I believed her. And looked at the paper:Daniel Nam.
Even as, year after year, we failed to find him, I believed her. This wasn’t that unusual, sometimes it took us weeks, months, and even years to find someone’s fated. People got plastic surgery, changed their names, moved suddenly. Some weren’t even alive anymore. In those cases, we reimbursed our clients and told them wecouldn’t find a match. The rule of the agency was, unless we found their fated, we would not match our clients with anyone else. We were One & Only after all.
But I kept my faith, because I saw the successful matches day after day. Saw it in my family. I knew it would happen. I just had to keep looking and not waver.
And now it had happened.
I found him.
I’m on the road, my windows rolled down, sitting with Daniel’s face imprinted in my brain, like a burn left on a device, the ghost of his face following every thought I’ve had since I left him and Ellis.
Once I realized who I was meeting, I was so flustered that I sped up our goodbye and turned my cheek ever so slightly when Ellis leaned in for another kiss. His eyes had pierced into mine wonderingly and I had driven off so fast that I probably left a trail of literal fire behind me. I can’t believe Daniel isEllis’sboss.
But I shouldn’t be baffled by the luck of it all. Because I’ve known my entire life that luck isn’t real. That everything is meant to be.
That even having your mother die on your eighth birthday was already in the cards.
But the shock of it—his connection to Ellis—that’s what I can’t get over.
Siri tells me that I’m only four hundred feet away from my destination, and I snap out of it long enough to see the sign for the ranch. I drive between rough-hewn wood posts and dust is kicked up by my tires.
This year, I decided to screw roughing it and picked a high-end yurt hotel to stay in. I pull up to my yurt, located in the very back of the park, at the end of the dirt road. The other yurts are conspicuously empty but it’s still early—just shy of noon, and a Monday. Ifthere are other campers, they’ll probably trickle in later when the workday ends.
The sky is white-blue and endless and there are low scrubby hills surrounding me. The horizon is dotted with Joshua trees—alien-like and twisted and completely original. My yurt is huge, with a bed and sofa, and there’s a sink and barbecue grill outside. A picnic table and lounge chairs are arranged next to a firepit.
It’s completely peaceful and solitary. Exactly what I need.
After I make quick work of unpacking, I pull out a bottle of chilled Sancerre and pop it open. I consider pouring it into a plastic tumbler for a second before I plop down onto an outdoor lounger and take a swig directly from the bottle. My legs are propped up on the chair and I stare out into the expanse of sky.
Daniel Nam. Found him at last. On my fortieth damn birthday, no less. The day after I slept with his employee. Not just once…but so many times I think I’ve lost count.
Oh, god.
The wine is ice-cold and I press the bottle to my forehead. I have to figure out how to untangle this mess. Luckily, it was just one weekend. Ellis is young, he’ll bounce back from a random woman he spent a weekend with. Even if she starts dating his boss. Right?
Right.
But I need to give it a beat. Fling or not, Ellis deserves better than an unceremonious dumping for his boss.
Hisboss. I know where to find Daniel now. This is the first step. A buzz starts beneath my skin. This is the beginning of everything.
One of my rules during my birthday trips is to put my phone on silent and ignore it unless it’s for practical purposes. But this year everything is different. I google Ellis to start and find the name of the firm he works for—Watson and Associates.Watson. It’s missing the “Nam.” This makes sense, why I never found him. I quickly readthe “About” page on the company’s website, which reveals that Daniel founded the landscape architecture firm eight years ago after working in the industry for a decade. Eighteen years of work. This means he’s probably close to my age. He studied landscape architecture at Berkeley. He was born in England. As evident from his, frankly, hot accent.
Maybe, in addition to the name thing, that’s why I had such a hard time finding him? Geographical blip? Maybe I wasn’t meant to find him until now.
Either way, he’s been under my nose for eight years.
I peruse his LinkedIn profile, the middle-aged equivalent of social media, but can’t find any other online presence. Maybe he, like me, is stubborn about social media. It intrigues me. Everything about Daniel intrigues me. And now, I have to wait three nights before I can do anything about it. Soulmate be damned.
A text comes in as I stare at Daniel’s résumé—Ellis.
Hope you made it to JT ok. Proof of life desert pic appreciated
Ellis is conspiring to kill me one sweet gesture at a time. I do put my phone aside then. Birthday hermit mode initiated.
This is my day. My mom’s day. I refuse to let romance get in the way of it.
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