Written in the Stars

Monday, August 6th, 2007 PST

Cancer (June 21 - Jul 22)

You may be annoyed at yourself if it's hard to tell others how you feel, especially when your words seem more erratic and melodramatic than your actual experience. Nevertheless, try to push past your own reasons for putting off a discussion, for the Moon enters your 12th House of Secrets this evening, making it even harder to broach the topic.

(www.tarot.com)

I'm standing in the Emergency Room of The Pines Memorial Hospital because all the seats in the waiting area are taken up by the people who have crossed my path today. I have been grudgingly given an ice pack for my swollen eye by the triage nurse (who has obviously heard all about me from my ex-fiance, or my mother, or the scout troupe, or the junior league softball team, or the Parish Priest).

Against the odds I aim a wan smile at Debbie Billoxie. She guffaws and turns her rolling eyes away from me in a vain attempt to put some distance between us. Slightly impossible as her wrist is still caught by the bracelet attached to my fly.

"You should read this, Mark." Debbie whispers and passes me a disregarded copy of a newspaper horoscope. I take it, happy to be doing something other than meet the angry/disappointed stares of my fellow man. And woman. And one dog, who really shouldn't be in a hospital...

I could laugh. I think I do laugh. I have never believed in anything other than rational thought (except maybe in the faith I place in my local football team). I am aware that my laughter is not welcome to the townsfolk, but frankly by this point, I'm beyond caring.

It all started when I went to see Father Moonacre to finalize the church booking for mine and Amy's wedding. I bumped into my old High School sweetheart, Debbie Billoxie, as she came out of the cemetery that joined the church yard. I've got to say that it was great to see her. Nothing funny, just great to see her. She had been the local rising star and gone to college out of state before becoming some sort of mergers and acquisitions expert for an international company. I had never hidden the fact that I had a soft spot for the memories we shared.

Her parents were buried there and I was quite taken aback to see that she had returned to her humble roots. We started catching up and then the Priest had appeared. Father Moonacre was nearing the end of his Catholic career (and was possibly closer to God than even he admitted). His memory and eyesight were not the best.

He grabbed both our elbows with loud and friendly exclamations about happy occasions and steered us toward a rather awkward wedding rehearsal.

"I'm not marrying him, Father." Debbie mouthed loudly as the old man turned another deaf ear to our polite protestations.

"Cold feet! Happens all the time, Amy. You'll be fine, I tell you. Fine."

"I'm not Amy. I'm Debbie. Debbie Billoxie?"

"Then why are you wanting to marry Mark? He's supposed to be marrying Amy Hepperson. You can't marry both of them!" he turned to me affronted by my apparently outlandish lifestyle.

"No, Father. I don't want to marry her. I'm very happy with getting married to Debbie!"

"Amy," said Debbie.

"That's what I said."

"No you didn't," both Priest and former sweetheart chimed.

"Well, that's what I meant."

"Well, I don't think I should be marrying anyone, young man. Until you know which wife you want."

He shuffled off toward the vestry. Debbie dug her heel into the altar carpet and then turned and left me standing in mute confusion. I could tackle the Priest later so I went after Debbie.

Back outside, it was beginning to ooze into another hot afternoon. There was the noise of a softball game winding up mixed with the humid human traffic at the soda store across the street, where Debbie had parked her slick city car, that was now surrounded by all the town gossips.

"Hey, wait up!" I jogged over, "You can't just leave like that."

"What? I come home and wreck your wedding and you still wanna talk?"

Mrs. Hendrix nearly cricked her neck turning around so fast to listen in. I tried to steer Debbie away from the eager leer and accidentally pushed her up against the side of the car, jamming her hand against me and causing the chain of her charm bracelet to become irreparably hooked against my fly.

She tugged and pulled, to the accompaniment of many harshly inhaled breaths around us, until she realized the odd scene that we were creating and blushed into my chest.

"It's ok." I whispered, as panic free as possible. "I think the chain will break if you let me put enough pressure on it?"

"No," she yelped and pulled away, taking me into the road with her, "My mom gave me that!"

A tearing wrench of metal and a screech of brakes rent the air as the junior league softball bus veered around us to avoid a collision. That was great until its new trajectory took it straight up the tail pipe of the local scout troupe camper coach waiting at the cross section lights.

Debbie's wrist hung limply at my crotch as we surveyed the shaken, but otherwise uninjured, kids pile out of the two vehicles, only to find thier eyes sheilded from the depraved couple stood in the middle of the road. Father Moonacre had come out of the vestry at the sounds of hell rising and had just pointed out the 'Jezebele' before suffering a mild heart attack. At least the kids went into a state of quiet fascination until the medics arrived.

It was evening when Debbie and I were finally separated and the three stitches to my eye were sewn. I never knew Amy had a prize winning left hook.

"Wanna know a secret?" Debbie smiled as I walked her out to her car.

"Do you think I can handle it?"

"I think you should marry me instead. I think it's written in the stars."

(1037 wrds including 83wds in horoscope )