Scorpio Rising

When I searched for Melissa, I found her profile right away. She uses her full name, so it was easy to find her. You’ll understand the urge to look at her account, I know you will, because I see your name pop up on mine and know you’re still seeing almost everything I post. But her account wasn’t public and I just wanted to see what she was posting, so I had to make a fake account and friend her from that.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, making a fake account—you have to make sure there’s the right amount of photos, but you also need to stagger them over a few days, so it looks like you’re new instead of just making a fake account. And I knew my bio had to be something she’d like, so I went with Scorpio ~ Songwriter ~ Dog Mom and then a dog emoji and a scorpion and some music notes. The Scorpio part is true, at least. I don’t have a dog, but she was holding a dog in her profile picture, which means she likes dogs, so I took photos of Bruno—you remember my cousin Gemma’s dog, right? Of course you remember—when I went over for dinner one Monday night, like I always do. Like we used to do together. I miss that so much. Sometimes Gemma forgets we broke up and asks what time you’ll be arriving from work, and I have to tell her that you’re not coming this week, but maybe you’ll be there next week.

I could see Melissa’s profile description even before she accepted my request, of course: healer, psychic, life coach. libra love forever. why imagine it when you can live it? And then the prayer hands emoji and a sparkle one and a crystal ball and a white woman with a laptop, and under it the link for her psychic-coaching website. My page—well, Rachel’s page, that was the name I picked, Rachel like your mom because I figured maybe she’d be wanting to make a good impression on Rachels in general—mine didn’t have a link, obviously.

So for a couple weeks I checked her page two, maybe three times a day. I’m just being honest here, and again, don’t pretend like you’re not looking at my profile, too; I know you are. I see you watching my stories. I wonder how often you think of me. Every little thing reminds me of you, of us, and so at least half of those things must make you think of me too, right? You said once that you couldn’t look at our sofa without thinking of that one time we had sex on it with that St. Vincent song playing in the background, the one you were obsessed with back then. Something about Los Angeles? I wish I remembered the name; I’ll go listen to the album later and find it. I know you still have the couch, even though it was your mom’s gift to both of us when we moved in together. Sometimes Melissa posts photos of her sitting on it with captions like, “Lazy Saturday. Had a great coaching call with a client yesterday. Sweet weeks coming for all of us!” or “Time for a nap. Oh, you’re going to take one, too? Perfect. Sweet dreams for all of us.”

I wish you’d let me keep the couch. Your mom made sure I knew it was mine, too. She’s so sweet, your mom. Sometimes she writes back when I write to her and tells me she knows I’m going to meet another great guy soon. I don’t want another one, I just want you, obviously, but when I try to tell her that then she doesn’t write back, so now I just agree and say another one will come along eventually, like a bus. Plenty of buses, fish in the sea, whatever. Then I ask her how her dog-grooming business is going and whether she’s enjoying retirement, and usually she does write back.

I know you’ve been reading the messages I send you, too. You’re the only person I know with your “read” notifications on because you want people to know you’ll answer them in your time, not theirs. I loved that about you, that weird combination of power play mixed with brutal honesty. I bet Melissa doesn’t know that about you, yet, the way you demand the truth from yourself and others. I bet she hasn’t seen that side of you.

I bet she thinks she knows you, though. Maybe you’re already bringing home the artwork your second-graders make, telling her you’ve told them all about her and they’ve all made pictures of tulips for her because you told them it was her favorite flower. That worked so well on me. I feel even more deeply in love then, which I hadn’t thought possible. But when you brought home all those paintings for me, and then the one you made yourself, the best one, obviously, the one I framed and put next to our bed, it was peonies, which are a much better and more artistically sophisticated flower than tulips.

Melissa posted a photo from the botanical gardens near where she lives that had a field of tulips in it with the caption my favorites and the sparkle emoji and the tulip one, which is how I know she likes them. You know, I couldn’t tell from her photos how tall she was until she posted a photo of you two together at that same garden. I know this is weird, but I really wanted to know if she was almost as tall as you. You know how I always asked if you wanted someone taller, if it bothered you that I was so much shorter than you? You would tell me I was your perfect little morsel. Your little nugget, you’d say, and you’d use that silly voice that you only used with me. I can’t imagine you using it with her.

Anyway, once I knew a few things like her favorite flower and her height, I started wondering about things like what her voice sounded like and whether there was something about her that you’d eventually realize you didn’t like. I thought if maybe I could just find that one flaw now, if I could let you know in a subtle but effective way, you’d be like, “Of course! Melissa is too _____! She’s completely wrong for me!” Except that’s the thing, I didn’t know what her fatal flaw was yet, so that’s why I had to get to know her first.

It was really easy to set up the first psychic-coaching call. Who does that, by the way? What is a psychic coach? Like, if a person was really psychic, couldn’t they just tell you what was going to happen in your career and be super accurate and done with it in one phone call? Why would you keep paying them after that? But anyway, I set up the first call, and my mistake here was that I thought I could pull off a French accent. Six years of French and two acting classes in college and I thought I’d pull off “Isabella Charpentier,” an aspiring actress who’d moved to Manhattan (though she’d say “Man-attan” in a charming, Parisian way) in hopes of making it on Broadway. That’s what I asked Melissa about on the phone as Isabella: whether to move back to France or stay in New York and keep trying to make it. Whether I should take another class with an acting coach or try a group class where you get to perform for agents and directors at the end. Whether she thought I should get into improv, if that would improve “zee chances for me to make it beeg in zee U.S. of A.”

I tried really hard to think about what Isabella Charpentier would ask a life coach, her motivation and everything. I even decided she had a small fluffy dog named Ralph. But oh my god, I was so bad at the accent! I could barely manage it, and Melissa asked me so many questions. She had a tarot deck too—do real psychics need tarot decks?—and she described the cards to me over the phone: flowers, all sorts of beautiful flower illustrations and goddesses. All of the characters in this deck were women, even Death. I guess Death was the most beautiful of all, and the only card in the deck that was black and white; the rest were in color. I almost fell half in love with her then, too, listening to her get carried away describing how gorgeous these cards are. Her voice is really lovely, and I imagined you falling asleep to the sound of her voice the same way you used to make me ramble to you in bed with boring details about my day because it reminded you of your mom reading you bedtime stories. But obviously you wouldn’t do that with her, because that was our thing. You can’t just go around telling every girl you’ve been dating for five seconds that they should talk until you fall asleep.

So I was faking my way through the accent while Melissa asked what I wanted for myself and told me the cards said I had overcome so many challenges to get where I was. She said things had been so hard, and I was going to get a lucky break soon. The cards foretold it; it was my turn. And I teared up, I really did. I know that sounds so cheesy, but I kind of forgot that I was pretending to be Isabella for a second. She told me I should take the improv class, because at the very least, it would encourage me to be more spontaneous, and the cards said I was very careful and calculating—then she took it back, as if “calculating” was a bad word and she felt bad using it. But you’ve called me that, too, and it felt a little like she was peering into my soul instead of Isabella’s. 

It was all fine—helpful, even, I really felt empowered to go take an improv class—until she asked me at the end if I could do an American accent, and then I had to imitate my college friend Jenna’s British boyfriend from junior year saying “I’m eating a hamburger” when we asked him to do an American accent, and I swear to god, my “haimbergerrrr” was so comically bad I knew I couldn’t keep up the accent for our next call. Melissa laughed at my impression; I think she thought I was exaggerating it to be funny. I liked her, then. I could see why you like her, even if she is kind of freakishly tall. (Not a morsel at all.)

So we ended the call and I told her I couldn’t afford another call at “zis impoverished season of my life” but I valued her advice, which I really did—her job might be kind of dumb and made-up, but at least she was pretty good at making me feel better about my life. And then as I hung up, feeling like I’d just gotten away with something and thinking it might be harder to find her flaw than I’d expected, I realized it was so obvious: I should just be the girl in the fake account I’d made, Rachel, and make another appointment.

So I made another fake email address and scheduled another time slot through her online scheduling system—which is super easy to use, by the way—and paid her online again. It’s $125 a session, kind of expensive, but again, she seemed relatively good at what she does. This time I also sent her a DM as Rachel saying that I was at a major crossroads in my songwriting career and she seemed like the perfect person to consult for advice. And then I said our sun signs seemed compatible, because I thought that was something she would like, except later I looked it up and apparently they’re only kind of compatible, but whatever.

When she called, I answered in my real voice this time. And she was so warm on the phone again and asked me a bunch of the questions she asked me when I was Isabella. But now I told her the almost-truth, saying that I was working at a coffee shop (true, as you know) while I tried to get my songwriting career off the ground (close enough to filmmaking, right?) and my parents were paying my rent while I tried to network a lot and break into the business (true, but I didn’t mention that the last time I met anyone new for coffee or really even left my apartment for anything besides work was six months ago, right around when you and I broke up).

So Melissa did a reading for Rachel-me, and she seemed kind of puzzled. She paused and asked me a few questions about career aspirations, and then I could hear her fussing with the cards again and she said something like, “That’s funny, I did a reading for a client yesterday and yours is really similar.” She said that thing about overcoming big challenges again, which was like, does she say that to everyone? But I guess it makes sense based on what I told her, because Isabella had just emerged from the challenge of moving to New York and Rachel-me was facing other challenges, and so is real me. And then Melissa described the deck she’s using, but it was a different deck this time! Rachel got a different deck than Isabella. I thought that was a nice touch. This one had lots of foxes and wolves and owls, she told me, really woodsy. We talked a lot about feeling stuck in your career and your life and how to get unstuck, and she told me the cards said to try new things that would either reveal a new passion or lead me to return to my songwriting with a fresh perspective.

Anyway, maybe you don’t care about all that and what she said to me, but I called her a few more times after that, and I actually tried taking all her advice. I started taking an improv class! You would really like seeing me perform, I think—I’m pretty good. And I started thinking about taking a ceramics class, too, although when I asked my parents about it they pointed out that if they were paying it should really be something related to filmmaking, right? At least at improv I’d be meeting actors. So I started taking a ceramics class with my own money, my barista money, and I really liked that, too. I think that’s why I’d put ceramics in my bio, Rachel’s bio: because I knew on some level I wanted to try it.

When Melissa suggested we meet in person—this is like, after four weeks of coaching on the phone, so sorry for skipping ahead but I don’t want to bore you with every detail of her psychic career advice—obviously I knew we couldn’t meet up, but I was flattered. She had become someone I actually wanted to be friends with, you know? The first time I’d felt that about someone in a really long time. I had to tell her no, obviously, so I said I valued our work with the cards—I’d gotten my own tarot deck at this point, a botanical deck with sketches of peonies and tulips and lots of others, and I was saying things like “the cards” as if I knew them intimately. I looked into the cost of life-coaching and was thinking about signing up for certification in that because my parents would probably appreciate if I was making $125 an hour at a side job instead of $15 an hour plus tips at Café Impossible.

Anyway, I took her asking if I wanted to get coffee in person as a sign that it was okay to start asking her questions about her life during our sessions, so I did. Little ones at first, like “Have you ever taken a new class just because you thought it might be fun?”—and she started answering them.

And that’s when I found it: her flaw. She doesn’t love you as much as you love her! It’s exactly the sort of information I’d hoped for, and it was easy, almost too easy, once I got to know her well enough to ask about your relationship. Sure, you two haven’t been together for as long as we were, but I knew right when we started dating that you were the one I wanted to marry and have babies with and cook dinner for while I was also making Oscar-winning documentaries and short films during the day. We’d probably have to hire a nanny. I knew how supportive you’d be on the red carpet when I won my first Best of the Festival award at a small but prominent film fest—Tribeca, maybe? You’d be really dashing in a tuxedo with a pocket square and tie in a really deep green that exactly matched my dress, and I’d thank you first and last in my acceptance speech in case you’d forgotten, while I was talking about my terrific crew and my famous mentors, how much I love you.

But Melissa doesn’t feel that way at all! I told her—well, Rachel-me told her—that Rachel-me was in the happiest relationship of my life. Rachel would be, I can tell; she’s like me, only better. I asked if Melissa had found that kind of love, and she said no! She said no.

She said things were getting serious with someone she’d been seeing, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready to move forward in the way that he wanted to, and then she got all flustered and said something about getting back to the cards and how they were presenting a way to overcome the challenge I’d been telling her about, about Jamie from the coffee shop—remember Jamie?—and how she’s kind of boring and depressed and I wish she would just quit. And then I couldn’t turn the conversation back to you, but it didn’t matter because I finally had it! I’d found her flaw.

When we got off the phone, I wasn’t sure if I should call you right away and tell you. There’s no reason for you two to be together, even though her voice is more melodious than mine and she’s like ten feet tall. I almost called you to explain everything then, I really did. But I wanted more details, so I decided that the next day I’d ask about strategies for overcoming my worst flaws, then I’d ask about the strategies she uses to overcome her worst flaws. She’d have to talk about them because she liked me as a friend, and then I’d have a stronger case to make, finally, about why you should leave her.

Except the next day when she called and I picked up, she was screaming at me. Screaming! Your darling Melissa, the blonde string bean stalk with the luscious voice was shouting at me, calling me a liar, saying she trusted me and how dare I betray her like this. I didn’t even know what she was saying at first, except she calmed down just enough to say that she’d been recording our calls—she always does with clients, she said, so she can listen back and see how she could improve them, but I felt that was a betrayal of my trust because I hadn’t signed a consent form, and I told her that I of all people know how important it is to get that when you’re recording people. 

Apparently you had overheard her playing back the audio from one of our calls. She said your face turned white when you heard my voice, though nobody’s face turns white in real life, she was exaggerating, but you said that it was me, Tasha-me, not Rachel at all, and then you said that Rachel was your mom’s name and how fucked up that was and how long had I been calling you, and she didn’t believe you at first until you played her some of the voicemails I’d left for you (you saved them—I knew you would!) and then some of the documentary I shot and narrated freshman year about the trees on campus and how they were cutting them all down and ruining the main quad. And Melissa believed you then, I guess. On the phone with me, her calm psychic-therapist voice went away and she said she knew I was crazy from the first reading I did, because the blank cards turned up.

And here I was like, what on earth are you talking about, Melissa? But apparently there are cards that are blank in that deck with the animals on them, and all three blank cards popped up in the first reading with Rachel, which had never happened to her before, and she had to keep me talking while she did another spread to make up for it.

She was so mean to me, then. She said I’d tricked her into telling me all of this personal stuff and she called me a crazy bitch. I told her she didn’t even love you and she said “What does that have to do with anything, you psycho!” and hung up on me.

But here’s the thing: she didn’t mention Isabella! Melissa says she’s a psychic, but she failed to see through my incredibly fake accent. She’s a liar and a bad psychic. Her job is completely fake, and she uses it to rob people of their hard-earned money. And she’s been lying to you about being in love with you the entire time! You can’t trust her after this. I know you, and I know this will be all it takes for you to end the relationship. I know you’ve told her how insightful she is—she said that to me a few weeks ago, how much her boyfriend respects her job and her clairvoyance. But she’s lying to you, and now you have proof.

I don’t know how you’ll feel about me right now, and I’ll understand if you’re upset. But I wanted to write all this down so you’d know that I’m telling the whole truth. I just want you to see who she really is and how obviously she’s not right for you. I’ll understand if you need a few days or weeks to process your breakup with Melissa before we can reconnect, but you know I’m here. I know you haven’t deleted my number, so you can text or call whenever you’re ready. I think maybe it would be great to go to your mom’s 66th birthday together, if you’re ready to get back together by March. I think your mom would really like that. We both know she’d never speak ill of anyone, but I can tell from her emails that she likes me better than Melissa. She said Melissa’s job was “a little too woo” for her, and I know exactly what she means. 

This took me a really long time to write, obviously, and I have to go to my improv class now. But you know I’ll be here when you’re ready. You know how to find me, and I know how to find you.