Tea Reading

I came into the experience with a light-hearted attitude in search of knowledge alone. I drank the tea, swirled the cup counterclockwise, and turned it over onto the saucer.
“Now place your left hand over the teacup and concentrate,” she said with the stare of her blue eyes clearing my mind of any distractions.
“Yes?” she smiled.
I nodded yes. She righted the cup and directed her attention inside the bowl.
“Hmmm…,” she responded.
An uncomfortable heat, traveled from my heart to my ears. Oh no, what does that mean? I asked myself. Or does she save the same spiel for all of her most gullible clients?
“I see luminescent angels. That’s good. You are protected by many.”
Nothing to worry about, I thought. She continued.
“I see the face of a Frenchman with a goatee wearing a seed-beaded tricorne hat. There will be travel,” she added.
I smiled. She continued.
“I see…” she paused. “Ohhhh,” she breathed, looking up from my cup and removing her glasses.
I said nothing.
“Oh dear, I see a snake…, a hideous, venomous serpent wrapped around the letter ‘S’.”
Now I was worried. I knew what snakes meant.
“Do you know a Steve or Stephen?”
I nodded no.
“Then you must watch. He is dangerous, poisonous even.”
I smiled inside. Yeah right. This can’t be true.
Upon leaving her salon, I stopped to grab a newspaper from one of the ubiquitous kiosks along the street. On the front page it read,
Harper for P.M.