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“A client from today. He offered me a lift home so I didn’t have to get the buses.”
“Oh, your second business fair, Ria! How did it go?”
I grinned. “It went well, mom. Really well. In fact... I’ve got enough to pay off some of our debts. Quite a chunk, in fact.”
“Oh, darling. Thank you. But do we have enough to keep amassing them?”
“Don’t you worry about that, mom. I’ve got this in hand. They were lining up for my services today. And I’m sure some of them will become long term clients.”
It was time for Grandmother to interject with her opinions. She could only be silent for so long. “So business-minded, Ria. Do these rich young men and women realize they could get the same thing in a back-alley parlor for a fifth of the price?”
“I hope not.” I grinned again. “Just call me Robin Hood. Robbing from the rich to give to the poor.”
My grandmother gave me a little smirk in return. “Well, as long as we’re the poor you’re giving to. And as long as you don’t forget where you came from.”
“How could I? I’d never forget you, no matter how hard I tried.” I gave her a little hug, and she swatted me playfully. Then, more gently, I hugged my mom too. I knew she wasn’t as fragile as I made her out to be, but I couldn’t help treating her carefully at the moment.
Then I yawned. “I’m absolutely beat. I need to go straight to bed if I’m honest. Give me a prod if there’s dinner, though? I had to eat conference food today.” I pulled a face. “I missed your cooking, gran.”
“That’s Grandmother to you.”
I skipped away to my room, where I closed the door as firmly as the faltering door frame would allow and stripped myself of my uncomfortable knock-off clothing. Then, naked, I sunk into my bed.
A day of tarot always did something to my brain. Awash with images, it struggled to get to sleep. And then, asleep, the images continued. Endless pictures and symbols of whose meanings alluded me. A red orb hovering ominously over ancient trees. The orb knocked out of orbit. The trees stretching out their canopy, growing thick and casting shadows over the land below even as the light of the orb grew and grew. Would they collide? How big was the orb really? Would it fall, miniscule as an asteroid, through the canopy of the trees to rot in the earth? Or, big as a sun, would it collide and wipe out all life?
Eventually, the images faded, and I fell into a finally peaceful sleep.
* * *
Most of theweek following my second event appearance was spent resting and slowly coming back to earth. The high of my success wore off, and I began to worry about securing further success. I needed to secure more events like that one, draw in more clients, improve my website, and put in place the new and improved marketing materials that Apollo had had his team draw up for me.
I worked all week. My office was my bedroom, hunched up in the covers, but clients need not know that. When I was more secure in my financial position, I could hire an office, and eventually staff... pipe dreams that were seeming more likely. It also felt like I could put a foot wrong and ruin everything for myself. Hope was a terrifying prospect.
Thankfully, I had my grandmother to keep me grounded. Or whatever the opposite of grounded was. Every few hours, it seemed, she would float past my room, intoning a line from her ‘prophecy’ in a different sing-song voice. Sometimes she’d bring me a cup of coffee, and that was helpful, even if her coffee was bitingly strong and bitter. Smoking had ruined her taste buds, and therefore she could only taste the strongest of flavors.
I was stirring my secret ‘office’ supply of sugar and cream into the latest offering of my grandmother’s when I received the text from an unknown number.
Forest:Hi, Forest here. Is this the right number for Ria Moon? I smudged your business card with a cup of coffee and had to ‘divine’ the missing digit.
Ria:This is Ria Moon. Well done on the divination. It seems you did learn something at my session.
Then my phone started ringing. Who called mid-text conversation? He was older, I supposed. This was probably normal to him.
I scrambled to pull a shirt on, which didn’t make any sense, since it was a phone call, not a video call. But there was something that felt deeply unprofessional about answering calls in my underwear. I had to feel professional in order to be professional.
I managed to take a deep breath and pick up the phone before it went to voicemail. “Hi.”
“Hi, Ria. Hope the call didn’t alarm you. I just find it quicker than texting.”
“You’re a busy man.”
“That I am.” He sounded slightly pained at that. Perhaps he remembered the cards’ interpretation that he was ‘too fast’. “I wanted to apologize for walking out on the session earlier this week. That was unprofessional of me. I admit, tarot is quite out of my usual comfort zone.”
“I understand.” I was a bit nervous that he knew, somehow, that I was in league with Apollo. Or that he was going to accuse me of something. I needed him to cut to the chase. “But that’s not the only reason you called, is it?”
“Are you sure you aren’t psychic?” He said this semi-ironically, in the same way I imagined he’d delivered the ‘divine’ pun in his first message. “You are correct. I also must admit that I’m intrigued by the potential of your business. Far more than I ‘predicted’ I would be.”
“You have to stop with the puns. Believe me, I’ve heard them all before.”
