“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say, defensively. “We didn’t even kiss.”
“I like the name thing. Has he asked you to use different pronouns?”
“No.”
“Has he text you since?”
“I don’t think he has my number.”
“Hmmmmm. How about we ask the cards? Can we do that?”
“Sure,” I say, shuffling them. When I’m not in class, I’m shuffling. It’s soothing. It helps empty my mind when, at night, all I can hear is the voices of the girls in my class, each one of their problems clamouring in my ear like clowns trying to push through a car door.
“Cards, cards, cards, what should Maeve do about her fancy man?” Fiona plucks one at random from her upside-down position on the floor.
“Here we go,” she says brandishing it at me. “Upside-down man.”
“It’s the Hanged Man!” I say, grabbing hold of it. “That’s the card Roe drew the other day on the bus!”
“Woah.”
“He got super weird about it. He didn’t want to talk or anything. I just told him about how the Hanged Man was about being suspended between two states.”
“Or genders,” says Fiona thoughtfully. “Maybe he’s enby – non-binary. Roe is kind of a gender-neutral name.”
“I guess,” I say. “I’m not really sure what that means, though.”
“I think it can mean different things for different people. I have an actor friend who is enby.”
“I get it, Fiona, you have actor friends.”
“Don’t be a gowl.” She grabs an old textbook and hits me with it. The bell sounds.
“We should get to class,” she says, and neither one of us moves.
“What do you have now?” I ask.
“English. You?”
“Bio.”
There is a small, self-conscious quiet while we both ponder asking each other the same question.
“Yeah,” I say, and lie on the floor with her, my jumper a cushion. The Chokey is really quite cosy, once you get used to the smell. “Skip.”
That afternoon, no one shows up to teach History. This happens a lot at St Bernadette’s. Sometimes teachers just don’t appear because of a scheduling conflict or a sudden emergency. They usually rush in with a supply teacher for the first years, but they tend to be a bit laissez-faire with the fourth, fifth and sixth years. Twenty minutes after the bell goes, we’re still alone, no adult supervision.
“Maeve,” Michelle says. “Do my tarot.”
“I’ve done your tarot, Mich. Three times.”
To tell you the truth, I’m getting a little bored of this now. I like being famous for something, but I hate how everyone expects me to be a performing monkey. It’s always been like this, with me. If I think I’ll get a laugh for something, I’ll do it. That’s how I ended up throwing the shoe at Mr Bernard. Tarot hasn’t elevated my reputation, but set it in stone.
“Do mine,” says Niamh. “You haven’t done mine since Wednesday.”
“Your tarot hasn’t changed that much in two days, Niamh. Anyway, I left them in the Chokey.”
“Maeve, you liar. You haven’t left them in the Chokey. They’re right here,” Michelle fishes them out of my blazer on the back of my chair.
What?
“Did you put them in there?” I ask snappishly. “Were you messing with my stuff?”
“Jesus, no. God, you’re so cranky,” she huffs. “We’re just bored.”
“I can’t keep reading for the same people over and over,” I respond, peevishly, and consider the matter closed.
“Lily hasn’t had a reading yet,” she says.
“She hasn’t asked for one,” I snap.
Lily is sitting where she always sits, at the very far left of the top row. Her head’s in another one of those weird books that I tried to get her to stop reading in first year. She hasn’t engaged with any of this tarot stuff. Partly because I’m sure it frightens her, and partly because she doesn’t talk to me any more.
“Lily doesn’t want a tarot reading.”
“Sure she does,” Niamh says, before calling out to Lily. “Hey! Lil! Do you want Maeve to do your tarot?”
“Lil!” Niamh shouts again, and because Lily still can’t completely hear what she’s saying, she gets out of her chair and crosses the room to us.
“Hi,” Lily says shortly. “What is it?”
“We were just wondering if you want to get your tarot done.”
“Why were you wondering that?”
“Well, because you’re the only girl in the year who hasn’t got hers done yet. We thought you’d be curious.”
Niamh isn’t a mean bitch all the time. She’s actually pretty nice. But like a lot of girls she has a lot of Mean Bitch Potential that comes out around easy targets like Lily O’Callaghan.
Lily tucks her hair behind her bad ear, something she always does when she’s nervous. It’s like she remembers all of her weaknesses at once and compulsively needs to show you them, the way a dog shows you the soft pink skin on his belly.
“I’m not curious,” she says. She still hasn’t looked at me yet. She doesn’t, if she can help it.
“See?” I say to Niamh. “She doesn’t want to. So drop it.”
“Are you scared?” goads Niamh. It’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason. It works.
Lily’s lip twitches.
“No,” she says.
“Then just pick three cards. Any three,” says Niamh, grabbing the Chokey cards from the table.
Lily delicately picks her cards with her thumb and forefinger, holding each one by her fingernail as if to minimize contact with them. She places them face down on the table.
“Are you going to turn them over, Maeve?” Lily asks, and suddenly there’s fire in her voice. Then, she looks me right in the eye. “You’re used to turning on people, aren’t you?”
There is a loud, audible gasp. Lily just called me out.
It feels like everyone in the room is looking at us. Even Fiona has put her phone down and given up the “over it” look she usually adopts for class time.
It’s impossible to know what to expect from Lily. I blush with shame thinking of yesterday evening, when I closed my eyes and waited for her older brother to kiss
