Page 119 of For Better or Hearse
DeeDee whoops, whips around and walks backward, focus still set on Ash. “Conflict resolution queen!” she shouts, pumping the wine bottle in the air.
The night is balmy, the sun almost set. They wander past the resorts and the expensive houses until they come to a spot on the beach that Delaney deems worthy. Their hotel in the distance, minutes away.
With tired huffs, they sit on the sand. Ash nestles the bottle of wine so it stands up, and they take turns drinking from it. A big grin on her face, Delaney pulls the tarot deck out of her large woven beach bag. She unveils a silk scarf and places it on the sand, small ripples beneath it.
“How long have you been doing this?” Ash asks. She’s never been one for organized religion, but the spiritual, the woo-woo, the weird, has always helped her ground herself. She loves the mythology of it. That blend of magic and supernatural.
“Since I started acting,” Delaney says, adjusting to cross her legs. Her turquoise earrings glint in the fading sun. “I taught myselftarot between shoots while I was waiting on set.” The cards slip smoothly between her fingers as she shuffles. “At first, I did it because I was bored. Scared the shit out of Zendaya once.”
Ash laughs.
“I’m not a psychic, and I don’t have the gift of clairvoyance or anything. It’s meditative for me. It forces me to think about things I maybe wouldn’t. We decide our future, yes, but the cards can help us to make that decision.” A shrug of her slender shoulder. “It helps me work out the kinks.”
“The kinks. I like that.”
They share a smile.
Delaney’s face loses some of its brightness. “Maybe I’m not good at it, but…”
“But,” Ash clarifies, unwilling to let her do this. “But you like it, right? Bare minimum, no one says shit about it. Best is they support you. It’s not hard to support a hobby that someone you care about loves.”
“Yeah,” she says softly, smoothing a square of sand beside her. “That’s true.” Then she inhales and straightens up. “Let’s keep it easy. Three-card spread.”
Ash lifts a brow. “Sounds sexy.”
Concentration creasing her face, Delaney lays three cards on the sand. “Do you have a life crisis?”
Ash chuckles. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Past, present, future, then.”
Ash admires the cards. With their ethereal images and moody jewel tones, they’re stunning. She thinks about the time she and her mom had a reading done at a cheap strip mall. It was a terrible experience and not at all real, but it still made her giddy about the what-else-is-out-there.
“Ooh, this deck is sassy,” Delaney breathes, a myriad of emotions playing out on her face. She hovers her hand over the cards. The second she does, a gust of wind sweeps up, threatening toupsend them. With a squeal, she tosses her body over the scarf and the spread to shield it.
Ash’s eyes meet Delaney’s. Electric awareness crackles between them. “If the ocean pulls back,” she whispers, “we run.”
Mouth ajar, Delaney nods. Then she straightens, inspects the cards. Her glazed nail moves, taps a heart impaled with three swords. “This is the three of swords. Your past.”
“An impaled heart. It’s perfect.” Her throat is burning.
“It means loss.” The energy between them kicks up. As does the wind. “You have said goodbye to more things than you have cared to in your past. Things you still grieve for. Things that taught you what life costs, and that’s made you…pull away.”
Her words have ice sinking in Ash’s gut. Brief flashes of the past. Microbursts of loss. Her health. Aunt Sophie. Jakob. Tessie.
Delaney moves on to the second card. Taps it like she did the first. Her eyes have taken on a strange glassy quality. “Your present. The Tower.”
Ash winces at the image of figures falling from a flaming stone tower. She drinks from the bottle of wine.
“New things are coming into your life. Things that scare you.” Delaney’s gaze flickers to Ash’s. “You simultaneously like it and want to run from it. You’re not sure how to work your feelings into the story you’ve told yourself. You’re fighting them because you’re scared. There are cracks in your life, and something about the here and now is filling them.”
Heart hammering hard, Ash digs her fingers in the sand. All this woo-woo, this introspection, this life, it resonates.
Delaney nestles her elbows on her crossed thighs. “I think it means my brother.”
Ash’s laugh is sharp as a blade. “No way.”
With a flat yeah-right look, Delaney says, “I don’t need a tarot deck to tell me that. Tonight, you two were all over each other. Even if you physically weren’t.”