THE BELL DINGS AS I walk into the diner and I immediately get the sense that someone is right behind me. I turn around and look up and down the empty streets. The hair on the back of my neck stands up; the bubbly déjà vu feeling hits me like a bad odor and then passes just as quickly as it came.
“It’s your last chance, traveler!” a waitress sings to me as she pours more coffee for a pair of twins at the bar. Both men, Black but red-haired and freckled, turn toward me. They’re older and remind me of someone, but I can’t remember who. The staring contest gets weird, so I focus on finding Tamar. The desk agent at the hotel said that a girl in a wheelchair checked in earlier and I might find her here. Sure enough, I see her sitting at a booth, talking to a man I do recognize.
“Dr. Little Feather?”
The esteemed archaeologist from the museum news clip turns toward me and thrusts out his hand. “Yes. And you are?”
I take his hand and shake it, almost expecting him to accuse me on the spot of stealing his precious artifact, or make some sort of citizen’s arrest, but he just smiles as I introduce myself. His hand is warm and dry, and he really doesn’t pay much attention to me. His eyes are glued to the woman sitting across from Tamar.
“I’m Iris,” she says, and I shake her hand too. “Oooh, Carl, there’s a booth opening up. Let’s grab it and let these two chat.” She smiles, and the couple slinks away. I settle into the warm space Iris left behind.
“Is this why you left? To find Dr. Little Feather?” I ask.
“I’m amazed you think I have that kind of foresight. No. Iris and Little Feather are here purely by coincidence.”
“I’m not so sure I believe in coincidences anymore. Not with what I know.”
“But that’s just the thing, Fay. How much do we really know?” she says apprehensively.
“We know we love each other.” I slide my hands across the table, and she laces her fingers through mine. “We know we belong to each other.”
Her brow wrinkles a bit like I’ve said something insulting.
“Looks like you loved that cherry pie,” the waitress says.
“But I didn’t order any pie,” I say, and look down at the table, where two plates of gutted pie slices remain.
“You are funny and cute. Now that you’ve had our world- famous chili, you’ve got to try our cheese fries,” she chirps. I’m about to protest again, but Tamar hands me a napkin and motions for me to wipe the chili sauce from the corners of my mouth.
I blink a few times, unsure if I’m blacking out and if the waitress will still be there when I look up, but she is.
“Pie?” she asks.
“Sure,” I say, realizing it may be best if I just go with the flow.
I look over at Tamar, and while her hands still feel as solid and real in mine, she looks different.
“When did you get braids?” I ask.
“What? I’ve always had braids. You sound… strange.” She holds the last word, and I can see, clear as day, that she’s worried.
I look around at the patrons in the diner and everything looks just as it did when I walked in, but Iris catches my eye, and I notice that her dress is white with green polka dots now, instead of red. She nods at me like we’ve shared a secret, and I turn back to Tamar.
“Something is going on in here,” I tell her.
She nods ominously. “I know, but I can’t figure out what. I think…” She pauses, then squeezes my hand. “I think we’re doing this wrong. The plan, our lives… us.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, and I work hard to try to tamp down that sunken-belly feeling that something bad is about to happen.
“And here you are. A good cup of tea. Your friend over there said it’d help settle your stomach,” the waitress says, and points a slim finger over at Iris’s table. The aroma from the tea is strong. Licorice and rose.
“Now, she said it’s best to drink it hot,” the waitress says before hopping over to see to someone else’s needs.
Tamar pulls her hand back, and she seems more than just a table away—miles, lifetimes.
“You say we belong together, that you remember us, that we always find each other,” she says.
“Right,” I reply.
“But you don’t remember everything, do you? You don’t know how all our lives end.”
“So what?”
“So that’s the problem.”
I think she’s being a little paranoid. So what if the memories stop? We have the rest of our lives to watch them unfold. I take a sip of the tea, ready to launch into my argument and reassure her, but as soon as I swallow, the warmth rolls over me like an ocean and the diner drifts out of focus.
“Tamar? T!” I call. I’m yelling her name until I realize I’m not yelling. I’m not even speaking. I’ve got no voice at all.
Durham, North Carolina, 1924
Tamar rushes to put her things into a suitcase. I take a minute to just admire her: no makeup, pin curls in a hairnet, and a cotton nightdress that can’t hide what God made. I’m broke, jobless, and more than a little beaten up, but I still consider myself lucky. This angel’s gonna conquer the world with me.
“Almost done,” she whispers, her smile digging out a hidden dimple in her cheek.
“I guess that’s a yes,” I laugh, and turn back to the melee below. Dawn hasn’t sliced open the night just yet, but Tamar’s would-be father-in-law has made it outside in his robe and slippers. A pregnant girl and her shotgun-toting daddy have come to call. It’s the perfect cover for our getaway.
“We gotta get going while they’re still caught up with Norman’s soon-to-be betrothed. Oh-ho-ho! Daddy Norman is bolder than he looks—he’s going for the rifle. Wild, I—”
Tamar’s bent over. She doesn’t see. Honestly, I don’t either. I only hear. A shot. Shattering glass. I tumble back. I open my mouth to say her name, but I can’t. She screams, pouring out the pain I can’t voice as my shirt soaks through with blood flowing so fast… so very, very fast.
Her words jumble as I gasp for air.
“Fay! Breathe! No! Don’t—”
“Breathe!” Tamar urges, and I blink and then open my mouth to draw in huge gulps of air. I push the teacup so far away from me and so fast that it crashes to the floor.
The waitress rushes over to clean up the mess. “Oooh, don’t worry, dear. I got it.”
I have to grip the table to orient myself back to reality, or what is passing for reality in this place. I close my eyes and do what Tamar asked me to do—breathe.
“We die,” I say flatly.
“We die,” Tamar agrees, as if she’s known this all along. And here I thought we were acting out some grand love story across the ages. As soon as my heartbeat settles down to something like normal, I open my eyes. Tamar’s eyes meet mine, but they aren’t worried, just sad.
“You were the first to realize what was happening to us, that the dreams weren’t fantasies but memories. You woke me up and forced me to see what was really happening. I have trouble voicing my feelings. For whatever reason I keep them locked up behind a wall, and no matter where I am in time, you find a way to scale the wall or blow it up entirely. I love you and I’ll always love you.” She pauses, and I think back to every one of our lives together. She’s never told me she loved me. I knew she did, but this is the first time she’s said the words.
“I’ve loved you more than my future, and at times I’ve loved you more than my own life. That love is as real as my own heartbeat. But… I think it’s my turn to wake you up, Fay, so you can see that we’re stuck. We need to turn left when we’ve always turned right.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, and notice how quiet the diner has gotten. The lights seem dimmer, and that déjà vu feeling is completely gone. This moment is new. This isn’t a memory or a replay of something that’s happened before. I close my eyes. I take a deep breath and watch every smile, first kiss, brush of the shoulder, and death play behind my eyes.
“We’re in a loop,” I say, and she nods.
“I keep choosing the easiest path,” she says, “and because you’re there it makes it even easier. If I hadn’t stolen your money on that train from Philadelphia, you wouldn’t have had to chase me, and you wouldn’t have been shot. I would have figured out a way to get to Spelman and we could have written. In Al-Kawkaw, I could have buried my pride and become the concubine and then bided my time. Iyin would have died eventually, and probably much sooner than I would have hoped. Instead I killed myself. There are countless other lives we’ve lived where I had a chance to put myself first, put my life first, and then pair it with yours. But staying with you, or focusing on you, on us, was the path of least resistance. I love you, but first I’ve got to love me. I need to start making my own decisions, thinking about what I want to do with this one good life I have.”
I lean back in the seat, unwilling to let go of her hands, but blown away by everything she’s saying.
“You love me?” I ask.
“For all time,” she says, and smiles. “What would you have done in any of your other lives if you weren’t loving me?”
I think about that and wonder if I was using Tamar as an excuse. I remember what I was running from in Philadelphia and realize that while I found Tamar, I was really trying to avoid having a steady job. Uncle Max was everything I didn’t want to be, but I didn’t put any real effort into finding my place in the world. I could have let Tamar go with the money. I would have made it back. In Al-Kawkaw I was just being reckless. I could have put my foot down, but I didn’t want to make waves with my father. It seemed easier to let the decisions be made for me.
“I would have grown up,” I say, more to myself than her. “It’s been easier to put all my attention on you than to make a decision about what I really want to do and be. I don’t even consider any other possibilities where we’re not together.”
“But those might be the best possibilities. There are no coincidences, right?” she says.
“Right.”
Tamar lifts herself up and grabs my shirt so that I have to lean over the table to kiss her. She tastes like ginger and cherries and I can feel every kiss we’ve ever had, the shiver of the ocean breeze on my skin and the smell of the smoke from the midwife’s cook fire. I’m everywhere we’ve ever been before, and when we break, my heart breaks too, unsure if we’ll ever be there again.
“What do we do now?” I ask softly.
She reaches into her shirt and pulls off a necklace.
“I looped a chain through it so it wouldn’t be suspicious when I went through the metal detectors at the museum.”
I take it from her and sniff it. She bursts out into a huge laugh.
“Gross.”
“I’m a guy. What can I say?” I say with a smirk.
“Take this and the stone over to Iris’s table. She said Dr. Little Feather is a friend and he won’t ask any questions.”
“We still don’t know what it is,” I say. “I’ve got memories that don’t fit anywhere else, some visions of us that feel out of place, but they’re fuzzy, like someone erased the useful stuff and left the rest. Maybe the stone has something to do with it.”
“It doesn’t matter. But I think your subconscious was right—we need to get rid of it.”
“And then what?”
“Then we both head home and start planning our lives,” she says. There’s a smile in her eyes, but it doesn’t light up her face. It looks a lot like resignation. Or it could be relief.
I shake my head. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep away from you,” I whisper.
“I’ll make you a promise. Since neither of us believes in coincidences and fate is a cruel but consistent bitch, we’ll know that if she brings us back together, it must be inevitable. But we have to put in the effort. We have to be selfish, make hard decisions, do the things we want and need to do. It’s the only way we’ll know for sure.”
“For sure about what?” I ask, not knowing what meeting a few months from now will change.
“That us being together is a permanent thing and not just a cosmic mistake.” A tear rolls down her cheek and she brushes it away.
I get up from the booth and kiss her one last time, not caring how we look, wishing we were alone so that my lips and hands in hers could say that even if time stops and the world starts over, I’ll still love her.
But if my leaving her is what she needs, it’s time to make my exit.
I break the kiss and turn around so she can’t see the water in my eyes. I walk over to Iris. Her smile is warm, her eyes knowing. She takes the bag without a word and enfolds me in the conversation she was just having with the doctor. It feels like I’ve only just sat down when I look over at Tamar’s booth. She’s gone.
I blink and the waitress clouds my vision as she slides a piece of cherry pie in front of me.
“Here you go, sweetie. It’s the best thing for a broken heart.”