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“Mine? @MoonieMiller. But you don’t have to tag me. I have like, fourteen followers.” Two are my sisters. One is Yas. The rest are Russian bots. I spare her all of those details.

“Is this you?” she asks, holding up her screen. My avatar is of me working at the front desk at Joe n’ Flow. Yasmin took it when she found out I didn’t have an Instagram account two years ago and demanded I set one up on the fly.

“Yup, that’s me.”

“Cool. Posted. By the way, that’s a great lip color on you. And here, this is for you.”

She slides one of the fresh fifties my way.

Cash flow , I can’t help but think about my intention coming true.

“What’s this for?”

“You are part of my post, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but you did all the work. You’re the…what is the word?”

“ Influencer . True, that I am. But you’re the kind soul who got me out of the public eye when I was in the throes of an almost very-public Menty B. So I owe you.”

Fair enough.

Shereé says as she takes a big bite of her cookie dough brownie.

“Damn this is good,” she says while chewing through the thick fudge. I take that as my cue to indulge as well.

“So about your Menty B,” I say, borrowing her words. “Care to talk about it?”

“It was about my wedding. Bryson—my fiancé—and I want to get married on December 31 st at the Chicago Cultural Center. It’s been my dream to have a New Year’s Eve wedding since I was a little girl and there’s no place more magical than the Cultural Center.”

The word magical rings in my ears as I squeeze my bag of books tighter between my feet on the floor.

“So what’s the problem?” I ask.

“I was so sure we were going to get it. Who has a wedding on a Tuesday, after all? So I got a little ahead of myself and was in Smitten picking out my invitations when the event manager at the venue called and said December 31 st is a no go.”

“Damn. How come? What did she say?”

“That New Year’s Eve is a coveted date no matter what day of the week it falls on and that of course it’s already booked.”

A part of me wants to ask… Did you mention you’re @Sheree_in_the_City?, but I am sure she already did. Hell, I saw her work herstatus in exchange for a free brownie. I’m positive she pulled the same card for her dream wedding venue without much success.

“What about another venue?” I suggest the obvious.

“No. I know the Chicago Cultural Center is the one the way I knew that Bryson was the one .”

All this talk about the one reminds of how Esther Higgins left our conversation back in Little Italy and I start to feel a pang of sadness.

Apparently, I had with Brodywhat Shereé has with Bryson, and I let it go like dirty dishwater.

In an effort to turn my emotional tide, I remind myself that my second chance is coming, or so she said.

I take a quick look around the bakery to see if maybe Brody tracked my location and in an unprecedented romantic move, flew back to Chicago to surprise me right here, right now and beg for us to be the power couple of my California dreams. But the only guy on the premise is a burly, JasonMomoa look-alike who appears to work for the company who replaces their entryway rugs a few times a week.

He is the antithesis of Brody. Plus, he’s sporting a gold wedding band.

“Can you secure it for next year?” I ask, humbly returning to the conversation.

“Next year? No. Impossible. I’ve already got Stephanie Izard from Girl & The Goat locked in for the catering.

Goose Island is doing all of our beer for free, same with City Winery for the red, white, and bubbly.

Bryson’s uncle is friends with Dr. Dre , who’s committed to doing our music.

And the icing on the cake, at least for me, is that Amina Goldberg said yes to sending me a custom couture, blush-pink, princess ballgown with her gratis as long as I post the shit out of it ahead of next year. A free Amina Goldberg , Moonie !”

“That’s fantastic!”

I have no idea who Amina Goldberg is.

“This is the dress of my dreams. Who knows if it will be in style in a year? Another reason I need to secure my wedding for this New Year’s Eve or I’ll have to start completely over with an entirely new vision.”

When she says the word vision, I’m instantly reminded of an easy way I could check to see if this dream wedding will become her reality. I could just hold her hand, close my eyes, see what I see, and report back.

But, alas, Angeline freshly drilled it into me that this “gift” comes with a great responsibly to understand it.

I’m not sure going around palm reading astranger who is popular on the internet and advising her about the single most important day of her life while hopped up on sugar is the definition of responsible .

“I have an idea,” I say, wanting and willing to give something else a try.

In my purse, I pull out the rutilated quartz. The last time I touched it, I was with Yas and it was a full moon. It has to still have some of those super powers, right? Plus, Yasmin said it was for goal setting and achieving. I think that can work here…

“What’s that?” Shereé asks.

“It’s rutilated quartz, charged by a full moon.”

Shereé lets out a little laugh. I don’t blame her. This sounds so silly.

“Okay. And? What am I supposed to do with that ?”

“Put it in your hand,” I instruct her, sliding it her way.

“Now what?” she asks, clutching the rock.

I wish I could reach into my bag and grab my new book about crystals.

I’d look up rutilated quartz in the index, turn straight to the page about it, and give her all the formal direction she needs.

But I can’t fly that freak flag right now.

So instead, I’ll have to dig deep in my memory for what Yasmin told me about this one and do my best to recite the directions from what’s stored in my heart.

I take a deep breath and begin.

“See the gold flecks?” She nods. “Close your palm tightly and shut your eyes. Think about your ultimate goal with this whole Cultural Center wedding date fiasco.”

“I want the couple who has it on the 31 st to call off their wedding. Immediately.”

It’s a weird goal, and a little dark if we’re being honest, but Shereé is sure about it, which is all that matters. So I continue providing instructions like I am air traffic control.

“Okay. Stay focused and imagine that each of those gold flecks in the crystal represents that goal. Imagine them leaving the crystal and absorbing into your body through your palm. Picture the gold flecks, charged with your goal, coursing through your veins from head to toe, infusing your body with a new reality that’s right around the corner, waiting to become yours. ”

As I close out on the instructions to Shereé, I wish that Yasmin was sitting here listening to me lean into the woo-woo like I never left Ocean Beach.

“Can I open my eyes now?” Shereé asks.

“Of course,” I say,not really sure. “How do you feel?”

“Amazing,” she says, the way you gratify a massage therapist after a sixty-minute rub down.“I feel...calm. Weirdly optimistic. A little lightheaded even.”

It’s working , I think to myself. That or, it could be the sugar high setting in.

“Great. Now just keep meditating on that.”

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 you so much. 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…or what you 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, all Gen-Zers , all scanning the place from wall to wall hoping they’re not too late for a Shereé sighting.

It’s like spotting Batman in Gotham City.

And when they realize she’s left by now, they still get in line and order multiple pastries so that they, too, can have their Instagram moment just like Shereé did.

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_City is 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.