Page 4 of Wicked Fortune

“I can prove it.” I’m staring her down, and she’s holding her own right back at me. Weirdly, the familiar back and forth gives me a warm feeling in my belly. This is my total BFF. There’s no one else in the world I could have this argument with, because there’s no one else who gets me the way she does.

Which is why I’m not even remotely surprised when she leans back in her stool, her whole body telling me that she’s surrendering even before she says, “Fine. You say you can prove it? Then prove it.”

“Done.” I race into the bedroom, her “What the hell?” still echoing when I return seconds later bearing a deck of Tarot cards.

I see the grin that tugs at the corner of her mouth before she says, “Why am I not surprised?”

I shrug, fighting my own smile. She’s not surprised because she’s Bree and we know each other as well as we know ourselves. Not only were our mom’s besties, too, but they were pregnant at the same time, and—hello freaky universe—they gave birth on the same day. To say Bree and I are close is like saying there are a lot of stars in the sky. Yeah, duh.

I take the Tarot cards out of the box, then hold the deck out to her. “Draw.”

She takes one, then lays it on the bar. The Hermit.

I wave at the card, feeling more than a little smug. “See? See?”

“See what? It’s an old guy with a staff.”

“Forgive my poor, ignorant friend,” I say, looking up toward the heavens. Then I look directly at her with a small shake of my head. “Girl, that’s the Hermit. And everyone knows he bridges the gap between the known and the unknown. He’s like a guide.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He’s a messenger. Don’t you get it? Jenny’s asking us to look closer.”

“It’s a twelve-dollar deck of cards you got at the Beverly Center a few years ago.”

“Twenty dollars.” I hop back on my stool, then hold out the deck again. “Pick another.”

“Ari—”

“Dammit, Bree,” I snap, surprising both of us. “Jenny wouldn’t kill herself. Fuck the cards,” I add, tossing them across the room, then watching them flutter down to the carpet. “We both know she’d never do that.”

I can tell by her face that she wants to argue, but before I can open my mouth to parry, her shoulders drop. “Fine. You win.”

I exhale in relief. “The cards know what they know.”

“Not the cards,” she says. “Me. It’s not only that I can’t imagine her killing herself, it’s that I can’t imagine her killing herself like that.”

“Exactly,” I say, but softer. Now that she agrees with me, the persuasive oomph has left my voice, replaced by lingering sadness for our friend, now dead for just over two weeks.

Beautiful and outgoing, Jenny was the girl who landed the lead in every single play and musical in high school. Everyone in our graduating class knew she was going to leave New York for La La Land five seconds after she tossed her cap. Bree and I always figured we’d see her on TV the very next season, because how could Hollywood ignore her?

With a sigh, Bree grabs our mugs and moves to the lumpy couch. I take my untouched bagel and follow. “We should have been better friends,” Bree says the second I sit down.

“She was usually the one who blew us off,” I remind her, probably to assuage my own guilt. “I swear she went to acting class more than she ever went to chemistry.”

“Can you blame her?”

I trail my fingertip through the cream cheese, then shrug. “Really can’t.”

Bree nods. “And once that guy at Hardline started inviting her to those parties⁠—”

“She called them meet-and-greets.”

Bree shrugs. “Like I said—parties. When she started going to those it seemed like she was busy every weekend.”

“I always figured it was more about the guy that invited her than the work.” I suck the cream cheese off my finger, then slide my plate onto the coffee table, realizing I’m not hungry at all.

“I don’t think there was a guy involved,” Bree says. “She always said those parties were opportunities.”