Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales (14 page)

“Happy?” he said. “Sure. Off and on, anyway. And some of us are miserable. About like anybody, I guess.
All our lives … it seems amazing, I know, to think of them all lined up next to each other, all those possible worlds, rubbing up together. But every one of our lives is just a
life
, man.”

I drank my beer. It was one of my favorite kinds, a pale ale. I wasn’t surprised.

The bartender tilted his head. “So, TJ—or, wait, you’re one of the ones who likes Terry, right? How long are you in town for?”

I blinked. “I don’t know. I told Jimmy I was just going to stay a couple of days, but … I don’t know what I’d go back to, really. I was hoping to start my own restaurant, but I didn’t win the big prize money, and the whole idea of trying to make my own way, it’s just
exhausting
.”

He chuckled. “Oh, we could probably work something out. Those investors I mentioned? They’re other versions of
me
. Some of us do all right, and we’re always willing to chip in to help each other out. The logistics get tricky—we have to convert our cash
to gold or something, can’t risk bills from one world having the same serial numbers as bills in another, they’d think you were counterfeiting. But we’ve done it before.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Silent partners? With
myself
?

“That’s … incredibly
generous. But I’m not even sure opening a restuarant is what I want to do. It’s what I’m
supposed
to want … ” I shook my head, and was surprised by tears welling up in my eyes. I stared hard at the scarred wood of the bar before me. “I don’t even know who the hell I am anymore, you know?”

“Oh, yeah. I definitely know. But we’re here for you, brother. We missed you, too. And anything we can do
to help … ”

“I don’t know what you could do. If I can’t figure out my shit on my own, I’m not sure how having even
more
of me around would help. If I had a little time, to get my head together, to figure out what I want to do, who I want to
be
… ”

The bartender grinned. “Tell you what. Sometimes, in extreme cases, we’ve been known to switch places. Strictly temporary—unless everybody agrees
they want to make it permanent. You can step out of your own path, and walk on another’s for a while. Get a taste of another TJ’s life, or take a vacation from life entirely. Say one of us needs a break, and another one needs a change … we help each other out. Like I said, you’re an outlier, you’ve got a pretty rare path. I’m sure we could find a TJ who’d want to take your life for a spin for a while.
Give you some breathing room in the meantime. And lots of us know how to cook.”

I lifted my head. “Really? Would I have to, like, take someone else’s place, or … ”

A shake of the head. “Not necessarily. Unless you want to.
One of us could just say he’s going camping, or taking a solo hike up the Appalachian Trail, or going on a fishing trip, and disappear into your life for a couple of weeks.
Even if they act a little funny around your friends, that’s all right—you’re in a weird place right now, right?”

I frowned, thinking of horror stories, doubles and body snatchers, and the bartender must have seen something on my face, because he snorted.

“You think someone might steal your life? Really? Is it all
that
great?”

“No,” I admitted. “I fucked it up pretty good.”

“There you go. We
wouldn’t put up with that kind of identity theft bullshit, anyway. We’ve had to cast some of us out before, for crimes against the self, though we hate to do it. We don’t put up with nonsense.”

“So you’d do that, one of you—one of
me
—just out of kindness?”

He nodded. “We’re family. What else is family for? And it doesn’t get much closer than this. Every one of us who makes bad decisions … hell,
we
all
know it could have happened to any of us. There but for the grace of good luck. If you decide to step off your path, and want to hide away, you can stay here for a while. There’s a room in back with a cot, you can use the kitchen, there’s even a shower I got some of the guys who went into contracting to install.”

I looked around at the tables and chairs, the jukebox in the corner, vintage
tin signs on the walls. Running a restaurant sounded pretty daunting. But I could work in one. I didn’t know much, but I sure knew my way around a kitchen. Maybe if I didn’t have to do anything for a while but pay attention to what I had
in front of me on the grill or the chopping block, things would sort themselves out in my head. And if I got stuck, there were people around here I could ask
for advice. People who knew me at least as well as I knew myself.

I took another sip of beer. “Have you, ah … ever thought about selling food here? I mean, something besides onion rings and greaseburgers? Because, maybe … ”

The bartender snorted again. “Ha. Well. I guess you know what kind of food my regulars like, don’t you?”

He reached out to shake my hand, and I was home at last.

A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE
…………………………………

“The Jolly Corner” by Henry James is—to simplify—the story of a man who comes home after a long time away and meets the ghost of the person he
might
have become, if he’d never moved away. It’s a haunting and thought-provoking story, and has always appealed to my obsession with those turning-point moments in life, when you could have become someone other than the
person you are: chance meetings that transformed your romantic or working life, opportunities seized or allowed to slip away, literal and figurative roads taken, or not. It seemed to me that, if it were possible to meet the ghosts of our possible lives, there wouldn’t be just one ghost—there would be dozens, scores, maybe hundreds, sharing some essential qualities, but radically different in other
respects.

And who’s to say this life, the one I’m living right now, isn’t really just the ghost of some other, vastly different existence?

Oh, and while I’m no chef, I am a North Carolina boy who lives in the East Bay nowadays. Willard’s B-B-Q is inspired by the legendary Wilber’s Barbecue in Goldsboro, North Carolina, home of the One True Barbecue. Stop by if you’re ever in town.

H
OLLY
B
LACK

Wake up. Wake up. You have to wake up.

I want to say that I never meant for it to happen, but I
never ever
mean for it to happen and it always
does
happen and I keep on doing it, so what does that say about me? Mother told me that keeping going when other folks don’t is the difference between them that succeed in this world and them that lie down in a ditch to die, but I
don’t know if I can keep going if you’re not with me.

Remember when we dreamed about each other? When you were only a little girl, you dreamed that I came into your room and got into bed with you and pressed my mouth against your neck. And I dreamed it too—the exact same thing, waking up in your room, not sure how I got there and climbing into bed with you. I remember how warm and lovely it was
right up until you started screaming. That has to mean something. That has to mean that our souls were destined for one another, that fate wants us to be something more to each other than—

WAKE UP.

Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup.

Even if you wake up and hate me.

And yes, I admit it, Mother has a scam. Your father suspected
as much in the end and your uncle too. They were right—right about everything,
except how much we really were friends, best friends just like we swore, just like we smeared in blood on one another’s dirty palms, just like we whispered against one another’s skin. But it’s true that Mother does get into car accidents in front of rich families with daughters about my age. Usually fathers and daughters on their own. The accidents aren’t the easiest to plan—she has to find
a park where she knows the family goes for walks in early summer evenings. (We grow overheated and lethargic when the sun is high in the sky, so Mother knows our best performances will be at night.) Then she has to arrange to have the car break down suddenly—with an engine fire if possible, conjured with sleight of hand and a little spilled gasoline.

I should add that these are never her cars.
She borrows them or steals them and, as you might guess, abandons them once I am securely in the hands of my new family.

But things will be different now. It will be just the two of us and we’ll make up new games. We’ll be sisters, just like any two girls with the same blood in their veins. We’ll be sisters and more than sisters. We’ll run through museums, mocking and applauding, until the security
guards chase us. We’ll pretend to be statues on the street and scare people by moving. We’ll be bold and brave and do things no one has thought of before and we’ll do them always together.

I’ll make a deal with you, how about that? I’ll tell you the rest of it. Everything, Laura. The ugly parts too. And in return you’ll get up, won’t you, sleepyhead? I will tempt you with coffee and bagels and
my own mouth on yours, breathing you back to life.

So here it is, all the truth:

The plan is supposed to play out exactly like it did, except for
the ending. Immediately after the car accident, Mother always springs out in great distress, pointing to the father of the family, just as she did to your father: “Help me, sir, please, my child is still in the car! I don’t know what to do! No, no
ambulance. Just help me get her some air.”

She says that once people are singled out of a crowd, they almost always do what they’re asked. Isn’t that odd? It’s like magic, like how people thought that if a witch knew your name, she could make you do whatever she wanted.

If only that were true, I’d
make
you wake up.

My part in the plan is to go very limp when I’m picked up, and then seem to
awaken at the ministrations of father and daughter. I am to blink up into their eyes and charm them with my pliant and sweet nature. I am so very grateful! Mother is so very beautiful! She weeps a single crystal tear! Then Mother has to deal with something about the car and
oh
—your apartment or house or villa or chalet is so close by that you want to take her dear daughter there? Well, how kind
and unexpected!

They never see Mother again. She comes back for me eventually, but by then I’m creeping away like a thief in the night.

It usually goes just as it did with your family:

•  First, I explain that I don’t know her cell phone number. It’s a new cell phone, her last one was stolen and she changed the number. I cry prettily over how stupid I am. (You might think me vain to say this,
but I practice; real crying is so often ugly.)

•  I am very charming. Again, please don’t think me vain; I have had a long time to become charming. I can speak to your father in French and I have perfect manners. I always wash the dishes after dinner. I remain poised on the brink of adolescence; I will never reach thirteen. On the first night, I faint dramatically, so as to show I was dealing
bravely with my pain. The fainting embarrasses me very much. I forget myself and speak more French as I come around, half in a delirium. Everyone likes a little blonde girl with wide eyes begging their pardon
en français
.

•  When your family begins to press about my family, I drop hints of an overbearing and very rich European father and a nasty divorce.

•  Just as everyone is sure Mother has
abandoned me entirely, she calls. She’s in the hospital and she’s so very sorry to inconvenience the family. She should be out soon, but she’s not supposed to use her phone and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could I stay there tonight and maybe tomorrow? Your father shouldn’t agree, but he does. When he puts down the phone, he’s embarrassed he’s agreed, but he has.

•  Then, finally, days
later, my mysterious European father calls. Mother is irresponsible and dangerous, he says, and his daughter has made such a fast friend in yours that it would be a shame to part them. He offers a decent chunk of money (five thousand dollars!) to let me stay for the rest of the summer. Otherwise, he will send me a plane ticket and I can fly home by myself—I’m certainly old enough and so what if flying
frightens me. (Father’s role has been acted out by a variety of players and his exact country of origin changes with the accent that each person can fake the best.)

It doesn’t work every time, but you’d be surprised how often it does. Fathers raising little girls on their own are away a lot and they don’t like their daughters to be all by themselves in their vast apartments. They trust their
staff, but not like they trust the aristocratic and slightly naïve daughter of a rich European. And it’s summer after all, hot sticky summer, when all the rules are different.

Remember how it was when I came home with you? I rode up in your building’s chrome elevator, watching your face reflected in the metal. You were so incredibly beautiful that I think I lost my heart to you in that moment.
Your windblown tangle of honey-dark hair and eyes the color of tree sap, liquid and luminous, made me feel faint wanting only to be closer to you, to press my clammy hand in yours. You saw me looking and smiled a tiny smile. It felt like passing notes right under the nose of the teacher.

When we got to your apartment, with big windows looking down on the park and air-conditioning so cold that
the hairs rose on your arms, you took me right to your room. I sat on your bed, pretending to still be weak from the accident, leaning my head against the comforter and inhaling the smell of you, of strawberry shampoo and Hello Kitty perfume. You docked your iPod and played a song I had never heard before, one with a girl wailing about the wretchedness of her love. I asked about the books on your
shelves, ones I’d never seen before, about black holes, astrophysics, and one by Carl Sagan called
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
that made me shudder with the dread of discovery.

“I want to see space someday,” you said. “It’s the last great mystery, other than what’s at the bottom of the ocean. Either
way, I’m going to wear a suit like Iron Man’s and see things no one
has ever seen before.”