by Gail Cleare
I decided to take his sage advice, and to leave the matter in his hands for now.
The Wheel of Fortune
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF FATE
Description: A clock-like wheel is adorned with symbols of the Universe. At the four corners are the fixed signs of the Zodiac: the bull (Taurus), the lion (Leo), the scorpion (Scorpio) and the man or angel (Aquarius).
Meaning: The ups and downs of fate. Destiny, fortune, luck. A risky situation. Unexpected occurrences, synchronicity, things falling into place.
The next morning I took the early bus, arrived at work around eight o’clock, and headed straight for the kitchen. Normally, I found signs of my employer’s earlier presence in the room. He favored several cups of Dark French coffee in the mornings, ground his own beans, and drank it black and bitter. He was not an early morning breakfast eater. Usually he waited until the first batch of scones came out of the oven.
Today, something was different. A recently used cereal bowl was in the sink, with a spoon. I opened the fridge. Six new containers of low fat yoghurt occupied one of the shelves. I poured a cup of coffee for myself, thoughtfully, and took a sip. That was the clincher. It was a light or medium roast, maybe Moca Java. Somebody I did not know was here, probably having arrived last night, and they had brought their own food.
This could have meant any number of things, except for the final clue, which I spotted when I looked out the window into the alley. Parked next to the back porch was a brand new shiny silver Toyota Prius.
Suppressing an involuntary pang of regret for the Mercedes, I focused on the fact that Tony Novak was here, now, in this very building. At this actual present moment! It had to be his car. I ran into the little bathroom under the stairs and put lipstick on, brushed my hair, breathed deeply, and went back to the kitchen in a more grounded state of mind. I emptied the dishwasher and put the cereal bowl and spoon into it, smiling and thinking, what luck that Siri’s matchmaking had worked out the way it did, or I might have ended up with Jim last night! Wow. That would have complicated things immensely. All from a lack of patience on my part. I vowed to maintain a cooler, calmer attitude from now on.
I had put two cookie sheets of scones into the oven and was well into assembling a double batch of dark chocolate brownies when I heard their voices coming down the back stairs. My pulse accelerated at the sound.
“I can tell by that delectable odor that she is here, she is at work, and we are soon to be rewarded with a taste of Heaven,” came Henry’s voice from the back hallway.
Tony laughed and said, “Aha!” in an approving tone.
They sounded a bit giddy. I wondered if they had been up late last night talking. The two men entered the kitchen. Mr. Paradis looked frowsy and uncombed, and still wore his brown plaid flannel bathrobe and slippers. Tony had obviously showered and shaved, and was dressed simply in jeans and a clean white T-shirt. I couldn’t help noticing that it clung to his body and showed off his nicely muscled chest and arms. His straight dark hair had grown since I last saw him, and it was still wet. He was barefoot and looked relaxed and at home. He smiled as soon as he saw me, his eyes smiling too.
“Hello Emily,” he said quietly, intimately. “Good morning to you.”
“More coffee?” Henry asked, bustling over to the counter. “Good morning, Emily! Look what the cat dragged in last night, at two in the morning!”
“How are you, Tony?” I asked, trying to seem casual. “It’s good to see you!”
The timer went off and I opened the oven door, mitt in hand, to pull out the scones. I suddenly realized I was showing him a perfect view of my backside, which has received compliments in the past, but might be sending a slightly inappropriate message at the moment. I felt a momentary pang of embarrassment. My cheeks tingled as I flushed.
“I’m very well, thank you,” he replied politely, in a distracted tone.
I turned around and saw that he was actually looking out the window, peering at something in the alley. So was Mr. Paradis. They gazed as they spoke, both standing with their hands on their hips.
“What is that…person…doing with the hose, Henry?”
“She’s just rinsing out the recyclables, don’t worry.”
“A new service provided by the city?”
“Our little protégé, a child of the streets. Emily feeds her.”
“She’d better not splash my new car.”
“She won’t. She’ll be in here in a jiffy, anyhow. Wants her breakfast.”
“I see,” Tony said, turning back to smile at me again. “So now you’re adopting waifs, Emily?”
“I found her eating garbage in the alley,” I said, transferring the hot scones off the cookie sheets onto a cooling rack. “She has a sick mother somewhere nearby, she says. She won’t tell me where they live.”
“You know, most people wouldn’t do anything about it,” Tony said reflectively. “It’s admirable that you have taken the time to help.”
“Yes, yes, Emily takes care of us all, don’t you know?” said my employer fondly.
The two men settled into chairs at the kitchen table. They drank coffee and talked while they watched me work. I finished mixing the brownies and put them in the oven, then I took four warm scones off the rack and served them on a platter, placing it in the middle of the table. I added a crock of butter and two knives, with two small plates and a couple of napkins.
Mr. Paradis jumped up to rummage in a cupboard, coming back to the table with a jar of raspberry preserves. His guest grunted an affirmation, his mouth already full. They dug in, and I helped myself as well. Tony and I regarded each other somewhat warily as we chewed, as though many unspoken questions stood between us. There was a knock at the back door.
“I’ll let her in,” I said, and went to open it.
Today Amy was dressed fairly conservatively, for Amy. She wore baggy green camouflage-print pants, hacked off below the knee, with black ankle socks and black sneakers, and a ripped black T-shirt. Her ragged hair was black with Crayola red stripes, and her fingernails matched. She held a plastic shopping bag containing several cans and bottles.
“Returnables. You want ‘em?” she said, knowing the answer but scrupulously honest, as always. The girl had values, regardless of her circumstances. She rinsed the recyclables every day and emptied all the trash for me. I never asked or reminded her, not once.
“No thanks, can you get rid of them for us?”
“Sure,” she said, strolling into the kitchen. When she saw Tony, she stopped in her tracks and stared at him suspiciously.
“Mr. Paradis has a guest today Amy,” I said, coming back into the room behind her. Tony smiled and nodded at the girl in a friendly way, his mouth still full of scone and raspberry jelly.
“A house guest, actually,” Henry confirmed. “Tony will be staying with me for a while, in the rooms upstairs.”
This was news to me, and Amy and I exchanged doubtful looks.
“Upstairs?” I asked, not understanding.
“On the third floor. I suppose I never took you up there? Don’t use it much.”
He had not. For some reason, I had assumed the third floor was an attic. I wasn’t really sure how to get up there. I had never snooped further than my employer’s study and the book room, not wanting to intrude on his domain.
“It’s really a little apartment,” Tony said. “Henry and Margaret used to rent it out sometimes.”
Amy lingered in the doorway, obviously uncomfortable about entering with a newcomer in the kitchen. I noticed her looking at the fresh-baked scones and wrapped one in a paper towel, handing it to her. She silently mouthed the word “Later!” and backed out of the room, closing the back door carefully with a quiet click.
“So. Now you’re back, and you’re, like, moving in here?” I asked, trying to wrap my brain around the idea. Tony seemed quite happy with my perturbation. Just then the telephone on the countertop began to ring and Mr. Paradis got up to answer it, turning his back toward us.<
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“Henry offered to let me stay here while I look for a new place,” Tony said, sipping his coffee and waggling his bare feet.
“You’re getting a new place?”
“Yes,” he said, “That’s why it took me so long.”
“Took you so long for what?”
“Why it took me so long to get back from England,” he said. “I had to deal with the agents, and sign a lot of papers, supervise the packing, and all that.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded impatiently.
He looked abashed, and spoke in a placating tone, “Don’t be short, now, Emily, after all, I am homeless! You should be more simpatico! I have nowhere to go!”
“You are not homeless!” I said.
“I am,” he protested. He shrugged his shoulders. “I sold my house. I literally have no home, currently.”
“You sold your house in England?”
“Yes. Last week. The house in London and the Mercedes, all at once. It is almost too much to bear,” he said in mock distress, one hand to his chest.
I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea he was on the verge of such a major change.
“What made you decide to do this?” I asked.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he said, seriously. “I actually put the house on the market last year. It didn’t sell, so I took it off again. Then a couple of weeks ago I heard from a friend who is a real estate agent. Her client was looking for a Georgian townhouse just like mine. They made me a good offer. I decided it was the right time.”
“So you just, sold it,” I said, amazed, thinking that most people agonize over major decisions of this type. “Just like that.”
“Yes, Emily, just like that,” he confirmed. He looked me straight in the eye, and for a moment I felt we were together in a long dark tunnel, just the two of us, with the rest of the world closed off and far away.
“I can live anywhere I like, you know,” he said, rising to walk toward me.
“Yes, I know,” I said, taking a step backwards.
“It was lucky she called when she did. I tell you, I was sitting there wishing I could just get rid of all my old baggage and start over again, and the phone rang. It was synchronicity. It was meant to be.”
There was a tiny white patch of shaving cream on the jaw line just below his left ear. I absentmindedly reached out with my dish towel and wiped it off. He took another step toward me. We stared at one another.
My employer hung up the telephone with a melodious “Farewell!” and turned back to face us where we stood silently in the middle of the room.
“All right now, children,” he said, breaking the spell and taking Tony by the arm to steer him toward the back hallway. “It’s time to get to work. You mustn’t distract Emily from the paying customers, Tony, it’s bad for business!”
“Oh now, Henry, I would never do that!” Tony exclaimed with a quick backward look in my direction. The men started up the back stairs and I heard Tony say, “I’ve brought some interesting things to show you, my friend. Somewhere in my luggage…” Their voices faded as they continued up the stairs and were gone.
I danced silently around the empty kitchen for a minute or two, shaking off the nervous energy. I couldn’t stop grinning. I saw a long beautiful flash of something wonderful and magical coming into my life, at last. It was like looking into a telescoping tunnel into the future, a glimpse of happiness and love. It wasn’t my imagination or wishful thinking this time, it something that really could happen. I could tell the difference, now. I was late opening the store, but nobody was waiting so it didn’t really matter. At least I didn’t burn the brownies. And that was a minor miracle, considering my distracted state of mind.
When Siri came to work that day she had a message for me from her father, Gupta. It seemed the “Market Street Irregulars,” as the old man called the teenagers he had rallied to watch the neighborhood, had come up with some information. A girl who met Amy’s description had been seen doing laundry and Rashid had struck up a conversation with her, confirming her first name. One of the other boys had tried to follow her when she left, but had lost her somehow. She had disappeared again, for the moment. But Gupta felt he was “closing in on her,” as Siri put it.
“My father is really enjoying this Sherlock Holmes fantasy, you know,” she laughed. “He is the perfect armchair detective!”
“Well, he is having success where nobody did before,” I said.
“Yes, but it’s too bad the boys lost her again. Bad luck,” Siri said regretfully.
“Well, maybe she’s not ready to be found. Maybe it’s not the right time,” I replied.
So much has to do with luck. Luck and timing. Or is it really luck? If we influence reality simply by being observers of it, as the science of quantum physics says, by simply thinking about it, then is there such a thing as luck? Perhaps we actually make our own destinies in a much more pro-active way than merely by being the passive recipients of luck. What if we actually create destiny, not just from our life choices and the way one thing leads to another, but what if we dream our destinies? As in, “dream them up.” Conjure them. Perhaps not with deliberate intention, but certainly with desire, wishes and thoughts. Thoughts can build a bridge to the future of one’s choice. That has nothing to do with luck, and everything to do with the power of the human mind.
This might be where the timing comes in. When the dreamer creates his or her destiny, it’s by imagining the future. This action automatically defines a path towards that future, which is like a line of dominos standing on end. The path to the dreamed future is a circuitous route, and may take many forks or turns along the way. The dominos are events, people, ideas, etc., the basic components of everyday life. When a domino on the path falls, it needs to hit the next one in the sequence. You can’t jump over one or two and move on. You may feel impatient and want to, but there are probably lessons to be learned, events to occur, or people you need to meet, before you get to the step you yearn for. It’s just not the right time, yet.
Had I conjured up the ad in the paper that led me to this job? I had certainly dreamed of something similar coming along. Had Tony Novak conjured up the buyer who suddenly appeared to purchase his house, just when he was wishing he could get rid of it? He seemed very sure that the timing was not merely fortuitous.
Was it just “bad luck” that Amy had disappeared before the boys could find out where she was going? Or did she have such a solid willpower investment in remaining hidden that nobody could possibly break through? If so, when she decided to let down her guard and accept help, we would find her. Maybe Amy had conjured me up. Maybe her self-created destiny was to find a safe haven about now, a place for her to go and seek nourishment emotionally and physically, to make her stronger for the tasks she had set for herself.
Luck, or destiny. Either way, sometimes the tide of life seems to be with us, and sometimes we have to fight against it to get where we want to go. I decided to stop worrying and float along with the current for now, to see where it would take us.
Justice
THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR ACTIONS
Description: The lady Justice holds the scales held in one hand, a double-edged sword in the other. She deals out inescapable consequences.
Meaning: For everything we do, there is eventually a reaction. Whether bad or good, it is what we earned and what we ourselves set in motion.
Alexandra Gladstone was a summa cum laude graduate of Smith College, an art history major. She was smart as a whip, blonde and beautiful. Her parents lived in a mansion in Westport, Connecticut, and they summered on Nantucket Island. Every winter she went skiing in Colorado or Switzerland, and early every spring she went to the latest fashionable Caribbean island where handsome guys wearing skimpy swimsuits deliver drinks in coconuts on the beach. I could have easily lived on what Lexi spent on cosmetics and bath products. We participated in two totally different realities.
After college, Lexi’s Mummy and
Daddy got a job for her at a chic New York City art gallery, where she rose rapidly through the ranks to become the manager. Lexi credited two things for her speedy success. One, she was absolutely ruthless about business and brooked no dissent from her underlings. Two, Mummy and Daddy had a lot of rich friends who bought expensive original art from her for their vacation homes in Boca Raton, Aspen or Tuscany, and for their primary residences in Washington, Boston or Manhattan.
Mummy and Daddy’s friends lunched with Lexi and listened to her talk about the artists she represented and how brilliant they were. She spoke very well, and knew an impressive array of art history trivia that seasoned her conversation like fresh-ground pepper. She looked perfect, always. The women thought Lexi was darling, and the men thought she was extremely hot. She convinced them that art was a marvelous financial investment and said they would be considered trendsetters by all of their friends. She hinted that their homes might be featured in a magazine like Architectural Digest, or even, on a television show like the ones on the H&G Network.
Some of her customers brought their interior designers to the lunches. Lexi didn’t like that much, because she wasn’t good at sharing control of a client. But then she learned to manipulate the designers, too. They were even more vulnerable, in a way. She discovered that they wanted something from her. They considered her a valuable contact. They wanted her client list. And she wanted theirs, so that worked out nicely.
They all had lunch and champagne together at the most popular new restaurants in Manhattan, toasting each other in celebration of their perspicacity and wonderfulness. Afterwards everyone would get into a couple of cabs and go over to the art gallery.
This is when Lexi moved in for the big close. She walked her clients around with their espresso or brandy, looking and talking, and let them pick out a few pieces that went with the décor under consideration. Then Lexi snapped her fingers and gave a few short commands to the staff. They scurried to quickly pull out a few more pieces from the back room. These were generally similar to the client’s original choices, but at least twice as expensive. She was very good at matching people with pictures, and the clients nearly always loved her suggestions. Rarely did any of them leave without purchasing at least five works of art. Many of them returned for more, bringing along their friends. Lexi’s network of art buyers grew geometrically, like algae in a pond.
