by Abby Bardi
The arguing died down, then started up again. This time it was about the first man to walk on the moon. Ray said in his snooty butler voice that people had been traveling to the moon for centuries and that Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in a movie studio in New Mexico. I was inclined to side with Ricky on this one, for once: I managed to stay neutral in most of these dumb fights, but I usually secretly agreed with Ray.
When they started in about the Skull and Bones global domination conspiracy, whatever the hell that was, I decided I’d had enough. “I’m going out,” I said to Ray. “You can cover for me. I’ll be back before lunch.” My two henchmen were so surprised I was going to vacate the premises they actually stopped bickering and stared at me. I turned my back on them and stomped out the kitchen door. “I’m going across the street for a little while,” I told Pam, who was behind the bar, since she always worked Saturdays.
“To the Hare?”
“To Madame Rosa’s. I thought I’d take her up on her offer.”
She nodded thoughtfully, then said it was nice I was finally doing something for myself, however small.
***
I’d walked past the blue neon sign that said “Psychic Reader” a zillion times on my way to the Hare but had never been inside. The waiting room looked like a dentist’s office, with a TV tuned to Fox News, some scruffy black vinyl couches, a coffee table with a blue vase full of roses. The roses were dusty, so I guessed they were fake, but they looked real. I stood wondering what to do, but then one of the Madame Rosas came through a door from a back room. This one was younger, though she looked a bit like the Madame Rosa I gave the coffee to. She was wearing a pink T-shirt that said “Believe” in sequins.
“Hi,” I began, “I met someone from here last week, and she said to—”
“Oh, right, right.” She looked like she knew all about me, though maybe this was something they always pretended when people came in. “Hang on.” She went back into the other room and came back with my Madame Rosa.
“You came,” she said. She sounded surprised, though if she was really psychic, I thought, she wouldn’t have been.
I wasn’t sure what to say. “I’ve always looked at your sign and wondered what you do. I mean, I know you tell people’s fortunes, but—”
“We call it reading.”
“Oh, sorry.” I didn’t want to ruin my luck by saying the wrong thing. “Anyway, I’ve always wondered about it. Do you use a crystal ball, or what?”
“Generally we use cards, but we also do palms. It depends what the customer wants. The palm reading is twenty dollars, and the cards are twenty-five. This one is on me. You can have either one.”
“Oh hey, thanks, that’s really nice of you.” I was kind of disappointed to find out she didn’t use a crystal ball. I guess I had been picturing her looking into one like the witch uses in The Wizard of Oz, and that seemed much more interesting than palms or cards. I wasn’t sure what to choose. “Which one is better?”
“They’re both good. They both show the same things. Some people like to use the cards because they’re fancier.”
“Which do you like best?”
She pondered. “I guess I like the cards best.”
“Let’s go with that.”
She led me into the next room and pointed to a tall bookshelf. At first I thought it was full of small books, but as I looked more closely, I saw decks of cards packed closely together with weird names like the “Tarot of Arcus Arcanum,” the “Minchiate Etruria,” and the “Tarot of the Cat People.”
“Which deck do you want?”
“Wow, I don’t know. Does it make a difference?”
“Not really. Some people like one more than another. They’re all the same to me. You should touch a few of them and see if any of them feel right.”
I scanned the shelf. None of the names made any sense to me, and nothing felt especially “right.” I spotted a deck called the “Epicurean Recipe Cards” and was about to choose that one, if only so I could check out the recipes, when the “Sacred Road” deck caught my eye. I pulled it out and looked at it. On the cover was an Indian guy playing a flute, and next to him, a pathway winding up the side of a mountain. It reminded me of the places I went in my dreams or whatever they were, the little vacations I sometimes took in my mind, though since I’d opened the restaurant I had no time for them. “Is this a good one?”
“They’re all good.”
I handed it to her.
“How’s business?” she asked, opening the box of cards. They looked shiny and new, like no one had ever used them before.
You tell me, I thought, but said, “Great.”
“I see all those lines out the door. Your food must be good.”
“Thanks,” I said, “I think so.”
She asked me to shuffle. “Just do it until you feel ready.”
I handed them back to her. “Now cut the deck.” I did.
She lay some cards face down in the shape of a triangle, then four more in the shape of a cross. “Is there a specific issue you want information about?”
“Will the Ravens make it to the Super Bowl this year?” I asked, adding a “ha ha” so she’d know I was kidding. She smiled but with a little eye roll, like she was tired of hearing stuff like that. I decided to be serious, though it was hard, since I felt awkward, and I was pretty sure this was a bunch of bullshit. “Well, what I really want to know is about my father. I’m wondering if you can tell me where he is.” I hadn’t meant to ask her so directly, but the question just blabbed out of my mouth. It was always weird to realize how much J. Fallingwater was always in the back of my mind like voices I couldn’t quite hear.
“Is he missing?”
“Kind of. My sister wrote him a letter, but he hasn’t answered. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.” My eyes surprised me by filling up a little at that, and I blinked hard.
“When did you last see him?”
“Well, here’s the thing. I’ve never actually met him. I didn’t even know he was my father until a few months ago.”
She nodded like she already knew everything about the whole situation. Maybe it was the kind of thing she was used to hearing from her clients. I figured people had to be pretty desperate about something to lay down twenty-five bucks for a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, so they must blurt all kinds of shit to her. “Well, maybe we can find out. Let’s start with the four directions.” She flipped over a picture of a bunch of colorful feathers that reminded me spookily of my mother’s casket. “This is your East, the past. You’ve recently had some major life changes.” Of course, she could tell this by just looking out her window. “Your life has shifted in the last few months.”
I didn’t think it was a good idea to volunteer much information, since I had heard fortunetellers took it and ran with it, but I found myself telling her my mother had died in April.
“Yes, I know that was difficult.” She looked sad, like she really did know. “But sometimes when someone crosses over to the other side, it can have a positive effect on this plane.”
I thought about this. It was true I wouldn’t have been able to open the restaurant if I hadn’t had the insurance money, and I couldn’t have known about my real father unless Pam had found the letters—these were good things, but it wasn’t like they made my mother’s death into a bonus. I just said, “Hmm.”
“North,” she said, turning over another card to reveal a big bird with mean eyes. “The hawk signifies abundance. Your luck is about to change, and you’re going to have everything you’ve always wanted.”
Sure this was baloney, but I couldn’t help feeling excited. “Really?”
“Everything’s going your way.”
“You think so?”
“The cards don’t lie.”
What a weird job, I thought, trading on people’s hopes and fears. All anyone really wanted from her was to hear they were going to be lucky, I thought, but we couldn’t all be lucky, could we? I thought about luck, and abou
t my restaurant, and how even on a bad day, it made me feel like I had won the lottery.
She drew another card. “Sun medicine,” she said. “This is your West. It’s your protection.”
“My father lived in the west.”
“Oh, not the literal west. Do you know what your totem animals are?”
“I don’t know, maybe buffalo? How do you find out what they are?”
“We’d have to do the Medicine deck. We can do that next time you come.”
“Okay.” Maybe I would end up seeing her regularly like she was my psychiatrist, and every week she’d tell me how lucky I was going to be.
The next card was a tepee. “South. You need to be more introspective,” she said, and gave me a definition of the word “introspective,” though I already knew what it meant. “You need to go inside yourself and think about what’s there.”
I’ll bet that’s just what a real psychiatrist would say, I thought. “This is really interesting,” I said. “I never thought about needing to be more introspective, but I’m sure it’s a good idea.” At the same time I was saying this, I was growing anxious to wrap up the fortunetelling and head back to work. I thought about Ricky and Ray in the kitchen, and the lunch rush about to start, although I still hadn’t gotten any information about my father, or really found out much of anything apart from the great, unspecified things that were about to happen. There were still a lot of cards on the table. “What about the future? I’m not trying to rush you or anything.”
“The future looks bright,” she said, turning over a card without looking at it. She had tilted her head and seemed to be listening to something. The card had a picture of a pissed-off wolf.
That was when I heard the sirens.
XVI
The air had turned to water and I fought through it in slo-mo. Before I could make it all the way across Main Street, three fire engines shot into my path, and firefighters jumped out of them like clowns from a clown-car, waving their arms and yelling at everyone to stand back. I tried to shove through the crowd to my restaurant, but three huge guys in yellow uniforms stood in my way, and when I tried to push past them to the front door, one of them blocked me. “Step out of the way, ma’am.” He looked ready to slug me.
“Hey, it’s my building! What’s going on?”
He gave me a pitying look and quit trying to tackle me. “There’s a fire in the back.”
“Where are the people who were inside?”
“Everyone has been evacuated.”
“Thank God.” I let out the breath I had been holding. “How bad is the fire?”
“I don’t have that information.” He turned away and started yelling to another guy in a yellow uniform. I was relieved to hear everyone was out of there, but I was still so filled with panic I couldn’t breathe. As I stood behind the yellow sawhorse barriers the firefighters had put up and scanned the crowd, I didn’t see Pam, Ricky, or Ray anywhere. I wondered where they were. People huddled beyond the barricades, enjoying the drama, and as the firefighters tried to move everyone even further out of the way, I spotted Heidi and my two daytime waitrons behind another sawhorse halfway down the street. I figured maybe Pam, Ricky, and Ray were with them, but I didn’t see them.
Before I even knew what was on my mind, I started to taste fear in the back of my throat. I ducked to the edge of the crowd and began wrestling my way to the front door of my restaurant. Everything looked normal, so I felt reassured for a moment, but then I glanced up and saw flames shooting out of the roof. It wasn’t until much later that I thought about my apartment and all the Native American items I had bought at the fudge store over the past few months. All I could think about was where Pam, Ricky, and Ray were.
I ran up to the firefighter I had talked to before, still blocking the front door and talking on an oversized phone, and tugged on his heavy yellow sleeve. “Are you sure no one is in there?”
“We’ve cleared the dining room.”
“What about the kitchen?”
“We’re investigating the circumference. Stand back, ma’am. You need to get out of the way. The building might come down,” he added matter-of-factly, like he didn’t care if it did. He went back to shouting into his weird phone, and when he wasn’t looking, I strolled casually over near the building next door, moving very slowly so no one would stop me. I could see smoke pouring out of its second-floor windows.
“Where’s Pam?” a voice yelled behind me. I turned around and saw Milo. He looked as scared as I was, and that wasn’t good.
“I don’t know.” I sounded like I was strangling. “They told me everyone’s out of there, but I don’t see her, or Ricky or Ray. The firefighter said the building might collapse.” I choked on that last word.
“What if they’re still in there?”
These were the exact words my brain was starting to scream to me.
While the firefighters were busy investigating the circumference, whatever that meant, we crept along the wall to Falling Water and peered through the front window. A thick shelf of smoke hung across the dining room, but apart from that, it looked the same as ever. All the tables were still set up, their napkins fanned the way Pam had taught all the waitrons, and a few had half-eaten meals on them. The room looked clean and pretty except for the black cloud on top.
I looked around. The firefighters were off to the side, shouting for people to move as they unloaded long ladders and hoses from their big trucks. They didn’t seem to notice us.
“Let’s roll,” Milo hissed, shooting past me and through the front door. I was right behind him. In the few seconds we had been watching, the shelf of smoke had gotten even lower, and as we made a dash for the kitchen, we had to stoop so we could see where we were going. When Milo tried to push open the kitchen door, it stuck like it was bumping into something. He put his shoulder to it and shoved until it opened enough for him to squeeze through. I went in after him, dropping to my hands and knees where there was still some air. The power was out, and the smoke was so thick above me that I couldn’t see anything except fire coming through the back wall, and a streak of light where the back door had burned through. The thick air was like an asthma attack only worse, but I held my breath and crawled toward the back door until I felt something warm under my hand. Someone’s arm. I thrust myself forward and dug my shoulder into their armpit, yanked them onto my back as best I could, then turned and started to crawl in what I hoped was the right direction, dragging whoever it was behind me, since they were much too heavy to lift. As I turned, I thought I felt something else brush past me, maybe a leg. I struggled toward the dim, smoky light of the diamond-shaped window in the kitchen door and on my way, bumped into Milo. The fire was loud, but I could hear him talking to someone in a low, comforting voice and saying everything would be all right. I kept slogging past him, almost paralyzed by the heaviness of whoever I was dragging behind me, till I rolled us both out through the swinging door into the dining room.
Now the shelf of smoke was even lower, but I could still make out the front door. I crawled between tables, struggling with the weight I carried, and was almost there when some firefighters in masks burst in, saw me, and pointed like they couldn’t believe their eyes. One of them rushed forward and scooped whoever it was off my back, then another pulled me to my feet and yanked me out of the building. I could hear crashing sounds behind me as he let go and I fell down hard on the pavement. I was about to black out, but somehow I lifted my head and screamed that there was still someone in there, and some more firefighters took off running. I could hear loud, weird sounds, like some kind of animal, then realized I was making them. Tears were running out of my eyes and I could barely see, but I heard shouting behind me. Some guys in uniforms grabbed my arms and tried to put me in an ambulance, but I screamed at them until they let me go. I saw another ambulance just pulling away as I turned and spotted Milo crouching on the pavement with someone in his arms. They were both covered with soot, but I could tell it was Pam.
I tried to stumble toward them, but more uniformed people pushed me out of the way, grabbed her from Milo, and raced toward another ambulance at the curb. “I’m her sister,” I shouted, and they motioned for me to come along, maybe because I was covered with soot, too, and having trouble breathing. As they rolled Pam onto a stretcher and lifted her into the ambulance, I kept wheezing her name over and over while I climbed in after them and fell onto a long bench against the wall. Milo was right behind me. He was filthy, too, and stank of smoke. They let him kneel next to Pam while they slammed the door behind us and took off. Someone stuck an oxygen mask on my face and that seemed to help, but after a minute I yanked it off and told them I had asthma. A paramedic gave me an inhaler, but my lungs felt like I had breathed fire, and they burned when I put the mask back on. Through the ambulance’s back window I could see Madame Rosa standing next to her blue neon sign, watching us drive away. I tried to look back at my restaurant, but I could only see giant arcs of water with clouds of rainbow mist hanging from them.
“Gun it,” one of the paramedics called to the driver as we drove away. “That whole damn street could go up. All those old buildings, they’re just wood.” The Wild Hare was right across the street from my restaurant, but if Milo heard, he didn’t seem to care. He was on his knees, holding Pam’s hand, brushing singed hair away from her face, and I could hear his low, soothing voice saying, “It’s okay, sweetie, stay with us. Everything will be fine.” Her eyes were closed and she didn’t respond.
