Page 88 - Vol. VI #1

People (continued from page )
public speaking and Roger had told her he had
shuffled the cards, smiling meanly.
nothing to say.
“You’re pretty sly, aren’t you? Quite the tease. Let’s see how much of a tease.” He dealt eight cards, face down. “Now, I remember how he used to do it. Never any real rhyme or reason. But, ho- boy, was he ever the oracle!”
Afterward, Alice sipped tea and shook hands. She noticed Roger slink away and thought of going after him. She had the deck of playing cards in her purse. Her idea was to give them to Roger as soon as the memorial was over. Let Roger have them, let him feed them to his pet snake, or chew them into confetti.
He turned over the last card in the row—a three of hearts, but threw it down angrily. “There’s only supposed to be face cards and aces. That’s all he ever turned up.” He spread all the cards face-up on the table, then began plucking out the numbers. He slid the numbered cards off the edge of the table, then shuffled the rest clumsily, dropping cards and having to pick them back up and re-shuffle.
On an impulse, she went over to her daughter and gave her the deck of cards. “Take this to your uncle, tell him it’s his.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, okay?” Alice started to move away but then reached out to cup Rachel’s face. “Kind of
a hard day for everyone. Okay? There’s people I have to talk to.” All she wanted was to be rid of the thing. Everything else would fall into place.
“Lily said that the fortune came true for Mom, that was she was married to her job. And then they just fired her. So, what does that mean?”
Rachel held the cards in her left hand and watched her uncle leave through the huge double doors into the open mezzanine level of the Sheraton. His round head floated above the milling guests, up a flight of stairs and turned a corner. She followed him into a wide, empty gal- lery open to the buffet area below. The murmur of voices drifted up, along with the sharp, ex- otic smell of floral arrangements. Roger walked through the space into a narrower hallway, emp- ty of even hotel staff, where he tried the doors until he found one that opened. He didn’t turn on the light but fell into one of the upholstered conference chairs and pulled out a large flask. Rachel watched from the door as he drank, then came in and set the cards on the table. “Mom said to give these to you.”
“Why’re you asking me?” Roger redealt the cards. “Pick one. No, don’t touch it. Just point.” When she did, he turned over the card she’d chosen.
“No shit.” He took another drink, then picked up the deck. “How about I tell you your fortune? How about that?”
“You mean, work? Like I’ll have a job, a career? Or do you mean my career will involve manual labor?” She was remembering the CareersPlus prediction that she’d be a good chicken farmer. Wasn’t that a career involving a lot of hard physi- cal work? A shock of fear ran through her that somehow the skills assessment prediction might come true. She would kill herself, first. (Chicken shit farmer, Arden Pike whispered.)
“I know my future already. We’re going to Atlanta and starting fresh.”
“We’ll have our own little fortune party, okay?” He 79
“Not that one!” She cried. “That one!”
“Too late! This is the one fate has chosen.” He slid the card toward her—the Jack of spades. “Uh-oh, princess. Bad news. That’s not a card you want.”
“Is that the death card? I told you I wanted the other one. Do over!”
“Keep your voice down! What, you think it’s a tarot pack? Jack of spades, see it rhymes with Jack of all trades. And spades—well, that’s an- other name for a shovel. It means you got a lot of work ahead of you. Like physical labor. But you can handle it, right?”