Victor continues to put things away, “We only have one last flight tomorrow with her. And it’ll be a quick early morning flight. Once we get home, we can go day drinking at drag brunch.”
“Tomorrow isn’t getting here quickly enough,” Amber responds as she leaves.
Elliott looks down the aisle as Amber walks away. “So, what happened back in that tarot reading place?”
“What are you talking about?” Victor asks, busying himself by wiping down the counter in the galley.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Elliott insists. “That Madame Jean or Jeanette was reading your fortune, and you just froze. You didn’t say a word when you looked down at the cards.”
Victor tries to come up with a response to Elliott. “It was nothing. I think I was getting a slight headache from all that incense and tobacco smoke. I just wanted to get out of there.”
Elliott gives Victor a side-eyed glance, moving out of the way of Victor’s cleaning, “I’m not so sure about that. You saw something.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Victor says.
Frustrated, Elliott lightly slams his hand on the counter. “Oh, come on, Vic. Don’t act dumb. I know you can read tarot. What did you see?”
“It was nothing,” Victor snaps back. “She acted like she knew how to read cards but was doing parlor tricks to freak out tourists.”
Elliott sighs in annoyance toward Victor. “Seriously, bro? You’re going to act like you don’t know what you saw?” He moves closer to Victor and lowers his voice. “I remember you froze and paid close attention to what was laid out. Then she laid down two more cards without saying a word. You tried your best to hold back your expression, but you saw something.”
Victor slams one of the carts shut while looking at Elliott. “Look, just let it go. I was annoyed, that’s all.”
“If you say so,” Elliott says begrudgingly as he leaves the galley and heads back to coach.
A few days later, Victor lies in bed in his hotel room. He hasn’t been able to fall asleep all night and will need to wake up in an hour to get ready for his flight home. As he tosses and turns, trying to get comfortable, he lets out a disgruntled sigh. The conversation he had with Elliott the other day continues to weigh on his mind. He knew Elliott was right about his reaction to the cards. But Victor was too stubborn to admit it.
Victor reaches over and grabs his phone off the nightstand. Bored out of his mind, he looks through Facebook and Instagramto see what annoying posts his fellow flight attendants are ranting about.
“They sent an email about that two days ago,” he says out loud. “Read your emails, and maybe you won’t rant. But then again, someone’s going to bitch about it.”
Once annoyed with Facebook, he starts looking to see if he can trade any of his upcoming trips. Scrolling through the trade board, he notices a trip available with a layover in New Orleans. Victor pauses for a moment and stares at his phone. He scrunches his face while scratching at his beard as he contemplates the trip. Something inside is telling him he needs to go back to New Orleans. Another part is telling him he should just forget about it and move on.
Victor stares at the screen for a few minutes before he makes a decision. He taps on the trade button, adding the trip to his schedule.
A week later, Victor arrives back in New Orleans at the Marriott with a crew he’s never flown with. While in the elevator, one of the male flight attendants asks, “Hey Vic, we’re going to head out tonight. You want to join us?”
Victor turns to acknowledge him, “I’m good. Thank you, though. I’m not feeling well. I think I will order room service and call it an early night.”
Luckily, Victor’s room is on a different floor from the rest of his crew. He leaves the elevator and heads to his room without looking back.After quickly changing out of his uniform, Victor makes his way back down to the lobby. He quickly dashes through the lobby, hoping not to run into anyone on his crew. The man is on a mission, and that is to meet up with Madame Jeanette.
As Victor walks down the streets, retracing the steps he remembered to where Madame Jeanette resided, a tall Latin man rests against a post outside a gift store. He has a masculine jawline, a five o’clock shadow, and thick, dark, wavy hair. He’s wearing tan khaki shorts and a light green button-up shirt with the top half open enough to expose his lightly hairy chest and tattoo. The man pretends to be tapping away at his phone as he observes Victor walk down the street. Victor is so preoccupied with remembering where to go that he doesn’t notice the man.
Victor finds his way and approaches Madame Jeanette’s door. The door opens a crack as soon as he is about to touch the doorknob. The door creaks as he lets himself in. The bell on the doorframe rings when the door hits it. Victor looks around as the scent of incense fills the air, causing him to crinkle his nose.
“Hello?” Victor says loudly as he walks deeper into the room.
As he looks around, he notices that many more candles are lit, and the lights are dimmer than the last time he visited. Before he could close the door, a light breeze passes by Victor, causing the candles to flicker and the door to slam shut. Victor jumpsslightly from the slamming door, and the wind chimes in the little shop off to the side clank loudly.
Victor calms himself and clears his throat as he continues further into Madame Jeanette’s place. “Hello? Madame Jeanette?” Victor calls out into the empty room. There is no answer, but he walks farther inside. The sounds of cards shuffling slowly grow louder as Victor gets closer to the room with the table. He turns the corner and sees Madame Jeanette with cards in hand.
Madame Jeanette doesn’t look at Victor as he approaches. “Well, hello again, birthday boy. What brings me the honor of this visit?”
Victor pauses for a moment before he walks over and takes a seat at the round table across from Madame Jeanette. “I don’t know why I’m here. But something keeps going around in my head about the day my friends and I were here.”
Madame Jeanette takes a puff from her pipe and exhales. “Are you talking about the cards?” she asks suspiciously.
Victor swallows a little. “Yes.”
