Chapter 13
LA is breaking my heart.
I don’t want it to be true, but it’s my official conclusion as I fling open the door to our apartment, Chipotle in hand, ready to eat my feelings.
I didn’t tell Parker what happened. I didn’t need to. He saw it all over my face. I practically had to jump on top of him in the parking lot and seize his phone to keep him from making two hundred calls immediately, eviscerating Craig Coleman and his reputation.
Staring into Parker’s earnest face, its angles and edges and naivete, I felt the gap in our ages. It pained me to tell him it wasn’t that simple with prominent men like this. I asked him to give it a minute. I promised him Craig had it coming.
And then, I asked Parker if he’d meet up with me, just one more time, tomorrow, to talk about our relationship.
To say goodbye.
Turns out the LA dream does not measure up to the towering Hollywood sign—and now I know this forever, for sure.
I really do love to act; I might even have what it takes to make it, eventually.
But at what tremendous cost? My pennies are grinding against each other like teeth, and despite Quinn’s friendship, the void in my heart is gaping.
It’s lonely here.
As for Parker, I might regret letting him go. But I need more clarification on the parameters of romance on this adventure, as well as on my feelings for Reid.
On what exactly I want.
I startle now at the sight before me. Quinn sits at our kitchen table, in scrubs, per usual, her palms spread wide on the wood. The scene is something from a true crime documentary.
The pickleball. My calendar. The timeline. And org chart.
Oh, crap.
I should have been more careful, especially with the pickleball.
My eyes flit over the mass of evidence that something is going on here. I blow out hot air. Can this day get any more heated?
Please don’t be mad, Quinn, please.
What on earth do I say?
And what are the odds she’ll believe me?
“Are you going to say anything?” she asks, reading my mind. She’s gnawing the inside of her cheek as she does when she’s theorizing. “What in heaven’s name is all this?”
I take the seat across from her with my salad bowl, bummed to realize here and now that there are some things extra guac cannot fix. I send up a silent plea, asking for favor upon today’s revelations. Please help Quinn believe me. Give me the right bizarre words.
“I’m just—” She presents the org chart like Vanna White. “Parker, me, your family . . .” She points an angry finger. “Our professions, our schedules, our details . . . At first, I thought maybe this was some kind of acting project, until I saw this.”
She brandishes the detailed timeline, scribbled with ten thousand notes. “Our LA address, Sterling details—and all of these future dates? Who are Malone and Maisy? Reid Layne?”
I gulp. I mapped out this present as well as my future, to compare and contrast the two lives.
“I guess I have some explaining to do,” I admit.
“You think?” she snaps. “And it’s not just all this. You’ve been acting so weird this week.”
I tense. “Have I?”
“Yes! You’ve been way too excited about the tiniest things.
Like yesterday, Can you believe I’m able to just watch Desperate Housewives in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday?
Or this morning, If I want Coffee Bean, isn’t it wild that I can literally just go and get it?
Like, yes, Sutton, this is Los Angeles, and you are a young single girl. Blink twice if you are okay.”
I blush.
I have been gushing effusively over my freedom.
“But then!”
Oh, boy. She’s not finished yet.
“It’s like you suddenly have this alternate personality.
You make your bed now. Since when? And you clean the bathroom counter after you use it?
You put away all your toiletries! Out of nowhere you’re this crazy-clean person.
Aside from dropping your coffee mug the other day, which was also random. ”
I wince.
I didn’t realize I’d ever been such a slob before, but thinking back to college, she’s right.
Motherhood and marriage morphed me. Now clutter distresses me.
Bedmaking soothes me. Cleanliness washes me with calm.
I’ve become my own Marie Kondo, who I realize with a squint won’t hit the American scene for another six years.
I scratch my head.
Whoops.
And you know what? Yes! It’s difficult holding a family of five together. I’d kill to binge a frothy show on a Thursday afternoon with an iced coffee every now and again.
Quinn forges on.
“The other night, you even cooked.” She points ferociously to the fresh hydrangeas between us. “You brought those home from the farmers market!”
“Wow.” I lift my eyebrows. “Living with a real-life serial killer. Sorry about that.”
“It’s not funny.” She leans back, crossing her forearms. “Just spill it. You’re freaking me out. Do you have early-onset Alzheimer’s? Cancer? Are you dying?”
I can see she’s not going to drop this.
And so, I do what I feel is my only option.
I level my eyes on her and start talking.
And I don’t hold back.
I spill everything.
I tell her I’m forty. I’m here from the future. If she thinks back, hard, to the improv class when I went off about facts from a future time, every detail was true.
I have three kids. Malone and Maisy are my twin girls. I have a boy named Maxwell.
She has a girl named Cat.
We’re all the best of friends.
I tell her I’ve been heading for a full-on identity crisis as I approach middle age, because in that life—my real life—I got married at twenty-two, had kids at twenty-six.
I can’t help but reflect on my choices and ponder other possible roads.
Life is good but also hard, and I just miss youth—miss this—something I never had.
At least, I thought I missed it.
Life in a cute apartment with my best friend, popping in and out of hot lunch dates with my other best friend, who apparently is also in love with me.
Acting.
The dream.
Holding up the pink pickleball, I explain that the day before my fortieth birthday, I take a whopper of one to the face. I black out and wake up in some whimsical portal with choices and rules in the form of balloons.
Now, here I am.
My second stop, in my second life.
Cut scene!
Quinn’s eyes protrude. Her mouth hinges open. She’s struck to stillness.
I retrieve her a glass of water and she grabs it gratefully, swilling the liquid, slow motion. “What the heck is pickleball?”
Seriously?
Of the many audacities in my story, she wants to know this?
I toss the ball in the air. “Fastest growing sport in America. It’s like Ping-Pong meets badminton .
. . on a small kind of tennis court. It started in Seattle in the sixties but all the sudden is literally taking over the world.
I’m obsessed. You . . . never really take to it.
” I smile. “You’re too busy saving lives. ”
She drags her eyes to the ball. My only real proof, rotating here in my palm.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I say.
Her eyes zip to mine. “You think?”
“I’m just . . . so happy we live together. That we got to do this. We always talked about it.”
“I know.” It’s her thinking face. “So, in this . . . real life of yours . . .” Her tone veers into vulnerability. “I really do it? I’m a doctor?”
“You’re the best doctor anyone knows.” I reach my hand across the table for hers. “Everyone has you on speed dial, and you don’t even get annoyed. Just last month you gave me stitches in your kitchen after an unfortunate encounter with a can of coconut milk.”
I look down for the whisper of a scar on my thumb.
Of course, it’s not there.
“What else, then?” she asks. “If you’re the time traveler you say you are, tell me more from the future.” Her steep brows dare me.
I sigh.
Okay.
Where can I even start with modern—future—history? The year 2020 comes to mind, but I don’t want to go there quite yet. Lockdown still seems surreal even to me, and I should probably lead with believability.
I go with some lighter fare.
“So. Fanny packs? Overalls? High-waisted jeans? Jaw clips?”
She nods.
“That’s right. All back in fashion, baby.”
“No!” she cries, hand over heart. She squeezes her eyes shut before snapping them open wide. “Who dies tragically?”
“Sinister!”
“I work on cadavers all day.” She shrugs. “There must be plenty of stories.”
My heart drums for Camila—but no, I’m not ready to share that yet, either, and I don’t think she’s ready to hear it.
I mentally scan the decades for celebrity losses instead.
“Let’s see. Michael Jackson, next year. Brittany Murphy, and it’s just so sad. Robin Williams dies by suicide. That one really hurt. Who else? Gosh. Paul Walker. At forty. Remember how much we loved him?”
“We love him now!” she cries. “The Skulls! She’s All That!”
“I know.”
Silence falls. “I have a daughter,” she repeats after a beat. “But you haven’t mentioned a husband. Am I married? Or no?”
Another pause. “Yes,” I inform her cautiously. “You are.” You meet him at a wedding, Eve’s, our sorority sister, in a few years. “I don’t want to spoil the . . . fun, though.”
“Come on!”
I shake my head.
“Fiiiine. I bet he’s a babe. Hopefully worth the wait.” She rolls her eyes. She never gets serious about guys. Few months here, casual date there. She’s picky.
At least for now.
“So, do you believe me?” My voice is buoyant with hope. I need her to believe me. I need to not feel crazier than I already have this week. I need to know she’ll be here for me if I find her again, in another balloon.
She shakes her head with incredulity. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.” She hesitates. “Assuming this tale is true . . . do you have any questions for me? I imagine you must.”
I’m so overcome with gratitude, I could kiss her.
Because I have so many questions.
“Do I look different?” I risk. “I’ve been wanting to know.”
She stares at me, nodding, assessing. “In your eyes. You look wise.”
I smile at this.