saying a word of hello to anybody—that was so like her—she started talking.
“I figured I’d catch you here. I’ve got wonderful news. Guess what it is.” Clarice was about to say that she couldn’t possibly guess what her cousin’s news was when Veronica yelled out, “Sharon’s getting married!”
Clarice said, “Congratulations. I didn’t even know she was seeing anybody.”
“It was a whirlwind romance. She met him four weeks back and the two of them hit it off right away. And here’s the amazing thing, it was all foretold. I went to see Miss Minnie for a reading last month, and she told me that Sharon would meet a man and fall in love that very week. And wouldn’t you know it, she met the man of her dreams at church the next Sunday.” She wrinkled up her nose at Clarice and said, “That’ll teach you to doubt Miss Minnie’s powers. She hit the nail right on the head with this one. He was just who she described to me, tall, handsome, well-dressed. I took one look at him and told Sharon, ‘Go introduce yourself. That man is your future husband.’ A few dates later, she was asked to become Mrs. Abrams.”
Veronica had been a true believer in Minnie’s abilities since she’d gone to see her for the first of many readings a few years earlier. Clarice was convinced her cousin went to see Minnie that first time for the specific purpose of getting under Clarice’s skin, since Veronica knew full well how Clarice felt about the fortune-teller. At that reading, Minnie predicted that Veronica’s husband, Clement, would have an accident of some sort. As it happened, Clement ended up in the hospital that same day after injuring himself at work. That was all the proof Veronica needed. Now she took everything Minnie said as the complete gospel truth. Clarice had reminded her, as nicely as she could, that predicting an accident for Clement wasn’t such an impressive feat. He worked construction and, being a blithering idiot, he sliced, punctured, or burned himself on a weekly basis. It was the inevitable result of putting that fool in the same room with band saws, nail guns, and blowtorches. You didn’t have to have second sight to see it coming. But Veronica was convinced that fate, having already showered her with much-deserved cash, had now provided her with her own oracle to go along with her imagined social prominence, and she wasn’t hearing anything to the contrary.
Richmond said, “Sharon’s marrying Ramsey Abrams’s boy?” When Veronica nodded yes, Richmond looked right and left to see if anyone was within earshot and then whispered, “I don’t want to talk bad about the boy, but does Sharon know about the stuff with him and the ladies’ shoes?”
“Not that Abrams boy,” she snapped. “Sharon’s marrying the other brother.” Clifton, the Abrams boy now engaged to Sharon, had spent his teenage years getting stoned and committing petty theft. As an adult, he had spent more time in jail than out. It seemed likely to Clarice that, if the Abrams boy had proposed to Sharon, it was because he was trying to get his hands on her mother’s money before it ran out.
When no one said anything, Veronica seemed to guess what was on all of their minds. She added, “Clifton’s changed. Been saved by the Lord and the love of a good woman.”
Veronica looked over at Minnie’s fortune-telling table. “I was hoping to catch Miss Minnie between appointments to get a quick reading. I want to find out what her spirit guide says before I pick the wedding date. I told Sharon I’d take care of all the plans so she can concentrate on losing weight. I want her to look just like her sisters did at their weddings.”
Clarice said, “That’s so sweet of you,” but she thought something else. She thought of how Sharon’s older sisters were two of the ugliest women she had ever seen, having inherited their mother’s heavy brow and too-close eyes and their father’s huge ears and sunken chin. Thin as the older girls were, Veronica would be doing her youngest no favor by making her look like her sisters.
The door opened again and Minnie McIntyre, draped in a black cape with dozens of silver eyes pasted all over it, swaggered into the All-You-Can-Eat. Since her husband’s funeral she had taken advantage of Little Earl’s soft heart and guilted him into allowing her to do Sunday readings. Of course, he was also less concerned