Austentatious

“Which one of you got squeamish?”

“Neither,” I snapped before collecting myself. “We just weren’t ... geographically compatible.”

“In the bedroom?” This, naturally, came from Leslie.

“Will you get your head out of your vagina for one second, Leslie, and let Nic tell the story?” It was not until the words were ringing in the air around us that it dawned on Laura that this might have come out a touch too loud. Our little group was suddenly garnering a lot of attention from surrounding tables, and Beck and I could barely hold back the bubbles of laughter. Meanwhile Leslie was highly amused at Laura’s expense.

“And the hits just keep on comin’.” Leslie laughed, not the slightest bit put out that she happened to be the evening’s punching bag. “Bring ’em on!” She lifted her glass of Merlot and toasted us all. Swallowing down a gulp, she trained her eyes on me, waiting.

“He went back to Scotland,” Beck inserted, punctuating her statement with a sip of water.

All eyes swiveled toward me. Whether they were looking for confirmation, a reaction, or a breakdown, I couldn’t say, but I kept my expression carefully neutral.

“Well, that sucks,” Laura grumped.

“You know you could go cavewoman on his ass. Haul him right back here ...” Leslie had dropped her voice and was rearranging her silverware.

“Tempting as that sounds, I don’t think I’m that girl.”

We were all quiet for a moment before Leslie raised her glass. “On to the next one, then! May he be fully compatible—with no bugs. Little computer humor for you.”

I clinked my glass against theirs but felt oddly disloyal. Sean was still too fresh in my mind. But luckily, he was no longer a topic of conversation. Chatter turned to weekend plans—Beck and Gabe were going on a roadtrip in search of finger-lickin’-good Hill Country barbeque, and Laura and Leslie were attending their costume party as Austin Powers and Dr. Evil. I was doing nothing of note.

Dinner proceeded without incident, and for me, without meat. With Laura on my left, pressuring me to eschew (i.e., not chew) beef, chicken, pork, and shrimp in favor of tofu, I struck a compromise and ordered the spicy green beans. It wasn’t until the waiter brought the little silver tray of fortune cookies that the trouble started.

Desperately wanting something other than a green bean, I reached for the first cookie.

I dispensed with the crinkly wrapper and cracked open the smooth, crispy cookie, separating the halves, freeing the fortune. I tugged it out, suddenly craving a random, ambiguous bit of wisdom completely unrelated to Fairy Jane’s little orchestrated fairy tale. No such luck. She’d had her fingers in the cookie jar too.

An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

My thoughts flashed with heart-wrenching images of Sean in the moments before I let him go.

Without thinking, without even considering, I dropped my cookie and its shitty fortune onto the green beans and reached for a second cookie. Wrenching that one open even faster, a woman on a mission, my eyes scanned the string of red words.

The heart is wiser than the intellect.

Fairy Jane had struck again.

“Shit!” I tossed that one down too and grabbed a third, scrabbling with the cellophane wrapper.

“Nic?” Beck sounded concerned, but right now, I couldn’t be bothered.

As I was cracking open my third cookie, I noticed Leslie’s arm snaking past the soy sauce and snaring the last one on the tray, her wrist skimming dangerously over the candle flame. I noticed, but didn’t particularly care. Right this second, it was all about the fortune I had in my hand.

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is the most fatal.

Oooh! She was just toying with me now!

I let both fortune and cookie fall from my fingers and eyed Leslie and that last cookie, suddenly obsessed with finding one fortune that didn’t make my stomach roll with nausea. One optimistic fortune that didn’t make me cringe with regret. One whimsical, unrelated fortune that could keep me from spewing curses on the interfering, intangible head of my resident fairy godmother!

They couldn’t all be like this. There had to be at least one cookie on this table that was meant for me—one cookie to confirm that I hadn’t made a truly terrible mistake. There simply had to be.

“Give me the cookie, Leslie.”

I knew I wasn’t being polite, or even sane, for that matter. But I’d put up with a lot from Leslie, and dammit, it was my turn.

“Give me a reason,” she said with a maniacal smile, clutching the cookie like it was a grenade, and she was about to lose it. Her mind, I mean.

I took a deep breath and then another. In this semirelaxed state of pseudo calm, I figured it couldn’t hurt to come clean. “I just want to read the fortune.”

“What’s wrong with all the other ones?” she asked, gesturing to the cookie carcasses strewn across my plate.

“They’re not mine,” I told her, feeling like an idiot but unwilling to back down. The woman was holding my fortune hostage, and she was pissing me off.

Laura’s eyes were flicking between my face and the discarded little fortunes, and I could tell she was itching to ask why not. Beck was agog and very likely wondering if Fairy Jane had gotten to the cookies before I did.

“Why is that?” The epitome of polite, Leslie was either trying to talk me down off my personal ledge or else she was just desperate for a cookie. I’d say it was fifty-fifty.

“They just aren’t,” I said. “Just give me the cookie. I’ll open it and hand you back the pieces.”

“Why don’t I open the cookie and hand you the fortune?” Rarely one for a compromise, Leslie was clearly digging deep.

“Because it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just hand over a fortune—they’re not transferable.” It occurred to me that I was digging myself a hole.

Leslie stared pointedly at the crumbled pile in front of me.

“Well, then what are you going to do with those?”

Dropping my gaze from its lock with hers, I eyed the votive candle positioned between us, in the center of the table. I’d never been the sort of person who burned things, and even in my current wacko mind-set, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be that person, but desperate times ...

Luckily, Leslie offered to make a deal.

“Tell you what,” she said, holding the still-wrapped cookie between thumb and forefinger, positioning it temptingly at eye level. “I’ll trade you the fortune in this cookie for the other three.” Pointing to the mess on my plate, she added, “I get to keep the cookie.” Her gaze shifted to mine. “Deal?”

I spared a moment to glance around the table, cringing inwardly, before eventually turning back to my plate. The reject fortunes were arrayed on top, barely stained with spicy sauce.

“Fine,” I agreed, gathering the slips. I extended both hands, being careful of the candle. The fortunes were in my left hand, closed inside my fist, and my right hand was open, waiting for Leslie to drop the cookie into my palm.

She let her hands hover over mine, her fingers primed to grab the fortunes at precisely the same moment she relinquished the cookie. The exchange went without a hitch, the cookie dropping cleanly into my palm and the fortunes quickly, greedily gathered into hers.

I felt calmer the instant I had the cookie in my hot little hand. But still riding a desperate streak, I figured it couldn’t hurt to harness the power of positive thinking. Closing my eyes, I inhaled a deep, cleansing breath and imagined the fortune I’d like to see: