Charmed Thirds (40 page)

And it’s more than things and appearances. It’s Kieran’s “sensitivity.” Bridget and Pepe’s case for monogamy. Jane’s choice of boyfriend. Tanu’s devotion to Clay Aiken. Hy’s and Paul’s and Taryn’s dedication to righting the world’s wrongs. ALF’s snappy comebacks. Sara’s gossip. Manda’s gaycation. Scotty’s alpha-maleness. My dad’s obsessive bike rides. G-Money’s quest for capital. Hope’s facebook profile. My ramblings in this journal.

And it used to be Len’s virginity.

Jane was right about one thing: Marcus’s T-shirts
were
a shtick. But so is
everything
we do when we exercise the free will that Kieran held so dear. And we’re
all
guilty. We convince ourselves that these choices declare
WHO
WE
ARE
to the world, and we hope that others—or just one person—will see these on-the-surface signs and somehow, suddenly understand
WHO
WE
ARE
down to the depths of our souls. But the cruel reality is that these choices serve a different purpose altogether. They act as cheery distractions from the only tragic Truth-with-a-capital-T that matters:

We all die alone.

I’m in a very bad place, indeed.

“So have you talked to him yet?” Bridget asked.

“No,” I said, neglecting to mention the note I’d hastily composed and dropped in the mailbox. “I think we’re officially avoiding each other.”

Bridget brightened. “Well, that’s good news. How bad would it be if he, like, fell in love with you because of this?”

I acknowledged that it would be pretty bad.

“So I have to ask,” Bridget began. “When are you going to try to get, like, a normal boyfriend?”

My spine stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you think it’s any coincidence that all the guys you have been interested in or involved with since Marcus are those who are, like, so obviously wrong for you? It’s like you want to doom the relationship before it even begins.”

Usually Bridget’s analyses are dead-on. It’s one of the more frustrating aspects of our friendship. But this time I had to disagree.

“You’re wrong,” I said.

“You know I’m right!” she said leaping up to her own defense.

“You’re
partly
right,” I said. “I did choose guys who are obviously wrong for me. But it wasn’t a self-defeating thing. That would be too simple.”

“Okay, then why?”

“I think,” I said uncertainly, still trying to get a firm hold on the idea squirming restlessly inside my brain. “I was trying to re-create the same love-hate thing I had with Marcus.”

“But you were still with him when you hooked up with the dead guy . . .”

“I know,” I said, flinching at William’s memory. “Maybe I needed to see if what I had with Marcus was unique, or only
felt
unique because of my limited experience with the opposite sex.”

Bridget’s eyes lit up brighter than the Manhattan skyline. “Now
that’s
an interesting theory,” she said. “What’s your conclusion after gaining more experience?”

In the instant between one heartbeat and the next, I summed up my post-Marcus men as follows:

William:
I didn’t want to have sex with him, but I almost did.

Bastian:
I wanted to have sex with him, and I almost did.

Kieran:
I didn’t want to have sex with him, but I did anyway.

Len:
I wanted to have sex with him, and I did.

The result of all the above? I’m unsatisfied as ever, sexually and emotionally.

“Your conclusion?” Bridget asked again.

My conclusion was that I had no choice other than to suffocate myself with my three-hundred-thread-count pillowcase.

the seventh

I had asked Len to meet me for coffee this morning to make things right between us. But as soon as I saw him, my embarrassment blazed as hot as the couch burns still smoldering on my kneecaps.

“Oh God,” I whimpered, resting my head on the table. “This is even more awkward than I thought it would be.”

“Really? I don’t. Um. Feel awkward.”

I kept my face pressed into the connect-the-dots on the place mat. I felt his hand resting gently on the back of my head. No surprise: zero sexual charge.

“It’s really okay, Jess,” he said, patting my hair. “Um. I appreciated your note.”

I looked up warily. “You’re welcome? I guess?”

“I know what you. Um. Meant by it,” he explained. “But your apology wasn’t necessary.”

“Well, it’s just that . . .” I trailed off, then started again. “It should have been more special or something. It should have been with someone . . . significant.”

“Whaddaya want?” growled Viola, our small, surly, octogenarian waitress.

What did I want? A job. A clue. A love.

“Two coffees,” Len answered for me.

Coffee would do for now, I guess.

“Jess,” Len said, reaching out to touch my hand. Again, nothing. “We have been a part of each other’s lives in one way or another since we were in elementary school. So I don’t think you could ever be classified as insignificant. Um. Especially now.”

“But . . . ,” I began.

“I don’t regret it,” he said. “Neither should. Um. You.”

And then Viola shuffled over to fill our mugs. I waited until she was gone before I spoke.

“I think I regret everything I’ve done for the past three years,” I said. “I used to think that I wouldn’t change anything from my past, because doing so would inevitably affect who I am now. But considering my current state, I’m thinking it might not be a bad idea to go back in time to fix things.”

Len sat up straight in the booth. “Time travel sounds like the stuff of science fiction,” he began. “But there is reason to believe that it is possible. According to the equations of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, there is nothing in the laws of physics that unequivocally rules out time travel. Putting it into practice is another matter as it involves the manipulation of black holes, which is something that can’t be supported by current technology.”

He slurped his coffee, as if to fuel the speed of his thoughts.

“I’m not an expert in quantum theory or relativism, but I know enough to say for certain that time travel will not be a reality in this century. That would seem to indicate that I would never be able to take advantage of this incredible leap in technology. Then again, with human life spans being extended as they are, it is not at all inconceivable that I could live to be a hundred and twenty years old or more, which, in turn, could put me in a position to use any time travel device that is developed. But I’m not pinning my hopes on it, that’s for certain.”

I could tell Len was excited by these ideas because he was talking with more than his mouth. He was putting his whole face and body into it. He wasn’t drunk, and yet he wasn’t stuttering, either.

“To me, the most interesting theory about time travel concerns the idea of a ‘multiverse’ instead of a ‘universe.’ As the term implies, this interpretation of quantum theory says that there is more than one reality, all of which exist at the same time, but without any interaction or interference with each other. Every object—and people are considered objects—is faced with choices, and the world splits to allow the object to take every possibility that is offered, thus creating an infinite number of parallel worlds that are as real as the one in which we exist, each world representing a different set of results for a different set of choices.” He gulped another mouthful of coffee. “Here’s the
truly
mind-bending part: There is a completely different world for
each and every outcome to each and every decision that is made in life.
This means decisions both big and small. For example, there is a world in which I decided to wear a black T-shirt this morning instead of the blue one I’m wearing right now. Or even more mind-bending: There is a world in which I don’t exist because my parents married other people.”

“Kind of like
Back to the Future,”
I added dumbly.

“Exactly,” he said to my surprise. “The possibilities are as limitless.”

As Len continued to talk, it was clear that the interest he lacked in the very practical field of medicine was more than made up for by a passion for the very theoretical realm of cosmology. Maybe he’ll end up in research. Or academia. He’ll make good on the yearbook prediction. I know it.

Later, as we headed back to our separate cars, I had one more question for Len.

“Did you tell your mother about . . . you know
. . . it?”

I would die if his mother knew about what had happened. I don’t mean that metaphorically, either. I would literally, physically, die. And that’s because Len’s mother would hunt me down and kill me because she has always hated my guts because she felt I was leading her pure, innocent son astray, which I guess I kind of did. So I guess her loathing wasn’t so misplaced, now was it?

Len giggled. “If I’ve learned anything in the past three years,” he said, “it’s that the less my mother knows, the better.”

Well, at least he’s learned something. That’s one more thing than me. According to those theories, I shouldn’t worry too much about my idiocy. There’s no need for me to go back in time and change any of my past mistakes because in one of my alternative worlds I’ve made all the decisions that add up to bliss. I’ll try to take whatever comfort I can in knowing that somewhere, some version of me is getting it right. It’s unfortunate, however, that
this
Jessica Darling isn’t in
that
perfect part of the multiverse.

the sixteenth

Today I was sitting on the bench closest to the Shoppe during my break, ignoring the itch of an impending sunburn and watching the bennies walk by.

The world never stops changing, and yet, like Helga’s, the Seaside Heights boardwalk remains remarkably the same. The pungent, greasy-sweet aroma of zeppoles and sausage and pepper subs. The
ZERO
TO
HORNY
IN
SIX
BEERS
T-shirts. The competing
bump-bump-bump
bass lines throbbing from every stand, all demanding your aural attention. The miraculous proliferation of paranormal experts who will always see love and riches when they look at the lines of your palm. The regurgitative whirl of the Himalaya, the vomitous swoop of the Buccaneer, the pukey plunge of the Tower of Fear. All of it, unchanging. Year after year after year . . .

And then, without any specific trigger, I remembered: Matthew would have been twenty-five today.

My parents’ doleful behavior usually marks this impossible-to-ignore occasion. But they seemed totally normal this morning as I left for work, my mom chattering on the phone about paint chips while my dad cursed at unsatisfactory scores in the sports section. I wasn’t in Pineville on the last anniversary, which is probably why I had almost forgotten the significance of the date. So maybe, in a similar way, moving into the new house has created a physical and emotional distance from the tragedy for my parents. Of course, I’d never ask.

I used to think that it was unhealthy for my parents not to be up front about Matthew. As their daughter, wasn’t I
entitled
to find out about the dead brother I never knew? I didn’t respect my parents’ need for privacy simply because they were
my parents,
two people who couldn’t possibly have inner lives as expansive and messy as my own. Of course, now I know better. We’re
all
affected by life’s random outbreaks of beauty and brutality. I now defend everyone’s right to keep the most moving memories sacred.

“So you’re really smart, huh?” Sully asked, interrupting these thoughts as he plunked himself down beside me on the bench.

“Oh, I don’t know.” I wasn’t being modest. I was being honest.

“You gotta be real smart to get into Columbia,” he said. “Boss told me so.”

“Well, that’s what they want us to believe,” I said.

“See, me?” he said, tapping his oversized, misshapen head. “I ain’t too bright upstairs.”

He wasn’t sad about it or anything. He was merely stating the facts.

“So when you’re off doin’ your smarty-pants job next summer, come back and visit ol’ Sully.”

“I may not get
any
job, let alone a smarty-pants job.”

He snorted. “You go to Columbia,” he said. “You get some kinda job if you come outta a school like that. It don’t have to be no perfect job, but it will be better than this, I bet ya. You got your whole life ahead of you.”

Then Sully got up and lumbered back to Wally D’s, where he will work every summer until he dies.

I rose off the bench, kicked off my flip-flops, and sprinted onto the beach. I ran and ran and ran across the sand and straight into the cold crash of the breaking waves. I must have looked crazy to those bennies, splashing and whooping in my Wally D’s uniform, but I didn’t care. The ocean was rough and it knocked me around and made me feel dizzy and reckless and
alive.

I thought to myself, Why didn’t I do this all summer?

I will die someday. No duh. Nothing can change that, so I might as well fill my life with whatever joys it has to offer. What difference does it make if a spontaneous ocean dive or a Betty Boop decorative license plate cover only temporarily diverts attention from the morbid Truth? Isn’t that better than the alternative?

I need to be more in the moment, like when I was wet and wild in the waves. Being in the moment—right now!—equals freedom. It can’t be scrutinized, analyzed, rhapsodized, mythologized. It can’t be desecrated, debated, prognosticated. Right now can only be
lived.
Isn’t this the same message I tried to get across to the kiddies in the lecture that got me fired? Isn’t this the same advice Gladdie gave me right before she died?

Why is it that the most fundamental life lesson—LIVE!—is the one I continually forget to put into practice?

the twenty-seventh

Today was G-Money and Bethany’s fifth anniversary party. Their actual anniversary was more than two months ago but—to shamelessly borrow from his biggest rival—it was always time to make the donuts. Held at the spectacular beaux arts Palm House at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the party was replete with white-gloved service, an audiovisual tribute to their love, and a five-tiered cake made exclusively out of crullers and chocolate custard that had Marin zoom, zoom, zooming. It was a gala affair, the kind that used to be thrown for unions lasting ten times as long, back when golden anniversaries weren’t as unlikely as they are now.