“I prefer to live my life without guessing what’s coming next,” she insists. “I wake up enough nights as it is, worried about my brothers being out in the world on their own. I don’t need to fret about myself too.”
“Do you truly?”
That earns me an exasperated glance. “Wait until your boys are driving, then come tell me it doesn’t give you an entirely new level of anxiety.”
“Perhaps Madame Petty will have good news.”
“Doubt it.”
“Is that her real name?”
“No.”
“Did she pick it after the musician, or the racing driver, or because she’s terribly petty?”
“You can ask her that one yourself.”
The tent is exactly what one would expect of a fortune teller. Round, with ivory walls hung with twinkling lights intermingled with greenery that is distinctly simpler and more natural than the greenery my mother used to hang at the holidays. The tent isn’t large, but not so small that— “Did you tell me last night that you dislike small spaces?”
She squints at me. “Seriously, Simon—how much do you remember from last night?”
Not answering this question is likely in my best interest. However, I would like to know what I told her.
The way she was watching me as we all ate suggests I said things I shall regret…once I know what they are.
“Not as much as I wish,” I reply.
“That’s a vague answer that could mean anything fromnothingtoI don’t want to tell you.”
“I’ll tell you the truth if you come with me to have our fortunes read.”
This tent, and a fortune teller who calls herselfMadame Petty? I’m intrigued.
Fascinated.
Excited to see what other inspiration could come from this town by way of a psychic medium.
I don’t at all believe she can tell the future, but I am terribly curious what she will say.
Bea stares at me, then at the tent, lips pursed.
And a guilt knife stabs me in the kidney.
Metaphorically, clearly.
Pinky wouldn’t let anything actually stab me.
“Will you wait for me while I have my fortune read?” I ask her.
Her brows furrow for the slightest moment, and then she heaves a mighty sigh.
“Fine.Fine. I’ll go get my fortune read with you. Only because if I don’t go with you, Daphne will probably drag me later. But if it gets creepy, I’m out, and we’re never discussing it again.”
That makes me far happier than it should.
She’s still the woman who set me up as a lackey in her lovers’ quarrel.
But I don’t believe she’s a bad person.
