Destined (11 page)

I assured them I would keep their
secret. I was sorry that Josie couldn’t find out that her son was involved in a
happy, loving relationship. She would have been delighted to know he was no
longer alone. I thought she would probably approve despite what I assumed was a
major difference in religion. I didn’t think Mei could possibly be Catholic.
She was probably a Buddhist. Or whatever. In any case, I was sorry for everyone
that her family was not more flexible in their attitude. It seemed like they
all lost something as a result.

And, it couldn’t go on like this
forever. What if the couple wanted to get married and have children? They
couldn’t keep that a secret. It seemed like eventually, things would have to
change, one way or another. As things always do change, one way or another.
It’s one of the few things in life we can definitely count on.

Description: A man
and woman stand before an angel or cupid, aiming at them with the arrow of
love. A third woman, somewhat older, stands on the other side of the man,
representing his past relationships.

Meaning:
 
Romance, marriage. Choice between the
old and the new. Sexual attraction.

At lunchtime one day a couple of weeks after the store
opened, I decided to enjoy the fine weather and walk down to the park. It was a
perfect summer day. The birds sang, and the sky was bright blue with those
little puffy white clouds that look like sheep.

I was feeling quite chipper, having
sold an obscenely expensive antique grandfather clock that morning to a
fashionably dressed woman who was thrilled to find it for her lawyer husband’s
birthday. I agreed to arrange delivery to his office at an upscale address
downtown. She paid in full with her American Express card.

When you’re in retail, this is what
it’s all about. It doesn’t get much better!

So I savored the moment while
strolling along in the dazzling sunshine, with the sound of kids at play
echoing in the distance. I entered the gates to the park and followed the main
path toward a circular pond surrounded by curving stone benches, all empty at
the moment. A greenish bronze fish, a giant carp, appeared to leap up out of
the pond’s center. Its scales were fully articulated and they sparkled in the
light. Water sprayed out of its mouth in several glistening rainbow arcs,
falling back into the basin.

This was my favorite place to sit. I
loved the sound of the falling water, it was very serene. I sat down and
immediately relaxed. I ate my sandwich slowly, staring at the fountain and
letting my vision go out of focus, my mind wandering.

In a minute or two, my eyes drifted
shut. The sun on my face was warm and hypnotic. I fell into a sort of
meditative state. My mind floated in the here and now. It was a Zen moment.

I let go and sank deeper into my
thought body, losing more and more awareness of the physical. Then I distinctly
felt my consciousness rise up along my spine and flow out through the top of my
head as I left my body through the seventh chakra.

I saw myself sitting on the bench from
overhead, looking down from a bird’s eye view. The bronze fish was spitting
water up towards the new disembodied me as I hovered above it. Something like a
shining filament of spider’s silk gleamed in the sunshine, hanging down from
where I floated effortlessly right above the treetops. It was leading to the
top of my physical head, where my body sat on the bench, eyes closed and not
moving. I looked like I was sleeping, sitting up. Then I saw a person coming
toward my body across the grass. He was not scary or threatening. The figure
bent over me solicitously.

Something brushed my nose. With a
slightly nauseating rush, I was suddenly inside my body again.

A fly. I heard it buzz. Relaxed, I
kept my eyes shut, one with the fly.

A foot crunched stones in the path.
Then, only the sound of water falling. Warm sun on my forehead, my eyelids, my
cheeks.

Something brushed my nose again.

I opened my eyes and looked directly
into those of Anton Novak. They were amber brown with little flecks of gold in
the irises. The lashes were impossibly long and lush, the kind that women
struggle to achieve with expensive cosmetics. One lock of his straight dark
brown hair fell casually across his forehead. He squatted in the path directly
in front of me, regarding me with curiosity.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello.” His voice had a serious tone.
He reached out and gently tucked a little strand of hair behind my left ear.
His expression was unguarded, concerned.

“Are you OK?” he asked gently,
obviously ready to catch me if I fell over.

“Fine, I’m fine, just fine,” I
stammered, snapping out of it. “Thank you, really, I’ll be just fine.”

I stood up and grabbed clumsily for my
lunch bag and purse, my face flushed with embarrassment. He stood up gracefully
and took me by the elbow, holding on despite my ridiculous attempts to gather
my belongings, which kept falling out of my fumbling hands.

“You’re sure? All right, you’re sure
now?” he said, not letting go. His warm hand embraced my arm, helping me up.

“Yes! Oh yes, very sure!” I staggered
and grabbed onto him, shocked by a buzzing tingle that started in my core then
swelled into a rush of pure pleasure that swept over me, leaving behind a rash
of dizzy goosebumps. “I was just, um, really, I am perfectly, perfectly…fine.
I’m OK.” I was more than OK, I was swelling open like a ripe red rosebud in the
afternoon sun. I let go of him but I couldn’t stop staring, and he looked back
at me with a little smile behind his eyes, like he knew what I was feeling.

He released my elbow and allowed me to
stand on my own. “What were you doing?” he demanded, “Sleeping?”

I finally got a grip on my things, and
we started to walk down the path.

“No, not sleeping. Not exactly, that
is.” I said, “More like, kind of…meditating.”

He seemed relieved to hear it.

“Ahhh…” he commented, nodding his
head, “Meditating! I see.”

He was wearing gray slacks and a white
shirt with short sleeves, opened at the throat. Some very nice black curly
hairs showed on his upper chest. He thrust his hands into his pants pockets and
strode along next to me.

He smiled approvingly. He had
extremely white teeth. I wondered if he had used the bleaching strips. That
would make him a bit vain. I wondered if he was. Or maybe his teeth were
natural. Maybe they just
looked
so white because of his tan. He did have a great tan. I wondered whether he had
been at the beach. Probably some fabulous resort somewhere. Probably cruising
on someone’s yacht. In the blue-blue-blue Mediterranean. Probably with some
incredibly wealthy woman with huge breasts who looked like the young Elizabeth
Taylor in “Cleopatra,” wearing white flowing clothes made out of gauze…I
sighed, and frowned.

“Do you meditate often?” he asked
politely.

“Well yes, every day when I have the
time,” I replied. “It helps to clear my head. Makes me feel centered, focused.”

“I agree,” he said. “I too meditate. I
learned how at the Buddhist Temple on Martha’s Vineyard, of all places.” He
raised his eyebrows and nodded as if to confirm an amazing fact.

I chuckled, and he grinned
delightedly.

He launched into a long, rambling
story about Buddhist monks on the island off the coast of Massachusetts,
meditating inside the Great Pyramid in Egypt at midnight on the Winter
Solstice, having a vision of his grandfather that tapped him on the shoulder
during a ceremony in a Lakota Sioux sweat lodge, and spending the night in a
haunted chateau while doing a wine tour of the Loire Valley.

By then, we were all the way back at
the store.

And most of the way toward becoming
friends, surprisingly. He was a wonderful storyteller. I was completely charmed
by him. I stopped feeling self-conscious and laughed out loud at his jokes. He
treated me with a flattering gentlemanly courtesy that made me feel like a
cherished and beautiful creature. I liked it very much. I actually envisioned
myself touring those vineyards with him. His descriptions were vivid,
enchanting.

It was my day for being hypnotized.
First by the sun god, and next by this god of a man! I realized that today he
was completely different from how I had perceived him when we first met, at the
party. Then, he seemed like a slick European playboy on the make. Now he seemed
like the nicest guy on earth. A little too good to be true, maybe. I reminded
myself that caution was the safest path with handsome men, for sure.

I asked him why he had happened to be
in the park.

“Actually, I came to look for you,” he
said, smoothing back his straight, dark hair with a quick nervous gesture. “I
was here to see Henry, then Siri told me where you probably went.”

“Why were you looking for me?”

“Well, to ask you out.”

“Out?”

“Yes, out, to ask you out.”

“You mean like, out to dinner?”

“Yes, out to dinner.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well, are you going to ask me now?”

“Yes, yes, I
am
asking you now.”

“Oh, good.”

“And, will you? Have dinner with me?”

“Dinner? Hmm…When?”

“Well, I have to leave town tomorrow,
for a couple of weeks.”

“So, like, tonight, do you mean?”

“Yes, certainly. Dinner tonight. You
and me.”

He reached down and gently tucked that
wandering piece of hair back behind my ear again.

“What do you say?” He looked into my
eyes.

“Sure,” I said, breathlessly. “What
time? When I get off work?”

“Sure,” he said, “When you get off
work. I’ll drive you home first if you want to…feed your cat or something.”

“Why do you think I have a cat?”

“Because, you just seem like the kind
of girl who has a cat.”

“How do you know what kind of girl I
am?” I demanded indignantly.

“Maybe you just seem like a nice,
friendly, kind of beautiful girl who would like little soft furry animals, I
don’t know!” He threw his hands up in the air helplessly, then he grinned at
me.

I frowned and walked slowly past him,
starting up the steps towards the front door.

“What’s your cat’s name?” he asked as
I passed.

“Tree,” I admitted.

“
Tree
? You have a
cat
named
Tree?”

“Uh huh.”

“Why is he named Tree?”

“He likes to climb them. He likes to
sit in them. He likes to rub up against them and scratch his back.”

“OK, we will go and feed the Tree. All
right?”

“OK,” I said, over my shoulder.

I turned around and looked back. He
was still standing there watching me. He was showing me those pretty white
teeth again. I showed him mine back. The tingling was starting again, and we
weren’t even touching.

“See you soon,” he said cheerily, with
a brief wave.