Chapter 12
DESIREE LED ME INTO A ROOM DOWN THE HALL FROM HER OFFICE, where she would show me some sort of special presentation. The room was much like the lecture halls I remembered from college, with rows of seats and whiteboards at the front of the room. The side walls brimmed with portraits of women that looked like they had been painted in the past half-century. She gestured for me to take a seat in the front row, raised a remote at a projection screen and clicked a button.
And thus I was treated to a montage starring a slightly more attractive version of myself—a version of myself that looked eerily like the AI-generated image that Geeta had sent to me. There I was, me but not me, doing a handstand in a field of pale pink wildflowers, sunlight refracting in gorgeous diagonals. Wearing a sleek pantsuit, not unlike Desiree’s getup, accepting an award in the ornate townhouse I recognized as the James Beard Foundation. Seated front row at a fashion show in a sheer dress with over-the-knee boots showing through, working my angles as the paparazzi shouted my name.
The next scene featured a version of myself with toned abs and intricate silk lingerie, astride a dark-haired man who most certainly was not Hal. The man took off my bra and lobbed it across the room like a cowboy spinning a lasso.
Desiree tittered. “Alex is such a character!”
“Who is Alex? Besides being incredibly good looking?”
She ignored my question, and kept staring ahead at the montage. Now I was at some kind of gala dressed in a slinky ballgown. I was laughing with Keisha and Leigh. The three of us were the picture of fulfillment and joy. Instead of hopelessness and insecurity, I radiated confidence. An arm swung into the image. I saw the limb didn’t belong to Geeta but to Alessandra, whom I double-kissed with the ease of a lifelong jetsetter.
The trailer of my alternate life faded to black.
“Where’s Geeta?” I asked.
“That’s what you have to say?” Desiree’s face flooded with irritation. “This is your story, Jenny. When are you going to be Player A?”
Her question reminded me of something Geeta was fond of saying: Every relationship has a Player A and a Player B. A leader and a follower, a first in command and a second banana. But I’d always thought she was talking about romantic relationships—like hers and Matt’s, for example—not the two of us. We were never in a race.
“You are the driver here,” Desiree intoned. “I am just giving you the keys. You understand?”
“Sure,” I said, even though I didn’t.
“Feel free to open the app and fuel up. You’ll want to tap the Pathetic button first.”
I scrabbled for my phone and pressed the red button labeled Pathetic. Now I was treated to a series of photos of Geeta and Leigh hanging out without me. There was Geeta embracing Leigh at a clambake event sponsored by a luxury handbag maker. I stiffened and scrolled down. There they were, laughing at Leigh’s gallery opening, the one I had missed because I couldn’t afford a ticket to LA and was too proud to accept another handout from Geeta. There was Alice seated in the front row at the Bruce Springsteen show on Broadway, the tickets to which cost $20,000, money that undoubtedly came from the foundation’s coffers. Oh, and there was Hal with the flowing long hair he’d had a few years ago. He was making out with someone who was not me—and not Brie either. My breath went short.
“Those are all real,” Desiree told me. “Things you’ve lived through without realizing they were happening.”
“What the hell? How did you dig all this up?”
“Everyone’s a little different but we’ve discovered that for you, self-loathing is your very own flux capacitor,” she said, not answering my question. “These images will precipitate feelings that will hasten your journey.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as my phone started making a strange noise, like a plane about to take off.
“We’re leading you to states of self-doubt, jealousy, regret,” Desiree rattled off, her voice vibrating with excitement. “They are infused with the energy that will allow you to traverse the wormhole and rewrite your past. All you need to do is keep looking at those pictures. Harness your fuel, like a sailor helping herself to the wind! And when you’re ready, head over to Kinetic.”
I was marinating in more bad feelings than I could stand. I tapped the Kinetic button. A message flashed:
Your outrage levels are sufficient to propel you back in time.
“Well done,” said Desiree. “Now flip to the bakery fire.”
I hesitated.
“Just think of how happy and smug your supposed friends are,” Desiree said, egging me on. “And how two-faced and selfish! It’s high time you took care of yourself.”
So I did as told, and scrolled toward that fateful date from the summer of 2009. The phone emitted a flash of light, and my hands began to tremble.
The last thing I remembered was leaning forward and burying my head between my knees. I felt sicker than I ever had in my entire suboptimal life.