The Second Chance Year(73)
After Kasumi leaves, I break records mixing cake batter, piping choux pastry, and rolling out pie dough. I need to get to that party and find the fortune teller. We have some unfinished business.
Chapter 37
There have been a lot of moments over the past year where I’ve experienced that déjà vu feeling of having had a conversation or been in a certain place before. And, for the most part, I’ve gotten used to it. But nothing prepared me for walking into that carnival-themed party for the second time. I feel like I’ve stepped into a movie that’s playing on repeat, one with trapeze artists, sword-swallowers, and a low-key lion furry as a DJ.
And, oh shit. Clowns.
Bozo moonwalks across the dance floor, an actually pretty impressive feat considering those massive shoes. I’d stop to watch, but I don’t have a death wish, so I quickly scurry in the other direction. I grab a frothy buttered popcorn martini and down it for courage, realizing mid-chug that I didn’t like these things the first time around, and they’ve only gotten worse since my Very Bad Year. Still, I finish it because I’ve already committed.
I locate the fortune teller’s tent—not really an enormous challenge considering it’s in exactly the same place as it was the first time I found it—and I stay on the periphery of the room, edging around the bodies pulsing on the dance floor. As I draw closer to the panels of purple velvet, I try to swallow down the ball of spun sugar that seems to have lodged itself in the back of my throat. Last time around, I barreled inside the enclosure with a clown in hot pursuit. But now, I cautiously pull aside one curtain and slip inside, standing as straight and rigid as the tent poles holding it up.
The same tiny old woman with the same shiny red scarf tied over her long gray hair sits behind her table. Her crystal ball rests in exactly the same spot as it did during my Very Bad Year, and her scarlet-and-gold peasant dress rustles as she moves. I’m soothed by the familiarity of it all. She might be the only person in the world who understands this strange time loop I’ve gotten myself into, and I’m hoping for a moment where I’m not the only one holding the secret.
The fortune teller glances up from her crystal ball, takes one look at me, and mutters, “Oh, it’s you,” in a flat, disinterested voice.
I take a couple of stumbling steps into the middle of the room. “So, you know who I am?”
The fortune teller gives a small nod. “You’re one of the ones who wanted to go and change the past.” She looks at me straight on. “I knew you’d be back.”
“How did you know?”
“Because you people are always back.” She waves a dismissive hand. “You think if you can just go into the past and change yourself, change the people around you, you’ll win some golden ticket to your image of a perfect life. And then a year later, you realize it’s all smoke and mirrors, and you end up standing here—wah, wah, wah,” she moans in a baby voice. “I want to switch it back around again.”
“Can I do that? Can I switch it back around?” Somewhere in the far corners of my consciousness, I realize I’m probably missing the point. But after the year I’ve had, it’s too hard, it’s too much work to go there, and I’m too tired to try. So, I seize on what I want to hear.
She sighs deeply, rolling her eyes as if she expected better of me, and I’m nothing but a massive disappointment to her. Join the club, lady. “No.”
I take that in. No? “Um, no isn’t really going to work for me.”
She gives me a bored shrug, examining her manicure.
“What if—?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Final sale, no returns or exchanges.”
I throw my hands in the air. “But you sold me a defective year! Nothing turned out the way it was supposed to. The job turned out to be horrible, the guy was all wrong for me, and the right guy fell for someone else.”
She looks up at me, her eyes wide and bright, mouth twisted with pity. “Wow, that really does sound like a problem.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. Finally, she gets it. “Thank you. So, can we fix it?”
The fortune teller leans back in her chair. “Still no.” From under the table, she produces a hardback book with a royal-blue cover and a title in embossed gold. Spells and Curses for the Self-Employed Practitioner, Volume IV. She slides a pair of reading glasses on her nose and opens the book.
“Are you kidding me?”
She licks her finger and flips the page.
I stand there, incredulous, while she ignores me, nodding along with the bass from the hip-hop song playing out on the dance floor and studying her book. I throw up my hands. “So, what am I supposed to do then? You’re the one with the crystal ball and…” I wave at her book. “… potions. You tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“You want to know what to do?” she asks, keeping her eyes on the page.
“Yes. Yes, I want to know.”
The fortune teller slams the book down on the table so hard the crystal ball rattles, threatening to pop off its stand and roll away. She pulls her glasses off her face, and then looks up at me. “Quit fiddling around in the past. Quit trying to change things that don’t need to be changed. Figure out what you want. And go get it.”