Page 37

Emily Bond

Sort of Seeing Someone

The morning after the best hotel sex of my life—well, the only hotel sex of my life—we stop by my coach house for a change in clothes, then arrive at Angeline’s shop for Ollie’s Reiki appointment.

I have no idea if he regrets saying yes, but I’m grateful for his willingness to play spiritual guinea pig and help out Angeline; someone who has helped me out tenfold.

“Shirt off and hop on the bed, Toots,” Angeline spouts off as she walks us to her back office. Something tells me that’s not the first time she’s greeted a man in her life just like that.

“Good morning to you, too, Angeline,” I intervene.

“Oh, yeah. Formalities. Forgot about those. I’m Madame Angeline. This is my store. Your girlfriend and I spend a lot of time here. Yadi-yadi-yada. Am I forgetting anything else, Miss Manners?”

“That about covers it,” I say, not at all ignoring the fact she called me Ollie’s girlfriend before Ollie has called me his girlfriend. Of course he heard her say it, too. How much pause did it give him, is the question.

“Oh, and uh, thanks,” she says. “This is a big help to me.”

I can tell under her hardened approach, she’s nervous, humble, and grateful.

“Pleasure to be of service,” Ollie says, his hospitality roots shining through.

Ollie then peels off his shirt and hands it to me. I’m no stranger to his stomach, chest, and tattoo by now, but every time I see a part of him unclothed, I feel like the air in the room gets ten degrees hotter.

“Do you want me stay in the room?” I don’t know if the question is geared toward Angeline or Ollie. Either way, I wait for someone to answer me.

“Up to you,” Angeline takes the lead on a reply. “If you want to see a little Reiki in action, I never mind an audience. After all, this is just a practice session to log the necessary hours. Once I’m certified, appointments will be strictly one-on-one.”

“Yeah, you can stay,” confirms Ollie.

I take a seat on a chair in the corner. In her Reiki room, the lights are dim, the incense is burning, ambient chanting is playing through the speakers, and candles are lit in every corner. This, by all accounts, is Ollie’s worst nightmare. But for what it’s worth, her set-up is legit.

“Is there anything I should know before we start the session? Anything bothering you? Any chakras you want me to pay specific attention to?”

“I don’t know what a chakra is,” he says. “But…I want to. Could you narrate what you’re doing throughout the session?”

“Typically we don’t talk in a session. The room remains quiet so I can focus on your healing.”

“Well, you said this is just practice, right? Can you bend the Reiki rules a tad bit? I really want to understand how this stuff works.”

I’m not shocked Ollie’s pushing Angeline for information. That’s just how his engineer brain works. Hopefully she’ll oblige because I can tell this is a bone Ollie doesn’t plan to drop.

“Fine. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. I’m going to get started here in a moment,” Angeline tells Ollie.

I see his chest inflate and fall three times as Angeline does the same—a few cleansing breaths, we called those in the yoga studio.Have I mentioned how much I miss that place?

“I’m going to start with the root chakra,” she states, hovering her hands over Ollie’s genitalia.

Of course that’s where she’s going to start.

“If your body was a house, this is the foundation. When it’s in balance, it’s sturdy.

Yours is somewhat blocked. I can tell it wants to be stable, badly.

In fact, there’s an anxiety within you about this.

A dire need for it. I’m going to do my best to unclog it, but some of this is going to have to be conscious work on your part to slow down. It’ll come in time.”

Angeline has already earned an A+ in my book. Ollie has mentioned his nest egg to me on more than one occasion. I know he’s saving for that house in North Park—a house he’d move into yesterday if he could.

“Okay. We’re moving on to the second chakra, the sacral chakra. It’s just above your pubic bone.”

The word pubic coming out of Angeline’s mouth makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I know she’s going in order of the seven charkas but I have a feeling she just likes keeping her hands near Ollie’s goods. Same, girl. Same.

“Emotion. Passion. Pleasure. That’s what lives here. And yours…yours my friend is on fire. It’s wide open. It’s flowing. It’s overflowing , actually.”

Could that have something to do with two orgasms in three hours last night?

“It’s definitely aligned. There’s no work to be done here. I just…I can’t get a read on how strong it is. A piece of straw is straight. But it would blow away in a bad storm.”

Ollie asks: “How can you tell if it’s a straw or a…”

“Steel rod?”

Again, I have a feeling Angeline lives for moments where she can shout steel rod into a quiet space.

“No way to know. I’d say if you have low libido, it’s a sign it’s weak. Do you have a low—”

“I think you can go on to the next chakra ,” I suggest.

“The solar plexus is next.”

Angeline moves her hand upwards toward his chest.

“This one is about your sense of self. Self-esteem, authentic self, things like that. Let me get a read. Take a few more deep breaths for me, will you?”

Angeline looks to me and mouths, “Muscles.”

I mouth back: “I KNOW.”

“Okay, well you’ve got a good sense of yourself, kid. You’re not very blocked here. If anything, a little overactive. A bit of an ego problem here and there and a wee bit power-hungry.”

“Guilty,” he says, as I think back to the first few interactions with Mr. Zetterlind. “So how do we fix that?”

“If you could quiet down a sec, I could work my magic.”

Ollie zips his lips. Never did I think I’d see the day he’d willingly let someone work their magic on him, but here we are.

“Alright, moving on,” states Angeline. “The heart chakra. As the name implies, it’s all about the love. I like to tell people this is where the warm fuzzies live.”

“Let me guess, open,” says Ollie. I can only surmise this is a nod to our connection.

“On the contrary, my friend,” Angeline says, catching both of us off guard. “Blocked.”

“How can that be? You said so yourself. I have a girlfriend,” Ollie says. “A girlfriend I really like.”

Speaking of warm fuzzies…

“The heart chakra is home to spiritual awareness. Yours is muddy for me. It also is where your spirit of understanding and forgiveness lives. And, yeah, it’s just…it’s cloudy.”

“Meaning?”

“You’re emotionally closed off.”

This is where I take Angeline’s A and drop it to an F—at least on chakra number four. There’s no way Ollie is closed off. Ever since he bought my peridot bracelet, he’s shown himself to be an open book and basically my biggest fan.

“Can you fix it?” he asks.

“I’m doing what I can. This one’s tough.”

“Let’s just move on,” he says, I can tell he’s growing a bit more uncomfortable with the process.

“Throat chakra,” she announces, moving her hands upward yet again. “You have zero problem saying what’s on your mind.”

“True statement,” Ollie says and I silently concur. “So I must get a pass on this one, right? Fully open?”

“Blocked.”

“Oh, come on!” Ollie springs up and opens his eyes.

Angeline asks him to politely return to a supine position and relax.

The last time I saw him this worked up was when the ref made a bad call in the soccer game he was watching at Tin Lizzies.

I’m just glad he’s not four beers deep or we’d be hearing a few F-bombs by now.

“What can I say? You find it hard to truly express yourself. That’s the vibe I get, at least. Don’t worry, I’m already working on it.”

Ollie takes a deep breath, although this one seems to be laced in more stress than anything. I don’t know what I regret more…bringing him here, or choosing to stay in the room and hear Angeline’s spiritual take on my boyfriend.

My boyfriend.

“Alright, up to number six. Your third eye. The bridge between you and the outside world. Good news, it’s open. You’re able to cut through illusions and see the world with an uncanny sense of reality.”

“At least I pass that one,” he mumbles.

“But, the downside to that—”

“Here we go,” he says.

“Is that it doesn’t leave much room for imagination. The world exists in a certain way for you. Precision is your friend.”

“I have an Engineering degree from Harvard, sue me.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing. It’s just…something to be aware of. You can be quick to point out flaws when flaws can actually be your friend.”

“Or they can be an OSHA violation,” he mumbles.

“Crown chakra,” Angeline changes the subject. “The seventh and final chakra. The one that drives the connection to something bigger than yourself. The one that centers yourself as just a small part of one giant, expansive universe. The one that—”

“Blocked or not?” Ollie wants answers.

“Middle of the road. Not in a heightened state of spiritual enlightenment, not entirely closed off either. Just…normal.”

“I’ll take normal. Can we be done? Please? I feel exhausted,” Ollie laments.

“That’s typical after Reiki. Get up slowly. Drink lots of water. Don’t do much for the rest of the day,” instructs Angeline.

We thank Angeline for her time and expertise, even if it wasn’t what Ollie was expecting or wanting to hear.

He’s quiet on the way out. The lightness of the day contrasts to the darkness of her dungeon and we both squint our eyes as we get our bearings.

“So are you totally turned off now or what?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m spiritually sub-par,” he announces in a dejected tone.

“I’ve known that for a while now,” I joke, trying to bring some levity to the situation. “Look, you are who you are. I am who I am. It works. We work. Right?”

“Yeah.”

Ollie’s “Yeah” falls a little flat for me if we’re being honest.

“I think Angeline is a genius, obviously. But remember, she’s just dabbling in Reiki. Who knows. Maybe she was totally off with her readings.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“Hey. I have an idea,” I say, trying a new approach. “Let’s get a cookie.”

I point to Sweet Baby’s across the street. In a way, that’s the place that started it all.

“Are they open? Looks like they’re under construction. See that scaffolding?”

“That’s just a window washer for the apartment above,” I say like I know for sure.

“It’s OSHA violation 1926.451(c)(3), is what it is.”

“Excuse me?”

“OSHA violation 1926.451(c)(3) states: Supported scaffold poles, legs, posts, frames, and uprights must be plumb and braced to prevent swaying and displacement . That thing is swaying like a flag in the wind.”

He’s back, I think to myself. He’s back.