Page 100 of Old Flames

“Not now, and definitely not without a prenup,” Vicky replied. “Good thing he feels the same. I wish I could tell him money doesn’t matter, but it does.”

“Your grandmother would approve.”

“It’s likely the only way she’d approve,” Vicky said. “How about you? Did you accept the proposal?”

“No!” Jules shot back. “I love him, but it’s too soon for a commitment.”

“Look at us! Collecting wedding proposals left and right!” Vicky chimed. “What makes them think we’re the marrying kind?”

“No idea!”

“Anyway, let’s get back to business,” Vicky said. “I feel strongly that Aurora wrote that message hoping you’d get it to the right person. And it seems you know who that person might be.”

“Thank you, Vicky, for everything,” Jules said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Jelly Bean,” Vicky said. “Good luck and be safe.”

Interstitial

Do you believe in time travel?

34

Of course, I believe in time travel. Do you think I’d stake my professional career on the product of a child’s imagination? I believed then as I do now. But the reality is like nothing I imagined. There’s no portal. No sentinel at the gate. No toll to pay. A tear in the veil of perception merges the past and the present. It’s as simple as waking up from a dream.

I fall asleep, slumped against the door, phone in hand, and wake up coughing. I’m back in my apartment. Over the blare of the smoke detector, I yell for Bobby to call 911. My kitchen is an inferno, flames dance along the butcher-block countertop and devour the new rice paper blinds. Where’s the extinguisher? I know I have one. Oh, right! It’s boxed and in storage. My neighbors pound my door with a few choice words. What now? Tuck. Roll. Smother the flames with salt. Find the nearest exit. Get to safety. There’s one problem: I own this place. It’s my domain. I can’t abandon it. The former owners left a box of baking soda in the fridge. It’ll have to do. I toss it whole into the leaping flames.

The firefighters arrive, the fire is contained, the neighbors and the FDNY see me practically naked, lace bra and matching underwear. I endure a lecture on fire safety and the perils of smoke inhalation. Bobby is gone. The apartment is empty. Outside my kitchen window, the world is on fire.

I’m back at The Aurora. I recognize my room only by the ceiling height and window placement. Apart from that, nothing is recognizable. The walls are textured and colorless, and the ceiling beams exposed. Three cots are where the bed would be, and crates are piled everywhere. Outside, the wind is howling. Smoke renders the night impenetrable.

Get to safety.

I throw open the door and run down the stairs. No soft carpet to cushion the feet, only hard, rough, and splintered wood planks. The door doesn’t give. I struggle and stumble out to a world engulfed in flames. The sky is incandescent. The great fire rages, magnificent and deadly. Smoke, heat, howling winds, crackling flames. Cries of anguish. Cries for help.

I feel dizzy and disoriented. I’d hurl up the food in my stomach if I had the strength. Eyes stinging, lungs tight, I move deeper into the garden. There’s no pergola, no bench, no trimmed hedges or pretty night flowers. The vegetation is dense and wild. Still, it draws me in. I venture down a dirt path with familiar twists and turns. Today, it’s paved in stone and ends at the bench where Leo found me asleep.

How will Leo ever find me now?

Behind me, the house is a cardboard cutout. The yellow facade is muddied. The windows are vacant. The tower is shuttered. There’s no going back. Leo belongs to another time. I’ve lost him—a conclusion so outrageous, it knocks me to my knees. I won’t lose him. I refuse. To never see him again? Touch him, kiss him, or provoke his laugh? Marvel at his thoughts? Never to wake up beside him? Which would mean the last time was the first and only time? No. Never. I won’t allow it. I’ll bend time to find him.

I get up and a gust of wind knocks me down. Darkness cages me. There’s a chance I won’t survive this night. The fire started around two in the morning and lasted twelve hours. This house was spared. No one died. I cling to these facts, hoping they will hold. My priority is to make it until dawn. Nothing ever outlasts the rising sun. The Aurora and its garden will be restored, but the cycle will continue. There’s a reason I’m here, a role I’m meant to play.

And if I die?

I won’t.

What if death is inevitable?

I’ll find my way back to him, in this world or the next.

I see her, and the debate is over. She’s not a shadowy figure, a reflection, or a figment of my imagination, but a woman, flesh and bones, alive but not well. She’s limping, coughing, stumbling ahead on the path, bare feet sinking into the moist soil. She moves surprisingly quickly, and I catch up only because she’s fallen to the ground. Her face, hair, clothes are coated in dirt and soot. I sink beside her, unsure of what to do next. Her breathing is erratic, her body a trembling leaf. When she opens her soulless eyes, Ruby is staring back at me. My compassion collapses into a pit of resentment. Manipulative little bitch!

“Drop the mask! Show me your face!”

Gradually, Ruby fades. She was never here, I know that now. Sharper, more defined features emerge, an angled nose, chiseled cheekbones, a narrow chin. Ocean-blue eyes stare back at me, wide with fear. Beneath that watery surface, like stones in a riverbed, is hardened resentment. Her true features expose her grief, sorrow, and any acrimony I’d attributed to Ruby. What I took for indifference is the sharp edge of envy. All that I am, that I have, every privilege I enjoy, she has been deprived and stripped of. Knowing this floods me with compassion and love, the love and understanding that any woman has for another. As panic loosens its grip, I see her for who she is. I know her story. I’ve written it.

I take her thin, cold hand in mine. It’s clenched tight. She’s fighting, struggling between life and death. The grim set of her mouth suggests she won’t give up, but she has no choice. It’s the only way. There’s no cheating death. There’s no way around it. No backhand deal to outsmart it. I know she’d rather find him than find peace. I know it because I feel it, too. We share the same grief, a heart-wrenching desperation in the face of loss, the fear of losing the one gift life has bestowed us, a gift ever more precious in an existence deprived of joy. She can barely breathe under the weight of her desperation. My instinct is to reassure her, tell her it will all work out, but it won’t. I know how her story ends. Even if she were to find him, nothing would come of it. She’s trapped in this house under one man’s rule. And tomorrow her lover sets sail for his homeland. She can’t escape this fate. There’s nothing I can do to help. I can’t draw her into my world, and I can’t stay in hers.