Lachesis: Luck of the Draw

"Death," I announce, doing my best to make a solemn face as I lean across the low table to lock eyes with the quivering middle-aged soccer mom maintaining what I can only describe as a disgustingly perfect lotus pose.

"So sorry, Madame Maybelline is, but the cards are not to lying."

"But my juice fasts! And what about my weekly acupuncture? Madame, this is the fifth time I've had you read my fortune, and each time you tell me I'm going to…" She chokes back a sob, and it's an ugly sight. The woman is nothing but a sopping mess of tissue papers and crispy platinum locks.

"My dahhhling." Crap, I've mangled the accent again. I fake a cough and pick up with what I hope sounds exotic enough to convince your average everyday WASP to part with $49.99 per session (plus tip.)

"Darling, it is not ze Madame who chooses your fate!" The last word catches in my throat a little. I hope the noise sounds sympathetic, but I'm choking back a laugh. Not that it matters. I'm lying.

"Go straight to your home and find ze most troubling habit you have. Make it gone. I have told you zis, Caroline! How many times have I told you zis?" This tone is always my favorite part of the act, so I try to keep the momentum going.

"If you are not wishing for to die horribly, it is your choice. Fix your lifestyle, and you are being fixing your life!" Another lie. She's a goner. Not her fault, really. The bright side is that it'll likely take another few appointments before I spot her obituary sandwiched between a column of belly-up geezers and an ad for some local laundry service. I know she's on the hook, so I deliver a final line just for kicks.

"I sense… Yes, Madame Maybelline senses great peril! You have a true enemy, no?" I flip the top card of my tattered deck. It features an image of a symmetrical wheel. Honestly, it could have displayed anything. I don't know what the dumb things mean. 

Caroline's demeanor changes almost instantly, thrilled to have someone on which to blame her misfortunes.

"Mindy? Is her name Mindy?" she gasps.

Of course she has an arch-nemesis. Probably some neighbor with grass a third of an inch past the Homeowners' Association guidelines.

"Miss Mindy Thompson—" she practically spits the name, "Hates, hates, hates me! Ever since I said her movie night casserole was on the dry side, which it most certainly was, that tramp has refused to give my Mackenzie decent roles in the after-school performances."

The PTA should have been my second guess, honestly. This is a lady who's never once bought drugstore mascara. I'd have to change my name to Madame Avon to draw any suspicion at all.

"My little Kenzie, understudy to Singing Dog #4! Can you even imagine it, Madame?"

There's nothing more I want in this world than to roll my eyes and groan. There's no point, though. The clients can't see me clearly in the dim lighting. A dark veil hides my face (and more importantly, my age). I do it anyways. It's incredibly satisfying.

"Not all of us are too busy chasing our husbands into the arms of his 22-year-old massage therapist to learn basic homemaking, you know!" she huffs.

Boy, have I done it. Eager to see Caroline on her way, I begin to gather my cards from the table quietly, taking care to give my best effort at pretending to admire each one as I shove it back into the flimsy box. In reality, the depth of my concern for these stupid slips of paper runs about as dry as Mindy Thompson's disgrace of a casserole.

This customer, like all of the ones I've entertained as the mysterious Madame Maybelline in the last eight months, is absolutely going to follow the path I've set. No matter what new fad diet she goes on, the amount she donates to whatever charity the organic grocery store is promoting, or how many times she returns to my sketchy corner of the Park City Mall. She's going to die.

It's not really my fault. I'm just the messenger. At least, that's my theory.

All I know is that I deal the cards, I flip the cards, and I deliver a verdict. It just so happens, all of the losers I've had the pleasure of doing readings for deserved a weak lot. Don't get me wrong— I made sure to learn the basics of this snake oil gambit when I converted my aunt's failing photography studio into a makeshift fortress of psychitude, but take it from a tried-and-true master of the mystic arts when I tell you this stuff is hokey bullshit.

Everyone eats it up, so long as you play the part right. Little Kenziekins may not be the next Broadway star, but I bet you I'd steal any stage you put me on—assuming I could get the accent right.

"I'll see you next week, Madame. Same time?"

"But of course!" I lay it on thick, "Unless it is that you are not wanting to know your futures, hm?" I give her my best tut-tut and I swear I can almost hear a sitcom-style applause reel.

Once she's gone, I stuff my pockets with the day's earnings and finish off my evening ritual. It starts with pulling down the sturdy metal security gate at the entrance of the shop, hits an exhilarating climax when I slip into my street clothes and make a mad dash for the soft pretzel stand before it shuts down for the night, and wraps up with me flipping through the obituaries, a satisfying bookend to a long day at the office.

As usual, I am on the lookout for my former clientele in the greasy pages of the Park City Gazette. Flipping through my scrapbook, you'd see dozens of clippings from articles detailing deaths, accidents, scandals, and horrific discoveries I predicted correctly. Without fail, my readings come true. At least, that's been the case so far.

When I initially launched this operation, it felt like the first day of school. Well, not the kind I was familiar with, considering I'd dropped out by week 3 of senior year, but you know the feeling. I was eager to make a unique business in the most publicized ticky-tacky suburb in the state, and although I was skeptical about this magical mumbo jumbo, I thought I could bring some real hope to people who needed it. I dreamed up these naive fantasy scenarios where I'd tell the downtrodden abuse victim exactly how she'd rise up and leave the bastard, or I'd whisper to the lovestruck preteen the necessary encouragement to ask his sweetheart to the spring formal. I envisioned being a sort of therapist, but without the hoops of a GED, degree, or thousands of dollars in student loans. 

Not long after the grand opening of the shop, I was dropped headfirst into a world of petty middle-class trivialities. 'My husband looks at the babysitter with bedroom eyes,' 'my son skipped water polo practice for the fourth time this week,' 'Brenda from Accounting doesn't invite me to her holiday parties.' Naturally, it didn't take me long to snap.

 As much as I wanted to give it an honest shot, by the end of the first week, I had given up on doing "proper" readings and was instead doling out what I thought of as a bit of vigilante justice. Call me Batman, I guess. Or Madame Maybelline, like everyone else did after I revamped the shop and my persona to transform this gig into a full-scale production.

I never did learn to read the tarot cards, but I can't say it matters. I don't bother to check them. Not for real, anyway. Whatever divine system it is that delivers customers to my den clearly has a role for me: I'm the bearer of bad news. You'd think it'd be a hard job to handle, but telling some insufferable waste of an index fund that they won't be living long enough to see retirement is almost as sweet as the $49.99 (plus tip) they hand me as they sniffle their way out the door. I gave out the first few morbid readings just for kicks, but once I started seeing my prophecies popping up in the paper each day, I knew I'd found my calling.

I roll over in bed, click off the nightstand lamp, and spend the rest of the night dreaming of a world devoid of minivans and the tiny stick figure families on the back windows of them.

* * *