Page 24 of Lethal Obsession

“Voilà.” Seline leans forward in her chair and taps the card. “The High Priestess. She wants you to tell me what it is about this term limerence that you relate to so much.”

Of course she does.

“I don’t disagree with your comment about tragic,” I say slowly. “But I don’t think it’s romantic. Not at all. Limerence to me is more . . . pathetic.”

Alexei’s face, flat and hard: “If I hadn’t been bored out of my mind, and drunk too much just to get through tonight’s bullshit, this never would have happened . . .”

I turn abruptly to stare out the window at the new greenery sprouting on the plane trees lining the street below, breathing deeply to clear his face from my mind.

Seline, to her credit, just waits.

I like this about her too, that she doesn’t try to make me talk when I need to just breathe.

“Limerence,” I continue eventually, “according to Dr. Google, is a state of involuntary, obsessive infatuation with another person, driven by the uncertainty of whether your feelings are reciprocated. That’s the best way I can imagine to sum up how I feel about Alexei. I don’t want to feel this way about him. I don’t want to miss him. I don’t even want to think about him. And yet it’s like he’s everywhere. In my dreams. In every room or bar or coffee shop. Lurking between the pages of every book I try to read or the lines of every song on the radio.”

Now that I’ve begun to talk, I can’t stop.

“I think of him when I dress in the morning. I wonder: would Alexei like this lingerie I’ve chosen? I try on three different looks, wondering if he’d like me better in a skirt, dress, or jeans. I put my hair up, then wonder if he’d prefer it down.” I want to cringe at the idiocy of my own words, but I also want to get them out, as if by sharing my shame I can somehow purge myself of it. “I walk the streets and wonder if he’s ever been to Paris before, and if so, whether he likes it or not. Then I plan out where I would take him to show him my Paris, even though the truth is that I’m happier in Spain than I am here, and I suspect he would be, too. But I want to talk about that with him. I want to talk about everything with him.”

I stop talking abruptly, my face flushing as I realize how stupid I sound.

When Seline speaks again, her voice is marginally less harsh. “Is there any part of your life where Alexei is not? You say that he is in your books, your songs. Present when you dress or when you think of what you want. Is there any time in your day when Alexei is not? When he is, temporarily at least, forgotten?”

“When I play.” I answer immediately, the answer coming before I stop to think about it. “The moment I sit down at the piano and open a score, all I see and feel are the notes on the page and the keys under my fingers. Playing is the only time I belong entirely to myself. It’s my only escape.”

“A card, please.” Seline nods at the table. I turn one up. She frowns at it. “Two more, please.”

I do as she says.

“Ah!” She eyes the cards, then me, like I’ve done something profound. “First, the Magician.” She taps the card. “Then the Emperor. And finally, we have the Fool.” She delivers the names with a flourish, as if I should understand. “Playing piano is your magic,” she says, when my silence makes it clear that I do not. “It is how you channel the divine. Your connection to spirit, if you like. This is why you see it as an escape. For this time, at least, you are lost, communing with something greater than yourself. But,” she adds, her face darkening, “you do not allow yourself to use this power, to fully express your creativity. Instead you allow yourself to be controlled by the powerful male figures in your life. Your father, for example. Or Dittorio, this conductor you always complain about.” She waves her hand dismissively, and I stifle another smile, this time at the thought of how the conductor of the French national philharmonic would react at being referred to disdainfully as this conductor.

“The answer,” she continues, tapping the third card, “comes when you have the courage to forge your own path. To understand that your talent is something to revel in, to celebrate. It is the place where you can simply be Ofelia, instead of being a girl who is in love with Alexei Petrovsky.”

“I guess that’s the problem.” I yank a tissue from the box and impatiently wipe away the tears that drive me bananas, but which always come when I start talking about this. “I don’t know who Ofelia is, except for being the girl in love with Alexei Petrovsky.”

Seline grimaces. “No more third-party references to yourself, please. It is too American.” She taps the Magician card. “But back to the topic: I think that if you focus on your playing, it will continue to guide you on your path to becoming your truest self.”

She taps the Emperor. “As for this limerence that you describe—perhaps, instead of fighting Alexei’s presence in your mind, you could work with it? Use it to help define what you want. Instead of asking yourself would Alexei like this outfit, ask yourself do I like this outfit? Try to discern whether you are dressing in a way that feels authentic to you or because you think it would appeal to Alexei.”

She touches the card of the Fool, her mouth curving in the knowing smile that I am convinced all tarot readers learn along with the card meanings. “This is how you step off the cliff, how you find a new path. You must challenge yourself—and your mental perception of who has authority over you, Alexei included.”

I lift a shoulder. “I wish I knew how to do that.”

“I am your tarot reader, Ofelia.” Seline piles the cards together impatiently. “Not your therapeest.” She says the English word disdainfully, and I bite down on yet another smile. “But for now,” she says, reverting to French, “you must just keep playing. Not that I need to tell you that.” She actually smiles at me. “I know you practice in every spare moment. And it is this weekend that you make your debut with the Orchestre, is it not? A big honor, indeed.”

“I love playing,” I say honestly. “But I’m not going to lie: I’m also terrified of this performance. It’s the most high profile of my career so far, and every critic who matters is going to be in the audience. It’s funny that I turned over the Emperor card, you know.” I smile as we stand up. “That’s the piece I’m playing: Beethoven’s Emperor.”

“Not funny at all.” Seline lifts her shoulder in a Gallic shrug. “This is exactly how cards work.”

Of course it is.

“And your family is coming as well.” She tilts her head. “Your father. He, too, is the Emperor in your cards. Will he be there?”

“Yes. My whole family will be.”

Her eyes settle on me with uncomfortable perception. “Family means Alexei also, does it not?”

“Perhaps.” Breathe, Ofelia. “He was invited. But he rarely makes it to family events.”