“I just haven’t made it far.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why haven’t you gone far?”
“Well, because you can only go where the people you’re inside are going. And I get used to an area, which makes it not that easy to leave it.”
“I can understand that before you were driving age—then just about everyone is subject to a certain limitation of travel. But after? You could go anywhere.”
“Until midnight.”
“NOT until midnight. You can stay. I’ve told you that. Or, if you insist on vacating the premises at midnight, then simply take them as far as they can go.”
“And strand them? I’ve done that. It feels awful.”
“It feels awful because you’re letting it feel awful. And you probably leave behind that awful feeling in them, too. That’s not how to do it. You have to think of it as an adventure—and make them think that way, too. Yes, it’s disorienting for people who aren’t used to it to wake up in a new place, not entirely remembering how they got there. But how much better if they wake up thinking they did something wild and crazy the night before, and spontaneously pushed themselves somewhere new. You can leave that thought behind. You can make them believe that.”
“But what if you’re harming them?”
“I think you must be careful not to mistake inconvenience for harm. They are two very different things. You are clearly petrified of doing harm. Fair enough. But I would guess, ninety-nine percent of the time, what you think is harming them is actually only inconveniencing them.”
We get to the restaurant, and are seated at a window. We pause to order, then continue.
“What’s the farthest you’ve ever been?” he asks me.
“Denver.”
“When?”
“Until a week ago.”
“Ah, so that’s where you were hiding.”
“I wasn’t hiding. Why bother to hide when you’re hidden every single day?”
“Because you found someone who saw you. Rhiannon. And you weren’t hidden every day. You had to go back to being hidden every day.”
“How do you know that?”
“You’re not the only one who’s had a Rhiannon. Mine was Sara. I’ll tell you about her another time—it’s a long story, and there are other things to discuss.”
I want to discuss Sara. But I wonder if it’s too painful. And I respect that we’re not close enough to go to those places yet.
I ask him more about the parts of the world he’s been, and then ask him about some of the people he’s been. It’s so strange to me that he’s been so many different ages; when I tell him this, he says, “You could experience life that way, too.”
“Whatever happened to Reverend Poole?” I ask.
“A direct question, and I will give you a direct answer: He’s dead.”
“When?”
“Shortly after I left him. Natural causes.”
“What does that mean?”
“In this case, it means that the reason I could stay inside his body for so long was because the part of him that I replaced—it was already dying. Maybe already dead. My presence kept him alive much longer than he would have lived otherwise. Then, when I moved on, he moved on as well.”
“And do you think if his body had died while you were still inside it—”
“—then I would have died as well. I don’t think we are immortal, A. I don’t think a life can exist without a body. So if the body we’re in dies, then I imagine we die. I would love to be wrong—but it’s not the kind of thing one tests, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” I say. Then I think again about Reverend Poole, and about X’s current body. “What about Wyatt? If you stay in him long enough, will the same thing happen?”
“I suspect that when I leave, he’ll be fine. There will be a week missing from his life, but I’ll try to fill it in as best I can.”
“But you said yesterday that he’s allowing you to be in there?”
“Yes. If he didn’t in some way want me here, I don’t think I could do this. Which is why I think you should do it, too. Or at least try. What’s the name of the person you’re in today?”
“Andy.”
“Okay. So if Andy misses tomorrow as well as today, is it really such a loss? If he really wants to live for himself tomorrow, then you won’t wake up as him. As simple as that. But if in some way he’d be relieved to have someone else take the wheel…then you get another day. And you’ll be amazed when you see how much you can accomplish when you’re the same person for a few days.”
If this were a debate, I would lose, because the best argument I have is That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Which makes no sense, because the same thing could be said about waking up every day in a different body. We left supposed to behind as soon as we were born.
So I don’t debate. Instead I ask him to tell me some of the people he’s been. And he says he will, as long as I tell him some of the people I’ve been.
Most of my stories involve situations in school, or families I particularly remember. I don’t tell him any of the ones involving Rhiannon, because those belong to her and me. In turn, he tells me about flights on corporate jets and nights in Paris. Almost all of the people he remembers being are men, and I remind myself that’s just who he feels he is, which is as legitimate a choice for him as my own vagueness (or is it openness?) is for me.
We stay so long talking that the waiters change shifts. At the end, X insists on paying again. I don’t put up a fight.
“Should we take a walk?” he asks. “Keep talking?”
I excuse myself to the bathroom so I can check Andy’s phone. I text Shane and Vaughn to tell them I’m running around museums. They tell me I’m not missing much, and that our advisor is probably doing the same, since she can’t be found.
I check my email and find a message from Rhiannon, telling me to meet her at a bookstore, Politics and Prose, at six. I’ll need to take the Metro or a cab, but she promises me it’ll be worth it.
When I get back to the table, the check is settled and X is ready to go.
“Anything in particular that you want to see?” he asks.
I think about everything I’ve heard about and experienced in DC over the years.
“The pandas?” I say. I actually remember going to the National Zoo many years ago with my mom.
“That’s not close, and it’s pretty cold out. But we could, if you want.”
“Nah, I have to be back at my hotel by five.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’m going to.”
He smiles. “Understood. How about we just go back to my suite? There’s a sitting area where we can make ourselves at home.”
If you’d told me two days ago I’d be following Poole to his lair, I would have called my two-days-later self an idiot. But now it doesn’t feel crazy or risky at all. What did I think he’d do to me? He could chain me to a radiator and insist I do his bidding—but all it would take is the approach of midnight for me to escape.
As we walk over, he says, “You’ve been very polite to me.”
I’m not sure if this is meant as a compliment or a complaint. “How so?” I ask.
“You haven’t brought up what I did to your friend Nathan. I owe you both an apology, which isn’t complicated at all: I am very sorry I did what I did. And I also owe you an explanation, which is more complicated, because I don’t fully understand it myself. I don’t want you to think I’m blaming him at all—I’m not. It is all my fault.
“For reasons that I’m guessing are clearer now, I was desperate to find you. To have gotten so close to having these conversations, this recognition, and then to have you disappear—it was devastating. The only time I’d been seen in that way was with Sara…and that wasn�
��t the same. Even though I let her know me, she couldn’t truly understand what I was going through. Again, not her fault. In this case, nobody’s fault. But with you—there was the possibility of a true exchange, a true understanding. Which I lost. Because, as already established, I handled it very badly.
“I realized Nathan was the only connection to you I had left. And I knew a straightforward plea was not going to work. What did he owe me? So I decided to spook him. And it worked. It worked well. Until we became stuck again, and the way I thought to unstick it was to spook him some more. But, again, what I did was inexcusable, no matter what desperation I was feeling. I just want to acknowledge that so we can move on.”
I’m surprised he’s brought it up. And relieved.
“It’s really Nathan you should be apologizing to,” I say. “Not me.”
“I know. But I can’t imagine he wants to be in a room with me right now. So can you at least pass it on?”
I nod. “I will.”
I feel there are other things I should be saying, but I don’t know what they are. That violence is wrong? He seems to know that. That desperation is no excuse? He seems to know that also. I think of some of the mistakes I’ve made, particularly the way I kidnapped Katie to Denver. It’s not like I’m blameless when it comes to harmful decisions made in the heat of wanting something.
“I remember Nathan right after your experience with him,” X goes on. “How scared he was. You must have left him abruptly. Because usually I feel there’s a transition when we leave. Don’t you?”
I remember talking to Rhiannon about this, after I had seen life through her eyes for a day. Her reaction wasn’t the same as Nathan’s at all.
“I like to think there’s a way to make it easier for them,” I say.
“There has to be. Otherwise, people would catch on. They would talk about it more. They’d figure it out—and that would be devastating to us. And to them. Our private power would become their public crisis. Can you imagine how many more minds would be further destabilized, in this already destabilizing age? Bad enough to have to grapple with your own biology, your own chemistry. But then to think that one day you might wake up with someone else in charge? What’s already fragile would break.”
“So you’re saying our secrecy serves them, too?”
“Absolutely. It serves us all.”
We’ve gotten to his hotel, and he takes me up to the top floor. When he said he was staying in a suite, I pictured something like a Residence Inn—a regular hotel room, only with two beds and maybe a kitchenette.
This room is much grander than that.
It actually feels like we’re in a rich person’s apartment. There’s a living room. A dining room. A kitchen. And, presumably, a bedroom and bathroom (two bathrooms!) beyond.
X gestures to one of the two couches. “Make yourself at home. Do you want something to drink?”
“Water’s fine.”
“There’s a full bar here. Go crazy.”
“Okay, then—ginger ale.”
He shakes his head, amused. “Suit yourself.”
I don’t think X knows how funny it is to see Wyatt being the lord of this particular manor. Wyatt looks like he might have a job driving deliveries for a pizza place. He does not look like he should have the keys to a suite.
X hands me what I’m sure is the most expensive can of Canada Dry I’ve ever held. He’s gotten a Coke for himself.
I know it’s not one of the questions you’re usually encouraged to ask, but since we’re in far from usual circumstances, I ask, “How can you afford this?”
“Wise investments.”
“With whose money?”
“I’ll explain.”
And explain he does—something about offshore accounts, shifting assets, and “choice liquidation.” I only understand about half of it, but the half I understand is this: He takes money from some of the people he occupies and he puts it in his own bank accounts.
“Isn’t that, like, stealing?” I ask.
“Yes and no. Yes, in that what was once theirs becomes mine, and it is not a gift that is freely given. And no, because I am very careful to only take from the people who have plenty to spare. All you need to do is dip into that top income bracket three or four times a year and you’re set. I’m not going to take money from a family of seven living in a two-bedroom apartment. If anything, I may dip into my own accounts and leave them something for their troubles. It is one of our great abilities, to be able to redistribute wealth.”
“But you’re taking advantage.”
“Yes! And you need to take advantage as well, A. We need every possible advantage we can get in order to survive. You believe that freedom is essential, correct? That every man deserves his own independence?”
“Of course.”
“Well, how else are we going to have our own freedom, if we don’t have our own means? How are we going to have our own independence, if we don’t get to make our own choices? You may have noticed—our society revolves around money. You may also have noticed that our temporal bodily state does not give us any direct way to earn money. So we must ‘take advantage.’ If we see any advantage whatsoever, we must grab it.”
“What other advantages are there?” I ask him, both curious and afraid.
“We have the advantage of being able to walk away from anything, A—anything short of death. We don’t have to live with consequences like other people. Nor do we have to be anchored to bodies that we hate, which is the truth for so many of them. We have the advantage of being able to see from angles they can’t imagine. And when we take on positions of power, we assume that power as our own, for as long as we’d like it—just by virtue of waking up in the right place.”
“There are still consequences of what we do.”
“Of course there are. I’m just saying we have a different relationship to them.”
“You might.”
“If you don’t, you will. But I suspect you do already, even if you don’t acknowledge it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you can’t possibly live with all of the consequences of your actions, for all these people. The capacity of memory does not stretch that wide. They live with what you’ve done to them. You do not. Which is as it should be.”
“I can’t see the world like that. I can’t deliberately take advantage.”
“You can. You have. And you will.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Of course I know that! You’re young, A. And this is a very early stop on your learning curve. I can tell you’ve already grown restless. You’ve already been disrupting the rules you set down. You’re already looking beyond what you are. That’s good. Are some of the things I’ve done breaking the law? Yes. But you and I, we were breaking nature’s law from the day we were born. You can say right now that you want to follow the rules, not take advantage, keep going through life without anyone knowing you’ve ever been there. But if it hasn’t worn you down already, it will wear you down soon. Day after day of not living your own life. Year after year of never being yourself. It would be one thing if you actually believed you were these people. But you know you’re not. You know you’re pretending. And a person can only pretend for so long before he faces a choice: compromise himself or compromise the rules. The only way to live is to compromise the rules. Find a way to support yourself as yourself. If it means other people must suffer for you to get what you want—well, A, that’s the way of the world. And making yourself the one perpetually suffering doesn’t make you a better person. It only makes you miserable.”
“So you don’t think about them at all?”
“Are you listening to me? I think about them all the time! If I wanted, I could ruin every single one of their lives. Just for fun. The very first day I was Wyatt, I could have found a gun and had him
kill his whole family. If I wake up tomorrow as a girl at your debate convention, I could get trashed at the hotel bar and hook up with an insurance salesman from Colorado, without any protection. I am aware, in a way you are not aware, of all of the consequences our actions can have. It takes a great restraint not to take more advantage.”
It’s like he’s asking me to praise him for avoiding things I’ve never even thought of in the first place.
“By staying in there longer, aren’t you hurting them more?” I ask. “I know you say they’re letting you do it—but even if that’s true, aren’t you still taking advantage, by giving them that option? And when you leave, aren’t they worse off?”
“There’s no way for us to know, is there?”
“What about Wyatt? How long has it been now? Wyatt, what’s going to be left of you?”
I’m looking in his eyes as I say it—and as I ask my question, there’s the flicker I saw the first time I met X, back when he was Poole. For a moment, I see another set of eyes beneath. Pleading. Entreating.
Then X blinks, and Wyatt is gone.
“What?” X asks, taking in my expression. “What did you see?”
“I might have seen Wyatt. I don’t know.”
X smiles. “Amazing. To be able to ask that question and get an answer. What did it look like?”
I describe it.
“Okay. Remind me your name today.”
“Andy.”
He leans forward, looks into my eyes. “Okay, Andy. Are you in there? Show me where you are.”
He stares for a few seconds. Then a few seconds more. I try not to blink.
“Nothing. Did you feel Andy at all, trying to rise to the surface?”
“No. Did you feel Wyatt?”
“Possibly.”
“Doesn’t that mean he wants to get back?”
“I don’t know what it means.”
He drinks a gulp of his Coke, finishes it.
“I think that might have to be it for today. I’m suddenly very tired. But, again, this has been extraordinary. Don’t you think so? To get to talk about these things—extraordinary.”
I’ve only taken a sip of my ginger ale, but I also feel it might be time to go.
Someday Page 28
