| << 02.04 | 02.06 >> |
Nation of Airports 2.5
Elisabeth came home to find Missy Devereaux watching TV in her living room. Missy wore denim shorts and an old black T-shirt, her bare feet on the coffee table between a glass of white wine and a pair of gardening gloves. "Hey babe," Elisabeth said, not stopping on her way to her bedroom. "You're a redhead now."
"Don't you just love it?" Missy called after her, putting the TV on mute. Living with her grandmother over the last year had revived Missy's Southern accent. Her voice now danced in sugary peaks, not the measured honey she had used back when she was Elisabeth's bottle-blonde, sharply starched colleague at Straightforward, only eighteen months ago. Now Missy took care of her dying grandmother, learning the family history and the final wisdom of the coven. On her death Missy's mother would become the elder, and Missy would run the coven, fourteenth in an unbroken matriarchal line. Missy's family had a grand but dour Georgetown house, the whole first level converted to a private hospital for her grandmother. Elisabeth let Missy use her apartment as an occasional escape, which was working out all right. A small greenhouse Missy had set up for seedlings took up a third of the balcony, but she kept Elisabeth's wine rack stocked and watered the plants.
"I have another two hours before the nurse leaves," Missy said. "Want to order food?"
"OK," Elisabeth said. "The Lebanese place?"
"That's fine. Now," Missy said, appearing in the doorway with two glasses of wine. "About my hair."
Elisabeth started to answer but Missy's goofy demeanor brought home the day's events. She turned to hide the unwelcome tears. "Hey now," Missy said, putting one hand on Elisabeth's shoulder. "I'll order. Lamb kabob, right?" Elisabeth nodded. "Come out when you're ready."
So Missy already knew. Elisabeth undressed and washed her face. It wasn't a surprise -- Missy kept in touch with her network -- but Elisabeth felt cheated of both a good story and some needed solitude. She shrugged at her reflection and fished her stash out of the bathroom drawer. Missy had left a glass of wine on her dresser. Elisabeth downed it in three swallows and threw on workout clothes.
Missy was on the balcony when she came out, admiring the green shoots in the little greenhouse trays. "Have you seen how strong my babies are getting?" she asked, picking up the bottle to refill Elisabeth's glass. "I knew the light would be just perfect here." She indicated the upper left corner and worked her way across the row. "This is basil -- we're gonna have some fine pesto this summer, sweetie -- and these are Imperial tomatoes. They're wonderful. This here is wormwood, and that's echinacea -- it has such lovely flowers, and it brings butterflies. This is marjoram, Aphrodite's herb; I don't know if it will grow here, but it should be hot enough. But it won't survive the winter here. This one is horehound. It's a pretty teal color and it grows in bad soil, so I'm putting that out back by the parking space." Some of the seedlings were marked with stakes -- Elisabeth read Valerian, Bloodroot, Tansy, all in careful print capitals -- but most were not. Already, despite Missy's lecture, she would have failed a test to tell them apart.
"When will you plant them?"
"You mean, when do you get your balcony back?" Elisabeth made a face of reluctant agreement. "At least another month. Especially in this awful clay soil we have around here."
"Way things are going, I'll probably be able to help you plant them."
"With your black thumb? Even if I didn't have a reason before, now we have to keep you working." They both laughed at that, and clinked glasses.
"So you heard," Elisabeth said.
"Magda Crane. She's a bitch, no doubt about it. But Boston are also a smart bunch. They'll see your worth."
"I don't know. Have you ever met her?"
"Once. Couple of years back, in a meeting about this project in Beijing," Missy said. "She's older, sixties I'd guess. She has manners. For a Yankee. And she does know her shit. She flayed the guy who was doing the presentation. It was scary."
"You're not helping," Elisabeth said.
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to upset you, but it's not good news. It's maybe not bad news. But I'm worried for you."
"Me too." She hugged Missy's shoulders and sighed. The phone chirped rapidly, the concierge's special tone. "That must be dinner."
They had to unpack and reheat the food. Missy took the opportunity to open a second bottle of wine. Over dinner they talked girl talk, clothes and restaurants and a new boy Missy had met. "He's got cute friends, too. You should come out with us next week. Mama will be up visiting Gramma so I can actually stay out late."
"That would be fun." Elisabeth imagined getting laid off and just staying laid off. She would wear T-shirts, take yoga classes, bike the canal in the middle of the day. Her savings weren't large but she had money, and she'd get something in a severance package, no matter how stingy. She could travel. Elisabeth had always wanted to go to Greece. She liked the idea of a guy too, someone steady, someone to take her out. The job had only let her make quick connections, a few dates here, some sex there. She could get out more.
It was depressing. Elisabeth wanted to work again. Getting a life was a consolation prize.
The sun had set by the time they finished eating. Missy took the dishes to the sink. When she came out, she picked up Elisabeth's tarot deck. "Care for a reading?"
"I probably should." She was pleased Missy had offered. Missy was creepy good with the cards. "Especially now that you're getting pointers from your grandmother."
"Gramma's actually better with tea leaves."
"I never got how that worked," Elisabeth said.
"Sometimes I wonder if Gramma does." Missy shuffled the deck in her hands quickly and with flair. "You wouldn't happen to have a smudge-stick?"
"Actually I do." Elisabeth eventually found it in her nightstand drawer, wrapped in red crepe paper. It was a bundle of dried sage stalks the size and shape of a dildo. She had bought it on a business trip at an Indian jewelers in Santa Fe, along with an intricate Zuni choker medallion Elisabeth loved but rarely wore.
In the living room Missy had turned off the electric lights and lit several candles. "So, you ready?" Missy asked.
"Sure. You don't mind?"
"Not at all, sweetie. In fact, with the reorg and all, I'm curious myself. Open the door, would you?" she asked, pointing to the balcony. When Elisabeth sat back down Missy handed her the deck, holding it by the cloth. Elisabeth looked through it to choose the card to represent her in the reading. Halfway through Missy interrupted her. "You're not paying attention," she said. "Take a deep breath and start again."
Elisabeth relaxed, and began again where she had stopped. Missy lit the sage with the flame of the candle closest to her. It began to smoke immediately, a scent like dust and sugar. She passed Brand 7, then considered it again. "This one."
Missy now held the burning end of the incense up. She appeared transfixed by it. A small hypnotic flame danced above the tip, feeding on the smoke. Missy put the incense in the ashtray and took the card, this time with her bare hand. It showed a supermarket end-aisle display, massed with a disorganized pile of products: boxes, cans, bottles, all different sizes and colors. All had the same circle-B symbol of the Brand Trump, but nothing else in common. "Brand 7," Missy said. "It means you're stuck, and that it's your fault. You're paralyzed by choices, or by the difference between your wishful thinking and reality. You're sure about this one?"
"It looks like how I feel."
"Then that's the one." Missy took back the deck, shuffled it a few times, then cut the deck into even thirds. Elisabeth chose the right-hand one. Missy held that part of the deck in the air and waved the incense around it, then drew a circle of smoke in the air above the table.
Missy dealt. "Capital 10 confronts you." A family stood in the doorway of their home, holding a giant sweepstakes check before a crowd with cameras and balloons. "Material wealth. I don't think you're getting laid-off, or if you are it's a great package.
"Capital 2 upside-down, beneath you." A businessman stood on an ocean pier talking to a mobile phone. In his other hand was a pentagram coin of the Capital Trump, with a second juggled in the air above it. In the distance a large container ship was passing out of view. "Disorganization. The businessman is dropping the coins and the ship's about to lose its cargo.
"Behind you, Failure upside-down." A lone trader, wizened and sad, knelt on the paper-strewn floor of a crashed exchange, his hands raised in torment. "Not only an end, but a stagnant end. The trader's lost everything, can't even stand to regroup and rebuild."
"Yeah," Elisabeth said. "I saw that card earlier this week." So far Missy had only confirmed what Elisabeth believed. Not only was her own career stalled, these were bad times for the firm.
"Above you, Capital 4 upside-down." An old couple on a cruise-ship deck, walking away from the view of the card; pentagrams on the man's large watch, the woman's handbag, the comb in the woman's hair, and on the wallet poking out from the back of the man's tan slacks. "That's weird. That's the opposite of Capital 10 -- money or career is not as solid as it seems." Elisabeth said nothing.
"Brand Director upside-down, ahead of you." A brown-haired, placid woman at a desk. "Insecurity. Speaks to the Capital 4, I guess. Or, Brands are the emotional trump. It could interpersonal, or a bad relationship."
"I have no relationship."
"You have no patience," Missy chided. "I don't know. Let's see what the stave says."
Missy dealt again, this time in a straight line to the right of the cross. "The Intern, upside-down, is what you fear. Whenever change happens, you get a new opportunity to screw up." The young blind professional stood on a subway platform, waiting for the train approaching behind her, her left foot balanced on the point of her spike heels at the very edge of the platform. Her seeing-eye dog looked fearful, ready to pull her onto the track.
"Capital 5, the people around you." A line of grim factory workers, under a gleaming corporate facade emblazoned with pentagrams. "The downsizing card."
"No surprise there," Elisabeth said.
"Product 8, is what you face." The card showed eight gleaming silver airplanes flying over verdant fields. "My, it's either up or down tonight. You will survive the reorg."
"Really?"
"Guaranteed. And now for your future." Missy drew the last card, smiled brightly and put it down. It showed an online stock-quote display set in a globe, icons at compass points: a bull, a bottle of champagne, a new contract, and a laptop. On screen, a graph of a rising red line.
"The Market?" Elisabeth leaned forward. "Really?"
"The Market. That's a good card."
"That's the best card." The Market was success. The Market was everything. Winner take all. She looked up at Missy. "So?"
"So the Market. Sweetie, what more do you want?" Missy got up, waving at the smoke. "That sage is gonna give me a headache. More wine?"
"I'm good."
"The reorg won't be a problem for you," Missy said from the kitchen. "No matter what happens, you're going to do fine -- Capital 10, Product 7, and The Market all see to that. But things will change, and they'll be kinda messy. You're getting out of your current rut, but it'll be rocky and you're going to doubt yourself. That might be your biggest problem. All the cards about your life are Staff Arcana, but your own attitudes are Executives and Management, and they're all upside-down. The real battle's in your head."
"Do you see any travel?" Elisabeth asked.
"Nothing either way. The Intern's always a card of beginnings and movement, as is Product 8. You might go somewhere."
"Like Boston."
"Oh, I hope not, sweetie. You're my best friend here. I would so miss you." From Missy the sentiment wasn't false, but it was light-hearted. When her grandmother died Missy would probably move back to Nashville. Just thinking about her friend's wealth and power made Elisabeth salivate. "So cheers." Missy toasted her with her filled glass.
"Cheers." The heavy smoke had even settled in the glass, giving the wine a roasted-marshmallow sweetness. Elisabeth blew the smoke out and drank again. "I'm gonna be ok?"
"You're gonna be fine. Just believe in yourself." Missy wagged a finger, then opened her arms, stretching her back. "You feel better?"
"I do." Elisabeth wasn't sure she believed it, but it was nice to hear.
"Good. You want ice cream?"
"We have ice cream?"
"Butter pecan. With chocolate syrup too."
"Temptress." Elisabeth laughed, a soft release. "OK, sure. Fuck the diet." Missy went back to the kitchen and turned on the light. The cards gleamed bright yet somehow diminished, innocent like an old children's game.
| << 02.04 | 02.06 >> |