It was at this old house where the boys would construct all matter of things…go-carts and medieval weaponry made out of old tin cans, scraps of wood, and aluminum foil. They were really rather industrious when they wanted to be. They constructed more than just material things; within that dilapidated structure, they formed deep attachments to one another, and as is often the case when reaching such a state of attachment, they had inadvertently shared with each other the sad circumstances of their lives. Not all was sadness of course, lest one think otherwise. There was plenty of merriment as well. But in less happier times, just as some opt to drown their sorrows in a tub of Rocky Road, the fledglings instead sought the comfort, curves, and guidance of Madame Lola.

Lola, whose real name was Josephine Stepanenko, was a thirty-something divorcee with two children who attended the local parish school. ‘Josephine’ I suppose, was too plain a name for her. ‘Lola’ sounded much more exotic. She was a rare beauty who wore her clothes two sizes too small, and was unbefitting of a less colorful name. Her bust just spilled out of her tops, and she used her curves much like earnest women, pitifully lacking in good looks, used their wits. She was quite successful at manipulating these well-worn attributes to her advantage, making the absence of any defined intellect a non-issue. Her hair was a nice healthy shade of auburn, forming nice spirals at the ends of her long tresses. Those of the righteous variety were unmoved by her wiles and regarded her as unfit to keep their society, but to the fledglings, she was in every aspect a flawless beauty, the epitome of muliebrity. Her critics were obviously jealous, physically appalling creatures; at least that is how it seemed to the boys. They, as inexperienced as they were in the ways of the world, thought her a wise woman. She seldom gave this impression to anyone else, but you see, the boys were awed by her as she appeared to have been gifted with the talent to read tea leaves, which was quite enough to entice the boys’ devotion and sense of wonder. She wasn’t always accurate, but most people felt that Lola came pretty damn close, which was more than anybody expected at a discounted fee. She made it a point never to read her own leaves, and she stated time and time again that she didn’t feel she could be objective enough about herself to get an accurate reading. It seemed to be a valid assertion as Lola was always in one bind after another, such as the time she foolishly began seeing a man, the worst of libertines, who was no more interested in her than in her children. The whole town buzzed about her having given the man a concussion, the only statistic being the tiffany lamp that had once made its home on her mantle. She came as a rabid dog in defense of her children, and while her initial judgment was indeed poor, she briefly earned the respect of all of her worst critics for guarding her children’s innocence despite her error. That one incident was the subject of nearly every chat at Peggy’s Beauty Salon for well over a week. Now, surely Lola could have avoided such, or any, encroaching pitfalls if she had had the most useful gift of self-prophecy. She seemed as totally innocent and clueless as the boys in this respect, and perhaps this, more than anything else, best explained their acquaintance.

Every now and then, Madame Lola, who lived right on Sutter Road herself, would receive furtive impromptu visits from a spattering of the decent folks in town, and whenever this would happen, Lola was courteous enough to draw all of the curtains shut in order for them to save face. That was Lola, accommodating to all—even to those who thought nothing of her. But regardless of how she was perceived by most folks, she was a true gem to the fledglings. They saw past her bright dizzying patterned linoleum and generally scatter-brained ways—both of which were often cited as valid reasons to discredit her soundness. The boys defended her honor at every turn. Well, at least as much as they could without igniting any suspicion and controversy. Mothers were always hypersensitive to any mention of her name. She was, after all, more than just a mentor to these boys. It was through her that the boys would first sample the beauty of the female form.

The fledglings, wishing to add a little tradition to their existence, had concocted a secret knock so as to know when one of their own was coming to call. Lola, although unequivocally not a young boy, was made an honorary member of the gang and she was in on the secret knock right from the start. In fact, it was Lola that had planted in them the whole notion. The boys would wait until there was no one around and then lumber up to Madame Lola’s back door, use the secret knock, and wait for what seemed like an eternity for her to excuse herself from her customers. She called them her boys. She loved them dearly, perhaps even a little too much, and on days when Madame Lola had no customer to tend, she would graciously invite one of them in for a snack of herself—always a welcome prospect for the fortunate boy. She was a real card, coyly sitting him at her table, motioning for him to prepare his own tea. Lola would get devilish pleasure out of the clanging of the service as he nervously poured himself a cupful of steaming water. The other boys would stand goofily outside her window, smiling and jeering to themselves, knowing full well what Madame Lola would divine from the cup. After sloshing around its contents, Lola would start the reading, intermittently spouting off “Oohs,” and “Aahs,” giving the impression that there was something of great importance to be determined by the haphazard placement of the tea leaves within it. The peeping Toms, in a fit of guffawing, were validated in their own fortune-telling abilities, as Lola would lead the nervous boy away and into her bedroom. They had been correct after all. Lola had obviously foreseen this encounter. And what an encounter she provided! Boys always emerged from Madame Lola’s a more solemn, close-knit crew. For despite their many differences, they all had Lola in common, and what a nice commonality she was!

Lola was all for equal opportunity in these coital encounters, as she didn’t even bat an eye as she lured Little Anthony into her bedroom. The short stocky boy’s jaws dropped as he was escorted in to a cloud of perfume and pink satin. Standing, his face happily ensconced against her bosom, the boy could hardly contain his excitement. His breath hot, projecting warmth against her skin. Now, it’s important to relate that the boy, not yet six-teen, had the worst case of adolescent acne anyone had ever seen; yet as it seemed, Lola took no notice. Poor Anthony emerged from that room, totally mistaken about what this would mean for his future sexual prospects, as it was common knowledge among the fledglings that no girl their age would ever, or had ever, given him the time of day. But even knowledge of that didn’t mar Anthony’s expectations, not after that day.

Billy Popek was the most senior member of the fledglings, and as such, was well respected among his peers. He was a thin, undernourished, tall kid with an aquiline nose. His hair, always unkempt, formed matted tufts atop his head. He wasn’t much to look at, but he was decidedly Madame Lola’s favorite fledgling. Not that this was obvious to anyone but herself, but he was. Lola had decided to take her time with him, gently leading him deeper and deeper under her spell, and she got pleasure out of toying with him. Despite his lanky, awkward look, there was potential in Billy. If his father gave any indication of what Billy was to become, there was plenty of potential for him indeed.

Mr. Popek towered over most folks. His stature was almost imposing, and if it were not for his kind, handsome face, he would be quite intimidating. Mr. Popek worked as a foreman at the local textile factory where Lola had once worked, cutting the frayed edges off of the appliqués produced there. He was always well groomed and wore nice well-pressed suits. You’d think he was an entrepreneur or someone of some great pomp and privilege if you were like most people and looked only at the exterior. But a closer look at Mr. Popek would make it clear that he wore a blue collar. His hands were lined with scars, forming meandering streams on his skin, and his nose, which may have at one time resembled his son’s, was noticeably broken at least once, way back when he was an adolescent himself. His speech was peppered with slang and his grammar was atrocious. Nevertheless, Mr. Popek was so confident and mountainous a man that any of his unseemly traits would just drop by the wayside, practically unnoticed. The younger Popek looked up to his father, idolizing him as most young boys do their dads. To Billy, there was no more judicious, or worthy man who had ever walked the earth. He was not the only one who thought so either.

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“So what do you see?” asked Billy. He sat impatiently in the nicked fruitwood chair, his sneakers squeaking against the loud checked linoleum floor as he shifted to a more comfortable spot. The chair frame seemed to be coming apart from years of hosting a variety of bottoms—big ones, fat ones, bony ones. He glanced over his left shoulder and saw that Harry, another fledgling, likewise inexperienced, was motioning to him right outside the window. He smirked and ignored his friend’s silly game of charades as there were more pressing matters at hand. He could see him there still, out of the corner of his eye, hopping around in a tizzy, trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to pry Billy’s attention off of Lola’s breasts. Billy repeated his question, as Lola, apparently in some sort of cosmic state of awareness, hadn’t heard him the first time.

“Gimme a minute sweetie, this ain’t no race.” Lola focused her attention back onto the cup. Wayward locks of her hair kept cascading down, obstructing her view. She was visibly annoyed, finally giving up on the innate ability of her ear to act as dock to her crowning glory.

“Well?” Billy prodded, his eyes perked up in anticipation.

“Well, it says plainly right here that you’re in for a big surprise tonight.” Lola winked and leaned over, testing the elasticity of her top in keeping her mounds contained. She placed her hand on Billy’s knee, and gave it a squeeze.

“That’s it? What kind of a surprise? What else does it say?” Billy asked incredulously, straightening himself up in his chair, appearing much taller now. He was hoping for more detail, perhaps maybe even a stroll over to the bedroom. But Lola wasn’t one to spell things out clearly, and especially not on busy Monday afternoons. She was, in all things, an enigma. She, not unlike all self-professed psychics it seemed, delighted in leaving matters open-ended.

“That’s for you to find out sweetie. I ain’t telling. Won’t be a surprise if I did.”

The doorbell rang. Another customer. Lola stood up, grabbed a bobby pin off the counter and secured the disobedient strands of her hair firmly onto her head. She smiled at Billy, caressing his face with her eyes as she began to exit the room.

“Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you around then?” Billy smiled wryly. “Tonight?”

Lola flirtatiously glanced over her shoulder, having heard nothing that he had said, and gave him a wink as she always did. Tonight it was.

She sauntered in, her moves well choreographed, and went about dimming the lights. She started to undo her hair, pulling out pins and laying them gently on her bureau. She was briefly taken back to her youth. She had been quite lovely by anyone’s standards. She had married young, against her father’s better judgment, to a man that didn’t quite appreciate her as much as he should have. But seeing as Lola was a woman of boundless understanding, she accepted her lot in life without complaining. Years of living in a loveless marriage steeled her resolve to do as she wished with members of the opposite sex, caring little for their emotional welfare, and only for her own selfish appetites. She quite liked manipulating their destinies, and derived great pleasure from reading into their leaves her very own desires, in that way ensuring that she would always play a part in them. Looking dreamily at her reflection, she noticed how time had begun to take its toll. Her eyes, once vibrant and full of life, contained a hint of sadness, and she shook it away, put on a weak smile while still vainly admiring her beauty, and turned toward her bed, averting her eyes from meeting his.

“Do you promise never to leave me?” She felt instantly ashamed for her words. She had betrayed herself with that query.

Bill stood by the door, looking haggard. Lola glanced up at him knowing she had lost him forever. He held his hat in his hands, and seemed in a hurry to leave. No longer a glimpse of his usually blithesome self, he stood there, his face ashen, unable to resurrect his will after their encounter that evening.

“It was never supposed to go this far. I’m married. I have a son. You know that.” He turned to leave. His silhouette casting a long, distorted shadow against the wall, he was now out of her field of vision. She couldn’t speak. Bill leaned over the table and drank the last bit of his tea before going back out into the cold. In a matter of seconds, the sound of the door opening and closing startled her. She sat, her back towards the bedroom door, tears streaming silently down her face, her newly formed wrinkles dictating their route down her cheeks. She wanted him more than she had wanted any man. It was all sport for her of course, and with his being one of her most impressive conquests, losing him hurt a little more than she had anticipated.

She soon made her way into the kitchen. There was a chill draft coming in through the window and she quickly halted its entry by stuffing a dishtowel into the crevice that had invited in the cold. She was startled by a figure standing out past the bushes. She caught her breath. There was no question…it was Billy. Oh God, why on earth was he there? Had he seen his father? She had, in her negligence, forgotten to afford herself the same level of privacy she willingly let out for free for her best customers. She quickly averted her eyes, not wishing for him to know that he had been spotted. She held up her hand and caught hold of the shades, pulling them down to conceal her shame. It would pass. She was never one to entertain a sordid thought for too long. In her kitchen, she turned to take in her solitude. Not a trace of a lasting male presence would ever flower in her home. There was no hint of masculinity left within its walls, and she acutely felt its absence. Approaching the table, she saw that Bill had finished his tea. She sat down, occupying herself with divining from it. But she was not to garner much from this cup, at least not anything that she did not wish to see.

Minutes earlier, behind the bushes that were now devoid of nearly all their leaves, Billy glanced up to meet Lola’s blank gaze through the window. It struck him just how much older she appeared. It occurred to him that he had never seen her so plainly, the stark bright lights of the street lamp illuminating to him what he had been unable to see before. Billy looked away in the direction his father took several minutes before, and when he glanced back at Lola’s window, he found that she had already shut him out. His father had left in a hurry, with only a fraction of himself intact—and he was that fragment, the innocence and the judiciousness the older Popek had apparently abandoned the moment he had entered into Lola. The boy turned away, suddenly not caring to go through with his visit, his head swimming with questions. He instinctively, as if in a blur, made his way to the fledglings’ sanctum, where he stumbled upon his comrades, happy to see him. They had been mischievously scheming a prank against one of their members. The boys looked over at Billy, quite aware from his countenance that something of great seriousness had happened, yet didn’t press him for information. They just continued their plotting as Billy sat there, finding superficial comfort in the inanity of it all, relishing being just fifteen.

As he walked the long way home, he looked up at the stars, lost in their beauty for a brief moment. He could easily make out Cassiopeia, and for a while he was transfigured, thinking of the Queen herself, and how beautiful she must have been to have inspired such a sentence, for surely there was truth to her claims of being so fair, for why else would the sea nymphs be so quick to anger. His thoughts, shapeless and fleeting, revisited the fair Lola and her warm inviting bosom, sitting seductively, quietly sipping her Darjeeling. But she would not comfort him this time. She was a partaker, not someone sitting idly by as life just happened to people, and as he remembered, she had always found it difficult to be objective in all matters that concerned her. Her story, in essence, was just as much a mystery as his own, especially now that their lives had become so commingled.

All remained unspoken, his secret. His father never learned of what his son had witnessed that evening. He had in fact, been sheltered from the account of how his only son had grown up that night, having been made privy to his father’s vulnerability for the first time. Yet despite this awakening, Billy did not despise his father; he pitied him. And so he comforted him with his silence. His mother, by all means a proud woman, existed, as if for no other reason than to tend to her little family. She remained invincibly ignorant of her husband’s infidelity and, quite expectedly, to her son’s affinity for tea, and Billy would not have wanted it any other way.

It was a long time before Lola ever caught a glimpse of her favorite fledgling again. She smiled wantonly at him one day as they quite accidentally brushed up against each other in a crowd at the annual spring street fair put on by the Knights of Columbus. She had been engaged in a conversation with Mrs. Cortez, wife of one of the fair organizers, when he had abruptly nodded his acknowledgment of her and proceeded on his way, happily distancing himself from her. She stood there, watching as he walked away, half expecting him to turn to gaze at her as he was once wont to do. Mrs. Cortez, thoroughly entertained with herself, barely took any notice of Lola’s blatant lack of interest in her prattle. And as he walked away, Billy felt stronger and more self-assured, not willing to further compromise his future to this machiavellian prophetess. He looked up, tiring of the sight of his feet, and caught a glimpse of Sophie. She was standing by the concession stand, looking fresh and beautiful in her Sunday best, her long hair pulled back. Billy smiled shyly as he walked to greet her, her warmth drawing him in. It was at that moment that he realized that he rather didn’t like tea very much after all.