Alicia told me.”
“She left already.”
“Canada. Is that right?”
“Yes, her brother lives there.”
“And in September, she’s going to McGill.”
I nodded once. “McGill.”
“Montreal is beautiful. You’d love it there,” he stated with certainty—already certain that I’d never been, certain as well of the things I’d love. “The old city is an island in the St. Lawrence named after Mount Royal, the mountain at its center. The French say, ‘Mont Ray-al.’ In America, we say ‘Mon-tree-all,’ which, of course, is misleading. We’ll have to visit her sometime.”
Sara stepped off the patio, moving toward us. Mark stood to greet her. Their voices coupled warmly, turning festive, buoyant, ruffling like emancipated doves. It was clear that they’d known each other for a while. Mark relieved Sara of glasses and napkins, and he extracted a plate from the crook of her forearm. I wondered why they were not in love when they were so beautiful together, when the world they inhabited was legitimate with manageable particulars, when their mindfulness seemed to extend no further than the moment they occupied. They would have had a normal love, a confiding union felt to the core, not the desperation I’d known with Rourke, the panic I felt when he was gone. Mark spoke amiably, though the pressure from his mind to mine was serious and unceasing. His was an exceptional power—he was blessed, he had no doubt. I wondered how he had gotten Sara to get me to come to the party. She seemed like the type who would be immune to influence.
They were talking about collections. Sara kept keys.
“Nonsense,” Mark teased. “Keys. I keep cars.”
“Oh, well, cars,” she said and shrugged. “Naturally.”
Mark turned to me. “And you, Eveline?”
I had none that I could recall except the rock portrait collection, which technically Denny had started, so it probably didn’t count. I was not interested in keys, though I agreed that they were collectible, with the way they clink and cleverly hang.
“What do you think about cars?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know much about cars.”
Sara laughed at Mark, “Ha!”
“Not so fast,” Mark said. “She hasn’t seen it yet.”
“It is nice,” Sara conceded. “Actually, Evie, you might like it.”
“It’s so nice, the previous owner didn’t want to sell it,” Mark said. “He finally gave in to persuasion.” Persuasion is the type of word only certain people can use. I’d never persuaded anyone of anything. Mark took my hand and drew me to my feet. “Let’s see what you think.”
As we descended the mild grade to the gardener’s cottage, he said, “This is my place. And this,” he announced as we made the turn onto an opened garage door, framed on both sides by a fan of wild roses, “is my new car.”
We faced off with a gorgeous gunmetal-gray Porsche with an elliptical body. I touched it, bending prudently, as if to pet a sleeping animal, my fingers skimming the semi-scripted chrome lettering that flickered and repeated in the light.
“1967,” he said, leading me deeper into the impeccable garage, popping the door handle, taking me by the elbow, helping me sit. My legs drew up involuntarily, and when he shut the door, it made a solid seal like the lid of a coffin. The leather interior was supple and medicinal, the color of coffee ice cream. The glove box was at my knees. I was thinking, Once it held gloves.
Mark joined me, bringing himself behind the wheel. Though it felt wrong to be with him, I did not feel responsible for my loneliness or for his desire to violate it. People had been speaking to me for weeks, and yet only Mark had gotten through. I waited for him to refer to Rourke; it was exactly the right time to refer to Rourke. If he didn’t, it was clear that he had a plan.
“So,” he said, “NYU. We will both be in New York.”
“Yes,” I said, feeling something sinking. “It’s strange.”
He started the engine. “Not strange, Eveline. Fate.”
The rest until the end was fast. Frequently there is more time to think than there are things to think about, and you sit around contemplating the most trifling details. Other times it feels you live your life in a minute. Not in the sense of things racing past, though there is that, but of things spilling out in an undulating twist, simultaneous and unoriented, flat and circular, present and future, like a Möbius strip. Because although I was surprised to see Rourke, I’d also been expecting to see him. And though I knew not to