Coming Next

Coming Next: INTRO and CHAPTER ONE. Like this? Click on the Follow button if you want to keep up with new chapters to be revealed on Fool's Gold. (Fool's Gold...Coming Soon...to a theater near you?) I've got to see this movie. I've got to see it! I've got to see it! Are we going? We're going, aren't we? If we don't go, I'm going to be mad!!!...* * * :)

Next...Intro

From the...PROLOGUE...to the PRELUDE...to the INTRO...to the BODY...to the epilogue. Oscar? Oscar! Tony!!!...* * * :)

Prelude

PRELUDE

Although it was already mid September and wintry weather would soon be closing in on Indian Summer, not a trace of the forbidding season was in the air this balmy Saturday as the tour bus made its way past the barred storefronts and fire damaged pre-war apartment buildings imminently giving way to fabulous townhouses, world-renowned museums, and luxury hotels on the Park.

"Where's Bloomingdales?" The childish voice floated on a Spring-like current of wind.

The bus approached rows of bubbling fountains lining the grand stairsteps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, its yellow and purple banners announcing current exhibits. {Impressionist to Early Modern Paintings from the USSR, August 21 to October 5, 1986}

"Let's get off here," Barbara announced.

The two girls stood up and bounded out of the bus, all the newness of New York greeting them, waiting at their feet.

"Debbie," Barbara had called one day. "Bus trip to New York. Wanna go? It's only ten dollars."

"Yes," she had said instantly. Fresh out of college with not a notion of what she was going to do next, she was game for anything...she had New York on her mind that summer, after graduation. New York, where the clubs stayed open all night, a haven for an insomniac such as herself. She could dance all night. Countless sleepless nights in college, she had longed for such a city.

"But Barbara," she prodded apprehensively. "Do you know anything about New York City?"

"No. But I don't care if I just go there and sit on a garbage can all day. It'll be fun."

Debbie did not want to go all that way just to sit on a garbage can.

"But we have to know what we're doing," she protested. "The last time I went, I was a little girl." She certainly looked the little girl she once was. Not a line framed her cloudless eyes, wide and blue as the sky today. The fair skin, round nose and high cheekbones combined to form a perpetually young face which stubbornly refused to show age. Her petite frame belied her diet rich in carbohydrates, fast foods, pasta and desserts, just plain rich. She could have had a chocolate Sundae complete with whipped cream and a cherry on top every day is she felt like it, and indeed, she had the energy to burn off the calories, even as she devoured it.

Maturity had come early for Barbara. Perhaps she had been born with it. Her innate sense of knowing caused her to see what others could not gauge from a first impression. What she saw did not please her. If Debbie did not get with the program soon, she would find herself caught in a trap. Barbara tried to warn her, but the girl just laughed....Smoke clung to her lenses and her straight hair had gone limp from the smog. "Yeah, I could, will live here," she thought, perhaps knew.

Wildflowers

DELICATE WILDFLOWERS

A white bundle tied with bright pink ribbons was handed to her by Rick.

"I'm not going to lunch," he said apologetically.

"Ooooohhh!" She groaned and reached out to punch him. Everyone laughed.

She sniffed the fragrant bundle. Out peeked an array of wildflowers, pink, purple, and a hint of yellow.

"Should I bring them to lunch?" she asked.

That night, opened at last, the bundle revealed the birthday bouquet.

"I picked each of those flowers out, you know," Mike told her, proudly.

"You did?"

About to leave, she searched for Mike.

"Thanks for picking out such a..."

"They're beautiful," he said.

Is this how you see me? she thought.

Yellow freckled tiger lilies peered out from the ferns. White lilies, their rosy insides revealed, stretched upwards. A fuzzy purple plant stood in the center of the soft pastel wildflowers. A single pink carnation, freshly plucked, rose beside the yellow tiger lilies.

An elegant purple iris had not yet opened. A spray of delicate yet firm little lavendar wildflowers, scattered throughout the bouquet. There were closed white lilies and one radiant pure white daisy.

A pale yellow mum exploded quietly, a star. Underneath it hid a bright yellow carnation, its edges rimmed with pink.

A delicate yet wild country bouquet.

0887D

Denise's Birthday

March 3, 1990

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE: Cards

(Whenever something good happens...)

Debbie shuffled the cards. Work, she thought. Her boss. No, Mike. The whole situation. Her job. She handed the Tarot Cards back to Mari Anne. They sat on the Oriental rug on the apartment floor. None of the guests had arrived yet, although the party officially started at nine. A wide array of chips, pretzels, hot dogs and the like waited on the dining room table. The red-orange Poisonous Punch looked enticing.

Mari Anne spread out the cards. "OK," she said. She pointed to the middle row. "You're artistic. You want to get out of your present job situation."

"Yeah," Debbie said. She did not like having her fortune read, but it made a great pre-party warm-up.

"Water indicates emotion. Water comes up a lot in my cards because I'm so emotional."

Debbie did not think that Mari Anne appeared to be very emotional.

"The cups. Water. You're very emotional. And you're artistic. Here's the Death Card."

"Huh?" Debbie gasped.

"No. The card does not usually mean death, but the end of something. An illusion.

"The end. To her job? A new job in the same company? Or a different company altogether. She hoped not. An illusion. Her job? Men?

"A purely intellectual young man. Ruthless. He will use any means to gain his own ends. Peaceful exterior masking secret violence and craft."

"Young man? That would be Mike. What does it say?"

"Does he have a calm exterior?"

"No, not really." Debbie thought of Mike's fast movements and quick energy.

"Now, what's your relationship like?" Mari Anne asked at this point.

"Well..." Debbie hesitated.

"Does he...toy with you?"

"Yes," Debbie said.

"Because here, it has a picture of a web. You know, like how the spider plays with the fly? He doesn't know if he wants you or not, but it's there to play with," Mari Anne wriggled her fingers.

"But I like that," Debbie said naively.

"But be aware of that," Mari Anne warned. She looked worried. "I think you're looking for love at work."

"What else does it say?"

"Champion, guardian, hero." Her boss? No, Mike. He had done a lot for her.

"Let me see. Anything else? I don't mean to dwell and make you keep reading it over and over," Debbie apologized.

"No, that's OK," Mari Anne said. "A young man, with a contradictory mind, supporting many conflicting ideas and designs. Desires power. Ruthless. Elastic, elusive mind."

How wierd. The cards were spinning a kaleidoscopic picture of Mike's complicated mind. Newly forming patterns, ever-changing. His young face. His crooning voice. His sudden meanness. A changling. What you see is not what you get.

Being inside Mike's head, although she did not want to be. Seeing it as it really was. But she had to know.

"The pursuit of material things and dull business matters." Her boss? No, Mike once again.

"This card means the possibility of love. And this card means a disappointment in love."

"Huh! Which will it be?"

"We don't know. It could be either. But you will succeed, no matter what. Just cut through it! is what it's trying to say." Mari Anne cut through the air with an emphatic motion of her hand.

"Lasting success," she continued.

Debbie imagined a roomful of applause and a dinner party she was giving in her home. She imagined recognition through the years, best loved stories, continuing achievements, reknown.

"Now, this row represents things you cannot change." Mari Anne pointed to three cards. Catholicism. The belief that you have to suffer for every reward. You can succeed and have love, too. But you will succeed, no matter what."

I have always thought that. That I would be successful, but nothing else. You know when you just know you'll be really successful?" Debbie said. She imagined a banner with the word SUCCESS!

Gee, she thought. This prediction really spells out Success in flying colors!

"Total feminitity. This is something you cannot change and you should always be proud of that," Mari Anne said.

Well, she was.

"Also, you're fortunate. You may not believe that, but you are."

"You know, I am fortunate. But I never think I am," Debbie realized.

"I'm that way, too," Mari Anne said. "Whenever something good happens, I try to find something negative. I say, 'Yeah, but..."

0736D

Spring 89

(Denise...Denise Dances...2010 -- 21 years later!)