pomegranate juice #4
“Alright,” I say. “I’m out. Been a pleasure chatting with you, but . . . I’ve got to go.”
She looks hurt. Truly wounded. “So soon?”
“Whatever this is, I really don’t appreciate it.” I take in the entire farmers market. The surrounding people. All these unfamiliar
faces. Where the hell is Lys? I can’t find her.
“Wherever Lilith is hiding, she can come out now. Fun’s over.”
“You still don’t see . . .” Why is she acting so hurt?
“Look. I don’t know you. I’ve never met you. I don’t—”
This woman, this total stranger, masquerading as Lilith, reaches her hand out again. At first, I think she’s reaching for
me. Trying to touch me. I’m about to leap back when . . .
She touches someone else.
I see it happen, time slowing down. This woman—whoever she is—grazes her finger over the exposed shoulder of another woman
walking by. Just the briefest contact. Skin on skin.
As she passes, this other woman—a brunette, wearing a spaghetti-strapped shirt—turns to me, suddenly giving me her undivided
attention, locking her hazel eyes on mine. The second she sees me, she smiles, wearing an expression that suggests she’s happy
to bump into me, that she’s known me her entire life, the warmest of acquaintances.
“What do you see, Jordan?” she asks. A complete stranger. I’ve never met this woman before in my life . . . and she knows
my name. How does she know my name?
It’s her eyes that halt me, though. I’ve seen them before. That look.
Where have I seen those eyes . . . ?
Before I can respond, the woman in the spaghetti straps reaches her hand out and gently runs her fingers over the hand of
a passing man. He’s working at one of the vegetable stands, hefting a crate of tomatoes, the length of his arm exposed to
her touch.
At the very moment, the second, of contact between them, something shifts within him.
His demeanor. His posture straightens. He takes in the crowd—the world—with new eyes.
And now those eyes are suddenly on me, finding me, focusing on me, giving me this man’s undivided attention.
He smiles now, warm as the woman who touched him, and the woman who touched her, assembling this eerie daisy chain of grins, lips linked together.
“Do you see me now, Jordan?”
My name. The question is there again, an echo: How does he know my name?
How could he possibly know who I am?
There’s no time to ask, to say a word. Already this man has taken his own hand and lightly tapped the shoulder of another
passerby. This time it’s an elderly woman hobbling along with her cart full of fresh vegetables. She turns to me almost immediately,
smiling.
“How about now, Jordan?” There’s an elderly tremble to her voice, but it still holds the tone and tenor of the others. Somehow,
it’s the same. “Do you see now? See me?”
I have to spin around to follow her. They’re circling around me, all these people, these bodies, passing some fluid gesture
from one bystander to the next, a current of electricity drifting into their skin, their limbs, their eyes. It’s there and
gone before being handed off to the next person, and all I can do is watch. Bear witness. I stand where I am, turning, turning,
until I’m dizzy, spinning in place and losing my mind. This isn’t possible. None of this makes sense.
What’s going on here? What the fuck is happening?
“Now do you see?” It’s her again. The first woman. Somehow the current has returned to her, a passing of some invisible baton,
drifting from one body to the next.
“Do you see me now?” She takes off her sunglasses.
I see her eyes. She’s got the same hazel eyes. Flecks of gold and green.
Then I see it. Sense it. There’s something about her that clicks. A bell chiming.
Her eyes.
Something about her eyes. Even though I know for a goddamn fact that I’ve never met this woman before, never seen her in my
life, I recognize her eyes. The color. The stare.
Those are Lilith’s eyes.
Only they’re in someone else’s sockets. How is that even possible? It’s not . . . It’s . . .
It’s . . . her.
It’s her.
“Lilith?” I ask. The name breaks in half in my mouth. I can’t hold it up, the syllables snapping like a communion wafer.
The grin she gives, it lights up the golden flecks in her eyes. She senses it’s finally dawning on me, I can tell, all of
it, sinking in once and for all. And that’s all it takes.
It’s her. It has to be.
Lilith. I don’t know how, how any of this is even fucking remotely possible, and yet . . .
It’s her. Really her.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” she says. That makes two of us. I step back, putting as much distance between us as humanly
possible. This woman, this—
Lilith, it’s her
—stranger doesn’t move. She remains standing exactly where she is, watching me push back through the crowd. Our eyes never
break from one another, the hold between us too strong, too frightening to let go of. It can’t be her. It just can’t. Even
though I know it is.
Christ, it’s her. It’s really her. Her. Lilith watches me leave. I can see the hurt within her. The pain resonates outward. She never blinks, though. Not once.
Just watching me go.