Page 22

Emily Bond

Sort of Seeing Someone

Even though there were other stations and activities at the party—I heard about a mobile escape room, a gourmet macaroni and cheese bar, and an exotic petting zoo—it seemed like all of The Brockmeier’s employees made an effort to visit my table specifically.

Mr. Macnider’s wife even made an appearance, asking for a “selfie with the witch.”

Misnomers aside, seeing people supremely excited to take part in my DIY smudge stick station—not to mention, wiping my collection of rose petals and lavender flowers clean—validated this new direction I knew my business could go: in-person events.

And I can’t wait to explore that more. Plus, I already saw a bunch of attendees unbox their candles, take photos, and upload them to social media, which sent a steady stream of new order alerts to my phone all throughout the evening.

But despite all the traffic to my table, when the lights come up in the room, I’m still left with one unclaimed gift bag meant for a certain someone who seemingly has it out for Moon Batch Apothecary.

I set it aside and plan to give it as a duplicate to Mr. Macnider before I check out of the presidential suite in the morning. I’m sure his wife will appreciate getting an extra candle and then I’ll really feel like I earned his generous cash tip.

“Need a hand with anything?” Ollie reappears by my table, drinking the last sips of what looks like a watered-down Manhattan.

“No thanks. As you can see, there’s not much to pack up here. Just this,” I say, picking up his unclaimed gift bag and motioning it his way.

“Have you been holding on to that especially for me?” he asks.

“I haven’t been holding on to anything for you . Mr. Macnider told me to bring one for everyone—you are part of ‘everyone.’” I attempt to minimize him the way he has done to me thus far. “Do you want it, or not?”

Ollie smiles at me as he ponders the question, a version of Red Rover, Red Rover, let Ollie come over.

As he contemplates accepting the party favor, I notice things like his straight, super-white teeth and how marble-like his bright blue eyes really are.

He’s got a close-trimmed beard that matches the color of his sandy blonde hair and frames out his full pink lips.

On the whole, his facial features are softer than his personality.

He may be an ass, but it hits me how good looking he is right in this very moment.

“I appreciate the offer, but this stuff just isn’t for me.”

“I’m not asking you to be part of a pyramid scheme. It’s a free candle. You can give it to your girlfriend,” I insist, reminding him of the benign nature of the bag’s contents.

“I don’t like candles. They’re a fire hazard. And I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Considering he’s a handsome version of a wet blanket, I’m not shocked by his single status.

“Do I need to do anything with this table? Move it anywhere? Break it down?” I ask him.

“No, my banquets team will handle that. You’re officially off the clock, Ms. Miller. Thank you for your service.”

He salutes me. Is he mocking me? Or was that sort of adorable?

“Great. Because I need to sit down,” I lament. “Standing for three straight hours in combat boots isn’t for the weak.”

“You haven’t sat down in the last three hours?”

“Do you see a chair anywhere?” I say with a hint of sass as I gesture to my set up.

“Have you eaten? Drank anything?”

I shake my head no. I want to remind him that I’ve been, you know, busy helping the other forty-nine people who expressed genuine interest in my presence here tonight.

“Let me help you get a meal.”

“Nice of you to suddenly care about whether the witch has had her brew today, but I can fend for myself. I’ll get room service.”

“In-room dining is done for the evening. And—”

He takes a hard swallow and looks away for just a moment before returning to our conversation.

“—I owe you a bit of an apology. You’re right.

The way I spoke to you earlier was rude.

Not to mention, The Brockmeier could dismiss me from this project if Mr. Macnider found out I disrespected his guest of honor and I’m trying to save up for a house.

So, allow me to make it up to you. Food is the way to everyone’s heart in America, isn’t it? ”

I ponder the question.

“You’re lucky I’m starving.”

“Follow me,” he says, waving me on.

I walk behind Ollie through the very passageway he told me my table was blocking when I first got there to set up.

We travel through the fire door and down a back access stairwell that’s lit with harsh fluorescent bulbs.

Once out of the stairwell of doom, we pop out on the main floor right in the middle of the hotel bar— Red’s .

“Sorry, Revere closes at nine,” Ollie says of the hotels’ Michelin-starred restaurant.

“That’s okay, I wasn’t exactly planning on eating a three-course meal.”

“So elevated bar food will suffice?”

“I’m not familiar with that cuisine, but I see someone eating French fries over there, which is good enough for me.”

“Perfect.”

Ollie pulls out a bar stool from under the counter and invites me to take a seat.

As an engineer, I know Ollie’s not exactly a front-of-the-house face (although with those eyes and that hairline, he really should be), but he’s quickly changed his tune with me and is nailing this hospitality thing.

First a shortcut that gets me in close proximity to a hard-earned glass ofsauvignon blanc in record time, then using terms I’ve never heard of to describe fried food, and now, cordially inviting me to sit at hotel bar for a complimentary late-night meal.

I feel special, albeit underdressed and overexcited about the fact I see something called “a fork and knife burrito” on the menu.

“I’ll have this, please,” I say, pointing to the item and showing the bartender. “Along with a side of fries.”

“A burrito and French fries?” Ollie asks. “In all my thirty years, I haven’t seen anyone order those two things together. Is that some sort of American thing ?”

“It’s a California thing,” I say. “This combo works. And if you keep on being nice, I just might let you try a bite for yourself.”

After the bartender punches in my order, he brings a glass of white wine to me and a fresh Manhattan to Ollie.

“To not blocking the fire exit,” Ollie says, proposing a toast.

“To the full moon among us,” I counter just to make him squirm.

We clink glasses.

“I know everyone thinks what I do is interesting,” I say. “Well, maybe everyone but you, but I’m genuinely curious about what you do. I think you said…Acting Chief Civil Engineer. What’s that even mean? Acting? ”

“I work for WorldEnge,” he says, like that’s supposed to mean something to me.

“They employ some of the smartest, most prestigious engineers in the world. People contact my company with a particularly challenging structural problem, and WorldEnge then assigns a specialist to the job. I was recently a short-term consultant for the Marquis Hotel in San Diego, just for a blueprint review, hence how I wound up in your decaying yoga studio that day. The HR department there thought it would be a good ‘team-building activity.’ In hindsight, I should have RSVP’d no.

But anyway, now I’m on this assignment as the Acting Chief Engineer for The Brockmeier. ”

“You know I lost my job at the yoga studio because of you, right?”

“It was either that or being crushed to death by cinderblocks. Forgive me? Plus, it looks like you’re doing quite alright now.”

He nods in the direction of the envelope that was too big to fit in my crossbody , labeled Moonie Miller Gratuity, that is sitting atop the bar counter. Embarrassed, I flip it over, so at least the blank side is now face up.

“So what’s the ‘particularly challenging structural problem’ in this hotel? Should I be concerned the ceiling is going to fall on me when I’m eating my dinner?”

“Nah, you’re fine. But I heard the presidential suite has some loose floorboards…”

I can tell he’s making a joke, a bad joke at that. Still my reflex is to playfully swat his upper arm with the back of my hand like the bothersome bug he is. He may be slender, but holy biceps, Batman.

“What’s the real story?” I ask.

“The hotel is in the beginning stages of undergoing a renovation. They are long overdue for one, and it takes a civil engineering expert like myself—especially one who freaking lived in a hotel for two-thirds of his life—to oversee a public building with a restoration of this scale. They want to preserve the history and grandeur, while also staying up to code on about a thousand different things. There’s no way a layman could do it.

Not to mention, the shore of Lake Michigan has steadily crept up about twenty-five feet since the building first opened.

Rising water levels like that can severely compromise a structure over time.

I’m here to supervise the whole thing—and in some cases, roll up my own sleeves and get a little dirty. ”

“Sounds like you’re good at that.”

Immediately I regret the way that came out. Being only one glass of wine in, I can’t even blame it on the alcohol.

“What I meant is,” I begin backpedaling, “that this is a huge, old hotel. There are rickety elevators, old pipes, rising shorelines, and…just so many things you need to know how to do. I’m impressed you’re a master of it all.”

“You think all engineers are nerdy pricks, don’t you?” Ollie says, throwing me a lifesaver.

And you think all spiritual people are witches with green faces and warts on their noses , I want to say back. Instead, I go with: “You haven’t exactly proven me otherwise.”

“Okay, okay. Maybe we are nerds,” he concedes. “But we’re not pricks. We just focus our efforts into things , not people, most of the time. We can reset a circuit breaker with our eyes closed, but our social skills aren’t very developed,” he confesses.

“Then let’s practice them,” I suggest. “Tell me your life story before my burrito gets here. Ready? Go.”

Ollie says nothing. He just stares at me.

“You just lost five seconds,” I poke. “Go!”

“Okay. Remember when I said I was born and raised in Stockholm? Well, I was literally born in The Grand Hotel—the bathtub of the presidential suite to be exact. My dad was the general manager for the hotel. My momhomeschooled me out of a vacant ballroom. I spent my entire childhood wandering the inner belly of a historic hotel getting into trouble and learning how things work. The housekeepers were my aunties. The engineers were my uncles. The circuit breaker box was my version of a PlayStation. When I was 18, my dad got transferred to run a hotel in Chicago, so we moved to America. At that time, I went to college, breezed through undergrad with a double-major in hospitality and physics, decided that wasn’t challenging enough for me, so I went back for my PhD in civil engineering, and now I travel the world to tell people what’s wrong with their buildings. Any questions?”

“Where’d you go to school?” I ask.

“Harvard.”

“Yeah, and I graduated with honors from Yale. Where’d you really go?”

“Harvard,” he reiterates.

“Oh,” I say. “Nice.”

Just then, the bartender puts down two plates in front of me.

One with a burrito that’s about the size of my head and the other with a pile of steaming hot French fries.

I undo my silverware roll, placing the napkin across my lap and grab hold of the fork and knife.

Instead of cutting into the burrito, I use my utensils to open it up delicately like I’m performing heart surgery.

Once the inside—smoked brisket, fancy!—is exposed, I grab a few French fries, place them atop the meat, and cover the burrito back up with the flap of the flour tortilla.

I ditch the silverware completely and airlift the messy concoction straight to my face, taking a bite way bigger than I should in a public setting.

“What the heck was that?” Ollie asks while I chew. I hold up the ‘one-moment’ finger and cover my mouth in case any black beans want to make an appearance on his oatmeal-colored sweater.

“This, my friend,” I say. “Is what we call a Cali Burrito. Did you not have one when you were in San Diego?”

“I was only there for a couple of weeks.”

“What a shame. Go on. Try it.”

I push my plate toward him.

“No thank you.”

“Oh, come on. I didn’t put a curse on it. It’s just a freaking burrito with French fries in it.”

He stares at me. The beginnings of a smile that I can’t quite tie to any one specific emotion faintly crosses his lips. He takes the bait—and at that, a bite.

“What do you think? Good, right?”

“It’s actually quite good,” he says, washing it down with a sip of his Manhattan.

And there it is: something we both agree on.

I know that he’s a skeptic, he’s made that loud and clear.

But like any good spiritual healer, I hope I can change his mind just a bit.

It’s what Yas and Angeline did for me, and look how much it opened up my life.

Maybe, just maybe, it’ll have the same effect on him in some way.

The fact that he liked the burrito is step-one in getting Ollie to trust my recommendations.

Just then, his phone screen lights up on the bar top.

“Oh, great,” he says sarcastically as he reads the text. “A few housekeepers are stuck in the elevator and the staff engineer can’t figure out how to get them out.”

“I sure hope that doesn’t happen to me when I head on up. I’m not really a fan of small, enclosed spaces.”

“Getting out of a stuck elevator is child’s play. You have my card still, right?”

“In my purse,” I say.

“My cell is on there. If there are any issues, just call or text me. Deal?”

“Deal,” I say back, extending my hand to meet his.

In a moment of weakness—call it the makings of wine buzz, the food coma settling in, or the dizzying effect of the first cute guy I’ve seen since being back in Chicago, I accidentally allow myself to touch palms with Ollie Zetterlind—and he doesn’t let go.

“Bartender, no tab for her.”

Shake.

“Whatever she wants, just back-charge it to the Engineering department.”

Shake

“Or wait. Charge it to Sales & Marketing instead.”

Shake.

“Actually, put it to Mr. Macnider’s house account. Okay?”

As Ollie gives orders to the server regarding the arrangements for my bill, he misses the exact moment I close my eyes and squeeze just a little tighter.

I concentrate hard on the vision that immediately floods my brain, but don’t really need to.

It’s crystal clear like I’m watching my favorite show.

By the time he returns his attention to me and lets go of my hand, he’s none the wiser to fact that myExexveei came back in full swing, showing me a glimpse of his future.

His future, dating me.