Page 66 of Wayfarers

“So because she can afford—”

“You’re assuming it’s a she.”

“Well . . . yeah. Again, based on my experience. Don’t you think it’s probably a woman?”

“One hundred percent chance.”

“So, because someone has a fancy billboard, the product that billboard is advertising must be a good one. Seems like circular logic.”

“What’s circular is your head,” Sylvie says, slowing and hitting her blinker to exit the highway.

“What? My head? You’re saying my head is a circle. I mean sure, my skull is a roughly spherical shape but—”

Sylvie, without looking, traces a circle in the air with her finger in front of my face. “Circular.”

I sigh.

Sylvie Juxtaposition

The psychic even got her business listed

on the little blue sign by the exit, an arrow

and 0.3 miles: Highway Psychic, like

it’s a gas station where you fill up your eternal soul.

Do I squeal? Probably. I love this mix of the stupid

and the transcendent—the empty Zumiez storefront

in the mall, doors open and dark, like a portal

to the fourth dimension, or the time my stepdad

said to my mom, You take me for granite! Or Knox,

dappled beautiful in the sun, philosopher-smart,

stuffing a Jimmy John’s into his open maw. Wondering

what kind of all-knowing seer would choose

to work out of this dingy Victorian with a flickering

neon queen of hearts in the window?

Like if she could actually see into your future, wouldn’t

she already be on the Kardashians’ payroll? I tell myself:

I am going to have a good time. I am going to do something

teenage and stupid. Good stupid. In the waiting room,

Knox turns a delicate quartz over and over

in his strong hands. Keeps his face serious