Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TEN
“Aimee.”
My ears ring.
I’m dizzy.
The sunshine is suddenly as blinding as the flashbulb on a paparazzo’s camera and I feel clammy in the damp air.
Aimee.
Here.
Alive.
And because I just bodychecked her, I know she’s solid, real, and in front of me.
The samenesses of her feel like tiny, unexpected shocks as I notice them, rolling over me one after the other.
Her height.
Her hair color.
Her eye color.
Simple facts you’d put on a driver’s license, and yet these are the things that strike me the most.
She has loomed so large in my memory that it’s odd to see her stand at merely five foot six.
To see her hair color, that particular honeyed brown that feels specific to exactly her and only her.
The color of her eyes that’s somewhere between blue and green—a color our poetry teacher in college once called the color of pond scum , which made us laugh until we almost peed ourselves.
Seeing her irises again for the first time in over a decade, I realize how true and darkly beautiful a description it actually was.
It’s the humanity of her that catches me off guard.
It’s kind of how it feels to meet a celebrity in real life.
Like a real celebrity.
An icon.
I’ve seen Cate Blanchett’s face a hundred times, blown up to the size of the IMAX screen at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, so it felt strange when I stood next to her willowy figure on the red carpet and saw her narrow wrists and the little, almost invisible blond hairs on her arms.
Aimee, here.
Now.
Not only alive, but in perfect condition.
I understand nothing about how or why this is happening, but I am certain, in this moment, of one thing.
I will never leave this life.
Whatever the rules are, I don’t care.
There is no wizard or Ghost of Christmas Anything here to explain the lesson I’m supposed to be learning, much less to wrench me back to my life.
Why would I ever go back?
This isn’t exactly a Sophie’s choice.
Everyone in my life is in this one, except, heart-shatteringly, Dido.
I can’t really think too hard about her; it makes me ache.
But there is no reason, no power strong enough on earth to move me from this spot.
And by that, I mean Avalon.
Because of course, I’m not going to forcibly sit in Aimee’s lap whether she likes it or not, smothering her with the relief I feel.
I can’t be Lenny with the puppy here.
I have to give her some space if I want to have her at all.
But nothing is going to take me away.
“You okay?” she asks.
“You look sick or something.”
This brings me back to reality.
Or as close as I can get right now.
“I’m fine. Did you order?”
My words come out rushed and mangled, like I’ve forgotten how to string the letters together to make words.
“No, I’ll go now. Here, can you put this at the table?”
She hands me her jacket, an ease between us that has managed to stay despite her evident anger with me.
Then she goes to the counter.
Not-Freddy is there, chatting with some girl he’s clearly into.
I take her in some more, now noticing the things that are not the same.
Her hair, tied up in a tortoiseshell clip, is long like always, but she has curtain bangs.
Of course with her hair texture and natural wave she probably didn’t even have to work for them to look that perfect.
She’s still lean and strong-looking, but I can tell somehow that she’s had kids.
There’s a sturdiness to her, a sure-footed gentleness in her posture and her steps that feels more like that of a woman than of a young girl.
Her body looks like it’s endured time, lived through more.
Like she may have nursed her kids, but also taken up running.
She returns after only a minute or two with a mug of black coffee and a packet of raw sugar.
“This is like my third cup today and I still feel exhausted,” she says.
“The kids have been a nightmare, so I’ve been up at five a.m. every day. Hi, Maureen.”
She scratches the dog behind the ears.
“Does Theo help?” I ask.
“With the kids?”
I shrug, regretting the question.
“Yeah.”
“He’s their father, Meg. It’s not help.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, not like they’re your responsibility and that he… you know, that’s not what I meant.” My whole body is hot.
How is this where the conversation went?
It feels like the kind of misstep you have on a date with someone you don’t know at an overpriced cocktail bar in Echo Park while the server cringes and drops off your Negroni riff and you want to go home.
She takes a sip of her coffee and I notice the smile lines by her lips and eyes.
She’s always had those pretty, petite features.
The kind that age well and keep you looking young unless you get up really close, and the age shows maybe a little earlier than on someone with fuller features but it doesn’t matter because you’re so damn pretty.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” she asks.
Nerves undulate in my core at this question.
It’s time.
I have thought a million times about what I’d say to Aimee if she were alive, but I always imagine the middle-of-the-conversation parts, where we’re already fully in the swing of hashing things out.
Never have I imagined the part where I have to get the ball rolling.
And until recently, I never pictured this conversation starting with a science fiction premise of interdimensional travel or whatever.
“Why aren’t we talking?” I ask.
Keep it simple, stupid.
She sighs.
“What do you mean, why ? Like I said on the phone, I don’t know why we have to do this again. We’ve talked. It’s over.”
“What’s over? Us? Our friendship?”
She looks away, and I can tell that it’s a reluctant confirmation.
I feel sick.
“It’s not that our friendship is over. That’s not what I meant. Things are different now. And that’s okay.”
She’s not getting clearer.
I tap my teeth together, deciding quickly what to do.
Then I jump.
“Okay, I’m about to tell you something really weird, and you’ll have to try to trust me for a few minutes. Can you do that for me?”
I have her attention.
“Go on.”
“As far as my memory is concerned, I haven’t seen you since we were nineteen.”
I start there and lead as slowly as I can into the reality of the situation, telling her almost the whole truth.
I tell her about her not getting into Avalon, then me deciding to stay in Florida.
I tell her about Grayson and Dido, I tell her about Brilliance .
I tell her about my birthday party and booking the house.
I tell her everything that’s happened to me in Avalon since I got off the plane.
When I finish, she takes a long pause.
I can see her wheels turning and I feel a pang of affection for her.
I always admired how smart she was.
She came up against any problem or question as if it was the start of a genuine mystery.
Her hair straightener would stop working and she’d bite her bottom lip, furrow her brow, and consider, like it was suspicious instead of annoying.
And, often, she’d fix it.
“That’s not what I expected you to tell me,” she says finally.
“Yeah, I know. Kiera thinks I’ve lost my real memory and that the whole LA actress thing is something I dreamed up. The doctor thinks I’m having some sort of disassociation and that I need to keep up with my general routine. And if it was as simple as not remembering where the local gas station is, or even as simple as not remembering anything about my life, then yeah, I’d assume it was some sort of bizarre amnesia. But it can’t be. I’m telling you.”
“That’s really the only thing that makes any sense, though, isn’t it? I mean, I guess people do get amnesia. It’s insanely rare, but it’s real. And you’re sure you didn’t hit your head?”
“No. I feel completely normal, except everyone here seems to think I live here, and I am completely certain I have an entire other life. There are actually no words for how sure of that I am.”
Though my certainty is starting to weaken.
“You must be… I mean… you have to have had some sort of injury that you don’t remember. And like, your brain made up a story?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say, to be agreeable.
“But I am telling you, I know every detail of my real life. I remember boring days like when I had the stomach flu and stayed home pounding Pepto-Bismol and watching reruns of Vanderpump Rules . And how, actually, I’ve met like half the cast members. They’re always at The Grove. And that, I mean, I know my way around LA. I remember making tacos like five years ago and forgetting to buy the tortillas and having to go back out to Trader Joe’s and the parking at the one on Hyperion was a total mess as usual. I remember every rejection at every audition. I remember awful sunburns and bad haircuts and weird dates and—I don’t think it’s possible to make all of that up like this.”
“This is really weird,” she says.
My heart lifts.
“Do you believe me?”
There’s a very long pause in which she stares at Maureen, who has now settled onto the ground with her head on her paws.
“I mean… it would be really fucked up for you to lie about something like this. That doesn’t seem like you.”
She looks thoughtful, considering me.
I am glad that for all my shortcomings in Avalon, the people here don’t think I’m also a liar on top of it all.
“I know it sounds insane. But I watched the finale of Brilliance last night, and it was so strange to see it because they changed some stuff, and in the end—”
She covers her ears and makes la-la-la sounds.
“I haven’t watched it yet!”
I actually laugh.
The power of a spoiler is interdimensional, and yet still, after a huge HBO finale, The Cut will do a post with the twist in the headline.
“Okay, okay. But watching it—I mean, I know how cold that soundstage is when the lights are off and how boiling it gets when they’re on. I know about the director’s personal life. He has a secret boyfriend, and he takes the Rolls-Royce offset sometimes, which he is not supposed to do but he used to date the transport guy so he gets away with it. Also, that secret boyfriend is named Bob which is kind of the weirdest part of any of it. Bob.”
There’s a flit of amusement in her expression, but it’s gone as quickly as it came.
“I don’t know.”
“The only thing that makes sense is that I am in the other version of my life. The one where I went to Avalon instead of staying home with you when you didn’t get in.”
Her cheeks go pink and I scan her eyes.
She drops her gaze and then clears her throat.
“There’s a lot of quantum science stuff going on. I was listening to an episode of Radiolab about it this morning.”
“Really?”
“Well, not exactly this—it was about how they’re able to see molecules sort of do two things at the same time. It’s complicated, but I think there’s no limit to how unknowable our universe is.”
“I forgot what a science nerd you are.”
She laughs, and my heart breaks a little.
“I like learning.” She takes a sip of her coffee.
Then she gasps and puts a hand to her mouth.
“Oh!”
“What?” I actually look behind me, thinking there’s a man with a nail-skewered baseball bat or something.
“The fortune teller.”
My heart rate slows again.
“Yeah. Usually, there is only one line— ”
“But you had two.”
We had obsessed over that whole experience after it happened.
I had been afraid to bring it up at first, since Aimee’s reading had been so bizarre, possibly dark, but she wanted to talk about it too.
We were bewildered, scared…
and then eventually it became a big joke.
Though I always suspected that we both knew it wasn’t that funny.
I nod and then shake my head.
“It’s insane. You’re the only person who might remotely get how weird it is, especially because of that woman.”
“The way she was after I showed her my hand.” She shivers.
“It freaked me out. I thought I was going to… like… I don’t know. Eat some bad sushi and croak or something.”
I feel suddenly as though I’m skiing down a mountain, hearing the snow creak ominously, an avalanche threatening.
I need to get off the hill.
I nod again as normally as I can and then pretend to think Maureen is eating something off the ground.
When I come back up, Aimee is looking at me.
“Do you swear to me that this is true? To you, anyway?”
I feel such a heavy relief I am almost nauseous.
I hold up my pinky.
Until now, I had forgotten about our pinky promises.
How had I forgotten that?
“I swear everything I’ve said is true.”
Her eyes dart between mine for a moment, searching for the lie.
She’s always been able to tell, but luckily, everything I’ve said is true.
And her psychic radar for lying doesn’t do as well on obfuscation.
“You’re telling the truth,” she says, holding up her pinky, sounding sure but also baffled.
As soon as she touches me, I feel an electric shock course through me at its strange familiarity.
We must have hooked our pinkies together a million times for a million promises.
Pinky swear you think this outfit doesn’t look ugly.
Pinky swear you’ll call me after.
Pinky swear you really heard him say that.
Pinky swear we can leave the second it gets weird.
Pinky swear we’ll never stop being friends.
She releases before I do, and then looks down at her mug.
“I need another cup of coffee.”
While she gets it, I work on breathing in deeply and trying to steady my shaking hands.
It’s Aimee.
It’s her.
Walking.
Talking.
Being suspicious.
Asking things.
Drinking things.
It is beyond surreal.
Beyond weird.
It’s more than my feeble human mind was ever meant to comprehend.
Although, that’s how losing her had felt too.
She comes back after a few minutes, this time with a frozen drink.
“I need the sugar,” she says.
I remember then how she has always been about sugar.
It was always her comfort.
When she felt sad or off, she would get a bag of Sour Skittles or a milkshake and then she’d feel better.
“So, what am I doing in this other life of yours?” she asks.
“Am I famous too?” She smiles, teeth on her straw.
Everything comes crashing down.
Like that avalanche was being held at bay by a twig, but begins to fall the second that it finally snaps.
I feel my blood run cold and I wish that I could wade back in time to a few seconds earlier.
Back to safety.
I’ve felt that way before.
I don’t know what to say to Aimee.
How do you tell your friend she’s dead?