Chapter 31
PITTSBURGH
JUNE 16, 2022, 6:27 A.M.
AGE: 35
JENNY? YOU OKAY?” HAL WAS RAKING MY HAIR BACK FROM MY FOREHEAD. “I think you were having a nightmare.”
My body spasmed as I returned to the present. “What was I saying?”
“It was hard to understand, but something to do with having a baby. You sounded terrified, so I guess we’re on the same page.” Hal laughed uncomfortably.
I gave a moan as August 6, 2019, came flooding back. The follicles. The babies. The phone number that was missing from my contacts. The “This message was not delivered.” I bolted up in bed and tugged on the lamp chain. Hal and I were on top of the covers. He was wearing a ratty U2 T-shirt and boxer briefs, his legs haphazardly splayed.
“Thursday, right?” I said.
“What?” Hal replied groggily.
“I mean, today is Thursday?”
“Yes, I think so. Very early on Thursday.” Hal reached across my side of the bed to turn the light off. “Why?”
I didn’t respond. Only one day to my birthday. Only one day to make the leap into the new realm of possibility. How could I sleep? I turned the light back on.
Our bedroom, I saw, was an even more orderly paradise than the last time. While I was journeying through the contrafactual universe, Hal had apparently finished his organization project. My phone flashed a new badge: a pregnant-woman emoji. I turned the screen away from Hal.
“What’s going on with you?” He sounded concerned.
“I’m overwhelmed,” I said. “One day to go till the big three-six.”
“Saying goodbye to your misspent youth?”
“Terribly misspent,” I said.
Hal rubbed his eyes. “Come on. Are you going to do this again?”
“Do what?”
“Wallow in the past?”
“No!” I said indignantly. “It’s just that thirty-six seems like the moment when you... lock into adulting.” I felt proud of myself for finding a way to tell the truth without violating the terms of my deal.
“Uh... okay. I didn’t realize it was so monumental,” Hal mumbled. “I thought I’d make a reservation at the Falcon’s Nest.”
The Falcon’s Nest was the new gastropub I’d been wanting to try for the past few months. It was a hot table. Of course Hal hadn’t even bothered to make a reservation yet. Knowing him, though, he’d figure out a way to make it happen. Just as I was about to say something about it, I noticed a paperback on his bedside table Flash II: Dream When Awake by Alex Stone.
I reached over and picked it up in disbelief. “Are you reading this, Hal?”
“I’m sleeping, not reading,” Hal said, pulling the sheet over his face. I pushed it down and put the book in front of his face.
“Is this yours?” I asked again.
“You think I would subscribe to this pop-psychology business guru bullshit?” Hal snorted. “Your mother sent it to you for your birthday. I was in a hurry and I opened the package by accident. Sorry.”
I flipped the book over and studied Alex Stone’s author photograph. It took up the whole back cover. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, his ramrod-straight back against a tree trunk, Alex had the good looks of a Roman gladiator. His feet were bare, his linen shirt artfully unbuttoned. He appeared to be intelligent, thoughtful. Someone my mother would be into.
Something about the image made me feel uneasy, though. Alex was attentive, rich, and handsome—modern-day Cinderella bait—but why couldn’t my Memo husband be someone I enjoyed spending time with? If I did Memo life long enough, maybe I’d get to remarry eventually. That was probably the case.
“Look at that clown,” Hal said, taking the book and pointing at Alex. “‘Oh, look at me, I am a ridiculous thought leader, come listen to my TED Talk and plan your next billion-dollar business in your sleep. For an extra grand, I’ll show you how to stick wires up your butt to monitor your every fart.’”
I suppressed a laugh. I tried to remember a single time Alex had made me laugh—not just an eager-to-please bark, but a real belly laugh. Then I remembered to be insulted on Alex’s behalf. How dare my boyfriend insult my husband from another universe!
“Well, he’s very successful and people seem to like what he is saying,” I said defensively, grabbing the book out of Hal’s hands and putting it on my nightstand. “This is mine, not yours,” I said.
“I shouldn’t have opened your birthday present from your mom,” Hal said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
There’s a shocker. I said nothing, though. What was the point? I’d already made enough trouble for two lifetimes. Hal would be somebody else’s problem soon enough.
“Come on. Let’s have breakfast.”
Hal seemed to be having different thoughts, though.
“You’re only going to be thirty-five for one more day. We might as well make the most of it,” he said.
He tugged my T-shirt, and one thing led to another. Neither of us said a word the whole while. It was eerily intense. Lucky Brie.
Afterward, a feeling of warmth and gratitude for Hal came over me. I reached out and held his hand. There were parts of him I was really going to miss. Like his calves. And his sex. His sense of humor. And his make-up sex.
“Hey,” I said. “Can you make me one last smoothie?”
Hal gave me a funny look. “Are you dying or something?”
“My last smoothie as a thirty-five-year-old,” I rushed to say.
“Uh, sure,” he said, shaking his head bemusedly. Hal got up and got to work mixing powders and nut milks, frozen fruit chunks, and juices. The result was jade-colored, and I detected pineapple. It was much better than the dirt-flavored smoothie that I’d chugged in that gleaming apartment Alex and I shared.
A half an hour later, I was just about ready for work when someone started banging on our apartment door and shouting my name. It was a woman’s voice, shrill and speedy. It sounded a lot like Alice.
I looked through the peephole and got my confirmation. A few months had passed since the last time my boss, foaming at the mouth about some total nonemergency, had shown up at my home, I still wasn’t completely dressed and opened the door warily.
“Jenny.” Alice was out of breath. “I’ve been calling and calling. Where have you been?”
“Right here, getting ready for you,” I told Alice. I guessed I hadn’t heard my phone vibrating while Hal and I were getting busy for what would undoubtedly be the last time ever.
“We need to talk about Levi Fischer,” she said, barging into my living room.
“I know, I’m on it.”
“Bloody hell,” Alice said.
She grabbed the remote off the coffee table and turned on CNN. The chyron said: “Coast Guard Searches for Missing Gulfstream Owned by Billionaire Tech Investor.” The screen showed a picture of Levi Fischer.
“His plane took off in Bermuda and was headed to New York,” Alice said, trembling. “The newscaster said something about unidentified passengers.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Wait—who was he with?” I turned to Hal, who was lingering by the fridge, then back to face Alice. “When we were on our call I heard him talk to somebody about flying to Bermuda. I think it was—” I couldn’t even say Geeta’s name. It would make it all too real. I was hyperventilating now. “I think he was with Geeta,” I said at last. “Geeta Brara.”
“He had a lot of little unicorns,” Alice said dryly.
“She is not a little unicorn,” I replied. “She’s my best friend.”
“That’s really tender and special,” Alice said. It was obvious that she didn’t care if Geeta was dead or alive. In fact, the former might have been preferable to her because it would open up a slot on the Changemakers List.
“Breaking news: the coastguard is now looking at this as a retrieval, not a rescue,” the anchor said. I stared at the television, completely dumbstruck.
“Just tell me the transfer is on track,” Alice said. It’s all locked in place? We need this. And it’s why I hired you.
I couldn’t even process what she was asking me. This man—a horrible man, but still a human being—had apparently died in a tragic accident and all she cared about was whether she was in possession of some of his cash. “You got a commitment? Tell me you got a commitment.” Alice was practically growling.
“Is that really what you’re here to ask me—if a dead guy said he’d write you a check? Wasn’t he your friend? What is wrong with you, Alice?”
I grabbed my phone and ran into our tiny bathroom, locking the door behind me. Crouched down on the floor, I searched for Geeta’s number. I was relieved to see it was still at the top of my favorites list. When she picked up, her voice sounded muted, thin.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” I incanted. “Thank god. You weren’t on the plane.”
She was silent for a moment, and I heard a door close on her end. I pictured her finding refuge in a corner of her own.
“How did you know I was supposed to be on that plane?” she asked me.
“I just had a feeling.” I leaned my back against the wall.
“We were planning to go to Bermuda, for a working mini-vacation. The girls, Matt, and me. Levi wanted me to come, to give me the term sheet for my company’s next round of financing.”
“Oh my god. The girls,” I said. She was going to bring the girls.
Geeta sniffled. “I got your voice message when I was in San Francisco,” she said quietly. “It made no sense, but I listened. It occurred to me that sometimes plans are meant to be broken. Even the opportunities you think you can’t say no to... you can, as long as you’re ready to face the consequences.”
She didn’t need to say the rest. I understood: She’d gone against her Memo. “You didn’t sound like your normal self,” she went on, swallowing audibly. “And I wanted to come see you for your birthday. So I had Matt head home with the girls and I booked a flight to Pittsburgh instead. I’m taking the red-eye.”
“You’re coming here? I asked, shocked. “But what about Alessandra’s summer solstice party? The one you all were pumped up about at the reunion.”
“Please. Why go to a gala where Beyoncé is performing when you can fly across the country and back to see your bestie? I thought I could take a cue from you for once. You know, do the unexpected thing. I was really upset by how she treated you at the reunion. It wasn’t cool. I should have said something earlier.” A warm sensation spread over me as Geeta kept talking.
“Remember that American history seminar we took our junior year? How we were supposed to write a research paper on how Enlightenment philosophers influenced the farmers, and you handed in a historical romance?”
“Dimly,” I said, though I knew exactly what she was talking about. I’d gotten so carried away during my research that I’d ended up writing a novella from the point of view of an innkeeper’s wife.
“Which one of us got an A?” she asked.
“You got an A, too,” I said.
“A minus,” she said. “Believe me, I remember these things. And Leigh—she was so pissed.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“It’s everything, Jenny! I’ve always wanted to be more like you. Only one of us marches to her own rhythms.”
“Rhythms that cause me to walk into walls...”
“Only when you stop listening to yourself.” A moment of silence followed. “You told me to trust you in your voicemail... God, I can’t believe Levi’s...” She was crying again.
I squeezed my eyes shut. It was all too much. Geeta’s faith in me had saved her life. Which, essentially, saved mine. Because I couldn’t fathom a world without Geeta.
The next realization hit me like a thud. I remembered the preview that Desiree had shown me when she was trying to lure me into an adventure in blitz-tracking back at the S.C.S.S. Center. I’d seen Leigh, Keisha, and even Alex. But Geeta wasn’t in the picture. When I’d questioned her absence, Desiree told me not to dwell on it. Now I knew why: In an alternate world where I got the Memo, there’d be no Geeta. In that world, where we were ex-friends at best, she was sticking to the script. The one that told her to board Levi’s stupid plane.
In the world where she’d been vanishing from my life bit by bit, she was about to vanish from everyone’s lives for good. But maybe, just maybe, I could save her there too.