Chapter Twenty-Six

About fifteen minutes later, Gray exited Cat O'Connor's Pub and climbed into the passenger seat of Cherry's Subaru.

"Aunt Gay!" River greeted her from his car seat behind her. "Look, new unicorn!" He proudly displayed a sparkly green-and-blue plush toy.

"Hi, River!" Gray said. "Very cool. What's its name?"

"Doggie!" River replied. Gray was halfway to asking why he'd named a unicorn Doggie before she realized he'd been distracted by someone walking their German shepherd on the sidewalk. Ah, to have the enthusiastically short attention span of a toddler.

Gray turned to Cherry, who was merging back into traffic. "Thanks for being my DD, Cher."

"No prob," Cherry said, checking her blind spot over her shoulder. "With any luck, I'll be sober and ready for your DD needs for the next nine months. And anyway, I've been dying to see your apartment."

It was a short drive to Gray's new building. In truth, Gray probably could have walked, but after her heart-to-heart with a near stranger, it was apparent Gray could use some advice from someone who actually knew her. After giving Cherry a short tour of her place, Gray settled River down with a box of plastic mixing bowls, wooden spoons, and Tupperware, the closest things she had to toys on hand. Meanwhile, she caught Cherry up on what had gone down with Veronica and SCCA—using some careful metaphors to protect River's tiny ears from the more salacious details.

"I knew there was something going on between you and Veronica," Cherry said when Gray was finished. "Sorry, I know that's not helpful in this moment. But your date was right. You get that ooey-gooey look on your face when you talk about her. You did even before things got…R-rated."

Gray crossed her ankle over her knee, trying to make herself comfortable on the hearth of the fireplace, while Cherry sat in the magenta armchair. "Sucks that I was the last person to figure it out," Gray said. "And now I'm even more confused than when I started this whole thing. Is Veronica my soulmate? Or another Aquarius? Or, who knows, maybe I was supposed to end up with a Pisces but I messed that up too. Molly seemed great, but there was no hope for something happening between us when I was talking all about my ex and my dating challenge and all the other chaos of my romantic life."

Cherry leaned back into the chair and sighed. "I love astrology, but sometimes I wish the stars would just spit it out, you know? Give us clear guidance instead of confusingly vague messages."

"For real!" Gray said. "I thought the point of this dating thing was to find clarity about who I was compatible with, but now I've got more questions than answers. If only I could go back to see Madame Nouvelle Lune again and ask what I was supposed to learn from this whole thing."

At that moment, River toddled over to Cherry, banging a wooden spoon against a red-lidded container. "Momma! Hold dis," he said, placing the container in Cherry's lap before wandering back toward his box of goodies.

"Like, I guess I've got a short list," Gray continued, "but it's still, what, four signs? That's a third of all people! What am I supposed to do with that?"

"Speak of the devil," Cherry said, examining the Tupperware River had dropped in her lap. "Is this…Is this Madame Nouvelle Lune's? From the gumbo?"

"Oh yeah," Gray said. "I guess it is. I totally forgot about that."

Cherry looked up sharply at Gray. "Maybe this is the universe telling us it's time we returned it," she said, a familiar mischievous gleam in her eye, one Gray recognized from years of disobeying their parents.

A little over an hour later, after calling ahead to make sure an impromptu visit was okay, Gray directed Cherry down the gravel road toward Madame Nouvelle Lune's farmhouse. They parked by the familiar chicken coop. As soon as River was unbuckled from his car seat, he ran over to greet the chatty birds.

The astrologer appeared in a faded purple caftan and cowboy boots, waving at them from the front door of the house. "Hello there!" she said, her familiar Cajun accent like a warm hug for Gray's ears. "Mighty nice of y'all to make the drive just to return a piece of Tupperware. Why don't you come on in and rest for a spell?"

Cherry turned to look at Gray, her expression exactly like River's might be upon seeing a real unicorn.

"Thanks, Dori," Gray yelled over the sound of River talking to the chickens. "We'd love to, if it isn't a bother."

"Not at all," Dori said.

As they wandered into the foyer, Cherry couldn't take her eyes off Dori. Gray had never seen her more starstruck, not even when they'd sweet-talked their way backstage after a Demi Lovato concert in high school. Cherry kept staring at Dori's wild blond hair, her weathered hands, her long necklaces with mystic crystal charms.

"Thanks again for letting us drop by," Gray said, handing over the clean plastic container. "And for the gumbo. It was delicious."

"My pleasure, dear," Dori said. River, seeming to take in the astrologer for the first time, approached her legs and grabbed the hem of her caftan. "And who are you?" she asked.

River and Cherry seemed to clam up at Dori's attention, so Gray stepped in. "This is River. He'll be two in a couple weeks. Say hi, buddy."

River let go of Dori's dress to shyly move his fingers up and down in a wave.

"Well, it's mighty nice to meet you, River," Dori said, her voice warm. "I think I've got a few critters that you might like to see as well. You like goats?"

River stared at her with wide eyes, having never seen a goat before outside of his illustrated barnyard animals book.

Dori led them toward the back door, then down the patio stairs to an enclosure. Two nearly full-sized goats ran up to the fence, looking curiously at the newcomers. "Now, Gray, I do believe you met Disco and Cha Cha once before, non?"

"I can't believe how big they've gotten," Gray said, stunned by the size of the goats she'd held in her arms and bottle-fed just six weeks prior.

"Gos!" River said, delightedly sticking his hand through the fencing.

"Be careful, River!" Cherry said, finally finding her voice in front of her astrology hero.

Dori walked over next to River and rested her elbows on top of the barrier. "That's right, cher, watch your fingers. They'll be expecting a snack round abouts now." After a moment of watching River wave at the goats, she said, "You know, they sure do love yellow dandelions. Like that little patch right out there. Why don't you go pick some of those flowers and we can feed them to our friends Disco and Cha Cha?"

"Gos eat flowers?" River said, his mind blown.

"Goats'll eat just about anything you offer to them," Dori said. After sending River on his dandelion-picking mission, Dori turned back to Gray and Cherry.

Cherry gathered her courage and said, "Madame Nouvelle Lune, I'm such a huge fan. Your horoscopes and all of your astrology content have changed my life. I look to it for everything, every major and minor decision. You're incredible."

"That's mighty kind. And please, call me Dori," she said, then paused to look Cherry over. "Are you expecting another little one?"

Cherry gasped, her face going pale. "I…I mean, I hope so, I've been trying, but it's too early to tell."

"May the stars be on your side with this one," Dori said. "You're a Gemini sun, oui?"

"Oh my god, you truly know everything," Cherry said, unable to contain her excitement.

Dori laughed. "Not everything. I looked you up in my subscriber list after Gray called."

"Right," Cherry said, looking a little embarrassed. "That makes sense."

Dori looked at Cherry again, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "The baby'll be a Sagittarius, I expect. Good pairing for you, although they might bump heads with our little Aries over there." She nodded toward River, who was working at pulling up a dandelion with particularly strong roots.

"I…I don't know what to say. Thank you, Dori. I hope you're right."

Gray looked over to see that Cherry had glistening tears in her eyes. She smiled reassuringly at her best friend, pleased she could witness this moment.

"And you," Dori said, turning her attention to Gray. "How's Saturn return treating you?"

"Um, well, it's pretty confusing at the moment," Gray said, swatting at a mosquito on her arm. "I thought I'd have that existential clarity or however you described it by now, but I finished the dating experiment you suggested and it didn't really give me the results I was hoping for."

Dori furrowed her eyebrows. "Now what dating experiment was that?"

"Dating one person of every sign?" Gray said, surprised that it didn't seem to ring a bell for the astrologer. "You know, to get a glimpse into the wisdom of the zodiac wheel and figure out my perfect match before Saturn return happens on my birthday?"

"Mon cher," Dori said with a sigh, "I don't believe I recommended such a thing."

"You didn't?" Gray and Cherry said in unison. They turned to look at each other and, at the same moment, remembered that they'd in fact gotten carried away with Madame Nouvelle Lune's mystical commentary and snowballed it into the dating challenge themselves. It wasn't the first time they'd had collective amnesia about the genesis of their wild ideas, but they'd truly both forgotten how exactly Gray had found herself in this romantic conundrum.

Gray turned back to Dori, looking a bit embarrassed. "My bad. I guess we thought about what you said about the karmic wheel and what I can learn from each sign, and then we came up with the experiment ourselves. It just felt like the quickest way to find out which sign is my soulmate."

"Saturn return isn't just about a birthday. It's a wide window of change around your twenty-ninth year," Dori said, looking sympathetic to Gray's plight. "Astrology is no Magic 8 Ball, and it's no lab test either."

"But didn't you just use astrology to guess that Cherry was pregnant? How else could you have known that?" Gray asked.

"That? Well, the stars give me some intuition about people, but that's something already done, not seeing the future." Dori shifted her weight to lean her back against the fence, and Disco sniffed her hand through a gap in the wooden planks. "The zodiac can help us understand ourselves and others, figure out what forces and priorities might be shaping their perspectives," she said. "It can show us what energies are at play based on the planetary positions. But it ain't a fortune-telling device. It can't tell us what to do or what will happen. That's all up to us, the decisions we make, our actions. As for a perfect soulmate…Well, I don't know that finding love is so easy as stumbling across that one person you're destined to meet. Too many factors at play for that. And as much as I wish astrology could give you the name of your true love written out clearly in the sky, that's simply not how the stars speak to us."

Gray's shoulders slumped. "Oh. I guess I didn't walk away with that impression after we met."

"I'm sorry, pauvre bête," Dori said gently. "Sometimes I wish it could be that easy too. The stars haven't led me right to true love's door either." She gestured toward the house behind them. "But the planets have guided me to finding all kinds of good things, people I care about, critters to keep me company. And anyway, I got my own second Saturn return coming round the corner next year, so I'm about to be reminded how tough it can be."

Gray took that to mean Dori was approaching fifty-eight years old. She seemed at once younger and older than that. Something about her seemed timeless, ageless. "So what do I do, then?"Gray asked. "I understand more about the signs now, about what I like and don't like in a partner, how to date, even. But how do I know who I should be with when I feel like time is running out?"

"You may feel like time is running out," Dori said sagely, "but the universe rarely runs according to your schedule. All you can do is listen to your own heart, what the planets might be whispering in your ear, and figure out what feels right to you. And sometimes that means taking your time."

At that moment, River came toddling back over, his fists full of yellow dandelions and their green leaves. "I got flowers!" he said proudly.

As Dori showed River and Cherry how to offer the treats to the goats without losing any fingers, Gray let Dori's words settle into her chest. She knew the astrologer had offered her insightful advice, but she wasn't yet sure what to do with it.

After the goats had eaten all of their offerings, Gray, Cherry, and River headed back to the car with a couple of bags of homemade pralines Dori insisted they needed for the trip. As it was now well past River's usual bedtime, it didn't take long for him to nod off in his car seat. Meanwhile, Cherry followed her phone's GPS directions while Gray stared moodily out the window at the night sky.

Once they hit the highway, Cherry glanced away from the windshield over at Gray. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Gray jumped a little at Cherry's voice, having almost forgotten where she was. "These thoughts? They're very heavy, complex, deep. Worth at least a quarter."

"How about your thoughts in exchange for not charging you for gas on this little excursion?"

"Deal." Gray rubbed her face, then smoothed her hair as she prepared to venture into the rocky terrain of her current mental state. "Do you remember back when we were kids in Sunday school? Back before we turned into moody little teenagers and started doubting all the religious beliefs we'd been taught? When we didn't realize that not believing was an option?"

"Sure."

"There's something about those beliefs that I missed when we left them behind," Gray said slowly, weighing her words as she spoke. "It faded after a while, but maybe I'd still been hanging on to it without realizing it. It was that evangelical faith that the big, difficult parts of life weren't in our hands. There was no point in worrying too hard about what we should do or how things would turn out or if we were on the right track, because some magical dude in the sky had it under control. And as long as I said my prayers and tried to follow the rules in this little book, it would all turn out okay for me in the end."

"The end being heaven?" Cherry said.

"Right. But also, like, that vague belief that God will take care of you and give you nice things in this life too. I don't think that's totally the message the Bible sends, but it's pretty much how it gets boiled down for Sunday school." Gray stared out the window for another moment before continuing. "I'm wondering if I threw myself so hard into astrology because I wanted it to give me back those simple answers, that trust that everything will be all right. Maybe when I broke up with McKenzie and my whole life was upended, I tried to fall back on that ‘Jesus, take thewheel' mentality, except it was more like ‘Cosmos, take the wheel.'?"

"You know that I love astrology and do see truth in it," Cherry said. "Or at least, as a Gemini, I half believe it and half don't, since I'm a flip-flopper at heart. But I think you're right that it can be easy to substitute it in as this all-knowing higher power when that's not really what it promises to be." Cherry drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel, contemplating. "I think I owe you an apology for getting all wound up in this dating challenge with you, since apparently that's not what Madame Nouvelle Lune meant at all."

"Hey, I'm the one who was begging for some mission I could complete like Dora the Explorer," Gray said. "Like astrology was my singing map, and I just had to go through the horoscope forest, climb rising sign hill, and cross Mercury retrograde river to find my perfect match. You helped me iron out the details and cheered me on, but I'm the dummy who thought I could win at love if I could cross the astrology challenge finish line." Gray rubbed the heel of her palm against her forehead. "I just want the perfect wife and family in my head to be real already."

"But no spouse or family can be both perfect and real," Cherry said. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Gray said, although she hadn't thought of it in such clear terms. Cherry had a point. "It's just…Do you remember Alyssa, our teammate on the Twisters?"

"First base, braces, obsessed with My Little Pony?"

"That's the one."

"What about her?" Cherry asked as she looked over her shoulder to change lanes.

Gray leaned her head against the cool glass of the passenger-side window and told Cherry about her memory of that day at the Tastee-Freez. It was one of the only significant moments in her life she had neither experienced with Cherry nor told Cherry about after the fact. Gray supposed she'd kept the moment to herself out of some superstitious fear of ruining it. "I still picture that afternoon a lot when I think about what I want my future to be like," Gray admitted when she'd finished telling the story. "Alyssa's moms had it right, you know?"

Cherry looked away from the road to search Gray's face for a moment, then burst out laughing. It took her a moment to catch her breath, but when she did, she said, "How well did you know Alyssa's moms, Gray?"

"Not super well," Gray said, feeling a little defensive for baring her soul and getting laughed at. "My parents wouldn't let me go to their house, remember? But I know a good thing when I see it."

Seeming to recognize that her reaction had been insensitive, Cherry said more gently, "Maybe you saw a good day. But that didn't make their relationship good. I went to a party for the softball team at Alyssa's house once, and her moms had this huge screaming match about giving us soda. It was in the kitchen, but we could hear every word from the living room. Super awkward. I thought Alyssa was going to die of embarrassment."

Gray couldn't match Cherry's story to the image of Alyssa's moms in her head. "Couples fight," she reasoned. "Just because you saw one disagreement doesn't mean their marriage wasn't aspirational."

"Remember how Alyssa left the team in sixth grade because she moved to Ohio?" Cherry asked.

Gray nodded.

"That's because her moms got divorced," Cherry said. "One of them, Misty, took the kids with her to live with their grandparents." She checked Gray's expression before breaking the even worse news. "A couple years later, I heard a rumor her other mom cheated with a rival softball team's coach."

Gray's beloved mental picture at the Tastee-Freez shattered like a broken mirror. "No way," she said, pulling at the seat belt she suddenly felt was choking her. "How did I miss that? Why didn't you tell me?"

Cherry shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't realize they meant so much to you, I guess."

"But at least they were good parents, right?" said Gray, grasping at straws to keep her picture of the perfect family alive. "Alyssa and her brother always seemed so well adjusted."

Looking sorry for what she was about to disclose, Cherry said, "Well, uh…I actually heard last year that Alyssa's brother was involved in some crypto scam targeting the elderly. I thought I told you about that."

"Fuck. That was him?" Gray vaguely remembered Cherry telling her about some article she'd read on a con artist from Tulsa, but she hadn't put the pieces together. Most of her attention had been focused on playing Elden Ring on her PC.

"Yeah. I think the trial is going on now." Cherry glanced at River over her shoulder, then turned back to the road. "Look, I'm not saying that you won't have a wife you love or amazing kids. I want those things for you too. But if you're looking for perfect, and especially for the perfect family to just fall into your lap, through astrology or religion or whatever means, you're setting yourself up for disappointment."

"God, I'm such an idiot," Gray said, dropping her head into her hands. "I'm almost thirty. I should know nothing about life is that simple. Everything is messy and no one has the answers."

Cherry reached across the console to pat Gray's knee. "You know, maybe Saturn return hasn't helped you find your soulmate. But perhaps this is part of something else it's trying to teach you," she suggested.

"Like what? ‘Life is an endlessly confusing quagmire, try not to die'?"

"Maybe," Cherry said. "But in, like, a nice way. Despite what our parents tried to tell us, there are no right or wrong answers. There's no prewritten script or cheat sheets or dude in the sky telling you what choices to make. So that means it can be whatever you want it to be. You get to pick your own priorities and goals and dreams and act accordingly. And people can tell you they disagree with what you choose, but it's still ultimately your decisions that matter, not theirs."

Gray gulped. "Sounds kind of terrifying, doesn't it?"

"Sure. But kind of awesome too. Like an open-world videogame. No levels or quests you're tasked with beating. You get out of it whatever you put into it."

"Huh," Gray said, considering. "You're quite the modern philosopher, Cher."

"Thanks. It's probably because my Uranus is in Aquarius." Cherry reached for the radio dial. "How about an old-fashioned Dolly Parton sing-along to make us feel better?"

"Won't it wake River?"

Cherry peeked over her shoulder. "Nah, he's fully passed out. He'd sleep through a whole hoedown at this point."

Gray grinned. "All right then. But only if we start with ‘Backwoods Barbie.'?"

"Deal." Cherry handed Gray her phone to find her song request, and before long, Gray's inner turmoil faded into the familiar twanging tunes of countless best-friend road trips gone by.