front of him again. At least, for the moment. “I’d gain twenty pounds driving this car,” I say, my stomach rumbling so loud I’m sure he can hear it.
Even though it’s late on a Wednesday afternoon, the streets are packed with college kids shopping or just hanging out. Every corner is filled with vendors selling necklaces or tie-dyed shirts, with ratty cardboard signs advertising their prices. As we pass the head shops and clothing stores, snippets of music blast out onto the sidewalk like an ever-changing radio station.
After a few blocks, Griffon stops in front of a restaurant with big windows that gives diners nonstop street- side entertainment as they eat their meal. “This is the place,” he says, holding the door open for me.
The inside of the cafe is even louder than it is on the sidewalk. I stare at the chalkboard menu by the counter, trying to decide what’s the right thing to eat on our semi-official first date.
“You first,” Griffon says. “Their wood-fired pizzas are amazing here.”
“That sounds good,” I say. “I’ll have the prosciutto,” I tell the girl behind the counter.
“Mushroom and artichoke hearts,” Griffon orders. “I’ve got this,” he says, reaching into his pocket.
“No way,” I say, not wanting him to think I’m someone who needs to be taken care of. “We’ll split it.”
“I asked you,” he says. He smiles at me and puts a twenty on the counter before I can say a word. “You can get it next time.”
The idea that he’s planning on a next time makes me almost giddy, but I try not to look it. The restaurant is crowded, and we have to pick our way toward an empty table by the window. Just as we pass a table where two old guys are playing chess, I hear a crash as the board and all of the plastic pieces fall to the floor.
“Crap,” Griffon says, looking at the mess. “I’m so sorry.” His cheeks are red, but he stands motionless for several seconds, staring at the chess pieces on the ground.
“Just great,” the old guy in the plaid cap starts to get up. “There goes the game.”
Griffon puts his hand out. “No, wait, I’ve got this. Just give me a second.” He puts the board back on their table, centering it between them, and then picks up the black and white pieces from the floor, positioning each on the board in a different spot, starting off slow but getting faster, until he finishes by leaving a few white pieces on one side and four blacks on the other.
“There,” he says, relief in his voice. “That should be right.” Griffon studies the board while the old guys stare at him. “Hang on!” he says, and swaps a pawn and a rook. He smiles at them. “Now it’s right. Sorry again.” He takes my hand and leads me to our table.
I lean toward him as we sit down, watching the old men whisper about him. “Seriously? You put every piece back where it was?”
Griffon shrugs and puts his napkin in his lap. “Yeah. It’s the least I could do.”
“You know that people are going to think that’s weird, right?”
He grins at me. Of course he knows it. “I just saw the board right before I knocked it over, so I remembered where everything went. It’s not that hard once you learn how to do it—anybody can.”
I stare at him. “Anybody can learn how to memorize an entire chessboard in one second?”
Griffon shrugs. “Well, eventually anybody can.”
I shake my head. “If you say so.” I glance over to the old guys’ table, where they’ve resumed their game, turning every now and then to look at him.
“Did Veronique come for her lesson on Thursday?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It was fine. Uneventful.”
“No more memories?”
I hesitate. Telling him that Alessandra died that night at the mansion isn’t going to do either of us any good. It won’t change anything with Veronique, and it will only make him worry more. “No. Nothing.”
“Good.” Griffon smiles at me and reaches for my hand across the small wooden table. His fingers gently brush the top of mine, and I feel a surge of electricity run through my entire body. “You have beautiful hands. I’m so glad you let me come to the concert last week.”
“It was open to the public,” I say with a smile. “I couldn’t have stopped you.”
“Well, you did an amazing job.”
“Julie did,” I say. “She works so hard.” Practice this week had been difficult, as I listened to every piece carefully, wondering if I’d already played it before in a past life. It makes me feel guilty, like I’m nothing but a big fake. It takes some of the joy out of the whole thing. “Now it just feels like I’m cheating.”
“I already told you, it’s not cheating. What if some of the people at the conservatory are using memory breaks to become world-class musicians? There aren’t that many Akhet in the world, but a lot of the ones who are about to transition show abilities in some way—sports, art, music. A lot of those musical geniuses are just Akhet who haven’t realized their potential yet. The only difference is that you’re aware of where your abilities come from and they aren’t. If you’re cheating, then every prodigy who comes along shouldn’t be able to do what they were born to do, because they’re cheating too.”
“It’s only cheating if you know you’re cheating.”
Griffon leans forward and puts his elbows on the table. “Somehow I don’t think that’s the dictionary definition.”
“So what do you do with your abilities?” I ask. “I mean, besides drawing and putting chessboards back together.”
“Like I said, I have my responsibilities,” he says, tracing an imaginary line on the tabletop. “Things I need to work on from before.” He sits back and stops talking as the server comes and places our steaming pizzas on the table. She pauses long enough to give him a smile as she turns to walk back to the kitchen, but Griffon doesn’t seem to notice.
“Anyway,” he says, continuing our conversation. “You shouldn’t feel guilty for being good at something. You should feel comfortable sharing it with the world. Using what you have in each lifetime isn’t cheating; it’s what makes us valuable. Human beings take thousands of years to evolve, but we get to cram thousands of years of knowledge and experience into every lifetime.”
“Maybe.” I try to pull a piece of the pizza off the plate, but strings of cheese hang down from all sides.
Griffon laughs. “Need some help?”
I blush, embarrassed that I’m making such a mess. “No. I think I can handle this.” The smell of garlic is so strong as I pull the piece free that it makes my stomach rumble. I’m glad that we’re both eating the same thing, because I have a feeling I’m going to be reeking of the stuff for the rest of the day—and if there’s going to be more kissing involved, which I sincerely hope there will be, I don’t want to be the only one with garlic breath.
Griffon cuts a piece of his pizza and holds it out to me. “Want a bite?” he asks, in an obvious attempt to change the subject. He looks at our plates. “Wait a minute, I thought you hated tomatoes.”
I think back to the dinner at his house. I thought I’d been so sly about pushing the tomatoes off to one side of the plate. “You noticed?” I ask, immediately embarrassed.
“Just a little. Don’t worry. Janine didn’t mind.”
“I only hate regular tomatoes. Mashed up in sauce is fine.”
Griffon looks thoughtful. “Maybe you had a bad tomato experience in a past life. Could be that you choked on one once, and that’s why you don’t like them now.”
I love the thought that everything has a meaning, a purpose. Whatever you’re experiencing in this lifetime somehow, some way, has ties to another past. “Really? You think so?”
“No.” Griffon laughs. “I’m kidding. Not everything has a hidden meaning. Sometimes hating tomatoes in this lifetime just means that you really don’t like tomatoes.”
I make a face at him as I slide the piece from his fork and pop it into my mouth. “Like Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
“Exactly. Sometimes a tomato is just a tomato. Speaking of, how is it?”
“It’s good. Want some of mine?”
“No, thanks,” he says, and in that second I remember the vegetarian meal that Janine made.
“Oh, God! You’re a vegetarian aren’t you? I’m so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” he says. “I’m not that good at it anyway.”
I laugh at his attempt to make me feel better. “Not good at it?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head. “I get all of Janine’s reasons, and she’s right. Bad for the environment, bad for animals, not part of what we’re doing to make the world a better place, all of that. But sometimes I just need to
