Owen gave me an apologetic shrug. “Welcome to forty,” he said.
“Oh, I’m not forty,” I said. “I’m twenty-one.”
“Oh, that’s right!” He smiled. “Great. Then I have nineteen more chances to get this right.”
I took his hand, his fingers locking around mine. “Why don’t we just go home?” I said. “Brunch was so nice. If she’s ready to go home…”
“She’s fine.”
“Owen, I’m just saying, this isn’t a big deal.”
“No, it isn’t a big deal,” he said. “It isn’t a big deal for her to suck it up and enjoy a lovely flea market. She’ll be fine walking around for a half hour.”
He leaned down to kiss me and we started to head inside. To find Bailey. We were just through the front gate when a large man on his way out stopped walking and called out after Owen.
“No way,” he said.
He was wearing a baseball cap and a matching jersey, stretched out over his stomach. And he was carrying a lampshade—a yellow, velvet lampshade with the price tag still on it.
He reached out to hug Owen, the lampshade awkwardly knocking Owen on the back.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” he said. “How long has it been?”
Owen pulled away from him, careful to disentangle himself in a way that kept the lampshade safe.
“Twenty years? Twenty-five?” he said. “How does the prom king miss all the reunions?”
“I hate to tell you, pal, but I think you have the wrong guy,” Owen said. “I’ve never been king of anything, just ask my wife.”
Owen gestured to me.
And the guy, this stranger, smiled in my direction. “It’s good to meet you,” he said. “I’m Waylon.”
“Hannah,” I said.
Then he turned back to Owen. “Wait. So you’re telling me that you didn’t go to Roosevelt? Class of 1994?”
“Nope, I went to Newton High in Massachusetts,” Owen said. “You got the year right though.”
“Man, you are a dead ringer for this guy I went to school with. I mean the hair is pretty different and he was more jacked than you. No offense. I was more jacked too, back then.”
Owen shrugged. “We all were.”
“A dead ringer though.” He shook his head. “It’s probably a good thing you’re not him though. He was kind of a dick.”
Owen laughed. “Take it easy,” he said.
“You too,” Waylon said.
Then he started to walk toward the parking lot. But then he turned back.
“Do you know anyone who went to Roosevelt High in Texas?” he said. “Like a cousin or something? You’ve got to at least be related.”
Owen smiled, gently. “Sorry, buddy,” he said. “Hate to disappoint you, but I’m not even close to the right guy.”
Sorry, We’re Open
Jake’s words pound in my head. Owen Michaels doesn’t exist. Owen isn’t Owen. He’s deceived me about the most central details of his life. He deceived his daughter about the most central details of hers. How is that possible? It feels entirely impossible, considering the man I thought I knew. I do know him. I still believe this, despite the evidence to the contrary. And this belief in him (in us) will either show me to be a steadfast partner or a complete fool. Hopefully those don’t turn out to be the same thing.