Tarot's Kiss (Tarot Chronicles)

by Nichole Blackfinch

  And it was perfect. The other two Royalty girls had chosen tight, sparkly dresses; one long and red, the other short and black, but the dress Angie had made for Stella was a warm peach-rose color that made Stella’s fair skin appear to glow from within. It skimmed along her tall, thin frame and its graceful simplicity made the other two girls look cheap and flashy by comparison.

  I was proud of what Angie had done, but I couldn’t erase the horrible thoughts of the accident I’d envisioned—Stella on fire, her lovely dress in flames, the painful and possibly fatal accident. I looked at Stella pleadingly, but she caught my eye and looked away.

  Angie fussed for a minute longer and then we left the classroom to head outside, taking our seats in the bleachers and waiting for the rally to begin. My sick headache still hadn’t left me. I watched silently as the school band played our school song, followed by a performance from the drill team. A faculty member gave a speech that I barely heard. I was filled with dread, knowing the processional would happen soon.

  Finally, it started. Music played overhead and the first float appeared, the student body officers standing and waving, blowing kisses and making silly poses toward the audience. Another homemade float rolled by, this one featuring a cheesy Eiffel tower and students wearing sombreros—the foreign language club, apparently. Next came a faculty float, then the cheerleaders.

  After the cheerleader float, there was nothing for a moment. The music continued to play, but nothing appeared in the processional. The crowd waited, everyone was wondering what was going on. After an uncomfortable gap, the next float finally appeared.

  A pickup truck was pulling the elaborate glittering paper castle. Spotlights focused on three staggered platforms, each large enough for a royalty couple. It looked like a three-year-old’s vision of a fairy-princess castle, but this castle was deserted. No one stood on any of the three cheesy platforms, no waving, no kisses.

  The crowd became noisy. “What the hell is going on?” Angie asked me, “Where are the Royalty couples? Where’s my dress?”

  My pulse raced—had the accident already happened? But if so, why hadn’t the processional been canceled? I stared at the float, transfixed by its slow progression across the length of the field.

  A sudden boom sounded on the field as an explosion shook the float. Fire devoured the paper castle, the platforms engulfed in flame. As the flames shot upward, the scorched scent of cardboard rolled through the air, along with the curling embers of the fake trees and roses that had adorned the castle. A scream pierced the air as chaos broke out in the crowd.

  Students rushed the field to get a closer look, while others left for the parking lot. I couldn’t move. By predicting this, did I somehow cause it? Angie grabbed my arm and urged me upward. “Let’s go back inside to wait,” she said.

  We raced to the classroom where we’d met with the Royalty girls beforehand; their bags and makeup were still strewn carelessly about the room. I took a seat at one of the desks, shaking all over.

  “Lucy, what is up with you?” Angie asked, sounding concerned but almost irritated. “A float caught on fire, which, ok is kind of freaky, but you’re acting like you’ve just been bombed or something. They’ve probably already put it out, no biggie.”

  “Stella didn’t tell you, then?” I asked softly.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Tell you about the tarot reading I gave her on Monday.”

  “No, she didn’t mention anything about it,” Angie snapped.

  “I gave her a reading, and as soon as I did, I could see it—like a movie or something. I saw this flash of her being caught on fire, being burned…I could picture her hair and her dress just blazing. It was gross and I told her and it really upset her. I think she thought I was making it up. I feel weird, like I caused it, kind of.”

  “Well, ok,” Angie said. “But that didn’t actually happen. No one was on that float. I don’t think anyone was hurt.”

  “No, you’re right, but still it makes me feel freaked out. Like this tarot stuff is more than just a game. I’m not sure—“

  I was interrupted by the classroom door opening. Stella and her date walked in, along with her parents and another Royalty couple. Stella immediately saw me and strode purposefully across the room. I braced myself for her angry reaction.

  “Lucy!” She half-whispered in a hoarse teary voice as she threw her arms around me. “I didn’t go let us go on because of you. You saved my life.”

  THE FIRST THOUGHT THAT TRAWLED THROUGH my sleep-numbed brain on Saturday morning was that I still hadn’t bought a dress for the dance that night. If procrastination were an art form, I’d be Picasso by now.

  The events of the previous evening still rattled me. The chaos of the fire, the surreal and uncomfortable sensation of Stella and her parents hugging me and crying. I hoped it would blow over soon; I didn’t like being the focus of attention. Well, not too much attention, anyway.

  I called Angie and left a message asking if she had an old dress I could wear. Since it was still early, I knew she wouldn’t be returning my call for awhile, so I poured a glass of juice and turned on my laptop, ready to kill some time online.

  I logged on to my Facebook, completely unprepared for what awaited me. Page upon page of comments had been posted to my wall, nearly all regarding the previous night’s incident, which it turned out was caused by a generator on the float. Apparently, the story of Stella’s reading had been spread throughout the whole school.

  Lost of comments were praising me, and one girl’s mom called me a hero. One comment called me a fraud and accused me of setting the fire myself to back up my own reading, but for the most part, the comments were positive. There were even plenty of stories added from people I didn’t even know at all, yet who claimed to have had amazing readings from me. I was proud but…embarrassed. I switched my page to private.

  A flush crept up my neck. Boulder wasn’t that big, everyone would know soon. I was glad that I lived along, at least. I logged off again and decided to give myself a pedicure while I waited for Angie to return my call. My toes were soaking in soapy water when my phone rang. “Tell me you have a dress for me, girl,” I answered without looking at the display.

  “Sure, it’s my prettiest party frock ever,” replied a masculine voice. Oh geez, Max, my boss.

  “Oh, sorry Max, I thought you were someone else.”

  “Really? I’m disappointed,” he replied sarcastically. “I was hoping you thought enough of my ladylike style to borrow a dress from me.”

  “Yeah, right, I want to go to Senior Formal in a brown Flatiron Hardware smock, just like all the cool girls,” I joked. “So you weren’t expecting me in today, right? I scheduled it off…”

  “No, of course not,” he said. “That’s not why I’m calling. My wife just heard this rumor from her sister’s kid that you gave a prom queen some psychic prediction that kept her from blowing up and I wanted to hear the story firsthand.”

  I gave Max the general outline, promising him more details on my next shift. I decided that I wouldn’t answer any other calls that day, barring Angie’s, of course. I didn’t want to have to keep explaining the story.

  LATER THAT MORNING, I went to Angie’s house, where she’d laid out a few dance dresses for me to try on. They were flung across her bed, and she didn’t look too pleased with me.

  “Nothing like waiting until the last minute, Lucy. I still have to make it to my hair appointment and everything, so we’re not going to have oodles of time here.”

  “I know, I know. You’re a saint, but I suck. You’re the best, I’m the worst. In fact, I should probably be publicly flogged then fed to starving, disease-infested crocodiles. In a smelly swamp. Wearing ugly clothes.”

  Angie smiled despite herself. “Good thing you’re cute Lucy, because planning ahead isn’t really your strength. Nor is gracefulness,” she added, as I tried to pull one of the dresses over my head, losing my balance and falling on her bed in the process.

&nb
sp; I picked a dress and then spent much of the remainder of the day showering, exfoliating, shaving, moisturizing, filing, plucking, self-tanning, lining, blending, blow drying and hair curling. Some chicks I knew spent this much effort on their appearance every day. When did they read or sleep or play video games?

  That evening, I’d just finished adjusting the straps on my silver heels (a big too large, also borrowed from Angie) when my doorbell rang. I opened the door and smiled at Matt as he leaned forward hesitantly to kiss me.

  “Lucy, you look so…different,” he said.

  “I know, I feel like a moron kind of.” I nervously smoothed my upswept and curled hair. I was much dressier and more heavily made up than I could ever remember having been before, as if an extra layer of makeup would disguise me from attention.

  “No, you look really hot. Very, very beautiful.”

  The way Matt was looking at me sent a sort of warm, caramel sensation spiraling up through my body. I wondered briefly if getting this kind of reaction was worth spending so much time getting dressed up on a regular basis. I decided not, but his compliments felt great nonetheless. He took my arm and we walked out to his dad’s car, which he’d borrowed for the occasion. Angie and Blake were already waiting in the back seat.

  “Wow Lucy, I don’t know why you always keep those puppies covered up,” Angie giggled as she gestured at me. She sounded a little tipsy and I wondered if she’d filched some liquor from her dad. Blake, too, was staring very pointedly at my chest. I was wearing a blue Grecian-styled dress that Angie had worn for homecoming our freshman year—she’d been shorter then, so the dress wasn’t as long on me as any of her newer dresses would have been, but I was curvier than she was and the dress’s bodice was a little tight on my chest. I suddenly felt very self-conscious.

  “Maybe I should go change into something else,” I said, but Angie, Matt and Blake said that I definitely shouldn’t. I lowered myself into the car, carefully, and we all went for dinner together and then headed to the dance.

  As soon as we entered the dance, I wished I wouldn’t have come. Mobs of people approached me, asking how I’d know about Stella and wanting their own cards read. Several girls insisted on making dramatic scenes and hugging me. It was weird. I wasn’t able to dance or talk with Matt—we weren’t left alone. After only an hour or so, I was aching to leave, but didn’t want to ruin anyone’s fun.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” Matt bent down and whispered in my ear. “We’d have more fun at home gaming and eating ice cream,” he added. I nodded and we left the building, stepping out into the warm May night. Matt said Blake had agreed to find another ride home, since he and Angie weren’t ready to leave. He threw his arm around my shoulders and I leaned into him, happy to share pleasant silence.

  We were nearly to his car when we were interrupted by a disheveled woman carrying a huge handbag. She had the air of someone who was intensely busy, which was odd for a thirty-something woman standing alone in a high school parking lot on a Saturday night.

  “Excuse me, are you Lucy Auburn?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I replied.

  “My name’s Diane and I’m from the Herald. We’re already running a small piece on the accident on the rally yesterday, but I’ve been hearing quite a few stories about how your predictions prevented any injuries and I’d love to do a fun follow-up article with you.”

  Wow, news really must be slow in Boulder this week, I figured. The Herald was the local independent paper, usually light on news and heavy on classified ads. Still, maybe it would be nice to just have the whole story printed once and for all, all the quicker it could become old news. I agreed that I’d meet with Diane the following afternoon, and Matt and I left before anyone else could bother us.

  We stopped at his house so he could change clothes and then went back to my place, swinging by the grocery store on the way to load up on ice cream and snacks to keep us energized for a long night of gaming.

  I changed into jeans and a tee while Matt turned on the rock game we both liked. I picked up the game microphone and he chose the guitar controller, as he always did.

  “Why do you always choose guitar?” I asked.

  “What? You’re not down with guitarists?”

  “They’re never as hot as drummers,” I said, giving him an exaggerated wink.

  Matt laughed. “I play real drums all the time. I don’t need to play fake ones, too. I’d rather play fake guitar, mix it up a little. Why do you always choose singing?”

  “Because it’s easiest and I can move around a lot.” I jumped up on the couch to demonstrate as the song started and I wailed the lyrics, only kind of off-key.

  The song ended and I hopped off the couch, taking a deep bow. “Thank you, thank you very much,” I told the fake audience on the television screen.

  “Your best performance ever,” Matt remarked.

  “Yeah, I was pretty solid. Only messed up like a fourth of the words.”

  “But you looked good doing it. That’s mostly what lead singers care about, anyway,” he said.

  “What do drummers care about?” I asked, my eyes wide with feigned innocence.

  “Let me show you,” Matt said. He hooked his fingers through the belt loops on my jeans and pulled me against him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and lost myself to the giddiness bubbling inside my heart.

  THE NEXT MORNING I MET MY MOM at Hamby’s as usual for our Sunday morning breakfast. Uncharacteristically, I arrived before she did, and I was immersed in a text message when she sat across from me.

  “Lucy, what do you think you’re doing?” she asked. She was looking at me unblinkingly with her most direct cold blue-eyed stare, lips pressed tight.

  “Just waiting on my coffee…” This was clearly not the answer she was looking for.

  “What is this I hear around town about you being some fortune teller?”

  “People are making a big deal of it, really I just told Stella not to be in the processional or she’d get hurt, so she stayed out of it and avoided getting hurt. End of story. People just like drama, as you’ve pointed out a million times,” I replied.

  “It’s ridiculous and I’m asking you to stop doing those cards right away,” she said. My mother was diplomatic, positive—I’d never seen her so groundlessly angry before.

  “Why?” I asked. “I like it and it’s fun to read the tarot, so what’s the issue?”

  “The issue, Lucy, is that it is superstitious and wasteful and I won’t see this happening again!” My mom was nearly shouting. The server approached the table, set down the coffee carafe and walked away quickly.

  “What do you mean ‘again’?” I asked. “What are you talking about, Mom?”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. I could tell she was choosing her words.

  “What I mean,” she said carefully, “Is that I have seen...other people…make bad choices based on superstitious reasons and I won’t have you do the same. Leave those cards alone.” My mom lowered her head into her hands.

  “Mom, listen to me. I love you and I’m not going to do anything crazy or stupid. This is just something I’ve started doing for fun. I’m an adult and I can make my own choices now, and this is something I discovered that I really like. And who are these ‘other people’ you’re talking about? Do you mean Grandma?”

  My mom looked up at me again. “I told her not to bring those cards around you. She promised me!”

  “Grandma never did bring cards around me, Mom, I swear. I only brought up her name because when I was cleaning her basement, I found some papers that mentioned the tarot, so I got curious and went to buy a deck. That’s all. Why were you so worried that she would have shown me tarot cards?”

  “I told you why, Lucy,” my mom said. “I don’t believe in it. To trust in that and not-” Her voice cracked and her eyes were wet. “I’m sorry, honey, I need to leave.”

  With that, my mom stood and left, leaving me alone at the table with my coffe
e. I felt ashamed of myself for upsetting her, but I couldn’t understand why she was so bothered by my new hobby. At least her comments confirmed that my grandma had indeed been involved in reading the tarot, so my interpretation of the logo on the letterhead had likely been correct. But why would my mom have had such strong disapproval of my grandma using tarot cards?

  I dropped a few dollars on the table and left the café. I still had time to spare before meeting with the woman from the Herald, so I decided to go home and catch up on some reading.

  Back at my house, my deck lay scattered across my kitchen table where I’d left it. Maybe these cards were nothing but trouble, I thought to myself. Maybe they were bad, drawing darkness and ill-fortune to the unsuspecting. But if they were bad, how then to account for the fact that they’d kept the Royalty couples from being hurt? Wasn’t that doing something good?

  I sat down and absentmindedly began to shuffle and mix the cards, the repetitive motion automatically soothing my mind and calming my nerves. I enjoyed the sensation of peace gently building in me, and I had an idea: why not ask the cards why my mom was so bothered by the tarot? Then I’d know how to best reassure her. I shuffled again and turned over the top three cards.

  I looked at the three cards I’d drawn to explain why my mom was so bothered by the tarot. The first card, the Emperor, could represent authority or a leader; it could also represent a husband or a father. The second card, the Eight of Cups, meant sacrifice or leaving something behind. The last card, the Five of Cups, stood for heartbreak or disappointment. I cleared my mind and stared at the three cards, waiting for their story to come to me, which it quickly did.

  It was all clear; I suddenly knew exactly why my mom hated the cards.

  Chapter 11. Oedipus.

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN I PULLED UP to my mom’s house. As agreed, I’d met up with Diane from the newspaper and had had a brief silly interview with her, giving a sample reading. Now though, I wanted to talk with my mom and discuss the reading I’d done about her earlier.