Page 118 of The Last Good Man

So, I make him a villain.

“I met someone new over the weekend.”

“Wow… That’s a development.”

Her fingers tremblewith excitementwhen she grabs her notepad to document the encounter.

She puts her eyeglasses on as if she expects an epic tale.

“How do we call him?”

I hesitate for a second.

“Jack.”

She shoots me a stare over her reading glasses. Amazingly, I hold her gaze.

“What is Jack doing?”

“Uh… Jack is an outsider.”

I don’t expect her to write that down, but she does.

“A commoner,” she says, smiling, her brand of humor not entirely new to me.

“Yes. A commoner,” I say, although neither of us holds misanthropic views.

“I like commoners. That’s a nice change. So he’s not a banker, CEO, stockbroker, that kind of thing?” she says, her pen moving maniacally across the paper.

“No.”

“Do you know what he does for a living?”

“No.”

“Does it matter to you?”

“It’s too early to think about it.”

“Okay. How did you meethim?”

“Uh…”

My eyes go down as I lift the glass of water to my lips.

“I ran into him. We struck up a conversation, and then…”

My gaze is still tipped down.

“And then?”

“We met again.”

I tilt my head up, and our eyes connect.

“Did you plan to meet again?”

“No, not really… It was fate.”

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