Stephen had grown up in Florida, and when she was with him Lila found herself dreaming about oranges and salt water and endless white beaches where there wasn’t a soul. There was nothing she would not do for him, and when Stephen decided that Hannie was a bad influence—a madwoman who could do nothing but harm an impressionable girl—Lila stopped sitting at the old woman’s table during her breaks. Soon, Lila stopped telling fortunes; she threw away the tins of tea she kept in her mother’s kitchen, she told her aunts and her girlfriends it had just been a game. But as she served customers in the restaurant, she could feel the old woman watching her and she grew clumsy, spilling tumblers of water and bowls of boiling-hot soup. What she missed more than anything were those late hours when business in the restaurant was slow, and she’d sit at Hannie’s table, asking for another story about the village where the fortune-teller had grown up—a town nearly cut off from the rest of the world by forests where nothing but pine and wild lavender grew. Now she dreaded that time of the day, and although she tried to stand up to the disappointment on Hannie’s face, it grew clear that the only solution to the distance between the two women was more distance. Lila quit her job at the restaurant and took another, at a Chock Full o’ Nuts around the corner, where there wasn’t the slightest danger that a waitress might talk to a customer.
Lila had to admit there were problems in her love affair: Stephen was married. But people did divorce, and all his marriage meant to Lila was that they couldn’t go to his apartment. Instead, they met in a dressing room, or in the borrowed apartment of an actress friend who was often on the road. They stole things when they were in the actress’s apartment: tins of sardines, pints of cream, earrings made out of glass. These small thefts bound them together, and when they were in the actress’s bed Lila could almost envision their future together. They would sleep late on Sundays once he was free, a kiss would last forever, every cup of tea they drank would be sweetened with two spoons of sugar and utterly free of tea leaves.
But most of the time they were forced to meet in the dressing room, and whenever they were there it didn’t seem to matter how hard Lila tried not to look—she always found herself staring at the small photograph of Stephen’s wife. Not that he had ever lied to her or led her on. When the run of his play ended, Stephen planned to go to Maine for the summer—his wife’s family had a house there. Stephen called it a cottage, but Lila had seen a photograph. It was a huge white house on the edge of a peninsula which jutted into a bay that froze solid from October to May. In her dreams, Lila was haunted by this house; a cold wind moved through the rooms turning every object to ice. Even the arms of the wooden rocking chairs on the porch were coated with frost. That summer house became Lila’s enemy, and she knew that it was just a matter of time before it claimed Stephen and Lila would be left with even less than she’d had before.
She did everything she could to prolong the run of his play. She used up her salary buying tickets which she gave away to distant cousins and neighbors. Every night she called the box office, and every night more tickets were available. At last, Stephen told her that the play was about to close. A part of Lila believed that if she just had time enough she could persuade Stephen not to leave her for that house in Maine. But the idea of battling that cold, empty house was simply too much, and her weapons too fragile—nothing more than desire and youth. Since she was about to lose him anyway, she decided she wouldn’t ruin their last night together. But of course, it was ruined even before it began: when she got to the dressing room, Stephen had already boiled water for tea and he begged her to tell his fortune. Lila knew enough to be sure that if she refused him this time, they would argue and she would wind up in tears. And then Stephen would softly whisper that he could never stand to see a woman cry, and he would ask her to leave. So she sat across from him at a small wicker table and watched him drink his tea, although just the movement of his hand as he reached for the teacup nearly broke her heart.
“I especially want to know if I’ll be famous,” Stephen said. “Of course, I wouldn’t mind being exceedingly rich.”
He had come around so that he stood behind Lila. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent down. As he spoke, Lila could feel his breath on her neck. And she knew, even before she looked, that in the center of the teacup there would be a four-pointed star.
Lila told him exactly what he wanted to hear.
“I can see that you’ll have everything you ever wanted,” she told him, but then, the moment Stephen looked away, Lila dipped her finger in the teacup and stirred up the leaves. She still did not believe in the symbols Hannie had taught her, but it was so much easier to invent a future when the only distraction was the heat of her lover’s breath. The predictions she offered Stephen were each more delightful than the next. His children would swim like fish and recite the alphabet before their second birthdays; his summers on that cold, glassy bay would be endless; and as for fame, his name would be remembered forever and ever.
To tease her, Stephen tossed a dollar down on the table, and then he pulled her down on the couch. But although she embraced him, Lila couldn’t look at him. Instead, she stared up at a small window that was screened with heavy black mesh. That night the moon was so huge that it broke through the screen and filled the room with light. As they made love, Lila felt her spirit being pulled out of her. The sheet of moonlight was wrapping itself around her. Her bones were as brittle as ice, and the skin beneath her fingernails turned a startling blue. The tighter Stephen held her, the more lost Lila was. She was farther and farther away from the earth, up where the air was so thin it was always winter, and breathing alone hurt your lungs and left tears in your eyes.
When Lila reached up her arms it was the moon she reached for. To embrace this lover she had to leave her body behind. She could see herself on the couch with Stephen—her arms and legs covered with a watery film, her mouth wide open. It seemed a pity for Stephen to think she was there with him. Up in the air she was weightless, and her hair turned into feathers that were so black you couldn’t see them against the night. That was when the light entered her, and as it did Lila could see the future. It unfolded to her cell by cell, second by second. At first she thought she heard the rapid flapping of a bird struggling for flight, but when Lila listened closely she knew it was the sound of another heart beating.
The very next evening, Lila waited outside the restaurant at closing time. She couldn’t bring herself to go in like some customer off the street, and so she decided to follow the old woman home. It was a cool night, and the air was damp. Lila made sure to stay a block behind Hannie; she was frightened of being discovered, then having to beg for a reading on a street corner. They walked for a very long time, Hannie leading the way through a maze of streets, behind Chelsea, near the river. The streets were made of cobblestones—no one had ever bothered to tar them over. There was no traffic here, not even the underground shudder of the subway. No one lived here except for a few old women who carried their belongings in paper bags and pillowcases, and, in the abandoned buildings, feral cats, quick, underfed animals who hunted for pigeons on the fire escapes.
When Lila could no longer tell east from west, Hannie stopped outside the door of an old rowhouse and let herself in. Lila watched as the lights inside were turned on; in the window sat a huge, tawny cat—no relation to the wild cats on the fire escapes—and, Lila was sure of this, there was the impossibly delicious smell of bread baking. As she stood there, Lila imagined what it would be like to follow Hannie inside: the house would be warm and silent, there would be bread and butter and tea. You could sleep here all night and not even hear the wind. And if others missed you, they’d never find you unless you wanted them to. Not in a million years.
Lila began to think of her own mother, and of her own bedroom, where she had slept every night of her life. She could tell Hannie was waiting for her, but she felt a sudden wave of homesickness. She panicked and began to run. It was dark now, the sky purple at the horizon, and Lila
thought she heard an anguished echo from the rowhouse, like a bird caught between wires. She was terrified that she was lost, but she never once stopped running. After a while she began to feel the rumble of buses, and she realized that she was looking up, and that the position of the stars had guided her back to Tenth Avenue.
That night, safe in her own bed, Lila couldn’t sleep. The next evening she returned to the restaurant, but this time when she followed Hannie the fortune-teller disappeared around a corner after they crossed Tenth Avenue. Nothing seemed familiar to Lila, and she had to struggle so hard to get out of the maze of streets that by the time she stumbled across the avenue, she was in tears. She knew then that in turning away that first time, she had lost her chance. She was certain that Hannie had seen her and that she no longer trusted Lila, she didn’t even want Lila to know where she lived. For weeks Lila tried to get up the nerve to go to the restaurant and see Hannie. She was obsessed with having her fortune read; she was desperate to know what her future would bring, and each day she grew more troubled, and ten times as lonely as she had been the day before. At night she dreamed of Stephen, asleep in a hammock on the porch of that house in Maine. She dreamed of birds and gold wedding rings, and she no longer felt safe in her own bedroom. She stopped taking classes at the theater. The new teacher was nothing compared to Stephen, and besides, Lila already knew, she hadn’t any real talent after all. In July she went back to the restaurant, and although she didn’t actually go inside, she felt a little braver. By the end of the month Lila was ready to face Hannie, to walk past the row of waitresses and the cooks, and ask to have her tea leaves read. Lila never once guessed that Hannie hadn’t seen her and purposely avoided her in the alleys and cobblestone streets, just as she never knew that when the old woman squinted as she read tea leaves it wasn’t in order to see the future more clearly, but because she was blind in one eye. Every day, when business was slow, Hannie sat at the rear table, waiting for Lila. But by the time Lila had the courage to come back she hadn’t menstruated in two months, and she no longer needed to have her fortune told.
As she waited for the water in the teapot to boil, Lila tried not to think of the old fortune-teller. She watched through the window as her husband climbed down from the stepladder, but all she saw was moonlight, all she heard was the sound of cats’ claws on the fire escapes, and the cool, damp air left her shivering.
Outside, Richard turned on the sprinkler. Now that the heat wave had passed, the city had lifted all water restrictions, and in every backyard there was the smell of damp earth. It was a heartbreaking scent, one that left you longing for everything you once had and lost. And although the tea was ready to be served, and Rae was waiting, Lila was really too cold to go back into the living room. Twice Lila had read for pregnant women; both times a small, still child had risen to the surface, before being pulled down into the center of the cup. She had lied, of course, and when she wept her clients had thought it was their good fortune that affected her so. If the symbol appeared a third time, Lila would again fail to mention that the child she saw was not moving, that it did not breathe or open its eyes. Whatever the shape of the tea leaves, Lila would advise Rae of her pregnancy, and tell her nothing more. She would fold her twenty-five-dollar fee into her pocket, and then, after Rae had left, she would stand with her back against the front door and cry. But there was never any hurry when you were about to tell someone that her life would be changed forever, and because the sunlight in the backyard was so warm and bright, Lila slipped out the back door, and she ran across the patio to throw her arms around her husband.
After the reading, Rae had no one to talk to. Jessup had never believed in friends.
“What’s the point?” he had always said. “You get yourself a friend and the first thing they want is to borrow something from you. Next they want to tell you all their troubles. Then look out—because then they’re mad that they owe you something, plus you know all their secrets, and they’re not so sure they want you knowing so much after all.”
What Rae wanted more than anything was a friend, a woman who would tell her that Lila’s prediction had been all wrong. But when she really thought about it, she had to admit that there wasn’t a friend on earth who could have convinced her that her swollen ankles and the wire stretched tight inside her stomach were anything other than signs of pregnancy. Her period was four weeks late, and she had lost her taste for coffee. What frightened Rae was not being pregnant, but having to tell Jessup about it. Jessup didn’t even like to be in the same room with a child. He referred to children as midgets, and he had often suggested that orphans be put out on ice floes and left to drift into the cold, blue sea.
Once before Rae had thought she might have to tell Jessup he would be a father. They were living in a garden apartment in Maryland and it was so hot that September that you never saw any people—everyone stayed where it was air-conditioned. It was their first home and Rae wanted it to be perfect. She taught herself how to cook, which was a real accomplishment considering she had learned nothing from her mother. Any time Carolyn started to cook she began to cry—just cutting up a leek or reaching for a bottle of olive oil was enough to set her off. She would have been astounded to discover that her daughter bought fresh blueberries for jam, grew her own tomatoes for gazpacho, melted bars of imported chocolate for mousse. By the time Jessup got home from work the table was always set and candles had been lit. But before she brought the meal to the table, Rae had to wait for Jessup to get ready. He was working with a construction crew building an addition to the local high school, and he came home caked with red dirt. Every evening, while Jessup soaked in the tub, Rae watched the candles burn down and she worried about the high-school girls Jessup was bound to meet. She was sure that if she ever lost him she would stay locked up in the air-conditioned apartment forever; and she always had the feeling she was losing him, no matter how hard she tried to please him.
One night, as they sat down to scallops and fresh string beans, Jessup picked up his fork and moved and the food around his plate, as if he didn’t know what else to do with it. His skin was dark from working outside, and his eyes were bluer than ever.
“Boy,” he said as he touched a bean with the prongs of his fork, “you really go for this stuff, don’t you, Rae?”
Rae had spent the morning searching for scallops; a raspberry tart was still baking.
“I thought you’d like scallops,” Rae said shyly.
“Me?” Jessup said, surprised. “I’d rather have hamburgers.”
Jessup ate a scallop, but Rae could tell he was forcing himself. She never used a cookbook again—after all, there was no point in cooking for someone who couldn’t tell the difference between a gâteau au chocolat and a defrosted Sara Lee cake. But once she had stopped cooking there wasn’t much for her to do but watch the clock and wait for Jessup. Each day when he came home after work, Rae was so relieved that she hadn’t lost him that she didn’t wait for him to take a bath—she pulled him down onto the living-room floor where they made love, and when they were through Rae’s skin was streaked with the red dirt Jessup brought home. Afterward Rae stayed in the living room while Jessup went into the bathroom to run the water in the tub. She could never figure out why she felt so lonely, and whenever Jessup called to her, inviting her into the bathtub, Rae closed her eyes and pretended not to hear him. After a while he must have assumed that she liked to be by herself after they made love, because no matter how much he had wanted her, by the time they were through, he just walked away, as if she were a stranger.
It was right about that time that Rae began to think she was pregnant. There were certainly signs: her period was late and she had gained five pounds. But the oddest thing of all was that Rae suddenly had the desire to talk to her mother. One day, while Jessup was at work, Rae called home. When her mother picked up the receiver and said hello, the sound of her voice cut right through Rae, and she had to force herself to speak.
“It’s me,” Rae said casuall
y. “I’m in a garden apartment in Maryland.”
“I love it,” Carolyn said. “Your father always insists you’re in California. He’s convinced that people like Jessup always wind up on the West Coast.”
“Mother,” Rae said, just as if a year hadn’t passed since they’d last argued, “I didn’t call you long distance to talk about Jessup.”
“I’ve tried to understand why you’d run away with him, but I can’t,” Carolyn said.
“Stop trying,” Rae said. “You’ll never understand me.”
“If you would just call your father at the office and tell him you’re sorry. Tell him you made a terrible mistake.”
“But I didn’t!” Rae said.
“You’re never planning to come home,” Carolyn said suddenly, “are you?”
“I don’t know,” Rae admitted.
“It’s just as well,” Carolyn said. “Your father would never allow it—not unless you proved to him that you had changed.”
Rae felt herself grow hot. “And you’d just agree with him?” she said.
Carolyn didn’t answer.
“Mother!” Rae said. “Would you agree with him?”
“Yes,” Carolyn said. “I would.”
Rae could hear the Oldsmobile pull up. She dragged the phone over to the window and lifted up one venetian blind. Jessup got out of the car and took off his blue denim jacket.
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