Written in the Stars

by Isobel Bird

  “All right,” said Cooper. “I give. I came over to see if you wanted to go for a walk.”

  “With you?” asked T.J.

  Cooper hit him in the arm. “No, with your other girlfriend,” she said.

  T.J. rubbed his arm. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to ask her if she’s busy.”

  “Keep it up, pal,” said Cooper. “Next time I’ll show you what I learned in self-defense class.”

  “Ow,” T.J. said, backing away.

  “Go get your coat,” ordered Cooper.

  T.J. went away and came back a minute later, dressed in his old leather jacket. Cooper retrieved her jacket from the couch and the two of them left the house.

  “I’m assuming you want to talk about something,” T.J. said as the two of them walked along the sidewalk. “Or did you just miss me?”

  “You wish,” replied Cooper affectionately. “No, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Something good or something bad?”

  “Neither, really,” answered Cooper. “I need some advice.”

  T.J. stopped and looked at her. “You asking for advice?” he said incredulously. “From me?” He bent down and touched the ground.

  “What are you doing?” asked Cooper.

  “I wanted to see if hell had frozen over,” said T.J.

  Cooper kept walking, and T.J. trotted to keep up with her. “Okay,” he said. “I’m all ears.”

  Cooper wasn’t sure how to proceed. She wanted to talk to T.J. about the situation with Jane. But she’d already caused enough trouble by telling Annie, Kate, and Sasha about it. Would she just be making it worse if she told T.J., too? It’s not like he’s going to tell anyone, she argued with herself. That part was true. If there was anyone who could keep something quiet, it was T.J. But telling him would still be letting one more person in on Jane’s secret. She decided to try the middle road.

  “Do you remember when Dylan told you he was gay?” she asked.

  T.J. gave a short laugh. “Actually, he didn’t,” he answered. “Some kids in the neighborhood told me. I believe their exact words were, ‘Hey, did you know your brother is a big fag?’”

  “What?” said Cooper, shocked.

  T.J. nodded. “I got into a big fight over that one. Then I went home and told my mom what they’d said. I still remember the look on her face when she told me to sit down at the kitchen table. She wiped the blood off my nose with a damp dish towel. Then she told me about Dylan. I ran out of the kitchen and hid up in my room. I beat my pillow over and over, pretending it was the face of the kid who had said that about my brother. But really I think I was pretending it was Dylan.”

  “Why?” asked Cooper.

  T.J. sighed. “I was really angry at him,” he answered. “I didn’t want him to be different. I didn’t want him to be a fag, like that kid called him. I wanted him to be normal.”

  “But gay people are normal,” Cooper said.

  “I know that now,” said T.J. “But then all I knew was that my brother—the guy I looked up to—was something that some people thought was wrong. It took me a while to realize that I was the one who was wrong. It took all of us a while, my dad in particular.”

  “But he’s okay with it now, right?” asked Cooper.

  “More or less,” said T.J. “He doesn’t really talk about it very much. He and Dylan talk about work and cars and that kind of stuff. I think that’s the best he can do.” T.J. paused. “Do you mind if I ask why the sudden interest in this?”

  “I kind of found out by accident that someone I know is gay,” said Cooper, trying to be as general as possible.

  “I see,” said T.J. “And you’re having trouble with it?”

  “Oh, no,” said Cooper. “I’m fine with it. But I kind of mentioned it to some other people, and now the first person is really mad at me.”

  T.J. gave a low whistle. “Now I get it,” he said. “You broke rule number one—never tell anyone without permission.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” said Cooper defensively. “It just sort of came out. Pardon the pun,” she added after realizing what she’d just said.

  “Outing someone is about the worst thing you can do,” T.J. told her. “Especially if the person is just figuring it out herself or himself. That’s what happened to Dylan. He told one of his best friends, and he told a bunch of other people who shouldn’t have known.”

  “Okay,” said Cooper. “I get it. I screwed up. The question is, what do I do now? How do I fix this?”

  “I don’t know,” T.J. answered.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” exclaimed Cooper. “I thought the whole idea of this little chat was for you to help me out.”

  “Sorry,” T.J. said. “But I don’t know this person. I don’t know how he or she is feeling, or what his or her situation is.”

  “Stop with the he/she thing already,” said Cooper impatiently. “Jane was right, it’s a real pain.”

  “Jane?” T.J. said as Cooper realized, too late, what she’d said. “Are we talking about Jane?”

  Cooper groaned. “See?” she said. “That’s how it happens. There I was, being all careful not to say anything.”

  T.J. grabbed her and put his arms around her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to breathe a word of this.”

  Cooper laid her forehead against his chest. “Good,” she said. “It’s bad enough that I told the girls. If Jane knew that I told you, too, she’d totally freak. As it is she’ll probably never speak to me again anyway.”

  T.J. hugged her tightly. “Give her some time,” he said. “I bet she’ll come around. The important thing is that she knows you aren’t freaked out by this. You’re not, are you?”

  “Maybe a little,” Cooper said softly. “And that makes me feel even worse.”

  “You’re allowed to be freaked out,” T.J. said. “Everybody wants to seem all cool and okay with it, but this is all new information to you. You need some time to get used to it. So give each other some space. Call her in a couple of days and see where things stand. My bet is that she’ll be glad to hear from you.”

  Cooper nodded. “It’s a plan, then,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “Good,” said T.J. “Now there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “You mean this isn’t all about me?” Cooper said, frowning.

  “Sadly, no,” T.J. answered. “But it is about us.”

  “That sounds bad,” sad Cooper.

  “I don’t have to tell you if you don’t want to hear it,” T.J. suggested.

  “No,” said Cooper. “Tell. Otherwise I’ll just make up something worse.”

  They began walking again, with Cooper holding T.J.’s hand.

  “My parents are starting to talk about college,” T.J. said.

  Cooper groaned. Her own parents had begun making noises about the same subject. She’d managed to put them off, largely because they were still dealing with their divorce, but she knew the day was coming when she’d have to address the issue.

  “And?” Cooper said.

  “And they really want me to think about going to school in Minnesota,” said T.J. “To Rummond.”

  Cooper didn’t respond. She’d known for a long time that the McAllisters really wanted T.J. to go to Rummond University. It’s where Mr. McAllister had gone. They’d hoped that one of the other boys would go, but each had chosen another school. T.J. was their last hope for sending another McAllister to the old alma mater.

  “And what do you want?” Cooper asked.

  “I’m not sure,” answered her boyfriend. “Rummond has a great English department. I’ve been thinking about majoring in creative writing.”

  “What about music?” Cooper inquired.

  “Music is fun,” said T.J. “But really, what are the chances of making a career out of it?”

  “I don’t know,” Cooper said. “Why don’t you ask Dave Matthews . . . or Bono?”

  “Come on,” T.J. said, squeezing her hand.
“You know what I mean. I have to be at least a little bit practical.”

  Cooper sighed. “I guess I thought we’d have longer before we had to think about all of this,” she said.

  “They keep leaving school brochures on my desk,” said T.J., chuckling. “And for Christmas my dad gave me a Rummond sweatshirt. Very subtle, huh?”

  Cooper had to laugh, even though inside she was starting to feel a little sad. They weren’t even done with their junior year, and already people were pressuring them to make decisions about what they were doing after graduation. Next they’ll be asking me what I want to be when I grow up, she thought bitterly.

  “So?” T.J. said. “Any thoughts?”

  “About Rummond?” Cooper said. “You’re right, it’s a good school.”

  “I don’t want your opinion about Rummond,” T.J. replied. “I want to know what you think about us maybe going to separate schools.”

  Cooper didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. The truth was, she hadn’t really allowed herself to think about it in much detail. She’d always known that the time would come when they’d have to make this decision, and she’d always assumed that when it came she’d know just what to do. But now that it was here, she found that she didn’t.

  She gripped T.J.’s hand a little more tightly. “Can I get back to you on this?” she asked. “I think I can only handle one crisis at a time.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Astrology has been around for thousands of years.”

  Olivia Sorensen stood in front of the class at Crones’ Circle. She was clearly nervous, and she kept playing with her glasses as she spoke and took frequent sips from the glass of water that Sophia had put on the table for her.

  “No one is exactly sure how people first became interested in the stars and planets and their effects on our lives,” she continued. “But we know that every ancient civilization had some system of astrology. The Mayans. The Egyptians. The Greeks. All of them followed the movements of the celestial bodies. And what is really intriguing is that even though these cultures were separated by thousands of miles, and sometimes many years, they all basically had the same ideas about how the stars and planets worked.”

  Olivia pointed to a poster that hung on the wall, showing the different phases of the moon. “Take this moon calendar, for example,” she said. “Many of you probably have similar ones at home.”

  Annie nodded. She herself had a beautiful moon calendar that her friends had given her for her birthday. She loved tracking the moon as it went from dark to full to dark again. Sometimes she timed her rituals and meditations to the various phases.

  “Why are we so interested in the full moon?” Olivia asked the class. “Why do we pay attention to when the moon is waxing and waning?”

  “Because it reminds us of the Goddess?” suggested a woman in the back. “It symbolizes how she represents birth, death, and rebirth.”

  Olivia nodded. “That’s one reason,” she said. “But I’m talking about the moon’s effect on different aspects of our lives.”

  “You mean like the tides,” Annie said. “The way the high and low tides change with the phases of the moon and how close it is to the earth.”

  Olivia nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “For centuries fishermen and sailors have charted the moon’s course because they know it affects the tides and the currents. It also affects other things.”

  “Like what?” asked a man to Annie’s left.

  “Well, like women’s menstrual cycles,” Olivia said. “Many women find that their periods follow the moon’s cycle. And what about animals? Haven’t you ever heard dogs or wolves baying at the full moon?”

  “Isn’t that just an old wives’ tale?” asked Kate. “You know, like werewolves coming out when the moon is full?”

  “Yes and no,” Olivia replied. “There’s a lot of scientific evidence that the moon does affect how people behave. For example, many hospital emergency rooms report an increase in cases on nights when the moon is full, and it’s been shown that people’s brain waves do sometimes change with the moon’s phases.”

  “What does all of this have to do with astrology?” someone asked.

  Olivia held up her finger. “I’m getting to that,” she said. “Many of you probably think of astrology the way most people think of it—as the horoscopes you read in the paper.”

  A lot of heads nodded in response to her statement, and several people laughed. Olivia smiled.

  “Obviously, horoscopes are part of astrology,” she said. “Unfortunately, they’re probably the most unreliable part. At least the ones you read in the papers are. The problem is that those horoscopes have to be very general, so that they can be applied to as many readers as possible. Yes, there is some useful information in them, if you know how to use it correctly. But essentially newspaper horoscopes are about as in-depth as your typical supermarket tabloid is.”

  “That’s too bad,” Cooper remarked. “Mine said I was going to have good luck in all things today.”

  Olivia smiled. “When’s your birthday?” she asked.

  “April twenty-eighth,” Cooper told her.

  “Taurus,” Olivia said. “The bull.” She thought for a minute. “Actually, your luck right now probably isn’t so great,” she said. “My guess is that you’re finding yourself running into a few obstacles that you feel like charging right through but know you can’t.”

  Cooper nodded approvingly. “Actually, that’s pretty much it,” she said. “How’d you know?”

  Olivia adjusted her glasses. “I sort of cheated,” she said. “I could have said the same thing for everyone in this room, and for everyone on the planet, actually. Right now we’re in what’s called a Mercury Retrograde period.”

  “A what?” Annie asked, trying to write down what Olivia was telling them.

  “Mercury Retrograde,” Olivia said. “It’s something that happens two or sometimes three times a year when the planet Mercury appears to move backward in its orbit for a short period of time, usually about three weeks.”

  “And what does that mean in the real world?” Cooper asked her.

  “Mercury, as you probably know, was the messenger of the gods,” Olivia explained. “The planet Mercury, which is named for him, has an enormous influence on things like communication and travel. So when Mercury starts to go backward, things relating to those two areas get a little mixed up.”

  “Mixed up how?” asked Kate.

  “Well,” Olivia said, “it could be a lot of different things. You might have more misunderstandings than usual with people. You might find that you have trouble meeting deadlines for projects, or that your computer breaks down for no apparent reason.”

  “That happened to me yesterday!” said one of the men in the class. “I got a new computer for Christmas, and for no reason it crashed while I was in the middle of writing a letter.”

  “That’s classic Mercury Retrograde,” said Olivia. “People report all kinds of problems with machinery during these periods. People who travel frequently find that their flights are delayed or the rooms they booked suddenly aren’t available.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Sophia, who was standing off to the side listening. “I had friends flying in for New Year’s, and they were four hours late.”

  “Yeah, but that could have just been trying to fly on one of the busiest days of the year,” Annie said. “And all of this other stuff—do you really think a planet’s relative movement could cause all of this?”

  “I see we have a skeptic,” Olivia said.

  “I’m not really a skeptic,” Annie said, suddenly feeling self-conscious as everyone looked at her. “I just think it’s too easy to blame things on forces we can’t really measure.”

  “You’re right,” Olivia responded. “And some people do that. So let’s try something. I want you to give me your birthday, along with the time of day you were born and the city. That’s all I want to know. I’m going to work up a chart for you, and I’ll bring it to
class next time we meet. Then we’ll see how accurate it is.”

  “Okay,” said Annie. “That sounds like fun.”

  “It should be,” Olivia said.

  “What kinds of things will the chart tell us?” asked Kate.

  “It will tell us general things about her personality,” explained Olivia. “It should also be able to pinpoint some major events in her life. That’s how astrologers know if they’ve plotted the chart correctly from the information they’ve been given.”

  “This should be very interesting,” remarked Cooper, looking at Annie. “Now maybe we’ll find out why she’s so strange.”

  The class laughed. “Just call me with that information and I’ll work up the chart,” Olivia told Annie.

  The rest of the class was spent discussing the various planets and what things they were believed to affect. Olivia handed out several pieces of paper with information on them, and then it was time to go. Annie, Cooper, and Kate helped put the room back in order, then said good-bye to Sophia and the others and headed out.

  “That was something, huh?” Cooper said as they walked to the bus stop. “And lucky you,” she added to Annie. “I can’t wait to see what your chart says.”

  “I’m sure it will be a lot of generalities,” responded Annie.

  “You’re not even the least little bit interested?” Kate asked her. “I’m surprised.”

  “I’m interested,” Annie said. “I just don’t know if I believe that pieces of rock spinning around up in space can have any influence in my life.”

  “But you believe that you can do spells,” Kate said. “How is that any different? You can’t measure intention and energy, either.”

  “True,” Annie admitted. “But I’ve experienced those things. And at least energy comes from within us. The idea that I’m at the mercy of Pluto and Mars isn’t something I’m comfortable with.”

  “You’re such a science nerd,” Cooper teased. Then she put her arm around Annie’s shoulders. “But that’s why we love you. It’s like we’re our very own Charlie’s Angels. You’re the smart one who figures everything out. I’m the tough one.”