Chapter 37

Ethan Chang and a gorgeous frozen-fish heiress sit silently in the back of an Uber, driving through the Rocks under a canopy of red-gold trees, past historic sandstone buildings, cobbled laneways, and sapphire flashes of Sydney Harbour. The streets are blanketed with fallen brown leaves dancing in the chilly breeze and their car cuts through them like the bow of a slow-moving boat.

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?”

“You go first,” Jasmine says to him. “I want to make a quick call to a surgeon I know.”

“Down the stairs, open the oak door on the right, through the purple curtains on your left, ” says Althea, fastidiously peeling the last of her banana.

As he leaves, Jasmine has her phone to her ear. “You can’t risk it with a cowboy, Althea, you need—” She holds up one finger. “ Dr. Geoffrey! Yep, I’ve got another meniscus for you!”

Ethan goes down the stairs, ducks under a Watch Your Head sign, opens the oak door, and draws back the purple curtains to see a clean-shaven, bald man about his dad’s age wearing a black U2 Achtung Baby concert tour T-shirt and ripped jeans. He’s sitting in a small white-walled room that could be for recruitment interviews, except for the fact that the table is covered with a purple cloth embroidered with gold stars and moons.

“Luca?” says Ethan.

“That’s me! Have a seat. Jason, is it? How are you?”

“Not bad.” Ethan is not giving anything away, not even his state ofmind.

There is a framed typed sign sitting so that it faces the customer. It says: Readings Are for Entertainment Purposes Only, and No Guarantee Can Be Given as to Their Accuracy. I Do Not Give Medical, Legal, or Financial Advice.

So they’re not even pretending it’s real?

“Broken arm?” asks Luca.

“Wrist,” says Ethan. “Rock-climbing accident.” Dammit! All he needed to say was “wrist.” He’s already given away information without even being asked!

“That’s bad luck. Althea did her meniscus in the Coles car park,” remarks Luca.

“Yes,” says Ethan. “I, uh, heard.”

“So just a general reading today?” Luca presses a button on a cheap plastic kitchen timer and picks up the deck of tarot cards. “Can you shuffle?”

Ethan waggles his fingers. “I think so.”

“Left hand,” says Luca. “Three piles.”

Ethan puts the cards into three piles.

“Which one?” asks Luca.

“Ah. Middle one, please.”

Luca bangs the pile of cards against the side of the table.

“You single? In a relationship?” he asks as he lays out the cards in overlapping rows as if he’s playing an unusual version of solitaire, stopping every now and then to consider what he sees.

“Single,” says Ethan.

“Star sign?” asks Luca.

“Libra,” says Ethan.

“Ah, Libra. ” Luca shakes his head and chuckles.

What’s so funny about Libra?

Luca has his hand across his mouth. He rubs his nose with his thumb, removes another card from the deck, places it down, and says, as if that’s just what he expected, “Yup.”

Without looking up, he says, “There’s someone. Someone you see often. A work colleague? A friend in your circle? There is someone you would like to be more than a friend.”

“Yes,” says Ethan, and he finds he has to force himself to stop talking. This guy relies on people’s natural desire to converse.

“Yes, yes. That’s right. Someone physically close. But it’s complicated. If you tell her how you feel it could jeopardize the friendship.”

“Yes,” says Ethan. “I don’t know if she even…thinks of me thatway.”

He hears himself speaking humbly and respectfully, as if he’s at the doctor. He’s fascinated by his own collusion with the process.

“Exactly. You can’t tell. Does she like you only as a friend or is there a possibility for something more? But listen—” Luca taps a card. “Good news: Knight of Cups. Love is coming into your life in the future. By September, October at the latest.”

“With her?”

“It could be with her, it could be with someone else, it could be a friend of hers.”

Ethan inwardly rolls his eyes. He’s out. It’s the sort of thing Ethan’s grandmother says for free: Be patient, the right girl is out there somewhere, Ethan, I just know it!

“It’s going to happen soon. Very soon. Make sure you open your heart.”

“Right,” says Ethan, as Luca pulls out another card with a macabrely cheerful image of a skeleton riding a white horse. It says baldly: DEATH.

Ethan remembers why he’s here: for a second opinion. “What about that one? Does that mean I’m going to die?”

Luca looks up. “The death card is more likely to mean a period of transition. It could mean an ending. Or a beginning.”

Ethan sighs. The guy is covering all bases. He may as well just tell him straight. “It’s just that a psychic on a plane told me I was going to die soon.”

Luca raises an eyebrow. “Psychic on a plane! Makes me think of that movie. What is it?” He snaps his fingers. “ Snakes on a Plane. ” He chuckles again. “Hilarious.”

“Ha ha.”

“Do you have any health challenges?” asks Luca.

“No,” says Ethan. “She said I would die in a fight.”

Luca scrutinizes Ethan. Is he checking out his physique? Ethan subtly flexes his muscles the way he did in school photos.

Luca says, “You don’t have the aura of someone who gets in fights very often.”

It never worked in the school photos either. “So you think she’s wrong?”

“I don’t believe anything is preordained,” says Luca.

“You don’t?” What is the actual point of you, then? “You don’t believe in fate?”

“To a degree, but I can’t say: ‘This is definitely your future.’ Why? Because the moment I do, you change your behavior. You’re no longer the same person you were a moment before. See the logic? So—all I can do is interpret the cards to help you see possible paths.”

“Right,” says Ethan.

Luca says, “Tell me: has a loved one recently passed?”

“Not so much a loved one,” says Ethan. “A friend. I mean, I guess…yes, a loved one.”

“I’m very sorry.” There is genuine sympathy in Luca’s bright blue eyes. It feels like a human moment, as if he’s letting Ethan see the real person behind this charade.

Ethan follows his gaze to a ceiling so badly cracked it looks like the aftermath of an earthquake.

“Your friend had a special laugh. Unusual. A laugh that made other people laugh.”

“He did,” breathes Ethan. His voice breaks as he thinks of that absurd silent wheezy laugh he’ll never witness again. “He really did.”

(But maybe everyone thinks their friends have special laughs?)

Luca says, “Your friend is here. He’s with you.”

“Is he?” Ethan looks over his shoulder. Shouldn’t Harvey be with his mum and dad and hot sister?

“Of course he is, and he says, Have faith. He keeps talking about faith. ”

“Really?” Ethan doesn’t bother to hide his skepticism. There’s a lot he could do with seventy-five dollars. Have faith? That doesn’t sound like Harvey. Harvey had faith in nothing.

Luca puts his head on one side like he has a crick in his neck. He closes his eyes. Ethan shifts in his seat.

Finally Luca speaks. “Harvey says, ‘Guys like us always wait too long to make the first move.’?”

Ethan startles. The blood rushes from his face. Guys like us. Does Harvey mean he should make the first move with Jasmine ? He always said, “In your dreams, mate,” whenever Ethan mentioned her name. Was Harvey nicer now he was dead? Could he see from his otherworldly vantage point that Ethan and Jasmine actually had a future?

“He says, he’ll enjoy watching you crash and burn, mate, but…”

“But what?”

Luca opens his eyes and grins wickedly. “But maybe you won’t, Jason Bourne, maybe you won’t.”