Gypsy Blood Read Free Page A

down.”
    Her mother would have called him rough looking. A faded brown suede vest worn too tightly to be fashionable. Tousled black hair, salted with a little age and comfortably uncombed. A scar on his right cheek that made him look dangerous. He had a nice smile but you can’t trust a smile. Jimmy smiled whenever he asked her for money. The man chuckled as if he could read her thoughts.
    Maybe he could.
    “Come in. Don’t let me scare you. It’s just my idea of a joke. Something I heard in an old Dracula movie,” he said with a shrug. For just a half an instant he looked like her dead husband, Frank.
    He looked like someone she could trust.
    “Sometimes I try too hard to be funny,” he apologized.
    He sat at a card table. A deck of cards were fanned on the table in front of him. Tarot cards, she presumed. She’d seen them in the movies and in that strange little mysterious downtown boutique bookstore where the women wore dresses that looked like fancy nightgowns.
    “Come in,” he repeated.
    She stepped closer. Her hands were shaking.
    He flashed another smile.
    “Don’t be scared,” he said. “I make it a point never to terrify anyone on their first date.”
    He gestured for her to sit in a large green lawn chair. It was big and heavy and plastic.
    “Sit down. I just got the chair. Do you like it? Green is very soothing to your chakra.”
    He extended a hand. She stared at it, like it was a snake. He gently took her hand and shook it.
    “Not trying to pump money out of you,” he said, grinning. “Not yet, anyway.”
    Feeling flustered, she sat down. “I’m sorry. I forget my manners. You meet so few people who shake your hand these days.”
    “I’m my own one-man time warp. You’ll get used to it. Call me Carnival.”
    She told him her name. And then she finally had to ask.
    “So what’s a chakra?”
    “An energy source. The body has them all over it. Here,” he touched his belly. “And here and here.”
    He touched his head and he almost touched his heart. Doris would have sworn that he flinched just before his knuckles touched his chest. Another smile fluttered upon his lips. He looked a little nervous like he’d just accidentally broke wind.
    “Are you a real gypsy?” she asked.
    “As real as truth.”
    “Is Carnival your real name?”
    He smiled at that. She could see the laughter hiding behind his eyes. It was a good laugh, not at her but with her. The laughter and something else moved behind his eyes like a dancing shadow.
    “You can call me Val if Carnival has too many syllables to chew over. It doesn’t pay to give out real names in some of the circles I travel in,” he answered.
    Doris wondered what sort of circles he might mean but she was too polite to ask.
    “So what can I do for you, Doris?”
    She felt the blood rush to her face. She knew she was blushing.
    “I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like this before. Read me the future, I guess.”
    He gave her another smile. He had lots of smiles to go around.
    “I don’t read futures. That’s for little old ladies in spotted kerchiefs.”
    “Then what do you do?”
    “I dukker . That’s Rom for telling fortunes.”
    “Rom?”
    “Rom’s Gypsy talk. It’s our language. It’s supposed to be secret. We don’t even write it down. It’s passed on, tongue to ear. I’m not even supposed to say this much.”
    She grinned.
    “Will you get in trouble for telling me?”
    He shrugged. “It’s worse than sharing a Masonic handshake. They only kill you for that.”
    “So you are a gypsy.”
    “Yes. I am Rom. You call us Gypsies. We call you Gaijo .”
    He looked her in the eye. He had dark eyes like mirrors in shadow. Nice. If she was younger, she might have wanted to meet him over coffee.
    “So tell me why you have come?”
    She stood up, flustered, not knowing to do with herself.
    “It’s my son. I have a problem with him.”
    He looked at her.
    “Sit down.”
    She sat back down. He shuffled the