5
HERE
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2009
(two weeks and four days later)
Daylight is pressing against my eyelids, but I resist the urge to open them. Not yet. Not until—
BEEEEP. BEEEEP. BEEEEP. BEEEEP.
Like clockwork: the campus garbage truck, backing up to the bins on the other side of the courtyard wall. The sound I wait for every morning. I won’t open my eyes until I hear it.
It’s a ritual that serves no purpose. Just my way of preserving the illusion that I am exactly where I was the night before. As long as my eyes are closed, I can assume that reality hasn’t changed again. And once I hear the garbage truck’s now-familiar beep, I know for certain that it hasn’t. I haven’t thought through what would happen if I were to wake up somewhere other than this room. How long would I keep my eyes shut, waiting for that sound?
Let’s hope I never have to find out.
I open one eye and look around. The photograph Marissa gave me for my birthday is on the wall. The jacket I wore last night is slung over my desk chair. There is a tiny mound of crust crumbs on my floor. In other words, my room looks exactly the way it did five hours ago when I fell into a food coma after inhaling three slices of double pepperoni on my walk home from Toad’s, the most popular place for Yalies to drink, dance, and make bad decisions. (None for me so far—I forced myself to write CAN’T TONIGHT! in response to Michael’s 11:57 p.m. text request that I “stop by” his house on my way home. When does BE RIGHT THERE become an acceptable response to a booty call from a guy who hasn’t taken you on a real date yet? Doesn’t the fact that this guy could wake up tomorrow with no clue who you are warrant some bending of the hookup rules?)
Continuing my morning ritual, I retrieve my phone from under my pillow and begin scrolling through my recent photos. I’ve taken dozens since I got here, logging every potentially erasable experience. These photos are my security blanket. As long as they look the way I remember them, I know that things haven’t changed too dramatically overnight. I breeze through them quickly today, skipping over one of a group of girls in blue tank tops that Caitlin must’ve taken, eager to get to the one I care most about: the photo I took of Michael on my birthday. When I see it, I relax, satisfied that everything is the way it’s been for the past two and a half weeks. At first it seemed silly to hope that reality wouldn’t change again, but each day, the possibility gets a little easier to imagine, and my life in L.A. gets a little more distant, like something that happened a long time ago, or in a dream.
As of this morning, I have nineteen days’ worth of alternate memories. As Caitlin predicted, I seem to be getting my parallel’s memories as she lives them, which means that right now, I have everything up to September 26, 2008. I’ve been trying to write down my new memories as they come, but the task is harder than you’d think. It’s not like the new stuff is top of mind when I wake up, so remembering takes effort. And even then, I can’t always tell what came from the parallel world. Sometimes a detail will stand out, but most of the time, my parallel’s memories just blend in with my own, making it difficult to tell them apart. Did I bring my lunch that Wednesday or buy it? Did I wear boots that Friday or my red ballet flats? Does it matter? The one notable difference between my real memories and the new ones is how sterile the new ones are. I remember things my parallel has done as though I did them, but I have no sense of how she felt in the moment. That’s how I can tell which memories don’t belong to me—I don’t feel anything when I replay them in my head.
The journalist in me is still skeptical that entanglement is the explanation for all this, but Caitlin has gone from pretty sure to totally convinced. She’s now read every book, magazine article, and academic paper on the subject and says she no longer has any doubts. It’s hard to argue with her, and I’m not sure I want to anyway. What she’s proposing is hard to wrap my head around, but it makes my life make sense, and right now, that’s reason enough to accept it.
If our world is entangled, it looks like I’m the only person who remembers the way things were before. Every day I scour the internet for evidence that there are others like me out there, but I have yet to find any. Plenty of people have written about the collision—“the earthquake that wasn’t an earthquake”—and theories about its significance abound, but few appear willing to accept Dr. Mann’s explanation, and no one has drawn a connection between the tremor on September 8, 2008, and the global headache on September 9, 2009 (though people have lots to say about each). Apparently, millions of people woke up on my birthday with pain at the base of their skulls. Even the conspiracy theorists haven’t contemplated that their memories may have been wiped out and replaced by the memories of their parallel selves. Dr. Mann has his theories—and after our visit to see him, surely his suspicions—but no real evidence. Not so far, anyway. Caitlin wants to tell him about me, but I’m still not sure we can trust him. What better way to restore his damaged reputation than to go public with my story? I’m all for scientific progress, but there’s no way I’m becoming some physicist’s lab specimen. Or ending up in a padded room somewhere.
Light is streaming in through the crack between my curtains, which is surprising because it was supposed to rain today. I tug at the panel closest to me, pulling it to one side. The sky is bright blue, dotted with puffy cotton-ball clouds. I guess the weatherman was wrong.
I slide the curtains closed and snuggle down under my sheets. I’m supposed to meet Caitlin and Tyler for brunch at Commons before his flight back to Michigan (all the talk of impermanent realities convinced Caitlin to let him come visit), but that’s not until ten, giving me at least another hour of sleep. The delicious, semiconscious, edge-of-wonderland kind of sleep, where I’m awake enough to control my dreams but asleep enough to forget that I’m doing it.
“Abby?” I peer out from under my covers. Marissa is at my doorway, dressed in yoga gear and holding a yoga mat. “It’s quarter till. Aren’t you going to be late?”
Late? Late for what?
It is at this moment that I realize the previously overlooked flaw in my morning ritual. Just because the events I’ve photographed haven’t been overwritten doesn’t mean my reality hasn’t changed in other, undocumented ways.
I feign sleepy confusion. “Wait, what day is it?” Fingers crossed that whatever I’m late for isn’t an everyday thing.
Marissa looks at me like I’m crazy. “It’s Sunday. Don’t you have to be at the boathouse at eight?”
The boathouse?
“Oh, right . . . Yeah. Thanks for reminding me! I’d better get up.” I flash a smile and throw off the covers.
“Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you later, then,” she says, still eyeing me. “I have Bikram at eight, then I’ll probably head to the library for a couple hours.” She makes a face. “I have two chapters of Ulysses to finish before tomorrow.”
I nod distractedly. “Good luck with that.” I’m anxious for her to leave so I can call Caitlin. As soon as the door clicks shut, I lunge for my phone.
My call goes straight to voicemail. I start talking before the beep.
“Why is your phone off?!? When your best friend is suffering from some freaky astrophysical phenomenon—is astrophysical even a word?—you’re supposed to keep your phone on. At all times. Who else can tell me why I’m supposed to be at the boathouse at eight in the freaking morning on a Sunday? I didn’t even know Yale had a boathouse. Call me as soon as you get this.”
I toss my phone on the bed and sit down in front of my computer. According to the Yale website, Gilder Boathouse is in Derby, nearly ten miles from campus.
I contemplate bagging the whole thing, but know that I can’t. Not if I’m committed to keeping up the appearance of normalcy. What if it’s something important? What if it’s class-related? What if I’m writing a story on the sailing team for the YDN and I’m supposed to meet someone for an interview? Usually freshmen have to go through a semester-long “heeling” process before they can become full-fledged reporters for the Yale Daily News, but since I—okay, my parallel—wrote more than half of the articles published in the Oracle last year, I got to skip that step and last week became the YDN’s newest staff reporter, an opportunity I’m not about to screw up.
Ooh. Could that be it? Could my parallel self have done something to earn me a spot on the coveted sports beat? That would rock. I need to learn how to cover sports. Plus, it’d give me an excuse to go to Michael’s lacrosse games without feeling like a stalker.
Newly motivated, I fly out of my chair and start getting dressed. Since I’m going to a boathouse, I opt for sporty layers, figuring that if I’m underdressed, I’ll just pretend I’m on my way to the gym. As I’m lacing up my running shoes, I realize with a start that these aren’t, in fact, my running shoes. Yes, they’re running shoes, and yes, they were in my closet, but they’re not mine. Mine are old and worn in, practically falling apart from use. These fit, but they’re a different brand, and they look like they’ve barely been worn. Where is my old pair? I glance at the clock on my computer screen: 7:51. Boathouse now, shoe mystery later.
Outside, the sun is blindingly bright, making me wish I’d brought my sunglasses. I squint at my campus map, trying to pinpoint the closest shuttle stop. There’s a little blue S on the corner of College and Elm, two blocks from where I’m standing.
Jogging down the sidewalk, I rack my brain for my newest memory. If something has changed today in our world, then that means Parallel Abby must have done something yesterday in her world to cause it. Since her yesterday is a year behind mine in time, I need to remember what happened on September 26, 2008.
A blue-and-white school bus turns from High Street onto Elm. I pick up my pace to catch it and am surprised at how quickly I’m winded from the effort.
There are a handful of people on the bus, scattered among the first few rows. I go all the way to the back. Sliding down until only my chest is upright, I pull my knees up and press them against the scratched brown leather seat in front of me, the way I used to do in elementary school. Cell phone balanced carefully on my stomach in case Caitlin calls back, I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to summon the memories I need. The memories that will make this all make sense.
Think, Abby. September 26, 2008. It would have been a Friday. That makes it easier. I only have three Friday memories so far, so this one would have to be—
My phone rings. Thank God. I slide farther down in my seat, out of view.
“Please don’t tell me I joined the sailing team,” I say, answering.
“You didn’t join the sailing team.” I can hear Caitlin smiling.
“Then why am I supposed to be at a boathouse at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning?”
“You really have no idea?” she asks.
“I really have no idea.”
“Wow! So reality changed again!” she exclaims. “That’s—”
“Where’s Tyler?” I ask, annoyed that she’s not whispering. “And Muriel?” Muriel, Caitlin’s roommate, rarely leaves their room.
“Tyler’s asleep on our futon, and Muriel’s in Pennsylvania for the weekend,” she replies. “So what else is different? And how’d you figure out you were supposed to be at the boathouse?”
“Marissa told me. She was worried I’d be late.” I glance out the window and see a sign for Gilder Boathouse, two miles away. “We’re almost to the boathouse,” I tell her. “Please just tell me what’s there.”
“You should try to figure it out,” Caitlin says. “What’s your latest alternate memory? That should tell you—”
“Caitlin! I don’t have time for this!” This isn’t a freaking science experiment, Caitlin. It’s my life.
“Fine. You’re a coxswain on the crew team.”
My shoes hit the floor with a loud thud. “A what?”
“A coxswain,” she repeats. “The person who sits in the stern of the boat and steers it.”
I press my forehead against the window, trying to process this. “Since when?”
“Since Yale recruited you,” Caitlin says matter-of-factly. “Well, you’d already been accepted, so maybe ‘recruited’ is the wrong word. But, yeah. A scout saw you at a regatta last spring.”
“Last spring? I was a coxswain at Brookside?”
“Well, yeah. When you couldn’t run cross-country, you panicked that you didn’t have anything sports-related for your college applications,” she says. “The crew team needed a coxswain.”
When you couldn’t run cross-country. My breath catches in my throat.
“The nails,” I breathe as the memories come flooding back. So my parallel is smart enough to get into Yale but dumb enough to walk around a construction site barefoot. Awesome. “Well, I guess that explains the sneakers,” I mutter. I bought my running shoes after our first meet last year, when I decided my cross trainers were too heavy. The ones I’m wearing suddenly feel like lead.
“That’s what’s different?” Caitlin asks. “Your foot?”
“Yeah,” I say distractedly, running through a highlight reel of cross-country memories in my mind. I ran an 18:36, my best time ever, at the state meet last fall. And now it’s as if it never happened. It seems so unfair that she could’ve erased such a hard-won accomplishment. Did someone else from Brookside take my place at the meet?
“Hey, Abby!” a voice calls. A girl I’ve never seen before is waving at me from a few seats up. She’s wearing sweatpants and a maroon Andover Crew sweatshirt, her auburn curls tucked into a baseball hat. A teammate. I smile and wave back, grateful for the phone to my ear.
“So are you going to practice?” I hear Caitlin ask.
I slide back down in my seat, out of view.
“Yeah, that’s a great idea,” I say sarcastically. “Who cares that I have absolutely no idea how to do whatever a coxswain does? I should just wing it.”
“But maybe you do.”
“Do what?”
“Know how to cox.”
“But I don’t,” I say, confused. “I didn’t even know what a coxswain was until you told me.”
“Just go to practice,” she urges. “Act like you know what you’re doing and get into the boat.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I think there’s a decent chance that the moment you get out there, you’ll realize that you do know what to do. But since you don’t remember learning how to do it, the only way to know for sure is to put you in a circumstance where your procedural memory will be forced to kick in.”
“My what?”
“Procedural memory. The type of memory that lets you do something without consciously thinking about it, like swimming or driving a car,” she explains. “Which is different from declarative memory, which lets you consciously recall facts and events. Don’t you remember AP Psych?”
“You’re seriously asking me that right now?”
“The point is, by the time your parallel gets to where you are right now, she’ll have both an unconscious, procedural memory of how to cox a boat—well enough to be on a Division I team, no less—and a set of conscious, declarative memories associated with doing it. We know you don’t have the conscious memories yet, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have the unconscious ones.”
“Are you getting off or not?” a gruff voice barks. I jerk up. The bus driver is turned around, looking at me expectantly. I’m the only one still on the bus, which is now stopped in front of a sprawling wooden complex. I nod distractedly and stand up.
“Are you listening to what I’m saying?” Caitlin asks.
“Yes. Procedural and declarative memories. Got it.” I sling my bag over my shoulder and hurry toward the impatient bus driver. “Sorry,” I mumble on my way past him.
Kids in sweats and Windbreakers mill around the boathouse, looking purposeful and busy. A group of guys in spandex carry a boat painted in Yale blue over their heads, while two middle-aged men wearing matching white visors—coaches?—consult wooden clipboards. Waves lap against the deck in a steady rhythm as people perform their various tasks. Things are orderly here. Organized. I breathe in the calm. My life may be chaotic, but this crew practice is not.
“Abby!” The girl from the bus is standing at the boathouse door, which is framed on each side by a row of fiberglass oars. The entrance cuts through the building and opens onto an expansive deck overlooking the silver blue of the Housatonic River. “Want me to wait for you?” she calls.
“No, that’s okay!” I yell back. “I’ll be in in a minute.” The girl nods and disappears inside. “So what am I supposed to do?” I ask Caitlin. “Just hop in the boat and hope it all comes back to me?”
“Pretty much.”
“And if it doesn’t? If I make a total fool of myself?”
“Feign amnesia.”
“Funny,” I retort. The deck is beginning to clear. “Okay, if I’m going to this practice, I need to go now.”
“Go,” Caitlin urges. “Consider it research.”
Despite the very real risk that this will result in my looking like a complete idiot in front of the entire crew team, I have to admit I’m curious.
“Fine. I’ll go.”
“Yay!”
“Wish me luck,” I say, not optimistic that I’ll have any.
“Who needs luck?” Caitlin replies. “You’re a freak of nature. You’re the definition of luck!”
I hang up on her and head inside the boathouse.
What happens on the water is beyond surreal. One minute, I’m sitting at the stern of a wobbly wooden boat, facing eight excessively tall female rowers (seriously, one of them is six foot two and the shortest is five foot ten), waiting for our stone-faced head coach to blow his whistle, praying that I’ll somehow be able to fake it when he does.
Half a second later, autopilot kicks in, and I’m steering the boat and barking into my headset like a pro. For the first few minutes, I struggle to get the calls out fast enough. But once I’m in a rhythm on the water, my motions become instinctive, and it stops being so much work. It’s unnerving how natural it feels. Unnerving, but ridiculously cool. The cox is literally the boss of the boat—it’s my job to decide where we go and how quickly we get there. A task the planner in me was made for.
As we’re running through our second warm-up drill, my mind wanders back to the night that got me here. Ilana’s party. The terrible music, the crowded living room, the mini barrel of artificially sweetened punch. Standing in the street in front of that unfinished house, willing that guy from my astronomy class to kiss me. Running inside barefoot to give him another shot. As if a guy like that would ever make the first move. How could my parallel not have seen that? Even I can see that, and I’ve only got a handful of memories of him. I mean, c’mon. The boy wore pleats.
“Ugh. You reek,” the gorilla of a girl sitting in the seat closest to me grunts between strokes. “Next time you decide to come to practice hungover, do us all a favor and take a shower first.”
I stare at her. “Excuse me?”
She ignores me. Rattled, I pull up on the little handle thingy and the boat jerks to the right. I yank the rope in the other direction, trying to correct the error. The boat rocks violently, prompting a string of profanity from a girl resembling a stalk of celery (no hips, greenish complexion, lots of unruly hair). The beast in front of her gives me a death stare.
“Barnes!” Coach booms, shouting through his megaphone from the dock. “Is there someplace else you’d rather be? Get it together or get off the water!” he bellows.
And there we go. The novelty of this little adventure has officially worn off.
It’s cold. It’s wet. My legs and back feel like they’ve been stuffed in the overhead compartment of an airplane, and I’ve been staring at a girl’s camel toe for over an hour.
Instantly, my mood sours. If my parallel wants to spend what little free time she has crouched in a tiny space, shouting commands at unnervingly tall women, then by all means, she should. I, however, can think of several ways I’d rather spend my Sunday mornings, and none of them involve a hoarse voice or frozen fingers.
If she and I are so freaking similar, then how did she end up on a path I never would have taken? If I’d had a crush on the new kid, I wouldn’t have invited him to a party I didn’t want to go to just to spend time with him. And if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have suggested we tour a construction site barefoot. If she’s supposed to be my genetic equivalent, then shouldn’t she possess at least a modicum of my common sense?
Okay, so there was that one incident a few years ago. Caitlin and I were in Florida with her parents for spring break, and we’d ditched them for a bonfire on the beach. A boy named Roy with buck teeth and a peach-fuzz mustache was handing out hot dogs. The “night hiking” was his idea, but going barefoot was mine. I didn’t see the broken bottle lying in the sand until after I’d stepped on it. The cut wasn’t very deep, but Redneck Roy disappeared when Caitlin’s parents showed up, leaving me with a bloody big toe and an overwhelming sense of relief.
Fine. I may have had my own lapses in judgment when it comes to boys and bare feet. So perhaps it’s possible that I would’ve been as careless as my parallel was that night. But if I’d stepped on those nails, eight stitches and a tetanus shot wouldn’t have been a game changer for me. I busted my ass for three years, staying late after practice every single day, doing everything I could to prove to Coach P that I was captain material. How could she have given up so easily on the goal she’d worked so hard for? Didn’t she know better?
Like you knew better than to pursue an acting career you didn’t even want?
I don’t know if that voice belongs to me, or Caitlin, or God. Either way, I’m ignoring it.
Back on dry land, Coach rattles through administrative details while we wipe down the boats. I stay busy, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.
“Next week’s practice schedule,” Coach tells us, holding up a stack of papers. “Take one before you leave. Two-a-days start tomorrow, with a breather on Friday afternoon. Bus leaves at six for Providence.” He clips the papers to his clipboard and sets it on the wooden railing.
“What’s in Providence?” I whisper to Celery Girl. She gives me a funny look.
“Our regatta.”
“Oh, he meant Providence, Rhode Island,” I say casually. “I thought he was using the word metaphorically.”
Celery Girl narrows her eyes. “Are you on drugs?”
“What? No!” I reply, forgetting to whisper. Everyone looks at me. “Sorry,” I mumble, to no one in particular.
Coach shoots me a look and keeps talking. “I’ll make final boat assignments by Thursday morning. If you want me to consider you for the A boat, you better bring your A game to practice this week.” He pauses for dramatic effect, as though he’s just said something exceptionally clever. “Okay, people, that’s it. See you tomorrow morning, not a minute after five.”
Is he kidding? Five in the morning?
The group disperses. Most of the girls head for the locker room, while a few linger on the deck, enjoying the morning sun. I move toward the building, hoping for a stealthy exit.
“Hey, Ab, wait up.”
I turn. It’s the girl from the bus again. The hat is gone now, her curls loose, and her sweatshirt is stuffed into the bag slung over her tanned shoulder. “We still on for brunch?” she asks.
“Oh. I, uh—” Mentioning my brunch with Caitlin and Tyler feels risky. Without knowing how close my parallel is with this girl, I can’t be sure how bailing on her for plans with someone else would go over. Would she be majorly offended? Would she invite herself to join us? I close my eyes and grimace. “Sorry. I’ve just had this headache all morning.” I wince and press my temples. “It’s so weird, every time I talk, it gets worse.”
“Oh, no. Maybe we should scrap brunch?”
“Yeah, maybe so,” I respond, my voice thick with disappointment. Dial it back, Barnes. It’s just brunch.
My fake headache works like a charm. I get out of brunch and avoid the risk of an awkward conversation on the ride back to campus. As a bonus, I get to listen while Britta (the girl from the bus) and Annika (Celery Girl) gossip about nearly everyone on the team. I now know that Ginger, another coxswain, doesn’t shave her legs, and that Bobbi, our team captain, is sleeping with her history TA. They ask about Michael, leading me to believe that I must be decently close with these girls, but other than that, they seem generally uninterested in the details of my life, perhaps because the other girls on the team provide more than enough fodder for discussion.
As soon as I step off the bus, I head for Caitlin’s room.
“I can’t live like this,” I announce when she opens the door.
“So I guess this means I was wrong,” she says, stepping aside to let me in.
“Oh, no, you were right. Turns out I rock the cox box.” I look around. “Where’s Tyler?”
“In the shower. So, what was it like?” she asks excitedly. “Was it so super cool?” When I don’t react, her enthusiasm fades. “Why don’t you look happy?”
“Because this isn’t my life,” I say simply. “She might want to spend her mornings—and her afternoons, by the way—freezing her ass off, not getting any real exercise, crouched in a space designed for small children. But, I, Abby, elect not to spend my free time staring at some girl’s camel toe.”
Caitlin wrinkles her nose. “Spare me the visual, please.”
“Whatever you’re picturing, it was worse in real life.” I toss my bag on the floor and fall back onto her bed, sinking into navy silk. The sheets were a gift from her mom, who’s convinced that cotton causes wrinkles. “Never again,” I vow. “The madness stops today.”
“Meaning what?”
“I’m getting my life back. My life.”
“Abby, this is your life.”
“How can you say that? Someone else is deciding what happens to me!”
“Yes, but that ‘someone else’ is doing exactly what you would’ve done in the same situation.”
“You’re acting like she and I are the same person,” I scoff, staring up at the ceiling.
“That’s what makes her your parallel. She’s you, in different circumstances.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head so emphatically that my cheeks brush silk. “She and I may be sharing brain waves, but she’s not me.”
“I know it freaks you out,” Caitlin says gently. “But Abby, that’s what our parallel selves are. By definition. You can’t keep separating ‘you’ from ‘her’ and ‘us’ from ‘them.’”
“That’s not what Dr. Mann said.”
Caitlin sighs. “Dr. Mann needs you to be distinct from your parallel in order to preserve free will.”
“You don’t believe in free will?” I gape at her.
“Free will is an illusion, Abby. Our actions are determined by our biological makeup. That’s what I’ve been trying to explain.”
I refuse to accept this but know better than to debate with Caitlin about science. If you can even call this science. I put on a plastic smile. “So I guess that means my parallel self will quit crew next September. You know, if she’s just like me.”
Caitlin sighs. “Abby. I get it. You feel powerless and it bugs you. But quitting the crew team won’t give you your old life back.”
“I know that,” I snap. “But if I do something she would never do—like quitting a sport she loves, or at least, pretends to—then at least she won’t be calling the shots anymore.”
“Oh, yeah? If you quit just to spite her, then what’s changed? Her actions are still dictating yours.” Caitlin’s voice is matter-of-fact, the way she gets when she’s convinced she’s right.
As irritated as I am by her tone, her words give me pause. If I quit the team just to prove a point, then on some level, my parallel will still be running the show. But what’s the alternative? Letting my life be a carbon copy of hers? Unacceptable.
“You might be right,” I tell her. “But if I stay on this path, my entire college experience will be affected by her decision to become a coxswain. My schedule, my time, my friends, my resume. All of it.” I shake my head, resolute. “No. This path ends today.”
Caitlin sighs. “Fine. Quit the team. But don’t expect everything to change just because you do.”
Just then, the door to Caitlin’s common room opens and Tyler appears, wearing nothing but boxers and holding a pink shower caddy.
“Ah! My eyes are burning!” I shriek, quickly looking away.
“I know. A body this hot should come with a warning label and some protective glasses.”
“Pants! Please!” I yelp.
“I didn’t realize you were such a prude, Barnes,” Tyler says, grabbing a pair of jeans from the open suitcase on the floor.
“It’s you,” I say, making a face. “Ew.” Caitlin laughs out loud.
“Thanks,” Tyler says dryly. He pulls a shirt over his head. “How was practice?”
“Practice sucked,” I tell him. “I’m quitting the team.”
“Yeah, right,” Tyler replies. “You’ve never quit anything in your life.”
I’m looking at Caitlin as I answer. “I guess I’m not as predictable as you thought.”
After brunch, Caitlin takes Tyler to the airport, and I head back to my room. As I’m passing through the High Street gate, a fluorescent green flyer tacked to the outdoor bulletin board catches my eye, and I stop.
OPEN AUDITIONS FOR
MARY ZIMMERMAN’S METAMORPHOSES
YALE’S 2009/2010 FRESHMAN SHOW
MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2009
2 P.M.–5 P.M.
@ 301 CROWN STREET
SIGN-UP SHEET ON THE DOOR AT 222 YORK STREET
In my mind, I’m there again, standing on the stage in the Brookside auditorium, struggling through my audition piece. Ms. Ziffren is smiling. Ilana is snickering. The stage lights are hot on my face. I’m thinking, Why am I up here? This isn’t me. Yet somehow my name ends up at the top of that cast list. It seemed like such a small thing—just a silly school play—but it turned out to be such a big thing. The doorway to something huge. The opportunity to discover a talent I never imagined I had.
My parallel won’t get to experience any of that. She’s not taking Ziffren’s class, so she won’t be forced to overcome her stage fright for the sake of her grade, surprising herself and everyone else in the class by getting the lead. Which means she won’t get Ms. Ziffren’s crash course on method acting. Which means she won’t be able to wow a Hollywood casting director with her “kinetic” portrayal of Thomasina Coverly on opening night. Which means she won’t get the chance to spend four months on a movie set. Which means no matter what happens in the parallel world, she’ll never acquire the skills I now have. She’s already missed her chance for that.
Suddenly, I see it.
I have something she doesn’t.
The hair on my arm prickles. The fact that I kept my old memories is more than an oddity of science—it’s a gift. Unlike everyone else in the world, I haven’t forgotten who I was before the collision. Which means I can become that person again. A person my parallel will never be.
My mind starts to race, leaping ahead, connecting the dots. Parallel Abby can have my beloved Plan. She can have all the writing classes, and my subscription to the New York Times, and all the nights and weekends I spent in the Brookside newspaper lab. She can have the YDN, the prestigious internship, the impressive job, the fancy byline that I always imagined I’d have. She can be the person I was going to be.
I’ll be someone else.
The thought is exhilarating.
I see it so clearly now. Caitlin is right: Trying to undo what my parallel has done won’t give me autonomy. To prove my independence, it’s not enough to do things my parallel wouldn’t do; I have to do things she couldn’t do, things only I can. Like acting. Like getting cast in the Freshman Show.
I pull the flyer off the board. Open auditions. All I have to do is sign up. With my background, I should at least have a shot at getting cast.
A smile stretches across my face. Metamorphoses. Exactly.
Still smiling, I slip the flyer into my bag.
My phone rings then, and my stomach dips a little when I see Michael’s name on the caller ID. We’ve seen each other six times since my birthday (four times in class and twice on the weekend, one of which was planned in advance) and text almost every other day, but I’m still not used to him yet. Probably because I’m not sure what I should be getting used to, or whether I should be getting used to him at all. As much as I like him, my parallel could so easily ruin our relationship (assuming that sitting together in in art history, standing side by side at a fraternity toga party, and kissing behind a U-Haul at the Yale-Dartmouth football tailgate constitute a relationship). I shouldn’t get attached. My head knows this, but apparently my stomach and knees do not.
“What’re you doing tonight?” Michael asks when I answer.
“Nothing,” I answer, then wince. Lame.
“Wrong. You’re going out with me.”
“Where are we going?” I ask casually, determined to keep all traces of ohmigod-he’s-finally-taking-me-on-a-real-date! from my voice.
“It’s a surprise,” he says mysteriously. “Can you be at my house at eight thirty?”
“Sure,” I reply, only moderately annoyed that he didn’t offer to pick me up. Maybe this date requires preparation. He’s making dinner! I picture us sharing a bowl of spaghetti by candlelight, feeding each other tiny bites of homemade meatball.
“Oh, and eat before you come,” he says.
Or not.
“What am I supposed to wear?” I ask Marissa over takeout from Thai Taste that night. “What if we’re going somewhere dressy?”
“He would’ve told you,” she says, twirling noodles with her spoon. “Since he didn’t say anything about wardrobe, I think you should assume it’s casual.”
“Outdoor casual or indoor casual?”
“Hmmmm.” She chews on a chopstick, thinking. “Since he already did the outdoor date, this one is probably indoor, right?”
“You mean the tailgate last weekend? I don’t think that counts as a date.”
“No, silly. The kayak yesterday. Wait, is it called a kayak? Whatever—two-man crew boat. Or does that not count because it was your idea?”
This is why having a yearlong memory gap really sucks. I’m always in the dark. When I’m with Caitlin, it’s not a big deal; she just fills in the details I’m missing. But how do I handle my roommate, who right now is looking at me like I’m an Alzheimer’s patient? “Oh, I thought you said something about last weekend,” I say lamely, pretending her question about the boat was rhetorical. “You were saying something about Ben?”
Marissa looks at me funny. “I was?”
“You were about to tell me about your best date.” I stuff a huge wad of noodles into my mouth before I make things worse. Lucky for me, my roommate is slightly spacey and prone to losing her train of thought, so she doesn’t doubt me here.
“Oh. Right.” Marissa thinks for a minute, then smiles. “Summer after junior year, about two weeks into our relationship. Ben planned a picnic dinner in Central Park. He bought all these locally made meats and cheeses and baked a loaf of French bread.”
“Ben baked?”
She nods, her face bright with the memory. “It was super romantic. The sun was shining when he picked me up—on his bike—and we rode through the park with the picnic basket balanced on the handlebars, me in a white linen sundress, and Ben in a khaki suit. It was like something out of an old movie, you know?”
“It sounds perfect,” I tell her, picturing it.
“It was,” she agrees. “Until about ten minutes after we got to our picnic spot, when it started pouring.”
“Oh, no!”
She nods, still smiling. “Both the bread and my dress were soaked. We tossed the food, bought “I Heart NY” sweatshirts from a street vendor, and went for pizza instead.”
“So you’re saying I should bring an umbrella tonight,” I say as I reach for a fortune cookie.
“I’m saying even when you know what you’re in for, you never really know what you’re in for,” she tells me, crunching on a bean sprout. “So dress accordingly.”
If I learned anything in L.A., it’s that with the right accessories, you can go anywhere in jeans and a white V-neck. Tonight I add an oversized cardigan I bought on eBay and a pair of brown leather riding boots I found at Cinderella’s Attic in Guilford last weekend. Since my parallel self’s definition of “style” appears to have been limited to Gap jeans and tops from J. Crew (which, admittedly, aptly describes the contents of my own pre-Hollywood closet), I’ve had to do some wardrobe supplementing since I got here. Unfortunately, my bank account is quite a bit smaller than it was when I was in L.A., so I’m making do with what I can find secondhand.
“You look great,” Michael says when he opens the door. “Cool boots.”
“Thanks,” I say as I survey his attire. Track pants and a Yale Lacrosse T-shirt. And here I was worried about being underdressed. Is that a grease stain on his chest?
“I was just about to change,” he tells me, and holds out the red plastic cup in his hands. It’s empty. “Can you get me a refill?” he calls, already halfway up the stairs. “Beer’s in the fridge.”
“Uh, okay,” I call back. “Sure.”
I turn the cup over in my hands. Not exactly how I thought the first thirty seconds of this date would go. Which, now that I’m here, doesn’t even feel like a date.
By the time I reach the kitchen, I’m officially pissed off. “Can you get me a refill?” I mutter. “Seriously?” I grab the handle of the fridge and yank it open. Bottles on the door clang against one another, and it crosses my mind that I wouldn’t mind if they all broke.
And then I see them. A bouquet of pink peonies spilling out of a trumpet-shaped beer stein. I reach for the bright yellow Post-it stuck to the front of the glass. For Abby.
“The refill was just a ruse.”
“Ah!” Startled, I jump at the sound of Michael’s voice and knock a family-sized bottle of Heinz off the refrigerator door. The flip top flies open when it hits the ground, squirting ketchup all over the linoleum. I look down at the ketchup, then up at Michael, who’s now dressed in khakis and a very wrinkled blue button-down that, despite the fact that it looks like it was retrieved from the bottom of his laundry pile, is definitely date appropriate. “You scared me,” I say sheepishly.
“I noticed,” he replies, laughing as he bends to pick up the ketchup bottle. I grab a roll of paper towels off the counter to wipe up the mess. Clearly not standard procedure around here. The floor is disgusting, and wet with something that isn’t ketchup. Is that puke? I dab at the linoleum, trying not to gag, then toss the wad of paper towels toward the giant trash can next to the stove. It lands on the floor with a wet slap. Michael, meanwhile, is busy exchanging the Heinz bottle for two beers. “A drink before we go,” he explains, twisting the caps off and dropping them in a bucket next to the fridge.
“Thanks,” I say, eyes on the paper towel heap, trying to decide if I’m obligated to pick it up. A puddle of what looks like pee is saturating its edges.
“But we have to drink it fast,” Michael is saying. “We’re leaving here in five minutes.”
No time to worry about nasty paper towel wads, then. Excellent. I gulp my beer.
“So do you like the flowers?” he asks between sips. “After what we talked about yesterday, I wanted to surprise you.”
Yesterday. The boat ride. The most romantic thing Michael and I have ever done, and I don’t remember it. I’m not sure what I could’ve said to prompt a surprise bouquet, but whatever it was, I’m glad I said it.
“I love them,” I say. “Where’d you get peonies in New Haven?” I’ve been to the Stop & Shop near campus. Their flower selection is limited to carnations and roses, each with a healthy dose of baby’s breath.
“The farmers’ market in Edgewood Park,” he says, then grins. “According to the guy I bought them from, they’re an aphrodisiac.”
Heat floods my cheeks. Embarrassed that I’m embarrassed, I turn an even deeper shade of red.
“So what else did you do today?” I ask, quickly changing the subject before my face catches fire.
“Not a whole lot,” he replies. “Went to the gym. Watched some baseball. What about you?”
“I quit the crew team,” I tell him, tasting the Thai noodles I had for dinner and wishing I’d brought gum. I take several more swigs of beer, hoping to drown out the persistent peanut flavor.
“Ha. Very funny.”
“I’m serious,” I say. “I sent an email to the coach right before I came over here.” It strikes me that someone who’s been on the team for weeks probably wouldn’t say “the coach,” but Michael is too busy looking flabbergasted to notice.
“You quit the team? Over email?”
His reaction throws me. “Well, yeah,” I reply, suddenly self-conscious. “What’s the big deal?”
“Did something happen at practice today?” he asks. “Is that where this is coming from?”
“Why does it have to be ‘coming from’ anywhere?” I ask, getting defensive. “Can’t a person just decide she doesn’t like something anymore?”
“Overnight?”
“Why not?”
“I dunno, maybe because that’s not how people are? People don’t just abandon whole parts of themselves,” he says. “You’re a coxswain,” he declares, as though he’s telling me the sky is blue. “It’s part of who you are. A part I happen to like. You’re this little bossy ball of energy.”
Subtext: I will like you less if you’re not a coxswain.
“I love that you like that about me,” I begin, and then swallow hard when I realize that I’ve used “I,” “love,” and “you” in close proximity to one another in the same sentence. Thankfully, he doesn’t flinch. I barrel on. “But it’s not really part of who I am. Even if it seems like it. I only started coxing because I hurt my foot and couldn’t run cross-country,” I explain. “Since I didn’t want to obsess over the fact that I couldn’t do what I really loved, I told myself I loved crew, and after a while, I started believing it.” I’m making this up, of course, because it wasn’t really me who did any of this. But as I’m talking, I wonder: Is this how it happened for my parallel? Because if it is, then I sort of get it. Even if I want to believe I never would’ve given up so quickly on cross-country, I can imagine how it might’ve been easier to throw myself into something else than to suffer the disappointment of not being able to run.
“Sounds to me like something happened at practice today,” Michael says.
“Nothing happened at practice today,” I insist. “I just don’t want to do it anymore.”
Michael takes a sip of his beer, considering this. “So I guess that means you can sleep over tonight,” he says, all nonchalant. “No crew practice in the morning.”
I freeze. I didn’t shave my legs. Or my bikini line. My underwear has a hole in the crotch, and not in a sexy way. For these and a wealth of other reasons, I AM NOT READY TO HAVE SEX. Flustered, I put my bottle to my lips and tilt it back, my cheeks warm again. This is one of those moments—and there have been several since Michael and I met—when I’m reminded of how totally and completely out of my league I am. It’s not like I’m a total neophyte when it comes to the opposite sex—I’ve dated and made out with and almost-seen-naked a respectable number of them. But those were regular guys. Michael Carpenter is a different species altogether. He’s gorgeous. He’s smart. He’s athletic. And he’s cool. Like, really cool, without even trying. I, meanwhile, am of lesser caliber. I’m cute but not gorgeous, more hardworking than smart, fit but not athletic, and while I have moments of cool, those moments are surrounded by hours of carefully planning how to execute them.
Michael sees the look on my face and laughs. “I’m kidding,” he says. “I intend to walk you to your doorstep after our date, where I will kiss you chastely good night.” He pauses, then adds, “Unless, of course, you want to sleep over . . .”
“It’s a school night,” I say, and smile. My attempt to sound coy and flirty and not completely unhinged by this conversation.
“We should probably save the sleepless night for another time, then.” Acting all blasé, he drains the rest of his beer and sets it on the counter. “Ready to go?”
“Mm-hmm,” I manage, as casually as I can, as the words “SLEEPLESS NIGHT” reverberate in my head. Michael’s eyes are lit up with laughter.
“So have you figured out where we’re going yet?” he asks as we set off down the block. His elbow grazes the back of my arm, sending a ripple to my fingertips. If our conversation in the kitchen was just a ploy to get me naked, it might have worked. My legs aren’t that hairy, and the beer I just downed has made me decidedly less self-conscious about my holey underwear. I’m not talking sleepless-night-level nakedness, but it’s possible that some articles of clothing could be removed in a couple of hours. “C’mon,” Michael says with a playful nudge, jolting these thoughts from my mind. “Not even a guess?”
“Hmm. A movie?”
“Nope.”
I see the lights of the Yale Bookstore up ahead. “Uh . . . a poetry reading?”
“Nope.” He points at the redbrick building on the corner. “Church.”
“Church,” I repeat. “Like, a church service?” My grandma Rose is always asking if I’ve been to church up here, and she makes this tsk sound when she hears I haven’t.
“Sort of,” he says. “But sort of not.” He slips his hand into mine. “You’ll see.” He whistles softly as we walk, his warm hand dry and rough against my clammy palm. We’ve made out in a coat closet and kissed on his doorstep, but this is the first time we’ve ever held hands.
The whistling stops when we step inside the building. The cross-shaped sanctuary is dark and cavernous, with Gothic arches and impossibly high ceilings, the kind of room that looks like it should be freezing cold. But this one isn’t. Dozens of candles line both sides of the sanctuary, which might have something to do with the warmth and are definitely responsible for the sedating scent. I inhale deeply, trying to place it. Juniper? But something else, too . . . something more familiar. Rose? An inscription in the stone of the eastern wall catches my attention. The words glow in the candlelight. WE MAY IGNORE, BUT WE CAN NOWHERE EVADE THE PRESENCE OF GOD. THE WORLD IS CROWDED WITH HIM.—C. S. LEWIS.
“C’mon,” Michael whispers, tugging me farther inside.
A handful of other people are scattered among the pews, but not enough of them to convince me that we’re in the right place for whatever it is we’ve come. I glance at Michael, expecting him to look confused or uncertain, but he’s grinning. He points at an empty row.
We slide all the way in, to the very center of the pew, where it’s much darker than it was along the edges. I don’t know whether it’s the placement of the massive stone columns or the sheer size of the room, but, though the candles are visible from where we’re sitting, their glow is distant. Michael’s face is almost entirely shrouded in darkness.
“It’s called Compline,” he tells me, in a voice so low it’s hard to hear. “It’s a time of reflection and meditation at the end of the day. This one happens every Sunday at nine.”
“Oh,” I whisper, because I’m not sure what else to say. Or do, for that matter. I glance around the room, looking to see what other people are doing, but the closest person is at least twenty feet away. Everyone is so quiet. There are no whispers. There is no motion. Are we just supposed to sit here in the dark?
Then, out of the darkness, I hear a lone tenor, chanting in Latin, coming from one of the alcoves near the front. The voice is quickly joined by many others, all singing in beautiful, haunting harmony. I listen, trying to determine which side of the sanctuary the sound is coming from, but I can’t. The acoustics are too perfect to pinpoint the origin, and the choir is completely out of sight.
The words of the inscription come drifting back, as though carried by the music. Right now, the word “thick” feels more appropriate than “crowded.” The air feels thick with something divine. And in this one moment, any feelings of fear or confusion about my circumstances have been replaced by an overwhelming appreciation of the here and now. I say a quick, wordless prayer, thankful for a fleeting thought that has brought more clarity than any other. Grateful for this moment I so easily could have missed.
When the song ends a few minutes later, the room is completely silent. Then another song begins. Halfway through the third song, Michael leans over and puts his lips to my ear. “Like it?” he asks, his voice barely audible. His breath on my neck sends a shiver down my spine. I turn, finding his ear.
“Yes,” I breathe. And though I want to say more—how magical and significant this feels, how deeply I’m moved by the music, how honored I am that he shared this with me—I don’t, in part because I don’t want to interrupt the silence but mostly because I know words won’t be enough. So I touch my lips to his cheek in a soundless kiss—a silent thank-you—then sit back against the wooden pew, letting the music and the darkness envelope me. He finds my hand and squeezes it. Neither of us lets go.