Little Universes

by Heather Demetrios

  “Mae, I’d like to join your crew. Now, before you say, no, no, you’re a geophysicist, and we don’t need a geophysicist, hear me out. Every team needs a mission specialist. And I am specialized. I didn’t realize this until, well, until I met you, but I have been training long and hard to be your person.”

  “My person?”

  He couldn’t know. What Mom said to me at the yoga studio. Did you hear him, Mom? DID YOU HEAR THAT?

  I stare at him. Stare and stare. How, HOW is this possible? It’s like … magic. This is completely unscientific.

  He nods. “Your person. I believe that as a member of your crew, I can help you on your mission—which is, you know, life—not just with copious amounts of free caffeine and meditation instruction and other—er—fringe benefits, but because of … quantum mechanics.”

  “Ben. Are you trying to convince me to be your … person … on the basis of quantum mechanics?”

  Because, if so, I am a goner.

  “Yes.”

  Goner. Pilot down.

  “So, you’re familiar with Werner Heisenberg?” he says.

  Mom, my person. Did I find him, is he my person? Because my person would know who Heisenberg is. Tell Dad. Tell him to come quick and LISTEN TO THIS, OH MY GOD.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m a fan.”

  I look everywhere but at Ben, because it is not safe, categorically NOT SAFE, to look at Ben.

  “You seem distracted.”

  “I’m not…” I look at him. Oh.

  This is what it will feel like, I think, to have my hand on the parachute lever in a plane that’s going down, to be about to pull when I suddenly figure out what’s wrong and recover. I won’t need that parachute after all.

  “There you are,” he murmurs.

  “Here I am.”

  Not in the future. Not in the past. I’m in the now.

  It’s nice here. I might stay awhile.

  “Tell me about Heisenberg,” I say.

  “Okay.” His eyes catch the light above, fill with little sparks. “So you know how Heisenberg was dealing with the nature of reality and how the quantum world is the Wild West of reality since not all the usual rules apply and how basically he was all like, guess what, electrons only exist when they’re interacting with something else, right? And when nothing is disturbing the electron—trying to get it to go to a meditation class, for example—then it’s not in any place at all.”

  “So you’re saying I only exist in relation to you?” I frown. “Hello, Patriarchy.”

  “No. I’m saying, that according to the principles of quantum mechanics, okay, no object has a definite position except when colliding with something else.” He leans his forehead against mine. “Ergo, I am lost without you.”

  “Jesus,” I breathe. “You’re good.” I look down. “Ben, I have so much going on right now. I won’t be a very good—”

  “Kiss me,” he says, “and then decide. Let’s put quantum mechanics to the test. If you don’t feel like you have a … definite position … in the universe when you kiss me, then okay.” He leans in. “We’re just two scientists with a question. We should test the hypothesis. Isn’t that how everything starts, anyway?”

  “That is … a reasonable assertion,” I mutter.

  Two days. I held out against his wiles for only TWO DAYS. Maybe I’m not commander material, after all.

  Ben takes me to the banks of the Charles. Across the dark slip of water, Boston glows. The moon is a sliver, sly and winking.

  I haven’t kissed someone for over a year. I’m not sure if I remember how. Riley was my height, and now the spatial logistics are all off because Ben has to bend his head to get within striking distance. Striking distance is not a very romantic term.

  “Ben?”

  His lips are so close. He smells like freshly roasted coffee beans and the wind.

  “Yes?”

  “What if … we both just get lost?” I say. “If the quantum realm is the Wild West, then we must consider how the Wild West was incredibly DANGEROUS. We could collide with other electrons and then, you know, quantum leaps, and then, I don’t know, WORMHOLES or something and—”

  “It’s a metaphor.” He smiles, and it’s kind and a little bit wicked and my body moves closer to his and my hands grip his arms. “Can I kiss you, Mae?”

  “Okay. Yes. For science.”

  He looks up. “I owe you one, Heisenberg.”

  And then:

  There is no other word for it: collide. We collide.

  Particle acceleration, more and more and Ben and his breath in my lungs and the taste of him and I had no idea, no idea that another person could be your oxygen supply.

  I am not lost. I am utterly, utterly found.

  Some spacetime insanity happens, because when he pulls away, I honestly have no idea how long we’ve been here. Maybe my hair is completely gray. Maybe there is now a colony on Mars.

  If I wanted to fly solo, I should not have let Ben Tamura kiss me.

  He watches me, eyes filled with nebulae.

  It’s just a ride.

  One ticket. One go-around. This boy.

  I take Ben’s hand. Press my lips to the palm. A whole universe, beginning right here.

  “Welcome to the crew,” I say.

  i want to kiss someone I shouldn’t.

  Solo Cup

  32 Perkins Street

  Boston

  21

  Hannah

  The only parties I ever go to are surfer parties, but I’m making an exception tonight. Some girl named Jackie who goes to our school is throwing one because her parents are out of town, and Drew has asked me to come along. I need one night off from my sister’s X-ray vision, so I say yes.

  “Is this you mixing business with pleasure, or would you have gone to the party even if you weren’t holding?” I ask as we walk toward one of the fancy Victorian homes Jamaica Plain is known for. This one looks particularly imposing, with a large porch and three floors, the windows blazing with light.

  “I probably wouldn’t have gone, but since I’ve got company and I’m holding, it was a no-brainer. Unless you want to go back to my place and play video games.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “No, thanks.”

  He laughs as he heads up the walkway.

  We get inside, and it’s already packed. The house is very Saint Francis, all grandfather clocks and heavy drapes, real art—not some shit you buy at a home store. Drew grabs my hand and pulls me toward the kitchen, where there’s an impressive assortment of bottles on a counter—good stuff, too.

  “Let me guess,” he says, giving me a once-over. “You’re not a rum-and-Coke kind of girl. Whiskey?”

  I nod. “Straight.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “You came to play.”

  Drew gets me a cup, and I’ve barely taken a sip before someone is pulling on his hoodie and palming cash. Drew looks at me, and I make a go on motion.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says, and follows the guy upstairs.

  I push through to the open sliding glass door that leads to the patio. It’s quieter out here. It’s a pretty big backyard, and it’s filled with people I don’t know. There’s a fire pit and s’mores. Someone has a guitar. Someone always has a guitar. Nobody talks to me and I don’t talk to anybody. I just drink my whiskey, then go back into the kitchen for more. I notice Drew coming down the stairs, and it occurs to me that Drew Nolan is hot. Like, really hot. Maybe I haven’t been sober enough since I met him to notice that.

  I feel a twinge of guilt and slide my phone out of my pocket. I send Micah a text, but he doesn’t text back.

  “Skittles?” a boy asks, holding out a heavy crystal bowl toward me, the kind in Gram’s fancy hutch.

  “Uh, sure?”

  But then I look in the bowl—not Skittles. Pills. All kinds.

  “How do you know what’s what?” I ask.

  “You don’t,” he says. “That’s the fun.”

  “Yeah, no,” Drew says, pus
hing the bowl away. “She’s good.”

  I glance at him. “I am?”

  “You are.”

  The boy shrugs, sidles away to offer pills to the group of girls lounging on the couch.

  “It’s a thing,” Drew says. “Everyone raids their parents’ cabinets, throws the pills in the bowl. Don’t mess with that, okay? You have no idea what’s in there. Mixing shit—that’s how you end up in the ER, you know? Fucking idiots.”

  My mouth turns up. “Well, I don’t need that bowl, since I have my very own private dispensary, anyway.”

  He throws me a hooded glance. Maybe he really meant it when he said he wasn’t going to give me more than that last set of ten.

  “The boyfriend?” Drew nods toward the phone in my hand as he reaches past me for a cup and the bottle of Maker’s.

  I nod. “He’s MIA. Probably screwing some girl from his dorm or the surf club.”

  I say this as a joke, but it suddenly occurs to me that it’s possible. Maybe he’s with someone like I’m with Drew and he sees her come down the stairs and he realizes she’s hot. Maybe that’s how it starts.

  “Then he’s a fucking idiot.” Drew keeps his eyes on mine as he says it.

  “Whatever.”

  “Hannah. You’re gorgeous and smart and cool. If he’s fucking someone else, he’s an idiot.”

  I don’t like the way his words fill me up. Also: No one has ever called me smart before.

  “This isn’t a date,” I say.

  My voice trembles a little, and I hate that.

  “I know. If this were a date, this would be the last place we’d be.”

  “What are you, a moonlit-walk-on-the-beach kinda guy?”

  He shrugs. “Sometimes.”

  I shake my head. “You’re an enigma.”

  Every time I try to put Drew into the dealer/druggie box, he hops out.

  “I think I’m okay with that,” he says, with that small half-smile.

  I’m starting to get a nice buzz, a warm-all-over kind of feeling. I’m annoyed by the people around me. How loud and dumb they are. How they keep jostling me.

  “Drew?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This party sucks. Let’s go.”

  He steps back. “After you.”

  We end up going to his house and liberating beer from his dad’s fridge, then stand around the kitchen drinking it, because couches and beds are for dates. And this isn’t a date.

  “So, you packing tarot cards tonight or what?” Drew says as he pulls another Sam Adams from the fridge. “Because I distinctly remember being promised a reading.”

  I laugh as I grab the Rider-Waite-Smith deck Cyn gave me out of my purse. “I guess having tarot cards is like packing heat, but I never heard anyone say it quite like that.”

  His lips turn up a little. “How so?”

  “They protect you.” I slide the worn cards out of their velvet bag, the colors beautifully muted, the images iconic, archaic.

  “From, like, evil spirits?”

  I shake my head. “From yourself. They show the truth about the world, other people, your life—and so it protects you from going down the wrong path.” I roll my eyes. “If you listen, of course. Obviously I ignore them on the regular.”

  Just this morning I pulled the Devil: temptation. Addiction.

  I shuffle the cards, pushing my energy into them.

  “So how does this work?” he asks. “You gonna tell me my future?”

  “No, it’s not like that. My mom always said tarot is basically just a friend who tells it to you straight about your life. No predictions—it’s not magic in that way. It’s magic because it helps you get what the fuck is going on. So.” I shuffle again. “Think of a question. You don’t have to tell me what it is. A question about something in your life you need some clarity on. How and What questions are best.”

  “So not Will I be rich someday?”

  “No. It’s not a Magic 8 Ball. Like, okay. How can I expand my entrepreneurial skills outside the pharmaceutical industry?”

  He laughs. “Got it. Okay, I have a question in mind. It’s kind of … private.”

  “You can keep it to yourself. The cards know all.”

  “So it is magic.”

  “It’s Something Else.” He’s something else, too, but I don’t say that. “Okay, keep thinking the question as I shuffle.”

  He closes his eyes and gets this very serious expression on his face, which is so cute.

  I shuffle, trying to focus, breathing deep like Mom as I channel my energy, my Something Else, into the paper between my palms. After three shuffles—I don’t know why, this feels like the right number—I divide the cards into three little piles.

  “Okay. Pick one.”

  Drew opens his eyes and, for a second, we just look at each other. When my face goes Karalis on me, making it look like I’ve been a little too heavy-handed with the blush brush, his lips twitch and he looks away.

  Drew points to the center deck. “That one.”

  I pick it up, and my fingers are shaking a little. I shouldn’t like how he looks at me—Micah, Micah—but I do.

  “Okay, I’m going to lay out three cards: past, present, future. So we look at how your whole life is in conversation with this question you have.”

  This is my favorite part—the story the cards tell, how it’s all connected.

  I lay the top three cards from the center pile facedown in front of me, then, one at a time, turn them over.

  “Ten of Wands for the past,” I say. “Page of Wands for the present. The Chariot for the future.”

  “They don’t look scary,” he says, coming to stand by me. “That Chariot one’s cool. What do they mean?”

  “Is your question about something you want? Something you’re trying to get?”

  “Yes.”

  “Makes sense.” I wonder what it is. He is such a mystery to me. And I wish he weren’t. “You have two Wands cards, and the Wands are all about passion, taking action on something. Fire energy. And the Chariot is interesting because it’s a water card, meaning a different energy. So, like, right now and in the past, you had all this fire energy, but now you need water. More emotion, more intuition. Feeling.”

  I can’t look at him because I keep thinking about how Micah was my Temperance card, his water balancing my fire.

  “Okay. Uh…”

  His face is all scrunched up, and I laugh. “So, the Chariot is about perseverance. To not give up on this thing you want, even if it seems impossible. It’s all about creating a big change in your life. So whatever this thing you want is, you’re going to have to be all in because this card is kind of a bitch slap in the tarot.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s basically saying that you can get this thing you want, but you’ve got to, like, man up. That sounds like toxic masculinity or whatever, but just—be brave. Don’t give up.”

  “Okay.” He smiles a little. “Worth it. So, what’s the deal with the other cards?”

  “Well, the past—Ten of Wands—is a card about shit being hard. Like, in the picture you see this guy is carrying all these sticks, but his back is bent and they look heavy as fuck. His view of everything is blocked by the sticks, so he can’t really see the future. There’s something from your past you need to let go of. It’s weighing you down. Does that … ring a bell?”

  He lets out a heavy sigh. “Yeah.”

  I point to the Page of Wands, his present. “And, as you can see, if you let that shit go, you’ll be ready to take on the world. The Page is this character in the tarot who’s like, Let’s do this thing.”

  “The picture makes me think of Gandalf holding his staff.”

  “Uh…”

  “Lord of the Rings. Told you, I read fantasy, you live it.”

  “Oh, right. That old dude. He was a magician or something, right?”

  “Not a magician—the magician. Arguably the best one ever, with Dumbledore as a possible exception.”


  If he were Dad, I’d have to nerd alert that.

  “Okay, so channel your inner Gandalf and make some magic happen.”

  He’s quiet, arms crossed, his thinking face on as I gather the cards up.

  “No one’s ever done something like this for me before,” he finally says. “Thanks. It helped. A lot.”

  I think about how his dad is at the pub, his mom just a memory. My parents got taken from me, but his parents chose to leave him. I suddenly get why he deals, why he wants a role. He’s like me—he just wants someone to see him. I hand Drew the Chariot card, and a little jolt goes through me when his fingers brush mine.

  “Keep it,” I say. I’ll have to find another card to replace it, but this is the kind of stuff I’ve seen Mom do, and it feels right. “Whatever this thing you want is, Drew—go for it. You told me that day we ditched that you’re going to end up like your dad, but I don’t think so.” I hold up my velvet bag of magic. “The cards see what you can’t. And I agree with them—you’re passionate, driven, creative.” I smile. “Entrepreneurial. Someone like you can do cool things in the world.”

  He blinks. Looks around his kitchen like he’s never seen it before.

  “Did I blow your mind or weird you out?” I say. “Because I’m thinking this reading could go either way.”

  Drew slips the card into his front pocket, then reaches back into the fridge and pops the cap off another bottle. He slides it toward me across the counter.

  “Definitely blew my mind.” He takes a long swig of his beer.

  “Is your dad gonna notice all this beer disappearing?” I ask.

  Drew shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. We Nolans, we take the whole drunk Irish stereotype pretty seriously. My uncle owns a frickin’ pub. I’ve been drinking since I was eight. Come to think of it, I think it was my father who gave me that first beer.”

  “Damn. I cannot imagine my dad ever letting me—”

  I stop, the word stuck in my throat. I couldn’t have imagined Dad cheating on Mom, either.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, as my eyes fill. “I’m a lousy drunk. I always get emotional. Either I’m too happy or I’m too sad.”

  Drew reaches out and wipes away the tears that spill down my cheeks with the backs of his fingers. I really like when he touches me, and that makes me cry more. I am such a piece-of-shit girlfriend. And sister. And daughter. All I’ve done since the wave is get wasted and sleep and yell at people and want to cheat on my boyfriend.