The Universe is a Very Big Place

THE UNIVERSE IS A VERY BIG PLACE

by

April M. Aasheim

Copyright © 2012 by April M. Aasheim

Ebook Edition, License Notes

Cover art and design by Shari Runkle

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Dedicated to my Aunt Linda

For encouraging me to just be myself

I miss you

One

1982

Spring pulled back the flap and peered into the tent. A set of red tapered candles, placed purposely on a trunk in the center of the room, provided enough light to make out the objects inside. There were old books, some heavy with dust, thrown haphazardly across crates on the floor. Recipe cards calling for strange ingredients like cat whiskers and muskrat tails were pinned to the walls. Vials of every imaginable shape and color occupied makeshift shelves along the perimeter of the tent. Their shadows cast long, ghostly silhouettes, lending an eerie credence to the atmosphere.

Lanie could throw a room together in three hours flat.

“Come in Spring,” Lanie said, and Spring jumped. She had thought Lanie to be in a trance. The woman sitting opposite her mother gave Spring a scowling look. Lanie charged by the minute and thirty seconds of her time was wasted.

“Don’t worry,” Lanie told the woman, “This is my babushka and she is learning the family trade.” Lanie had on her fake mole, her Russian voice, and perfume three inches thick. Spring felt dizzy as she tiptoed by.

Spring sat down on a large throw-pillow beside her mother and gazed into the crystal ball. Lanie swore she could see the future, but all Spring ever saw was a distorted reflection of herself, taller and skinnier and even more gawky…if that were possible. “Use your third eye,” Lanie had told her, but Spring had no idea where her third eye was kept so had to make do with the two she had.

“Will I find true love again?” The woman asked, peering into the ball, hoping to catch a glimpse of what lay ahead for her.

Lanie stared into the glass and said nothing for a full minute; a whole dollar's worth of waiting. Finally, Lanie returned her gaze to the woman. “Nope."

“Nope? What do you mean, nope?” The woman shook her head and her glasses toppled from her nose, landing atop the chest and scattering Lanie’s deck of tarot cards. “I paid you good money and you are telling me nope?"

Lanie stood, shook her arms to let the invisible tension loose, and lost her accent. “Look. I don’t need a crystal ball to tell me this. You get one chance at true love in this lifetime and that’s it."

The woman groped around for her glasses, almost knocking over one of the candles. When she placed them on her stump of a nose, she looked from Lanie to Spring and then back to Lanie. “One chance? That hardly seems fair."

Spring didn’t have to look at her mother to know that Lanie was rolling her eyes. Lanie didn’t have much tolerance for nonbelievers and even less for those who somehow believed that life was fair. “I don’t make the rules, honey. You need to take that up with the Universe."

The woman buried her face in her hands and sobbed. “What am I going to do? I’m 43-years-old. I can’t live the rest of my life alone. Oh God, what am I going to do?” Spring wanted to go to the woman and pet her, but her mother didn’t allow anyone to touch the customers. Even the sad ones.

Lanie tilted her head and a red curl bounced near her ample bottom. Spring coiled it around her finger and released it, hoping someday she would get a wig as pretty as her mother's.

“Stand,” Lanie said to the woman, motioning for her to rise.
 
“It’s not that bad. You’re still a handsome woman, even if you are teetering on the expiration date. Meet some men at a bar, sleep with a few of them, and then settle down with a nice banker or something. You’ll meet your true love again."

“Really?” the woman looked up, her tear-stained face taking on a look of hope.

“Of course. In the next life-time. That will be thirteen bucks."

The woman fished around in her purse and pulled out three fives. She handed them to Lanie.

“Need change?” Lanie asked, stuffing the bills into the crest of her cleavage. The woman said nothing and stumbled out of the tent.

“Thank God she left when she did.” Lanie said, reaching up the back of her multi-flowered house-dress and wriggling around until Spring heard a soft snap. “I had a wedgie so tight it was starting to cut off my circulation.” Lanie hooted and took a swig from her closest vial.

“What took you so long getting over here, young lady?” Lanie asked as Spring rifled through the Tarot Deck, picking out the pretty ones. “How can you learn if you’re never on time?"

“Got lost."

“The road from the Ferris wheel to my tent is a straight shot. How do you get lost going in a straight line?"

Spring puckered her lips. “I don’t think in straight lines, mama. I think in starbursts."

Lanie nodded. “Just like your father."

“Mama,” Spring said, staring at the Knight of Cups. “I don’t think I wanna be a fortune teller when I grow up. I don’t like giving people bad news."

Lanie scratched her hip through a small hole in the side of her dress. The dress had seen better days, but Lanie would never part with it. “What bad news are you referring to? It’s not like I tell them when they’re gonna die."

“You can do that?” Spring asked, with renewed awe for her mother. Knowing when someone was going to die was like having a super-power, almost as good as invisibility but even better than flight.

“Of course not!” Lanie huffed. “That’s why I don’t tell ‘em. Now what bad news are you sayin’ I give people?"

“Do you really only get one true love?"

Lanie squatted down, body parts creaking along the way. “Love’s overrated Spring. If you get it once, consider yourself lucky. Life isn’t a fairytale, otherwise we’d all have our Prince Charmings."

Spring pulled her pale hair down across her face, shielding herself from her mother. There were lots of boys she thought were cute. She had even let one kiss her.
 
She hoped she hadn’t wasted her slot already, before she even turned twelve.

“Stop it. You’ve got a pretty face. Quit covering it up. It will give you warts. Now go find your daddy and Chloe and tell them it’s corn dogs for dinner."

Spring nodded and scampered out of the tent and onto the midway, ignoring the flashing lights and the whirs and whizzes of the rides, and wondering (not for the first time) if any normal families had an extra bedroom and had ever considered adopting a pre-teen girl in need of a good home.

2005

Spring swept through the house, gathering up all evidence of her weekend alone. Sam would be returning from his business trip today and she couldn’t endure another one of his ‘good-housekeeping’ lectures. The kitchen table was littered with candy bar wrappers, pizza cartons, and coffee mugs. Good memories, she thought, smiling to herself as she pushed it all into a giant Glad bag, secured it with a twisty tie, and tossed it onto the back porch. Next she scooped up an armful of dirty socks, hair rollers, and magazines from the living room floor and tottered towards her bedroom, hurling them into her closet. She frowned at the pile that was growing, steadily becoming an entity of its own. She made a mental note to deal with the jumble after work, but as soon as she shut the closet door the mess was forgotten.

Spring did a quick once-over of the bedroom and smiled. Not bad. Sleeping on the couch for the last three nights had left this room, at least, in pretty good shape. A little dusty, perhaps, but the bed was made and there wasn’t the usual heap of laundry sitting on the floor. She kicked a few stray shoes under the bed and moved the pillows around to give the illusion she had slept there. Sam believed that only Barbarians and Hippies slept on the sofa and she didn’t want to fall into either of those categories. She brushed her hands on her bare legs, satisfied that the place would meet at least precursory expectations.