Skipping a Beat

by Sarah Pekkanen

  “But what if you don’t fantasize about sleeping on the couch?” she asked, finally lifting up her eyes. They roved around the table to land on each of us in turn. “What if things aren’t terrible, but they aren’t great either? What if you’re not happy, but not terribly unhappy either? How do you know what to do?”

  I refilled everyone’s cup while I thought about it. “I think you’d know if you needed to leave,” I finally said. “You have to trust yourself.”

  We moved on to lighter topics soon after that, but I couldn’t forget her confused, pleading eyes. She was stuck in that fuzzy middle place—not happy, but not terribly unhappy either—and she was desperate for an answer. Maybe when she was alone, she mentally listed the good things in her marriage, then counted up the bad parts. She probably listened to her friends complain about their husbands and thought, Well, at least he doesn’t do that. Her husband’s fidelity or disinterest in golf might buy her a few days or weeks of unexpected gratitude. Maybe she even had moments of grace mixed in with the dreary days—times when her husband unexpectedly threw an arm across her in sleep and pulled her closer to him, or cracked a joke about a movie they both hated. It might be impossible for her to answer the advice columnist’s deceptively simple question.

  At the time I felt so sorry for her, with her sad eyes and smear of lipstick on her tooth. But it wasn’t long before I knew exactly how she felt—before I was her.

  * * *

  Part Two

  * * *

  * * *

  Twenty-two

  * * *

  I ONCE READ A newspaper story about what happens to the human body just before a big accident. Say you’re driving through an intersection, absently dangling your hand out the window to catch the breeze and doing your best Alicia Keys impression while she backs you up on the radio. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you glimpse a guy in a truck barreling through the red light, and in that fleeting, frozen moment, your brain calculates the trajectory and speed of your car and his truck and screams a warning: You’re going to be hit. That’s when your body snaps to attention and scrambles to protect you. Blood rushes toward your internal organs, to give them added cushioning at the moment of impact. Instinct pulls your arms up, to cover your vulnerable head and face. Let’s focus on the priorities, the things it would hurt most to lose, your body is basically instructing itself—and that’s exactly what the doctors do, too, when you’re rushed to the ER. Sometimes a minor injury like a sprained shoulder or broken toe won’t even be noticed until long after the internal bleeding is stopped and surgeons ensure that your pupils can still contract in a bright light and that you know the correct day of the week.

  When Michael announced he wanted to give everything away, that’s exactly what I did: I focused only on the big hemorrhage, the potential loss of the company and our houses. I didn’t think about the smaller pieces. Then one day I went into my dressing room to change my shirt and it hit me with the force of a thunderclap.

  How could I have forgotten?

  I spun around and peeked into the bedroom to make sure Michael wasn’t around before locking myself inside my dressing room. My eyes swept past the glass-door closets where my clothes and shoes and purses were artfully displayed as I hurried toward a back corner. I moved a shelfful of sweaters onto a chaise lounge, then stared at the section of bare wall I’d uncovered. I pressed a spot I’d long ago memorized, and part of the wall silently slid aside to reveal a secret panel. I dialed the combination of the safe and waited until I heard a click and the heavy metal door swung open.

  I reached in and took out the velvet boxes containing the sapphire-and-platinum teardrop earrings and matching necklace Michael had given me for my last birthday. I laid them on the shelf, and then reached in again. My solid gold bangles were here, too, I thought as my hand closed around their reassuring heft, and my ropes of onyx and white pearls. I reached in again and pulled out the cases containing my diamond tennis bracelet, two Rolexes, and chunky emerald ring. Next came my diamond hoop earrings, my Tiffany tourmaline cuff bracelet, my grossularite and platinum brooch—one by one, almost reverently, I opened the lids and laid the jewelry boxes on the shelf. The platinum choker encrusted with gems in every color of the rainbow—probably the most valuable piece of all—had been delivered to me the day after Michael’s company’s stock went public.

  These belonged to me, not Michael, since he’d given them to me as gifts for birthdays or anniversaries or special events. No matter what happened in the future, I could take my jewelry with me.

  I closed my eyes, feeling a physical lifting sensation, as though I’d come in from a rainstorm and flung off a soaking wet wool coat. I’d never had my jewelry appraised, but I knew that, if I had to sell it, even taking into account a hefty drop in value for a resale, I’d still walk away with a fat six-figure check. Enough for a big down payment on a house in a lovely neighborhood, with a chunk left over to tuck away in the bank for emergencies.

  If I decided my future didn’t include Michael … My fingers lingered over the delicate craftsmanship of the stones and precious metals. Even if I couldn’t find a way to break the prenup, I’d have this gorgeous, glittering safety net.

  I started when I heard Michael’s voice outside the dressing room door: “Julia?”

  “Just a minute,” I shouted. I scrambled to pile the boxes back into the safe, then shut the door and slid the panel to cover it. I quickly put the sweaters on the bare shelf, then ran to the door and flung it open.

  “Hi,” I panted.

  “Are you okay?” Michael asked.

  “Sure. I was just changing my shirt,” I said. “It’s colder out than I thought.”

  “Oh.” Michael looked at me strangely. “But isn’t that the shirt you were already wearing?”

  “I, um, couldn’t find anything else …”

  Michael’s eyebrows shot toward the ceiling as he scanned my dressing room, which was as well stocked as any boutique.

  “Anyway, did you need something?” I asked quickly.

  “It’s such a beautiful day,” Michael said. “I packed up a snack. Want to go for a walk?”

  I shrugged a shoulder, feeling more kindly disposed toward him than I had in a long time.

  “Sure,” I said. “A walk sounds great.”

  It was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon when we left, and without planning it, I found myself driving toward Great Falls. I hadn’t intended to bring Michael here, but I didn’t feel like strolling the streets of D.C. Someone might recognize Michael and force us into a conversation I didn’t want to have. So I suggested we go to the spot where I’d met Noah. He’d said he often went there after school, and I was hoping we’d catch him. Maybe it was because I still felt awkward around my husband and I knew Noah’s chatter would bridge the gaps in our conversation. Or it could’ve been because something was drawing me to Noah, as steadily and persistently as the ocean’s undertow.

  Besides, I still couldn’t figure out the solution to that stupid problem about the waiter and the missing dollar.

  We got out of the car and walked in silence for several minutes. It felt strange to be in this quiet space with Michael, and I was as self-conscious as if we were on a blind date. I made sure there was plenty of room between us while we walked. I didn’t want my hand to brush against his and give him the wrong idea.

  When I spotted the skinny form throwing a stick to Bear, he waved us over. His wave grew more vigorous when he spotted the picnic basket Michael was carrying. From the moment we joined him, Noah was the one who steered the conversation, screeching around corners and taking shortcuts through bumpy fields, while Michael and I hung on for dear life.

  “This is soo good,” Noah said, gobbling up half my sandwich and looking beseechingly at the chocolate-chip cookies Michael had packed. I handed him a few and smiled, then stretched out my legs on the rock.

  “So I read about that opera guy, Wagner?” Noah said. He had a smudge of chocolate on his nose, an
d somehow, more had found its way into his spiky brown hair. “It took me a minute to Google him because I spelled his name with a V at first. Then I figured it out.”

  “Really?” I felt a flush of pleasure. I’d never shared opera with anyone before, and the thought that Noah liked it was unexpectedly lovely. “What did you learn?”

  “I think I know why he was such a jerk,” Noah said. “He couldn’t get away from the number 13.”

  I wrinkled my nose in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “Take his name, Richard Wagner. It’s got thirteen letters, right? He was born in 1813. And guess how many operas he wrote? Thirteen.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said, reaching back in my memory.

  Michael looked back and forth, like Noah and I were speaking a foreign language he couldn’t translate, but he didn’t interrupt us.

  “I am right,” Noah said cheerfully. “And there’s more. Add up the numbers of his birth year, 1813. It comes out to thirteen. And did you know he was exiled from Germany?”

  I closed my eyes. “I think so. I read about it …”

  “For thirteen years,” Noah said. “His first opera, the one I can’t pronounce? Tann something?”

  “Tannhäuser.” I nodded eagerly. “It was a disaster … people booed him like crazy.”

  “March thirteenth,” Noah said. “That’s when it came out in Paris.”

  “My God,” I breathed.

  “Told you I love numbers,” Noah said. “The guy died on the thirteenth of February, too. Can you blame him for being such a jerk? He must’ve had really bad luck all his life. He probably kept slamming his fingers in the piano cover by accident, and tripping over his own feet. Maybe the reason he didn’t write more operas was because he accidentally burned the ones he wrote in the fireplace. Think about it, all those thirteens? The guy had to be pretty miserable.”

  Noah was grinning, like it was all a great joke, as Michael and I gaped at him.

  “You … you figured this all out from Google?” I finally said. “Did it take you a long time?”

  “You mean the stuff about burning the operas? I was just kidding.”

  “The numbers, Noah, all those thirteens. How long did that take you to figure out?”

  Noah shrugged. “I dunno. A couple minutes, maybe.”

  “How’d you do it?” Michael finally spoke up, his voice quiet but with a taut undercurrent of interest running through it.

  “Sometimes when I see something, like some long boring story”—Noah flashed me a grin—“no offense, but some of the stuff about his life was kind of boring, you know, like that boat trip he got stuck on, but anyway, the numbers just float up at me. Even when I’m not looking for them.”

  “Do things like that happen a lot?” Michael asked, leaning forward slightly.

  “Yeah,” Noah said, gobbling down the last cookie. “I read about math a lot, too. That’s probably why I think about it so much.”

  “I think there’s a little more to it than that,” Michael said, almost under his breath, shaking his head.

  “Most people only see numbers in boring places,” Noah said blithely. “Like their checkbooks, or”—he looked down at the fingers he was licking clean—“they count on their fingers. But numbers are everywhere.”

  “Where do you see them?” Michael asked.

  By now I felt like the outsider in the conversation; I always counted on my fingers. I mean, didn’t everyone?

  Noah looked at Michael for a moment, like he was taking measure of whether Michael was truly interested or just humoring him.

  “Math is all around us right now,” Noah said. He pointed at a tree. “It’s in there.”

  “How?” I asked. Noah’s dog could swim underwater—who knew, maybe he’d found a tree that could spout multiplication tables.

  “See, there was this guy named Fibonacci? He was from Italy?” Noah said, his already high voice rising to helium levels at the end of every sentence. “Anyway, he came up with this series of numbers. It goes 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55. The thing that’s special about it—”

  “Every number is the sum of the previous two numbers,” Michael interrupted. “Eight is 3 plus 5. Thirteen is 8 plus 5.”

  Noah’s eyes widened in surprise. “That’s right. How did you know?”

  “Math used to be my favorite, too, kiddo,” Michael said.

  “I read in this book that you can find Fibonacci numbers everywhere in nature,” Noah confided. “And it’s true. If you count the petals on a flower, it’s usually a Fibonacci number. And if you look up into that tree—actually, a lot of trees, not just that one—and you count up from a low branch to the next one directly above it, there’s usually a Fibonacci number of branches between them. I’ve found the numbers making patterns in pinecones, too.”

  Noah ducked his head and grinned. “Once I even found Fibonacci spirals in the cauliflower my mom was going to cook for dinner. I tried to convince her to let me keep it, but she made me eat it anyway.”

  Michael and I just looked at each other. I’d heard of child prodigies; Mozart wrote the opera Bastien and Bastienne when he was twelve. And by the age of fifteen, Rossini could go to an opera, then come home and write entire arias—both the vocal and orchestral parts—from memory. But I’d never met one before.

  How was it possible that this little kid wearing a stained shirt, this scruffy, skinny guy who spent every afternoon throwing a stick for his dog on a rock out in the middle of a river, possessed such a magnificent brain?

  “There’s one other place I found Fibonacci,” Noah said, and now he turned to look at me. He looked kind of shy for the first time since I’d met him, as if he was offering up a gift he wasn’t sure I’d like. “I thought of you since you love music so much. When I was Googling opera, I learned there are thirteen keys in every octave. On a piano, eight keys are white and five are black in each octave, and the black keys are grouped in twos and threes. They’re all Fibonacci numbers. Every single one of them.”

  He’d thought of this for me? This sweet little boy who’d held my iPod earbuds and closed his eyes and curved his lips into a smile while he listened to Wagner?

  Who are you? How do I know you? I wanted to ask him. Because I’d met Noah before, somewhere. I was certain of it. He felt so familiar.

  Suddenly Noah jumped up and threw a stick into the water for Bear. “Did you bring anything to drink?” he asked hopefully. “All those cookies made me a little thirsty.”

  “Sure,” Michael said. He fumbled for the picnic basket, pulled out a bottle of DrinkUp, and poured some into a paper cup. “Here you go…. Hey, Noah? Do you see your dog?”

  “He’s fine,” Noah and I said in unison.

  Michael’s brow furrowed. “But I don’t see him—”

  “Trust me,” I cut Michael off. “So, Noah, tell me the answer to that problem. It’s driving me crazy.”

  Noah grinned. “So you go to lunch with two friends, and you each pay ten dollars toward the bill, right? But then later, the waiter realizes the bill was only twenty-five dollars. So he gets five dollars out of the cash register, and on the way back to your table, he takes two for himself as a tip. He gives you each a dollar. So, you and your friends pay nine dollars each, which adds up to twenty-seven dollars. And the waiter has two, which makes twenty-nine. What happened to the missing dollar?”

  Michael laughed.

  “You know it, don’t you?” Noah asked.

  “Why don’t you explain it to him, just in case,” I said impatiently.

  “It’s like an optical illusion,” Noah said. “It’s a trick question. The two dollars should be subtracted from what the customers pay, not added.”

  I thought about it for a minute. I still didn’t totally get it, but then I forgot all about Noah’s trick question. Because at that moment, as I looked back and forth between him and Michael, it hit me: the person Noah was a dead ringer for was a young Michael.

  * * *

  Twent
y-three

  * * *

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING I flung the sheet away from my sweaty body and sat up, my breath coming in quick gasps. “It was just a dream,” I said aloud. I looked over, but the other side of the bed was empty.

  “Michael?” I called out, my voice cracking. He didn’t answer.

  I’d been restless all night long. After lying awake for hours, I’d finally drifted off, but I’d never dipped fully into sleep. Instead I felt suspended inside the thin membrane separating sleep and wakefulness. My dreams had been dark and turbulent—I’d been swimming with Noah in the river, and he was arcing high into the air, like a porpoise, the sunlight turning the drops of water on his pale skin into diamonds. Then he slipped under the surface, so cleanly and suddenly he didn’t leave even a ripple behind. I dove deeply, blindly reaching for him, but my arms kept closing around nothing, and then I saw him through a burst of bubbles. I kicked as hard as I could, diving deeper into the water, but Noah’s face turned into Michael’s and he spiraled away from me, to the bottom of the river. He was smiling; how could he be smiling when he was drowning?

  “Please don’t go,” I’d been crying in my sleep.

  I didn’t know why I’d had a nightmare about losing Michael. It could have been because of what he’d said about not knowing how much time he had left. Or maybe I was beginning to realize that, at the end of these three weeks, I wouldn’t stay with him.

  I climbed out of bed and put on my robe, trying to shake away the shadowy images clinging to the corners of my mind.

  Michael wasn’t in his bathroom, or the sitting room. I hurried downstairs, the thick carpets absorbing the sound of my footsteps.

  I saw a silhouette by the French doors and stifled a scream. “You scared me!” I said when I realized it was Michael.