The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic #2)(47)

“What do they have here for room service?” Jet asked.

“Everything. You name it, they’ve got it.”

She wanted roast chicken, string beans, and a hot fudge sundae.

“Give me fifteen minutes,” Rafael said. “Maybe twenty.”

She fell asleep while he was gone and she dreamed of the Angel of the Waters at the Bethesda Fountain. The angel arose and was free from the shackles of metal and stone. She put out her hand and stopped time, and everything in Manhattan was motionless, except for the swirling stars above the city. It was then Jet knew what she wanted. To go back to that day and relive it.

When Jet woke, Rafael had returned with a tray that he’d arranged for them. He brought enough for two. They ate together, except for the sundae, which Jet alone devoured. He’d been right, the room service was fabulous.

“Are you going to get fired?” she asked.

“No, my uncle is the head bellman.”

“I don’t want your life to be ruined. I would feel bad if you did get in trouble.”

“Trouble’s actually my middle name,” he told her. “Rafael Trouble Correa.”

They both laughed. Then Jet looked serious. She got up her nerve.

“What if I wanted you to be him?” she asked.

“The dead man?”

“And we would never see each other again and it would have nothing to do with love. You would just be him once.”

Rafael thought this over. He had had many strange requests working in the hotel. People wanted privacy or they wanted women or they wanted drugs or drink. He always said he couldn’t help them, because that was what his uncle, who’d hired him in the first place so he could put himself through school, had said to do. This, however, was different.

“I think I’d have to be myself. I can’t be a dead man.”

They had begun to drink the whiskey in the minibar. There were several varieties, all excellent. They’d had quite a few.

“You’ll be him to me,” Jet said. “That’s what’s important. I don’t want to mislead you.”

Rafael nodded. “I understand. Can you at least tell me his name?”

“Levi.”

“From the Bible.” That seemed to make him feel better about the situation. “Was he a good man?”

“He planned to go to Yale,” Jet said. “Divinity School.”

Rafael got up and went to lock the door. When he came back he said he could wait in the hall vestibule while she undressed and got into bed. He felt as though he had wandered into a dream, and sometimes in a dream you just follow the path you’re given without asking too many questions. For once you do, the dream is over.

“That’s not the way it would happen,” Jet told him.

So he sat on the bed beside her and kissed her and they kissed for a very long time. This was the way it would have begun. At first she thought she would cry again, but then Jet kept her eyes closed and the bellman was Levi to her. She said Levi’s name. Rafael might have been offended, but inside he pitied the dead man for all he had missed out on. He unbuttoned Jet’s blouse and undressed her gently, just as Levi would have. He had a condom in his wallet, though he hadn’t expected to use it today. Jet kept her eyes closed. When Rafael touched her he expected her to be cold, but she wasn’t. She was hot under his touch.

“I want you to look at me,” he told her. When she did he said, “I don’t want to be the dead man.” Jet turned away and began to cry, but he insisted. “We can’t pretend. We’re both alive. We have to do this like living people. Otherwise I wouldn’t feel right.”

She really looked at him. He was a handsome young man who was worried about her even though he didn’t know her. She kept her eyes open as he made love to her. She was supposed to have had her first time with Levi, but instead she was here in a bed with a stranger. They could hear traffic on Fifth Avenue. They could hear the wind in the trees. When she embraced him he was himself, and that was fine.

“Is this one of these things where I have to be responsible for you for my whole life now?” Rafael asked. “Like when you save someone from death, and then you’re their angel, and you can’t have any peace until you know they’re all right.”

“I am all right,” Jet said.

“Then why am I still worried?”

It was dusk now and the room was dark. Jet was pretty certain Rafael would get fired despite his uncle. “If you lose your job, it would be the reverse. Then I have to be responsible for you.”

“If I lose my job, it’s fate,” he said.

“We make our own fate,” Jet said, and then all at once she realized that they did. They could not control it, but they could choose how to respond to what happened. She insisted he get dressed and go back to work. He did so, although he seemed reluctant to go.

“So this isn’t a relationship,” Rafael said.

“Absolutely not.” She told him about the curse, and the trouble people in her family had in matters of love. There was no reason not to tell him everything since they would remain as strangers. The truth was, he looked different to her now. He was even more good-looking than she’d thought at first, and he had a concerned expression. He wasn’t Levi and he wasn’t going to be no matter how hard she tried to pretend that he was.