Relativity

by Cristin Bishara

  Are you there, Mom? In that other place?

  On my dresser is the faded, out-of-focus photo of Mom and me, the one that I’ve had for eleven years. She’s gazing distractedly off to the side, pensive, wistful. I prop my newly acquired version in front of the old. The new photo is in sharp focus, and Mom is looking straight at the camera. It’s jarring.

  “Ruby?” Dad calls from downstairs.

  I quickly dress in jeans and a gray sweatshirt and silently make my way down the hall, eyeing Kandy’s closed door as I ease past. I’m holding my breath, taking one stealthy step at a time, when a sudden boom-boom! stuns me. The blood drains from my head and I feel woozy. It’s music, pounding.

  Now my heart is pounding too. Hammering.

  “Your food’s ready!” Dad calls, and I bolt downstairs.

  As I enter the kitchen, he’s pulling a dish out of the microwave, and the smell of Indian spices instantly warms me. Somebody—I’m assuming Willow—made a homemade dish with peas and potatoes. A nice change from the takeout garbage we’ve had all week. I eat in silence while Dad does the dishes. “Amazing curry sauce,” I finally say, mouth full.

  Dad nods. “Do you want seconds?”

  Before I can answer, he’s scooped another ball of basmati rice onto my plate, and more vegetables. He hands me a cup of hot tea. “So you went for a walk?” He raises his eyebrows, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

  “Um, you could say that. I cut through the cornfields, and then …” My voice trails off. I’m still struggling with how to tell him. “I’d really love to show you.”

  “Ruby, those fields go on for miles. You could get disoriented.” Dad looks at me wide-eyed. “Completely lost!”

  “Yeah, I’m aware.”

  “They’d have to send out dogs!” He drops a plate into the sink with a crash.

  “Would you relax, please? You’re hyperventilating.” Secretly, I’m starting to smile. It’s nice having Dad worry about me. It’s like he forgot about writing gnocchi packaging. He’s thinking about me instead.

  “There have been a record number of lightning strikes the past few days,” Dad continues. “The weather people can’t get over it. It’s dangerous out there.”

  “Dangerous,” I repeat. Yes, I know. I’ve been to a place with a not-dead mother and a nonexistent brother. To get there, I’ve been through a tree with a door and a steering wheel. The strange inscription over the door could very well be a dire warning.

  Dad slides a piece of mail next to my napkin. It’s a postcard. “I don’t know if he called,” Dad says. “But you got this in today’s mail.”

  My heart leaps. On the front there’s a photo of a woman walking down a city street. Her head is a computer monitor. I flip it over and read:

  Rubes—Saw this and thought of you. Because you have a computer brain. Recognize the street? Miss you.

  George

  This is even better than a text message. George’s own handwriting, in smudged blue ink. I study the photo on the postcard and make out the red awning of the East Bay Café.

  Dad winks at me.

  “What?”

  “He likes you,” Dad says.

  “I know.” I hold the postcard to my nose, hoping to catch a hint of George’s sandalwood soap, but it just smells like printing ink. “We’re twenty-five hundred miles apart.”

  “So what? If you’re meant to be, it’ll work out. You’ll end up at the same college or working in the same city, someday, somewhere.”

  “Fate?” I say, rolling my eyes. “You know I don’t believe in that stuff.”

  “Call it what you like,” Dad says. “Fate, destiny, effort, coincidence. True friendship defies distance.”

  “That sounds like a headline for an ad,” I say, “for an airline. You should write that down in case you ever need it.”

  “For what?” Dad asks over the clanking of dishes. He pulls a soapy mug from the sink and rinses it.

  “A headline.” I hand him my dirty plate and grab a clean one from the stack of drying dishes on the counter. I hold my phone over it and take a photo of the empty plate. Then I write George a quick text. Brownie was 2 die 4. Licked the plate clean. Thanks!

  “Should I ask?” Dad says.

  “Nope.”

  “Didn’t think so.” He kisses my forehead and drains the sink. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’m on deadline.”

  “Gee. What else is new?”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know how my computer ended up on the floor, would you?” Dad asks.

  “Sorry.” I can picture it crashing to the floor, the second after my shin collided with the coffee table.

  “That’s my lifeblood, Ruby.” Dad’s voice turns preachy. “There are hundreds of important files on that hard drive.”

  “I said I was sorry.” I turn and leave the kitchen, my face flushed with anger. Some things will never change. “Maybe you should back up more often,” I mumble to myself, though I know he can hear me.

  “Ruby!” His voice is a warning; he’s on the edge. “It’s been a long day, so spare me the attitude!”

  I wince under his lashing tone. Outside, underneath the cloud cover, the sun is making its way toward the horizon. I glance at the wall clock and figure we still have a couple hours of daylight. Enough time to take him to the tree. I can just imagine the slack-jawed expression on his face. I’d have to hold him back from stepping inside the doorway, though, because I’m not interested in taking another gamble tonight, slapping down money on what feels like a dubious carnival game—Step right up, sweetheart! Just slip on this blindfold and spin the wheel.

  Still, I feel like I need to tell him something—anything—about where I’ve been. “Hey, Dad? I …”

  His back is to me; he’s drying dishes. “Let’s just call it a day, all right?”

  “Um, but …” But there’s this tree. And I need to show you. “Where’s Willow?” I ask. I could take her to the tree. She noticed that there was a strange vibe about it; she would understand if I told her I needed to show her something important.

  “She’s in Cleveland.” Dad clicks the lights off in the kitchen. “She had to meet with a gallery owner and go buy some new brushes and canvases.”

  He sidesteps me and sits on the couch, firing up his computer. “I need to put in a few hours and then get some sleep.”

  “Sure. I get it.” I take the hint and climb the stairs as quietly as possible, even though Kandy’s music is still blaring. I hold George’s postcard in my hand and reread it. Miss you.

  I think about calling him right this second to hear his voice, to find out what’s been going on since I left. I’d like to know who he went to the movie with yesterday. I’d thank him for the brownie and tell him about the tree. Er, I guess I’d tell him, but where would I begin? What would he think? Ruby, you’re off your rocker, cuckoo, mentally disordered, buggy, certifiable.

  Really, I can’t tell anyone. Seeing is believing. Otherwise I’m setting myself up for trouble. Dad will rush me to the nearest therapist to talk about my pent-up issues. I can hear it now: She’s been under a lot of stress. She’s just trying to get attention. Is this sort of lying normal?

  My bones ache for my soft mattress; I can’t wait to sink my face into my down-filled pillows. The door to my room won’t open, though. A shirt is jammed underneath, strangely. How did that get there? I shove and pull and reach around the door to kick the shirt out of the way.

  Paper everywhere. Clothes draped over lamps, cracked DVDs, torn posters. The Hubble book from George is in shreds. My face turns hot. Even the tips of my ears burn with fury. That psychopath trashed my room.

  Before I think it through, I storm across the hall to her room. She’s on her bed with a pair of scissors, surrounded by People magazines.

  She aims a remote control at her stereo and turns the music off. “Darn,” she says, snapping her manicured fingers. “I thought you were gone for good.”

  “What did you do to my books?” I say, t
hrusting my thumb over my shoulder. “To my room?”

  “We’re even,” Kandy says. She fishes through the magazines until she finds her pink journal. She holds it up with one hand, and she brandishes the scissors with the other.

  I’m reminded of the fact that she checked the box next to “yes” on her design school app. Yes, she’s been convicted of, or has pled guilty to, a crime other than a traffic offense. Vandalism? Assault and battery? Attempted murder?

  “We’re even?” I spit back at her. “My shin is still bleeding.”

  Kandy narrows her eyes at me. “Stop talking,” she says, waving her hand in the air like I’m a bothersome insect. “Your voice irritates me.”

  “Your existence irritates me.” Maybe I’m being too bold, knowing what she’s capable of, but I’m shaking I’m so angry. “I’m going downstairs to tell my dad. You’re busted.”

  Kandy’s ears perk up, like this is what she’s been waiting for. “I’m going downstairs to tell my dad.” She imitates me using a high-pitched, little-kid voice. Then she adds, “Go ahead. They’ll never believe you.”

  “Of course they will. There’s evidence all over my room.”

  “You did it. To yourself. It’s so, like, obvious you hate it here, and you didn’t want your dad to marry my mom. You’re trying to sabotage it.” She starts in with the little-kid voice again. “Kandy ripped up my books. We can’t live here anymore. We have to go back to California. Boo-hoo.”

  “You’re sick.” I take a step backward.

  “You know,” Kandy says with a creepy smile, “just before you chickened out and ran into the cornfields, I had the chance to finish your sorry ass. Next time I won’t hesitate.”

  “He-si-tate,” I say, reaching behind me for the door. She’s more psychologically damaged than I realized. “Wow. Three syllables.” Can she hear the spooked tone in my voice?

  The expression on Kandy’s face changes from annoyance to malice. “Just stick to the rules. You stay out of my life, and I’ll stay out of yours.” She holds up her journal again. “Understood?”

  “You suck,” I say. I slam her door and hurry back to my room before she decides to leap off the bed and rip my intestines out through my nose. I sure as hell hope Dad is still downstairs, within earshot. Otherwise I could end up a grainy photo on the back of a milk carton. Have You Seen Me?

  I lock my bedroom door, then shove a few moving boxes against it. At least that’ll slow her down, if she tries to get in while I’m sleeping. It wouldn’t hurt to put a baseball bat underneath my pillow.

  With a heavy sigh, I flop down on my bed. I’m beat. But I can’t ignore the mess. It’s like someone split an atom in here. All my lovely books, paper corpses everywhere. A pure and penetrating sorrow hits me, same as when I see a dead roadside animal. Little lives. Flesh and blood—an impossible combination of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. So much like books. The elegant combination of words. Arranged just so, to make a genius work of literature. How could Kandy not respect the life—the brains—that went into those pages?

  Moron.

  I pick up the pages, one at a time, and sort them into piles. After about an hour, I’ve got the papers organized into the books they used to be. There were nine victims, including Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, and two Michio Kaku books. My Einstein biography is beyond repair. And String Theory 101 looks like it’s been through a shredder. I wonder if Kandy used her teeth. Her fangs. I wouldn’t be surprised.

  Oh, wait. She used her scissors. The ones she was still holding in her hand, taunting me.

  The noise that comes from my chest is half moan, half wail. I stare at the stack of pages that makes up my mangled Hubble book from George. I look to my dresser to take inventory. George’s photo is still there, so are the two snapshots of Mom. The dogs are missing. Probably knocked behind the dresser.

  I pick up my garbage can and center it in the midst of the unreadable books. Really, there’s no use in having piles of paper like this. Pages are missing, ripped too badly. First in the can, the remains of String Theory 101. Such a good book. Next is the Einstein biography with its broken spine. A few pieces of paper are hidden under the bed. I reach underneath, ready to angrily crumble them into wads.

  Half a page drifts across the floor, and when I pick it up, the words “multiverse” and “parallel worlds” catch my eye. I hold the paper in my hand and read the entire paragraph.

  One of the quirkier aspects of superstring theory is that it calls for eleven dimensions of space and time. This version of quantum theory also allows for the multiverse, or parallel worlds. In these worlds, alternate possibilities play out.

  Parallel universes. Alternate possibilities. My breath catches in my throat and I keep reading.

  A unified theory is what Einstein was after for thirty years but never achieved. It would change our understanding of everything, from subatomic particles to immense galaxies. It would redefine our concept of space-time and the flexible fabric of the universe.

  My hand goes to the back of my neck. I run my fingers over my tattoo. The Einstein tensor, Rμv −½gμvR = −κTμv, which expresses space-time curvature. No, it can’t be. I hungrily read more.

  Space could be peppered with connections that link distant points; hidden spatial dimensions might be right next to us, and we just can’t see them.

  The tree. Could it be a wormhole?

  I dump the trash can onto the floor and shuffle through the loose pages, looking for Brian Greene’s book about hidden realities, but instead finding an index that corresponds to another. “Wormholes, pages 178–181.” Now where are those pages? I should march back across the hallway and rip into Kandy’s clothes closet. Take her designer shoes and hack off the heels with a kitchen cleaver.

  There’s page 177. Almost. And under that are the pages I need.

  Simply put, wormholes are tunnels, connecting two positions in space-time.

  I scan ahead and find this:

  In an infinite number of parallel universes, infinite possibilities play out. At every quantum juncture, what could happen, does. As Yogi Berra once famously said, “If you see a fork in the road, take it.”

  I wander around my room, rooting through the moving boxes, pulling stuff out in handfuls. Now it really looks like a bomb went off in my room. I unearth a flashlight, my digital camera, my wallet with twenty-seven dollars cash, and a fresh notebook and pen. I toss it all into my backpack, along with a change of clothes. Into the front zipper pocket, I slide the postcard from George and the new snapshot of Mom.

  At daybreak, I’m going back to the tree. If it really is a wormhole, I’m about to prove string theory and make science history.

  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll bump into Mom.

  Chapter Five

  I hit my snooze button again. I feel weak, burned, like I’ve spent too much time in the sun, electrolytes zapped. About ten percent of me is saying, Get your butt out of bed. But ninety percent of me wants to sleep. It’s a simple case of mathematics. I guess traveling through space-time takes its toll. So does a gash to the leg.

  By the time I push the moving boxes away from my door, put on some jeans and a T-shirt, and haul myself downstairs, everyone’s in the kitchen. Yeah, I’m super-anxious to get back to the tree, but I need to eat, and breakfast smells good.

  “Morning, sunshine.” Dad stands over a griddle. He flips an enormous golden pancake. Butter, flour, a bowl of batter, and a package of bacon clutter the countertop.

  I cock my head, give him a look. “You’re cooking?”

  Dad grins. “At it again.”

  “Seriously,” I say. “I thought you were strictly toast and cereal.”

  Now Dad gives me a funny look. “What?”

  There’s something different about Dad. I guess I didn’t notice it last night, but he looks … hmm … younger? Yes, that’s it. It’s his hair. It’s more black than gray. When did he start colorin
g it?

  “Good morning, Ruby.” Willow dabs egg from the corners of her mouth.

  I shove a giant cardboard box out of the way and sit down. “’Morning,” I say to Willow, not Kandy. Kandy gives me a venomous look, which I return in kind. Then we proceed to ignore each other. A symbiotic relationship, though I can’t ignore her perfume. Between that and the hairspray, a mushroom cloud is forming over the kitchen table.

  Dad shuffles to the table in his slippers and slides a giant pancake onto my plate. “Spread some lingonberry preserves on it,” he says. “Tell me what you think.”

  “You’re wearing a paisley apron,” I say, trying to blink the sleep out of my eyes.

  “Of course I am. You bought this apron for me, remember?”

  I try to remember. A mouse pad, an electric shaver, a jazz CD. Those are the most recent birthday and Christmas gifts.

  “Eat your pancake before it gets cold.”

  I reach for the lingonberry preserves. I’ve heard of cranberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, even gooseberries. But lingon-berries? I search the table for the maple syrup, but there is none.

  “The batter is Irish oatmeal, whole wheat flour, buttermilk,” Dad says. “It’s for Gourmet magazine.”

  “For an advertisement?” I carve out a bite. It’s perfect. Light, fluffy, sweet.

  Dad hands me a hot cup of coffee. “Drink this. Wake up, space cadet.”

  Willow pushes her plate away. “I can’t eat another morsel,” she says. She checks her watch. “We need to push off for Cleveland.”

  “Have fun, you two,” Dad says. “Don’t max out the credit cards.”

  “Weren’t you just in Cleveland yesterday?” I ask.