By a Charm and a Curse(5)
Inside, the poor schmuck in question stands at attention, arms held out in awkward angles like he’s going to start doing the robot at any minute. A bowler hat tilts a rakish angle over his brow, and when I take a closer look I see it’s him—the boy from earlier, the one who gave me the rose.
Jules insisted we find the booth after Tracy from our politics class told us there was a contest to see who could get the guy to break character. But five minutes and one butchered song later, the only things Jules has to show for her efforts are cheeks pinked from exertion and some angry glares from passersby.
“Em,” she pleads, giving my nickname more syllables than it deserves, “I’m just having fun.”
The wind, heavy with the sugary scent of kettle corn and some kind of meat most likely served on a stick, ruffles my short black hair until I’m sure it’s a mess. “Right,” I say, “at the expense of his poor ears. At least give him a quarter so we didn’t completely waste his time.”
The Boy in the Box’s lips twitch up, but, unable to see his eyes from beneath the brim of his hat, the effect is more sinister than he probably intends.
“Fine,” she says, again displaying her unrivaled talent at lengthening one-syllable words. She digs around her gigantic bag, and I don’t know which is more miraculous—the fact that she has a quarter or that she managed to find it in there. It’s a Broadway production as she puts the coin into the slot and throws her arms to the night sky. “Soothsayer! What does my future hold?”
The Boy in the Box springs to life as the quarter rolls down a chute and into an almost empty bowl beside him. A long finger taps the corner of his rouged mouth as though contemplating, while his other hand twitches over the small cards lining the shelf in front of him.
Finally, he pulls a card and holds it up to his temple. His dark hazel eyes close, he gives a crisp nod, and then drops it into the tray that we can access on our side of the booth. Jules squeals as she pushes her hand past the brass flap to retrieve the card. As she reads, her eyebrows furrow. She scans her fortune again. All I can see is the back of the card, printed with the delicate red swirls and loops framing a stamp of a marionette boy. At this angle, it’s impossible to tell if the puppet is dancing or falling, but the expression is gruesome, which is impressive given how few lines make up his little face.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Jules slaps the offending fortune against the booth. “This”—her finger taps the card, her breath condensing in an angry puff on the glass—“is bullshit.” She rips it in two and the scraps flutter to the ground. The pieces read Pretty feathers do not a songbird make and I have to cover up my snort of laughter with a cough. Jules glares at me. “Come on, Emma, let’s get out of here.”
I swear the boy behind the glass is grinning, but his face is turned down and all I can see are his rounded cheekbones.
Jules whirls on her heel, her gaze landing on some boys we know from school playing a game at a nearby booth, the kind where you have to fill up a balloon with a water gun to win a prize.
“Come with,” she says. “Let’s see if we can get you a date with Chris.”
“I don’t want a date with Chris,” I say. “He smells like onions and he thinks Shanghai is a country, not a city.”
“Yeah, sorry, he’s kind of a doofus,” she says, gnawing at her lip. “Do you know he once tried to convince me that sneezing with your eyes open will make them blast out of your skull? But what about Jeremy? Or Sam? I…I want you to like it here.”
I nod and gather a deep breath, rallying. I know this is her way of trying to help me fit in, to transfer me into the carefully tended group of friends she’s spent her life cultivating. And part of me wants it, but part of me wishes it wasn’t even necessary. “I get it, I do. This is all weird and new and it’s a lot, you know? Just…give me five minutes, okay? Let me get my fortune, and I’ll catch up.”
The smile Juliet gives me is small but firm. The desire to slot me right back into her life is practically rolling over her head like the ticker constantly running at the bottom of a twenty-four-hour news station screen. But she reaches out to squeeze my arm, then turns to face the cluster of her friends nearby. Soon enough, she’s in the middle of them, and strains of their laughter drift my way.
The Boy in the Box has his hands folded neatly in front of him and is staring right at me, a quirky smile on his face. All the tension welling up inside after that weird conversation with Juliet melts away at the sight of him, and my belly gives a twist.
He springs to life, his fingers jerking and flexing over the cards. He waffles over two fortunes for the longest time before settling on the one in the bottom right corner. His fingertips graze the paper and then he freezes. I wait, staring at his long, white fingers, willing him to pick up the card. Then I look at him.
The smirk is back, and when my eyes meet his, his gaze slips down to the bowl of coins.
Oh!
I check my bag, searching for change. Nothing. Who the hell even carries around coins anymore? My fingers falter over a lump in my pocket—the coin this boy gave me earlier. I slip it into the machine and like magic my Boy in the Box starts moving again, like he’d never stopped in the first place. He picks up the tiny white card, touches it to his lips instead of his temple, and drops it into the tray.
My fortune is six words, surrounded by hand drawn, curling hearts. Hearts that were not on Jules’s card. Did he draw them when I was looking for that quarter? A faint line of red that mimics the shape of a kiss runs over the words. You will soon take a fall.