In the Stars

by Stacia Deutsch

  “Your journey began on one line, but you will not find completion until you have moved to the other.” Madame Jakarta then announces, “It is time for your quest to commence.”

  The scent of the candle is making me light-headed and I want to get out of there as soon as humanly possible. “What does any of this have to do with Adam and the prom?” I ask, feeling totally exasperated.

  “Everything,” Madame Jakarta says. “Or perhaps nothing.”

  I’ve had enough psychic-speak. I have no idea what she’s saying and I really don’t care. It’s nearly eight o’clock and my evening schedule’s toast. The guys have been in the tea house so long I imagine they’ve floated down a chamomile river. I want to get out of there and salvage what little time I have left with Adam before nine o’clock. Plus, I still need to get next door to Wanda’s to snag my sewing machine.

  If Madame Jakarta isn’t going to at least humor Cherise by answering her question and making up a date that Adam will ask me to the dance, then I don’t want to stay any longer. What a waste of ten bucks! With escape firmly in mind, I pull super hard and finally manage to take back both my hands.

  I pick myself up off the pillow and head toward the door. I don’t turn around to see if Cherise is behind me. The clumping of her boots confirms that she’s following.

  “Sylvie.” Madame Jakarta’s sharp tone stops me in my tracks. “If you are honest with yourself, you will forget the question and respond to the quest.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever that means. I get the message. Enough’s enough. I’m done. I shove open the door and breathe in the cool, fresh air.

  “And Cherise,” Madame Jakarta says right before we’ve escaped, “it would serve you well to rethink your predictions.”

  Cherise nods as if she’s seriously considering Madame Jakarta’s admonition.

  And finally, thankfully, blessedly, we’re back out on Twelfth Avenue, free from Madame Jakarta’s Psychic Shop.

  Whew.

  Fourteen

  Are you willing to let everyone know about your romance? The stars say yes … what do you say?

  www.astrology4stars.com

  I’ve given up and decided to desert the formality of a schedule, for a more free-flowing attitude. Just a wee bit more free-flowing, mind you. I can’t handle much more than that.

  My decision has nothing to do with the fact that Madame Jakarta told me to give up my schedule. Nothing at all. I swear it on my telescope. No matter how good my intentions, the schedule wasn’t working.

  When Cherise arrives at my apartment at 6:37 a.m. Friday morning, I immediately reconciled myself to the fact that yet another day was not going to go according to plan, so I simply gave up. As I now review the past week, I’m convinced the schedule really had no chance to work. It was a bad idea from the beginning.

  I’m going to have to find another way to make sure I can still date Adam and keep up my grades. Rumor is the scholarship approval board is meeting next week—I read about it in a Yale chat room.

  I’m eating waffles, silently staring at Jennifer and Tanisha’s Elizabethan gown drawing, trying to decipher their notes on how the undergarment is to be sewn, when there’s a knock on the door. Skipping inside the instant I open the door, Cherise drops her book bag in the foyer and fixes herself a bowl of our most nutritious cereal, Rice Krispies.

  “Do you have any soy milk?” she asks as she rifles through our silverware drawer for a spoon.

  “No,” I tell her.

  “Organic milk?”

  “No!”

  She grumbles for about three seconds about the hormones in regular cow’s milk, then decides to eat her cereal with vitamin-enriched orange juice instead. Gross. Cherise carries her bowl to the table and grabs herself a chair next to my father. It’s early, but he’s already dressed for work and he’s wearing one of my favorite ties, with gold and blue specks. Hair combed and glasses pushed up, he looks like the serious businessman that he is, as he sits reading the newspaper.

  “Madame Jakarta is a quack,” Cherise tells me between cereal bites. I look over at my father. I assume that since he frequents Wanda’s shop, he knows about Madame Jakarta, by name if not reputation. He’s immersed in the business section of the Cincinnati Enquirer. I wonder if he’s listening to us or not.

  Apparently not, because he keeps his nose buried in his newspaper when Cherise says, “I finally checked the Mercury chart last night. Then I compared it to your astrological charts.” Cherise takes another bite of her Krispies, chews, and swallows. “There is no way Madame Jakarta is right. About anything.”

  I’d agree if I could even remember one single thing she said. I effectively washed away her words when I washed my hands after getting home. With antibacterial soap. “What exactly did Madame Jakarta say that she might have been right about?” I ask, wracking my brain for one morsel of last night’s reading that might have had lasting relevance. “As far as I can recall, she said nothing interesting.”

  “She said that Adam wasn’t your true love.” Cherise polishes off her cereal, then tips the bowl to drink the remaining orange juice.

  “She did?” I’m confused. “You’d think if she said something like that, I’d remember it.”

  “It was implied.” Cherise is looking at me like I am a complete dope. “Weren’t you listening?”

  “I suppose not—and stop looking at me that way,” I tell her. “I was too obsessed with the fact that she was breathing on my palms to have heard much of anything.”

  “Well.” Cherise changes her expression. “That’s what she said. And she’s completely wrong. I’ve reviewed all my predictions and everything is still on track. Adam’s definitely going to ask you to the prom and eventually, you’re going to fall in love. I’ve no doubt that he’s your diamond guy!”

  “That’s good news,” I tell her, but don’t mean it. While it’s true that I’m seriously considering falling in love with Adam, I don’t want it to be because we are still on some fated interplanetary path to happiness.

  At the mention of my love life, I glanced at my father to gauge his reaction. Nothing. He doesn’t even turn the newspaper page. For all I can tell, he’s still reading.

  Maybe Cherise and I should be having this conversation in another room.

  Cherise barrels on before I can make the suggestion to move. “For the next few weeks, Mercury is going to be retrograde. That, combined with Neptune’s moon path, confirms that Adam will ask you to the dance while you are at Gavin’s party.” She pauses. “Or maybe at the swim meet. This isn’t an exact science, you know.”

  Really.

  “What part about Mercury going retro means that he’ll ask me?” I ask. Thing is, as much as I want to keep calling her predictions baloney, I’m willing to admit that I’m disappointed when they don’t come true. When Adam asked me to the party instead of the dance, it warped the entire date. I don’t want to be set up for another letdown.

  “Retrograde, not retro,” Cherise corrects me. “Retrograde means that the planet moves backward through the zodiac.”

  “Planets don’t go backward,” I tell her.

  “Of course they don’t!” She laughs. “Because of a shadow, they just sometimes look like they do.” Silly me. I should have known. “When Mercury is retrograde some people make commitments they later regret.” She warns me to be on the lookout for those sort of issues, then says, “But in your case, when the shadow falls over Mercury, what has been set in motion will come to be. Tomorrow’s your night,” she concludes.

  “Great,” I say, tapping down any feelings of anticipation I might have. I don’t tell Cherise about how, at astronomy club, Adam had informed me that one of Neptune’s moons was going to be high in the sky that night. I don’t want her to get more excited. This is astrology, after all. The realist in me needs to keep her feet on the ground. There’s still the chance—a big chance—that Adam won’t ask me on Saturday night. Or ever.

  “What if he doesn’t ask?” With th
e dance two-and-a-half weeks away, I’m willing to give Cherise one more chance, but deal or no deal, at this point, I want a prom date and am going to take matters in my own hands soon.

  Cherise gets up from the table, carries her bowl to the sink, rinses it, and puts it in the dishwasher before answering. “If he doesn’t ask,” she says as though there is no way he won’t, “we’ll take the universal risk.” She points one finger at me. “You can ask him to the prom yourself on Sunday.”

  “Sunday,” I confirm, relieved that this insanity is nearly over. One more day and I can ask Adam to the prom with Cherise’s blessing. After that, if we do happen to fall in love, it’ll be all about us and not because Saturn sits on Capricorn, or something like that.

  For the first time in days, a decision about my love life has been made that I’m completely comfortable with. Cherise and I have a plan to get me to the dance. I like plans nearly as much as I like schedules.

  Cherise goes downstairs to wait for me while I brush my teeth. I come back into the kitchen area where my father has put down his paper and removed his glasses.

  “So,” he says. “You’re going to ask Adam to the prom.” He was listening after all!

  “Uh, yeah,” I reply.

  He doesn’t say another word.

  And neither do I.

  Saturday morning. This afternoon, I’ll be working at the tux shop up until my big second date with Adam but until then, I’ve got seven free hours to work on Jennifer’s and Tanisha’s costume designs. Ever since I woke up, I’ve been itching to get started. Before I even got out of bed I’ve been thinking about a way to alter the Elizabethan gown slightly to insure that Tanisha doesn’t get her dancing shoes caught in the 100 percent organic cotton.

  I’ve already finished my morning chores and reviewed my psych notes for Monday’s quiz. Getting the must-do’s out of the way was key. I can now focus on the wanna-dos: I wanna sew. I like the feel of the fabric slipping through my fingers. I love the vibration of the foot petal. The costume material has a clean and freshly ironed smell, which sticks with me long after I’ve walked away from the dresses. Creating something beautiful is truly fulfilling. Sewing these costumes reminds me of when I made that wedding dress. I’m happy. Really happy.

  I look at my watch again, Jennifer and Tanisha should be here by now. They promised to come help and I, in turn, promised not to start without them. I’ll wait for a little while.

  Tick tock. Twenty minutes later, the Fashionistas still haven’t arrived. Figuring their grace period is over, I decide to start without them. I sit down at my sewing machine and slide two carefully cut pieces of off-white cotton batiste under the needle. My bare foot is hovering over the foot pedal when …

  The doorbell rings.

  My father’s already gone for the day. Saturdays are insane at the shop since most weddings and events take place on Saturday. You’d be surprised how many guys forget to rent their tuxes before an event and scramble for an open tux shop that can alter on the spot. My father’s built a reputation for taking last-minute clients that no one else can help. Mornings aren’t so bad, Dad can handle things alone, but by this afternoon, the shop will be a zoo. That’s when I’ll pitch in.

  The doorbell buzzes a second time. I know the fabric isn’t going anywhere, but the idea I had for the undergarment is stuck in my head and I want to complete the basting without breaking my concentration. It feels a bit like having to turn off a favorite TV show when the guests arrive for dinner.

  One last look at the two batiste pieces to remind myself what I was planning and I hurry to the front door.

  Jennifer and Tanisha are standing in the hallway, with Cherise.

  “We brought an extra pair of hands,” Jennifer tells me, her blond hair slicked back with a headband. She’s wearing a sweatsuit. The low-rise boot-cut bottoms have swirls of rhinestones down the legs and the brand name printed across the butt. The jacket has a zipper with a cut crystal pull. It’s a sweatsuit, but definitely not designed for sweating.

  “We brought snacks.” Tanisha explains how they ran into Cherise at the donut shop around the corner. Tanisha shoves a white paper bag in my hand.

  I love donuts. They are the perfect food. Sugar and grease—what’s not to love? Being tall and thin, I’ve never counted calories, but if I did, I’d give up everything else before I stopped eating donuts.

  Tanisha’s black curls stand in stark contrast to the white T-shirt she is wearing with jeans. Unlike Jennifer, Tanisha doesn’t need a designer name across her butt. Her whole being shouts, “I’m a goddess,” even when she’s super casual.

  “When we told her we were coming here, Cherise offered to help for a while,” Tanisha explains.

  Yikes. I just know Cherise will immediately confiscate the spool of metallic thread I brought home from the tux shop. It’s synthetic and comes from—gasp—the Amnesty International–offending country of Bangladesh. Problem is, I need that thread to attach the nymph’s wings to Jennifer’s gown.

  I suppose I can work around the wings until Cherise leaves. I’d rather not chase away the assistance simply because I have contraband thread.

  I welcome them all in and shut the apartment door. Then, I scoot ahead of the pack. I need to get to my room first so I can hide the thread. Sweeping into my room, I snag the small spool off the side table of my sewing machine and quickly stuff it into my jeans pocket.

  I turn to the stacks of neatly folded fabric and paper patterns that are spread out on my table. And bed. And floor. I organized everything we would need to do today into three distinct piles. Within each stack, fabrics, threads, and patterns are sorted by design and color. I explain the system to my apprentices.

  When I first agreed to sew the costumes (or Cherise agreed for me), Jennifer and Tanisha provided me with size-appropriate paper patterns for each of their designs. After I made a pattern for my own dress, I cut the material for all three. The patterns are still pinned to the individual fabric pieces.

  Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve managed to nearly finish Jennifer’s wood nymph. I left some parts loosely sewed with large stitches so that after she tries it on, I can make the necessary adjustments.

  Tanisha’s costume is less complete. I explain to Tanisha the change I wanted to make: a hidden slit in the undergarment skirt, so she doesn’t trip over herself while dancing. “Awesome!” She beams at me for my quick thinking and seamstress know-how. The praise feels good. For the first time since Cherise announced that Mars entered Gemini, I am content.

  Like a queen bee, I set everyone to task. Jennifer’s slipping into her costume. Tanisha’s laying out the pieces of her gown and matching threads for each fabric. And Cherise’s getting a start on my Cinderella costume. Not having a date to the dance, I have put that costume on the back burner. I cut the fabric but haven’t done anything else. Cherise’s going to pin the material for stitching.

  With donuts to fuel us, and music from Jennifer’s MP3 player filling the air, we are off and running. Even without a schedule, or perhaps because I ditched the schedule, it’s shaping up to be a terrific day.

  Fifteen

  Now is the time to zero in on what you want.

  Stay focused.

  www.astrology4stars.com

  I went to work ready for the swim meet and my second official date with Adam. I was overdressed at work and feel totally overdressed for the swim meet, as well. While we were working on the costumes, Jennifer and Tanisha decided that I needed a makeover. Jennifer took a break to rush home and get me some of her clothes. Tanisha did my hair and then they worked together on my makeup.

  Cherise was thrilled. She said that the borrowed clothing would help me feel sexy, which would make me even more open to falling in love. She was so determined that I dress up tonight that she didn’t even check the clothing labels for manufacturing information; instead just told me to put them on. Of course, she did insist that they use her organic, non-animal tested, botanical makeup for my sexy look.


  So here I am, wearing a shorter-than-ever dark skirt, black opaque tights, and a maroon camisole covered with sparkly beads. I have a denim jacket with black and maroon appliquéd flowers to “pull the outfit together.”

  Standing in the latest peep-toe heels poolside seems absurd. I’m completely obsessed with the possibility that I might tip over and end up in the pool. I don’t quite get why every other girl doesn’t seem as worried as I am. They’re all dressed like me. I fit right in.

  And yet, I don’t. At every turn, I’m reminded that this is Adam’s turf, not mine. The kids I normally see at school aren’t here, with the exception of Jennifer and Tanisha. They are nice to me as ever, but they also have their own social group to attend to. I’m spending a great deal of time alone.

  To compensate for my discomfort, I focus on the swimming.

  Adam’s such a great swimmer and the sight of him in that little, bitty swimsuit, well, if this were the 1800s, I’d have fainted dead away. They’d have needed smelling salts to revive me. I’ve felt his muscles beneath his shirt, but imagination pales to the real thing.

  Easily winning his four races, Adam helps bring our school’s swim team to victory. I’m cheering so loudly, my throat hurts.

  After his final race, Adam comes over to me in the stands and hands me his goggles before rushing off to get a towel. How romantic is that? Holding those blue plastic goggles, my heart leaps into my throat and lodges there. It is amazing.

  Jennifer says that Adam will definitely ask me to the Spring Fling at Gavin’s party. She also reminds me that she and Tanisha aren’t going to be there. It’s Jennifer’s mom’s birthday, so they are headed to a surprise party for her instead.

  Now, it’ll be just me and Adam, and Gavin at the party. Oh joy. I wish Cherise was going to be there. Or Nathan. Or even Tyler, for pity’s sake. Someone I’m friendly with. Anyone.