Searching for Caleb

"Oh, then you can start on me," Mrs. Linthicum said. She was wearing a dress, and a little brown mushroom of a hat. She was a tall wispy woman with freckles seeping through her pink face powder. When she sat down in the folding chair she arranged herself so graciously, smoothing her skirt beneath her and then patting her bosom as if to make certain it was there, that Justine felt an unexplainable rush of sorrow. She reached over without planning to and touched Mrs. Linthicum's freckled hand. "Oh, is it the left palm you read?" asked Mrs. Linthicum.

"No, no, I don't read palms," said Justine, withdrawing her hand.

But she could easily have read that one, with its lengthwise groove and the worn wedding ring no wider than a thread.

She took out her cards and unwrapped them. "Why, how fascinating," said Mrs. Linthicum.

"Is there anything in particular you want to know?" Justine asked.

"Oh, nothing I can think of."

Dorcas leaned closer, giving off waves of Tabu, while Justine laid the cards down very, very gently. Madame Olita used to snap them down, but that was before they had started falling apart. When these went, where would she get more? She gazed into space, considering.

"I'm not afraid to hear, if it's bad," said Mrs. Linthicum.

Justine pulled her eyes back to the cards. "Oh, it's not bad, not at all," she said. "You're going to do just fine."

"I am?"

"You'll continue to have money worries, but not serious ones. You shouldn't be so concerned about your children. They will turn out all right. No trips in sight. No illness. You have true friends and a loving husband."

"Well, of course," said Mrs. Linthicum.

"All in all it's a very good life," Justine said. She cleared her throat and steadied her voice. "Anybody would be happy to have a formation like this one."

"Why, thank you very much," said Mrs. Linthicum. Then when the silence had stretched on a while she gave a little laugh and rose to pay her fee, pressing Justine's palm briefly with her cool, wilted fingers. When she left, Justine gazed after her for so long that Dorcas waggled a hand in front of her face and said, "You in there?"

Then others came, woman after woman, giggling a little in front of their friends. "No tall dark strangers? No ocean trips?" Several young girls filed through, a little boy in a baseball suit, a man in platform heels, an old lady. Justine tried to pin her mind to what she was doing. This was how she attracted future clients, after all. "You will have a minor car accident," she told one girl, relieved to see something concrete.

"Even if I drive slower?"

"No, maybe not."

"Then what's the point of all this?"

"I don't know."

"To warn you to start driving slower, Miss!" Dorcas cried. "Honestly, Justine! Where are you today?"

Oh, beautiful Dorcas, with her watery silk dress showing dimpled knees and her jangling bracelets and creamy throat! Her fortune altered from week to week. Which gave Justine a greater likelihood of error, but at least she enjoyed doing it.

During a lull they captured Ann-Campbell, who was winning too many prizes anyway tossing nickels into ashtrays, and Justine read her cards. Ann-Campbell leaned over her with a cone of cotton candy, smelling of burnt sugar and money. "You'll have to travel your whole life long to use up all the travel cards I'm seeing," Justine told her.

"I know that."

Then Dorcas, who had learned palmistry in high school, examined Ann-Campbell's little square hand-a mass of warts and deep, soiled lines. "I find travel too," she said, "but I don't know, Ann-Campbell gets carsick.

Let me see yours, Justine."

Justine turned her palm up. Secretly she had become as addicted to the future as Alonzo Divich, now that life moved so quickly.

"Oh, talk about travel!" said Dorcas.

"What do you see?"

"Lots of trips. Oh, well, there's much too much to read here. You have an indecisive nature, there are lots of ... but I'm not too sure what this means. And then a frequent change in surroundings and tendency to-"

"But is it a good palm?"

"I'm telling you, Justine! Of course it is, it's just full of things."

"No, I mean-"

Dorcas raised her head.

"Oh well, it doesn't matter," Justine told her finally.

She never did say what she had meant. She sat silent, frowning at the cracked square of silk in her lap, while beside her Ann-Campbell started firmly, grimly patting her arm with the hand that wasn't holding the cotton candy.

Duncan looked up from polishing a Cinderella pastry cutter and found Justine staring at him through the plate glass window, directly beneath his hand-lettered sign, ANTIC TOOLS WANTED. She was wearing her fanciest church bazaar outfit and there was a chain of safety pins dangling from the tip of her left breast. When he waved she waved back, but she kept on standing there. He rose and came close to the glass, popping his mouth like a goldfish. She smiled. "Come in!" he shouted.

So she came, leaving the door swinging open behind her. "I was just passing," she told him.

"You want to hear about my movie?"

"Yes."