June, this year #2
It’s full of scribblings. Jammed with ideas for stories, snippets of poetic sentences, bullet points of a plot about a young woman traveling through Asia. Maybe inspired by this Millie’s real life experiences. After all, she’s had a different life path from me over the past decade.
Looks like this version of me also enjoys creative writing, and has probably been more diligent than me about pursuing it. Maybe I can kill my extra time in a café in the city, and add some of my own ideas to hers in the notebook today. That’d freak her out, if she ever gets back to her own life.
I chuckle, and pack the notebook back into the purse. Deciding against writing a note for Chris — I should easily be back by 7:30, if I leave the city at five — I grab the keys to the green Golf and head out to the highway.
In the city, searching for a parking spot, I’m ridiculously nervous.
I mean, I’ve seen Ben recently — but this Ben hasn’t seen me in years, and I don’t know how he’ll be with me.
Plus, the truth is, I’ve never really hung out with Ben on our own much.
We were almost always with Bonnie, our common denominator, and being together just the two of us would have been weird, given that one of us has pretty much always been in a relationship.
Not that a man and a woman can’t be platonic friends outside of a relationship, of course.
It just never really felt like we were separate buddies, without Bonnie around.
In fact, the only time I’ve fully hung out with him on our own was the night he and I went to see that cover band play at Howl at the Moon.
Which had been kinda . . . new, for us. And we were having a really great time together.
But then I ran out on him, because Stephen had texted that he needed me to troubleshoot some work crisis.
I don’t even remember what the emergency was. But I’ll never forget the expression on Ben’s face when I left him alone in the bar. A look of sheer disappointment. I guess he was disappointed in me for being into a married man, and bailing on our night to help him.
I eventually find an overpriced parking spot just off Michigan Avenue, and head around the corner to a café that I’ve been to several times before.
I take my latte to a window seat and pull out the notebook, reading through this Millie’s notes again before starting to add my own jottings and questions about multiverses and alternate lives, tying the thoughts back into my conversation with Stephen on the roof terrace.
How could this . . . impossible thing happen? Then again, it’s clearly not impossible, since it’s happening to me. The multiverse is evidently real — I’m living proof of that. But what is it?
Do our lives split off into new realities at every moment of minuscule choice or circumstance? Is every single possible permutation of my life being played out in an infinite number of realities — and the same goes for every person who ever lived?
And if that’s the case, how is it that I somehow flipped from one reality to another? That’s the thing that seems impossible — much more so, to me, than the existence of alternate realities. What caused me to step into the wrong one?
It happened at Bonnie’s house, I know that much. One moment I was texting with her about dim sum in the driveway, the next I’m stepping through the basement door and I find myself in the same house, but belonging to someone else, in the wrong reality.
So, then, is it the basement that is some kind of multiverse travel hub? But no, I was already in the wrong world, the moment I stepped into the basement — thinking back, it didn’t have the Mason’s couch or wall art, and it already smelled of that family’s dinner.
Maybe the basement door itself, then? Like a doorway to another world? But why would such an incongruous door be my own personal multiverse portal?
Maybe it’s because I’m about to meet him, but Ben springs to mind. I’ll always associate him with that basement, as I first met him in that room, more than a decade ago. The weekend I was welcomed into the Mason family.
Perhaps that’s it — a life-defining moment is enough to create some kind of soft spot between worlds. And if you go through that soft spot again . . .
I get so absorbed in my notepad scribblings that I don’t look at my phone again until 3:52 p.m. Shit — now I’m gonna be several minutes late to meet Ben.
By the time I’ve hurried the six blocks, he’s already standing on the steps by the main doors of the old, castellated building the theater is housed in — always an incongruous sight among the gleaming towers of downtown Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.
Staring down at his phone, Ben doesn’t see me approach and it gives me a moment to assess him.
His dark-blond hair is much shorter and neater than the last time I saw him, and he’s unusually clean-shaven.
Why is that? Surely my compliments in our regular lives about how much his beard suits him haven’t made that much of a difference?
But then again, the difference is probably due to something else entirely.
Maybe in this life, he’s dating someone who doesn’t like a beard.
Of course, he’s still objectively very handsome without it — more chiseled, even — but less like the man I know. More like a manager, less of an artist.
“Ben.”
He looks up as I come closer and gives me a tentative smile.
“Millie, hey. Good to see you. You’re looking well.”
We hesitate, then give each other a slightly awkward side-hug.
“Sorry to keep you waiting — I got a bit sidetracked.”
“No problem. You wanna grab a coffee to go? It’s such a beautiful day — I figured we could walk and talk. I just gotta be back by five.”
“Sounds good.”
As we turn to step down to the street, Ben runs his left hand through his thick hair. No wedding ring. Interesting. At least that means he didn’t end up marrying that god-awful girlfriend he was with for all those years. Although, who knows, maybe they’re still living together.
He makes some small talk as we walk — perhaps slightly nervously — about his theater’s current production, and asks me about my marketing job as we line up for iced coffees from the Starbucks beneath the John Hancock tower.
Thankfully I can answer his questions, as my job is the same as in my world — it seems like it’s about the only thing that’s consistent.
I resist the urge to ask him about his own playwriting, given that his LinkedIn profile suggested he hadn’t seen as much success there as I know him for.
When we emerge into the sunshine with our drinks, he leads me further north up Michigan Avenue.
I know him well enough to know where he’s taking me without having to ask — towards the Oak Street Beach park, and then along the lakefront path.
He’s been regularly walking, running, and riding this trail ever since I’ve known him.
How are such insignificant things still the same, yet entire friendships have changed?
“You said you’ve lost some of your memories, including what happened with my sister, right?
” he asks me, eventually, after we’ve hit the beach and are heading south along the waterfront.
The late-afternoon sun is hot, and the beach and path are packed with families and tourists enjoying the long weekend.
I nod through a slurp of my iced coffee, while stepping aside to give space to a passing rollerblader.
“Yeah, some things are pretty hazy. I was wondering . . . what can you tell me about why she and I are no longer friends — at least from your perspective? I only have patchy memories from that time.”
He pauses for a moment, narrowing his eyes against the dazzling sunlight. “You really hurt her, Millie. Over that whole thing with Rufus, our theater professor. You do remember him, right?”
Oh, fuck. I’ve been hoping not to ever think about that guy again.
I behaved so badly back then, and I hadn’t even stopped seeing Rufus even after Bonnie and Ben found out.
In truth, after that night, I’d slept with Rufus on several more occasions, and it had only stopped because of something totally out of my control.
My neck flushes red. “I remember him, yes.” My voice is small, almost lost over the sound of music and chatter from those around us. “But I don’t remember falling out with Bonnie about it.”
“Right. Well, we found out that you guys were . . . involved, and I made you swear you’d end it.
My sister and I both thought you’d done the right thing, and it was over.
But that Christmas, Bonnie saw you with him in a bar downtown, when you’d told her you were going to be staying with your mom over the holidays.
She was totally crushed that you’d lied to her.
” Ben takes the last sip of his drink, as if stalling for time to figure out what he’ll say next.
“Honestly, she was never able to forgive you for it, and the trust was totally gone. I guess, after that, you just drifted apart. Which meant that I also didn’t get to see you again.
” He looks sideways at me. “It was a kinda shitty move on your part, Millie.”
My stomach sinks, and the drink in my hand suddenly seems cloying and sickly. I throw the rest in an overflowing garbage can, trying to make sense of this information.
How can that have happened? Sure, I remember that Christmas, very clearly.
Things had been a little strained with Bonnie, after she’d found out about my affair with Rufus around Thanksgiving, but we were generally fine.
I’d made holiday plans to stay in Indy with Mom, in an attempt to rebuild our relationship somewhat.
But Mom had canceled on me last minute, as usual, in favor of some new love interest. Unexpectedly alone for the holidays, I’d met Rufus for a festive drink downtown and we’d stayed a night at the Allegro Hotel.