This is a response to second request by NJ.
Celestial Navigation
"Mayank, please do this for me." Samrat pleaded with his friend.
"Why should I do it Sammy? I mean what am I going to get out of it?" Mayank asked his friend, idly flipping through a magazine.
"You are going to get my unadulterated appreciation from bottom of my heart", Sammy replied.
"Why should I go? You are a lawyer and you want her case. Why should I be the one to sweat?" Mayank was seriously puzzled.
"She works in a tarot place man. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps." Samrat involuntarily shivered.
"What do you want me to do?" Mayank asked finally resigning to his friend's wishes.
"Be her client and worm your way to her mind and get her talking. Find out if her concern is genuine or she is being a flake."
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"Nupur, you got to help me here", Diya moaned in misery. "My owner is trying to throw me out of this shop because I refused to pay the hike in rent."
"Wasn't the hike agreed as a part of your contract?"
"No. It was not. I read it many times. I even talked to a lawyer guy to make myself sure."
"What was his advice for you when he saw the contract?"
"When I emailed him the contract, he said it was pretty air tight but there might be some clauses which might be used to put me into trouble."
"Have you made any statements to your owner which might incriminate you?" Nupur was surprised.
"Maybe, I have." Diya muttered slowly. Nupur sighed.
"Diya. You very well know how people are. They are just waiting for someone like you to make mistake so that they can make money out of it."
"I am thinking it's a way the owner of my shop is trying to kick me out and not just to get more rent money."
"I thought he liked you and believed in Tarot card reading?" Nupur questioned.
"I thought so too. Do you think there is something in our constitution for this charge?"
"You mean IPC", Nupur corrected.
"What's an IPC?" Diya questioned seriously.
"Never mind. Have you been summoned?"
"By who? Oh, you mean by the gang, for lunch? No, not yet." Diya answered stacking her Tarot cards and fixing her appearance. Nupur stared blankly at her friend.
"By the way, I have a client coming in today. He said he will be here at noon. But I already have a dentist appointment at the same time which I forgot when I made that appointment. I tried contacting him to cancel my meeting but was not able to get him. Can you please stay here and talk to him if at all he arrives? I should be back soon." Diya trilled and walked out of the shop. Nupur was still staring at the trail left by her friend blankly.
She wasn't in any circumstance a tarot card reader. Hell, she wasn't even a believer of the trade. She supported Diya in all her idiosyncrasies as her friend and that's that. When Diya gave her free readings, she had mostly zoned out and thought about something else. Diya had made her read a book about tarots and stuff and she had read for her friend's sake. Diya wasn't an idiot. She had quizzed her friend after Nupur said she had finished reading.
There was a distinct "ding" at the door marking arrival of a client. She decided to be the tarot card reader and send client away giving the excuse of prior engagement. And once he comes back he might not remember her face and might talk to Diya without any hesitation. But there was no way in hell she would actually give him a reading.
Mayank looked at the place and thought that he had suddenly stepped into some fantasy land. There were many bead curtains and the ceiling had eerie turquoise blue paintings. There were lots of merchandise on sale and a heavily beaded curtain separated the hall to two sections.
A woman dressed in casual shirt and jeans came out. He was surprised at her simple attire. He was expecting a heavy set woman in late thirties with heavy makeup, eccentric clothes and a weird attitude.
"Sir, I apologize for the inconvenience but your meeting is cancelled." Nupur spelled out clearly. She prayed he would come back later.
"Why?"
"I remembered I had a prior appointment this morning and called you several times. I even left you a message at your office." She frowned.
"Morning? That's a little too late to cancel an appointment, lady." He thought it would be fun to pull her leg a little. He had come to the place on whim after Samrat managed to convince him to go there as a customer and not as a lawyer. The girl was obviously mistook him for someone else. Not that he cared.
"I tried contacting you with all possible means but could not get a hold of you." She tried to be polite.
"By 'all possible means' you mean psychics, crystal ball and telepathy?" He snickered. Her cheeks turned red.
"Do not mock me. I am a professional." She hissed. He held up his hands in surrender.
"Then give me my damn reading."
"Fine." She snapped. "Please take your seat."
"Aren't you going to light candles, incense sticks and dim the artificial lighting and perhaps dress up a bit for your role?" He asked her. He had seen it in many movies where tarot card readers had a totally whacky set up. When Samrat had asked him to visit a tarot reader, he had done his research but unfortunately all the websites he had landed on were pretty cheesy ones. He was kind of hooked on the lady sitting opposite to her who was opening a deck of cards.
"We are doing a tarot card reading mister not performing exorcism." She replied waspishly.
"You do that too?"He asked her genuinely surprised.
"No we don't." She sighed.
"Okay. What else do you do here?" He was prying, obviously. He needed all the intel he could get on this woman.
"Just tarot reading."
"No palmistry?"
"No."
"Numerology?"
"No."
"Horoscoping?"
"'Horoscoping' is not a word but I get your point and no, we don't do that either."
"Any other thing which doesn't involve rationality or logic in its methodology?" She was sure that he was teasing her now.
"This is a tarot reading parlor and that's it. Do you have any more small talks lined up or should we just get this thing done and over with?"
"Let's begin", he clapped his hands like a little child and waited for her to do her thing.
She shuffled the cards and spread it out on the mat in between them on the table.
"Pick a card", she ordered and silently prayed that he would pull one of which she could actually recognize and if she did, remember a thing or two about it. The man sitting in front of her did not look like an idiot and that could pose some problem for her. He picked a card and placed it in front of her.
"The Fool", she declared.
"Is it a good card?" He asked her. She summoned her sage and nasal voice which sounded more like haunting and began to give him a reading of his life.
"It shows that you are taking a big risk at this moment and doing something which you are not supposed to do."
"I can see that on the card. The man is walking on the edge of a cliff. So it is a bad card." He sighed. Nupur thought that Mayank was slightly scared at his predicament.
"There is no such thing as a good card or a bad card. They just give out variation in meanings. The card which you have now drawn can also mean that you are taking a very unique step in your life and doing something that you normally would not do." She raked her brain hard to remember any more information and hoped that the client would not ask her any further question.
"So this is my present, which you are telling me?"
"Yes."
"But the information which you are giving me is very vague. All of us are always doing something or the other and look at me", at which she really did take a good look without any guilt, "I am at the peak of my youth and judging by my attire and the way I talk, you can make out that I have a good job and with my age, getting chances and opportunities are very high. Give me something unique which cannot be generalized." She huffed at his indignation.
"Mister..."
"Mayank", he added.
"Mister Mayank, I am here to give a tarot reading. Do you understand the meaning of it?"
"It means that if you are really good at your job then you can tell me the color of the underwear I am wearing." He smirked. She took deep breaths to relieve her anger and told herself constantly that killing him would make her go to prison for a very long time and that would hamper her plans in a very big way.
"It means I can tell you the paths you have chosen and what are the probable paths available for you."
"So basically you cannot give me anything concrete but give me a vague and wooly answer which I can interpret in at least a million ways which gives you an instant leeway in future to tell me – 'I told you so' even though you never really had that information with you in the first place." He summarized in one breath.
"That sounds about right."
"That's cheating."
"That's life buddy. Pick another card." He shook his head in amazement. Who in their right mind would tell their client that they are lying? The girl opposite to him did and it threw him off his balance. He was expecting a nave girl trying to impress people with fancy words with falsetto deeper meanings but the girl giving him a reading was blunt and even rude. It tickled him immensely.
"The Devil", she muttered. She was little surprised at the card she had picked up. It was the most misjudged card on the deck and people automatically thought it was a negative card.
"It's your past", she added to his benefit. He looked mildly horrified.
"This is exactly the reason why I think that the whole thing is flaky. I was not a devil." He declared. He didn't know why he was getting worked up.
"I never said you were." She smirked.
"What does this mean then?"
"You were not in control of your life or your actions. Circumstances and situations were the ones which drove you to be what you are today. It also tells you that allow yourself to come in front of the light."
"Okay. The last line was spooky and the first ones were cheesy. How did you manage to combine them?" Mayank declared. She glared at him.
"Whatever. Pick another. Do it wisely. This is your last one." She said this in a really eerie voice and chuckled. He could not help but to smile back.
"Justice" She frowned. For her, personally, it was all a joke. She did not take the reading seriously and she thought she could derive any kind of meanings she wanted out of the probably explanation. But the cards which she had drawn for him kind of made sense as a whole.
"I would be judged?" His voice broke her from her reverie.
"In a way, you are right. It's mostly righting the wrongs from your present."
"I see. Summarizing my past, present and future cards, I had a rocky past, my present is full of chances and I would also have to atone for my mistakes, correct?"
"That is correct", she replied stacking up the cards.
"You know you just gave a reading for almost half of the world's population?"
"That's genius of me, is it not?"
"It's cheating."
"You said that."
"I don't believe your reading."
"I never asked you to."
"I am not paying."
"Why not?"
"I am not satisfied with the service." He gave a Cheshire-the-Cat grin.
"You think we have some sort of 'Get your money back if you are not satisfied' line here? I gave a reading based on the cards which you picked so it was your decision all the way. You are stuck with your life mister. Learn to deal with it and pay me my damn money." She looked murderous. He was surprised at her attitude. His friend had told him that the girl was pretty meek and little airy.
"Nupur, are you in there?" Diya trilled from the door.
"You are not Diya, the reader, as it says on the board outside?" He asked her. She wondered how in hell Diya came back so back quickly.
"In here", she yelled. She decided not to reply him and if things got out of hands maybe even apologize.
"Why didn't you tell me that you are not Diya?" He reiterated.
"There you are Nupur. Oh, hello. I am sorry but I had cancelled this appointment this morning. Sorry again for making you wait." Diya said it all in one breath simultaneously smiling at Mayank. Nupur rolled her eyes.
"It's alright Diya. Your assistant gave me a reading for free. And I wasn't the one who made an appointment with you." He grinned at both the women. Diya gave him a cheery smile back while Nupur an embarrassed one.
"But I am no miser and I believe that time well spent has to be rewarded." He took out cash from his pocket and his business card, took Nupur's hand and closed her fist.
"I will call you soon", he told her and walked away with a smile leaving behind two stunned females.
Once he was out of the shop, he could hear a trilling voice saying "Who was the hunk" and "Tell me everything" to which he could hear a soft voice explaining everything.
Sookie
Edited by Sookie* - 15 years ago
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