“There aren’t homeschool diplomas? I don’t know how that works. Your grandma taught you? Did you have a regular schedule like people in school? Was she teaching you the same stuff we were taught? Did you study and have tests?”
“Tests. Lessons. Regular school schedule. Grandma was a high school teacher before my mom died, so she knew what she was doing. In some ways, I probably got a better education than a lot of kids, because it was one-on-one without distractions. But in other ways, not so much. I mean, Iwantedto go to public school. She wouldn’t let me. My grandparents argued over it. She won. And then she died before she could issue me a diploma, so technically, even though I scored high on my SATs and made good grades—”
“She graded you?”
“It wasn’t hobo school. There were grades, like I said. And tests, which I passed. But I don’t have a diploma, so I never officially graduated. Which makes things complicated for college applications.”
“Whoa. That’s wild. I’ve never met anyone who was homeschooled. I have a million more questions.”
I smiled. “I thought we only got three. And that was your second question for me. By the way, I should get a point for catching you in the clown school lie. And let the record show that I believed you were telling the truth about wood school.”
“And I thinkyouwere telling the truth about hobo school—or homeschooling, as you claim.”
“I mean, I can hop a train and heat a can of beans over an open fire like no one’s business.”
“Is that right?” he said, teeth flashing at me in the dark as he grinned. “If I went to wood school, I could probably make you a stick for your hobo sack.”
“A bindle?”
“They have a name for that?”
“You’d know this if you’d gone to hobo school.”
He laughed loudly. The photographer on the other side of the park turned to look at us while I shushed Daniel. And for a moment I became paranoid. Someone was walking around the sculpture in the middle of the park—was it Raymond Darke?
It wasn’t. But it sobered us up.
We were quiet for a long stretch of time, each buried in our own thoughts. My mind went back to when he said he’d done a stupid thing. I desperately wanted to know what that was, but I didn’t want to press him if he wasn’t ready to share it. He was so open about everything; maybe that was off-limits for a good reason. So my mind drifted to other answers I wanted from him. One answer in particular.
I cleared my throat and said, “You agreed with me when I said that what happened the first time we met was a mistake. So why did you post that Missed Connections ad?”
Every casual line on his body straightened at once. “You saw the ad?”
“Only after you told me about it. Before you took it down.”
“Well, I’d found you, so there was no reason to keep it up.”
Oh.“I just assumed you’d changed your mind. About us. You said all that stuff about fate, and then you said maybe you didn’t believe in fate.” And maybe after he spent more time around me at the hotel, he realized I wasn’t his one true destiny. Not that I thought I was. I still barely knew him, and he barely knew me.
He started to answer, changed his mind, and started over again.
“I told myself if you answered the ad, it was a signpost.”
“A...?”
“Signpost. Do you ever feel like the universe is trying to communicate with you? If you just listen hard enough and pay attention to things around you? I know that sounds a little wacky, but it happens to me. Streetlights blink when I walk under them, or I see things I’ve dreamed about... It’s hard to explain, but I think sometimes they’re signs. And if I follow them, they lead me to important things. Or important people. And I think I was supposed to meet you for a reason.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I tried to keep the conversation light. “This sounds a lot like fate.”
“Fate will find a way, Birdie.”
“Are you trying to quote Jeff Goldblum? It’s ‘life.’Lifefinds a way. Jurassic dinosaur apocalypse, not destiny.”
“Can’t we have both?” he said with a smile. “Look, I’m not trying to get heavy here. I’m just saying, maybe I was supposed to meet you because of Raymond Darke. Or maybe it was for something bigger.” He tugged his ear several times. “As for the other thing, I agreed that us having sex was a mistake because it was. Clearly. It was... pretty awful.”
Ah, there it was. My old friend humiliation and its accompanying red face.
“No, no, no,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean... I meant, yes, it was awkward at the end, but it started out good. Right? It’s just... Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”
