The Palm Reader's Proposition

The corporate retreat had dissolved into exactly what Elena dreaded: a **pool**side mixer with open bar and forced bonhomie. She floated on her back, staring at the streaks of **lightning** splitting the desert sky, grateful the storm had driven everyone else indoors.

"You have a complicated lifeline," a voice said.

Elena jackknifed upright. David from Accounting stood at the edge, his suit jacket discarded, shirtsleeves rolled. He held her drink - she hadn't even noticed him take it.

"I wasn't aware I'd offered my **palm**," she said, treading water.

"Occupational hazard." He smiled, and she noticed for the first time that his teeth were slightly crooked. "I read tarot on weekends. Professional development budget wouldn't cover it, so I moonlight." He extended a hand. "Come out. There's something I need to tell you."

She hesitated. Her marriage to Greg had become a **zombie** shuffle over the past two years - technically alive, but rotting from the inside out. They still had sex, still went to dinner, still said "I love you" with the mechanical precision of the undead.

David pulled her from the water. His **dog**, a ancient golden retriever with cloudy eyes, lay nearby on a towel.

"Greg's transferring to Chicago," David said. "He told me yesterday. He wants you to stay here, finish your PhD."

The words hit harder than she expected. She'd suspected, but hearing it...

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because," David said, "you look like someone who's forgotten what it means to be seen." He pressed a folded piece of paper into her wet hand. "My prediction: you're going to choose yourself for once."

The lightning flashed again, illuminating his face - tired, hopeful, strangely familiar beneath the harsh fluorescent glow of the hotel terrace.

Elena looked at the paper. A tarot card - The Star, reversed.

"Or maybe," she said, "you're just projecting."

"Maybe." His thumb brushed her wrist. "But I think you're tired of playing dead."

She didn't pull away.