“I’m sorry, who?” Jenny replied.
“The boy. Do you not remember me?”
Jenny looked at her for a few seconds. “Aren’t you that girl who came by my apartment? Looking for some guy?”
“That is me.” Mariella’s smile faded as she realized Jenny hadn’t come to tell her she’d found Seth. “How did you find me here?”
“I was just having lunch.” Jenny pointed across the street. “I was walking by, and I had a feeling that I should stop here. So I did.” Jenny shrugged.
“Do you get strange feelings sometimes?” Mariella’s voice dropped to a whisper, and she glanced over her shoulder, as if afraid a student or teacher would hear her. “About the future?”
“I get strange feelings about everything,” Jenny said, and Mariella surprised her by laughing. “Can you see the future?” Jenny asked. “Does it happen when you touch people?”
“How could you know this?” Mariella’s eyes widened, and she looked at Jenny’s hands, gloved in powder-blue silk. “We should walk away from the school.”
They went south down Boulevard de l’Hopital, along a broad sidewalk decorated with stands of trees gone skeletal in late November. The baroque and Art Noveau architecture gave the entire evening a dreamlike atmosphere as the glowing spheres of the streetlamps came to life.
“Tell me what you know,” Mariella whispered.
“About what?”
“About anything. About all of it.”
Jenny looked at the girl’s earnest face and almost felt sorry for her.
“You tell me,” Jenny said. “You touch someone, you can see the future?”
“Just the future of that person, which keeps things fuzzy,” Mariella told her. “And the future can change if you tell them about it, but it rarely does. I see their futures whether they want me to or not. Even if I don’t want to see—that’s why I wrap myself up in public. If I don’t, I’m overwhelmed with glimpses of everyone’s future. And that can be very sad and depressing. But here, I’ll show you.” Mariella took off a glove and reached for Jenny’s hand.
“No!” Jenny pulled back quickly.
“I’m sorry.” Mariella smiled. “Not everyone wants to know their future.”
“Well...that’s true,” Jenny said, taking advantage of the excuse Mariella had just provided for her. “I don’t think I’d want to know.” The exact opposite was true. Jenny was eager to know what lay ahead, especially for the baby. “Can you see your own future?”
“That’s the most difficult,” Mariella said. “Because, when you see your own future, you react to it in the present, and that changes the future. Over and over. My own is almost entirely a blur. Only a few things stand out clear and strong.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Like the boy I told you about.” She gave a glowing smile at the thought of Seth, which did not make Jenny very happy at all. “I can see him in my future. I knew I would meet him in Paris. This is why I came to school in France.”
“What...kinds of things do you see?”
“It is more of a sensation. An aching here...” Mariella touched her chest. “Almost like being lovesick. It is ridiculous, but...do you believe in reincarnation?”
Jenny, who could remember lifetime after lifetime stretching back tens of thousands of years, shrugged. “I suppose anything is possible.”
“What if he is my soulmate?” Mariella asked. “Maybe that’s why I have such...passionate dreams about him.” The girl blushed and giggled, and Jenny resisted the urge to smack her across the face, pox and all. “I just wish I could find him. I know that when I do, my life will finally start to make sense.”
Jenny didn’t have much to say about that. They approached Place d'Italie, a ring of parks centered on a fountain. Jenny could hop onto the Metro and escape here. She wasn’t sure she was ready to hear more about Mariella’s passionate dreams of Seth.
“What about you?” Mariella asked. “What’s your secret?”
“Who says I have one?”
“You can tell me.” Mariella bumped her arm and snickered, almost as if they were friends. “You know about me. What can you do? There’s something in your touch, too, isn’t there?” She reached for Jenny’s hand again.
“Don’t.” Jenny tucked her hand in her jacket pocket.
“What happens to you when someone touches you?” Mariella asked.
“Nothing,” Jenny said. “Nothing happens to me at all.”