Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I wake up the next morning to the sound of a metallic crash.
I shoot up in bed, my heart racing a million miles a minute, and rub my eyes until I can see clearly.
Kiera tiptoes into the doorway.
“Feck, I hoped it hadn’t woken you.”
The sound would have woken Beethoven.
“It’s fine,” I say.
Then, smelling the air, “Is something burning?”
Her eyebrows shoot up in alarm and she vanishes from my sight.
I walk into the kitchen and see that it’s been completely overturned.
The faucet is running over a steaming pan, the gas stove is on but unoccupied, there’s a pile of cheese grated on the butcher block, and there’s been an explosion of flour.
It has settled onto most surfaces like a fine dusting of snow.
“This is nice,” I quip.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
She actually has a swipe of flour on her cheekbone, putting me in mind of the harried women of rom-com lore who run around in a frenzy until they find a boyfriend who reminds them to take things one step at a time.
On the ground, Maureen licks up some spilled sugar.
It strikes me as funny but I pull her away from it.
“I don’t care about the mess! It’s more like… how the hell did you even make such a mess?”
“I’m not a very good cook.”
“I’ll say.”
“I didn’t want to show up empty-handed! Last time I went to a party at Aimee’s, all the other lads brought somethin’ and I looked like an eejit.”
“Why don’t you bring something from the shop?”
“I thought it might— Well, it doesn’t matter now. I was trying to be thoughtful.”
I look at the clock that ticks from the wall of the living room.
“We’ve got an hour.”
We both survey the kitchen.
“I’ll clean it up. Could you nip over and get something?”
“Sure.”
Kiera glowers at her mess.
“Get a bottle of something and some of those chips. We’ll pay for it tomorrow. And chocolate maybe, even though she’ll hate us for bringing sugar over for the children. It’ll be locked, don’t forget.”
“Do I have a key?”
“It’s on your key ring. The big gold one.”
She reaches under the sink and grabs a bottle of spray and a roll of paper towels.
I slip on a pair of sneakers, grab Maureen, and take off down the village road.
It’s a sunny, slightly dewy morning, and I muse that Ireland’s reputation for unendingly miserable weather is another one of those foreign misconceptions, or perhaps a rumor perpetuated by residents who don’t want the island overrun with tourists.
There is still a dampness to the air that somehow feels alive and fresh, liberating and refreshing.
Florida’s humidity feels like dog breath.
Southern California is mostly very dry and monotonously temperate.
But this is like wading through wispy rain clouds.
Thinking of Florida, I decide to call my mom again.
I feel sure she won’t answer, but to my surprise, she picks up.
“Hello?”
“Mom! Hi. You’ve been hard to get ahold of.”
“Oh, sorry, babe. We’ve been so busy lately. But we’re getting pretty good at pickleball, and then all the rigmarole of getting here.”
I shake my head.
This is so weird.
How did me moving to Ireland at age eighteen change things in the butterfly effect chain enough that my parents picked up pickleball?
“Getting where? Can we Facetime?” I ask.
I can hear her eyes rolling.
“You know how I feel about that. But fine.”
I pull my phone away from my ear and press the button.
My mom’s face appears.
She’s the same, and it makes me want to burst into tears.
Good old Mom.
I want to curl up in a ball in her lap and watch old episodes of Frasier with her while she makes me pasta with too much butter and cheese.
What is unfamiliar, however, is the setting behind her.
A mountain carved into a crystalline blue sky, speckled with candy-colored buildings.
“Actually I’m glad we’re doing the Facetime because isn’t this gorgeous? It’s simply stunning.”
I squint at the sight as she pans to a beach with red-and-white-striped umbrellas and loungers, calm water reaching out endlessly to a horizon.
“Wait, where are you?”
“What do you mean? We’re at the hotel. Just got in last night.”
It looks like she’s on the Amalfi Coast.
“Two seconds, Mom.”
I switch out of the call and into the Find My app.
If it’s anything like my real life, I am anxiously following all my loved ones.
There they are.
Mom and Dad are in Positano.
And Kiera, Aimee, and Cillian are all less than a mile away.
“Meggie?”
“Sorry.” I go back to the call.
“Positano! Looks nice.”
“It’s heaven. Truly. So what was the call about the other day? Some brunch game? We’re getting ready to go to lunch, but I have time.”
“Is that Meg?”
I hear my dad’s voice, and then my mom turns the screen so I can see him.
He comes into frame and I feel a warm surge of affection for him.
He also looks the same as ever.
Maybe a little fitter.
“How’s LA?” he asks.
My mom glares at him.
“I thought you gave her the money to—” says my dad.
She shushes him patiently and looks to me to answer.
“LA?” I ask.
“Did you change your mind? When I saw you were still in Avalon, I wondered.”
God, this is a tight rope to tread.
I consider telling them the truth.
Just as quickly, I decide I definitely can’t.
She has plans.
She never goes out and does fun things.
She never goes to Italy.
Well, maybe this version of her does, but still.
I can’t dump all of this on her, because realistically, if I tell her, she’s going to think I’ve had some kind of breakdown.
Then my parents would probably end up hopping on the next flight to Ireland.
And as much as I’d love that right now, I don’t think that’s what anyone really needs.
If all this doesn’t begin to make sense soon, I’ll tell her.
Maybe I am having a breakdown, but I need a little longer to make sure.
“Listen, I know I got a little protective when you talked about going. It’s just, Hollywood, you know? It’s got such a terrible reputation for taking talented people like you and ruining their lives. Even when it goes well!”
I’m starting to get it.
I was going to LA.
To move or to visit, I’m not sure.
“I was just going to scope it out,” I say, tentatively.
“Right, and that’s why I shouldn’t have freaked out. It would be nice to have you back in the States, even if it is pretty far still. Maybe you’d visit more!”
Ha.
Try never .
“Right,” I say.
“Are you okay, Meg? You seem a little…” She makes a hand and head gesture I recognize of hers that means topsy-turvy .
“I’m about to go to Aimee’s house for Clare’s birthday party, so I’m a little frazzled. That’s why I canceled the trip,” I improvise.
“Aimee finally wanted to patch things up so I had to take her up on it.”
I gamble on the fact that I’ve told my mom everything, including that Aimee and I are not speaking.
I brace for them to say Aimee’s been dead for years.
They exchange a look and then I’m certain that’s what they’ll say.
“Really? Oh, that’s wonderful!”
“That’s great,” says my dad.
“Tell her we say hello, will you?”
“And give those sweet little ones a squeeze from us! Oh, they must be so happy to have their Auntie Meggie back.”
My cheeks sting.
“Yeah, of course.” I try to think of a way to ask a question, get some more information, that doesn’t make me sound like I’ve traveled through space and time.
“So how’s Positano?”
“Well, like I said, it’s heaven. There’s no other word for it. When Jenny and Joe couldn’t stop raving about it, we decided, let’s do it!”
Jenny and Joe are Aimee’s parents.
In real life, they’re still friends too, but my mom never mentions them to me.
“Oh, you should go to Grotta Fresca, everyone loves it.” I stop myself, wondering if this version of me would say something like that.
I know about Positano because every celebrity and influencer goes as often as possible and comes back talking about the amazing octopus they had that was fresh from the sea that morning.
“Instagram,” I say to explain.
This works for my parents, who nod.
“Okay, we’ll see if we can get a table. If you’re sure everything is okay, then I guess I have to let you go. Jenny and Joe are on their way over, and I need to touch up my face before we all take off. Call me and let me know what happens with Aimee.”
“Will do,” I say, not mentioning how bizarre it is to me that Aimee’s and my parents are in Italy together.
Happy.
Whole.
Unmarred by tragedy.
“Love you.”
“Okay, love you guys,” I say.
“Thanks, Mom. Bye, Dad.”
Before she hangs up, I see her face light up at the sight of someone else walking into her vicinity and I hear her say, “Oh, speak of the devil, I was talking—”
The phone disconnects.
A moment later my mom sends me a text.
You seem stressed.
Call me back if you need, anytime.
I send back a heart emoji.
Once I get to Dinner Party, I splash my face in the employee bathroom and pick out some chips and a bottle of wine.
I grab a small bar of chocolate for myself and a big bar for Aimee, toss them in a gift bag, and close up.
Confusion having built up, I take advantage of being alone by shouting, “ What the fuck is going on?” as loudly as I can.
Silence answers me.
Maureen stares at me.
As I walk back, I wonder about the ticket my mom mentioned.
I go through the phone to see if I can find one, and sure enough, there is a ticket from Dublin to Los Angeles.
It’s for the same exact time that I took my flight to Dublin from LAX.
Something clicks in my mind and I stop walking.
Maybe this is what happened.
The two versions of me made the same, opposite choice at the same time.
And it caused my universe to split into two.
Is the other me there, in my world?
Is she eating steak tartare at Dunsmoor and looking through her phone’s contact list, marveling at all the famous names?
Is she using Face ID to log into Chase, looking at the six-figure checking balance and feeling free at last?
I bet she’d be over the moon.
I mean, waking up super skinny, famous, and rich would probably be a dream come true.
But what happens when she hits Aimee’s contact and gets no answer?
I’ve never deleted it.
Couldn’t.
Even though, of course, calling it would probably reach someone else now.
How long would it take her to discover the truth?
What evidence did I leave in that life, besides her absence, that she is gone?
And how much would she care?
I want to assume it would devastate her, but that version of me sounds so self-involved that maybe it would feel like a worthy cost for her dream life.
I have a feeling that if she is there, she wants to come back to reality as little as I do.
My stomach does an uneasy turn as I think of my own impending return ticket.
I never want any vacation to end, but in the case of this trip, I genuinely don’t think I can cope if it does.
When I arrive back at the cottage, Kiera has completely finished cleaning the kitchen.
“When you make as many messes as I do, you get pretty efficient at cleaning them up,” she explains.
I consider telling her about the ticket that Avalon-me had, and even mentioning my own ticket back, but when I see her happily getting ready for the party, I decide I can’t talk about my drama all the time.
I have to be better than the me I just privately considered to be self-involved.
I then speed into getting ready mode, rummaging through the closet for something to wear.
I land on a long lace-and-cotton dress and a pair of strappy, well-worn leather sandals.
I put on the same basic makeup I would do on any other given day, surprised to see that I have gravitated toward some of the same products in this reality as in my other.
Same ILIA mascara and Rare Beauty blush.
When I come into the living room, ready to go, Kiera’s jaw drops.
“What?” I ask.
“You look gorgeous,” she says.
“Cillian won’t be able to take his eyes off you. Though he never can.”
“Really?” I look down at the dress.
“I feel very normal looking.”
“It’s the makeup—it looks so much better than usual, so pretty and professional looking. You look like a—”
I grin.
“Do I look like a mooovie star , is that what you were going to say?”
“That is what I was going to say, and I’m glad I didn’t, because it seems like it would have made you more insufferable.”
“You know, in my old life, I had a glam squad made up of these four Scandinavian guys named Rod, Ron, Rob, and Roy. I must have picked up a thing or two from watching them do my makeup constantly.”
“Clearly.”
“They had a podcast called The Male Gays . Spelled g-a-y-s .”
“Cute.”
“They were friends with Oprah.”
“Christ.” She then gives me a look.
“Do you know you just called it your old life ?”
I replay the scene back in my head and hear myself.
“Huh.”
“Don’t know what it means, but it’s interesting.” We head toward the door and Kiera adds, “Cillian bought you that dress, you know. At some shop in County Kerry. You loved it but said you’d never wear it. He bought it for you anyway, and you were right, you never wore it.”
“Why?”
“Said something about being afraid of ruining it.”
“It’s a miracle I don’t have plastic casing on the couch.”
I decide to leave Maureen in case Cillian is there and wants to steal her back.
Or, I guess, repossess his own dog.
I’ll ask him if it’s okay to keep her another night, and give her back if he says no.
Aimee lives only a ten-minute walk from the house, and after about seven minutes, we start to hear music.
She lives in a cute cottage not unlike Surrey House, but it’s bigger and the backyard is enormous.
There are tons of people there, and I have to assume it really is the entire population of Avalon.
As soon as I process this, I realize that this was perhaps a very big mistake.
“If it starts to feel weird, we can go,” says Kiera, reading my mind.
“Okay,” I say.
If Kiera’s right and her mom did tell the whole town, then it’ll be a lot of people with questions.
It’s the first time since arriving in Avalon that I feel the old LA sensation—the one where I get overwhelmed in a crowd of people because all of them know me and I don’t know any of them.
The good news is, I’m used to it.
The people of Avalon are nice, warm, and friendly.
What I notice most is that everyone is comfortable.
There’s no posturing here.
No preening or sucking in of the stomach.
The women are all attractive in their way, if not in the cloney Hollywood way.
It’s interesting how the lack of vanity has made them all infinitely more appealing.
The partygoers chat and throw their heads back in laughter and talk with loud voices over each other.
The din is joyful and pleasant, everyone happy to get together.
Kiera drops our gifts on the kitchen table where other people seem to have done the same, then we each pour a cup of cider from a keg marked Bulmers in a bucket of ice, and I feel a little funny.
In LA, before the fame, I spent most of my time auditioning and being very serious about making connections, and when I did go out, it was usually to wait in lines for Davey Wayne’s, get my purse stolen at the Abbey, or sit in the nosebleeds for a Tchaikovsky fireworks show at the Hollywood Bowl.
I only really attended parties in the last few years.
I’ve been to weird hangs in Echo Park that served Funyuns ironically and where the guests were basically all former or current cast members of SNL , and I’ve been to fancy parties in the Hollywood Hills where there were security men at every door and everyone in attendance looked vaguely famous, very famous, or like they wished they were famous, like my birthday party the other night.
I haven’t been to something like this, where it’s normal people having a good time, not taking themselves too seriously, in as long as I can remember.
The band is vibrant and cheerful.
Half the party attendees are dancing or chatting, and the other half are watching the music with happy, deferent silence.
More than one person comes up to me and says something like Do you remember me?
or Oy, tell Brad Pitt I’ll leave my husband for him!
But without a doubt, all of them are good-natured, looking to tease me.
As if I had a funny dream about being a famous actress, and they want to get their digs in.
Kiera and I drink our ciders and laugh along.
We watch some of the couples dancing and she tells me who is who, who used to be married to whom, who owns what local business, and who I apparently know and like best.
All the while, I look around for Aimee, bothered by the fact that I haven’t found her yet.
I’m learning about how someone named Timmy Kane once took me on a date to a falconry and an owl became obsessed with his hair and he’d been so embarrassed that he never looked me in the eyes again.
I feel a warm hand on my shoulder.
There’s a soothing, strange familiarity to the touch, and I already know who I’ll see when I turn around.
“Cillian,” I say.
“You’re wearing the dress,” he says as a greeting.
“I— Uh, yeah.” I look down and smooth it with my free hand.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
He nods tightly and then says, “I hear you don’t remember any of it.”