“Sweetheart ...,” I start, and she huffs under her breath.
“No, no, it’s okay. I’m fine. Just crazy emotional right now. Sorry. I swear I never cry.” She bites her lip as she studies the drawing of Wickham. “You got this at the art fair in Greenwich. You bought it.” Her hand covers her chest. “Tuck ... this means something, yes?”
Not replying to that, I close the space between us and stand behind her with my hands on her shoulders. “I bought it several years ago, yes.”
“I drew it from a bench across the street,” she continues. “I even sketched Herman at the door and Darden on his balcony. There’s Cece talking to Brogan on the sidewalk.”
My arms encircle her waist. “It got my attention because it was my building. And it’s a good piece. See her?” I point to the woman leaning against the building.
She melts against me. “Me. In my harem pants with my satchel ...”
“Wearing your locket.”
She turns around in my arms. “Decadence? You recognized it? So you knew I lived or was familiar with Wickham outside Café Lazzo?”
I shake my head emphatically. “No. I recognized the locket as being familiar, but things moved so fast that night there wasn’t time to figureit out. I realized it when we were in the elevator together after one of our walks.”
“Fate is crazy.”
“Hmm.” We sway together to a song that isn’t playing.
She looks up at me. “Just throwing this out, and keep in mind it’s late and my thoughts tend to get more fanciful the later it gets ...”
“Okay?”
“Some cultures believe in reincarnation, like a wheel of rebirth, and then there’s the whole karma thing. Basically, your next life may depend on the way you lived your past life. When you’re reborn, whether it’s ten years later or a hundred, the people around you might be past family members or lovers, and you’ll be faced with the same struggles. If you’ve been horrible, you might be an animal or a plant.”
“Are you saying Cherry could be my dead ancestor that fucked up?”
She rolls her eyes. “Some say you’re destined to meet the same person over and over until you get it right.”
“Ah.” I sweep her up and settle her in my bed, then plop down next to her. I lean up on my elbow as I gaze down at her. “So fate keeps pushing us together because we never got it right in our past lives?”
She rolls on top of me and smiles. “I hear skepticism. Do you believe in anything?”
I pause at the seriousness in her eyes, choosing my words carefully. “I believe in today. I believe the sun’s going to come up with us together in this bed. There’s no force pushing me around a chessboard. I create my own destiny. I’m not at the whim of the stars.”
She tsks as her fingers trace my eyebrows. “You’re a cynical man. I’m a cynic too, but ...” A troubled expression flits over her face. “There must be purpose; otherwise what’s the point in tragedy and suffering?”
“So our lives are prefixed? We can do nothing to stop the outcome?”
“We have free will. We choose the path. That’s why it keeps happening over and over.” She chews on her bottom lip. “I’m just a dreamer, Tuck. I’m not a Buddhist or Hinduist or a Christian. I’m not anything;I’m still figuring that out. But I keep asking questions. Why did I feel driven to live in Manhattan? My dreams? Why did Wickham accept foster kids and I get in? Why did I meet Darden and Cece and Brogan? Why do I have this locket? Why have I seen you for years? Why did you buy my sketch? Why did we feel drawn to each other at the club? I bet if you made a map of Manhattan and took yarn and traced your steps and mine, they’d overlap over and over. It all piles up, layer by layer. Little pushes. Nudges. Leading us in a certain direction. Sometimes there are too many coincidences to call it a coincidence, yes?”
“Am I your fate?” I frown. I’m not good enough for her. I’m flawed. Ugly on the inside.
“Maybe.” She rests her cheek on my chest as the sun slowly peeks over the horizon. Her finger traces my bicep. “How did you grow up in Virginia?”
“Normal. Typical. Lots of football.” I card my fingers through her hair.
“But not perfect, right?”
I pause. “No.”
“If there’s a perfect family out there, then they’re aliens masquerading as humans to take over the world, or they’re robots. I like the robot idea. It reminds me of that book, what was it ...”
“Stepford Wives? I watched one of the movies or TV shows.”
Her nose scrunches. “That’s it. Murdering husbands who replace their Connecticut feminist wives with docile, perfect robots.” Her voice takes on a dreamy quality. “In spite of how I was in and out of foster homes, I want my own family. Not just Darden and Cece and Brogan.”