Glee The Fortune

It was July 19th, 2007. I was with my three best friends, Wes, Nick, and Kurt. I had known Wes and Nick since I was three. Our moms met each other in a Gymboree class and from then on they would always get us together for play dates but knowing now, it was probably just so they could all get together and talk while their kids were preoccupied. I had met Kurt this year after moving from Westerville to stupid, Podunk Lima, Ohio all because my dad got a new job. I was new to our school and kind of a shy kid I moved around a lot and didn't really make many friends. The first couple of days I was in school, I would find an empty table in the corner of the room and sit by myself eating my bologna and peanut butter sandwich. Looking back now, this is kind of indignant of my personality, weird at first, an acquired taste, but once you give it a go, you won't be sorry that you did. One day Kurt invited me over to sit with him and all his glee friends and we have been friends ever since. He seemed to blend in so well with us that you would never know that the four of us hadn't know each other all our lives.

We all decided to go to the Ohio State Fair in downtown Columbus after we had saved up our allowance for the past two weeks so we could have money to spend. "We need to find Natalie before we leave," Nick said a little frantic. He was only seven when he had taken on the responsibility of his three-year-old sister. His parents were both lawyers and extreme workaholics so they never did well with family time so much of the responsibility of Natalie have fallen to Nick.

"We will," I said, "cool your jets. She's probably just on the tilt-a-whirl with her friends or something. She'll be fine."

"Hey," Wes exclaimed. "What is that?" All four of our heads whipped around to see whatever he was pointing at. I turned to see a small little tent somehow aglow in the waning sunlight. It seemed to stick out like a sore thumb, like it didn't belong in the 21st Century at all. It seemed to be like something I had only ever seen in movies. The only modern thing anywhere near the tent was a small neon sign that read: Psychic Readings. The tent was decorated from the outside with blue and purple scarves. There was a blue curtain that blocked their view of the inside but the curtain had an odd picture of an open white palm with an eye right in the middle of the hand printed on it. "We should go see what it is. Let's all have our fortunes read." Wes, always the adventurous one was pulling our gangly 15-year-old bodies toward the tiny establishment. He was two years older than the rest of us and ever since I had known him, he always thought that meant he was automatically the boss of us.

"Wes, I don't think this is such a good idea, I mean what if she tells one us that we're going to die tomorrow or something?" Kurt, the smallest and the smartest but easily the most anxious one of all of us of course had his apprehensions. He wore an Alexander McQueen jacket with these knee high boots. Since the day I had met him, I always thought his style was slightly…unique but that hadn't stopped me from being friends with him. He was a blast to be around and why exclude someone over his or her style.

Wes let go of everyone. "Come on Kurt, what are you? Chicken?" Then Wes was going around flapping his arms like wings balking like a chicken so loudly even over the fair rides that anyone that walked by was staring at us like we had all spontaneously grown a third head.

"Would you quit it, fine ok I'll do it." Kurt said, his voice a little shaky. We ran, being pulled by Wes, toward the small strange tent. Wes barley stopped in time to not going skating through to the other side of the tent.

"I'll go first since all you knuckleheads are still too afraid." Regardless of the front that he was putting up, Wes' façade seemed to be crumbling as his breathing quickened and I could even see a few beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he took that fateful step to the other side. The three of us stood, unmoving as we waited for him to come out. None of us knew what to say.

Kurt spoke up after a while only out of his own fright. "What do you think that she's going to tell him?" I think that he was just looking for us to ease his mind but I was just as scared and nervous as he was I was just trying not to let it show.  
"Ah, probably just that he'll settle down, have a couple of kids, nothing big. This stuff isn't real," which I fully believed but that didn't change the fact that I was scared out of my wits to go in there.

"Yeah, well she is probably going to tell him that he is going to die a painful and brutal death, something gruesome like a bear attack. You know how he is. He's probably going to go hiking in the mountains alone leaving him open to be some three ton Grizzly bear's snack." Nick had always been bitter since his parents didn't seem to care about him or his sister very much.

Kurt started to tremble. "Why do you do that to him, Nick?" I turned to Kurt. "She is not going to tell him that he is going to die."

It was then that Wes came trudging out. "How did it go?" I asked, all three of us leaning in to listen better.

"Not that exciting. She just said that I was going to get married, have two boys and a girl. It was lame actually." I looked pointedly over at Kurt almost to say 'told you so'.

"Whatever," Nick said, "I'll go next," and he too disappeared behind the curtain only to emerge minutes later with a similar story.

"What did she say?" Kurt asked.

"Just that I was going to marry young and I was going to be successful at my job but that I would hate it so I will go back to school. Nothing exciting. Like Wes said, kind of lame." Nick shrugged. "Anyways, who's next?"

Kurt surprisingly jumped at the chance. "I will. It doesn't seem so bad." Kurt took one deep breath before walking through to the other side of the curtain. Minutes later he came out with kind of a melancholy look on his face.

"What did she say?" I asked this time.

"I don't know it was kind of confusing. She said that I hide a secret that will soon be revealed to me and that I will find true love in unexpected ways." We all just looked at him with a look of confusion.

"What does that mean," Nick said, "Like you are going to find her hidden in a dumpster somewhere."

"No," I said. "I think that it just means that he will find her when he least expects to." Everyone shrugged it off and looked to me.

"Ok, you're the last victim." Wes said. "Go find out your lame and predictable fortune." Wes rolled his eyes and leaned against a nearby post holding up a sign.

I stepped up to the entryway and stopped short. I grabbed hold of the curtains and looked back at my friends. "Look loser, if you aren't going to do this than we need to go find Natalie." Nick said with worry in his voice.

Like Kurt, I took one last deep breath to gather the courage I needed to take that one fateful step past that blue curtain. I pulled the curtain aside and walked in. The interior was exactly what I had expected it to be with all the mystical symbols hung up all over but that didn't stop me from being uneasy about the situation. There were moons and stars plastered on every surface along with some other unidentified symbols that had no meaning to me. I could only guess that these were the pictures on some of the tarot cards.

There was a path illuminated by candles that led me to another closed curtain. The tent seemed to grow to twice it's size once you were inside. I gulped down the bile building in my throat. I carefully pulled back the curtain to reveal a woman, maybe in her 40s sitting in front of a small table with electric blue cloth with bright yellow stars and moons embroidered on it. She had dark eye makeup against her olive skin with these piercing green eyes that made me feel like she could see right through me. She was dressed in what looked like gypsy garbs which made me wonder if she did that for show or was this stand just some crazy thing that just magically appeared out of no where. "Come in. You must be the last of your little group out there."

"Yes ma'ma," I said politely mostly out of fear. Her voice rang through the tent with a thick Persian accent but her voice sounded ancient.

"Come. Sit. I am Madame Mahdis." I did as I was told from the green eye devil. "Give me your hands." I placed my hands in her up turned palms. She closed her eyes. "Blaine is it?"

"Yes." How had she known that?

She threw her head back and her eyes drifted shut. Her body swayed a little like a willow in the wind. "Hmm, interesting."

"What? What is it? What do you see?" My heart started racing.

"Well I have good news and I have bad news." I gulped as my eyes sprang open. I felt like I might pass out. I was sweating right through my polo I could feel it. "The good news is the love of your life is not far away. The bond that you will have with this person will be one of an unbreakable strength."

She paused. "A-and the bad news?" I stuttered.

"The state of a friendship will forever be altered because of your relationship if you chose to accept the relationship and in turn accept yourself." She extracted her hands from mine.

My eyes shot open is surprise. "That's it."

She looked confused. "What else were you expecting?"

"I don't know! Something of slightly more value I would think. All my friends know that they will be successful and raise great families and I get that I'm going to meet someone great and that I won't have a friend anymore? What kind of shit is that?" I was in a rage.

She sat back relaxing into her chair. "I only read what I see young man."

I got up and stormed out of the tent. I met my friends on the other side. They all looked at me, "What did she say?" Kurt inquired. For some reason I felt the need to keep what was really said only to myself.

"I don't know, just the same as all of you. I'm going to marry, live happily ever after, blah, blah, blah."

"See lame. Well this was a waste of time." Nick said. "Now can we please go find Natalie?"

"I guess," Wes said with defeat in his voice. We all started to walk down the midway in search of a blond 11-year-old girl. "God I was really expecting that to be better. What a lame ass fortune teller she was."

"Yeah," I say, "for sure lame."


End file.

Glee, Friendship, Romance