Six October 18, 2023 #3
“The communication of ideas,” Zander says.
“And the intellect. But it’s probably the hardest house to nail as it can be about our immediate surroundings too, and that includes those closest to us.
Neptune is in your third house, nearing your nadir, and it’s another planet of change.
So, when it’s highlighted by the moon’s passage, it’s going to bring an opportunity for transformation in your life by turfing irrelevant or outdated ideas.
It’ll make you see things in new ways, force a shift in your perception, your perspective. ”
“And what’s the date on the third page?”
Zander turns back to his laptop. “The planets in the outer ring lined up this way on Friday, June 5, 2020.”
Elsie holds her stomach. “Oh.”
“That means something to you?”
That awful day at Joe’s Café, the last time she saw Marcus. The day he broke things off with her.
There’s a knock on the front door, Bailey returning to pick up Elsie. Zander and Elsie look at each other. She’s here already?
Zander stands. “This is a lot to take in,” he says.
He picks up the atlas. “If you’re okay with it, I’ll photocopy this so I can study it.
And then maybe we can set up another appointment to discuss the fourth house.
I suggest we dive into the other houses one at a time, as the moon moves through them. ”
“I’d appreciate that.”
As Elsie goes to the door to let Bailey in, Zander copies the atlas pages on the printer at his desk.
“So, how did it go?” Bailey asks, as she steps into the house.
“It was really useful,” Elsie says, smiling back at Zander as he joins them in the hall. “I think I figured a few things out.”
Zander and Bailey exchange the knowing look of prophesying evangelicals about to convert a newcomer.
“What do I owe you?” Elsie asks Zander. “Can I e-transfer?”
“No charge,” Zander says. “I’m as intrigued by this atlas as you are.”
“But it could take some time to figure this thing out,” Elsie says. “You should get something out of it.”
“Go hiking with me and we’ll call it even.”
Elsie grins and says, a little too loudly, “It’s a deal!”
Bailey looks from Elsie to Zander and back again, one eyebrow cocked.
As Zander hands the atlas back to Elsie, their fingers touch. “Then I guess we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other,” he says, holding Elsie’s gaze.
“HE LIKES you,” Bailey says in a singsong voice as she backs out of Zander’s driveway. “And you like him.”
“What are you talking about?” Elsie peers through the windshield at Zander waving goodbye from his office. “I mean, of course I like him. He’s your friend.” A family friend.
Bailey honks at a seagull refusing to get off the road. The bird turns her way as if to say, What the hell? And lifts lazily into the air.
“You can’t hide it,” Bailey says. “I can see you’re into him.”
“I’m not.” Although he is a thoughtful, empathic guy who seems to get her in a way even her own sister doesn’t.
He did make the perfect cup of tea. She likes his dimples that pop up every time he smiles.
And he has the most astonishing golden eyes.
And muscular calves. The long fingers of a pianist. And the way he sometimes looks at her, like he knows her—
“You’re blushing.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Stop it.” Elsie turns away as they pull up to a red light. “Why do you care?”
Bailey’s mood seems to shift as she grips the steering wheel. “Because I want to see you happy.” She pauses to watch a woman coax a frightened three-legged dog across the street in front of them. “So I can stop stressing about you. It’s exhausting.”
Elsie slouches in her seat, crossing her arms. “You don’t need to worry. I’m okay now.”
“Are you?” The light turns green, and Bailey presses the gas pedal a bit too hard, lurching them back into their seats. “Anyway, I’m happy to see you interested in someone else. It’s about frickin’ time you let go of Marcus.”
Marcus. A window washer cradled in a bosun’s chair hangs from a building in front of them. “What if I haven’t?” she says, looking up at the guy.
“What?”
“Let go of Marcus?” As they pass, she keeps her eyes on the window washer just dangling there. How do these guys do that?
Bailey glances over at her. “Please tell me you’re not still lurking at Joe’s Café, waiting for him.”
She was just there just yesterday. “No.” She stretches her neck. “But I still think of him, like all the time.”
Bailey’s gaze shifts between the road and Elsie. “You’re not stalking him, are you? Online?”
“No.” Mostly because he changed his settings to private when he ghosted her.
“It’s been three years, Ellie.”
Elsie. “It’s not like I’m going to phone him up or anything,” Elsie says. Would he even talk to her now? Elsie clicks on contacts, where Marcus is still at the top. “I wonder if he has the same number.”
“If you don’t stop obsessing over Marcus, you’re never going to find someone else.”
Elsie turns away from her sister to look out the passenger window.
Up ahead, inside a café, a couple slurps back noodle soup.
Elsie and Marcus used to slurp noodle soup together like that.
Tomorrow the moon transits through the third house and she can open the atlas at Joe’s Café.
Maybe, if she really is time-travelling, she can change things in the past so that Marcus never leaves.
Then maybe she and Marcus can slurp noodle soup together again.