EIGHT
CHAPTER
The next morning, she emerged from her room looking a million times better than she had all week. Her color was back, her hair brushed. It wasn’t bleached anymore—she said she’d been letting the natural color grow out, a kind of honey blond.
“I was too wasted to keep up with the peroxide,” she said, she put down her onion bagel to examine a lock of hair. “I haven’t seen this color since I was fourteen. Kind of blah.”
Kind of fucking gorgeous, I thought. The strange color of her eyes—light blue iris ringed in darker blue—was more vibrant against the brass-gold of her hair.
I shrugged over my coffee cup. “Looks good.”
Kacey smiled and chatted on. “How are Oscar and Dena?” she asked.
“Engaged.”
She sat up straighter. “Really? He finally popped the question?”
“Yep.”
“How did he propose?”
“He took her to Great Basin a few months ago. Not exactly a surprise, but it’s his favorite place.”
“It’s a great place.” Her eyes seemed to retreat, pulling inward.
The gaze of someone falling back in time.
“I think I blocked that entire camping trip to Great Basin from my mind. I had to. It was too perfect. The first time Jonah and I…” She glanced up through tears and sniffed a laugh. “Well, you know.”
I kept my face expressionless. “Yeah, I know.”
“It was the kicker though,” she said. “The memory that finally pulled me out of the withdrawals. I wonder why.”
“It was a powerful memory. Like you said, you'd blocked the entire trip out. Yesterday morning you let it back in. Proverbial floodgates.”
She laughed a little. “Literally and figuratively. I look like I lost a boxing match.”
“But better now,” he said.
“It still hurts. Really fucking badly. But it's a different kind of hurt.
It's cleaner, somehow. Like I can cry if I need to, but I can stop if I need to, too.
I didn't have that before. It's why I drank, I guess.
To keep numb. So I wouldn't have to always be fighting back the pain. That was too exhausting.”
A short silence dropped between us.
“Do you want to get out of here?” she asked suddenly. “I’ve lived in this city for six months and still haven’t seen it.”
“If you’re up for it?”
“I think so. I feel better. And it doesn’t seem right you came all this way to just sit in the house.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting out.”
“Great.” Kacey slipped off the chair, still moving a little slowly, as if she were breakable. “I’ll get ready.”
We drove into the French Quarter and parked near Jefferson Square.
Her arm linked in mine, Kacey pointed out various landmarks—the St. Louis Cathedral, a museum, an art gallery.
Every other minute my eyes were drawn to her.
She’d put on dark jeans and an oversize, dark gray sweater that left one shoulder bare—she seemed to like that style.
Her hair fell like brushed brass, and she’d put on some kind of perfume that made it hard to think.
She was beautiful. Walking arm-in-arm with her, it was easy to pretend her bloodshot eyes, thin face and the hoarseness in her voice were because she was getting over an illness. Just a bug that had knocked her out a little while. All was fine now. We were out for a walk. We were…
Together?
Rein it in, I told myself. Before you do something stupid.
It was hard to be subdued in this setting.
New Orleans was alive in a different way than Vegas felt alive.
My city was wide open and filled with lights.
New Orleans held you tight in the past. City center was a maze of old buildings with wrought iron lattices and French fleur-de-lis.
We walked past clubs and cafés, restaurants, and bars.
A bar on every block. A watering hole on every corner.
“Basically the worst part of town for recovering alcoholics to wander around in,” Kacey observed.
“You want to leave?” I asked.
She chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “No. I want to go there.”
I followed her pointing finger to a tiny shop with beads and colored lights strung along the window. On the glass was a hand in white paint with an eye in the palm. Above the palm, red neon said Palm & Tarot Readings. Below, it read, Love, Fate, Destiny.
I frowned. “A psychic?”
“Just to check it out,” she said. “I used to love Tarot cards when I was a teenager. And there’s something about New Orleans. The Cajun history, the voodoo traditions.” She jerked her shoulders up. “I think it’s neat.”
It was the first time she sounded a shade above sad since I’d been here. That was enough reason to let her tug me into the tiny shop.
A bell jingled above the door as we stepped inside, and the scent of incense hit me hard.
The dimly lit entry looked like the front foyer of a house, with a heavy, purple curtain with gold fringe separating the shop from the residence.
A small, round table with four chairs stood to the right of the front door.
An even smaller table displayed trays of beads, rough-cut crystals, and pieces of wood carved with runes.
Old books lined the shelves, and between the shelves hung with dream catchers, straw voodoo dolls, and colorful drawings of sugar skulls—large, laughing faces, some wearing top hats and smoking, some wearing wedding dresses with straw hair and sewn lips.
Palm readings and psychic powers sounded like bullshit to me, but I liked the vibe of the place anyway.
“Isn’t this cool?” Kacey said, letting go of my arm to trail her fingers over the purple crystals in their slot on the tray.
The heavy curtain was drawn aside, and the owner of the shop stepped out. I’d half-expected a woman in a turban with a crystal ball under her arm. Or maybe that googly-eyed professor from the Harry Potter movies.
This woman was neither a cliché gypsy nor a crazy-haired weirdo. She looked in her mid-forties, with long cornrows that ended in colorful beads that clacked with every movement. Her clothes were billowy silk but modern. Thick gold hoops dangled from her ears.
“Welcome,” she said in a smooth voice. “My name is Olivia. You have come for a reading?”
“We’re just looking,” Kacey said. “You have a beautiful shop.”
Olivia smiled and swept across the room to the small table. “That is kind of you to say. But that is not why you stepped inside, no?”
It was an effort not to roll my eyes. I knew the opener of a sales pitch when I heard one.
“Come. Sit.” Olivia gestured to the two empty chairs at her table and pulled out a deck of oversized cards from a pocket in her robes. “You are curious, yes? Maybe a little intrigued?”
“Not really,” I said at the exact same time Kacey said, “Yes, a little.”
Kacey and Olivia laughed, and the fortuneteller tapped long, red-painted nails on the stack of cards. “A full reading is $20. Three card-draw is $10. One card is only $5. A small taste of what I offer.”
“The one-card reading doesn’t sound too bad,” Kacey said.
“$5.00 each. That is cheap, yes, for guidance and wisdom from the Other Side.”
The way Olivia’s voice wrapped reverently around the Other Side told me it was a real place to her. I felt Kacey’s hand slip into mine, then she was tugging me toward the table. “One card, Teddy. It’ll be fun.”
Feeling like an idiot, I sat beside Kacey at the too-small table while Olivia shuffled her deck. The backs were black with gold edging. Once shuffled to her liking, she fanned them out on the table.
“These cards tell the future?” I asked dubiously.
“A full reading tells us where you have been, where you are, and where you’re going,” Olivia said.
“One card gives us a snapshot of the present. By understanding where you are now, you are able to see more clearly what lies ahead. Clarity is the goal. Wipe away the fog of uncertainty…sometimes that is all it takes to bring a little relief to a troubled soul.”
She said these last words to Kacey, and Kacey nodded hopefully.
“So,” Olivia said, beaming. “Who is going first?”
“He is,” Kacey said.
“I’m not going at all,” I said. “This is your deal.”
Olivia laughed heartily as Kacey jostled my arm.
“Come on, Teddy. What have you got to lose?”
I looked over at Kacey, at her eyes punching bright and blue through the dim shop. I huffed a sigh of defeat. “Fine, okay.”
Those damn eyes.
Olivia trailed her fingers over the card. “Choose one and lay it down in front of you.”
Figuring most people picked cards from the middle—and Olivia probably counted on that—I chose from the far right of the deck. I flipped over a card, revealing a sketch of a man hanging upside by one foot from the limbs of a T-shaped tree.
“The Hanged Man,” Olivia said, scooping the cards back into a neat stack, leaving my card on the table in front of me. “This does not surprise me.”
I suppressed another eye roll. Beside me, Kacey leaned forward in her seat. “What does it mean?”
“The Hanged Man represents ultimate surrender.”
I blinked. “What?”
Kacey elbowed me in the side. “Ultimate surrender, Teddy. Sounds kinky.”
Now I did roll my eyes and Olivia laughed heartily.
“The ultimate surrender of the Hanged Man,” she continued after a moment, “is the surrender of self for others. Personal sacrifices made for the greater good. Putting self-interests aside or giving up goals in favor of that which he perceives to be higher causes.” She fixed me with a strong gaze.
“You put the needs and wants of others first, always, and without complaint. Yes?”
I sat back in the old wooden chair, not sure how the hell I was supposed to answer.
“Yes,” Kacey said. “ Yes. That’s Teddy, one hundred percent.” She looked at me, her eyes soft and warm. “You’ve always been that way.”
I shifted in my seat and turned to Olivia. “So where does the guidance part come in?”