Chapter 16
Aubrey
Saturday Morning
Two Days After the Outing
We’re still here.
Aubrey hits Send on the first text she’s written in more than a month because this Aubrey didn’t have to vow never to text
again. The message zooms off to Ilena and Mallory, and Aubrey waits. But no little dots appear, no response comes. What if
they’re not here? What if it’s only Aubrey?
She pushes herself out of the white couch she’d have never bought, because who buys a white couch? She begins folding the
throw blanket that she hopes is from Target, because then there’s a chance they make it in her world too. A pattern of light
green with wispy white fronds, soft cotton on the outside and faux fur underneath, it was like sleeping inside a cotton ball.
She couldn’t bring herself to sleep in the bed, the sheets smelling of her eucalyptus shampoo but also something heavier,
muskier. Kai’s deodorant, probably. His baby-smooth cheeks surely don’t require aftershave, and oh yeah—sex, smelling like
sex.
She found birth control pills in the medicine cabinet last night and took the one marked for that day, and she’ll take the one marked for today. If there’s another Aubrey in her body at home, she’d like to think that Aubrey’s not flaking on taking care of her either.
Though Aubrey did flake, just a little, when she had that hot dog at Gracie’s but not Gracie’s, the name different but the
place still serving the same cocktail slushies, thirty flavors of ice cream, and funky sandwich fillings like mushroom “steak”
and pastrami burgers, and yes, hot dogs with buffalo sauce and blue cheese. But the vegan-fed intestinal system she’s now
stuck with made her pay for it.
So from now on, cashew cheese it is. Aubrey pictures tiny farmers tugging on tiny cashew udders and wonders if Ethan knows
how they actually get cheese from nuts, because that’s always where her mind goes when she wonders something. And now, once
again, she could actually ask him.
She hugs the cloud of a blanket to her chest and drapes it over the back of a low-slung pink chair. A row of perfectly groomed
succulents basks on the bump-out of the windowsill, a rolled yoga mat nestles in the corner, a book on birds of the New England
coastline sits on a side table, its spine lovingly creased.
It’s not that this version of Aubrey has different hobbies, it’s that this version of Aubrey has any hobbies at all. The only
thing Aubrey has is a pile of rocks, like she’s a seven-year-old boy.
She likes succulents, has never tried yoga but always meant to, and birds, well, maybe they’re not so bad after all?
She slides open the barn door separating the living room from the bedroom in this cozy apartment in Cambridge that’s much smaller than hers.
But it’s on the top floor, not in the basement, which her real estate agent had kept insisting was the “ground floor.” Aubrey forces herself to step into the bedroom and strip the bedsheets, grateful for the washer and dryer in the kitchen, not wanting to do a walk of shame to some communal laundry facility.
A phrase she knows she shouldn’t be thinking anymore let alone feeling but can’t help.
As she shoves the sheets into the washer, something clanks against the inside of the drum. She hesitates, hope battling logic
that the painted stone that was in her pocket at the outing somehow got lost in her bed when she fell into it with Kai.
Her collection began after Ethan had pilfered a rock from the dozens perched beneath benches along the river telling passersby
to “rest more” and “be proud” and “stand tall.” Disingenuous, he’d said of them, the sayings cliché, insisting that words
on rocks didn’t actually change anything. Except what if what they changed was how a single person felt in that moment? Didn’t
that make up for the rest?
Cliché or not, the quotes reminded Aubrey of her grandmother, who had passed away not long before. She can still hear her
“might’s better than fight” and “if tired is a state of mind, tell that to my feet.” Without Ethan knowing, Aubrey had returned
the one he’d stolen, placing the “miracles happen” rock back amid the rest. A few days later, in a small boutique, she’d bought
a round stone with “believe” painted inside a white daisy, feeling like it’d be good karma. It became the first in a collection
that grew and her good-luck charm. She’d had it with her at the outing. She untangles the ball of sheets, disappointed at
not finding it. Instead, there’s a bracelet of tiny wooden beads, a mix of light caramel and dark browns and a smattering
of black. Tigereye. Dangling from the clasp is a round silver circle, engraved.
My Kai,
Aloha nui loa
Aubrey doesn’t know exactly what it means, but she knows it makes the bracelet special. Below is:
Mama
He’s probably searching all over for it, scared he lost it, something he brought here from his home in Hawaii. She sighs.
She was so looking forward to today being a Saturday, a day she didn’t have to see those rather nice dark eyes that would
be calming if they hadn’t just seen her naked.
She pulls out her phone to search for Kai’s number when a text comes in from Mallory.
Are we doing a roll call? Because . . .
Mallory sends an emoji of a hand raised, and relief at not being alone here helps soothe Aubrey’s anxiety over Kai. Ilena’s
text follows:
Same.
That’s it. Like she’s saying she also wants to go for avocado toast. Which is good. Ilena’s calm mixed with Mallory’s determination
always guided them best. Aubrey texts: Now what?
Mallory: Calling you both.
A video call appears on Aubrey’s screen, and she presses her back against the washing machine.
Mallory’s face, then Ilena’s.
“Another rule of Alternate World: Put nothing in writing,” Mallory says.
“Is that what we’re calling it?” Aubrey asks.
Mallory shrugs. “We could vote. AIM 2.0, B-Side, Off-AIM?”
Aubrey offers a smile, a weak one, because this doesn’t feel “off” to her. Ethan’s alive. She didn’t send a text that killed
him. This actually feels more right than home.
Ilena cuts in with a matter-of-fact: “Isn’t it just our lives now?”
Mallory’s eyes harden. “I realize you have a reason to want to be here, Ilena, but I’m not ready to accept this is our fate.”
Because then Mallory’s fate is prison. Aubrey and Ilena accomplices. Aubrey looks around this apartment she kinda sorta already
loves. Do accomplices go to prison too?
“Tell me, then,” Ilena says, “if physics and mathematics show that parallel universes or multiverses or many worlds or whatever
name someone gives it are possible—”
“Probable,” Mallory corrects, her voice higher-pitched than usual.
“Fine. But have you found one piece of evidence to suggest these realities could intersect? That could lead us to how we got
here and how we can get home?”
Mallory’s entire demeanor fizzles. “I’m still looking.”
Aubrey rolls the beads between her fingers. Unsettled is a familiar feeling for Aubrey, and she’s accepted it the way some
people accept that their skin burns in the sun and don’t go to the beach without an umbrella and a gallon of sunscreen. Some
things just are. The more you fight them, the more aware you are that you have something to fight, something to lose.
But Mallory? She’s never unsure. If she was, she’d surely never let it show.
Aubrey starts slowly, “So what does that mean? We’ll simply be these versions of us?” Vegan Aubrey who has one-night stands
with her subordinates and does yoga and watches birds and who’s apparently “Autumn” to the man she may or may not have been
supposed to marry.
“No,” Mallory says quickly, her eyes darting like a cornered cat, her fingers digging into her forearm. “We won’t. If the worlds intersected once, they’ll do it again. We just have to figure out when. And avoid the police . . .” Mallory’s voice unexpectedly cracks. “Until we do.”
Ilena places a hand on her stomach, silent.
Aubrey’s hands shake as she sets Kai’s bracelet on the floor beside her. She faces the truth: They don’t know anything. Which
means Aubrey may have her entire life here or mere hours. She can’t wait. She has to figure out if she and Ethan were meant
to be together. If her world was right or if this one is.
A flutter of nerves hits like when there’s a late bug in an about-to-launch feature. But when that happens, she doesn’t let
the feelings overwhelm. She doesn’t panic. She knows the steps to take to narrow it down, to locate it, to fix it. She has
to treat this the same way. A calm, methodical approach. And that starts with a do-over.
Her skin glows orange from the tint of the neon sign screaming Laser Tag. She’s outside a brick warehouse that holds all manner
of games that let grown men act out their insecurities by shooting at one another.
She chose the arcade perhaps because of the past, because it had been the location of her first date with Ethan.
She’d been disappointed then, not because she isn’t into games, but because she’s always wanted to be more like Mallory, a woman whose profession doesn’t define her.
As if being into computers means Aubrey isn’t into wines that need to breathe and herbs set in place with tweezers.
And maybe she isn’t, but she could be. Still, she’d liked Ethan, and it wasn’t his fault that her white sneakers and zip-up hoodies screamed “tech,” prompting him to assume she’d be into the arcade.
So on that first date, she’d grabbed an oversize cup of some blue fizzy drink and an enormous tub of kettle corn and played paintball with him even though she doesn’t really like anything that involves a weapon.
Maybe when this Aubrey went on their first date, she didn’t do any of that.
Her phone buzzes.
Kai: Sorry, mud moves faster than the T! Almost there!
Aubrey checks the time. One minute past the hour. Kai’s one minute late for meeting her. She’s only on time because this Aubrey