Four years ago I got a letter from a lady who called herself a psychic. You know, the people we used to call fortune tellers until that phrase went out of style around the time “Bewitched” went off the air. Miss Falonia (and you can bet her mama didn’t name her that) insisted that she saw my name on some mailing list and that it simply leapt off the page. She knew that she was meant to tell me wonderful things about my future. She would advise me on what decisions I should make to ensure I had a golden destiny. I was going places. I was fated for a financial windfall. My dreams were on the cusp of blossoming like daffodils in spring time. All I had to do was mail Miss Falonia $24.95 and she would reveal the treasure map that was to be my life for the next year.
Well naturally I tossed Falonia’s letter in the trashcan. My mama didn’t raise no fool. I figured I’d have just as good a chance at foretelling my future by throwing a cup of dog food in a tin pan and analyzing the way it fell. But then something happened that to this day I can not account for. The letter landed in such a way that a particular line showed near the upended crease. Miss Falonia said that she saw, among other things, day lilies in my future. Now at this time I had just written my first book that I was desperately trying to find a publisher for, and it was called Growing Lion’s Mane Day Lilies.
I tried to walk away from Miss Falonia’s appeal for my $24.95 telling myself it was a bizarre coincidence that the very thing most important in my life, my first book, could possibly be part of her grand vision for my life. I took the letter from the garbage, wiped the lemon peeling off and read it once more. I put it back in the trash. I got it out again. It was driving me insane. Finally I put it on the dinner table and told myself I would put it out of mind for the time being.
The problem was I had no job, and if I had an extra $24.95 the last thing I’d do with it was throw it away on a fortune teller. I agonized over this temptation of my dream for a couple of days and then I decided on a foolproof idea. The letter I wrote to Miss Falonia went like this.
Dear Miss Falonia,
I am so glad that my name leapt out at you. It rarely does that to anyone unless I’m in trouble for something or I owe them money, which leads me to my proposal. You say I am fated for a financial windfall. I’m really glad to hear this because I have about six dollars in my purse right now, and I have to figure out how to turn that into a loaf of bread, a pack of turkey, and enough gas to get me by at least another week. So, as you can see, I can’t send you the $24.95 you requested. But since you say money is in my destiny then there’s no problem. Go ahead and send me my fortune and all your advice for my future and when the money comes, I’ll send you double your money, just for waiting.
Sincerely,
Me
You can guess how it all turned out. I never heard from Miss Falonia again, and my manuscript, Growing Lion’s Mane Day Lilies was rejected 44 times. It now serves as an effective bookend on my file shelf. Four years later I still have about six dollars in my purse and the five books I have written since have been added to the first to make cement block-sized bookends. Maybe Miss Falonia cursed me and she’s the reason for my lack of success all this time. But I’d have to send her $24.95 to find out so I guess I’ll have to wonder.
When I lived in America I was a regular on Spindale public radio in North Carolina. These essays are from my collection that aired on WNCW.
Cathy Adams was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first novel, This Is What It Smells Like, was published by New Libri Press, Washington. Her short stories have been published in Utne, A River and Sound Review, Upstreet, Portland Review, Steel Toe Review, and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, among others. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop and now lives and writes in Xinzheng, China, with her husband, photographer, JJ Jackson.