The Fortune Teller

a few thoughts about soulmates

“Your soulmate,” said Basil, the in-house tarot reader at a hotel I was writing about in Newport, Rhode Island, “is trying to drum up the courage to contact you on Thanksgiving.” She held up a card that did, in fact, look Thanksgiving-esque—cornucopias, fall foliage, a pumpkin.

Newport, Rhode Island isn’t what you’d think of as a fortune-telling destination. It is very crowded, very tourist-oriented, very…seafood-focused. It’s like if fish and chips were a place. But here was Basil in her high-backed chair, a psychic in jeans, telling me that my love life was “about to explode.”

“He might text you, ‘Happy Thanksgiving’,” she said.

I wasn’t sure how to take that. I’m generally partial to witty repartee, but it’s possible that my soul swoons for Happy Thanksgiving. Anyway, I’m glad she told me. Now I won’t ignore the message from an unknown number that I might have assumed was an automated text from my dentist. What if I had blocked my soulmate?