‘I just don’t like it,’ I say.
‘What’s not to like?’ Danielle asks. ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’
‘It gives people false hope. That’s dangerous.’
‘A little hope is a good thing.’
I think of Lauren, waiting upstairs, and a conversation I desperately don’t want to have with her. If only you knew, I think. If you knew the damage this could do to her. ‘A little hope can eat away at you,’ I say. ‘Bit by bit. One bite at a time, until there’s nothing left.’
‘Well,’ Danielle says, ‘we’re all big girls. I think we’ll be fine, somehow.’
And that settles it, I guess. I say no more, knowing that it’ll be up to me to bring Lauren’s head out of the clouds later on, but whatever. She’s a grown woman. If she’s signed up to this… well, who am I to judge?
‘Consider us warned,’ Paige says with a smile, ever the peacemaker. ‘I’m going to go and wake Lauren up, OK? See you down here at… say, three?’
I nod. Three it is.
I watch her as she heads up the stairs and out of view, and then turn my sights back to Danielle and Jessica. Over time, the two of them start to nudge themselves back to humanity Before long, they’re laughing and giggling about their exploits last night, piecing together the events of the evening – and all but ignoring me completely. I find that it bothers me less than it perhaps should. I’ve got other things on my mind.
What does bother me is the emptiness of my phone. I don’t have a single missed call, and I haven’t had a single text message since I got here. I frown, but it’s not entirely unexpected. Everyone at work knows I’m on vacation, so at least that explains that one, but being on vacation wouldn’t normally be enough to stop my mother from dropping me a line to see how I was getting on – if nothing else, I would have expected picture after picture of Rocky’s chubby bulldog face, no doubt spoiled to ruin already by her overbearing petsitting technique. When I look at the signal strength in the top corner of my phone, I find the culprit. The hotel is a dead zone.
How does anyone live like this? I think. It’s like being in the dark ages.
It’s a good job that I took the time off work: the office would be pitching a fit if they couldn’t get hold of me. It’s just… I mean, it’s barbaric. How is it possible to be in the middle of a city and still get such shitty cell service? It’s not like I’m out in the swamps or anyth—
And that’s when it hits me, and I can’t help but smile. The lack of signal is the perfect explanation for why I haven’t heard from Carter – the only possible explanation, in fact. We never go this long without talking, no matter how serious the argument might be. Somewhere out there, at some point in the city, I’m sure I have a small treasure trove of voicemails and text messages from him, stuck in digital limbo, waiting to put me at ease. There must be cell service somewhere around here.
Looks like you’re heading out of the hotel after all, I tell myself. Suddenly, the idea of a walking tour of New Orleans doesn’t sound so bad, psychics or no.
~~~
Everyone’s back in the lobby and raring to go by three-thirty. Lauren is the last to join us, and still manages to look a little peaky; the sunglasses she’s wearing don’t seem to be doing anything to help the glare of the hotel lights. Thankfully for her, I’ve got one final bag of chips and a bottle of water ready to go.
‘I should be marrying you,’ she says, prying open the bag and shovelling chips into her mouth.
‘I’m not your type,’ I grin. ‘A little too much woman.’
She shrugs and munches on another chip. ‘I really feel like we could work past it,’ she says as she takes my arm. ‘That’s what a marriage is all about. Compromise.’
‘Oh yeah? Is that why you let yourself get talked into this psychic shit?’
‘That’s Danielle,’ she says. ‘She found a bunch of voodoo shops while she was planning bachelorette activities, wanted to give it a try.’
I roll my eyes. ‘And she thought a fun bonding activity would be to hand over forty bucks each to a con artist?’
‘Yeah, that sounds about right.’ She shrugs again. ‘It’s harmless enough. What’s he going to do, tell me not to marry Drew?’
Maybe if I slip him an extra twenty, I think, but then shake the thought away. I have bigger worries in mind: specifically, just what might happen if Lauren lets herself get her hopes up. It’s almost possible to think that she’s forgotten the news she got less than a year ago. How hard it would be for her to have kids naturally. The way she cried and cried for weeks afterwards. A family was all she ever wanted, growing up, and finding out that it wasn’t going to happen the way she planned…
Well, it crushed her. I don’t want some charlatan dredging all that up again. Especially not if he’s charging her for the privilege.
‘It can be harmless,’ I say, ‘as long as you don’t take it too seriously. Just… don’t get your hopes up, OK?’
‘You mean, when he takes one look at me, sees the blushing bride-to-be and tells me I’m never going to get divorced and I’ll have a kid by this time next year?’ She butts her hip against me. ‘Come on, El. I’m not stupid.’
‘I know you’re not. I never said you were.’
‘But are those really such terrible things to hear two days before your wedding?’
Maybe she has a point. ‘I guess not,’ I say.
‘Then it’s settled. It’s just a bit of fun. But if he sees a string of numbers in my future, I’m definitely playing the lottery with them, no matter how many faces you pull at me.’
‘Fine,’ I say as we round the corner and see the other three standing there, waiting for us. ‘It’s your party.’
‘Damn straight it is,’ she grins, and then turns to the girls. ‘Ready to go?’ she asks.
Danielle nods. ‘One sec,’ she says, staring down at her phone. ‘I’m just trying to find the address.’
‘Are we not just going to let the spirits guide us?’ I ask. Lauren snickers at my side, and even Paige and Jessica give me a little laugh. Danielle rolls her eyes, but still…
Somehow, I think I’ll be able to live with her disapproval.
Chapter Ten
The voodoo shop where Danielle has called ahead and scheduled our readings is only around the corner, but from the look of the outside it exists somewhere around 1910. The wooden sign outside proclaims it to be the CHARLES LEVEAU HOUSE OF VOODOO, EST. 1997 – in gaudy red all-caps on a faded black background – and then underneath it, in smaller letters, ‘All psychic queries considered’.
If I rolled my eyes any harder, I’d be able to see my own asshole.
My doubts aren’t assuaged at all when the famous Charles LeVeau makes his arrival. I don’t know what I’m expecting, exactly – a sort of Dr. Facilier Disney villain? A waxed moustache, cape and top hat? – but it’s not what I get. LeVeau – ‘Call me Chuck’ – is a man in his late fifties with a bald head, a pair of heavy Doc Martens, and a Dead Kennedys t-shirt that’s so faded it may be older than the shop we’re currently standing in. ‘Who’s up first?’ he says, and amidst a flurry of giggles from the other three, Lauren steps up to the plate. He takes her by the hand and leads her to the back room, shutting the door behind the two of them like they’re a couple of horny, awkward teens about to play Seven Minutes in Heaven.
The thought isn’t a pretty one.
While they’re in there – for what seems like forever – I find myself wandering around the store. There’s no waiting room, so anyone who’s stuck waiting to hear Psychic Chuck’s hot takes on what the future holds is forced to mingle in what amounts to a glorified gift shop, filled to the brim with overpriced knickknacks and trinkets all promising a better, brighter tomorrow. Danielle, Jessica and Paige seem fascinated by it all. I try and busy myself on my phone, without much luck. If they want to waste fifty dollars on a chunky crystal necklace that wouldn’t look out of place in a grade school play, that’s on them.
Eventually,
Lauren comes out, grinning from ear to ear.
‘Well?’ I ask, more eagerly than I anticipated. ‘What did he say?’
She leans in close so her voice won’t echo throughout the store, and then whispers, ‘Twins.’ I’m glad to see I’m not the only one rolling my eyes at the preposterousness of it all. I’m even more glad to see that it doesn’t seem to have put her in a bad mood at all. Maybe she really is capable of just shrugging it off.
Who knew, right?
Somehow, we manage to parlay a twenty-minute reading into an hour of discussion and dissection. Every little detail is pored over and analysed, every one of his predictions put through the wringer – for better or for worse. Most of them, thankfully, seem to have been positive: a happy marriage, a happy family, a happy life. She seems happy enough with the outcome. Perhaps a little hope isn’t such a bad thing after all.
One by one, the girls traipse in and come back out with full knowledge of the mysteries of the cosmos, trading details like playground gossip. By the time Danielle comes out, positively gushing with enthusiasm, I’m just about ready to leave; hell, I’m just about ready to throw myself into the Mississippi.
‘Your turn,’ Lauren says, nudging me with her shoulder. ‘Try not to have too much fun in there, OK?’
Change of plan: I’m just about ready to throw Lauren into the Mississippi, wedding or not. No jury would convict.
The psychic is waiting by the doorway for me to come and join him, holding aside a bead curtain that really adds a touch of class to the whole proceeding. A sharp poke in the ribs from Lauren spurs me on, into a small back room that I’m sure used to be a closet before it was kitsched up into a conduit to the other side. Red and purple velvet drapes help to hide the peeling paintwork on the wood beneath, but in the middle of the room there’s the pièce de résistance: a foldout card table on which there rests an old, faded tarot deck.
‘You’re the last one, eh?’ he asks as he sits down across from me.
‘Looks like it.’
He extends a hand for me to shake. ‘I’m Chuck,’ he says. ‘We didn’t get much of a chance to chat out there. Nice to meet you.’
‘Ella,’ I say as I take it. ‘Nice to meet you too.’
He doesn’t let go of my hand. He doesn’t turn it over to read, either; instead, his thumb presses down gently on the soft patch above my wrist, and he closes his eyes. ‘Stubborn,’ he says after a moment or two.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You. You’re stubborn. You like to argue, and you don’t like to be wrong.’
‘Does anyone?’
Chuck the Psychic gives out a soft, small noise of concession, but then dives back in to what feels like a prepared spiel. ‘You might like an argument,’ he says, ‘but you don’t like a real fight. No, Ma’am. Too many emotions involved. Too messy. Not your bag at all.’
There’s something about Chuck that rubs me the wrong way. It’s not the fake bonhomie, although that’s part of it, and it’s not just the fact that his industry is one of con artists. I think it’s the condescension of it all: the implication that I might be dumb enough to fall for his vague pronouncements about my personality. The idea of being taken for some sort of rube tourist is borderline offensive, and it rankles me no matter how many smiles and how much Good Ol’ Country Boy charm comes along with it. ‘Is this what passes for psychic these days?’ I ask.
He grins. ‘Psychic? Oh, no. That’s what we in the industry call a gimme. I’m just trying to get a quick read on you before we get started. Just the real obvious stuff. Feeling out the waters, if you like.’
I don’t. I don’t like at all.
‘What’s your star sign?’ Chuck asks.
‘Virgo.’
He nods quickly, decisively, as though he’s discovered something important. ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘Listmaker?’
‘Pardon?’
‘You make a lot of lists, right? Things you need to do?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘In your head, or on paper?’
‘Head,’ I say. ‘I guess.’
Another nod. ‘Yeah, I thought so.’
Sure you did, buddy, I think. Sure you did.
‘You’re logical,’ he continues. ‘More than anything else. You want to be careful with that, cherie. It’ll get you into trouble one of these days. Always head before heart is no good. You run away from your instincts for so long, it’s not going to be a surprise if all that running leads you somewhere you don’t want to be. But I get the feeling I don’t need to tell you that, eh?’
I choose not to dignify that with a response.
‘A quiet one, eh?’ he says. ‘Well, as you wish. Tell me about the boy. The separation.’
In that instant, I feel a white-hot fury rise up inside me. I don’t buy Chuck’s psychic bullshit for even a second, which means there’s only one explanation: one of them blabbed. One of them shared my secret sorrow with this… charlatan. And for what? So he could do his little illusion and milk me for another forty bucks? So he could twist the knife and make the sceptic squirm a little bit. Well, fuck him. Fuck him, and fuck whichever one of them ratted me out to this con man.
‘Ella?’ he asks.
‘Which one of them told you?’
‘Hmm?’
‘None of them,’ he says quietly. ‘No one said a word.’
‘Oh yeah? Then how did you –’
He points down to my left hand, where my thumb is rubbing a raw patch at the spot where my engagement ring used to be. ‘You’ve been doing that ever since you sat down,’ he says. ‘Call it a hunch. I’m guessing it ended recently?’
I nod. It’s just about all I can muster.
‘And not well?’
Another nod.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘I got good news, whether you want to hear it or not. Your love life ain’t over, not by a long shot. Whatever happened between the two of you, it’s a good thing – for both of you. It gives you some perspective. Means you can build to a stronger relationship. A happier relationship.’ He pauses. ‘I’m seeing a wedding.’
‘That’s why we’re down here.’ There’s no way one of the others didn’t mention that.
He shakes his head. ‘No, not your buddy’s. Different. Later. Two years from now. Maybe a little less.’ He pauses. ‘Yours.’
‘Whatever you say, pal,’ I reply. I wonder if he hears the slight crack in my voice as I do.
It’s stupid, I know. After the speech I gave the rest of them about how dangerous hope is, it would be ridiculous of me to attach any sort of meaning to his words. By rights, I should draw a line in the sand, stand up and walk right out of here – but there’s something in the way he says two years that pulls me in. That was just about when Carter and I had planned to get married; hell, we were about to start putting deposits down on places as soon as we got back. That was the plan. It was always the plan. Could he… I mean, is it even possible that he knew that? That he’d got some sort of message from the other side?
Of course it isn’t. It’s just a coincidence, I think – and then, a good deal less charitably, Horseshit.
‘So what’s your boy’s sign?’ he asks.
‘Aries,’ I say.
For the first time since I walked in, Chuck the Psychic looks perturbed. ‘You sure about that?’ he asks. ‘Not a Pisces cusp, is he?’
I shake my head, and chalk that up as a win for me against the forces of the spirit world. ‘April 6th,’ I say. ‘Aries through and through.’
Chuck frowns deeply. ‘I’m seeing a Pisces,’ he says, ‘but whatever you say. I guess you know best, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Well, I hope you’re comfortable here, anyway. You ain’t leaving for a while. Not so quick, anyroad. You taking some time down here after the wedding?’
‘Hadn’t planned on it.’
‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘Well, I think your plans might change. Your boy might have a thing or two to say about that.’
No chance, I th
ink. Even if Carter did get in touch with me again – which is looking less and less likely by the hour – there’s no way he’d want to come down here, nor would I want him to. After the wedding, I’m on the first flight back to Chicago, so I can sort what’s left of my life out. Spending more time than I have to in the land of swamps and psychic knickknacks sounds like my idea of hell.
He lets go of my hand suddenly, surprising me; if I’m honest, I’d almost forgotten that he was still holding it. In its place, he picks up a tarot deck, splitting it in half and bridging it back together like a Vegas magician before holding them out to me. ‘Give ‘em a shuffle,’ he says. ‘Hand them back when you feel it’s right. No hurry.’
I hold half of the deck in my left hand and shimmy them over to my right a few times, without much of the solemnity that Chuck the Psychic seems to think the occasion calls for. It’s hard to believe that my view into time immaterial depends on what feels like a beginner’s card trick. Pick a future, any future, I think to myself as I get bored and slide the deck onto the table.
‘Split them,’ he orders, and I do. ‘Now pick a stack.’ I tap the one closest to me and he puts it on top of the other before turning over ten cards, placing them onto the table in what looks like either a highly specific order, or a very poorly-dealt hand of gin rummy.
He points to the first card, sitting below another crossed over it. ‘This is you as you are now,’ he says.
‘Seriously?’ I lower my eyes at him. The card is the Fool.
He grins. ‘Relax,’ he says. ‘They ain’t saying you’re stupid. Just… at a crossroads.’ He doesn’t mention who ‘they’ are, and I don’t ask. ‘It’s a sign of new beginnings. You’re finding yourself in a place you’ve never been before – and I don’t just mean New Orleans.’ He taps the card crossed over the top of it. ‘This one… now, this one’s your conflict.’ On it sits a woman with flowing robes and long blonde hair, resting idly above the words HIGH PRIESTESS. ‘See? The cards agree with me. You ain’t trusting your intuition as much as you should. Everything’s up in the air for you at the moment. You’re a woman without a plan. You don’t know where to start to pick up the pieces.’
Smooth: A New Love Romance Novel (Bad Boy Musicians) Page 5
