Page 26

Emily Bond

Sort of Seeing Someone

The Burger Shack is quiet tonight; cozy even, for a fast food spot.

“I realized something tonight, Moonie .”

“That escape rooms are more fun when hopped up on an edible? Because that’s what I realized,” I say with the utmost conviction.

“I would need to do more research to confirm that,” Ollie unexpectedly says.

“It’s that I don’t know as much about you as you know about me.

You challenged me to tell you my life’s story at Red’s and I passed with flying colors.

You know where I’m from, what I do for a living.

Hell, you even know I was born in a freaking hotel bathtub. ”

“Gee. That about covers everything, doesn’t it? Can’t believe I haven’t been able to successfully steal your identity yet with all that detail.”

He throws a French fry at me. I eat it.

“I take it your sass is residual punishment for me not exactly putting my best face forward the first couple times we met? I apologize, again, for that. I’m not always sure how to act around people like you.”

“People like me?”

“All I know about you is that you’re…”

Please don’t say a witch…

“…you’re something .”

“Ha. What’s your best guess?” This should be entertaining.

“A sarcastic twenty-something who apparently still listens to The Smashing Pumpkins?”

“I wouldn’t say I listen to The Smashing Pumpkins. I’m just culturally aware of one of the most famous songs of all time.”

“So let’s start there, then. What kind of music do you like?”

“Chappell Roan is pretty great. But I mean, everyone loves her.”

“I’ve never heard of her,” Ollie says.

“They let people become American citizens without reciting the lyrics to Pink Pony Club? Hmm. What about you? Who do you jam out to?”

“Bruno Mars and Phil Collins.”

“I am legitimately taken aback by that. See, I paired you with like…Otis Redding or Louis Armstrong or...someone I haven’t heard of just so you could school me on what ‘good music’ really is.”

“Guess you’re not the only ‘odd combo’ connoisseur, Ms. Miller. Speaking of, besides that burrito-with-fries-in-it thing, what’s your favorite food?”

“Oh, that’s a tough one. I’m going to go with breakfast.”

“That’s a meal period, not a food,” he corrects me.

“Pancakes, waffles, hash browns, eggs,” I rattle off.

“Over easy?”

“Scrambled. With ketchup.”

“Noted. Sounds like you eat this quite often?”

“On the contrary. Almost never. I nanny my nephews and mornings are insane until I get them to school. After that, I’m lucky if I can call a forkful of cold butter noodles from the fridge breakfast. ”

“Yuck,” he comments. Clearly he has never had butter noodles.

“Don’t hate on the one food item that best represents being a single girl in her twenties. Or maybe it best represents being dumped? Whatever. It’s our anthem. The quintessential comfort food.”

“So you’re freshly dumped then, eh?”

“I’m single,” I correct him. “By choice, more than anything. I’m too busy to sift through flattering-but-misleading pictures of finance bros who just want to get drunk and hook up and not necessarily in that order. What about you?”

“Drunk finance bros aren’t quite on the radar for me, either. But I have been on a few Tinder dates with some girls. All of them were…weird.”

Weirder than a girl who makes a living selling smudge sticks on the internet?

“How so?” I inquire.

“Manufactured. Unoriginal. Caked on makeup. Inflated lips. Foreheads that don’t move. Eyelashes three-inches long made from some kind of animal fur. Addicted to boozy seltzers, allergic to calories, dabbling with Ozempic .”

“Yeah, that is weird,” I concur at the exact moment I jam two fries into a cup of cheese sauce before promptly depositing them into my mouth.

I certainly don’t claim that he and I are a match by any means, but the more he describes what he isn’t interested in, the more I can’t help but realize I could check a lot of his boxes.

“And another thing,” he says. “They all want to have sex right away. Or put a label on something after going out one time. If you couldn’t tell, I’m sort of a tough nut to crack.

I’m not really operating at warp speed, you know?

I’m thirty. My parents didn’t get married until they were thirty-five.

My mom had me at forty. The way I see it?

I’ve got some time to find someone and settle down. ”

“Heard,” I say, taking mental note he’s a decade away from getting serious about his love life.

“How about you? What kind of guys do it for you?”

“I don’t really know. I have a bad taste in my mouth about men from the time I lost my house, my job, and my boyfriend all in the same day. Before you ask…about any of that…just know it’s a long a story, I don’t want to get into it, and yes, I’m fine.”

“Think you’ll ever go back to California?”

“That’s the plan,” I say. “When I have the time and money.”

Yas told me if you want to manifest something you have to speak it confidently into the universe. Here’s to hoping that was convincing enough.

“Well, look at it this way: if your business orders are all dependent on the moon doing what the moon does on a monthly basis, then you’ve got some pretty reliable job security and should be back to the Pacific Ocean in no time.”

Hearing Ollie explain in his own way that my work is lucrative and has purpose relaxes my shoulders a bit.

This would have been the perfect moment for him to remind me that what I do is a silly waste of time.

Instead, I take what he says as pure encouragement and feel relief in knowing he hasn’t revealed himself as a total Esteban or Ted 2. 0 just yet.

“And even though I don’t know anything about the spiritual world, I think it’s cool that you know who you are and what you have to offer at twenty-six.

I was the same way. I knew from a young age that I had an unquenchable thirst to understand building mechanics and work each day on them.

So, a crystal ”—he pauses and sends a nod my way to ensure I pick up on the spiritual-world pun-on-words—“clear life mission is one thing we have in common. The other? Both anti-cat.”

“When did I tell you I am allergic to cats?”

“I remember it from your TV interview.”

“You watched that?”Color me shocked.

“Not by choice. Mr. Macnider made us all watch a recording of it during one of our morning meetings.”

Mr. Macnider, my number-one fan.

“What else do you remember from my TV interview?” I ask before munching on another salty fry.

“I remember thinking: maybe I’m not as bad at faces as I thought.

Granted in the time that elapsed from you being Broom Girl at the yoga studio to Broom stick Girl on TV, you looked a bit different.

Darker lipstick, paler skin, big black boots, and a voice a pinch raspier than the time you were promising me my yoga class was just a Swiffer Sweeper away from starting.

I also remember the dress you were wearing. ”

“Please spare me The Addams Family joke.”

“Well, actually, I was going to say it was cute. Looked good on you.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this is Ollie’s way of flirting with me, reinforcing the potential of my Exexveei vision to come true.

A double cheeseburger, an order of cheese fries, and a chocolate shake later, I wipe my fingers on the last of a stack of brown paper napkins and tap out of our fast-food extravaganza.

“Good call on this combo” he says, using a rogue crinkle cut fry to scoop up what’s left of his shake.

“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.

Just the fries, I tell myself.