Fifteen October 25, 2023
LATE MORNING, Elsie parks behind Zander’s car as there’s a pricey sedan in his driveway.
He must be with a client. She tries the doorknob, intending to sneak, barefoot, down the hall and up the stairs to the guest room, but it’s locked.
She listens for voices, then knocks on Zander’s door lightly.
When he doesn’t come, she sits on the front steps, knees knocked together, feet splayed, the box of pastries she bought for Zander on her lap.
When an elderly neighbour stares at her from his kitchen window next door, she turns her face away.
She checks her phone again for messages. There are several increasingly panicked texts and calls from Bailey and her father, wondering where she is. Still nothing from Marcus.
I’m alive, she texts to her sister.
Then she clicks on her conversation with Marcus. Something more casual this time.
Want to hang out later?
Again, the message changes from delivered to read.
But again, no response. Surely after last night Marcus would call or text back.
They had sex! He told her he loved her! So, what happened?
Was she too loud? Too talkative? Too know-it-all?
Across the street a mother pushes a stroller.
That’s it. She knows that’s it. She shouldn’t have talked about having kids. Why did she talk about having kids?
Minutes tick by. She stands, thinking she’ll leave her backpack in the guest room and drive home, eat all the pastries herself.
She has to face Bailey and her dad sometime.
But then she hears voices from inside, moving down the hall.
The door opens and there’s Zander in his turtleneck and chinos with an older woman dressed in a slouchy blazer.
On seeing Elsie, the woman says, “Oh,” and Zander also appears surprised. So, he didn’t hear her knock.
“I’ll just be a minute,” he says to Elsie.
She waits awkwardly to the side as Zander and the woman hug goodbye. “See you next month,” Zander says.
“Thanks again!” the woman sings, and she totters down the gravel path to her car on stiletto heels.
Zander waves as she backs out of his driveway. Then he turns to Elsie.
“I got you these,” she says, offering him the pink box of pastries.
He takes them from her. “I’m glad to see you’re okay. When you didn’t come back last night, I was a little worried.”
“I should have texted.”
“No. I get it. You were on a date.”
She attempts to smooth out her red dress, wrinkled from a night on the floor. “About that. I didn’t think. I didn’t know you were—” She winds her hand. Then she glances at the neighbour’s window. “Is it okay if I come in?” she asks.
“Of course. You’ll want your things.” Zander steps back.
She closes the door behind her. “What I was trying to say—” But the words fail her.
The awful awkwardness of the situation. She squeezes by him.
“I’ll just get my bag.” She climbs the stairs without looking back.
Within the guest room she grabs the atlas and her backpack, then collects her few personal items from the bathroom, where she catches her reflection in the mirror.
She didn’t think to bring makeup last night, so after washing the smudged mascara from her eyes this morning, her face is bare.
She seems years younger without it, like the girl she was when Marcus left town during the pandemic, that lost, sad girl.
Once back downstairs, she finds Zander at the round table in his office, working at his laptop, the box of pastries open in front of him. There are pink crumbs from a macaroon on his turtleneck.
She clears her throat, but he keeps his eyes on his laptop. So she tries again. “Am I disturbing you?”
“No, not at all.”
She shoulders her bag. “Um, before I go, I just wanted to apologize again about last night.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“I didn’t understand that you were—I thought we were friends.”
“We are friends,” he says, typing.
“But I get the feeling I disappointed you, somehow.” By going out with Marcus.
“Not at all.” Still, he hasn’t looked up at her since she entered the room, and he’s using the same distanced, chipper tone with her that he used on his client. “I have another appointment in a few minutes and have to prepare.”
“Of course.” She bows a little. “I’ll just head out, then.”
“Good luck with the sixth house,” he says.
She turns back to him. “I wonder, before I go, could you tell me just a little about it?” She holds the atlas to her chest.
Zander finally looks up from his laptop. “Sure. Well, the moon is already transiting through your sixth house. It started at ten this morning.” He scans her wrinkled red dress, her bed-head, her hangover from her bewildering date with Marcus. “I’d say you’re already feeling its pull.”
“How so?”
He rubs a hand over his mouth, sits back in his stool.
“The sixth house is the last of the personal houses. One through six are about your inner world. With the seventh house, you move out into the interpersonal houses that rule your relationships with other people, but you’ll find the seeds of that transition in the sixth house.
It’s largely about service, to others.” He holds out his hand.
“Can I see the atlas for a minute?” She hands it to him, and he opens it.
“Your sixth house has Pisces on its cusp, so you might have a warped or underdeveloped sense of what that means.”
“You mean, about service?” She points at the page, the title. “But the sixth house page is called ‘Work and Wellness.’”
“It’s the house of health and routines. It governs everyday stuff, where things usually don’t go as planned, so the house is also about the unexpected, surprises. Stuff life throws at us. It’s sometimes called the house of enemies, diseases and debts.”
That doesn’t sound good. “The location on the map is my father’s house. Do you have any idea what I’m walking into?”
Zander shrugs.
“But you must be able to tell me something.”
He closes the atlas. “My grandmother always said the sixth house is a busy intersection where our fifth house fantasies run a red light and crash into sixth house realities. I think that about sums it up for you.”
“What does that even mean?”
He hands the atlas back to her. “It means, if it hasn’t already, the shit is about to hit the fan.”