Chapter 3
I open my eyes. It must be morning, as there’s a sliver of light around the edges of the blinds. This time I know exactly where I am. And the nightmare comes crashing back.
David is dead.
I wallow in memories, recalling the love between us, how charismatic he was, how vibrant his life.
What a stupid waste.
Stupid. Stupid.
I have a sudden, desperate urge to call Peter. I need to hear his voice, to try to make some sense of all this. He must be wondering what in the world has happened to me.
Rising, I creep out of my room, through the empty living room and up into the kitchen, only to stop at the bank of cupboards facing me.
If I were me, where would I store coffee?
I open a door above the espresso machine and find a selection of teas and a jar of ground coffee.
Right first time. The neighboring cupboard yields mugs.
The large coffee I make has skim milk, hardly optimal, but at least it’s hot and comforting.
What now? I glance at the wall clock. It’s 7.
14 a.m. too early for Mum and Laura to be up on a Saturday.
I don’t know about Rob. I scan the room and spot a sleek pale-gold smartphone charging on the sideboard.
Turning it on, I find my usual passcode works.
That’s something, at least. Now I can get hold of Peter.
I step onto the terrace. The outdoor space is huge, stretching across the whole width of the building, and divided into three areas by low box hedges.
The nineteenth-floor terrace acts as a roof for the area, supported by thick, square pillars.
Set between the pillars, instead of a railing, there is a frameless, waist-height glass barrier between me and the street, eighteen floors down.
It’s another crisp fall morning. The sky is a vivid blue, and the last of the leaves offer splashes of gold and red in the park below and across the city.
What a fabulous place to live.
Sinking down onto the patio sofa, I tap the phone’s screen and open the text messages. Scrolling through, there’s nothing from Peter. His text from after rehearsal in the bar and on my birthday — all our previous rehearsal texts are gone. I check the contacts: his number isn’t even there.
This is the wrong phone. I need my real one. But that one, the one in the green case, doesn’t exist in this world. I don’t even have my black purse with all my stuff.
In this world, am I even friends with Peter? I’m still in the choir, right? But what had Laura said? That I’d stopped going to the choir two years ago.
Still, I check my emails for messages about rehearsals and concerts, and again there’s nothing, aside from an invitation in May to buy a cut-price ticket to the summer show.
Searching for the name of our group, Sound Eclectic, I have to go back to September 2015 to find emails about rehearsals.
The most recent, titled “Re: Thanks for everything,” is a response from the director to me, after I decided to leave the group ahead of my wedding to Rob that fall. And, in this world, I never went back.
I would never have met Peter, if I hadn’t been in the choir these past two years. He joined that same fall. Peter doesn’t know me. Even if I find his number, I can’t call him to tell him what’s happened. He’ll think I’m some crazy woman.
I stare out over the rooftops, wondering where he is, whom he’s with. Maybe he’s happy, still with Michelle.
But then it hits me.
It’s only in this world, this totally wrong, alternate timeline that Peter doesn’t know me.
And David. David is only dead in this world, not in real life, my world.
In the real world, he’s very much alive, on a surfing vacation in Australia, getting drunk with his mates and picking up tanned girls.
And in that world, Peter is breaking up with Michelle, hoping to be with me.
All I have to do is return to that real life and I’ll get them both back.
Sure, I have no idea how to do that. But considering I managed to shift onto this parallel timeline, maybe there’s a way to shift back.
Feeling immeasurably better, I finish my coffee and glimpse movement at the master bedroom end of the terrace.
Rob walks to the railing, where he stands for a moment, looking out.
I’m not sure whether to say anything and decide to make a noise so he’ll notice I’m here.
I set down my mug with a clatter on the glass-topped table and study the phone, keeping him in my peripheral vision.
“Good morning.” His voice is low and gentle. I glance up as he steps through a gap in the hedge. He is dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie, his brown feet bare on the paving.
I force a smile. “Good morning.”
“How are you doing, after last night?”
“As well as can be expected. Better today. Last night was rough.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t even imagine. What a shock for you.” He looks down awkwardly and notices me holding the phone. “You found your cell, then. Your Mum recharged it, as people will be calling.”
I hadn’t even thought about calls from strangers, people who will no doubt have all kinds of expectations of me. Fantastic.
“I was going through it, seeing if anything helps.”
“Any luck?”
“Well, I’ve only just started.”
“Right.” Rob nods. “I’d better get dressed. I’ll make some breakfast if you’re hungry? Still like your eggs scrambled?”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He pauses, as if he wants to say something else, but instead turns and walks inside.
He seems nice. While I’m figuring out how to get home, he’ll be a decent roommate in this spectacular place. But there’s no way in hell I’m staying here, in this reality, without David or Peter. No way.
What else can this phone tell me? I click on the text icon again.
Rob’s name is at the top of the list. I hesitate a moment.
Maybe there are some intimate messages between Rob and .
. . who? His real wife. The Other Me. Wouldn’t I be infringing on the privacy of that married couple?
I shake the thought off. This is legally my phone, after all, and any messages were intended for the person inhabiting my current body, so there’s nothing wrong with reading them.
I scan the most recent text, from the day of the accident, two days ago.
Hey handsome, going to be a bit late at work, will have to ride straight to the gallery tonight, starts at 6, want to meet me there 6.30?
Coolio, see you there, birthday babe. I’ll be the beardie guy in the sharp suit X
You’re such a cheeseball :D xx
Huh. They seem like a fun couple, him and this Other Me. Although, perhaps there’s something forced about the joviality?
Other threads are more varied. The texts with Suzie, who lives with her husband and kids in Brooklyn, are relatively normal. But there are none from Lisa, my closest choir friend. And, of course, nothing from David or Peter.
I go to my Instagram account, scroll through.
There are lots of images of life in New York, often with people I don’t recognize, and some stunning photos of a vacation with Rob in Mexico.
Then further back, a trip to Seattle with him and two people who look like they must be Rob’s parents — a tall, white, gray-haired guy in his 60s and a pretty, short, Indigenous woman.
There’s a single photo of me with them, in which I’m looking pale and thin.
Finally, a couple of years back, I find what I’m searching for: Hawaii.
The last photos ever taken of David and of our brash, banker cousin, Charlie.
Photos of me and Rob with them, drinking at a bar, tanned, happy, surrounded by love.
My breath hitches as I take in these captured moments, a joy I never experienced — to have my brother by my side at my wedding.
I scroll back and reach images of the wedding itself, informal shots that must’ve been taken by a guest using my cell, as almost all have me in them.
I’m in a sleeveless white dress, with lace over the top and a flippy skirt that ends at the knee, and white flowers twisted into my hair. Perfect for a Hawaii wedding.
David again, walking me down the aisle on a clifftop lawn, with an adorned pergola overlooking the deep blue Pacific.
Rob in a casual, pale gray suit, taller than everyone else, handsome and goofily happy.
My own face, sun-kissed and filled with joy.
Several of my mother and sister, dabbing their eyes.
None of us knew David and Charlie would be dead a few days later.
I can no longer bear it, and turn back to finding out more about this world.
I tap on another email app, and the messages are work-related.
Lots from Hans Halstein from Halstein & Faust, the brokerage Mum said I work for.
The same Hans I can’t manage to book as a guest on my radio show, no matter how many times I ask.
In my real life, that is. In this one, I work for him.
There are also conversations with a Mike Jones about communications strategies, as well as some with an Angela DeMarco.
Why have I heard her name? Then it hits me — I’ve been in touch with her in my real life.
She’s the communications manager at Halstein & Faust. I called her to invite Hans on my show.
But in this reality, the comms manager at Halstein & Faust is me. I examine Angela’s email signature. Executive Assistant to Hans Halstein. Seems in this world I have the job that she got in my reality, when I went to work at the radio station.
The phone tinkles, startling me. “Angela DeMarco,” the screen says. Think of the devil. I let it ring, and I’m turning the phone off when a text chimes. It’s also from Angela.
Hey Josie.
Heard you’ll be off work after a nasty cycle accident.
Mike said something about amnesia . . . ? We all send our best wishes. If it’s too hard to talk, pls get Rob to call me with an update. Hope you haven’t forgotten all about us!!
Wow. I don’t have amnesia, but that last line would be a bit insensitive if I had.