Parallel Read online

  How is there a picture of me at graduation if I wasn’t there?

  I stare at the photograph, trying to remember that moment, but I can’t. I have absolutely no recollection of being there, which makes sense, because I WASN’T. All of a sudden, I’m annoyed. Annoyed that whatever is going on has made me doubt my sanity, made me doubt reality. I have been in Los Angeles, living at the Culver Hotel, shooting a movie with Bret Woodward since May. That I know. That I remember. That’s what’s real.

  Right?

  Confronted with inconsistencies I can’t explain, I jump into journalist mode. I’ll fact-check my life the way I’d fact-check a newspaper article, starting with the movie I’ve spent the last four months shooting. I launch my web browser, which redirects to a secure log-in screen for the Yale network, with boxes for my student ID number and password. Undeterred, I pull out my ID card and examine it. Under the bar code is a ten-digit number, which has to be my student ID number. I type the numbers into the top box. Now for the harder part: the password. I’ve been using the same password since we read Through the Looking Glass in seventh grade.

  I type w-o-n-d-e-r-l-a-n-d into the password box and hold my breath as I click the log-in button. A few seconds later, the log-in screen disappears.

  I’m in.

  Buoyed, I type the words “Everyday Assassins movie” into the search bar and hit enter. The top hit tells me what I want to know. Directed by Alain Bourneau and starring Bret Woodward, Everyday Assassins is a high-octane thriller about a renegade military sniper and his band of teenage assassins. I scroll down. Bret’s name is right where I expect it to be, at the top of the lengthy cast list. The next three names are all ones I recognize. So far everything is exactly as I remember it. I keep scrolling, looking for my name. There’s Kirby. There’s the guy who plays Bret’s other sidekick. My name should be next.

  Please let it be there, please let it be there.

  It isn’t.

  I think back, remembering my audition. That tiny studio office. The loud hum of the window AC unit. The casting director’s encouraging smile. Then I go back further, remembering the night of the school play . . . then even further, to the day I found out I’d been cast as Thomasina . . . then further still, to the first day of senior year, when Ms. Ziffren handed out copies of Arcadia and told us auditions would be held the following week.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, replaying my conversation with Ms. DeWitt that morning. I remember her telling me that Mr. Simmons had canceled History of Music, and that my options for a replacement were Drama Methods and astronomy. But I also remember—just as vividly—Ms. DeWitt telling me that astronomy was my only option . . . that there had been other classes available, but they’d been filled already . . . that because I was late, I was the last of Simmons’s students to be rescheduled.

  But I wasn’t late. I’m never late.

  The earthquake.

  A stream of new memories floods my mind: sitting in traffic on my way to school, getting stopped by Ms. DeWitt as I was coming out of the auditorium, complaining to Caitlin at lunch, pretending to listen to my astronomy teacher while staring at the new guy next to me.

  Same day, two completely different sets of memories. It’s as if my mind recorded two different versions of what happened that morning. I run through both versions again, struggling to make sense of the inconsistency. When I can’t, I rack my brain for other duplicate days, but there aren’t any. Just the one. Exactly a year ago yesterday. I remember, because it was the day before my birthday.

  On impulse, I Google the words “Atlanta earthquake September 2008.” The search returns over a million hits. The top one is a link to an article on CNN.com, dated September 9, 2008.

  A rare earthquake measuring magnitude 5.9 shook the Southeast early yesterday morning. Scientists are baffled, as it appears there may have been more than seventy similar quakes at various sites across the globe. Theories about the cause of the quakes abound, but so far seismologists have been unable to isolate their origin.

  I close my eyes, again trying to summon more of these alternate memories. Other astronomy lectures, other conversations with the friendly new kid. Nada. Nothing beyond that first day. I’ve got one day of earthquake memories and a full year’s worth of non-earthquake ones.

  DING! My eyes fly open. It’s another text from Tyler.

  TELL C TO LET ME COME VISIT

  I think for a sec, then quickly reply.

  WHAT AIRPORT WOULD U FLY FROM?

  He’ll think it’s super weird that I’m asking, but at least I’ll know from his answer whether he’s still at Michigan. My phone dings with his reply.

  U GONNA BOOK MY FLIGHT FOR ME?

  Damn. So much for that.

  I’m crafting a response when my phone dings again.

  DTW

  Detroit. So Tyler’s still at Michigan, Caitlin’s still at Yale, and I’m three thousand miles from where I should be. And no closer to figuring out why.

  I sigh, slumping down in my seat, wishing I could go back to sleep and forget this whole experience. But I’m supposed to meet Caitlin in six minutes, and according to my map, McNeil Lecture Hall is in the art gallery on the other side of campus. I leave my laptop on the desk, lock the door to my study carrel, and hurry back downstairs.

  The blue sign outside 1111 Chapel Street welcomes me to the Yale University Art Gallery. I pull open the door and step inside the lobby. I’m so preoccupied with the fact that I’m late that I almost don’t notice the banner hanging on the lobby’s far wall.

  THE ART OF HARMONY:

  SEURAT’S CHROMOLUMINARISM.

  SEPTEMBER 1–NOVEMBER 30 AT THE YUAG.

  COURTESY OF THE HIGH MUSEUM.

  My mom’s pointillism exhibit. I knew the collection was touring after its nine-month stint at the High, but it catches me off guard to find it here. A professor’s voice, loud and crisp, reverberates through the thin walls of the lecture hall, reminding me that the class I came for started five minutes ago. Eyes still on the banner, I reach to pull open the auditorium door.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a male voice says. I look around. The only other person in the lobby is a guy in a gray Yale Lacrosse T-shirt, sitting on the wooden bench that runs the length of the auditorium wall. He’s leaning back against the wall, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He has a notebook in his lap and a pen in his hand. I quickly take him in: dark, floppy hair, bright green eyes, skin that’s been tanned in the sun, not in a booth. He’s good-looking. Like, really good-looking. His T-shirt is snug on his biceps, which appear to get quite a bit of use.

  “Why not?” I ask, pulling my hand off the door handle.

  “Prof has a thing about punctuality,” he says. “Every year, he makes an example out of the kids who show up late during shopping period. Berates them, mocks them—it’s not pretty. Good news is, he doesn’t take attendance, so it’s no big deal if you’re not there. Especially if you have the notes.” He holds up his notebook and nods toward the wall. “From here you can hear every word. I’m Michael, by the way,” he adds, leaning forward to shake my hand. His palm is warm, dry, and slightly scratchy. A boy’s hand. For a split second, I wonder what it would feel like running down my back.

  “I’m Abby,” I tell him, and quickly drop his hand before my thoughts go R-rated.

  Michael scoots over, making room for me, so I sit.

  “So, you’re a freshman?” he asks.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  He grins. “Kind of. You have this sort of bewildered look on your face. It’s cute.” Bewildered and unshowered and, now, sweating. Cute is probably not the most appropriate word. I dig around in my bag for some gum but can’t find any.

  “What college are you in?” Michael asks. When I just stare at him blankly, he laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna stalk you. I was just wondering. I’m in Pierson, but I live off campus at the ADPhi house.”

  Oh. Right. Yale has the whole residential college thing
. Caitlin explained it to me when she got in. Freshmen get assigned to one of twelve residential colleges, where they live the entire time they’re at Yale unless they move off campus. Each is its own little community, and the colleges compete against one another in intramurals and sit together at football games. But which one am I in?

  Michael is still waiting for me to respond. “I must look especially menacing today,” he jokes when I don’t.

  “Oh—no,” I say quickly, “it’s just . . .” It’s just that I had no idea what you were talking about because I wasn’t here yesterday, have no idea how I got here, and know virtually nothing about this school. “I live in Vanderbilt Hall?” It sounds more like a question than an answer, but Michael doesn’t seem to notice.

  “So you’re in Berkeley,” he says with a nod. “Cool.” Now I’m even more confused, but since Michael is the only one of the two of us who knows what the hell he’s talking about, I defer to him.

  From inside the lecture hall, the professor gets louder. Michael and I both lean into the wall, listening. “Today we continue our discussion of prehistoric art,” comes the voice through the wall. Michael and I both reach for our notebooks and pens, and we spend the next forty minutes scribbling furiously.

  As soon as the lecture ends, Michael has to hurry to his next class. “Another professor with a punctuality mandate,” he explains, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “But I’ll see you Monday, right?” When I nod, he smiles. “Good.”

  Caitlin emerges from the auditorium a few seconds later. “I didn’t see you inside,” she says. She retrieves a bottle of Aleve from her bag and pops two pills into her mouth. “Man, I can’t seem to kick this headache.”

  “I took notes from out here. Hey, listen, are you busy right now?”

  “Nope. Wanna get some lunch?”

  “I need you to come with me to the library,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “I’ll explain when we get there.”

  When I unlock the door to my carrel, Caitlin looks surprised. “You already rented a weenie bin?” I slide open the door and motion for her to go inside, then close the door behind us and relock it. Caitlin drops her bag on the desk and crosses her arms. “Now will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “Remember eighth grade, when Jeff Butler dumped me the week before the spring dance?”

  “Of course. You didn’t come to school for three days.”

  “Do you remember what you said to me?”

  “He spits when he talks?”

  I shake my head impatiently. “You said I shouldn’t let it bother me, because in some parallel world, I was the one who broke up with him.”

  “Look how wise I was, even back then.” Caitlin smiles, then immediately frowns. “Wait, is that why we’re here? Because you’re pining for Jeff Butler? Ab, the guy gives new meaning to the phrase ‘say it, don’t spray it.’ Plus, didn’t he chop off part of his pinkie in shop cla—”

  I cut her off. “This isn’t about Jeff.”

  “Then what is it about? Seriously, Abby, you’re starting to freak me out a little here.”

  “I want to know if they really exist.”

  “If what really exist?”

  “Parallel worlds. Are they real?”

  Caitlin responds without hesitation. “Yes.”

  “Like, for real real?”

  “Yes,” Caitlin repeats. “I mean, it’s not like we can prove it empirically, but quantum theory says there’s a parallel world for every possible version of your life. And most mainstream physicists would probably stake their careers on it.”

  I feel my brain switching into skeptical mode. “But it sounds so crazy,” I say.

  “That’s what they told Galileo. And Pasteur. And—”

  “Okay, fine. So is there any way a person could somehow . . . end up in one?”

  Caitlin gives me a funny look. “No. Parallel worlds occupy separate dimensions of space. There’s no way for us to even see them, much less travel to one.” She eyes me closely. “This is why you brought me up here? To talk about the multiverse?”

  I take a deep breath, giving myself a five-second mental pep talk—the same pep talk I’ve been giving myself all day. There’s a rational explanation for this. Caitlin will explain it to me, and everything will make sense again.

  “Abby?”

  Here goes nothing. “When I went to bed last night, I was in a hotel room in L.A.,” I begin slowly. “The same hotel room I’ve been living in for the past four months. And when I woke up this morning, I was here.”

  Whatever Caitlin was expecting me to say, it clearly wasn’t this. “Huh?”

  “I’m not supposed to be here. At Yale. I’m supposed to be in L.A., shooting a movie with Bret Woodward. And he and I are supposed to be having dinner tonight for my birthday, which I’m pretty sure is a date, because he kissed me last night. Well, technically, I kissed him . . . or at least he probably thinks I did, but I didn’t mean to, and it was more of an almost-kiss anyway.” I’m starting to ramble, but I don’t care. At this point, I just want to get it out. “Except now I’m here, and everyone’s acting like I’ve been here for weeks, and there are pictures of me doing things I never did—like graduation!” I point at the photo on my home screen. “Where did that picture come from? I wasn’t at graduation. I wanted to be, but I was already in California by then. And my ID car—”

  “Time-out.” Caitlin does a T motion with her hands, silencing me. “You weren’t at graduation?” I shake my head. “And you missed it because you were in Los Angeles, filming a movie. With Bret Woodward.” Her voice is calm, but she’s eyeing me strangely. I don’t blame her. I sound like a lunatic. I exhale, forcing myself to relax.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” I say. “But, yes. A casting director saw me in the fall show last year and thought I looked the part.”

  “The fall show at Brookside?”

  I nod. “I was the lead. I didn’t want the lead. I didn’t even want to be in the class. But Simmons canceled History of Music, and I had to pick a replacement. Drama sounded slightly less brutal than astronomy, so—”

  Caitlin’s brow furrows. “But you took astronomy. I helped you study for the final, remember?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t remember—not the part about you helping me study, anyway. I remember taking drama, getting the lead in Arcadia, giving a kinetic performance as Thomasina—the casting director’s words, not mine—and then being asked to fly out to L.A. the week before Christmas to audition for Everyday Assassins.”

  “The Bret Woodward movie.”

  I sigh heavily. This is even harder than I thought.

  “I know how it sounds,” I say wearily. “Believe me, I know.” I fight to keep my voice steady. “But I’m telling you, Cate, when I went to bed last night, I was in L.A., at the Culver Hotel, where I’ve been living all summer.”

  “And you were there because some casting director saw you in the fall play,” Caitlin says this slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. “And this happened because you took drama, not astronomy, last fall.”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “And because of this, you thought you might be in a parallel world?”

  It sounds ludicrous. “I’m crazy,” I moan. “That’s the only rational explanation, right? Everything I remember from the last year, none of it really happened. I’m having some sort of psychological breakdown.”

  Caitlin rolls her eyes. “You’re not having a breakdown.”

  “So you can explain this, then. You can explain what’s happening to me.”

  “Well, no. Not yet.”

  “So how can you be so sure that I’m not crazy?”

  “A crazy person wouldn’t be so quick to call herself crazy,” she says matter-of-factly, switching into scientist mode. She gets like this when she’s trying to problem solve. “Okay, so we know that one of two things is true: Either your memories from the last twelve months are accurate or they’re not. If they’re not, then t
hey have to be coming from someplace, whether it be your imagination—which still doesn’t make you crazy—or some external source.”

  “An ‘external source’? What, like mind control?” I might not be a crazy person, but my voice has taken on the frantic, high-pitched screech of one. “You think someone’s messing with my memories?”

  “Calm down. I don’t think anything yet.” She chews on her lip, thinking.

  I lay my head on the desk, the wood cool on my skin. Someone has written CARPE DIEM in blue pen on the wall.

  “Did they ever figure out what caused that earthquake?” I hear myself ask.

  Caitlin stops chewing. “Why’d you ask that?”

  “Because it’s the only thing I remember from the last year that seems to have actually happened,” I reply. “And it’s the only memory I have that doesn’t fit with the rest.”

  Caitlin’s eyes fly to my face. “What do you mean, ‘doesn’t fit’?”

  I sit up. “It’s like my mind recorded two versions of the same day,” I tell her. “The first day of senior year. In the regular version—the one that fits with the rest of my memories—there was no earthquake, and DeWitt called me to her office during homeroom and told me History of Music had been canceled. I had the choice between drama and astronomy as a replacement elective.”

  “And you picked drama.”

  “Right. And in the other version, the earthquake knocked the power out and I was late to school.”

  “That’s the way I remember it,” Caitlin says slowly. “You came in at the end of assembly, and by the time DeWitt tracked you down, Dr. Mann’s class was your only option. You spent the rest of the day freaking out about your GPA.”