“Where did you learn to cook?”
He shrugged. “I’ve always known how. It’s one of the few things I enjoy in this world.”
“And the other things?”
“Well, that’s personal.” He flashed me a smile, his teeth perfectly straight and white.
“We did go out on a date. Just a tip, cooking is one of those pesky things you discuss on a first date, not killing people and knowing someone for a hundred years.”
“You kind of ran out on our first date, if you recall.” He shook the hot pan. “Maybe I was just about to start talking about my cooking skills.”
“Any other hobbies besides killing people?”
“Things I like,” he said, changing the subject. “I like water. The ocean. I’d like to surf one day.”
“Boring.” I fake-yawned. “Who doesn’t like the ocean?”
“Plenty of people,” he said.
“I don’t know any.” I curled my legs under the stool and leaned in. “Try again.”
“I like art.”
I groaned. “Not you, too.”
“I sell it,” he said, laughing. “I don’t collect it. Well, I don’t collect much of it.”
I was toying with what to say. He seemed to be reading my thoughts.
“This dream you had?”
“I saw Juliet again.”
“And?”
“I think I might be her.”
He turned and leaned back on the counter, amused. He was wearing a black T-shirt and some faded jeans. I’d noticed the line of muscles in his arm earlier as he carried the grocery bags.
“Really? No more ‘you’re fucking crazy, Luke’?”
“Oh, you might be fucking crazy all right.” I played with my sock so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “But the dream happened just like you said it would. Even I have to admit that something is going on here. This girl in my dream, Juliet. She feels like me.”
“You’re all of them—they’re all unique, different, but all parts of you.” He moved effortlessly around the kitchen, returning to the stove and cracking eggs into a bowl before transferring them to the pan. I saw a fresh baguette peeking out of the remaining bag.
“How many of us are there?”
“Well, there is you, of course.”
“Of course.”
“You’ll dream of Nora and Sandra, too.”
“Four of us, then?”
He nodded.
“Assuming this isn’t crazy… and that is a big leap for me. Are we all the same?”
He hesitated. I could tell it was a question he didn’t want to answer, but I pressed. “When we met that first night at the Sofitel, you said you’d loved Nora best.”
“I was just babbling,” he said, stopping what he was doing at the stove to consider this. “I get nervous the first time we meet again after a long time. But yes, Nora was very special to me.”
“Not Juliet?” I felt a strange closeness to Juliet, having inhabited her in my dreams.
He didn’t answer.
“Sandra?”
He considered my questions while he pulled the outer edges of the omelet toward the center with a spatula. He turned to face me across the counter. “I failed Juliet.”
“How did you fail her?”
He inched closer and pointed to my forehead. “You, my dear, have the answer to that question in… your… head.”
“You could save us both the time and trouble.”
He looked pained, distracted. “I haven’t thought of Sandra in a long time.” There was something in his voice when he spoke of her that seemed wistful. “To answer your question, you are similar, but each version of you has grown up with a different background, in a different time…”
“How long has it been?” Even as I spoke the words, I shuddered. How could I really believe this was true?
“This time? Forty-one years.”
“That would be—”
“Nineteen seventy-one.”
He took one look at me and grabbed a paper towel, held it to my nose, led me into the bedroom, and sat me down on the bed, lifting my chin to keep my nose elevated. “I saw your nose beginning to bleed. You’re getting sick,” he said. “You need to rest.”
“Do I usually get nosebleeds?”
“You have.” He looked concerned. “What you’re experiencing isn’t exactly human, so it’s taking its toll. You haven’t had to absorb this many lives before in this short amount of time. Usually, you have more time.”
“You keep saying that.” I tilted my head back. “Will I be all right?”
Luke didn’t answer. He smoothed my hair, and I realized that no one had touched me since Roger. He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Just lie down and rest. I’ll bring your breakfast in here.”
He came back a few minutes later with a plate of gorgeous food: a Gruyère cheese omelet, watercress salad, and chopped hash brown potatoes.
“Holy shit this looks good.”
He sat down on the bed next to me while I ate. “So where did you leave off with Juliet?”
I set my bloody tissue on the nightstand and focused on my plate. I felt like I was recounting the plot of some epic novel. “Juliet’s mother found out about Marchant.” I looked over at him, and I could see a mixture of worry and familiarity. “Assuming you’re not crazy and this whole story is true, how many times have you made me breakfast before?”
“Too many to count.”
“And I like this.” I looked down at my half-empty plate.
“You do. In all your lives.”
He turned to leave and I touched his arm. “Don’t go.”
“I’m just going to the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” Before he left the room, he looked back at me with what seemed like regret.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.” He smiled sadly. “I just never tire of seeing you, that’s all.”
I heard the boards creak as he walked down the hall. A few minutes later, he returned and sat down heavily on the bed next to me and watched me eat. After, he pulled me close and curled up beside me. I could hear the clock next to my bed ticking, and then the room seemed to blip as though it were a faulty TV channel. And then darkness.
10
Juliet LaCompte
Challans, France, 1895
Juliet had never seen her mother at work in quite the way she was now. Furious from her conversation with Marchant, her mother paced back and forth grabbing bottles from the windowsill.
Sobs erupted from deep inside her belly as Juliet stepped into the kitchen. When her mother saw her, she ran to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “You will tell no one. Do you hear me?”
“I love him.”
Her mother slapped her hard across the face. “You are a fool, child. You need to be smart.”
Reeling, Juliet grabbed her cheek, which was hot and stinging as if she’d leaned her cheek over the fire.
Her mother’s face was cold, unforgiving. “You have put us all in danger with your foolishness.”
“I don’t understand…”