Page 5 of Soft Flannel Hank

“Well, the Six of Cups reversed can signify a person who is stuck living in the past.”

Hank felt an eerie heaviness settle over him. His tongue felt dry in his mouth, and he wished he’d brought his blue Pepsi cup of water with him instead of leaving it at his table.

“Are you ready for your future card?”

Hank hedged.

“Why don’t you flip it? You picked it. You should flip it,” Esther said, her voice softer.

He nodded before pinching the corner of the card between his thumb and forefinger and flipping it over. He saw a skeleton sitting on a white horse, a flag in its hand. The skeleton wore armor.

“Death,” Esther said in a casual, matter-of-fact tone, as if she were reading out an item on the diner menu or telling someone her favorite color.

Just a party game, man. Pull it together.

“Death? So, what? I’m gonna die?” He felt the words thick and resistant in his mouth.

Esther rolled her eyes. “Literalist.” But then she sighed. “Death is actually my favorite card to pull. Everyone focuses on the ending. On that literal meaning. But nobody thinks about the other side of things. Death can mean transition and new beginnings. Leaving an old life behind for a new one. A fresh start.”

Hank looked at her. He’d thought she was beautiful from across the diner. When he’d come closer, he’d been taken in by her bright eyes and her freckles and her smile, the way one front tooth slightly overlapped the other, but looking at her now, he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. The way she scratched at her dark green nail polish with her thumbnail, sending little flakes onto the table. The heaviness in her shoulders. She looked like she’d been tired for a long time. He knew that look. After all, he saw it in the mirror every day. And yet he couldn’t remember ever thinking anyone was as beautiful as she was.

“So I’m not gonna die?” he asked, trying to break the tension, his own tension.

“Oh, no, you definitely are,” she said flippantly into her coffee cup before taking a long sip.

His mouth fell open, and he imagined he looked like one of those singing bass fish that opened and closed their mouths mechanically in time with music. Only there wasn’t music. Hank was just opening and closing his mouth in time with his own racing heartbeat as he tried and failed to find words while the adrenaline boiled through him.

“At least I assume you are,” she continued. “We’re all gonna die. I mean, unless you’re a vampire.” She winked. “And you don’t strike me as the type.”

“No,” he said. “That would require vampires to be real, wouldn’t it?”

They looked at each other. Moments passed. He tried to school his expression, to be blank.

He didn’t need to talk to her about what he now knew to be true on the subject of vampires. Among many, many other things. What she didn’t know, she didn’t know. Ignorance was easier. Bliss, as they said. And Esther was just a nice, normal lady from somewhere down south.

“You’re right,” she said, collecting the cards and putting them back in the deck. “Thatwouldrequire them to be real. Which they aren’t. Are they?”

As a police officer, Hank had asked a million questions. A question had a specific tone to it. More to the point, a question begged an answer. Esther hadn’t asked a question. The way she said it, the lack of inflection at the end, the slight eyebrow raise, she challenged him to refute her. He didn’t.

It felt like they were circling each other, ready to draw, each trying to figure out what the other knew or didn’t know. Hank had the distinct impression that Esther knew far more than she was saying out loud. Maybe even more than he did.

He cleared his throat. Cracked his knuckles. She winced. The tension dissipated.

“I’ve always hated that sound,” she said quietly, wrapping the deck of cards in a scrunchie.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He meant it.

“Don’t be sorry, Hank,” she said with another small smile. “Crack your knuckles if you like. It’s your body, not mine.”

Hank felt a physical response in that body of his to that statement.Take it. It sure as hell doesn’t feel like it belongs to me.Which was preposterous. He’d just met her. And yet, parts of him that had lain dormant for more than a decade felt like they were waking up, unbidden and ungoverned, and he couldn’t shake that feeling of wanting her to want him. He didn’t really want to try.

He nodded to her. She nodded back.

“So,” he said. “New beginnings.”

She flashed a huge smile at him. “I think you’re in for some upheaval for sure.”

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