Read an extract from My Cursed Vagina by Lally Katz

Start reading this heartfelt and incredibly funny memoir from Lally Katz, My Cursed Vagina.

Author’s Note

I was eight and three-quarter years old when we moved from Miami to Canberra. Soon after we arrived, I showed Megan, the girl who lived next door, my diary, in which I had written, ‘I love my mother, I love my father, I love my brother and I love myself.’

The next day none of the neighbourhood kids would talk to me. Finally, I asked this Lebanese kid, Fady, who I had a crush on: ‘Fady, what did I do?’

He looked away, like it was unbearable to lay his eyes upon me, and said, ‘I can’t believe you love yourself.’

I realised things were different in Australia.

I got over the self-love real fast. But I never got over showing people my diary.

This book is stories from my life over the past fifteen years.

The names of my exes, my family, some friends and some people I met in passing have been changed, to protect the identities of those who don’t want to show their diary to everyone.

The Life I Should Be Living

 I’m in New York. I’m thirty-two years old. It’s 2010.

I’m here on a Churchill Fellowship for playwriting, to spend time with different theatre companies and take what I learn back to Australia.

So far, though, I haven’t left my Airbnb. Just after I arrived the East Coast was hit with its worst snowstorm in decades. This city-stopping blizzard has turned the usually bustling New York into the inside of a snow globe.

It reminds me of my childhood, only I didn’t grow up with snow. We left New Jersey for Miami when I was three, and moved to Australia five years later. So it must remind me of someone else’s childhood.

I stare out the window of my Airbnb, trapped with my silent phone. Neither of the men I’m in love with on the other side of the world are messaging me: not the musician, not the cowboy. This whole apartment has become my heavy heart.

Being in here is like a forced meditation. In the snowflakes falling past the window, I’m beginning to see the pattern of my life. I do this to myself. Whenever I fall in love, I fall in love alone. Like the guy is just someone to dream into and then write a play about. It’s been great for my writing. But now I’m getting older. And lonelier. I want to change, but I don’t know how.

I look out into the reinvented New York, covered in snow. Maybe I can change too.

And then, the blizzard stops. I put on my snow boots. I’m an obsessive walker and I can walk this heartache away.

I don’t bring my wallet with me in case I get mugged. No ID, just my credit card, keys and eighty-four dollars in cash.

It crosses my mind that if I’m killed, there will be no way of working out how to contact my family in Australia. This worries me, but not as much as losing another passport does.

I don’t see anyone in the first five minutes of my walk. The snow has been ploughed on all the big streets, but a lot of the smaller streets are still blocked, trash cans and cars half covered, sidewalks and asphalt invisible. I walk across the East Village and onto 14th Street. It’s more populated, so there’s less chance I’ll get murdered.

I see a neon sign in a store window: Psychic Readings. I look through the window and see a woman sitting in an armchair, smoking a cigarette. She’s maybe my age, with dark hair.

I walk in.

‘I knew you’d come in here,’ she says.

This impresses me. She’s wearing an old T-shirt over leggings. Her fortune-telling

office is heavily heated, like everywhere in New York in winter. Under my feet a well-worn sun-and-moon rug collects fragments of her cigarette ash and the drips of snow from my boots. Dulled crystals wink from the walls.

‘How much to hear my fortune?’ I ask.

‘Well, that all depends how you want it.’ She has a thick New York accent. ‘You want your palm read it’s forty-five. You want the cards, it’s fifty-five. Or’—she half raises an eyebrow—‘you can get the works for eighty.’

‘I’ll take the works.’ It’s almost the exact amount of cash I have—it must be a sign. Plus, it’s obviously the best deal.

‘Take a seat.’ She nods to the armchair across from her and I sink down into it. A small coffee table sits between us. ‘What’s your name, darlin’?’

‘Lally. Which is short for Lalage—’

‘Lally, Cookie.’ She politely but firmly cuts me off.

‘Pleased to meet you, Cookie.’

She gives me a tight smile. ‘Now I’m gonna tell you everyting that I see. Good or bad. Are you prepared for this?’

‘Yes.’ I hope I am.

‘Gimme your hand, darlin’.’ She takes my palm, barely glances at it. ‘Listen carefully,’ she says in a fast monotone. ‘You got a good heart. But it is lonely. You have been givin’ but not receivin’ the good love that you want, the good love that you need. You got no serious health issues. Just one that’ll happen in the next ten years—’

‘Oh no. How can I stop it?’ I interrupt.

‘You can’t do a ting. But you will overcome it when it comes. Now, tink of two questions you wanna ask the cards.’

She spreads her tarot cards across the coffee table with the slick skill of a casino dealer.

‘Okay—how will my career go? And do you think that I’ll . . .’ I get embarrassed halfway through asking.

‘Romance?’ she asks knowingly. ‘You want to know if you’ll find love.’

‘Yes,’ I confess. ‘I want to know that.’

Cookie flips over a card. ‘Oh, that’s good. Your cards are very good. Your work is going to be very successful. I can see great things for your work. All the success you been wantin’ is comin’ your way. Money will never be a problem for you.’

I knew playwriting would be lucrative!

She flips another card. ‘In love you’re not lookin’ for a fuckaround— excuse my language. You’re lookin’ to settle, to be content, for tings to start working out for you.’

As she speaks, a soothing warmth fills me. She’s right. I do want to settle. I do want things to start working out. I don’t want to be lonely anymore.

She speeds through the rest. ‘Soon you is gonna meet your soulmate. He is gonna love you, care for you, not for your good looks, not for your good money, but for who you are and what you’re worth. You will meet him in the next year, you will be married and have three children. Two sons and one daughter.’

‘Three children. That’s a lot—’

‘You will have them!’ She’s not letting me off the hook. She and I both know that I came in here with longings.

‘I can really still have my career with three children and a husband?’ I’ve always had this fear that if I found love, like real love, and had a child, I’d lose myself as a writer. But three children—I never saw that coming. Maybe my future is more up for grabs than I’d realised?

‘Yes. You will have it all. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of is yours.’ Cookie nods with certainty. ‘But there is one thing standing in your way.’

‘What is it?’

‘You got a curse.’

When she says these words, I know instantly she’s right. I have a mantra I’ve repeated for as long as I can remember—like a deal my conscious mind keeps making with my subconscious: writing over love. And for my writing, the deal has worked. But now I see—it’s not a deal. It’s a curse. Maybe that’s why I don’t know how to change.

She leans towards me and places a reassuring hand on my knee. ‘What if I told you that I can get rid of it for you . . . tonight? That after tonight there would be nothin’ standing in between you and all your dreams? I can do that for you. I’d like to do that for you.’

My story has led me here to this moment, to Cookie. This is the way my life will change.

‘I can do that tonight—get rid of your curse—for only fourteen hundred dollars.’

‘Oh.’ The truth is I’m terrible with money. I’ve already spent most of the grant I’m travelling on.

‘You need to do it for your soulmate who will be your husband. For your three children. You owe it to them. You owe it to yourself.’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’ I think of telling the Churchill Fellows that I had to cut my trip short to pay off a curse.

‘Eleven hundred. I like you. I want to help you. I’ll do it for eleven hundred.’ Cookie smiles like the matter is settled.

‘That’s so kind of you . . . but I just can’t.’

‘Nine hundred,’ she snaps, her smile gone. ‘I can’t go lower than that. The candles alone are two hundred each. I gotta get three of ’em, light ’em in the church and pray for you. It’s a big amount of work and I got my daughter to think of.’

‘As a future mother of three children, I appreciate that . . . but I can’t afford nine hundred.’

‘Why don’t you look into your heart and tell me what you can afford,’ Cookie says reasonably.

‘I can’t go higher than two hundred dollars,’ I reply with finality.

We settle on three hundred. Cookie doesn’t take credit cards, so she suggests we go to the nearest Duane Reade pharmacy, where I will buy her some American Express gift cards as payment.

When we reach the corner, Cookie stays outside to smoke a cigarette and I walk through the sliding doors.

I love Duane Reade. It is filled with the candies of my childhood. It has all the shampoos and conditioners and Burt’s Bees products that I love, but much cheaper than I’m used to. They’ve got these coconut scented products that remind me of Miami: only $6.95, ten dollars cheaper than they are in Australia. It’s so beautiful in Duane Reade.

I get three one-hundred-dollar American Express gift cards and take them up to the register.

The young cashier looks confused. ‘You want three of these?’

‘Um . . . Yes, please.’

‘I’m sorry, this is a lot. I need to get my manager to authorise these.’ He leaves, and I wait awkwardly until he returns with the middle-aged manager. They’re whispering together.

The manager examines the vouchers. ‘So, you want all these?’

I nod nervously.

‘And how are you paying?’

‘Credit card.’ I hand him my card.

‘Can I see your ID?’ he asks.

‘I left it in my Airbnb because I can’t lose another passport. It’s a long story.’

‘I can’t let you pay by credit card for these without ID. There’s new rules because of all the money laundering.’ He narrows his eyes at me. ‘What do you want all these for anyway?’

By now, four other Duane Reade employees and eight customers in line have moved closer, clearly listening to our conversation.

‘To pay the psychic. She doesn’t take credit card,’ I tell him sheepishly. I point out to the street, where Cookie is partially visible, smoking.

‘Her,’ he huffs angrily. ‘She’s banned from this store. What are you trying to give her your money for? She’s a dangerous person. No, I ain’t gonna sell you these gift cards.’

‘But what do I tell the psychic?’

He shakes his head. ‘What are you goin’ to see a fortune teller for, anyway? She can’t tell you nothing about your life. There are no easy answers. That’s the journey of life, to work this stuff out for yourself. You gotta learn to make your own decisions.’

‘You’re very wise,’ I say to the manager of Duane Reade.

‘Thank you.’ And I head towards the door.

‘Good luck!’ calls out one of the other customers.

I walk back out into the street. Cookie stubs out her cigarette. ‘You got the gift cards?’

‘No. They wouldn’t sell them to me because I don’t have ID on me.’

‘How come you don’t got ID?’ She’s not happy.

‘I don’t know. I guess I should have been carrying it.’

‘Of course you should carry ID.’ Cookie looks at me like I’m an idiot.

‘Sorry.’

‘This is because of your negative energy. And now we gotta go all the way to CVS.’ She starts to walk.

I go to follow her but then look through the window of Duane Reade and see the manager watching me.

‘Um, I think I better go now, it’s late. I’ll come back on Monday.’

‘Not tomorrow?’

‘I’m seeing my grandparents in New Jersey tomorrow.’ Which is true.

She accepts this. ‘What time Monday?’

‘Four o’clock,’ I lie. I’ll be flying to Chicago Monday morning.

‘You got a passport, some kinda photo ID you want to leave with me in the meantime so I can begin work?’

‘No ID,’ I remind her, indicating my pockets.

She sighs, frustrated. ‘Okay, see you Monday. I’ll be waiting.’ She looks me straight in the eyes. ‘And remember, this curse ain’t goin’ nowhere ’til we remove it.’

I walk back down 14th Street, half feeling like I’ve escaped and half feeling like I’ve made a big mistake. Three hundred dollars to get rid of my curse is a bargain, considering her initial quote. Who knows when I’ll get this lucky again?

 Extracted from My Cursed Vagina by Lally Katz.

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My Cursed Vagina

by Lally Katz

A heartfelt and incredibly funny memoir about love, life and fortune.

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