“I did.”
“Do you ever think about that?”
“Sometimes.”
“What if your manager had let you leave on time?”
“I would’ve gone home.”
“And Belle?”
“Someone else might have found her.”
“Maybe.”
I smiled.
“You’re trying to turn this into fate.”
“I don’t believe in fate.”
“Neither do I.”
We stood beneath the restored Meridian lights.
People passed us carrying instruments and costume bags.
Mr. Alvarez complained somewhere in the distance about someone touching one of his ladders.
Mara was arguing cheerfully with a caterer.
Belle’s laughter floated from the auditorium.
For a building that had been empty for twenty-one years, the Meridian had become very loud.
I liked it that way.
Harlan put his hands in his pockets.
“Then what do you believe happened?”
I thought about the freezing garage.
The fifteen dollars and forty cents in my bank account.
The eviction notice in my purse.
