June, this year
I may have made a mistake with this latest reset.
I’ve just been chased out of the Lake Bluff house by a burly guy with tattoos and a bushy beard, who had been making toast in the kitchen as I crept upstairs.
I sprinted out of the front door in record time, despite being in impractical shoes.
I practically vaulted over the gate in the driveway, not even waiting for the gate to release, before running at least three blocks to ensure he didn’t catch me.
Fortunately, the guy wasn’t in great shape and had given up halfway down the first street.
Panting heavily, I squat on the grass verge several blocks away, wondering what kind of world I’ve landed myself in this time.
The life with Stephen had been a disappointment, undeniably.
And, after he got so furious with me for being on the pill, I couldn’t face him.
I never even went back to our apartment.
I just finished my coffee and scone, got into my car in the apartment building’s garage, and drove all the way to Lake Bluff to reset.
I had written other Millie a quick note to let her know what had happened, but I couldn’t do any more than that. Let Stephen’s Millie deal with the fallout of her contraceptive-taking deception — I was outta there.
Now, it’s been a full half-hour of recovering my breath and waiting it out, before I dare creep back towards the house to try to find the car matching the keys in my pocket, with a brand logo I don’t recognize.
I aim it at every car in the street, and around the corner, and several other streets, but there is no telltale unlocking beep.
These keys do not belong to any of these cars.
Research on my strange, small cellphone gives me a clue as to why. I don’t live in the Chicago area, in this new life. I don’t even live in the States.
I live in Paris.
Apparently with some guy named Grégoire, who is impossibly handsome and appears to be a highly successful photographer.
There’s a link on his Instagram page to a gallery website, which is full of black-and-white photos, three times larger-than-life nude studies.
An arched back, a pert nipple in profile, a bent leg with the curve of a thigh, a lower back with seated buttocks and matching dimples like a cello.
All of me.
Jesus.
How did Paris Me even get to Lake Bluff, or know to do so? I have to assume that — like San Francisco Millie — she got on a plane in her fugue state, flew all the way from Paris to Chicago, then got an Uber to Lake Bluff, since there’s no car matching this set of keys.
What to do?
Okay, regroup, think.
That bagel place in Lake Forest where Bonnie’s store should be, where the lady was kind to me when I was homeless, is a good place to hang out until I figure out this life.
Unless Bonnie’s store is there, in this life.
Presumably not, given I’m a Millie who lives in Paris and there’s no evidence of me and Bonnie being friends.
I walk the few miles to Lake Forest’s commercial center, my feet blistering painfully in the expensive-looking, pointed-toe ankle boots I’m wearing.
It’s hot, as usual — is it going to be hot every day for the rest of my lives?
— and I slip off my inappropriate navy designer blazer and fling it over my shoulder.
I’m also in tailored pants and a white collared shirt, and carrying a Chanel purse.
The compact cellphone inside it is pinging constantly, but I ignore it until I can sit down.
I reach the bagel place, which is again the bagel place.
The sweet lady behind the counter doesn’t recognize me, and I order a smoked salmon bagel and a Diet Coke, leaving her a massive tip to thank her for her help in another universe.
I have no idea when this body last ate, but I know it’s dinnertime in this world, and this time I’m hungry.
I sit at the same table as when I was homeless, now dressed so very differently, and pull out the phone.
There is a stream of texts from Grégoire, all in French, going backwards until forever, but with dozens in the past twenty-four hours alone.
Presumably because his Millie-muse went into a fugue state and has gone missing.
Ma chérie, où es-tu? Tu me manques, et je m’inquiète tellement pour toi. Texte-moi, s’il te pla?t!
Shame I don’t speak a word of French.
I let my eyes wander through the words, hoping Paris Millie’s French-reading ability will somehow kick in, like a muscle memory . . . but nothing. Except the last phrase is “text me, please,” I think?
I do my usual search of social profiles. Okay, I’m a moody Paris model, Bonnie works at City Hall, Ben is a stage manager again, and I’m definitely not friends with them at all. We’ve obviously never met. I didn’t even go to Northwestern — I moved to Paris right after high school.
That was brave of me.
It doesn’t even look like I made the trip where I met Bonnie in Santa Monica — we’ve never even met. Nor have I ever met Ben, or Stephen. My life is wildly different — in many ways even more different than sci-fi San Francisco world. At least there, I still knew Bonnie.
And that’s something new about this reality.
I mean, in every other life I’ve encountered so far, I’ve known Bonnie and Ben, even if I’m no longer close with them.
But this Millie doesn’t know them at all, never met them, and presumably has never had any reason to go to the Masons’ Lake Bluff before.
Yet evidently, she still was somehow compelled to get herself here, all the way from Paris, in order for me to be able to jump into this body and try on her life.
Evan, and the women at the shelter, told me about the trance state I left in, which must be when the compulsion to get to Lake Bluff comes over me. But of course, I’ll never really know how that happens. Christ, I’ll never understand how any of this is happening.
So, what to do now? I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, of course, and it seems I have the money to do so. I could fly to Paris, just like I did to San Francisco, and try on a life with sexy Grégoire for a while.
But then again, I’m clearly expected to be fluent in French, and things could go very badly wrong for me when I can’t speak to him or any of my people there.
Not appealing.
I guess I’d better bail on this one right out of the gate.
Paris Me doesn’t seem to need my help, with her blown-up naked body being celebrated in the Parisian art scene — which I presume she’s okay with, given that I wouldn’t mind — and with her hot French boyfriend.
No, Millie-in-Paris — you’re on your own.
I’ll give it a while, so the coast is clear with the scary tattooed guy at the house, and go back and reset once more.
Au revoir, Grégoire.
* * *
The house is quiet this time around. Lived-in, kinda messy in fact, but empty.
Whoever lives here is not home right now.
I can take my time as I let myself out of the front, and the driveway is empty of cars.
Halfway down the block, a beat-up black Ford responds to the keys I found in a canvas tote bag I’m carrying, which is full of junk.
The interior of the car is equally disorganized, with mud in the footwell and candy wrappers between the seats.
I’ve got an old-model iPhone in the bag, which doesn’t seem to have any home address pre-programmed into it.
But the calendar app has Friday night blocked off for the Va-Va-Voom Diner, seven to eleven pm, for some reason.
It’s now nearly six-thirty, so whoever I’m supposed to be meeting, I’ll be late for, since it’s an hour’s drive from here.
At least I know where the Va-Va-Voom Diner is.
Bonnie, Ben, and I used to go there all the time — it was right by Frank Mason’s office building, where I worked before Magnolia.
The same diner where the Masons were supposed to pick us up, the night of their accident.
I haven’t been back since, as I’ll always associate it with that terrible night.
But now, I’m expected there. And I guess I may as well figure out something about this life, and see if it’s a good one. Given that there’s no evidence that I’ll ever get back to my original life.
And who knows who might be waiting for me at that diner?
An image springs to mind of Ben, flirting with Greta behind the counter, his smile wide, his laugh generous.
What are he and Bonnie doing in this life?
A quick search, as I sit in the Ford’s driver seat, shows me that he’s doing well in theater, and Bonnie has her usual store in Lake Forest. Social media reveals that we’re friends again, seemingly as much as we ever were.
Maybe this is a really great life for me here.
Part of me is tempted to drive right to Bonnie’s store and spend the evening with her. But her store will be closed by now, and I don’t know where she lives, considering the Lake Bluff house is clearly now occupied by someone who isn’t Bonnie.
Plus I’m late to meet someone at Va-Va-Voom, and I don’t think I can resist the temptation to see who it is. If they’re still waiting for me.
I drive the hour into the city, in the opposite direction to the heaving rush of evening traffic escaping downtown for the long weekend, and park up near the diner.
I’m wearing scruffy jeans and a washed-out old T-shirt, which doesn’t seem suitable for a date, but I don’t have much choice.
I check my reflection in the sun-visor mirror, add a slick of slightly garish lipstick from the tote bag, and rake my fingers through my hair.
That will have to be good enough. It’s not like we’re meeting at a fancy restaurant.
I lock up the car, cross the street, and step through the diner’s door, which tinkles its little bell. The sound brings back another Ben moment — him on a winter night, pulling a beanie off his head, stamping snow off his boots. That same night.