“Is that why you look at me like that?” I poke his shoulder.
“Like what?”
“Like you find everything I say a little bit funny, but not laugh-out-loud funny.”
Oval platters of food are slid across our table and we pause to eat. I spoon a little bit of everything into my bowl. The chopsticks are the plastic kind, which makes it tough to keep shiny lo mein noodles, string beans, and pieces of roast pork from sliding through them.
Oliver scoops some fried rice from his bowl into his mouth in a deft move that would’ve made me turn the rice into confetti had I tried to copy it. “You know why I look at you like that?” he asks.
“Because you don’t find anything I say surprising since you can see into the future?”
“A lot of what you say surprises me. I may have premonitions, but it’s not like there’s script in front of me and I can predict every line. No, I look at you like that because when a lot of people speak, they’re trying to be impressive or endearing. You don’t do that.” His direct gaze makes me squirm.
Maybe that’s because I don’t believe I can be either of those things. He makes it sound like a compliment, but it’s hard to take it that way. I take a sip of green tea, hope it dissolves the lump in my throat. “Doesn’t it worry you that I might only be here tonight so that you keep helping me?”
“See, that’s exactly what I mean.” Amused bafflement lights up his face. “And no, it doesn’t worry me. I think you’re here because you want to be here. I think you like hanging out with me, but you’re still a slave to your fantasy. You’re torn. It’s okay.”
The chopsticks slip out of my fingers, clatter onto the table. Does this mean he doubts my memories as much as I do? Or does he mean ‘fantasy’ figuratively?
Ask him.
I can’t.
Instead, I change the subject. “So tell me something about yourself. How did you first discover you had special powers?”
He snickers. “Special powers? It’s not like I was bitten by a radioactive spider or anything. I think of it more as a stronger sense of intuition. The earliest memory I have of it is being six or seven, on vacation with my parents in the Poconos. I had just learned to swim, and, every day, as soon as I woke up, I hurried to the pool. But one morning, I refused to put my trunks on and when my mother asked why, I said I didn’t want to go into the red water.”
“Oh god, don’t tell me there was some kind of grisly murder.”
“There wasn’t, but when Mom pulled back the curtain to show me the pool, she screamed because she thought there had been. Some kids thought it would be funny to dye the water red and throw in a few inflatable sharks into the pool.”
“And you really hadn’t seen it earlier?”
“That’s how my father explained it away. As I got older, there were things he wasn’t able to explain so easily, but eventually I learned to keep quiet about the premonitions. When one of them came true, it was followed by extra visits to church, which I found really boring.”
“So, your family was that religious?”
“I think having a son like me made them more so. Though when my older sister started getting into trouble, they shifted their prayers over to her.” He moves food around his bowl, not eating any of it, then pushes the bowl aside.
“What kind of trouble?”
“The usual kind. Sneaking out of the house, staying out late, getting drunk . . . on top of which, she liked girls, which they didn’t approve of. Older girls at that. She got thrown out of summer camp for hooking up with one of her counselors, then got fired from her job at Chess King when the boss caught her with his wife. She was a minor at the time. There was almost a lawsuit.”
“Did your parents ever accept her being gay?”
“No. She ran off to Colorado to be with some woman she met in a chat room while I was still in high school. None of us have heard from her since. It’s been . . . nearly ten years now.”
The way he chews on his lower lip as his face grows downcast makes me wish I had the perfect thing to say to comfort him. But the best I can come up with is, “Wow, I’m sorry . . . I can’t imagine.” I slide my hand across the table, stop short of touching his fingers, which are tense and spread out. “Do you sense that she’s . . . okay?”
“I hope so.” His grim tone closes the door on the subject.
Our waiter comes over with a small tray bearing our check, two fortune cookies, and some orange slices speared by toothpicks.
I crack open my cookie and read the fortune aloud: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships are built. I think that’s the only one I’ve ever heard of where adding ‘in bed’ doesn’t make sense.”
Oliver reads his: “Today is probably a huge improvement over yesterday. Hmm . . .”
“Well, is it?”
“We’ll see. Day’s not over yet. Want to go for a walk, see if anything around here jogs your memory?”
I nod and he pays the check, refusing any cash from me.
Outside, we turn the corner and follow narrow streets lined with swollen garbage bags and flotsam from the day: loose pages of Chinese newspapers, chicken bones, soda cans, cigarette butts. There’s a high-pitched laugh in the distance and the air smells of exhaust and cat piss.
“Thanks for dinner, it was really good,” I say.
“I know it wasn’t anything fancy, but the most nondescript places around here often have the best food.”
I know this. Did Theo tell me? There’s that eerie tingle again at the base of my neck. I must’ve been somewhere in the vicinity on that lost night, but where exactly?
We pass a storefront for a fortuneteller, pink neon in the window forming a pair of eyes inside a crystal ball.
Oliver nods toward it. “Want a second opinion?”
“I’m fine with one psychic friend, thankyouverymuch.”
“Uh oh, she called me a friend.”
“Well you’re not my psychic enemy, I hope,” I say, ignoring his intended meaning.
There’s a metallic rattle, and a man in a shabby fur coat pushing a shopping cart rounds the corner. On his head is a cavalier hat trimmed with a giant red ostrich feather, which he tips to me as he stops in front of us.
“Have either of you fine people spied my pet rooster? Every few weeks he goes missing and makes me search for him. I must find him soon for fear he may meet his demise in a plate of chow mein.”
“Sorry, we haven’t seen any roosters come through,” Oliver says.
“He answers to the name Porthos. If you see him, do be so kind as to tell him, loudly and firmly, ‘Go home, Porthos! Go home!’ He is a smart rooster and will know where to find me.”
We agree to do so and Oliver offers him a dollar, which the man waves away.
“I am already a fortunate fellow, with a mouth full of riches.” He smiles to reveal a row of gold upper teeth.
“I hope you find your rooster,” I tell him.
“You are kind to say so.” He tips his hat to me once more. “He is my dear companion but there is only so long I can contain him before I am no longer a friend to him. A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not why ships are built.”
“What did you say?” I ask, but he’s already down the block, the tinny staccato of his shopping cart the only reply. My skin goes icy.
I turn to Oliver, my mouth wide open.
“Did you hear what he said?”
“I did. Do you want to get some bubble tea?” He resumes walking, unfazed.
“Wait. Stop.” I catch up and tug on his hand, expect him to turn around easily, but that lanky frame hides a surprisingly solid build, as if his bones are made of steel. When he does turn around, it’s because he chooses to, not because of any exertion on my part. And when I try to take my hand back, I can’t, because his fingers have closed firmly around mine. There are sirens in the distance; I can’t tell if it’s an ambulance or fire engine.
“What’s wrong, Astrid?”
“You don’t fin
d it just a bit eerie that he quoted the fortune in my cookie word for word back there?”
“I don’t.”
“Then what was it to you?”
The sirens get louder. A series of three fire trucks rumble past us. Oliver tilts his head as if listening to a catchy melody.
“So come on, what do you think that was all about?” I persist.
“Synchronicity and a nice example of the unexpected people you’ll come across in a city like this.”
“That’s it?” I try to shake my hand out of his grip, but he holds on, then takes a step toward me. I take one step back.
“You’re not always going to find meaning where there is none. The fortune cookie thing is meaningless.”
“I disagree.”
He blinks rapidly and shakes his head. “It’s funny . . . there’s something so contradictory about you. You let life carry you along, but when you try to exert some kind of control, it’s with this unrelenting stubbornness. You become unreasonably disappointed if people don’t say or do exactly what you expect.”
He’s right, but it’s never pleasant to hear people talk about your faults, so I’m justified in a bit of resentment here, right? I pull my hand violently, finally free it from his.
“Don’t walk away, Astrid. It’s what you do, but don’t do it with me.”
It is what I do. It’s what I did before. With Oliver, but also with Theo.
Also with Theo.
I walked away from Theo. And Theo followed.
Maybe if I walk away from Oliver and he follows, too . . . maybe I’ll remember more.
I go at a fast clip, zip by a strip club with a girl in a leopard print leotard smoking a cigarette in the doorway, around the corner past a boarded-up adult movie theater, up Tremont Street where I can see the green of the Boston Common up ahead. I’m like a frenetic character in a Greek myth, chasing something ephemeral, hoping I’m also being chased as I scurry up a grassy hill. I walk as fast as I can without breaking into a run.
Please please please let him be behind me. Let him know I need him to follow, need him to stop me.
And then there’s a hand on my shoulder and I turn around and it’s Oliver, and I laugh and I keep walking backwards, again on that torturous precipice of remembering, as if on the cusp of a sneeze or orgasm. So very close, almost there, maybe one more step and—
I stumble over a section of uneven ground and grab Oliver’s shirt for balance, but that throws him off, too, and we tumble onto the grass sideways. And I’m laughing harder now and I’m almost there, I just need . . . I need . . .
I lean in and take off his glasses and kiss him, full on, eyes closed. My arm curls around his neck to bring him closer to get me there, and he kisses back and the electricity surges—let there be light—and finally, finally, I am not lost at all. I know exactly where I am: on the corner of Boylston and Berkley Street. This isn’t grass at my back, but the cool bronze of the teddy bear statue outside FAO Schwarz. And the hands at my face are Theo’s hands, and I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten any of this, the plummeting, the moving through space at light speed while our bodies hover in one spot. As long as I keep my eyes closed, I’ve found him. But I need to know more, because there’s so much more to know and these lips against mine are my direct line to him, a light illuminating a long dark hallway, step by step. We walked down Boylston, and we must’ve kept going to Chinatown. Something happened before and after, but those parts of the hallway are still dark. After another minute of kissing, they remain dark, so I loosen my hold, take a breath, open my eyes, and remind myself I’m here with Oliver.
“Sorry I dragged you down with me like that,” I murmur. “Are you okay?”
Oliver looks like he’s computing a lot of information all at once. “No broken bones. And hopefully no broken glasses.” He retrieves the frames from a nearby patch of grass.
“Do you want to come home with me?” I blurt out.
“Look at that, maybe there is something to these fortune cookies after all.” He wipes his glasses on the hem of his shirt, puts them back on, and blinks me into focus. “I don’t . . . No. Not tonight.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want to know why?” he asks.
Definitely not. “I don’t know, do I?”
“There’s no question I’m attracted to you, in case that was in doubt.”
“Not anymore, but that kinda makes your refusal more puzzling.”
“Let’s just say . . . I think it might get a little crowded up there for you.” He taps my forehead.
But it’s not enough, I want to tell him. I want it crowded up here. Invite the whole neighborhood, let’s throw a rager. If he spends the night, I know more lost memories will come back to me. There’s no question about it. Except . . .
God, I’m such an asshole.
I can’t use Oliver like that. How could I even make him such an offer? I should be ashamed of myself, not for the boldness of it, but for the motive behind it. It was so easy to get carried away and forget there’s another person involved here, one with feelings and boundaries.
“This was a pretty good date, right?” he asks.
“It was.” I stare at the ground, hope I’m able to mask my confusion and contrition.
“You’ll let me walk you to the T?”
“I will.”
We stand and brush stray grass from our clothing, and then, just a few feet away, we both see it at the same time: a rooster.
Go home, Porthos. Go home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
..................
I’M AT CURIO CITY, READING the product catalog. I’m so engrossed, it takes me a minute to notice someone has come into the store. He’s hunched over a display shelf of bat skeletons with his back to me.
“They’re real, in case you’re wondering,” I say.
“They’re also under glass, so basically, I have to take your word for it.” I’ve heard that voice before. His slouchy build is also familiar.
“We wouldn’t charge hundreds of dollars for a knockoff.”
“If the imitation is done well, you can set whatever price you want.”
“Not if people don’t buy it,” I say.
Turn around turn around turn around. He doesn’t.
“Would you buy it?” he asks.
“If I was, you know, an animal skeleton aficionado or something, sure.”
“Do you get a lot of those types in here?” He moves on to a neighboring display of insects in resin.
“Sometimes. Are you looking for anything in particular? We can special order items if you . . .”
He turns so his profile is visible. I go numb. I open my mouth but words vaporize on my tongue.
“So if I was looking for a specific fossilized lizard, you could track it down for me?” Is he smirking?
Finally, my lips move. “Are you Theo?”
He briefly glances my way and turns back to the display. The glimpse of his face is startling. Like I slipped on ice and quickly righted myself before falling.
It has to be him.
“Theo?” I repeat.
“No,” he answers.
“You look like someone I know.”
“Do I?” He tilts his gaze to a higher shelf of taxidermy birds.
If only I could go over to him, get closer . . . but I’m stuck behind the counter, limbs frozen, mouth dry.
“I’m pretty sure we’ve met before,” I say.
He checks his watch. “I have to go.”
Another sliver of his profile as he leaves the store. It’s definitely Theo.
I finally get my legs to obey and hurry out, down Cambridge Street after him.
“Wait! Please, wait,” I call out, but he keeps walking. I run to catch up, grab hold of his sleeve. “I need to talk to you. It’s . . . complicated, but I was gone for a while.”
He looks down on me, his blue eyes cloudy and reserved.
“I’m not who you think I am.” He pulls out of my grasp.
But he is. Isn’t he?
Around the corner, he unlocks a red hatchback and gets behind the wheel.
I knock on the passenger window from the sidewalk but he ignores me as he starts the engine. He backs out of the parking spot, and I squeeze between cars to pound on the driver’s side window from the street.
“Theo, please. Just give me two minutes.”
But he drives away and leaves me in the middle of the street.
I watch his car until it turns and is out of sight. There’s a roar of an engine behind me. Loud honking.
I turn around. A black van barrels toward me, leaves me no time to get out of the—
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
..................
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1999
THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS pass in a state of limbo. There’s no contact with Oliver. I guess he’s letting me process, and I really should be processing. Instead, I go to work, catalogue and sell oddities, then go home, where Daphne and Zak talk cheerfully about nothing important over dinner, and Sally considers whether she’ll resume her furniture buying career or toy with “whatever jobs” like the one I have. After dinner, Zak tries to get us to watch Doctor Who, but we’re never in the mood so we watch horror movies or VHS tapes of The X-Files instead. Then Daphne and Zak go to their rooms, and, as much as I want to go to mine, to read or do some of this “processing,” Sally keeps me up talking. She brings up the broken engagement now, and sometimes cries a little (but not a lot) over Corey and how close she thought she came to having the perfect life (perfect lie?). She wonders if hooking up with more strangers will get Corey out of her system, and I reply, “probably not,” but she says it’s worth a try. Sometimes she complains of going through a quarter-life crisis, except that she has no secretary to sleep with and doesn’t want to buy a sports car because she’ll have nowhere to park it in Manhattan. Sometimes I’d like to trade problems with Sally.
During our nightly chats, there’s always a point when she gets tired of talking about herself and asks about me. I tell her about noteworthy moments of my retail day, like the local artist/dominatrix who bought all our antique glass eyes, and the man who asked—“hypothetically”—if the antlers were hygienically safe to use as sex toys. But none of my work stories hold her attention for long and invariably we return to Theo. She prods at the subject like a child poking a beached jellyfish with a stick, believing her nudges may bring new life to it. I’m not ready to talk about Oliver or my recent breakthrough on the Common, but I humor her as best as I can for the first few days. By the end of the week, I’m out of new things to say.
Asleep From Day Page 19
