“Nicky might hate you for doing this.”
And he looks like I’ve pierced his heart, which is exactly what I hoped for.
“I’ve done everything in my life for him.” And this isn’t untrue: though we hadn’t yet met, I know that Shawn moved in with Amanda after Kyle was killed. He was in the delivery room; he took Nicky to his first day of preschool; he trekked out to the suburbs for Little League games on Saturday.
“Well, he still might hate you.” I’m pretty sure that’s not fair, but it’s easier to talk about Nicky’s feelings than mine.
“This has to be about me,” he says simply, zipping his heart back up.
I open the door for him, hurriedly trying to get him out now before he (or the universe) can inflict more anguish.
“Have a safe flight.” As if anyone can actually determine whether or not their flight will be safe, and if it isn’t, as if anyone can do anything about it anyway. United 93. How many of their spouses said, “Have a safe flight,” or “Safe travels,” or “Be careful.” Like that amounted to anything.
But Shawn just wheels his roller suitcase out the door and says:
“I will.”
Not giving destiny a second thought.
—
Raina’s two older kids were at day camp for the summer, but her younger two, the identical twins, Bobby and Greyson, were left in the care of Gloria, the super-nanny, during the long summer days. To everyone who knew them, they were known as “the twins,” and Raina sometimes worried to me (when she had time to worry about such things) that they’d never form identities outside their twindom. From a distance, and even mostly up close, you honest to God couldn’t tell them apart: tow-headed, impish, both with a splash of freckles across their cheeks, exactly the same height, exactly the same weight…it was as if your mind were playing tricks on you. That you were seeing double (you were), but not in a literal sense, only as an illusion. Raina insisted on dressing them differently, so if I ever got confused, I just remembered that Bobby wore the graphic tees and Grey went for preppy chic. Also, Bobby fell off the jungle gym four months ago and knocked out his top right tooth, so when he smiles, I always have a second of clarity: “Ah, that’s Bobby.”
Identical twins freaked me out a bit, not just because they were really strange to look at but also because they felt like official confirmation of my father’s prophesies. If Raina’s egg hadn’t split, only one of them would be here. They wouldn’t have these tangled identities, they wouldn’t have the other half who could occasionally read the other’s mind or know what the other wanted before he even knew himself. There would just be one. Bobby. Or Grey. Which one would it have been?
Today on the subway, Bobby swats Grey across the face for no particular reason. Grey was annoying him, I suppose, just for being there. Grey starts shrieking, his pale cheeks now a shade of brighter pink, and Bobby grins up at me, half-toothless, like I’m in on the joke. Like he’s saying, “Yeah, bitch, so what? I’d have been the twin who would have survived.”
Though Nicky is eight years older than the twins, it was his idea to invite them to the Bodies exhibit down at South Street Seaport. I asked him twice if he were sure that he wanted two sweaty four-year olds along because frankly, I wasn’t even sure that I wanted two sweaty four-year-olds along, but he looked at me like I had three heads and said, “Yeah, of course. They’re cute. Don’t you like kids or something?”
I didn’t have a response quite prepared because who the hell knew if I really did like kids? I barely liked myself. And while Nicky had grown on me in the four days since my husband had opted to zipline from office to office rather than honor ’til death do us part, I wasn’t exactly about to pledge undying maternalism to the twelve-year-old either. For one, puberty was doing really strange things to his sweat glands, and for two, his 9/11 status aside, he really was a little disturbingly consumed with death. Which is how we ended up at the Bodies exhibit in the first place.
“Can’t you just ask if they can come?” he whined.
“I really don’t think this is appropriate for four-year-olds.”
“Everyone dies, Willa,” he said. “Facts are facts. Even four-year-olds need to know that.”
I was going to argue, but I found myself too tired to, so I texted Raina to inquire. And she immediately texted me back and said:
GRT!!!! Gloria will have boys rdy in 30.
On the subway now, Grey finally stops crying and turns his sad face into a furious one. He stares at the grimy floor, biting his lip, and flaring his nostrils.
“He’s a little touchy because his fish died this morning.” Gloria kisses his head.
“Frank died,” Bobby echoes matter-of-factly.
“Everyone dies,” Nicky says. Then to me: “See, I told you.”
“We woke up and he was floating in his bowl,” Bobby clarifies, his little reedy voice carrying all throughout the subway car. He pronounces “floating” like fwoating, and a small part of me wishes in that instant that he were mine. Raina has told me motherhood is like this: a series of tiny moments that add up to an enormous love, with lots of other moments of frustration and misunderstanding and complexity woven in between.
“That must have been sad. Did that make you sad?” I crouch down to his level.
Bobby shrugs. Grey says nothing, though his nostrils still flare, his lips still purse. He holds a grudge, I can see, just like his grandfather. Punjab Sharma!
“Grey, your Aunt Willa asked you a question,” Gloria says.
“It’s okay, he doesn’t have to answer. I get it.” I right myself upward.
The subway jolts and on instinct (ignore your instincts!), we all reach for a pole, a shoulder. Grey reaches for Gloria. Then he looks at me.
“Frank didn’t die. Bobby killed him.”
“Did not!” Bobby yells.
“Did too!” Grey shouts back. He curls up his tiny fist, anger churning through him.
“Did not!”
Before Gloria can even stop him, Grey’s arm is in the air, his knuckles aimed squarely at Bobby’s remaining upper tooth. But then fate intervenes — or the train conductor just hits the brakes too quickly — and we all heave forward unexpectedly. Bobby falls atop Gloria’s knees, and Grey, poor Grey, trips backward and lands squarely, firmly, on his bottom.
Who knows why it plays out this way, with Frank dead and Bobby triumphant and sad little Grey on the disgusting floor of the train where various forms of bacteria could be infesting him even as we speak.
I look down at him, the defeat on his face, and I offer him a hand, pulling him up.
“I’m okay,” he says, though his full eyes and trembling chin betray him.
“I am too,” I reply. Though I have my own laundry list of betrayals too.
—
Vanessa meets us at the exhibit, her exuberance dialed up to ten, which I find a little disrespectful in light of my current life situation, not to mention the countless dead bodies on display.
“I have an idea,” she says to me, as we stop to stare at some poor guy’s muscle tissue. “And it’s an awesome fricking idea.”
“Do you think that when this guy died, that he knew his insides would be on display for thousands of people? Like, do you think that’s what he’d want?” I ask, ignoring her, moving closer, my nose close enough to the glass that mostly I can just see my own reflection.
“He’s dead,” Nicky says behind me. “It’s not like he knows.”
“You’re a real downer,” Vanessa retorts. “Are you like this all the time?”
“My mom blames puberty,” he shrugs. “I think the terrorists could have something to do with it.”
He walks off to the next encasement.
“Wow,” she says.
“Tell me about it. Though actually, he’s got a point.”
The kid is really growing on me.
We pass under a sign that reads, “The History of Anatomy,” and Bobby scrambles over to the next body.
“Penis!” He screams, then starts giggling wildly.
Grey stands on his tippy-toes and points to another body.
“Boobies!” He matches Bobby’s laughter.
“Boys!” Gloria reprimands.
A woman turns to Gloria and affirms:
“Oh, boys will be boys. It’s always the same.”
And Gloria nods her head and offers a smile because she knows that to be true. That running around shouting penis or boobies really isn’t the end of the world. She needs only to look at Nicky to understand what the end of the world really is. Gloria nudges the boys away from the glass, and they gleefully run in front of her, chasing their discontented second cousin (by marriage) down the hallway.
I watch them for a hopeful beat.
Stay four, I think. Don’t grow up into twelve. I think again. Don’t keep going to thirty-two. It’s all so much more complicated.
“Before we get to my grand idea, I want to talk about Shawn,” Vanessa starts. “You’ve been ignoring the subject since Wednesday.”
“I’m not ignoring the subject. It is what it is. A break. An intermission. He’s in Palo Alto, and I’m here. What can I say about that?”
“A lot. There’s a lot to say about that.”
“Telling me that he’s an asshole doesn’t help. Up until this moment, Shawn has never been an asshole. I love him, you know.”
“I’m sorry, Willa. But in this moment, he’s a real asshole.”
We wander toward the children who have rushed far ahead, but we stop, start, stop again, stare some more at each piece of flesh, each part of the human body that is tucked somewhere inside of us but seems completely foreign all the same. The kidney. The liver. The pancreas. The lungs. I have these things?
“Okay,” Vanessa begins again. “Let’s not talk about Shawn. Let’s talk about you.” She touches my elbow, slowing me.
“I’m fine. If this is what’s meant to happen, this is what’s meant to happen.”
“Willa, that’s ridiculous.”
“What should I say? That I’m heartbroken? What’s the point of being brokenhearted? It will all work out. I really believe that in August, it will all work out.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be heartbroken.” She pauses. “Besides, that’s what you want? For it all to just work out in August?”
“Of course that’s what I want.”
“He just unceremoniously took a break from you.”
“I know what he did!”
“Then why not reconsider what it is that you want?”
I drop my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.”
“Why don’t you though?” She turns to look at me, to really meet my eyes.
There’s nothing to answer in reply, so we start back toward Gloria and the boys, but find ourselves thwarted behind a tour group of French Canadians. So rather than push forward, we study the display in front of us.
The Human Heart.
The heart weighs between 7 and 15 ounces (200 to 425 grams) and is a little larger than the size of your fist. By the end of a long life, a person’s heart may have beat (expanded and contracted) more than 3.5 billion times.
I inhale and think of Grey’s little fist. I think of how many times Nicky’s dad, Kyle’s, heart must have beaten. Not 3.5 billion.
“So I have a proposal,” Vanessa says. “I met with the Dare You team and my publisher this morning.”
“If you want me to sign a waiver to be your next of kin because they’re requiring you to skydive without a parachute, I’m going to have to draw the line.”
“No,” she says. “It’s nothing like that.” Then she reconsiders. “Well, it’s sort of like that.”
The French Canadians filter down the hallway, but we stay put, still staring at the human heart, at its power, at its ability to grant life and to take it away.
“What if I told you that we had the chance to prove once and for all that your dad isn’t right? That you don’t have to sit around and wait for August for your life to begin?”
“Can we get off the subject of August? I really don’t want to delve into it right now.”
She waves a hand, dismissing me. “Okay, what if I told you that we are the masters of our fate, that life is what we make of it?”
“I’d tell you that the Nobel Prize committee would disagree with us.”
“Fuck the Nobel Prize committee.”
“Actually, my dad would say the same thing.”
Vanessa smiles, so I gather the strength to smile too.
“I pitched my editors a new idea. A better idea. And they love it. I told them that I found the loophole in your dad’s theories.”
“There isn’t a loophole, Vanessa. Part of the reason it’s so brilliant is that you can’t disprove that something didn’t happen on purpose. You can’t disprove an intangible proof.”
“I believe that you can. But I need you to trust me.”
“V,” I say, “You know that I trust you, but I’m not really interested.”
She grabs my wrist and forces my gaze.
“Willa, don’t you ever wonder what would happen with your life if you hadn’t been born William, if you’d actually been given a chance without your dad?”
Every day, I think. Though that’s not necessarily true. Some days, and even then, it’s exhausting to consider the alternatives, so mostly, I don’t.
“Please, come with me. Write this book. Tell this story. At the very least, we might change our lives.”
I can feel my own heart, just like the frozen one on the pedestal in front of me, come to life, beating with anxiety, beating with fear, beating from the utter terror of taking a leap that might change everything.
“I like my life,” I say finally.
“Actually,” she reminds me, “you sort of don’t.”
10
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Theodore Brackton — Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Preview: Theodore Brackton (b. April 14, 1978) is the successful founder of the firm: Y.E.S., also known as Your Every Success. Since its inception in 2008, Brackton has helped thousands of CEOs and major power players assess the odds of successful decision-making by analytic research, as well as what Time magazine cites as “one of the best gut-checks in the business.” It was rumored that President Obama personally...
Time — Is This the Face of Our Future?
Preview: Deep inside the Go Room in the Seattle office of Y.E.S., Theodore Brackton is splayed on the conference table, staring at the dimmed, recessed lights on the ceiling, tossing a stress ball up and down, then up again, catching it effortlessly in his left hand while his staff sits and waits, watching both him and the newsfeeds that are muted on the various televisions on the walls. Finally and without warning, Brackton sits up sharply and shouts, “Yes! I have it.” What does he have? The solution to a sexual harassment suit against the president of a major movie studio, who we…
Seattle Social Diary: The Engagement Party of Theodore Brackton and Sonya Nordstrom
Preview: A hundred of the who’s-who of Seattle’s hipster, fashion and tech scene mingled last night at Tom Douglas’s hot spot, Seatown. There wasn’t a hotter invitation in town as everyone who’s anyone clamored to get a peek at the 33-year-old whom Time magazine called “the face of our future,” and his future wife, the current COO at Nordstrom and daughter of the mogul John Nordstrom. The two met by accident — she had inadvertently taken his seats at a Mariners game, and last night they joked that they may be the only
two people in the world who are grateful for the team’s abysmal 2011 season…
The New York Post – Page Six
Preview: We Hear……That a certain hot prospect (and hot-bodied!) CEO and face of the future is about to become very single. It seems that a recent health scare has jolted him into reality, and that his supposed wife-to-be will not be saying Y.E.S.! We’re betting her daddy won’t accept him for return, even if he comes begging for her back, despite his very generous return policy.
—
“Here is what we’re going to do,” Vanessa says later, back at my apartment, once we are done looking at dead innards, once I can stop gazing at the human heart, wondering how many heartbeats we all have left.
As she speaks, I snap my laptop shut quickly — I hadn’t even meant to google Theodore. I find myself doing that too often these days: thinking of him, wondering if he’s out there in the world also thinking of me, waiting for me to respond to his email and reignite our closed connection. I inch the computer to my left on the counter, as if hiding it, exorcising it from my sight line will allow me to exorcise him (the face of our future!) from my mind.
Vanessa rises from the stool in my kitchen and pours herself a bowl of cereal.
From the couch, Nicky says while completely focused on the TV, “Can you make me one too?”
“So here’s what we’re going to do,” she repeats, reaching for a second bowl. “I have this theory — the theory of opposites.”
“Like, opposites attract? Is this going to be some psychoanalysis of my relationship with Shawn? We’re not opposites, so I can stop you right there.”
“My mom and dad were opposites,” Nicky says, tearing himself away from the TV. “That’s what she tells me anyway. That they were always learning something new from each other.” He glances away, his moment of vulnerability gone as quickly as it came.
The Theory of Opposites Page 8
