Gypsies and psychics and Tarot readers have a hundred generations of practice at their art. And practice is all it is. Cold reading, wishful thinking, deductive reasoning. Throw out some general statement that could apply to any person on this Earth—
“I’m sensing that something is troubling you.”
“You’re amazing! Yes, it’s my husband . . .”
—and the mark tells you the rest. But the fake Jamaican had no way of knowing what he knew. No possible way. I watched my shoes mash through the weeds. This man had just ruptured the thin fabric of all I believed to be—
I walked right into a girl, broadsided her, felled her like a tree. I saw, to my horror, that it was Jennifer Lopez.