and began to shuffle them. They moved between my hands like old friends, and I closed my eyes, focusing on the questions that ran through my head.
“No,” I said. “I need to know what this has to do with me. Why is this happening in my life now?” I turned over a card: the Fool smiled up at me.
“Really?” I asked. “Who is the fool? Me?”
I contemplated the card. The Tarot had been a part of my life for many years, a fact I’d hidden from my father, for I was certain that he would not approve. I’d watched my mother lay out these very same cards for years, starting when I was quite young. I could still recall her patient explanation of the meaning of the Major Arcana, of which the Fool was the first card.
“The Fool is at the beginning of the journey that the cards will take you on,” she’d said. “See how carefree he is? He’s starting fresh, just like a child having an adventure. No matter how old you are, remember, when you see this card, it means that you are going to have a chance to start over, to get another chance in life. And you should always, always take it. Never lose your inner child, Cassandra. Never let anyone take that away.”
I picked up the card and studied it. “I did it, Mom,” I said. “I came here and started fresh. And now look at the mess I’m in.”
I tossed the card on the bedspread and fanned the deck around it. Randomly, I pulled out another card and tossed it on top of the Fool. It was the Eight of Swords, in which a woman was depicted in bondage, her hands behind her, her eyes covered by a blindfold. I laughed aloud.
“I see,” I said. “I get the message.” Although the woman looks trapped in her dire situation, in fact, the bindings are all in her imagination—she is tied only by her own hesitation and the limits she has brought on herself. I swept up the cards, shuffled them lightly, and said, “Okay, Mother dear. Any other advice?”
I tossed down a card. It was the Fool again. I laughed and put the cards away.
“Got it,” I said. “I won’t give up on my dreams, at least not yet. I’ll keep trying this new life I started.”
I went out to the living room and plopped onto the couch. My apartment had nothing to compare it to the spacious home in which I’d discovered Neville. This was an institutional box in a tower of faculty housing, much of which was occupied by lower-level, untenured laborers like myself. It had four white walls and a muddy brown carpet, with the sole redeeming feature the large picture window overlooking Washington Square Park. It was nice to look at, but a nightmare to live above: if you had any inclination to open a window, the constant noise coming from the park made it impossible to hear any music, television show, or conversation inside the apartment.
I had tried to brighten the place up in the few months I’d been there with a red couch, a black Ikea chair, an artfully draped shawl over a small table in the corner. I'd added an old lamp I picked up at a tag sale in Somerville before I moved to New York, and a throw rug from my father’s basement that mixed the red and black colors nicely and almost obscured the ugly institutional carpet beneath. I hadn’t really hung anything on the walls, and there was only a small bookcase with some fiction that I dragged out—nothing at all like the massive library Neville cultivated. If I was going to make my new life an exciting and interesting one, I needed decorating help and it was just the thing to distract me from the pickle I’d gotten into with Neville. I picked up the phone.
“Michael? What’s your schedule today?” I asked. My best friend in the city, a colleague who worked one flight above my office in the Humanities Department, was a year away from his tenure review and more attentive to spending time in his office than I.
“Um, class at 4:00, office hours afterwards. What’s up? You sound stressed. Where are you?” he asked.
“Home…You wouldn’t believe what happened. Well, maybe you will,” I said. “I spent the night in the pokey.”
“What? Like the ‘hokey pokey’?” He giggled. Michael, a former all-state wrestler from Massachusetts, was a seriously silly person. When we first met, I’d heard his infectious laugh while I was waiting for the elevator. When the door opened and I saw his lively dark eyes, sweeping black hair, and Oh-my-God what a body, I was a goner. Unfortunately, I learned very quickly that he only had eyes for the guys.
“No, like the jail. Can you meet me? I need to shop...I have to fix up this place. When I got home from the Police Department, I realized that their décor was better than mine.”
“Oh, stop. It can’t be that bad.” He paused. “The station, I mean.” He resumed giggling.
“So you’ll help,” I said.
“I really should work on this article, but this sounds like an emergency.” He stopped laughing. “But really, you need to tell me what happened. Did you cook dinner for someone and get picked up for manslaughter?” The peals of laughter started again.
“Har-de-har-har,” I said. “Meet you on the corner in fifteen?”
“You have to buy me lunch,” he said.
“But of course,” I said. I pulled on a pair of skinny jeans, a blue-and white striped shirt (no-iron, thank you very much), and a gray boiled wool blazer. Slipping my feet into Doc Martens, I ran down the stairs and leaned against the massive red library building and watched the bustling corner. My cell phone buzzed with an incoming message: “Walk this way. Igor.”
“Let’s go to Soho,” Michael said when I ambled up next to him on the busy sidewalk. “There’s a cute shop down there that I saw last weekend with José that might have some darling things for your so-called living room.”
I hooked my arm through his, and we crossed over to Broadway and headed south.
“I love this jacket,” I said, fingering the rough tweed of his sleeve and giving his bicep a squeeze. “Very professorial.”
“You think?” he asked. “I thought it was kind of retro ‘Good Will Hunting,’ you know what I mean, but not so much that I look like I’m totally handing it over. Right?”
“Definitely not handing it over.”
“And also not at all gay,” he added.
“So not gay,” I agreed. “Very masculine. I’d date you.”
“I know you would, sweetie, but I’m looking for tenure, not a relationship, right?” He patted my hand. “So, the store is on the next block, but tell me quick, why did you get put in the pokey last night? What happened?”
“Neville was killed. I found his body. Can you believe it?” We stopped and held each other’s hands while he screamed “No!” and I screamed “Yes!” and other pedestrians made a Red Sea parting around us.
“So they think you killed him?” he asked.
“They let me go, so, no, I don’t think they do,” I said.
“But they kept you all night long…and they asked lots of questions, right?” We started walking again. I shrugged.
“Where’s that store?” I asked.
“Don’t worry. It’s right here…” he said. “Are you avoiding my question? I mean, someone might think you have a motive to get rid of Neville, the old fairy. He was treating you badly. Oh, do they know about that? Did they talk to anyone else in the group yet?”
“They hadn’t last night. By now, they must have talked to some of them. And to Kenneth. Oh boy. God only knows what he had to say.” I tightened my grip on his arm.
“Quick, get in the store. The cops could be coming for you any minute. We need to hide,” he said. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes scanned the street as he pushed me into a small, crowded shop filled with linens and knick-knacks.
“What is this place?” I asked. “Is this where you wanted to take me? I don’t think I need to hide, Michael.”
“How