The Last Card

The Chariot

"You don't have to come here for readings―I can just do them for free now."

"Baby, you're as good with customers as you were in '97."

I pointed a smudge stick at him. "I told you that I hate being called 'baby'."

He sat down on the chair across from me. "I want a proper reading. I don't trust you not to bullshit me. I need the truth."

I bit my lip and tried not to look at his tattooed arm. I hadn't done a paid reading for him since we had our wild night on the table. Occasionally I would do them outside of work―assuring him that it would just be a waste of his money.

The querent saw through my deception. "The only reason you don't want to do it is because you will feel obligated to tell me the truth when I pay you."

"I thought you were past fearing the future."

He picked up my deck and started flipping through the cards. "I want to be past it. I want to believe what you told me once about living my life. The thing is that I don't know if you believe it anymore."

I didn't say anything. When we were in bed together, sometimes I would look at the tattoo on his arm. When I had my deck out, I would keep drawing that card.

And I knew that he knew.

"You have been going to other readers," I said abruptly. "Obviously you are still fixated on your fear of that future."

"I go to other readers because you aren't giving me the truth." He shrugged. "The card keeps coming up. But I don't trust them―I'll trust you."

I started to stand up. "Let me call the sitter. She can at least record American Idol for me."

He held out his cell phone. "Here. I wish you'd get a cell phone already."

I took the phone rather ungraciously. "I've gotten along fine without one."

The call was over far too quickly and I was shuffling the cards. I didn't like going back to our old business routine of reader and querent. Not when I still had the memory of the previous night in my head―lips all over my skin, legs wrapped around him.

A familiar tingle started rippling through me―until I looked at him and remembered what we were doing.

"Past card," I said, trying to make myself sound formal. "Ace of Wands."

"A hand holding a wand, huh?" He peered down at it. "That has to be dirty, right?"

"You thought the Three of Cups was about a threesome." I glared at him while he gave me his best innocent look. "But, yeah, in this case it can be interpreted as 'dirty'. It can represent a creative sexual energy. You've...had some wild times with your partner in the past."

The querent tapped the table innocently.

"You have met someone whose wild sexuality matches your own."

"At this rate I think I could be doing the reading," the querent joked.

"Well I am only telling you the past," I reminded him. "Now present."

This time it was the Chariot. His face lit up. "I must be getting a new car!"

"That's not what it means!"

I was shaking a little bit and the idiot finally noticed. "What...what is it?"

"Nothing...I just...these two cards together..."

His hand automatically drifted toward the tattoo. "Is it bad?"

"These two cards together...they can mean that you've found the one."

"The reason that I'll die?"

I almost threw my deck at him. "No! The one. Someone who fulfills you in every way possible. Someone that you want all the time. The one..."

I couldn't even look at him. He knew I was telling the truth―but I didn't know if he was ready to hear it. We had only been together a year and a half. I knew he cared―I knew I meant something. But I didn't want the cards to influence him.

"It can mean other things." I still wouldn't look at him. "It's about progress and change. You might be getting ahead in your career. You could have success, but you can't let your emotions take charge."

His chair made a scuffing sound as he moved it. I heard him stand up and walk around the table. After an eternity, his hands touched my face and I looked up at him.

"I love you," he whispered.

This rocked me. He never told me that he loved me―I suspected because he still lived with the expectation of dying.

I looked at the deck in my hands and quickly drew my own card. I don't know what I was thinking―if the Hanged Man appeared, I might have run from him.

It was the Lovers.

I dropped the deck on the floor and grabbed his hands. "I-I love you."

He released my hands and wrapped his arms around me. The querent knew that those words were hard for me. Tony was the last man who heard those words from me. And he couldn't even be bothered to send a card for Meadow's birthday.

"Move in with me," he whispered in my ear.

I couldn't even speak. All I could do was nod and kiss him.

He went to bring his car around as I closed up the shop. I picked up my deck. Once again, the future card hadn't been flipped.

There was no reason to look. I was happy―we were happy.

Curiosity always destroyed happiness.

I started to slide the card back into the deck―bury it in the swords, cups, pentacles and wands.

I took the card back out and turned it over.