A whiff of garlic and a smoky odor Julia couldn’t place enticed her as she and Matt entered a favorite Chinese restaurant the night before their much-debated move from Manhattan. She inhaled deeply. Would there be a Szechuan restaurant half as good in Baltimore?

Probably not, she thought, and tried to push away a swarm of negative feelings about Maryland.

The hostess seated them at a narrow table. When Matt rested his calf against Julia’s, she appreciated the warmth of the love he conveyed in this familiar gesture. They’d dined here frequently when they started dating. She let herself feel nostalgic about meeting each other in a freshman astronomy class, stealing kisses in the NYU library, visiting iconic New York sites as they were falling in love. She wouldn’t have chosen to move from the Village if Matt didn’t believe—reasonably—that they needed to settle in Baltimore to further his career. But she adored him; she’d follow him where he had to go if it didn’t ruin her chance to become a historian.

“Just one more push on the packing and we’ll finish well before midnight,” he said after they placed their order.

The meal turned out to be even more delicious than usual. They ate quickly. When they requested the check, the waitress asked if they’d like fortune cookies.

“Skip them,” Matt said. “We don’t have time.”

“Oh, but they’re fresh today,” the waitress said. “And maybe you’ll get good tidings.”

“Do you believe the fortunes?” Julia asked. They’d often chatted with this invariably upbeat waitress and Julia was curious about her views.

The woman shrugged. “No, but a fortune can be an opportunity to reflect on where we want to go. Perhaps especially useful since you’re newly married.”

“Good point,” Julia said. “Besides, I feel like something sweet.” She nudged Matt under the table as the waitress bustled off. “I know you don’t have any patience for superstition, but would you want to know your future? If you could?”

“Learning his future didn’t work out so well for Oedipus.”

She laughed. “You’re awfully literary tonight. Has something rubbed off on you from helping me pack all my novels?”

“Come on, I’m far more than a stodgy physicist.”

“I know you are, so stop teasing. I’d like an answer.” Maybe it was the weight of the move bearing down on her, but Julia’s question wasn’t casual. Given her mother’s fate, sometimes she worried about her own health. She lacked the almost reflex optimism she’d observed in most of her friends, none of whom had lost a parent in their childhood.

“Okay,” he said, “seriously, being a scientist, I like predicting things. But as to knowing my own fate . . . I’m not sure. How ’bout you?”

“It depends on the answers. I’d be thrilled to shed my concerns about getting my mother’s mental illness.”

He reached for her hand. “Oh Jule, her doctors said her psy-chosis was due to multiple sclerosis. And the articles you found in the library confirmed what your own doctor told you: that there isn’t much chance you’ll get MS.”

“I know, but—”

The waitress returned with the cookies. “I’ll miss seeing you,” she said. “I wish you all the best.”

They wished her the same. Matt cracked one cookie open and pulled out the slip. “Embrace uncertainty—it’s where the magic begins,” he read. “I’m not sold on that.”

“It might be good advice,” Julia said. “Perhaps.”

She took a cookie and extracted her fortune: “Seek not the future but the wisdom to shape it.” She handed him the slip. “Wise since I can’t know what life will bring.”

He glanced at it. “Agreed. I hope you enjoyed your cookies. But we should leave.” He smiled. “The movers might actually show up on time.”

“At the crack of dawn? Dream on. Still, we better be ready.” When they stood, Matt drew her to him and kissed her. She delighted in the softness of his lips and the tang of the ginger on his breath.

“We’re headed for a great year,” he said, kissing her again. Here he was, ridiculing fortune-telling but doing it himself.

Julia smiled to herself at his contradictions. She had to acknowledge her own: feeling apprehensive about moving to Baltimore yet eager to get there to start the first chap-ter of their married life.

She straightened her spine. “Let’s go,” she said. They stepped out into the bright lights and quirky sights of the West Village.