She hadn’t been aware that her pay was only two hundred. She must have misunderstood, she said, and she wasn’t lying. For María Isabel, the very idea of a temp earning more per hour than her seemed a conclusive, irrefutable argument, especially when she didn’t take into account that temps had to pay their own social security. She herself had done the math and worked out that if that shit awful job were a person’s only source of income, they wouldn’t have even been able to afford those payments. But she still felt guilty. María Isabel now had a justification for her permanently offended expression, and even Zoe looked at her askance. They both preferred to side with the hated, exploitative boss rather than a misfit. Only Paz kept her thoughts to herself: if she had a poor opinion of her, she didn’t let it show. Or maybe she just couldn’t have cared less.

She’d held out for a few more weeks and then said she was leaving. Her last paycheck was a hundred euros.

“Whenever I do your tarot I get a conflict between three people. One of them is going to back down.”

She’d been the one to back down.

She could consider other problems, but none of them fit so cleanly.

Petty bouts of jealousy between cousins.

Suspected minor betrayals: a friend who’d told a third party something she’d confided to him, showing that he was incapable of keeping secrets.

She and her parents escaping from the semi-darkness of the living room.

Was she doing the same thing with the clairvoyant’s message as when she slipped that short trip into her lifeline, but in some more subtle way, giving a new meaning to her memories?

Crying bitter tears for you, I see it night and day. I know you don’t believe me. Call: 415-295-5143