“We start with this room, learn everything we can from it. That’s always the best way to begin, with your immediate surroundings.” It helps a little, Theo calling me the “expert.” That’s not exactly true, but at least now I’m thinking productively instead of standing here blushing. “Okay, the number one thing we ought to figure out is whether this is your room or mine.”
Theo gestures toward the open closet door. Now that my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, I can see that plain dark dresses and skirts hang inside. He says, “Either this is your place, or in this universe I’m the world’s most boring drag queen.”
That makes me smile, and we’re at ease with each other again. I point at a dark square of leather on the floor. “That must be your wallet, right?”
“Gotta be.” Theo kneels down to check it out.
I steal a glance out the window to look around. Although there are few streetlights here, the moon overhead shines bright enough for me to see. This clearly isn’t our same house, but I think it’s still near the Bay Area—even in such a different neighborhood (smaller homes, fewer trees), the rolling ground is unmistakable. My bedroom is on the first floor of the house. Outside my window is a lone sweetshade tree; tethered to it, with a chain lock, is an old beater bicycle with fat tires.
“Check this out,” Theo says as he gets to his feet. I turn around to look at the wallet he’s showing me. At first I don’t see what the big deal is—okay, so driver’s licenses look different here—and then I realize that’s not his license. It’s a military ID.
“You joined the army?” That seems so . . . not Theo.
“I was wondering why the hell I practically shaved my head. Now I know. But there’s more—”
Frowning, I realize that Theo’s wallet is stuffed full of photos, all of them in black and white. I try to ignore the picture in front, a snapshot of me and Theo, the two of us standing with our arms around each other.
He continues, “We have black-and-white photography. We have a conspicuous lack of any smartphones or other modern tech here in your room. That means we’re in one of the worlds that hasn’t advanced as far, right?”
“Normally, it would mean that,” I admit. “But Conley said he was sending me to dimensions where my parents were on the verge of inventing the Firebird.”
“How can they do that if nobody’s even come up with color film yet?”
“We’ll have to see. Every world develops in its own way.” I lean closer, trying to get a look at more of the images in his wallet. “Do you have a photo of Paul?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Of course I don’t know Paul in this universe, at least not yet. If I did, I wouldn’t be with Theo. We’ll have to figure out where he is in this world. It would be just like Conley to play a dirty trick and hide the next splinter of Paul’s soul in a dimension where we live in different cities, or countries, or continents.
It doesn’t matter. However far I have to go to rescue him, I will.
“I can’t get over this,” Theo murmurs. “It’s so different but so not, all at the same time.”
“Yeah, the changes can throw you off.”
“Not as much as some of the stuff that hasn’t changed.”
He says it quietly, without looking at me, but for some reason I am suddenly, vividly aware of the mussed bed—still rumpled from when this Theo and this Marguerite made love. Theo wanted this for us. What must it feel like, for him, seeing that in one world we’re actually together?
Maybe it’s painful. Or maybe he sees it as vindication. Proof that we could have worked out, if I hadn’t fallen for Paul instead.
I turn away, meaning just to give us both some space for a moment. Then a dark shape on my dresser catches my eye—a picture frame that had tipped over, face forward. I try not to think about what Theo and I might have done against the dresser. Instead, I right the frame and breathe out in relief; Mom, Dad, and Josie all smile out from the picture, in black and white but recognizably themselves. The photograph looks recent enough that they’re probably all alive. I don’t take that for granted anymore
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s check out the rest of the house.”
We tiptoe from my bedroom, down a hallway, until we reach the kitchen. This house is smaller than our home in Berkeley—one story, low ceilings—and way more boring. No philodendrons in terra-cotta pots; no wall covered in chalkboard paint; no suncatcher in the window. The kitchen has a stove, oven, and refrigerator, but they all look sort of clunky. On the wall hang an actual paper calendar, annotated in at least four different colors of ink, and an old-fashioned black plastic phone, complete with a long spiral cord.
When I get closer to the calendar, I’m able to make out some of the entries, both the ones in Dad’s scrawl and Mom’s tiny block print. Josie flt demo 4/17. Presentation AF HQ 4/19. Marg shift change 4/20. None of this makes a lot of sense to me, but at least I know all of us live here together.
Next we head into the living room. The furnishings are pretty bare-bones here too, but I smile when I see a pile of sketches on a small table. Even before I pick them up, I know they’re mine.
In the large majority of the dimensions we’ve visited so far, I’m still an artist—whether that means a professional, a student, or just an interested amateur. My love of creativity is one of my constants, a pole star amid the many constellations of possibilities and personalities that make up all the people I could be.
Besides, I learn a lot from my art. Each Marguerite sees the world in a whole new way.
The first thing I notice: These sketches are on really awful paper. Not only is it cheaper stock than you’d get at an art store, it’s thin and coarse, not even printer-quality.
Next, as I squint to examine the drawings in the dim light, I realize that these are all works in pencil only. Usually color is one of the most important aspects of my work, but a few of the other Marguerites stick to black and white. Slowly I flip through the drawings. While I don’t recognize some of the faces, others are more familiar. There’s Mom, with her curly hair drawn back into a severe bun. Josie, with her hair cut nearly as short as Theo’s. This is the only portrait I’ve seen of Josie in any world in which she wasn’t smiling. Dad, wearing wire-rimmed glasses that look like something from bygone days.
And Theo. She’s drawn him perfectly, capturing both his intelligence and his mischief just in the expression of his eyes. The warmth she’s put into this sketch suggests that Theo’s stayed over before, and that their relationship isn’t some casual, careless thing.
“Nice,” Theo says quietly. He’s looking over my shoulder at this other version of himself—a version who has a relationship with me that he never will.
So do I break Theo’s heart in this universe when I finally meet Paul?
Because Paul’s face is nowhere to be seen in these sketches.
Carefully I put the drawings back in order and set them on the table. I walk to the window to look outside; the view is of the backyard, and I can make out a whole vegetable garden. That’s new. Mom loves her houseplants, but aside from a few pots with fresh herbs in the kitchen, she’s never bothered growing stuff for us to eat.