Smoke and Cards

   She spread the cards on the table, forming three columns and three rows from left to right. A total of nine cards were there, all facing down. The woman, wearing a wine red shawl and several rings and bracelets on her arms, passed both hands over the cards and seemed to be talking in a strange language. Her clients were two girls, around twenty years old, who looked at her with eyes open and an expression of fear but also looking forward to her next words.

 The woman then did a sudden movement and asked one of them which card to flip over. The young woman indicated one and she complied, revealing the card of death. The woman then did a speech, explaining the deep meaning of this card. She asked several questions too, ranging from past relationships to dead family members. In less than twenty minutes, she flipped over all the cards and told the girl it all meant she was going to have an unexpected surprise very soon but that she should be weary as someone may be there to betray her. The girls looked at each other and, after paying, they went out giggling, discussing their results.

 The reader waited for them to be far and then called for her assistant, a young woman that looked a lot like her, in order to ask her if more people were waiting. The young girl told her that no and that her lunch would be done in just a few minutes so she could use the time to eat something. The card reader’s name was actually Suzanne and she had been a pharmacist for some time but that job had made her unstable, cranky and bored with life. She had always wanted so much more from everyone and everything and a pharmacy would never fulfill her dreams of grandeur.

 So one day, she overheard some women talking about going to a woman that read the crystal ball in a fair and she decided to go. The woman was a big sham but she learned that people would decide to believe in anything if it’s well presented to them. Before becoming a card reader, Suzanne had been a very practical and skeptic person. In one second, she could debunk any stupid thing people believed in and that had earned her a friendless life and a difficult interaction with men and even with her parents.

 So after seeing all the glitz and mystery of the crystal ball reader, she decided to become Madame Zelda, a mysterious seer that had come all the way from Romania to help souls in need to find their way by reading the cards of their life and other things. Her business, located in a small store in the city’s downtown, was very successful from day one. She had hired her niece Amanda to be her assistant and to give away fliers to every nearby college. Suzanne knew that the younger people were especially prone to believing anything so she knew that was the way to start.

 Six months had passed since that and her strategy had worked. Lots of giggling girls came in and decided to get their cards, their coffee and even their cigarettes read. Suzanne did everything and anything and people would buy what she said and even if they didn’t, she knew very few would tell anything to her face. People were strangely polite when referring to something as plain and simple as the arts of divination. But the point was that they always came.

 A she ate a bowl of pasta with meatballs with her niece, Suzanne realized they looked very much alike: their hand were both skinny, their skin the color of olives, big bushy hair and big brown eyes. She asked her niece what would she like to be when out of school and she told her that she had a dram of becoming a nurse. She wanted to help people and thought the best way was to care for people’s health. In the long run, she might even become a doctor but that wasn’t going to be decided just yet.

 Suzanne then asked her about her sister, her niece’s mother. She was not the best mother in the world, that’s for sure. She had the traces of all the women of the family: beautiful heavy smokers but convulsed souls inside. After all, they had a recurrence of mental issues in the family and Suzanne’s sister Amelia apparently was the prime example. She was always thinking of things that helped no one and had never really cared for her daughter. In part, that was why Suzanne had decided to accept Melanie in her home for her last year of school. She didn’t regret her decision so far.

 Melanie proved to be different than her fellow female family members: for such a young girl she knew very well what to do and what not to do and how to do the things she wanted for herself. After all, she was only sixteen and about to step out of school. Suzanne had already spoken with her sister about Melanie’s education but Amelia had assured her that there was more than enough money for that. The girl was the daughter of a very rich man that wanted nothing to do with them and paid handsomely every month in order to keep them away. And it worked perfectly for all of them so there was more than enough money to pay for her nurse education.

 Suzanne often liked to go out with her, shop around or to the movies. They were both lonely girls, no real friends around and Amelia had never grown fond of her own daughter, always seeing her as only her source of money. It was true and obvious that Melanie felt much more at home with Suzanne than with her own mother. They had fun together and they both learned a lot about each other in only the first few months of living together. They would share magazines and talk about boys, and fashion, and the future. And they both loved to finally have someone to hear them.

 Suzanne’s life as a young woman had been exactly the same, if not worst. She had very few friends because she wanted so much more from life. She was not happy with the crumbs she received from both her family and her present, she had always wanted more. She left home after refusing her father’s orders to study in order to be secretary. He thought there were roles and jobs for women and other for men and that she had nothing to do in a hospital, even if most nurses were actually women. He said he knew that she wanted to become a doctor and he didn’t agreed. So she left and never went back.

 Years later, she attended her father’s funeral and her mother refused to speak to her. After ten years, she still wasn’t speaking to her as if it had been her that had been harsh to her daughter. But that was the way it was. She was one of those women that live for the man they marry and in that moment, she was lost. She nothing and she felt empty and alone. It would take a few more years for her to become closer to her daughters and when she finally did, death came for her too. Now, it was only Suzanne and Amelia and even if they didn’t agreed on their life choices, they called each other every so often to ask how the other was doing and if they could be of any help.

 When she finished eating, Suzanne grabbed a metal box and organized what was inside. Melanie, who hadn’t finished eating, stared at her, looking all the types of cards she had inside, the cigarettes, the guides of how to read the cups of tea and coffee and also the hands. She had everything in that little box and then Melanie realized her aunt’s life was all inside that small object. It all summed up to that.

-          - Aunt?

-          - Yeah?

-          - Are you ever sorry?

 Suzanne looked at her, confused.

-          - What do you mean?

-          - With people that come here.

-          - hat should I feel sorry?

-          - You’re not a real seer. You lie to them.

 The woman was frozen right there on her chair. She had never discussed her business with anyone but Melanie was the person he loved most and she knew they had to talk about it. So she just answered that was the way she had found to feel she was receiving what she deserved from life. The girl then asked if she didn’t feel bad to tell lies to every person that entered the store. Suzanne took one of her niece’s hands and held it. She then looked at her in he eye and told her that people chose to believe what she said and that that was their decision. She knew she was lying to them and she knew it was wrong but her way of living was honest as she was true to herself. Then she took everything out of the box and showed the bottom to Melanie.

 There were two transparent bags and both had money inside. Then Suzanne told her she was saving for both of them, so they could live better and she could put up another kind of store, something better and that she could be proud of. The girl smiled and right then a bell rang. It was the next costumer. Suzanne straightened her shawl and went down to her smoky, cinnamon scented room as Melanie followed her in order to get the door.

Out of focus

   Gong was simply the best in her dancing class. She did every routine perfectly, able to combine different kinds of disciplines and styles with modern music. She thought classical music was out of the game now and that dance needed something else to make it more interesting. She was also a gymnast, which made her even better to the eyes of her teacher and more annoying to the eyes of every single one of her classmates. They all knew she actually thought she was a better person only because of her achievements and knowledge and they didn’t try to make her feel welcome.

 The girl didn’t care. She was only fourteen but knew very well how to treat people and how to behave by herself. She had to think she was the best to be the best every single time, in every competition and every class. It got very tiring and pretending something that she wasn’t sure was true was very exhausting. She did not do it in daily life, preferring to relate more to her sister and her parents. But only her father because her mother was all too obsessed with her practicing and winning and it had gotten to be unbearable to be in the same room with her, always criticizing and thinking she was being encouraging but wasn’t.

 Her father wanted all that for her too, but he didn’t as much. He always reminded Gong to have fun and never forget that dance and sports were not about destroying oneself on a mat but about making the art bigger and better. She listened to this and though of it always before any of her presentations. To be honest, the days of fear had passed because she had learned not to care about anyone but her, especially when performing. She just put the world out of focus and did what she had to do.

 Gong loved to use rock songs for her performances. Hip-hop was the kind of music everyone used to seem different and classical with any change was too dull for her. She had won a tournament by performing, all five of her events, with songs by Metallica. It was her who designed every single movement, not needing or asking for any kind of help. She used to have a trainer but she left him as soon as she realized he only pressured her to be the one to gain all the recognition.

 She got rid of him and decided to be dedicated and train everyday at least an hour by herself. Her parents were very supportive and it was all unnoticeable for the media or the judges of the next big event after that. She was praised so much; no one even realized she had no trainer but only her loving parents and her sister. After that particular time, she was asked to be photograph for many famous magazines because she had won a slot on the Olympics, which were going to be celebrated in Rio de Janeiro.

 Practice was intensified. She practiced every morning, from sunrise to lunch. She only had a slight breakfast on a very short break and then kept on going. Her diet had not been consulted with a doctor but her parents read all about them to make every meal appropriate for her. It was dreadful, she knew, especially for them because they had decided to do the diets as well and that proved to be a tough decision as her meals were not really full of flavors and variety.

 It was funny at first when her dad was caught by her mother, eating a cheeseburger in the car. Gong didn’t blame him and told them that she could keep doing it all by herself but they refused and her father apologized to her, although she didn’t really understand why. She just kept focused on her practice and on designing the best possible routines for every single event she was going to be performing in on the Olympic arena.

 The girls was exceedingly happy when her parents came in one morning to her room, after practice, and told her they had bought the tickets and all the hotel arrangements had already being settled. She was going to be staying with the rest of the athletes but they would be close by to check on her and join her on every event. According to the rules, they couldn’t have meals with her on the days she was to be busy but they could go out and get to know the city on the days nothing was happening.

 But Gong noticed something she didn’t like and which made her loose her focus from practicing. Her little sister Zhang, had begun to shut her out. It was very often that she could talk to her and play but now, when she tried, Gong was refused entrance to her room and on dinner Zhang wouldn’t even look at her, preferring to eat fast or at least fake she ate and leave early for her room. Zhang was eleven and had always been Gong’s best friend. She had been very supportive when some of the girls in the dance school or in the gymnastics practice were mean to her but now she was absent.

 And when the date of the trip to Brazil came nearer, she realized the whole time there she was going to think of her sister, trying to see her up there in the seats with her parents. And she didn’t now if she could stand that, not being in right terms with the one person that had always supported her and from which she felt no pressure at all. It was the morning before leaving that her parents told her Zhang was not coming with them. They had decided to leave her with aunt Myrna, who wasn’t really their aunt but her uncle’s wife, who had three kids and a big home.

 Gong was destroyed by the news and, for the first time in all of her life, she refused to practice, to dance, to do any of the things she normally did. She cried and begged Zhang to come out of her room and talk to her. But Zhang was not there. She had left the day before for Myrna’s house and she, the bad sister that she felt, had not even noticed. Her parents almost had to force her to eat, put on her clothes and hop in the car for the ride to the airport. Her trip there was awful and the one on the plane to Brazil was even worse, always thinking of Zhang and feeling worse by the minute.

 When the plane finally landed. Gong insisted on calling her sister. She dialed the number herself and once she her aunt Myrna’s voice, she was relieved to know that Zhang was being very normal and even pleasant around her children. She asked Myrna to pass the phone to Zhang but then Myrna fell silent and it took her a bit to tell Gong that her sister had asked not to be interrupted while playing, especially not by them. She didn’t want to speak to any member of her family and Myrna didn’t want to make her feel worse.

 Almost in a whisper, she told Gong that Zhang was feeling very bad because of the entire trip thing and that she thought her parents had failed by letting her out of everything, clearly putting Gong first and her second. Aunt Myrna asked Gong not to blame them or her sister for anything and just to focus on her events and comeback soon to get things sorted out. She then wished her good luck in Rio. Gong thanked her for her good wishes and her advice and hung up.

 It got a bit better when she met the rest of the group and, the next day, when they did the big parade of nations. She was mesmerized by the thousands of people in the stadium and hoped her sister understood how much she wanted her there right now. The night of the parade, everyone went to bed early because the first week was always the most intense one. Gong had the following three days for practice and then it was time for the first event. Regrettably, time flew by and the moment came for her first performance.

 She did great. With the sound of pop music roaring all over, she focused only on her moves and sharpness and she was surprised to take the first spot among her group. The following day, she was able to move on the semifinals groups and then on the grand finals. All the girls were very talented and she had seen their every move for the last few days. Some of them seemed even stricter with their dancing, almost looking mad every single moment. It was as if they had nothing else on their minds.

 But she did. The final day, somehow, the thought of her sister took over everything and she didn’t even have a proper breakfast because of it. Suddenly she became worried because there was a feeling on her chest, a weird sensation that something felt wrong. Before leaving for the arena, she asked her parents to call her aunt and ask for Zhang. She thought only asking for here would be enough, not to be too pushy. She would have time to talk to her when they got back.

 Her parents went to their seats and she went on to perform beautifully. She had only a few points of advantage over her nearest competitor but it was enough to win the gold medal. She was thrilled when receiving the flowers, the medal and a stuffed mascot. Everyone was taking her picture and she was simply the happiest girl in the world. She would go back home and show the medal to her sister and everything would be ok.

 But it wasn’t. Her parents were nowhere to be found and when she did, she realized something awful had happened. Right enough, Myrna had told them that Zhang had committed suicide overnight. She had taken her to the hospital but here was nothing the doctors could do. When Gong heard this, she just collapsed. Her only friend in the world was gone, on the happiest day of her life.