The Eggnog Chronicles Page 16

  “A short reading,” Lola told him, reaching into her big patchwork bag.

  I tucked a lock of hair behind one ear. “You can stay, Tito. I don’t care if you want to witness the tangled web of my life.”

  Tito held his hands up, his thick fingers spread defensively. “Oh, no, I try to avoid tangled webs, and I’m happy to join my friends at the bar.”

  Already Lola held the pouch in her hands, its pattern of gold moons and stars in a sea of deep indigo silk reminding me of tales of wizards and witchcraft. From my college studies of the tarot I remembered that mystics wrap their decks in silk and stow them in wood boxes, the theory being that the fine cloth and wood protect the cards from negative influence. I also remembered the electric charge that sparked the air every time I sat for a reading.

  “Nervous?” Lola shuffled the oversized cards. That was the thing about Lola; she was good at reading cards, but she was even better at reading people. With her psychic abilities, she seemed to know the questions before I even asked them. “We can throw four cards if you want to keep it simple. One to symbolize you, and one each for past, present, and future.”

  I nodded.

  She laid the deck on the table. “Cut the cards into three stacks.”

  I realized I’d been sitting on my hands. I separated the deck into three sections, then pulled my hands onto my lap, trying not to look too desperate and pathetic but probably failing.

  Lola flipped the first card, the Four of Cups, which showed a naked woman dancing away from a king on his throne. The second card nearly made me choke—the Eight of Swords, showing a knight slumped over in his horse with eight swords staked in the ground behind him, eight swords resembling gravemarkers.

  Lola must have heard me sucking the air between my teeth, because she patted my hand before she turned over the next card. “Oh, don’t you worry. This is pain that already exists—it’s in the place of how your life is now. And it’s a good thing to talk about it, get it out there.”

  The next card was definitely better: the Star, with its image of a goddess pouring water into a river under a starry sky. “Now that’s more like it,” I said, though I couldn’t quite recall the card’s meaning. The final card, the one meant to symbolize me, was the Fool, a man dressed as a jolly jester strolling merrily toward the edge of a cliff.

  “Oh, darn. I hate that card,” I admitted. “I always used to get it, and it drove me crazy.”

  “And why would that be? The Fool is about unrealized potential—the young soul at the beginning of the journey with much to learn, much to experience. I wish I could draw the Fool now and again.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I said. “Not so easy when it keeps coming up in your readings on the campus green. One of the less mature guys in our group called it the Asshole Card.”

  “Of course!” Lola rolled her eyes. “I forgot. You learned the tarot as a way to show off for other Ivy League students.”

  “Worse than that. We were studying it in one of our humanities classes, and we became tarot junkies. We started doing readings for each other once, twice a day. Then, more. Like . . . every hour. It was as if we could change our fate by drawing the cards more often. I remember once, walking across campus, I stopped to throw a few cards about a test I was taking. Then, once I got to class, I snuck the deck out and turned over a few more. It was that intense.”

  “Until you learned that you couldn’t trick the cards.”

  “Right. No matter how many times I shuffled, that damned Fool card turned up in my spreads.”

  “Well . . .” Lola tapped a red-lacquered nail over the Fool. “Here he is again, honey, back to tease you until you learn your lesson from him. But this time, I want you to stop the denial and realize it’s telling you that you have great potential you don’t see, perhaps capabilities you’re currently blind to.”

  “Mmm.” I wasn’t going to get up and do a happy dance over the card, but Lola’s interpretation made it more palatable.

  “So.” Lola clapped her hands together and rubbed them vigorously. “The Fool is you, honey. You and your undiscovered potential, whatever that means.”

  I thought of my sister and her perplexity and disappointment with the fact that I owned and managed a Christmas shop. “You needed an M. F. A to . . . what?” she’d asked. “To sell poinsettia quilts and Styrofoam balls stuck with sequins?” Jane would be thrilled to know she’d been right all along.

  “Let’s see what else we have here.” Lola tapped the card with the woman dancing away from the king. “The Four of Cups,” she said, nodding. “This card is in the place of your past. Do you remember what it means from your studies?”

  “Not exactly.” I frowned. “But I have a feeling that dead soldier in the corner is not a good sign.” I was referring to one of the cups, which was spilling red liquid all over the palace floor.

  “The overturned cup . . . yes, that’s sad, isn’t it? A hint of disillusionment, disappointment.”

  Nate’s face came to mind, his brow twisted with anger. “Disappointment in love? In a relationship?”

  “Well, you know that cups are hearts, sometimes considered the suit of affairs of the heart, of emotions. And on the Ace of Cups we see Venus, the symbol of love and the beginning of the romance cycle. But by the time we get to four, well, the bloom is off the rose. The Four of Cups represents the stage in any relationship known as the end of the honeymoon. A stagnant period of decline.”

  “Been there, done that.”

  “Yes, I think you have. I’d say this is about your relationship with Nate. But no surprises there. You’ve been stressing about Nate for awhile, sensing that something wasn’t quite falling into place. Such as, his divorce.”

  I looked down at the table with dread. “Which brings us to the scary card. The Eight of Swords.”

  Lola shrugged. “What can I tell you? This card usually stands for disillusion. See how the knight is deflated? He’s fought a battle that he now realizes is futile. Not that you’ve fought any battles, honey. But it could also symbolize a crisis of conviction, the discovery that something you once thought was noble and honorable proves to be false.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey, but I’m not making any solid connections here. Does it make sense to you?”

  As she spoke I noticed the lights of my shop reflected in the side window of the bar—the warm red glow suddenly glaring and brash. My shop. I enjoyed working there, and there was no denying that I had a talent for creative Christmas atmospheres.

  However, that atmosphere was wearing thin in the real world, where tinsel blew away in a single storm. I hated to think that pinecone ornaments were going to be my only contribution to society. Children in the neighborhood didn’t have winter coats, and here I was wrapping the town in tinsel.

  Adjusting her puka shell necklace, Lola stared at me curiously. “What is it, snookie?”

  “Nothing.” I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Just . . . a few priorities I need to sort out.” How could the cards know about my disillusion? I hadn’t been able to put a word to the way I’d been feeling until that moment, but once Lola said it recognition clanged in my head like the bell down at the volunteer firehouse. Disillusion. At least I had a name for it now . . . and a card.

  “Well, good. Honey, if you can make the connection, that’s all that matters. So . . . here we have the Star card in your future. She’s one of the Major Arcana and some people think this is the card of wish fulfillment. This is the goddess of renewal. She restores by means of love and peace.”

  As I studied the card I thought of the shooting star we’d seen the other night, of my wish, of my worries over Nate’s state of mind. The man could definitely use this goddess’s waters of renewal. Come to think of it, I’d be happy for a splash myself.

  “It’s a very nice card,” Lola said, patting my hand.

  “I can see that. I guess I’m just a little overwhelmed.” To put it mildly.

  She gathered up the cards and worked them into th
e deck. “Here’s the thing to keep in mind, Ricki. These cards show the situation as it stands today. You can think of it as the astrological forecast, similar to what that Mike Seidel is saying on the Weather Channel. He tells us the weather without any value judgments. Rain: good for the plants, bad for a picnic. That’s what the cards do, only they speak to an emotional level. They don’t cement your destiny; they only tell you the elements that are at play in your world.”

  “And these things might change,” I said.

  “Honey, things change all the time. But here’s something I’d like you to do, and this is from Lola. Think of where you’d like to be in five years. What would you like to be doing? Where in the world do you want to be?”

  I nodded. Right now, I couldn’t imagine leaving the Outer Banks, couldn’t imagine life without Nate, but I hadn’t projected that far into the future. I sighed. “Something to think about when I get a minute.”

  “Okay, Lola,” Ben said, putting a beer down in front of her. “I see that you’ve got the cards out, and I’m ready to cash in on that reading you promised. I’d appreciate if you could tell me what to buy my parents for Christmas, and Tito says you’d better say you see a hottie in my future.”

  “Snookems, how can I refuse when you bring me a beer?” Lola pointed to a chair. “Have a seat.”

  I started to get up, but Ben gestured for me to stay put as he took the outside chair. “Don’t bother getting up. This will be short.”

  “Do you think so?” Lola teased him. “In my experience, you quiet ones have a lot going on under the surface. You know: still waters run deep.”

  “My life is a blank slate, a tabula rasa,” Ben said with a lazy grin.

  “A tabula rasa?” I nudged Ben’s arm. Lately he was full of classical allusions, this one referring to the mind before it receives impressions gained from experience. “Geez, Ben, you’re taking me right back to grad school days.”

  “Everyone has a past, surfer man,” Lola said. “And this gives me a chance to unravel your mysterious past.”

  I sneaked a curious look at Ben, wondering about his history—mainly his romantic history. In the years since he’d come to the Outer Banks no one had seen him dating, and Cracker and I had pursued some wild speculation about his past. In New York I would have assumed such a solo figure was gay, but neither Cracker nor I got that vibe from Ben. He seemed to like women and was kind to every person he met, but emotionally, Ben kept the world at arm’s length.

  We were all dying to know why.

  “Mysterious?” Ben folded his arms across his cable knit sweater. “Me? I’ve always been totally aboveboard.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Lola plunked the deck on the table in front of him. “Okay, surfer man. Cut the cards into three stacks.”

  As Lola turned over the cards I tried to be discreet. Turning toward the bar, I folded my legs and pretended nonchalance, though I couldn’t help but listen.

  “The Six of Swords, the Three of Pentacles, the Ace of Cups. And let’s see your significator . . . the Hermit. How perfect.”

  “That old man is me?” Ben picked up the card and winced. “I may have snow on top, but at least there’s no hole in the roof.”

  “The Hermit isn’t about age. It’s about a person who seeks a life of solitude to explore spiritual rebirth.”

  “My own private Idaho?” Ben quipped.

  “I think you know what it’s about, honey.” Lola tapped another card, and I couldn’t help but twist around for a look at the Six of Swords, a card with six people on a boat headed toward a light onshore. “See the ship on this card? It’s about a voyage, a journey to an unknown destination, an unforeseen future. This is your recent past—a rite of passage for you. Probably your escape from that other job to come here and start the surf shop.”

  “Makes sense,” Ben said.

  “Escape from that other job and . . . perhaps a relationship that wasn’t working out?”

  Ben hid a smile. “You’re tracking.”

  Lola waggled her fingers at him. “Sometimes it helps me do a reading if you can provide a little information. Helps me make connections.”

  “Really?” Ben’s brows rose skeptically. “And here I thought you were supposed to be reading my cards.”

  “Was this a marriage?” Lola probed.

  “You could say that. Legally, yes, it was. But it’s over. In the past.”

  Lola took a deep breath, as if sucking in the vibe from him. “Okay, then. Now the Three of Pentacles is a work card. It indicates work or skilled labor that will lead to commercial success, but your shop is closed now, isn’t it?”

  Ben nodded, but I couldn’t resist. “Yes, but Ben has agreed to help out in The Christmas Elf this weekend. He’s playing Santa.”

  “Aah!” Lola grinned. “That’s it. Because this card usually refers to work performed together with others. Joint efforts and harmonious partnerships.”

  “Works for me. How about this ace?” Ben pointed to the Ace of Cups, which showed a beautiful, mermaidlike woman drinking from a chalice besides a giant water wheel. “I think this might be the card Tito had in mind.”

  Lola smiled. “My husband might be a little psychic. You see this woman? She’s the Goddess Minne, which means Love. This is the most benevolent card, Ben. It is happiness, love, pleasure, and home. This, my friend, is the jackpot of love.”

  “Wait a minute!” I protested in mock indignation. “How did he get that?”

  Ben smiled. “Jealous?”

  “Definitely.” I tapped the table. “Come on, Lola. I want a reshuffle.”

  “Children, children.” Lola shook her head, collecting the cards. “One reading per customer. Besides, Tito and I have to get going. The kids are probably having an X-Box marathon. I need to pull the plug.”

  We all decided to call it a night. Even Cracker was going to kick out his last two patrons soon and close up so that he could get an early start at The Elf tomorrow.

  “Closing up early for you,” Lola said. “That’s a good friend.”

  “For Cracker, an early start is anytime before noon,” I said. “But I have a feeling I’m going to need the help, especially since the weather seems to be clearing.”

  “What happened to our nor’easter?” I asked as I stepped out onto the plank board porch of the Crusty Captain.

  “Looks like it fizzled into a southwester,” Tito joked.

  Lola and Tito offered me a ride home but I thought the fresh air would do me good, and Ben was walking in the same direction. We said goodnight, then headed across the highway, figuring it was mild enough to walk along the beach. We stayed on the road, avoiding the man-made dunes built to preserve the coastline, then cut down the path into the cold sand. The winds had softened to a brisk breeze and the sky had cleared to angry dark clouds racing briskly over the horizon. I turned my face toward the Atlantic, awed by the glow of the Appaloosa moon against the water.

  “Somehow, you just never get sick of the ocean,” I said. “This is such a magical place.”

  “A magical place with a sordid past.”

  “Oh, really? How’s that?”

  He swung around to scowl at me. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how Nag’s Head got its name?”

  I shrugged. “Well, no. A nag is a type of horse, right?”

  “An old horse. Legend has it that horses with lanterns were used to lure ships close to the shore for pillaging. This was in the early eighteenth century, when some of the landlubbers who called themselves ‘bankers’ got wind of how profitable pirating could be, as proven by Blackbeard. So the bankers draped old horses with lanterns and walked them up and down the beach at night. Merchant skippers in the waters offshore would see the lights and assume they were coming from other ships, closer to the shore. The skippers would move their precious cargo closer and consequently run aground. Then the bankers would go aboard the stranded ships and steal their cargo.”

  “Blimey!” I grinned. “That is quite a history.
I always knew that Blackbird sailed these waters, but land pirates.”

  “They still exist,” Ben said. “Only now they’re called realtors.”

  “You got that right. But don’t rank on Nate just because you feel sorry for me. We should dish about him because he deserves it.”

  “Who said I feel sorry for you?”

  He sounded so earnest, I had to smile. “Okay, we’ll skip the pity party for poor Ricki.” The girl who was abandoned by her boyfriend. You’d think that you’d outgrow romantic embarrassment in your twenties, but somehow that feeling of no-date-on-prom-night lingers.

  I decided to change the subject. “You know, Ben, you pulled some very interesting cards tonight.”

  “Did I? The illustrations on those tarot cards are so vivid and wild, it’s hard to tell.”

  “But you’ve got to admit, your future . . . the Ace of Cups? I really envy you. I wish I could trade futures.”

  “Trade futures? I have a cousin who used to do that on Wall Street, but he had to give it up after a few years. Too much pressure. You think my hair is prematurely gray? Three months on the trading floor and he was completely bald.”

  The breeze lifted his silver hair, teasing strands over his forehead. His hair looked white-blond in the darkness. “Okay, funny guy. I’ll take your tarot cards and your hair, too.”

  “Nah. You don’t want to be the old hermit.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said, thinking that a life of isolation might be preferable to a life wrought with confrontation and disappointment. Arguments over an ex-wife’s hidden agenda, over taking out the trash, over the merits of eggnog versus buttermilk. All day I’d been worried about going home to an empty house, but in truth, the solitude would be a relief.

  “Do you believe in destiny?” Ben asked.

  “Destiny? I don’t know. I hate to think that our futures are set in stone. No, I think life throws obstacles and opportunities in our paths, and maybe that’s a form of destiny. But I don’t think there’s a predetermined timeline that we’re all following. How about you? What do you think?”