I crossed my arms in rebelliousness. “Yeah, and trees falling in the forest don’t make sounds unless I’m there to hear them, but so what?”
He made a tiny noise of disapproval. “If she is capable of doing what you suggest and you walk into the room with her, there is nothing to stop her from seeing your vision as clearly as you did.”
“Well good! Then she’ll know I get away in the end!”
“And will stop you.”
“And so I’ll run the other way!”
He leaned forward in an emotion as close to annoyance as I had ever seen from him. “You are forgetting she will have seen this conversation as well. If she is empathic, then you have no chance against her. There is nothing that can be done.”
I clamped my lips shut, but glared at him until his face relaxed.
“You are too stubborn.”
“It’s worked so far,” I said blithely.
He looked away. Unger moved uncomfortably. “I can’t go in as a cop. There’s no probable cause, no warrant. All I can do is go in as a civilian and stand around like an idiot.”
I held up my hands. “Maybe that will scare her!”
“A woman who eats men alive in a nightclub is not deterred by the presence of one police officer, especially if she has hostages,” Arthur said to himself.
“Then what should we do?” I stood up and tried to intimidate him. It happened naturally, without my awareness, but when he looked at me like a saddened angel, I wilted.
“You should not confront her. You should make a plan to assess her and prevent her movements without seeming to do so.”
“Which she will read if I set one foot in the room!”
“Then do not set foot in it.”
“You’re overlooking the most obvious part of the whole trick,” Unger warned.
I looked at him in question.
“She touched them. She put her hand on each person she read, even you.”
I thought back, but while that fit every one of the contestants, I realized that her words to me had seemed to answer my thoughts before I had even managed to shake her hand. No, for whatever reason, that didn’t work for me. I said as much to him.
He massaged his chin and brooded. “Then all we have to do is put someone else in the room who can keep their distance from her.”
“But like Arthur said, she’s not going to do anything, unless I’m there too.”
Arthur sighed and opened the Dutch door. “You are making a great many assumptions.”
I looked at him in disbelief. “Yeah, well, you’re talking to a woman who saw a mind-reader in her psychic vision of the future. We love assumptions here. We’re all about them.”
What was wrong with me? Was I angry with him for protecting me? Was it the stubbornness? No, I was testing him. I was trying to sound out his depths like a sailor staring into an unfathomable ocean. It was petty.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized immediately. “You know what I’m feeling, Arthur, tell me what I can do that will take that away.”
He closed his eyes in thought and upon opening them, looked to Sam, watching from his place behind the bar. At his beckoning, Sam slid out and shut the door after himself.
“If you must go, Sam will go with you. Unger and I can wait at either entrance.”
The bartender assented with a sallow nod and a fidget in my direction, but Unger was scowling at his shoes.
“There’s protocol for this kind of thing.”
“If you do not wish to be involved, then we will do it alone,” Arthur murmured, “though I am almost positive that you cannot, in good conscience, do such a thing.”
Unger tilted his head in a kind of nod.
“Then we will do everything exactly as it was done. Lilith will go shopping as she did.” He reached out suddenly and tapped Unger’s hunched shoulder. “And you will sleep.”
He looked as if he might protest, until Sam and I supported the unofficial leader with insistent stares. “Okay, fine, but you”—he pointed at me—“will buy a cell phone, and you”—he pointed in Arthur’s direction, unable to even look at the man—“will go with her when she shops. Who knows, those people could be watching her.”
Sam stepped forward as if to volunteer instead, but a tiny movement of Arthur’s hand stayed him. “That is a wonderful idea.”
There were a few seconds of pause. The host glanced around and tilted his head. “What is it that they say in sports when the team is sent back out to the field?”
I choked on the giggle that leapt into my throat at the thought of explaining to Arthur that “sports” was not in fact, a single event, but a category, and that many games that fit into the category did not involve fields.
Unger shot another incredulous look at Arthur’s shoes. “Break?” he hazarded.
“Yes!” Arthur put his hands together and instead of looking like an indignant coach, seemed more like a glowing piece of iconography. “Break!”
We parted company, Unger and Sam mumbling to each other in the universal language of dissatisfied guardians, Arthur as serene as ever, and me just happy to have him to myself again. He folded his long legs into my car and somehow managed to make its borrowed interior look high-end. We drove to the mall as I had done in my dream, fought traffic, and jockeyed for a parking space without a single growl from my internal lion of road rage.
He strolled past shops with veiled eyes, taking in his surroundings in an amused detachment that turned heads. Packs of diversion-seeking teenage girls giggled as he walked by, shooting me with envious looks, and for some reason, the toddler standing in front of us on the escalator found Arthur’s smile quite entertaining. Like a fool, I was incredibly jealous, until I realized he was watching me and had never once looked away. While the escalator carried us upward, I began to warm beneath the gaze until I had once again devolved into a child.
“I’m not buying the same clothes.”
He smiled.
“Those shoes were death traps and that skirt was a nightmare.”
His brows ticked upward.
“You don’t know what I’m talking about, but let’s just say that even though the purse worked, I’m definitely angling toward a utility belt this time.”
It unfolded before my eyes like the sun shining through clouds, and while his dazzling smile remained, a giggle of girls passing us on their downward trek performed a marvelous rendition of the chorus of “Don’t look” harmonized with comments about the temperature.
His eyes flicked in their direction and they were painted red with bliss, before he gave me back the attention I craved. I leaned toward him, ashamed that I was staking territory and that he was allowing me to.
“That was for you, you know.”
His arm slid up the moving banister till his fingers could tap the back of my hand.
“They think you’re gorgeous. They want you to look back at them.”
His eyes were tracing my features ever so carefully. “Desire is the cause of suffering.”
I think my mouth dropped open in shock. “Did you just insult them with Zen?”
The smile graced his face again. “I disappointed them, but to look back would be worse.”
We stepped off and walked across the busy tributary of flowing humans to the next escalator. Again I turned to face him, sure I was probably humiliating myself.
“Can I be incredibly personal with you?”
He chuckled, but didn’t look away. “Only if you promise to stop prefacing every piece of honesty with a disclaimer.”
“Done,” I agreed and steeled myself. “There are things that a woman comes to anticipate from a man.”
The lady in front of me stepped up to the next stair.
Arthur nodded in encouragement.
I lowered my voice. “It’s hard to read you, because . . .” I looked around helplessly. “Because you don’t seem like a normal man.”
We stepped off and wandered slowly around the promenade like two friends walking through
the park. In front of a promising store, I halted and folded my arms across the balcony railing, trying to find the most thoughtful way to ask him the question that was roasting my insides.
“You’re like a hermit,” I blurted out, immediately mortified. “I mean . . . are you, like, oblivious, or is it just . . .”
To my shock, he laughed.
Of course he knows what I’m going to say. God, I’m stupid. It wasn’t as if I had a particularly stony face.
“Don’t laugh at me, please?”
He apologized with a shake of his head, though he continued to chuckle. “But it’s so funny, how you always say things without saying them!”
“Alright, so I’ll be blunt. You turn it off, right?” What I was saying was confusing even to me. I was a fourteen-year-old trying to ask out that one untouchable senior who always smiled at me, but because of the unfortunate circumstances of his popularity, would never be able to confess his affections to me. It was absurd and, at my age, I should have outgrown it. Howard had never made me feel so light-headed, so giddy. I had no idea who Arthur was, or even what his last name might be, but if people could have intense one night stands, then why couldn’t I be sure he was a catch?
“Do you do it on purpose? Do you have to work at it, ignoring it, I mean?”
He looked down over the heads of the people below, remarkably, without confusion. “Never have I heard chastity discussed in such unproductive words.”
“Ha ha! Well, help me out here!” I laughed. “I’m a bumbling housewife. Supplement my vocabulary.”
He turned and leaned back, his elbows on the rail, his eyes staring up at the skylight. He looked like a child, innocent and mischievous all at once. “At the risk of sounding repetitive, desire is the cause of suffering, and suffering causes one to lose clarity.”
“That’s very important to you, clarity?”
He nodded slowly and found me again. “Right perception breeds right action.”
“So you are a Buddhist?”
He seemed to be smirking, but it could have been the light. “Definitions exclude information and that can lead to ignorance.”
I propped my head on my hand. “Cryyyyyyptic,” I protested.
“I try to keep my mind open to how the world truly functions and find value in all things that exist.”
“So, reincarnation or do you believe in heaven?” I asked without thinking, and before I knew what had happened, I heard her voice again on that night, asking me if I remembered what Dad had always said. I had to swallow before another breath could pass my lips.
He thought over my words for a while, and with a knowing glance, made me feel better. “To believe in an afterlife, you have to believe death is an end that precedes a beginning. To believe in reincarnation, you must accept the variety of the universe is finite and must recycle. I am not sure I believe in either, nor do I think that my beliefs would ever make a difference in how it actually takes place.”
“Then you don’t think it ends, but you don’t think it continues?”
He touched my face, turned it to his and stared directly into my eyes with sharp intent. “Can you conceive of a road that leads nowhere?”
I blinked. Of course I could.
“Who built it?” he whispered, but even over the noise, I could hear him clearly.
“Wha . . .?”
“How far does it go?”
“I . . .”
“Does it ever get there?”
I shook my head in a moment of dumbfounded perplexity.
“Then why can you imagine it?”
My vision blurred as I stared into space, trying to see the road that went nowhere, that seemed to exist, but could not. She had walked away from me. My parents had let go of my hands. They were all swallowed up by fog, wandering too far for me to follow, but we were never walking to begin with, and they would never be able to leave.
“Belief is irrelevant.”
His fingers slid from my face.
For a moment, it felt like she was just within my reach again, like I could pick up the phone and call her. It hurt, but in a way, it felt better. My shallow breathing slowed. I sorted foreground from background and looked into his eyes.
“I’m sort of glad you don’t date. The Zen thing is a definite mood-killer.”
He gestured at the shop. Reminded of our task, I let it swallow me up and belch with the dance beats of pop music. I went straight for the slacks and managed to find a black, long-sleeved top that looked as if it had been inspired by the Israeli Musad, but tailored to fit Tyra Banks. I watched him from the line, leaning against the banister, soaking up the sun like a happy plant, ogled conspicuously by every herbivore that happened to be stampeding by.
Some girls had taken up residence on nearby stone benches, and as I walked back out to meet Arthur, I noted with amusement that it was the same group that had passed us on the escalator. While they subtly tried to watch him, I tapped him on the shoulder and held up my ensemble.
“It’s very ninja,” he endorsed
I dropped my arms and shook my head. “You know ninja, but not the Great Karnak?”
He shrugged. “So now do we look for non-lethal shoes or try to find a utility belt that holds lipstick?”
“Shoes,” I confirmed. I pointed at the girls with a glance. “You have a fan club.”
Without looking, he forgave them with a smile.
“Should I tell them it won’t do any good to lust after you?” I was hinting, trying to get him to disagree with me, say something that would leave room for anything to grow between us. “I could tell them that bit about suffering.”
“Why embarrass them for finding a few moments of contentment?”
For an instant, I thought he was serious and the misunderstanding only made it easier to laugh. “You almost sounded arrogant.”
“I apologize,” he said playfully. “Don’t lose confidence in me. I try to be better every day.”
Shaking with silent mirth, I planted my elbow beside his arm and inclined close. “They just want to wait and see if you’ll kiss me. It’s a girl thing. They don’t know that sex is the root of evil.”
His expression of humorous disagreement said that he knew I was joking, but wanted to make sure there were no false impressions. “I never said that, Lilith.”
“I know. But obviously it has something to do with clouding your clarity, and I get it.”
His brows drew closer together and I immediately wanted to make him feel better about my faculties.
“When I was little, like six or so, I asked my mom about sex. You know what she told me?”
Arthur settled against the rail.
“She said that there were lots of types of love.” I leaned my head atop my arms and looked away from him. “She said that sex was what happened when two people loved each other so much that the only way they could express it was to try and become the same person. That’s poetic, right?”
He nodded in my periphery.
“I thought so too. It stuck with me. I saw my folks, the way they loved each other, knew that it could happen, and wanted the same thing for myself. I went through my whole young life thinking that, even when all that horrible stuff happened. I knew it had to be true. So when the first stable guy came along, I tried to find it with him. It was unfair of me, I realize now.” It was true, for even as the words left my mouth, they became real. I was forgiving Howard and instantly felt lighter. “I lay in his arms the first time and tried not to cry, because it didn’t feel the way it was supposed to. I never wanted it again and that’s why he tried to find that with someone else.”
I turned to see what my revelation had done to him and found his eyes closed.
“So I get it. Those kids, they still think it’s a fairy tale, but someday they’ll be able to see the truth.”
He prodded me on with a nod.
“I know desire is the cause of suffering.” I sighed. “But if I hadn’t suffered, I wouldn’t be here, talking to you.”
His eyes opened, unbelievably careful with the confession I had shoved out of myself, just to be unburdened.
“I was married once,” he divulged.
Stunned, I kept my eyes focused on the far side of the divide. “Was it that kind of marriage?”
His voice had gone blank. “It was something of a convenient arrangement.”
“No wonder you feel as you do.”
His head shook. “I cared for her, enough that I could not tie her down. There were other things, greater concerns than only her happiness.”
I knew we couldn’t talk about it anymore. It was something still too raw for me to cover over, even with the healing balm of his fondness. Flirting with him was a joy, but while exposing myself to him, I was learning how vulnerable I really was. It was unfair of me to make him the ear for all my problems and expect him to reciprocate, and it was unfair of me to expect him to invest his emotions in a broken soul.
I turned to give him an understanding smile, but was interrupted when his lips contacted my forehead. The shiver went from his mouth to my mid-back and returned again.
Slowly, he pulled away. “As poetic as were your mother’s words, they only spoke for her. Unconditional, blissful love can have as many forms of expression as there are people in this world to feel it.”
Without a sound, I took his hand and as casually, he wrapped mine around his arm. We walked to the nearest shoe store like a couple, the tender moment like a respite from the rapids of the mall. I separated from him unwillingly, but found a pair of rubber-soled ballet slippers that received his seal of approval in the form of a confused index finger pointed at the bow on the toe.
“An interesting contrast to your metal zipper pockets.”
Before he could ask me about the rack of neon, curly shoelaces that were not meant to tie, I herded him toward an accessory store, happier than I had ever been.
“Explain to me why you need an espionage outfit,” he murmured in my ear as I looked for the heaviest bracelets and rings I could find.
“To be fashionable while kicking ass.”
“We’re not going to vanquish Medusa, Lilith,” he rebuked. “You do not need a mirrored shield.”
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