What Future?

We’re in the middle of our meeting, drinking coffee at Starbucks.

“Hold up your right hand,” she says.

I do.

“Bring it closer to me.”

I lean across the table.

She places her left palm against mine.

“Your hands are bigger than mine,” she says.

I’m maybe six inches taller than she, so this doesn’t surprise me much. “I see that,” I say.

“But your hand is softer than mine,” she says.

This gives me pause. I pull my hand back, examine my palm. I work in the yard almost every day. My hands are not overly soft.

“What do you do with your hands?” I ask.

“A lot of dishes at the restaurant. Dishes, dishes, dishes. It drives me crazy.”

That makes sense to me. I say, “There used to be a TV ad when I was a kid, about how this one dish detergent – I don’t remember the brand – made your hands softer.”

She laughs. “More lies,” she says. “There’s never been one like that, and there never will be.”

“Your hands look strong,” I say. “Is that from doing dishes?”

“Partly,” she says, “but mostly because I play violin and piano.”

That makes sense to me, too. “Do you play a lot?”

“All the time. I grew up playing both of them from maybe three or four years old. I thought I would go to Juilliard or something. But I didn’t. I wasn’t good enough. But it’s still kind of an obsession.”

I feel sorry for her dream not coming true. “Well, that’s a good kind of obsession,” I say.

“There’s a good kind?”

“Well, yeah, right? I mean playing music, it’s terrific. If everyone were obsessed with playing music, this would be a much better place, don’t you think?”

She laughs. “It would probably be a much better place than it would be if everyone was obsessed with washing dishes.”

I laugh. “Hey, I don’t know. A cleaner world. Cleaner hands. Maybe.”

She sips her coffee. “Do you have any obsessions?” she asks.

“Yes, I do,” I say. “Since I retired, I’ve become obsessed with writing.”

“You write a lot?”

“Every day. Sometimes for hours.”

“Wow. Is it stories?”

“Yes. And I write poetry.”

“Do you have anything I can read?”

“On me?”

“Well, anything you could share with me?”

I give her my author website address. “I post a rough draft every day. It keeps me pushing myself. I have to get that draft up every day.”

“Or what?”

“Or, well, I don’t know. At this point, I’d feel guilty. Like I’d let myself down.”

“That’s the way I feel about playing music,” she says. “If I don’t practice every day, I feel bad. Like my head’s not screwed on right. My mood isn’t good if I don’t play every day.”

“Huh. Yeah, that’s very much the way it is with me. At this point, I don’t think I’d be able to sleep if I didn’t post something. Sometimes I’ll be lying in bed, and I’ll suddenly remember that I forgot to post a piece I was working on that day.”

“So you get up and jump on your computer?”

“Right. I have to. If I don’t, there’s no way I’d be able to sleep.”

Taking my hand, she says, “Do you read palms?”

This sounds odd. Like she does, just in case I don’t. Why not just say she does?

“Ah, no. No, I don’t.”

“Can I read yours?” she asks.

I knew it. Would she have said something different if I said I did read palms?

“Sure. But if you see any bad news, don’t tell me.” I laugh.

“That’s not the way it works,” she says. “I always tell the good and the bad.”

“So you’re good at this?” I ask.

“I’m rarely wrong.”

This all of a sudden worries me. What if she sees something bad down the road for me? Do I want to hear about it? Even if it isn’t true, you know, depending on what you believe.

She runs the tip of her index finger over every line on my palm. After she’s been over all of them a few times, I say, “They’re all different, right? The lifeline, the heart line, and all.”

Nothing. Then, “Is this your dominant hand?”

My heart rate speeds up a bit. Looking at it to make sure, I confirm that it is.

“Really?”

Now my heart is beating fast enough that I wonder if she can feel it in my palm.

“Let me try again,” she says.

I gulp, but do it in as subtle a way as possible, hoping she doesn’t notice.

She runs her finger around the track a few more times.

“Huh, that’s weird,” she says. “I can’t get a good read.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nothing definitive.”

“You don’t want to tell me the vague?”

“No.”

“But it’s not like I’m dead already, is it?”

She laughs, but not long or loudly. It’s almost not a laugh at all.

“No, of course, not. It’s just that I’ve never seen lines like yours before. I’ve always been able to get some kind of a reading.”

“Always?”

“You’re sure this is your dominant hand?”

“Yes, it is. Can you check the other one?”

“It won’t do any good,” she says. “I’d never get an accurate reading.”

“Can you try?”

She gives me an odd look. If I were to guess, I’d say it’s a look of slight irritation.

“Yeah, okay, let me see it.”

She runs her index finger over all the lines. “No, nothing. Sorry.”

Letting go of my left hand she tilts back her head and drains her cup.

“Well,” she says, getting up, “it’s been nice to meet you. It’s always interesting, you know, to find out what someone’s like in person.”

Oh well, I’ve had plenty of online dating experiences like this. They start well enough, and then you realize nothing’s going to come out of it.

“Take care,” I say, not standing. I doubt at this point that there’s any chance for decorum to save this one.

One time when I told a woman I didn’t believe in astrology, I made a tactical error. Obtuse as I was, when she asked if I did, in hindsight, it would have been better to say something like, “Oh, I don’t know. Do you?”

Because she did. I mean, she was hardcore. She even had several books about it in her purse. Like she was hoping we could read about it together there on our first date, or she could do my chart or something.

And when we parted ways, shortly after my reply in the negative, it was clear that was the end of that. Just like this time.

Not that if I did read palms and telling this woman that I did would have been the same thing. I think she still would have tried to read mine. Unless, of course, she didn’t know how to read palms and wanted to make sure I couldn’t contradict her.

Should I take some comfort in that?

Maybe that was her online dating “out” strategy. If she met someone she wanted to get away from as quickly as possible, she pulled the impossible-to-read-your-palm card. Your murky future was a bad omen for her, allowing her to rise and split the scene.

I was confused. I felt like I had to find someone else who read palms, just to make sure mine could be read. Which is bizarre because I believe as much in palm reading as I do in astrology.

It’s funny what can shake you up sometimes. And who knows? Maybe she was crazy, what with all that obsessive piano and violin playing. Maybe I was well out of that relationship before it went any farther.

What if she did see something in my future that she didn’t like? I find that better than the possibility that she just didn’t like me. Now in that, I can take some comfort.