Do You Want to Know a Secret? (2 page)

‘
What
did you just ask me?’ Barbara practically snarls back at him, reacting as if he’d asked her for the loan of a kidney. I decide the best thing is to exercise extreme tact and diplomacy here, and gently steer her away.

‘This way, honey, you’re not ready for cosmic ordering,’ I say firmly. ‘But it was worth the admission price alone just to see the look on your face.’

‘Cosmic
ordering
? Explain please, in words of one syllable.’

‘Well, the theory is, instead of asking the universe for what you want, you order it, with a set delivery date and all, then you relax and forget about it and just wait for it to happen.’

‘So, let me get this straight, it’s a bit like the way you used to write into
Jim’ll Fix It
when you were ten.’

‘Sort of, yeah.’

‘And has this cosmic whaddya call it ever actually worked for you?’

‘Emm . . . well, you see . . .’

‘Yes or no?’

‘OK, not really, no, but then I worried and stressed about things NOT happening fast enough for me, and that just delays delivery, apparently. When you order something and let it go, it acts like an express
order
on the universe. At least that’s what the book says.’

‘God, you sound like such a prescription-pad job. Lucky for you I’m your friend and therefore non-judgemental at the amount of money you waste on this crap.’

‘It is NOT crap, and what’s more, I’m going to prove it to you.’

I take a glance around at the aura consultants (no, Barbara would run a mile), channellers (ditto), and face-readers (let’s not even go there), before I hit on something.

‘Right, come on then, whether you like it or not you are having your tarot cards read. You have no choice, it’s my birthday.’

‘OK then, but I’m telling you now, you’re only allowed to use that once today.’

‘And it goes without saying, as a trade-off, I’ll do anything you want come your birthday. Anything.’

‘Oh birthdays,
please
. What’s to celebrate? My bum dropping another inch?’

There’s a fortune-teller sitting behind a very official-looking desk, so I steer Barbara over. She’s doesn’t look anything like those Mystic Meg types you see in magazines, you know, all dressed in black with beaded headscarves, beads hanging out of them and with three teeth in their head, saying, ‘Cross my palm with silver, lovie.’

No, this one almost looks like she might work in the passport office; she’s even wearing a suit, which I feel might appeal to Barbara’s, ahem, no-nonsense nature. I plonk her down, fork out fifty euro for the reading and tell her I’ll be back in ten minutes and that on no account is she to make a bolt for the exit when I’m not looking.

Then I spot another fortune-teller just across the hall, oooh, yes . . .
now
we’re talking. This woman looks right up my alley, she has a crystal ball in front of her and a sign that says SHARON, SPIRITUALIST, SHAMAN AND SAGE TO THE STARS. There’s even a photo of her standing beside Oprah Winfrey, so that proves she must
really
be good, mustn’t it? I mean, everyone knows Oprah is like this total entrepreneurial genius on top of everything else, so she’d hardly waste her time with a complete messer/chancer/con-artist, now would she?

All excited, I sit down, hand over another fifty euro, shuffle the tarot cards that Sharon the Shaman hands me, then give her back ten, exactly like she asks. There’s a long pause as she looks at the layout in front of her, but I’m supremely confident, full-sure that she’ll predict that a soulmate will enter my life any day now, whisk me off my feet, and plonk an engagement ring on my finger quicker than you can say ‘Boodle me, Baby’.

Oh yes, and then, I’ll ask Barbara to be my bridesmaid and my friend Laura to be matron of honour, and I’ll
definitely
have to try on a few of those empire-line dresses that you see in all the Jane Austen adaptations, and I might even get a wedding planner because I’ve just waited so bloody long for this that I want it to be bigger, longer and costlier than all of Liz Hurley’s put together . . .

‘Mmmm, all right then, love,’ says Sharon the Shaman, ‘just by looking at your cards here, I can tell that you’re a nurse.’

‘Emm, no.’

‘A doctor?’

‘Nope.’

‘But you definitely work around hospitals, love.’

‘Sorry.’

‘But you’ve . . .
been
in a hospital. No doubt about it. Recently, too.’

‘Well . . . only to visit my dad when he had his cataracts done, but that was, like, over two years ago.’

‘Yeah, yeah, that’s it, that’s what I’m seeing here. Hundred per cent. The cards never lie, lovie. Oh, here we go,
now
I see what you do for a living, you’re a teacher, then. Primary school.’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘But there’s no doubt you work with small children. I see you mopping up a lot of pee.’

Bloody hell. I wonder if Barbara’s getting on a bit better than this.

And if the fifty euro is refundable.

‘For the love of God, can we please leave now?’ Barbara says, when we meet up, precisely ten minutes later. (Considering these people work in an esoteric field, the length of time they dole out to you is incredibly precise.) ‘I need a margarita and a cigarette, in that order.’

‘What did your one tell you?’

‘Oh please, don’t even go there. Apparently, I’m going to be pregnant by next Christmas and give birth to a girl that’s my great-great-granny’s reincarnated spirit. Pathetic. For the love of God, can we go now? This place pushes the parameters of sanity.’

Right, that’s it, I officially give up. I’m just about to admit defeat and steer her towards first the exit and then the nearest bar, in that order, when something catches my attention.

‘Anything you want in life is yours, if you just
ask, believe and receive
. It’s as simple and as profound as that,’ a woman with long, red hair, the palest skin I’ve ever seen, and an American accent is saying. ‘Some of the greatest minds throughout history knew this truth. It’s in the oral traditions of some cultures, it’s in philosophies, in literature, and you’ll even find it in religions right down through the centuries. There’s nothing new in what I’m here to tell you.’

You should see her, she looks like an angel and is
speaking
soft and low, but with such absolute conviction, it stops me in my tracks. And Barbara too, I notice. She’s standing on a sort of podium and almost looks like she’s giving a seminar, with a microphone in one hand and a sheaf of notes in the other. But there’s only one other person in the audience listening to her, a fair-haired girl about my own age.

‘But I’ve been asking for the right man for years now,’ this girl is saying, almost pleading. ‘And all I meet are uninterested, unavailable morons. Now either my emotional sat-navigational system is waaaay off kilter or I’m doing something wrong. And believe me, I will pay good money to be told what that is, so that I can fix it, move on, and who knows? Maybe even find some tiny modicum of happiness in this life.’

Red-haired woman puts the microphone down and steps down from the podium to where the girl is standing. It flashes through my mind that this is actually a nice, sensitive thing to do. After all, there are some conversations you don’t want anyone overhearing. Barbara and I are hovering close, not wanting to seem rude, but at the same time, dying to know what she’ll say.

‘The law of attraction is available to you at any time. It’s working as often as you’re thinking. The question you need to ask yourself is,
why
am I attracting the wrong kinds of men into my life? What is it that I need to learn here? What’s the universe trying to teach me?’

OK, that’s it, I can’t contain myself any longer. Fair-haired girl doesn’t exactly look impressed with this answer and moves off, so I’m in like Flynn.

‘Excuse me,’ I say in a voice I barely recognize as my own, ‘but I couldn’t help overhearing and . . . well, I can fully sympathize with that lady’s dilemma. I hope you don’t mind the interruption.’

‘That’s OK,’ says red-haired woman, smiling kindly, ‘that’s why I’m here.’

‘Ask, believe, receive? Is that true? Can you explain to me then how come I’ve been asking to meet my husband for what feels like decades now, and there’s still no sign of him?’

‘So, what have you learned?’

God, for a total stranger, this one really has that unflinching, direct eye-contact thing down pat.

‘Ehh, don’t calculate your Weight Watchers points in front of a guy on a first date, and don’t keep asking him what he’s thinking at regular two-minute intervals, or the chances are, he’ll crack. There you go, all my unsuccessful dating years summarized in two concise bullet-points.’

I’m aware that I’m making light of it to cover up how defensive I really feel, plus I’m also conscious of Barbara standing close to me. I’m actually glad of that; I want her to hear this for herself.

‘Then I can help you,’ says red-haired woman,
nodding
sagely, like she’s seen my type a thousand times before. Which, let’s face it, she probably has. ‘The law of attraction couldn’t be simpler, really. Your thoughts determine your destiny. It’s a well-proven scientific fact that like attracts like. When you talk about dating, all I can hear in your voice is negativity, a woman who is
expecting
to fail. If you expect failure, then that’s all the universe is going to deliver. A simple mind-switch is all you need to change your entire life, and the choice, my dear, is yours.’

Her words hang there and for a minute I can’t say anything. I’m too busy thinking, could this total stranger actually be right? Am I so busy focusing on how rubbish my love life is, that all I’m creating is even more of that?

Then Barbara’s over, all businesslike with her ‘you just watch me while I put manners on this one’ face.

‘May I just point out,’ she thunders, ‘that my friend here runs a highly successful business, so to make out that she’s attracting negativity all around her . . .’

‘Oh, do you? Tell me a bit about your business,’ red-haired woman interrupts, shutting Barbara up.

‘Oh, well, yes, it is doing very well,’ I say, a bit wrong-footed.

‘It’s doing brilliantly, actually,’ says Barbara defensively. ‘Go on, tell her about the contract with the cosmetics company.’

‘Well, you see, we’re up for a huge contract and I
won’t
know for another few weeks or so whether we have it or not, but I think it’s pretty much in the bag.’

‘You see?’ smiles red-haired lady. ‘Even your tone of voice changes when you’re discussing an area of your life where you feel confident. You absolutely believe that success will come to you, so of course it will. How can it not? Your very thoughts are attracting it to you as we speak. That’s the thing about the law of attraction, ladies, it’s very obedient.’

‘So how come I’m virtually unemployable as an actress then?’ Barbara demands and I can instantly tell this one is
really
getting to her. ‘Here I am trying to attract a decent gig for myself and . . . big, fat nada.’

‘What are you doing to attract the right part to you?’

‘Everything. I learn the lines, do my homework, turn up and pray very hard that the two-hundred-odd hot chicks in the casting queue ahead of me will all drop dead so the job will be mine. Simple.’

Red-haired woman just looks at her. Doesn’t even raise her voice, nothing.

‘You’re attracting failure because clearly, that’s what you expect. In fact, it sounds to me that you’re so busy focusing on what you
don’t
want to happen that, in actual fact, all you’re doing is attracting jobs for other people.’

‘Now hang on a minute here, I don’t go into auditions trying to fail.’

‘So what
do
you think when you’re auditioning?’

‘That here I am, classically trained and reading for the part of a life-sized cigarette in a Nicorette commercial, usually, that’s what.’

‘Can you hear how
negative
you sound? And all you’re doing is attracting even more negativity towards you. Remember what I said: like attracts like. It’s the most fundamental law of the universe. Now just take a moment to think. There must be some aspect of your life where everything’s going your way, so you need to ask yourself . . . what is it that I’m doing right here, so effortlessly? Then I want you to take those same positive feelings and apply them to your work area.’

‘She attracts fellas like flies to . . . emm . . . manure,’ I blurt out.

Sorry, I can’t help myself. God, I sound like the class swot ratting on my friend to the teacher. I just think this one could really be on to something here.

‘There you go, then,’ smiles red-haired woman. ‘It sounds to me like you ladies need to learn from each other.
You
need to figure what your friend is doing to attract men so easily. Whereas
you
,’ she says, turning to a very pole-axed-looking Barbara, ‘need to be as confident and self-believing in your work area as you are in romance. If you walk into every casting with the attitude that everyone around you is far more suited to the part than you, what are you attracting?
Unemployment
, what else? There’s a saying I often use to anyone who comes to me looking for help: if you want to fly, first of all, get the shit off your wings.’

Hours and hours and waaaay too many margaritas later, Barbara and I are still talking about her.

I mean, was she for real?

Or could there actually
be
something in what she’d said?

Chapter Two

In which our cunning plan is hatched, parenthesis, thunderclap, sinister laugh, ha, ha, ha, parenthesis . . .

JUST ONE MORE
friend to introduce you to and then we’re done, I promise.

‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the youngest-looking, hottest babe I know,’ calls Laura, my oldest and dearest buddy, waving at me from across the swishy, Dublin 4 restaurant where we’re having lunch with Barbara the following Saturday who . . . well, that might just be information overload, I’ll come to what’s she’s up to in time.