Page 32 of Sort of Seeing Someone

Our quiet post-crystal therapy haze gets interrupted moments later by Shereé’s cell phone ringing.

“It’s her,” she tells me. Her eyes big and wide.

“Who?”

“The event planner at the Cultural Center.”

“Answer it,” I say.

“This is Shereé speaking,” she says into the phone.

A moment later: “No way. Are you kidding me?”

A pause.

“Yes. We absolutely want it.”

Another pause.

“No, I don’t need to check with my fiancé. I’m positive.”

Another pause.

“Okay, that’s fine. I can be there in twenty minutes to sign the contract.”

A final pause.

“Great. Thank yousomuch. Buh-bye now.”

Shereé puts the phone down. A look of pure joy mixed with shock washes across her face.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she says. “The event manager said the couple canceled. New Year’s Eve is open!”

“Well not anymore,” I say. “Don’t you have somewhere to be in twenty minutes?”

“Shit, you’re right. I’ve got to sign that contract before they close for the day.”

Shereé stands up, slips her sunglasses back on, cinches her trench, adjusts her beret, and slides my crystal back across the table to me. Before leaving, she whispers:“I don’t know who you are…orwhatyou are…but you just made my wildest dream come true.”

I don’t know what I am either. But it feels good to have helped land that plane.

The door chimes on her way out asShereé leaves me alone in Sweet Baby’s to finish the rest of my cookie and the last of her brownie, as she instantly abandoned the carbs when the venue gave her the greenlight.

Sweet Baby’s is now swarming with new patrons, allGen-Zers, all scanning the place from wall to wall hoping they’re not too late for aShereésighting. It’s like spotting Batman in Gotham City. And when they realize she’s left by now, theystillget in line and order multiple pastries so that they, too, can have their Instagram moment just likeShereédid.

As thrilling as it was for her to secure her dream wedding, it was even more thrilling for me to have wound up spending a portion of my afternoon using crystal therapy to counsel a Chicago celebrity. Of all the people and all the places…what are the chances? Perhaps one of my new books will have a chapter on serendipitous meetings. But before I have a chance to dive into the literature, my phone distracts me with back-to-back Instagram alerts.

The first is something I definitely did not have on my Bingo card for the day: “@Sheree_in_the_Cityis now following you.” I screenshot the notification and save the image to my camera roll, promising to delete it later when the novelty of it all wears off.

The second is an alert that someone who isn’t following me has sent me aDM. I’m used to seeing these. In fact, muscle memory has me navigating to the request page and deleting the spam message about winning a free iPhone down to 2.6 seconds.

But this time, when I arrive to the screen, I don’t see the telltale signs of abot’sphoto and signature alphanumeric jumbled username. The avatar is of a decent-looking guy, but notsogood looking that it screamsTinder Swindler. And his handle seems to just be…normal: MrFixIt312. Lame, but normal.

I give in and read the message. But after the first sentence, I already wish I hadn’t.

Hi. You bumped into me earlier on Clark Street. I’m guessing that I have your bag and you have mine. Your credit card receipt is in here, and it has your name on it. There aren’t many ‘Moonie Millers’ on Instagram, and your picture looks like the girl who bulldozed me earlier. If you’re still in the Lincoln Park area, and you have my bag, I’ll be watching a football match at Tin Lizzie’s until about 4pm. We should probably trade back ASAP. Thanks.

No, no, no…don’t tell me,I think to myself, as I reach into the bag I’ve kept hidden between my feet on the floor this whole time and pull out hardcover number-one.

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