Not Your Ordinary Alien Story

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The heat is visible the way it ripples in the heavy air. It's hotter than usual at the Farmers Market. I'm taking a break from working in our booth. As I stand in the shade, I fan myself with a pamphlet about water conservation someone has handed to me. I stop fanning myself long enough to roll my cut-offs up a notch and pull up the strap of my tank top.

I'm trying to do what Mom calls "being here now." She says it's about being present, about paying attention to everyone and everything that is happening around you, right then and there rather than paying attention to the thoughts in your head which are usually about the past, or the future, or someplace other than here and now. I'm giving it a try. Being here now. For the time being, it seems to be the only thing that keeps me from thinking about where I came from and who, or what, I am.

One of the guys who plays drums every Saturday walks up to me. He's got dreadlocks to his shoulders and is wearing an orange knitted cap on the top of his head. "Hey," he says. "You work in that booth over there where that old lady sells organic vegetables."

"Yeah," I say.

"I play the drums over there." He points with his thumb. He's wearing a Bob Marley t-shirt.

"Yeah, I know," I say.

He squints as he faces the sun. His eyes are the same color as his light-brown hair. "I see you here every Saturday," he tells me.

I nod my head.

"I'm Franklin."

"Hi Franklin."

"Soooo... do you have a name?"

"Zoe."

He holds out his hand. When I shake it, he grasps my hand with both of his hands and smiles at me. He has a nice smile. "Zoe and Franklin," he says. "It has a nice ring to it."

I slide my hand away. "Well, don't get used to it. I have a boyfriend."

He nods his head. "Course you do. Someone who looks like you usually does have a boyfriend."

I start fanning myself with the pamphlet again.

"You live around here?" he asks.

"In Gasquet," I say.

He tilts his head. "Say where?"

"Gasquet. It's a tiny town. Off Redwood Highway towards CrescentCity."

He gives a big nod up and down of his head like I've just explained something extremely complicated like why there's such a thing as gravity. "I live in Ashland," he says. "I go to the university there."

"You're kinda far from home, aren't you?"

"How'd you know?"

"Know what?"

"Know I'm far from home. I'm from New York, originally."

"Oh. I meant kinda far from Ashland."

He shrugs. "It only takes two hours to get here from there. Usually less. The three of us ride together." He points again to the area where the drums are set up. "See those two guys chillin' over there? Those are my bongo bro's." He waves his hands in front of him like he's playing an imaginary drum.

"Yeah, well, I gotta get back to work," I tell him. He walks beside me as I head towards our booth.

"Actually, Zack is the only one that plays the bongos," he tells me. "Danny plays the jembe and I play the congas. Well, sometimes I play the bongos but usually I stick with the congas."

We get to our booth where GranAna and Mom are working. I walk behind the table. "See ya around, Zoe," he says. He starts to walk away then stops and turns around. "Zoe and Franklin," he says. "It's got a real nice ring to it."

I can't help but smile, a closed mouth smile, and give a little shake of my head back and forth.

There is no breeze so the booth next to us selling wind chimes keeps clanging them by hand. When it slows down at our booth, I take another break. Franklin smiles and waves at me as I walk past him and his two drumming buddies. I stop at a booth and buy a cup of fresh squeezed lemonade then I stroll up to the booth with the tarot card reader. The same Peruvian woman is there, the sun glinting off the crystals on the counter behind her. The woman is wearing a red scarf in her long dark hair, silver ear rings dangle from her ears, and the short puffy sleeves of her pink peasant blouse are pulled down off her shoulders.

"Tarot reading?" she asks, the r's rolling off her tongue.

"Three cards," I say handing her a dollar.

"Do you have a specific question you would like answered?" She asks pronouncing the word like spee-see-feek.

"Yes," I tell her. I pause. "It's very important for me to go to a place that's far away. But if I go, I don't know if I'll ever be able to come back. If I don't go, it will cause great harm to people. People will die."

I can't tell if the woman is surprised or not because the way her eyebrows are arched, it looks like she's constantly surprised. She ruffles the cards in her hands, her dark eyes staring at me.

"You know for certain people will die?"

I take a drink of my lemonade and choke a bit after I swallow. "I don't know for sure. But probably. Almost for sure."

"You do not want to go," she states.

I don't say anything. I think about Blue. I think about Mom and GranAna. I think about the forest I grew up in, the forest I thought I would always return to throughout my lifetime. I think about next year, how I planned to go to San Francisco.

The woman stands there, waiting.

"I don't want to go," I finally reply.

The woman doesn't say anything. She does that thing with the cards where they seemed to fly from one hand to the other.

"I need to know, should I go or should I stay?"

She sets the cards down then lays her hand on top of the deck. "I think you need to rephrase the question," she says.

"How?"

"The question should be something like, should I do what benefits me, or should I do what benefits others?"

"Okay, but still, I need to know. Should I go or should I stay?"

"Here." She hands the cards to me. "Concentrate on the area you would like guidance in as you shuffle."

I shuffle. I concentrate.

She points to the deck. "Cut it with your left hand." From the point where I cut

the deck, she turns three cards over and lays them in a triangle between us, one card on top, two cards at the bottom. The card at the top has a star in the middle, the card on the bottom right, a sun, and the card at the bottom left, a moon.

Her eyes widen. "Highly unusual!" she exclaims. "The sun, the moon and the star all appearing together in a three-card reading. This is unheard of!" She looks up at me. "You must have been a High Priestess," she tells me. "In another life," she adds.

"Maybe in another world," I offer.

She nods her head. "Another world indeed."

"Should I go or should I stay? What do the cards say?"

She looks down at the cards, her hand hovering over them. "Your right path," she tells me, "is one with an ending, one with a transition, and one with a new beginning."

"Does that mean go?"

The woman gathers the three cards up. "I have no more information to give you." She pronounces it like eeen-for-maay-tion.

"Please. I need to know. Should I go? Should I stay?"

"I have no more een-for-maay-tion." She gives me one last hard stare then turns her back to me.

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