orange

i drove across the bridge, crying.  i knew it should be something beautiful and special, but it wasn't. all i could think:  some version of why is he being this way to me;  what's wrong with me that i am letting myself go down this road.

so.  i drove the streets.  they were narrow.  i saw places i wanted to stop and there was no parking. no parking anywhere.  so i drove down to the water.  it wasn't how i remembered it.  it seemed phony, somehow.  i went to a restaurant, it was expensive, gratuitous, but there was something in the view out the window.  the pilings were old, weathered, slick with scum.  the gulls circled.  that was real.

i stared, thinking about rubbing away the tiny desiccated tube feet of the starfish they bought me when i had been here before.  the enormous golden curtains.  the inflated rubber seal.  was this the place of those things?

i left the restaurant. i walked down the street.  there were t-shirt shops, everywhere.

a woman pulled me aside to offer me something.  she was shorter than me, and older.  she was, it seemed to me, a mexican woman, and this made her legitimate somehow.  like whatever she was going to offer me was a straight up transaction.  i wasn't worried that she would rob me.

do you want me to tell you your fortune?

how much?

to be honest, i don't remember now her fee.

she pulled me back into this beautiful courtyard.  probably it was nothing special.  probably every little courtyard in that city has a tree and a bench and a stillness which i would feel compelled to imbue with magic.  it's how i am.  she invoked a secrecy which seemed out of context.  was she working another gypsy's turf?  and then she told me things.

you haven't felt appreciated.

yes, well, that was hardly a stretch.  i'm sure i didn't seem happy, and really, what woman ever feels appreciated.  she wasn't getting a lot of points for this fortune.  something about things turning around for me.  something about a child.

no no you don't get it, i said.  i think i'm too old.  this was four or five years ago.

no.  you're not. don't worry, women are having babies into their fifties now.

right.  whatever.  but i didn't say it aloud, no point in being rude.

do you want me to give you the magic blessing.

how much is that?

sixty dollars.

no, look, i only have forty dollars left.

it's ok.  don't tell my sister.  i like you.  it's enough.

and, i hadn't really meant that.  i had meant that i only had forty dollars left and i was in a strange city and needed to hang on to my money.  i didn't really believe in her blessing.  but i was carried along in the flow of events and i just couldn't stop.

she pulled smooth rocks out of her pocket, maybe eight, maybe ten. maybe twelve.  they weren't rocks she picked up off the ground.  they were quartz and flourite and i'm not sure what all.  she kind of rubbed them down the sides of my body.  she made some hand movements.  it all sort of ran together into some sort of surreal moment, culminating with her pressing the stones into my hand.

keep them, she said.

she told me the initials of my mystery man were j.s. the most obvious, innocuous initials possible.  and then.  then it hit me.

j.s., that was me.

and i had to laugh, as i walked away holding my stones.