“Ephemeral?”

 

“Jackie.” She sighed into the phone. “I've never felt this way before. I mean, she's a woman, right? I'm confused. It's the way she reads. Her legs flap open, her hands wrap around mine.”

 

Before the palm reader, it was the paper boy, before the paper boy, a friend of a friend of a chef. Anna had been single for four years, so there's that.

 

I was baffled, too. It took five years before I agreed to marry Steve, let alone love him. To Anna, why was love as simple as a cosmic touch?

 

“I'm going to see her tomorrow,” Anna said. “And I want you to come with.”

 

I grunted, whined, chucked a sock.

 

“I know what you're thinking,” she said. “I'm crazy. But Jackie, Jackie this is real. I feel it. I'm going to ask her to be my date to your wedding.”

 

My imagination went right to the reception and a small cartwheel lured me. The hurry to become plural—we. “I think you should slow down a bit,” I said. “Don't get your hopes up. Love isn't all butterflies and metaphysical hoo-ha.”

 

“I really feel like she understands me,” Anna said.

 

“You pay her for it!”