Ms. Leo Gets Greedy in 2005
By Marni Soupcoff
Regular readers of this column will remember Ms. Leo, the discount psychic who has stepped in when the more celebrated Miss Cleo could not be found and has provided me with helpful New Year's predictions for the past two years. Sure, we all would have been more impressed and awestruck had a real celebrity like Miss Cleo graced Hot Flash with her presence, but Ms. Leo was always so much more, well, you know, cheap. It should also be recalled that, despite an annoying tendency to demand donuts in return for predictions, Ms. Leo has shown amazing accuracy. Two years ago, she called a perjury scandal at the New York Times long before anyone had ever heard the name Jayson Blair. And last year, her crystal ball foretold Barney Bush running around the halls of the White House for a second term.
That's why I sought out Ms. Leo again this year. Given my very limited budget, I figured she was my best hope for getting sound 2005 predictions for the price of a few deep fried Mars bars.
"My rates have gone up." That's the first thing Ms. Leo said to me when I visited her in her office, which this year is a window table at a local Starbucks. The spot lacks a bit of the mystic charm you'd expect from a psychic's digs, but she tries to dress it up a bit by strewing some beads over the chairs and the nearby "baristas wanted" sign. And she always sprinkles some raw sugar around the table to create the illusion of crystals. It's all a little depressing really, but beggar fortune-seekers can't be choosers, and besides, I was having a slight a hankering for a peppermint mocha with festive sprinkles.
Anyway, back to Ms. Leo. Before I had the chance to ask her whether former Connecticut Governor John Rowland would be sporting prison pinstripes in '05, she was demanding a venti extra hot gingerbread latte and a holiday cookie. "But that's like 15 dollars," I complained. "Think of all the wanga dolls you could buy with that if I even just gave you the cash."
Ms. Leo informed me that she didn't need any new wanga dolls. Her current ones had developed a taste for overpriced Starbucks pastries and wouldn't be able to deliver any good future dirt until they had consumed several peppermint and espresso brownies. The sad thing is that I gave in. What can I say? Good psychic help willing to work holidays is hard to find.
After plying Ms. Leo with every Starbucks confection I could find, and delivering her the requested latte, I meekly asked her what she saw happening in 2005. She replied that Bernard Kerik would be starting a new business completing customers' tax returns ("Want to save a bundle on your domestic help?"), and that Scott Peterson would, for unspecified reasons, suddenly find himself feeling incredibly boxed in. Ms. Leo went on to predict that Viktor Yushchenko, the newly elected Ukrainian president, would become the first politician ever to create an affirmative action program for poisoning sufferers. "I want to create a diverse Ukraine that embraces a diversity of Ukrainians," he'll tell a crowd next spring. "And that includes Ukrainians who have ingested arsenic or dioxin."
When I asked her about President Bush's judicial nominees (who would they be and would they be confirmed), Ms. Leo was somewhat less helpful. "I see a guy in black robes," she said with hesitation, "and I'm pretty sure he's carrying a gavel. Yeah, it's a gavel. But I could see a lot better with a peppermint hot chocolate in me."
I grudgingly fetched Ms. Leo her beverage, but she didn't have as much information as I would have hoped. She told me that 2005 would see Hillary Clinton hard at work on her 2008 Presidential campaign and would see John Kerry visiting a psychiatrist for treatment once he realized that a Scottish terrier puppy named Miss Beazley was now getting more news coverage than he was. She also predicted, with underwhelming foresight, that the conflict in Gaza would continue and that the Iraqi elections would be accompanied by significance violence.
"What about the business world?" I asked. "Should investors stop putting their money in pharmaceuticals given all the negative attention that prescription drugs have been getting? Will Wal-Mart have another bad Christmas?"
Ms. Leo looked me squarely in the eye.
"I don't like money talk," she said. "It interferes with the frequency of my aura."
"Oh sorry," I said, wishing this dislike for money discussions had manifested itself last year, when Ms. Leo was happily requesting and pocketing several of my fivers.
"But I'll tell you one thing," she said. "My wanga dolls are giving Starbucks a buy."
Assuming Ms. Leo keeps her office where it is, that's some good advice.
Marni Soupcoff's column appears on Monday at TAEmag.com.
