sense that you ought to get up and leave immediately. And under normal circumstances I would say that you are right. But listen to me now when I tell you that you are safe. Be at ease. Here. I’ll lean forward like this, in your human way. When that couple over there sees my little smile, this conspiratorial look, they’ll think we’re sharing a succulent bit of gossip.”
I wasn’t at ease. Not at all. My heart had become a pounding liability in my chest.
“Why?” I managed, wishing I were even now in the emptiness of my apartment, staring at the world through the bleak window of my TV.
Lucian leaned even closer, his hand splayed across the top of the table so that I could see the blue veins along the back of it. His voice dropped below a whisper, but I had no difficulty hearing him. “Because my story is very closely connected to yours. We’re not so different after all, you and I. We both want purpose, meaning, to see the bigger picture. I can give you that.”
“You don’t even know me!”
“On the contrary”—he slid the napkin dispenser away, as though it were a barrier between us—“I know everything about you. Your childhood house on Ridgeview Drive. The tackle box you kept your football cards in. The night you tried to sneak out after homecoming to meet Carrie Kraus. You broke your wrist climbing out of the window.”
I stared.
“I know of your father’s passing—you were fifteen. About the merlot you miss since giving up drinking, the way you dip your hamburgers in blue cheese dressing—your friend Piotr taught you that in college. That you’ve been telling yourself you ought to get away somewhere—Mexico, perhaps. That you think it’s the seasonal disorder bothering you, though it’s not—”
“Stop!” I threw up my hands, wanting him to leave at once, equally afraid that he might and that I would be stuck knowing that there was this person—this thing —watching me. Knowing everything.
His voice gentled. “Let me assure you that you are not the only one. I could list myriad facts about anyone. Name someone. How about Sheila?” He smirked. “Let’s just say she didn’t return your message from home, and her husband thinks she’s working late. Esad? Living in war-torn Bosnia was no small feat. He—” He cocked his head, and there came now a faint buzzing like an invisible swarm of mosquitoes. I instinctively jerked away.
“What was that?” I demanded, unable to pinpoint where the sound had come from.
“Ah. A concentration camp!” He looked surprised. “I didn’t know that. Did you know that? And as for your ex—” He tilted his head again.
“No! Please, don’t.” I lowered my head into my hand, dug my fingers into my scalp. Five months after the divorce, the wound still split open at the mere mention of her.
“You see?” he whispered, his head ducked down so that he stared intently up into my face. “I can tell you everything.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve made a pastime of studying case histories, of following them through from beginning to end. You fascinate me in the same way that beetles with their uncanny instinct for dung rolling used to fascinate you. I know more about you than your family. Than your ex. Than you know about yourself, I daresay.”
Something—some by-product of fear—rose up within me as anger at last. “If you are what you say, aren’t you here to make some kind of deal for my soul? To tempt me? Why did you order me coffee, then? Why not a glass of merlot or a Crown and Coke?” My voice had risen, but I didn’t care. I felt my anger with relief.
Lucian regarded me. “Please. How trite. Besides, they don’t serve liquor here.” But then his calm fell away, and he was staring—not at me but past me, toward the clock on the wall. “But there”— he pointed, and his finger seemed exceedingly long—“see how the hour advances without us!” He leapt to his feet, and I realized he meant to leave.
“What?