Page 77 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

“I have to ask, how do you afford to shop? Travel? Do Perennials even need money?”

“Good question.” Clunkily, he tried to change the subject. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even get a chance to ask you, can I get you some coffee?”

He tried to get up from the table.

“Stop! Don’t you dare move,” ordered Ricki. Then her voice softened. “Please stay. Talk to me. I want to believe you, but I need the whole story. How do you sustain yourself?”

Ezra fidgeted in his seat. Raw melancholy darkened his expression. He’d spent decades not talking about himself to anyone but Dr. Arroyo-Abril. It was a hard habit to break. And how would he start? How does a creaky relic explain his life and times to a woman fortunate enough to be born into a relatively sane world? How could he describe the way living through so many eras, generational resets, and rewrites of social norms set off a low panic in him before he spoke to people, worried that he’d forget what the appropriate customs of the day were? How could he relay his fascination with walking Target or CVS aisles and just… gawking at all theoptions, especially for shit that didn’t exist when he was a kid, like mosquito spray, lint rollers, and ibuprofen? How could he describe the feeling of skipping over time, catapulting over generations, only to end up in the same place every leap year?

He was a battle-scarred time traveler in hiding. And nothing about his life was relatable.

Ricki waited patiently. Generic Starbucks music played in the background, something soft and reggae-adjacent, as the two sat in silence. Finally, Ezra sighed, his shoulders slumping in silent resignation. And he spoke.

“How do I sustain myself? It’s a complicated story, Ricki. I just… come from a different time. Not just in terms of the date, but in terms of life. In the 1910s, Fallon County was Jim Crow in a way that folks today can’t understand. You see black-and-white photos of unsmiling sharecroppers wearing dusty rags, and it feels like people from another world. We were real people, with real dreams, full identities, talents. It’s probably a gift from the ancestors that stories of the casual brutality are lost to time.

“We were terrorized. Sometimes it was like you could predict violence by holding your pointer finger up to the wind to track the weather. Other times, you couldn’t. I saw monstrous, inhuman things. I’d rather not go into it.

“My family was killed in a church fire set by the Klan. My cousin Sonny was the only survivor. An overdose killed him in ’31, but he’d been dying for years.” Ezra took a pause, fingering the shirt button at his wrist. “Church terrorism isn’t unique; I mean, it happened all the time, and it still does, doesn’t it?” Ezra let out a hollow, mirthless laugh. He was struggling to continue.

“Anyway, the sheriff ordered this one. Sheriff Rourke was from a moneyed, influential South Carolina family. One of his brothers was the governor; another was a White House wonk. Now, we all knew that this sheriff had Black babies. But white people didn’t. And down there, back then, it would’ve sunk his entire family if it ever came out. They would’ve lost everything. Fortune, political power, everything gone.

“After I became a Perennial, I took a train down to South Carolina. I swore I’d never go back, but everything was different now. I couldn’t die. And it struck me that my grief would be eternal. All the loss from the fire, my family, everyone I grew up knowing in Fallon. It’d just stretch on forever, no relief. So I had business with Sheriff Rourke. And nothing to lose. Less than nothing.” Ezra paused. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. But his jaw wasworking. And his voice fell deeper, as if he were physically sinking into the memory.

“I got in his house through a basement window. It was after dark; nobody was up. I caught him by the throat. Pistol to his temple. And I told him I knew his secret. I said I’d keep quiet for fifty thousand dollars. Near a million back then. He gave it to me. It was that easy.

“I gave half the cash to the families of the people who burned in the fire, and Sheriff Rourke’s Black descendants. I invested in the town, building schools, hospitals, roads. Today, it’s one of the most prosperous Black towns in the South. I’m… I’m right proud of that.” He briefly glanced at her, his eyes mournful. “I invested my half in property. All over the world. Over the years, the money grew and grew. So… that’s it. That’s how I can afford my lifestyle.”

Ezra stopped talking and looked away. He suddenly looked so much older, the weight of all that time and pain etched on his face.

Ricki couldn’t bear seeing him this way. Her heart crashed against her ribs. It was devastating, the matter-of-fact practicality with which he told his story. She wanted to cry, to fight, to scream into nothingness. For several lifetimes, he’d been carrying these memories alone—but now he had her.

She wanted to draw him to her chest and comfort him, protect him. To smother him with so much steady, secure affection that he’d forget what it was like to suffer alone. Ricki wanted to be Ezra’s support, to be there beside him and help share the weight he was carrying. She wanted to be the one person for whom he could finally let down his walls.

But she couldn’t do all of this if she was to die in ten days. And he would still be alone.

Ricki had no more questions. She understood every detail, and they were in it together.

“I believe you,” she said resolutely.

“You do?” Ezra looked at her with wonder. “Why?”

“Okay. Well, my mom always keeps her house freezing. She thinks it’s good for her skin. When I was little, I always wore this red blanket draped around my shoulders. Everyone thought it was because I was cold, but I was wearing it because it was my magic cloak, and it made all my fantasies come true. I wore it on my grand adventures, making up quests and stomping through the woods behind the house. That cloak and its powers were real to me. I was indestructible when I wore it. I couldn’t explain it. But I had faith that it was true. I grew up, but my magical thinking didn’t. The world’s full of mysteries we can’t explain. The Bermuda Triangle. Siberian sinkholes. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Twinkies.”

Ezra’s eyes softened. “Aw, Little Richard. I’m picturing you stomping around in a cape, and it’s really cute.”

“I told you I do not consent to that nickname!”

“I like your coat, by the way.” He gestured at her bright red vintage cape. “The magic red cloak you had when you were a kid, was that your inspiration?”

Smiling, she offered a slight shrug. “I like symbolism.”

“I see that.” He locked his gaze on hers. Bare-naked affection was all over Ezra’s face. The way he looked at her, with that simmering charisma—he ate her alive. Obliterated all her good sense. Was the charge crackling between them just cosmic fate? Or more? Whatever it was, their connection soothed her darkest fears, made her feel more herself and at home than anywhere, and it was currently turning her to liquid in the middle of Starbucks.

“That night at my apartment,” she asked, her voice searching, vulnerable. “Was it real? Or was it just a hex, tricking us into being… like this?”

It gnawed at her, this idea that she was only loved and lovable ifa guy was cursed to feel it. Ricki needed to know that it wasn’t just an empty magic trick thrusting them together.

Contemplatively, Ezra slowly ran his fingers along his jaw. “You live as long as I do, you think you’ve felt all the feelings, seen everything there is to see. It’s hard to be surprised. But, Ricki, I’ve never experienced anything like you. You knock me senseless.”

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