“You go first,” Jasmine says to him. “I want to make a quick call to a surgeon I know.”
“Down the stairs, open the oak door on the right, through the purple curtains on your left,” says Althea, fastidiously peeling the last of her banana.
As he leaves, Jasmine has her phone to her ear. “You can’t risk it with a cowboy, Althea, you need—” She holds up one finger. “Dr. Geoffrey! Yep, I’ve got another meniscus for you!”
Ethan goes down the stairs, ducks under a Watch Your Head sign, opens the oak door, and draws back the purple curtains to see a clean-shaven, bald man about his dad’s age wearing a black U2 Achtung Baby concert tour T-shirt and ripped jeans. He’s sitting in a small white-walled room that could be for recruitment interviews, except for the fact that the table is covered with a purple cloth embroidered with gold stars and moons.
“Luca?” says Ethan.
“That’s me! Have a seat. Jason, is it? How are you?”
“Not bad.” Ethan is not giving anything away, not even his state of mind.
There is a framed typed sign sitting so that it faces the customer. It says: Readings Are for Entertainment Purposes Only, and No Guarantee Can Be Given as to Their Accuracy. I Do Not Give Medical, Legal, or Financial Advice.
So they’re not even pretending it’s real?
“Broken arm?” asks Luca.
“Wrist,” says Ethan. “Rock-climbing accident.” Dammit! All he needed to say was “wrist.” He’s already given away information without even being asked!
“That’s bad luck. Althea did her meniscus in the Coles car park,” remarks Luca.
“Yes,” says Ethan. “I, uh, heard.”
“So just a general reading today?” Luca presses a button on a cheap plastic kitchen timer and picks up the deck of tarot cards. “Can you shuffle?”
Ethan waggles his fingers. “I think so.”
“Left hand,” says Luca. “Three piles.”
Ethan puts the cards into three piles.
“Which one?” asks Luca.
“Ah. Middle one, please.”
Luca bangs the pile of cards against the side of the table.
“You single? In a relationship?” he asks as he lays out the cards in overlapping rows as if he’s playing an unusual version of solitaire, stopping every now and then to consider what he sees.
“Single,” says Ethan.
“Star sign?” asks Luca.
“Libra,” says Ethan.
“Ah, Libra.” Luca shakes his head and chuckles.
What’s so funny about Libra?
Luca has his hand across his mouth. He rubs his nose with his thumb, removes another card from the deck, places it down, and says, as if that’s just what he expected, “Yup.”
Without looking up, he says, “There’s someone. Someone you see often. A work colleague? A friend in your circle? There is someone you would like to be more than a friend.”
“Yes,” says Ethan, and he finds he has to force himself to stop talking. This guy relies on people’s natural desire to converse.
“Yes, yes. That’s right. Someone physically close. But it’s complicated. If you tell her how you feel it could jeopardize the friendship.”
“Yes,” says Ethan. “I don’t know if she even…thinks of me that way.”
He hears himself speaking humbly and respectfully, as if he’s at the doctor. He’s fascinated by his own collusion with the process.
“Exactly. You can’t tell. Does she like you only as a friend or is there a possibility for something more? But listen—” Luca taps a card. “Good news: Knight of Cups. Love is coming into your life in the future. By September, October at the latest.”
“With her?”
“It could be with her, it could be with someone else, it could be a friend of hers.”
Ethan inwardly rolls his eyes. He’s out. It’s the sort of thing Ethan’s grandmother says for free: Be patient, the right girl is out there somewhere, Ethan, I just know it!
“It’s going to happen soon. Very soon. Make sure you open your heart.”
“Right,” says Ethan, as Luca pulls out another card with a macabrely cheerful image of a skeleton riding a white horse. It says baldly: DEATH.
Ethan remembers why he’s here: for a second opinion. “What about that one? Does that mean I’m going to die?”
Luca looks up. “The death card is more likely to mean a period of transition. It could mean an ending. Or a beginning.”