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and threw down his napkin. “Oh,
please
,” he moaned. “You’ve got to be kidding. A
sandwich
? What sort of scam are you running here? I suppose you’re going to charge me as much for that . . . that
snack
as you would for a steak.”
    “That’s right, sir,” Hattie said pleasantly.
    “Well, I’m not going to eat it.”
    I looked over at her, appalled. She gave me a wink. “That would be up to you, sir.”
    “Well. I
never
!” He made a move to stand up, but Hattie stopped him.
    “Just hold up one second, before you go,” she said. “Katy, take his hand.”
    “
What?
” the customer and I both shouted at the same time.
    “Just do it.”
    His hand was slippery and wet and clammy, just the way I thought it would be. Gross. Out of sheer obnoxiousness I clamped down on it until he gave up with a disgusted
tsk
and a flutter of pale eyelashes. Hattie was doing the same thing to his other hand, I noticed.
    “Isn’t this special,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
    “Do it now, Katy,” Hattie said. “Love.”
    Love? Yuck. I didn’t want to give love to this cretin. I didn’t want to give him jack.
    “Do it. Clear your mind.”
    “Just how long is this session going to take?” the man demanded. “I’d like to include it in the police report.”
    “Oh, brother,” I breathed.
    “Katy!”
    “Okay, okay,” I relented. What a stupid job this was turning out to be. “Love, huh?” I took a deep breath.
    “Any day now,” the man sneered.
    I cleared his voice from my mind, along with everything else—the noise in the restaurant, the words I was thinking, even the feelings that were passing through my mind like scarves floating on the wind. Then into this emptiness I envisioned a big red heart that burst open, filling the space with flowers.
    Okay, hearts and flowers, I know this was all very corny, but it was the best I could do on the spur of the moment. Anyway, after that I zeroed in on the heart. It was hollow now, showing scenes from the man’s life. I watched him being beaten by some impossibly huge man—I guessed it was how whoever-it-was had looked to him when he was small. I saw a young woman laughing at him and pointing at him as if he were a freak. In fact, the word FREAK popped up and bounced around inside the heart like a screen saver. In the next scene, an old sick woman turned her back on him as he tried to put his arms around her. I saw the woman dying, and this man burying his face in his hands, alone in an empty room.
    “Oh,” I whispered. I was beginning to understand.
    And then it happened: My own heart sort of
shivered
, and then it opened up, too, like a flower, and something shiny and warm poured out of it into his.
    “You should have had this a long time ago,” I said, before I even knew I’d spoken.
    The man’s hands were cold and trembling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but the harsh words didn’t fit his voice, which cracked with uncertainty. He cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose a sandwich wouldn’t hurt. You’ve taken up so much of my time that I’m really . . .” He looked at me with eyes that were filled with sorrow, a dam that had burst. “. . . hungry . . .”
    “Take it,” I said. “It’s what you need.”
    A slow smile spread across Hattie’s face. “We’ll leave you to your lunch now,” she said, and we all let go of each other’s hands.
    We were almost back in the kitchen when Hattie poked me in the ribs with her elbow. “Good girl!” she rumbled.
    “Wow.” I shook my head. “I don’t know where that came from.”
    “No?” Her eyes slid sideways toward me.
    “Is that what you put in
my
tuna sandwich?”
    She laughed. “Oh, no. You needed something different. Very different.”
    We both pushed open the swinging doors with our hips at the same time. Hattie moved on; I didn’t. The door swung back, nearly knocking me over.
    He
was there, in the kitchen, standing in front of me with a crate of