Didn't I Feed You Yesterday__ A Mother's Guide to Sanity in Stilettos - Laura Bennett [10]
It seems like a lifetime ago. I was living in Houston, and one of my girlfriends came to visit. Kathryn and I had worked together folding panties at Victoria’s Secret, but then her husband was transferred and they had moved to Kansas City.
“Let’s go get our fortunes told,” she said, telling me about this guy in Houston she had heard of who was reported to be the real thing. I demurred for myself—I don’t need a roadmap to navigate my life—but agreed to drive Kathryn to an address an hour across town, not such an unusual distance in the urban sprawl of Texas. We arrived at a typical-looking apartment complex with no discernible universe-shaking auras, located the proper apartment, and were shown into what could have passed for any retiree condo south of the Mason-Dixon Line. No red velvet curtains with thick gold fringe, no crystal balls, not even a single neon sign flashing promises of the future being unlocked. Nope, just beige décor and an equally beige-looking guy in his late thirties. After awkward hellos, he showed me to a beige couch while he and Kathryn retreated to a breakfast nook table graced with nothing more supernatural than a deck of tarot cards, the one and only indication that spirits were about to descend on suburbia.
Sensing a presence nearby, I found nestled next to me against a beige pillow a tiny, ancient, beige Chihuahua. She moved a little, arthritically, and waggled what looked like long, stringy moles hanging from her grayed jowls. The psychic lovingly introduced us, and I felt that though this guy was probably a fraud, he must at least be a good person to care for such an unfortunate little creature.
Kathryn’s reading began with a gathering and a shuffling of the deck. I didn’t really pay much attention to the peek into Kathryn’s future, as Hanging-Mole Dog transfixed me. I didn’t mind sharing the sofa with it, but I was definitely trying to avoid physical contact. I was interrupted from my task when the psychic cleared his throat. I looked up and saw him staring at me.
“I see you in the future in upstate New York or Connecticut with a man who has blue eyes, white hair, and a mustache,” he offered me from the cosmos. “Living in a raised ranch house.” He stopped talking. Apparently that was all the great otherworld had for me.
“Wow, okay, thanks,” I said. He then turned his attention back to Kathryn. I grew up in the South and had lived there all my life. At that moment, I certainly had no plans, immediate or otherwise, to move to the Northeast. I hadn’t even heard of a “raised” ranch house before; it’s not something they condone in architecture school, and it didn’t sound like a future home to be excited about. In fact, I had heard “raised ranch” as “razed” ranch, as in “no longer standing,” or “bulldozed,” or even worse, “demolished by an ugly-house-hating tornado.”
My father has blue eyes, white hair, and a mustache, so I assumed there was some kind of weird Electra mixed signal being sent. I was married to a man with dark hair, dark eyes, and no mustache, and he wouldn’t have been thrilled about the outside chance that any of this revelation might be true. I filed it under “Never mind” and eventually put the whole episode behind me.
Four years later, I was living in the Northeast. A new acquaintance invited me to her house for a dinner party. These were my freewheeling newly single days—wine, roses, dinner parties, dates with lots of eligible bachelors, quiet nights at home with pizza and Cleo. Sure, I said, I’d love to. I’m always up for meeting a new roomful of people. I’m like a human party favor—throw me into a group of unknowns and I’ll have met everyone by the end of the evening. I put on my discount Donna Karan, strapped on some sexy heels, and made my way to an address down in SoHo. Outside the building I noticed a man just standing there, looking up at the parapets, looking down at the sidewalk, then pacing back and forth.
“Excuse me,” I said, eyeing him for a bit and deciding he looked the type, “are you here for the party?” He nodded.