Bob had always believed that coincidences were just coincidences.
Cristina had learned not to question that philosophy.
It made things easier.
They had first met several months earlier at their neighborhood supermarket, in the produce aisle of all places. Cristina had just finished a shift at the local burger joint where she worked as a waitress and had stopped to pick up a few groceries on her way home.
She was walking down the aisle carrying a small basket filled with apples when Bob came around the corner at exactly the wrong moment.
They bumped into each other.
The basket tipped.
Apples rolled everywhere.
“Oh! Sorry!” Bob said, immediately crouching down to help.
Cristina laughed. “It’s okay. I think the apples survived.”
Most of them had.
One apple, however, apparently wanted its freedom and rolled deep underneath a produce table.
Bob gathered the easy ones first. Then he spotted the runaway.
“I’ll get that one.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I caused the Great Apple Escape. I’m responsible.”
Cristina smiled as Bob got down on his knees.
He reached beneath the table.
Not far enough.
So he lowered himself farther until he was practically lying on the supermarket floor, stretching one arm beneath the display.
What Cristina didn’t know at the time was that Bob had been dealing with a mild headache for most of the afternoon.
As he reached for the apple, his head ended up close to Cristina’s sandaled feet.
Bob suddenly stopped.
The headache was gone.
Completely.
He blinked a few times.
Then he grabbed the apple.
“Got it!”
He stood and handed it to Cristina.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Bob rubbed his forehead.
“That’s weird.”
“What?”
“I had a headache a minute ago. It just disappeared.”
Cristina shrugged.
“Maybe grocery shopping cured you.”
Bob laughed.
“Cheaper than a doctor.”
Neither of them thought much more about it.
At least, not then.
They started talking.
Talking turned into coffee.
Coffee became another date.
Then another.
Before long, Bob and Cristina were officially boyfriend and girlfriend.
Bob worked as a travel adviser, spending his days helping people figure out where to vacation, where to stay, what flights to take, and how not to get hopelessly lost in unfamiliar cities.
Cristina found that occupation increasingly amusing.
Especially considering Bob could sometimes misplace his sunglasses while they were sitting on top of his head.
Over time, Cristina began noticing something strange.
Very strange.
Whenever one of her bare feet happened to touch Bob, unusual things sometimes happened.
The first supermarket headache had been easy to dismiss.
Then came another headache.
Then another small incident.
And eventually came the night of the stomachache.
Bob and Cristina had fallen asleep together after spending most of the evening watching movies and eating far too many snacks.
At around three in the morning, Bob woke with an uncomfortable stomachache.
He groaned, rolled onto his back and tried to ignore it.
Cristina was still asleep beside him.
Sometime during the night, however, she had shifted position.
One of her bare feet was resting lightly across Bob’s stomach.
A few minutes passed.
The stomachache faded.
Then disappeared.
Bob sighed in relief and went back to sleep.
The next morning, he mentioned it casually.
“My stomach stopped hurting last night.”
Cristina looked at him.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Guess whatever I ate finally settled.”
Cristina glanced downward.
Her foot was still partially resting against him.
She smiled.
“Must have.”
By then, Cristina had begun to suspect that the supermarket incident hadn’t been an accident.
Something about her feet affected Bob.
She didn’t understand how.
She didn’t understand why.
And strangest of all, it only seemed to work on him.
Cristina had quietly experimented enough to know that much.
Nobody else reacted.
Only Bob.
She never announced this discovery to him.
There was no argument about whether her feet had magical powers.
There was no debate.
Bob simply assumed everything had a perfectly ordinary explanation.
Cristina allowed him to think so.
Privately, however, she had started calling it her foot magic.
Not exactly the most impressive superhero ability ever discovered.
She couldn’t fly.
She couldn’t become invisible.
She couldn’t shoot lightning from her toes.
But she could apparently cure Bob’s headaches, settle his stomach, and occasionally help his brain find information it had misplaced.
That last ability would soon become particularly useful.
One Saturday, Bob and Cristina went to the fair.
Bob drove them there in his 2017 Nissan Sentra.
The fair was packed, and the parking lot seemed almost as large as the fair itself.
Cars stretched row after row into the distance.
Bob eventually found a parking space, locked the Sentra, and they headed toward the entrance.
Neither of them paid much attention to the parking-section sign.
That would prove to be a mistake.
They spent several hours enjoying themselves.
They rode the Ferris wheel.
Cristina convinced Bob to go on a spinning ride that Bob claimed had violated several international treaties.
They shared funnel cake.
Bob tried a carnival basketball game.
He missed.
Then missed again.
Then missed so badly that Cristina asked whether the ball was supposed to go into the neighboring booth.
“The rim is obviously crooked,” Bob said.
“Of course.”
“I’m serious.”
“The basketball is probably crooked too.”
“Exactly.”
Cristina laughed.
They wandered through the fair until sunset painted the sky orange and pink.
Eventually, tired but happy, they decided to head home.
They walked out through the gates and entered the enormous parking lot.
Bob stopped.
Cristina stopped beside him.
Hundreds of cars sat beneath rows of lights.
Bob slowly looked left.
Then right.
Cristina looked at him.
“Do you know where we parked?”
Bob stared across the parking lot.
A few seconds passed.
Then his expression changed.
“Duh! I forgot!”
Cristina looked around.
That was not encouraging.
They started walking.
They passed one row.
Then another.
Then another.
Bob occasionally stopped and studied a car as if hoping his Nissan had changed brands since they arrived.
“That one?”
“That’s a Honda,” Cristina said.
“Oh.”
They continued.
A few minutes later Bob pointed again.
“There!”
“That’s an SUV.”
“Right.”
Bob adjusted his sunglasses.
“Not mine.”
Cristina couldn't help smiling.
The irony was becoming difficult to ignore.
The professional travel adviser could help someone navigate Rome, Tokyo or Paris.
But apparently parking lots were his final boss.
After several more minutes, Cristina stopped walking.
She looked at Bob.
Then down at her shoe.
Bob was still studying the rows of cars.
Cristina slipped one shoe off.
She already had a pretty good idea what might happen.
Bob looked at her bare foot, then at Cristina.
She gave him a small, knowing smile.
“I know it’s hard to understand, but my bare foot will make you remember.”
Bob didn't have time to analyze that statement.
Cristina gently pressed her bare sole against his forehead.
For a moment Bob remained completely still.
Then something clicked.
His posture changed.
His eyes widened behind his sunglasses.
A memory suddenly rushed back.
The sign.
The row.
The parking section.
Bob pointed excitedly toward the distance.
“YES!! 43C parking space!”
Cristina lowered her foot.
Sure enough, several rows away stood the large 43C sign.
And underneath it, exactly where Bob suddenly remembered leaving it, sat his Nissan Sentra.
They walked toward the car.
Bob was delighted.
“I knew I’d remember eventually.”
Cristina slipped her shoe back on.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Probably just needed to stop thinking about it so hard.”
“Probably.”
“Brains are funny like that.”
“They certainly are.”
Bob unlocked the car.
Cristina climbed into the passenger seat.
She didn't mention the headache at the supermarket.
She didn't mention the stomachache.
She didn't mention any of the other little incidents she had quietly noticed.
There was no reason to.
Bob had his explanation.
Cristina had hers.
And somehow both of them were perfectly happy with that arrangement.
Bob started the engine.
As they drove away from Section 43C, Cristina looked out the window and smiled.
She still had no idea where her strange ability came from or why it worked only on Bob.
Maybe someday she would figure it out.
Until then, she was content knowing that whenever Bob's memory, stomach, or head gave him trouble, she might have a rather unusual way of helping.
Bob, meanwhile, remained completely convinced that the evening's sudden flash of memory had simply been coincidence.
After all, there had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Cristina rested her feet comfortably on her side of the car and said nothing.
Some mysteries were better left afoot.
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