“That’s pure, indeed! Choose Pears—the modern choice for you and your loved ones. Now, Miss O’Neill, before we say good night, can you tell the fine members of our listening audience what you see?”
“I’d be happy to.” Evie let her voice take on a faraway tone. “Yes… I can see into the future and I see”—she let the silence hang for a count of three—“that it’s going to be a swell evening here on WGI, so don’t dream of touching that dial! This is Evie O’Neill, America’s Sweetheart Seer, saying thank you and good night, and may all your secrets be happy ones!”
As Evie passed down the long Art Deco hallway of the radio station, people called out their congratulations: “Swell show, Evie!” “Gee, that was terrific!” “You’re the berries, kid!”
Evie drank up their praise like a champagne cocktail. She stopped for a second in the foyer of a large, wood-paneled office with gleaming black-and-gold marble floors. A secretary waved to her from behind a desk.
“Great show, Evie.”
“Thanks, Kaye!” Evie said, preening.
There were only two rules she followed on her show: One, she never went in too deep. That was what kept the headaches manageable. And two, no bad news. Evie only told the object holder what he or she wanted to hear. People wanted entertainment, yes, but mostly they wanted hope: Tell me he still loves me. Tell me I’m not a failure. Tell me I did right by my dead mother, whom I never visited, even when she called my name at the end. Tell me it’ll be okay.
“Loved the way you played with the money clip,” the secretary continued. “I sure was nervous for that Mrs. Rutherford.”
Evie strained to see into the office just beyond the secretary, but the burnished gold doors were shut. “Did… did Mr. Phillips like it?”
The secretary smiled sympathetically. “Gee, honey, you know how the Big Cheese is: He only shows up for the biggest names. Oh!” she said, catching herself. “Gee, I didn’t mean it like that, Evie. Your show’s very popular.”
Just not popular enough to get the full attention of WGI’s owner. Evie tried not to dwell on that fact as she grabbed her new raccoon coat and gray wool cloche from the coat-check girl and headed out front, where a small but enthusiastic crowd waited in the January drizzle. When Evie opened the door, they surged forward, their umbrellas like fat black petals of the same straining flower.
“Miss O’Neill! Miss O’Neill!”
Slips of paper and autograph books were waved at her. She signed each with a flourish before dashing down the alley toward a waiting taxicab.
“Where to, Miss?” the cabbie asked.
“The Grant Hotel, please.”
The rain was coming down; the taxi’s windshield wipers beat in time to some unseen metronome as they cleared the fogging glass. Evie peered out the taxi window at the study in smoke, fog, snow, and neon that was Manhattan’s Theater District at this late hour. A lightbulb-ringed theater bill featured an illustration of a tuxedoed man in a turban holding out his hands like a soothsayer while comely chorines danced under his enchanting sway. A sash at the top read COMING SOON—THE ZIEGFELD FOLLIES IN DIVINERS FEVER! A MAGICAL, MUSICAL REVUE!
Diviners were big and getting bigger, but so far, no Diviner was bigger than Evie O’Neill. If only James were around to see her now. Evie traced the empty space at her neck where the half-dollar pendant from her brother used to rest, a reflex.
A billboard for Marlowe Industries loomed above the jostling cab as they waited for the light to change. The billboard showed a silhouette of the great man himself, his arm gesturing to some nebulous future defined only by rays of sunshine. Marlowe Industries. The future of America.
“He’s coming to town soon, you know,” the taxi driver said.
Evie rubbed her temples to keep the headache at bay. “Who?”
“Mr. Marlowe.”