Premonition

“Come in,” Scott said in response to a knock on his office door. 

He had been staring out the window of his corner office at downtown Chicago watching people go about their day. Coming in and out of shops, carrying coffee or shopping bags, sometimes both, some people were staring at their phones, some were holding hands. He wondered what their lives were like, what they did for a living, which people were tourists and which were locals.

“Your lunch meeting just called to cancel.” Marie Pederson stood in his doorway filling the frame with her figure.

“Guess I’ll have to buy my own lunch” Scott said as he turned to look at her. 

“You also have a call on line one, it’s Mr. Chen.”

“Thank you Marie” he said as he walked over to his desk. She smiled before turning to walk away and before picking up the call he thought briefly about how she was the best assistant he’d had in years. 

“Hello Huang,” Scott said in greeting.

“Scott, I’ve got some bad news… that deal we have with that shopping center on 14th? The one that should make us millions? It just fell through.”

“Ah, well easy come, easy go I suppose.”

“Seriously? That’s your response? You know one of these days I may actually be able to elicit some sort of emotion from you” his tone was amused.

“We could’ve been millionaires!” Huang shouted and laughed out loud.

“We already are” Scott responded.

“Yeah well, we could’ve been closer to being billionaires” Huang said, the disappointment evident in his voice. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll find another sale. We always do”

Huang sighed before insisting they’ll have a drink soon and hanging up. 

Scott spun his chair around to look outside. A man sat at a table in front of a popular hot dog spot. He was eating two hot dogs loaded with toppings and Scott realized he was hungry. He grabbed his coat and headed out of his office. 

“Be back in an hour” he said to Marie as he walked past her. 

“Have a nice lunch” she called after him. 

A breeze hit him as soon as he exited the building. It was a nice warm day. He headed straight for the hot dog stand a block away, across the street. As he crossed he noticed a woman walking in the same direction. She was dressed very eccentric with a long flowing, floral skirt, a bright pink top, tons of gaudy jewelry, and a scarf tied in her wild, bushy hair. She was carrying a small box in one hand, a package of some sort, a large purse hung on her arm and her phone was gripped tight in her other hand. She was crossing perpendicular to him and she beat him to the curb, hopping up on it and adjusting all the contents of her arms in an attempt to keep anything from falling. However, as she did her knee bumped her purse which tipped to the side just slightly and something small fell out, landing soundlessly on the sidewalk. She continued walking, obviously unaware. 

“Excuse me, miss?” Scott shouted after her. He jogged a few paces and bent to pick up the object. It appeared to be a fabric coin purse, but it didn’t make any noise and it felt as though it had something solid inside. 

The lady had turned around to face him and after making eye contact her gaze dropped to his hands. “Oh!” she exclaimed and instinctively put a hand on her purse. 

“You dropped this,” Scott said, since he didn’t know what else to say. 

She walked toward him and he stepped forward to meet her. She put her phone in her purse and reached out her now empty hand to meet his outstretched arm. She grabbed the coin purse, her fingertips brushing the palm of his hand and, seemingly as soon as she touched him, she gasped and recoiled. She looked up, staring into his eyes and said “I just had a premonition.” 

Scott stared back at her. Her eyes were wide, wild, and terrified. He wanted to laugh but he felt sorry for her so instead he grabbed her hand, turned it palm up, and dropped the coin purse in it saying “I hope it was a good one” and mustering up what he hoped looked like a sincere smile. 

“No! It wasn’t! I couldn’t get a clear vision but the feeling was strong, and bad… very bad.”

“Look miss, I’m not trying to be rude but I don’t believe in that kind of stuff.”

“Please! Come back with me to my office, I’ll give you a full reading!”

“Ah, I see… this is how you get your customers.”

“No! I’ll do it for free! Please, I think something terrible is going to happen to you soon.”

“It's probably just the heartburn I’m going to get after lunch, but I appreciate your concern.” Scott began to walk away quickly, brushing past her and making a beeline for the hot dog stand. 

“Wait!” she said, panicked. He felt her hand catch his arm. 

“At least take this” she started to dig through her bag frantically. 

Scott sighed and watched her, deciding to give her 30 more seconds of his time. 

“Here!” she shouted, triumphantly, shoving a business card towards him. 

“In case you change your mind. And take this too.” 

She pulled off one of her many rings, a gold one she’d been wearing on her right index finger, and put it directly in his hand.

“It may be able to offer you some protection” with that she immediately began moving before Scott could object. She kept walking down the block, past the hot dog stand. 

Scott thought about shouting after her, trying to get her to take the ring back but he could see it would be a fruitless endeavor. He looked down at the ring, it had a small purple stone in the center and the band was made of thin, twisted gold wires. He put it in his pocket followed by her business card. He started thinking about how he could return her ring. Maybe he could stop by her office after work and just slip in in the mail slot. He obviously wouldn’t go in. In fact, he hoped to never see her again. Actually, now that he thought about it, the mail was a good idea. If he mailed the ring to her, he would avoid the risk of her opening the door while he tried to sneak by later. 

After all this excitement he’d lost his appetite, so he turned around and headed in the opposite direction, towards the post office. 

A few blocks walk and one interaction with a kindly old man in the post office, and Scott was stepping back out on the sidewalk heading towards his office. He felt better not having the ring in his pocket, but the interaction still bothered him, which was strange because usually nothing bothered him. 

Scott spent the rest of the work day distracted, and annoyed that he was distracted. He had two meetings that afternoon and he spent the bulk of them wondering if it would really be such a bad thing if he stopped by Evelyn’s office. That was her name, Evelyn, or at least that was the name on her business card. 

He’d considered the fact that she might be a scam artist with a fake identity; a criminal who had been stalking him and knew he had money; or maybe an innocent woman who could see the future and genuinely wanted to help him. 

That last possibility weighed heavily on his mind, which is why for the last hour he’d been searching online to see what information he could find about Evelyn and psychics in general. 

“Mr. Green?” 

Scott looked up to find Marie standing in his door. “You didn’t hear me knock?” She asked, sounding slightly concerned.  

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t,” Scott responded.

“You must be working on something really big … I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so focused, and I’ve seen you make million dollar deals“ Marie said with one eyebrow raised and a slight questioning to her tone.

Scott didn’t want to admit what was actually distracting him so he came up with a believable lie. 

“It's just the deal Huang called about earlier today, the sale fell through.“

“The shopping center on 14th?” 

“That’s the one.”

“Hmm, well you’ve had bigger sales than that fall through, and you’ve had bigger ones successfully close. Don’t stress too much about it, and don’t work too late tonight. I’m heading home” Marie’s tone was comforting, which Scott appreciated.

As soon as Marie left he sighed, knowing he’d made up his mind a while ago. He needed to see Evelyn again, so he could get his life back to normal.

He pulled up the GPS on his phone and put in the address from her business card. She was only 15 minutes away and, according to Google, her shop would be open for another hour.

Scott grabbed his jacket and headed to his car. He tried to drive normally but his foot betrayed him, pressing on the gas. He found a parking spot right in front of her office; a small, slightly run down storefront with a blue door, flanked by a barbershop and a convenience store.

Scott stood in front of the blue door for what felt like a very long time before finally pushing it open and hearing a jingling sound coming from a bell on top of the door. The room was fairly spacious and very cluttered. There were two small tables, one displaying all sorts of gemstones and trinkets, and on top of the other sat a crystal ball in a deck of tarot cards. Overflowing bookshelves lined the walls and plants were scattered throughout the store.

Suddenly Evelyn’s head popped through the beaded curtain over the threshold at the back of the room.

“Thank God you came,” Evelyn said, relief evident in her voice. “I had a dream last night, and I have so much to tell you.”