Me Vs. Me. Sarah Mlynowski
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worlds?
Or maybe I just stumbled into the ability to remain conscious in two of these worlds.
At four, I hear Lila’s key in the door. “Hi, guys,” she says.
“It’s just me!” I holler, closing the laptop. As nonjudgmental as she is, she’d still think I was nuts.
Lila goes through her cleansing/changing routine and then joins me in my room. “What happened to you? I thought your flight was this morning. Where have you been? What’s going on?” she asks, sitting on the side of my futon.
I wave my bejeweled hand. “Change of plan. I’m not going to New York.”
Her jaw drops. “No way. I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true.” Half-true.
“Wow.” Smiling, she leans over and hugs me. “Congrats!”
“Thanks.”
“But Gabby, what about the new job?”
I shrug. “A person can’t have everything.” Most people, anyway. Apparently, I am not most people.
She gives me a hopeful look. “Does that mean you’re not moving out?”
I shake my head. “No, you’re still getting your home office. I’m moving in with Cam.”
She sticks her tongue out at me. “Aw. You lucky girl.”
“You know what?” I say. “I might be.” I’d choose lucky over crazy, anyway.
On my way back to Cam’s, I’m strangely invigorated. My wish came true. It must have. It’s the only explanation. My body feels alive and tingly. I decide not to tell Cam about my self and my other self—it’s not like he’d believe it. Who would? I barely believe it myself.
I find him in the backyard, surrounded by sawdust and some sort of table with a mirror.
“What are you doing?”
“Building you a vanity table for the bedroom,” he says, while hammering. “So you can have somewhere to put your makeup and jewelry and stuff. I got you a lamp, too, because I’m not sure there’s going to be enough light…. Do you like it? I still have to build the bench.”
I am so touched, I almost cry.
While he finishes, we return to his parents’ for Sunday night dinner. Afterward, we go straight to bed and I seduce him immediately.
“That was fun,” he says afterward. “Three nights in a row. Life is good.”
“Yes, it was,” I say, laying my head on his chest. His heart rate is beginning to slow.
“What are your plans for tomorrow?” he asks.
Tomorrow! I start work tomorrow. In New York. A fiancé in Arizona and a new job in New York. I really do get to have it all—except a job here. “Try to get my job back.”
“My mom mentioned that she wants to start planning the wedding….”
“Of course she does.”
“Have you given any thought to getting married in May?”
“Whatever you want, babe.” Since I’m only half getting married, why not meet Alice halfway?
His eyes light up like a slot machine. “Really? And what about the church?”
Halfway does not include churches. Then again, maybe it can. If I ever get married in New York, I can do it any way I want. And to someone else. It wouldn’t even be bigamy. Legally, that is. “Whatever makes you happy,” I tell him with a smile. But I’m still not converting.
He kisses my forehead and promptly falls asleep.
My thoughts are too loud and crazy to let me drift off. I’m wondering how to best take advantage of my fabulous science experiment.
Should I try out different hairstyles? Go blond in one reality, stay brunette in the other? What about different diets? No carbs in one, low-fat in the other, and see which version of me loses more weight? Invest in real estate in one, stocks in the other?
Check the winning lottery number in one, choose that number in the other? Though supposedly, the two universes have nothing to do with each other. The guy who wins in the first reality might remain a poor slob in the other. But it’s worth looking into.
The possibilities are endless, and I’m going to enjoy every one of them. I’m going to live it up.
Life is good. Both of them.
4
Lights, Camera, Action!
I’m late. How is it possible that I’m late for my first day of work? I have never been late for anything. I set my alarm for 7:00 a.m., a half hour earlier than I was supposed to get up. But it’s already eight, which means the radio alarm was singing for an hour before I even heard it.
I jump into the shower, throw on my clothes (no time to debate: black pants, green sweater), flip through the news channels as I scarf down my coffee (plane crash in Bali, hurricane in the Bahamas, kidnapped girl found alive in South Carolina), grab my bag, notebook and clipboard, then run for the elevator. No time today to test out the subway. Taxi, it is. The best part of living in New York is that you can hail a cab from anywhere, unlike Phoenix, where they’re as common as waterslides in the desert.
The cold air tackles me as I open the door. Damn, I really need to get myself a coat.
When I reach the street, I attempt to hail a cab, but a stream of occupied yellow taxis keeps passing me by. Hmm. How long is this supposed to take? Where are the empty ones? What if I’m here for hours and no cabs drive by and I miss my first day of work?
Oh, there’s one! Hello? Hello! Why didn’t he stop? How do I get them to stop? On TV, New Yorkers sometimes whistle. I don’t know how to whistle.
I see one coming and I step into the middle of the street. A Honda turns the corner, almost running me over. But then I realize something. What if I die in one life? I’ll still be around in the other. I think.
Just then an empty cab pulls up. He nods, and I get in. “Fifty-eighth and Broadway please,” I tell him.
And away we go. He chats on his cell phone while I watch the clock. Curtis Boland, the executive producer of Ron’s Report told me I’d be working from about ten to seven-thirty every day, assuming there is no crisis. Since Ron’s show tapes at six and airs at eight, I can leave after the post-tape meeting. But today, my first day, she wants me in at nine. It’s now eight-fifty.
“Excuse me, sir?”
He continues chatting.
“Sir? Can you tell me how far away we are?”
“We’re here,” he grunts and pulls over in front of The Gap, where a street vendor is selling Kate Spade purses (fake, I assume).
“Where?”
“Across the street.”
Oh. I pay him and face the tall, gleaming chrome-and-tinted-windowed TRSN building. A news ticker is featured prominently over the entranceway, informing me about the hurricane in the Bahamas. I have to maneuver my way past myriad flowerpots (security cameras, most likely) to get to the doorway.
I pull open the heavy doors and march toward the security desk, the click of my heels echoing through the room.
“May I help you?” the security guard asks, and after I show my ID, I’m told to go up to the tenth floor. The elevator doors are about to close and I throw my purse between the sensors to stop them. A woman clucks her tongue.
“Sorry,” I say sheepishly and slide inside. I slither to the back of the crowded space and accidentally elbow someone directly in the stomach. “Really sorry,” I say.
“No