polish. They were real, which wasn’t exactly a surprise, given
how natural and innocent the rest of Summer looked.
Not a white picket fence type at all. Summer was more of a
trust fund type from old money. More the private school, Ivy
League college, imported car rather than regular sedan type of
girl. She was the kind of girl who if she ever had to get a
tattoo, and she would probably have to do it under great duress
because it would mar her perfect body, would choose a
butterfly. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Dani’s
first had been a butterfly too, tattooed by a twelve-year-old kid
who had traded his bike in for a home tattoo kit. She’d never
covered it up, even though it was terrible, and she was lucky
she didn’t get blood poisoning from it.
Summer wasn’t the kind of girl who ever had to wear
threadbare clothes to school. She was probably popular and
never got picked on. She wouldn’t have been the homecoming
queen or a cheerleader, but she was probably brainy, and she
was pretty, and that went a long way if you knew how to use
it. Summer likely had never known true danger or true hunger.
She probably thought she had dreams, but she’d never had to
cling to something in order just to keep herself going.
That was tarot for Dani. It was her lifeline. She’d
discovered her first deck at twelve. It belonged to Judy, one of
the worst foster moms Dani ever had. One night, when Judy
was passed out after drinking too much, Dani stole the deck
and buried it out in the backyard. Judy never did find it, and
when Dani was shuffled on to a different house, that deck left
with her, tucked into the black garbage bag she used to carry
her few meager possessions with her.
Now she had the store. It was the one thing that was hers