Rachel in Retrograde

PrologueRachel Vidal stared at her invitation to her sister Alexa’s wedding. The purple and gold color scheme declared the date to be in three weeks. The invitation had been in her back pocket for the past six months, and long before then, she’d known this date was coming. The end of June, which was also the end of Venus in retrograde, the time in the sky when Venus, the planet of love, appeared to go backward. In an article on her astrology website she and her best friend—and sometimes lover—Priya maintained, they’d described Venus in retrograde as the time in the year when matters of love, s*x, and money—since Venus, of course, also liked nice things—went haywire. Declarations were unheard. Dates were stood up. And there was no such thing as treating yourself—at least, not to the real thing you wanted. Rachel couldn’t believe the ever-skeptical Alexa had listened to Rachel’s advice when she first announced the wedding date as June 1. Rachel had rebelled against it, not because it was the most common wedding date, but because it would be bad luck to be married at this point in the astrological timeline. “And luck is exactly what you need on your wedding day,” Rachel had said over mimosas at brunch. “Not because you and Jeff aren’t good together, but because someone that happy invites bad feelings.” “My friends aren’t jealous,” Alexa said, dismissing her younger sister as easily as she’d once checked under her bed for monsters. She held up her own glass of mimosas and gestured down to the end of the booth, where her coworkers were seated. They were the same age as Alexa, in their early to mid-thirties, and most of whom were already married. Rachel had met them before. They were sort of boring. “See? Everyone’s here. Everyone’s happy and smiling. There’s nothing to worry about.” “Still,” Rachel said. “It doesn’t matter if your friends are good. Weddings are public events. And if you want to be safe, I just think you should wait until after Venus is out of retrograde.” “Mmm.” Alexa made a face. “And when is that, exactly?” Rachel checked the date on her phone, and then, as ever, backed up the information with Priya, her best friend turned business partner in their own adventures in astrology. She read Priya’s notes and then sent her sister the link to their article online. “End of June and you’re in the clear. I’m pretty sure the first day Venus is back on track is a Saturday, too. So it’s perfect for the actual wedding date.” “Mm-hmm,” Alexa said again, but her tone was becoming more and more interested. Maybe something had gone wrong with booking a caterer on the original date. Maybe one of Jeff’s distant relatives couldn’t make the beginning of June. Either way, something had snagged Alexa, and now she wanted to know more. She pretended to examine her nails, though, and not the stars. “I know you and your astrology stuff sometimes happens in the middle of the day. So is this something to be aware of by morning or midnight or afternoon? You know, just for humor’s sake.” “Ah, well, let me ask Priya to be sure. But I think Venus is back in her line of sight by three in the morning.” Rachel texted her friend, who ended up taking a while to confirm what Rachel had just said. When she did have Priya’s confirmation, Alexa had been swept up into another conversation at the brunch table. The celebratory mood remained, and so, Rachel forgot about convincing her sister she wasn’t wasting her life with her office job and this astrology business on the side, and got a little too drunk on mimosas. Just as she was gathering up change so she could take the subway back to her place from the fancy restaurant downtown, her sister had offered her a ride with Jeff. “So did you look it up?” Alexa asked nonchalantly from the passenger seat. “That Venus thing?” Rachel took a moment to remember. “Ah, yeah. It’s three in the morning. Everything’s back to normal then. Why?” “No reason.” Five minutes later, Alexa and Jeff let Rachel out at her run-down one-bedroom place and then gave her a wave. Rachel went back to her office job the next day, with only a faint headache, and continued to chat late into the night with Priya all things astrology—but also all things girls, crushes, and break ups between them. As the date grew closer for Venus in retrograde, so did the hits on their website. And so did their coffers from ad revenue. “At this rate,” Rachel had said ecstatically, “I’ll be able to buy two dresses. One for photos, and one for the real show.” “And take twelve dates,” Priya joked, “instead of one.” “Shush. I still have no idea if I get a plus one.” “You will. She’s your sister.” “But still…” When all Rachel could do was blush, Priya dropped the topic. Life went on as usual. When the invitations finally came for Alexa and Jeff’s wedding, almost six months after that brunch, Rachel had nearly forgotten the conversation with Alexa. Venus in retrograde wasn’t something most people cared about, since it only happened every two or three years. It was a time of renewal, a time to focus on the self and your loves—past and future considered—along with your money, looks, and everything else. But didn’t the entire magazine industry cater to that anyway? As far as the average everyday mortal was concerned, every day was Venus in retrograde. But when Rachel looked at the invitation, the date had been switched. June 1st was no more—but the end of June, the first day out of retrograde, was the new wedding date. Her advice had been taken. Even if Alexa would deny to her deathbed that an astrological placement was not why she’d changed her wedding date, Rachel knew. She’d had power in this small way, and once she realized that, it was intoxicating. Then she remembered the plus one on the invitation, that Venus was already going backward, and she remembered her real problem. You up? Rachel texted. I think I need your help. Alexa knew Rachel was bringing someone to her wedding—but Rachel had not returned the invite, now only weeks away from the date. She had yet to circle a vegetarian or meat option on the place card, then fish or chicken after that. She’d be lucky if her sister didn’t get utterly frustrated with her and give her dried Cheerios in a back room of the banquet hall at this point, if she even showed up at all. None of this was Rachel’s fault, though. Priya was helping her through this difficult time, but Venus was just f*****g with her. Her dates kept canceling, her hookups fell flat, and Rachel was left with few options for her date when the planet of love would go right ways in the skyline. It had to be perfect. It had to be downright mythological and cosmic. Anything else would just be too normal and boring. Too much like Alexa, and her older sister Abigail, when Rachel knew she was not like them at all. Rachel sighed. She looked at the clock in her apartment, and then back at the dented corner of the invitation. She didn’t need to return it, yet it felt like unfinished business, like all the unanswered emails and texts on her phone from past lovers, current hookups, friends, and clients. There were so many people who loved her. So many people she could take to this wedding, if she just settled. She skimmed through her phone. She narrowed in on one contact. She was good, right? That wasn’t settling, right? While she was tempted to pull a tarot card for even more guidance, she seized her own breath and clicked send on a message. Then, with hope in her heart, she walked the invitation to the mail box. She could do this. This was happening. She slipped the invitation through the slot and sighed. Her phone buzzed with a response. A yes, she knew before she even looked. The response was going to be the yes she hoped for. Rachel glimpsed at the read-out on her phone just as she stepped down from the curb. A car horn honked as her foot hit the pavement. A screech of tires, followed by the crunch of metal, happened next. As Rachel hit the ground, her mouth was filled with sand. Rocks. Dirt. It was so familiar, like being a kid on a playground, until the experience was just painful. Her head cracked against the sidewalk. Blood oozed from a wound she could not place. Her entire skeletal system felt bruised, and the pain radiated through her body, and what some of her colleagues in the astrology business might call her etheric body. She was broken. She was bruised. She was… “Oh, my God.” A woman slammed the door of the car. Her gray hair was stylish and at odds with the horrified expression on her face. She gaped at Rachel on the sidewalk. “Are you okay?” “I need…” Rachel reached out. Her phone was across from her, smashed to pieces. Through her pain, she only thought of one thing: Who had said yes? She didn’t know. She might never know now. It was only appropriate, she figured as she started to drift into unconsciousness. And it served her right for trying to find her true love when everything, from love to money and now health, could only move backward. Rachel blinked. She did not open her eyes. A spot of light on her lids, most likely from the sun, only reminded her of the planet of love. It was her last thought as she slowly lost consciousness. * * * * Rachel blinked her eyes open. The light was too bright. She winched as she closed them again. Was she on the surface of the sun? Her body felt hot and tight with lack of movement. She shifted, but then gasped in sudden pain. Her body was on fire. Every part of her very being seemed to hurt, from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head. She opened her eyes again. The light was still blinding, but she found the strength to look beyond it. The orb was not the sun, but a lamp. The rest of the world was white, gray, and very blurry. She slowly synced back into focus as some beeping sounded around her. She reached out, felt a button, and pressed it down. Nothing happened for some moments. She closed her eyes. “Hello there,” a soft voice said a moment later. Rachel leaned toward the sound. She blinked to see a woman standing over her bed. She had a round faced, almost cherubic. Rachel swore the woman was an angel, and not a nurse as her scrubs indicated. “How are you doing, Rachel?” “Ugh.” Her mouth felt like cotton. “I—” “You are in the hospital. You took quite a bad spill.” “Hmm?” “You were hit by a car about two weeks ago. You had a concussion and have been in and out of it ever since.” “Two weeks ago?” she asked, horrified. “What day is it?” The nurse listed off a date mid-June. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Do you know what year it is? Who the prime minister is?” “Yes. I do, I think. I…” Rachel shook her head. It hurt. She winched in pain and the nurse put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, we will get the doctor. Everything will be clear then.” A doctor arrived what felt like hours later. He was a tall man, with smooth skin and a dark complexion. He rubbed his hands together as he spoke, clearly still feeling out her diagnosis for himself. “I have to admit, this is a surprise,” he said after listening to Rachel speak, listing off facts she was sure were not correct. “We expected you to wake up a long time ago. When you didn’t, we thought the worst.” He explained the state of her brain to her using large words that, ironically, her battered brain could not understand. There was swelling, pain, and memory lapses, along with her minor contusions and broken bones from being hit by a car. “You were lucky, all things considered.” “I don’t feel lucky,” she said, huffing. Her arm was racked with IVs that felt like too heavy jewelry. “Wouldn’t I not have been hit if I was lucky? Damn. Wasn’t I just walking?” “You were on your phone, apparently.” The doctor gave her more details of the event, but to Rachel’s shock, she had no idea what he was talking about. She could recall none of it.