Searching for Caleb

Madame Olita was a large, sloping woman with a stubby gray haircut, wearing a grandmotherly dress and a cardigan. Her room, which was bare except for two stools and a table, smelled of steam from the cleaner's.

Since the biology teacher had called ahead, she already knew what Justine wanted. She had written out a list of things to tell people. "Palms will be simplest," she said. "Palms take much less time than cards, and for a bazaar that's all that counts. Just sound sure of yourself. Take their hands, like so." She reached for Justine's hand and turned it upward, smartly. "Start with the-you could be telling fortunes yourself, if you wanted," she said.

"But I will be," said Justine.

"I mean seriously telling fortunes. You have the knack."

"Oh," said Justine. "Well, I don't think I-"

"Do you ever have flashes when you know something is going to happen?"

"No! Really," said Justine. She pulled her hand away.

"All right, all right. Here's the list, then, of the major lines of the palm. Life, mind, heart, fate . . ."

But later, when she had heaved herself up to see Justine to the door, she said, "This is really not a parlor game, you realize."

"No, I'm sure it isn't," Justine said politely.

"You know it isn't."

Justine couldn't think what was expected of her. She went on buttoning her coat. Madame Olita leaned forward and jabbed the back of Justine's left hand with one stubby finger. "You have a curved ring of Solomon, a solid line of intuition, and a mystic cross," she said.

"I do?"

"Even one of those denotes a superior fortune teller."

Justine straightened her hat. _, "I have a mystic cross too," said Madame Olita, "but I've never found one on anybody else. They are very rare. May I see your right palm, please?"

Justine held it out, unwillingly. Madame Olita's hands felt like warm sandpaper.

"Well?" Justine said finally.

"You are very young," Madame Olita told her.

Justine opened the door to go.

"But you're going to enter into a marriage that will disrupt everything and break your parents' hearts," said Madame Olita, and when Justine spun around Madame Olita gave her a small, yellow smile and lifted a hand in farewell.

Out in the car, Duncan and Glorietta were kissing in broad daylight.

"Stop that," Justine said irritably, and Duncan broke away and looked up at her, surprised.

Justine wondered if some aura of Duncan's had rubbed off on her, so that Madame Olita had told the wrong person's fortune.

In the church hall after the sermon one Sunday a boy named Neely Carpenter asked Justine what time it was. "It's approximately twelve thirteen and a half," she told him.

"Approximately twelve thirteen and a half?"

"My watch says that, you see, but my watch is a little off," said Justine. "It's logical, really." She started laughing. Neely Carpenter, who had always thought of her as a spinster-faced girl, looked surprised for a moment and then asked if she would like a ride home from church.

After that he gave her a ride every Sunday, and he took her to the movies every Saturday night. Justine's mother said she thought that was very sweet. It was the fall of Justine's senior year, after all; she was seventeen. It was about time she had a steady boyfriend. And Neely was a doctor's son recently moved to Roland Park, a serious-looking boy with very straight black hair and excellent manners. "Why don't you invite this Neely boy for Sunday dinner?" Justine's mother asked her.

Sunday dinner was always held at Great-Grandma's house, with four leaves extending the table so that everyone could sit around it. Neely looked a little stunned when he saw how many Pecks there were, but he found a seat between Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dan and did his best to keep his place in the conversation. "Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am," he kept saying. Justine thought he was doing fine. She was proud of her family, too-her aunts in their new rust-colored fall outfits, her handsome cousins, her stately grandfather with his hair turned silvery white and his face puzzledlooking from the effort he had started having to make in order to hear.

So she was surprised when later, after Neely had gone home, Duncan said, "You'll never see hint again."

They were out on Great-Grandma's lawn, where Justine had gone to see Neely off and where Duncan, up to some project or other, was unrolling a gigantic reel of baling wire across the grass. When he raised his head to speak to her Justine was struck by his expression, which was almost the same as his grandfather's. "Why do you say that?" she asked him.

"Nobody takes Sunday dinner with the Pecks and comes back for more."

"Well! Just because Glorietta! And besides, you're wrong. He's already asked me to Sue Pope's birthday dance."

"Then he's a fool," said Duncan. "No, I don't mean because of you, Justine. I mean, who would willingly mix with that crowd in the dining room?"

"I would," said Justine. "I thought they were very nice to him."