Chapter 9 #2
Other Alice puts a surprisingly possessive hand on my arm as she tells Cilla, “We’re buying a house together. We found a place we love, and we want to put in an offer as soon as possible.”
“We are,” I say, forcing myself to play along.
I won’t let Cilla do this better than me.
My jaw clenches into something that hopefully resembles a smile, if you squint hard enough, as I lean my head onto Other Alice’s shoulder.
“You know how hard it is for us millennials to pull off the American dream, but we’ve finally made it happen. ”
“Really? You changed your mind?” Other Alice whispers to me, her eyes lit up with hope.
Other Marlowe lets out a soft groan from the closet.
“Yes!” I tell this Alice, hoping my vibrant enthusiasm redirects her attention from Other Marlowe’s agonized sounds. “I changed my mind! You finally convinced me, baby. But unfortunately, I have to go. I need to show Cilla something backstage.”
“Since when do you call her Cilla?” Other Alice questions. Her jealousy at what she believes is an affectionate nickname is almost comical. She’s nearly reaching hating-Jeannie-Gratto levels of intensity. It’s a reaction I did not know I could get out of her, to be honest.
“I know, right?” Cilla grins. She’s way too comfortable with Other Alice’s possessiveness.
It’s like watching any of the countless viral celebrity-flirting-with-an-interviewer clips, like it’s just par for the course to have people be weird around her twenty-four hours a day.
“Marlowe insists on calling me that. She won’t use my real name.
Very strange. Can’t wait to see your house, though.
Do you happen to have a Zillow listing I could browse? ”
“Marlowe currently lives in this dungeon of a studio apartment,” Other Alice offers as she walks over to show Cilla something on her phone.
This time, Other Marlowe and I groan together.
“You live in a dungeon?” Cilla asks.
“It’s a great apartment, but yes, it is also very small. Compared to where I once lived in New York, though, it’s a verifiable mansion.”
Cilla says nothing.
Other Alice, either oblivious to what she’s done or lacking the empathy of the Alice I know, swipes to another picture and says, “Look at the backyard. We can start a garden.”
“Marlowe, I didn’t know you had a green thumb. What will you grow out there?” Cilla asks me.
“Sorry,” I tell Other Alice. “We really have to get going. Cilla has a…surgery to do soon.” I grab Cilla’s hand and yank her out of the office, dragging the both of us toward the wings.
“I don’t think Alice Yeung is too happy you’re holding my hand,” Cilla teases once we’re in the hall.
I drop it immediately. “Go on, get out your pithy remarks about how pathetic my life is,” I say. “Let’s do it now, before we learn whatever other tragic thing about my existence you’ll find worth judging.”
“I’m not judging you,” she says. “I just always pictured you somewhere cool. I thought New York made sense for you.”
This is rarefied air. Of the two of us, while neither was particularly cool—we were theater kids, after all—Cilla was definitely the one everyone saw as cooler.
She had more friends than I did. She dressed better.
She took things less personally. She made acting seem effortless and instinctual, because for her, it was.
If there was ever an opportunity for the drama department to choose official sides in the war of Marlowe vs. Priscilla, I’d have come out the loser.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford it,” I say. “Or Chicago. And since neither town was scooping me up to star in any plays, I came back home. And here I still am.”
“Is this what you want?” she asks.
“I love teaching,” I say.
“Sure, but is it what you want?” she presses.
Our conversation is interrupted by the sound of Dallas clearing his throat. He’s leaned against the side of the Memory Machine with his arms folded across his chest.
“Hello, strangers,” he says.
This isn’t my Dallas. I knew that in my gut long before Cilla said anything about alternate realities, or I saw another version of me in the office. But now I feel it, this awful, scraping wrongness, like my insides are being dragged across concrete by a force I can’t see or control.
“What gave us away?” Cilla asks him.
“You did, darling,” this Dallas says. “Well, another you. The Priscilla I know sent me a text, telling me to break a leg during my last dress and saying how she so wished she could be there to see it. It came through right as I watched you walk out of the dressing room.”
“How nice of her to make time for that text while she’s got so many lives to save,” Cilla says. “Where we’re from, you’ve gone missing. Walking through universes, according to something you said to me on the phone.”
This Dallas doesn’t appear surprised. It seems as though he’s already worked out as much for himself. “So let me get this straight,” he says. “The Memory Machine turned on, glowed green, did the countdown and all that, and when you got out, this is where you were?”
“Pretty much,” Cilla replies. “But it glowed red.”
“She’s not a doctor, by the way,” I inform him, just so he has all the relevant information.
“Interesting.” Other Dallas runs a finger along the door of the machine. “If I got a text from another Priscilla, that means you two didn’t replace yourselves in this timeline.”
“We definitely did not. We just left another Marlowe inside your office,” Cilla says.
Other Dallas’s face scrunches up, working through something in his mind as he opens the machine’s door to scrutinize what’s inside.
“Do you care to explain how you think this happened?” I ask. There’s a surprising amount of anger in my voice. More than I’ve ever directed at him before. Even if this isn’t my Dallas, I still can’t quite make sense of the differentiation enough to stop myself from taking this out on him.
“How did you get the passcode?” this Dallas asks, ignoring me.