This Book Does Not Exist (13 page)

After saving Naomi’s
new number, I notice a light crack in the dashboard of my car that I don’t remember seeing before. I wonder where it came from, if it’s always been there and I just never saw or it, or if it’s a creation of the other world. Since
the Door
was left open how can I know what is what? Maybe this isn’t even my actual car. I rub the dark blue cloth of the passenger seat cushion, analyzing it for discrepancies. If my car isn’t real then my phone might not be either. Everything I saw on
Facebook
could be
fake
. Even if I am holding my phone, just because I read something online does not mean it is true (although the act of digitally stamping something onto the Internet does make it seem more real). And the stream of information on the Web is so long and so easy to perpetuate that confirming what is fact and what is fiction becomes an unkind chore with little time to be accomplished. Furthermore, anyone could have hacked into my friends’ accounts and typed those words. The same line of thinking applies to the text message from the person claiming to be Naomi and to whatever shows up on my phone
from now on. Worse, the people reading what I write have every reason to ask these same questions about me.

I begin to question the reality of everything.

I focus long enough to thumb out a reply to Naomi’s text.

I ask where she is.

The message sends.

I am alone with my paranoia.

I get a response:

Naomi

Jul 27 6:32 PM

On W6th downtown w

friends
. I
realy
want to see

you
.

Misspelling “really” is unlike her. And it’s 6:33 PM. She’s out early…

I start my car.

I text her back to say I’ll let her know when I get downtown.

I wish I felt better about this than I do.

I’m driving. What’s new? I have too much time to think until I get to Cleveland. The highway is empty, so I slide my phone out of my pocket and light it up in case I missed something.

I did.

I have a new @reply on Twitter from @
GeppettoW
:

“@
onemikey
That is a good assumption to make.”

My brain labors for a few seconds until I process that @
GeppettoW
is obviously
Geppetto
. Not only is he on
Facebook
, he’s on Twitter, too, and he has responded to my suspicion that today will be a bad day.

I punch on the radio and scan through the stations. I want to listen to something that will calm my mind. But for some reason I can only pick up a total of four stations and each one is playing a separate album in its entirety without the aid of a DJ. The radio is behaving like a CD changer, in other words, loaded with the following albums: Bon
Iver
,
For Emma, Forever Ago
; Elvis Perkins,
Ash Wednesday
; Marvin Gaye,
Here, My Dear
; and
Kanye
West,
808s & Heartbreak
.

“Why are you so paranoid? Why are you so paranoid? /

“You worry ‘bout the wrong things, the wrong things”

 
I jab the button to seek past
Kanye
. I rebuke Marvin because he’s singing that song, the pilot’s song, and I settle on Elvis Perkins because it's the only record of the four that isn't about the destruction of a relationship.

Then I remember
Ash Wednesday
is about death.

I hit the dial to shut off the radio completely, but music keeps coming out of the speakers.

I picture
the Door
, leaning open, inviting the other world into my own.

It’s bleeding again. The two worlds are combining like a chemical reaction.

If Naomi walked out of
the Door
she didn’t close it – or if she did
Geppetto
reopened it.

Downtown Cleveland and West 6
^th
Street are ten minutes away.

I have to hope the real her is waiting for me there.

Curling around the exit ramp and onto East 9
^th
Street, it becomes immediately apparent that Downtown Cleveland is dead. Progressive Field, where the Indians play baseball, is dark. The Quicken Loans Arena sign at the top of “The Q” has been shut off or never turned on. Traffic lights aren’t working. My car is the lone vehicle on the street. If there are people here, they are ghosts.

Heading in
the direction of West 6
^th
Street and the Warehouse District, half-watching the road and half-watching my phone, I recall the last time I was here. Naomi and I spent New Year’s Eve at a club called Spy Bar. We drank. We danced. A
drunk
girl spilled champagne on us. Naomi’s temper flared. She lashed out. I overreacted. We broke up. That night, I locked myself in the bathroom of our hotel room and cried while she sat on the bed and smoked cigarettes.
In the morning, I took her
straight from the hotel to the airport. We were still dating long distance then. She flew back to New York, and I left for Los Angeles later that day. She wanted us to be over. I didn’t. We both thought we were.

After a flurry of heated phone conversations, I took a red-eye flight from LA to NYC, three days after I flew from Ohio to California. She told me not to come. I was stubborn. The fight we had on New Year’s occurred hours before we
were set to be separated
. That was always how it happened. The looming return of distance antagonized us. But I viewed distance as an aspect of logistics. That was where the problem lied. Romantically we were fine. I thought we had to remember that. If we did, I felt we could save our relationship.

It was shortly before 7 AM on a Saturday morning when I got to Naomi’s apartment. She buzzed me inside. I made the long walk up six flights of stairs, slowly, thinking of everything and therefore of nothing. She was waiting for me at the top. The moment our eyes reconnected I knew we were safe. Lying in her bed afterwards, with her warm body cradled
against mine and her head in the crook of my arm,
I tried to sleep. I failed. It was no longer a necessity. Her touch revitalized me.

Miraculously, we had survived.

Now I’m beginning to wonder whether or not it was for the best.

Without that red-eye flight, my life would have been different. I don’t think any of this would be happening.

I turn on to West 6
^th
Street.

The city is alive.

West 6
^th
is as active as it would be on any normal Saturday night. Bachelorette party limos, passenger cars and trucks, cabs and policemen idle near clubs with fake velvet ropes and uncovered, fenced-in parking lots. Twenty to forty-something men wearing
untucked
button-down shirts and brown dress shoes with loose-fitting boot cut jeans travel in tribes. The women, much
like
the men, look as if they were all dressed by a single stylist: jeans and boots or heels underneath flashy blouses, dazzled more often than not with fabric that sparkles. Males outnumber females at least three to one. This may sound strange, but it isn’t. This is the Warehouse District in Cleveland.

I pull into the first parking lot on my side of the road and give the attendant a five-dollar bill. Once the money leaves my hand, I wonder where it goes in a setting manufactured by the other world. It’s only five dollars, but I’m running out of cash
.

I walk
briskly through the lot and merge with the revelers. Even though it’s early they already smell like alcohol. My phone says 7:41 PM, which doesn’t track. It’s darker and busier than it should be. It looks like, and people are acting like, the night is approaching its crescendo. Everyone is here to drink, and some of them are here to dance. A lot of them are trying to find the love of their life like me, but different, while others just want to find someone to take home for the night.

My shoulder hits someone hard enough to make me spin in a half-circle. I look, and there he is. There’s
Geppetto
, dressed in the same clothes as always, holding a red piece of chalk. He points to the sidewalk, where “Geppetto WAS HERE” has been scrawled on the concrete.

“Hey,” he says. “Something to keep me occupied while I was waiting.”

Irritated, I ask if this is the other world.

“Not even going to say hello back. Okay…” As he
leads me into an alleyway, presumably to get away from all the foot traffic, he continues.

“It’s more
like the ‘other world,’ as you call it – my world – is in your world. Since you chose to leave
the Door
open it can take over parts of your life when it sees fit. The obvious tell is
me
being here. I can only go wherever my world is.”

“But you’re on the Internet.”

“The Internet isn’t a place. Where does it exist? Can you go there? No, it’s a network of information and misinformation that both of our worlds can access and manipulate. Sometimes it helps fill the gap between what’s real and what’s imagined. Sometimes it drives a wedge further between them. Other times it can be used to craft narratives, to shape reality through perception. It all depends. But what does any of this really matter? You’re here because of Naomi.”

“So
she is here.”

“I didn’t say that. I said that’s why you’re here.”

His casualness infuriates me. He refuses to be definitive. I berate him. His demeanor doesn’t change.
I blame him for being the man behind the curtain, a magician divining an elaborate stage show around and against me. I’m making a scene, but I don’t care and apparently no one else does either. Not a single person on the street stops or even looks my way.

Geppetto
waits to make sure I’m finished and then he talks.

“This is not a magic show. I promise you that. If I knew exactly where Naomi was, I’d tell you. I’m providing all the help I can…”

I don’t believe him anymore.

“Did she really text me or not? Is she outside
the Door
? If she is I can close it and be done with this.”

“You can do whatever you want.”

I scream. I honestly scream, and then I breathe and tell Geppetto, “I’m going. I’m going to find her.”

I turn my back on him, and he speaks.

“Finally. You’re angry. It’s good. You should be upset. You’ve been acting like this is
all your
fault. It isn’t.”

“It’s your fault, too,” I retort.

“No, not me. Naomi. She never called you. She ran. A conversation telling you she didn’t want to get on the plane that day would’ve been difficult, borderline harrowing.”

I reel towards him. “You’re saying she didn’t want to come to LA.”

He nods.

“How long have you known this for?”

“A little birdie told me.”

“What the hell does that mean? Why should I believe you?”

“It’s your choice to trust me or not. Personally, I’m not sure I’ve done anything to make you distrust me.”

“I think she got lost inside
the Door
somehow on the way to the airport. And then when I left it open she escaped. I got a text from her right after that. Why else would I suddenly hear from her?”

“If she wants to see you, where is she now?”

“Not in this alley.”

“Were you planning on staying here?”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can,” counters Geppetto.

“Then I’d be hiding. Avoiding the issue.”

“You’re learning. Good. You can’t retreat from conflict. But as they say, ‘It takes two to tango.’ Here…”