text: It was a gorgeous day outside, and I was enjoying a wonderful lunch with my best friend in the entire world. We had known each other all our lives, considering she was my sister. However, there was no one else I would rather spend an afternoon with. Here lately it was a rare occurrence because I worked all the time, and she had three kids and a husband who commanded her attention. I worked for a big cosmetics firm, and traveled a lot for my job. Which brought us to our current conversation. She had the usual concerns, such as when was I going to settle down and have a family, aka husband and children. My usual go to answer was I love my work, and at the moment it was all I wanted. But add in the fact that she was five years older, and practically helped raise me, she didn’t believe my answer. After lunch we usually went shopping, but this time she told me she had a surprise for me. She drove, and we parked in front of this Victorian looking mansion with huge stone pillars. It looked like it was a remnant of the 1860’s southern plantation. “I am not dressed for a fancy lunch!” I told her. She just smiled and told me to follow her. We walked up the impressive stone stairs, and read the sign on the old oak wooden door that stated to come in. We entered a long hallway, and there were three doors on each side. The first one said lawyer’s office. She motioned for me to follow her. The last door on the right read: Madame Helena- Palm Reader and Fortune Teller. I looked at my sister in disbelief. She knew how I felt about these kinds of utter fantasy. “Hear me out. You have been miserable since your break-up a YEAR ago. You need a new prospective, a new direction. Maybe she can open your eyes to different possibilities.”. My sister said compellingly. “Also, I already paid, and there’s no refunds”. She looked at me and held her hands in a prayer like fashion, and whispered please. “Fine, let’s do this. But then you owe me lunch!” She laughed and knocked on the door. It was a very dark room with heavy, velvet purple, blackout curtains on the windows. There was a card table in the middle of the room, with a red tablecloth covering it. On the table there was a crystal ball, and a deck of cards. The lighting above the table were three different colored globes in various sizes. There was a large painting of a black cat with green eyes on the wall behind the table. An old woman came out of the back room carrying a silver and red candle. She was dressed in what looked like a silk red bathrobe. She had long gray hair, covered by a black cap. She spoke in a deep voice and told me to sit. My sister walked the other way out the door! Wow! I was alone with this odd woman. She picked up the crystal ball and set it on the floor behind her. She said, “give me your hands”. She took my hands in hers, they smelled like jasmine. She held them for which seemed like forever, but in reality, it was more like 30 seconds. She spoke again in her deep voice. “I will reveal to you three cards, one from the past, one from the present, and one from the future. Are you ready?” I nodded, and she turned over the first card, on it were two small girls playing outside with a bunny. It looked like my childhood backyard, our pet bunny and my sister and me. I was super impressed and creeped out at the same time. I wondered how much information my sister had shared with her. She looked up at me and nodded yes. I nodded in return. She put that card to the side and turned over the second card. On it were one image over another. The first image was a man and a woman silhouette holding hands in front of a church. The one below was the same couple, but they were facing away from one another, and the woman was crying. It looked a lot like my ex and I, except it escaped the red mark on his face for being a two-timing piece of garbage. I was actually feeling sadness from seeing this image. She spoke up and said, “it's time to move on. He’s not the one for you, and he doesn’t deserve your sadness, or tears.” Yikes! She nailed it. “Are you ready for your future?” I nodded yes and she chose the third card. On it were three images. On the upper left-hand part, there was a woman standing at a podium with woman cheering for her, she has a check in her hand. The upper-right hand was a picture of a man and woman holding hands, and smiling at one another. The final picture was the couple standing in front of a house with a sold sign in the yard, and the woman looks to be very pregnant. The woman picks up all three cards, puts them in her robe and takes my hands again. She tells me, “I see much happiness in your future. Be open to it.” Then she gets up, and walks to the back room. I get up and go out the door to my sister, who is looking at a magazine. “How did it go? Did she have good news?” my sister asked. I replied hesitantly because I didn’t want to argue with her, but she needed to hear this. “My life is my private business, and I do not appreciate you sharing my history, or my aspirations for my future with her. From now on, please refrain from giving my personal information out to anyone!” She looked at me in disbelief and shock! “Hun, I set the appointment up and paid online. The only information I relinquished was my credit card information.” I just stared at her in shock. “She knew so much about me. This is a tad freaky. Let’s go to lunch at that new place downtown. We’ll talk then.” We walked into the new place, got seated and I told her everything the fortune teller told me. She agreed that it was a bit unnerving. We had finished our lunch, and were enjoying our wine when a man who identified himself as the manager/owner asked if everything was good. I looked up into the blue/green eyes of one of the handsomest men I had ever seen. He also looked like the man in the future picture. I smiled and said, “it was perfect, I believe we just found our new favorite restaurant.” He smiled back.