Before I knew it, he was back. “Ready to go?” he asked. The tension that had been in his body before seemed to have disappeared.
I narrowed my eyes and then caught myself and opened them wide. If he was relaxed, that was a good thing. “Yeah, of course. Let’s go.”
We got into the car and headed for town to buy groceries.
“So how was it?” I asked, once we’d been gotten to the main road.
He shrugged. “Fine. The test itself is really no big deal. You just lie still in a machine for a while.”
“Did the technician tell you anything?”
“Nah. Just asked if I’d done it before. I said yeah and that was about it.”
I nodded and we were silent again. His attitude was making me worried. It was true that the really scary part was going to come when we got the results, but it seemed to me like he was pretending the whole thing didn’t even exist.
There wasn’t much I could do, though. I didn’t want to stress him out if it seemed like he was handling it. After a moment, I turned on the radio and found the local pop music station. We sat and listened to the music without saying much.
Soon we came to the town center of Eltingville. It only consisted of a few square blocks, but there were some clothing stores and coffee shops scattered along the sidewalks, along with a few bars, restaurants, and a small town square where there were free concerts in the summer. None of the buildings were more than a couple stories, but it was a nice little town.
As we drove through the downtown area to get to the other side where the grocery store was, I pulled my aunt’s grocery list out of my purse and shut off the radio.
“Wow, you really need to buy a lot of groceries to feed a family,” I said, looking down the list.
“Yeah,” Hunter said absently. He seemed to have his eye on something and began slowing down.
I looked around. “The grocery store is another couple blocks.”
But he was already pulling over and getting ready to parallel park. “I know,” he said as he put the car in reverse.
I looked around, confused at why he was parking. ‘You know they have a lot,” I said, imagining the two of us lugging groceries a couple blocks back to the car.
He pulled forward to adjust and said nothing. It had been a very smooth parking job. “Come on, let’s go.”
He opened his car door. I stayed put. “Go where? I told you, they have a lot. Why are we parked here?”
“I wanna get our fortunes told.”
He motioned with his chin and my eyes followed. Sure enough, a fresh, crisp paper sign was hung in a window on the second floor of the building advertising fortune telling and massage services. Just above that was a sign that said OPEN.
Skeptical, I opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. Did he really want to get his fortune told? Now? It seemed kind of morbid, considering the possibilities from the test he had just taken.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Of course I’m sure. I pulled over and parked, didn’t I? Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
I paused a second in panic and then shrugged, hoping he couldn’t read my mind. “It’s kind of a weird mix, isn’t it? Massages and fortune telling?”
“I’ll just tell them I want my fortune told and that’s it.”
“Okay, whatever.”
He walked around the front of the car, then held the door to the building for me. I walked inside and he followed closely after.
The smell of incense assaulted our nostrils before we were halfway up the stairs. By the time we got to the fortune teller’s suite, I was already feeling light-headed.
The glass door to the suite was locked, but there was a sign telling visitors to hit the button to the right of the door to be let in.
“You sure you want to do this?” I asked, my finger hovering over the button.
Hunter nodded from his place on the top step. “Yeah, I’m sure. Now let’s get some fuckin’ fortunes read!”
He laughed. I shook my head, uncertain what to think about Hunter’s sudden enthusiasm for fortune telling. When I pressed the button, a high-pitched bell sounded from inside.
A woman came to the door. Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.
She was maybe thirty years old, if that, with long, wavy brown hair and pale skin. Her black drawstring pants were loose-fitting and paired with a white tanktop and a green zip-up hoodie. I was surprised to see she wasn’t wearing any shoes. She didn’t wear any makeup either, though her natural face was still pretty. In general she reminded me of the “hippie chicks” at Arrowhart.
She opened the door. “Come in,” she said, her voice a high squeak. A fresh, pungent wave of incense and scented candles greeted Hunter and I as we trotted in.