The Parting Glass

Chapter One

Boulder, Colorado, 1999

Crossing my fingers under the table, I turned the last card. A good one could still turn the reading around. I liked my client and wanted to give her a positive outcome, if at all possible. Plus, happy endings meant big tips. My cupboards, like Old Mother Hubbard’s, were looking mighty bare. I needed some income if I wanted to eat this week.

When I saw the image the card revealed, I exhaled in a gust. Not good, not good at all. I tried hard to put a positive spin on every card in a reading, but some I just couldn’t spin in the right direction. The prone figure stabbed in the back ten times with very large swords made this card one of them. Combined with the rest of the reading, it meant certain doom. Crap. Looked like I’d be living on bread and water for a while yet.

“What is it?” My client swept her dyed blonde hair from her smooth brow, her botoxed face creasing in worry.

No use putting it off. “It’s no good, Gina,” I told her. “This is a bad relationship. Steer clear.”

The new wrinkles on Gina Polizzi’s face deepened into furrows, turning her almost her natural age. “Are you sure? He seems so nice! Such a gentleman!”

I sighed and shook my head. I hated to break bad news and I hated more than anything to break it to Gina. She was one of my best clients, even if most of her readings dealt with the flavor of the week. Or of the month. Sure, sometimes I got tired of constant parade of men through her life. Sympathy came hard when I remembered lonely nights and waking up to a bed that seemed much too big and empty. But on the whole I liked Gina, so I reminded myself I’d chosen my single state and shoved my irritation under the rug. Besides, even in the New Age Mecca of Boulder, Colorado, wealthy clients didn’t grow on trees.

“I’m sorry, Gina. He may be a gentleman, but only inasmuch as it gets him his own way.” I pointed to another card near the top of the spread, the Seven of Swords, which denoted a trickster or thief. “And he likes too much to be in control of others, though not of himself.” My hand wandered to the bottom corner of the spread, where the Chariot lay in opposition to the Seven of Swords. “At his core, he’s a miser, both with physical and emotional goods.” The Four of Pentacles, in the upper left corner. “He likes the hunt too much—that’s the Knight of Wands, here—and if you keep on with this you’ll end up stabbed in the back. The one Cup Card here—Cups are the suit of Love, you’ll remember—is the six, which indicates daydreams. You’re making him into something you want him to be, not what he is.”

“But what about…?” Her long, thin fingers hovered over the first card I had drawn: The Lovers. I sighed yet again, remembering how her dark eyes had lit at the sight of it. Admit it or not, everyone wants to see The Lovers in a reading and almost no one knows what it truly means.

“That’s what you want, Gina. It’s how you read the situation. Not what is. And I’m afraid the rest of the reading says what you want isn’t what you’re going to get this time.”

“You mean, I don’t get what I want again,” Gina sniffed. I wanted to roll my eyes but didn’t. Since I’d known Gina, I’d seen most of the things she wanted in life handed to her on a silver platter. In her love life, however, despite beauty and success, she didn’t seem to be able to reach her goals. I had some suspicions as to why that might be—bad choices stemming from her controlling father, for instance—but until she asked me about them, I couldn’t share my ideas and maintain any sense of personal ethics.

“Well, I’d better break off our date for tonight, then. It’s too bad. He’s been gone for a few weeks and I had hoped…” Gina got up from her chair, smoothing the wrinkles from her linen skirt. Hoped for hot reunion sex, I thought with an inward grimace for my own single state. But Gina’s ability to swallow and act on bad news was one thing I admired about her. Her face regained its usual smoothness as if by magic, although I knew it took incredible force of will, no doubt fueled by her mother’s constant warnings that dwelling on unpleasantness would mar her features forever. Reaching in her Prada bag, she handed me a hundred-dollar bill.