Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

The psychic line gave me something to tide me over, just enough, till I could get going here. And I did some good readings for myself. I knew I had to come here.”
    For the first time, he looked at me. “I forgot something, I realized. I didn’t read the cards until I got the job.”
    “What, you’re an amateur?”
    “Hey, you have it or you don’t.”
    “But what happened? Why did you apply for a job you didn’t know how to do?”
    “I didn’t. I got into it through my mother. I guess I should really start at the beginning. My mother read cards when I was a kid. This isn’t Cuban, you know, but she learned it— it went with the other stuff she did. Santeria, you know what that is?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “A kind of magic. A funny religion that came to Cuba from Africa. Or, that is, it wasn’t Santeria then, but it got all mixed up with Christianity. Like voodoo— you know voodoo?”
    “Not intimately.”
    “But you know what it is?”
    “Haitian magic, I guess. I don’t know much about it.”
    “And you probably don’t want to, right? It gives you the creeps. How would you like it if your mother had a secret altar in a closet and you were always finding eggs sunk in weird liquids and stuff like that? Believe me, we kids were grossed out. And embarrassed. How unassimilated can you get, huh?
    “But all Cubans do it, I’m convinced of it: at least all the women. They go to church on Sunday, and then they go home and make an offering to their saint.”
    “Saint? That isn’t Christian?”
    “See, Santeria and Christianity are mixed up, like I said. The santeros call them saints, but really, they’re Yoruba deities. See this?” He dangled the lightning bolt around his neck. “My mom gave it to me. It means I’m a child of Chango, a black, male deity. But if you opened my mother’s secret closet, you’d find a statue of Santa Barbara there. That’s Chango also— the early practitioners had to disguise what they were doing.”
    I could imagine.
    “Well, anyway, I’m off the subject. I just meant to say I grew up a little weird— at least compared to the other kids. We always had magic around the house, and so when my mother learned the Tarot it was just another thing. By the way, the Santeros have all kinds of divination, but you have to go to a professional and pay money. I guess Mom got tired of it. Anyway, the cards weren’t even half as weird as most of the stuff she did. I was just a little kid and wanted to see what Mom did, so she taught me. And I was damned good, too— right away I was good. In fact, I was a lot better than she was. Like I said, you have it or you don’t. But of course a boy couldn’t do stuff like that. The other kids might find out. So I quit and forgot all about it. You’re not going to believe what happened next.”
    “Your mother called the psychic line and the psychic said have your son call me.”
    He turned around and stared so long I feared for our safety. “How’d you know that?”
    I shrugged. “Lucky guess.” Then I got pleased with myself. “Is that it? Really?”
    “Oh, well, I guess it was easy. Anyway, I started reading, and I got popular, so they gave me a raise and pretty soon I got out of Miami. So I guess the moral is listen to your mama.”
    “That’s what I’m doing here. Listen, what makes one Tarot reader better than another?”
    He looked uncomfortable. “I wish I knew. I just get the right cards, that’s all. But also I know things. I don’t know how I do, but I do. See, that’s the spooky part. I don’t know if the cards cue what I know or if I magically turn up the right cards. Maybe it’s something in the fingertips— energy, I mean. Something.”
    “You never had any formal training?”
    “Just from my mom.” He looked surprised. “You mean there’s schools you can go to or something?”
    “I don’t know.” No sense mentioning Rosalie.
    He dropped me, and I read a murder mystery while I waited for dinner— I was way too keyed up to sleep, but grateful for the psychic respite, you should excuse the expression.
    I’d been told dinner would be casual, so I pulled out a pair of flowered shorts and a T-shirt. I wished for some sandals but had to make do with Nikes. At seven I was ready, and at seven Michael arrived. If Maurizio had surprised me with his glamour, Michael shocked me with his ordinariness. I had never seen Jason, but I had seen their sister, and I was prepared, I guess, for something