hesitated. “Explain it? How can I explain something like that? I can’t explain it. I’m an accountant.”

  Birdie seemed to be listening to a far-off music.

  Norbert shifted uneasily in his chair. Speaking to himself as much as to Birdie, he said, “Just because I don’t have a ready explanation for it doesn’t mean I’m psychic.”

  “Well, Norbert, while you’ve been trying to figure it out, I’ve been aware of a spirit presence here in your home.” Birdie looked over Norbert’s shoulder. “I’ve been seeing a tall old woman walking back and forth here, trying to get my attention.” Birdie’s eyes were darting from left to right to left again, as if seeing someone walking the length of the dining room behind Norbert. “She has been giving me a message for you. She has been pulling a white veil over her face. She says, ‘Remind Norbert—he was born with the caul.’”

  Norbert turned around quickly, half expecting and half fearing to see the spirit of his aunt Pearl. Of course, there was nobody there.

  Norbert was troubled in his mind after Birdie left.

  He picked up Ivy from her window basket and paced around his dining room, thinking. If, even for a moment, he could believe that Birdie did see his aunt Pearl, did that mean that loved ones who passed on were right here, among us? Did that mean that Lois could be right here, observing him, caring about him even now? He didn’t know what to think.

  He looked at the chairs where he and Birdie had been sitting moments before and played the reading back in his mind. He saw himself pointing to cards and talking about spirits. It was incredible. It was ludicrous. Fortune-telling was nothing but pretense. Everyone should know that. And yet he had found himself seeing things, saying things that had nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with what he believed and knew to be fact. He was getting carried away with this game. He was not a person prone to getting carried away. The very thought of it made him uneasy.

  Fortune-telling was all lies and nonsense. Certainly.

  But if it was all lies and nonsense, how was it that he had been able to see something in Birdie that her oldest friends had never seen?

  His accountant, rational self emerged, and the card-reading, intuitive self withdrew. Intuition. What was it? Intuition was nothing more than observations collected unconsciously.

  We all notice and file away in our subconscious minds hundreds of things we are not even aware of. In moments of need, that information can be accessed. It is what some people call “intuition.” There is nothing mystical about it.

  He was sure that was true. Could that explain what had just happened?

  The fact that he couldn’t explain it just meant...well, it just meant more data was needed.

  Certainly he had heard the others laugh at Birdie and say she was “away with the fairies” or “off somewhere with her Ouija board.” He must have filed that away, and it rose to the surface during her reading. Yes, that fit well with what he knew of intuition. People just absorbed information that they didn’t seem to be paying attention to, and that information came up as so-called ESP and premonitions. There was nothing to it. There couldn’t be. Not in his world.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Six of Spades:

  Grief. Allow a full expression of your grief through mourning. Be kind to yourself. Grief is hard work.

  In the golden late afternoon light, Carlotta rode her bike to Norbert’s house and put the kickstand down on the walk before his door. At eighty, she may have been the oldest bike rider in town. While some of her contemporaries were giving up driving cars, Carlotta was holding her ground: swimming, gardening and using her muscles every day.

  She approached Norbert with the same intention she approached everyone and all of life: to maintain her position of power.

  She was not about to let Norbert read her cards.

  “Let’s be practical, Norbert, and make sure you know all the cards by heart. I’ll hold them up one at a time, and we’ll go through them like flash cards.”

  She pulled the top card from the deck and held it up to test Norbert.

  “Now, isn’t that interesting?” commented Norbert, a crease deepening between his eyebrows.

  Carlotta glanced at the card she was holding.

  “What’s so interesting? It’s the Queen of Diamonds.”

  “Yes. Exactly. A forceful and powerful woman. Isn’t that the card that represents you?”

  “You may call me powerful. You need not call me forceful. I did not come here to be insulted.” Carlotta smirked, to let Norbert know she did not take any of this seriously.

  “I just find it interesting that that is the card you picked up first. I mean, what are the odds?”

  “Norbert. It was the card on the top of the pile. Let’s not get carried away here.”

  Norbert looked at the Queen of Diamonds as if hoping to find a theorem on the card to explain this apparent coincidence.

  “Of course, Carlotta, you know I don’t believe this stuff any more than you do. But...”

  “But what?”

  “But. Well. Would you mind? Would you mind just turning over another card or two? I mean, just to show that your pulling the Queen of Diamonds was purely random, that there’s nothing to it. Because there couldn’t be. Could there?”

  “Norbert, stop rambling.” Carlotta touched the top card and drew her finger away. “Oh, fiddlesticks. Just go ahead and do a practice reading, if you must. Just hurry up with it. I don’t want to ride my bike home in the dark.” Carlotta handed her seven cards to Norbert, one at a time, and watched his long fingers take each card and place it in the horseshoe. Norbert was so focused and solemn, as if the fate of the nation rested on his interpretation of these playing cards. He was a hoot.

  He looked at the cards for a moment, and then up into Carlotta’s eyes. She looked more deeply than she intended into his brown magnified ones. She had never noticed before that his eyes were very dark, deep and strangely hypnotic. She found herself wishing, in spite of herself, that all of this hocus-pocus could be real, and that Norbert could tell her something that would mean something.

  “Carlotta,” began Norbert. When he spoke, his soft voice was compassionate. “Carlotta,” he said again. He cleared his throat and paused. “I see...I see deep darkness and suffering in your past. You keep it all locked up. You carry so much...so much pain in your heart.”

  Carlotta, caught off guard, was now silent. Her breathing went shallow as she waited to hear what Norbert would say next.

  “Loss is indicated here by the Six of Spades...

  “And the Jack of Spades appearing in the same spread with the Six indicates the loss of a very dear one. These cards are to the left of the querent card, the Queen of Diamonds. So these losses are in the past.”

  Norbert looked up quickly to see Carlotta’s face pinched with pain.

  * * *

  Carlotta remounted her bike with a mixture of unpleasant emotions: reawakened grief, discomfort with feelings that were better left buried, and resentment of Norbert for seeing her vulnerability.

  She would have liked to think that Norbert was faking it, that he had already known she was a widow, and must have heard about the deaths of her son and daughter-in-law in the accident ten years before. But he wasn’t faking it. She knew the card meanings as well as he did. Their intensive study sessions had refreshed her memory of them.

  Why the Jack and Six of Spades had appeared in her spread, she couldn’t explain, nor did she try. Carlotta did not possess that type of curiosity. What was troubling her was Norbert’s intrusion into her feelings.

  His sympathy was unwelcome. Who was he, a practical stranger, to look so intently into her soul and talk to her about her pri
vate pain—pain she didn’t even look at herself? It was a violation, that’s what it was. She felt vaguely ashamed. She would just have to pretend that that reading had never happened. And if he knew what was good for him, Norbert would do the same.

  Carlotta pronounced Norbert “graduated from psychic lessons.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Queen of Diamonds

  accompanied by the Ace of Clubs: When these two cards appear together in the spread, intrigue is indicated. A conniving person is working to influence events. Keep your eyes open.

  At the end of June, Carlotta set up the arrangement at the aptly named Good Fortune Café on Main Street. The manager and owner, Hope Delaney, just happened to be Carlotta’s niece. Carlotta simply popped in one afternoon and worked her own magic.

  The shop was empty of customers, and Carlotta, standing at the counter with her order of herbal mandarin tea and lemon cake, led Hope into the anxiety-ridden narrative that was seldom off her lips these days, about the impossibility of competing with the increasing presence of corporate cafés. Not that any of those were allowed in the downtown area of Gibbons Corner, but just outside of town was a huge sprawling mess of franchise stores and sandwich shops, drawing away too much of the attention of the eager-to-spend tourist crowds.

  “Oh, Hope, I know, I know! I have been racking my brain, trying to think of a solution to bring in more customers for you.”

  “That’s nice, Aunt Carlotta,” said Hope, smiling. “I wouldn’t expect you to know—”

  “Oh, but I have an idea!”

  Hope laughed, “I shouldn’t be surprised! You’ve always been the Queen of Ideas, Auntie. And the Queen of Energy! What’s your idea?”

  “Well! I was thinking, you need to offer something that the chain places don’t offer—something that they can’t offer. ‘What could that be, Carlotta? What could that be?’ I asked myself. And then the inspiration came!”

  Hope put her elbows on the glass counter and leaned forward.

  “You know how my friends and I used to go, years ago, to Buffalo to have our cards read, just for fun? Sometimes these card readers are in a restaurant or café, and you just go in and get your reading, and then, of course, you stay and order something to eat.”

  “Ah! That’s not too bad, Auntie. I had my cards read once—when I was on vacation in North Carolina. I could see how that would work here. And it would be kind of cute, because of our name—the Good Fortune Café.”

  “Oh! You’re right! I never would have thought of that,” prevaricated Carlotta. “Lie” is such an ugly word. “Now, the way it would work is, customers would directly pay the fortune-teller, who would keep the payment. Your benefit would be that the customers come in for a reading, and then spend money here before or afterward.”

  “That sounds fair enough. But I’d have to find someone who can read cards. And not a kook. Someone who’s not going to freak people out by telling them they’re gonna die, or something.”

  “Exactly! Getting the right person is crucial!” agreed Carlotta.

  “So I don’t know how I’d ever...” began Hope.

  “I think I’ve found the right person, Hope! There is a gentleman at the Art League whom I have known for years. His name is Norbert Zelenka, and it turns out, he has impressive psychic abilities—and he reads cards!”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “How do you do it, Auntie?” marveled Hope. “Well, first, I’ll have to let him read for me, to see if he’s any good. Now, don’t tell him anything about me. Let’s see what he can pick up with his psychic abilities!”

  * * *

  The list that Carlotta dropped off at Norbert’s house had enough convincing details to hoodwink her open-hearted niece.

  For a young woman who had been deceived and badly treated by a procession of unworthy young men, she was shockingly trusting. Poor Hope didn’t have a drop of cynicism in her. She’d be putty in an amateur fortune-teller’s hands. Carlotta loved Hope dearly and would never use her credulity against her. She would use Hope’s credulity for her own good.

  The list Norbert was to memorize read thus:

  Tell her she needs to break up with her boyfriend. His name is Rudy. Say you see a man whose name begins with “R.”

  Tell her Rudy will never marry her, and he’s not good enough for her anyway.

  Tell her there is a wise, fair-haired older woman in her life, to whom she should always listen. She’ll know you mean me. (If not, help her to guess.)

  Tell her that after she breaks up with the loser, she will meet another man who will be good to her and make her happy, but she will only meet him after she breaks up with Rudy.

  Tell her that her business will improve soon, or if not, she should begin exploring other options.

  Tell her she will begin feeling more energy after she loses fifteen pounds. She should eat more fresh vegetables.

  Norbert received the paper, folded into quarters, but he did not open it. He pitched it directly into the recycling bin while Carlotta was stepping away down his walk. If he had come to the point of telling fortunes for a living, at least he had not come to the point of cheating. No, he would read the cards for Hope, as he had so recently learned to do, and let that make or break his opportunity to become a professional psychic.

  The customers who would come to him—should he go forward with this desperate plan—would not arrive with written lists from their aunts. Either he was able to do a convincing reading with the cards alone, or he was not.

  It was “do or die.”

  He felt a little thrill.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ace of Diamonds:

  The power of the magician. Within you, there is a powerful force. It is time to tune in to it, and let it be your guide. The Aces all signal various types of power to transform lives. Whether this power is for good or evil depends on the nature and intention of the possessor of the power.

  Norbert had never entered the Good Fortune Café. Living frugally, it was not within his budget to frequent such a place at this point in his life. But he could see Carlotta’s influence in the decor: original paintings of scenes that could be in France and a miniature iron bicycle hung on the wall. The sound system played old French standards by artists such as Jacques Brel and Édith Piaf, alternating with what Norbert assumed must be popular current music.

  Hope dropped down in the seat across from Norbert, with a heaviness that would befit a much larger woman. She seemed out of breath, as if she had been climbing stairs. It was 4:00 p.m., two hours after closing at the Good Fortune Café. A tourist, peering in through the plate-glass window, tapped and pointed to the door. Hope did not even rise, but only shook her head and pointed to her watch. She turned her attention to Norbert.

  “My aunt Carlotta says you really are a psychic,” said Hope. “You don’t look like one,” she added frankly, and then amended, “but then, I don’t know what a psychic looks like,” and gave a little weary laugh, to show she was being friendly.

  Hope put a yellow legal pad and pen on the table. She was going to take notes. Never before had anyone taken notes on what Norbert had to say. He felt an odd mixture of pleasure at the respect that her note-taking implied, and fear that she would soon see he had nothing noteworthy to tell her. It was a daring thing he was doing, and he had not lived a very daring life up until this point. There was a thrill in the daringness of it. There was also a sense of shame, that he was about to be exposed as a fraud. That would be awful. No, he must not be a fraud, and he must not let this woman down. She, like everyone, had problems and questions. He must pay attention to her and he must help her. Paying attention to people was his strong suit. He had been doing that all his life.

  She looked at him, as if expecting him to begin.

  Norbert took a deep breath, preparing himself to read the cards,
not for someone who was in on the scheme that he was pretending to be psychic in order to take care of himself and his dog, but rather for someone who actually believed he had some special ability to tell the future. In this moment, he was stepping away from one kind of a life and into another.

  Hope looked to be in her forties, with her blond hair in a braid and pinned in a circle on top of her head. She looked like a grave Scandinavian child, her face round and soft, and one hand resting over the other on top of the legal pad. Something about her hands, lying still on the table, caught his attention. An observant person can see a lot in a pair of hands. He noticed there was a bluish tinge around her fingernails. Hadn’t he once read something about this in Reader’s Digest?

  “Well, I’d love to have you read my cards, Mr. Zelenka. Please make it a good reading,” she added, smiling with only one corner of her mouth. “It’s been a rough couple of...decades.”

  As she shuffled the deck and handed him cards, Norbert focused on Hope and on her wish for a “good reading.” As he tuned in to her, he forgot himself. For a self-conscious man, this was a delicious feeling. Norbert lost awareness of himself just as he did when he was painting his canyons and blue skies, his wolves and his bears. He was entering into another’s context, not his own, and he found it very natural.

  Watching her shuffle and choose cards, Norbert saw that her shoulders rounded forward, and her eyes, which should have been bright, were dull. He got the impression that “Hope” was an incongruous name for this discouraged woman.

  Together they looked at the horseshoe spread.

  Norbert began by recalling the memorized meanings of each card, by now solidly lodged in his brain.

  “The Queen of Clubs. That card is you.” Norbert hesitated. He was about to begin naming the qualities of the Queen of Clubs, while closely watching her face to see if he was on the right track, changing his course if he wasn’t. He was nervous as he heard himself reciting the book meaning, thinking how false he must sound. “A kind woman with an open heart, a loyal one who loves other people very deeply.”