That’s a life, isn’t it? A person could do that. There will be so many, many good moments to that kind of life.
So why does it feel like right this minute I’m at a crossroads, trying to decide between the unknown and the known? Between the city and the suburbs? Between risk and safety? Didn’t I already make that choice? I told the guy I’d marry him! I kissed him right there in the diner, and I saw the happy look on his face, and how surprised he was—and now all I have to do is tell him that there’s a little piece of real estate that’s holding things up.
Blix, I am so sorry, but I already decided all this about my life. And now you’ve come to give me a gift that is going to muck up my whole life, and I’m sorry, but it’s just such a huge, huge mistake! I am not the person you thought. I don’t want a big, big life.
I know that if I called Natalie right this minute and told her everything that’s happening, she wouldn’t even have to think about it. She’d say I should run, not walk, back to Charles Sanford’s office this minute and insist that he rip up all the pages with my signature. Refuse to leave until every last shred of my signature is gone.
I’m about to punch in her number when I remember that I am carrying a letter from Blix right in my handbag. With my heart pounding, I take it out and open it, somehow knowing it will change everything.
TWENTY-FIVE
BLIX
Dear Marnie,
Sweetheart, an hour ago I got off the phone with you. You were asking me for a spell to bring Noah back to you, a request that pierced me to the core of myself. You love him. YOU LOVE HIM. At first I thought I’d go over to my book of spells—yes, I really do have one, but it’s more a joke than anything else because the best spells just sort of happen without any need of external stuff—but then I thought, what the hell, I’d try to find just the thing you could drink or eat that would make you a magnet for Noah once again. Maybe it would be only a placebo spell, but it would work because that’s how it all works. They work on BELIEF. And some directed energy. Here’s the truth, sweet pea: we are all vibrational beings in physical bodies, and thoughts actually become reality so you have to make sure you’re thinking about what you want and not about what you don’t want.
But then it hit me: there’s something else I can do instead, an immediate remedy—I could give you my house.
My funny, weird, crazy Brooklyn house. I should tell you: It has a plumbing issue. The floors slope in some of the rooms. It’s filled with tenants who don’t have perfect lives. The light switch on the first floor flickers sometimes, and once it shot a spark at me. I shot one right back. There’s a loose shingle on the roof. A tree branch batters the upstairs windows when storms come. What else? Oh, yes, one of the planters on the roof wobbles even though it’s supposedly cemented in place. The sun coming up in the morning can shine directly in your eyes, even with the bamboo shades pulled all the way down. The full moon will wake you up if you sleep in the front bedroom. Still, that’s the room I recommend. It’s the best because you will hear the sounds of the outside world, and that will keep you grounded and sane.
It’s a messy, forgiving, rambunctious house, filled with love and mischief. There have been so many good times here, and perhaps you already know the truth that good times beget other good times. And so there are plenty more to come. This house wants to be yours.
And I want it to be yours. You and I are messy, forgiving, rambunctious people, just like the house. That is what we share, Marnie dear. I hope you will stay.
Because you see, I am dying. I have this cancerous, tumorous thing growing inside me—it’s been here with me for months, and I know the end is coming soon. I haven’t told so many people, because sometimes people think I should go get treatment, like treatment is something I want to waste my time with. I do not want to have parts of me cut off, and I don’t want to be burned and slashed and poisoned in the interest of “getting better.” I want the kind of treatment where the universe looks down and says, “Hey, Cassandra!” (Cassandra is the name I gave my tumor. I thought she deserved a name.) I think the universe should have said, “Cassandra, you know you don’t belong there. Get out of Blix’s belly, will you, and go evaporate back into the atmosphere. Go turn into part of a glacier, or a little nest for a squirrel, or go back to wherever you were before you came here. Sweet Cassandra, if you kill off our Blix, then you will die, too, because Blix has all the nutrients for you. So think about that.”
But the universe didn’t come through with any such thing, and Cassandra apparently did not think about the consequences, and she has grown bigger and stronger, and she nestles down next to my heart when we lie down together, and I know soon she will be the bigger part of me.
So I’m excited for what I know can happen. I am calling my attorney, and I’m drawing up a will that leaves you the whole mess of a house. My heart beats faster when I think of how that is going to be for you! I know that the house will set your life off on a new course, just the way it did that for me. I know that you and I are in many ways connected, and maybe you’ll feel that when you get here.
Think of me here, welcoming you. Will you do that? See me on the rooftop, or sitting at the beat-up kitchen table drinking tea, or out on the street talking to the people who come by. I’m the car horns, the bus that rounds the corner, the subs over at Paco’s across the street. I am all of it. And you are, too, although you may not know it yet.
I know, I know, this will come as a shock to you, getting a house from someone you think you don’t know. But I know you. I have always known you. And I see myself in you, believe it or not.
And here’s the main thing of what I know about you. I told you when we met that you are in line for a big, big life, and this, Marnie, is where you will find it. There will be love and surprises here in abundance, I promise you that. Be open to what doesn’t seem possible, and you will be amazed what can happen. Darling, this is your time.
Love over lifetimes,
Blix
P.S. Will you stay for at least the three months it’s going to take you to get over the shock of this? Please? Tallyho, my love!
TWENTY-SIX
MARNIE
I read the letter three or four or ten times, then I fold it up carefully, and put it back in my bag.
For fun, I do the little exercise Blix showed me at the engagement party—the one where you beam some energy over to somebody you don’t even know, and watch what happens.
I choose a baby in a high chair, banging his cup on the table in front of him. I picture him all bathed in white light and happiness—and then I wait to see the effect. And yep, he stops banging and looks around, and then his eyes meet mine and he laughs out loud.
I made a baby laugh! This is so cool.
After the rain stops, I go to H&M to buy a sweater to replace the wet one I’m wearing. My eye gets caught by a long, bulky white cardigan, a black knit tunic, three pairs of leggings, a short black dress with red slashes on it, four pashminas, some heavy socks, two weeks’ worth of underwear (most of it sexy just because), and a blue knit cap. The clerk is ringing it all up while I’m looking at the jewelry display next to the counter, when a woman behind me in line—an older woman who has kind, crinkly eyes—says, “You need to buy that turquoise medallion there. Look at the shape of it. I think it’s your good luck charm.”
So of course I buy it, but I have that weird feeling again—the maple syrup sensation. A good luck charm. Just what I need. When I turn around to show her that I’ve bought it, she’s moved over to another cashier and doesn’t look back.
Outside, the weather has cleared up dramatically, and above the tall buildings, I can see wisps of white clouds scudding across the sky. The air feels clean and crisp. I put on the cardigan and go into the closest bank branch and start filling out the paperwork for an account.