Romantic, sensual, spiritual pinkness! Oh please! You should see what my life looks like. There’s no pink in it, the only pink in it are the tampons you sold me!” I threw my free hand in the air. “How the hell can I be okay?” And then I laughed again, and soon I was teetering on the edge of tears again.
“I’m sorry,” Andi said softly. “But if you remember what the first card said? That you are in the process of going on a journey to rid yourself of a belief, or behavioral pattern that is no longer good for you, and embrace a new way of thinking and being.”
I shook my head, hard. I could almost feel the alcohol swishing back and forth in my brain. “No! No, I’m not going anywhere. No journey. This is me, just the way I am. Right here in this office that smells like a damp shoe and then back to my beige apartment that smells like a disinfectant wipe.”
“Just the way you are?” she asked. Her voice sounded strange and faraway. It sounded like how she’d looked when she’d zoned in on the cards, as if she was pulling something from somewhere that no one else could see. “You don’t have to be this way. In fact, the person I met the other day wouldn’t settle for that.”
“The person you met the other day was fake. Much like your fake reading.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and was about to slam it down in anger, but I had one last thing to say to her. “And as for romance being on the horizon, pppssst! That—that—was the thing you were most wrong about. No romance on the horizon for me, other than Sheik Khalifa’s paper arms and a lipstick shade I wouldn’t even wear!” I shouted that last part and then dramatically slammed the phone down, missing the cradle completely and bashing it on my desk. I lifted it to my ear and listened.
“I’m still here,” Andi said.
“Oh! Well! BYE!” I slammed the phone again, and missed once more. This time it tumbled to the floor, bounced and then hung there. I grabbed it and put it to my ear once more.
“Ja, still here!” the voice on the other end said.
“Dammit,” I cursed. I couldn’t even slam a phone down properly, so I reached for the electrical cord and pulled as hard as I could. It came flying out of the wall, whipped through the air and hit me across the face.
“Fuck!” I winced as a fiery sting radiated across my face. I give up! Officially! I give up on slamming phones and trying to make sense of anything around me, I just . . . give up! I slunk down onto the floor and sat there for a while, staring at the grime-encrusted carpet that looked like it had been laid in the seventies, back when orange was a thing.
“Work! Must work!” I took a breath and grabbed for the nearest crunched-up piece of paper. I could tell whose this was immediately. I had become so familiar with everyone’s handwriting over the years, I could recognize it instantly, even if none of them recognized me. But I didn’t feel like working, so I crunched the paper right back up and tossed it across the room. It hit the wall and then fell to the floor like a dead thing, disturbing a line of ants that were scurrying across the floor, crumbs on their backs.
I burped and hit my chest as some acid crept up my throat. God, one should not drink champagne on an empty stomach, and certainly not in the morning before work. Without thinking, I reached for my bottom drawer and opened it. I took out the paper and colored pencils that I kept in there and laid them on the floor in front of me. I was just about to pick a pencil up and start drawing when it dawned on me.
I made cards for people!
I was the person who made secret birthday cards, and baby-shower cards, and wedding cards and congratulations cards for everyone in the office, even though I’d never been invited to any of those events. I thought about the colored pencils in the bottom of my cupboards. It was all coming back to me. I made cards for everyone. Random strangers. My neighbors—when Mr. Burns from 309 lost his cat, I’d made him a condolence card and slipped it under his door.