The Probable Future

Will smiled, delighted. At least someone still trusted him.

Stella leaned forward on her elbows. “Actually, I have something I need to talk to you about right now. Something she’d never understand.”

So that was the reason the girl had been so ill at ease all through dinner. Will hoped this wasn’t to be a confession that involved sex or drugs. He was no one’s moral compass, how could he hope to weigh in with a parental opinion? Stella was looking at him as though she really needed him, and that in itself was a worry. She had the same gold flecks in her eyes he had; the same habit of lowering her voice when she had something serious to discuss.

“I think I can tell what’s going to happen to some people,” Stella told her father.

Will laughed out loud. He really couldn’t help it, not when he thought about all the crap he’d been into at her age. The terror he put his poor mother through, the nights he hadn’t come home, all those rules he felt compelled to break, hashish stored in his closet, bags of marijuana in his desk drawer, the fires he’d started when he’d needed a little excitement, the many times he’d misbehaved and poor Matt had covered for him and taken the blame.

“Sorry,” Will said when he saw the hurt look on Stella’s face. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m just relieved. I thought you were about to tell me something awful.”

“It is awful.”

“Baby, listen, I can tell what’s going to happen to people also.” He nodded to a rear table where a couple had been bickering all evening. “See those two? They’ll be divorced by the end of the year. Take it from me. Oh, and another thing, I can predict that your mother will be furious that we went to dinner without her. I can definitely foresee that.”

“I don’t mean things like that.” Stella leaned closer still. There was the chime of the bell on her bracelet. “I see how they die.”

“Ah.” Will lit a cigarette and thought this over. Outside, the brown twilight washed over Beacon Street. There were a dozen pigeons on the sidewalk, their feathers pale and gleaming in the fading light.

“I think you should put out that cigarette,” Stella advised.

Her tone was suddenly so sure, so adult, Will found he was spooked. He felt something cold drift across his skin. His future, perhaps? His well-deserved fate? He had been coughing a good deal lately and more often than not he awoke with a sore throat.

“Why? Because it will kill me?”

There was a little smile on Stella’s lips. “No. Because we’re in the no-smoking section.”

Will laughed and stubbed out his cigarette in a half-eaten roll. There was indeed a sign on the wall: NO PIPES, NO CIGARETTES, NO CIGARS. “So I’m not about to die of lung cancer any time soon?”

“I can’t see it with you. It’s only with some people, and I never know who it will be. I don’t control it.”

Will finished his drink and called for another. He’d begun to relax. This didn’t sound too awful. Premonitions, fears, that sort of thing; surely, it was bound to pass. She had probably fooled around with a Ouija board or a pack of fortune-telling cards. It was nothing when compared to the troubles some people had with their children: schizophrenia, anorexia, kleptomania. What were a few visions compared with all that? The way Will figured the situation, Stella was passing through some developmental stage, a natural fear of death mixed with anxiety caused by her parents’ breakup. He’d read a book about children reacting to divorce—actually half a book, since the philosophizing bored him silly. But now he wondered if he should have read all the way to the end. He wondered if Jenny hadn’t been right; they probably should have gone into family therapy, but of course Will had refused. It didn’t seem worthwhile to pay for an expensive hour of questions and answers when all he would tell were bold-faced lies.

“Can you see it with anyone here?” Will had decided to treat Stella’s alleged affliction as though it were a parlor game. Tell me how many aces I have in my hand, how many one-eyed jacks, how much time I have on earth. “What about those two in the corner?”

Naturally he would choose them, two young, attractive women in their thirties, clearly enjoying a night out. One of the women had honey-colored hair, pulled back from her pale face; her companion was wearing a black dress, not unlike the one Juliet had given Stella, and a dozen silver bracelets on her arms.

Stella looked over at the corner, then quickly turned back to her father. Her face was drained of all color. One instant was all it took. One look and she knew. She could smell her father’s whisky and the faint odor of tobacco that clung to him. Dishes were clattering as the table beside them was cleared.