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Chapter 1
Nikki
I have often wondered how my life would have turned out had I not met the fortune teller at the school fair. If I had decided to, I don’t know, stay home, and watch TV instead. Eat ice-cream, argue with my brothers about who we’d rather date if we had to pick someone from the cast of Friends. I’d probably end up fat, but happy, not perpetually sunburnt from trying out some new hiking trail and getting lost in the forest because, let’s face it, I suck at reading maps.
It all started with that school fair.
I went with a group of friends, and we walked past the stalls, made fun of the juniors going on the lame rides. We were fourteen, insecure and trying not to show it. Only Hannah had money and she had to use it sparingly among myself and the others, who pretended not to care about the fries and the smell of pizza, which hung tantalizingly in the air.
“Oh, look!” Hannah said, pointing at an RV parked outside the school, at the end of a row of stalls. There was a big sign outside saying: Fortune Teller. We were all intrigued but a bit scared too. Nobody wanted to hear about how we were going to end up old and alone with 23 cats one day. Or stuck with three kids under the age of five with an unemployed husband living off benefits. Hannah and another friend, Jo, decided to go in, giggling nervously. The rest of our group broke up and I ended up leaning against a wall, listening to other kids having fun and wondering what the fortune teller was telling Hannah and Jo.
It felt like I was out there forever when the door finally swung open, and Hannah and Jo came out. They were talking in whispers and didn’t seem to notice me. I walked up to them, uncertainly, not wanting to interrupt but they didn’t even seem to notice me. They walked off towards the music and the lights, leaving me alone next to the trailer.
“Ready to have your future revealed?” A voice said behind me.
I swung around and saw the fortune teller standing in the door of the RV.
She wasn’t exactly what I’d expected.
Maybe I was thinking long hair and gypsy clothes, a crystal ball tucked under her arm? Long skirt with tinkly bracelets? Instead, this lady looked like my grandmother, with short grey hair and lively eyes like a poodle. She was wearing orthopedic shoes and her sweater had a big cat on it. She couldn’t look less like my idea of a fortune teller.
“I have no money, sorry.”
“Ah, well, help me pack up then?”
“You’re leaving already?”
“It’s a slow night. Besides, I don’t want to miss Columbo,” she said and winked. My gran also liked detective shows and we talked about our favorite TV detectives for a while. I helped her take down the tarpaulin she had stretched out in front of the RV.
“Those girls friends of yours?”
I nodded.
“I’d get the blonde one on the pill if I were you,” she said with a knowing smile.
“Hannah?” I wondered if the fortune teller got the girls mixed up. Jo was the one with the boyfriend she was getting serious about. But before I could ask her, she stepped forward, gripping both my shoulders and staring into my eyes. I was about to pull away, when she said in a dreamy, sing-song voice, “You’re going to have true love in your life. Lucky girl, that kind of love does not come around for everyone.”
I wanted to burst out laughing.
Was she for real?
She looked like some nutjob from a TV show.
Then she added, “There are mountains. I see him and I see mountains.”
I should have asked her what the man looked like, if he had dark hair or was blonde. If he spoke with a Southern accent or voted Republican. So many questions I should have asked, which would have made life going forward so much simpler!
Instead, I asked, “Which mountains?”
“How should I know?” the woman looked at me and shook her head. “Do you want a map and some co-ordinates maybe? It could be anywhere!” She threw her hands up in the air and laughed some more. Now she was the old granny again, someone you spoke to about cough remedies and lasagna recipes and who thought boys were silly and you shouldn’t bother with them.
I shook my head.
I left and went looking for my friends.
I forgot all about her.
But a year later, Hannah got pregnant, and her family moved away, and I never heard from her again. The fortune teller’s words came back to me, and I started thinking about the other things she said, about my one true love and how he was somewhere in the mountains.
