This all happens two months before I leave New York.
I'm sitting on a wooden chair in a backyard bar patio across from a brown-haired girl named Kate. It's why I've spent two hours drinking vodka sodas, eating French fries and navigating the conversational bends: jobs (we don't like them!), apartments (we pay so much!), hometowns (thank God we're not there!).
I've come straight from work. I've got gym clothes in my messenger bag and an iChat headache. I'm trying to be charming, trying not to dampen my jokes with self-pity. But it all feels like pantomime, like my worthwhile characteristics are drinking somewhere else — at home, perhaps, while booking tickets out of town. And then her cell phone rings.
promotion
"Can I take this?" she asks. "Do you mind?"
Today, I don't mind. I welcome the chance to stare silently at the bartender, who is also a brunette and seems genuinely happy.
"She's in San Francisco," Kate whispers to me, a hand over the mouthpiece. I can't hear her conversation, but it looks like it's with a close friend. I pull my phone out of my pocket and read an imaginary text.
Kate is wearing red lipstick, a bright, fiery shade, which compliments her olive skin and gives me some hope. Also: she has bangs. They make me think of my failure to kiss anyone in fifth grade — a failure I hope to remedy that night. And every night.
"My friend Gina," she says, sliding her cell closed. "She's found a guru."
"A guru?" I ask. "Is this what our peers are doing on the West Coast instead of drinking at bars?" Kate doesn't laugh, and this being a first date I read deep into her reaction. I want her. I decide she will pull me out of my stupor.
"I've got a soft spot for the New Age," I say.
"Oh yeah?" Kate asks.
"Sure," I say. "There's a hopeful beauty to it. I may look the cynic, but I know my moon sign."
"Well, I've been doing tarot since I was a teenager," she says, finally smiling.
And suddenly, the cards are on the table, so to speak. We are two seekers.
"I've always wanted to have my cards read," I say, hoping she'll invite me back to her place for a demo.
"There's a place near my apartment that I've always wanted to check out."
Or that.
Downtown Manhattan is littered with these places: diminutive storefronts decorated with dusty New Age clichés: crystal globes, flowing tapestries, colored candles, gaudy tsotchkes. Places that advertise $5 palm readings, $20 energy cleanses, $50 futures told. Places that never seem to have any business.
But tonight, we're the business. Once inside, we sit at a small table covered with a deck of tarot cards, a few candles and a laminated menu. The overhead fluorescents are incredibly bright.
I begin to question whether having your fortune read in front of a girl you hardly know is first-date fantasy or first-date horror story.
"Dude, check out the prices," she says, holding up the laminated card. It claims readings are $100. But before we can back out, a voice more Jersey than Romania rises through the air: "For you, twenty each. And I don't do tarot — I read energy. Intuition. I got the gift."
We turn to look and there she is: a skinny blond woman no older than twenty-five wearing what is generally considered pajamas: Juicy sweatpants, a ribbed tank top and, underneath, no bra — no intuition needed for that one.
"And we gotta do it in the back 'cause I got the kid here," she says, pointing over her shoulder.
Of course. I think. The kid.
It's at this point that I begin to question whether having your fortune read in front of a girl you hardly know is first-date fantasy or first-date horror story. This is supposed to be a large-scale flirtation, a big, impressive date-y gesture to break the ice and win me some unearned lust. "Sounds good," Kate says, giving my hand a squeeze.
I'm directed to sit on a lumpy brown couch, and my date is placed across from the fortuneteller in a preschool-sized plastic seat, facing the glow of the TV, which is blaring The Bachelor at full volume.
"You watch the kid while I do her," she says to me. I nod, fearful of dissent. "You can ignore him. Just don't let him eat off the ground."
The fortuneteller begins to shuffle a deck of tarots while looking up at the TV every few seconds. "These cards will give me clues," she says in monotone. "I'll sense your future based on how your energy reacts to them. Now cut the deck."
"Expect a fruitful relationship," the teller says, "with a direct superior."
Kate removes a few cards from the top and places them next to the big pile.
"Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes," the fortuneteller says. "I see great things. Does the West Coast have any special meaning for you?"
"Um, sure," Kate says.
"I'm getting a lot of energy from the West Coast. I think good things will come to you from the West," she says. "Maybe work, definitely wealth."
Kate smiles in my direction. I grin and nod. We share an electric moment of silent laughter.
"Do you like your job?" the fortuneteller asks, oblivious to our harmony.
"Not really," Kate says.
"Expect a raise in the next three months. You'll probably work there for a few years. And expect a fruitful relationship," the teller adds, "with a direct superior."
This time Kate and I laugh out loud; she gives me a mock-haughty look, and I fuse shock and leeriness in a coded wink. I'm a bit surprised by the teller's boldness and wonder if she doesn't notice we're on a date, but I'm bolstered by my ability to turn Kate's impending affair with her boss into our own flirtation.
