She nods, but her attention is on another top she’s taking off a hanger.
“If you could do it all again differently, would you?”
That gets her to look up, her expression surprised. “Why?”
I shrug. “Just curious. If you could have chosen a different path, a different …”—husband—“life, would you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t.”
“Would you have married Mel Nutter?”
She closes her eyes, the fight that was in them when I mentioned his name the other day gone now. “I never got a chance to figure that out,” she says.
“Why not?”
She swallows and turns, disappearing into a closet. “I had my reasons.”
I have to know. I follow her into a clothes cave that makes mine look like a kitchen cabinet by comparison. “What were they?”
She’s way in the back, around a corner, in a shoe store. “None of your business.”
“It is my business.”
Scooping up an armful of shoes, she lets out a bitter laugh. “No, Ayla, it isn’t. Your job of spying and digging for my missteps is over now. Dad won; I’m leaving, and I won’t try to take one dime more than the state of Florida or the board of Forever Flawless deems appropriate.”
“What were your reasons?” I ask again, not interested in her divorce settlement at all.
“Do the math,” she finally says, clutching the shoes to her chest as she looks at me. “Trent was my reason.”
Just like … my real mom. Only she got pregnant with me. This mom got pregnant with Trent, and me a year later. “You got pregnant?” I state the obvious, hoping it will get her to explain more. “But … you already knew Mel, didn’t you? So how did that happen with Jim?”
“The usual way. Which is why I wanted you to protect yourself with Ryder.”
“That’s not what I mean. How did you end up with one man when you were seeing someone else?”
“I came down here to tell your father that I’d made a decision and I wanted to completely end things. He was very good at stringing me along. Still is. Anyway, I’d met Mel and … and, well, Jim talked me out of it. He’s persuasive like that.” She brushes by me, dropping a shoe as she goes. “My mistake.”
I pick up the fallen stiletto and follow her. “What was your mistake?” Dropping the shoe? Getting pregnant? Leaving Mel?
“Marrying your father. I’ve never been good enough for him.” She dumps the pile of shoes onto the bed and then systematically begins to smash them into corners of a suitcase one by one.
“I’ve never been young enough.” She stuffs a shoe. “Pretty enough.” And another one. “Smart enough.” And another. “Witty enough.”
I hand her the last shoe. “You’re all those things, Mom. And if Jim Monroe doesn’t realize that, he’s an idiot.”
She looks at me, and I see a world of pain in her tear-filled eyes. A world I never saw before. “Thank you, Ayla. I never thought you noticed.”
“Of course I notice,” I tell her, watching a tear fall just like it did that day in Walmart, when she cried because she wasn’t rich enough, or whatever enough she longed to be. “You’re a fantastic mom. You know that? You are patient and funny and loving.”
She makes a soft, strangled sound, blinking more tears over her face, smearing her expensive makeup over her polished cheeks. “Why are you doing this, Ayla? You haven’t had a kind word for me in ten years. You’ve always been … his. Daddy’s girl and Mommy’s enemy.”
My insides shrivel up like a raisin for how wrong that was. “I’m sorry,” I say softly, reaching for her without thinking.
She stiffens at first, then relaxes into my arms, wrapping hers around me, too.
“I wish I could make it up to you, Mom.”
She strokes my hair, the way my real mom always did, the affection creating my own waterworks. “You can’t do anything to change history, Ayla.”
Really? That’s where you could be wrong, Mom.
“But you can do me a big favor,” she says, leaning back to look at me.
“Sure. What do you need?”
“Dad’s having that dinner party here on Wednesday for the latest Forever Flawless franchise owners. I need you to stand in for me.”
“Like, as the hostess?”
“You can do it,” she assures me. “Just greet people, make sure the caterer and staff are on time, and keep the party going. That’ll be easy for you. And you know how hard Dad works to give the image that we have a happy family. It’s important to him.”
I snort softly. “Then, he ought to make it real.”
“Ayla, please. All you have to do is make small talk. Be nice to the new franchisees. Ask them about their plans and their facilities. That’s all. That way, I won’t be missed.”
She’ll be missed by me. But I agree reluctantly. “Okay, but can I invite a friend?”
“I don’t know. The last time we had a party, Bliss got drunk.”
“I was thinking of my, um, science project friend. Charlie. He’s a good guy, really.” So, so good. I almost add that he’s my boyfriend now, but resist the temptation.
“He should hide that hideous car. Otherwise your father will have a fit.”
I laugh softly. “I’ll tell him. And, Mom …” I steal a glance at the suitcases. “Will you be back?”
“I don’t know.” She picks up a sparkly silver top, then discards it as if it won’t fit in wherever she’s going. “I guess it depends on what the universe has in store for me.”
The question is, which universe?
She turns to me and pats my cheek. “I was wrong about you, Ayla.”
“Wrong about what?”
“You really have changed recently. Where has this girl been all these years?”
I smile. “Living in her own world, I guess.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Should I stay or should I go?
The eighties tune I heard when Mom (real Mom) forced me to listen to those obnoxious oldies stations in the car has been playing in my head for two days, and it still is as I dress for Dad’s dinner party.
An earworm is better than my swirling thoughts, anyway. There are so many things in my brain, I can’t seem to settle on anything but that musical question. And, OMG, what a bad, bad song.
I feel like I should be mature in my hostess role—which consists of pretty much nothing, I’ve learned. Still, I choose a simple black dress (if anything in its price range could be called simple) and strappy high heels.
Mom really did jettison out of here, and the only person who seems remotely upset about it is Trent, who hasn’t said anything in two days that didn’t include an F-bomb. Really, Theo’s burping back in the home universe is so preferable. Jimbo has been more visible, too, and I’ve got a weird feeling he’s going to have a “friend” here tonight. How gross is that?
And speaking of friends, I haven’t seen Charlie at school—where I’ve kept a seriously low profile—but we’ve talked and texted a jillion times, and all I know is that he has a lot of news from his conversations with the University of Miami physics professor. News he’s going to give me as soon as he arrives.
My cell phone vibrates with a text that says he just pulled in, early as promised.
Charlie always keeps his promises.
And that is the other thing on my mind—Charlie and Missy and the lessons they’ve taught me already. Surely if he’s able to figure out a way to get me from one universe to another, he can discover the cure for his sister’s paralysis.
After a quick check of my makeup, I look around to see if I’ve forgotten anything. But everything’s just as it should be—orderly, beautiful, perfect—in my room.
My room. When did that happen? When did this expanse of turquoise and lime green, chocolate and pink, with all its fabric and clothes and exquisite furniture, become “my room”?
The song lyrics torture me again. Should I stay or should I go?
First I have to find C
harlie, and find out if I can go.
I hear his voice as I come down the hall, low and hardly audible over the sound of the catering crew and dishes. But he’s exchanging greetings with Tillie, and I notice I’m walking faster, my heart rate higher, my head buzzing like a million bees are in there.
Yes indeed, I have it bad for this boy.
Should I stay or should I go?
When I walk into the kitchen, he turns, and I suck in a little breath of surprise and pleasure. He’s wearing a collared long-sleeve dress shirt, a tie, khakis, and the Sinatra hat tipped at a downright sexy angle.
He touches it. “I promised Missy,” he says in an apologetic voice. “You know it was her Christmas present to me last year, and when I wear it, I—”
“Shhh.” I stop him with a single finger to his lips. “It looks cute.”
He places the lightest kiss on my fingertip and steps back to give me a very admiring once over. “Pretty,” he says.
And the best part of that compliment is that I believe he would say the same thing if he saw Annie, with braces, no boobs, no butt, and a Ross Dress for Less outfit. That’s what is so special about Charlie Zelinsky.
Should I stay or should I go?
“Can we talk for a few minutes?” he asks.
Tillie flicks her fingers toward the open doors that lead to the patio. “I’ll holler if I need you, Miss Ayla.”
Charlie follows me outside, taking in the infinity pool and waterfall and the spectacular view of the bay. On the lawn, three long tables are already set like we’re having a wedding rather than a corporate dinner for thirty. It’s not dark yet, but white lights flicker everywhere, and my father’s giant boat—aptly named Floating Flawlessly—bobs at our dock.
“This place looks like a country club,” Charlie says, turning to me. “And you sure look like you belong in it.”
I wave off the compliment. “I’m dying here, Charlie. What did you find out?”
“A lot.” We walk toward the dock, seeking privacy from the waiters and caterers milling around.
I open the gate, and we cross the dock, the breeze lifting my hair and carrying the scent of exotic flowers and salt water. I inhale it and the closeness to Charlie. It all smells so good. Nothing like I ever smelled in Pittsburgh.
Should I stay or should I go?
“It was the mirror,” he says, yanking me from my reverie.
“What do you mean?”
“The mirror invention of your dad’s. That’s what put the image of you on the phone and transferred it to your computer. How did he make that? What parts did he use? How were they connected?”
I have to laugh. “I have no idea. He said he had PIN diodes and … rec … somethings.”
“Rectifiers. Okay, I can get those. What else?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know, Charlie. But I wasn’t looking at the mirror when the lightning flashed and hit my window.”
“But the image from the mirror was on your phone in your hand.”
“Yes, that’s true. That’s the last thing I looked at before the lightning strike.”
“Do you remember how you felt?”
“Tingly. Electrified. Numb.”
He nods like a doctor considering symptoms before making a diagnosis. “What were you thinking about?”
“About …” I turn to the house, seeing it at an angle precisely like one of the pictures in the magazine. “This perfect house. And, of course, being the perfect girl who lived in it …” My voice trails off as I look at Charlie. “You think I somehow wished myself over the rainbow?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. There’s a far more scientific explanation, but I’ve no doubt your thoughts guided you to this universe. The electrons that make up your body, every atom of you, had some sort of massive and sudden particle collision caused by the refraction of light, just at the instant that the membranes of two different dimensions crashed, transferring you from one universe to another.”
Huh? “Are you saying I exploded and went through space?”
“Remember, you have to think of the universe not as one place with black holes and stars and planets, but as an infinite space that contains many, many individual universes, like giant bubbles that scientists call multiverses.”
“I understand,” I say, even though, come on, I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about.
“It’s a growing theory of quantum physics,” he adds, as if that will explain it to me.
“How many universes are there?”
He lifts his brows. “They’re infinite, and you understand what that means, don’t you, Annie?”
All I really understand is that I love it when he calls me Annie. “That there’s no end to how many universes there could be?”
“Yes, but more critical, there’s no end to the possible combinations of time and events in those universes. Because they are infinite, one or even many of them have, in essence, replicated our universe, with the same history, or maybe slightly different. Maybe a universe where Rome didn’t fall or Shakespeare never lived or—”
“Emily Zimmerman married Mel Nutter instead of Jim Monroe.”
“Bingo.”
I lean back on the dock railing, the realization finally settling over me. “But, Charlie, of all those infinite universes, what are the chances of my old universe bumping into this universe at that very instant?”
“The chances are good,” he says. “Because of this.” He taps my forehead. “Not only did the lightning bounce electrons—which is what light does when it hits a reflective surface, like, say your window, or even the screen of the computer you had open—it shot photons and electrons to many different places. The fact that you—your particles, which is all we’re made of—traveled from that universe to this one was no coincidence at all. You were thinking about this life. Maybe you didn’t realize it, but this universe, where your life is rich and perfect, that’s where your particles went.”
“But we’re made up of more than just particles, Charlie.”
“That’s right. We’ve got that special something that makes us who we are. Your conscience, your self, your you-ness.”
“My soul,” I whisper, the first real understanding finally dawning of why I could be Annie on the inside and Ayla on the outside.
“I’m happy to say that your soul made the trip with you.”
“What happened to Ayla? The one who lived here before me?”
“She didn’t go anywhere. She’s you.”
Oh, confused again. Still, the fact that there is a science behind my situation is reassuring. “You’re sure she’s not living in that other universe?” I ask. “We didn’t switch places? She’s not running around Rolling Rock Road demanding that my parents give her non-strawberry yogurt while my brother Theo burps in her face?” Because, whoa, if this is heaven, poor Ayla must think she went straight to the other place.
“Well, to be honest, I’m not sure of anything, but, no. We—the physicists who study this kind of theory—don’t think that’s how it works. The physical ‘her’ hasn’t gone anywhere.”
For some reason, that’s also reassuring. I don’t want her being me—anywhere. “But what’s happening in my old life, in my old universe?” I ask. “Who is controlling the decisions made by Annie Nutter back in that world?”
“She’s probably still there, living the same life. But you—your consciousness—is here. Annie Nutter’s probably going through her life with no idea that she’s lost a piece of herself.”
I shake my head, not understanding this at all. “So all that really came here in that … that particle collision is my consciousness?”
He places his hands on my shoulders, warm and strong and so competent that I just want to lean into him. “I know this is tough to understand, but it’s the best Dr. Pritchard and I could come up with. He’s excited, though, about the possibilities.”
“The possibilities?”
“Of getting you back.”
For a long, heart-poun
ding few seconds, I just let this thought settle over me. Should I stay or should I go? If both Annie’s and Ayla’s lives are going to continue, where do I want my soul to live? Here, or there?
“How would I go back, if I wanted to?”
Charlie lets out a slow exhale that pretty much tells me that whatever it is, it won’t be easy. “To start with, we’d have to re-create your dad’s invention,” he says. “Only he knows exactly how he put that thing together.”
“Yeah,” I say, echoing the impossibility in his voice. “So what are the chances of that?”
He shrugs. “If you could find Mel Nutter living in this universe, and could convince him to make that mirror, you might—”
“My mom knows him!” I exclaim. “She’s been communicating with him on the Internet. Maybe I can contact him.”
“You could. But then what? Ask him if he happens to have invented a mirror that you could borrow during the next thunderstorm so you could be his daughter? He’s going to think you’re crazy.”
I just smile. “You’ve never met Mel Nutter. He lives for crazy.” At least, he did.
“So what do you want to do?” He gives my shoulders a squeeze, and I know that whatever my decision is, he’ll support it. How can you not adore a guy like that?
“I want options, Charlie,” I tell him. I want to know where Mel Nutter is and if there’s any chance of ever finding him. “Do you think you can hack into my mom’s email? I mean, if I know the email address, is it possible?”
He laughs.
Twenty minutes later, he’s sitting on my bed with my laptop, opening up my mom’s email like it’s his for the taking. He’s wildly clicking keys, but I can still hear some voices and laughter floating up from the patio.
“Hurry,” I tell him. “I only have a few minutes before my hostess duties begin.”
“I’m in the email program. Help me look for his name.”
I scoot over to get next to him, scanning the list of names, looking for Mel Nutter. No one in her email in-box or saved mail has a name remotely like that.
“Can you get into the deleted mail or sent messages?” He does, with ease. “You’re a handy tool to have around, Charlie Zelinsky,” I say with admiration in my voice.