nothing, I assured myself – just a bit of fun. What did that matter? Jude and I were together. He’d told me he loved me and I’d told him back.
Indigo did the same trick she’d done when she sat down, only in reverse. It was like there was a string running from the top of her head to the ceiling, allowing her to raise and lower herself without any apparent effort. That, or she did shedloads of yoga or Pilates or something that made her both enviably strong and enviably bendy. She drifted over to a teetering pile of books in a corner and ran her finger down the spines, before pulling one out. The rest of the pile wavered and fell, but she ignored that, returning to her place on the cushions.
‘Now, Zoë, the date, time and place of your birth,’ she said.
I told her, although I wasn’t sure exactly what time I’d been born and had to make it up.
‘And you’re the twenty-ninth of May, ten minutes past one, in Bristol,’ she said, with a smile at Jude.
Bloody hell, how did she know that? Presumably she’d done his horoscope before. They’d known each other for years, after all, and it was clearly a bit of a party trick of hers. But how had she remembered? Was there more between them than friendship? But I wasn’t going to be jealous – I wasn’t going to allow myself to be the insecure girlfriend who quizzed her man about his past relationships and his current friendships and made myself miserable over comparisons that were only in my own head.
Even if she did look like Christina Ricci.
‘Okay?’ Jude whispered, giving my thigh a reassuring squeeze.
I nodded and squeezed his in return. Indigo was flicking through the pages of her book, her head bent so her black hair touched the page, cigarette smoke curling up around her head. She paused and ran a not-very-clean fingernail down a page. Don’t judge, I told myself, your fingernails probably wouldn’t be all that clean either if you were living in a place with no hot water. She’s Jude’s friend – you’re meant to like her, not feel all defensive and resentful.
‘Well, this is interesting,’ she said. ‘Of course, as you know, Gemini and Aquarius are normally an excellent match. Your shared curiosity about the world, your passion for causes you care about, your quirkiness and willingness to turn your backs on convention make you well suited. But there are some strange things in this particular chart.’
Jude laughed. ‘Go on then, Ind, hit us with it. Stop being all mysterious. We’re not a hen party you’re trying to impress.’
‘I won’t go into detail. But, Zoë, your chart has some anomalies. It’s Saturn in your rising sign. It suggests that, in fact, you have a yearning for stability and a leaning towards convention that’s unusual in an Aquarian. Unusual in any air sign, in fact.’
I remembered the words on my app. It’s okay to admit that you’re a bird who’d be happier in a cage. Most of the messages it sent me I’d forgotten almost as soon as I read them, but that had stuck with me for some reason – possibly because whenever I thought about it, it reminded me of poor battery chickens, and made me feel guilty about every single fried egg I’d ever eaten. And then thinking about fried eggs made me really crave one, which made me feel guiltier still.
Indigo might have said she didn’t intend to go into detail, but detail was exactly what she went into. Smoke curling up around her face between her curtains of dark hair, her finger tracing the lines on the page, she proceeded to tell Jude and me what the stars had in store for us.
‘Your need for security can lead you to stifle those you love, Zoë,’ she said, her voice low and solemn. ‘Do you ever find yourself driving people away because you consider your own needs above their own? I thought so. You see, Jude, like most Geminis, needs an escape from the mundane. And for him, with that Libra ascendant, it’s even more important to strike a balance. A relationship such as yours, which has burned so hot and intensely at first, can easily be smothered to nothing, if you don’t keep on fanning the flames.’
‘That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?’ Jude said. ‘Zoë can be my stability, and I can fan her flames. Win–win.’