Me vs. Me (21 page)

“I'm tired,” whines Blair, who's plopped her body and unborn child on one of the folding chairs.

“Lila!” I call down the aisle, but she's immersed in a conversation with my groom. Surprise, surprise.

“I'll do it,” Alice says.

Tricia tries to block her. “I don't really think that's appro—”

Alice pushes us both out of the way, turns toward the front of the room and begins walking down the aisle, singing the wedding march.

Everyone in the wedding party has their mouths open. Even Richard, my future father-in-law, looks uncomfortable. It's not every day you get to watch your wife marrying your son.

Tricia squeezes my hand and mutters just loud enough so I can hear, “Gabby, I promise I will watch her like a hawk at the wedding. If she tries to pull anything, I will personally take one of her orange flower arrangements and knock her over the head.”

Afterward, we all go over to Alice and Richard's for dinner. Richard is wearing an apron that says Kiss the Cook, and Alice is scurrying around making sure everyone's glasses are filled.

Once the main course is over, before dessert is served, Richard takes off his apron and taps his wineglass with his fork. “If you can all be quiet for a second, I'd like to make a toast.”

I have to admit, I'm surprised. I don't think I've ever heard Richard speak in public. In fact, I can't remember the last time I heard him speak, period. Cam puts his arm around me and squeezes my shoulder.

Richard clears his throat. “We're here tonight to celebrate the upcoming wedding of my son Cam and his fiancée Gabby.”

Everyone cheers. Richard waits for quiet and then continues. “As some of you might know, Alice and I will be celebrating our forty-first wedding anniversary next week. Some people scoff at the idea of love at first sight, but the day Alice walked into my father's store where I was working the register, that was it for me. It wasn't just her big smile and shining eyes, although she was, and still is, the most beautiful woman in the world. It was just a feeling I got. But what a feeling. No denying it, it was the real thing. I knew right then and there I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I told her that her purchase had come to eleven ninety-nine, and she shook her head and told me that instead of paying she would redesign my display window, and the rest is history.”

The crowd goes “Aw!”

“One day a little over three years ago,” he continues, “Cam came into my store and told me he was seeing someone. ‘Tell me,' I said. ‘What's she like?' ‘She's beautiful,' he answered. ‘She's smart, she's funny, she's sweet. But it's a lot more than that. I can't explain it,'my son said, ‘but I just know it's the real thing.'” He raises his glass. “And now, please join me in a toast. Those of you who are parents all know that we want our kids to have twice as much as we do—to be twice as happy, live twice as long, be twice as successful. So to my son—I wish you two houses, four children and eighty-two years of marriage to your beautiful young bride.”

Tears spring to my eyes, and Cam and I both walk over to hug Richard, and then, yes, hug Alice. I can't believe how sweet that was. Married for forty-one years…I can't even imagine. Do I want to imagine?

“You should have seen those window displays before I got my hands on them,” Alice says. “They were embarrassing.”

After another glass of wine, I find my father in the sea of people.

“I can't believe my favorite kid's all grown up,” he says, hugging me and rubbing his chin into the top of my head.

I smile. “I'm your only kid.” For a fleeting moment I'm a little girl again and I feel safe in his arms. “Daddy…is this the right choice?”

He pulls away and searches my face. “Honey, if this isn't what you want—”

I laugh nervously. “Don't worry. I'm fine. Just prenuptial jitters. I know what I'm doing.”

If only that were true.

 

It's Friday in New York, one Gabby-day before my wedding, and I'm still stuck. After an exhausting (but exhausting in a good way) day of work, I manage to avoid running into Ron, but see Nate and Mystery Woman in the elevator.

Funny, how in the beginning, months and months went by and he was MIA, and now that I wish he really was MIA, I see him everywhere.

“Hi,” I say, looking at the floor.

“Hey. How've you been?”

Now that's awkward for ya. I mumble something even I can't understand and head out to the subway.

I don't get a seat. Great. What else can go wrong today? Somewhere underground around Fortieth Street, it grinds to a halt and goes pitch black.

Wonderful.

That had better be a woman's purse rubbing against my leg. I clutch my own bag tightly to my side. A few minutes later, we start up again and finally I'm at my stop. When I step outside, it starts to rain.

Lovely.

Soaking wet, I rush to the apartment and I go straight to the bathroom to wash away the grime of the city. Then I realize that I'm starving and that I should have picked something up for dinner. I'm about to open the fridge when I spot a note on the freezer door: “G: You drank my apple juice. I did not give you permission to drink my apple juice. You owe me two dollars and fifty cents for my apple juice. H”

I did not drink her apple juice. She is crazy. I take the note off the fridge, crumple it and toss it into the garbage can. The disgusting, smelly garbage can. Everything in this city is smelly and gross. I hate this garbage can. In my new house with the Jacuzzi, I'm going to have a garbage disposal.

I spend the rest of the evening watching TV. Heather storms in around eleven and yells at me for not emptying the garbage.

As I get into bed, I look forward to falling asleep. Look forward to Arizona, where the streets are clean, where disposals rein over cans, where Cam is waiting for me. Just as I'm floating in that fuzzy place between wakefulness and sleep, the phone rings, jarring me. Hoping it's Cam, I feel my heart speed up. “Hi, baby,” I murmur.

“It's me,” says Melanie.

And then I remember where I am. Or more precisely, where I am not. Which not for the first time causes me to wonder, what would have happened if I had been asleep? Would someone else have answered the phone while I was nestled in Cam's arms, back in Arizona? Someone with my body? (Or my clone's body?) Where the hell am I when I'm asleep?

“Yoo-hoo,” says Melanie. “Anyone there?”

“I'm here,” I say. Though at this point in my life, I'm not entirely sure.

“You're not going to believe who I just saw.” There's a lot of static and I can hear loud noises in the background.

“Who?”

“Cam and Lila. On a date.”

Surprise, surprise. “Where were they?”

“You mean, where
are
they. I'm at China Grill in Tempe. I'm on a blind date and I just passed them on the way to the bathroom. I'm in a stall right now. She was feeding him with her chopsticks.”

I feel sick. They've gone public.

“It was so nauseating,” she continues. “But I had to tell you. I mean, I'd want you to tell me, if I were in your place.”

“Did they see you?” I hope they did. I hope they did and felt horrible and guilty and had a big fight.

“I don't think so. But they will. I'm going right over to yell at them. I'm going to tell them—”

A siren goes off outside and I don't hear the end of Melanie's sentence. “I missed what you said. Sorry. It's loud here.”

“I said I'm going to tell them that they suck.”

Right. That'll crush them. “No, don't say anything to them. Please. There's nothing either you or I can do.”

We chat for a few more seconds, and then I hang up and stare at the ceiling. Another siren goes off and then the phone rings again, but I just let it ring. It's probably Melanie calling me back to tell me he's kissing Lila now, they're making out right in the middle of the restaurant, or even worse, he's on his knees proposing. I can just picture it: the whole restaurant applauds when she throws her arms around his neck and yells, in
When Harry Met Sally
style, “Yes! Yes!” But when I check the caller ID, I see it's Soho Grand. I groan. Just what I need, Ron wondering what I'm wearing, or hopefully, what I'm not wearing. I want him to stop calling me. I want him to go away. I put the pillow over my head to stop the ringing.

“I'm going to kill you!” Heather screams, pounding on my wall.

I hate that he calls me at home at night. I hate that Nate never called. I hate that I don't really care that Nate never called. I hate that Brad barfed all over my bathroom. I hate how cold the winters are. I hate that I share a wall with a crazy woman. I hate that somewhere, in another life, right now, Cam could be proposing to Lila.

As the third siren of the night wails in the distance, I toss and turn, and toss and turn, and realize that I'm sick of the subway, sick of the men, sick of the cold. Sick of the garbage.

And then I hear the squeaking in my closet.

You've got to be kidding. On top of everything, the mouse is back. I have to get out of here. What if all this noise keeps me up and I can't fall asleep and then my Arizona porthole closes and I'm stuck in this world forever? I need to go to sleep. Right now. I throw on jeans and a shirt and my sneakers, grab my purse and run like hell.

All the way to the Bolton Hotel in Times Square. No phone. No Heather. No mouse.

“I'd like a room please,” I say to the man at the service desk.

“For how long?”

“Let's start with one night.”

“Would you like the king-sized featherbed?”

“Sure. Why not? A quiet room please.”

“Something high up then. That'll be two hundred dollars.”

I hand over my credit card. For two hundred dollars, those feathers had better be goose.

“Do you have any baggage, ma'am?”

Oh yeah, do I ever. “No.”

“Then you're all set,” he says, his face devoid of expression. I guess he's used to women with no luggage checking in after midnight. “Here's the key card for room 2715.”

I wait for the elevator, and when it opens, I'm face-to-face with Brad.

He turns red when he sees me. “Hey, Gabby. How's it going?”

“Good, thanks. You?” He's the last person I feel like dealing with now.

“Okay. Um. Listen I want to apologize for the night we went out. I don't remember most of it, but it couldn't have been good.”

“No worries.”

“Cool. Take care,” he says. “Um, is Heather with you?”

“No. Why?”

“I just thought…oh, never mind.”

What an ego. He was probably worried she'd pounce on him. I think about the last time I was here, and how he ignored her. I step into the elevator and press the button for floor twenty-seven. Or maybe he thought there was a party in one of the rooms. The last thing on my mind is partying. I'm so dead, I can hardly keep my eyes open.

I kick off my sneakers, strip off my clothes, close the blinds and pull down the covers. I flop down on my two-hundred-dollar bed and go straight to sleep.

Viva Las Vegas

I
t's Friday morning, the day before our wedding, and Cam's alarm has just gone off. Half-asleep, he snoozes it, then pulls me into his arms.

I love this man, really I do. I want to marry him. And maybe, just maybe, once we go through with it, the deed will be done, on earth as it is on (the other) earth. Once we get married, that's it. For better or for worse. If I prove to the powers or whatever that yes, I want to be Cam's wife and live happily ever after in Arizona, then maybe just maybe the heavens or whatever will smile down on me and end the insanity once and for all. In other words, I'll be proving to the cosmos that I'm no longer torn mentally, so please, will you stitch me back together?

In other words, when I marry Cam, I'll be making a statement that I choose this life, and maybe the other Gabby will cease to exist. It's possible, isn't it? Please?

My heart starts to race. It suddenly occurs to me that all this craziness started when he proposed. That somehow it's all tied up in the wedding. Hence the solution: cancel the wedding. (
This
wedding, that is. Not the marriage, obviously.) I never wanted it in the first place. I don't want to marry him at the Sunset Hotel, in front of people I don't know, at a party I didn't plan, in a veil I don't want. A wedding should be a magical event, a meaningful ritual symbolizing the union between two kindred spirits. Besides, if I'm going to make a statement to the cosmos or whatever, it had better be
my
statement, not Alice's.

“Cam, let's elope.”

“Hmm?” he says, nuzzling his head in my neck.

“I said I think we should elope.”

Cam, now completely awake, tickles my side. “We're getting married tomorrow. We don't need to elope.”

“Just hear me out. Getting married is about you and me, not about your mother, or my mother, or flowers, or bands, or bridesmaids, or anything else.” The words spill out in a rush, tumbling over each other. “Eloping would be private. Just us. Something meaningful that the two of us can share on our own without all the fuss.”

He must sense the urgency in my voice because he pulls away from me and sits up against the headboard. “That's the craziest idea I ever heard.”

“I know, I know! It sounds crazy, but let's do it anyway. For once let's be crazy.”

“It you wanted a private ceremony, you should have said so before.”

Is he kidding? “I did. But you, and your mother, wouldn't listen.” I run my finger down his arm. “But it doesn't matter. That's past. It's the future that counts. Let's start the future right now. Come on, let's do it—screw the rest of it!”

He shakes his head, laughs, then puts his feet on the floor. “I have to get ready for work. Why don't you get some more sleep, then take a bath or something?”

I reach out for him, stopping him from leaving with a touch to his shoulder. “You don't get it. Our wedding is about
us.
It shouldn't be a show. It has to mean something.” For more reasons than he can understand.

“It's too late,” Cam says.

“It's not! You have to listen to me. It's so easy. We'll drive to Vegas. We'll go tonight. It'll be romantic. “

“Vegas is romantic?”

He's missing the point. “Forget Vegas. We can elope in Sedona. We already have our Arizona marriage license, so that won't be a problem. Or Tucson. Or how about the Grand Canyon? I've never even been there. But I don't care where we go. As long as it's not here.”

He laughs again. “We can't call off the wedding, Gabby. It's all paid for. Your parents would kill you if we wasted their money. Everyone's already in town. It's not right.”

“I think my parents would rather me be happy. And I'd pay them back. But if that's what you're concerned about, we don't have to cancel the wedding.”

“Now you're talking sense.” He kisses me on the nose.

“Yes! That's it,” I say. “We'll get married our way today, then get married again tomorrow. Why not? We can still go through with the whole shebang. Tomorrow will be
their
party. The real wedding will be today. Say yes! Please, please say yes!”

“No. That's nuts. My mother will never go for it.”

“It's not about your mother! It's about us. Cam, I want to marry you more than anything in the world.”

“And we
are
getting married. To. Mor. Row.”

“No, today. We won't tell your mother. It'll be our secret.” It's so romantic, I can't take it!

His eyes are flickering with annoyance. “You want me to lie to my mother?”

“No, not lie. Just not tell her.”

He shakes his head. “I won't. And the reason I won't is because it's not happening. Just go back to sleep, Gabby.”

I punch the mattress. “Why can't you do this one thing for me?”

“Because it doesn't make any sense.”

“It makes sense to
me.
” I close my eyes. “Come on, Cam. Think about it. Every year your mother is going to want to do something for our anniversary. We'll never be able to celebrate it in private. This way we'll have the real day to ourselves without denying her a thing. Don't you see? It's perfect.”

He sighs. “Come on, Gabby, you know I can't do that. I know you think my mother hates you, but she doesn't. She's trying. She really is. I think you're the one who hates her.”

“I don't hate her,” I say. And it's true. Sort of. She's annoying as hell (I'm being polite here), and I feel sorry for her. “Our wedding isn't about your mother. Why can't you see that?”

“Forget it. It's not going to happen. I just can't condone it.”

Condone it? He can't condone it? It's then I realize that the problem isn't the wedding. The problem isn't even Alice. The problem is Cam. My throat feels like it's closing up, I'm so upset. “It can't always be about what's good for you. Sometimes you have to do what's good for me.”

He slaps his forehead. “Oh. God. Is this about New York? Is that what you're talking about? Can't you give it up already?”

“That's so not the issue,” I say shaking my head and feeling myself explode. “But now that you've brought it up, tell me something. Why did you make me think that I could have my dream
and
you? The moment my dream came true, you proposed. But it wasn't just a proposal. It was an ultimatum.”

“What are you saying? I never—”

I can taste the bitterness. “Oh, not in so many words. But you made it clear that I couldn't have both.” I think back to that morning I was getting ready to go to Mexico and bust the Cookie Cutter story wide open. When Cam joined me in the shower, and I thought he was being loving. But he was just being controlling. Possessive. Macho. “My career is a threat to you, and always has been.”

“You're talking crazy.”

“Am I? You wouldn't even try long distance. It's always been your way or no way at all. That's not how marriage works. I needed you to do one thing for me. Elope. Today. And you wouldn't.” With a shock, I realize that I'm talking about us in the past tense.

He moves to get up, and this time I don't try to stop him.

My eyes fill with tears and I'm having trouble breathing. I place my hands facedown on the bed and try to steady myself. “It's no good. It's not going to work.”

“Of course it is. You'll take a bath, I'll go to work. By the time I get home, you'll have calmed down. The wedding tomorrow will be perfect. The flowers, the tables, the ceremony. It's all taken care of.”

Precisely the problem. Everything has been done by someone else. I've had no say whatsoever. “No, Cam. I meant, we're not working.”

He stops at the door. “Excuse me?”

Tears are now spilling down my cheeks. “It's you, Cam. You and me. It's these roles that we've created for each other. For ourselves. We have to stop before it's too late. I'll never be happy like this.”

He rolls his eyes. “You're happy.”

“I'm not happy! Don't tell me I'm happy! I'm whiny and I ask too many questions and I have no confidence! I'm miserable!”

“You're hysterical. All brides get hysterical before the wedding.”

Breathe in, breathe out. Then with all the calmness I can muster, I say, “It's over.
We're
over.” I get out of bed and join him at the door. I put my hand on his arm and look into his eyes. Eyes I have to say goodbye to.

Eyes that are now steely. Cold. Angry. “You can't cancel the wedding.”

Prove me wrong, I silently beg. Make all this hurt go away. “Then let's elope. Please, Cam. Please.”
Make this one gesture, just for me.

“You're being ridiculous. We're getting married tomorrow or we're not getting married at all.”

Another ultimatum. Except this one is not disguised. As his words cut through me, I know what I have to do. “How's this for ridiculous?” I walk into the closet and take out my red suitcase. “I'm going to New York.”

 

I'm in a window seat on a plane to New York.

I needed to make a decision, for my own sanity. And, in spite of the winters, a crazy roommate and the lack of garbage disposals, in spite of the Brads and the Rons and the Nates, I chose New York.

Cam, of course, thought I was bluffing. “I'm getting into the shower,” he said. “When I get out, that suitcase is going to be back in the closet, you're going to be back in bed, and we're never going to discuss this again.” Then he slammed the bathroom door, leaving no doubt in my mind that I was making the right decision.

“Can I have some more water?” I ask the flight attendant.

“Sure thing,” she says, handing me a plastic cup, a water bottle and a small bag of peanuts.

The truth is I don't know what's going to happen. All I know is that I can't marry Cam at the Sunset tomorrow. And here's what I'm thinking: if my two bodies are in one place, and my head is in one place, maybe the split will end and I'll become whole. I don't know if it's going to work. But it's all I got.

So I drove to the airport, left my car in the long-term lot and bought a ticket on the three o'clock flight. Hopefully, once I land, one of my two lives will disappear. I'm rooting for the survival of New York Gabby. In that life, I have my dream job. I can handle Ron, and even Heather. I've got the tools to do it. I've got confidence. But if New York Gabby disappears, I'm prepared. I'll have confidence, either way. And if neither disappear? If I'm still leading two lives? Then at least I'll be home in both of them. And home for me is New York.

I stare at my bitten fingers. My bitten fingers that are so nice and long in New York. My bitten left hand that's still sporting my engagement ring. Oops. I remove the ring and hide it in my purse. I'll have to give that back one day. Though if Arizona Gabby disappears, I don't see how that's possible.

As I race through the time zones, I watch the sky fade from blue to orange to red to navy. Throughout the entire flight, I watch the night take over, and I think about how one step leads to the next, and how people change, and mature, like the hues of the sky.

When the sky is black, I realize it's almost Saturday. My wedding day. As the plane lands, I feel a pang of regret. And then I prepare to disembark.

 

I roll my suitcase to a taxi line and wait. When it's finally my turn, the cabbie lifts my belongings into the trunk. “Where to?” he asks.

“The Bolton Hotel, please.”

Since it's late Friday night, traffic is light, and we arrive at the Bolton in just twenty minutes. “Thanks,” I say and pay the driver. “Can you pop the trunk?” I ask as I'm climbing out. He pops it and heads to the back to take out my bag.

I push open the door to the hotel and spot the bar I visited in my other life. I head over to the service desk and wait behind an elderly couple until it's finally my turn. “I'd like a room, please.”

“For how long?”

“No idea. Let's start with one night.”

“Would you like the king-sized featherbed?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Terrific. That'll be two hundred dollars.”

“Thanks.” I hand over my credit card.

“Do you have any baggage, ma'am?”

“Just one bag. But I can wheel it myself.”

“As you wish,” he says. “Here's the key for room 1817.”

“Actually, can I have room 2715?” Same city, same hotel, same bed. The exact same space I occupied at the exact same time in my other life. Maybe this is what I need to do to make one life disappear. “Let me check. Yes, it's available. Here you go.”

Key card in hand, I head to the elevator.

I push the key card into the door. I kick off my sandals, close the blinds and pull down the covers. I shove my suitcase into a corner and flop down on my two-hundred-dollar bed. Almost instantly, I fall asleep and, for the first time in six months, I dream.

 

I open my eyes to a new day.

For the first time in six months, there is no intense headache. No forks bashing into my forehead or temples. All I see is the white hotel wall. No swirling green hot light burning behind my eyelids.

I didn't change universes. It worked. It worked!

There is just one me.

But which one?

Since I was Arizona Gabby last night, and I didn't change universes, I should still be Arizona Gabby today.

I made my decision. I chose New York. And here I am. I am Arizona Gabby, but I am no longer Gabby in Arizona.

Which means I have to start looking for a job. And an apartment. King-sized featherbeds are great, but at two hundred dollars a night, they're a bit out of my price range.

I turn the TV on to the news, intending to listen while I scrounge through a suitcase. After a shower, I'll need a change of clothes.