Zoey 101
Chapter 1:
The humidity was oddly more distracting than usual. Los Angeles was known for their nice weather but I have found myself looking in my car mirror every twenty minutes to glance at my puffy hair. Lola moaned to the right of me and stuck her right hand out the window. She twirled her hand against the wind while I drove. She flopped her head against her headrest lazily. I would have laugh but instead I attempted to raise the air conditioning. Unfortunately, the air knob was stuck on max.
" Why is it so hot!" Lola whined miserably while kicking her legs onto the dashboard. I have lost the energy to complain to her about having a little more respect for my car. Quickly she placed her legs onto the dashboard, is how quickly she put them down. I watched her briefly as she reached for the air knob and wiggled it. I rolled my eyes in response as she has just watched me do so moments ago. She sighed and reached towards the radio. She found a station and turned up the volume. A sound from my phone caused me to lower the volume immediately. I went for my phone and glanced at it cautiously. My phone was quickly removed from my hand. My eyes followed Lola's hand and watched her as she read my phone. I groaned.
"Yeah sure Lola, read my text messages. I don't mind at all." I mumbled sarcastically.
"Chase texted you." She ignored my statement. " He wants to know when we're coming back home." I thought about the question while keeping my eyes on the road.
"What do you think?" I asked her. In my peripheral vision, I saw her shrugged. "Are we at least close to the place?" The car ride was suddenly becoming a long journey that I didn't expect. Lola has somehow convinced me to tag along to go to see a fortuneteller. If I would have known that the ride was a little longer than an hour or that we were using my car, I may have rejected her offer. She pulled out her phone, which had her GPS app on, and looks at me.
"We got about five more minutes." Lola looks back at my phone. "I'll just tell him that he needs to go mind his own business." She began texting.
"Lola!" I yelled in disbelief and widen my eyes at her. I tried grabbing my phone but it was quickly removed from my reach. Lola began laughing and slapped my hand away.
"Zoey, relax. " she leaned towards me innocently. " I'm just kidding." She winked at me jokingly. " I'll just tell him that we don't know yet."
"Yeah, you better." I mumbled once again. "Where am I supposed to go Lola?" Lola watched the road and searched around.
"How am I suppose to know?" she defended. "I've never been here before." I growled silently.
I pushed the door open and a bell sounded which announced the whole room that Lola and I have entered. The room was deserted and quiet. The room lights were dim to a red tint and the glass ornaments made the room look shiny and creepy. There were weird sculptures that didn't seem relevant to the scenery. There was a cloud of smoke lingering in the room that appeared to have come from no source. I glimpsed over at Lola who has separated herself to look around the store. I looked back to the center of the room and walked to the glass counter. I peered over the counter to find any signs of human presence. When I didn't find any signs of presence, I looked back at Lola for help.
"So I'm confused." Lola looked away from a glass-sculpted owl to look at me. "Does anyone work here?" Lola shrugged and look bored. She walked up toward me and leaned forward against the counter.
"Hello." She sung and dragged the last syllable as she searched for the owner. " Is anyone in here?" she asked. Once more, there was no response. Lola turned around and leaned against the glass counter. She crossed her arms and looked disappointment. "Well, doesn't this suck." She spoke to no one in particular. I huffed and mimicked Lola's position.
"We did not just drive all the way here just to drive all the way back." I flung my index finger around. Lola lifted one of her eyebrows towards my index finger in curiosity. She looked back at me and uncrossed her arms.
"How was I to know that there weren't going to be anyone here?" Lola raised her voice.
"It was your idea to come here in the first place!" I retorted back. Lola rolled her eyes and groaned.
"Now I didn't force you to come all the way over here. You thought seeing a fortuneteller was cool like I did." She walked towards me and stuck out her index finger at my chest. "So stop blaming all this on me!" she punched her arms towards the ground similar to a young girl. Before I could respond to Lola's remark, a lady's voice filled the room that resulted in Lola and I screaming.
"I did not wish to scare you two beautiful ladies but I was trying to get ready for the two of you." The old lady's voice was unusually high and her bright gray eyes were wide with damaged eyes lashes that were heavy coated with mascara. She smiled crookedly showing both the top and bottom rows of her teeth, which were disturbingly yellowish brown. She didn't wear the stereotypical gown that fortuneteller would wear during county fairs. Instead, the lady wore an oversized white local insurance shirt with old-fashioned faded blue Levi's jean. Lola sneaked a cringe look before transitioning into a beam smile.
She leaned toward me awkwardly. " I'm up for leaving if you are." Lola whispered in discomfort. I looked at her and nodded my head once and turned back to the lady. Before I could speak up, the lady lifted up her hand out to stop me.
"Sweeties, I'm going to let you in a little secret. I understand that you guys are disappointed that I am not wearing the usual Psychic crazy wardrobe or that I am not wearing an itchy hat. I do not want to disappoint you or the boyfriend that is currently waiting for you." She eyed me immediately. I gasped in disbelief. " or to disappoint you, " The woman shift her body towards Lola. "The girl that has a name starts with a…uh… letter 'L'?" She eyed Lola closely and curiously. She waited for an answer and assuming Lola was speechless, Lola just nodded her head robotically. The woman smirked as if she was impressed with herself. "In the end, you guys are going to realize that I know much more than you guys expected me too." She crossed her arms and winked. I released a huge chuckle in dumbfound and slightly because it was humorous. "Well, if you guys are ready, I will take the young lady whom name begins with the letter L first." She began walking away and Lola didn't move at first. I looked at Lola and give her a slight push. Lola shook her head out of daze and followed the lady. Before they disappeared behind the curtains, Lola turned back and mouth what I believed were the words 'that was awesome'. I chuckled.
I believe it took about an hour and a half of staring at ancient sculptures and smelling candle fragrances for Lola to finally come out. I returned the themed calendar of horoscopes, which was in my hand, back onto the shelf and met up with Lola. Lola looked traumatized. Before I could ask, she started smiling into the distance. I touched her arm and she looked down at me and smiled harder.
"I would now talk to you Zoey." The lady said prior to exiting behind the red curtains. I glanced at Lola in questioning.
"I gave her your name, don't worry." Lola read my mind and reassured me. I nodded. " She's amazing Zoey." She added while I was walking. I turned back to face the curtain. I gently parted the curtain in the middle and peered inside. The room looked fairly empty. There was a black table in the center of the room with two short stools; one was that was already occupied with the fortuneteller. I sat across from the fortuneteller and examined my surrounding. The room was a bit darker than the front room. There was background music but it was hard to distinguish a genre. The room didn't appear to have walls but just a room engulf with hanging red drapes.
"Do you like it?" The fortuneteller watched me closely. I took my focus off the room and on the fortuneteller. I nodded my head. " Good. Always feels good to know a customer likes your art." She said cheerfully. "Should we get started?" I cleared my throat and shift my body in nervousness. The lady asked for a hand and I gave her my right hand. She squeezed sections of my hand and closed her eyes. She tilted her head periodically and nodded her head and hummed at random points. She squeezed the tips of my fingers and opened her eyes once she was done. She sighed and smiled and looked at me enchantingly as if she figured me out. "So… what would you like to know?" She let go of my hand, folded her hands and shrugged as she plopped her hands on the table. I took my hand back and looked at it for a moment. I looked back at her in confusion.
"Sorry, what?" I was no expert but I had a sense that it was she that had to tell me what I wanted to know.
"Tell me now." She leaned forward. "What do you want to know?"
"Sorry, I'm confused. I thought how this works is you just telling me my future." I confessed. She shook her head while laughing.
" Hun, what you're asking from me is like telling you to go pick out a star from the infinity amount of stars and find the one I want." She squatted her eyes. "Does that make sense?" I nodded my head silently. "Now, I don't want to scare you off. I mean, I could do the whole fake rants and chants and say what you want to know but I tend to keep things honest in here." She found my hand and patted my hand. "Alright, enough!" she swung her arms around frantically. " Let me hear it." She clapped. "What do you want to know?"
I would have gotten weird out on her demeanor if I was paying attention but suddenly my concentration was on the question I wanted to ask. I had many questions and I almost wanted to settle on her chanting about my future because at least it would have covered and summarized my whole entire future. Instead, I was restricted to only one question. I wasn't sure if I had a question that was well enough to supplant all the other questions.
I paused. "What career do I end up pursuing?" I stuck to the basics. The fortuneteller looked at me blankly. Suddenly, she closed her eyes and dropped her head and started snoring. She did this for a second and I watched her in awe. She was insulting my question. She 'woke' up before I could comment on her rude action. I found myself not as excited to see my future like moments before.
"Zoey, you ask that, out of all the questions in the world?" she opened her arms to give an image of all the options. "You could have ask CareerBuilder and they would have answered that question for you." I couldn't deny that my question was dull but I don't do well with restrictions.
"Fine, I'll pick another question!" I settled. I crossed my arms and look away to think. I scanned the room subconsciously. "What about my love life I have now? Is it good enough, should I even waste my time?" The questioned nearly vomited out and I was amazed how much I wanted to know the answer to this. Before I looked at the fortuneteller, I found the inspiration that created my question. It was a framed picture of a human heart exposed in the right side of the skeleton body. The skeleton was on top of a mountain. It was a strange photo but oddly I got something out of it. The fortuneteller smiled, as if she was proud.
"Better, much better." She nodded her head. She paused before responding." However, you're asking about the present. A topic that lies in the present is something that I try to avoid. When telling people about anything that is near the present, it get them all paranoid and obsessive." She shook in chills." I decided to eliminate any of that from discussion. But!" she pointed a finger in the air optimistically. " I wouldn't mind describing your true love." I leaned forward and watched her cautiously.
"My true love? Meaning my husband?" I said excitingly. She shushed me immediately and shook her head.
"I didn't say anything about husband. I said your true love." She corrected. "You will experience love like you have never experience it before and it will be unexpected. You definitely will not be prepared to feel those strong emotions, which can lead to many intense arguments. Along with that, you will have to make hard decisions, decisions that may get the people closest to you upset." For the first time interacting with the fortuneteller, she had become very serious. "Give me your hand." She ordered softly. I lifted up my hand and placed it back on her. She closed her eyes. " This guy I see, you already know him. However, you do not know him like you thought you did. You feel guilt when you're with this person. He has done so much for you and asked for nothing in return. You will find this to be very compelling. He is a very handsome young man, but insecure. People could misinterpret him. However, you can take the chance and found yourself happy around him. You are experiencing a delay in your relationship with him because of distance. You guys have not had a good conversation in awhile. You will find out that you guys have a lot in common. In the end, you are going to be scared to fall in love with him." I was mesmerized by her words, it didn't sound like pieces from my life but from a beautiful poem. Her face suddenly cringed and she removed her hand. She stared at my hand for a moment and sighed disappointingly. My heart beat faster in paranoia.
"What is it?" My voice projected louder than expected. The fortuneteller gave me a weak smile before dropping it all together.
"It does not end well, for him at least." She whispers. My heart was slowly breaking. I didn't know who this person was or what was wrong but my little poem suddenly became a nightmare.
"What do you mean it doesn't end well?" I pushed. " We don't end up together?"
"Zoey, death is in your future. Its not you, but its radiating off from him." She said sadly. I opened my mouth to speak but I closed my mouth in speechless. I tried again.
"Does he die?" I choked a little to hold back some tears. She shrugs.
"I can't determine that, that would involve knowing his future and unfortunately, he isn't here." She sighed. I nodded my head in understanding. She watched me closely. She spoke once she realized that I couldn't "Is there anything else you wanted to know Sweety?" I shook my head and stared at the table silently. She grabbed my hands and wrapped it with hers. " I'm sorry for exposing so much. I should have restrain mys-
"No, I respect you for telling me." I said robotically. She nodded her head.
"At least when you find out who he is, you can cherish every moment with him. " she smiled widely at me. I smiled lightly also. My heart felt hollow but heavy in my chest at the same time.
"I'll make sure to do that." I took away my hands and stood up. She followed. I began to walk towards the curtain.
"Zoey." I stopped at my tracks and glance back at her. " You're pursuing a career in finance."