Page 2 of The One That Ran Away
Jess shook her tip jar. “Check me out. Almost ten bucks.”
“Big living!”
“Hell yeah. I’m getting takeout for dinner.”
“Thai or Chinese?”
“Chinese. Duh.”
Amanda looked around the room before pulling out the other chair at the table and helping herself to a seat. “I figured you must have been doing pretty good when I passed someone babbling about Geminis on the staircase.”
“That woman was an Aries dating Tauruses. She couldn’t figure out why her dating life sucked so much.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Amanda crossed her slender legs and slapped her hand on the table. “Got a few minutes to spare this old girl her horoscope for tomorrow?”
“I don’t do horoscopes!”
“Shh.” Amanda held a finger to her lips. “The others don’t have to know that. Actually,” she leaned across the table, strands of bleach blond hair threatening to land in Jess’s teacup. “I’m seeing a guy tomorrow night. Think he might be a Cancer. Hook me up, girl. My sex life needs all the help it can get.”
“You’re a Sag. What are you doing dating a Cancer? That’s one of the either-or signs for you! You need to date a wholesome Leo,” she sputtered that, because was there such a thing as a “wholesome” Leo? “Or a hot Aquarius.”
“Or a totes romantic Libra, right?”
“I’m just saying, Manda, there’s a reason we get along so well.”
Amanda gently nudged Jess’s arm. “You’re silly. Get out your tarot cards.”
“Didn’t bring them.”
With a gasping countenance that implied she had a few cards hidden up her own sleeve, Amanda dug into her bookbag and produced a stack of well-worn Rider-Waites. “Look what I’ve got!”
“Jesus, Manda, you should put a rubber band around those things.”
“Did I fuck up the energy? Because these things are so old that I don’t think it matters.”
“If anything, them being so old means they’ve got plenty of energy to spare. I think.”
“Well?” Amanda began shuffling the deck. “You got your interpretation book or whatever? Because I’ve got this pamphlet thing, but it’s pretty grody.”
Jess rummaged through her backpack to see if she had brought her tarot book. Probably not, but who knew what she remembered to remove over the days? Sometimes she discovered books that had been missing for months in the bottom of her backpack.
She looked up to say something witty. Instead, she was too gobsmacked to remember what she wanted to say.
A woman had walked into the teashop, her head of feathery hair looking back and forth for a place to sit.
A common sight in the teashop. God knew Jess saw it every time she glanced over at the door, and it didn’t help that the place was tiny and usually stuffed with patrons on a Sunday evening. The only reason Jess got the same table every week was because the staff were amused by her antics and reserved it for her. It helped she kept patrons around ordering more drinks.
What wasn’t a common sight, however, waswhowalked through the door. At first, Jess wasn’t sure she could trust her blurry eyesight. After all, she was a wizard at seeing faces that weren’t there. How many men around Portland looked like her ex-boyfriend and gave her a start every time they crossed her path?
This wasn’t a man, though. This was a woman, walking right out of Jess’s past and into her present.
Shannon.Shannon Parker.
“Oh my God,” Jess muttered, dropping her bag onto the floor. “No!” she then hissed, pointing her head toward the table before redirecting Amanda’s line of sight. “Don’t look! Don’t get her attention!”
“Who is that?” Amanda hissed back.
How the fuck could Jess explain the existence of Shannon Parker? It would take months. Years. A whole lifetime to describe who she was and how she had affected Jess’s life in profound ways – many of which she continued to recover from. “Someone I went to college with.” Yeah. That was succinct. It would also have to do.
