“I think it’s full of unwanted help.”
He looked down to examine the inside of the bag. “Or maybe I just really, really love … six-dollar wine.”
“And dog treats,” I said, glancing his way.
I could see the sides of his eyes crinkle up at that.
“Fine,” I said, accepting my defeat and holding out my arms for the bag.
But he shook his head. “I got it.”
“Are you going to be stubborn about this, too?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is chivalrous.”
“Is it?” I said, tilting my head.
Then, as if the question had answered itself, I held my arms out for the bag again.
“Why should I give this to you?” he asked.
“Because you got what you wanted last time,” I said, tilting my head back toward the store, “and now it’s my turn.”
He considered that.
So I added, “It’s only fair.”
He nodded at that, and then, like he’d been totally reasonable all along, he turned, stepped closer, and released the bag into my arms.
“Thank you,” I said when I had possession.
The light had turned, and the crowd around us was moving into the street. As I started to move with it, I looked down to check the bag’s contents, and I saw a bouquet of white gerbera daisies. I started to turn to him next to me, but he wasn’t there—and when I spun back, he was still at the curb looking down at his phone like maybe he’d stopped for a text.
“Hey!” I called from the middle of the street. “You forgot your flowers!”
But he looked up and shook his head. “Those are for you.”
I didn’t fight him. It was his turn, after all.
If I’d known what was going to happen next, I might have handled that moment differently. I might have kept arguing just so we could keep talking. Or I might have asked him his name so I’d have some way of remembering him—so that he wouldn’t just remain, in my memory after that, the Grocery Store Guy who got away.
Of course, if I’d known what would happen next, I would never have stepped into the street in the first place.
But I didn’t know. The same way none of us ever know. The same way we all just move through the world on guesswork and hope.
Instead, I just shrugged, like, Okay, and then turned and kept walking—noting that he was the first man I’d been attracted to in all the months since my breakup, and half hoping he would jog to catch up with me in a minute or two.
But that’s not what happened next.
Next, I froze right there in the crosswalk, my arms still hugging my bag of wine.
And I don’t remember anything after that.
Two
I WOKE UP in the hospital with my evil stepmother Lucinda by my bed.
And you know it was bad if Lucinda showed up.
I opened my eyes, and I saw one of my least favorite people on the planet leaning forward, elbows on knees, peering over the bed rail, flaring her nostrils and staring at me like she’d never seen me before.
“What happened?” was all I could think of to say.
At that, Lucinda went into full gossip mode, filling me in on the details as if she were talking to a random neighbor—and I can’t tell you how weird it was to be getting the story of my life from the person who had ruined it.
Anyhoo.
Apparently, I’d had what they call a nonconvulsive seizure, right there in the middle of the crosswalk in front of my building. I froze into an empty stare in the street and was almost mowed down by a Volkswagen Beetle before a mysterious Good Samaritan shoved me to the curb at the last second and saved my life.
Next, after not getting run over, I passed out on the sidewalk in front of my building.
The Good Samaritan then called 911 and handed me off to the paramedics when they arrived. According to the nurse at the hospital, I was semiconscious when they wheeled me in and was asking everyone to find my father—though that’s another thing I don’t remember.
I really must have been out of it to ask for my dad. Of all people. A person I would never voluntarily turn to in need.
But over and over, apparently, I asked for him, saying his name. Which the nurses recognized. Because my dad was, to be honest, a bit of a celebrity surgeon.
The staff called his office, according to that same nurse, but he was “unavailable.”
Which is how Lucinda wound up here.
She was absolutely the last person I’d want at my bedside—besides perhaps her daughter. Honestly, I’d rather have woken up to Miranda Priestly. Or Mommie Dearest. Or Ursula from The Little Mermaid.