The Future for Curious People: A Novel (25 page)

“This isn’t true, Evelyn. Let me tell you everything from the very beginning. It’ll all make sense.”

“Is she your fiancée or not?” Evelyn asks.

“I want to start this over,” I say again, extricating my arm from Madge’s grip. “From the beginning. I’d like to start at birth, but I can speed it all up to this very moment in time.”

The house music seems louder now. I feel dizzy. The bass line is a metronome. I wonder why we aren’t all talking in rhythm. Evelyn is breathing heavily.

“Godfrey,” Madge says in her very calm voice. “Aren’t we engaged?”

“You know it’s not that simple, Madge.”

“I think it’s very simple!” Madge yells.

“Are you engaged or not?” Evelyn says again, but this time softly, almost inaudibly. She’s beginning to shift from foot to foot, like she could bolt at any moment. She pulls a scarf out of the pocket of her trench coat and starts winding it around her neck. Her hands are shaking. She looks like she’s trying not to cry.

“Tell her!” Madge says. “Tell her the truth!”

“You slept with the Babymakers’ lead singer,” I say. “That doesn’t feel very engaged.”

“You had sex with Adrian?” Evelyn says at first looking stung, but then she raises her hands close to her ears as if she’s overloaded.

“Wait,” I say. “You know Adrian?”

She nods her head ever so slightly.

“You’re
that
Evelyn? The one who was obsessed about some future where you two fought over
cheese
? Small, small world,” Madge says.

“You dated Adrian?” I’m the last to catch on here.

“Yes,” Evelyn says. “But before I even met you. We were already broken up. See how that’s supposed to work?”

“Wait.” I’m trying to figure out what went wrong. What happened to all of my decisions being made from the heart—that counting for something? “But I sent you the singing telegram, the duck. Didn’t you get it?”

“The duck was for me?”

“Of course! It sang the national anthem. Who else would it be for?”

“The duck got robbed, Godfrey.”

“Before or after the national anthem?”

“It doesn’t matter now. Does it? I mean, is that your definition of meaningful communication?” Evelyn fumbles with the scarf at her neck and that’s when I see the brooch. A pear-shaped brooch.

I say, “Wickham Purdy!” just like that because, my God, somehow that brooch already made it to Evelyn!

“Wicked what? What are you talking about?” Madge laughs loudly. “Is that a New England thing or a Southern thing?”

Evelyn looks down at the brooch. “Dot,” she says. “She reverse-stole it back to me. Did you plan this?” She stares at me angrily. “Did you set me up somehow? And all you have to say to me is ‘wicked purdy’?”

“No, I didn’t set you up. Why would I do that?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about her?” Evelyn says, motioning to Madge, but she’s not looking at me. She staring at the floor. “You were engaged. You must have loved her—at some point, in some way. You can’t just pretend that someone doesn’t exist.”

Everything’s swirling around so insanely that I can’t grab hold of any part of the conversation.

Evelyn taps her fingers on her forehead and says quickly, as if trying to cast a spell, “It’s all bullshit! It’s all bullshit! It’s all bullshit!” She shakes her head. “It’s not working!” She points at Madge. “You wrote those texts. You said he overly loves his mother and
Twilight
and that he smokes bath salts and . . . wait.” She swings back to me. “Are you on parole?”

“I’m not any of those things! Though I care about my mother deeply and what asshole doesn’t love his mother?”

Madge laughs. “You want the truth?” she says. “He lisped as a child, which his mother was very worried about because she was convinced that was a sign he was going to grow up gay.”

“Did my mother tell you that?” I say because my mother has never told me that.

Madge charges on and it feels like some horrible nightmare. “He sometimes hums while having sex. He’s part of a longstanding D and D group, like they’ve met for
decades.
And, and, the worst part of Godfrey Burkes.” She swings around and gestures at me sarcastically like I’m a game-show prize. “The saddest fucking part about him . . . is his potential. He could be
amazing
and he isn’t. And how can you be with someone like that day after day?”

Madge reaches out and touches Evelyn’s arm. “Adrian and I met at our envisionist’s office. He told me he’d have never gone if it weren’t for you.” Madge then turns to me. “He handed me an ad for his band in the lobby, and after you took off, I tracked him down.”

“You met at Plotnik’s?” I say as if this matters at all, but still, I’m pissed at Dr. A. Plotnik. She could have been more forthright in the restaurant, but she probably was on Madge’s side all along.

“As if any of it matters. I mean, what with the news,” Madge says.

“What news?” Evelyn says.

“CNN’s breaking the story. Didn’t you hear? All that envisioning is bullshit. The FCC is coming down on all of them hard. I never believed it anyway. I mean, why wouldn’t someone just use it to fix the stock exchange, right?”

“That’s what I said!” I tell Madge.

She just stares at me. “What?”

This explains why everyone had flocked to Chin’s—one last chance—and why Chin said he’d miss me. And why Dr. A. Plotnik accused me of being one of the people who turned them in. It’s not bullshit. There are all the things I saw and Evelyn showing up again and again and the brooch . . . Still, there’s a tide of relief—my mother might not die so young.

“Too bad about Amy and Bart,” Madge says. “I guess they’re not going to end up rich after all!”

Evelyn glances between me and Madge, sharp glares. “Chin is closing? I’ve got to go back before it all gets shut down.” And then she turns and starts to push through the crowd, which has gotten dense.

“Evelyn!” I shout.

“Don’t follow her,” Madge says, and then, with a flicker of compassion, she adds, “Give her time.”

And maybe Madge is right. I’m not sure what to do. I can feel the distance between Evelyn and me stretching out. She’s past the woman in leopard tights and her boyfriend—dry-humping now with intensity. I know that I should maybe let Evelyn go, but I can’t. I have to follow her. I really have no other choice.

I start to head after her, but Madge grabs my arm and says, “I loved you.” For a second her eyes flash with tears and the real Madge is there—the one I fell in love with. She exists. Madge’s chin bobs once and then she’s angry again, but she manages to say, “I don’t regret it. Don’t . . .” And then she stops and takes in a sharp breath. “Don’t regret loving me either.”

I can’t look at Madge now. She’s become real and vulnerable when I least expected it. I feel sorry for us—all that time together not being real and vulnerable. I say, “I wasted a lot of time just trying to guess what you wanted me to say.”

And then there’s a figure behind Madge—a man wearing a deep purple V-neck. He has just enough stubble on his face that it looks like he didn’t have time to shave this morning because he was up all night fucking and missed the alarm. He smiles at Madge and she smiles back, like two people seeing each other in the wild for the first time after having sex. “Hey you,” he says, and he gives Madge’s shoulder a friendly punch. “You showed up!”

“Godfrey, this is Adrian,” Madge says, beaming. “Adrian, Godfrey.”

“Hey.” Adrian—lead singer of the Babymakers, former boyfriend of Evelyn, current lover of Madge, creator of the line “You are only aware of love when your lips are drenched in sun” and now wearer of purple V-necks. “You’re going to love this set tonight. It’s rank with broken hearts.” I’m not sure if this means Adrian knows that I’m the ex or if Adrian is a salesman who thinks broken hearts sell?

“Whether envisioning is real or not, I’ll still bet that in ten years the Babymakers will be selling songs to Volkswagen commercials,” Madge says, and then her viciousness is back. “And you’ll still be in a basement touching yourself.”

Adrian puffs a little and says, “Hey, thanks,” to Madge.

I turn to go, but then stop. And I realize as I’m turning around that, all this time with Madge, I’ve been terrified of her. From the first moment when she called my doodling vaginalia to this very moment now. From the moment she looked at me and seemed to see a better me, I’ve not wanted to lose that better me. But that better me is not me.

“Give me the ring back,” I tell her.

Without looking at me, she slides the engagement ring off her finger and shoves it into my open palm. I’m confused by its lightness. Shouldn’t something so important be heavier?

“You know what? You brought me to Adrian,” Madge says happily. “There are no accidents, right?”

I’m not afraid of Madge anymore. She’s just this human being in a bar who had sex with the guy standing next to her. I imagine that I should have to screw up all my courage to say what I have to say, but I don’t. “Adrian,” I say. “It was a pleasure meeting you.” I look at Madge, and the smile is easy and free. “Screw you.”

I run back to the east bar. Bart has a new light beer. He’s crying.

“Bart, what the hell? Jesus, I don’t have time for this. Pull yourself together.”

“It’s been debunked by scientists,” Bart says, blubbering. “I’m not going to be rich! I’m going to be just me but old! The bartender told me. Did you hear?”

“You need to get this guy out of here,” the bartender says.

“Stop crying!” I say to Bart.

“No, no, no,” Bart says. “These are happy tears, Godfrey. I’m going to stay me.”

“I’m happy for you, Bart. Listen, I need your keys!” Evelyn has a head start, but I know where she’s going.

The strip mall parking lot is completely empty. I’m standing in front of Chin’s, jagged with nerves. I want to lift a car, metaphorically, to save someone pinned beneath it. I think the person pinned beneath it, metaphorically, is also me. What happened in the bar? Who is Godfrey Burkes? Is Godfrey Burkes a liar? How did he know about the brooch? I asked Dot before I left; she had no idea and didn’t want me to leave, but I told her she had to let me be alone—that’s something Dot respects. The hardest thing is that he didn’t tell me anything about Madge—nothing at all. And then, poof, this woman and a ring and Godfrey standing there, his feet glued to the floor. I swam on a goddamn park bench for him. I was planning for a future with Godfrey while Godfrey was planning for a future with . . . Madge. Pathetic. I’ve dealt with closed eyes long enough. He pretended she didn’t exist. Like my parents with my sister. It’s too much. We all have closets, but he should have emptied his out before he threw rocks at my window.

What happened in the bar doesn’t matter anymore. None of that matters. It’s already the past and the past is dead. It’s a shed skin. The present is worthless. It’s just a thin membrane between the death of the past and the endless offerings for living in the future. I pick the future.

“ ‘People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome,’ ” I whisper. That’s some George Orwell. Was I only duping myself ? Was any of my envisioning real? It felt so real.

I want the future only. Is this what Fadra would call shutting down? Maybe. But it’s opening up to something else—trading in reality for possibility, right?

I prop up my bike with its kickstand but don’t take the time to lock it. Let some emo skate punk steal it. I no longer care. I walk to Chin’s front door. There, dead center, is an official sign.
DO NOT ENTER. CRIME SCENE.
The address and date are scribbled in pen and signed by an investigator.

I need more futures. Just enough to restart my life. Tomorrow it might all be gone. Tomorrow I might not have another chance.

I am going to break into Dr. Chin’s. I find a sizable rock in a fake garden outside the nail salon.

I played softball in high school, but I was stuck in right field. I was referred to as the Girl Least Likely to Ever Touch the Ball. I can see the faded paint chips of the red dragon that was painted on the glass of Chin’s front door. How hard do you throw a rock at a glass door to break it?

I cock my arm back and the rock goes. It hits the glass door and falls to the ground. It barely makes a sound—just a slight thud, like a firework with a bad fuse.

I walk to the front door and pick up the rock again. I take ten steps back. I imagine Godfrey’s fiancée’s face at the door.

I cock my arm back.
It’s all in the follow-through.
That’s what the sports movies tell you.
Follow.
Th
rough.

I do. I keep my arm stretched out even as the rock hits Godfrey’s fiancée’s face and bounces off the glass. It hits the ground with the same muted thud as before. I pick up the rock, grip it, knowing it’s not going to work a third time.

I know this is crazy. This buzzing in my limbs isn’t good. My heart feels like a hyper-gong. My breath is ragged in my throat. None of this stops me. I can’t stop. “Desperation is the raw material of drastic change.” Who said that? My mind is a blank.

I put the rock in the pocket of my trench coat and scan the entire strip mall. There are two benches on opposite sides of the double doors, potted plants covered in week-old snow. The benches have bars in the middle of them so the bums can’t sleep there. The entire strip mall is bare. Really, the only two things standing are me and the trash can down by the curb.

The trash can. It’s settled in a steel bin so it won’t blow away, but the trash can itself isn’t secured to anything. I try to lift it. It’s heavy and my mittens don’t have any gripping. I get it halfway out when I lose my hold.

“Fuck!”

I look ridiculous. Me, in a dress and tan trench coat, mascara bleeding down my cheeks, frozen, trying to yank out a trash can. I’m also wearing the scarf—one that Dot pinned a stolen pear brooch to without my consent—one that made me believe, for a brief moment, that Godfrey and I were meant to be together. A brooch. I put that much into a brooch.

I take off my mittens and stick them in the right pocket of my coat. I lift the trash can from its sides and breathe out of my mouth. I dump the remainder of the trash on the ground. The trash can is light now, and I’m able to lift it above my head. I feel invincible. This is a story I will tell my future children during a future envisioning session. I walk to the door, grunt while I throw the trash can at the glass door. It bounces right off the glass and begins to roll down the walkway. It’s coming straight for me. I step out of the way and the trash can keeps going down the walkway, over the curb, and right into the parking lot. It stops right in the middle of the lot.

And then I figure, why not? I came this far. I walk right up to the front door and give it a push. It swings open and I’m hit with a blast of heat. Of course the door is unlocked. How could it not be? This is Dr. Chin’s—probably the shittiest envisioning center in all of Baltimore.

I don’t waste any time.

To avoid memories of past envisionings, I walk to an examination room I’ve never been in before. In fact, I’ve never been this far down the hall before. I lock the door. In case that’s not enough, I drag a chair across the room, and prop it on its hind legs. I shove the back of the chair under the doorknob. I’ve seen this in movies.

The pills are locked in a glass cabinet. Then I remember the rock in the pocket of my trench coat.

This time the rock goes through the glass like a punch.

The pills are in a large, clear container. It’s nondescript—no label or anything. This shit is shady. The FCC
should
be on Chin’s ass. I unscrew the lid and dump half of the bottle onto the tray. I feel strangely calm, resolute.

I pour a cup of water from the water cooler. I roll the tray over to the examination table. No gown for me, thanks. Why were they ever necessary?

I type my name, date of birth, and Social Security number into the computer. The system starts. The machine knows it’s me. “Hello,” I tell it. “It’s just the two of us now.”

The welcome screen I’ve seen dozens of times before appears. This time, though, it’s a little different. On the bottom right-hand corner of the screen is a tab labeled
HYPOTHETICALS
. I’ve never seen this before. Has Chin upgraded his software since the last time I’ve been here? I move the cursor down and click on it. The computer grumbles. One of those swirling beach balls spins in the center of the screen while I wait for the information to load. It feels like I’m on hold. The only sounds are the on and off spasms of the modem. Chin is cheap. This Dell is aged.

The computer finishes loading. The screen is white. At the top, in all caps:
WARNING! THIS IS A BETA TESTER! USE OF THE SYSTEM MAY CAUSE SEIZURES AND/OR INDIFFERENCE!

The interface looks like Google’s homepage—a tiny box to type your question into. If I understand correctly, this program will allow me to ask it a question and it will play the scenario out. I could ask it anything: What if every book had a happy ending? What if the votes in Florida were counted correctly? What if Godfrey Burkes goes off and marries his fiancée?

But there’s only one question I am interested in asking. There’s only one question I’ve ever really wanted to know the answer to. And it has nothing to do with Godfrey Burkes.

My hands are shaking. It takes four tries before I spell everything correctly.
What would have happened if my sister lived?
Next to the box where you type the hypothetical question is a link: Go! I swallow a pill and then one more for good measure, sip some water and click Go!

Everything on the screen is crisp—beyond high definition, the realest real ever. Brand names aren’t fuzzed out. You can almost see the air move.

The scene opens in a middle-class suburban neighborhood. The camera goes from the row of houses and manicured lawns to the street. I know this street. It’s my childhood neighborhood. Cars drive by, but there is no noise. It’s eerily quiet. I guess the beta version doesn’t have sound yet. The muted world gives me a chill; I shudder. The camera is pointed at an intersection, halted by a stop sign. I look at the names of the streets on the green signs crisscrossed above the stop sign. It’s the intersection of Maple and Bellington. I used to live right down this block, and I know exactly what day it is.

Right on cue, there’s the bike. The camera starts at the spokes. Then a quick cut to the pedals—a little girl’s feet in loosely laced red Keds. My sister’s face. She’s breathing, her cheeks puffing, over and over again—like little bellows on her face, and I stare at her face. Her hair is longer than I remember from the photographs—her bangs are bouncing off her forehead. She’s flying down the sidewalk. She’s almost to the intersection.

I grip my legs. She rounds the intersection. I want to close my eyes, but I can’t.

There’s no car this time.

My sister makes a sharp turn down Maple and takes her first breath from her second life. And she keeps going, keeps breathing. She stops pedaling and coasts up the driveway to the house I grew up in. She hops off the bike and lets it fall in the yard. The grass looks like it was cut yesterday. The camera follows her through the front door. My father is on the couch, reading the paper. My mother is in the kitchen, dropping berries into a blender. They’re so young! So vivid! They look at my sister. My father puts down his paper and motions for her to come to him. He opens his mouth.

The screen skips in five-year intervals. Now, my sister, at seventeen, is in the back of a truck. She has breasts. Her bangs are tucked to the left. She’s with a boy. They’re lying in the bed of the truck, wrapped up in a sleeping bag. I guess it’s cold—their breaths crisscross. It’s dark, but you can see three constellations I can’t name. My sister laughs into them.

The screen cuts again. A large auditorium. It’s a college graduation. My sister walks across the stage in a red robe. The tassel, the fake diploma, the real handshake with the dean—it’s all there. The camera pans around and up, into the balcony. My father is pointing a video camera toward the stage. There’s an empty seat next to my mother. She rests her purse on it. I’ve never seen them smile so purely. I look at the empty seat, my mother’s purse. I’m not here. I was never supposed to be.

And then a shrill ringing. I think it’s the fire alarm, but it’s coming from the screen. The screen goes black and then back to the auditorium. The ringing gets louder. The screen keeps flickering, like the power can’t decide if it should go out or not.

I’m not there. The camera focuses on the empty seat. It’s taunting me. Everything blurs. My cheeks sting. I wipe my eyes. I’m crying. I didn’t even know. How long have I been crying? The screen stops cutting in and out. The image starts to bubble and darken as if it’s being cauterized.

I hit the panic button on the joystick. Nothing happens. I press the button and hold. The ringing stops. The screen goes black. I’m still crying. A second later it’s back to the main page. The Hypotheticals tab is back on the bottom right corner of the screen.

I’ve known that if my sister hadn’t died, I wouldn’t be here. I’ve known since I was in middle school and pieced it together. So why do I feel like I’ve been gutted? My parents were so happy. It has been confirmed and for some reason I can’t bear it. I wouldn’t even have been a thought. Living in an alternate future feels right. It’s my destiny.

The blinking cursor on the screen. Whom do I want to spend my future with? Now is the time. The future can swallow me whole. A lifetime of infinite futures . . .

What about twenty-five years from now. The fifties are the new thirties, right?

I take another pill. Maybe the extra pills will make things better. I bring the cup of water to my mouth, but it’s empty. I chew the pill and feel dizzy and lost and hungry and sad.

I grip the joystick tightly until my knuckles turn white.

It should’ve been me, not my sister.

I hit Enter.