The Theory of Opposites (10 page)

The Human Heart.

The heart weighs between 7 and 15 ounces (200 to 425 grams) and is a little larger than the size of your fist. By the end of a long life, a person’s heart may have beat (expanded and contracted) more than 3.5 billion times.

I inhale and think of Grey’s little fist. I think of how many times Nicky’s dad, Kyle’s, heart must have beaten. Not 3.5 billion.

“So I have a proposal,” Vanessa says. “I met with the
Dare You
team and my publisher this morning.”

“If you want me to sign a waiver to be your next of kin because they’re requiring you to skydive without a parachute, I’m going to have to draw the line.”

“No,” she says. “It’s nothing like that.” Then she reconsiders. “Well, it’s sort of like that.”

The French Canadians filter down the hallway, but we stay put, still staring at the human heart, at its power, at its ability to grant life and to take it away.

“What if I told you that we had the chance to prove once and for all that your dad isn’t right? That you don’t have to sit around and wait for August for your life to begin?”

“Can we get off the subject of August? I really don’t want to delve into it right now.”

She waves a hand, dismissing me. “Okay, what if I told you that we are the masters of our fate, that life is what we make of it?”

“I’d tell you that the Nobel Prize committee would disagree with us.”

“Fuck the Nobel Prize committee.”

“Actually, my dad would say the same thing.”

Vanessa smiles, so I gather the strength to smile too.

“I pitched my editors a new idea. A better idea. And they love it. I told them that I found the loophole in your dad’s theories.”

“There isn’t a loophole, Vanessa. Part of the reason it’s so brilliant is that you can’t
disprove
that something didn’t happen on purpose. You can’t disprove an intangible proof.”

“I believe that you can. But I need you to trust me.”

“V,” I say, “You know that I trust you, but I’m not really interested.”

She grabs my wrist and forces my gaze.

“Willa, don’t you ever wonder what would happen with your life if you hadn’t been born William, if you’d actually been given a chance without your dad?”

Every day,
I think. Though that’s not necessarily true. Some days, and even then, it’s exhausting to consider the alternatives, so mostly, I don’t.

“Please, come with me. Write this book. Tell this story. At the very least, we might change our lives.”

I can feel my own heart, just like the frozen one on the pedestal in front of me, come to life, beating with anxiety, beating with fear, beating from the utter terror of taking a leap that might change everything.

“I like my life,” I say finally.

“Actually,” she reminds me, “you sort of don’t.”

10

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Theodore Brackton — Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Preview: Theodore Brackton (b. April 14, 1978) is the successful founder of the firm: Y.E.S., also known as Your Every Success. Since its inception in 2008, Brackton has helped thousands of CEOs and major power players assess the odds of successful decision-making by analytic research, as well as what
Time
magazine cites as “one of the best gut-checks in the business.” It was rumored that President Obama personally...

Time — Is This the Face of Our Future?

Preview: Deep inside the Go Room in the Seattle office of Y.E.S., Theodore Brackton is splayed on the conference table, staring at the dimmed, recessed lights on the ceiling, tossing a stress ball up and down, then up again, catching it effortlessly in his left hand while his staff sits and waits, watching both him and the newsfeeds that are muted on the various televisions on the walls. Finally and without warning, Brackton sits up sharply and shouts, “Yes! I have it.” What does he have? The solution to a sexual harassment suit against the president of a major movie studio, who we…

Seattle Social Diary: The Engagement Party of Theodore Brackton and Sonya Nordstrom

Preview: A hundred of the who’s-who of Seattle’s hipster, fashion and tech scene mingled last night at Tom Douglas’s hot spot, Seatown. There wasn’t a hotter invitation in town as everyone who’s anyone clamored to get a peek at the 33-year-old whom
Time
magazine called “the face of our future,” and his future wife, the current COO at Nordstrom and daughter of the mogul John Nordstrom. The two met by accident — she had inadvertently taken his seats at a Mariners game, and last night they joked that they may be the only two people in the world who are grateful for the team’s abysmal 2011 season…

The New York Post – Page Six

Preview: We Hear……That a certain hot prospect (and hot-bodied!) CEO and face of the future is about to become very single. It seems that a recent health scare has jolted him into reality, and that his supposed wife-to-be will not be saying Y.E.S.! We’re betting her daddy won’t accept him for return, even if he comes begging for her back, despite his very generous return policy.

—

“Here is what we’re going to do,” Vanessa says later, back at my apartment, once we are done looking at dead innards, once I can stop gazing at the human heart, wondering how many heartbeats we all have left.

As she speaks, I snap my laptop shut quickly — I hadn’t even meant to google Theodore. I find myself doing that too often these days: thinking of him, wondering if he’s out there in the world also thinking of me, waiting for me to respond to his email and reignite our closed connection. I inch the computer to my left on the counter, as if hiding it, exorcising it from my sight line will allow me to exorcise him (
the face of our future!)
from my mind.

Vanessa rises from the stool in my kitchen and pours herself a bowl of cereal.

From the couch, Nicky says while completely focused on the TV, “Can you make me one too?”

“So here’s what we’re going to do,” she repeats, reaching for a second bowl. “I have this theory — the theory of opposites.”

“Like, opposites attract? Is this going to be some psychoanalysis of my relationship with Shawn? We’re not opposites, so I can stop you right there.”

“My mom and dad were opposites,” Nicky says, tearing himself away from the TV. “That’s what she tells me anyway. That they were always learning something new from each other.” He glances away, his moment of vulnerability gone as quickly as it came.

“That’s sweet, Nicky,” I say. “I didn’t know your dad, but from everything I
know about him, I bet he was totally crazy for your mom.”

He doesn’t answer, already wrapped up in some HBO movie that seems upon quick glance — the actor on screen is snorting cocaine and then punches another guy dead in the nose — completely ill-suited for his age.

“No, my theory of opposites has nothing to do with you and Shawn. It’s this: what if we did exactly opposite of your dad’s advice? Like, what if, every time you listened to your instincts, you did the opposite?”

“You know I have terrible instincts.”

“I do know that. Which is why you’re the perfect person to write this with me.” She passes me the cereal box, and I scoop some into my palm. “You’re someone who has no baseline, no real gauge of your gut. For which we can firmly blame your dad. But I think….I think it’s time you stopped blaming him for everything too.”

“I don’t blame him. This is just my life.”

“God, you’re frustrating,” Vanessa states, which she’s allowed to because she’s known me since I was eighteen, and also, because I am.

“I read your dad’s book, by the way,” Nicky says. “I can’t believe how many people believe that shit.”

“Don’t say ‘shit,’ Nicky,” I say. Then: “You read his book?”

He doesn’t reply at first, the action on screen in this terribly inappropriate movie too engaging (several Asian men being shot by a drug lord as he breaks into their compound in Barbados), but after all of the characters are sprawled in pools of their own blood, he says: “Yeah. My therapist thought it might be helpful for me to understand the shit with my dad.”

Vanessa chews her cereal.

“Did it help?” I ask.

“What do you think?” he says. “Maybe I’m not dumb enough to believe that stuff though.”

“Lots of smart people believe it.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes. “Well, I think that the more moronic you are, the easier it is not to question his philosophies.”

“Come on. There’s a lot of science behind his book.” I find a mug that’s been left on the counter and fill it with water, programming the microwave to “tea.” It beeps and breathes to life.

“There is less science than you think,” Vanessa says. “Have you read it recently?
Accept inertia! Follow the Master Plan Way!
Sure, he ran some lab rats in a maze and followed a few sad sack families for a decade or so, but…I mean…it’s hard to argue against the fact that there aren’t any accidents, that randomness doesn’t exist.”

“Because you can’t disprove the disprovable,” Nicky says. Then grins. “See, I ain’t no moron.”

Vanessa runs to him and pinches his cheeks.

“You are my little protégé!” she teases him until he slaps her hands away and pretends to hate her affection. “But Nicky’s right, which is where my idea comes in. Your dad’s entire book is built on swimming downstream…letting life take you wherever you were meant to float.”

“Not taking a left when you’ve already taken a right,” Nicky says.

“So let’s take lefts. Let me tell you when to turn left,” Vanessa adds.

“I…don’t get it.” I really might be the moron here. I can’t admit that I never actually read the book in its entirety. There never was much of a point. I lived it. I was there. The words on the pages couldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

“It’s the Theory of Opposites.” Vanessa’s voice spins up a decibel in excitement. “We’ll disprove his own theories of inertia and ‘it is what it is’ and ‘everything happens for a reason’ because we will run counter to all of these things. We’ll purposely
choose
to live life on the high wire, on the fine line where life actually becomes alive.”

I chew on my lower lip. I don’t like it when life actually becomes alive. I much prefer it in its safe, happy, comfortable space. I’m goddamn Switzerland, after all!

“I know that you want to say ‘no,’” Vanessa says. “Which is exactly why you need to say ‘yes.’ Start disproving him
now.
Let me dare you. I dare you, Willa Chandler-Golden, to try to live life on the outer edges. To fight so hard against your original instinct,
to change your fate by making choices that you never otherwise would make
.”

“I don’t know.” I chew on my thumbnail cuticle.

“You never know,” she exhales. “Which is why you have to trust that I do. I do know. Come on, Willa, I’m your best friend. Unexpected things are bound to happen when you remove the baseline of predictability. It’s the Theory of Opposites. And this is exactly what we’ll prove.”

“And you don’t think my dad accounted for that — this theory?”

“Actually, he didn’t. He concentrated on intentional choice, not purposely choosing the opposite of that choice.”

“Hmmm,” I say.

“That’s fucking brilliant,” Nicky chimes in.

For once, I don’t correct him.

—

Email from: Raina Chandler-Farley

To: Willa Chandler-Golden; Oliver Chandler

Subject: Our Parents

I think that we need to convene to discuss the current mental status, not to mention marital status, of our parents. I suspect that dad is finally having his psychotic break, and that he is taking Mom down with him. Oliver, a quick check of Twitter tells me that you are in New York City — I sent you a tweet, did you not see it? — and while it would have been nice to get a personal hello, I expected nothing else. However, since you are here, and we are all in the same city, perhaps we can meet at the Pain Quot on Madison on Monday for lunch — the office is closed to repair the air conditioning system. Jeremy will watch the kids. Though they would love to see their uncle, too.

Please let me know.

Raina

Raina Chandler-Farley, esq

Partner

Williams, Russell and Chance, LLP

email:
[email protected]

Email from: Oliver Chandler

To: Willa Chandler-Golden; Raina Chandler-Foley

Subject: re: Our Parents

Darling sisters! Namaste! How are your glorious lives treating you these days? I hope with a little touch of beauty and a lot of touches of love. Indeed I am in town attending to some unexpected personal business, and nothing would make me happier than to break bread with the two of you this Monday. I am now a raw food vegan (I cannot wait to tell you what this has done for my physical and mental form!), but I am sure that I can get something at Pain Quot, as a quick search of my Vegan For Life! app gives them three stars and calls them a “friend to the local vegetable.” I am staying downtown at the Tribeca Grand, but I will make my way up there by 2 p.m. Save a bench in the sun for me! Namaste!

Email from: Willa Chandler-Golden

To: Raina Chandler-Foley; Oliver Chandler

Subject: re: re: Our Parents

Raina – you have Twitter? Why am I always the last to know?

11

Raina and I arrive on time. (Of course.) Oliver, however, does not. (Of course.) I expected Le Pain Quotidian to be empty at 2 p.m. on a Monday, but it seems that there are plenty of other unemployeds out in the world too. I nod at them as I weave through.

Hi, yes, I lost my job too.

Hello there, is the
Ellen Show
the highlight of your day as well?

“Oliver keeps to a world clock,” I say to Raina as we settle ourselves at the farmhouse table in the back corner. She rolls her eyes and goes back to typing angrily on her Blackberry. I peruse the menu and wonder if I’m someone who would enjoy quinoa or just start eating it because it’s part of the trend, and then watch Raina for a second. Her Botox has warded off her scowl, but still, her face is pressed downward, her lips tense, her chin drawn. For someone who is one of only three female partners at her firm, she doesn’t seem to enjoy her job all that much.