Now That You're Here (Duplexity, Part I)

by Amy K. Nichols

  “Wow. That’s really…”

  “Weird. I make it sound worse than it is. I mean, they’re fine. They love me. They don’t beat me or anything.” She gasps, and a hand flies to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

  It takes me a second to make the connection. “It’s okay. It’s the other Danny you’d be apologizing to.” What’s crazy is I’d pretty much forgotten about the foster family. “So, how’s it look?”

  She sweeps my bangs to one side and then back. “Bizarre.”

  “Bizarre, but better?”

  “Getting there.” She steps around behind me again and combs through what’s left of The Hair. “Actually…Hang on.”

  She rushes off and returns just as quickly with a container of green goop, which she slicks through my hair.

  “So, if I’m here, who took my place there?” I try to picture some other me, living in my house, sleeping in my bed. “They’d notice if he’s different, right?”

  “You’re different than the other Danny.”

  “My parents must be totally freaked-out.”

  “Your girlfriend, too.”

  “No girlfriend.” I look at her out the corner of my eye. “Boyfriend?”

  She scoffs. “As if.” Then circles around to my right side. Her voice goes quiet. “Tell me about her.”

  “Who?”

  “Eevee Solomon.”

  I exhale, choosing what to say. “Her hair is long and dark, like yours. Same eyes. Same smile.” What I don’t say: great kisser, legs impossibly long. I close my eyes, reliving that night again in my mind. “I hardly know her, but when I met her, it’s like I wanted time to stop.”

  I feel a hand on my shoulder and open my eyes. She’s looking at me intently, her hair falling around her face. I reach up, tuck one side behind her ear, let my fingers touch her jaw. Her lips part and a smile tugs the corner of her mouth.

  Then she blinks and inhales. Lifts her hand from my shoulder. “I…” Her voice cracks. She steps back, sets the scissors on the counter and walks toward the door.

  “Eevee, wait.”

  She doesn’t stop, though. Doesn’t even turn. The door closes and she’s gone.

  He calls my name, but I let the door shut behind me and walk-run back home. Mom’s sitting at the computer with her phone to her ear. She doesn’t see me.

  Just like he didn’t see me. Not really. He was looking into my eyes, but in his mind he was seeing her.

  Why does that bother me?

  I slam the door, flop onto my bed and curl up on my side. My heart pounds in my ears.

  The idea of me and Danny is absurd. Nothing good would come of us being together. That’s the truth of the matter. Just look at Mom and Dad.

  When I was a kid—maybe four or five years old—I watched my parents dancing. I don’t remember where we were, and I’ve never asked. I don’t want them to spoil it. In my memory, there are trees with twinkling lights and candles on tables. Mom’s dress swishes around as she and Dad sway in circles. He holds her right hand like it’s a delicate thing, and his left arm is wrapped around her waist. He tucks her hand against his chest and she rests her chin on his shoulder. Their eyes are closed.

  They were together. They were happy. And now look at them, ten years later.

  Who’s to say the same thing wouldn’t happen to me and Danny. If.

  I roll on my back and stare at the ceiling.

  Still, it would be nice for him to look at me like that, the way he looks at the other Eve.

  Enough. This is stupid. I have work to do.

  I push myself off the bed, tuck in my earbuds and douse my brain with Bach. Time to get busy. Time to review those physics notes. I read Faraday’s law of induction from the textbook out loud.

  “ ‘The induced electromotive force in any closed circuit is equal to the negative of the time rate of change of the magnetic flux through the circuit.’ ”

  Three times I read it, but the words are just noise. I close my eyes and see him looking at me, feel his hand touching my face.

  Focus, Eevee. You need to get this. You need to nail the grades, lock in the GPA, make it into the right college, the right research-assistant position. Then you’ll land the right job and…

  I read the definition two more times, enunciating every word.

  Land the right job and then…And then what?

  Dad says a relationship would be an unnecessary distraction from finals and college-entrance exams. It would only get in the way of my goals.

  I read through the first sentence again, but end up staring at the wall. How does that feel, liking someone so much you want time to stop? Those were his words.

  About me.

  Only, not me.

  I bend the corner of the textbook up and down. Why is this bothering me so much? I need to just let it go. Buckle down and do what’s expected of me. So I can go places. And accomplish stuff.

  Alone.

  I slam the textbook shut and slide it off the desk. It lands on the carpet with a thud.

  I want him to feel that way about me.

  It’s irrational. Stupid.

  But it’s the truth.

  From the kitchen, I hear the front door open. My hands work faster, trying to clean up the mess. The paper towels make swishing sounds as I sweep them across the floor. In my mind, I rehearse what I’ll tell Sid about what happened here.

  But it isn’t Sid who walks into the room.

  It’s Eevee.

  She tears paper towels from the roll and joins me on the floor. Together we gather up the hair, reaching around the edges of the cabinets and the legs of the chair.

  I turn around, still on my hands and knees, and she’s there again, in front of me, looking at me with those eyes. I smile. “You came back.”

  “I came back.”

  I move closer and lean in, afraid I’m going to scare her off again. But she doesn’t pull away. Her eyes are wide, her lips, so close.

  The front door opens.

  Sid’s home from work.

  First thing Wednesday morning Warren and I dash to Mac’s room, hoping to catch him before class and tell him about Danny. But instead of Mac, we’re greeted by Mr. Rubino, Mac’s go-to substitute.

  “Sorry,” he says, writing notes on the whiteboard. The green marker squeaks as it forms each word. “Mr. MacAllister is at the ACE conference today and tomorrow.”

  “Fail,” Warren groans.

  The first students begin filtering in. Mr. Rubino recaps the marker and shuffles his lecture notes. “I’m sure whatever it is, it can wait until he gets back.”

  “Here’s hoping.” I grab Warren by the sleeve.

  Outside the room we synchronize our watches, so to speak. One of Warren’s Dark-Web contacts—Captain Kaboom—suggested the explosion generated an EMP that created a shockwave that pushed Danny through to our universe. It didn’t sound likely, but since Warren and I know next to nothing about electromagnetic pulses or radiation, we decided research was in order.

  “Library at lunch?” I hold out my fist.

  “Library. Lunch.” He bumps it.

  The first bell rings and we part ways.

  Warren groans as he scrolls through the search results on the library computer. “Over 500,000.”

  I check the clock. We have twenty minutes until our next class. “Where do we start?”

  “Wiki, I guess.” He clicks the first link and we wait. The library computers are super slow. Across the shelves, I can just see Danny’s shoulder. The page finally loads.

  “About time,” Warren says. He scrolls as we read.

  “Produces damaging current and voltage surges,” I whisper.

  “Looks like this is mostly about high-altitude EMPs.” He clicks the back button. “From what Parallel Boy said, this happened at ground level.”

  “Nothing about the effects on humans either.”

  He clicks another link that leads to a particularly ugly site. The bright aqua background makes my eyes ache. “This
one looks really technical.”

  The word symptoms catches my eye. “Wait.”

  Warren stops scrolling and we both lean closer to the monitor.

  “What are you guys doing?”

  We bolt upright in our seats. Missy is standing behind us, her braids hanging down the front of her shoulders. How long has she been there, listening? She tips her head to the right and peers beyond us at the computer.

  “Research,” I say, reaching for the mouse. Warren clicks the button first, dragging the browser window lower on the screen. The heading with the letters EMP stands out against the aqua. I scoot my chair over, hoping my shoulder will block her view.

  “Research about what?” Her voice is like syrup. She sets her books down on the table beside us. We need to get rid of her before she makes herself comfortable. I look at Warren, but he’s in a Missy stupor.

  “Temperature variances in Phoenix over the last one hundred years.” I tap Warren’s foot with my own. “Right? Warren?”

  “Phoenix,” Warren says, “right.” His face is flushed.

  “Is that your science fair entry?”

  “Yeah,” I say, hoping she buys it.

  She doesn’t. Her face is incredulous. “Isn’t that a bit rudimentary?”

  “Well, it’s just the start of a really, really big project with lots and lots of components that we don’t have time to— Oh!” I point to the clock. “Speaking of the time, we need to get back to work now, don’t we?”

  Warren doesn’t respond.

  “I could help you, if you want.” Missy smiles, then a big, goofy grin spreads across Warren’s face. I’m surprised his goggles aren’t steaming up, the way he’s looking at her. He opens his mouth to respond to her offer, but I cut him off.

  “No thanks. We’ve got it under control.”

  Her smile falls. “Fine.” She hugs her books to her chest. “I’ll be over there studying, in case you change your mind. Bye, Warren.”

  Finally, she’s gone.

  “Earth to Warren.” I snap my fingers in front of his face.

  He blinks and his brain switches back on. “Huh? Oh.”

  “Nice to see you again. Can we get back to work now?” I check to make sure we’re out of Missy’s line of sight and pull the browser window back up. “Isn’t harmful to humans,” I read, “unless detonated near a hospital or individuals with electrical implants.”

  “Does he have a pacemaker?”

  I look over at Danny, still by the shelves. “I have no idea.”

  “Whoa, cool.” Warren points at the screen. “It says here the body fluids of someone with an electrical implant hit by microwaves would turn to steam and vaporize.”

  “That’s horrific.”

  “Catching a reflection of the wave,” he continues, “on a metal surface could cause severe burns and brain damage. Didn’t Danny say he was holding on to a chain-link fence?”

  He walks toward us, carrying a book in one hand and tossing an apple with the other.

  I keep my voice low. “Brain damage, Warren? Really?”

  “It says so right here.”

  “He does not have brain damage.”

  Danny drops the book on the table and sets the apple on top.

  I turn the book to read the title. “Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in Urban Art. I’m surprised they let that book in here.”

  “You don’t have a pacemaker, do you?” Warren asks.

  “That’s random. No.”

  “Warren thinks you have brain damage.”

  “I didn’t say…”

  Danny scrunches up his face and starts twitching, his tongue out and arms scrambled. Mrs. Colliard, the librarian, clears her throat and gives us the evil eye.

  “I didn’t say you had brain damage,” Warren mutters under his breath.

  “I’ve been told worse.” Danny rolls the apple back and forth across the table. “So you guys figure anything out?”

  I shake my head, but Warren says, “One thing. We know what we’re doing for our science project.”

  “We do?”

  “The effects of EMPs on humans.”

  “No.” I hold up my hands. “We are not studying him.”

  “Of course we are,” Warren says. “We’ve already begun.”

  “He’s not a lab rat.”

  “No one said he was.”

  Mrs. Colliard clears her throat again. I lower my voice to a growl. “That’s what it’ll lead to.”

  “Why do you think that?” He crosses his arms but keeps his voice down. “Be logical, Solomon. We figure out what’s up with him and we get our project done. If we discover something amazing along the way, like parallel transport, we also win the science fair. Oh, and change the face of science.”

  I cross my arms, too. “He can’t be involved.”

  Danny stops rolling the apple. “Why not?”

  “Because we can’t draw attention to you.” I turn back to Warren. “What are we going to do? Build our own EMP device? Who’s not being logical now?”

  “Will it help solve whatever’s going on with me?”

  “Maybe it will generate a shock wave that will push you back to your own universe,” Warren says.

  “Then do it. I’m your lab rat.”

  I protest. “But—”

  “No worries. If it helps, awesome. If it doesn’t, then nothing’s changed.” Danny tosses the apple and catches it. “Now who’s being logical?”

  “You didn’t consider the third outcome.” I keep my voice even.

  “What’s that?”

  “We really do give you brain damage.”

  “Oh.” He takes a bite of the apple. “Yeah, that would suck.”

  It turns out Danny is really good at English. I have the proof in my bag. Last night after the haircut, he helped me rewrite my essay. Then we sat outside and talked until we were both yawning and Dad had to flash the porch light to signal it was time for me to go home.

  The Fish’s belly has grown gargantuan, and with it her crankiness. She scowls when Danny and I enter the room. We made it to class just before the late bell. A first for Danny. She seems more annoyed that he’s there on time than she ever was when he was late.

  I sit down, tap Kyle’s leg and brush Sarah’s hair off my desk. Sarah turns around again and again to look at Danny. Each time, her hair falls back on my desk. A few more students walk in late and The Fish leaps into her usual tirade about what awful students we are and how many days she has before her maternity leave. As if we aren’t counting down, too.

  “Those of you who had to rewrite your essays may put them on my desk now,” she grumbles. “Meanwhile, I’ll be passing around the review packet for the test.”

  I pull my sparkly new essay out of my bag and smile at Danny. I have to wait for The Fish to waddle past before going up front and adding it to the stack. Seems I’m not the only one who hadn’t met her standards.

  When I get back to my desk, Sarah’s whispering something to Danny. I break through their conversation to sit down. She raises her hand. “Ms. Fish—uh—Fischbach? Danny doesn’t have a book. Can I share mine with him?”

  The Fish, annoyed at the disruption, glares at Danny. “If it is your intention to take initiative in this class, Mr. Ogden, you will need your textbook. For now, you may look on with Sarah. If you remain quiet.”

  Sarah beams, but then Danny asks, “Is it okay if I look on with Eve?” and her mouth falls into a pout.

  The Fish waves a hand—“Fine, fine”—and continues to pass out review sheets.

  Sarah swishes her hair and turns away. Kyle grunts and unwinds his feet from my desk. I scoot toward Danny, glad to be free of both the stink and the jiggle. If only I could be free of The Fish.

  I open my textbook and set it on the spot where our desks touch. The tissue-thin pages crinkle as he turns to the first story listed on the review sheet, “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin. We work side by side, pointing out the answers for each story and fill
ing out the sheet. When we get to “The Open Boat,” he grabs my paper, flips it over and starts drawing. I watch, amazed, as he pencils the lines of a pirate ship, shading in the billowing sails and Jolly Roger. Waves crash against the figurehead and ripple along the prow. He hands the paper back to me and returns to his review sheet like nothing happened.

  I tap his foot, and mouth Wow. He shrugs. The Fish clears her throat and we get to work on “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” That story freaked me out, a woman locked up and losing her mind, seeing things in the walls. I snatch Danny’s packet, flip it over and use the edge of my own packet to draw the first line at a 37-degree angle. Then I close my eyes and see the rest of the fractal bloom, a flower of numbers and lines sprouting with mathematical precision, each new section materializing as a perfect replica of the one that came before. My hand goes to work, transferring the image in my mind onto the paper before I even open my eyes.

  When the fractal is done, I hand the packet to him and focus on “The Yellow Wall-Paper.”

  He taps my foot, but I ignore him, trying not to smile as I search out answers in the book. He taps my foot again. When I don’t respond, he bumps me hard with his leg. WOW is scribbled across the top of his paper. He draws a circle around the word and adds an exclamation point. I shrug.

  Sarah’s had enough of our fun. “They’re distracting me,” she whines, her finger pointing at us, revenge in her eyes.

  I feign innocence. “We’re just doing our work.”

  The Fish makes a big production of getting out of her chair and waddling over to our desks with one hand supporting her lower back. Everyone watches her pick up my review packet first, then Danny’s. She flips through the pages, turns them over, turns them sideways and cocks her head to the right. Without a word, she tears both packets in two.

  “You.” She points at Danny. “Out.”