Things I can’t Explain (24 page)

Sam and I were the charming young American couple everywhere we went. To cries of “
Ciao bella!
” and “
Ciao ragazzi!
” we made our way through a sweltering, heavenly Naples summer.

During Sam's underwater mornings, I sat on our tiny sunny terrace writing my senior thesis for school. I chose as my topic “Gaming Education: An Investigation of Game-Based Social Emotional Learning (SEL),” something near and dear to my heart. Despite my early video-game passions, I hadn't turned out to be a gamer girl myself, but I still found it interesting. So I figured it would be a good topic for my thesis, considering I had navigated my childhood issues by making goofy video games of one sort or another. Social-emotional learning and video-game play has become a big deal in the edu-gamer biz. Fortunately, I had a title with a colon for my thesis—the most crucial requirement.

As the summer came to a close, we had one last balmy night of rapture in our little
appartamento al mare
and made our plans for the future. We were so in love, there didn't seem to be any question whether we'd continue our Naples adventure back in New York City. We discussed every detail and it seemed like Sam was totally on board. He seemed fine with moving back to NYC from the time-frozen depths of the sea. I'd go back to Hugh, and the
Daily Post
, and Sam would join me after checking out one more underwater site in Greece with his team and then … well, we had even bigger plans for the future.

Every moment after I returned to New York that September, I felt like Sam and I were still together. Everything I bought was for us. I checked out restaurants where we might go. I walked wistfully through the Union Square farmers' market compiling possible menus we might cook. When he sent word that he was flying to Egypt to work on another site and he would be delayed for six more weeks, I never worried. I was busy with my own job and I still imagined Sam showing up in the weeks to come—we had agreed, right? Besides, waiting for Sam was still better than being alone, on my own again, in New York, even if I really was actually alone, on my own again, waiting for Sam.

His team went from Greece to Egypt and from Egypt to Japan and it was pretty hard to complain because they were all really prestigious short-term gigs. It's funny when you're in love: You assume it's all good and it will be okay, until you realize it's not.

Now I see that the whole time back in New York, I was pretending and I didn't even know it. Even when I first met Norm, I figured I was still with Sam and it was okay to hang out with someone to pass the time. I didn't know if Sam was with anyone. But if I'm honest about it, he probably was—at least some of the time.

If only we still had Pie, our guardian angel, herding us back together.

So if it ended at all, that's how it ended. There wasn't an argument, a problem, or a discussion. Sam just literally and figuratively dropped out of sight somewhere beneath the seas of the ancient world. Pretty weird considering what we had agreed we were going to do that last balmy night in Baia.

We were going to run off together somewhere and elope. Yep, it would be just for us—all seclusion and romance. We weren't even going to tell anyone right away. We planned to fill people in later and have a big party. It was so secret that I've never said a word about it to anyone, until this day, not even to Jody. It's pretty hard to tell someone about a disappointment so crushingly personal that even now it seems totally unreal.

What happened to Sam, the most dependable person in the world? Why was he a no-show? Didn't we talk it out and both decide it was what we wanted to do more than anything? I tried to ask his dad about it but I never got an answer and I could see it made him nervous. Did Sam change his mind? Was he carried away on some secret mission? Will I ever know?

“Here's your change,” the shop girl says cheerfully. I look at her, wondering what she means and shake myself back to reality. Her face has turned from envy to admiration. “Love that dress—I would have bought it if you hadn't!” She smiles.

“I know,” I say, and manage a smile in return.

“I hope you wear it someplace wonderful,” she adds as I take my bag and leave.

“Me, too,” I say.

 

CHAPTER
25

Anxious and excited, I manage to survive until Saturday afternoon. It's not clear which part I'm most excited and anxious about: my dress, Nick, or this weird wedding stacked with people I dread. Nick and I communicated once in the span of time that has elapsed between our final Where Have You Bean? visit and this very moment. It's so strange how often communication seems to go dark right before a big relationship event. There was only one eight-word text confirming the time he would be at my place of residence. Just eight words.

I made the mistake of getting ready on the early side, which leaves Elvis and me alone to entertain ourselves. I challenge him to a staring contest, but he yawns and refuses to look me in the eye. When I persist he runs away. I give chase into the kitchen but he isn't there. How he can disappear in a tiny apartment this size is beyond me. Sorcery, I tell you!

My brain obsesses less if I'm rushed or a few minutes late so usually I avoid being ready early. The kitchen clock ticks off the seconds—yes, I'm fixated on the long black hand that makes its abrupt little thrust second by second, emitting the tiniest tap, like the sound of Elvis smacking on food, or gum snapping, or the clack of high heels when you walk.

The longer I wait, the more anxiety outweighs excitement, and the more I think about Nick and his boomerang girlfriend Roxie. Roxie is practically the definition of a bad penny. The way Rodgers and Nick have talked about her makes Roxie sound capable of almost anything, including feigning death and then
slowly rising out of the grave, her tattooed arm thrusting sharply from the dirt to drag Nick back into her Crypto Goth Netherworld.
Shit. Please, Clarissa, stop? Get a grip. No need to go paranoid schizo on me. Me being Clarissa, naturally. Sometimes even I get lost in my inner dialogue. But there's just one thing that I absolutely need to know …
Where is Nick?

Elvis has returned and he's giving me the stink-eye. What does he know that I don't?

I can't help thinking that maybe Roxie's gotten word of our impending rendezvous
and handcuffed Nick to the radiator in the basement dungeon of her apartment.

“Calm down,” I say so loud that Elvis scurries away again. He doesn't like it when I yell out loud to myself and pace like a madwoman. But then who would?

“Do something worthwhile,” I say. “Check your hair.”

But my hair is perfect. Yes, I double-check in the mirror. It should be. I spent hours on it.

Usually I just clean the kitchen, the bathroom, the corners of the cabinets. That keeps me in check and has the added advantage of establishing order and good hygiene. It's not full-blown severe OCD. Besides, I object to the
DSM-V
. That's the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition
, where psychiatrists catalog diagnoses for everything from post-caffeine intoxication disorder, trichotillomania, sibling relational problems, post-traumatic embitterment disorder, as well as good old-fashioned penis envy.

I mean, I'll admit to some serious caffeine intoxication and a little trich now and then, and Lord knows I have difficulty dealing with my little brother, but I don't remotely envy anyone else's anatomy.

I prefer to think of my behavior as eccentric and colorful. Like my superstitions.

It's been speculated by behavioral scientists that superstitiousness and obsessive-compulsive disorder actually exist on a continuum. I've read the reports. That's how OCD I am! But after poring over the symptomatology on all the neurocognitive data, I feel as if in my case, I've taken superstitions to a whole new level of creativity and understanding with a very healthy twist.

Take, for instance, “spilling”—the frequently overlooked omen of bad luck. Admit it, you probably didn't even know that spilling is bad luck, did you? People simply don't understand how an unfortunate spill can lead like a chain reaction to an even more unfortunate series of interconnected events that are almost impossible to know about or even predict. Similar to the butterfly effect.

When you look at this whole chain of events with my parents and Nick, it all began with an ominous spill. I couldn't help worrying about it at the time. But you may wonder, what is there to do if something
accidentally
spills? Are you simply a victim of fate, unable to change the outcome? Will events keep cascading out of your control? No. I say no! Not if you have the
antidote
! That is my innovation. See, I believe that for every superstition, there is an antidote—a counterbalancing ritual that creates a restart and reestablishment of order and progress. Fight magic with magic, I say. Or is that something that Gandalf said on his way to Isengard in the film version of the first installment of
Lord of the Rings
? I forget.

All I know is that bad and unlucky things happen, you can't change that. But you can adjust how you react and take preventative measures. So, for instance, if you spill, then you must spill again from the remainder of the glass or cup or whatever. This antidote, or “re-spilling” as it's called (okay, I'm the only one who calls it that), stops the onrushing possibilities of fate and resets the path of your life in a take-charge, positive direction.

Think about it: Where would I be now if I had just stopped when Mom and Dad surprised me in the
Daily Post
building and spilled again? How would things have turned out differently? Maybe I would have decided to come clean with the truth then and there and all these events of the last week would have been unnecessary and I would be on an entirely altered path.

I believe there are these serendipitous or serendumpitous moments in life's journey where, like switches on train tracks, our lives shift direction for a split second or forever and we can find ourselves for better or worse on a separate and distinctive parallel journey.

That's why I “keep” Elvis, I guess. I couldn't bear to have another black cat cross my path and disappear, and it's nice to have another Elvis in my life, so I opted for him to stay.

There is a famous Chinese legend where the gods tie an invisible red cord around the ankles of those who are destined to meet. Two people connected by the red thread become lovers, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. The magical cord may tangle and stretch, but it never breaks. Kind of like a cosmic pinkie swear. Sam and I seemed to be connected that way, but did our red string snap?

Or was Sam simply my “first love,” a concept I'm not fond of because it implies that we have a second love, and a third, and so forth. If we all have “first loves” and subsequent loves, how do we really know when we have experienced “true love”?

And what about Nick and me? We seem to be connected somehow. Didn't Albert Einstein say, “God doesn't play dice”?

I have read that scientists who study string theory insist that we live in a multiverse filled with universes that encompass all possible outcomes. In some separate universe, Sam and I eloped and are happily hitched, Nick and I never spoke to each other, and Elvis and I are hurtling through space in a rocket ship. Or not.

What is fate and destiny in a multiverse world? Are we all fated to multi-exist simultaneously alive and dead just like poor old Schrödinger's cat? At least I gave my cat an actual name. And how does the multiverse apply to love and fidelity?

Let's face it, as far as we have reason to know and believe, in this universe I didn't spill again. Like it or lump it, this is the universe I'm stuck in, and events have hurtled forward out of my control until this very moment. Thankfully, Nick and I have reconnected as though nothing ever happened before.

The second hand continues to drive unrelentingly forward as I watch and listen to it click.

It's not quite time yet but
—where is that boy?
Shouldn't he be sending me a “getting close” text? Elvis reappears from around the corner. I'm sure the little devil thinks this is all one big game of hide-and-seek. In fact I'm convinced he actually thinks I'm just a big cat, only dumber and more clumsy because of my size. Cats are so self-centered.

Okay, Clarissa, get it together. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I take another breath to calm myself and seriously consider something more important—changing my shoes.

See, the first pair I put on is always the most gorgeous, but usually the most painful. So I slide a different possible shoe selection on each foot and do this flamingo thing where I stand on one leg, comparing different shoe options by standing sideways in front of the mirror. Kitten heel on the left foot (switch), strappy stiletto on the right. Platform pump on left foot (switch), ankle bootie on right. That went on this morning for, like, fifteen minutes, testing shoe after shoe until I ended up going with the ones I had on first because, as I could have predicted, those were the best choice all along. Anyone could have predicted they were the best choice all along. The danger, as you can probably guess, is that I could have gotten carried away, trying on every pair, and the buzzer might have rung mid-flamingo.

Fragrance was another thing I dilly-dallied with. I put a little bit on the inner wrists and behind the ears, just like Mom taught me. Then I had to be careful not to get carried away. Feeling frisky, I put a little behind my knees. I thought about doing that movie thing where I spray a cloud of perfume into the air and walk through it, but I stopped. I didn't want to smell like the perfume girl at Bloomingdale's, and who knows? It might be allergy-inducing for Nick.

There's not much left to do so I settle on the purse check. Altoids: check. Lipstick: check. Feminine hygiene apparatus: check. Condom: check. I take out the condom, worrying about what that says about my expectations. House keys, cell phone, travel tissue: check, check, check. Then I go back and add the condom, just in case. Check! Then I take it out. Sometimes I get totally stuck on this one.