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Cal disconnected, but I kept talking. “Oh. I see.” I closed my eyes, as if I were fighting off a crushing disappointment, letting my shoulders drop. “I understand. No really, it’s fine.” I let my voice wobble on the word fine, and out of the corner of my eye, I could tell Cory was listening. “Well, congratulations, I guess.” Another pause. “Yeah, thanks.”
I disconnected the call and stared down at my cold coffee, as if I didn’t know what to do next. Finally, I looked up, embarrassed and hurt. “He got back together with his girlfriend,” I said.
Cory gestured toward my phone. “At least you got the courtesy of a call.”
“Meeting someone in Los Angeles is impossible,” I said, echoing a thread from one of Cory’s messages to Amelia yesterday.
“Tell me about it. It’s like trying to find a winning lottery ticket.”
“Playing the lottery is fun,” I said. “Dating…not so much.”
Cory laughed. “Let me buy you another coffee. Maybe we can salvage the day after all.”
Good fortune and second chances. Everyone wants to believe those are real.
***
We walked down Main Street, our shoulders brushing, as Cory told me about his job as a high school principal. “The kids have an energy that you can’t find in any other field,” he said. “It’s intoxicating. Their passion. Their potential.”
I thought back to how he spoke of his job to Amelia. “What a privilege to be able to have such a positive influence on young lives,” I said, wondering if he would recognize his own words being spoken back to him. Intentionally spoon-fed in small bites, building a connection he’d feel rather than see.
He looked at me, his expression fiery. “Exactly.”
I was astonished at how easy it was. It was as if he wrote the script and all I had to do was read my lines. I toyed with the lid of my coffee cup as we waited for the light to turn green. When it did, I said, “I used to want to be a teacher. Elementary school.”
We stepped off the curb, making our way toward the boardwalk and the beach beyond. “What happened?” he asked.
I shrugged. The best lies were the ones planted in truth. “My senior year of high school, my mother got sick. I didn’t have time to apply to colleges. I was just trying to stay afloat with my classes and taking care of her.”
We passed a trash can, where we both tossed our empty cups. At the edge of the bike path, we waited for a stream of cyclists to pass. Cory took my hand, and we jogged across and settled on a bench overlooking the vast expanse of sand that led down to the water. “Did she get better?”
“No.” I let the word hang there, the weight of it heavy in the air. “It was an incredibly hard chapter in my life. But it was also a gift.”
Cory looked intrigued. “In what way?”
I pretended to think about my answer, but the words were ready, a shimmering facsimile of what he told Amelia yesterday.“I learned that the worst can happen and I’ll still be okay. Life is filled with lessons. We can either choose to suffer from them, or learn from them.”
I could tell I hit my mark by the way he leaned forward, the way his eyes flashed with a mixture of surprise and admiration. “Not many people your age would have that kind of wisdom,” he said.
I shrugged, as if his opinion was one I’d heard before. “Optimism is a choice.”
“That’s what I always say!” His delight was palpable. “I didn’t learn that until I was much older though.”
I gave him a skeptical look. “You’re not that old.”
He grimaced. “Forty-eight.”
I bumped my shoulder against his. “I like older men.”
He chuckled. “Good to know.” We were quiet for a moment. “Where did you grow up?” he asked.
“Grass Valley. A tiny town in the Sierras,” I told him. “You’ve probably never heard of it. Population twelve thousand. Everyone knows everyone else. After my mother died, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.” I studied his face, looking for any trace of skepticism, but it was open and trusting. He believes me.
“What brought you to Los Angeles?”
“A boyfriend,” I admitted. “Oldest story in the book. But I’m happy here. I’m at the city college in Santa Monica, doing a digital design degree. I’m living in student housing right now, but as soon as I’m done, I hope to get a place and start my own design business.”
He looked into my eyes and asked, “Do you believe in fate?”
I believed in making your own opportunities. I believed in taking what you wanted from life, and if you had to hurt someone in the process, it had better be for a good reason, because I also believed in karma. “I do today,” I said.
He leaned forward and kissed me. His lips were soft against mine, and I closed my eyes to the laugh lines around his eyes, the gray peppering his hairline.
“When can I see you again?” he whispered.
A woman on Rollerblades whizzed past us on the bike path, the beat from her headphones a whisper in the air around us. I looked toward the ocean, where the sun was sinking below the horizon. Stepping into this role felt as easy as sliding on an old coat, contouring my body as if I’d been wearing it for years. “How about Thursday?”
