You're (Not) the One Alexandra Potter

by Alexandra Potter

  He seems momentarily taken aback by her forthrightness, but this is the trained medic coming out in Kate, not the frightened wife.

  “Yes.” He nods. “And what further treatment, if any, will be needed.”

  “Do you think he’s going to be OK?” But the frightened wife is here. Underneath her files and her candidness, she’s right here and her hope is almost palpable.

  Dr. Coleman pauses. He must have been asked that question a million times. “Let’s just stay positive, shall we?” He lays his hand on her shoulder, then leaves.

  I offer to go home with Kate and this time she doesn’t argue or protest, just mutely nods her head and lets me take control as I find us a cab and give directions. Once inside the apartment I run her a hot bath, make her a cup of tea, then change it for something a lot stronger. Whose stupid idea was it to make tea at times like this anyway?

  Wordlessly she does as she’s told. The old capable Kate would make some comment about the tea bags I accidentally leave in the sink, or the choice of towel I find for her in the linen cupboard, or the fact that I forgot to take off my shoes and have trampled dirt across her rug.

  The old Kate has been replaced by a girl with a helpless expression, who with clean, damp hair and wearing pajamas looks about ten years old, and who sits dutifully on the sofa nursing her whiskey.

  After a while she looks up. “I think I’ll go to bed now, Luce. I’m pretty tired.”

  I nod. “I’ll come too.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t have to. I’ll be fine on my own. . . .” she replies automatically, then trails off, as if realizing that actually, no, she’s not all right.

  “It’ll be like when we were little,” I cajole. “Remember how we used to share a bed sometimes?”

  “So we could share secrets under the eiderdown with a flashlight.” She smiles.

  “You used to kick me out in the middle of the night.” I grin. “I used to have to creep back into my own bed and it was freezing.”

  “God, I was a horrible big sister, wasn’t I?”

  She turns to me sheepishly and I laugh. “Trust me, I was a pretty annoying little sister.”

  We go into her and Jeff’s bedroom. It’s the polar opposite of mine. Uncluttered and painted a soft beige, it’s all perfect linens and plumped-up pillows.

  “All we need now is a flashlight,” I whisper, snuggling under the duvet.

  “And some secrets,” she whispers back. Turning her face, she looks at me, her eyes searching out mine in the darkness. “Want to hear one?”

  I stare at her as if to say, Go on.

  “Life can change in the blink of an eye. All you have is right now. So don’t ever put off telling someone how you feel about them, don’t assume that they know, because they might not and it might be too late.”

  I can tell she’s talking about herself, about Jeff, but it resonates with me.

  “I love you, Kate.”

  “I love you too, Luce.”

  She turns over and I spoon her, just like I used to, and as her breathing grows heavier and she falls asleep, I lie awake and think about her secret. I think about it for a long, long time.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “You have to help me. I needto speak to Adam.”

  It’s the next morning, and having dropped Kate off at the hospital to collect Jeff, I’ve rushed over to see Robyn at Tao Healing Arts, where she works.

  “What? Who’s Adam?” she hisses, all flustered.

  And well she might be. I’ve just burst into her therapy room, where she was in the middle of sticking needles into a half-naked man. I don’t know who was the most surprised, me, Robyn, or the naked man, who suddenly got a needle somewhere he didn’t expect.

  “The guy from the gallery, the one who came to get me from the police station.”

  Robyn stops indignantly waving around her braceleted arms, and two spots of color appear on her cheeks. She’s still feeling guilty about nearly getting me arrested.

  “We went on a date and it went horribly wrong.... Well, not the date. The date was perfect. Anyway, now there’s been an awful misunderstanding because of Nate—”

  “Nate?” Her ears prick up.

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I? He was in the Vineyard. We slept together—”

  “Slept together?” She looks aghast.

  “Well, yes, strictly speaking, but not really, and Adam got the wrong idea, and we had this big row, and he won’t answer any of my calls or e-mails, and, well, I saw my sister at the hospital—”

  “Hospital?”

  Robyn is uncharacteristically lost for words and has been reduced to an echo.

  “And she told me that I must never wait to tell someone how I really feel, because I might never get the chance, and I want to tell Adam how I really feel.” I stop abruptly, struggling for breath.

  “Wow,” comes a voice from behind us. “That’s intense.”

  We both glance over to see the man covered in needles. Lying flat out on the table in his boxers, he’s starting at us agog.

  “Sorry, I’ll just be a minute.” Apologizing hastily, Robyn quickly pulls the door closed behind her, then turns to me. “Lucy, why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Folding her arms, she gives me her sternest look.

  “Well, you’ve had a lot going on. We both have.” I sigh and look at my feet.

  Robyn’s face turns from impatience to guilt to sympathy and finally to determination. “Listen, I’ll do anything to help, you know I will, but what can I do? I mean, the last time I tried to help it didn’t turn out so well,” she says in reference to the spell.

  I look at her, my chest heaving, my mind whirring. “That’s just it—I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. He won’t speak to me. He won’t answer my e-mails.”

  We look at each other for a moment, completely at a loss.

  “If only I could see how to make this right . . .” I murmur, trailing off.

  “I know,” Robyn says with a sympathetic nod. “It’s at times like these I always wish I had a crystal ball.”

  “That’s it!” I exclaim, suddenly hit with an idea. “What about your psychic?”

  Robyn looks doubtful. “You don’t believe in psychics.”

  “But you said she can communicate with spirit guides and that she has an amazing gift,” I say pointedly. “In which case she can tell me what to do.” OK, so I’m clutching at straws, but I’m desperate.

  “I’m just not sure it’s a good idea,” says Robyn with a worried expression. “I know—what about some cupping?”

  “Cupping?” I exclaim.

  “Or some tinctures?” she continues brightly. “The effects can be amazing.”

  “You’re not going to fob me off with some old herbs,” I say determinedly. “Remember I found Harold for you.”

  “But that’s blackmail,” she gasps.

  “I know,” I reply unapologetically.

  Tucking a loose curl behind her ear, she studies me, as if thinking hard about a lot of stuff, then asks softly, “You really like this guy, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I reply quietly. “I really like this guy.”

  Satisfied, she gives a little nod of her head. “Let me get a pen.”

  I spend the rest of the day in a state of pent-up nervous anticipation about what Wakanda is going to tell me. Normally I’d need an appointment, but apparently in emergencies she’ll squeeze people in, so the plan is to go there after work and beg her to give me an audience, or whatever it is psychics do. Robyn doesn’t have her phone number, just her address, which she gave me, along with a lecture about how I have to keep my mind open and not be alarmed when she starts channeling and speaking in “voices.”

  “Voices?” I asked curiously. “What kind of voices?”

  “Just voices,” Robyn replied casually. “You know, different spirit guides.”

  Actually, no, I don’t know, but I’m prepared to leave my disbelief and cynicism at the door and find out. At this point I’ll try anythi
ng, and if it means crossing some woman’s palm with silver, then sod it, I’ll do it.

  “So which way is it?” Having left the subway, I’m standing on the street corner. Despite detailed directions, including a printout from MapQuest, I’m utterly lost and on the phone to Robyn.

  “Just walk east,” she’s trying to explain.

  “East? Which way’s east?” I say in frustration. “And don’t say ‘opposite to west.’”

  I twiddle my pop-up map around, and around again, then give up and start walking, my phone still wedged in the crook of my neck.

  “Did you figure it out?” she asks after a moment.

  “Sort of,” I fib, crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

  “There’s a Laundromat at the end of the street, and then next door is this shoe shop with a funny kind of purple awning.”

  “Oh, I see it!” Spotting the purple awning, I speed up.

  “Number forty-three,” Robyn is saying in the background. “It’s got a silver sign.”

  “Yes, nearly there.” Anticipation is buzzing. If you’d have told me a few months ago that I’d be going to see a psychic, I would never have believed it. But then there are a lot of things I would never have believed a few months ago, I tell myself, ignoring my ankle, which has started bothering me again since all that walking on Saturday.

  Slightly breathless from rushing, I finally reach a small shop with a glass window, across which are painted lots of stars and a sign: Psychic Readings. I feel a beat of triumph. “Yup, found it!” I’m actually quite excited.

  “Great!” she enthuses.

  “Only it doesn’t look open,” I say. I try the door, and finding it’s locked, I feel a wave of disappointment.

  “Wakanda’s probably just giving a reading,” she quickly reassures me. “Press the buzzer.”

  “OK.” I go to ring the buzzer, then pause as I notice a piece of paper taped in the window. “Wait a minute, there’s a sign.”

  “A sign?” Robyn sounds surprised. “What does it say?”

  I peer closer.

  “Well?” persists Robyn.

  “‘Closed due to unforeseen circumstances.’”

  There’s silence at the other end of the line.

  “Well, some bloody psychic she was!” I tut loudly.

  “Are you sure you’re at the right place?” Robyn sounds bewildered.

  “Positive. Number forty-three. Next to the shoe shop with the purple awning,” I repeat her directions back to her.

  “I just can’t understand it,” Robyn is murmuring to herself. “There must be some mistake.”

  “The only mistake is me coming here,” I reply, feeling suddenly foolish. Turning on my heel, I start heading back down the street toward the subway. “You were right—it was a bad idea. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You were thinking about Adam,” replies Robyn helpfully.

  At the mention of his name I feel a tug inside. “Well, I should probably give up thinking about him,” I say resignedly. “He probably hates me anyway.”

  “Bullshit!” protests Robyn.

  I hold my phone away from my ear and look at it in astonishment. “Did you just say ‘bullshit’?” I ask, putting it back to my ear. In this whole time I’ve never known Robyn to swear.

  “Well, yes, I did,” she says, sounding embarrassed. “And it is. Because he doesn’t. And you can’t give up.”

  I smile gratefully. “Thanks. I know you’re trying to be sweet and everything, but I think I’ve lost him,” I say sadly.

  “OK, well, in that case what would you do if you lost something else?” she replies, refusing to let my negativity dampen her unwavering positivity. “Say, your keys, like I did the other day.”

  “Um . . .” Thrown off on this tangent, I have to think for a moment. “Retrace my steps, I suppose.”

  “Right, so let’s retrace yours and Adam’s,” she says briskly. “When did you last see him?”

  “It was after our date, when we had our row.”

  “And why did you row?”

  “Because Nate burst in and Adam got the wrong idea.”

  “Nate. Exactly,” says Robyn. “He’s the cause of all this. So, first things first, you need to break the bond you have with Nate once and for all.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I sigh. Just today I received another missed call from him, and I’ve had to completely give up watching TV. Every time I turn it on it’s Big Bucks.

  “Seriously, Lucy, otherwise this will never get resolved and you might as well give up now.” She gives a little snort. “It’s like with Chinese medicine. You don’t try to treat the symptom—you need to fix the cause: you and Nate.”

  Walking along the street listening, I have to admit that for someone who believes in angels, she does talk a lot of sense sometimes.

  “You need closure,” she says determinedly.

  “And how do you propose I do that?” I sigh dejectedly. “The Strategy didn’t work. Nothing worked.”

  “True,” she agrees reluctantly. There’s a pause and I can hear the TV blaring away.

  “What are you watching?” I ask absently.

  “CSI. I’m getting ready to go to my new drumming circle, but I thought I’d watch five minutes. I’m just at the part where they’ve gone back to the scene of the crime to try to get some answers—” Suddenly she breaks off. “Oh, wow, that’s it!”

  “What’s it?” I ask, puzzled.

  “You need to go back to the scene of the crime! The answer’s right there. You have to be like Catherine Willows. That’s where you’ll find your answer.”

  “What do you mean?” My ankle has now started throbbing from all this rushing around and I flag down a cab.

  “It means you have to go back to Venice.”

  I almost drop the phone. “Don’t be so ridiculous!” I exclaim.

  “It’s the only way. Otherwise, forget it, wave good-bye to Adam.”

  The cab swerves to the curbside and I reach for the door. “Are you mad? I can’t go rushing off to Italy on a whim.” As I tug the door open, the opposite door is suddenly flung wide open and someone else jumps in the other side.

  “Hey, this is my cab!” I cry indignantly.

  “Lucy, you have to go,” urges Robyn on the other end of the line.

  “Robyn,” I gasp into my phone, as I climb into the backseat, “I’m not going to Venice!”

  Just then I come face-to-face with the stranger who’s trying to steal my cab.

  Only it’s not a stranger. It’s Nate.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “I’m going to Venice.”

  Walking into the kitchen the next morning, I find the radio playing, tea brewing, and Robyn sitting cross-legged at the kitchen table in her tie-dyed pajamas. “You are?” She looks up from buttering a slice of raisin toast and grins widely. “Awesome.”

  “Well, I’m not sure I’d call it ‘awesome,’ exactly.” More like clutching at straws, I think, plopping myself down next to her. After my run-in with Nate last night, finding myself next to him in the backseat of a cab, my mind is made up.

  “Wanna slice?” she proffers.

  “Mmm, yes, thanks.” I nod, as she passes one to me.

  “So when are you going?” She looks at me expectantly.

  “Er . . .” I pause. It suddenly hits me that I haven’t thought about that bit yet. In fact, now that I am thinking about it, I realize there’s quite a lot of bits I need to think about. Like how I’m going to afford a flight to Italy, or pay for a hotel, or get time off work. Anxiety rumbles. “I’m not sure yet,” I say vaguely, taking a bite of toast.

  “Well, you need to go as soon as possible,” instructs Robyn. “You can’t delay.”

  “Right, yes, mustn’t delay,” I murmur, chewing slowly, my mind whirring. God, this is all beginning to seem a bit overwhelming.

  “And of course Nate has to go with you.”

  I nearly choke on my toast. “What? You
mean Nate and I have to go to Venice together?” I turn to her in astonishment. “I thought the plan was to get rid of him, not fly off to Italy with him!”

  Calmly taking another slice of toast from the huge stack on her plate, she begins buttering. “It will only work if you both go,” she says matter-of-factly.

  “Says who?” I cry, waving my slice around in exasperation. “Is there a rule book for legends?”

  Robyn stops buttering and looks up. “Look, if you and Nate being together made this happen, you have to be together to undo it.” She gives a little shrug. “It’s common sense.”

  “In your world maybe,” I retort, wrapping my robe round my knees and hugging them to my chest. “I don’t live in a world of magic and spells and ancient legends.”

  “Oh, really?” Robyn raises her eyebrows and fixes me with a skeptical look. “You could have fooled me.”

  Indignantly I open my mouth to argue, then heaving a sigh, I drop my toast and bury my head in my knees. “Oh God, this is hopeless,” I groan, my voice muffled in the terrycloth folds of my robe. “I’ve tried everything and everything’s failed. We’re still ruining each other’s lives. Adam’s never going to speak to me again, and Beth’s probably never going to speak to Nate either. Going to Venice isn’t going to work. It’s a stupid idea.”

  “Listen, Lucy,” says Robyn, with sudden steeliness. “Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.”

  “Huh?” I glance up at Robyn, who’s staring at me, her face flushed with determination.

  “Oprah,” she says in explanation.

  “But how am I supposed to own it? Nate will never go to Venice, not in a million years.” In the background I can hear a song playing on the radio: Neil Sedaka merrily warbling “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.” Leaning over, I flick it off.

  “How do you know?”

  My mind throws up a few jumbled images: sharing a bed in Martha’s Vineyard, singing karaoke, yelling at each other in my kitchen when he accused me of sabotaging his relationship with Beth. “Trust me, the last thing he wants to do right now is go on a trip with me to Italy. In fact, he’d probably rather have his eyeballs poked out with a sharp stick.”