I Kissed Alice - Anna Birch Page 0,1

on top of the microwave, and hoist myself up onto Sarah’s mattress. “Well? What do you want to do first, Birthday Girl?”

“I think we should read tarot cards,” Sarah says. “Did you bring yours?”

“Oh, give me a break.” I dump my bag onto Sarah’s homemade quilt, an uncharacteristic hodgepodge of every monogrammed article of clothing she’s owned since birth. Three decks tumble out, each safe in tiny, hand-sewn silk pouches. “I always have them with me.”

Sarah takes each deck from its bag and turns the cards out.

First, the original Rider-Waite deck, with a pretty tile pattern on the back that makes it impossible to tell if a card is upright or reversed before it’s been flipped—a detail that could change the meaning of the card if the picture on the back is upside down or right-side up. Second, a deck influenced by the art deco movement from the early twentieth century that shimmers with touches of gold leaf. The last deck—and my favorite—my Sacred Feminine deck.

Even if we go through this little ritual every time I’ve read for her, she always chooses the same deck. She glances over to where Rhodes lies sprawled across her own bed, then places the Sacred Feminine deck in my upturned palm.

“What makes you think you can see the secrets of the universe with a deck of cards?” Rhodes drawls. She’s lying on her side, her head propped in her hand. “Why do you, Iliana Vrionides, think you possess a sixth sense for the unknown?”

We’ve been through this eight hundred times.

Every single God-dang time she sees my cards, she asks the same question.

I always give the same answer, and I recite it now as if I’m reciting a Bible verse in church:

“Tarot cards are mirrors, not windows. I don’t practice tarot to see the future; I practice tarot to see myself.”

“Yeah,” Sarah echoes, frowning. “It’s not about trying to see the future.”

Rhodes sniffs. She rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t see why you can’t just, I don’t know, look in a mirror. If it takes a deck of playing cards to ‘know yourself,’ Iliana, you’ve got bigger problems.”

I don’t like the way my name rolls around in her mouth: It’s pure, old-fashioned, rural Alabama drawl, with consonants conveniently forgotten and every vowel delicately stretched into its own kind of music. It sounds like a secret; I’ve wondered what it would sound like to hear my name whispered like that.

Sarah shifts and uncrosses her short legs and stretches them out in front of her. She’s gone from a pleasant, excited flush in her pale cheeks to an all-over crimson that even screams pink under her bleached hair. We make eye contact; she shakes her head, and I drop my eyes to the cards between us.

This girl is the person I called when I experienced my first orgasm on accident two summers ago, leaning up against the washing machine during the spin cycle to reach the box of fabric softener on the top shelf. I was the one she called for advice the three months she hid having her period from her mother, an overly emotional, sentimental woman who Sarah had caught searching phrases like “moon sister” and “first period party” on Pinterest the week before.

Sarah’s my best friend in the whole world, since we were little girls, and I absolutely hate watching Rhodes tear her apart.

Rhodes watches this wordless exchange from her bed with an air of boredom.

I lose track of time running through the myriad things that may or may not cool the burn in Sarah’s cheeks: that new horror movie coming out over Thanksgiving weekend she’s excited about, the buy-one-get-one sale at the bubble tea place on Richard Arrington Jr. Boulevard, whatever nineties Christian metal band she’s ironically-slash-unironically obsessed with this week.

“Oh!” I dig down to the bottom of my bag to retrieve two small, gift-wrapped rectangles. I hand them over, beaming. “Open your birthday present!”

I have the decency to wait to throw Rhodes a look of pure victory until after Sarah turns her attention to the careful task of unwrapping each gift without tearing the paper. Sarah’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember, but this is also what today is about: a carefully choreographed dance demonstrating each of the eight million ways Rhodes and I are the better friend to her.

Rhodes stares at her nails. She knows me well enough to feign indifference, and I know her well enough to identify that