“Progress,” Marla says. “Maybe when he gets here, we can actually have sex. That’s what I’m hoping for.”
BY THE TIME it’s Phoebe’s turn to meet Thyme on the yellow couch, the candle is melted.
“It’ll still work, even without the candle,” Thyme says. Thyme picks up the cards. “Do you have a question for me?”
“Oh,” Phoebe says. “I haven’t really thought of one.”
“We can do a general time period, if you like.”
“No,” Phoebe says. She wants to have a question. “I guess I’ve been wondering what to do.”
“About what?”
“About anything. Like, where do I go from here? What’s next?”
She hasn’t yet let herself think about it—what happens after the wedding is over. Where does Phoebe go?
“Okay,” Thyme says. She pulls the cards. “Oh, wow. So the two cards I thought might appear appeared. The children and the career card. The Ten of Pentacles—it’s a card where she’s very focused on the pentacles. There’s no other focus. It’s one thing or the other for you, it seems. Which means you have probably been facing a big decision. Does that seem right to you?”
“It does.”
“The Empress is on her way out, so to me that reads as pregnancy is on the way out. This is tarot, okay, it’s your life, only you know, but what I am seeing is that children are not happening for you right now.”
Phoebe nods.
“But you have here the Hermit card. Your card. That’s you.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“That’s a great sign, actually. I am really happy to see that, because that means that no matter what happens, you will always be here.”
She feels embarrassed at how quickly this has moved her. She doesn’t even believe it, and yet it’s affecting her. Sort of like watching horror movies that you know are fake, and yet you pull the blanket over your eyes every time someone gets stabbed. It feels so real.
“I’m seeing the Hanged Man,” Thyme says. “Your soulmate? He is hesitant. Or you are. One of you is stepping back. One of you is concerned. You’ve had a big conversation, it seems? Something has been decided?”
“Yes.”
“Whatever it was, here is the Eight of Wands. That means moving. Travel. You are going to be moving. Not Eat Pray Love–style. No. I am sorry, you will not be going to India. I am not seeing India in your future. But you may do something else. Something smaller. You may … buy a small property. And this property, it has something to do with money. It is a lot of money or there’s money in it. I’m not sure.”
It is no small thing to hear this woman reimagine a future for her. It doesn’t matter if it turns out to be true. It doesn’t matter if it’s bullshit. It doesn’t matter that Thyme is actually, as she confesses at some point, an aspiring writer trying to sell historical fiction about the American Revolution. For so long, Phoebe could not imagine another possible future for herself, and she marvels at how easily this woman conjures up a new property for her. It is so obvious to Thyme that Phoebe is destined for greatness, and also a lot of money, and maybe a waterfront duplex, and as soon as she says it, Phoebe wants it to be true. That is how these things work. That is why people come.
Thyme turns another card.
“And what is this? Your King of Cups is here,” Thyme says. “Your great love. Cups are love. And the king, well, he has, like, obviously the most of them. But this is in the future. This is not right now. The cups are moving toward you, but not here. Do not be impatient for it. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
She flips her last card. “And you! The Hermit. You keep coming up. This is so unusual. You are so present in this reading. It’s like the cards are telling me that no matter what happens, you are here. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific than that. That is all I can gather. You are here. Does that have any meaning to you?”
Phoebe begins to cry between her knees. “Yes.”
IN THE UBER on the way to the Boom Boom Room, the women share what Thyme predicted for each of them.
Suz is going to have seven children.
Marla is going to do well in e-commerce someday.
“That’s very specific,” Phoebe says. “Why not regular commerce?”
“She kept saying, E-commerce! I see you marrying an e-vendor!” Marla says.
“So much hotter than regular vendors,” Suz says.
“My wife and I are going to have a son,” Nat says. “And then immediately go to Italy.”
“I am going to come into property,” Phoebe says.
But when it’s Lila’s turn to share, she says, “She was just way off.”
“I thought you said she was amazing?” Marla asks.
“Did I?” Lila asks.
The tone is sharp, too serious. The sound of a day going bad. Maybe she has consumed too much alcohol for her size 4 body. Maybe it’s heels on all this cobblestone. Phoebe can feel the blisters forming.
But then they enter the Boom Boom Room, and Lila says, “Let’s dance!”
Nat and Suz shriek, as if nothing at all is wrong, and start dancing together in a way that reminds Phoebe of girls from her college. Phoebe never danced in college. Hardly danced at her own wedding. She and Matt, they weren’t dancers. They took lessons, though, learned the steps, learned enough to do a foxtrot. But she never danced like these women, without thinking because they have danced together like this so many times before, in their dorm rooms, at parties, hands in the air. She wonders if this is what high school was like for them—Lila being upset, then Lila not being upset. Then, wild dancing.
