* * *
—
“Hello.”
It’s her voice. I still cannot believe I am hearing her voice.
“Hey.”
“Oh! Hey.”
I tell her the plan. I tell her why it has to be today.
* * *
—
It has taken weeks to find the right person. I could not forget Katie, the girl whose body I had taken in order to get here. I could not ignore the word for what I was planning to do: kidnapping. I could not take someone from their home and strand them in an unfamiliar place. Before, I didn’t know better. Now I did, which would make a repeat action inexcusable.
So I waited. I wrote to Rhiannon. I gave her updates. I tried not to think I was leading her to an impossible place.
Rita had a boyfriend who would’ve flown to the East Coast with her…but they both would have been grounded for life when they returned. Simon’s mother didn’t care and his father didn’t exist, as far as his life was concerned, so if he’d disappeared, nobody would have noticed—but there also wouldn’t have been anybody to help guide him home. Ana had a friend who’d moved to DC—but her parents had been relieved when this friend had left, and would never have allowed a visit. I didn’t want anyone to get into trouble. I didn’t want anyone to miss school. Or their jobs. Or even a date that had been planned the week before. Who was I to detour them from anything?
Then, one Saturday, I wake up as Tyana Jenkins.
She lives with her mother and stepfather in a nice house in Lakewood.
Her father lives in New York City.
I check and double-check: They appear to have a good relationship. She spends most holidays there. Even though this isn’t a holiday, it is a weekend. She doesn’t really have any plans.
I go to a last-minute-bargain website. Since it’s not vacation season, there are cheap flights to New York. There’s credit card information already loaded onto the computer.
I buy a ticket.
Then I text Tyana’s best friend, Maddie, and tell her I need her to cover for me. I say I’m missing my dad and I really want to see him and New York. I tell her I’ll explain it to my mother later, but that I need Maddie to say I’m sleeping over if she’s asked. She writes back, Patty will never know. I figure Patty is my mother.
My family makes it easy for me. My mother has to take two of my stepsisters to what she calls a “dance intensive” while my stepfather has to take one of my stepbrothers to football. They say they’ll see me tonight. I tell them I’m sleeping over at Maddie’s. It’s settled.
I go back to my room. I book a hotel room near JFK Airport. I email Rhiannon. Then I call her.
* * *
—
“So you’ll meet me at the airport?” I say after I’ve explained everything.
“It will take me at least four hours to get there. Maybe five. I’ve never driven in a city before.”
“It looks like JFK is outside the city. You won’t have to go through Manhattan.”
“It’s all the city to me. And I’ve never driven five hours to anywhere before. So let me be nervous, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Right. So…this is really happening?”
“Yes,” I promise. “I’m already on my way.”
* * *
—
I make it to the airport with plenty of time. I debate when to text Tyana’s father to let him know I’m coming—too soon and he might call her mother, too late and he might be out at midnight when I need him to be home. I decide it would be best to wait until I’m actually in New York, irretrievably.
I have spent a lifetime avoiding planes, knowing the dislocation that would happen because of such travel. But this time, I allow myself to be comfortable. Even though Tyana’s ticket is round-trip, mine is one-way, and for once, I am okay with that. If anything, it feels like the second leg of a round-trip.
* * *
—
It’s only as the plane is landing that Tyana’s hands start to shake. I stare at them, wondering how it is that the body knows what I’m feeling, how a body that isn’t mine can still reveal me.
* * *
—
As we wait for the plane to get to the gate, I text Tyana’s father.
I want to see you, so I’m on my way to New York. Just for the night.
He texts back right away.
Are you kidding me?
I tell him I’m not. I tell him I wanted it to be a surprise, and that I’ll take a cab from the airport and meet him at his apartment around eleven.
It’s already seven o’clock.
* * *
—
We shuffle off the plane. I expect to see people waiting with signs by the gate, but the only people waiting are the ones who are getting on the next flight. I realize that if Rhiannon’s here, it’ll be outside the security gates. I realize this means she’s near. So near.
This is happening. This is real.
* * *
—
There.
Searching the crowds even though she doesn’t know what I look like.
Confident she’ll be able to find me.
Holding a sign that says, simply, A.
She turns in my direction.
She sees me.
I smile.
She knows.
* * *
—
Love may change forms, but it never goes away. Love allows you to pick up where you left off. Absence borrows time, but love owns it.
* * *
—
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
I drop my bag to the floor. I kiss her and she kisses me. We become, for a few short seconds, our own time zone. Everyone else can pass through. We hold tight.
* * *
—
Yes, there are people watching. Only when we pull apart do I see the reactions. Some people are smiling. Some are annoyed. Most don’t pay attention.
We don’t pay attention, either. We don’t care.
* * *
—
I’d thought I remembered her perfectly. But it is much better to see her imperfectly, to see something new every time she moves.
* * *
—
She’s parked at the airport hotel, but we don’t have time to stop there. I’ll have to get Tyana to her father’s on time, so we have to get to Manhattan on time.
“I’ve never been here before,” I tell Rhiannon as we get on the AirTrain.
“I’ve never been here without my family,” she says.
“It’s exciting.”
“That’s one word for it.”
I can tell she’s nervous. I’m not sure if it’s about me or the city or both.
I take her hand. “We’ve got this. I promise.”
She nods.
I want to tell her not to worry about the future. What matters is now. But I also know that thinking like this got us to the wrong place last time.
I knew I’d be excited to see her. But now, with her actually next to me, I also feel the need to be careful.
* * *
—
We catch up on the long subway ride. I hear about her friends. She hears about my last few lives.
At first she doesn’t mention Alexander. I worry about this. Then, when the omission is too intrusive, I ask her about him directly.
“He’s great…I think. I haven’t seen him that much. Actually, I think the word for it is avoiding. I’ve been avoiding him.”
“Because of this?” I have to ask.
“Yes and no. I mean, obviously it’s related. But it’s not the only reason.”
We are coming dangerously close to talking about us, and I don’t want to talk about us yet, not until we’v
e had a little time to feel this out.
Rhiannon goes on. “I need you to know, even though there was some warning, I am far from feeling like life is normal right now.”
“Just think of it as a date,” I tell her. “You’ve come up to New York City for a date. That’s pretty romantic. Wild, even. And it might only be for the weekend, but you will definitely make the most of it. That’s perfectly normal. I’m your long-distance girlfriend who’s flown into town to see you.”
She leans her head against mine. “Lucky me.”
“And lucky me.”
I feel her there. Next to me. Even if the trip ended now, it would be worth it. To have her presence overlap my presence, and to feel the comfort of that overlap so palpably.
* * *
—
The city amazes us.
We get off the subway at Times Square and are blinded upon our emergence. It feels like we’ve entered an artificial world—day in the middle of night, a rush of people that seem randomly selected from the global population. Rhiannon takes out her phone and starts to take pictures. I assume she won’t want me to be in them, because I won’t be like this tomorrow. But when I try to duck out of the frame, she tells me to get back in.
“I want to remember you,” she says, and it’s clear which you she means. She won’t remember Tyana, because as far as she is concerned, Tyana isn’t here. There’s only me.
That becomes the most amazing thing about the moment. Not the neon. Not the fact that we are at the center of the universe. No—it’s the fact that she is going to remember me. I have found a way to exist like that.
We’re both hungry, so we go to a restaurant that serves a soft pretzel with every meal. We talk about whatever comes into our minds, sharing our favorite New York movies and TV shows, then comparing them to what we see out the window. I don’t want to look at the time, because it feels like the only thing right now that isn’t entirely controllable. We are edging closer and closer to eleven o’clock, and Tyana’s father’s is a decent cab ride away.
“You need to go,” Rhiannon says, looking at her phone.
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t worry. We have tomorrow.”
We both smile at the sound of that.
* * *
—
I offer Rhiannon cab fare to get back to the hotel. She promises me she’ll be fine.
I lift an arm to flag down my own cab, just like they do on TV. I’m spotted immediately, giving us only a short time for a goodbye.
“I’ll let you know where I am as soon as I wake up,” I promise. “We’ll have the best city date ever.”
She kisses me. “Sounds amazing.”
I can’t help but watch her from the back seat as the cab pulls away. She doesn’t stop looking in my direction until I’m out of sight.
* * *
—
“I have a sinking feeling your mother doesn’t know about this,” Tyana’s father says once I’ve walked into his apartment and we’ve hugged hello.
I can tell he’s happy to see Tyana, but he’s worried, too.
“Not exactly,” I tell him.
“What does she know?”
“That I’m at Maddie’s tonight?”
“So by not exactly you mean not at all.”
“That’s about right….”
“And your flight home is tomorrow?”
“I get back in at six. Believe me, it doesn’t matter if I’m at Maddie’s or here. She’ll never know the difference.”
“Well, let’s just hope you’re right about that,” he says. Then he shakes his head and laughs. “When your mother ran off during high school to visit her boyfriend, she got caught. But you didn’t hear that from me!”
He says he went out and got us some ice cream. While we eat it, I ask him lots of questions, each of which he happily answers. But then when the conversation turns to my life, I let out the yawn I’ve been holding in for hours.
“Can we talk more in the morning?” I ask him. “I’m exhausted.”
It’s 11:35. I don’t have much time.
“Sure thing. But if I only have you for less than twenty-four hours, you better not plan on sleeping late. We have at least two museums to visit, and frozen hot chocolate to consume.”
“Agreed!” I say, then yawn again.
I hope Tyana will remember this agreement in the morning. I hope she won’t mind being here. I am guessing she’ll be happy—but I recognize that my guess may be tinted by what I want to be true.
Before I go to sleep, I text Rhiannon good night. I wait a couple of minutes, but midnight is coming too soon, so before I can get a reply, I text her again to tell her not to text back. Then I delete the whole chain and any record of Rhiannon from Tyana’s phone.
I close my eyes at 11:52 and fall right asleep.
RHIANNON
I don’t want to get in a cab, because if I do, I’ll have to talk to the driver—or at least that’s the way I think it goes. Plus, cabs are expensive, and even though the girl A was tonight clearly has money, I still feel weird taking money from someone who has no idea they’re giving it to me.
I want to be alone in my thoughts, and strangely, the only way to do that is to get on a crowded subway. It’s amazing to me how many people are up at this hour—I think all the people in my town who are out at midnight on a Saturday night could probably fit in this subway car. But I think it’s safe to say that none of these people are thinking the same things I’m thinking, wondering what kind of person is going to show up for my “date” tomorrow.
This is weird. I knew it would be weird, and it is weird, and I’m telling myself that of course it’s weird, but soon it will go back to being something less weird. I know I spent tonight with a girl I’d never met before. But despite that, I still felt like I knew her instantly. Because A was A. It may have been a different body, a different voice, a different size and height. But when she looked at me, it was A. When she talked to me, it was A. How I felt—it was A.
I don’t remember the subway trip taking nearly as long earlier. Maybe because I wasn’t alone. Or maybe it’s making more stops at this hour. It’s just taking a long time, and I don’t have anything to read or do. And I’m afraid to stare at anyone for too long, because then they might pull a knife on me or try to talk to me. I’m not sure which would be worse.
My phone’s running low on battery, and I don’t want to risk running out completely, so even though there’s service every now and then, I shut it off. I’m cut off from my friends, who are probably asleep by now, or out partying and not on their phones. Excuses, excuses. Truth? I wouldn’t know what to say to them even if I did get in touch. Rebecca thinks I’m up here visiting colleges. So I’m sure that’s what my other friends think, too. That’s what I’ll tell them on Monday. Rebecca will give me a little shit because she wanted to come, too.
It’s almost one in the morning by the time we get to the JFK stop. Then I realize the stop isn’t all that near the hotel, and while I could go to the airport itself and see if there’s still a hotel shuttle, I’m not sure there will be one at this time of night. So I end up getting in a cab anyway.
The driver’s a woman, so I don’t mind when she starts talking to me. The questions she’s asking aren’t difficult ones. Is this my first time in the city? What am I doing out at this hour? Is the hotel any good? I could be talking to my parents’ friends.
The hotel lobby is dead. I guess an airport hotel isn’t really where New York City gets its kicks at this hour on a Saturday night. My room smells like cigarettes even though it’s a nonsmoking room. The bed feels damp. Not in one spot, but all over. I wonder if I’d be better off sleeping in my car.
The bathroom isn’t that bad. The light’s harsh, though, and before I brush my teeth, I look at myself in the mirror and it’s like I’m
being bleached out. I ask myself the question then, out loud: “What am I doing here?” Once it’s in my head, I can’t get it out. WhatamIdoinghere?WhatamIdoinghere?WhatamIdoinghere? Not just in this crappy hotel, where the only things you can see outside the window are a highway and other hotels. But here in New York, chasing after someone I will never be able to be with. It’s not the same at all, but I can’t help but think about the way it was with Justin, how there were so many times I thought it was over, and then I would convince myself that, no, we should be together. So we’d stay together. And then it would happen again. But we’d stay together. And it would happen again. Until finally there was too much evidence to be ignored. I know A is not Justin, and the reasons it won’t work with A are completely different from the reasons it didn’t work with Justin. But even if the person is different, maybe the pattern is the same. That childish belief that if you want something badly enough, you’ll get it. So what if A is good for me and Justin was bad for me. What doesn’t work doesn’t work.
Stop. I have to tell myself to stop. Brush my teeth, then grit them in order to get into the damp bed. The sheets aren’t as bad as the comforter. But the heater’s making noise. I remember my phone and turn it on to find goodnight texts from A, then one before midnight telling me not to text back—as if I’d forget that part. Or maybe I would forget that part. Maybe I need to stop underestimating my own power of delusion.
I get back in bed. The heater doesn’t get any quieter. The bed doesn’t get any more comfortable. There’s light coming in around the window shades. I can hear the cars on the highway. Why are there so many cars on the highway? I am alone. I am here to be with A, and I am alone.
But you knew you would be, I tell myself.
I just didn’t know it would feel like this, I answer.
Someday Page 18
