Chapter Eleven
Nora
“Merge! Now! Merge!”
Eli is yelling as I try to get onto the highway. Doesn’t he know that a stressed-out driver is a dangerous driver?
My nerves are frayed, and I swallow hard. “Don’t yell at me!” Finally I merge and almost clip a semi.
We’re in heavy traffic and I don’t like it at all. It’s possible that I’m not getting enough oxygen. Breathe, Nora, breathe.
“Good job,” he says, but his voice is shaky. “That was good.”
I don’t respond, too busy keeping an eagle eye on the car in front of me, ignoring the fact that giant trucks have me penned in on both sides. “What exit is it?” I screech.
“Four miles. Only four miles. You got this. You’re doing good, you could pass the test tomorrow.”
That can’t be true. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I mean it, your focus is there,” he says. “Focus is key. And you’re going over the speed limit, that’s progress.”
He’s a liar, but I bite my bottom lip and push through the fear. Hitting the driver’s ed instructor was a careless accident that isn’t going to happen again. Driving is not that big a deal, everyone does it. Just like everyone leaves home, or falls in love.
The difference between me and everyone else—I like to get things right the first time. I’m a control freak. I realize we can’t know our futures, so if I can make an educated guess in order to ensure my happiness, why wouldn’t I?
Eli sighs loudly, probably because I’m going fifty miles per hour in a sixty-five mile per hour.”
Case in point. When it comes to him, kissing him…it was a bad outcome. I need to get over it and keep searching for a good outcome. That’s all.
He points to a giant green highway sign. “That’s you. Two miles.”
I glance his way, so glad he can’t read my mind. “Where are we going anyway? What does your mother need all the way out here?”
“Something for her book club.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll see. Turn signal. Here.”
I veer onto the exit, hopeful that I can get out of this car soon.
“See?” he continues. “That wasn’t so bad. Rush hour is easy.”
I come to the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp and the car behind me honks for some unknown reason. “What?” I shout back over my shoulder. “Go away, I hate you!”
Eli laughs. “Don’t worry, they’ll stop honking eventually. It’ll all be worth it.” He points into the distance when the light turns green. “Go right.”
I do as he says. “It better be.”
He motions to a restaurant on the corner. “Okay, right there.”
The sign says Tick Tock Diner. “What’s that?” I ask.
“Just a little place that turned up when I Googled ‘Best pie in Florida.’ I was gonna save it for another time, but you needed another lesson, and I was hungry.”
I have to admit, I’m excited. The “Best pie in Florida” sounds perfect after that drive. I pull into the parking lot, manage to park mostly between two lines, and turn off the engine. One look at him and I see the dimple. I think of touching it yesterday in the water. I shouldn’t have done that.
Of course, I’m not going to bring up what happened yesterday. I’m pretty sure it was all my imagination anyway. It was hot out, I might have been dehydrated. There’s no way he wanted to kiss me. We’re just way too comfortable with each other. He might have been into me back in eighth grade, but he’s not now. To think otherwise is just me being stupid. He knows my hypothesis. He knows I take it seriously, even if he thinks it’s a joke.
Inside the restaurant it’s like stepping back in time. There’s a big clock with a lit-up face that says Tick Tock Diner Since 1949 hanging behind the cash register. It’s bright and the light gives everything a vintage glow, like an old sepia-toned picture. It’s cozy in here, like home.
Eli looks for someone to seat us, and I am drawn to the baked goods case like a moth to a bug light.
I gaze longingly at the lineup of pies. “What is this madness?” I whisper reverently when Eli joins me.
An old woman in a waitress uniform shuffles over. “Just take a seat wherever you want, kids.” We thank her but stick around a few minutes longer to drool over the case.
“Check out that one,” I say. “Black bottom pie? God. And that one.” I smack him in the arm. “Eli. Triple berry lemon. Triple. Berry. Lemon!”
“I told you. Best pie in Florida. Let’s sit down.” He steps aside to let me pass and I feel his hand, lightly, on the small of my back. Or maybe I imagined that, too.
Fran is the name embroidered on the white-haired waitress’s uniform. She sets down two glasses of ice water and offers us a half smile. “You kids want dinner? We got a beef stew special tonight. Real good. Free slice of pie if you have room for it after.”
“Oh, we’ll have room,” Eli says, arching his eyebrows at me. “You want dinner?” he asks. “My treat.”
I frown. He never pays for anything. We always split checks because that’s what friends do. “No, I have money.”
He smirks. “This isn’t a male dominance thing. I want to pay, okay?”
Fran huffs.
I glare at him. “Why?”
He leans back against the booth and tilts his head. “Because I want to. And stop looking at me like that.”
I glance sideways at Fran, who seems to be enjoying this.
“All right, we settled then?” she asks. “Gentleman pays. Nothing wrong with that on a date.”
“No,” I quickly add. “We’re just friends.”
“All righty then. Just friends. Got it. What would you like?”
I sit up taller, unsure of what’s happening here. “I’ll have the special, and a slice of triple berry lemon, please.” My tone is curt, because this is not a date. I’m sure she’s a nice lady, but Fran seems awfully up in our business.
“What can I get for you, big spender?” she asks.
He looks over the menu, not focusing on anything. “I’ll have the special, too. With a Coke, and a slice of the black bottom pie. Please.”
Fran nods her head. “Good choice. That’s my favorite. Been our specialty since the place opened.”
I hand her my menu and Eli does the same, except she winks at him.
As she walks away, I make an observation. “God. The ladies can’t resist you, Costas, young or old.”
He winks at me. “What can I say? It’s a curse.” He beats a quick rhythm on the tabletop. “So—what do you think?”
“Of this place? I think this is what heaven is like.” I sit back on the green vinyl booth bench. Maybe it’s just me, but this sort of does feel like a date.
I inhale deep. This is not going according to plan. If I’m going to kill this crush, I have to go for the jugular. I don’t want to—I have to. “So, plans tonight? Big date?” I hold my breath waiting for his reply.
“Nope.” He hits me again with the dimple. It’s like a tranquilizer gun and I’m an elephant he’s trying to bring down. “I’m keeping my options open. You never know what can happen.”
That’s my cue. “Well”—I level my gaze at him—“you can know. If you take a scientific approach.”
He laughs. “Oh, right,” he says in a nerdy professor voice. “The scientific approach. I can find true love as long as I’m willing to collect and analyze data.”
I glare at him, more than a little annoyed. “You know, sometimes I wish I never told you about my theory. I should have just let you think I was a bitch. Left it at that.”
His eyes get wide when I use that word. He knows I hate it.
Fran reappears with Eli’s Coke. He sticks in the straw and takes a drag and I’m reminded of that garage kiss, all those years ago.
He plays with the straw wrapper, twisting it into nothing. “Sometimes I wish you hadn’t told me, either. I probably could have gotten over you easier if I thought you rejected me because I was ugly, or had too many zits, or was a dork.”
He finally looks up and his eyes burn me like lasers. “Knowing it was just that one lousy kiss made it impossible.”
Impossible to what? Get over me? Does that mean he’s not over me?
Fran emerges from the back with a tray. “Here we go, kids.”
I lose the staring contest, breaking my gaze first. I must have heard him wrong. She places big white bowls in front of us, filled with meat, carrots, and potatoes in a thick brown gravy.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
“I’ll give you some time to eat, then bring out your pie.” She walks away and an odd silence lingers between us.
He clears his throat. “I’m just saying, Nora. Have you ever wondered, if you tried to kiss me again now, if it would be different?”
“Eli. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Right.” He picks up his fork.
He’s making my brain hurt, and I’m losing control. I need to change the subject—now—and I can’t think of a thing to say. Finally, he swallows a mouthful of food and speaks. “It’s okay, though. No worries. You have your theories.” He takes a sip of his Coke. “I have mine.”
“You do?”
His jaw drops in mock outrage. “What, you think I can’t come up with a hypothesis?”
My palms are sweaty. Something about this is making me very uneasy, but I have to act normal. “No, of course you can. Care to share?”
“I don’t know.” He takes another bite of stew. “I’m not sure you can handle it.”
“All right. I’ll take that dare. Try me.”
“Okay.” He waves his fork in the air. “My theory is that your theory is totally bogus, which of course, you already know. What you don’t know is why it’s bogus…”
He pauses like he’s going for some sort of dramatic effect. “Chaos theory.”
I choke on my food, take a sip of water, and try not to laugh. “Chaos theory?”
His dimple digs deeper. “Yes. Exactly. Do you even know what it is?”
Clearly he’s been waiting to use this. I narrow my eyes. “Yes, a little.”
“Good, so I won’t bore you with the basics. See, you”—he points his fork at me—“think love is predictable. Like gravity and electricity or chemical equations. All that shit. While I”—he points the fork at himself—“I believe it’s unpredictable. Like the weather and the stock market.”
“The stock market?”
He shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, why not?”
I smile, just a little, at the thought of proving him wrong. “Except the stock market can be predicted, somewhat, and so can the weather. There are signs, benchmarks that scientists and analysts know to look for.”
He smiles, too. “Okay, but say a weather dude predicts that there’s going to be a hurricane, and that it’s gonna hit Edinburgh.”
“You mean a meteorologist?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.” He waves that fork around like a wild man. “So he predicts it’s gonna hit us head on, and then this weird little storm pops up off the coast of Africa.” He stops. “You still following?”
I cross my arms. “Yes, Eli.”
“Good. So this storm pops up and makes ripple effects that change the course of our hurricane and it ends up turning north in the Atlantic and not hitting a damn thing.” He finally puts his fork down. “That’s called the butterfly effect.”
I press my lips together. “Eli?”
“Nora?”
“Have you been reading Wikipedia again?”
He chuckles and takes another bite. “Doesn’t matter where I read it. It makes sense to me.”
He’s tried to make me doubt my theory before, but I’m not so easily convinced. “Look, I respect your theory, but I think you’re wrong. You forget I have proof. Gigi and Harold knew it when it happened because they paid attention to the signs, followed through, and had a beautiful life together.”
The fork starts to wave again. “Yeah, maybe, but it wasn’t perfect. Didn’t he die pretty young? Not perfect. And now Gigi almost burns their house down and has to live in an old folks home? Not perfect at all.”
I stab a piece of beef. “I’m not saying their life was perfect. I’m saying the life they had together, the love they shared—was.”
He twists up his mouth. “You know that?”
I tell myself to stay calm. You’re a scientist. Act like one. Scientists are challenged all the time. You can’t take it personally. “She told me the story my whole life.”
“Yeah,” he says. “She told me, too. It’s a good story, but it’s not the whole story.”
He’s starting to piss me off. “What’s your point, Eli?”
He sits up taller. “What if she’d met Harold earlier? What if she kissed him when he was thirteen, and had a mouth full of braces, and had just drank half a Coke and had to burp real bad? If there had been nothing to that first kiss, and she’d moved on, you wouldn’t be here.” Another point of the fork and a know-it-all grin. “The butterfly effect.”
“But it didn’t happen that way. They found each other, and that’s how it’s going to happen for me. And would you stop pointing that fork at me?”
I push away my bowl. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.
He’s still smiling, like he knows he’s gotten under my skin and he’s enjoying it. He points his fork at me again, then at my bowl. “You gonna eat that?”
I cross my arms. “No.”
He pulls my stew to his side of the booth and I wonder why it’s not easier to stop liking him. He obviously enjoys messing with me and knows absolutely nothing about scientific method. A kiss with chemistry is different from a kiss without chemistry. Period. Butterfly effect, my ass.