Leaving Time(9)

You’d be surprised at how many psychics are listed in the local yellow pages. New Age Spirit Guides, Psychic Advice from Laurel, Pagan Priestess Tarot Readings, Readings by Kate Kimmel, The Phoenix Rising—Advice on Love, Wealth, Prosperity.

Second Sight by Serenity, Cumberland Street, Boone.

Serenity didn’t have a big ad or a 1-800 number or a last name, but she was within biking distance of my house, and she was the only one who promised to do a reading for the bargain price of ten dollars.

Cumberland Street is in a part of town that my grandmother always tells me to stay away from. It’s basically an alley with a bankrupt convenience store that’s been boarded up, and a hole-in-the-wall bar. Two wooden placards sit on the sidewalk, one advertising two-dollar shots before 5:00 P.M. and another, which reads: TAROT, $10, 14R.

What is 14R? An age requirement? A bra size?

I’m nervous about leaving my bike on the street, since I don’t have a lock for it—I never have to lock it up at school or on Main Street or anywhere else I normally go—so I haul it into the corridor to the left of the bar entrance and drag it up the stairs, which smell like beer and sweat. At the top is a small foyer. One door is labeled 14R and has a sign on the front: READINGS BY SERENITY.

The foyer walls are covered with peeling velveteen wallpaper. Yellow stains bloom on the ceiling, and it smells like too much potpourri. There’s a rickety side table propped up on a phone book for balance. On it is a china dish filled with business cards: SERENITY JONES, PSYCHIC.

There’s not much room for me and a bike in the little foyer. I jostle it in a stilted half circle, trying to lean it against the wall.

I can hear the muffled voices of two women on the other side of the interior door. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to knock, to tell Serenity I’m here. Then I realize that if she is any good at her job, she must already know.

Just in case, though, I cough. Loudly.

With the bike frame balanced against my hip, I press my ear against the door.

You’re troubled by a very big decision.

There is a gasp, a second voice. How did you know?

You have serious doubts that what you decide is going to be the right path.

The other voice, again: It’s been so hard, without Bert.

He’s here now. And he wants you to know that you can trust your heart.

There is a pause. That doesn’t sound like Bert.

Of course not. That was someone else who’s watching over you.

Auntie Louise?

Yes! She says you were always her favorite.

I can’t help it; I snort. Way to recover, Serenity, I think.

Maybe she’s heard me laugh, because there’s no more conversation coming from the other side of the door. I lean closer to listen more carefully, and knock the bike off balance. Stumbling to keep my footing, I trip over my mother’s scarf, which has unraveled. The bicycle—and I—crash into the little table, and the bowl falls off and shatters.

The door is yanked open, and I look up from where I’m crouched in the pretzel of bike frame, trying to gather the pieces. “What’s going on out here?”

Serenity Jones is tall, with a swirl of pink cotton-candy hair piled high on her head. Her lipstick matches her coiffure. I have this weird feeling that I’ve met her before. “Are you Serenity?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Shouldn’t you know?”

“I’m prescient, not omniscient. If I were omniscient this would be Park Avenue and I’d be squirreling my dividends away in the Caymans.” Her voice sounds overused, like a couch with its springs busted. Then she notices the broken bits of china in my hand. “Are you kidding me? That was my grandmother’s scrying bowl!”

I have no idea what a scrying bowl is. I just know I’m in deep trouble. “I’m sorry. It was an accident …”

“Do you have any idea how old this is? It’s a family heirloom! Thank Baby Jesus my mother isn’t alive to see this.” She grabs for the pieces, fitting the edges together as if they might magically stick.

“I could try to fix it—”

“Unless you’re a magician, I don’t see that happening. My mother and my granny are both rolling in their graves, all because you don’t have the sense God gave a weasel.”

“If it was so precious, why did you just leave it sitting around in your entryway?”

“Why did you bring a bicycle into a room the size of a closet?”

“I thought it would get stolen if I left it in the hall,” I say, getting to my feet. “Look, I’ll pay for your bowl.”

“Sugar, your Girl Scout cookie money can’t cover the cost of an antique from 1858.”