Ethan feels the kind of euphoria he’s only ever experienced listening to certain music while high. It’s a revelation that it can happen when you’re stone-cold sober on a Saturday morning.
Oh, mate, don’t pretend this is a religious experience. You’ve just got the hots for your unattainable flatmate.
Will Harvey always pop into his head with derisive comments like this or will he eventually drift away and Ethan will no longer think of him at all?
There it is again: the very bad feeling. He keeps thinking he’s done with it.
“Grief comes in waves,” his mother told him. Yes, but Harvey should only get ripples. Ethan never devoted this much thought to the guy when he was alive.
Ethan sneaks another look at Jasmine. She is writing on a Post-it note. Entrepreneurial ideas for new products and businesses strike her all the time. Ethan finds scribbled notes all around the apartment. Some make sense: SOLO SUNSCREEN you can apply to your own back? Some sound illegal: Instant Fake Identity? Others make no sense: Yogurt Lip Balm Gin. He guesses that last one might have been a shopping list.
She looks up, catches his eye, and grins, taps her pen against her teeth. He smiles back and looks away fast, as if something outside the car has caught his interest.
This is not a date. Do not give the impression you believe this to be a date.
The driver takes a tight roundabout too fast and the sudden swerve of the car gives him the chance to look at her again.
Her long brown hair is crazy-wild when she first wakes up (he sees her each morning in the kitchen, making green tea, a beautiful sleepy-eyed cavewoman in a T-shirt), but it’s now smooth and glossy in a falling-down bun, as though she’s on her way home from a drunken black-tie event. She wears three necklaces of different lengths, an oversized jacket over a knit sweater over a white silk shirt, and is it possible she’s wearing two skirts? She feels the cold and keeps the heating in their apartment up very high. He sometimes feels like he lives in a sauna. Her shoes are military-looking black lace-up boots. Ethan’s Nikes look pathetically ineffectual next to them.
They are on their way to see a psychic. It’s the first time Ethan has ever been to one, if he doesn’t count the lady on the plane, which he doesn’t because he didn’t sign up for that prediction. This time he has an actual appointment. He has basically agreed to be scammed for seventy-five bucks.
A few days after the funeral Ethan had offhandedly told Jasmine about what happened on the flight. He wasn’t faking offhandedness—the more time that passed, the less significant it seemed—but Jasmine was instantly intrigued.
“So when do you turn thirty?” she asked, looking at him with such gravity and intensity he had to look away in case his body responded inappropriately. (The possibility of an involuntary inappropriate response while living with a girl like Jasmine is a cause of stress, especially when she walks around in a towel. He has to think of his grandmother a lot.)
“October,” he said, and she caught her breath.
“First of October,” he emphasized, in the hope she’d do it again, but she was already frowning and tapping at her phone like a NASA scientist accessing top-secret data. She told him a Mystics, Witches, and Oracles festival in Hobart ended the day of the flight. All kinds of psychics took part.
“That’s why your lady was in Hobart,” she’d said, and then she’d showed him photo after photo of mediums, clairvoyants, palm readers, and crystal-ball readers, none of whom remotely resembled the lady, but Ethan took his time considering each one, because it was very nice to have Jasmine sit that close to him on the couch.
“You know I don’t actually believe in this stuff. I think the probability of me dying in a fight is zero,” Ethan finally admitted. “I don’t get in fights.”
“I mean, sure, but you could be randomly attacked.” Jasmine chewed the side of her thumb. “On the street?”
“I suppose I could,” said Ethan, to be nice.
“You know what you need to do?” she said.
“Take up martial arts?”
“No, you need to get a second opinion. Dad says, ‘Always get a second opinion.’ ”
It turned out that Jasmine sees “an excellent medium, aura and tarot card reader” at least twice a year, or more if she’s going through a bad breakup or considering a new start-up. His name is Luca, he’s amazing, so gifted and accurate, and he “only” charges seventy-five dollars for a half-hour reading. “Cheap as chips!”
Ethan wonders if Jasmine knows how much chips actually cost.
“It’s hard to get in, but I’ll explain it’s an emergency,” she’d said. “I’ll make appointments for both of us—I was due to see him soon anyway. We can go together.”
Of course he said yes. He’s grateful to the old lady on the plane. You got me a date, lady. Although it’s not a date. He knows it’s not a date. But it’s something.
Ethan told Jasmine to book him under a fake name because he’s been reading up on how these scammers get away with it. They do “hot and cold readings.” A hot reading is where they research you beforehand. A cold reading is where they ask open-ended questions and monitor your reactions. Ethan plans to sit there with a poker face.
“Yeah, good idea to go undercover,” Jasmine had said, straight-faced. “Who knows what Luca could find out from your LinkedIn profile.”
Did that mean she’s looked at his LinkedIn profile? She’s not on LinkedIn, of course, so he can’t tell. They follow each other on Instagram. Ethan assumes she doesn’t spend as much time examining his posts as he does hers.
“So…when you see this ‘Luca,’ is it what? Kind of like therapy?” he asks.
“I mean, no, because I see my therapist for therapy,” says Jasmine. “She’s amazing. Do you want me to get you an appointment?” She is already scrolling through her phone, ready to make the call. “You should probably get grief counseling. For Harry.”
“Harvey,” says Ethan. “I’m okay for now. I’ll, uh, let you know.”
The Uber drops them off in front of an arched doorway and Ethan follows Jasmine into what appears to be a dimly lit gift shop. It’s fragrant with incense and adorned with mystical symbols and celestial images. The shelves shimmer with crystals, occult jewelry, candles, skulls, silver bowls, gold bells, and figurines of cats, wolves, angels, dragons, and demons. Mirrored walls behind the shelves refract prisms of red and purple light. It’s like being inside a pirate’s treasure chest.
“Jasmine!” A woman in a gray hoodie sits behind a desk eating a banana and working on an Apple Mac. Her vibe is all wrong.
“Althea! How are you? This is my friend Ethan. Sorry, I mean, Jason. My friend Jason.” Jasmine gestures back and forth so her bracelets slide back and forth. “Jason Bourne.”
Ethan splutter-coughs, meets Jasmine’s dancing eyes, and for a moment they are schoolkids trying not to laugh in class.
“Been in the wars, Jason?” Althea nods at Ethan’s wrist, and sticks her leg, which is strapped into a formidable-looking hinged and buckled brace, out from behind the desk. “Me too! Did my meniscus in the Coles car park!”
While Jasmine and Althea discuss her meniscus, Ethan wanders through the shop studying the titles of hardback books: Beginner’s Guide to Pendulum Magic, A Practical Guide to Psychic Self-Defense: The Classic Instruction Manual for Protecting Yourself Against Paranormal Attack.
Ethan finds himself unexpectedly enthralled. He’s remembering the magic kit he got for his ninth birthday. He picks up a miniature box of crystals, sees the price, reels, and quickly sets it back down, a little less enthralled.
“Luca is ready for you,” says Althea. “Who wants to go first?”
