She looks proud of her detective work.
‘Great.’ I shrug as we shuffle forwards in the queue. ‘Now when I think it feels like the world is against me, I know that actually, it really is against me. And not just the world, but the whole universe.’
‘Where there’s love, there’s hope,’ she opines, taking another large bite of brownie.
‘Oprah?’
‘No, I think I read it on a bumper sticker,’ she says, shuffling alongside me. ‘It’s true, though. If you love Adam, there’s hope. You just have to fight for him.’
‘Like you fought for Daniel?’ I raise an eyebrow.
Her jaw sets as she falls silent.
‘What are you doing, Robyn?’
‘Doing?’ she replies tetchily.
‘Mooning around the apartment, listening to the African drumming CD he bought you, comfort eating . . .’
She blushes and stuffs the rest of her brownie in her pocket.
‘Why are you just letting him walk away like that?’
‘He’s not my soulmate,’ she says firmly.
‘Says who?’ I cry. ‘The psychic who couldn’t even see into her own future? Great fortune-teller she was!’
Robyn looks all twitchy and starts fiddling with her stacks of silver bangles, determinedly avoiding my gaze.
Now I’ve started, I can’t stop. ‘I was like you once. I was convinced that I would know when I met the One, that I would just feel it. Everyone tells you, “You’ll just know.” Well-meaning friends, books, films, poetry. And although you don’t know what it is you’re looking for, and haven’t a clue how it’s supposed to feel, you convince yourself that when you finally find your soulmate, some magical alarm bell will go off in your head and you’ll just know.
‘When I met Nathaniel, I had all these intense, incredible feelings, and I thought, This is it. He’s the One. I truly believed it, which is why I was heartbroken when we broke up. I’d lost the one person in the world who was meant for me, and without that person I could never be truly happy again. OK, so there’d be other guys, nice guys, funny guys, lovely guys, but not another Nate. I’d lost him, and that was it.
‘So for years I carried on. I dated, had flings, a few boyfriends, but no one compared. Nate was always there in the back of my mind. Then, by some miracle, we found each other again and got another â€d got anoÓ€er â€d gchance at it. And what happened?’
Urgently I look at Robyn. She’s standing next to me, looking a bit shell-shocked, and I don’t blame her. It’s all coming pouring out, a decade’s worth of feelings spilling out in the middle of a busy New York diner.
‘I realised I didn’t feel the same any more, and neither did he. I realised I’d got it wrong. Just like all the other millions of people out there who marry and end up getting divorced. I was lucky, though – if I hadn’t had a second chance with Nate, I’d still be hung up on him now. I would have spent my whole life looking back with rose-tinted spectacles and I would never have noticed Adam. I would have missed him. Because the moment that I stopped focusing on Nate, and what I thought love looked like, was the moment I saw Adam.’
‘Hey, lady.’
Unknown
I hear a voice, but ignoring it, I heave a sigh. ‘Look, I’m...
Robyn seems almost to flinch, as if I’ve hit a nerve.
‘There doesn’t always have to be a sign, Robyn. You don’t always just know. Sometimes it takes a while to see what’s been in front of you all along.’ I stop talking and realise I’m almost breathless with emotion. Even if it’s too late for me and Adam, I don’t want it to be too late for her and Daniel.
She looks at me as if there’s a lot going on inside her head, then says stiffly, ‘Whatever’s meant to be will be.’
‘Ugh, that is such a cop-out,’ I gasp impatiently.
‘No, it’s not,’ she protests hotly.
‘It is, and your logic is all skewed,’ I argue. ‘You’re telling me I’ve got to take on the universe, like I’m some superhero, but you’re just going to sit back and see what happens?’
‘Hey, lady, you gotta problem hearing or somethin’?’
A loud voice hollers right behind me and I turn round, slightly irritated, then quickly realise it’s the sullen man who takes my order every lunchtime. ‘Oh, right, yes, sorry.’ I snap to. ‘I’ll have a matzo-ball soup and a—’
He doesn’t let me finish. ‘Nah, forget the soup,’ he says gruffly, shaking his head. ‘I