The Reluctant Fortune-Teller

by Keziah Frost

  When Martha left, Norbert sat back, listening to the gurgling and sputtering of the latte machine. He looked around at the new positive thought messages all around the café on posters and chalkboards: “Life is a gift” and “Honor yourself and others.” Hope herself was revitalized, energetic and positive, joking with customers, and adding new and trendy options to a menu that hadn’t been altered in years.

  Just yesterday, Norbert had seen his first client, Jeremy, the man who had said he no longer loved his wife, walking arm in arm with her down the street, the two of them absorbed in one another like newlyweds.

  Norbert, who had never been listened to before, was now being intently listened to every day. People actually made appointments to listen to him now. He thought back to his Dale Carnegie–reading days. “Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours,” wrote that expert on making friends and influencing people. He had always wanted to talk to people about themselves and ask them questions. Since the Club had taken an interest in him and taught him how, his lifelong desire was realized.

  Norbert couldn’t help but see that in his own small way, he was now influencing lives all over town—all over the country, really. People were making different choices in their lives because of his readings, because of him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Five of Hearts:

  Beware of the envy of another person. Not everyone is happy about your success.

  As word came back to Carlotta about the amazing accuracy of Norbert Z’s card readings, she began to feel a grudging admiration for him. To give credit where credit was due, she had to recognize her own genius at work in the inception of his career. However, what he had made of it since she and the Club had launched him was impressive, and his business and reputation had grown much more quickly than she ever would have thought possible. As Roseanne from the library and Gloria from the bakery recounted to her the astonishing “hits” in the mysterious man’s readings, Carlotta found herself wondering uncomfortably if Norbert Z really did possess psychic abilities. And then she admonished herself, remembering that she herself had invented Norbert Z.

  Carlotta’s admiration of Norbert’s ascent was mixed with increasing displeasure. He was off and running after just a push from the Club, and he was not looking back. This was not what Carlotta had had in mind when she invented the Norbert Project, nor when she and the Club had staged the Intervention at his house less than three months before. The Project she had created in her own prolific mind had grown legs and walked away from her. A Project was not supposed to do that. It was not serving its purpose as a tool to keep the Club in her everlasting thrall. On the contrary, Margaret and Birdie now seemed to be in Norbert’s thrall. Perverse creatures, both of them.

  The essential thing about a Project was that it kept one’s mind from wandering where it had no business wandering. Dwelling on the past, missing those who had left this life, wishing that things were otherwise: these were the states of mind that Carlotta abhorred. Projects, new ideas and courses of study were the necessary distractions that lifted Carlotta’s heart and gave her a reason to push forward. Summer could have been a worthy Project, but she had slipped from Carlotta’s control when she had gone to college, and was no longer allowing herself to be directed. Carlotta knew that was normal. Still, she would have been gratified to make a love match for her granddaughter. If only arranged marriages were not so frowned upon in Gibbons Corner. She knew she could have chosen well for Summer.

  One day, Carlotta, with a sigh, mentioned her granddaughter, Summer, to the Club, wondering when she would find a nice young man to give her direction in life.

  Margaret objected, “Oh, I don’t know. Having husbands didn’t give us very much fulfillment. You didn’t like being married any more than I did, from what I recall. And Birdie never bothered with marriage at all. I think she made the best choice. Don’t you?” As if sensing she was venturing where Carlotta would not allow her to go, Margaret returned to the topic of Summer. “She’s a career woman! What does she need with a young man? She’s doing fine on her own, isn’t she?”

  Carlotta said, “Well, then, not a young man, perhaps. But there’s something she’s lacking. She seems just a little confused. I feel she needs help finding her place in the world, somehow.”

  “I think it’s just ‘being in your twenties.’ I remember. Don’t you? It takes time,” said Margaret.

  Birdie, with a sharp intake of breath, suggested, “Have Norbert read Summer’s cards, Carlotta! He’ll be able to help her find her way!”

  That was the last straw—“le coup de grâce”—as Carlotta told the Club, with ice in her voice.

  “Are you both forgetting that Norbert Z is not real? That we invented him? That he has no answers for anyone? That he’s making it all up? What is wrong with the two of you?”

  Margaret and Birdie gave Carlotta a moment to calm down. They knew how she was, and had stopped taking her outbursts personally a very long time ago.

  Not cowed, Birdie continued, “People are saying he’s very accurate in his readings. Do you know Norbert Z now has six reviews—all positive—on Yelp? That will put Gibbons Corner on the map!”

  Margaret was confused. “Yelp? Is that something to do with Ivy?”

  “No, Margaret,” clarified Birdie. “It’s an internet thing. It means that people will be coming to town just for the purpose of seeing Norbert.”

  Margaret whistled in appreciation.

  She has so many annoying tics like this, Carlotta thought.

  Carlotta, to show she was not disturbed by Norbert’s success, laughed lightly and said, “Our very own Frankenstein is putting Gibbons Corner on the map. Who would ever have expected it?”

  Norbert’s influence was spreading with alarming speed, like an uncontrolled fire. If Carlotta had been capable of the ridiculous fault of envy, she would have been unhappy indeed.

  * * *

  Carlotta invited Norbert, and Norbert alone, to her house for lunch. She told herself it would be her final attempt to pull him back into her sphere of control, and this was best done without the distraction of the rest of the Club—especially the distraction of Margaret. Carlotta would need all her powers of concentration.

  Norbert arrived with blue hydrangeas in hand at Carlotta’s redbrick Georgian-style house on Clarence Avenue.

  Carlotta took the lovely pom-pom-shaped flowers in her left hand and welcomed Norbert in, putting her right hand on his upper back, and shutting the door behind him with a resounding clack.

  Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.

  The random line of juvenile poetry ran through Carlotta’s busy mind, but she said instead, “Come into my—humble abode, Norbert!”

  Norbert looked around at the impeccable neutral interior, with original paintings hung and propped tastefully everywhere. The paintings were Carlotta’s own and those of her friends. All the Club members supported one another’s art, and all had similar collections of paintings in their homes. Norbert couldn’t fail to recognize a landscape of his own that Carlotta had bought just a week ago.

  Toutou, Carlotta’s black miniature French poodle, came to greet Norbert. Carlotta enjoyed telling people that “toutou” is French for “doggie,” and she reminded Norbert of that now. Toutou displayed faultless manners, as any dog of Carlotta’s must do: no barking, no jumping and no whining, but decorously welcoming the visitor, and then lying down in her fluffy personalized bed under an end table.

  Carlotta exclaimed, “Norbert! You didn’t need to bring flowers! Oh, but I love blue hydrangeas! Did you know the flower meaning?” Carlotta felt uplifted to be able to start off the visit by telling Norbert something he surely didn’t know. She had memorized all the meanings of flowers and pulled out this knowledge at every opportunity.

  “Actually, I do,” said Norbert. “I brought blue hydrangeas on purpose, because th
ey symbolize gratitude. ‘Gratitude for the recipient’s understanding.’”

  Carlotta glowered at Norbert over the puffy blue bouquet.

  “Yes, but every flower has more than one meaning, Norbert. Hydrangeas can also stand for vanity, you know. Not in this case, I’m sure! You are not a vain person at all!” Carlotta laughed her tinkling laugh, and quickly plunged the flowers into a deep yellow-painted ceramic vase, not wanting to lose a moment of this opportunity to rework Norbert into a more satisfying image.

  At Carlotta’s white French-provincial dining room table, over green salad, eggplant pasta salad and lemonade, Carlotta pulled, and Norbert stood firm.

  “I wanted to have a serious talk with you, Norbert, about the fortunes.”

  “Ah, yes? The readings?”

  “Is that what you call them? Readings?” asked Carlotta, indulgent.

  “That is what they are called,” agreed Norbert, smiling.

  “Be that as it may. You are still a beginner, as you know. Remember, in the ’70s, we studied this stuff in the Club for many months—or maybe a year or two. I honestly don’t remember. I don’t think you realize how much you still have to learn.”

  “I am always open to learning, Carlotta, thank you. And I also find that I learn from the readings themselves. I keep refining my art with each reading I do.”

  “Art?” Carlotta considered that she would have to choose her battles, and not fight Norbert on his word choices if she wanted to get to the crux of the issue. Better to use some flattery whenever possible, to grease the wheel. “Yes, you are an artist, of sorts, aren’t you, Norbert. I mean, besides being a visual artist, a talented painter—you did see that superb prairie-thing of yours that I bought and propped right in my entryway?—you are also an artist of, well...an artist of advice, shall we say?”

  Norbert seemed to be enjoying the eggplant pasta salad to no end. He was heaping more onto his plate.

  Good.

  “I’ve been hearing—well, one does hear, Norbert—it’s a small town, after all—that some of the advice you are giving is quite specific, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” Norbert’s cheeks were stuffed like a squirrel’s, and there was a bit of pasta sauce on his chin.

  Not attractive.

  “I’ve heard that you’ve told one person, for example, to leave a career where she was making a good living and find something that would make her happy, another person to not marry his fiancée, and a third person to go back to school to study veterinary medicine. I would say that these are illustrations of specific advice. Wouldn’t you?” Carlotta smiled her best charming smile, the one that most people felt compelled to return.

  Norbert, however, regarded her soberly. His own sempiternal smile straightened out. He dabbed at his chin with the cloth napkin.

  “Carlotta, what are you saying? People come for readings, and I tell them what I see.”

  “Yes, Norbert, as we taught you to do, remember? But you must keep in mind that the readings are to be vague and ambiguous. You will get yourself into trouble by telling people exact things like this. Instead, say, ‘You are at a fork in the road and have much to consider in the area of career,’ and ‘Be sure that the people you trust are worthy of your esteem,’ and ‘You may be feeling negative influences and will need to decide how you will handle them.’ Things that could be true for anyone. That way, you won’t have disgruntled customers coming back and accusing you of steering them wrong.”

  Carlotta smiled again, this time hoping to project kindness and altruism at Norbert.

  Norbert rested his fork on the flowered china plate and considered Carlotta.

  At last he said, “I’m not sure what you don’t understand, Carlotta. The people shuffle and hand me the seven cards. I read for them.”

  Carlotta put on a shocked expression. “Norbert! Stop pretending! Don’t forget, the Club and I—we’re the ones that taught you how to tell fortunes! You know very well you are not ‘reading’ a gosh darn thing!”

  Norbert continued to look at her steadily, and for a moment Carlotta feared he was right now “reading” something about her. She shook herself free of his spell. What nonsense.

  “Norbert, I will have to remind you of your ethics,” said Carlotta. It was time to get severe. “I am sorry to say this, but you are lying to people.”

  “Carlotta, may I remind you that you said there is no such thing as professional ethics for a psychic? And may I ask you to try to understand—I am not lying to anyone.”

  “Oh! So you actually believe that random cards drawn from a playing deck have specific messages for you to give to an individual?”

  “As I recall, it was you who first said that it doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s true. Honestly, Carlotta, at times, I don’t know anymore what I do believe. But that doesn’t trouble me, because somehow, what I do or don’t believe doesn’t seem to be a part of this. All that matters is that I am helping people!”

  “Very slippery reasoning, Norbert Z,” said Carlotta, her eyes flashing. “Spoken like a true shyster!” Carlotta regretted the words even as they fell from her lips.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Five of Diamonds:

  Wounds to your self-esteem caused by ingratitude of others, a personality clash, and possibly even a power struggle. Great annoyance and unpleasantness.

  Norbert left without trying the dessert. Carlotta had also felt this was for the best. Like two wooden soldiers, they marched to the door, and Norbert was gone, for all the world acting as if he were the injured one. Never would she have believed he could be so self-absorbed.

  Licking her wounds, Carlotta pulled two volumes from their hiding place in the drawer of an end table. Reading had always been her greatest solace when the world became intractable.

  These two volumes were secreted away, unlike the classics in hardcover with gold writing on the spines that adorned the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. These were two books that Carlotta protected from prying eyes.

  The first was: How to Discuss Classics You Haven’t Read, by Dr. Harvey Phigg, PhD. It was an excellent resource that saved Carlotta a great deal of time.

  The second was: French to Impress, by Ursula Renard. This was another gem. The blurb on the back began thus:

  Whether you want to renew familiarity with French studied in high school, or simply learn a few useful phrases to sprinkle into conversation in order to make a more sophisticated impression in your social circle...

  A New Idea was taking form in Carlotta’s teeming mind. Let Norbert spin off like a lost satellite into the unsuspecting universe. All she needed to get the Club back on track—her track—was another good idea, and, of course, she had it already.

  French.

  They had followed her into astrology, collage, crochet, genealogy, poetry writing, flower arranging and oil painting, to name only a few of the passions she had taken up and foisted upon them. They would follow her into the language of Victor Hugo. They had never resisted her yet. Yes. French would be the next Big Thing. Carlotta would begin by dropping a few phrases of French into conversation. She would let it be understood that she had been studying French and had been becoming fluent, without mentioning it to anyone, out of modesty. In no time, Margaret and Birdie would be asking for French lessons with Carlotta and begging to accompany her to foreign ports, so to speak. Norbert would be lost in the dust, as far as the Club was concerned.

  The Club, always faithful, had never yet failed to ignite passionately with every idea she had ever presented. She knew them so well—better than they knew themselves. That was one comfort, anyway.

  * * *

  After the unpleasantness with Norbert, Carlotta was glad to get her mind off recent aggravations. Carlotta was having her annual show at the gallery. Margaret, in solidarity, had painted a sandwich board sign: Carlotta Moon, Featured Artist, Come on in!
and had it placed on the sidewalk. Carlotta herself had put an ad in the Gibbons Corner Gazette and had left flyers at the picturesque Harbor Home Bed and Breakfast, as well as at the low-end chain hotels on the outskirts of town.

  She had dressed with even more than her usual care, in black slacks and a flowing button-down white artist-y-looking shirt, silver sandals and a bit of silver jewelry. Dressing well was one of the pleasures of being alive, she reflected, as she rounded the corner of Clarence Avenue and Main Street.

  She stopped in her tracks. There was a small crowd of about twelve or fifteen people waiting on the sidewalk before the gallery. None of the artists had ever before attracted such attention at a show. After seven years of oil painting, Carlotta was exalted. The public was discovering her at last. Carlotta walked more quickly, mentally practicing witty things she could say to them.

  As she approached, she did pick up an odor of alcohol from the little group. No matter. Fans were fans.

  “Here’s somebody!” announced one of the band at Carlotta’s approach.

  Carlotta gave a little wave. “Hello!” She projected her charm toward them all. “I am Carlotta Moon,” she added modestly.

  “Yeah,” said a woman in a dress that was too tight for her. “So maybe you know—does Norbert Z really work here?”

  Carlotta’s spark blew out on the spot.

  “They told us at the Alibi Bar that he works here. Because the Good Fortune Café is closed at night, and we all want readings now.”