One Less Problem Without You by Beth Harbison Page A

people with hearing problems might have trouble understanding, for example, but just the vaguest…” She searched for something Chelsea could hook on to. “Gabor sort of accent?”
    Chelsea frowned for a moment, then looked up to the left, then to the right—all of which was clearly unstaged, which made it that much creepier—then said, “Okay, I’ve got it.”
    â€œYou do.”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œCan I hear it?”
    â€œLet’s just go.”
    Prinny shrugged and nodded.
    Chelsea closed her eyes, took a long breath in through her nose—as if she were about to belt out an aria at the Met—and said, “To fall out of love, press one.” Her eyes remained closed for a moment, and she touched her thumbs and index fingers together as if she were meditating, then opened her eyes and looked at Prinny. “Okay?”
    The truth was, it was pretty good. A vague, unidentifiable accent, exotic enough to be intriguing, but not so much that it was confusing. Maybe Chelsea had been right; maybe what they needed was some gypsy in the phone messages, even though all of Prinny’s business education had supported the idea that neutral was best.
    This was no ordinary business.
    â€œOkay, go on.” Prinny gave a cautious nod.
    â€œFor financial abundance and prosperity, press two,” Chelsea said, and did not look to Prinny for an opinion.
    Prinny did not object.
    â€œIf you have family difficulties, press three.”
    At this point, it was not the accent but the content that was driving Prinny crazy. It was wrong to let people think they could just call up and get solutions to all their complicated life problems. Even a real psychic could only clarify: show them where they’d been, where they were now, and—sometimes— where they were headed if they didn’t change course. But the thing was, most people knew where they’d been and, even if they didn’t admit it, knew where they were now. And the future was liquid; it could always change. Predicting it with certainty was like jumping into someone’s car on the highway and deciding which exit they would take. If you didn’t influence them, they would take the exit they’d been heading for the whole time, and there was no way that even the best psychic in the world could predict that. Anyone was capable of swerving off course at any moment.
    That was one of the good things about life.
    Most people didn’t see it that way, though.
    So Prinny had to support the business and what they were presenting and people were receiving. And that was prognostication in all forms: purchasing tarot cards and oracle cards, buying books on witchcraft with which to force their future intentions, and, most of all, coming in for a reading with Chelsea—Miss Ada, to the masses (so she could be replaced, if necessary), unless she’d been giving other names in other accents—in order to find out that their dreams would come true.
    No one ever wanted to know that their lifeline was short, or that they should up the life insurance on their husband, or that the niggling little suspicion in their belly now and then was legit, or that, yeah, their kid was experimenting with pot and dunking the Amazon-purchased drug test into the toilet water to dissolve the results.
    No one wanted to know that stuff.
    So Prinny stood back and let Chelsea do her thing.
    â€œFor revenge, press four,” Chelsea said, with a slight but unmistakable edge to her voice.
    She looked to Prinny with a question in her eyes.
    Prinny gave her thumbs-up.
    Good.
    Chelsea continued. “For intense stress relief and/or weight loss, press five.”
    Prinny shrugged inwardly. That might be the best bet for the power of suggestion they could provide. Believe you have willpower and are not craving junk food, and so it shall be.
    Hopefully.
    â€œTo get a promotion or otherwise improve your professional life, including