And now she was late, which was exactly the sort of first impression she had been hoping to avoid.
Laura pitched up beside the dark marble bar and looked around, trying to spot someone who might seem familiar or as though they were waiting for someone. The whole place was decked out like a tropical island bar with wooden carvings, surfboards on the walls, and Tiki-shaped glasses for the drinks. Laura glanced past the décor and at the people standing around, all of them dressed in variations of short dresses and relaxed suits.
There were a couple of women, looking nervously at watches or phones and evidently waiting for dates, but Laura knew that she was waiting for a man. She took a breath, trying to calm her racing mind. One thing at a time, she told herself. Right now, she needed to focus on this, because it could help her get to the bottom of all of the issues that threatened to overwhelm her life on a daily basis.
If she could get to the bottom of those issues, she would be a better and more present mother for Lacey. If she could be a better mother, then she might get shared custody, or at least better visitation rights. And if she was being more of a mother to Lacey, then maybe she could convince the state to let her take care of Amy. Everything had to trickle onwards from this one first point.
And, if it didn't work out, she reminded herself, it couldn't be the end of the world. She couldn't get drunk to forget her sorrows. She needed to carry on, find another way to get through.
“I'll take a virgin colada,” she said, catching the attention of the bartender. He nodded and began to mix her up a fruit-based drink, making no comment at all on her choice to stay teetotal. There were so many reasons why someone would not drink alcohol at a bar. Designated driver, an early start in the morning, or simply for safety. But still, whenever she ordered a soft drink somewhere like this, Laura couldn't help but feel like she had a neon sign pointing to her head with the word alcoholic above it.
These environments were not the best ones for her to hang around in, especially while she was alone. She hadn’t told the man she was meeting that she was an alcoholic, and he had picked the meeting place. At the very least, she thought, he certainly wasn’t able to just conjure up facts about people from speaking to them online, or he would have known that.
Still, it wasn’t like her ability worked that way. She just wished he would get here soon, so she could stop paying attention to the other drinks the bartender was making and how good they looked.
“Hello?” Laura started, turning around at the sound of a voice just over her shoulder. “You must be AnnaSmith8932.”
Laura found herself smiling, a reaction to calm her racing heart more than anything else. Had he known that, right then, she was wishing he would appear? “Yes. You must be VirginiaMan383.”
She took him in, a welcome distraction from the busy bar and the people drinking what amounted to liquid temptation all around her. He was younger than she had expected, probably close to her own age. He had red hair, styled up over his forehead just so, and he was dressed in a sharp, stylish blazer over a V-neck white shirt that made him look as though he’d just come off a plane from some exotic location. He was not what she had pictured in her mind at all.
“Please, call me Nolan,” he said, chuckling. “It’s Nolan Perry.”
“Laura,” she replied, holding back just in time before she gave him her full name. Given that she was an FBI agent, perhaps it would be a better idea to wait until she knew she could trust him before she gave her away her full identity. After all, even Division Chief Rondelle wouldn't be able to do much to help her if a rumor got out that she was a believer in the kind of idiotic psychic stuff that the FBI usually scoffed at. Never mind that she knew it was true.
“Shall we get a table?” Nolan asked, gesturing towards the side. it was the kind of gesture that actually meant the idea was a statement, not a question, and she was meant to follow. She wondered if he was used to taking charge at work.
She stopped herself forcibly, walking after him towards one of the free tables in the bar and trying to focus just on the moment. She didn't need to analyze every single person she met or try to detect every single thing about them. He wasn’t a suspect. He would tell her, if he wanted her to know. Besides, the more important question was how he had managed to pick her out. Had he simply looked around and found her by coincidence, picking her out from the other women at the bar? But how had he managed to do that? Could it be that he was the real thing, that he had seen her in a vision already and knew who to expect?
They sat down together, Nolan waving over one of the roving waitresses to order a drink. Laura noted that he'd gone for a whiskey-based cocktail, a manly kind of drink and definitely full-on with the alcohol. She didn't say a thing. Maybe that could be one more test, like everything else about herself. If he could tell her any facts without being told them, it might mean something. Laura resolved to hold back as much as she possibly could about her real life and circumstances.
“So, I wasn't expecting to get a response to my post on the forum so quickly,” Laura said.
Nolan chuckled, running a hand up over his hair. Or, at least, lightly brushing it. Laura noticed, looking closely, that he hadn't upset a single strand. It seemed it was more for the look of the gesture, and he was too vain to risk upsetting his carefully styled hair. “I just happened to see it,” he said. “I guess I was drawn to it, somehow. Something made me want to log in right at the time when you were posting it, and when I saw it, I couldn't believe my luck.”
Laura took a sip of her drink, more to hide her emotions than anything else. A vague idea making him turn on his computer and look at a post on a forum - that didn't sound like the kind of psychic ability she had been hoping to hear about. It was nothing like her own, for example. But that didn't mean anything, she reminded herself. It was still possible that he was the real deal, just in a different way from how she was. Just because every so-called psychic she had ever met until now had been a fraud, she still had to hope that someone out there wasn’t.
“Well, I'm glad you reached out,” she said at last. “I've been wanting to meet someone who could do things like I can.”
“Me, too,” Nolan said, flashing her a smile. “Don’t tell me. You grew up thinking you were the only one like you in the world.”
“Th
at’s right,” Laura nodded, then shrugged with a half-smile. “Well, after I realized that what I could do wasn’t normal, anyway.”
Nolan laughed at that. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “So, you’re in law enforcement?”
Laura looked at him sharply. She hadn't given anything away, had she? She hadn't said anything about it. So, how had he known that she was in that line of work? Could it be…?
“I am,” she said, trying to hide or dampen down her surprise a little. “What about you? What do you do?”
It didn't occur to her until just then that maybe she should have been trying to impress him, as well. She knew she had the ability that she had told him about online. Whether he did or not was what was of interest to her. She thought he could decide for himself whether he trusted her or not. And if they needed some kind of proof to settle things, she could always touch his hand later and see if a vision would come about his future.
“I'm in sales,” Nolan said, shrugging self-effacingly. “It's no big deal. I just have this kind of gift for helping people to find the thing that they're looking for. All part of the power, I suppose. When I look at someone, I know exactly what they want.”
“Really?” Laura asked. “Every single time?”
Nolan accepted his drink from the returning waitress, thanking her quickly before turning to answer her question. “Almost,” he said. “Of course, there are days when the power just doesn't quite seem to be as strong. But most of the time, I get a good hit. Employee of the month for several years in a row, you know what I mean?”