Chapter 15

ROONEY

I’m staring at one of the Fate Test slips when Talia rolls to a stop in front of the entrance of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in the car we leased together. Well, Talia paid for most of it, and I’ll pay the rest of my half as soon as I can.

“You’re sure you want to be forty-five minutes early?” Talia asks. “What are you going to do while you wait?”

“Being early gives me time on the front end to see what happens,” I tell her, waving the slip with “Fate Test 2: Show up early or late to somewhere you’re supposed to be” written on it. “And I’m meeting the FATE team and want to make a good first impression.”

“You’re going to have to explain this whole test thing again to me later,” Talia says, checking her eye makeup in the visor mirror. “Text me when you’re done.”

I step out of the car and make my way to the check-in kiosks to present my e-ticket.

Tucking the slip into my bag, I take note of my surroundings. The entrance to The Huntington is lush and beautifully designed. Olive trees and succulents line the walkway, which leads out to buildings containing art and rare books as well as gardens of all kinds, like Chinese, desert, rose, Japanese, and camellia. This place is an installation heaven.

I could start in the café and grab a beverage. Or I could go see the garden sculptures and fountains while I wait for the team. There’s a large group wearing cloud-covered shirts taking over two tables in the courtyard. In theory, the Fate Tests sounded compelling, but now I just feel silly. What am I even supposed to do?

After I look around, unable to figure out where to start, my attention is drawn to a family coming out of the gift shop. A tall man in dark jeans and a blue T-shirt with clouds on it, like the group in the courtyard, holds the door open for them. It’s like he knows I’m looking at him because his eyes find mine, and we smile at the same time. He stays where he is, so I walk over, lingering a few feet before him.

I look at him expectantly, taking note of the way his blond hair shines in the sun. I’m quiet, willing him to be the first to speak. It works.

“So… are you going in or staying out?” he asks kindly.

Okay. Not quite what I had in mind.

“I could ask the same thing,” I say with an awkward laugh. I notice the words on his shirt spell out “Cloud Lovers League.”

“I’m going in,” he says, removing his hand from the door but keeping it propped open with his foot.

I take this as a sign that he’s trying to free up his hand to shake mine, so I extend my arm out first. As I do this, the man’s hand is halfway to his back pocket where he reaches for… his phone.

My hand morphs into a pointing position without me having to think too hard about it. I love when reflexes do their job. “There. I’m going in there,” I say, exaggerating my pointing finger as though that’s what I had intended to do all along.

The man nods curtly. “Uh, great. After you. Have a nice day.” He follows me in but quickly turns toward the opposite side of the gift shop.

That went well.

The store is spacious and colorful with autumn-themed decorations, little bundles of hay lining the windows with stuffed pumpkins on top. At first glance, it’s well curated with themed tables scattered throughout the shop. One has a topical selection of books, teas, and accessories related to forest bathing. Another is all about apples.

I look at my phone to check the time. Still thirty-five minutes left until I meet up with the FATE team. I’m starting to regret having agreed to tests of any kind. I despised tests in school. Why did I willingly sign up for more? And why am I doing them alone? Regardless, I don’t need tests to find inspira—

“Rooney,” I hear a voice say.

I spin to find Jack wearing a lightly faded, short-sleeve maroon polo with sunglasses tucked into the unbuttoned neckline. It surprises me that he’s in khaki shorts, a garment Jack would consider unprofessional in a work setting, but it’s a Saturday and we’re technically not at work. What a relief it is to see his face.

As I take note of his outfit, my eyes slip farther from his shorts to his shoes, along the way catching sight of his legs, the curve of his calves making their firm appearance as he takes each step. My ears lightly throb as my heartbeat quickens. I must be nervous to meet the team.

Jack’s coming toward me, so I redirect my eyes, running them along the lines of the carpeting and up the nearest bookcase. Finally, after enough time has passed, I look back at Jack, but at his eyes this time.

“You’re early,” we both say at the same time.

“Did you know that man at the door?” Jack asks with a quizzical expression.

I peek back toward the entrance, where fate did not have plans for me. “You saw that? I don’t know him. I was trying something out,” I explain. “In my head, it was supposed to be more romantic than that.”

“That didn’t look even the slightest bit romantic, I’m sorry to say,” he says, looking like he’s holding back a laugh.

I groan. “That bad, huh?”

Jack smiles and points at me. “I’ll say this: you have a great reflex.”

I tug at the neckline of my cropped knitted red tank top and distract myself with a soy sauce bottle ornament, focusing on the shine of the red glittery cap. We walk slowly through the store, picking up small items here and there.

Jack turns to face me, looking excited for some reason. “Speaking of stringmates, if I may… or is it too soon?”

I huff out a tight laugh. “You have something to say about stringmates? I have to hear it.”

“I watched Serendipity—” he starts.

“Wait. You watched Serendipity? Without me? That’s my favorite.”

“It was in the name of research,” Jack explains. A flash of what looks like regret crosses his face. “Sorry. I didn’t know. But I got an idea from it.”

I sigh. “Don’t tell me you want me to write my name on a dollar bill,” I say at the same time he says, “You should write your name on a dollar bill.”

“Jack,” I say, crossing my arms, “really?”

“Okay,” he says. “Maybe not a dollar. Statistically speaking, there was no way Kate Beckinsale would’ve ever gotten her money back. But for the purposes of this, we can find something unique to you and put your number on that. See who calls. I was thinking it could be Fate Test 6.”

“Look, I’ve been thinking about these Fate Tests, too, and I don’t want to do them alone. I’ve clearly proven how awkward it is,” I explain, gesturing toward the door. “I’m only going to do them if you come with me. This is how you’re going to learn how to inspire. Didn’t your boss say you needed to be better at that? So guide me through these tests. You’re too much on Earth. You need to think like you’re on the International Space Station looking down at Earth. I’ve been working on space figures of speech for you to use instead of your forest one.”

Jack smiles, his crescent moon scar rising up with it.

“Let me put it this way: If you join me on the Fate Tests, then both of us will benefit in our work,” I articulate, giving him a taste of his own hypothesis.

Jack’s eyebrows pinch together. “This could be a fertile sandbox to test and practice my motivational skills.”

“It might mean spending time together outside of work,” I say hesitantly.

Jack thinks for a moment. “This is work, though, right? You can’t do what you do unless you’re inspired.”

“Exactly. So we’ll do Red String Theory together. The Fate Tests will hypothetically creatively unblock me. I’ll design installations that will make everyone happy. Ideally that brings exposure, I get more shows, make money, and buy back Baby Being Born. If we pull this off, you’ll have successfully inspired me, and we’ll have worked together to do it. I’m your experiment to do with as you see fit.” I frown. “I just heard that out loud.”

Jack clears his throat and lifts a mug that looks like a terra-cotta pot. “Okay. I want to help.”

“Great! So Fate Test 2 is checked off the list. Seems a little short-lived.”

Jack sets the mug back down on the shelf slowly. “The day is still early. Maybe that guy in the blue shirt will come back for some more sweet romancing,” he says, finally releasing his laugh about it.

“Hilarious. I’d love to see you out there sparking up conversation with a stranger.” I say this with an attempted tone of confidence, but I find I’m failing at that. “How will this work? How do we handle the other Fate Tests?”

“We don’t have to go in order. There might be a natural progression that we can follow. I may have an idea for ‘Fate Test 3: Return a lost object.’ Others we can act on whenever we want, like the interacting-with-someone-online test.”

Heat rises in my chest as I notice his use of “we.” “That works. What’s your idea for 3?” I ask.

“This guy I know, Bennett O’Brien, is having a birthday party for his daughter in a couple of weeks. She’s turning one,” Jack says. “I wasn’t planning on going but apparently they’re doing something with objects. I was thinking you could come with me?”

My hand flies to my mouth to cover my gasp. “Are they having a zhuā zhōu ceremony? It’s a Chinese tradition for children’s first birthday parties.”

Jack shakes his head. “It could be? Bennett said to bring an object for the ceremony.”

“It sounds like it is!” I squeal. “That’s a very fate-itious tradition.”

“If objects are there, I’m sure we can think of something for Fate Test 3. There should be a good number of guests. Bennett and his wife, Olivia, are well connected in the city.”

“Sounds great. I’m excited to meet them,” I say.

“I know it’s on a weekend. But this is work. We have to get you inspired.”

I laugh. “Jack, I’ve already said yes.”

“Okay, now that that’s settled, is anything inspiring you in here?” he asks. “That’s the whole point of this. What about these?” He holds a pair of opera glasses against his face and looks in my direction. “Wow, that’s close. Your eyes are even lighter when magnified.”

I open my eyes wider and step closer to him. “Okay, now they’re terrifying,” he says with a laugh.

I make a silly face, and he laughs harder.

“Jackson!” a deep voice calls out.

Jack jumps back and sets the opera glasses down on the table a bit too hard, sending a stack of jeweled bracelets scattering. I lunge forward to help Jack restack them, but there’s nothing to be done about the loud noise the bracelets make against the wood.

“Dusty, hello,” Jack says, his professional tone of voice on full display. He clears his throat. “We were just… We were early.”

Dusty looks between the two of us, amused. “Well then, shall we? The team’s outside,” he says, waving us along. “We have cacti to get to.”

The Huntington Desert Garden looks like a dry, magical fairyland with hundreds of golden barrel cacti sprawling across the ground among thousands of other desert plants and succulents. They practically glow with their yellow spikes uniformly protruding from their short and round bodies. Like poky watermelon. We’re definitely not in New York City anymore.

In every corner of the landscaped beds, thousands of species of desert plants and succulents multiply and expand. Even in all of my travels with Mom, I’ve never seen anything like it.

Jack looks equally enchanted as he crouches to get a closer look at the smaller cacti growing in front of the golden barrels.

Not all of Jack’s team could make it to today’s outing. I formally met Maria, but Toby, Brian, and Nell are new to me. They’re the team’s verification and validation systems engineer, project manager, and mission assurance manager, respectively.

“Thanks for setting this up, Jackson,” Dusty says. “I’ll be rambling on about cacti, but please chat with each other along this tour. That’s the point of this.”

“You set up a walking tour about cacti… as a way to get to know the team?” I turn to ask Jack, who’s trailing behind the group.

“What would’ve been better?” he asks.

“I don’t know. I’ve never worked in a corporate setting before. The typical things people do in team bonding. Bowling? Dinner? Paintballing? Definitely not cactus tours.”

“Bowling is loud. You’re just watching people roll balls down a lane. At dinner you have to eat in front of people, and you’re stuck talking to whoever happens to sit next to you. When you’re paintballing, how do people get closer when they’re running around trying to hide? With a cactus tour, there’s movement but in an interactive way. And where else do you get to talk about cacti that look like old men?” he says, sweeping his hand toward what Dusty called the Old Man Cactus.

My gaze lingers on the grouping of stick-straight cacti covered fully in white fuzz that Jack’s gesturing to.

“That one looks particularly grumpy,” I comment.

“That one’s probably a hundred and five years old. Of course he’s grumpy,” Jack retorts.

I laugh and then take a photo of the bunny ear succulents, which look exactly like what they’re called.

I nudge Jack. “It’s time to start bonding. Honestly, this team meet-and-greet is more for you than it is for me.”

Jack speed-walks to catch up to his colleagues. While Dusty scribbles something in his notebook, I hear Jack ask Nell, “Do you come here often? To the desert garden, I mean.”

It’s not the worst start, I guess.

Nell greeted me earlier with a hug, which immediately warmed me to her. She’s wearing big silver hoops and purple overalls, and before I even had to ask, she informed me that yes, they did come in red.

“I actually love cacti because I’ve killed every houseplant I own,” Nell says. “Well, I’ve killed cacti, too, but it’s harder to do.”

My attention is pulled away by Maria, who sidles up next to me. “It’s so cool that we get to hang out with you. How does it feel to be NASA’s artist?”

“Can I tell you the truth? It’s slightly intimidating to be working on something on such a big scale, but I’m excited,” I admit.

“I can relate,” Maria says. “If you ever have questions, feel free to ask anytime.”

“I appreciate that. And in even more honesty,” I say, “it’s cooler that I get to spend time with you all.”

We fall into easy conversation about how Maria got started at NASA, the difficulty being away from her family in the Philippines, and how she regrets getting her pet hamster an exercise wheel that looks like a car because he’s been pulling all-nighters “driving” it. I tell her about how I’m on the hunt for a complicated knitting pattern and how much I miss walking to places. When she asks if I’ve been inspired by anything yet for an art piece, I keep up appearances and pretend that I am a capable and confident, creatively fulfilled artist.

Ahead of us, we hear Nell inform Jack that her favorite cacti so far were the golden barrels. Are they still talking about desert plants?

“They look like scoops of ice cream,” Nell says, and it activates a memory.

“Jack makes ice cream,” I blurt out, intruding on their discussion.

Jack and Nell glance back at us, both looking relieved by the interruption. This is what the walking tour is for, I figure. Interaction and a seamless flow of jumping in and out of conversations.

“So cool!” Maria contributes. “What flavors do you make?”

Jack looks at me, and his shoulders drop an inch, a small gesture hopefully confirming that this is safe discussion territory.

“I make a variety of ice cream flavors,” Jack says, looking between his team members. “Matcha, black sesame, chocolate. I make the cold kind you’re used to, but I also make freeze-dried ice cream.”

“Freeze-dried? What? How!” Brian asks, joining us.

Jack has caught the attention of the entire team, the people in front slowing down to hear him.

The realization that I don’t know these details pricks at me deeper than any of the surrounding cacti could. But how could I know things like that? We spent less than six hours together that night in New York. There’s an ache of sadness inside me, and I remind myself that there’s a year for me to get to know Jack. There’s still time.

Jack looks content as he talks about how the process works, complete with vacuum chambers and removing ice crystals. His team asks questions about temperatures and timing.

This is an opportunity for Jack to be inspiring on an emotional level, but instead the conversation is turning into Ice Cream Making 101. I’m about to say something when Brian beats me to it.

“That all sounds cool, but I think I’ll stick to eating the ice cream,” Brian says with a polite laugh. “Some things in life are better left mysteries.”

“Except the mysteries in space, of course,” I joke as the team laughs. “Jackson, what inspired you to start making ice cream?”

Jack looks surprised by my use of the name he uses at work. “My Gōng Gong—my grandfather—taught me. We built our own freeze-drying machine,” he explains. “It was a lot more cost-effective.”

This gets the team’s attention again, and I nod to Jack to keep going.

“My Gōng Gong worked in an ice cream shop. It’s how he met my grandmother, actually. They grew up in the same town but never knew each other. Turns out that they had worked at the same ice cream shop, him during the off-season, her during the summers. They had always been near each other in proximity, but it wasn’t until her mother came down with the flu that their paths finally crossed.”

“How?” Dusty asks, resting his clipboard against his chest. He’s as captivated by this story as the rest of us.

Jack smiles. “He was covering for someone at the shop when the phone rang. A girl asked to have two scoops of chocolate delivered for her sick mother. He dutifully did as she asked and added an extra scoop for her. He delivered it, and that was the first time he met my grandmother.”

It’s stories like these that make me emotional but also kind of freak me out. Jack’s Gōng Gong wasn’t even supposed to be at the shop to receive his future wife’s call. If he had never covered for someone, he may never have met Jack’s grandma. And then Jack wouldn’t be here. It’s downright scary sometimes how close we are to alternate life paths without even knowing. It’s a story that reminds me how powerful the red thread can be. At Jack’s words, there’s a tingling sensation in my fingertips so slight I almost hardly feel it, but it disappears within seconds.

“He was at the right place at the right time,” Jack says.

He looks up at me when he says this last part, and I blurt out, “Timing is everything,” even when I know he’d explain it as a choice. He’d say his Gōng Gong chose to cover for someone, chose to add the extra scoop of ice cream, chose to go above and beyond and make a home delivery. Still, it’s an inside joke, something no one else will ever know. New York City is a secret just for the two of us. It comforts me to have this invisible connection with him. We’ll always have that night.

“And where does the freeze-dried ice cream come in?” Toby asks.

Jack leans back on his heels. “Ah, yes. My Gōng Gong was an ocean engineer. Sometimes he’d be out on ships and want ice cream as a snack. A snack, not a dessert. Important distinction. To him, snacks were something he could keep in his pocket,” he says with a grin. “So he and my grandma learned how to make freeze-dried ice cream using the appliances at her job. She was a design engineer for a kitchen equipment manufacturer. Years after she died, Gōng Gong taught me how to make our own machine using more updated parts.”

“I change my mind,” Brian says. “I want to learn how to make freeze-dried ice cream.”

“It’s a pretty sweet story, right?” Jack asks. “No pun intended.”

His team laughs.

I look around dramatically for effect and say, “Now I’ll only remember this place as the Dessert Garden.”

Nell hooks her thumbs into the pockets of her overalls. “Sometimes, after working late, we go to the ice cream freezer outside of the mission control room. Jackson, you should come with us next time,” she offers. “You too, Rooney.”

“That would be fun. Thanks,” I say as Jack nods.

When no one else is looking, Jack dramatically wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. I give him a discreet thumbs-up.

“This was a pleasant surprise,” Maria and Nell say to me as we continue to follow Dusty’s guided tour. Jack, Brian, and Toby stay close to him as he talks about an aloe vera plant.

“This outing?” I ask.

“Yeah, we thought it was going to be awkward,” Maria says. “We’ve never spent time with Jackson outside of work. We all go to Dusty’s Social Science happy hour, so we know each other fairly well, but Jackson? I don’t even know where he lives.”

“That was the most I’ve ever heard Jackson say about nonwork topics, and I’ve worked with the man for two years,” Nell chimes in. “He’s definitely gotten more comfortable since becoming liaison and you being here. It’s nice.”

I don’t quite know how to respond. Up until recently, Jack and I have only ever talked about things other than work. Even here in California, it feels like we can pick up where we left off. Talking about work doesn’t feel like work. I’m glad the Jack from New York is starting to show, but I’m also glad I get to know him in his work element, reserved and all. It’s every side of him that makes him who he is, and it’s really something to see.

I turn to Maria and Nell and smile. “I agree. The man’s got layers.”