The cab drove off, racing away down the street. Larry looked around. Where were they? The dark streets were silent and deserted.
"First," Allison Holmes said, "I want a corsage. Larry, don't you think you should present your fiancee with a corsage? I want to go in looking nice."
"A corsage? At this time of night?" Larry gestured at the dark, silent streets. "Are you kidding?"
Allison pondered, then she crossed the street, abruptly; Larry followed after her. Allison came up to a closed-up flower shop, its sign off, door locked. She rapped with a coin on the plate glass window.
"Have you gone crazy?" Larry cried. "There's nobody in there, this time of night!"
In the back of the flower shop somebody stirred. An old man came slowly toward the window, removing his glasses and putting them in his pocket. He bent down and unlocked the door. "What is it, lady?"
"I want a corsage, the best you have." Allison pushed into the shop, gazing around at the flowers in awe.
"Forget it, buddy," Larry murmured; "don't pay any attention to her. She's -"
"That's all right." The old man sighed. "I was going over my income tax; I can use a break. There should be some already made up. I'll open the refrigerator."
Five minutes later they were out on the street again, Allison gazing ecstatically down at the great orchid pinned to her coat. "It's beautiful, Larry!" she whispered. She squeezed his arm, gazing up in his face. "Thanks a lot; now, let's go."
"Where? Maybe you found an old guy sweating over his tax returns at one o'clock in the morning, but I defy you to find anything else in this god-forsaken graveyard."
Allison looked around. "Let's see… Over this way. This big old house over here. I wouldn't be a bit surprised -" She tugged Larry down the sidewalk, her high heels clattering in the night silence.
"All right," Larry murmured, grinning a little. "I'll go along with you; this ought to be interesting."
No light showed in the great square house; all the shades were down. Allison hurried down the walk, feeling her way through the darkness, up onto the porch of the house.
"Hey!" Larry exclaimed, suddenly alarmed. Allison had taken hold of the doorknob; she pushed the door open.
A burst of light struck them, light and sound. The murmur of voices. Past a heavy curtain people moved, an immense room of people. Men and women in evening dress, bending over long tables and counters.
"Oh, oh," Larry muttered. "Now you've got us into it; this is no place for us."
Three tough-looking gorillas come strolling over, their hands in their pockets. "Okay, mister; let's go."
Larry started out. "That's fine by me. I'm an easy-going person."
"Nonsense." Allison caught hold of his arm, her eyes glittering with excitement. "I always wanted to visit a gambling-place. Look at all the tables! What are they doing? What's that over there?"
"For Lord's sake," Larry gasped desperately. "Let's get out of here. These people don't know us."
"You bet we don't," one of the three hulking bruisers rasped. He nodded to his companions. "Here we go." They grabbed hold of Larry and propelled him toward the door.
Allison blinked. "What are you doing to him? You stop that!" She concentrated, her lips moving. "Let me – let me talk to Connie."
The three bruisers froze. They turned toward her slowly. "To who? Who did you say, lady?"
Allison smiled up at them. "To Connie – I think. Isn't that what I said? Connie. Where is he?" She looked around. "Is that him over there?"
A small dapper man at one of the tables turned resentfully at his name, his face twisting with annoyance.
"Let it go, lady," one of the bruisers said quickly. "Don't bother Connie; he don't like to be bothered." He closed the door, pushing Larry and Allison past the curtain, into the big room. "You go and play. Enjoy yourselves; have a good time."
Larry looked down at the girl beside him. He shook his head weakly. "I could sure use a drink – a stiff one."
"All right," Allison said happily, her eyes fastened on the roulette table. "You go have your drink. I'm going to start playing!"
After a couple of good stiff scotch-and-waters, Larry slid off the stool and wandered away from the bar, over toward the roulette table in the center of the room.
A big crowd had collected around the table. Larry closed his eyes, steadying himself; he knew already. After he had gathered his strength he pushed his way through the people and up to the table.
"What does this one mean?" Allison was asking the croupier, holding up a blue chip. In front of her was an immense stack of chips – all colors. Everyone was murmuring and talking and looking at her.
Larry made his way over to her. "How are you getting along? Lost your dowry yet?"
"Not yet. According to this man, I'm ahead."
"He should know," Larry sighed wearily; "he's in the business."
"Do you want to play, too?" Allison asked, accepting an armload of chips. "You can have these. I've got more."
"I see that. But – no, thanks; it's out of my line. Come on." Larry led her away from the table. "I think the time has come for you and me to have a little chat. Over in the corner where it's quiet."
"A chat?"
"I got to thinking about it; this thing has gone far enough."
Allison trailed after him. Larry strode over to the side of the room. In a huge fireplace, a roaring fire blazed. Larry threw himself down in a deep chair, pointing to the chair next to it. "Sit," Larry said.
Allison sat down, crossing her legs and smoothing down her skirt. She leaned back, sighed. "Isn't this nice? The fire and everything? Just what I always imagined." She closed her eyes dreamily.
Larry took his cigarettes out and lit up slowly, deep in thought. "Now look here, Miss Holmes -"
"Allison. After all, we're going to be married."
"Allison, then. Look here, Allison, this whole thing is absurd. While I was at the bar I got to thinking it over. It isn't right, this crazy theory of yours."
"Why not?" Her voice was sleepy, far-off.
Larry gestured angrily. "I'll tell you why not. You claim I'm only partly real. Isn't that right? You're the only one who's completely real."
Allison nodded. "That's right."
"But look! I don't know about all these other people -" Larry waved at them deprecatingly. "Maybe you're right about them. Maybe they are only phantoms. But not me! You can't say I'm just a phantom." He banged his fist against the arm of the chair. "See? You call that just partly real?"
"The chair's only partly real, too."
Larry groaned. "Damn it. I've been in this world twenty-five years, and I just met you a few hours ago. Am I supposed to believe I'm not really alive? Not really – not really me? That I'm only a sort of – a hunk of scenery in your world? Part of the fixtures?"
"Larry, darling. You have your own world. We each have our own world. But this one happens to be mine, and you're in it for me." Allison opened her large blue eyes. "In your real world I may exist a little for you, too. All our worlds overlap, darling; don't you see? You exist for me in my world. Probably I exist for you in yours." She smiled. The Great Designer has to be economical – like all good artists. Many of the worlds are similar, almost the same. But each of them belongs to only one person."
"And this one is yours." Larry let his breath out with a sigh. "Okay, baby. You have your mind made up; I'll play along with you – for a while, at least. I'll string along." He contemplated the girl leaning back in the deep chair next to him. "You know, you're not bad-looking, not bad at all."
"Thank you."
"Yeah, I'll bite. For a while, at least. Maybe we are meant for each other. But you've got to calm down a little; you try your luck too hard. If you're going to be around me, you better take it a little easier."
"What do you mean, Larry?"
"All this. This place. What if the cops come? Gambling. Running around." Larry gazed off into the distance. "No, this isn't right. This isn't the kind of life
I've got pictured. You know what I see in my mind's eye?" Larry's face lit up with wistful pleasure. "I see a little house, baby. Out in the country. Way out. The farm country. Flat fields. Maybe Kansas. Colorado. A little cabin. With a well. And cows."
Allison frowned. "Oh?"
"And you know what else? Me, out in the back. Farming. Or – or feeding the chickens. Ever fed chickens?" Larry shook his head happily. "A lot of fun, baby. And squirrels. Ever walk in the park and feed squirrels? Gray squirrels, big long tails? Tails as long as the squirrels."
Allison yawned. Abruptly she got to her feet, picking up her purse. "I think it's time we ran along."
Larry got up slowly. "Yeah, I guess it is."
"Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I want to get started early." Allison made her way through the people, toward the door. "First of all, I think we should begin looking for -"
Larry stopped her. "Your chips."
"What?"
"Your chips. Turn them in."
"What for?"
"For money – I think they call it now."
"Oh, bother." Allison turned to a heavy-set man sitting at the black-jack table. "Here!" She dumped the chips in the man's lap. "You take them. All right, Larry. Let's go!"
The cab pulled up in front of Larry's apartment.
"Is this where you live?" Allison asked, gazing up at the building. "It's not very modern, is it?"
"No." Larry pushed the door open. "And the plumbing isn't very good, either. But what the hell."
"Larry?" Allison stopped him as he started to get out.
"Yes?"
"You won't forget about tomorrow, will you?"
"Tomorrow?"
"We have so much to do. I want you to be up bright and early, ready to go places. So we can get things done."
"How about six o'clock in the evening? Is that early enough?" Larry yawned. It was late, and cold.
"Oh, no. I'll be by for you at ten a.m."
"Ten! But my job. I got to work!"
"Not tomorrow. Tomorrow is our day."
"How the hell am I going to live if I don't -"
Allison reached up, putting her slender arms around him. "Don't worry; it'll be all right. Remember? This is my world." She pulled him down to her, kissing him on the mouth. Her lips were sweet and cool. She held onto him tightly, her eyes closed.
Larry broke away. "All right, already." He straightened his tie, standing up on the pavement.
"Tomorrow, then. And don't worry about your old job. Goodbye, Larry darling." Allison slammed the door. The cab drove off down the dark street. Larry gazed after it, still dazed. Finally he shrugged and turned toward the apartment house.
Inside, on the table in the hall, was a letter for him. He scooped it up, opening it as he climbed the stairs. The letter was from his office, Bray Insurance Company. The annual vacation schedule for the staff, listing the two weeks doled out to each employee. He didn't even have to find his name to know when his began.
"Don't worry," Allison had said.
Larry grinned ruefully, stuffing the letter in his coat pocket. He unlocked his apartment door. Ten o'clock did she say? Well, at least he would have a good night's sleep.
The day was warm and bright. Larry Brewster sat out on the front steps of the apartment building, smoking and thinking while he waited for Allison.
She was doing all right; no doubt about that. A hell of a lot of things seemed to fall like ripe plums into her lap. No wonder she thought it was her world… She was getting the breaks, all right. But some people were like that. Lucky. Walked into fortune every time; won on quiz shows; found money in the gutter; bet on the right horse. It happened.
Her world? Larry grinned. Apparently Allison really believed it. Interesting. Well, he'd string along with her a little while longer, at least; she was a nice kid.
A horn sounded, and Larry glanced up. A two-tone convertible was parked in front of him, the top down. Allison waved. "Hi! Come on!"
Larry got up and came over. "Where did you get this?" He opened the door and slid in slowly.
"This?" Allison started the car up. It zoomed out into traffic. "I forget; I think someone gave it to me."
"You forget!" He stared at her. Then he relaxed against the soft seat. "Well? What's first on the list?"
"We're going to look at our new house."
"Whose new house?"
"Ours. Yours and mine."
Larry sank down into the seat. "What! But you -"
Allison spun the car around a corner. "You'll love it; it's nice. How big is your apartment?"
"Three rooms."
Allison laughed merrily. "This is eleven rooms. Two stories. Half an acre. Or so they tell me."
"Haven't you seen it?"
"Not yet. My lawyer just called me this morning."
"Your lawyer?"
"It's part of an estate left to me."
Larry pulled himself together slowly. Allison, in a scarlet two-piece outfit, gazed happily at the road ahead, her small face blank and contented. "Let me get all this straight. You've never seen it; your lawyer just called you; you get it as part of an estate."
"That's right. Some old uncle of mine. I forget his name. I didn't expect him to leave me anything." She turned toward Larry, beaming warmly at him. "But this is such a special time for me. It's important that everything go right. My whole world…"
"Yeah. Your whole world. Well, I hope you like the house after you see it."
Allison laughed. "I will. After all, it exists for me; that's what it's there for."
"You've got this worked out like an exact science," Larry murmured. "Everything that happens to you is for the best. You're pleased with everything. So it must be your world. Maybe you're just making the best of things – telling yourself you really like the things that happen to you."
"Do you think so?"
He frowned in thought as they zipped along. "Tell me," he said finally, "how did you learn about these multiple worlds? Why are you so sure this one is yours?"
She smiled at him. "I worked it out myself," she said. "I studied logic and philosophy, and history – and there was always something that puzzled me. Why were there so many vital changes in the fortunes of people and nations that seemed to come about providentially, just at the right moment? Why did it really seem as if my world had to be just the way it was, so that all through history, strange things happened which make it work out that way?
"I'd heard the 'This Is the Best of All Possible Worlds' theory, but it didn't make sense the way I read about it. I studied the religions of mankind, and scientific speculations of the existence of a Creator – but something was lacking, something which either couldn't be accounted for, or was just overlooked."
Larry nodded. "Well, sure. It's easy; if this is the best of all possible worlds, then why is there so much suffering – unnecessary suffering – in it, if there's a benevolent and all-powerful Creator, as so many millions have believed, do believe, and will believe in the future, no doubt, then how do you account for the existence of evil?" He grinned at her. "And you worked out the answer to all that, eh – just tossed it off like a martini?"
Allison sniffed. "You don't have to put it that way… Well, it is simple and I'm not the only one who's figured it out, although obviously I'm the only one in this world…"
"Okay," Larry broke in, "I'll hold back objections until you've told me how you did it."
"Thank you, darling," she said. "You see, you are understanding – even if you don't agree with me right off the bat… Well, that would get tiresome, I'm sure. It's much more fun if I have to work to convince you… Oh, don't get impatient, I'll come to the point."
"Thank you," he said.
"It's simple, like the egg-trick, once you know the angle. The reason why both the benevolent Creator and the 'Best of All Possible Worlds' theory seem to bog down is because we start out with an unjustified assumption – that this is the only world. But suppose we try a different approach: assume a Creator o
f infinite power; surely, such a being would be capable of creating infinite worlds… or at least, so large a number of them to seem infinite to us.
"If you assume that, then everything else makes sense. The Creator set forces into motion; He created separate worlds for every single human being in existence; each one exists for that human being alone. He's an artist, but He uses an economy of means, so that there's much duplication of themes and events and motives throughout the worlds."
"Oh," Larry replied softly, "now I begin to see what you're driving at. In some worlds, Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo – although only in his own world did everything work out just right for him; in this one he had to lose…"
"I'm not sure Napoleon ever existed in my world," Allison said thoughtfully. "I think he's just a name in the records, although some such person did exist in other worlds. In my world, Hitler was defeated, Roosevelt died – I'd be sorry about that, only I didn't know him, and he wasn't very real, anyway; they were both just images carried over from other people's worlds
"All right," he said. "And everything worked out wonderfully for you, all your life, huh? You were never really sick, or hurt, or hungry…"
"That's about it," she agreed. "I've had some hurts and frustrations, but nothing really… well, really crippling. And every one has been important toward getting something I really wanted, or getting to understand something important. You see, Larry, the logic is perfect; I deduced it all from the evidence. There's no other answer that will stand up."
Larry smiled. "What does it matter what I think? You're not going to change your mind."
Larry gazed at the building in sick disgust. "That's a house?" he muttered at last.
Allison's eyes danced with happiness as she looked up at the great mansion. "What, darling? What did you say?"
The house was immense – and super-modern, like a pastry cook's nightmare. Great columns reared up, connected by sloping beams and buttresses. The rooms were set one on top of each other like shoe-boxes, each at its own angle. The whole building was finished in some kind of bright metal shingle, a frightening butter-yellow. In the morning sun the house blazed and sparkled.
"What are – those?" Larry indicated some forlorn plants snaking up the irregular sides of the house. "Are those supposed to be there?"