One Less Problem Without You by Beth Harbison

those dotted-i, crossed-t things, yes.”
    Chelsea cast a suddenly compassionate look at her, then started the recording. “Press one,” she said, in a perfect neutral female accent, “to fall out of love.” She looked to Prinny with an eyebrow raised.
    Prinny nodded. “I think that’s good.”
    Chelsea sighed. “I know what he wants. I don’t think it’s going to do much to bring in business, but I get what you’re saying. All right. So is there anything else?”
    â€œI think you need to say the option first. To give them an idea of what they’re here for. You know?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œTo fall out of love, press one.”
    â€œWhat difference could that possibly make?”
    A normal employee would never be this difficult. An actress? Virtually every interaction went like this. But the store needed her there to play the role of a safe, reliable psychic: one that would read the cards accurately—as Prinny had taught her—then let the clients come up with their own answers and never advise anything objectionable.
    One didn’t need to be psychic, per se, to read cards. The cards told the story whether the person could intuit anything further or not. So the reason she’d hired Chelsea was to read well and deliver advice convincingly and in a comforting manner. With fate being as flexible as it was, it was important to let people make their choices clearly.
    Chelsea kept her eyes on Prinny, waiting for an answer.
    â€œA lot of people would just hang up after hearing ‘press one’ because every day we get that with our banks or our utility companies or whatever other drudgery we have to deal with, you know? So ‘press one’ sounds like you’re being rerouted, whereas starting with ‘to fall out of love’ immediately grabs the attention of both people who want to fall out of love and people who want other such options.” Honestly, she couldn’t even believe she had to say this kind of thing with a straight face, but she did. This was her work, and this was an employee she was in charge of, doing a job she had created, so there was no out.
    â€œGot it.” Chelsea gave a nod. “But I still think you need a more exotic accent.”
    Prinny felt her shoulders sink. “No.”
    Chelsea reached up and twirled a finger in her blond, beach-waved hair. “But people are calling for fortune-telling, gypsies, magic. They want something romantic ! I use an accent just about every time I do a reading, and they love it.”
    â€œYou do ?” Readings were private. Fake as Prinny knew them to be, the party line was to give good, sound advice that anyone on any daytime talk show would give. Chelsea had been hired as the store gypsy because she could give those supposed readings with a straight face, but Prinny had had no idea she was trying out a variety of accents on clients. “What happens if people Yelp that they liked or hated the Irish psychic and someone else says the psychic is French? Or Spanish? Or Polish? Or whatever else you decide to be that day?” Lost revenues circling the drain whirled in her mind.
    â€œI keep track,” Chelsea said, waving the nothing away. “What, you don’t think I have notes on everyone who comes to see me? Once I establish their issue—love, money, health, or family—all I have to do is nudge them and they spill it all and I record it and write down all the names and situations to reference when they come back.” She gave a purposeful dramatic pause. “And they always come back. Always . So I guess I don’t suck too bad at this.”
    Prinny pinched the bridge of her nose to try to stave off what she had come to think of as the Chelsea Headache at times like this. “Fine. Fine.” Chelsea wanted to use her acting chops, so fine. “But how about something just vaguely exotic. Not wholly foreign, not something that