D, age 25.

He doesn't want to talk once the cards are out. Strange because he tells me everything, I think. He won't elaborate when I tell them they're independent, side by side perhaps but alone, whatever else may be between them.

And what else is between them? The love and jealousy I read are his own, he can't speak for her; later, it's all over he says, and I understand his reticence.

B, age 31.

She'll only whisper his name. They've never really spoken, but I tell her their souls are on the same plane and she seems happy enough. The confusion in the cards we give to their hesitant glances, the clumsiness of attraction.

And the woman I ask? Oh, the woman. Of course there's a woman. Professing to be single, he is often pictured with a girl. We imagine him locked in an unhappy situation, unfulfilled, his heart not entirely his own. B is flattered, I think.

M, age 26.

We're fine she says. I nod.
No one who is fine wants their fortune told.
Maybe no one is ever fine.

The cards are good, better than last time. She presses for more (she is not fine). I tell her only that something calling itself love is troubling him. She's tearing him apart, she says, it's clear.

C, age 34.

My old friend tells me about a girl he is considering adoring. He wants to experience infatuation, has no need of the follow-up. She works as a model of traditional Korean dress and he tells me this, it is the first fact I know about her and for a long time the only one. From this I imagine demure, beautiful, pale-skinned, down-turned black eyes.

In anticipation he tells me about her old boyfriend, who she will most likely return to because she craves unhappiness. He is almost apologetic, then, when his cards reveal no drama, just two souls at ease with themselves, the only thing between them their mutual attraction. It's easier this way he says.

K, age 25.

It's a good number, he says, not more than ten, though he has told me on other occasions that ten is too many. This bad news is somehow thrilling. Craig nudges the jack of hearts without looking at me. Starts to suggest another man? I tell him everything, then, though I have always tried to spare him the more lurid details of my life. The old affair, not quite finished. I am overwhelmed, I've mismanaged everything, I can't stop it now. He nods slowly. Perhaps it's not that, he says, it could mean your father.