Free The Miracles of Ordinary Men by Amanda Leduc

ago days in the mountains. “Why does everyone talk about my age like it’s some kind of fucking handicap?”
    â€œYou watch your mouth,” he says softly. There’s that hint of steel. “But that’s just what a young person would say. Maybe you’re not ready just yet.”
    She blinks. The waiter brings a bottle of wine and fills her glass. What kind of date is this? “Ready for what?”
    â€œNever mind.” He shrugs and places one hand on the table, then hooks his other arm around the back of the chair. “Let us begin at the beginning, then. Tell me about you.”
    â€œBut I don’t know anything about you,” she blurts, hating the way it sounds. The wine is cool and sharp. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”
    â€œI come from Mexico City. And now I live here. What else do you want to know?”
    â€œDo you have any brothers? Any sisters?” Or favourite foods, a favourite colour. Suddenly everything sounds so juvenile, so strange.
    â€œI do not,” he says. “And you have a brother.”
    â€œYes,” she says, surprised. “He lives here, in the city.” She drinks, and suddenly her glass is empty. “Did Penny tell you that?”
    â€œI pay attention,” Israel says. His hand around the wine bottle, more wine in her glass. “It’s amazing, what you learn.”
    Joe-with-an-L, she realizes suddenly, does not even know her brother’s name.
    â€œMediocre men do not pay attention,” he continues. “Surely you’ve met enough of those, by now, to know the difference. Surely you know enough to long for something better?”
    She sips her wine, uneasy. “Well isn’t that a lovely thing to say.”
    â€œThe truth is hardly ever
lovely
,
Delilah. But no doubt you know that already, as does your brother.” He shrugs. “This is what you learn when you look deeply at the world.”
    â€œIs this what you do, then? ‘Look deeply at the world’ while we’re making you expensive coffee and shuffling papers around in the foyer?”
    â€œYou could say that.” The waiter arrives with poppadums and chutney, places the dishes noiselessly on the table, and then retreats, once more, into shadow. Israel cracks a poppadum between his hands. “You might call it a . . . project. Or a hobby. Most people, Delilah, pay the world no attention at all. They do not watch for opportunity. They are content to let their lives mean nothing. But you,” he points a long finger at her, “you are different. I think so, anyway.”
    This from the man who, up until two days ago, had never spoken her name.
    â€œI think you’re crazy.”
    â€œPeople have said that before,” he tells her, unperturbed. “But they only say it once.” The waiter comes back and Israel orders for them both — jackfruit in masala, saag paneer. He finishes his own wine, refills it, and watches her. Lilah stares at the table and says nothing. She is mortified and furious, her fingers tight around the stem of her wine glass. Where is the sparkling conversationalist, or the girl who at the very least knows enough about decorum to watch her mouth in front of the boss?
    â€œYou needn’t worry about being proper,”
Israel says. Now her wineglass is empty again; he refills it. “We are not at work anymore.”
    â€œSo you read minds now?” she mutters.
    â€œYou’d be surprised how much a face can tell, Delilah. And is this a date? I am no longer so sure.” She glances up, blushing, as he continues. “You are so much quieter than the women I usually entertain.”
    â€œWell, maybe you’re not entertaining me.”
    He chuckles. “So I am not interesting, then?”
    â€œInteresting enough.”
    Outright laughter this time. “Delilah, Delilah. I have never met a woman like you.”
    â€œYou can’t have met