Palm Reader's Daughter

Maya's mom read palms for fifteen dollars at the farmer's market. Every Saturday, Maya sat in the folding chair next to her, watching her mother trace strangers' lifelines and promise them things that probably wouldn't happen.

"You're going to meet someone tall, dark, and—" her mom would start, and Maya would mentally check out, scrolling through Instagram, feeling like a total fraud. She was basically a spy in her own mother's business operation, gathering intel on which customers tipped well and which ones asked the same questions every week.

The worst part: her mom actually believed this stuff. The kitchen counter was covered in crystal-infused water and enough vitamin supplements to stock a pharmacy. "Your aura's been looking depleted," she'd say, handing Maya a handful of something that looked like rabbit food and tasted like chalk.

"Mom, I'm fine," Maya would say, even though she wasn't. Not really.

Her hair had been falling out for months—stress, probably, from AP classes and college applications and the fact that Leo, the cute barista at The Beanery, still didn't know her name despite her ordering vanilla lattes there three times a week.

Then came the Saturday that changed everything.

A girl from school—Chloe, who sat two rows behind Maya in pre-calc and had that perfect effortless hair that Maya had spent hours trying to duplicate—sat down at the folding table. Maya's palms started sweating. This was it. The social execution she'd been dreading since her mom started this whole gig freshman year.

"Your daughter," Chloe said, nodding toward Maya. "She's got something interesting in her lines too."

Maya froze. Her mom had never read her palm—said it was bad luck to read family, like looking up your own symptoms on WebMD.

"Maya," Chloe continued, "I've been watching you at The Beanery. You always order vanilla lattes and you write in this notebook and honestly? The way you flip your hair when you're thinking is kind of mesmerizing."

Maya's vitamin gummies from breakfast nearly came up. Chloe had been *spying* on her? At the coffee shop? And thought her hair-flipping was—

"Your mom told me about the hair thing," Chloe said softly. "My aunt went through something similar last year. It's stress, but there's this vitamin complex that actually works. I could, like, bring you some tomorrow? If you want?"

Maya looked at her mom, who was smiling like she'd orchestrated the whole thing. Maybe she had. Moms had their ways.

"I'd like that," Maya said, and when Chloe held out her palm—casual, like it was nothing, like they did this every day—Maya high-fived it.

"Cool," Chloe said. "See you in pre-calc."

"Yeah," Maya said, touching her hair. "See you."

Her mom raised an eyebrow. "I told you the universe had plans."

"Whatever," Maya said, but she was smiling. Maybe next Saturday she'd sit in the other chair. Let someone read her lines for once.