I'd Like To Talk To You

I walked slowly from booth to booth, middle of the first day of the wellness expo. It seemed like I was the only customer; everyone else behind a table or at a workshop in the adjoining rooms. Big eyes and welcomes met me as I passed, and my heart was so thin that day that I would have let any one of them take me home to a nest for safekeeping. Then a woman beckoned me.

"Come here, honey. Come here." She held out her hand to me and I considered flying right into it.

Hair curly and short, pushed over to one side, a psychic Cyndi Lauper in her late 60s. Flowing dress, blue piercing eyes and blue shadow to match. The kind you paint on, maybe Mary Kay. And for some reason I recall her little teeth like that of a child, chipped and crooked and turned different directions, endearing and mesmerizing. Or maybe I was drawn to her voice like liquor coating me with warmth, a tingle on the skin as I slid my hand into hers.

"Your first question is free and your second is a hundred dollars," she said.

I laughed, at her grip and blue eyes on me; she did not smile. But also I laughed at the absurdity of wanting so much and all the answers and not having a single question.

Finally, I said, "I'm having a tough time." She held me, pulled me even closer to her and looked down at the table, no longer meeting my eyes. Her voice lowered, different, she told me about light and letting go and talked of sex, of lineage, my grandmother.

Then she looked up, dropped my hand, thump on the table, and began talking to another woman walking by the booth. My heart a flutter, flying back inside of me, safe.