Little Universes

by Heather Demetrios

  “Get out.”

  This. Right here. This is why my parents wanted another baby. They must have known, even then, what a mistake they’d been stuck with when they had me.

  I don’t remember to grab a coat when I leave. I didn’t ever wear one in LA. Sweaters. That’s all I ever wore. I hear Aunt Nora call my name, but I hurry away before she can grab me. Run to the T.

  I call Drew before it goes underground. He picks up on the first ring.

  “Drew’s Pharmaceuticals, how may I direct your call?”

  “I could use some more of your pretty little pills, Drew. Can we meet somewhere?”

  He’s quiet for a moment.

  “Drew?”

  “You’re out of them already?”

  I sigh. “Oh, Jesus, not you, too.”

  “Not me, too?”

  “Look, sell to me or don’t. I can find someone else who will—”

  “Where do you want me to meet you?”

  I am so grateful. It’s sad how grateful I am that I don’t have to spend the night looking for someone who feels as desperate and sad as me, someone who might know where I can find more.

  “You remember that angel statue in the Garden?” I ask. “On the corner of Beacon and Arlington, but kind of hidden?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “Okay.”

  This evening my angel looks especially fierce. Dark storm clouds are gathering behind her, and leathery leaves the color of my mother’s spiced pumpkin soup swirl around her every time there’s a gust of wind. We are alone in our little corner of the Boston Public Garden. Just past the wrought-iron fence are the elegant stone buildings of Newbury Street—hotels and shops and cafes. Places for the living.

  “Hello,” I whisper to her.

  She says nothing, just stares beyond me, one arm uplifted, scattering crumbs from her bronze bowl.

  The way her wings cut into the sky—she makes me want to pray. The angel on Mom’s Judgment card is in the sky, too, hovering over three open caskets with a mom, a dad, and a child. She’s woken them up with her trumpet. In front of them is a body of water, but it’s not scary, not the wave.

  “Wake us up,” I whisper to her.

  From this nightmare of them being gone. Of me being here, buying more diamonds.

  “Tell me not to do this.”

  But she’s silent.

  I sit on the stone lip of the statue and, because no one’s looking and because I can’t help it, I pull out my Sharpie and write a little acorn.

  I slide to my knees when I’m through, stare up at her like she’s one of the icons in Gram’s church. I wish I could light a candle. Or conjure my mother’s ghost. Read her death yoga like cards or tea leaves. I don’t know why she hasn’t visited me in Boston. Maybe it’s too cold here. Or maybe Mae’s right, about how disappointed my parents would be if they saw me now. Maybe Mom knows, and she can’t stand the sight of me.

  At some point, Drew kneels down beside me.

  His eyes slide over my face when I turn toward him. “Does she talk to you?”

  Everyone is always trying to figure me out, but for some reason, it doesn’t bother me when Drew does it. Maybe because I’m trying to figure him out, too.

  “No.” I look back at her. “Maybe someday she will.”

  He hands me a cup of coffee from Dunkies. “Thought you might need this.”

  “You go the extra mile like this for all your customers?”

  “Just the pretty ones.” He stands and reaches out a hand to help me up. He doesn’t let go right away. “You’re freezing. Again. Where’s your coat?”

  I shrug. “Forgot.”

  He sets down his coffee and starts to take his off. “Drew, I don’t need—”

  “I’m only doing this for the favorable review,” he says. “Five-star dealer service.”

  He lays it over my shoulders and, oh God, it’s so warm. He’s so warm.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He picks up his coffee. Takes a sip. Watches me out of the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry about … I’m not trying to be a dick. About you running out.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s just, I sell them for recreational purposes and, I don’t know, I feel like maybe—”

  “Did you just come here to lecture me? Because if that’s the case, you can take your coffee and—”

  He rests a hand on my arm. “Consider what I have to say the warning label on the packaging. I know it’s hard, with your parents and—”

  “I’m leaving,” I growl.

  I turn, but he grabs my hand.

  “Hannah.”

  His voice is soft and gentle, and I hate him for that, for his kindness that might be pity, but might not be. I try to shake him off, but he holds on.

  “What the fuck, Drew?”

  “I’m just trying to watch out for you. I have to be able to sleep at night.”

  “Me, too,” I say. “That’s why I want the goddamn pills.”

  “Let me help,” he says.

  “This—the pills—this is how you help me, Drew. Okay? You said you wanted a role, right? That’s why you do this. Tell your Jiminy Cricket to shut up.”

  “I don’t—I think I should…” He takes off his beanie, runs a hand through his midnight hair, a mess of waves.

  He’s not going to give me the pills.

  I will spend the rest of this freezing-as-fuck night looking for a dealer in a city I don’t know and I am so sad and I hate myself and I broke the entire International Space Station and—

  I burst into tears. I can’t help it.

  “Hannah, no,” Drew says, eyes wide. “Hey. We can … Please don’t cry. I’m sorry.” He takes my coffee and sets it down on the ground, then wraps his arms around me. For some reason, this makes me cry harder. “I’m really sorry. I’m just worried about you.”

  I hear Micah: I can’t carry you. Drew will realize that soon enough, too.

  I push him away.

  “I have to go.” The first raindrops begin to fall. And of course I don’t have an umbrella because, where I come from, rain doesn’t exist. “You know, you should find a new role, because this one? You suck at it, Drew.”

  He pulls an umbrella out of his back pocket. “Here.”

  “I don’t need your umbrella.”

  He bites back a smile. “Yes, you do.” Then he looks at my feet—a pair of flats, no socks. I can’t feel my toes. “Hannah.”

  It starts raining harder now, but I can’t carry you.

  “I can take care of myself.”

  Let the tigers come with their claws!

  He opens the umbrella and holds it over me. “Just so you know, I find your stubbornness really attractive. So you might want to tone it down.” He wraps an arm around me. “Come on. I’ll walk you to the T.”

  We walk. Through the garden paths, onto Beacon. Past the pretty shops and old stone churches. I am so cold. He is so warm.

  “My sister found them,” I say. “She flushed them. And I—I got so mad and I…” A sob breaks out of me. “I did something horrible to her. And I can’t fix it.”

  Drew stops. It’s raining harder now, the drops playing a soft, insistent song against the umbrella we’re squished under.

  “Hannah?”

  It’s dark now, and he is a smudge of charcoal above me, soft and shifting.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re alive,” Drew says softly. “And she’s alive. You can still fix it.”

  But that’s the problem: Mae’s the one who knows how to fix things. I just know how to break them.

  When we get to the train station, Drew slips something into my pocket.

  “Ten Percs. That’s all I’m giving you. Then we deal with this the good old-fashioned way.”

  “What’s that?”

  Drew smiles. Doesn’t say anything. He wraps my fingers around the umbrella handle. His eyes find mine for just a moment, and I forget
all about the pills and the rush of people around us and the rain and the everything. Then he backs away, into the storm. He’s instantly soaked, black hair slicked down, gray eyes bright in the streetlights.

  “Wait. I have money—”

  He shakes his head. “You want to get lunch tomorrow? The burger place down the street from campus is pretty good.”

  “Okay.”

  I surprise myself with that. Him, too. Maybe he thought I’d say no. Drew grins, a sudden flash of brightness across his face, then nods once to himself before turning away, his shoulders hunched against the rain. In a T-shirt, because he gave me his coat and umbrella.

  When I get on the train, I reach into my pocket, grip the packet of pills in my fist. Ten little lifeboats.

  But.

  I don’t need one as much as I thought I did. Not right now. Maybe later.

  Sometimes you don’t need a lifeboat. Sometimes you just need someone to lend you their umbrella.

  Mad Matter Magazine Vol. 4, No. 12

  Mad Matter: You often talk about the Zen concept of “beginner’s mind” in regard to your research methods. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

  Dr. Winters: If there’s one thing I’ve learned from meditation, it’s that the more demands are placed on you, the more you need to sit in the silence.

  Mad Matter: Is that where you find your answers—the silence?

  Dr. Winters: Always. You know, there is no sound in space. In order for sound to travel, there has to be something with molecules for it to travel through. Here, on Earth, sound travels to your ears by vibrating air molecules. Our air is the conduit for sound. But in deep space—no air, right? All those miles between planets and stars, all that vastness. And not one. Single. Sound. The secret of the universe itself is held in utter silence. So we have to make ourselves quiet. Find a new way to hear the secret.

  Mad Matter: Would you say that science is the language of secrets?

  Dr. Winters: I don’t think science has the corner on that market. I wouldn’t be surprised if our friends in genetics find secrets embedded in our DNA. The whole universe is a secret. And so, in turn, are we. Each and every one of us is a secret. I used to only want answers. Truth. As Hawking said, “My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” And while I still feel this way—the search for the truth of the universe is my life’s work—I’m getting more and more comfortable with not knowing. It’s a cool place to hang out. There’s so much possibility there. You start getting answers, you lose some of the mystery, right? And the mystery is magical, fascinating. So many people want—need—absolutes. They want proof. Does God exist or not? Are ghosts real or imagined? Is there an afterlife, or nothingness? But—and I say this as a devout scientist committed to the search for truth in all things—the answers don’t always matter. They’re not the What.

  Mad Matter: The What?

  Dr. Winters: “The What” is a phrase I use as shorthand for “what it’s all about.” The point of everything. My, your, our raison d’être—our reason for existing at all.

  Mad Matter: So what’s your What?

  Dr. Winters: Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” You know the poem?

  Mad Matter: No.

  Dr. Winters: At its heart, it’s a poem about ditching the scene. The noise. Being a brand. All that bullshit. This is my favorite part, the end:

  … I wander’d off by myself,

  In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

  Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

  That moment—of remembering what matters and not having to telegraph it to the whole world so you can get your daily ego boost—that’s my What. I hope I can figure out what dark matter is in my lifetime. But the journey, the conversation I’m having with the universe, the stars, the fabric of existence—that’s enough for me.

  Mad Matter: I couldn’t help but notice that in your Whitman poem, he, too, sought silence.

  Dr. Winters: That’s where the magic happens.

  20

  Mae

  ISS Location: Low-Earth Orbit

  Earth Date: 25 October

  Earth Time (EST): 17:43

  I have been kidnapped by a Zen master who wears sky-blue nail polish.

  I wish that did not make me a little happy.

  I wish we were going farther than just across the Charles River.

  I wish we were going as far away from my sister as possible. Preferably entirely different planetary systems.

  No.

  I just wish she were here with us. Wanted to be with us. Instead she’s off who knows where, with who knows who.

  “I’m only coming out because it’s Uncle Tony’s poker night and it’s impossible to study with a bunch of drunk Italians in the kitchen,” I say. “Just so you know.”

  “Noted.”

  Ben steadies me as the train swerves, the driver taking the curve a bit too fast, if you ask me, and I grip the metal pole in the center of the car tighter. Halloween’s next week, and people are wearing costumes. We are traveling with a ghost, a sexy maid, and one of the Ninja Turtles.

  Humans are strange.

  I look up at Ben. “What kind of name is Dharma Bums, anyway?”

  “Stole it from a Kerouac book. Didn’t actually like the book, but it’s a cool name. Dharma means truth in Sanskrit.”

  “So we’re going to … a religious thing? I thought you were a self-respecting atheist.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I’m a card-carrying atheist, don’t worry. We just sit. Talk. Get food after. It’s nice.”

  “My dad tried to get me to meditate once, and it was a failed mission.”

  He laughs. “Isn’t everything, first time around?”

  And the way he looks at me, I know we’re not talking about meditation. Ben is like the sediment he studies in geophysics. Many layers.

  I decide that now is a good time to inspect my shoes. Boots. I have boots now. Warm ones with fuzz inside. Very strange. I miss flip-flops, but these are good practice for my space suit.

  “How’s Hannah?” he asks.

  “Why? Did Nate say something?”

  It’s only been two days since we hatched our plan at Castaways, with phase one being me throwing her pills down the toilet (again) and her breaking the ISS.

  I don’t want Ben to only see Hannah as this messed-up science fair project. I want him to see the real her, the non-addict her. The one who sings and dances in the kitchen and does cartwheels on the beach and laughs so hard at dumb shows that she cries.

  “No. Why?”

  “Nothing. She’s … really great. Usually.”

  “I know. I can tell.”

  “How?”

  His eyes find mine. “Because you are.”

  He’s really too much.

  I shake my head. “Nate and I had this plan. To … fix her. I don’t think it will work.” He smiles a little. “What?”

  “Well, that was your first mistake, Mae. You can’t fix anyone.”

  “Everything can be fixed. I just have to work the problem.”

  “No problem to work, Commander.” He leans closer. “She’s not broken. No one is. She just has to figure that out.”

  I stare at him. Ben smiles, makes a little explosion sound as he flares his fingers. “Dharma Bomb.”

  He doesn’t get it.

  “Maybe you should change your major to philosophy,” I snap.

  “Not nearly enough homework. I couldn’t take myself seriously.”

  “This is serious. What’s happening with Hannah. You saw her that night in the kitchen. And there are…” I lower my voice. “It’s not just my parents she’s upset about. There are other things, things you don’t know about. That she doesn’t even know about. Yet. I have to do something, Ben. She could die. She will die.”

  The longer I keep the Micah secret from her, the more our radius of separation increases. I can feel it, the force field betw
een us getting bigger and bigger. It’s the size of an airplane hangar now. One big enough to fit a rocket.

  He gives me an inscrutable look. “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes,” he repeats. He reaches out, tucks a strand from my bob back behind my ear, where I like it.

  I am about to attack him for lacking proper conversational technique when I realize what he’s saying:

  Yes, she will die. Because we all will. Someday. But I don’t think Nah has until someday.

  Hannah will die.

  Possibly soon.

  This was a terrible idea. I’d rather be home with earplugs in, teaching myself Russian so I can keep up in Star City if I launch with a Russian team.

  “I think I prefer the drunk Italians,” I say.

  “Close your eyes,” Ben says.

  “What?”

  “Just do it. Please.”

  I do. I don’t know why I let him boss me around.

  “Now,” he says, so close I can feel the heat of his breath. “Just breathe. And listen. Don’t think, Mae. I know that’s impossible for you, but try. Just listen. Be here. Really be here. With me, with all of us.”

  I open one eye and he smiles. “Mae…” I close my eye.

  The train’s wheels clack on the rails. A baby is cooing and gurgling. Someone laughs, high and long. A newspaper rustles. A person behind me cracks their knuckles. Ben sighs. Low and soft. I lean into him, my eyes still closed, and he wraps an arm around me.

  The train lurches, the brakes squeal, and my eyes snap open.

  “Our stop,” Ben says.

  He takes my hand and pulls me out. Everyone on the car wearing MIT sweatshirts spills out behind us. The university’s just a block away. I follow Ben, dazed.

  “What was that?” I say.

  He glances at me. “It was.”

  This takes me a minute.

  “Is that some weird Zen shit?”

  I sound like Hannah. He brings out the Hannah in me. I’m all over the place.

  “It is, indeed, some weird Zen shit.”

  I told myself I was going to keep some distance with Ben, but that was only two days ago, and here I am. I used to be so certain about what I wanted. Maybe Mom and Dad were part of that process. Maybe I got more advice from them than I realized.