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.
‘Darren and I broke up,’ she says, inspecting her leopard-print nails. ‘I wanted an open relationship.’
‘Oh.’
She casts me a wry smile. ‘Why stick to one man when you can have several? I love dating and I am meeting so many new people.’
I let out a silent groan. I will struggle to cope with the constant flow of strangers in this flat if Francesca moves in.
She runs her hand through her long black hair. ‘I’m on social media a lot, so I do Insta Lives and TikToks. My followers are all night owls like me. I am hoping to go on TV soon.’
‘Oh – what sort of TV?’
‘It’s a new show calledNaked Island.’
I gasp. ‘Naked what?’
With a flick of her hair, she giggles. ‘It’s where a group of hot people live on this luxurious island, but the twist is… no clothes are allowed. It’s filmed day and night. Oh, and if I’m successful, I won’t be wearing clothes in the daytime.’ She smiles. ‘I will need to practise.’
‘Interesting,’ I say, crossing out her name. The last thing I need when I walk through my flat door after a hard day at the bookshop is a naked Francesca wandering about.
After a few questions, I bring the interview to a close. ‘I’ll be in touch about the flat.’
Once Francesca has gone, I make myself a cup of coffee and confide in Lenny. ‘She needs to live by herself. I don’t think we would have made good flatmates.’
Steve is the next person on my list. He’s in his mid-thirties, wears a shiny grey suit, and is an amateur magician in his spare time. When I read his flat-sharing profile, I thought he sounded interesting, and he could show me a few magic tricks.
As soon as we are seated, he pulls out a pack of playing cards. ‘Pick a card, Nelly. Any card.’
His card trick is unconvincing and fails because he guesses my card incorrectly. An awkward silence follows. I remind myself that his one saving grace is that he redirected himself to the sofa when I warned him about my chair.
I start to interview him. ‘You’re a magician in your spare time. What do you do for a living?’
