A swirl of hazy colors inside the crystal ball gradually sharpens into focus until Robbie is watching what looks like a 3D movie or hologram of a skinny boy with bright blond hair is dancing in a pair of baby-blue briefs. Robbie wrinkles his nose with distaste and looks up at the fortune teller. "What the heck is this?", Robbie asks.
Madame Davage smiles and calmly informs Robbie, "It is your future."
Robbie laughs uneasily and glances back at the moving image as he feels a tightness in the pit of his stomach. The room in which this kid is dancing does look remarkably like Robbie's own bedroom, although the decor looks radically different. Suddenly, the dancer stops moving, breathing heavily from his exertion, and brushes his platinum bangs back to reveal...Robbie's face.
Robbie leaps from his seat, knocking the chair backwards. His eyes wide, his pulse racing, he points to the crystal ball and demands to know, "How did you do that? How did you get pictures of my bedroom? How did you put my face on that guy?"
Madame Davage crosses her arms across her heavy bosoms and says, "If you did not wish to see the future, you should not have entered my tent."
Robbie staggers, clutching his head and looking for the flap where he entered the tent. His nerves are rattled by what he has seen. Not because he doesn't believe it, but because his secret self has been revealed. He has known for a while that he was gay, but has done everything possible to keep people from knowing the truth, out of fear that he wouldn't be accepted. He has maintained his quiet, conservative demeanor and not said anything to anyone, not even his closet friend Caroline. But sometimes, when he has the house to himself, he'll strip down to his underwear (tighty-whities, not the blue bikini that he saw in the crystal ball), crank up some dance music and let loose. No one on earth knew about this, yet somehow this gypsy has video? How is this possible, Robbie wonders. Yet he is also heartened, as he realizes how happy his bleach-blond doppelganger looked, how free and uninhibited he appeared. If that truly is his future, Robbie thinks, maybe it won't be so bad.
Robbie finds the tent flap, turns to the fortune teller and says, "Thank you."
"My pleasure, young man," Madame Davage says as she folds his five dollars and slips it into a silk pouch. "Enjoy your life."
Robbie smiles and is ready to leave when a thought stops him. He turns back toward the table in the center of the tent and pulls another five from his wallet. "What can you see about my friend Caroline?"