Page 7

Emily Bond

Sort of Seeing Someone

Down the block, a neon sign for palm readings burns my retinas. This must be the place.

My wine buzz isn’t anywhere near where it ought to be.

Such must be the sobering effect of news that you’re losing your amazing, cush job.

I know they say, when one door closes another opens.

I just didn’t realize that next door would be to Esther Higgins’shop.

I let out an audible, “Oh, what the hell,” as I push through the entryway.

A cluster of chimes alert her—and, frankly, the entire residency of the Little Italy neighborhood—that a customer is here. But no one emerges to greet me.

“Hello?” I say, my voice is pathetically quiet as it attempts to cut through the thick, patchouli-scented air. I clear my throat and give it another shot, louder this time. “ Hellooooo ?”

Through a beaded curtain emerges who I can only imagine is Esther, an old lady with a cloth covering her head.

She looks like a real-life iteration of the children’s book character Strega Nona.

Dark, beady eyes sit above her large, arched nose.

She’s rotund; wearing washed out, drapey clothing—old-world athleisure .

“How may I help you?” she asks. I couldn’t even begin to guess the originationof her accent.

“Um, I’m here for a free palm reading,” I say.

“I don’t do free,” she says, already retreating back to wherever she came from.

“No, wait! I mean, I have this.”

I procure the gift card Yas gave me and hand it to Esther. She looks at it like she’s never seen it before.

“Very well,” she says. “Come this way.”

She dips behind the beaded curtain and I assume I am to follow her to her special lair.

I put my hands up over my eyes as I cross the threshold like I’m hiking through a trail with dense brush.

Once I clear the beads, I arrive in a small, dimly-lit room.

Smelly incense is burning and there’s a bistro table for two that she gestures toward.

“Take a seat,” she orders. “I must first cleanse your energy.”

I sit down as Esther waves a burning wad of something all around my head. This seems to go on forever as I all but gag from the smoke. But given the series of unfortunate events today, I don’t blame her for taking her time cleansing me.

Finally, Esther sits down across from me.

“Tip?” she says.

“ Before the reading?” I ask, never having heard of such a thing.

She nods.

I fumble nervously for a loose ten in my purse and hand her the money.

She stares at it with an expression that’s somewhere between disdain and disgust. I agree it’s been put through the laundry one too many times but that’s not my fault.

I wonder immediately if I should give more, but that requires asking her if she takes Venmo and I think it’s probably best to let her do most of the talking at this point.

“Hold your palms out. Close your eyes. Three deep breaths.”

It’s the second time today I’m taking orders to breathe at the request of someone else.

If the intention here is that I’ll sink into a deep state of relaxation, it’s not working.

All I can think about is the wrinkled ten-dollar bill and how it came from change made at the cash-only ice cream shop and how ice cream sounds good right now but that I should save my money until I find another job and… are we at three breaths yet?

Once I’m done breathing , I watch as she places her dry, cracked, cold hands atop mine. Now, it’s her turn to close her eyes and inhale.

While she’s doing that, I admire all the jewelry she’s wearing.

Bangles upon bangles. Rings upon rings. She must have more than five pounds of jewelry between both wrists and hands.

Does every piece tell a story? Or were these Amazon Primed to help complete “the lewk .” Because surely, in the end, this has to be a bit.

Next thing I know, she removes her hands from mine and smiles.

What’s the haps ?

Is Joe n’ Flow going to open back up as a pop-up on the beach?

Are Brody/Kevin and I going to get back together and make it official this time?

Is Gerda going to back out of the sale of her house so I can have my beach shack back?

Esther’s smile is so big, I can’t help but smile, too.

But then she simply reaches for the wrinkled ten dollars I gave her and pushes it back to me.

“I cannot accept this.”

Whatever she saw must have been so awful, she can’t possibly take my money in good faith.

“What is it? What is happening?”

“I saw nothing. A black screen.”

“Does that mean…death?” I ask.

She laughs, which I find insanely morbid for the moment.

“It could. But I would have no way of knowing. You are one of us. And I don’t take money from our kind.”

“I don’t really understand?” I say.

“The gift I have, you have. You did not know that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What gift ?”

“How old are you?” she asks.

“I’m twenty-five.” I say before quickly catching myself. “Twenty- six. Today’s my birthday. I’m twenty-six.”

I expect her to say happy birthday. Instead, she says: “ Welcome .”

...to hell?! I am so confused.

“Today you have received the best birthday gift you will ever get.”

“I lost my job today. And my house.”

I don’t even bother mentioning being dumped.

Esther doesn’t seem to hear me. That or she doesn’t care to play therapist. She just rattles on about more woo-woo shit.

“Open your gift slowly. Let it reveal its powers over time. Be careful with it. Stay genuine.”

Powers? This is getting ridiculous.

“How’s your head feeling?” she asks. “Better than this morning, I hope. I remember that first one like it was yesterday—it came on so strong. And your palms? They’re not still itchy, are they? You can put a little oatmeal on them if so.”

How did she know about…

“I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine,” I announce as I begin to pack up my things.

“My mother used to call them ‘growing pains,’” she remarks with a little laugh. I assume that was the psychic equivalent of a dad-joke, however the punchline is still lost on me.

What does she know, that I don’t know, that I’m supposed to know?

“Can we go back to this gift you spoke of?” I shoot my shot one last time, begging for a little clarity on her cryptic message.

“That is for you to discover, as I do not know the extent of what you will be able to do or see. But good things are coming, dear. Worry not.”

“What do you know? Is there anything you can tell me?” I try once more to squeeze some juice out of dear old Esther Higgins.

After a long pause, she simply says: “I just know, you are one of us. And that your time is up.”

I look at the clock.

“It’s been five minutes. Do you really count this as session?”

“No, I mean, your time is up in California—for now, at least. Go home. Be with your kinship. Liveamongst those who are just like you.”

My sisters are nothing like me , I think to myself.

She gets up from the table and leaves me sitting there dumbfounded. But before she exits stage right altogether, her voice pokes through the beaded curtain one last time.

“You probably haven’t seen it yet yourself, but you’ve already met the one.”

There were only two men in my life in OB. One was Gavin, and he’s hightailing it to South America right now. The other?

“Broke up with me in a text this morning,” I mention.

I wait for what Esther will say next now that she stands corrected. But her game doesn’t get thrown off. Instead, she doubles down.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get another chance.”