A Goddess Wears Orange

Chapter 9

The next morning, she was awakened by the burbling of her cellphone. It was Ren, telling both Yumi and Tala to meet him at the gate within an hour for Yumi’s next training session, and to come prepared. Neither she nor her sister exchanged a word all throughout breakfast, a fact that had their parents casting questioning looks in their direction. But as Ren instructed, they were both dressed in jeans and T-shirts, carrying bulging backpacks, and waiting for him outside the gate within an hour. 

Walking behind them, Yumi watched as Tala and Ren bent their heads close together and talked in low voices. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering what happened between them the night before. Well, whatever it was, it seemed to have brought them closer together. She’d noticed immediately that he was wearing Tala’s black wire hair-band, and that he seemed to be hovering near her sister extra-solicitously, as if he was worried about Tala’s fragile emotional state. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering if he’d kissed Tala last night. Maybe he’d even confessed to her and asked her to be his date for Students’ Night. Maybe with her angry, impulsive actions last night, Yumi had ended up inadvertently fulfilling her part of the deal after all. 

And as for her—well, here she was walking behind them, feeling like the proverbial fifth wheel, waiting for the giant eraser in the sky to come down and rub her out of this romantic scenario entirely. She bit her lips against self-pitying tears, and prayed for the strength to make it through the training session without going to pieces. 

As it turned out, Ren’s brilliant idea for the last stage of her Goddess-training was heading to a particularly crowded plaza in a rather seedy shopping district, parking in front of a church of all places, and setting up a cardboard sign with the words: “Free Palm-Readings: Your Love-Fortune Told. 100% Accurate!” 

“What?” he said when both sisters stared at him. “I didn’t have any better ideas, okay? We need to simulate the conditions Yumi will be working in for the next five days, and this is all I could come up with.” 

He’d brought a bunch of mysterious stuff as well—two small folding chairs, a crystal bowl, a bag of sea salt, and a few sticks of sandalwood incense. At his instruction, Yumi and Tala produced the candles and bottle of water he’d asked them to bring, as well as the bag of oranges they’d purchased along the way. After consulting his clipboard, he mixed the salt and water in the crystal bowl, lit one of the candles and the incense, and made Yumi sit down on one of the folding chairs in their midst. He studied the oranges for a few minutes, looking perplexed, then shrugged and simply handed one of the fruits to Yumi. Then they settled down to wait. 

And wait. And wait. After over an hour of waiting and a grand total of zero customers, the sisters turned to stare at Ren again, who scratched his head in puzzlement. “I don’t get it either,” he admitted, pulling his “official Goddess-training” glasses off to rub the sweat out of his eyes. “You’d think people would be lining up for free palm-readings, but all they do is look at us then walk away.” 

Specifically, the males looked at Tala, while the females—and a goodly number of males as well—looked at Ren. But when they looked at Yumi sitting hunched up on that folding chair, her shoulder-length curls crimping up around her head from the humidity until she probably resembled a sweaty Afro wig that had sprouted arms and legs, they just sort of lost interest. Needless to say, this was not doing Yumi’s ego any good. 

“What do you think, Yumi?” Ren was still talking, while Tala groaned and turned aside to fan herself with a piece of cardboard. “Hmm, maybe I should’ve told you to dress differently, like in a more Gypsy-fortune-teller way. Somehow, jeans and a T-shirt don’t really sell your mystical powers.” 

Just then, a middle-aged lady, who was wearing a blindingly purple paisley blouse, a long, flowing black skirt, a purple turban and strings of fake pearls, drifted over to inspect their makeshift stall with some amusement. “You children are new to this, aren’t you?” By way of introducing herself, she jerked her thumb to her own fortune-telling stall not far away. “You won’t draw customers with that ‘free reading’ nonsense,” the lady continued. “People will think you’re a fake. You need to state your price so they’ll know you’re worth their while.”