Chapter 17 NoelleOctober Cam
17 Noelle
June 20, Version 110, or thereabouts. I’m losing track
ME: Any plans for the day? How about I come over?
DALTON: Aren’t you working?
ME: No, I have the day off.
DALTON: Sure! Whenever you’re free. Lenora usually naps at two.
I arrive at my brother’s apartment just as Lenora is finishing lunch. My fourteen-month-old niece has some jam on her nose and peanut butter below her ear. There’s a half-chewed stick of cucumber on the tray of her high chair.
Dalton takes her out and wipes her off.
“Can you say hi to Auntie Noelle?” He waves in my direction.
Lenora waves at me, then buries her head against her father’s shoulder.
“It’s been so long,” I say, leaning in to hug them.
Dalton frowns. “We saw you at Mom and Dad’s last weekend.”
Oh, right.
“Well, uh, it’s been a long time since I visited your place.” I’m pretty sure this is correct. The problem is that I’m starting to forget details of my life before June 20.
“Very true,” Dalton says, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. I don’t sound too confused.
Dalton is two years younger than me. Since his wife finished her mat leave, he’s been a stay-at-home father. He’s wanted kids of his own ever since he was a small child himself; when Madison came home from the hospital, he was enamored with her. He was so excited to have a little sister. He gave her toys and tried to comfort her when she cried, whereas I was indifferent. He also enjoyed pretending to be the parent of his stuffed hippo and beloved Ninja Turtle.
When my brother heads to the living room, I follow. One side of the floor is covered in a colorful alphabet play mat.
“How about you sit here with your auntie while I clean up?” He sets Lenora down and walks away.
“Daddy!” She starts bawling and runs after him.
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it during your nap.” He sits cross-legged on the mat and brings a few toys closer for her inspection.
“Am-ee,” she says.
I have no idea what that means, but Dalton reaches for a plastic wrench and sets it in front of her.
“Am-ee!” She smacks it against a yellow plastic toy, which starts singing the numbers.
I wonder how many times he hears that every day.
As we watch Lenora whack a plushie with her wrench, Dalton says, “Mona’s pregnant.”
“Oh my god!” I say. “Congratulations.” I give him a hug. “Do Mom and Dad know?”
He smiles. “We’re going to tell them next weekend.”
I mime zipping my lips. “How far along is she?”
“Thirteen weeks. At the end of the year, you’re going to be a big sister, aren’t you, Lenora?”
“Daddy! Up!”
He pulls her into his lap.
Eventually, she’s distracted enough that Dalton is able to disappear into the kitchen without her noticing, but when she realizes he’s gone—about four minutes later—she wails like she’s been grievously betrayed. She scampers off with her wrench and stuffed monkey in hand… and she trips on the edge of the tile floor, which is slightly higher than the parquet. I see it happen as if in slow motion, but I’m not close enough to stop it. Her head hits the leg of the coffee table, and she wails even louder.
Dalton is there in a flash, scooping her into his arms and examining her injury. No blood, but I suspect she’ll have a bruise.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, and within two minutes, she’s running around again.
Next time, I promise myself, I’ll stop that accident from happening.
On the bus, I pull out my phone to text Cam. It’s not until I fail to find his contact info that it hits me.
Cam Huang doesn’t know who I am. The man who’s watched several movies with me, beaten me twice at bowling—and lost to me at mini-golf—doesn’t know who I am, even though he’s kissed me dozens of times.
If I text him right now, he’ll assume I have the wrong number.
I don’t know how I forgot. After all, this has been my life for quite a while. But it also happened when Dalton told me about Mona’s pregnancy: I failed to realize that as long as I’m stuck in this loop, I’ll never meet their new baby. I’ll never see Lenora get older.
I feel a keen sense of anguish.
Yes, I can try out different hair colors. I can eat expensive foods. I can even travel to New York and go up the Empire State Building.
But nothing can change, not really. Anything that happens is washed away at three in the morning, existing only in my and Avery’s memories.
And even then… everything is blurring together.
I head to Leaside Brewing rather than going straight home.
“Hey,” Cam says from behind the bar. “Have we met before? You look really, really familiar, but I can’t recall your name.”
I force myself not to wince.
“No.” I don’t introduce myself. “A pint of the Corktown, please.”
“Somehow, I knew you were going to order that.”
I shrug as he sets it in front of me.
He doesn’t attempt any more conversation; he’s respecting the fact that I clearly want to drink my beer in peace.
I can’t believe you don’t know me. You had your tongue down my throat last night!
This has happened countless times before, but it hurts. Any comfort I derived from the predictability of our interactions is fading. I’m irrationally annoyed with him, even though it’s not his fault. I wish I could shake my world, like I could shake one of Lenora’s toys, in the hopes of getting all the moving parts working again.
I remind myself that when it comes to Cam, I like the time loop. In fact, it’s the reason I’ve allowed myself to spend so much time with him, even once I realized that kissing wouldn’t get me out of the loop. As long as he doesn’t remember me, we can’t have a real relationship, just a fun first date.
Now, however, I’m not so fond of it.
Yet how can I want a relationship? That’s the one thing I wished to avoid.
You think you know someone, after five years… and then they break your heart, and there’s nobody to help you pick up the pieces. People do unexpected, irrational things, and a romantic relationship is orders of magnitude riskier than a dramatic haircut—and I didn’t even try a new haircut until I got stuck on June 20.
I remember crying over Dave, wishing he hadn’t changed and ended our relationship. And now I’m dating a guy who can’t change, and it’s not all I’d thought it would be. Of course, this is an unusual situation; it’s certainly not what I had in mind when nursing a shattered heart.
Cam comes over and gestures to my almost-empty pint. “You want another?”
Today, he’s just a bartender to me. Maybe he thinks I’m attractive, but he isn’t going to do anything about it.
“Give me a minute to decide,” I say.
Sure, it hurt that Dave dumped me out of the blue, but a whole bunch of other things are hurting me now. The man I’m falling for literally doesn’t remember my name… and I fear I’ll never meet my new niece or nephew. Did I think that by swearing off relationships, I’d completely avoid emotional pain?
Rather than getting something on draft, I scan the QR code for the bottle/can list and quickly find the one I want.
The yuzu wheat beer.
I ask Cam for one of those, and he soon brings over a cold can and a glass. As I take my first sip, I recall sitting on the patio with him, the warm evening air on my face, and I grimace. It’s almost physically painful to me that he’s forgotten all our dates.
I do like the beer, as he thought I might, though it’s hard to truly enjoy it.
He doesn’t properly remember me, but I’ve become attached to him.
I’ve never tried to go further than a kiss. It seems wrong, when he doesn’t know the truth about our “relationship,” but maybe I could try telling him.
I’ve been to the brewery enough times that I have a pretty good idea of who comes in and what they order. Now, I pay closer attention, and I write it all down in the notes app on my phone.
3:25: Man and woman in their forties, both wearing Jays jerseys. He orders the stout. She orders the IPA.
3:40: Group of four men in their twenties and thirties. They order nachos with no green onions. Two get IPAs. The other two get pilsners.
Etc.
Of course, this document won’t exist tomorrow, so when I get home, I do my best to commit it to memory. Then I text Avery.
ME: Went to see my brother today. What did you do?
I don’t get an answer.
The next morning, Avery and I exchange our usual morning texts. She tells me that she was too despondent about doing the same things over and over to reply yesterday. Concerned, I suggest that we do something together today, but she declines and asks how it’s going with Cam.
I hesitate before explaining my plans to tell him the truth. She’s skeptical it’ll work—the proof I have isn’t enough to make up for the unbelievability of the situation—and I don’t blame her, but it’s worth a shot.
Then I text my brother again and ask if I can come over.
When we’re all settled on the play mat, Lenora says, “Am-ee!” and I instinctively reach for the plastic wrench.
“How did you know what she meant?” Dalton asks.
“You mentioned it the other day,” I say brightly, hoping to cover up my mistake.
“Oh, right. I probably did, but she’s had a few terrible nights of sleep, and sometimes my mind is like a sieve. Also…” He smiles. “Mona’s pregnant.”
I act appropriately surprised and delighted, and I try not to betray any fear that I’ll never meet Lenora’s sibling.
And when my niece scampers toward the kitchen, I grab her before she can hit her head.
Once again, I don’t introduce myself to Cam. I just sit at the bar with my beer and type out everything that I think will occur. And then I watch it happen.
I’m all ready for tomorrow.