“In the audience, you mean?”
She nodded. “You know how I’ve told you I can’t see the audience really well through the veil?”
“Yeah,” Tahi said, stepping toward the booth. “You’ve said the veil works both ways. People can’t identify you. Since you’re becoming so big, and nobody in our family knows you perform but me, that’s a good thing. But since you’re sort of shy, it works the other way too. Not being able to make out people’s individual faces helps you to lose yourself in the music . . . escape your self-consciousness about performing
in front of all those people.”
“Right,” Laila said, thinking. “But tonight, my attention kept going to this one man . . . he was sitting at a table up front, all by himself. I could only see his outline, but he was big. Imposing . . .”
“Asher.” The kettle started to wail. Tahi turned back to prepare their tea. “If he was waiting for you in the underground tunnel that leads from the State Room, then he must have known it was you, right?” Tahi asked, setting their tea down on the table and sliding into the booth.
“How could he know that?” Laila wondered.
“You were aware of him in the audience, even though he was just a shadow to you. You haven’t laid eyes on him in years, and you said he was wearing a thick beard. But you also said you recognized him in an instant when you saw him. Don’t you think there’s a possibility he could have recognized you, as well? Even through the veil?” Tahi speculated.
Laila cleared her throat and took a sip of her tea, made very uneasy by the suggestion behind Tahi’s question.
“Well?” Tahi prompted.
“I don’t know. Maybe, I guess. He heard me sing once, a long time ago. I’m not sure what else makes sense. It’s pretty unlikely he just happened to be in that tunnel at the exact moment I was passing, and that he somehow recognized me, even with my hood up.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Tahi said. “I meant, well . . . what are you going to do about it?”
“About what?”
“About the fact that fate has thrown you two together again.”
Laila made a scoffing sound, irritated and anxious that Tahi was pressing the subject again. She glanced around the large kitchen. “Do you see him here? Asher and I aren’t together.”
“Fate can’t do everything. It expects some sweat.” Tahi gave her a significant glance over her delicate tea glass as she sipped.
“No,” Laila said emphatically after a pause, shaking her head. “Time moves on. Crescent Bay was a long time ago. I’m a different person. So is he.”
“So how come you both recognized each other through the veil, without even seeing each other’s faces?”
Laila’s tongue felt knotted. She couldn’t think of how to respond to Tahi’s provocative question. Tahi took another sip of tea, frowned and set down her glass. She yawned widely. “I think my espresso high just gave out. Just think about what I said, Laila. I’m going to bed.”
• • •
The next afternoon. Laila hesitated on the sidewalk outside an elegant, Art Deco high-rise on West Webster Avenue. Lincoln Park was just across the street. It was ablaze with autumn color. She couldn’t believe she was here.
Abruptly, she turned and headed in the opposite direction. This had all been a mistake. What had she been thinking, stalking her first love after all these years?
A tall man entered her vision, walking toward her. Her heart seized. She stumbled in her boots. She steadied herself almost immediately, noticing the man’s expression. A stranger’s startled expression. She’d never seen the man in her life. He passed her on the sidewalk. Laila just stood there, stunned.
The random encounter had made another event jump into her mind’s eye: standing outside Crescent Bay’s downtown ice cream parlor at twilight, music from the park bandstand filling the summer night air . . . seeing a tall, dark young man and her body’s automatic, visceral response. All because for a split second, she’d thought it had been him . . . the man who had seen her naked at the secret inland lake.
A feeling of poignancy rose in her. Still, after all this time, just the idea of him made her uncontrollably excited. Maybe Tahi was right. Maybe there was some kind of connection between Asher and her, something that bypassed the years.
But what about all the hurt?
She turned and gazed up at the luxury high-rise again. The address had remained intact in her memory all these years. She recalled Asher telling her once, in an offhand way, that his parents owned a condo in downtown Chicago, and that he stayed there often during breaks from school. At the time, she remembered thinking that he was downplaying the scenario out of embarrassment or modesty or both. She suspected that the condo had actually been purchased exclusively for him. Having learned what she had about his parents, she wondered if they hadn’t provided the desirable living arrangement for their son in order to increase the chances of him visiting them.
Maybe the reason the address had stuck in her head all these years was that she was a little familiar with the neighborhood. Her family liked a pizza place, Mamma’s, nearby. They’d gone there three or four times after Chicago shopping trips when Laila was young. Mamma’s was long gone now. A nail and eyelash boutique had taken its place. When she and Tahi had bought their condo last year, the family had turned out in en masse to help them move. One night, her mother had suggested they return to Mamma’s. Laila had been hesitant about returning to the neighborhood. She hadn’t been there since that summer in Crescent Bay. She’d agreed, however.
It had been sad seeing Asher’s building, knowing from her online investigations that he wasn’t there, but instead on the opposite side of the globe. The chances of Asher’s parents still owning a place here, and that Asher was actually staying there on his visit to Chicago, were very thin.
But it couldn’t hurt to check it out, could it? What about that incredible connection Tahi mentioned? What about the fact that, presumably, they’d recognized one another . . . even through the veil?