Page 48 of Sort of Seeing Someone

“It’s a California thing,” I say. “This combo works. And if you keep on being nice, I just might let you try a bite for yourself.”

After the bartender punches in my order, he brings a glass of white wine to me and a fresh Manhattan to Ollie.

“To not blocking the fire exit,” Ollie says, proposing a toast.

“To the full moon among us,” I counter just to make him squirm.

We clink glasses.

“I know everyone thinks what I do is interesting,” I say. “Well, maybe everyone but you, but I’m genuinely curious about whatyoudo. I think you said…Acting Chief Civil Engineer. What’s that even mean?Acting?”

“I work for WorldEnge,” he says, like that’s supposed to mean something to me. “They employ some of the smartest, most prestigious engineers in the world. People contact my company with a particularly challenging structural problem, and WorldEnge then assigns a specialist to the job. I was recently a short-term consultant for the Marquis Hotel in San Diego, just for a blueprint review, hence how I wound up in your decaying yoga studio that day. The HR department there thought it would be a good ‘team-building activity.’ In hindsight, I should have RSVP’d no. But anyway, now I’m on this assignment as the Acting Chief Engineer for The Brockmeier.”

“You know I lost my job at the yoga studio because of you, right?”

“It was either that or being crushed to death by cinderblocks. Forgive me? Plus, it looks like you’re doing quite alright now.”

He nods in the direction of the envelope that was too big to fit in mycrossbody, labeledMoonieMillerGratuity,that is sitting atop the bar counter. Embarrassed, I flip it over, so at least the blank side is now face up.

“So what’s the ‘particularly challenging structural problem’ in this hotel? Should I be concerned the ceiling is going to fall on me when I’m eating my dinner?”

“Nah, you’re fine. But I heard the presidential suite has some loose floorboards…”

I can tell he’s making a joke, a bad joke at that. Still my reflex is to playfully swat his upper arm with the back of my hand like the bothersome bug he is. He may be slender, but holy biceps, Batman.

“What’s the real story?” I ask.

“The hotel is in the beginning stages of undergoing a renovation. They are long overdue for one, and it takes a civil engineering expert like myself—especially one who freaking lived in a hotel for two-thirds of his life—to oversee a public building with a restoration of this scale. They want to preserve the history and grandeur, while also staying up to code on about a thousand different things. There’s no way a layman could do it. Not to mention, the shore of Lake Michigan has steadily crept up about twenty-five feet since the building first opened. Rising water levels like that can severely compromise a structure over time. I’m here to supervise the whole thing—and in some cases, roll up my own sleeves and get a little dirty.”

“Sounds like you’re good at that.”

Immediately I regret the way that came out. Being only one glass of wine in, I can’t even blame it on the alcohol.

“What I meant is,” I begin backpedaling, “that this is a huge, old hotel. There are rickety elevators, old pipes, rising shorelines, and…just so manythingsyou need to know how to do. I’m impressed you’re a master of it all.”

“You think all engineers are nerdy pricks, don’t you?” Ollie says, throwing me a lifesaver.

And you think all spiritual people are witches with green faces and warts on their noses, I want to say back. Instead, I go with: “You haven’t exactly proven me otherwise.”

“Okay, okay. Maybe we are nerds,” he concedes. “But we’re not pricks. We just focus our efforts intothings, not people, most of the time. We can reset a circuit breaker with our eyes closed, but our social skills aren’t very developed,” he confesses.

“Then let’s practice them,” I suggest. “Tell me your life story before my burrito gets here. Ready? Go.”

Ollie says nothing. He just stares at me.

“You just lost five seconds,” I poke. “Go!”

“Okay. Remember when I said I was born and raised in Stockholm? Well, I was literally born in The Grand Hotel—the bathtub of the presidential suite to be exact. My dad was the general manager for the hotel. My momhomeschooled me out of a vacant ballroom. I spent my entire childhood wandering the inner belly of a historic hotel getting into trouble and learning how things work. The housekeepers were my aunties. The engineers were my uncles. The circuit breaker box was my version of a PlayStation. When I was 18, my dad got transferred to run a hotel in Chicago, so we moved to America. At that time, I went to college, breezed through undergrad with a double-major in hospitality and physics, decided that wasn’t challenging enough for me, so I went back for my PhD in civil engineering, and now I travel the world to tell people what’s wrong with their buildings. Any questions?”

“Where’d you go to school?” I ask.

“Harvard.”

“Yeah, and I graduated with honors from Yale. Where’d you really go?”

“Harvard,” he reiterates.

“Oh,” I say. “Nice.”

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