Agnes looked at the slip of paper as if it were sodden with spittle, then at the wizened, jaundiced man perched on a stool on the other side of the table. "That's it? I paid fifty bucks for this?"

Beside her, Madge spoke. She had denture breath, which hung around in the air the way those little gnats cover festering peaches. Agnes loved her dearly, but wished she wouldn't speak, not on a hot day like this, not after standing in line for two hours.

"That's what he does, Aggie."

Madge had called her Aggie since fourth grade. Surely thirty seven years of that was enough. "Agnes," she corrected, for the zillionth time. Her tone added that she no longer expected to be heard on that score.

Madge patted a curl of shocking pink hair back into place. "What does it say?"

"It says '1982.'"

The banner above the booth, rather a nook between The Three-Legged Lady and The Incredible Card-Playing Monkey, read SPOOKUM DOODLES, innocuously enough. Carnival sideshows always had hooks, and this one, in scarlet block letters along the bottom of the banner, said, "Your Fate Foretold While You Wait." They'd waited, Agnes and Madge, schoolchildren once again, albeit in their late forties, nudging and winking at the muscular young men who drove the stakes and managed the machinery, and dreaming improbable [at this age] dreams.

Madge had come the year before, just to watch [of course]. Spookum Doodles were blunt but subtle, she'd assured Agnes, on the bus. Last year Gilbert Bertleson got a drawing of a cabbage, and spent the summer avoiding Chinese food, Irish cuisine, sauerkraut, certain areas of the produce section in the greengrocer's, and finally choked to death at a pool party, one of those little affairs where you go and listen to someone speak of investment opportunities in exchange for a steak dinner and some recreation. Choked to death on a Brussels sprout. And Gretchen Sobinski blew her fifty on a drawing of a mouse, which she took seriously enough to have even the traps and the d-Con removed from the basement, and on the fourth of August she tried to click START on her computer and failed to see the bare wire tugged free by the cat the night before.

"So I'm supposed to have died twenty years ago?" Agnes groused. "Some prediction that is." The man of many wrinkles gazed back at her impassively. He'd done his bit. Looked at Agnes, closed his eyes for ten minutes, picked up the pen and scrawled the number on the slip of paper, which Barney the Barker handed to Agnes with a butler's bow and a, "Your Fate, Madam."

"C'mon, Aggie," said Madge, snagging her by the elbow. "You got what you got."

"No. I want a refund."

The old man might have blinked. Barney said, "Madam, please. There are others in line."

Agnes's voice rose in pitch, like the Vienna Boys' Choir in _O Holy Night_. "But what am I supposed to do with this? What does it mean? It can't be the year. What is it, the last four of someone's Social Security Number? Or is it---no, Madge, let go of me, this isn't right---"

"Madam, please."

And finally Agnes allowed Madge to lead her away.

"It could be anything," Agnes muttered. "The switchboard extension of the sales rep who sends the repairman out. The number of the bus that hits me. Hell's bells, Madge, what am I supposed to avoid?" Suddenly she stopped, and smiled, and clucked in annoyance. "Maybe he's wrong. He could be wrong. Not everyone he sells doodles to is dead."

"Yet," said Madge, drawing her to a white wicker table mercifully in the shade.

"Now what? We're going to order nineteen dollars and eighty two cents worth of pastries, and the waiter who brings the check is going to poison my tea?"

"If it will make you feel any better, Aggie, we can request separate checks."

"Agnes," she sighed.

* * *

By the end of the week Agnes was exasperated, frustrated, and irregular. She was taking this too seriously--it was a sideshow freak, nothing more, and Bertleson and Gretchen had succumbed to bad luck. Stuff happens [she couldn't bring herself to utter the more vulgar phrase used by her nephew]. Hell's bells.

Still---

She made certain to spend over twenty dollars at the grocery store on Thursday, adding quickly to the cashier, "No no no, no coupons, not today." The check number was 6716; she felt safe enough tendering it. She poured through the address book in the phone stand for potentially fatal numbers, and found none; she might retain her friends without fear. She scoured the apartment for serial numbers, bar codes, and those little Checked-By slips of yellow paper you find in the pockets of new shirts and slacks. Nothing.

But there were other things beyond her control. Asteroids--didn't they name those for the years in which they were discovered? What did they call the ones that came close to the Earth? Earth-grazers, right? After a restless Thursday night, she padded outside to the bus stop in the morning, stepping around the hoisting crane at the corner of her apartment building, and caught the Route 22, bus number 529 [only three digits] to the library at 1822 [oh, that's close] Maple Street, located the astronomy section--fortunately the Dewey Decimal System was limited to three digits, although there might be four following the decimal point, and she would have to be careful. It took two hours to locate all the references, but she learned that no 1982 Earth-grazers were due to return for many years.

Later that day the Blankenships [from Takes-Us, Ah'm Will and this here's mah wahf Darlene, and that there young'un headed up the stairs is Will Junior, he's done enrolled in soccer and piano lessons and karate so we can keep him outta trouble this summer] began moving into the apartment three floors above Agnes. Dust long hidden in cracks between the baseboards and the walls rose with the vibrations of heavy lifting--beds, a sofa, crates of books [Darlene's teaching English at the middle school next semester. Say, y'all like hick'ry barbecue?], the entertainment hutch, some gym equipment. Agnes bore through the noisy distractions with the stoicism of a Buddhist monk. She was feeling more secure the past few days, in possession of nothing related to the number 1982 which might cause her death. She did not lower her guard, however. Only eternal vigilance could deny entry to an offensively-integered object. The task of survival seemed simple enough.

Late Saturday morning she phoned Madge. "I'm still alive," she declared, biting into a kolach. Channel 9 took a brief break from a game show for the local weather, which declared the heat spell over, at least temporarily. Agnes hit the mute button and spread the newspaper before her on the table. "I'm looking at sales."

"Don's got football all day. I could get out of here, he wouldn't notice until dinnertime."

A massive shadow passed her window, and Agnes started. Her first thought was that she had misinterpreted astronomical data, and Earth-grazer 1982-Theta was about to make an unexpected appearance in her living room. But it was nothing more substantial than Junior Blankenship's baby grand, hoisted up seven floors by the crane outside the apartment.

Agnes's heart lurched, and missed a beat. "How much does a piano weigh, Madge?"

"I'm sure I've no idea, Aggie. Why?"

Agnes told her.

Madge barked a laugh through the phone that rang Agnes's ears. "Spookum Doodles are supposed to be subtle, Aggie, not obscure. You're not going to be hit by a car weighing 1982 pounds. Or by a rhinoceros. Or by a piano. That's not how it works."

"Did you ever buy a doodle?"

"No, of course not. I didn't think you would, either. I thought you'd chicken out."

"Some friend."

"Wanna go shopping, friend?"

"I'll catch the bus, meet you at Farrell's?"

"Lunch first, then shop. You always did have your priorities straight, Aggie."

"Agnes."

* * *

By the time Agnes dressed, it was almost noon. She could just catch the 12:05. Her rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the bare floor of the hallway as she hastened toward the elevator...and paused. What was the capacity of an elevator? The doors separated to a bell of arrival, and Agnes peered inside. It was empty. Unless she had eaten too many kolaches, she was safe within. She rode it down to the lobby and stepped outside into the noon sunlight.

The bus stop was devoid of people, which gave Agnes a clear view of traffic. The bus itself was probably safe, but she studied license plates, taxi numbers, and advertisements, just in case. The shadow looming on the sidewalk off to her right piqued her curiosity, and she looked up. The Blankenship's piano was about to be tugged through the living room window, now that the panes had all been removed. Some people went to extraordinary lengths to make sure their children wanted for nothing, but this seemed to Agnes to verge on the extreme. Surely the boy's tutor owned a piano.

The bus approached, and Agnes studied the various sets of numbers on it for portents of doom. Route 22, check. Bus number 339, check. License number 22751 [city official], check. She fished the coin purse from her handbag and pried out the exact change from the mass of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies therein. A quarter slipped free, and sang along the concrete just as the bus pulled up to the stop. With a cry of dismay Agnes gave pursuit. The coin rolled on its edge in a circle and clattered to a stop that was punctuated by Agnes's shoe.

"Got you, you little bugger," she said. As she bent to retrieve it, she noticed its date.

Around her the shadow began to grow.