I don’t know what Rudy would make of this. I don’t know very much about his life in Manila. But I have to believe that he would feel at home, that he would add his voice. We are all invested in this trajectory; we all share the want to be seen as seriously as anyone else.
I keep going forward, keep passing the families and the friends and the church groups and the GSAs and the high school basketball teams marching in their jerseys. I see faces that look familiar, faces that I may have once seen in a mirror—but I don’t have the time to stop and remember, or the memory to stop and find. I tell myself I am a part of this, that my body is being counted even though it is not my body. I tell myself I am adding weight to the right side of the balance. I tell myself this even though I know I have to leave.
The National Gallery comes into view. I am already a half hour late, and I’m not even there yet. Rudy’s phone isn’t picking up any wifi, and doesn’t work in the US without it. There’s no way for me to get in touch with Rhiannon. I must trust she’ll find me when I get there.
There are police officers all along the Mall, keeping watch. In other circumstances, it might seem sinister—but the officers are smiling, chatting, returning the salutes of the children who salute them. When I pull off Constitution Avenue, separating myself from the union of cheer and protest, an officer approaches and asks me if I need anything. Suddenly I’m worried he’ll tell me the museum has been closed, even though I checked the website repeatedly over the week to make sure it wouldn’t be. When I tell him my destination, he nods and points me to an entrance on the side of the building.
I know my one body won’t be missed, but I will miss being part of the whole. I’m sure the protest will still be happening when I leave the museum; hopefully Rhiannon and I will be able to experience it together.
I am supposed to meet Rhiannon in front of Monet’s Bazille and Camille, but when I get to Gallery 85, I find that Bazille and Camille are there, but Rhiannon is not. For a Saturday, the museum is very quiet…but you can hear the sound of the crowd outside, the waves of congregation and hoots of proclamation. I am guessing that Rhiannon is caught in the crowd. With all the traffic, she may not have even made it downtown yet.
It is 11:45. I am going to have to meet Poole on my own.
I head down to the basement connecting the museum’s two buildings, where the food court is located. As I walk through the gift shop, Rudy’s heart starts to pound, and I wonder yet again how his body can be so attuned to the pulse of my thoughts. It is more crowded down here than it was in the galleries—mostly tourists taking refuge from the protest, along with a few protestors taking a break to get some food. I am glad I’m not alone, even if all of these people are strangers. They will not let anything happen to me.
I am a few minutes early, but he is already there. I spot him right away, the only teenager with a table to himself. It’s hard not to think of him for a moment as Wyatt, since it is clearly Wyatt I am seeing.
This is the moment when I can still walk away, and I walk forward instead.
He sees me approaching and stands up. I am surprised by the politeness of this, and by the smile on his face that looks almost grateful that I’ve shown up. He extends his hand and I shake it. We are friends from the summer who are meeting in the winter. We are Internet acquaintances finally face to face. We are two boys who’ve been set up for a job interview or a date. What we must look like is nothing like what we really are.
“Do you want something to eat?” he asks. “Or just coffee?” He points to his own cup. “I’m happy to wait here if you want to get something.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “I had a big breakfast.”
“Well, then—shall we?”
He extends his hand to offer the chair across from him. I take off my coat and put it on the back before sitting down.
“I really appreciate you coming,” he says. “And before anything else, I want to apologize for the last time we met. I handled it badly, and I know I hardly deserve a second chance. The only way I can explain it is that I was overwhelmed when I finally found you, someone else like me. It was something I’d never attempted to do before, to talk over…what we are. And I can’t say this enough times: I completely botched it. I was so worried that you were going to leave that I of course overdid it and forced you to leave. What’s the opposite of beginner’s luck—beginner’s misfortune? Beginner’s stupidity? I’m hoping we can chalk it up to that. Although I would certainly understand if you couldn’t.”
When I imagined this conversation, it did not start like this. I am looking in his eyes, and instead of seeing something imprisoned, I am seeing a vulnerability that appears to be his own. I have spent days as boys like Wyatt before—popular, insecure, his good-heartedness sometimes roughly conveyed. I have to remind myself that I’m not really talking to him, just as the person across from me isn’t really talking to Rudy.
“Thank you for saying that,” I tell him. “You’re right—you scared the hell out of me. But I have to warn you: It wasn’t just the way you were saying it, it was what you were saying. So if you’re planning to say the same things…we’re just wasting time.”
“I’m not going to try to convince you of anything. I’m not going to try to make you do anything. I just want to talk. And I’m guessing you want to talk, too. Because I imagine this is as astonishing to you as it is to me—the possibility of talking to someone who actually knows what it’s like to be us. To be so transient, and yet so grounded in the lives of others. To have to navigate every single day as both ourselves and as someone else. Who else knows what that’s like? I have so many things to ask you. I have so many things I’ve tried to figure out on my own.”
“I think you’ve figured out more than I have.”
“Why? Because I’ve managed to stay in bodies for longer than a day? That’s true—there are a few things I’ve figured out, which I’d love to share with you. But there’s still plenty where all I have is speculation.”
“Like what?”
He smiles. “Where do I possibly begin? On the grand scale, why are we the way we are? Or on the small scale, when we hurt ourselves in someone else’s body, does the memory of the pain stay with them, or does it travel with us?”
“It doesn’t come with us. But the shame and regret at hurting someone else—that does.”
He leans back, looks at me. “That,” he says, “is a very interesting answer.”
The strangest thing about this is how unstrange it feels. I immediately know I can tell him things that I couldn’t expect Rhiannon to understand. Because even if we’re different, we’ve been through so many of the same things.
Remember, he beat Nathan up, I remind myself. But then I wonder if I pushed him to do that, by playing games with him. Not that it’s an excuse. But it could be an explanation. I think he understood even more than I did what this would feel like, to finally find someone who understands the way our lives work.
“You must have questions, too,” he says. “Don’t let me dominate the conversation—because I will, if given a chance. I’ve had all these thoughts and questions locked away and now, ta-da, here comes the key that opens the door to seeing how everything works outside of my own experience.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s start on a basic level. What’s your name?”
“This is Wyatt.”
“I don’t mean his name. What’s your name? I keep thinking of you as Reverend Poole. But you’re not Reverend Poole.”
“Huh. You do realize, nobody’s asked me that before?”
I smile, remembering when Rhiannon asked me the first time. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? To go your whole life without anyone asking your name.”
“You can’t laugh if I tell you.”
“My name is A. I have no grounds for laughing.”
“Because you chose it when you were young?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too. Maybe not as young as you. But still…young.”
“So what is it?”
“Xenon.”
I laugh. Not out of ridicule. Out of surprise.
“You said you wouldn’t laugh!” But he’s laughing, too.
“Sorry, sorry…”
“It’s alright.”
“Why Xenon?”
“I liked the X. Later, I found out what it means, and it fit. But even if it hadn’t fit, I would have kept it.”
“How old were you when you picked it?”
“I’m not sure—doesn’t it all blur after a while? Seven, maybe? Eight? You?”
“Probably five or six. It does blur. Years. Weeks. Days.”
“That’s one of the reasons I decided to stay longer than a day. To have more of a sense of periods of time. Other people can say, Oh, that’s when I lived in that house. Or Oh, that was when I was dating her. Or My parents were alive then. I wanted to have that. Some measure that was longer than a single day. Because a single day is too hard to hold on to.”
It’s like a punch to my brain, hearing these words come from someone who isn’t me.
I have to ask, “But don’t you feel that’s unfair to the people whose lives you’re taking? Don’t you feel you’re stealing that time from them?”
Wyatt leans in, as if this is the first time he’s saying something he doesn’t want anyone else to hear. “The thing is—if they didn’t want me to take over for them, I wouldn’t be able to do it. There’s a beautiful complicity to it. I can only take the places of the people who don’t want to be there. I know you could easily say it’s a self-serving justification—believe me, I’ve interrogated myself in depth about it over the years. But I’ve done it enough to know that nobody gives over their life force unless it’s willingly. Does that mean I’m preying on the weak? Possibly. But does it also mean I am giving the weak a break? Also possible. There’s no certainty in any of this, is there?”
“No,” I tell him. “There’s not.”
“Exactly.”
“So what about Wyatt?” I ask. I’m not sure I’m being told the truth, but I don’t want to cut him off. I want to hear what he has to say.
“Wyatt’s lost. Everyone thinks he’s got it together, but he doesn’t. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll be able to stay here much longer—eventually he will want his life back, and I will wake up as someone else. But, as you’ve seen, almost anyone can spare a day. Most can spare a week, Wyatt included. Who are you today?”
I tell him about Rudy.
“You see, it would be harder with him. You have the strong combination of being excited to be on vacation, and also missing home acutely. You would think someone away from home would be more vulnerable, but I think the opposite is true. Plus, of course, I’m sure he wants to see Disney World for himself.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t try to stay here for more than a day?” I ask.
“No. Why would I do that?”
When I met him as Poole, he seemed dead set on getting me to be like him, as soon as possible. But maybe he’s learned something since then. Again, I want to see how this plays out.
“No reason,” I say. “I’m still trying to find the right footing here.”
“Me too.”
We’ve both discovered new territory. We both want to explore.
“Look,” I tell him, “I lied to you before. I am hungry. Wanna get lunch?”
He smiles again, waves toward the cafeteria.
“I have all the time in the world,” he says.
I know I don’t. But for now, I feel like I do.
We go and get some pizza. He offers to pay, and on the way back to our table, I ask him about that, about how it feels to always be using someone else’s money.
“I consider it wages,” he says, sitting down. “For a day’s work.”
I’ve never thought of it that way.
I ask him to tell me more.
RHIANNON
It takes forever to get into DC, and even longer to get down to the Mall. We have to abandon our cars in a suburb and take the train in, along with hundreds of thousands of other people. At first it’s a party atmosphere, but as it gets busier and busier, it becomes an overcrowded party atmosphere, which isn’t nearly as fun. Or at least not on me—Preston is loving it, and is getting a lot of compliments on his outfit, which looks like Waldo from Where’s Waldo? mated with a rainbow. Alexander’s posters are also getting a lot of compliments. Alexander, being Alexander, is always sure to compliment back, finding some button that the person is wearing, or even the bright pink shoelaces they’re proud of.
I’d probably be enjoying it, too, if I weren’t so late.
I’ve tried emailing A. I’ve even texted Nathan, putting him on standby. But there’s no word. By the time I get out of the Metro station, it’s past noon. A is already with Poole. I am the backup that hasn’t arrived.
I hope he’s okay.
I think the hardest part is going to be losing my friends—but that proves to be the easiest part, because the crowd is so crowded, and because it’s hard for groups to stay together in all the shifting currents. I made sure we had a plan for meeting up after if we got separated—I just didn’t tell them I was already aiming to use it. When I slip free of them, I hear Alexander and Rebecca call after me. But then one of the speakers starts to talk, and the crowd surges forward, and I duck around a taller group, so visual contact is broken.
I’ve also made sure my phone is off. I’ll tell them I thought it was on.
When I get to the National Gallery, I ask the guard where the food court is, and he points to a staircase heading down. I have to take a moving walkway covered in lights and mirrors, like something that would have seemed like science fiction in the 1950s, and then I’m at the food court, almost an hour late. I have no idea what A looks like today—but I know what Wyatt looks like. The trick is to find him without being seen. A was adamant about that: Under no circumstances should Poole see me. We must remain separate. That is the only way to make sure I remain safe.
I stay on the periphery, where parents are trying to herd their children and older protestors are taking a rest from their marching. My eyes pass over Wyatt and A at least twice before I find them…because their body language is so comfortable, so coupled, that I mistook them for family members or friends. They are fully engaged in one another, talking animatedly, completely oblivious to anything that’s going on around them.
I can’t help it: I think it looks like a date that’s going really, really well.
Then I feel stupid for thinking that. A knows what needs to be done. A is playing along. A is learning as much as there is to be learned.
That is the plan.
I know the whole point is that Poole’s not supposed to know I’m here. I understand this means that A can’t look for me, and even if A senses my presence, it can’t be acknowledged. Still, I’m surprised by how outside of it I feel. I want to get closer to hear what they’re saying, even though I know it would be dangerous. I want A’s eyes to flicker my way, to give me a sense of what’s going on. I want to make sure A’s okay.
But…it’s plain to see A is okay.
A looks happy.
At home.
I am sure if I pulled out my phone and turned it on, I would find my friends are looking for me. They are probably concerned. I will have to answer their messages. And the temptation is to run back outside, to find them, to pretend I never made it here.
But no. I promised A I would be here after, to figure out the next step.
So I sit down. I try to make myself invisible while keeping my own vision clear.
I watch. I wait.
I wonder.
A
Day 6139 (continued)
“S
o how old are you?” I ask him.
“I’m not sure, really. Once I untied myself from the regularity of changing every day, it didn’t seem as important. Twenty-two? Twenty-three? Not that much older than you. I used to count. You still count, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Let me guess. You started on Day 3653.”
“Yes! My ‘tenth birthday’—or at least the first tenth birthday my body had.”
“A nice, round number.”
“Exactly. Plus three leap days.”
“But why do you still do it? Why bother?”
“Because without it, I’d be a watch with just a second hand. I need to keep track of the larger measure.”
“That larger measure being your life.”
“Exactly.”
We both sit back. Look at each other for a second.
This is the most incredible conversation I’ve ever had.
And I think he feels that way, too.
“How many of us do you think there are, Xenon?”
He groans. “Please. Call me X. If you’re A, I’ll be X. Xenon wasn’t meant to be used anywhere besides my own head. It sounds silly when you say it.”
“But it’s your name!”
“X. Please.”
“Okay, X…how many of us do you think there are? And do you think we’re all related in some way?”
Someday Page 25