Page 61 of Sort of Seeing Someone

“See? Trying things you normally wouldn’t isn’t so bad, is it?”

“Is this a roundabout way of getting me to take you up on that crystal candle thingamajig? Because I might finally be ready to see what was in that goodie bag after all.”

“Too late, my friend. I gave the extra to Mr. Macnider for his wife and I’m sold out of supplies to make you an extra at the moment.”

He tosses his hands up in the air as if he’s found out the McDonald’s ice cream machine is broken again.

“You’re in luck though. I’ll be coming up with the next bestseller for this art show I got invited to on Saturday. You can be the first to test out whatever it is.”

“Art show?”

“Yeah, it’s a pre-holiday market. You should stop by. There will be all sorts of handmade goods—hot sauces, artisan soaps, cute stuff like that.”

“Where is it?”

“By the Blue Line stop in Bucktown. We’ll have the whole first floor of this artist loft space.”

“I live in Bucktown,” Ollie says. “And I’m off on Saturday. And I have a soft spot for cute little gifts.”

“Is that your Tinder bio?” I ask, as it dawns on me how perfect Bucktown suits him—kind of quaint, a little bit hipster, a tad precocious.

“Barring no unforeseen restoration planning meetings or emergencies at The Brockmeier, I should be able to swing by,” he says.

I catch myself smiling at Ollie. The last time we saw each other, I couldn’t get him to touch a piece of sage. Now he’s semi-committed to visiting my station at the Bucktown Holiday Market. Progress.

I snap myself out of it by reaching for the last fry. At the same time, he reaches for it, too. Our palms connect for just an instant, triggering a flash vision.

It’s the two of us…again. We’re in a bed making out. It’s not my room. It must be his apartment in Bucktown. Are we naked? The sheets are pulled up to my neck. Suddenly, he dips down below the sheets and…

“I’ll let you finish,” he says.

He’s talking about the fries.

Justthe fries, I tell myself.

18

Chapter Eighteen

“Angeline, it’s an emergency,” I say bursting through the doors of her Lincoln Park shop the next morning. She’s got a lavenderdiffuserpuffing on high speed and I sneeze twice before she can greet me back.

“If this is about thePaloSanto, I already told you. It’sbackorderedand I can’t get it for another three weeks.”

“No, it’s not that,” I say. “I need to reverse the curse of Exexveei.”

She stops stocking crystals and makes eye contact with me for the first time since walking in.

“First of all, quit calling it a curse,” she reminds me. “Secondly, what are you talking about?”

“You know when I put my palm against someone else’s, I can see a vision?”

“Duh. Yes. Classic Exexveei.”

“Okay, well I need a kill-switch.”

“And I need a lover who is twenty years younger than me with a penchant for doing housework. Doesn’t exist, sweetheart.”

“Well then how do I avoid visions that include my own self?” I ask.

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