Years ago while walking the crowded streets of Tucson (my one time home); during one of the strangest street fairs I have been to, a woman dressed in civilian clothes sat at a tiny black table with a handmade sign that read Fortune Teller, readings $5. My girlfriends urged me to get my Fortune read and in the spirit of the day, I agreed.
The woman asked to see my dominant hand, which I handed to her. Why didn’t the sign read palm reader? I wondered.
“You have a boyfriend.” I did.
“You are both quite close, but something is coming between you.” She traced the lines of my hand, “You are planning on leaving for a long time.” I was.
“There will be an ocean between you soon, you will return to the states… but you will never return to him.”
I yanked my hand away and leered at her. My friends looked at me appalled, as they were friends of him as well.
“Did I say, never return? I meant that you will be gone for a long while; you will end up back together. It will take a very long time though.”
That information did not sooth my soul and just because I made an evil face at my fortune teller I could not change what would be; we broke up. I moved to Spain with my family.
Cold cold winter in my backyard.
***
The morning we moved out of our apartment in Valencia, Spain I woke up feeling like death. I was nauseous and dizzy. I dragged myself out of bed, into the kitchen where my family talked excitedly about going to England. Before I sat at the table I informed my Mom that I felt ill and she responded in a very unlike my Mother type of way.
“You’re sick?! What have you done? Sit down and eat.”
I looked at her almost horrified, feeling as though I would throw up all over the table if I put one morsel of food in my mouth. I slumped over in my chair, while my Mom gave me the stink eye. James swung his pancake in the air talking about this and that. Dad was attempting to take a mental picture of our belongings in the hopes that we wouldn’t forget anything.
“Eat.” Mom demanded of me.
I ripped off the smallest piece of pancake possible and popped it in my mouth. The fact that I hate pancakes added insult to injury.
Everything else until the moment we got a hotel in Barcelona Spain is a blur of talking myself out of up chucking all over the train or the plane, and my Mom eyeing me like a store clerk trying to catch me in the act.
We got to the hotel, our parents had one room, James and I had another. I ran to the restroom when James leapt in front of me screaming about the fact that he didn’t to have to deal with the smell of upchuck, so he should get to go first. I agreed and ten minutes later I was finally free to die in the bathroom that of course smelled like crap (thank you James I will never forget it).
A while later my Dad came to check on me, stating “Your Mom has been throwing up for the past twenty minutes I wonder what you guys have?”
A day or two later we flew into London, England. Mom and I were finally feeling somewhat better, we walked around London for about half a day when James and Dad informed us that they were about to be violently ill, and all I wanted to do was take a crap in the bathroom just before James threw up so that he too could know the horrible situation he put me through. The most unbelievable thing is how accommodating my entire family was to everyone that was sick but me; as I was the only one that was forced to eat, and not to puke while on a train or plane.
Back in the United States my Mom confided in me that she was enraged when I told her I was ill the morning of our excursions beginning. No kidding. I asked her why and she told me that just before we left for Europe she had gone to a fortune teller. The teller told her wonderful magical things about the life that she would have in Europe. The only bad seed in the lot was me, because while there I would become pregnant.
I stared at my Mom in disbelief, mainly because she was with me any time I met a guy and all of the ones that gave me the time of day had faces only a Mother would love. Not to mention the fact that she was with me pretty much 24/7. Apparently pregnancy and airborne illnesess are the same thing. While she explained everything all I could think was, why she didn’t just ask me.
***
I am weary of fortune tellers now, not because they are accurate – nor inaccurate… it’s just that they majorly screwed with my life and I am not sure I am prepared for the next wonderful bit of nonsense news they might bestow on or about me.
-ducksoup- 