What Is an Intuitive Reading? Jo Kept Waiting for the Cards

Jo booked an intuitive reading the way she once bought a kayak, which is to say at midnight and with no idea what she would do with it. She could not have told you why. Nothing was wrong. She had a job, a decent apartment and a plant that was still alive. She just had a feeling that something was off, like when you leave the house and know you forgot a thing but not which thing. The morning of the reading she searched "what is an intuitive reading" in the parking lot. She got as far as "no tools required" before it was time to go in. She sat down across from Paul and waited for the cards. Paul did not get out any cards. Jo waited some more. She looked at the table. She looked at Paul. She wondered if the cards cost extra. "Are we doing the cards?" she finally asked. "Not today," Paul said. "Some days I read with them and some days I go by intuition. Today is an intuition day. What's your question?" "That's the thing," Jo said. "I don't have one. Something's off and I don't know what." She waited for him to say she had wasted both of their mornings. "That's a fine place to start," Paul said. He got quiet for a moment. Jo studied the ceiling and thought about the money, and about the kayak. "I keep getting someone you've stopped talking to," Paul said. "There wasn't a fight. You two just drifted. You pick up the phone, and you put it back down."

Jo's eyes went wide. Her best friend from college had moved away two years ago. Jo had typed and deleted a message to her so many times that her phone suggested it whenever she typed the letter H. "How did you get that?" Jo said. "There aren't even any cards." "That's the thing that's off," Paul said. "Go ahead and send it." Jo sent the message from the parking lot before she could talk herself out of it. Her friend wrote back in four minutes, with eleven exclamation points. The kayak is still in the garage. That one is a mystery for another day.