Being Jim Ch. 09: The Guilty Heart

Sarah set the bottle of wine down on the coffee table along with the two wine glasses, she took one bowl of fruit salad from me and a fork and handed Dave his beer and desert before sitting beside me on the sofa. She handed me the bottle in silent askance to open it for her. One thing I have to say about Dave and Sarah, they had good taste in beverages. This bottle of white was no exception. Not your low dollar plastic twist off cap, or even a metal twist off for that matter. This was a real deal cork with wire basket stopper much like you would find on Champagne or sparkling wines. Always the boy scout I had my Swiss Army knife out and the cork screw twisting in in a flash. I eased out the cork and smelled the open bottle before handing it back to Sarah.

"It's worth the effort." She told me as she poured two glasses of the crisp and slightly sweet white for the two of us.

"This should go well with the fruit then I would think." I said as I sipped a palate full and swished like I knew what I was doing. Sarah grinned at me and rolled her eyes before taking a sip for herself.

"I don't know, this beer goes pretty good with the salad if you ask me." Dave said from his almost horizontal recliner as he tipped his long neck up for another draught.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Sarah making a bit of a smirk at his remark and shaking her head slightly as she raised her glass for another sip of the wine. Sarah once more apologized for the blind date she had most recently set up between Francine and myself. Again, I thanked her for caring and trying but asked her to please not do any more. Of course, she wanted to know more about what Francine and I had talked about and done on the two occasions that we had gone out together since that fateful night.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that Francine and I had talked mostly about her, Sarah. I couldn't tell her how Francine had pined that she had thought that Sarah was interested in her. It was nice to find out that Francine and I had mutual friends in common other than just Sarah and Dave. While the alternative lifestyle numbers of which Francine was one of was growing ever larger in this town, I still knew quite a few of them from earlier in my life. I had promised Francine that I would keep her preference to myself as far as Sarah was concerned. I knew that while Francine would love to be more than just friends with her, she would still very much like to remain friends with Sarah anyway.

We talked about some of the other people we knew from Night Friends and the comings and goings of some of them. Not so much gossiping as shedding light on parts of the stories that the other might not have been privy to. Sarah pried me about some of the girls online that seemed to be awfully friendly with me, both online and in person at the few get togethers she'd seen everyone. While I didn't out and out admit to having been intimate with any one of them in particular, my body language and my blushing pretty much told the tale for me. At least for Sarah, she was very sharp when it came to such things, Intuitive... almost clairvoyant really. Of course, she claimed to be able to read Tarot cards and had a touch of second sight, though it wasn't always as reliable as the cards.

"Jim, why don't you let me read your cards some time?" Sarah asked for probably the twentieth time since I had become friends with her and Dave.

I shrugged, as I always did, and hung my head slightly giving Sarah a sidelong glance before locking my eyes on the glass of wine in my hands and studying it intently. At least that's what it may have looked like to anyone observing me, in reality my mind was seeing visions of my past life flitting through the almost amber liquid in the glass. Faces that caused my heart to soar with joy and break with remembered pain of loss.

I knew that life was mostly chance and our future is what we make it, but I also believed that perhaps that future could be molded and bent by fate and other outside influences. Deep down in my heart I really REALLY didn't want to know my future if it held any pain like I've experienced in the past. I would have to deal with it as it came, if it came, but I didn't want to plan for it and be waiting for it to happen. I expressed these thoughts to Sarah, once more. I thanked her for her offer but declined yet again.

"How come you don't read your own cards?" I asked Sarah. The smirk on her face told me almost as much as the words that she spoke.

"For some reason you can't tell your own future. Sure, you can read your own cards but it will be different from one minute to the next." She explained.

"Would that hold true for everyone you read cards for?" I asked, sincerely not knowing.

"You would think so, wouldn't you?" She asked. "But even though the cards might be a little different the reading is still almost identical each time." She said and bit her bottom lip before taking a long sip of her wine while still studying my eyes intently. I could feel her mind working on something... I braced myself.

"Jim, I could read your cards and not tell you if anything bad was going to happen... Oh come on..." She all but pleaded.

Looking into her eyes I could see that she really really wanted to do this. Somehow, she thought that this was some way of helping me and since I had asked her to please stop trying to fix me up, she was desperate to do something. With a heavy, almost theatrical sigh, I half bowed my head and gave a lopsided grin while looking up through my eyelashes and eyebrows. I blinked and nodded my head reluctantly. The squeal that Sarah let out as she sprang up clapping her hands and half hopped and half skipped around the coffee table to dash off to her and Dave's bedroom to get her Tarot deck startled Dave and I both. Dave looked over at me and smirked and shook his head before shrugging and taking another sip of his beer. I returned his shrug and sat back on the couch resigning myself to have my fortune told. Maybe.

Sarah made a fuss of bringing her cards and a candle, a small velvet like cloth about the size of a desk blotter to the dining room table. She lit the candle and then came to collect her glass, the half empty bottle of wine and of course me. I looked over my shoulder at Dave as I followed her into the dining room, he just looked and me grinning and chuckling silently as he waved his hand as if to say "Go on... go on..."

Sitting across the table from Sarah she placed her deck of tarot cards in the middle of the purple cloth with the candle to her left and my right also about mid-way between us. From a small cloth bag, she drew out a large egg sized quartz crystal and set it atop the deck of cards. Shifting around on her chair to get comfortable she then stretched her hands across the cloth on either side of the deck and laid them palms up and motioned for me to place my hands in hers. I shifted in my seat, closer to the edge so that I could comfortably reach across the table and take her hands in mine.

Sarah explained that the crystal was cleansing the cards of any negative energy and making them more receptive to me and my energy or aura or whatever. She told me to close my eyes and relax, not to try to think about anything really but just relax and let my mind drift. I did as she said, though I had to peek a few times to see what she was doing. I saw however that she had her eyes closed and was apparently concentrating. After a few minutes, give or take, Sarah took a long audibly deep breath and let it out through her mouth as if blowing out a candle. I felt her release my hands, and she picked up the crystal and returned it to her cloth bag. She then asked me to cut the deck, to pick up however many cards felt right to me and set them beside the remaining cards. I did as she asked. She had me cut the remaining cards again and set them beside the first cards I had cut from the deck.

Now there were three piles of cards... once more Sarah had me cut the cards only this time it was the cards from the first cut, and this time I was to turn them ninety degrees and set them atop the three remaining piles... making a total of four piles of cards. I cocked my head quizzically but followed her instructions. Sarah smiled and then picked up the remainder of the first original stack of cards and shuffled them as one might for playing any kind of card game. This stack she set to her left at the edge of the purple cloth. She then took the second stack, from the first cut, and shuffled them as well. This pile was placed to her right side, my left, on the edge of the cloth. The third stack was shuffled and she set this pile on the edge of the cloth directly in front of her. That left just the last stack of cut cards. Sarah looked at that cross ways stack of cards and then looked into my eyes and told me what to do.

"Jim, you pick up the last stack of cards and shuffle them however you like. When you are done, set them down cross ways in front of you at the edge of the cloth." She instructed.

I picked up the cards and shuffled them two or three times and figured that was enough and I set them down as she had told me. Sitting back in her chair she picked up her wine glass and took a long sip before setting it back down and then folding her arms on the table in front of her, her right arm and hand resting atop her left. She told me that the four stacks of cards represented different things. The stack in front of me was my "present" or my life as it is at this moment. The stack to her left, my right, represented my past, things that might be influencing my present. The stack in front of her was the thought card, things that I should think about or ponder. Boy that one sounded rather vague. Finally, the stack of cards to Sarah's right, my left, was the action card... what to do.

"Jim, draw a card from the stack in front of you, and set it face down in the center of the cloth, slightly closer to you." She instructed and watched me as I drew the top card and set it down on the table as she had said.

"This is my present life?" I asked skeptically. The look Sarah gave me made me bridle my sarcasm and smile sheepishly.

"Now, take a card from the stack to your right, this will tell us something of your past." Sarah intoned almost daring me to make a snide remark. I merely smiled and drew the top card and went to set it atop the first card in the middle but she stopped me.

"No, set it face down like the first but about midway on the cloth and to your right of the first card." She directed me. "Now draw a card from the stack on your left and place it face down on the center line but to your left of the other two cards." She told me and nodded as I followed her directions.

"It looks like a diamond pattern." I half mumbled as I anticipated her final instruction of drawing the last card from the stack in front of her.

"So, you have done this before?" She asked raising one eyebrow questioningly and half turning her head to give me a bit of a sidelong glance.

"No Sarah, I haven't. But I am pretty quick at seeing patterns some times. Sometimes I just get lucky." I grinned bashfully as she motioned for me to draw the last card and complete the pattern on the cloth in the center of the table.

"This last card is for want of a better term, the action card. It represents things you could or should do to improve your situation and your future." Sarah spoke calmly. "Every card has multiple meanings or possibilities. And they are doubled in that depending on the orientation of the card whether they are positive or negative." She rattled on as if reciting something from memory.

"Positive or negative? That doesn't sound very precise. How do you know if it's positive or negative?" I asked a bit perplexed.

"By their orientation. Right side up or Upside down. As you are the focus of this reading, you are up... When I turn over the cards to read them if they are right side up to me, they are... well... right side up, or positive. If they are right side up for you, they are upside down for me and therefore negative for this reading." Sarah explained.

"Okay, I guess that makes sense. So, what now?" I asked.

"Now we turn them over, one at a time and read them. Go ahead, turn over the card closest to you." She instructed me. I complied and reached out and took the card closest to me and turned it over.

"It's the Lovers card... and it's reversed... upside down." Sarah looked at the card and her lips drew tight into a thin line, not smiling, not frowning, not showing much emotion at all. Her eyebrows knitted however and I could see a bit of a storm in her eyes just before she glanced up at me and locked those eyes of hers on my own.

"And this is my present life?" I asked still not understanding what the card might represent.

"It would tell me you are happily in love and settled in a committed relationship if it were right side up or positive... but upside down it could mean that you are unhappy, lonely, have a fear of commitment, or unsure or untrusting of others." Sarah spoke softly almost as if she were in a trance. She bit her lip lightly and then looked back at the cards and took a deep breath.

"Okay, Jim. Turn over the past card, the card on your right." She instructed.

I turned it over and looked at it, immediately I realized that this card too, was reversed or upside down.

"Oh my! The three of swords... reversed..." Sarah nearly gasped as she brought her right hand to her mouth to cover her lips and mouth lightly. She almost nervously looked at the card and then back into my eyes and back to the card. Again, her eyebrows knitted in concern and her eyes took on a soft, sad shine to them almost as if she were in pain.

"And that means?" I prompted her for an explanation.

"Oh Jim, I'm so sorry..." She began and closed her eyes and took a long deep breath before continuing.

"I had a sense about you from the first time we met, that you were deep, like very still water, only people who have gone through very... trying... times and life events feel that way to me. The card tells me that you have suffered a great loss in your past, perhaps more than one really. A tragedy each time... and... that you are in part still stuck in the past. As if part of you is still holding on to that pain for some reason." Sarah spoke so softly that it was almost a whisper.

When she looked up into my eyes once more, her eyes were shining and nearly brimming over with tears. With a trembling hand she reached out with her right hand and took a hold of my left hand and squeezed it reassuringly. Still holding my hand, she directed me to turn over the card closest to herself, the card to "ponder".

"Another swords card, and that poor guy looks quite dead from all those swords in his back... what the hell?" I stated even as I realized that this card too was reversed, right side up for me but upside down for Sarah and her reading.

"The ten of swords. Actually, this time the reversed meaning is a good thing for you perhaps, certainly something to think about... to ponder." Sarah said with a bit of a smile returning to her lips.

"The ten of swords reversed is a sign of healing, maybe recovering... your life and situation is repairing and improving. It means you should be hopeful and optimistic." Sarah expanded and squeezed my hand tightly before letting out a long breath and steeling herself for the last and final card.

"And this one tells me what I should do?" I asked as I reached to turn the card over.

Immediately I saw that it was like the first three in that it too was reversed. What are the odds of that happening I wondered silently? I glanced up to watch Sarah's face as she took in the card and her face transformed with a smirk and a sideways roll of her eyes as if whatever the card was telling her was obvious to anyone. When her gaze returned to my eyes it was tempered with a little humor and lightness.

"The Hermit, how apt is that?" She almost giggled before she went on to explain the card and how she read it.

"Represents stubbornness and independence, too much time being alone and locked away inside yourself... at least as it is reversed anyway. That's you Jim." She chirped with a bit of a chuckle.

"So, this card is telling me to keep to myself, to stay away from others and be stubborn?" I asked slightly confused.

"No... no... not at all Jim, the action card is what you need to change about yourself to make your life happier and healthier. It's saying that you need to be less independent, to maybe take a chance on others, perhaps a leap of faith for your heart. You need to meet new people, socialize more." She said as if it were obvious to anyone.

I smirked halfheartedly and gave a little shrug. My right hand idly touching the cards in front of us. I felt Sarah's hand tense in mine as my right hand touched the three of swords with the blades stabbed into the big red heart. And oddly enough I heard her gasp almost silently as if she had felt a stab of pain. I glanced up with concern only to see that her eyes were closed tightly and she was biting her bottom lip with a look of consternation on her face. Again, she took a long deep breath and shook her head as if to clear her thoughts.

"Okay Jim, that's all for tonight. Maybe you'll let me read your cards again another time... sometimes I get drastically different readings, you never know." She said as she released my hand and picked up the four stacks of cards and combined them before collecting the four that were drawn and turning them back over and setting them atop the stack of cards.

She placed the cards back into their box and put the box and her little cloth bag in the center of the cloth and then folded it first from her side to the middle then from my side to the middle then from her left to the center and finally from her right to the center. She wet her fingers in her wine glass and then pinched the wick of the candle extinguishing it. Standing up she took her wine glass in one hand and reached her other hand for mine. I grabbed my own glass and the bottle in one hand and took her offered hand in mine and she led me back to the living room where Dave had fallen asleep in his recliner as some inane sitcom played on the television.

Releasing my hand from hers at the sofa, Sarah set her wine glass down and walked over to the recliner and took the empty beer bottle out of Dave's hand resting on his chest. She set the bottle aside and picked up a small affagan from the ottoman and spread it out over Dave's sleeping form. She kissed her fingers and pressed them to his lips softly before straightening back up and making her way back to the sofa to sit next to me once more.

"Sarah, I should be going. I'm used to the late-night hours, but you and Dave should be in bed sleeping by now or at least very soon anyway." I said as I drained my wine glass and set it on the table.

"Thank sleeping beauty for me later for the wonderful company and dinner tonight." I said smiling as I stood to ready myself to make an exit.

Sarah too stood with me and walked me to the door, and followed me outside where she pulled me in for a very warm and endearing hug. Damn if she didn't feel good in my arms though. I smiled as we broke our embrace and thanked her again for inviting me to dinner and for all her worry and effort to try to make me happier. I also reminded her to NOT try to continue with that effort. She frowned at me and punched my arm before crossing her own arms in front of her and tilting her head downward a bit and sighing.

"Jim... the cards have never lied to me. What I saw tonight worries me. Not your future, not so much your present even... but your past. I don't know what or who hurt you, but DAMN! Honey, you know you can talk to me about anything, really. If you ever want or need to talk to anyone, you know I'm here, right?" Sarah stated and ended with the question.