‘You mean serendipity?’ Ryan ventured, catching her drift, and Beth nodded. ‘As it happens, I agree with you,’ he continued. ‘I think you do have to know the signs, and understand the clues.’ Much to his delight, he saw her smile a little. ‘But I think for those moments you have to have your eyes open. You have to realisewhenyou are being met with destiny. Those certain moments – crossroads, even – the really special ones where you know your life is about to change, they don’t come around too often.’
Beth’s smiled faded at this and her gaze appeared far away, as if she was somewhere else, thinking of another time and place. Ryan wondered what he’d said wrong and couldn’t help but be worried. Right now he wanted her back in the moment.
‘Beth?’
She snapped out of it and smiled guiltily. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking of something. Lost my train of thought.’
‘It’s OK. I know you’ve had a lot on your mind lately.’
She nodded and finished her sandwich. ‘Yes, I have this… project of sorts that I have been working on. It’s been challenging at times,’ she offered, briefly meeting his gaze, before sharply looking away again. ‘But I think it’s going well.’
Ryan wiped his hands with his napkin and took a sip of his soda. ‘Well, you know that I am here for you, Beth. Whatever project you’re working on, if you need help with anything – anything at all – just ask.’ He added with a wink, ‘I’m at your service.’
Chapter 19
Since returning from lunch, Beth had felt energised and refocused. She now knew exactly what to do – or, more to the point, where to go – once her shift was over. But having to wait to do so was killing her, and heading back to Carlisle’s with Ryan after their lunchtime excursion, she thought impulsively of saying that she didn’t feel well, that she had eaten something funny at lunch and had to take the rest of the day off.
Then she could continue on in her quest and pursue the next clue that she had been given.
However, there was just one problem. No matter how much she stared at herself in the ladies’ restroom mirror, she couldn’t will herself to look like anything other than the picture of perfect wellness. Indeed, she was glowing with excitement. Her lack of grisly pallor was displayed in rosy cheeks, bright eyes and a clear complexion – the epitome of health and happiness.
There was no way anyone – especially Jodi, who would be the one covering for Beth if she threw a sickie – would believe her story. She might be able to fake it to the human resources department upstairs, but her friend would see right through her. Instead, she decided that she would just have to wait it out. Only a couple more hours to go until the end of her workday. And then, on to the next stage of the trail.
Where it was all ultimately leading, Beth had no idea, but she was very much enjoying the ride.
Working away on the sales floor, she felt buoyed by her most recent discovery and how easily she’d worked this part out. She couldn’t help bouncing a little on her feet to burn off some of the giddiness that had settled in her stomach.
She’d actually created an in-store display last Christmas based on this very scenario, so the set-up was more than familiar to her. As the saying went, this one was in the bag. She knewexactlywhere the clue given to her today by Steve the bellhop was pointing her, almost as if ‘X’ marked the spot.
A five-dollar bill with writing on it; the book,Love in the Time of Cholera: it all pointed to the movieSerendipity. One of Beth’s absolute favourite New York Christmas movies.
Shakespearian in its delivery – and indeed reminding Beth a little of her own life at that moment – the movie was based on a variety of near misses and plot reversals. Set here in New York, Jonathan, played by John Cusack, and Sara, played by Kate Beckinsale, meet by chance in Bloomingdale’s department store at Christmastime (real-life parallels, much?). Irrespective of the fact that both are in relationships with other people, there is an immediate attraction and connection between them. But Sara doesn’t think it’s the right time for them to be together. So she comes up with an idea to test fate. Jonathan writes his phone number on a five-dollar bill and Sara, in turn, writes her name and number on the inside jacket of a book,Love in the Time of Cholera. If they are meant to be together fate will ensure they find the book and the five-dollar bill respectively and be led back to one another.
But Jonathan isn’t satisfied with this, and comes up with a more immediate test of fate. He insists that they enter the bank of lifts at a hotel and see if they happen to end up on the same floor. And while the audience sees from the individual perspective of each character that indeed they both choose the same floor, Jonathan is delayed as a child gets in the lift and pushes every single button, preventing him from arriving in the same spot at the same time as Sara.
And with that Beth was incredibly clear on where she was supposed to go next.
To the same hotel in the movie. The Waldorf Astoria.
The ‘23’ marked on the five-dollar bill was pointing her exactly where she was supposed to go. The same floor that Jonathan and Sara had both picked in the movie.
‘You look like you’re a thousand miles away,’ said Jodi, interrupting Beth from her train of thought and bringing her back to reality. ‘What’s up with you? More clues? What’s it this time?’
Beth nodded briefly in answer and immediately got back to work, doing a bit of cleaning up and filing around the cash wrap. ‘Yes, another one, actually. And I know where I’m going this time. Didn’t even need help with this one,’ she beamed.
She quickly gave Jodi the synopsis of theSeven Year Itchconnection, and how Danny had inadvertently pointed her in the right direction. But the moment that she mentioned that Ryan had wanted to go to a deli near the location she was supposed to find, Beth knew that Jodi was on high alert.
‘What? Ryan just “happened” to want to go to the same place that you needed to go to in order to solve the last clue?’ Jodi rolled her eyes. ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I didn’t see this before. What a friggin’ idiot I am. You suspect thathe’sbehind this, don’t you? Why did you tell me that you thought it was Danny? So I’d help you out? Because you know well that if I’d thought for a second that…’
Jodi shook her head, frustrated, her words trailing off and immediately Beth felt guilty. It wasn’t as if she was one hundred per cent sure yet that Ryan was the instigator, nor had she misled Jodi intentionally. And even so, despite one or two potential indications here and there, there was noclearindication that Ryan had planned it all, especially given Danny’s recent revelation about Billy. Remembering this set Beth on the defensive.
‘No, I don’t know that for sure, actually. I still have no idea who’s doing this. Besides, it was only pure chance that he wanted to go to that deli. That’s all it was. Serendipity.’
But Jodi wasn’t convinced. ‘Wrong. That is just the kind of movie-talk nonsense you’re calling on to justify all of this to yourself. You have used that excuse to rationalise this whole crazy thing, that’s what I think. Unless you believe in your heart that Danny has put this all together as a surprise for you – as something romantic because you are his girlfriend, and the relationship needs a boost – then I insist you abandon this insanity immediately. I’m serious, Beth. If Ryan is behind this then he is way overstepping his boundaries, and by being party to it you are only encouraging him. That’s not right at all in my mind and, frankly, he should know better, as should you. And, well, if it’s not him, then this is just plain creepy because you have a stalker. That’s what I think.’
Beth bit her lip. Was Jodi right? Should she abandon this? Because if she really looked at this analytically the way that her friend wanted her to, she had to admit that she didn’t truly suspect that Danny was behind this. What would be the point? Why would he go through the trouble of putting together this elaborate scheme when it appeared that they were growing apart by the day?
She thought hard, willing the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place.
