Destiny Continues (1855 Word Count)

Just then the phone rang. I smiled as I strode over to glance at the caller ID. I bet it was my friend Bean checking up on his invitation. When I had opened the envelope, my mind had immediately gone to Jo-Jo as the culprit, but Bean was the only person I knew who was creative enough to think up such a crazy idea like an appointment with destiny and to actually go through with the crazy idea and make the letter.

“Hello?”

“Hey Starr, it’s Bean.”

“I thought it would be you. Are you calling to gloat over your letter?”

“What are you talking about?” Bean asked, sounding extremely puzzled. “I haven’t sent you a letter since last Christmas. And that wasn’t even a letter; it was a Christmas card.”

“And I got it in February,” I retorted. “Come on, you have to be dying to know if I am planning to keep this ‘appointment.’”

“Seriously Starr, I have no idea what you are talking about. What did you get in the mail?”

I sighed at his pretending, but decided to go along with it. “Okay. Well, I got this letter in the mail today in a shiny envelope. And it said…” And I proceeded to read him the letter. Bean was surprisingly silent during as I read it and didn’t make any sarcastic remarks, even when I read aloud the email address for Destiny’s appointment secretary.

“Hmmm,” Bean said. “I think you should keep the appointment.”

I rolled my eyes and shifted the phone to the other ear. “You would think that I should keep it. It was your idea, wasn’t it? Or did you and Jo-Jo come up with this together and you were just in charge of mailing it out? I can totally recognize your handwriting on the front of the envelope.”

“Starr, believe me, I didn’t send you the letter. I’m not really supposed to talk about this, but…” His voice trailed off.

“Talk about what?” My voice sharpened as I seized upon the idea that Bean did know something about this letter.

“Starr, let’s meet for coffee or something. I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.”

“I haven’t dinner yet, and all I have is eggs. You want to meet at the diner and I can eat and you can get some coffee and pie?”

“Okay. I’ll meet you there in a half an hour.”

“All right. I’ll bring the letter. You better have a good explanation about why its not your handwriting.”

“Seriously, I will! See you later.”

“Bye.”

I hung up the phone and stared at the letter in my hand. If Bean hadn’t sent it, who had? Could I really have an appointment with Destiny? I dismissed such crazy thoughts and decided to get ready for a dinner out with Bean. I threw on a pair of jeans and a comfortable T-shirt emblazoned with the logo from my favorite coffee house. I discarded my work clothes in a pile on the floor and kicked them out of sight underneath my bed.

The diner was only a ten-minute walk from my apartment so I still had fifteen minutes to kill before I had to leave to meet Bean. I glanced around the apartment and made mental notes of all the housekeeping that I still had to do. But nothing looked like it could be done in ten minutes, so I flopped down on my futon and turned on the TV. After flipping through all the channels, I determined that nothing of worth was on, and I turned on the VCR. I had stopped in the middle of watching A Stolen Life before going to work. I was crazy about old movies and was constantly taping movies off of Turner Classic Movies to watch during the weekend. As I watched Bette Davis pretend to be her twin sister in order to win the affections of Glenn Ford, one of my movie posters drifted to the ground.

Without bothering to pause the movie, I got up and picked it off the floor. Talking to The Pirate poster, I said, “Oh Gene, what are we going to do with you? You just want to stay on the floor and not on my wall.” Sadly, the poster did not talk back to me and explain why it wanted to be on the floor instead of the wall next to Clark Gable in It Happened One Night, James Dean and Natalie Wood in Rebel Without a Cause, and Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Desk Set.

As I pulled out yet another hunk of poster tack from my desk, I noticed the clock. Dang, it was time to get going if I wanted to be on time to meet Bean. “Tabby, don’t rip up this poster! I spent a lot of money on Ebay getting this one!” I set it on the couch so it wouldn’t get wrinkled, and then decided to put it on my bed. I shut the door behind me, trapping Tabby in the combination living room/kitchen/dining room. “Be good while I’m out,” I lectured to the cat. “Please don’t use the couch as your scratching post!”

I shrugged on my winter coat and hat and walked out the door. I locked the door behind me and began the quick walk to the diner. When I finally reached the diner, Bean was waiting in the lobby for me. “Wow,” I greeted him. “I can’t believe that you actually showed up on time. Heck, you’re even early!”

Bean shrugged and said, “I already told the hostess that we wanted a table for two, non-smoking. I think it should be ready soon.”

And just as he finished his last sentence, the hostess walked up to him and said, “Sir, your table is ready. And I see that the other member of your party is here. If you could follow me..."