Page 34 of What's in a Kiss?

I look past him, past the entire mystifying scene. Off in the distance, I dimly discern the silhouette of Yogi Dan’s afro gliding toward the parking lot.

I take off running.

“Hey!” I shout. “Yogi! Wait!”

Yogi Dan is hurrying up-beach, almost to the parking lot off PCH. Something is different. As I get closer I notice his attire—he’s swapped the kurta and headscarf for a yarmulke, pin-striped suit, and tallis. But even though dusk has fallen, and even though this day’s gone haywire, of one thing I am sure: that man is Yogi Dan. And he’s got something to do with all of this.

“Yogi Dan!” I shout again, running harder. My voice, now that we’re away from the klezmer band—is definitely loudenough for him to hear. But, like in the café, he doesn’t look up. He completely ignores me. Right up until I pelt the trunk of his hybrid Honda Civic with a handful of sand. “Rabbi!”

He rolls down the window, leans his head out and smiles. “Shabbat Shalom.”

“What did you do?” I demand.

He raises one shoulder and flashes a cryptic smile. “Life is mysterious. If I may make a suggestion: Go with it.”

“Go withwhat?”

“The mystery. Or don’t go with it. It’s gonna happen, either way.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“The mystery.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I’mnot. The cosmos may be. Kidding, that is.”

“That’s it?” I shout. “That’s all I get?”

“The imbalance of love results from a limited perspective,” he says. “You need infinite subjectivity in your life.”

“That’s heavy,” I say, “but I don’t have time to wander the earth, contemplating its meaning.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken.”

I sigh and turn to see the ocean at sundown, purple as a Mission fig.

“Check your purse,” Rabbi Dan says.

I look inside and find the joint Glasswell took from the café, just before the world went sideways.

“What do I do with this?” I say. “If I smoke it, will it take me back?”

“I doubt it,” Rabbi Dan says. “But who knows?” Then he peels out, screeching from the parking lot onto PCH, narrowly missing several honking cars.

“Hey!” I shout, fumbling for my phone to take a picture of his license plate. Blurry. Useless. “Wait!”

“What wasthatabout?”

I turn to find Glasswell, standing behind me.

“And where did you get that joint?” he asks.

“Yougave it to me—never mind. I thought you wanted to leave,” I say, dropping the joint back in my purse.

“Doyou?” he asks. I don’t know why he cares what I do. But ever since that look we shared during the ceremony, Glasswell has been behaving quite un-Glasswell-esque.

Tonight’s almost-kiss comes back to me—his lips so close to mine, the heat of his hands, the startling way our bodies fit together, like we’d practiced it. I bring my fingers to my tingling lips. As much as it confuses me to admit it, our almost chemistry back there had been almost fire.

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