Chapter One
When Meredia reminded me that the four of us from the
office were due to visit a fortune-teller the following
day, my stomach lurched.
"You've forgotten," accused Meredia, her chubby face
aquiver.
I had.
She slapped her hand down on her desk and warned, "Don't
even think of trying to tell me that you're not coming."
"Damn," I whispered, because that was just what I had been
about to do. Not because I had any objections to having my
fortune told. On the contrary -- it was usually good for a
laugh. Especially when they got to the part where they
told me that the man of my dreams was just around the next
comer. That part was always hilarious.
Even I laughed.
But I was poor. Although I had just been paid, my bank
account was a post-holocaust, corpse-strewn wasteland
because the day I'd been paid, I'd spent a fortune on
aromatherapy oils that had promised to rejuvenate and
energize and uplift me.
And bankrupt me, except it didn't say that on the
packaging. But I think the idea was that I'd be so
rejuvenated and energized and uplifted that I wouldn't
care.
So when Meredia reminded me that. I'd committed myself to
paying some woman thirty pounds so that she could tell me
that I would travel over water and that I was quite
psychic myself, I realized that I'd be going without lunch
for two weeks.
"I'm not sure that I can afford it," I said nervously.
"You can't back out now!" thundered Meredia. "Mrs. Nolan
is giving us a discount. The rest of us will have to pay
more if you don't come."
"Who's this Mrs. Nolan?" Megan asked suspiciously, looking
up from her computer where she had been playingSolitaire.
She was supposed to be running a check on debtors overdue
a month.
"The tarot reader," said Meredia.
"What kind of name is Mrs. Nolan?" demanded Megan.
"She's Irish," protested Meredia.
"No!" Megan tossed her shiny, blond hair in annoyance. "I
mean, what kind of name is 'Mrs. Nolan' for a psychic? She
should be called Madam Zora or something like that. She
can't be called 'Mrs. Nolan.' How can we believe a word
that she says?"
"Well, that's her name." Meredia sounded hurt.
"And why didn't she change it?" said Megan. "There's
nothing to it, so I'm told. Isn't that right, so-called
Meredia?"
A pregnant pause.
"Or should I say 'Cathy'?" Megan continued with triumph.
"No, you shouldn't," said Meredia. "My name is Meredia."
"Sure," said Megan, with great sarcasm.
"It is!" said Meredia hotly.
"So let's see your birth certificate," challenged Megan.
Megan and Meredia didn't see eye to eye on most things and
especially not on Meredia's name. Megan was a no-nonsense
Australian with a low bullshit threshold. Since she had
arrived three months ago as a temp, she had insisted that
Meredia wasn't Meredia's real name. She was probablyright.
Although I was very fond of Meredia, I had to agree that
her name had a certain makeshift, ramshackle, cobbled-
together-out-of-old-egg-cartons feel to it.
But unlike Megan I couldn't really see a problem with that.
"So it's definitely not 'Cathy'?" Megan took a little
notebook out of her purse and drew a line through
something.
"No," said Meredia stiffly.
"Right," said Megan. "That's all the Cs done. Time for the
Ds. Daphne? Deirdre? Dolores? Denise? Diana? Dinah?"
"Shut up!" said Meredia, clearly on the verge of tears.
"Stop it." Hetty put a gentle hand on Megan's arm, because
that's the kind of thing that Hetty did. Although Hetty
was rich, she was also a good, kind person, who poured oil
on troubled waters. Which meant, of course, that she
wasn't much fun, but no one was perfect.
Immediately upon meeting Hetty, you could tell that Hetty
came from old money -- mostly because she had horrible
clothes. Even though she was only about thirty-five she
wore awful tweed skirts and flowery dresses that looked
like family heirlooms. She never bought new clothes, which
was a shame because one of the chief ways that office
workers bonded was by displaying the spoils of the post-
payday shopping run.
"I wish that Aussie bitch would leave," Meredia muttered
to Hetty.
"It probably won't be long now," Hetty said soothingly.
"When are you going to leave?" Meredia demanded of Megan.
"As soon as I've got the cash," Megan replied.
Megan was doing her grand tour of Europe and had
temporarily run out of money. But as soon as she had
enough money to go, she was going -- she constantly
reminded us -- to Scandinavia or Greece or the Pyrenees or
the west of Ireland.
Until then Hetty and I would have to break up the vicious
fights that broke out regularly. Megan was tall and tanned
and gorgeous, Meredia was short and fat and not gorgeous.
Meredia was jealous of Megan's beauty, while Megan
despised Meredia's excess weight. When Meredia couldn't
buy clothes to fit her, instead of making sympathetic
noises like the rest of us did, Megan barked, "Stop
whining and go on a bloody diet!"
But Meredia never did. And in the meantime she was
condemned to cause cars to swerve whenever she walked down
the road. Because instead of trying to disguise her size
with vertical stripes and dark colors, she seemed to dress
to enhance it. She went for the layered look, layers and
layers and layers of fabric. Really, lots. Acres of
fabric, yards and yards of velvet, draped and pinned and
knotted and tied, anchored with broaches, attached with
scarves, pinned and arranged along her sizeable girth.
And the more colors the better. Crimson and vermilion and
sunburst orange and flame red...