Free Who I Kissed by Janet Gurtler

have to take time off work to get her from the airport. “
    “I could go pick her up,” I offer immediately.
    “You’ve missed enough school already.” He pours himself another glass of wine. “How was today?” he asks to change the subject.
    I shrug and use my finger to pick up a piece of roast and shove it in my mouth. “You think she’ll give me a reading?”
    “God, I hope not.” He takes another long sip of wine and pushes his plate away. “You think I can stop her? It’s embarrassing the way she believes in that stuff.”
    “I don’t think it’s embarrassing. It’s cool.” I don’t tell him I’m hoping she’ll read my cards and maybe a death card or something will show up to claim me. Or at least the disaster card, dooming me to a horrible fate.
    “I don’t know why you’re interested in that stuff. Don’t even think you’ll ever be allowed to follow in her footsteps.”
    “I’m not the psychic type, Dad. It’s not exactly in my cards.” I make air quotes at “cards,” but instead of laughing he makes a face like he smells something rotten.
    “Anyhow, Aunt Allie has three degrees and is fluent in three languages. I’d say that makes her kind of a genius.” Smarter than him, even, but I know better than to say that out loud. “She does it because she loves it.” I pick up my plate, walk over to the garbage, and empty my leftovers into it.
    “She’s wasted her brains doing that wacko stuff.” Dad sips at his wine again, and I frown, worried he’s going to pound back the whole bottle the way he’s going.
    “She hated working in an office,” I remind him, opening the dishwasher to push my dish inside. “She’s happier doing what she loves.”
    Dad gives me a funny look. I usually keep my opinions about Aunt Allie to myself, and he’s taken my silence as an implication that I’m on his side. But with my guts hanging out for everyone to see, the truths about most things are closer to the surface than usual.
    “Well, apparently corporate America hated her back.” He sighs. “Besides, being responsible isn’t the same as being happy.”
    “Being responsible doesn’t mean you have to be an accountant,” I say softly.
    Where Aunt Allie is about spirituality, growth, and healing, he’s all about balancing ledgers and controlling spreadsheets. His world is black and white, hers is filled with blended colors. But she makes lots of money. I know that. It’s not what motivates her, though. She travels with an international psychic fair and helps people deal with their lives.
    I think she forces him to look beyond his tightly controlled world at the messy things that can’t be added or subtracted in the correct column. And he doesn’t like it. Aunt Allie drives him crazy, but even though he never admits it, I know he loves her. Me, I love Aunt Allie more than anyone else in the world. Besides him. And I kind of have to love him.
    Auntie Allie whirls in and out of our lives like a living cyclone. Dad is her moon. I am her sun. That’s what she tells me. She travels around, but she always orbits back to us. They drive each other crazy fighting, and she’s not around as much as she’d like to be, but she always has my back. Like in first grade, when I’d been upset about a Mother’s Day tea. I couldn’t stop crying and stuttering about being the only girl without a mother to take. Dad had planned to take me, but one of the girls in my class lifted her bitchy little chin to declare that dads shouldn’t be allowed because it was girls only. As my tears flowed, he’d held me, and when the hiccups started, he got up and went to the phone and made a call. The next day, Aunt Allie showed up. She’d flown halfway across the country to have tea.
    “Well, I’m glad she’s coming.” I look forward to being diverted by her crazy tales of other places and other people’s lives. Or past lives.
    The landline rings. “Get that, would you, Sam?” Frowning, I walk over and stare at