Parallel

by Lauren Miller

  “Thanks,” Tyler says dryly. He pulls a shirt over his head. “How was practice?”

  “Practice sucked,” I tell him. “I’m quitting the team.”

  “Yeah, right,” Tyler replies. “You’ve never quit anything in your life.”

  I’m looking at Caitlin as I answer. “I guess I’m not as predictable as you thought.”

  After brunch, Caitlin takes Tyler to the airport, and I head back to my room. As I’m passing through the High Street gate, a fluorescent green flyer tacked to the outdoor bulletin board catches my eye, and I stop.

  OPEN AUDITIONS FOR

  MARY ZIMMERMAN’S METAMORPHOSES

  YALE’S 2009/2010 FRESHMAN SHOW

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2009

  2 P.M.–5 P.M.

  @ 301 CROWN STREET

  SIGN-UP SHEET ON THE DOOR AT 222 YORK STREET

  In my mind, I’m there again, standing on the stage in the Brookside auditorium, struggling through my audition piece. Ms. Ziffren is smiling. Ilana is snickering. The stage lights are hot on my face. I’m thinking, Why am I up here? This isn’t me. Yet somehow my name ends up at the top of that cast list. It seemed like such a small thing—just a silly school play—but it turned out to be such a big thing. The doorway to something huge. The opportunity to discover a talent I never imagined I had.

  My parallel won’t get to experience any of that. She’s not taking Ziffren’s class, so she won’t be forced to overcome her stage fright for the sake of her grade, surprising herself and everyone else in the class by getting the lead. Which means she won’t get Ms. Ziffren’s crash course on method acting. Which means she won’t be able to wow a Hollywood casting director with her “kinetic” portrayal of Thomasina Coverly on opening night. Which means she won’t get the chance to spend four months on a movie set. Which means no matter what happens in the parallel world, she’ll never acquire the skills I now have. She’s already missed her chance for that.

  Suddenly, I see it.

  I have something she doesn’t.

  The hair on my arm prickles. The fact that I kept my old memories is more than an oddity of science—it’s a gift. Unlike everyone else in the world, I haven’t forgotten who I was before the collision. Which means I can become that person again. A person my parallel will never be.

  My mind starts to race, leaping ahead, connecting the dots. Parallel Abby can have my beloved Plan. She can have all the writing classes, and my subscription to the New York Times, and all the nights and weekends I spent in the Brookside newspaper lab. She can have the YDN, the prestigious internship, the impressive job, the fancy byline that I always imagined I’d have. She can be the person I was going to be.

  I’ll be someone else.

  The thought is exhilarating.

  I see it so clearly now. Caitlin is right: Trying to undo what my parallel has done won’t give me autonomy. To prove my independence, it’s not enough to do things my parallel wouldn’t do; I have to do things she couldn’t do, things only I can. Like acting. Like getting cast in the Freshman Show.

  I pull the flyer off the board. Open auditions. All I have to do is sign up. With my background, I should at least have a shot at getting cast.

  A smile stretches across my face. Metamorphoses. Exactly.

  Still smiling, I slip the flyer into my bag.

  My phone rings then, and my stomach dips a little when I see Michael’s name on the caller ID. We’ve seen each other six times since my birthday (four times in class and twice on the weekend, one of which was planned in advance) and text almost every other day, but I’m still not used to him yet. Probably because I’m not sure what I should be getting used to, or whether I should be getting used to him at all. As much as I like him, my parallel could so easily ruin our relationship (assuming that sitting together in in art history, standing side by side at a fraternity toga party, and kissing behind a U-Haul at the Yale-Dartmouth football tailgate constitute a relationship). I shouldn’t get attached. My head knows this, but apparently my stomach and knees do not.

  “What’re you doing tonight?” Michael asks when I answer.

  “Nothing,” I answer, then wince. Lame.

  “Wrong. You’re going out with me.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask casually, determined to keep all traces of ohmigod-he’s-finally-taking-me-on-a-real-date! from my voice.

  “It’s a surprise,” he says mysteriously. “Can you be at my house at eight thirty?”

  “Sure,” I reply, only moderately annoyed that he didn’t offer to pick me up. Maybe this date requires preparation. He’s making dinner! I picture us sharing a bowl of spaghetti by candlelight, feeding each other tiny bites of homemade meatball.

  “Oh, and eat before you come,” he says.

  Or not.

  “What am I supposed to wear?” I ask Marissa over takeout from Thai Taste that night. “What if we’re going somewhere dressy?”

  “He would’ve told you,” she says, twirling noodles with her spoon. “Since he didn’t say anything about wardrobe, I think you should assume it’s casual.”

  “Outdoor casual or indoor casual?”

  “Hmmmm.” She chews on a chopstick, thinking. “Since he already did the outdoor date, this one is probably indoor, right?”

  “You mean the tailgate last weekend? I don’t think that counts as a date.”

  “No, silly. The kayak yesterday. Wait, is it called a kayak? Whatever—two-man crew boat. Or does that not count because it was your idea?”

  This is why having a yearlong memory gap really sucks. I’m always in the dark. When I’m with Caitlin, it’s not a big deal; she just fills in the details I’m missing. But how do I handle my roommate, who right now is looking at me like I’m an Alzheimer’s patient? “Oh, I thought you said something about last weekend,” I say lamely, pretending her question about the boat was rhetorical. “You were saying something about Ben?”

  Marissa looks at me funny. “I was?”

  “You were about to tell me about your best date.” I stuff a huge wad of noodles into my mouth before I make things worse. Lucky for me, my roommate is slightly spacey and prone to losing her train of thought, so she doesn’t doubt me here.

  “Oh. Right.” Marissa thinks for a minute, then smiles. “Summer after junior year, about two weeks into our relationship. Ben planned a picnic dinner in Central Park. He bought all these locally made meats and cheeses and baked a loaf of French bread.”

  “Ben baked?”

  She nods, her face bright with the memory. “It was super romantic. The sun was shining when he picked me up—on his bike—and we rode through the park with the picnic basket balanced on the handlebars, me in a white linen sundress, and Ben in a khaki suit. It was like something out of an old movie, you know?”

  “It sounds perfect,” I tell her, picturing it.

  “It was,” she agrees. “Until about ten minutes after we got to our picnic spot, when it started pouring.”

  “Oh, no!”

  She nods, still smiling. “Both the bread and my dress were soaked. We tossed the food, bought “I Heart NY” sweatshirts from a street vendor, and went for pizza instead.”

  “So you’re saying I should bring an umbrella tonight,” I say as I reach for a fortune cookie.

  “I’m saying even when you know what you’re in for, you never really know what you’re in for,” she tells me, crunching on a bean sprout. “So dress accordingly.”

  If I learned anything in L.A., it’s that with the right accessories, you can go anywhere in jeans and a white V-neck. Tonight I add an oversized cardigan I bought on eBay and a pair of brown leather riding boots I found at Cinderella’s Attic in Guilford last weekend. Since my parallel self’s definition of “style” appears to have been limited to Gap jeans and tops from J. Crew (which, admittedly, aptly describes the contents of my own pre-Hollywood closet), I’ve had to do some wardrobe supplementing since I got here. Unfortunately, my bank account is quite a bit smaller than it was when I was
in L.A., so I’m making do with what I can find secondhand.

  “You look great,” Michael says when he opens the door. “Cool boots.”

  “Thanks,” I say as I survey his attire. Track pants and a Yale Lacrosse T-shirt. And here I was worried about being underdressed. Is that a grease stain on his chest?

  “I was just about to change,” he tells me, and holds out the red plastic cup in his hands. It’s empty. “Can you get me a refill?” he calls, already halfway up the stairs. “Beer’s in the fridge.”

  “Uh, okay,” I call back. “Sure.”

  I turn the cup over in my hands. Not exactly how I thought the first thirty seconds of this date would go. Which, now that I’m here, doesn’t even feel like a date.

  By the time I reach the kitchen, I’m officially pissed off. “Can you get me a refill?” I mutter. “Seriously?” I grab the handle of the fridge and yank it open. Bottles on the door clang against one another, and it crosses my mind that I wouldn’t mind if they all broke.

  And then I see them. A bouquet of pink peonies spilling out of a trumpet-shaped beer stein. I reach for the bright yellow Post-it stuck to the front of the glass. For Abby.

  “The refill was just a ruse.”

  “Ah!” Startled, I jump at the sound of Michael’s voice and knock a family-sized bottle of Heinz off the refrigerator door. The flip top flies open when it hits the ground, squirting ketchup all over the linoleum. I look down at the ketchup, then up at Michael, who’s now dressed in khakis and a very wrinkled blue button-down that, despite the fact that it looks like it was retrieved from the bottom of his laundry pile, is definitely date appropriate. “You scared me,” I say sheepishly.

  “I noticed,” he replies, laughing as he bends to pick up the ketchup bottle. I grab a roll of paper towels off the counter to wipe up the mess. Clearly not standard procedure around here. The floor is disgusting, and wet with something that isn’t ketchup. Is that puke? I dab at the linoleum, trying not to gag, then toss the wad of paper towels toward the giant trash can next to the stove. It lands on the floor with a wet slap. Michael, meanwhile, is busy exchanging the Heinz bottle for two beers. “A drink before we go,” he explains, twisting the caps off and dropping them in a bucket next to the fridge.

  “Thanks,” I say, eyes on the paper towel heap, trying to decide if I’m obligated to pick it up. A puddle of what looks like pee is saturating its edges.

  “But we have to drink it fast,” Michael is saying. “We’re leaving here in five minutes.”

  No time to worry about nasty paper towel wads, then. Excellent. I gulp my beer.

  “So do you like the flowers?” he asks between sips. “After what we talked about yesterday, I wanted to surprise you.”

  Yesterday. The boat ride. The most romantic thing Michael and I have ever done, and I don’t remember it. I’m not sure what I could’ve said to prompt a surprise bouquet, but whatever it was, I’m glad I said it.

  “I love them,” I say. “Where’d you get peonies in New Haven?” I’ve been to the Stop & Shop near campus. Their flower selection is limited to carnations and roses, each with a healthy dose of baby’s breath.

  “The farmers’ market in Edgewood Park,” he says, then grins. “According to the guy I bought them from, they’re an aphrodisiac.”

  Heat floods my cheeks. Embarrassed that I’m embarrassed, I turn an even deeper shade of red.

  “So what else did you do today?” I ask, quickly changing the subject before my face catches fire.

  “Not a whole lot,” he replies. “Went to the gym. Watched some baseball. What about you?”

  “I quit the crew team,” I tell him, tasting the Thai noodles I had for dinner and wishing I’d brought gum. I take several more swigs of beer, hoping to drown out the persistent peanut flavor.

  “Ha. Very funny.”

  “I’m serious,” I say. “I sent an email to the coach right before I came over here.” It strikes me that someone who’s been on the team for weeks probably wouldn’t say “the coach,” but Michael is too busy looking flabbergasted to notice.

  “You quit the team? Over email?”

  His reaction throws me. “Well, yeah,” I reply, suddenly self-conscious. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Did something happen at practice today?” he asks. “Is that where this is coming from?”

  “Why does it have to be ‘coming from’ anywhere?” I ask, getting defensive. “Can’t a person just decide she doesn’t like something anymore?”

  “Overnight?”

  “Why not?”

  “I dunno, maybe because that’s not how people are? People don’t just abandon whole parts of themselves,” he says. “You’re a coxswain,” he declares, as though he’s telling me the sky is blue. “It’s part of who you are. A part I happen to like. You’re this little bossy ball of energy.”

  Subtext: I will like you less if you’re not a coxswain.

  “I love that you like that about me,” I begin, and then swallow hard when I realize that I’ve used “I,” “love,” and “you” in close proximity to one another in the same sentence. Thankfully, he doesn’t flinch. I barrel on. “But it’s not really part of who I am. Even if it seems like it. I only started coxing because I hurt my foot and couldn’t run cross-country,” I explain. “Since I didn’t want to obsess over the fact that I couldn’t do what I really loved, I told myself I loved crew, and after a while, I started believing it.” I’m making this up, of course, because it wasn’t really me who did any of this. But as I’m talking, I wonder: Is this how it happened for my parallel? Because if it is, then I sort of get it. Even if I want to believe I never would’ve given up so quickly on cross-country, I can imagine how it might’ve been easier to throw myself into something else than to suffer the disappointment of not being able to run.

  “Sounds to me like something happened at practice today,” Michael says.

  “Nothing happened at practice today,” I insist. “I just don’t want to do it anymore.”

  Michael takes a sip of his beer, considering this. “So I guess that means you can sleep over tonight,” he says, all nonchalant. “No crew practice in the morning.”

  I freeze. I didn’t shave my legs. Or my bikini line. My underwear has a hole in the crotch, and not in a sexy way. For these and a wealth of other reasons, I AM NOT READY TO HAVE SEX. Flustered, I put my bottle to my lips and tilt it back, my cheeks warm again. This is one of those moments—and there have been several since Michael and I met—when I’m reminded of how totally and completely out of my league I am. It’s not like I’m a total neophyte when it comes to the opposite sex—I’ve dated and made out with and almost-seen-naked a respectable number of them. But those were regular guys. Michael Carpenter is a different species altogether. He’s gorgeous. He’s smart. He’s athletic. And he’s cool. Like, really cool, without even trying. I, meanwhile, am of lesser caliber. I’m cute but not gorgeous, more hardworking than smart, fit but not athletic, and while I have moments of cool, those moments are surrounded by hours of carefully planning how to execute them.

  Michael sees the look on my face and laughs. “I’m kidding,” he says. “I intend to walk you to your doorstep after our date, where I will kiss you chastely good night.” He pauses, then adds, “Unless, of course, you want to sleep over . . .”

  “It’s a school night,” I say, and smile. My attempt to sound coy and flirty and not completely unhinged by this conversation.

  “We should probably save the sleepless night for another time, then.” Acting all blasé, he drains the rest of his beer and sets it on the counter. “Ready to go?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I manage, as casually as I can, as the words “SLEEPLESS NIGHT” reverberate in my head. Michael’s eyes are lit up with laughter.

  “So have you figured out where we’re going yet?” he asks as we set off down the block. His elbow grazes the back of my arm, sending a ripple to my fingertips. If our conversation in the kitchen was just a ploy to get me naked, it might
have worked. My legs aren’t that hairy, and the beer I just downed has made me decidedly less self-conscious about my holey underwear. I’m not talking sleepless-night-level nakedness, but it’s possible that some articles of clothing could be removed in a couple of hours. “C’mon,” Michael says with a playful nudge, jolting these thoughts from my mind. “Not even a guess?”

  “Hmm. A movie?”

  “Nope.”

  I see the lights of the Yale Bookstore up ahead. “Uh . . . a poetry reading?”

  “Nope.” He points at the redbrick building on the corner. “Church.”

  “Church,” I repeat. “Like, a church service?” My grandma Rose is always asking if I’ve been to church up here, and she makes this tsk sound when she hears I haven’t.

  “Sort of,” he says. “But sort of not.” He slips his hand into mine. “You’ll see.” He whistles softly as we walk, his warm hand dry and rough against my clammy palm. We’ve made out in a coat closet and kissed on his doorstep, but this is the first time we’ve ever held hands.

  The whistling stops when we step inside the building. The cross-shaped sanctuary is dark and cavernous, with Gothic arches and impossibly high ceilings, the kind of room that looks like it should be freezing cold. But this one isn’t. Dozens of candles line both sides of the sanctuary, which might have something to do with the warmth and are definitely responsible for the sedating scent. I inhale deeply, trying to place it. Juniper? But something else, too . . . something more familiar. Rose? An inscription in the stone of the eastern wall catches my attention. The words glow in the candlelight. WE MAY IGNORE, BUT WE CAN NOWHERE EVADE THE PRESENCE OF GOD. THE WORLD IS CROWDED WITH HIM.—C. S. LEWIS.

  “C’mon,” Michael whispers, tugging me farther inside.

  A handful of other people are scattered among the pews, but not enough of them to convince me that we’re in the right place for whatever it is we’ve come. I glance at Michael, expecting him to look confused or uncertain, but he’s grinning. He points at an empty row.

  We slide all the way in, to the very center of the pew, where it’s much darker than it was along the edges. I don’t know whether it’s the placement of the massive stone columns or the sheer size of the room, but, though the candles are visible from where we’re sitting, their glow is distant. Michael’s face is almost entirely shrouded in darkness.