The Reluctant Fortune-Teller

by Keziah Frost

  “Oh, yes,” flattered Carlotta. “Your gift.” She was quick to add: “And our guidance. Our training. Our knowledge and encouragement. And my niece’s coffee shop.”

  “Yes, yes. I am grateful to you all. I’m catching up on my bills, and I’m enjoying helping people. So, thank you.”

  “And you can show your gratitude by accepting our direction, Norbert.”

  Norbert considered, rubbing Ivy’s ears.

  “Actually, Carlotta, let’s do it this way. When I need help, I will let you all know. For now, I’m going to trust my own instincts.”

  Margaret and Birdie found a focal point to stare at for a moment. Margaret seemed especially interested in the cement Medusa head and the greenery that seemed to be exploding from its brains.

  Carlotta pressed her lips together. Had she guessed how aggravating Norbert could be, she never would have rescued him from his financial distress.

  “I have an idea!” she cried. “Let’s play Literary Quotes!”

  This was Carlotta’s favorite game. She invented it herself many years ago, and was the uncontested champion. It was the perfect game to pull out just now, because Norbert surely wouldn’t be able to join in. Reader’s Digest subscribers were not, in Carlotta’s estimation, capable of appreciating, let alone quoting, literature. This is the way it was played: The first person (that would be Carlotta) would recite a quote from literature. The quote was supposed to be verbatim, but in truth, the Club never checked. The person to Carlotta’s right would come up with the next quote, and so on, around the circle. As people ran out of quotes, they dropped out, leaving Carlotta the winner. Years ago, she had given all members a notebook especially for collecting quotes as they read, so they would always have new ones for the game. (That was one reason so many had left the Club over the years, complaining, “You have to study to be in their Club.”) Using the same quotations every time the game was played was frowned upon. Extra admiration was awarded if the quote was in any way apropos of anything the Club was attending to at the moment.

  Carlotta, for form’s sake, offered, “Shall I begin, then?” She cast her eyes to the leafy branches above them, as if searching in the recesses of her memory. “‘Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.’ Emily Brontë.”

  Margaret’s turn. “Oh, dear. I never do well at this game.” She slipped a tiny bit of bread to Ivy while Norbert wasn’t looking. “Oh, I know! ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents!’—Little Women.”

  Carlotta objected, “Again? You always say that one, Margaret. The idea is to come up with different ones.”

  Birdie interrupted Margaret’s humiliation with: “‘The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt in the heart.’ Helen Keller, The Story of My Life.”

  “May I do one?” asked Norbert.

  “Can you do one?” asked Carlotta.

  Norbert, not perceiving the cut, said, “I think I can.” He cleared his throat. “Here goes. ‘I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.’—Invictus.”

  “That sounds familiar,” said Margaret.

  “They used to make us memorize poems in high school. I chose that one. I always liked it.”

  “Do you remember any more of it?” asked Birdie.

  “Gee, I bet I do. I haven’t thought about it in years, but let’s see. It starts out...

  Out of the night that covers me,

  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

  I thank whatever gods may be

  For my unconquerable soul.”

  “Is that Shakespeare?” asked Margaret.

  “Oh, Margaret, don’t be a ninny,” Carlotta misdirected her wrath. “That’s not even iambic pentameter. It’s a nineteenth-century poem, certainly.”

  “Yes,” answered Norbert, nodding as if he were giving useful information. “William Ernest Henley, 1875.”

  “Yes, a very minor poet. No one worth knowing,” cut in Carlotta. “Hardly Shakespeare,” she laughed.

  And if a dinner party may be adjourned, Carlotta adjourned it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Three of Diamonds:

  Success. Good fortune is building. Gratitude is the secret to happiness: always remember this. Enjoy this time, for nothing lasts.

  By early August, tourists were streaming steadily into the Good Fortune Café, following the arrow on Margaret’s gaudy sign like children following the charm of the pied piper. They approached the counter, asking to see the psychic. Appointments were made at twenty-minute intervals, and the cash-register drawer slid open and shut with a cheerful rhythm, as customers bought lattes, croissants, sandwiches and salads to have wrapped for later, or to enjoy there in the café while waiting for Norbert Z.

  The stack of unpaid dentist and utility bills on Norbert’s desk at home dwindled.

  Norbert predicted and counseled with growing confidence. He encouraged people to move across the country or stay where they were; to accept or refuse job offers; to go or not go on trips. He might advise one person to forgive offenses others had committed, while conversely cautioning the next person to practice self-protection from toxic influences. In both cases, Norbert would feel guided by evidence, the desire to be helpful and some lucky guessing. He would be reassured of his accuracy by the quick acceptance of the querents themselves, that this was what they knew deep inside all along.

  There was a line Norbert began to insert into at least one reading per day, because he found out by accident that it seemed to work wonders with most people. The line was—and it was important to say it quietly and with tenderness—“No one would ever dream how sensitive you are.” The first time he said this to a querent, a thirtysomething woman, he said it because he saw it; he felt it. When he said it, her eyes met his, and he saw the tears there, and something else: gratitude for being seen and understood. Norbert knew now how affirming it was, how healing it was, for him to be seen and understood.

  And so he began trying the line on others—the young, the old, men and women—and each time he experienced that eye-to-eye connection, that release of the shoulders, that deep exhalation: You see me. Thank you. These customers would then feed him bits of information. They wanted this man who was so special that he could see their secret sensitivity to be able to deliver a special reading.

  Norbert’s voice, which had been so soft as to be a liability all his life, now, in this new role, became mesmerizing, and an important part of his mystery. People leaned forward to catch every word that fell from his lips.

  He found himself in the role of confessor, counselor and comforter. He knew how to make each person feel unique and important. Every customer went forth after a reading to recommend the psychic “Norbert Z” to everyone they met: to fellow lodgers at the Harbor Home Bed and Breakfast, to customers in Butler’s Book Store, and to friends back home in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

  When Norbert thought about his life up to this moment, it seemed that all along he was being prepared to meet with people across a table at the Good Fortune Café in quiet, focused conversations, and guide each person forward into a better destiny.

  If only he could have known, during the dark hours of his earlier life, that one day, all his loneliness and silent observation would count for something.

  * * *

  Margaret stopped by Norbert’s house with mangoes in a brown paper bag from the Lucky Pig Grocery. Both Margaret and Birdie were stopping by briefly from time to time now. Norbert was surprised to think that he now had friends.

  “They’re so good this time of year!” She set the bag on his kitchen table.

  Norbert invited her to stay and drink some lemonade, and Ivy seconded the invitation by running excitedly around her feet.

  “Just for a moment, thank you, Norbert.”

  As he brought the glasses to the table, Margaret
said, “I’ve been wanting to tell you—your advice about my daughter? So helpful!”

  Norbert felt a sense of wonder and at the same time, doubt.

  “Really?” he asked.

  Margaret’s blue eyes were shining with joy. “Really! After your reading, I was able to see things from her eyes. We talked, Vivian and I, a real conversation for the first time in ages. I remembered what you said, and even though it was hard, I let her empty her heart to me, and when she was done, I told her I was sorry. And I really am. Even though I don’t remember things the way she does. But for once, I didn’t say that. And I didn’t try to explain that all of that is in the past now—because she said it. It seemed like she was only waiting for me to listen to her and honestly say I was sorry, and then she was able to let it go. And now we’re talking. It still gets rocky sometimes, but when that happens, I try to listen more. Such a little thing. And now I have my daughter back! I can’t thank you enough. You’ve done something so remarkable for me. I don’t know how to repay you.”

  Norbert arranged the green fruit in a wooden bowl, absorbed in pleasant sensations, reflecting on how his life had changed. He had friends who visited him and brought him thoughtful gifts of fruit. People liked his company. A week didn’t go by now that someone didn’t express gratitude to him for something he had said. It was good to be Norbert. He sighed happily.

  “Norbert,” said Margaret, leaning forward, “you know something about my earlier life, but I don’t know anything at all about yours. Did you grow up in New York?”

  “Yes, I did. In Buffalo. My aunt Pearl took charge of me when my mother died. I was four. My father had left us two years before that.”

  “What was she like, your aunt Pearl?”

  “To me, as a child? She was lovely and loving.” He laughed softly. “But I do think she forgot all about me for long stretches. She was—unusual. The kids in town used to make fun of her. Guess she was the town eccentric.” He felt a pang of disloyalty saying this, but it was true.

  His memory traveled back to his childhood home, crowded with piles of useless items, to the tenderness and safety that he felt there despite the chaos, and to the fear and inferiority he felt on the porch, where kids would sometimes gather to tease Norbert about his mismatched clothes and his weird aunt. With shame, he recalled joining in the laughter against her, hoping that this would make him one of them, and he would cease to be their target.

  “And did you like school when you were a child?” asked Margaret. Of course, she would not be comfortable getting into the details of childhood pain. She would steer him to something neutral, like school. And that was fine with him.

  “I did! I was never what you would call an intellectual, of course. But I read whatever was put in front of me. Reading was always my escape. It was easier for me to read than to be social. And when I discovered the beauty of math!”

  “Did you say, ‘the beauty of math’?” asked Margaret, wrinkling her brow.

  “Oh, yes! There is a sort of calm beauty to numbers, you know.”

  Margaret didn’t know.

  “Math is a system for organizing things. It’s a system which, if followed, will make everything come out right.” He beamed at Margaret.

  “I never thought of it that way.”

  “Oh, yes! I could have studied math forever. But I needed to study for a career, and from math, I was directed into accounting—which is not the same thing as math at all, but still, it suited me. I liked accounting. I worked at it for forty years.”

  “Ah,” said Margaret. “And were you ever married?”

  Norbert met Margaret’s gaze, and he watched her bright eyes become solemn as she realized she had said something that caused him sadness.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Norbert. I shouldn’t pry. That’s me, all the time, talking too much. You don’t have to answer that.”

  “That’s all right. Yes. I was married for five years. It was a long time ago. My wife died,” he said simply.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “As I said, it was a very long time ago.”

  * * *

  It was 1981. Norbert was thirty-eight years old. Lois Barnes, a secretary in his office, swept him off his feet, so to speak. Lois was a glowing, black-haired, bright-eyed beauty who smiled so charmingly at him and drew him out of his cubicle to eat lunch with her.

  Norbert had been a retiring bachelor. He felt that he lived almost completely unperceived by others. He often thought that he wouldn’t be surprised if one day he disappeared into thin air, and no one even noticed.

  But Lois did notice him. She took every opportunity to approach him and ask him questions about himself. He wondered why she was doing it. At times he was afraid she must be making fun of him. How could such an intelligent and vivacious girl find him worth her time?

  Everything about her was new to him. He had never had a girlfriend before; he had never had the courage even to ask a girl out. Lois made it easy: she pursued him. After so many years alone, he couldn’t believe his luck. Lois got him to talk and seemed to find him fascinating.

  He loved everything about her: he loved her straight black eyebrows, and he loved the way she searched his eyes when she talked. He loved how she respected his thoughts and asked him questions. She encouraged him to try to tell jokes, even though he wasn’t any good at it. He’d usually get the punch line wrong, which only made Lois laugh all the harder—more than she would have if he’d gotten it right. He loved watching her laugh. They never ran out of things to say. She said they were “soul mates.”

  At last, Norbert was emboldened to propose, and Lois accepted with tears in her eyes. Their marriage began happily, with joyful holidays and happy hours of nest-building. But it all ended in grief when Lois contracted an aggressive cancer. The prognosis was very poor. They were both in shock. They had so many plans for their future. They determined to beat it. They felt sure that they would.

  Norbert spent all of his savings on traditional and then alternative treatments—in short, anything that offered a glimmer of hope.

  Within five years of their wedding, though, Lois was gone, and Norbert was alone again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Three of Clubs:

  Your business is highlighted. Success is growing faster than you realize.

  After Margaret had gone, Norbert took down an old wooden box from his bookcase while Ivy watched attentively. In the box were a packet of notes from Lois, and her heart locket on its gold chain. The locket had been a gift from him, and she had worn it every day. He opened it and studied the small photograph of his young face on one side, and her lovely face on the other. These items always brought him feelings of pain mixed with pleasure. He was so grateful to have had her, even for the short time they were given to be together. Putting Lois’s things gently to the side, he looked at the rest of the contents of the box. He turned over postcards, notes and printouts of emails that had been sent to him from around the region and around the country, care of the Good Fortune Café. Many wrote to say that they took his advice and were glad that they did. Others wrote to tell him that although they had told him he was wrong, they were now writing to tell him he was right, after all.

  Dear Norbert Z,

  In your reading, you said I would have car trouble. I told you that wasn’t likely because my car is new. Just wanted you to know I had a flat tire on my way back to Ohio, so you were right. Now I am waiting to see what else will come true. I hope what you said about love & marriage will be just as accurate.

  Sincerely,

  Megan Curtis

  Norbert now told fortunes with authority. He no longer hesitated or stammered. He had grown to understand that his querents, by paying their twenty dollars, had already expressed confidence and hope, and that his duty was to focus on them, and not on himself.

  Norbert marveled at the respect and interest he w
as drawing to himself. His quiet hours of studying people were paying off now.

  He had noticed years before, for example, two coworkers in his office who both had a certain gesture. They would take one hand and pull the other wrist toward the center of their body, especially in meetings where they might be feeling some stress. He learned, just from listening, that there was another thing both these people had in common. Both had had a parent—in the woman’s case, it was her mother; in the man’s case, his father—who had had a stroke, paralyzing one side of their body. Both had been very involved in the care of the disabled parent. Norbert had concluded that hours of sitting with the parent, helping him or her get hold of the dead limb instead of letting it dangle, and the distressed emotions that they felt in that situation, had left each of them with this very characteristic gesture of unconsciously mimicking the parent. Unaware themselves that they were doing so, they used it when they wanted to soothe themselves. Norbert was able to try out this theory when a customer came into the Good Fortune Café for a reading.

  A middle-aged tourist called Martha sat down before him, and after handing Norbert the seventh card, she wrapped her left hand around her right wrist, which she then subtly pulled to her lap.

  Norbert said, “Has one of your parents had a stroke, paralyzing one arm?”

  Martha looked from her cards to Norbert, her eyes wide. “How could you possibly know that?”

  Bypassing the question, Norbert continued to try his luck. “You would have an especially strong identification with this parent or be very involved in this parent’s care?”

  Right again.

  Martha, it turned out, had come to town to stay and study at the nationally famous Center for Deeper Understanding, a white-pillared institute of yoga and alternative thought on five wooded acres just outside of town. Was Norbert familiar with it, she wanted to know.

  Of course, Norbert knew about it. All of Gibbons Corner thought of this odd retreat center as an important source of tourist revenue, even if it was a little unorthodox. Some of the biggest names in New Age thought lectured there. It was a place that, a few months ago, stood for everything Norbert had wanted to shut out of his life: astrology, divination, numerology, crystal-ball gazing. Everything that had so enthralled his aunt Pearl. But now, as Martha told him of how her “eyes were being opened to new ways of seeing” at the Center, he politely indicated interest. Martha assured him that she would be talking about him and his incredible psychic ability to Edith Butler, the director at the Center for Deeper Understanding.