The Palm Reader's Warning

The office betting pool on who would be first to go reached $1,200 by the time Elena summoned me to her corner office. I'd been swimming in debt since the divorce, drowning in student loans and alimony, watching my colleagues place their wagers with the casual cruelty of people who've never felt the ground shifting beneath them.

Elena sat behind her desk, her manicured hand resting on a stack of pink slips. She extended her right hand, palm up, and I half-expected her to read my future there among the lines and creases. Instead, she slid a single sheet of paper across the glass surface.

'Your name's at the top,' she said, her voice neutral. 'But I wanted to tell you personally.'

I thought about the water cooler gossip, the way her palm had brushed against my shoulder at the holiday party, the rumors that had swirled around us both. Had it all been calculated? Had she been gathering ammunition while I'd been... what? Hoping?

'How much did you bet?' I asked, surprising myself.

Elena's expression flickered—surprise, then something else. Resignation. 'I didn't.' She opened her desk drawer and retrieved a small jade Buddha, its belly worn smooth from years of rubbing. 'My grandmother gave me this. She said it brings luck to those who deserve it.' She slid it across the desk toward me. 'You're good at your job, David. Better than you know.'

I took the Buddha, its surface cool against my palm. 'Why me?'

'Because you're swimming when everyone else is treading water.' Elena stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the city below. 'The pool of candidates came down to two names. Yours was on top.' She turned back to face me. 'I argued for you. But the decision came from above.'

I left her office with the Buddha in my pocket and my severance package under my arm. My colleagues avoided my eyes as I walked to my desk to pack my things. Someone had already started a new pool: how long before I found another job.

That evening, I sat on my balcony, rubbing the Buddha's belly, and thought about luck and desert. The palm reader at the carnival last summer had told me my future was fluid as water, that I'd find myself by losing everything I thought I needed. At the time, I'd laughed.

Now, watching the sun set over the city, I wondered if she'd been wrong. Maybe I hadn't lost anything yet. Maybe I was just finally swimming in the right direction.