“Could I have some privacy?” Alfie said.

  The guard looked to the officer, who shrugged.

  “He’s minimum security. It doesn’t matter.”

  The guard stepped away. Alfie dialed a number. It wasn’t family. And it wasn’t the embassy.

  “Hello?”

  “Have you found Gianna yet, Detective?”

  “Alfie?” LaPorta’s voice said, angrily. “How are you calling me? Where’s your guard?”

  “Relax. I’m at the jail. I’m doing what you want. Did you find Gianna?”

  “You better put that guard on right now or I swear I’ll have the police hunting you down—­”

  “Just tell me, and I’ll put him on.”

  “Alfie, damn it—­”

  “Tell me, Vincent.”

  “Yes, she’s reading your damn notebook right now! Put the guard on or so help me—­”

  “Twice.”

  Alfie was suddenly back handcuffed again, as the man behind the desk made a copy of his passport.

  “Excuse me. But I am allowed a phone call under Bahamian law, right?”

  The officer sighed.

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  Alfie nodded.

  “Do you want to make it now?”

  “Maybe later,” Alfie said, smiling.

  ✶

  By the time LaPorta got back to the resort, he had a mountain of questions for Gianna Rule. What was the connection

  between Alfie and her ex-­husband? If this guy Mike was behind the scam, why was Alfie playing the numbers? And why would Alfie call her his wife if they’d never been

  married?

  Actually, that was just the start of LaPorta’s questions. This case was like a maze, where you can walk for hours and never know if you’re advancing or retreating. He rushed past the check-­in desk and the gold elevators. He jogged down the corridor to the ballroom and pushed through the doors with a loud noise.

  The security guard nodded at him, but Gianna Rule never looked up from the table. LaPorta noticed that the notebook was closed. And that she was crying.

  “You finished it?” LaPorta said.

  Gianna shook her head no.

  “How much did you read?”

  “Enough,” she rasped.

  “Why are you so upset?”

  She squeezed her lips in silence.

  “Look, Ms. Rule,” LaPorta said, trying to sound empathetic, “you’ve got to answer my questions if you want me to help. I need to know Alfie’s connection to your ex. And why he’s making all this stuff up about the two of you being married.

  “And while I’m at it . . . Who the hell is this boss that he’s writing this notebook to?”

  Gianna sniffed in deeply.

  “Don’t you understand?” she whispered. “I’m his boss.”

  Seven

  The Composition Book

  What is it about love that makes us think we can tame it, when all the while it is taming us?

  Gianna went to stay with friends while I moved out of our apartment, saying it was better “if we didn’t watch each other untangle.” We’d had a few difficult heart-­to-­hearts, and the performance review that couples give each other before they split. We came to the usual conclusions, that we’d “grown apart” and there was no point blaming each other. She was less emotional about it than I had imagined, which gave me pause, since being unemotional was never Gianna’s thing.

  Still, at the time, I stubbornly refused to believe my magic was solely at fault, that my time jump back to Nicolette’s arms had done this, that my grandmother’s warning about lovers not being able to love you twice had woven its evil spell. Perhaps this was coming anyhow, I reasoned. People change.

  As I loaded boxes into a small U-­Haul I had rented, I let thoughts of returning to Nicolette become my salve, a numbing agent to the pain of leaving Gianna, the woman who, in a whimsical ceremony in a Pennsylvania forest, I had promised I would always love, and who’d promised me she would do the same.

  I called Nicolette from a pay phone in Manhattan. She was in Canada, about to leave for the day’s shooting. I mentioned that Gianna and I had finally split up.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Alfie.”

  “It was coming for a while.”

  “That’s the worst.”

  “I’m glad I have you to talk to.”

  “Of course.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking. I’m pretty tired of New York and the cold. I can write from anywhere. I might move out to L.A. now.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Would you like that?”

  I regretted asking the moment I did.

  “Sure,” she said. “I mean, that would be great. I’m not there a lot, you know. With shoots and everything. But—­”

  “Right, right. I wouldn’t be coming for you. I mean, of course, I want to be with you. That would be the cool part. But I’m not, you know . . . I’m not saying . . .”

  I waited for her to add something. She didn’t.

  “Twice,” I mumbled.

  The second time around, I never made the call. I told myself I would see her at the premiere, five months away. Better to talk in person.

  ✶

  During this time, I got myself in better shape. I watched what I ate, lost some weight, and went to a gym five mornings a week to do weight work. I know it’s a cliché, Boss, that people take better care of themselves after a relationship ends. And it is strange that you’d rather make yourself attractive for the possibility of a love, than for one you already have. I suppose all of it goes back to the grass is always greener. I looked up that phrase once. Did you know it dates to a Greek poet in the first century BC? That’s how long we’ve been making fools of ourselves.

  As the premiere approached, I flew out to Los Angeles but this time with no return ticket. That night at the hotel, sitting on the bed, I realized the last time I had lived through this day, Gianna had told me she was pregnant. I’d gone to sleep thinking I was going to be a father and wore that idea through the next day’s festivities like a heavy gauze covering my eyes.

  This time felt different. But not better. To be honest, I felt kind of empty. As I rode in the car that the studio had provided, I tried to convince myself that meeting up with Nicolette after the film was over—­as I’d promised last time but never done—­would ease the sting of my collapse with Gianna. I rubbed my arms through my sports coat, feeling my newly tightened muscles.

  The crowd was the same as last time, as was Nicolette’s arrival in that silver lamé dress, parting the attendees like a speedboat through a lake. The cameras flashed incessantly. When we saw each other, we repeated what happened in the previous encounter.

  She took my hand and gently rubbed her thumb across my palm.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi, Nicolette.”

  “I’ve missed you. Are you good?”

  “Yeah. And you?”

  “Everything’s great.”

  This time, I preempted her leaning in and did it first, offering her previous words back to her.

  “Let’s go make someone happy,” I whispered.

  She blinked, as if confused, then pushed up a smile.

  “I’ll see you after?” she said.

  I saw her after. But not the way I’d hoped.

  ✶

  The movie finished, there was wild applause, and Nicolette and a couple of the other actors went to the front of the theater and spoke a few words to the audience. Then they thanked Jaimie and Marisol, who sat up front and got a huge ovation, and “the real writer, Alfie Logan, who is also here.” I waved.

  Afterward, there was the usual pandemonium of people pushing and cutting and greeting one another. I tried to see where Nicolette was going. I’d kind of hoped she’d find me, but with so much attention on her, I guess it was difficult. I wiggled through the crowd to the front of the theater, where they’d told me I’d have a car waiting to go to an after-­party. But there were about fifty cars waiting. Valet parkers were racing back and forth with keys. I shuffled impatiently, reading the placards in the windshields, hoping to see my name.

  Suddenly, I heard a small roar and saw more cameras flashing. I spotted Nicolette being ushered to her limo. She was waving with one arm, but the other was draped around the waist of a tall, bearded man whom I recognized as an actor, an action hero type, although I couldn’t remember his name. When they reached the curb, there was sudden yelling from photographers, and Nicolette turned, still arm in arm with her man, and they smiled and posed until someone yelled “A kiss! A kiss!” and Nicolette reached her hand across his cheek and planted a long, wet smooch on his lips while flashes illuminated their perfect coupling, as if their love created daylight.

  I’ll spare you the embarrassing details of my being discarded, Boss—­the canceled dinners, the unanswered phone calls, the personal assistant who eventually emailed me letting me know that Nicolette was “heavily involved in a new project but appreciated the invitation to get together and wishes you well.”

  Eight months later, I read she was engaged to the action hero. They were making a big-­budget “futuristic fantasy” film together. I laughed at the word futuristic because I had so badly estimated my future with her. Then again, I had only really turned to Nicolette after messing things up with Gianna. Maybe she never actually cared about me. Maybe I just misread everything.

  Who knows? We invent all kinds of theories about how our hearts get broken, when we’re the ones who drop them on the floor.

  ✶

  Now, if you’re wondering if I ever contacted Gianna again, Boss, I did. A few times. I called her on the phone. I showed up at the camera store where she worked. She was never mean. But the spark was gone. Just like Yaya had experienced with George. I could see it in Gianna’s forced smile. Her glances out the window. Her sentences like “I know things will get better for you, Alfie.” Always “you.” Never “us.”

  In time, I gave up. I moved down to Australia, which felt as far away as I could get, and I stayed there for many years. I took on physical jobs. I lived near a beach. I never married again.

  Looking back, the story is pretty simple. I ignored my mother’s warnings that the second time won’t always be better, and I did the “something stupid” my Yaya had worried about. Somewhere in heaven, I broke both their hearts.

  I walked away from my one true love, Boss. And the lone caveat of my unique gift—­You cannot get someone to love you twice—­meant I could never undo the biggest mistake of my life.

  I have cursed this power ever since.

  Nassau

  “What do you mean, you’re his boss?”

  LaPorta was shaking his head in confusion, like a man whose key no longer opens his front door.

  “Alfie’s been working with me for years,” Gianna said. “He’s my assistant. My right-­hand person. He takes care of everything.” Her voice softened. “He’s kind of my best friend.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since we got out of college.”

  “Wait. So you were in school together? That part’s true?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else?”

  “We met in Africa as kids. We saw each other again in Miami. I did meet his grandmother once. Not the way he described. But the rest of it . . .”

  She choked up. “Poor Alfie.”

  “Why ‘poor Alfie’?”

  “He’s obviously not well. I knew there was something wrong with his health. He’s been falling a lot. He’s always tired. But I didn’t know that his mind . . . I mean, his brain must be affected.”

  She lifted the notebook. “Why else would he write all this?”

  LaPorta squeezed his fists. No sympathy. Stay on the case. The two million bucks.

  “Was he in debt? Did he owe people?”

  “Alfie?” Gianna almost laughed. “Not a chance. He stays in my guest house. He drives my old car. I’ve tried to increase his salary a hundred times. He always says he has everything he needs.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “My ex-­husband?”

  “Yeah. Could they have cooked this up together?”

  “No. No way.” Gianna shook her head. “Alfie never liked Mike. Never trusted him. He tried to warn me about him.” She paused. “I should’ve listened.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? Lies. Other women. Spending my money. Take your pick.”

  She flashed her eyes at LaPorta with a look that he recognized as weary heartbreak.

  “When did you two divorce?”

  “Ten years ago.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “Awful. Mike fought me over everything. He even stalked me for a while. I had to take out a restraining order.”

  “You never married again?”

  “God, no. Mike ruined that whole idea. Sadly, thanks to an idiot judge, he still has a piece of my business.”

  “What business?”

  “Photography.”

  “That’s a business?”

  “I take pictures all over the world, Detective. I’ve published nine books. Done countless exhibits. I have two galleries, in New York and San Francisco. So yeah.” She sighed. “It’s a business.”

  “Sorry—­”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “And your ex—­”

  “I made him a partner when we got married. Another mistake—­on top of marrying him in the first place.”

  LaPorta reached in his pants pocket but realized he’d left his Life Savers behind. He desperately wanted a cigarette. Coffee. A drink. Anything. He dropped into a chair and tried to sum up the facts.

  “So you have a lousy ex, who blows money. You have an employee who has crazy fantasies about you. These two guys don’t like each other, but they’re at a roulette table together the other night. Alfie wins the money, even though he doesn’t need it, while your ex walks away with nothing. Then Alfie wires the money to you, and someplace in Africa. And when we arrest him, he says everything is explained in a notebook. How the hell does that make sense?”

  “Africa?” Gianna said, leaning in. “Where in Africa?”

  “Zimbabwe. Does that mean something to you?”

  “No. I’ve never been there.”

  She leaned back. “Look, Detective. Alfie needs our help.”

  “Maybe. But first he’s gonna confess what he did, return that money, and face the charges.”

  “He’s innocent,” Gianna said, staring at the notebook. “I know he is.”

  She thumbed the pages, then slowly let them fall. LaPorta watched, trying to picture these two as soulmates, a happy couple, the way Alfie had described them.

  “Can I ask you something?” LaPorta said.

  “All right.”

  “Did you ever love him?”

  Gianna’s gaze drifted. “Not like that.”

  “Well. He obviously loved you. Or still does.”

  LaPorta rose.

  “Where are you going?” Gianna asked.

  “To find your ex. And everyone else around that roulette table.”

  “Wait.” She put her hand on the notebook cover. “Don’t you think we should finish this?”

  LaPorta couldn’t fathom the idea of reading any more fantasy.

  “Knock yourself out,” he said. “But you’re still a suspect, Ms. Rule.” He nodded to the guard. “She doesn’t leave this room. Got it?”

  The Composition Book

  I’d never seen the movie Alfie, Boss. Not until recently. I guess I was so tired of people singing that song to me—­What’s it all about, Alfie?—­I never wanted to bother.

  I had been living Down Under for decades. I’d developed into a pretty good carpenter, plumber, electrician, what the Aussies call “a ripper.” I made enough money to cover my needs and lived a fairly healthful life, lots of walks and fruit drinks and swimming in the ocean. I rented a flat near the beach. Two bedrooms. A decent kitchen with a dishwasher. And plenty of private storage in the basement, which I used for my massive collection of notebooks—­although I wasn’t as meticulous in my record-­keeping anymore. There wasn’t much I wanted to repeat.

  I won’t bore you with the details of those many years, Boss. I lived. I worked. I slept. I drank with the locals. I played piano on Sundays in a nearby church, which would have made my mother happy. I had a couple of health blips. Nothing too serious.

  As far as romantic relationships, well, they started and they ended. I never misled anyone, always saying I wasn’t a forever type. The truth was, after Gianna, I shut down my heart. Women picked up on this quickly. Those who did bother to share their beds with me had their own built-­in departure clocks. I was left more often than I did the leaving. Didn’t matter. After all that had transpired, none of it really hurt me.

  I got diagnosed with my disease late last year. Then, earlier this month, I had a stroke. It’s hard to describe that, Boss. I was painting a client’s patio and had just stepped off a ladder when I got dizzy. My head began buzzing. I had been holding a paint can with my left hand and I don’t remember dropping it, but when I glanced down the can was rolling away and my foot was covered in buttercup yellow. I fell in the driveway. My face hit the concrete. My arm went numb. I heard people yelling, but it sounded like they were underwater.

  I woke up in the hospital.

  My left side was unresponsive. I had bruises on my face and elbow. Worst of all, I couldn’t speak. I had to listen helplessly as nurses and doctors asked me to blink if I understood what they were saying. They read the records of my diagnosis, and the chief doctor said, “That likely increased your chances of an incident.” Yeah. No kidding.

  Anyhow, I was there for a week or so when an older nurse, who noticed no one was coming to visit, entered my room and said she had something for me. She held up a DVD.

  “It’s called Alfie,” she said. “Have you seen it?”

  I shook my head slightly, which was all I could do.

  “I noticed it on the shelf of discs we keep for patients. I thought, with your name, maybe you’d want to watch it.”

  I blinked OK. What else was I doing?

  She put it in the player. It came up on the TV screen. She touched my arm, smiled, and left. And finally, after all those years, I watched the film about the person whose name I shared.