“Fate? Thatyoutoldhimthatyouwere his destiny?” she says, shaking her head. “No, I think you’ve set it all up.”
I sigh, irritated now. Charlie always enjoyed my talk of fate and destiny before. She always agreed that the universe was going to deliver my perfect guy at just the right time, and when he came, I’d know. And now here I am telling her that this is finally it, and she’s gone cold.
“Mara,” she says, “when you were dating in London, do you remember you would have one date, and then you’d come home and tell me all the reasons they weren’t right for you? You are a chronic first dater. I used to think it was impressive how you knew exactly what you wanted and what he looked like and his star sign and all those things. But sometimes I wondered if it was just an excuse, so you didn’t have to take a risk with someone.”
“I don’t think that’s... ,” I begin to protest, although I can feel the redness in my cheeks as I do.
“Remember Dan? That awesome, kind, creative guy you went on that date with? He was so great, Mara. And hereallyliked you. He looked like a young Leo DiCaprio. And, remember he had seenSingin’ in the Rainwith his grandmother a hundred times? I literally couldn’t have summoned a better fit for you from the goddess Venus herself. And you wouldn’t see him again because the heart said yes, but the horoscope said no?”
“Well... we all need boundaries,” I say weakly.
“I love you,” she says now, “but it feels like you rely on fate and all this external signposting so that you don’t have to listen to whatyoureally want.”
“That didn’t work out for me with Noah, as you know,” I say, downing the last mouthful of my glass of wine, frustrated. “I followed my heart there and it was a disaster.”
“That was ten years ago, Mara,” she says quietly.
I don’t reply for a moment, looking down at my fingers, picking at the paint on one of my nails. “It was fate,” I say weakly. “Joe is my fate.”
I fold my arms and force a grin. Keen to move on.
“Do you really think he’s going to come, Mara.Really?”
“Well, no harm done if not,” I say. “You said yourself I needed to get out there more.”
“I meant you should go to an art class. Or get on Tinder.”
Charlie sighs, glancing down at Sophie, who is smashing a colored block on the ground and gabbling away to herself. I frown. I have really misjudged this. I was sure Charlie would find this as extraordinary as I did.
“Bloody Tinder,” I mutter.
“It’s just worrying. You’re going to work yourself up and I can’t bear the thought of you there when he doesn’t show,” she says, shaking her head now, like she’s frustrated with me. She sighs deeply, rubbing her face with her hands. “Mara. Your head’s in the clouds on this stuff. Life doesn’t work like that. You meet your life partner at work or through a friend.”
It wounds me so deeply I can barely breathe for a moment.
“Well, those options are dead ends right now,” I say and then regret it immediately. “Come on, Charlie, let me enjoy this? Please?”
“I’m sorry,” she says after a long pause. “I just think it’s not agood idea. Ireallydon’t want you to waste your summer waiting for this guy to show up. I can’t watch it.”
There is a silence in the room, and I think about Alex, who was supposed to come in twenty minutes to take the baby and the dog but isn’t back. I look at Charlie, who is tired, who has never not had a drink with me unless she was pregnant, and I summon all my empathy for her.Of course she’s not going to get behind this, I think. She’s at the business end of romance; the meeting is done, the courtship, the wedding. Now she’s at home with the baby and the breast milk and the mess. She doesn’t want to hear about this.
“You’re probably right,” I say, as brightly as I can. “Still, it’s a nice fantasy.”
Charlie sighs too and tilts her head thoughtfully. “Did you know Oscar Wilde went to see a fortune-teller who predicted his early death?”
“No,” I say.
“I read about it. It’s weird, isn’t it? How we feel like we need something to help guide us through life,” she says. “My parents have Jesus. You have astrology. Alex currently has—brace yourself—Jordan fucking Peterson.”
“Oh God.”
“I just pray it’s a phase,” she says, rolling her eyes again.
“I’ve never understood how people can know themselves so well that they know exactly where they’re going and what to do to get there. How to make clear decisions that truly come from justthem. It’s a mystery to me,” I say.
“You do okay. You just need to trust yourself more, Mara. And try to connect more with other people. Not just men. Friends. Interests. You’re never going to meet people stuck in front of a Coen brothers box set.”
“Maybe. It’s easier to trust what comestome.”
