and watched it rattle to life. I touched my fingers to the cage, their metallic, rusty smell practically in my mouth, like dirty nickels. There was still enough space to slip something small between the bars toward the blades—the end of a pencil, a fingertip—and it beckoned, a dare.
“Christ, don’t do that!” Zeg said. “You know how sharp that metal is? That thing will slice your finger off.”
“Okay, okay, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” I said. But I knew what I was up to. I did stupid things in front of him because it felt a little good to hear him scold me. A little bit like love. The fan didn’t do much for the heat, but every now and then the breeze shifted and a cool wind blew in off the ocean. Sometimes it was enough to make the sweat on my back go cold, and a shiver would work its way through my body. But relief, when it came, was brief.
It was the third week in June, and already I had the sense that that summer was going to be different from any other summer I had known. The weather had been warm for weeks, and still the tourists hadn’t come. The boardwalk should have been crowded, crackling with carnival energy: people wearing heaps of purple and gold Mardi Gras beads from the Showboat, drinking hard lemonades from colorful plastic cups, groups of bachelorette parties, drunk girls screeching and teetering in their heels, their Mylar sashes glinting in the sun. But two more casinos had closed over the winter. The trams that rumbled by never had more than a passenger or two on board, and the rolling chair men pushed their empty wicker carriages up and down the boardwalk, the wheels thumping over the uneven planks. By noon each day the chocolate fudge samples on the trays in front of Fralinger’s Candy Shop had melted into one sticky, indistinct mass. Atlantic City felt like it was waiting for something to happen or for something to be revealed, waiting for an answer or sign. Like in my books, Mercury in retrograde, blood on the moon. I hadn’t had a single client all day when I saw the man standing outside the window, squinting through the chipped gold lettering on the hazy glass.
The man backed away and approached the chalkboard sign in front of the door. Palm Reading Special $5. He shook his head, shoved his hands into his pockets, took a few steps, and turned around again so that he stood behind the beaded curtain. I could hear his breath, the slight whistle of it through his front teeth. I didn’t say anything. Des would have told me to greet him. Would have told me to hike my skirt up a little bit, to show some skin. Entice them, Ava. Times are tough. We’ve got to use everything we’ve got. But Des was waitressing at the club, so I slouched deeper into my chair. Something about him made me want to watch, to wait.
He reached, parted the curtain, and for a moment his hand seemed disembodied, nothing but grasping fingers and raised veins, blue and meandering across the back of his palm. Then the beads clattered and the rest of his body joined his hand inside the shop. He was a short, older man in khakis and boat shoes. Lips pressed into a grimace, forehead glistening with sweat. He cleared his throat once, then again, more loudly, as though he were trying to convince himself of something.
“Hello,” I said. “How can I help you?”
“I’m uh … well. I’m here for a reading?”
“Why don’t you have a seat?” I smiled. “What brings you here today?”
“Well. I’ve never done this before. That probably goes without saying. I, uh, no offense.” He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, staunched a bead at his temple.
“That’s okay. Most people who come here haven’t done this before.”
“Oh, well. Okay. Okay, I see. Um. You’re really the psychic?”
“I am.”
“Excuse me, but you’re so young.”
“An old soul.” I always tried to smile in a certain way when I said this. Magnanimously. Patiently. Like I believed it. “The gift runs in my family. I come from a very long line of seers. Please sit.”
His fingers left a smeared sweat mark on the chair as he pulled it out, and he lowered himself gingerly, as though sitting down signified a commitment he wasn’t sure he wanted to make. He stared into the clear plastic sphere that