An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes (24 page)

“So they started last week?” Archie asks.

“Yup. This should be Sarah's first day, though.” Sam checks his watch. “Ten minutes.”

He leans back. And then forward. He lifts the shirt draped over the bucket and checks on Reptar. He replaces the cover. He glances at his watch again.

“What are you going to say?” Archie asks.

Sam shakes his head. He pulls out a cigarette. He fidgets with his lighter, flicking the flint wheel over and over again, just enough to make it spark. But he does not light it.

Dante watches the clouds. Archie and Mari hold hands and whisper to one another.

Kids start to trickle out of the building even though the bell has not yet rung. Some glance at Sam and the others, casting them a confused look as they continue on their way.

Finally, the bell rings. A moment later, the doors burst open and teenagers spew forth. They rush out of the building in a loud, chattering mass. Many run off, but several linger in clumps, waiting for rides or just hanging out.

Sam stands up on the bench and scans the sea of faces. “Help me look for her.”

His friends raise their eyes in search of Sarah.

But after a few minutes, the flow begins to lighten and there is still no sign of their erstwhile rogue.

“Maybe there's another exit,” Dante says. “I'll check the back.”

“Good idea,” Sam says, eyes glued to the crowd.

Dante walks away and disappears around the side of the building.

“Maybe she was out sick today,” Mari offers, but Sam ignores her.

As the minutes pass, the clumps drift away and the crowd thins out. Fewer and fewer students emerge from the building, like water trickling from a tap being slowly turned off.

Dante returns. “She's not over there.” But he grins, and holds up a scrap of paper. “I did get a number, though.”

“You dog,” Mari says, nudging him with her elbow. “You actually hit on someone?”

“I didn't even do anything,” Dante explains, blushing as he tucks the paper into his pocket. “These two guys just walked up and started talking to me. They were really nice. When I told him I needed to get back to you guys, one of them slipped me this and said we should hang out sometime.”

“You going to call him?” Mari asks. “We have the rest of the day.”

“Nah. But it just feels good having it.”

Archie says, “Good for you, D.”

And then. Suddenly. Like a firefly glowing in the darkness.

Sarah appears.

Sam instantly recognizes her, even though she has already cut her hair and dyed it a purplish red. Even though her eyes are darkened with mascara. Even though she's walking with unfamiliar friends.

“There she is,” Mari points, although Sam has already seen her.

But Sam, still standing on the bench, does not move.

He does not call out.

He watches as she and her friends stop on the sidewalk. They gather in a circle and start talking. She swings her bangs out of her eyes and then laughs at something someone says. It is a laugh Sam knows. A laugh he misses. A laugh that cuts him somewhere deep inside.

Sarah does not notice her old friends.

Sam puts the unlit cigarette between his lips.

“You want me to go over?” Archie asks, moving to stand.

But Sam does not respond. He does not move as he continues gazing at Sarah.

She readjusts the bag slung over her shoulder and laughs again, this time covering her mouth.

The gesture triggers a memory in Sam's mind. Halloween. Freshman year.

Sarah had gone to a party while Sam stayed in to watch a classic monster movie marathon on television. She had eventually called him from the party, horribly drunk, wanting a ride home.

He took his dad's car, even though he didn't have his license yet, and drove to the party. A visibly smashed Sarah—decked out as a zombie princess—spilled into the passenger seat. Three other people slid into the back. They were in costume, so Sam didn't know who they were—but probably wouldn't have recognized them even if they had not been in disguise.

“Samwise!” Sarah said, slurring the word. She had leaned over and kissed the side of his mouth, sloppy and reeking of cheap beer. “I told Amy, Hannah, and Heather you could take them home. Hope that's cool.”

“Sure,” Sam had said.

“Radical. I told you he's the best boyfriend ever!”

And so Sam drove as they talked too loudly about what they drank, how much they drank, and how drinking made them feel. The relief he felt when the last one stepped out of the car was immeasurable. And then Sarah leaned into him and slid her hand over his crotch. “Let's go to your place,” she had whispered into his ear.

Thinking he might at least get something out of his good deed, he agreed. She made way too much noise as they snuck down to his room, but nobody woke up to investigate. As soon as they made it to the basement, Sarah began peeling off Sam's clothes between kisses. Her motions were awkward and sloppy, leaving no doubt in Sam's mind that she had had too much to drink.

Still. Sam was a boy. He had dropped what he was doing to be his girlfriend's designated driver. He had been a good boyfriend. Didn't he deserve this?

Sarah pulled off her tattered zombie princess gown. Giggling, she fell back onto his bed in her bra and panties, face still made up like the undead. Eyes at once wild and unfocused. She beckoned to him.

But Sam stayed where he was.

“I'm kind of tired,” Sam said. “I'm just going to sleep on the couch upstairs.”

But Sarah sat up and, unsteadily, grabbed his wrists and tried pulling him on top of her. But he resisted. “What's wrong, Samwise? Is it the makeup? If it's the makeup, I can clean it off first, if you want.”

“It's not that,” he said. “I really am just tired.”

And then Sarah went quiet. She stopped pulling on him. Stopped swaying. Suddenly, her stomach heaved and her hand shot up to cover her mouth. But it was too late. Her cheeks puffed up. Vomit pushed through, leaking from between her fingers, trickling onto her bare thighs, splattering onto Sam's bed.

She rushed away, up the stairs. Sam followed after her.

He had spent the rest of the night in the bathroom with Sarah, holding her hair back as she alternated between sobbing and throwing up, apologizing and promising to never drink again.

And Sam suddenly understands. It took three thousand miles, but he finally gets it:
he
had been a good boyfriend, but
she
had been a shitty girlfriend.

“Earth to Sam,” Mari says, interrupting Sam's memory. “They're getting away. What's the plan?”

Sam looks up and watches as Sarah and her group of new friends start walking away.

Sam hops down from the bench. He takes the unlit cigarette from his mouth and tosses it into a nearby garbage can. “Fuck it. Let somebody else hold her hair back.”

They turn to him. “Huh?” Archie asks.

Sam says, “Let's go.”

“Are you serious?” Dante asks.

Sam nods.

Mari shakes her head. “After all we've been through? Three days in the car. All of our fighting. A tornado. My car burning to ash. And now—”

“Sorry to drag you all this way for nothing.”

“Meh,” Archie says. “Some things you just can't see at home.”

“So now what?” Dante asks.

“The day is ours,” Mari says.

Sam says, “I still have my dad's credit card. Let's see the sights. Isn't there, like, some spaceship downtown?”

“The Space Needle,” Archie corrects. He takes out his phone. “I'll call a cab.”

And then.

Sam picks up Reptar and walks away.

The television glows through the darkness playing some sci-fi movie from the nineties. Mari and Archie are asleep in one bed, and Sam is snoring on a cot.

On the second bed, Dante lies awake staring absently at the screen. Whenever a car passes, his eyes follow the light cast by its headlights as it sweeps across the walls.

He thinks about the day.

The cab had dropped them off at Pike Place Market. They had found some stairs to a lower level and wandered through the maze of small stores without buying anything. From there they walked to the aquarium, where Mari forced Sam to hand over Reptar. They let Sam grieve as they strolled through the angular paths of Olympic Sculpture Park and spent an inordinate amount of time puzzling over some gigantic red steel sculpture that was supposedly an eagle. Then they made their way to the Space Needle and rode the elevator to the observation deck just in time to watch the sun set over the flat waters of Puget Sound.

Afterward, they had bought ice cream and ate it on the curb while joking about skipping out on their flight home the next day to hike Mount Rainier. They talked about what all had happened in the past week and a half and what might happen next year. They mourned Archie's transferring schools. They debated who would be grounded for the longest.

But it is not any of this that's keeping Dante awake right now.

A crumpled piece of paper with a phone number scrawled in pencil.

That is what's keeping Dante awake.

And that is why Dante slips out of bed, pulls the paper from the pocket of his jeans, and steps out of the room. Outside now, he walks past the row of closed doors to the vending machines. He leans against one of them and lets its electric hum vibrate through his body. He slips his phone from his pocket.

As he stares at the numbers, his heart begins to race, his hands begins to tremble.

He wishes his phone could text. But since it can't, he takes a deep breath and dials.

It rings a few times, but just when he's about to end the call, someone answers.

“Yeah?” says a slurred voice. “What's up?”

“Um . . . it's Dante . . .”

“. . . Who?”

“We met outside the school today? You gave me your number?”

There's some rustling at the other end. Sounds like people talking in the background. The voice returns. “Yeah, yeah . . . Dante . . . What's up, man?”

“Sorry—too late?”

More rustling. “No, no, it's all good.” Laughter in the background. Probably the television. “So you want to talk, or what?”

“Or what. Let's meet,” Dante says.

“Now?”

“If you can.”

It sounds like the guy covers the phone as he talks to someone who is with him. More laughter. Eventually, he says, “Sure, why the hell not. Where are you?”

Dante tells him the name of the motel.

“All right, be there in a few.”

• • •

Dante lowers himself to the concrete, his back against the vending machine and legs splayed out in front. He listens to the world buzz: the vending machines, the fluorescent lights, the motel's sign, the insects. A car whooshes past. The cackle of a laugh track rises through the open window of a nearby room.

Dante lets his eyelids droop . . .

He does not know how long he's been asleep when he wakes to a pair of headlights shining into his eyes. He shields the glare with his bandaged arm and climbs to his feet.

Dante squints into the light. At first he figures it's the guy, but there seems to be two shapes moving within the car, a black SUV.

The driver side window slides down. A head pokes out. “Dante?”

“Yeah, it's me,” Dante smiles, relieved.

He walks out of the headlight beams and up to the window. He glances at the passenger seat. It's empty. He must be so tired he's seeing things.

The guy smiles at Dante. “So.”

Dante shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He puts his hands in his pockets. “So.”

The guy looks around, checking out the motel. “Spared no expense, eh?” He tilts his head toward the passenger side door. “Get in.”

Dante looks around, though he's not sure what he's looking for. His grandparents, maybe. His pastor. Jesus on the Cross.

But then he thinks of his coworker Marco and his beach house fantasy. Sam and Mari in the lake. Zaius and his friends around the fire. If they can all be happy, why can't he?

He remembers Zaius's words:
You're travelers. So travel.

Given the trouble he'll be in when they return home, Dante figures it will be a long time before he gets another chance.

So he climbs into the front seat. The radio is playing, but the volume is set so low it's barely audible. The car's interior reeks of cheap body spray and alcohol. He buckles up and nods, wondering if this was a mistake.

The guy winks, kicks the car into gear, and drives around to the back of the motel. He pulls into a shadowy corner of the lot, next to the dumpster. He throws the car into park. He kills the engine. “So,” he says. His eyes slide over Dante's body.

Dante's heart thuds against his rib cage. He feels heat rise to his face. “So.”

The guy leans back and starts undoing his belt. “Mind your teeth.”

Dante forces a laugh.

The guy pauses. He smirks. “Oh, you want me to suck you off first?”

Dante reaches for the door handle. This is not what he was looking for. This is not what Zaius and Lamont have, not what Mari and Archie have found, not what Sam and Sarah lost.

“Maybe I should—”

The guy presses a button and the doors lock with a swift whir and click. He presses another button. The child safety locks, Dante realizes.

“Don't tell me you had me drive all the way out here—in the middle of the night—for nothing,” the guy says. He runs a hand over this mouth and exhales. “You're down with this, right?”

“Huh?” Dante tries to pull the lock up, but it won't budge.

“I mean you
are
gay, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Told you he was a fag,” a voice says from behind.

But before Dante can turn to see who spoke, a plastic bag slips over his head. It tightens around his neck, digging into his throat. His world becomes a blur.