Written in the Stars(26)
“Big family.” Darcy pulled a face and Elle couldn’t tell if it was overwhelm or wistfulness that made Darcy’s mouth twist and her eyes widen. “Are your parents still together?”
She nodded. “They’re wildly in love with each other. My dad still buys her flowers every Friday.”
Darcy smiled. “That’s sweet.”
It was, but talking about it was doing stupid, painful things to Elle’s insides. “That’s the gist of my immediate family, but I can give you a better briefing closer to Thanksgiving, okay?”
*
Darcy nodded and reached for her pen, black, unlike the glittery eyesore-color Elle had selected. She jotted down the basics she’d gleaned thus far. “Fair enough. Born and raised in Seattle—did you go to school here?”
Elle tugged on her ear. “I did. I went to UW. That’s where I met Margot. We roomed together freshman year and when we were unpacking, I noticed she owned a bunch of books on astrology. I’d been studying it since high school, and as soon as I got my driver’s license, I applied for a part-time job at Wishing Well Books, a metaphysical bookstore not far from where I live now. On the weekends and over the summers, when I wasn’t working the register and stocking shelves, the owner kind of took me under her wing, like an apprenticeship. Margot and I bonded over it and we started Oh My Stars the next year. We didn’t really get any traction until a couple years ago when we got a job writing the astrology column for The Stranger. Our following grew, one of our posts went viral, and we pretty much blew up.”
If someone had asked Darcy two weeks ago whether she was curious about what went into being a social media astrologer, she’d have unequivocally answered no. Now, after acquainting herself with Oh My Stars’s Twitter account, she’d have to say she was . . . but only from the standpoint that she didn’t like not understanding things. “And now you make memes for a living?”
Elle threw her head back and laughed. “No. I mean, kind of? It’s way more than that.”
“So what do you do? What’s a day in the life of Elle look like?”
Elle shrugged. “Wake up, caffeinate, check email and social media accounts. That takes an hour or two. Margot and I handle most aspects of the business fifty-fifty, but we each have our strengths. Having majored in communications, Margot tends to handle website maintenance and our social accounts and I take on more of the readings because I have more experience there. In between appointments we do live Q and A’s, and in our spare time we make content because, yeah, memes get us retweets and followers, which in turn grows our audience. But that’s not where we make money. Not really.”
Darcy tried not to frown. “How do you make money? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Elle leaned back on her elbows, reclining on the rug. “We make a tiny bit from advertisements and paid sponsorships, but only if it’s a product or service we can get behind, like astro-themed apparel we’d actually wear or zodiac-inspired perfume that really smells good and aligns with your birth chart.”
How a scent aligned with a person’s birth chart was a mystery, but Darcy didn’t want to interrupt.
“Our book, which is an astrological primer and guide to compatibility, is up for preorder, but most of our income comes from giving chart readings. We offer thirty-minute and hour-long phone sessions where we review a client’s birth chart and break it down or, depending on how much they know, we might touch on a specific topic they want answers on, like their Saturn return. If a client’s local and would rather meet in person, we have a deal with the bookstore I used to work at so we can use their back room. Occasionally I’ll spend the day there and take walk-ins. We also have subscription plans where clients pay monthly or annually for shorter, check-in text sessions where they can ask any burning questions they might have about transits or retrogrades. That sort of thing.”
“People actually pay for that?” Darcy winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth. “Sorry, that was rude of me. I just meant . . . isn’t something like that, one and done? You have your chart read and you’re set? If you believe in . . . that.”
If Elle was offended, it didn’t show. Her head tilted to the side, a smile playing at the edges of her lips. Darcy cast a forlorn glance at her glass, wishing it were full, even if the wine was too sweet.
“The planets aren’t static and neither are we. It’s good to check in with the stars and, if nothing else, it’s time spent on self-reflection.” Elle’s toes curled in the soft pile of the rug, her hot pink toenail polish catching the light. “As for readings as a whole, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
Darcy set her wineglass aside.
“Have you ever worked for a company that had you fill out an MBTI questionnaire? INFJ? ENTP? Or enneagram?” Elle asked.
Only every company Darcy had ever worked for, internships included. “And?”
“Tons of people consider MBTI pseudoscience and it has known issues with validity and repeatability. But people dig it because it gives them a way to describe themselves and what they value. How they function.”
Darcy had never been one to care about those four-letter designations. Half the time, her answers changed depending on her mood, the time of day, whether she’d eaten, and how much sleep she’d gotten.