THE KNIGHT OF CUPS, THE KNIGHT OF SWORDS AND THE FIVE OF PENTACLES, ALL UPSIDE DOWN
Cindy Maddera
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Vivian laid the cards out for her paying tourist and grimaced. Even the most beginner of Tarot Card readers knew that cards were placed down on the table the way they were drawn. If the card facing the reader was upside down, that card stayed upside down. Usually the upside down definition was the opposite of the right side up definition and it usually wasn’t good. Vivian’s tourist had laid down the Knight of Cups, the Knight of Swords and the Five of Pentacles all upside down. Vivian looked at her tourist. She was a well dressed middle aged woman, Gucci sunglasses were perched on top of her perfectly coifed head. Her clothes looked expensive and she had several shopping bags arranged around her. What tipped her off as a tourist was her husband standing just behind the woman, looking bored while scrolling through who knows what on his phone. The husband looked expensive too, but he also sported a very expensive camera that hung on a leather strap around his neck. The two of them were most definitely tourists.
Rich tourists.
Of all the kinds of people to sit down at Vivian’s table in Jackson Square Park, rich tourists were the worst. They always expected more than a simple reading. They wanted a show, a grand display of the cards and those cards all better be the best cards one could pull from the pile. Their fortune telling and future was to be perfect, filled with only the very good. And they never tipped. Never. “Oh! Smile for the camera, Sweetie!” Vivian looked up to see that the woman was in the process of taking a selfie that included Vivian. Vivian half smiled as the woman pressed the button, taking the picture. “Getting my cards read in Jackson Square, y’all!” The woman spoke as she typed with her perfectly manicured hands. The woman looked at Vivian and said “Sorry about that but I just had to Insta this!” Vivian was pretty sure this woman ended every sentence in an exclamation point. Vivian smiled politely and returned her focus to the cards, contemplating her reading.
“What do you think? I mean, they look like pretty great cards. Two knights! And that woman cradling the wounded man. That has to be me. I am so nurturing. Isn’t that right Charles? I give money to all of the animal rescue groups. Right Charles?” The husband, Charles, mumbled something in agreement while he continued to stare at his phone. Again, Vivian smiled politely as she nodded her head. This was the part Vivian did not like about reading the Tarot to tourists. There was always the question of when to tell the patron the truth or flat out lie. Vivian looked at the woman again, really studying her. The woman seemed nice enough. Just because she was rich and most likely clueless didn’t mean she was a bad person. The sad truth was that these were not good cards, but did the woman really need to know that? Vivian had to decide if she should tell the woman that her husband was most likely cheating on her and all of those expensive purchases were leading them both into financial ruin and that her extravagance was going to bring chaos into her life. Or, thought Vivian, she could spin a false tale where the woman and her husband had the strongest of relationships and that only good things were ahead for them. That would be the nice thing to do and who knows? Maybe this woman would actually tip her.
“How long is this going to take, Claire? I don’t want to wait around all day for you to hear some mumbo jumbo crap. You’ve already taken your selfie. Let’s just go.” said an impatient Charles, not even taking his eyes from the screen on his phone.
Vivian decided to tell Claire the truth.