“Capricorns and Scorpios make excellent partners. Until they don’t.”
“That tends to be the life cycle of every relationship that ends, which are most of them when you think about it.”
“Did you two attend school together when you were younger?” I ask. “I would never claim to be psychic, but I do detect something of a history between you.”
Something bigger than what Bea told me outside.
“I’m fifty-eight,” Madame Petty says.
“She’s twenty-four,” Bea tells me. “And she has a history of wrecking hearts.”
I wish I could clearly see the expression Madame Petty is aiming at Bea right now.
I’d like to know if I need to call Pinky back into the tent.
“I no longer acknowledge my earthly age, but rather my soul age,” the fortune teller says. “Now you, Mr. Luckwood. You will be very, very lonely in the near future.”
Bah. I smile in her direction. “It happens from time to time.”
“Not like this.”
“And I shall get through it.”
“Not like this.”
“My boys?—”
Madame Petty cuts me off with an ominous noise that has me pausing.
I’ve been lonesome before. Regularly when I’ve been on set filming away from the boys.
And away from Lana.
Sheismy best friend.
As best of a friend as I’ve ever allowed myself to have.
But this sounds as though the fortune teller is warning me that I’m in danger of losing all of them.
“My boys and I talk every day when I travel for work,” I say.
She clucks her tongue. “Oh, they are definitelynotgonna be on your side here.”
Bea shifts beside me. “Do youevergive positive fortunes?”
“Have you not met this world, Bea?” Madame Petty replies. “It’s dark and tragic and no one is immune forever. And having misfortunes in your past doesn’t make you immune to more hardships in the future.”
“Is it so wrong to let people live with hope?”
“When there is hope to be had, I share the hope.”
“Or you can’t see the hope. Or don’t want to, because you know darkness sells.”
“Darkness is reality.”
“But we don’t all need it lurking around every corner. If I’d known my parents were going to die—no. Actually, no, I can’t even imagine that. I don’t want to. I don’t want to think about knowing my parents were going to die without being able to do anything to stop it. That would’ve been worse than suddenly losing them. I don’t want to be afraid something will happen to my brothers all the time. I don’t want to worry that Daph won’t come home one day. I?—”
“Oh, Daphne is definitely not going to come home one day.”
