stand around the corner, waiting for customers.
“How’s your mother?”
“Fine, ne. Have a seat, dear.” She reached across the table, took my hands in hers, shut her eyes, and meditated. Then she told me to fold my arms on the table, rest my head on them, and shut my eyes. She came round to where I was sit ing and began massaging my shoulders. I had not had a massage since Daniel left, and I’d forgot en how blissful it was. I lost al sense of time and nearly dozed of .
Final y she returned to her seat and I lifted my head. I was sure my eyes were red and swol en. Tanya smiled. Her smile was slightly crooked, and for a brief second I was afraid of her, but then it passed.
“I don’t need cards in your case,” she said. “Your case is simple. You’l lose your job at that o ce, either because they’l re you or because they’re going to go bankrupt and shut down, I can’t tel . Don’t make any large purchases, you’re going to need whatever money you have. Try to focus on paying back your debts right away. You’re in good health. A new person is going to come into your life, with good results. That’s it for now, my darling.”
“Thanks, Tanya. How much do I owe you?”
“Usual y I charge two hundred for the rst reading, but I’l only charge you fty, because you’re going to lose your job. If you come again, I’l give you ten percent of .”
I was impressed. Tanya had found a way to support herself without sex but with the same reliance on our need and desire for comfort, physical pleasure, and hope. Her pessimistic prognosis was hopeful in the sense that it o ered the il usion of control; even if you were going to be red, it helped if you knew it al along. In fact get ing red real y had nothing to do with your own failure because, here, it was already in the stars.
But I wasn’t ready to leave: I was having an at ack of credulousness. “You said a new person was coming into my life. A total y new person, or just new because it’s been a long time since I saw him?”
“Wait, I’l try to answer your question.” She shut her eyes again. “It’s not clear, sweetheart. Maybe next time I’l have more luck with that one.”
one.”
“Thank you, Tanya. I feel bet er.”
“Anytime,” she said, lighting a cigaret e.
I paid her and she stu ed the money into her lit le change purse, a yel ow beaded pouch with a reliable bronze clasp. Two rows of green and red oval beads interrupted the yel ow theme for additional decorative potency. Tanya’s change purse was the most optimistic personal item I could ever hope to encounter.
I had only slept a few hours during the night, but I was too anxious to nap. I stretched out on the living room sofa with an Anita Brookner novel my father had sent me, and tried to concentrate on the excursions her sentences took into casual revelation. Reading relaxed me, and with the open paperback lying on my chest like a protective talisman, I shut my eyes and drifted o . I dreamed Ra was trying on di erent out ts, and asking me what I thought of each one. Some of the out ts were casual and some were formal, and I was upset because I didn’t know the price or what he needed them for, so how could I judge?
I woke up shivering. There was a woman in the room, staring down at me.
“Sorry, there was no answer, so I let myself in. I’m Mercedes. Are you sick?”
It took me a few seconds to decipher what she was saying. Then I remembered: Mercedes, the cleaning woman Ra had promised to send my way. I was stil not entirely awake and in my confusion I was surprised that she was a real person, and not someone Ra had invented in order to make me feel bet er, the way parents invented tooth fairies for their children.
“Are you sick?” she asked again. She was a smal woman with lovely slanted eyes and perfect, delicate features. She seemed to be on bad terms with her beauty, though, and did her best to ignore it: her black hair was held in back with an o ce worker’s rubber band, a shapeless print dress hung limply on her smal body as if uncertain of its incarnation as female clothing, and her brown loafers looked like shriveled pumpkins. It was hard to guess her age because she was so sturdy, but I thought she might be in her late forties.
“This place real y is a mess, Ra wasn’t kidding. Don’t worry, you won’t recognize it when I’m through. But maybe you’d like tea rst? If I can find a clean cup here …”
“Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mercedes. Tea would be very nice.”
“You’re shivering. I think you may have a fever.”
“No, it’s nothing. It’s nothing, I’m fine. I’m just not awake yet.”
“Don’t worry, I’l look after everything.”
I lay back on the sofa. Under ordinary circumstances I would not have wanted a garrulous, overbearing stranger in the house, but Mercedes’ certainty about her world and its of erings was exactly what I needed at the moment.
I heard her moving things around in the Dining Car. “Nice mural,” she cal ed out to me. “If you don’t have detergent and stu I’l go buy.
Oh … here’s some.”
She brought me a glass of sweet tea on a dinner plate. “I didn’t know whether you had a tray. Here, sit up, I’l fix your pil ow.”
I let her fuss over me. Then I watched as she began col ecting garbage, dirty dishes, newspapers, and crumpled clothes with brisk, energetic movements. I felt I should get up and help her, but I stayed where I was.
“Would you like to watch television while I work?” she suggested. “You can lie in bed and relax.”
I moved obediently to the bedroom and switched on the television. An old movie, Sunday, Bloody Sunday, was on. I’d seen it years ago, when I was stil in high school. I hadn’t understood it then; I had no idea what it was about or why people liked it. Now it was transparent to me, and even though some parts were a lit le clumsy, I liked it. Once I had wondered what it would be like to be an adult. I thought, like al children, that adulthood was
