We became friends, but I kept my distance, wary of my curse. We eventually touched, and the vision was so excruciatingly painful that it made me sick. Luke would die in a skateboarding accident on the way to meet me.
I hated my curse and back then, I was confident that I could change its fate. I convinced Luke to leave his skateboard at home whenever we had a date, and I felt free and happy for three weeks. But I knew my curse was watching and mocking me. One day, I had stomach pains; the nurse suspected appendicitis, and Aunt Polly took me to the hospital. Luke, hearing I was there, was on his way to see me but decided to jump a flight of steps on his skateboard, crashed, and hit his head.
After his funeral, I wouldn’t come out of my bedroom for weeks.
Outsmarting my curse has never worked.
‘Are you okay?’ Aunt Polly asks me.
I blink away the tears in my eyes.
‘Let’s leave the past alone,’ she says, reaching over to rub my shoulder.
We both sip our tea. Aunt Polly tells me about her chemo and what she will endure. Her voice crackles. I can sense she’s feeling emotional and overwhelmed by the journey ahead of her.
A woman enters the café who reminds me of Hilary. She’s tall with brown bobbed hair; not a strand is out of place.
‘Do you ever think about getting back in touch with Hilary?’ I ask.
Aunt Polly shakes her head. ‘Let’s not talk about Hilary.’
‘I was thinking she might be a good?—’
‘Nelly,’ says Aunt Polly, her voice edged with firmness. ‘I said let’s not talk about her.’
8
Tonight, I am interviewing three potential flatmates. I haven’t told Miranda, as she will question me about why I’m not interviewing Oliver James. Hopefully, by the end of the day, I will have found the perfect candidate, which will allow me to tell Miranda that Oliver James can walk around someone else’s flat in just his underpants, thinking about his next idea for a book.
Eva is on my mind. Like me, she’s a passionate reader, and we met through a book club Miranda used to run. She worked in the clothes shop on the high street and would always make us all laugh by saying things like ‘The real issue in this book is that nobody owns a decent coat,’ and ‘If the protagonist had worn a pretty dress with pockets, she would have better handled that emotional climax.’ When we shared a flat, she would review books on social media in her free time. She was known for her dramatic live book reviews and once loved a book so much that she burst into tears while talking about it, which I found impressive. She was warm and funny, and we got on immediately.
The first time I accidentally brushed against Eva’s arm, I had a vision. It was of a man with spiky red hair in bed with a blonde woman. It startled me, but as she was single, I ignored it and joked about avoiding untrustworthy red-haired men. She laughed and agreed.
For the first six months, everything was good. Then, one day, I came home to find him – the man from my vision – sitting in my kitchen with his arms around her.
‘This is Karl,’ she gushed. He grinned and gave me a wave.
I smiled, but inside, panic bloomed. I wanted to say something and warn her. All I could think about was what I’d seen and how Eva would get her heart broken by a two-timing, red-haired love rat. I kept quiet until Eva’s estranged sister returned home from New Zealand; to my horror, she was the blonde woman in my vision.
One drunken night, I made the mistake of telling Eva about my curse and what I’d seen regarding the end of her love story. Eva didn’t believe me and assumed I was trying to break up her relationship and turn her against her sister. Shortly afterwards, she moved out, left the clothes shop and stopped reviewing books. My big mouth and my curse ruined that friendship.
I take some deep breaths. There will not be another Eva. All I need to do is keep my distance and my mouth shut.
My first flatmate candidate is knocking at the door. I take a deep breath and grab Lenny, which will make handshakes as tricky as possible. I’m going to do my best to avoid physical contact. This is an ambitious plan, given that I live in a flat, once built for servants, with small rooms and a narrow hallway, but I must try. Also, holding Lenny means he won’t dash out of the door. Last week, he discovered that the sweeping staircase outside my flat’s door eventually leads to the ground-floor hallway. He also found that the large door at the end of the hallway leads to something exciting outside. If the guy who lives in the first-floor flat hadn’t blocked Lenny with his mountain bike, he would have made a bid for freedom. I can’t let that happen.
Francesca is a glamorous woman in her late twenties, dressed in a designer pink tracksuit and sipping an iced coffee.
‘Hi,’ she coos.
I cast her an awkward smile. Taking a big step back, I let her in.
With a flick of her poker-straight black hair, she glides past me. I watch as she struts up my hallway like it is a catwalk at a fashion show. Her hips sashay from side to side. As she enters the living room, I direct her to the sofa. She ignores me and flops onto my favourite chair by the window, as if she owns it. My agitation levels rise.
‘That’s my chair,’ I say, with a firm edge to my voice. ‘You can have the sofa.’
She sighs, gets up from my chair, and perches on the arm of the sofa. Can she be any more irritating?
I settle myself in my chair and take out my notebook. ‘Why are you looking for a flat?’ I ask.
