June, this year
There’s my best friend. Big smile, blonde curls, and lashes for days.
But this formal corporate headshot doesn’t really look like my Bonnie.
Too stiff, too buttoned-up. And where did she get that power-suit blazer?
It’s nothing like the pictures I took of her when we were setting up her website and social media profiles.
I examine Bonnie’s LinkedIn entry. Economic Development Officer at Chicago’s City Hall.
Really? It’s a world away from her career as I know it, as the owner of A Bonnie Home interiors store and design consultancy.
Sure, she’d studied Political Sciences at Northwestern, but she’d never really liked it, and she’d far preferred the Business Studies class we’d taken together.
She’d confided in me about her dream to have her own business someday, and I’d encouraged her.
When her parents had died, she got a chunk of inheritance and I pushed her to take the plunge.
Has my influence in Bonnie’s life been so significant that it altered her career path from what it otherwise would have been?
I tuck my legs underneath me on the living room’s little couch, finding a more comfortable position with my laptop.
It’s weird how relatively relaxed I feel in this marina-side townhouse, given that it’s been less than twenty-four hours since I found myself in the wrong universe, married to an ex I haven’t seen in years.
It’s almost like there’s some psychological muscle memory that remembers this place — at least the version of me it is truly home for.
It’s as though I’m both her, and not her.
Back to the task at hand — figuring out this new life.
I’ve already checked out my own LinkedIn profile, and it’s mercifully not too dissimilar to that of my regular life.
Instead of my internship at Frank Mason’s architectural firm after university, I had a couple of years in South-East Asia, where I apparently worked in “hospitality” at various resorts, before coming back to the city and landing the same job as I have in my real life, at Magnolia Marketing and Advertising.
I guess some things were meant to be.
I’ve also checked Stephen’s profile, and he is also my colleague in this world. But his cell number isn’t in this phone, unlike in my life. So it seems we’re not as close. Probably because I’m also married, and therefore presumably haven’t been crushing on him for years.
There are more people to investigate, too.
My mind lingering on the Masons, I type “Ben Mason” into the LinkedIn search bar, and Ben’s profile pops up.
A cool black-and-white picture of him, unusually clean-shaven, and a list of his theatrical accomplishments.
Currently, it seems, he’s General Manager of the Lookingglass Theater downtown — a pretty sweet gig.
But it doesn’t look from his resumé like he’s directed a lot of his own plays — he’s more on the management side.
Last time I saw Ben, which was a couple of weeks ago, he was celebrating the hugely successful run of his latest play that he’d written and directed — a “whydunit” murder story about a toxic, competitive artists’ retreat, which had gotten critical acclaim in all the reviews.
But that doesn’t seem to exist in this world.
I can understand different influences inadvertently changing the course of people’s lives and careers.
Maybe me being able to help Ben get his first play staged at Northwestern was what kickstarted his playwriting-directing career in my world.
Or maybe it was something else entirely — a totally different course of events.
But what I can’t figure out is why I’m not close with Bonnie and Ben in this reality. Did something happen that caused us to stop being friends? Or was I never close with them?
Maybe my email history will tell me. I’ve got archived emails dating back at least fifteen years, as I’m so horrible at clearing anything out, and I’m guessing that’s true here, too.
My email address is the same in this world, so I’m able to log in and check to see if Bonnie and I were ever friends.
I find a host of messages between us, dating back from eleven years ago, the summer she and I met — most of them very similar to what I remember.
Arranging to stay with her family that first Labor Day weekend.
Various emails about starting Northwestern.
Dozens, into the hundreds, of messages over the next year or so, all aligning with what I remember.
Talking about social stuff, evenings out with Ben, weekends with the whole Mason family.
So, we were friends in this world, too. I blow out a slow breath of relief.
But wait. After the Christmas of our sophomore year . . . no more emails. Just one from me in the Sent box, asking her to please call me back and saying that I was very sorry. That’s all. No reply. That seems to be our last correspondence.
What in the world happened to us?
I pull myself back to the present, and check the clock on the mantel.
It’s not yet two p.m., and Chris is out all day — first getting my engagement and wedding rings resized, and then to visit his parents and stay for an early dinner.
He was so kind to me last night — treating me with care after my accident, picking up on how traumatized I was feeling.
Although, of course, he had no idea just how messed up I was feeling.
Giving me space as we went to bed in the cutely decorated bedroom, he’d even said I didn’t seem like myself.
I had almost laughed at that. If only he knew how true it was.
He won’t be back until at least eight or nine, so I’ve got five hours to do some detective work.
More than anything, I want to call Bonnie — to meet her for a coffee, try to figure out what went wrong with our friendship.
But I don’t know how to contact her, and it’s a Saturday, so she won’t be at City Hall.
We’re not even friends on Facebook, and she doesn’t have an Instagram profile.
I could send her a Facebook friend request, or a DM, but she’s hopeless with social media — at least the Bonnie I know is — and I suspect she wouldn’t see a message for days.
I’ve no idea if her old email address still works, but I doubt it.
What about Ben? He’d know what happened between us. I don’t have his personal number either, but it’s much more likely that he’d be at work on a Saturday, as GM of a theater.
I look up the number for the Lookingglass Theater, and call it from my cell. A woman answers, quicker than I was expecting.
“Uh, hi. I’m trying to get a hold of your General Manager, Ben Mason. Is he there?” My voice is high and shaky.
“Sure, let me put you through to his office,” the woman replies. “One second.”
Crap. What am I going to say to Ben when he answers? “Hi, this is your sister’s ex-bestie Millie, except I’m in a parallel universe and I’d like to know why we’re not friends anymore?” Why the hell didn’t I spend at least a couple of minutes thinking this through?
“Hello?” Ben’s voice. Low, gentle, unmistakable.
“Huh-hi,” I stammer. “This is . . . this is Millie. I mean, Millie MacKenzie. I . . . uh . . . I guess it’s been a while and I wondered—”
“Millie? Shit.” Ben’s tone rises by an octave. “It’s been forever. I didn’t expect to hear from you again. Wow. How’ve you been?”
“Uh, yeah, uh, great, I guess.” Thank God he can’t see the vivid red flush all over my neck. “Yeah, it’s been a long time. And look at you, managing a theater. That’s awesome.”
A pause. “Yeah, yeah, thanks,” he replies. “Wow. After all this time. What prompted you to call?”
I have to come up with a story, and fast.
“Well, erm . . . it’s like . . . I had this thing happen to me .
. .” Crap, this isn’t going well. “So, it was, like, an accident. Yeah, I had a car crash, and I hit my head—” inspiration is now striking me — “yeah, I hit my head and I have some longer-term memory loss. And I wanted to call Bonnie, but her number isn’t on my phone, and it seems like we’re not friends anymore, but I can’t remember anything that happened between us to make us fall out. I was hoping you could help.”
A sharp intake of breath. “Wow, Millie, I’m sorry.
That sucks. I’m glad you weren’t hurt worse, though.
” He pauses again. “I mean, sure — I guess I could fill you in. I’m about to go into a stage crew meeting and then I have some stuff to do.
But I can take a break between, say, four and five.
I could call you back, if you’re free then?
Or, I dunno, we could meet for a coffee or something. Where are you?”
I nod, even though he can’t see me. “I’m in New Buffalo. It’s . . . it’s where I’ve been living. But I can get downtown by four — that’d be great. Meet you outside the theater?”
“Sounds good,” he replies. “I’ll see you then.”
I spend the next half-hour making myself look presentable, changing into a white linen shirt and a cute pair of lemon-yellow shorts I found in the closet upstairs, and some tan sandals that were by the front door. I check the time — 2:32 p.m. — plenty of time to get into the city for four p.m.
But hold up. I’m an hour ahead in New Buffalo. It’s only 1:32 p.m. in Chicago.
Jeez. As if it wasn’t bad enough dealing with traveling to an alternate universe, I’ve now got to deal with time zone differences? That’s almost worse.
And it means I’ve got an extra hour to kill.
Then again, it’s always easy for me to do that — for my gap year, I spent nine months in Europe doing nothing but kill time in cafés, mostly by writing stories.
And, now that I appear to be in the presumably unique position of being a multiverse voyager, I should be able to come up with some decent new material.
I check around for a notepad and pen, and it hits me that there is already a notebook in the black purse I found in the Golf yesterday. I grab the purse from the vestibule by the front door, and pull the notebook out.