“I think you probably already know the answer to that. But hey, take those business cards and hand them out, drum up a bit of publicity. Only don’t do it in Bally’s. I think security has flagged us over there.” Sooner or later I would lose track of all the places we weren’t allowed to go. “Why do you look so sullen? You don’t want to hand out the business cards? Fine by me. Besides, things are looking up for us. I think I’ve lined up your first date.”

I ignored her. I didn’t want to know anything about this date.

“I’ll hand out the cards,” I said, and grabbed the stack from the counter.

Des ruffled my hair. “This color looks so hot on you, babes.”

When she walked away, I felt again for the spiky hair at the base of my skull. I was still confused about the visions, but it felt good to have a secret, a piece of my life that she had no hand in.

I shoved the business cards in my purse but stopped in the arcade before handing them out. I played a round of Skee-Ball, rolling the scarred wooden balls up the ramp, arching them into the targets, stopping to listen to the dumb trill of the music that played when you hit the ten-thousand-point mark. The machine spit out a strip of pale pink tickets, which I carried to the counter in the back. The woman who worked there knew me, though she and I never talked much. She looked like she was in her sixties, with brown hair that was white at the temples and skin pale and doughy from all the time she spent inside.

Once, I’d had a vision as I stood in front of her, a quick flash: an old woman embroidering a design into a piece of cloth stretched taut in a hoop. A lot of the things I saw were violent, or sad, but sometimes they were straightforward. Sometimes what I saw was even comforting. I didn’t know how it worked, exactly—what bits of a life came to me, how certain memories sifted to the top and opened up to me. It was another thing I wanted my mother to teach me. How to see what I wanted to, and how to keep out or let go of what I didn’t want—or was afraid—to know. My “gift” still felt bigger than me, a force that moved through and around me like weather. Maybe one day it would make me feel powerful—if I could ever get it under control.