I reach out to lower the book, but he shifts his body back from me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I might have gotten into a small fight,” he says.
“You got into a small fight and now I can’t see your face?”
“I just wanted to warn you first.”
I reach out again. This time he lets me lower the book. The right side of his lip is swollen and bruised. He looks like he’s been in a boxing match.
“You fought with your brother,” I say, making the connection.
“He had it coming.” He keeps his face neutral, downplaying his feelings for my benefit.
“I didn’t think poets fought.”
“Are you kidding? We’re the worst.” He smiles at me, but then flinches in pain. “I’m fine,” he says, watching my face. “It looks worse than it is.”
“Why did you fight?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does—”
“No it doesn’t.” His lips are firm and straight. Whatever happened, he’s not going to tell me.
“Was it about me?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
He nods.
I decide to let it go. It’s enough to know that he thinks I’m worth fighting for.
“I was pretty mad at you before,” I say. I need to say it before we go any further.
“I know. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t believe it.”
“That I didn’t tell you?” I ask.
“No. That after all the things that had to happen to get us to meet today, something else was gonna tear us apart.”
“You really are hopeless.”
“It’s possible,” he says.
I rest my head on his shoulder and tell him about going to the museum and Ahnighito and all the things that had to go right for our solar system, galaxy, and universe to form. I tell him compared to that, falling in love just seems like small coincidences. He doesn’t agree, and I’m glad for it. I reach out again and touch his lip. He captures my hand and turns his face in to my palm and kisses the center. I’ve never really understood the phrase they have chemistry before now. After all, everything is chemistry. Everything is combination and reaction.
The atoms in my body align themselves with the atoms in his. It’s the way I knew he was still in the lobby earlier today.
He kisses the center of my palm again, and I sigh. Touching him is order and chaos, like being assembled and disassembled at the same time.
“You said you had good news,” he says. I read the hope on his wide-open face. What if it hadn’t worked out? How would we have survived being torn apart? Because it feels impossible now, the idea that we don’t belong together. But then, I think, of course we would’ve survived. Separation is not fatal.
Still, I’m glad we don’t have to find out. “The lawyer says he thinks he can figure it out. He thinks I’ll get to stay,” I say.
“How sure is he?” he asks. Surprisingly, he’s more skeptical than I am.
“Don’t worry. He seemed pretty sure,” I say, and let my happy tears fall. For once, I’m not embarrassed to be crying.
“You see?” he says. “We’re meant to be. Let’s go celebrate.”
He pulls me in close. I tug the tie out of his hair and run my fingers through it. He buries his hands in mine and leans in to kiss me, but I put my finger against his lips to stop him. “Hold that kiss,” I say.
It occurs to me that there’s one call I want to make. It’s a silly impulse, but Daniel’s almost got me believing in meant-to-be.
This entire chain of events was started by the security guard who delayed me this morning. If it weren’t for her fondling my stuff, then I wouldn’t have been late. There’d have been no Lester Barnes, no Attorney Fitzgerald. No Daniel.
I dig around my backpack and pull out Lester Barnes’s business card. My call goes straight to voice mail. I leave a rambling message thanking him for helping me and asking him to thank the security guard for me.
“She has long brown hair and sad eyes and she touches everyone’s stuff,” I say as a way to describe her. Just before I hang up, I remember her name. “I think her name is Irene. Please tell her thanks for me.”
Daniel gives me a quizzical look.
“I’ll explain later,” I tell him, and scoot my way back into his arms. “Back to norebang?” I ask against his lips. My heart is trying to escape my body through my chest.
“No,” he says. “I have a better idea.”
“WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING CRAZY?” I ask as I lead her back into the building. “My interview appointment is here too.”
“No way,” she says, and stops walking briefly.
I grin at her, dying to know how her scientific brain is going to deal with this epic level of coincidence. “What are the odds?”
She laughs at me. “Enjoying yourself, are you?”
“You see? I’ve been right all day. We were meant to meet. If we hadn’t met earlier, maybe we would’ve met now.” My logic is completely refutable but she doesn’t refute me. Instead, she slips her hand into mine and smiles. I may make a believer out of her yet.
My plan is to get us to the roof so that we can make out in privacy. We sign in for my appointment at the security desk. The guard directs us to the elevator banks. The one we get on must be the local, because it stops at practically every floor. Suited people get on and off, talking loudly about Very Important Things. Despite what Natasha said earlier, I can never work in a building like this. Finally we get to the top floor. We get off, find a stairwell, and walk up one flight and straight into a locked gray door with a NO ROOF ACCESS sign.
I refuse to believe it. Clearly the roof is just behind these doors. I turn the handle, hoping for a miracle, but it’s locked.
I rest my forehead against the sign. “Open sesame,” I say to the door.
Magically, it opens.
“What the hell?” I stumble forward, right into the same security guard from the lobby. Unlike us, he must’ve taken an express elevator.
“You kids aren’t allowed up here,” he grunts. He smells like cigarette smoke.
I pull Natasha through the doorway with me. “We just wanted to see the view,” I say, in my most-respectful-with-just-a-hint-of-pleading-but-non-whining voice.
He raises skeptical eyebrows and starts to say something, but a coughing fit overtakes him until he’s hunched over and thumping his heart with his fist.
“Are you okay?” Natasha asks. He’s only bent slightly now, both hands on his thighs. Natasha puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Got this cough,” he says between coughs.
“Well, you shouldn’t smoke,” she tells him.
He straightens and wipes his eyes. “You sound like my wife.”
“She’s right,” she says, not missing a beat.
I try to give her a look that says don’t argue with the old security guard with the lung problem, otherwise he won’t let us stay up here and make out, but even if she interpreted my facial expression correctly, she ignores me.
“I used to be a candy striper in a pulmonary ward. That cough does not sound good.”
We both stare at her. I, because I’m picturing her in a candy striper outfit and then picturing her out of it. I’m pretty sure this is going to be my new nighttime fantasy.
I don’t know why he’s staring at her. Hopefully not for the same reason.
“Give them to me,” she says, holding out her hand for his pack of cigarettes. “You need to stop smoking.” I don’t know how she manages to sound so genuinely concerned and bossy at the same time.
He pulls the pack out of his jacket pocket. “You think I haven’t tried?” he asks.
I look at him again. He’s too old to be doing this job. He looks like he should be retired and spoiling his grandkids somewhere in Florida.
Natasha keeps holding out her hand until he hands over the pack.
“Be careful of this one,” he says to me, smiling.
“Yes, sir.”
He puts his jacket on. “How do you know I won’t just go get some more?” he asks her.
“I guess I don’t,” she says, shrugging.
He looks at her for a long moment. “Life doesn’t always go the way you plan,” he says.
I can see that she doesn’t believe him. He can see it too, but he lets it go.
“Stay away from the edge,” he says, winking at both of us. “Have a good time.”