She gestured to the waitress, then put a hand to her head. She lived only a short walk down Valencia Street, but she’d rather wobble home before all that cheap wine hit her any harder. And she still needed to make up a bed for her aunt. “Do you want the futon or the mattress?”
“Futon’s fine, honey.”
Felicity reached for her bag, but her aunt stopped her with an exaggerated frown, tossing a couple of twenties on the table before she had the chance to. “But first I’d like to walk off my sangria.” Livia glanced at her oversized men’s watch. “There’s just too much to see for me to be going to bed this early.”
Felicity stood abruptly. Normally she’d put up more of a fight, but the sangria had begun to burble in her belly. “You sure?” She pulled on her brown suede jacket and tugged the long length of her blonde hair free.
“Absolutely. I may be long of tooth, dear, but I’m not dead yet.” Livia shooed her toward the door. “Go, go. You’re looking green around the gills, as your lovely mother would’ve said. Go get some rest.”
Felicity pulled her into a quick hug. Mom. Livvie’s sister.
She swallowed back a pang of grief. Though it was still sharp, the passing years had dimmed her memories. Now the occasional washes of melancholy were less about her mom and dad in any specific way, and came more from the vague sense of what she’d been missing.
She made it home to find a letter waiting for her. She’d almost walked right past it. It must’ve been delivered to the wrong mailbox, and someone had slipped it under her apartment door.
Felicity picked it up and frowned. It was from Formu-LOVE. Scrunching her brows, she focused on the pink and purple envelope. Based on Scientific Research! Find your true love with Formu-LOVE!
She’d been waiting for it, and now that it was here, she was afraid to open the thing.
Felicity had answered pages and pages of questions, covering everything from “Ketchup or mustard?” to her thoughts on religion, birth, and death.
Could this be it? Would there be a name and a little mug shot of her “perfect mate” inside?
Her hands trembled as she tore it open. She looked at the front and back of the single sheet, then peeked in the envelope to make sure she’d gotten everything out. Shouldn’t there be more?
It was just a form letter, with her online nickname and pertinent details filled in with an elaborate, loopy font.
“The least they can do for my two hundred bucks is send me a real letter,” she muttered.
Dear Mellow Yellow,
We are sorry but the profile you provided
Formu-LOVE! was UNMATCHABLE.
But don’t be discouraged. Scientific research
has proven . . .
She stopped reading, crumpled the paper, and flung it across the room, where it fell short of its mark. She stared angrily at the trashcan, a grimace holding back her tears.
Staggering to the couch, Felicity curled into a fetal position. “Unmatchable.”
Stupid online formula. Nobody is unmatchable.
She bit her knuckle. What if she was?
She didn’t want to end up alone like her Aunt Livia. Felicity adored the woman, but she just wasn’t a nomad like her aunt. Traveling had been exciting, but now she was ready to nest, to build a life. Find that one true someone she knew her father had been for her mother.
“Alright, Liv.” She popped back up, striding to the cabinet where she kept her Tarot cards. “You win.” She lit her candle and flicked off the lamp.
She plopped onto the rug, spilling the deck out before her. It had been a gift from her aunt, not long after her parents had died. Felicity had felt guilty when she’d first contemplated those intricate and old-fashioned images. The brightly colored Hanged Man and the ominous Devil seemed like such transgressions.
But they never failed to pull her in, the cards alternately majestic, ominous, triumphant. Each suggesting a mysterious and unexpected tale, where a smiling countenance could bode ill and a dying man meant rebirth.
Felicity spread them out wide before her, rummaging them under her palms in a sloppy shuffle. They were reassuringly cool and waxy under her fingers.
“Where’s the one man who’s right for me?”