Excerpt from Carnival Girls

Bernadette: What’s your fate? Your fortune? For a dollar I’ll tell you. Life line. Heart line. It’s all right here. I can feel it. I can say it. I can give it to you -- offer it up on a platter of devices. Cards, crystals, beads.  Sticks, stones, leaves. For 50 cents you can drink my tea. Taste your future. Know what your body knows already. This life has already been lived. The stars in all their wisdom decided long ago…. I wish I may, I wish I might on the first star I see tonight. I wish…The first question they always ask – when will I find the love of my life? And the second is – when will I die? I wish I didn’t believe in my own predictions. I wish they all fell in love and stayed in love and died at some ripe old age mid-sleep. But I know the truth or at least a variation of the truth and this is why when they ask me ‘Do you read your own palm’ I say no. Because I am sincere girl from this land of caravan and my eyes are far from blind. I know. I know.