I waited for a jitney underneath a banner advertising a poker tournament—It’s July, Summer is just heating up—and was relieved when I got on that it was empty. My skin felt feverish, and I leaned my face against the window’s cool glass until we arrived at the Tropicana and I could walk back to the shop.

On my walk, I passed a telephone pole with Julie Zale’s picture stapled to it. The photograph had become faded, the ink ran in the rain, like mascara tears sliding down a face. The paper was tattered and peeling away from the staples. I wondered about her uncle, back in Baltimore now, probably. Jumping at the sound of the telephone. Peeking in Julie’s old room to admire her trophies on the wall, the track medals hanging from nails above her bed. I was sick of thinking about the girls I would never be: treasured, adored. The girls from middle school, sipping their vodka and lemonade, flipping their hair. That was how their wholes lives tasted—a combination of pink lemonade, vodka, and strawberry-flavored lip gloss—everything for them was sweet and exciting. Julie still smiled out from her photograph. I reached out and ripped the poster, shredded it until the paper was confetti in my hands. I watched the pieces blow down the street, and a coldness moved into my body. How stupid I had been to think that my visions and my tarot cards could get me anything. The world wanted things from me, but they weren’t insights or answers. It didn’t matter who I was, or what I might be able to see. Look at how it happened with Tom—I had a glimpse of who he was, and still, I ended up underneath him while he drove himself into me, biting my lip to keep from crying out.

I had given my savings to Des for the back rent, and now with the money she had and the cash from Tom, we nearly had enough to cover what we owed. But in another month another rent check would be due. In three, four months, another eviction notice on the floor.

When I got home, Des was sitting in the kitchen. She must have been thinking the same thing—how the bills would continue to come, the demanding envelopes stamped in big, bold lettering. I already knew what she was going to propose. I had opened up a door that I couldn’t walk back through.

LILY