in answered the door in her godawful sweats again, no makeup and her curly hair going every which way. She looked wonderful. “Hi,” she said, sounding surprised, and then she grinned. “Emilio shanghaied you, huh?”

“He said you were starving,” Cal said, smiling back in spite of himself. “You took me to the ER. You put a glass of water by my bed. I owe you.”

“That’s lame,” she said, but she stood back and he walked in, glad to see her ugly cat staring one-eyed at him from the back of her ugly couch.

“I can’t believe you still have that cat,” Cal said, unpacking the bag onto the table. “What did you name it?”

“I can’t believe you brought me that cat,” Min said, heading for her kitchen alcove. “And I haven’t named it anything yet. We’re still trying to decide if we want to make a commitment. Although he does come home every night and sleep with me.”

“Smart cat,” Cal said.

“I was thinking about trying to make him an indoor cat because cats live longer if they’re kept indoors, but he’s a guy, so I’m assuming he’d hate being tied down.”

“Depends on what you tied him to,” Cal said, thinking of her brass bed.

Min brought plates to the table. “You know, if you’d brought me a snow globe I could understand, but a cat?”

“You said you didn’t want a snow globe.”

“I don’t,” Min said. “Well, I want my grandma’s Mickey and Minnie globe back. Bring my grandma’s back to me, and I’ll love you until the end of time. Bring me another cat, I’m going to rethink the whole chicken marsala thing.”

“Speaking of which,” Cal said, “what happened this time?”

Min groaned and went back to the alcove and Cal followed her, feeling right at home. “It doesn’t look bad,” he said when he saw her latest effort. “It just doesn’t look like chicken marsala.”

“I was trying to avoid the olive oil and butter,” Min said, and then held up her hand before he could speak. “I know, I know, I’m learning my lesson. I used chicken broth instead. It smells good but it doesn’t look right.”

“That would be because olive oil and chicken broth are not the same thing,” Cal said. “You’re all right. Just make a roux to thicken the broth and serve it over fettuccine.”

“A roux,” Min said.

“Melted butter and flour,” Cal said. “I don’t suppose there’s a chance in hell you have butter.”

“Bonnie might,” Min said. “I don’t have fettuccine or flour, either. I’ll go borrow them from her.”

“Do you have a big pot for the noodles and a colander?” Cal said, looking around the spare alcove. She’s got to find a better place.

“In the basement,” Min said.

“That’s convenient. Where’s the lid?”

“Lid?” Min said.

“Something that will keep the cat from going headfirst into this pan while we’re down in the basement?”

“We’re going down to the basement?”

“Do you want to learn to cook, Minnie?” he said with more affection than he’d intended.

Min blinked. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Then you’ll need pots and pans,” Cal said.

They went to the basement, and Cal picked out one of the half-dozen unmarked boxes at random and opened it with his pocketknife. Min unwrapped the first package in the box: her grandmother’s green colander. “This is the box,” she said as she dropped the colander back in the box. “You went right to it. You’re good.”

“Hell, yes.” Cal grinned at her and picked up the box. “Move it, Minnie, and don’t forget to stop for butter, flour, and pasta.”

Teaching Min how to make a roux should have been pretty innocuous, but the kitchenette was tiny, and she was close, and her curls smelled like lavender, and there wasn’t anything about her that wasn’t round, and there was that brass bed with a satin comforter just a room away, so after he’d explained the basics of roux, Cal retreated to unpack the box.

The cat was sitting in it. “Out,” he said, and it switched eyes on him, lolling among the lumpy packages. He reached in and picked it up and put it on the floor, and it rubbed up against his leg, purring. “Very affectionate cat,” he told Min.

“I know, I love the damn thing,” Min said. “He curls up beside me every night and purrs along to Elvis. He’s smart, too. He’s learned how to hit the stereo button so he can play Elvis without me.”

Cal pulled out the first package and unwrapped a thick, clear glass, angular bowl that looked as though it might have a specific function. “What’s this?”

Min looked back. “It’s an egg-beater bowl. There should be a metal lid for it with a beater in it.”

Cal dug around the box until he found it. The lid sat on the bowl with the crank for the beaters above it, and the beaters below. “That’s pretty neat,” he said, and picked up the next wrapped package, a heavy one which turned out to be nested mixing bowls, thick white china with a blue stripe.

“Oh,” Min said, “I remember those, my grandma used to make cookies in the big one. That was back when I ate cookies.”

“The good old days.” Cal picked up the next package. It was heavy and round and as he unwrapped it, he began to realize what it was. When he pulled the last of the paper away, he wasn’t that surprised to see a snow globe with Mickey inside, dipping Minnie in her pink dress. But he was appalled.

“So, how long does this cook?” Min said. “I mean, before the flour loses the raw flavor? Cal?” She looked back at him. “What’s wrong?”

He held up the snow globe, and she froze over the chicken pan.

It was heavy in his hand, heavier than a snow globe should be. He tipped it and saw the key on the bottom. “Music box?” he said to her and she nodded. “What’s it play?”

“It Had to Be You,’ “ she said, faintly.

“Of course.” Cal looked at Mickey and Minnie, trapped forever in the globe. Bring my grandma’s snow globe back to me and I’ll love you until the end of time.

“I’ve been looking for that for fifteen years,” Min said, her voice flat. “And then you go right to it. How do you do that?”

“It’s not me.” Cal put it down on the counter.

“You didn’t make a deal with the devil, did you?” Min said, staring at it.

“What?”

“You know, some kind of bargain where everything you did would be perfect so that every woman you met would be unable to resist you, only you forgot to mention that should work only with women you wanted, and now we’re stuck in this loop with each other?”

Cal took a deep breath. “Okay, leaving aside the fact that you think the devil exists and is making deals, I’m a little upset that you think I’d be hanging out with him.”

“Well, hell, Cal, you’re practically his first cousin,” Min said. “You’re tall, you’re dark, you’re handsome, you’re charming, you wear suits, you never sweat, and you always show up with whatever I’m needing at the moment. That snow globe has been lost for fifteen years. I keep getting this feeling that if I say yes to you, I’ll go straight to hell.”

Cal nodded. Why did I come back here? “Okay. You know, I’m not hungry anymore. I think I’ll be going.”

“That might be good,” Min said, staring at the snow globe.

He picked up his jacket and headed for the door and then paused as he opened it. “Have a—” he started to say and then stopped.

“Nice life?” Min said, still staring at the globe.

He shook his head. “It just doesn’t have the same ring to it,” he said, and went down the stairs.

When he was gone, Min walked over to the snow globe and wound it. It began to tinkle the first bars of “It Had to Be You,” and she looked into it, and tried to get her breath back. The dome was heavy and perfect, sitting atop a black art deco base, and inside silver glitter and tiny silver stars swirled as Minnie beamed out at her, happy to be in Mickey’s arms, and Mickey beamed at Minnie.

Maybe that’s what I loved, she thought. That she was so happy and he thought she was wonderful. Plus there was that swirling pink dress Minnie was wearing and the great pink shoes to match. Well, the shoes were a little plain. Min tipped the globe to see, and the glitter and stars swirled again as the song slowed down and ran out.

It’s not me, Cal had said, but it was him. She’d been going along, perfectly happy, and then he’d walked into the bar and shaken up her life and suddenly it was all glitter and stars everywhere. And every time things calmed down, every time she got things back to normal, he came back and shook—

Something furry nudged her leg and she jumped. The cat meowed at her and she picked him up and thought about the situation logically. Of course it wasn’t him. Coincidences happened all the time. That was life. As long as nothing else happened...

“We’ll just stay away from him,” she told the cat. “We won’t go to The Long Shot unless we know he won’t be there, and this will all pass and we’ll be normal again. No more goddamn glitter.”

The cat switched eyes again, and Min realized that talking to an animal using “we” was probably not normal, either. “Chicken?” she said to the cat, and gave up on logic to eat dinner.

On Wednesday, Liza was at the bar trying to signal Shanna when Cynthie sat down next to her and smiled at her. “Hi. Where’s your friend?”

“She said she had to stay home with her cat,” Liza said, “but I think she’s avoiding Cal.”

“That’s a good idea,” Cynthie said. “The best way to resist him is to stay away from him.” She looked around the bar. “Do you see him?”

“No,” Liza said. “Tony said he’s working late. Why?”

“Because if she’s not here, he should be working on you.”

“Me?” Liza said, appalled. “She’s gone so he’s going to pick me up?”

“No,” Cynthie said. “It’s important to the health of a relationship that her friends and family approve of him. I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to charm you yet.”

“He’s not dumb,” Liza said. “And we’re not buddies.”

“Well, your friend is doing the right thing by avoiding him,” Cynthie said. “I don’t think he’s going to get to her at all.”

“He got to you, though, huh?” Liza said.

Cynthie lifted her chin. “I...”

Liza waited.

“Yes,” Cynthie said. “He got to me.”

“Rat bastard,” Liza said.

“No, he’s not,” Cynthie said. “He just—”

“Needs approval from women because of Mommie Dearest,” Liza said. “You know, with all you know about him, you could write a book.”

Cynthie sipped her drink.

“Ah,” Liza said. “You are writing a book.”

“Yes,” Cynthie said. “But not about... well, not entirely about...”

“Boy,” Liza said. “So when he left, you lost a lover and a research subject. I don’t understand this. You’re an expert in this relationship stuff and he still got to you?”

Cynthie bit her lip. “What you know logically doesn’t help if you’re feeling something emotionally.”

The pain on her face was real, and Liza put her hand on Cynthie’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

“You know,” Cynthie said, sticking her chin out, “it’s not a problem. There are people with much worse problems than mine.”

“Doesn’t make yours any more fun to bear,” Liza said.

“No,” Cynthie said. “But it does help with the selfpity.” She shoved her glass away. “If I’ve made Cal seem like a bad guy—”

“You haven’t,” Liza said. “In fact, I think you have a pretty rosy view of him.”

“No,” Cynthie said. “He’s a good—”

“I don’t care. I just want him to stay away from Min.”

“Me, too,” Cynthie said.

She finished her drink and left, and Shanna came down the bar and said, “Refill?”

Liza smiled. “Tell me about Cal Morrisey.”

“Why?” Shanna said, warily.

“Because he’s been kissing my best friend, and I’ve heard he has a commitment problem.”

Shanna shrugged. “Him and half the male population.”

“Half of the male population isn’t kissing Min,” Liza said. “He’s not serious about her, is he?”

Shanna bit her lip. “He’s the best guy I know. If I was ever in trouble, I’d call Cal, and he would come and get me out, I know that in my soul.”

“And yet, not an answer to my question,” Liza said.

Shanna was quiet for a moment and then she said, “Tell your friend not to get invested. He doesn’t stay.”

“Thank you,” Liza said.

“But he’s a really good guy,” Shanna said.

“I keep hearing that,” Liza said, getting up. “I’m just having trouble believing it.”

At seven, Cal decided that one more minute of looking at the seminar packet would make him beat his head against the desk, and he’d had enough cranial injury for the month. On the other hand, looking at Min at The Long Shot would only lead to being called the devil again. Or, if she was having a good day, a beast. He stood up and stretched, and then set out for home, slowing down as he passed the Gryphon Theater. They were doing the last week of the John Carpenter revival, and there was a short line out in front for Big Trouble in Little China.

Kurt Russell beats the bad guys, he thought. Haven’t seen that since I was a kid. The last person left the box office, and he went up and bought a ticket. Better than spending the night alone, concentrating on not thinking about... anyone.

As he walked in, the previews were running for an Elvis Presley series, and he thought of Min. Forget her, he told himself, and found a place a few rows down and a few seats over, surrounded by empty seats. But as the movie began and Kurt started talking trash in his truck, a family of five came in and asked him to move down. The person to the right of his new seat was quiet, so he slouched down and lost himself in the movie, peaceful for the first time since the night before.

When the lights came up, he stood up to go at the same time as the woman on his right. Medium height, short curly brown hair tipped with gold, turning now to get her gray-checked jacket...

They stared at each other for a long, dumbstruck moment, and then she walked out of the theater and he followed. When they were outside she turned and looked at him.

“What are the odds?” Cal said.

“I don’t even know how to calculate the odds,” Min said, and started walking, and he fell into pace beside her because she shouldn’t walk home alone in the dark in the city.

Coincidence, Cal told himself. Happens all the time. No big deal. Means nothing.

When they got to her apartment, she climbed the steps without any arguing about who was going first, and for once he was too stunned to think about her rear end. At her door she turned and said, “Thank you for walking me home,” and he said, “You’re welcome.” They looked at each other for one long moment, and Cal felt breathless, falling into her eyes, and he thought, Oh, Christ, no, not you. Then she shook her head and went inside and closed the door, and he turned and walked down fifty-eight steps to the street, not sure whether to be relieved or not.

He paused and looked up at the dormer that was her bedroom window. The cat sat there, silhouetted against the light from her lamp, staring down at him, probably shutting one eye in the darkness. He imagined Min sitting down on that satin comforter, lying back on embroidered pillows that smelled of lavender, her gold-tipped curls against the blue satin, and he put himself there, beside her, pulling her to him, her arms around him, all her warm roundness against him, soft and yielding, imagined taking her lush mouth, feeling the swell of her breast under his hand, the rise of her hips to his, imagined pushing into all that softness, shuddering into the hot wetness of her, hearing her moan and sigh as he moved, and he realized that he wanted her more than he could ever have imagined wanting anything or anyone.

The light went out in her bedroom and broke the spell, and he closed his eyes against the darkness and the cold shock of reality. Then he turned and started back to the main street, to light and noise and safety.

On Thursday, when Liza showed up at Min’s apartment for the If Dinner, Bonnie answered the door looking cautious. When Liza lifted her eyebrows to ask What?, Bonnie shook her head and stood back to let her in.

“Hi,” Min said, a little too quietly, and Liza thought, That rat bastard Cal.

“What did he do?”

“Nothing,” Min said. “Sit down. I made a huge Cobb salad and I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

Liza turned back to the couch and saw a one-eyed animal looking at her. “You still have the cat.”

“I love that cat,” Min said. “He’s always there for me, he pats me with his paw when I’m depressed, he keeps me warm at night, and he has a beautiful voice. I’ve decided he’s the reincarnation of Elvis.”

“The long wait is over,” Liza said. He gave her something she didn’t even know she needed. The bastard.

After ten minutes of bread, salad, and stilted conversation about the cat, Liza had had enough. “I talked to Cynthie last night. She said Cal would try to—”

“I like him,” Bonnie said.

Liza sat back in her chair. “What?”

“I like him,” Bonnie said.

“That doesn’t mean you should encourage—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Min said, and they both turned to look at her. “I’m trying to get away from him, but it’s not working. Remember that snow globe I lost? He found it. He came over on Tuesday and went straight down to the basement and picked out the one box there that the snow globe was in.”

“Dumb luck,” Liza said.

“And then last night, I decided to go to the movies,” Min said. “And when the lights came up, guess who was sitting beside me?”

“Now that’s creepy,” Liza said, going cold. “He’s stalking you.”

“No,” Min said. “I picked up the paper, and the movie page fell out, and I saw Big Trouble in Little China was at the revival theater, and I thought, ‘Oh, good, Kurt Russell beats the bad guys’ and I went on an impulse. I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t even mention it to the cat. And there he was. It’s like he’s magic.”

“It’s like he’s the devil,” Liza said.

“It’s like he’s the prince,” Bonnie said.

Liza and Min looked at her.

“In the fairy tale,” Bonnie said. “He has to go on quests to get you. And the snow globe was one.”

“Bonnie, honey,” Min said, jarred out of her numbness. “Let’s do the Ifs instead. If I were a sane person, I wouldn’t be so freaked out by this. So I’m going to be a sane person and not be freaked out. Liza? What’s your If?”

“If I find out Cal Morrisey is stalking you, I’m going to tear him limb from limb,” Liza said. “Bonnie?”

“If you two get any dumber, I’m going to have to find new friends,” Bonnie scowled at Min. “Cal’s winning you. Just like in the fairy tale. You said his kiss woke you up.”

“I said his kiss turned me on,” Min said. “Not the same thing.” She leaned forward a little. “I was fine with using the fairy tale as a sort of metaphor, Bon, but this is real life. No prince, no stepmother, no poisoned apple.”

“And no happy ending if you think like that,” Bonnie said. “True love is beating you over the head to get your attention, and you’re rejecting it because you don’t want to believe. You have the fairy tale right in front of you—”

“Wait a minute,” Liza said, trying to head off disaster.

“And you’re worse,” Bonnie said, turning on her. “Min doesn’t believe in love for her, but you don’t believe in it for anybody. You’re a love nihilist.”

“A love nihilist.” Liza thought about it. “I kind of like that.”

“Well, I don’t,” Min said. “I believe in love. I think. I just don’t believe in fairy tales.”

“I have known my whole life that sooner or later my prince would come,” Bonnie said to Min. “How many times have you told me that everybody gets lucky breaks in business but not everybody is ready for them? Well, it’s true about love, too. I’ve been planning my marriage my whole life because I’m smart enough to know that’s the most important decision I’ll ever make, and now Roger’s here, and I’m ready to go. And you two are going to miss it when it comes for you because you don’t want to believe because if it isn’t true, you’ll be disappointed.”

Liza rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on—”

“You’re planning on being disappointed, you’d be disappointed if you weren’t disappointed, your whole world view depends on men disappointing you.” Bonnie picked up her plate. “Well, that’s just cowardly. Especially you” she said, scowling at Min. “You’ve got Cal right in front of you, loving you so much he can’t see straight, you’ve got fate sending you so many signals even I can see them, and you’re holding on to that bet like a shield. You haven’t even asked him about the bet, have you?”

“What’s he going to say?” Min said. “ ‘Yeah, but I’m really your prince and I love you truly, come to bed’?”

“You’re not usually this slow,” Bonnie said, “so it must be just chicken-hearted fear. What if this is real? What if this is the happily ever after and he truly loves you so much that it’s forever? Then what are you going to do?” She shook her head. “You don’t know. You never prepared for that. You’ve thought about everything in your life, but you never thought about that. You’re hopeless.” She took her plate out to the kitchen and came back to shove her chair under the table. “I’ll see you tomorrow at The Long Shot. I’m going to go see Roger and remember why I believe.”

“Bon, wait,” Min said, getting up, but Bonnie was already at the door.

When she slammed it behind her, Min sat down across from Liza.

“Well, at least we’re sane,” Min said.

“Yeah,” Liza said. “How’s that working out for you?”

“Not that well,” Min said. “Did you bring dessert?”

“Cherry Dove Bars,” Liza said.

“Give me one,” Min said. “I’ll be sensible tomorrow.”

On Friday, Cal was settling in to stay home for a change on the theory that if he didn’t leave the apartment, nothing weird would happen to him, when he heard “She” go on next door.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” he said and then stopped because that was what Min always said. “No,” he told himself and went next door to distract himself with Shanna. “You got dumped again?” he said when she opened the door.

“No,” she said, serious, but not tear-stained. “I’m trying to figure out my life. Come on in.”

“Figure out your life?” Cal said, following her.

“I keep thinking if I listen to this song, there’ll be a clue,” Shanna said, getting out her bottle of Glenlivet.

“If you’re planning your life based on a popular song, you need that Scotch more than I do,” Cal said.

“It’s not that.” Shanna poured his drink. “I’ve always gone on the theory that one day the right woman would show up and I’d know.”

“You’ve pretty much disproved that one,” Cal said, taking the glass she handed him.

“So I thought since Elvis Costello had already made a list of things the perfect woman would have, I’d start there, and sort of figure out what kind of person I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. And then if I met somebody who didn’t fit the list...”

“That’s very organized of you.” Cal sat down on the couch and thought, That’s very Min of her.

“But the thing is,” Shanna was saying, “Elvis is not saying she’s perfect. So I’m thinking maybe I just need a few key things. Like she should be kind.”

“Yes,” Cal said, remembering Min with Harry.

“And smart,” Shanna said. “Somebody I don’t have to explain everything to.”

“Maybe,” Cal said, thinking about explaining chicken marsala to Min. “It’s no crime not to know everything. I’d make that somebody who was open to new ideas, willing to learn. And who had things to teach you.”

“See, this is good,” Shanna said, sitting down on her coffee table trunk. “And I thought a sense of humor would be important.”

“Right,” Cal said. “If you can’t laugh at the screwups, what’s the point?” He thought of Min saying, “Good thing this isn’t a date,” when they’d confused their Elvises, and—

“And because I’m superficial, I put down physically attractive,” Shanna said.

“Me, too,” Cal said, trying not to think of Min in all her hot glory. “And great shoes.”

“What?” Shanna said.

“Nothing. What else?”

“That was it,” Shanna said. “I didn’t want to make too long a list. Kind, smart, funny, attractive. How’s that?”

“Damn good if you can find it,” Cal said.

“Didn’t you?” Shanna said. “Min? She seemed—”

“Not dating her,” Cal said. “Barely know her.”

“Uh huh,” Shanna said. “And why is that? She’s pretty, she’s kind, she’s smart, she makes you smile, and you get all dazed when you kiss her. What is it that she doesn’t have?”

“Well,” Cal began and stopped. “She bitches at me a lot.”

“Chicken,” Shanna said. “You could walk away from all the other ones because they weren’t right. This is the real thing, so you’re running.”

“This from a woman who just made a shopping list for love.” Cal stood up and handed the Scotch back to her. “I’m going now. Best of luck with that list.”

Shanna clucked at him as he went out the door, and he went home to ignore her. Once there, he realized that he hadn’t had dinner, and he wasn’t going out because if he did, he’d fall over Min.

“Not a problem,” he told himself and went out to the kitchen. He had bread and peanut butter and not much else, so he plugged in the toaster and put the bread in and then he leaned against the refrigerator and waited for the toast to pop.

His kitchen was ugly, he realized as he looked around. And through the archway, his living room was worse. Maybe if he fixed the place up a little, he’d want to stay home more. He was getting too damn old to be hanging out in bars anyway. The phone rang and he grabbed it, grateful to have a distraction.

“Calvin?” he heard his mother say, but even she was better than the silence.

“Mother,” he said. “How are you?” His toast popped, and he cradled the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he opened the peanut butter.

“I’m calling about dinner on Sunday,” she said.

“I will be there, Mother,” Cal said, thinking, I’m there the third Sunday of every month, Mother. Definitely in a rut.

“I’d like you to pick up our guest.”

“Guest?” Cal said, as he got out a table knife to spread the peanut butter.

“Minerva Dobbs,” his mother said.

“What?” Cal said and dropped the knife.

“I called her because Harrison has been speaking of her often, and it occurred to me that it would be nice for him to have her there.”

Cal sighed. “What did she say when you called?”

“She seemed surprised,” his mother said. “But when I explained that Harrison would be so pleased if she came—”

“She said yes,” Cal said, reaching for his toast. “However, I cannot bring her because I will not be seeing her ever aga—” His fingers brushed the metal top of the toaster and he burned himself and dropped the phone. “Damn it,” he said and put his scorched fingertips in his mouth.

“Calvin?” his mother said from the phone.

He picked up the receiver. “I burned myself on the toaster. Sorry.” Cal turned on the cold water and stuck his fingers underneath the stream. “Anyway, I will not be seeing Minerva Dobbs again.” He stepped away from the sink onto something hard and his foot slipped out from under him and smacked into the cabinets. “Ouch.”

“Calvin?” his mother said.

“I stepped on a knife.” Cal bent to pick up the peanut butter knife and smacked his head into the counter. “Hell.”

“Did you cut yourself?” his mother asked.

“No. I...” He put the knife in the sink. “I’ll call you tomorrow, Mother.”

“Calvin?” his mother said, and he hung up on her and considered the situation.

He was sabotaging himself, that had to be it. He was distracted, he was tired, he was hungry, he was careless. He picked up the phone again and called Tony’s cell.

“Hello?” Tony yelled over the noise of the bar.

“Is Min there with you?” Cal said.

“Wait a minute,” Tony said, and came back on a minute later without the background noise. “Sorry. What?”

“Is Min with you? I’m trying to make sure that wherever I go next, she won’t be.” He frowned. “She’s driving me to incoherence.”

“She’s stalking you?” Tony said, sounding skeptical.

“No, she doesn’t want it, either,” Cal said. “It’s like we’re stuck inside a box. We try to go our separate ways and then we end up with each other anyway. You’re not going to Emilio’s, are you?”

“Chaos theory,” Tony said. “Min’s a strange attractor.”

“This is true,” Cal said. “Are you going to Emilio’s tonight, or can I go eat in the kitchen there?”

“You can go,” Tony said. “Seriously, the box you’re talking about is the field of your attraction. You and Min try to get away and you hit the sides of the box at random because you’re unstable, never repeating, but making a pattern.”

“Good for us,” Cal said. “Just keep Min away from Emilio’s, will you? I’m starving.”

“I think she and Liza are going someplace,” Tony said. “They’ve been talking all night about some job Min wants Liza to take, and I think Min’s going to drag her there to show it to her. Unless Emilio’s been advertising for help, it’s not there.”

“He hasn’t,” Cal said. “He’s full up on nephews. Thanks, Tony. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He hung up, changed out of his work clothes, and started for Emilio’s, trying not to think about Min. That didn’t work, so he switched over to chaos theory, of which he had only vague memories. The Butterfly Effect, he remembered that, the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in Hong Kong could cause a hurricane ten years later in Florida or prevent a tornado ten years later in Texas, take your pick because it was unpredictable. That was Min; she’d looked harmless that first night, and then she flapped her wings two weeks ago and now he was a mess. She was a goddamn stealth butterfly.

He looked down the block at the front of the Gryphon Theater, half expecting to see Min standing there since it was the first night of the Elvis revival week. Nope. Which made sense, since events did not repeat in chaos theory. Somehow, the idea that it was science made the whole thing a lot less worrisome. He wasn’t insane, fate wasn’t stalking him, he was just standing on the edge of chaos. Much better.

He turned down the street to Emilio’s, trying to remember what “the edge of chaos” meant. It was something about flipping a coin, something about the edge being the moment when the coin was in the air. The point at which the system was pure potential, about to choose a path. Or something about a pile of sand, adding sand a grain at a time, and the edge of chaos being the point at which the critical grain landed and the pile either shifted or turned into an avalanche... Cal slowed as he remembered a grad assistant in a baggy blue sweater, his hair standing on end from his complete earnestness about the subject, saying that the edge of chaos was a time of turbulence, mental chaos if the system was a human being, but also the time of greatest potential, possibly the place where life starts. “The place,” the grad student had said, “where the system cascades into a new order and moves from being to becoming.”

Cal shook the grad student out of his head, and pulled open the door to Emilio’s. When he got inside, he heard Roger say, “Cal!” and he stopped, frozen, knowing before he turned that Min would be there, strange attractor, effective butterfly, locus of fate. He turned and saw her, sitting at a table with everybody else, looking like a startled cherub, her beautiful lips open in surprise, her dark eyes wide, and he felt his breath go again, felt his blood heat, his entire system rushing about insanely, bouncing off the inside of his skin, his future impossible to predict, everything riding on his next lurch through chaos.

Min bit her lip and smiled at him ruefully, and without another thought, he walked across the room to her, feeling almost relieved as the avalanche began.