‘Hold up, let me add Lipz to the call,’ Shirin says when I answer, her face up close to the camera. Her dark hair is slicked into a bun, probably covered in coconut oil before her evening shower, and her skin is bare. Looks like she got some sun today because her freckles are making their annual appearance. She’s got a yellow star-shaped pimple patch next to her eyebrow. On her it somehow looks cool and like a fashion statement rather than something she slapped on to hide an imperfection.
‘Why are you calling?’ Lipi answers gruffly a moment later. Lipi’s got her phone propped up against her wall, allowing us a wide view of both her and her room, which is decorated in hues of blues, blacks and purples to make you feel like you’re in space. She’s sitting at her desk and the LED strip lighting above her casts her in a lavender haze. Behind her is her bed, which has netting surrounding it, giving it a fantasy kind of vibe. ‘You know not to disturb me at this hour. My phone is literally on do not disturb right now. I’m working.’
By ‘working’, Lipi means she’s doing her evening tarot pull. It is technically work for her–she does charge for her readings–but we know her nightly pulls are just a way for her to decompress from the day and look ahead to the next.
‘Why did you answer if you’re working? Not a great work ethic, if you ask me.’
‘I’m hanging up if all you’re going to do is insult me.’
‘That’s not why I called.’ Shirin inhales. ‘Poppy just told me that Salman is also working at Eternally Yours.’
Lipi stops shuffling her deck and looks up at the camera, her face still with horror. ‘Oh.’
‘Yeah,oh,’ Shirin says through gritted teeth. ‘Funny, right?’
‘Not funny at all,’ I add. ‘Actually, it wassounfunny that I –’
But Shirin doesn’t let me finish. Instead, she keeps badgering Lipi about how amusing the situation is.
‘Lipi, don’t you think it’s funny that Poppy randomly ran into her ex at work, of all places?’ The intense stare Shirin is shooting through the camera, although I know it’s not meant for me, has even me cowering, but I don’t get why she’s doing it in the first place.
‘Guys, what’s happ—’
‘OK, fine!’ Lipi throws her hands up, her cards flying around as words escape her mouth in one run-on sentence. ‘Youcaughtme! Ididn’ttellPoppyandI’msorrybut—’
‘Lipi!’ Shiri groans. ‘Yousaidyou were going to tell her.’
‘I was, but then I consulted the cards and they told me –’
‘You can’t listen to the cards! They’re wrong 95% of the time!’
‘They’re not wrong, you justinterpretthem wrong –’
‘I really don’t thinkI’mthe problem here. Look what your cards did to my skin!’
Shirin moves her phone further away from her face, gracing us with what we were unable to see before: multiple stars in various colours dotted across her face. Yikes, something musthave gone seriously wrong for her to use so many.
‘You can’t blame the cards for that!’
‘Lipi, you cannot be se—’
‘But I –’
‘Wait!’ I shout into the microphone, halting their back and forth. As entertaining as it is watching them bicker, I have bigger fish to fry. ‘Lipi, what do you mean you didn’t tell me?Whatdidn’t you tell me?’
The two of them go quiet, as if waiting for the other to speak. When, after a solid thirty seconds, neither of them does, I end the call.
As expected, they call right back, their pained faces appearing next to each other on my screen.
‘Well?’ I prod. ‘Is anyone going to tell me what the hell is going on here, or should I just hang up again?’
‘No!’ they exclaim at the same time.
‘Look, there’s no easy way to say this,’ Shirin starts at the same time Lipi bursts out, ‘We knew.’
My heart feels like it’s about to bounce out of my chest. ‘You knew what?’
‘We knew Salman was going to be working at Eternally Yours this summer.’
