The psychic was closer. She tick-tocked her gaze between us. “Either of you two have soulmates who’ve passed on to the other side?”
“You can’t call people from heaven,” Piety Jane called from yards away.
“Andyouain’t a conduit,” the psychic said, breezy. Sheappraised Caleb and me, then snapped her fingers my way. “I know you,” she said.
I waited for it.
“You’re the French fry girl at the movie theater,” the psychic said.
My chest hiccupped with swallowed laughter. I nodded. “That’s exactly who I am.”
“Tell them to bring back the crinkle fries.”
“Only God is supposed to know this information,” shrieked Piety Jane. She was the kind of person who gave religion a bad name. Her anger was shocking; it was turning over a log by a river and watching green-brown salamanders streaming over your toes.
“God and potato farmers,” whispered Caleb.
“I’ll tell them,” I promised. When the two left, I shook my head ruefully. “This is a weird world.”
“New York has always been weird,” Caleb said. We sat in silence, perhaps both of us thinking about ways our New Yorks have been weird to us. I missed obscurity, missed the way the world used to work, prior to the point when chance was cleaved.
“Life is too short,” I muttered, but before I was done with my sentence, Caleb stood with a velocity that could only be described as rocketlike.
“I have to go,” he said.
I startled. “Now?”
“Yeah, I’m behind at work.”
“It’s Saturday.” I tried for a smile.
“I’m behind at work,” he repeated.
“I get it. Maybe we can hang out soon?”
A hand drifted to his temple. “Maybe.”
I recoiled. Hurt was heavy, I had learned. My neck shrank into my shoulders. My leg muscles quivered, ached, but here on the bench, I could steady myself. “What about getting together when Natalie gets back in town?”
“We’ll talk then,” he said. But then he paused. “Is your wedding still on?”
“It’s still booked,” I said slowly. Dully.
His nod was solemn. “Good luck with everything,” he said.
A leaf detached from the tree near us, drifting into my lap as he retreated. It was ringed with red, crispy brown on the edges, like a worn paperback. And despite my plan to run back to my apartment, I called an Uber. I was halfway home, already past Thirty-Third Street, when I realized I was still in roller blades. By the time I was in the shower, the hot water stinging the new blisters skimming my ankle bones, the credit card late fee dinged my phone.
Thirty-Four
I devoured articles about Phoebe’s new post-show life. She’d been pap’d in the Hamptons, in Malaysia, and as a guest of a former president at his Martha’s Vineyard soiree. Phoebe’s skin looked phenomenal, her arms more toned than ever. One news headline proclaimed “PHOEBE HABBIT IS AMERICA’S NEXT RESURRECTED IT-WOMAN,” and from the makeup chair one morning, I shuddered at the wordresurrected. The former news anchor had taken to wearing demure but flirty styles, prints you couldn’t wear on air. Loads of green. I mulled whether she’d get breakup bangs.
“Do you mind lightening my eyebrows?” Alanna Sorensonn asked the stand-in makeup artist. Dola and Trent Foster were both sick, because now they were the kind of couple who got sick together.
“Olivia has to get in the chair,” the makeup artist said, but she dipped cotton swabs into a solution anyway.
“No one’s looking at me if it’s not an election year,” Alanna joked. She paused. “I’m so glad it’s not.”
Alanna was so striking that a painter would drool over her if she was in her slippers and pajamas. I clicked out of the Phoebe article. “Soulmail will make elections messy, huh?”
