Seth slams on the brakes and swerves to the shoulder of the road. He and Aidan are both spouting a string of curses. Seth gets out of the car and slams the door. He walks to the front of the car, slapping his forehead, and then slams his hands down on the hood. “Are you nuts?”
“Seth!” Mira yells.
“Do you know what she’s done?” Aidan yells back.
“She’s stolen a car!”
“We’ve stolen a car!”
“We need to listen—”
“Don’t act so high and mighty! You know you suspected something before now!”
“Suspected something! Yeah! Like borrowing a car, not stealing it!”
“Our faces are probably already plastered in post offices!”
“Can we say we borrowed it?”
“We’re accessories!”
They’re all shouting over each other and not leaving me any space to explain.
“Please!”
Baaaa!
Lucky jumps up on the dash, disturbed at the commotion, and for a brief moment, they are silenced.
“Listen to me!” I yell. “Let me explain! Can’t you see? We were meant to have this car! It was there waiting for us! The door was even open! I swear!” I throw open my door and step out and find myself passionately pleading for the day. I have never passionately pleaded for anything in my life, and the more I plead, the more I am energized. It feels suspiciously and deliriously wonderful. Delirious? Is that what they think I am? Maybe so. It runs through me like a spiked fever. I talk in a loud frenzied stream so they can’t stop me. “Look at today! The four of us! Aidan and the president! Lucky in the road! The car! The money in the glove box! It’s a fair day! Our fair day! Something happened. Maybe it was Mr. Nestor. Or something in the air. Or my calendar. Or something else. I don’t know. But this day was made for us!”
Seth walks around to my side of the car, his face almost comical in its sputtering anger. He leans close. “Listen to me! Listen very carefully. There is no such thing as a fair day, Destiny! Check in to planet Earth for once in your life! We took a car! Somebody else’s car! A damn nice car!” His eyelids flutter, and he takes a deep slow breath. It makes three veins in his neck pop out. “What we did is called grand theft auto.” He points and glares at the front seat. “And now look! It even has a hole in the seat!” His hands squeeze against the sides of his head as he walks in circles. “Destruction of property! Grand theft!” His hands shoot upward. “Expulsion won’t begin to cover this! A hole in the leather seat! A gaping hole!” I notice he is beginning to sound a little delirious himself. He stops and glares at me. “How is that fair?” He shakes his head. “You are so disconnected from the real world it’s pathetic! You pretend like you’re there, but you’re really invisible. The real Des never shows her face except when she gets caught and—”
“Stop right there! Don’t you dare lecture me about connection, Seth Marshall Kaplan!” I derive great pleasure in his dropped jaw. “That’s right! I know your middle name and a hell of a lot more! I have your number, Seth. Some people are easy to figure. Aidan and Mira, they wear their neuroses all over their faces. But you took me longer to figure out, and I finally realized why.” Now he looks worried. Good. I move closer. “You’re not that different from me. You just wear a different kind of invisibility. You fly under the radar, all right. That smoothness, your easy smile. But you’re a chameleon. You’re whatever you need to be at the moment so you can fit in. At least I’m consistent!”
“It’s true, Seth,” Mira says. “You do have an easy smile.”
Aidan’s face screws up. “Neuroses?”
Seth sputters for a moment. Is it embarrassment or anger I see in his eyes? He turns away and walks back to the other side of the car. “We’re going back!” He pulls open his door.
“Stop! Wait!” Desperation pricks at my back. “Here! I have another coincidence for you!”
Aidan cuts me off. “No more coincidences!”
Seth chimes in, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Just what we need! Another story!”
“Please. Just listen.”
“Not a chance!”
“We’re out of here!”
“Stop! Both of you!” Mira says. She leans over the seat and snatches the keys from the ignition. Her voice is a growl. “I want to hear. So we are going to listen! Go, Des.”
Mira’s fierce posture catches them off guard. I make my case fast.
“On December 5, 1664, a ship sank off the coast of Wales. There were eighty-one passengers on board, but only one survived. His name was Hugh Williams. Over a hundred years later, on December 5, 1785, another ship sank in the same place. All sixty aboard drowned, except for one passenger. His name was Hugh Williams. And then on December 5, 1860, in the very same waters, another ship sank. There were no survivors except for one person.”