ACCIDENTALLY ENGAGED

By Mary Carter

PROLOGUE

          It all started that fateful evening when I allowed myself to turn over the first card. It was from the Major Arcana, Trumps Zero, The Fool.
          He’s the grinning idiot, the class clown, the one who eats oysters despite the Red Tide warning, the guy who lowers his car for increased speed and agility, despite the fact that it’s a Saturn.
          Most Tarot card decks show The Fool standing at the edge of a cliff, not watching what he’s doing. He’s daydreaming, he’s staring off into the sky, he’s mentally composing his grocery list. In other words, he’s terminally out of milk.
          He’s also one step away from plunging thousands of feet to his death.
          And it’s not like anyone didn’t warn him. (Hence, his name.)
          If a nonfoolish man were carefully and strategically walking down a path and suddenly plunged to his death due to large foliage, overgrown trees, or poor city planning, we’d all feel sorry for the guy, maybe even drop a bundle of flowers or light an outdoor-only non flammable candle at the accident site. Maybe even shed a few tears. We’re reasonable people. And even if we didn’t go that far, we certainly wouldn’t blame the guy for dying.
          But if there were clues pointing to the impending disaster scattered along the way, such as small forest animals running at top speed in the opposite direction, a strange, stale feeling of doom hovering about the suddenly stilled air, or a large, neon sign blinking Danger! This path ends in a perilous cliff!, we probably wouldn’t be so sympathetic when The Fool blindly forged ahead and plummeted off the face of the earth. Most likely we’d say, “I told you so.”
          In my defense (because a fool always has one), at the time I thought I was doing the reading for someone else. It’s only now as I stand at the edge of the cliff, one step away from taking the fatal plunge myself, that I can see everything so clearly.

Chapter 1

DAILY HOROSCOPE- PISCES

          Your kindness will be tested. Stand up for yourself fish-woman! A placemat collects silver, while a doormat just collects dust.

          “Clair, please. Just do this one for me. It’s just one little reading. Please, please, please, please, please.”

          I pulled my beaded, green purse protectively to my side where my Tarot cards were resting peacefully in their box, happy to be done for the day.

          “Why won’t you do it?” I said, trying to sound mature and reasonable when what I really wanted to do was jump up and down and whine, “I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home!”

          “Because I know the girl. I sort of—used to date her. I just . . . she’s kind of . . . I can’t get into this right now Clair,” my friend and colleague, Brian Shepard, said. He glanced over his shoulder as if someone were stalking him and then lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “She’s standing right over there. Please. Please, please, please, please.”

          I contemplated Brian like a lizard stares at a fly right before its slimy, red tongue shoots out and wraps it in deadly saliva. Not that I didn’t sympathize with his plight. It’s truly difficult to do a reading for someone you know. Family and friends hit me up all the time for free readings, but I was always worried I’d let the things I already knew about the person subconsciously influence the outcome. Like the year I was nine and my brother Tommy broke his leg in a motorcycle accident. The cards said he was entering a long period of rest and introspection, and I happily relayed this to him.

          But instead of praising my astounding psychic abilities, my brother glared at me like I was a Happy Meal sans the fries and the prize and began ridiculing me. “Duh, Clair. Incredible talent you got there. Hmm . . . broken leg-- period of rest. What a wanker. If you’re so psychic, why didn’t you predict the accident, huh?” I stared at him, dumfounded. “Why’da let me break my Mother-Fudging leg in the first place lunatic?”

          But as bad as it was to give someone a “duh” reading, it paled in comparison to giving them the exact answers they wanted to hear, and then spending the next twentythree Christmases listening to-- say your sister Abby-- getting smashed and shouting, “Clair you said I’d be married with two, identical blond, extremely brilliant twin boys and living in Quebec, Canada, by now. Where are they, Clair? Where are my two, twins? Where is my tall, entrepreneurial, Canadian husband and my two twins? Eh? Eh? Is Santa bringing them this year, Clair? Is he? Is he?”

          It took superhuman strength on my part not to shout back at her at the top of my lungs,“Twins means two, Abby. You don’t say ‘two twins’; it’s redundant! Obviously they must get their brilliance from their tall, entrepreneurial, Canadian father!”

          Besides, I gave her that reading when I was twelve. It took me years before I could take off my psychic training wheels. Abby, on the other hand, still hadn’t let it go. The above tantrum was last Christmas. I’m thirty-two and she’s thirty-eight, and she still blames me for her naked ring finger and barren womb. I also told her she would lose her left eye in a freak mining accident, and you didn’t see her holding me responsible for that one not panning out.

          “Come on, Clair. Are you going to do this one for me or not?” Brian whined.

          We both knew I was going to do it. I was a complete pushover by nature, and as my three ex-husbands could attest, I have never been able to resist a man on his knees. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to milk it a little before giving in. Especially since I had already put my Tarot cards away, taken down my sign, and packed up the yellow silk scarf I used for my ten-card Celtic spread.

          “If I do this-- and I’m not saying I will—what are you going to do for me?” I said. Brian sighed, folded his arms across his chest, and tried to match my intimidating gaze while I studied my reflection in the spoon hanging around his neck. It was starting to turn his Adam’s Apple slightly green, but Brian refused to take it off. He was determined to bend it with his mind, twist it into tiny knots using only the Power of Thought. He’d been wearing it a little over a year and a half.

          “You could charge them double,” Brian said, jerking his head toward his tent. “The two of them are walking advertisements for Gucci, Prada, and Coach.”

          “I don’t care if they’re carrying gold bricks,” I said. “I’m not charging anybody double.” Brian sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He wasn’t exactly a handsome man, slightly elf like in appearance, despite his six-foot frame. His blond hair was curly and static, ears splayed out like television antennas, his nose terminally pink. On the plus side, he had sparkling emerald eyes, a full head of hair, and a charismatic aura he never failed to inflict on women. How else could you explain a tall, lanky elf-man getting so much tail?

          Although . . . according to my best friend Karen, he had a very large package, so that could have accounted for a hefty percent of it. She unwrapped the said package in the upstairs hallway at my birthday party last year after drinking four shots of tequila off his stomach. Incidentally, all I got was a cheap crystal ball and a pair of orange-striped gym socks.

          “God, you’re such a Girl Scout. Fine. Do this for me and I’ll fix you up with my friend Scott.”

          “Brian,” I warned. He knew full well I wasn’t going to go out with his friend Scott, or John, or Jeff, or T-Bone, or any of the other men he’d tried to push on me the past year. I was on a long, long, hiatus from men. As a bona fide recovering in-loveaholic, I was officially cut off.

          “Okay, okay, calm down. Do this for me and I’ll switch places with you tomorrow.”

          Our booths were stationed at the Chicago Psychic Fair, in the gymnasium at the Healing Arts Community Center. We were sandwiched in between booths on acupuncture, massage, herbal remedies, yoga, and vegetarian cookies. I had the unfortunate luck of being next to a vegan fanatic whose booth was covered with pictures of bloody cows. Although I was all for the humane treatment of animals, I couldn’t ignore my inner carnivore; I’d been craving a cheeseburger all day.

          Brian’s booth, however, was across from homemade fudge. Whereas the sugary scent drew customers to his vicinity, the bloody cows scared them away from mine. His offer was generous, but I couldn’t take him up on it.

          “I’m not here tomorrow,” I told him.

          “What do you mean you’re not here tomorrow?”

          “I’m going on my pilgrimage,” I bragged. Every year, for the past three years, I’d taken a road trip. It was the only thing that had kept me sane—and single—since my last divorce. This year I needed it more than ever.

          “Who’s here instead?” Brian asked, his voice rising in pitch and cracking like he was going through puberty. He started fingering his spoon. “Don’t tell me it’s Dame Diaphannie. You know I can’t work with ‘Double D’.” Not wanting to get him started on her, I reached into my purse and touched the gold-embossed envelope I’d been carrying around the past week like a time bomb strapped to my chest, hoping Brian would pick up on it and ask me about it. Ed, my third husband, “the one that was supposed to stick,” was getting married.

          Alexis, his twenty-four-year-old ballerina-bride-to-be, took it upon herself to invite me to the blessed event. If I didn’t get out of town, I might just show up. And at the toast, I might very well raise my glass and announce to everyone how Ed said he’d always love me. How he’d stood on our back porch one humid Friday evening, still dressed in his work clothes, and tearfully confessed that he didn’t want to be married. How he hoped I’d find it in my heart to forgive him. How he had really, really, really tried because of how much he loved me—but-- he just wasn’t the marrying type.

          Oh, yes, I needed my pilgrimage. My sanity was at stake. Brian was still ranting about Dame Diaphannie.

          “That cow listens in on my readings and corrects me when I’m doing my best work.”

          “I know . . .”

          “Last time she actually yelled over the curtain, “It’s never gonna happen, honey; he’s having an affair with your sister.”

          “She’s out of control,” I agreed half heartedly, as images of her colorful turbans, stick-on rubies, and sandalwood incense floated through my mind. She spoke in tongues, smoked two packs of Cigarellos a day, and occasionally rolled her eyes back in her head as if she were having a fullblown epileptic fit during readings. I pulled the invitation out of my purse and waved it hypnotically in front of Brian.

          “Did I mention Ed is getting married?”

          “About seventeen times,” Brian said, throwing a worried glance at his booth. Crushed by his lack of enthusiasm, I mentally blew black smoke over his aura, like a manic-depressive maid sprinkling the dust back on the furniture instead of polishing it off.

          “Do the reading, Clair. I know you could use the money.” He had me there. I had a stack of bills at home, all accruing late fees.

          “Fine,” I said, dropping my purse on the card table with a thud. “Let’s just get it over with.” I was unpacking my cards when suddenly Brian put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him.

          “Um . . .Clair?”

          “Yes?” I said, startled at his intensity.

          “Rachel is . . . uh . . . the sensitive type—you know? A little . . .uh . . . wound up, I guess you would say.”

          “I’m sure I’ll survive,” I said.

          “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s her. She’s extremely . . .uh . . . wound up.”

          “Wound up, wound up. I got it. Don’t worry Brian. I won’t add any of my own vibes, I’ll just read the cards.”

          “Perfect. But—still—be careful.”

          “Don’t give it a second thought,” said I, the fool.

ABOUT MARY CARTER: Mary Carter is a freelance writer and certified sign language interpreter. She’s a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (NYC) and Rochester Institute of Technology/NTID. Her first novel, SHE’LL TAKE IT, has been optioned by Paramount Pictures for a weekly television series, and will be re-published by Headline Books/Little Black Dress in the UK in November 2006. Her second novel, ACCIDENTALLY ENGAGED, a comedy about a tarot card reader who messes up the engagement of a very prominent bachelor, will be released in March of 2007 by both Kensington Books and Little Black Dress. Mary currently lives in Manhattan where she is busy writing her third novel.