Destined

by Gail Cleare

  “Yes it does,” I said flatly, “Look at that! I am right between them and their home, their family. I’m the only thing standing between them and happiness!”

  Laurie shook her head and pursed her lips thoughtfully.

  “Is that what you really think, Em? Is that what your intuition tells you?”

  “The hell with my intuition, what about the cards?” I demanded, pointing at them.

  “The hell with the cards, what about your intuition?” she said, grinning at me. “That’s what the Tarot is all about, Emily, intuition! I know you’ve got it. Use it!”

  I stopped ranting for a moment to think.

  “I love Tony, Laurie,” I said quietly. “I fell in love with him because of who he is, not because of how he looks, or how many pentacles he has in the bank. He’s the only man I’ve met in a long time who cares about the same things that are important to me.”

  She nodded encouragingly. “And, how about loyalty? Does he care about that?”

  “I thought so,” I said. “Henry told me so. And he’s known Tony for a long time.”

  “Well,” she said, “It seems fairly likely that you are both right about him.”

  “OK,” I said, looking up at the moon and rubbing the top of my head, which was tingling. “I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.”

  She nodded and began to collect her cards.

  “And, turn your cell phone back on, Emily,” she said.

  “OK,” I said, looking for my purse, which was still on the patio. I crawled over to it on my hands and knees and reached inside, finding the phone and hitting the ON button with my thumb. A tone rang out, indicating I had a message waiting. I hit the voicemail button and waited. It was Tony, naturally.

  “Hello, darling Emily! Where are you, I wonder? I was thinking about coming home tonight…but, it’s late, and anyhow I’ll be back tomorrow, with a surprise for you! See you then, about four o’clock I think. Call me when you get this, if you can, I won’t be sleeping.”

  I played it again for Laurie to hear. When the recording finished, she pushed the END button and handed me back my phone.

  “I don’t know, Emily, he sounds like a man in love,” she smiled at me.

  “Yes, but which queen does he really want?” I asked.

  For that was truly the heart of the question, after all. That night, under the full moon in the garden of life, with the most magical person I knew, I sent out a call into the universe. I called myself. I called my future self, I told her to stop, turn around for a moment, to tell me the answer. Just think it at me, I said, and I’ll know.

  I closed my eyes and joined hands with Laurie, feeling her energy surge through me, in one hand and out the other, in a spinning circle. I tried to open some kind of receiver inside my head, but I wasn’t sure where to look for it. Then I remembered the third eye, and focused my awareness on the spot behind the middle of my forehead.

  Immediately I was swept away into a crystal clear vision. Tony was walking down the sidewalk on Market Street with a tall, slender woman with short stylishly cut dark-brown hair. He had his arm casually draped around her neck. They were smiling, laughing. And when I saw her face, it looked familiar to me. She was very pretty, dark and gamine. Actually, she looked a lot like Tony. When they both smiled, it was the same expression, the same features. Like, family members…like brother and sister. I abruptly dropped Laurie’s hands and crashed back into reality.

  “Ohmigosh, it’s his sister from Montreal!” I cried, grabbing my head, which felt like it was about to fly off.

  “It is?”

  “Of course it is! That’s the surprise, he’s bringing her here tomorrow! What an asshole I am!”

  Laurie burst into laughter, and I joined her. It felt great. We lay back on the grass and looked up at the sky for a few minutes.

  “What do you think your customers would say if they looked back here and saw their proprietor lying on the ground staring at the moon?” I asked.

  She stared at the sky and raised her hands, framing the moon in a square between her fingers. “They’d say, what’s she dreaming up for us to eat tomorrow?”

  “What are you dreaming up, Laurie?”

  “Roast pork with apples, and happily-ever-after pie,” she said, making a star of her fingers and squinting.

  “That sounds good, what is it?”

  “Oh, bees’ dreams and hummingbird kisses, babies’ laughter and sweet, sweet love,” she said, rolling over to look at me. “You want a piece of that?”

  “Reserve me a whole pie, please.”

  “You’ve got it, sweetie!” she said, and put out her hand. I clasped it in mine and we shook, sealing the bargain. “I’ll be sure to put your name right on top.”

  “Thanks, Laurie,” I said.

  The next day around lunch time one of the boys who worked for Laurie and John came into the shop with a pastry box in his hands. I took it from him and opened it. Inside was a fresh peach pie with EMILY spelled out in rolled piecrust across the top. I put it on the counter at the back of the store, impressed by the amount of effort she had invested.

  Toward the end of the afternoon, it happened just like I knew it would. I was standing in the doorway looking out into the street, where a little breeze had picked up the fallen leaves and was spinning them around in circles. Mr. Sorrentino was sweeping out in front of his store and I had just been over there chatting with him. I turned to look down the street past the medical building and there they were, Tony and the woman, walking toward me down the sidewalk. I smiled and waved. Tony saw me and he raised his arm from around the woman’s shoulders and waved back, smiling broadly. She smiled too, saying something to him. They crossed Crescent Street and strode up to the bottom of the steps, where I stood waiting. Tony grabbed me and kissed me, twice. Then he introduced us.

  “Emily, here is your surprise from New York! My sister, Marika,” he said.

  “Hello, it’s so good to meet you!” she said in that attractive alto voice.

  She smiled and we shook hands, then she pulled me in for a little kiss on each cheek. She was very charming, warm and friendly. And she did look just like him, in a more delicate, boyish sort of way.

  “I want to thank you for taking such good care of my little brother,” she said, hooking her arm through mine as we all walked up the steps. “He has been transformed into a happy man! He used to be so grumpy.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Oh no, no, no,” Tony protested. “Not me!”

  “But not any more. Oh my, what a wonderful shop!” she said as we came through the doorway, stopping to look around.

  I headed for the coffee bar, where I had laid out some things in preparation.

  “Would you like some tea, or a coffee, espresso?” I asked Marika, who was studying a collection of jade dragons in one of the cases.

  She was very lithe, flexible, and she bent over gracefully to examine the pieces on the bottom shelf.

  “Oh yes, thank you! Espresso sounds great. It’s my low energy time of the day,” she called to me, moving on to the Russian amber display, “Oh, wow! Tony, do you know what this is?”

  “What?” he said, coming over to look.

  She pointed. “It’s amber from the same part of Russia where our grandmother came from. This piece looks a lot like that big amber egg she used to wear around her neck on a chain, remember?”

  He peered into the case. “Yes, I used to hold it when I sat in her lap. I remember.”

  Marika walked toward me across the room, making her way between the tea tables. She smiled and slid onto the bar stool next to where I stood, tall enough to do so easily.

  “What’s this?” she asked, looking down at my EMILY pie, which I had taken out of the box.

  “It’s my magic, happily-ever-after pie,” I said with a smile. “A friend made it for me. Would you like some?”

  “It looks delicious!” she said, “Come and see it, Tony!”

  He walked over and stood b
etween us to look at the pie, putting one arm around each of us.

  “It’s beautiful, just like both of you,” he said.

  Marika and I looked at each other and smiled.

  “But, do I have to cut it myself?” Tony demanded.

  “I’ll do it,” his sister said, “I’m starved, as usual!”

  I looked at her with approval, and passed her the knife. I could tell already that we were going to be great friends, and the three of us would enjoy many good times together. Somehow, I had an intuition about it.

  The Sun

  ENERGY, REVITALIZATION

  Description: A sun with a smiling face shines down on a laughing naked child riding a white horse.

  Meaning: Energy, revitalization. A return of happiness and child-like joy. Contentment, good fortune, safety, family.

  Tony’s sister stayed for dinner, which we cooked together in the kitchen at Henry’s house. The four of us sat down together at the table up in the study. Tree observed our activities from under the reading chair, where he sulked and twitched his tail, unhappy because he had been forced to move from Henry’s lap. The two of them had definitely bonded, and at one point I caught Henry slipping him a morsel of chicken under the table.

  “I don’t feed him scraps, Henry! Do we, Tony?” I scolded.

  “No,” Tony said, “Never!” He leaned over and offered the cat a piece of chicken skin off his plate. Tree sat up politely on his hind legs and snagged it with his outstretched paw. He ran back under the chair to examine his prize in safety.

  “You are incorrigible!” I said sternly, looking at Tony.

  He raised his wine glass and toasted me with a devilish grin.

  “Oh, just wait and see!” Marika warned. “He’s actually much worse than you think. Ever since he was a small child, he’s been the family rebel.”

  “Really?” I said, thinking that the story Henry had told me made him sound like a very responsible, dutiful son, not a rebel.

  “Oh yes, just ask my parents about the time Tony ran off exploring and got lost inside one of the Pyramids, in Egypt! “ she said. “He was four or five, I think. I remember because my mother and I had to wait under an umbrella in the hot sun for hours, while my father and some men searched. When they finally found him, he had fallen asleep. He was totally unconcerned. He said, ‘Mama, what’s for lunch?’” Marika laughed and looked at her brother affectionately.

  Tony shrugged his shoulders and said, “I was hungry!”

  “He was always running off and getting into scrapes,” his sister said, “It was very annoying! My parents were relieved when he finally went away to school, so they could relax.”

  “Weren’t you scared, lost in the dark like that?” I asked Tony.

  “Not really,” he said casually, “I knew Father would find me eventually. He always did! I was looking for the golden sarcophagus. For some reason, I had the idea there was one hidden inside the pyramid somewhere.”

  “Just the first of many treasure hunts to come, eh?” said Henry with a wink.

  “I remember being dazzled by the Egyptian relics at the National Museum in London,” Tony said, “I suppose someone must have told me they’d been found in a pyramid.”

  “Remember when we ran away from the hotel in the middle of the night to find a candy machine?” Marika asked him, and they both chuckled.

  “That was your idea, sister, not mine!”

  “I had a craving for chocolate one night, when we were all staying at Brown’s Hotel in London, and the concierge told me there were vending machines in the Tube station just around the corner,” Marika said. “I was afraid to go by myself, so I made Tony come with me. It was quite an adventure!”

  “I can’t believe the staff would let you leave without calling your parents!” I said, aghast.

  Tony and Marika exchanged a sly glance.

  “Well, they didn’t exactly let us leave,” Marika said. “Tony caused a diversion to distract them, and we ran for it.”

  “I’d been watching American television and was inspired by my heroes, James West and Artemis Gordon,” Tony admitted. “Remember how they used to blow things up all the time?”

  “Oh, no!” I said, laughing. “What did you do, you bad boy?”

  “It was just a small fire, in a trash can in the lobby. There was hardly any smoke at all!” he protested.

  Marika poked her brother and said, “I wonder how much Father had to pay to get you out of trouble that time?”

  “Well, I believe I paid for it too,” he said, “I seem to remember scraping and painting the dock that summer, by myself. And may I remind you, I am not the one with the sweet tooth!”

  “That’s true, you did it all for me, didn’t you, my darling brother?” Marika said. “I only hope that some day, I can repay you!”

  Marika was a commercial photographer. She told us about a recent fashion shoot in a Canadian nature preserve, where the models were posed with a herd of live elk in the background. It sounded very challenging to pull off, but a beautiful visual image to capture. She had put a lot on the line to bring the whole crew out there, with all their equipment, and then hope that nature would cooperate. But she won the gamble, it worked. We congratulated her, and Henry insisted she email him the photos so we could see them. He shuffled over to the desk and back, to get his business card for her.

  After dinner, Tony drove her to the train station. Marika had to be back at work the next day. I went outside with them to say goodbye. They were walking back to Tony’s house, where the Prius was parked. Marika put both her arms around me in a warm hug, and we stood that way for a moment. I kissed her on the cheek and we said “au revoir,” promising to spend time together soon. Tony said he wanted to make a trip up there some weekend, to show me Montreal. Marika said her guest room was waiting for our arrival. They went off together down the sidewalk looking like two peas in a pod, even wearing similar black leather jackets and jeans, with the same walk and the same cute rear ends.

  Henry was exhausted and went right to bed. I did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, checking the fridge, making lists and planning ahead for tomorrow’s cooking. Then I went up to the third floor and took a shower, turning out all the lights and slipping between the clean white sheets. I was awakened an hour or so later when Tony showed up, back from the train station, and began to kiss me. I helped him slide his jacket off, and he discovered with his hands that I was naked.

  “Emily! I’m so glad to see you! My god, “ he said, delighted, “I missed you.” He lowered his head and buried his face in my hair, inhaling deeply.

  “I missed you too,” I said, smiling into the dark.

  “That’s it,” he said quietly into my ear, “I’m just not going to travel any more.”

  “What?” I whispered in amazement.

  “Not unless you want to come with me.”

  “You can’t be serious, you’re a constant traveler!”

  “No, I’m a homing pigeon. And you are my home.”

  “You said that once before.”

  “I meant it.”

  “I know you did,” I said, helping to pull his T-shirt off, over his head. Then we both went to work on his pants. “But, aren’t you afraid you might miss something, if you aren’t out there having adventures?”

  “No, I’m afraid I would miss something if I don’t stay here with you,” he said, getting under the sheet with me. He lay pressed up against me tightly. “I’ve had all the lonely adventures I need, Emily. Now I want what Laurie put in that pie.”

  “Oh, you recognized her recipe, did you?”

  “I know magic when I taste it,” he said, kissing me.

  “Tony?” I interrupted.

  “Yes, yes, I’ll be very quiet, I know. I promise I won’t scream, even if I want to.”

  “OK,” I said, giggling. “And, don’t pound the headboard into the wall.”

  “What kind of an oaf do you think I am?” he asked indignantly.

  “My favorit
e kind,” I said, kissing him, and that shut him up for the rest of the night.

  Henry was off on a research mission, and had accumulated piles of printouts off the Internet regarding alternative energy. He and Tony had both decided to go with solar panels. They said it was an investment in the planet. The big flat roof of the building on Market Street, and the long south-facing roof of Tony’s house, were both suitable for this particular system. They checked out all the options, and made a list of local vendors of various products. The old desk in the study was covered with information.

  The two of them got together and worked on it every day. They discussed, argued, insisted, and then they compromised and drank green tea, having a marvelous time. They each took assignments and vowed to report back the next day with results. They were very well organized, and Gupta complimented them on their energetic manner of attacking the project.

  Gupta had been tutoring Amy at the Rodgers family’s apartment several days a week, after school. The first day she was supposed to appear there, he found her at the door accompanied by a pale woman in her early forties. It was Amy’s elusive mother, recovered from her illness and come to thank him personally for helping her daughter with her studies. When Gupta told me this, his eyes were on fire with excitement.

  He crowed, “Who would have ever believed that she would just walk right into my front door! The object of many months of investigation! I am better than Sherlock Holmes, ha-ha!”

  Gupta was able to discreetly question Amy’s mother, whose name was Wanda. She admitted that the minister at the church had been secretly letting them sleep in the basement room, and told him that she had been ill for several months with a bad cough, sleeping most of the time.

  “It was dark, but dry and safe in there, with little barred windows up near the ceiling. Amy took good care of me,” she had told him, hugging her daughter affectionately. “She brought me medicine and food.”

  Amy had looked embarrassed. “Um, Ma? Don’t you have to be somewhere?” she’d asked, looking pointedly at the door.