When Vanessa and I embarked on this book, we did so to disprove my father, to prove that not everything happened for a reason, that control and choice and human spirit mattered. What ended up happening along our journey is that I no longer felt the need to disprove him of anything. My dad is a Ph.D., and he is lauded the world over. I will never be as revered as he is; I will never have the physics or the mathematical equations to demonstrate all the ways that he is wrong. But what I know is this: I know what happened up there on that mountain. I know what happened over the past few months of my life. And these are the lessons we hope you take away from this book, readers. Not that my dad must be wrong, but that there are so many other ways to be right. That night on the mountain finally gave me clarity, finally set me free: not to be William, but simply, to be me.
No one really can have any idea if it’s luck or happenstance or timing or fate or the universe or just smart choices that grant you a good life, a happy one. All we can do is decide to own our choices no matter what, to honor them and ourselves as best we can. That whatever is within our control (and there is plenty that is not) is ours. Mine. Responsibility. Conviction. These are the lessons I’ve learned, that I took down with me from that mountain.
This sounds simple, and this might not even be a great revelation. And yet, for many of us, it comes down to this: that the best way not to be lost is to be your own map.
I inched my way forward that morning. Like that goddamn turtle I said I thought it might be nice to be for a day. Or a lifetime. I inched down the path, back to the fork, and then, inch by inch, down the right path. It took me eleven hours to make it to Nicky. On TV, when you see it, they show me in fast-forward, my movements accelerated, because it’s too painful to show my suffering in real time.
But was it suffering, actually? Only in the moment. When I eased around the last turn on the map, and I saw Nicky sunning his cheeks in the late rays of the afternoon light, sleeping under the
Dare You!
banner, waiting for me with the faith that he knew that I would make it, it didn’t feel like suffering it all.
It felt like guts.
It felt like choices matter.
It felt like even if I’d scrambled up the wrong path, that it wasn’t like I couldn’t scramble back down and find my way again.
“LIVE FREE OR DIE, NICKY!” I shouted.
And he startled awake, and then grinned the most delicious grin, and I weaved my way over like the wounded warrior that I sort of was, and he pulled me into a bear hug on the ground, and then we both laughed until we cried.
“I talked to my dad last night. On my solo,” he said, when we both found time to breathe. “He told me it was okay to let go.”
“Funny,” I said back. “I kind of heard the same message.”
Live free or die. I was finally ready. I finally got it.
I finally got what’s next.
36
I sleep for what feels like a thousand hours after we’re delivered back to the hotel. Medical has wrapped my ankle and stitched my eye, and other than some purple welts that won’t subside for weeks — medals of honor, I suppose — I’m mostly okay. When I finally come to, I tug the shades back and wince from the sunshine and then allow my eyes to adjust, and then absorb the beauty of day, of the Seattle harbor, of its jewel tones, of all life’s possibility. It’s all there, right in front of me.
My stomach lurches, and I locate my toilet kit, scrambling for something to soothe that which still ails me.
I sift through the pouch, through the nail clippers, and lip balm and my deodorant, past a loose Xanax that I didn’t realize I still had, a few Q-tips that need to be tossed. I find the test on the very bottom, which is exactly where I thought it belonged. I’d forgotten, until right now, this very moment, that I’d bought a second one that morning at Duane Reade, in case my nerves got the best of me, and I needed a second test for back-up.
What had they called EPT way back when, a lifetime ago on BabyCenter.com?
Essentially a Piece of Trash.
Of course the first test proved unreliable. But then I wonder if maybe that wasn’t the universe talking too, though I’m smarter than that now: to put my trust in the universe. But if I’d seen the plus sign, the double-line, a few weeks back, I’d never have gone on
Dare You!
I’d never have really mustered the guts. I’d never have forged the road not taken.
I steady my breath, and I try to ignore my inner voice that is still whispering about doubts and maternal instincts and how I’ve done everything wrong.
No
. I gulp the air in, and I push it out, and take the hard turn left when I have always turned right. As simply as that, everything can be different.
And just as I have for eight other months, I sit on the toilet with my underwear around my ankles, and I wait.
It doesn’t even take the two minutes. The second pink line is there as quickly as the first.
My father would call this fate, but I know better now.
I am wise enough now to merely call this life.
—
I ask the Town Car to stop at my father’s apartment on the way home from the airport. Nicky waits in the lobby while I take a swift trip upstairs. My dad answers the door in his bathrobe, with wild hair and skin that’s too pale and pasty. He looks sad and spent and surprised that his doorbell has rung so unexpectedly.
“Oh. William,” he says when he swings the door open. “I don’t have time. I’m getting ready for Piers Morgan.”
And I say: “This won’t take long. I’m on my way home.”
“Okay then. What is it?”
“I went on the show. I’m doing the book. You can choose to never speak to me again, but I hope that you will.”
And he looks very, very angry, like an old man version of a Chucky doll or something, for just a brief moment, and then he waves a hand and relaxes his face and says: “
Que sera, sera
.”
“
Que sera, sera
?”
“Whatever will be will be.”
And I say: “You really believe that crap, don’t you?”
And he says: “Everybody has to believe in something.”
And I say, before walking away: “Everybody does.”
—
We hold a viewing party at Raina’s for my episode of
Dare You!
in early September. It’s also a goodbye party for Ollie because he’s headed to the clink for three months, which was part of his plea settlement. Though it isn’t really the
clink
, or at least that’s what Raina has assured us.
“It’s basically like where Martha Stewart served her time, but for guys. Like, where the insider traders go. Think of it as a spa for morally ambiguous men,” she told us when the judge issued his ruling. “I mean, look. There has to be accountability for what you did, Ollie. Even if you didn’t mean to.”
Ollie hovered his hands over his heart.
“I get it,” he said. “And they agreed I can lead their yoga program. So it might be sort of cool. Future clients.” Raina rolled her eyes, but Ollie dropped his palms to his waist and said, “I’m kidding. No one wants to end up like dad, so it’s time to start being responsible.” And then he squeezed my hand because he knew I’d get it, too.
My mom and Nancy fly up for the premiere, and Amanda and Nicky make their way in from Brooklyn. Nicky’s invited three buddies along, and they keep slapping each other high fives and saying things like, “Holy shit, dude, I can’t believe that you got to do this! You rock, bro!” And Amanda keeps checking her phone and saying, “Sorry. There’s a crisis in Nigeria. I’m not trying to be rude.” But Nicky doesn’t seem to mind, probably because he’s used to it, but also because, I like to think, he has me. (And he has Shawn, of course, too.)
Nancy sips Pellegrino, and my mom pours herself a Scotch.
“Maybe we should have invited your father.”
“Come on, Mom,” Raina says. “He put himself in this position. He wasn’t exactly supportive of Willa.”
So my mom sighs. “I know. I just feel bad for him these days. He doesn’t seem to have anyone on his side.”
“I think he might have a new girlfriend,” Raina replies. “I saw something on Facebook.”
I overhear them. “Dad’s on Facebook now? Jesus.”
And Ollie says: “I’m on his side. I’ve always been on his side. Though I don’t really believe that we should take sides because then it gets into yin and yang, and there is no good middle ground.”
And Raina says: “Oh, shut
up,
Ollie.” And then she bugs her eyes at him but she’s redone her Botox, so she can’t look nearly as annoyed as she likely is, so she just huffs and retreats to Jeremy, who is manning the bar, and then to find Gloria to see if she’s given all four kids their showers.
Vanessa whirls in and hugs me close. “Holy a-mahz-ing, I can’t believe you did it. I cannot believe you had the balls to do
Dare You!
”
“We did it together.”
“True.” She kisses me on the cheek. “But you still did this on your own.”
Just before 8 p.m., my own phone buzzes:
Text from: Shawn Golden
To: Willa Chandler-Golden
Good luck 2night. Bet ull be gr8t.
And I smile because he’s still doing that annoying thing where he types “8” instead of using the extra few seconds to actually type the real letters, and I smile wider because I bet he’s also still using too much mousse and is back to calling people “dude,” even though he just wants to be the old Shawn. But without me, he’s had to figure out what that new old Shawn is.
Though I can’t say any of this for certain because I haven’t checked his Facebook profile since he headed back to Palo Alto two weeks ago — he moved there for good after I broke the news.
When I returned home from
Dare You!,
I asked Shawn out to dinner at Hop Lee (actually, I scheduled it on our
Together To-Do!
app, which I promptly deleted afterward), and I told him I was pregnant. And he got really excited until he did the math, and then he got a lot less excited. And I took a bite of an egg roll and explained that it wasn’t the pregnancy that made me decide, decide that we shouldn’t be Shilla. But that we should be Shawn. And Willa. Each on our own, each as our own. And that was why I was making this choice. Owning this choice. Learning to have guts and aim higher. Because with him, I would be eating eggs on Sunday forever. I’d never start running, even though what I always did was run from everything. He looked confused at that, and I clarified: “Like, running 5Ks. Or up mountains.”
And he said: “Well, if you wanted to start running or didn’t like eggs, you should have just told me. You didn’t have to get pregnant.”
“I’m pretty sure you know that’s not the point.”
“This never would have happened if I hadn’t been such an idiot.”
“Maybe not. But it’s probably better that it did.”
And I thought about that for a long time after he left. How life rose up and surprised the both of us. But it was more than that, too — it wasn’t just life that rose up; that’s how my dad would say it — but how we both rose up and changed our lives by exploring the forks in the road. Left or right? It can change everything. Nothing is meant to be, unless you’re talking fairy tales, and I was never much of a princess.
I texted Theo from Seattle and asked him if we could meet when I was back. There were things to say. There were things that I owed him. He was in D.C. consulting on a top-secret project for the State Department, but he took the Acela back into town and met me at the hospital the morning after Shilla was no more. I told him I was doing post-show medical tests, and I’d like him along in case I decided to sue.
He held open the door at Mt. Sinai as I hobbled in, and he ran his palm over the stitches near my eye.
“Is it as bad as it looks?”
And I said: “No, nothing’s really as it seems. I’ve actually never been better.”
And he looked at me for a long time, waiting for me to explain more, and I looked at him back, knowing that if he knew me well, he would know that I was here, ready, brave, chock full of guts, and no other words could do it justice.
Finally, he said: “Okay.”
And I said: “Now come on, we have an appointment.”
And he said: “
You
have an appointment. I’m just here for advice. And counsel, in case you decide to sue.”
“No. We have an appointment. There are three of us involved now.”
“There…are…three of us? What? I don’t... The three of us have an appointment?”
“Sometimes, the first test fails.” I smile.
“What?”
“But the second time around, the second chance, that’s the one you never doubt.”
“What?”
I placed his hand on my belly and rested my own palm over his heart.
And I said: “You really don’t know everything in the world, now do you?”
And he said: “Is this what I think? Oh my God, is this actually what I think?”
And I said: “Y.E.S.”
—
Daring Yourself to a Better Life!
By Vanessa Pines and Willa Chandler
Acknowledgments
There are so many people to thank for this book, but we have to start with our readers. It’s hard to believe that
DYTABL
has now gone back to press twenty times! While we made headlines for bumping Dr. Richard Chandler’s (my dad’s) own book out of the number one spot on the
New York Times
bestseller list, what has truly been the most gratifying is hearing from you, our fans, who have also become our friends, our family. We have received over 400,000 posts on our Facebook page (Facebook.com/daringyourself), and your tweets and quotes and daily thoughts bring us joy every single day. Yep, that’s really us replying, really us “liking” your own dares that you are kind enough to share.
Also, thanks to you and your outpouring of support, we have been lucky enough to partner with
Dare You!
and establish a fund that sends 9/11 children (and other children who have lost parents) on solo wilderness hikes, and because of this, we aren’t just changing our own lives, but others’ lives, too.