This issue is for paid subscribers, one of the personal stories I try to publish at least monthly.
During one of the more interesting years of my life, saving up to move out of the South, I worked five part-time jobs while sleeping on a friend’s couch.
Early in that year, she came home from attending a party with some friends she’d made at work. She worked at a place frequented by the wealthy wives of doctors, mostly white women whose lives revolved around: managing the nannies and housekeepers who took care of their homes and raised their children, working out every day in pursuit of staying hot for their high-earning husbands and, as far as she could tell, wallowing in the existential angst of the misery caused by a life consumed with such shallow pursuits. They took a liking to her for the stellar service she provided and she found herself invited to a “Girls’ Night Out” party at one of their homes.
I was sitting on “my” couch, my purple high-top Chuck Taylor shoes beside me on the floor, laces tucked in neatly, when she flopped into the chair across the room.
“How was the party?” I asked.
“Buncha boring bitches,” she said. “But they did have a Tarot reader, and that was kind of cool. I felt bad I didn’t have any cash on me.”
“What do you mean?”
“This woman came to do Tarot readings, and she didn’t like charge a fee for each one or whatever, but everyone slipped her cash. She had a little box by the cloth where she spread her cards out.”
“How much did she get paid?”
“The ones I saw were paying her $100 for each reading. I think she made $1,600 or $1,700 tonight.”
“Excuse me?” My voice went up at least an octave, and I was sure I had misunderstood. “I need you to look right at me and repeat that, please. It sounded like you said a bunch of boring bitches paid someone almost two thousand dollars for playing with fucking tarot cards.”
She laughed. “Yeah, she pocketed $1,500 minimum. Maybe more; I tried not to stare.”
I stared at her, blinking. Then I started putting my shoes back on.
“Where are you going?”
“Barnes and Noble, to buy Tarot cards.”
She started laughing, but I was entirely serious. Between the instructions that came with the deck and a few YouTube videos, I was a passable Tarot reader a couple of days later. A friend of a friend, who had been reading Tarot for years, let me buy her lunch and pick her brain, so I got a 2.5 hour intensive “internship” to round out my knowledge.
After a few practice runs with coworkers at my many jobs, I felt myself prepared and designed a flyer. My friend took it to work and passed it on to her customer-friends, who promptly invited me to be the reader at their next party.
What Are Tarot Cards? What Happened Next?
What are Tarot cards? And what happens when an atheist who knows damn good and well she’s pretending to believe starts getting paid for Tarot readings…and it turns out she’s really, really good at giving them?