Hex and the Single Girl by Valerie Frankel Read Free Book Online

finding kinship among the outcasts and freaks of Greenwich Village.
    Emma stayed local for college, graduating from NYU. As soon as she could, she bought an apartment in the
    neighborhood—the Waverly Place one-bedroom she was holding onto by a thread.
    Her parents were supportive of the purchase (they’d lived just a few blocks away). Her mother felt the apartment would be a good emotional and financial investment. And when Emma’s mother felt something, she was always right.
    She died two years after making that prediction. Emma often wondered—especially now, on the brink of ruin—if her Mom’s forecast had been long term, or only as far as she would live to see.
    Emma walked quickly and purposefully, hugging the lip of the park’s innermost circle, the round fountain in the middle. Loiterers were perched on the edge of the fountain in pairs, trios, quartets. She nodded at anyone who caught her eye, hoping someone would try to sell her pot. But then she got another offer.
    “Palm reading, five dollars,” said a woman perched on the northern curve of the fountain. She was a tiny middle-aged black woman in blue jeans and a blue hoodie that had the words “Above Average” stenciled on the sleeves. Hair in cornrows, her face was intricately wrinkled.
    Emma slowed, vaguely intrigued by the offer. For all her heightened senses and telegraphopathy, Emma had no
    intuition or precognition. She didn’t feel things the way her mother had. She’d never studied palmistry or Tarot, preferring to keep her focus earth bound, as she was.
    The woman said quickly, “For you, three dollars.”
    “Deal,” said Emma, sitting on the fountain edge and holding out her right hand. The woman stretched the skin to make the white lines turn red.
    Running a finger across the middle of her palm, the woman said, “This is the life line. It’s very long. You’ll live to be eighty-nine years old.”
    “It says eighty-nine?”
    “Yes,” she said. “This is your creativity line. You are a creative person with a big imagination.”
    “Really,” said Emma.
    “This is your head line. You are highly intelligent.”
    “Won’t argue there,” nodded Emma, who was willing to bet (more than three dollars) that every sucker who submitted to a reading would live to be eighty-nine, was creative, and intelligent.
    “This is your heart line,” said Above Average.
    Now she’ll tell me I’m destined to find my true love very soon, thought Emma.
    “Your heart line is all criss-crossed,” she said, peering into Emma’s palm, “like it’s X-ed out.”
    Emma’s romantic misery was plainly evident, even to street hustlers. The word “alone” might as well be tattooed on her forehead. She’d never find a man to love her. He didn’t exist. The idea of him was just one more fantasy rolling around in her warped brain.
    “Whoa!” said Above Average suddenly.
    “What?” asked Emma.
    “I pressed on your heart line, and a picture popped into my head. I saw a man. A famous man,” said Above Average, excitedly. “Hold on to your sunglasses, sister. It was William Dearborn! You lucky bitch. He’s hot!”
    Emma swallowed hard. Not again. Dearborn’s image was oozing out of her like slime.
    Besides which, was there anyone in New York who didn’t love William Dearborn?
    The palm reader shouted, “I have the sight!”
    “Oh, God,” said Emma, cringing. Other people around the fountain were looking.
    “You and William Dearborn! I’ve got to tell everyone, so when it happens, I’m on the record. What’s your name?”
    demanded Above Average.
    “Her name is Emma Hutch,” said a female voice over her shoulder. Emma spun round to see who’d spoken.
    “Susan Knight,” said Emma warmly. A former client. They hadn’t talked in months.
    “I’ve got the sight!” said Above Average to the universe. To Susan, she asked, “Read your palm? Twenty bucks.”
    “I thought it was three,” said Emma.
    “My price just went up.”
    Susan said,