June, this year
“You okay, miss?”
Someone’s arm is reaching in the car door, lifting me back by the shoulder, away from the steering wheel my forehead is resting against.
“You okay? Your airbag didn’t deploy,” the voice says again. I turn towards it. It’s an old guy, maybe in his seventies.
I touch my forehead. It’s a little sore, probably bruised, but there’s no blood.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I think.” I attempt to smile at him. “Thanks for stopping. Uh, I’m not sure what happened.”
The old man grins back. “You were a couple cars ahead of me, and you just swerved right onto the verge and into the hedge. Guess it wasn’t enough impact for the airbag.” He raises his thick, white eyebrows. “D’you know why you drove off the road?”
I look ahead of me to see the hood of the green, not-really-mine VW Golf encased in a thicket of hedge. Parked on the grass next to my car is a beat-up old pickup, presumably belonging to my rescuer.
“I . . . uh . . . dunno. I got distracted for a second, I guess, looking at the map on my phone. Next thing I knew, I was in the hedge.”
New Buffalo.
That’s what happened. Siri’s map telling me I live where I don’t live.
Bonnie’s house, inhabited by a random family who were shocked to see me there.
Bonnie’s store, disappeared, replaced by a bagel shop.
None of my friends listed in this weird navy-cased cellphone that’s still in its holder on the dash.
“If you’re feeling okay, you wanna try to back out of the hedge, and get back on the road?” asks the old guy. “Doesn’t look like there’s much damage, other than some scratches to the paintwork.” He steps back from the car and closes my door.
I nod. Not that I know where I’m going, anymore.
“Sure,” I tell him, with more certainty than I feel.
The car’s engine is still running, so — with a trembling hand — I put it in reverse and pull slowly out of the hedge, straightening on the grass verge.
I roll down the window. “Thanks for stopping — I’ll be fine,” I tell the old man. “Have a great evening.”
“You take care now,” he replies with a wave, ambling off to his truck.
I wait for a pause in traffic, then pull out onto the road, still a little shaky. In a few moments I’m at the I-94 intersection, so I turn left to head into Chicago. Siri is still telling me to go “home” to New Buffalo, but that’s not where I live.
I have to go to my home.
I tap “End Route” and, after forty-five minutes of pretty unsteady driving, I pull up outside my building. I don’t have my usual keys with me, so I have no fob to get into the underground parking garage. Instead, I find a spot in a nearby side street and park hurriedly, too far from the curb.
Keys. That’s my problem now — I don’t have my own building and apartment keys on me either. Just the set that has the Golf car keys and a weird set of house keys that presumably belong to somewhere in New Buffalo.
Maybe I can get Graeme, my next-door neighbor, to buzz me in. He’s got a spare key to my studio in case of an emergency. And this definitely qualifies.
I punch the # for the building’s buzzer directory, and hit it three more times to get to the twelfth-floor units. Graeme’s name is there, as usual, for 1205.
But mine is not. Instead, the electronic directory reads, “Johnson: 1206” where it normally reads “MacKenzie: 1206.”
This is ridiculous. I punch in 1205, and wait as it beeps. “Hello?” It’s Graeme’s voice.
“Graeme? It’s me, Millie. I, uh, lost my keys and need to get into my place. You still got my spare?”
A pause. “Sorry. Who is this?”
My stomach drops. “Millie. Millie MacKenzie. Your neighbor, next door.”
Another silence, longer this time. “Uh. I don’t remember a Millie in the building. Are you new? And no, I don’t have your key.”
“Graeme. It’s me, it’s Millie.” I’m trying to keep the panic out of my voice, but it’s bubbling up. “I live right next door in 1206. I gave you my spare—”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know any Millie.” Graeme’s voice is ice-cold through the intercom. “Jake and Savannah live in 1206. I can’t buzz you in. Have yourself a nice evening.” The intercom beeps, and is silent.
Fuck.
Some random couple are living in my unit, and Graeme has no idea who I am.
I’m really in . . . in an alternate reality of some kind.
The panic that was bubbling up spills out of my mouth, and I find myself emitting a wordless shriek of horror and frustration into the street. A woman and her child on the sidewalk stop, alarmed, and cross to the other side to avoid me.
I’ve become that person. In a matter of a few hours, I’ve gone from a relatively happy, albeit imperfect, person with a good job and friends, to the disturbed weirdo that people avoid on the street.
A disturbed, friendless, apparently homeless weirdo.
I stare down at the set of keys in my hand. Okay, maybe not entirely homeless. After all, these house keys open a door somewhere.
Maybe there will be answers in New Buffalo. I don’t really have much choice but to go and find out.
Back in the Golf, I reset Siri to “home” from my current location, and follow her instructions to drive south out of Chicago, along the lakeside highway, and out of Illinois into the northwestern corner of Indiana.
The evening sun is lowering to my left as the highway gradually turns northeast, through Burns Harbor, Michigan City, and Michiana Shores.
Just before I get to New Buffalo, I drive over another state line into Michigan, entering the Eastern Time Zone, and my phone’s clock jumps forward an hour.
By this time, the shadows are lengthening and the light is a golden shimmer through the trees and low buildings.
“Take the next left onto Harbor Isle Drive,” Siri instructs me, and I turn down a narrow street leading to the water.
“Your destination is on the right.” I pull up next to a row of gray-shingled, white-trimmed townhomes overlooking a gorgeous marina.
A boardwalk runs next to them, with a white-painted pagoda at the central junction with the outstretched dock leading out to the marina itself.
Beyond a parking lot, a set of bigger homes in the same gray-and-white style are jutting right out over the water, partly held up on stilts.
Wow. This place is beautiful.
But which one is — supposedly — mine?
Maybe Siri knows. “Siri, what’s my home address?”
“Your home address is set to Unit 17, Seashore Mews, Harbor Isle Drive, New Buffalo, Michigan.”
Huh. Thanks, Siri.
I park in what looks to be a residents-only parking lot, hoping I haven’t taken somebody else’s regular spot, grab the black purse, and lock up the car.
Unit 17 seems to be one of the smaller townhouses to my right.
I step along the boardwalk until I find it, and pull out the set of keys as I reach the white front door.
What am I going to find inside?
I pause, my hands trembling so violently the keys are jangling a little.
The low sun casts my shadow on the door, which has a large picture window next to it.
A window that has thin, gauzy curtains obscuring the interior from view .
. . but there’s definitely a light on inside the house.
And, now that I can hear over my own racing heartbeat, soft strains of music are coming from inside too.
There’s already somebody in there.
Should I knock? Or just try the keys?
I have to know if these keys open this front door. I just have to.
Very quietly, and with my stomach pitching, I slip the key into the lock, and turn. It clicks open with ease. I put my hand on the door handle and pull it open.
My heart in my mouth, I step into a little enclosed vestibule.
Ahead of me, hanging from an adorable row of hooks with anchors painted at each end, is my own denim jacket that I’ve had for more than ten years, the one with the patch.
Below the coats is a row of shoes, including two pairs of my own that I also recognize.
This is definitely my house. Some of this is my stuff.
I reach out for the jacket and trace my finger along the hand-stitched seam, uneasily.
It gives me little comfort to see such a familiar item in a house I’ve never been to before.
Especially given that next to my jacket is a man’s sports coat.
And at my feet are two pairs of men’s shoes — dress shoes, and sneakers.
So, who the hell is already here? Do I live with a guy, in this insane version of reality?
I quietly open the door to the front living area.
The space smells like roast chicken and garlic.
The room is small but pretty, with a loveseat couch in front of the modern fireplace, and a small dining table next to a pass-through into a kitchen at the back.
To my right is a narrow set of stairs leading upwards.
“Hello?” I call out, my voice weirdly high-pitched and wobbly.
“Hey.” A man’s voice, warm and familiar. “You’re late. Where did you get to? I’m sorry, I was so hungry, I had to eat already.”
A dark, male head pops round from the side of the kitchen wall, with a friendly, open face, beaming widely at me, teeth bright. A face I know very well, but haven’t seen since the end of my final year at Northwestern.
Chris.
My long-ago ex-boyfriend, Chris — someone whose heart I broke — is in a house that I now appear to share with him, in New Buffalo. And he’s cleaning up the kitchen and acting like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
He looks exactly the same . . . maybe a little older around the eyes. But the same soft, very short, curly hair; the same doleful, puppy-dog, chocolate eyes. The same adoration in them, with just a touch of melancholy.
His smile disappears when he realizes I’m staring at him and saying nothing. “Mill?” he says, taking a step towards me. “What happened? Why are you so late home?”
I shake my head. I have absolutely no idea what to say to him in this moment.
Chris comes forward to meet me, and raises his hand to my forehead. “What did you do?”