Feeling Gucci

Last weekend, I made the trek from my Washington Heights apartment down to Danny’s two-story Brooklyn brownstone for a Valentine’s Day party.

My boyfriend had to work, so I played third wheel to Jack and Stirling. (I knew I could piggyback their taxi ride home.)

Danny hired a full staff: a doorman, a DJ, a bartender making signature “Love Potion” cocktails and a tarot card reader. We met Giovanni at the bar, where we could choose from three colors of solo cups: red meant single, purple meant in a relationship and pink meant complicated. I picked pink, because it matched my Gucci socks. (I could tell people I was Jack and Stirling’s complicated third if anyone asked.)

After taking an appropriate amount of selfies in the heart-shaped-balloon-filled photobooth room with the boys and Giovanni, the four of us made our way to the tarot room (passing Danny, decked out in a leather harness, on the way).

I was the third to go. Our reader, with his long hair and trendy gypsy attire, had me cut the deck before fanning all the cards before me. “Pick three,” he told me. He turned over my picks and studied them.

He pointed at a card with two people on it. “This card, it has to do with relationships. And this card… are you in a relationship you’re unhappy with? Maybe one you’re trying to get out of?”

“No,” I shook my head. A year ago I’d have said yes, when I was dating AJ, but definitely not James. Then I realized I was holding a cup that proclaimed my love life was complicated, and the reader picked up on it.

“That’s OK—it could mean a lot of things: a friendship, even a work environment you need to move on from.” He smiled at me. “Here, I don’t usually do this, but—“ he turned over a fourth card, which he hadn’t done for Jack or Giovanni. “And…” he turned over a fifth card. “So these are all about being your true self.” Wearing a totally sheer shirt and a red ostrich feather jacket, I definitely felt I was working my true self. “You’ve got a beautiful red aura, your skin is totally glowing—I can see you’re already working it. Just keep being true to yourself, and let go of anyone who gets in the way of that.”

I don’t really believe in tarot, but sitting there, I realized that it could mean the relationship I have with myself: the most important relationship we have. With my writing, I’ve been having more bad days than good lately, days where I tell myself my writing is shit.

“Let go of anyone who gets in the way,” I repeated out loud. “Good advice.”

In the taxi home, I cancelled my brunch plans with Jack. “Everything OK?” he asked.

“It’s complicated,” I shrugged. As soon as I woke up the next morning, I opened my Macbook, clicked on Microsoft Word, and started to type.