Destiny's Chance (11 page)

A modest amount of pedestrian traffic bustled along the street: a mother pushed a stroller, a business owner swept the walk, and two teenagers cutting class strutted with cigarettes hanging from their pierced mouths. Was there anyone else not in his or her original body, or was she the only person to experience the transference? Loneliness swept through her at the likely possibility that she was. Being unique sucked.

She returned her attention to the studio.
Thank goodness I still have my sister
. Laura’s head snapped up, and she scanned the street, zeroed in on Destiny. A what-are-you-waiting-for expression crinkled her face.

Destiny entered the building. “Good morning.” She affected a cheery tone.

“What’s wrong?” Laura frowned.

“You mean other than the obvious?” she said lightly. Since the spanking and sex, the soreness in her ass had faded to a faint tingle, but the ache in her heart had grown.

Chance had become more affectionate, touching her, teasing her, giving every impression that he cared for her. She gravitated toward his attention like a flower seeking the sun, yet every caress, every kiss, lanced her heart like the flick of a tawse. Only there was no pleasure. Only pain.

They’d achieved an intimacy, yes, but it was a pseudocloseness because she couldn’t claim his affection; his feelings were meant for Zoe.

“Stop it.” Destiny glared at her sister.

“Stop what?”

“Staring at me like that.”

“How am I staring at you?”

“Like you’re trying to figure me out.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

Destiny speared Laura with the look she’d used since childhood, the one that said,
I don’t care if you’re psychic. I’m the older sister, and you’d better do what I say.

“Why are you so stubborn?” Laura asked. The glare had never worked.

“I’m realistic.” She’d given it her best shot, and look what it got her. Heartache. You couldn’t force somebody to love you. She’d considered and rejected Laura’s idea that Zoe had been trying to match her and Chance. If she had, she’d failed because they still lived on opposite banks of a river of missed chances, destined to live parallel rather than shared existences. Laura was wrong.

Yet she couldn’t bring herself to call it quits. She might be living on borrowed time with a borrowed man, but she’d take the relationship to the end. She couldn’t avoid the hurt. It would come regardless. And if sooner or later was her only choice, she’d pick later.

Destiny sighed, scanned the studio, and plopped her purse on the counter. “How bad a shape are we in?” Everything appeared as it had been before the accident almost two weeks ago. But how many bookings had they lost? They’d both been unavailable, Laura on vacation and she with a new identity. How many people had phoned to schedule a sitting and received no response? Or had arrived for their appointment to a locked door? She’d had a high-profile socialite client scheduled who might have referred similar business to them. Now the woman probably was telling everyone how unreliable D and L Photography was.

“Not bad, but we’re going to be busy while we catch up. I’ve contacted all our clients, explained about the accident, and informed them we lined up another photographer. Everyone rescheduled. Most had read about the accident in the newspaper.”

“I was in the paper?”

Laura nodded. “A local news brief.”

A news
brief?
That was all her life had amounted to?

But Zoe hadn’t received that. No one mourned her loss. Only Destiny and Laura knew she’d passed from this world. No one should die without being noticed, especially not her friend. Once again she noted the unfairness: the one who lived was mourned; the one who died was not.

“And in the obituaries,” Laura added. “I clipped the obit and the article for you.”

“Thank you.” Destiny scratched her temple. “I’ve been thinking I’d like to do something for Zoe. Obviously I can’t invite people she knew to a service, but I’d like to memorialize her.” A plan started to form. “What do we have going today?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t sure when you’d be back to work, so our first rescheduled sitting isn’t until later in the week.”

“Let’s go to a florist. I’ll need to borrow some money. I don’t have my purse, so I don’t have any of my bank or credit cards. They might not even be valid. Even if I had her PINs and could sign her name so that it matched her signature, I wouldn’t feel right about using her money. I’ve taken enough from her.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. I have your purse, your wallet, and your keys at my place. Why don’t I run you by your apartment later, and you can get some of your stuff?”

“Great idea.” Destiny moved to the desk. “Scoot over, please. Let me look something up.”

“What did you have in mind?” Laura rolled her chair out of the way.

“A private but personal memorial,” Destiny said, logged on to Google. “I don’t know Zoe’s favorite flower…so…” She typed in
meanings of flowers
, clicked onto a florist’s site, and perused the list. “Hmm, xeranthemum.” It looked like a purple daisy.

“Never heard of it,” Laura said.
I like it
. That voice. Destiny winced and tugged at her earlobe. She glanced at Laura. Better not to mention it. She returned her attention to the computer screen. “It represents eternity and immortality,” she read. “Let’s get that. If the florist doesn’t have them in stock, we’ll get forget-me-nots.”

* * * *

Midmorning on a weekday with kids in school and most adults at work, they had the park to themselves with the exception of the occasional mother wheeling a baby stroller. The white canopies had been dismantled and removed, leaving no sign that anything had occurred except for the slight trampling of the grass.

“Where should we go?” Laura asked.

“The pond.” Destiny cradled two bouquets. The florist had carried xeranthemums, but she’d bought forget-me-nots too.

They trekked across a grassy knoll to the small lake, a manmade, rocky, irregular-shaped pool with an outcropping of stone that formed a fountain in the center. Water sparkled under the sun. Lily pads floated, and ducks congregated on the opposite bank, lured by an elderly man with a bag of bread.

Destiny faltered. She’d plotted this moment through only so far, and self-consciousness rose up. She clutched the bouquets to her chest. Dumb idea.

Laura touched her arm. “See with your heart,” she said softy.

Destiny closed her eyes, took a deep breath in, and then exhaled to clear her mind of everything but memories. Meeting Zoe at the photo shoot. Her poise in front of the camera had been in evidence already, even though her career, like Destiny’s, had just begun. They’d hit it off—two friends meant to be. Destiny recalled times when they’d gabbed until dawn. Although Zoe possessed a dry sense of humor, she rarely laughed. However, her observations had kept Destiny in stitches. She remembered Zoe’s confidence, her nonchalance when she got a modeling job she’d auditioned for. She could picture her smile, often cryptic and reserved for the most joyous occasions, and she focused on her friend’s goodness, her helpfulness. Zoe had been giving Destiny a ride when she’d been killed.

“For the gift of life,” she whispered. She opened her eyes, tugged a xeranthemum from the bouquet, and tossed it in water. The current picked up the flower, and it drifted away. “For friendship.” She dropped a forget-me-not into the pond. “For the way you made me laugh.” She set another xeranthemum adrift. The man across the pond watched them as he tossed bread to the ducks.

She glanced at a DON’T THROW ANYTHING IN THE POND sign. “There will be a lot of flowers in the water when I’m done. What if he reports me?”

“To whom? The park police?” Laura asked drily. “He won’t.” She pointed to another prohibition. DON’T FEED THE DUCKS. Laura waved, and the man returned the greeting. “You’re both criminals protected by a code of silence.”

Destiny laughed and released another flower. “For your past, Zoe.” Whatever it was. Despite their many chats, her friend’s background remained a mystery. Other than her attraction to Chance, Destiny had shared her innermost feelings and family secrets. But the model who occasionally had bared all had revealed little of her personal history. It was almost as if she didn’t have a past, that she had formed out of air or sky and appeared one day to announce her presence to the world. Destiny set a forget-me-not adrift. “For your secrets.”

One by one, she dispersed the flowers with an intentional thought until two blooms remained.

She stared at the purple, daisy-like flower and remembered when Zoe had introduced her to Chance. By that time, she’d already heard so much about him, she felt like she knew him. But she hadn’t been prepared for the zing of sensation when they’d shaken hands. The way she could have lost herself in his brown eyes. How her heart immediately ached for him. And Zoe’s Mona Lisa smile. From that moment onward, Zoe had begun to sing Chance’s praises as if trying to sell him. Unnecessary. She’d been sold from hello. But no one would hand over one’s boyfriend to another.
Here’s my boyfriend. Take him—he’s yours
. Highly unlikely.

But what if she forgave herself for her covetous thoughts and let fate decide what was to be? Forget the past and begin anew.

For Chance
. Silently she moved her lips and tossed a xeranthemum into the water.

For Chance
. Zoe’s voice.

“What’s that one for?” Laura asked.

She watched the flower drift away. “Possibilities.”

A single forget-me-not remained. Destiny knelt, kissed the petals, and placed it gently in the water. “Good-bye, Zoe.”

Good-bye, my friend.

Chapter Twelve

Roman glanced at the menu on the lighted board above his head, then at the cashier. “I’ll have two macho tacos, an enchilada, an order of cinnamon tortilla crisps, and a diet cola”

“Diet cola?” Chance quirked the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t want to overdo it,” Roman said and paid for his meal.

Chance ordered a carne asada burrito. He and his brother waited at the counter for their lunch, then carried their trays to an out-of-the-way table. Chance turned a chair around and straddled it. He peeled down the paper wrapping and bit into his burrito.

The last time he’d ordered from Taco Paco’s, it had been at Zoe’s request when she’d just gotten out of the hospital. Previously, the woman who’d shuddered at the mention of fast food had dug into her breakfast burrito like it was her last meal. However, Destiny loved Taco Paco’s. She’d told him so during one of their many conversations.

Once identified, the unfathomable consumed him, and he studied Zoe when she wasn’t watching, cataloguing and notating her every action. He’d never heard her use
that
word. Had she always held her fork like that? When had she ever watched
that
TV show? And he couldn’t forget Laura’s reaction.

He no longer considered it a bizarre coincidence, but he couldn’t surmount the hurdle of disbelief that his ex-girlfriend had been transformed into her best friend. He’d always liked Destiny but now was developing deeper feelings for her.

Doubts dogged him. Did he read Destiny’s mannerisms into Zoe because they were there, or because he wanted them to be? Sometimes he feared his head would explode.

Roman dumped a packet of hot sauce onto each taco. “How’s Zoe these days?”

A totally new person
. His brother would think he was nuts. “Fine.” He bit into his burrito.

“Recovered from the accident?” A quarter of the taco disappeared with one bite.

Chance finished chewing, using the time to consider his words. “The bruises are almost all gone.”

Roman lifted the taco to his mouth and paused. He arched his eyebrows. “But?”

“But she’s different.”

“Different good or different bad?” Another section of taco disappeared.

Chance rubbed the bridge of his nose. Zoe had been a good person. They’d had fun together but hadn’t loved each other the way he was starting to feel about her body double. The fates had screwed up. He’d become friends with a woman who should have been his lover and was a lover to the woman who should have been his friend. “It’s like a new person walked away from the accident.” Was this fate’s convoluted way of righting an error?

“How so?”

“A lot of little things,” he said and explained about the cooking, the singing, the diet changes.

“Weird. Do you think she sustained a more serious head injury than the doctor thought?”

I think Destiny Grable inhabits Zoe’s body
. “Don’t laugh,” Chance said.

“About what?”

“I think Zoe died in the accident, and Destiny was reincarnated in her body.”

Roman laughed.

Chance took another bite of his burrito. Spoken aloud, it sounded even crazier than it had whispering in his head. But a weight lifted off his chest.

Roman stared. “Shit, you’re not serious?”

Chance chewed.

“Just because she cooks and snores a little?”

He swallowed, took a sip of his soda. “It’s not any one thing. It’s the sum of all the changes.” He sighed, knowing he would dig himself in deeper. Roman would think he’d lost it for sure. “I saw her. Destiny. We were having sex, and I tell you, I saw Destiny looking at me.”