He is wearing purple socks. He is sitting on a shiny bamboo mat with his legs crossed. Other than that, there is nothing visually noteworthy about this psychic that makes me think that he is capable of extrasensory perception. Just a good-natured fifty-something-year-old guy-next-door type. I can easily imagine him biting off chicken wings and lazily watching TV all day in his living room.
Did he sense my smug cynicism? As soon as we sit down, he greets us with a provocative remark.
“Of you two ladies, the one that seems to be in trouble isn’t actually in trouble. But this year will be impossibly difficult for the other one that doesn’t seem to be struggling right now.”
April looks at me. I roll my eyes and say, “Where do you get the sense that one of us isn’t in trouble?”
He dismisses my question with a mysterious smile.
Reaching for a book with lots of ancient Chinese characters, he asks for our names as well as the place, time, and date of our births. April listens attentively as he conveys information about her hidden temperament, karmic conditions, and past-life. I’m yawning and visibly bored until I see April’s eyes light up when the psychic describes the predominant theme of her life as “Bhoo,” which basically means wealth and riches.
“You are not a salary earning type. You should not envy women who can afford to buy a Louis Vuitton bag once every other year. You are destined to be one of the richest women in the world.”
I’m a little bit taken aback by April’s reaction.
“I want to open up an anime-themed chain bar in Asia and Europe. To get seed money for my business, I used to work at a massage parlor and karaoke bar, but I recently started working at a high-end brothel.”
I’m really confused. A brothel? As in a prostitution ring? What is she talking about?
Instead of explaining what exactly she does at a brothel, she tells him that she can’t help resenting “yoohaksang” or spoiled kids with wealthy parents who grew up in exclusive private schools and had opportunities to study in America or England. She feels stuck in a small town, but she too wants to thrive on the global stage. She’s been only dating foreigners because she wants to learn English and Japanese.
Dating foreingers for the language acquisition purpose? That sounds . . . manipulative.
I feel as though somebody hit me with a hammer. It’s almost as if I’m witnessing Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde in April. This morning, she was the most generous, kind, and angelic person I’ve ever met. Now, what I’m seeing in her is an unhealthy amount of greed and ruthless ambition. I’m also worried about how she is going to react when she finds out that I’m actually one of those privileged kids she seems to be despising. Is she going to dislike me when she finds out that I’m temporarily staying in the cubicle hotel and I’d spent most of my formative years in an elitist preppy bubble in New England boarding school?
As we walk out of the psychic studio, I tell April that we should get some soju (Korean vodka) tonight.
"Any time when you don't have to work, but we gotta talk, April.”
YOU ARE READING
Millennial's Monologue: Secret Dramas in Our Hearts & Souls
Non-FictionREAL LIFE STORY: I was a stereotypical high achiever in an Ivy League school who got suspended for plagiarism; April was a sweet girl who worked in a high-end prostitution ring. We were both in our early twenties when we became friends. A perfect...
