The Museum of Us

by Tara Wilson Redd

  “You were saying?” Henry asks. But I don’t feel like explaining it anymore. I’m not even sure if I could make him understand, because I don’t quite understand myself.

  “Nothing.”

  He comes over and puts his hand on my face and looks directly into my eyes the way I hate, so intense it’s like he is trying to take something from me.

  “Someday, you are going to tell me the truth. Someday I’m going to find out what is behind your eyes. But I’ll tell you my half of our truth now.”

  I want to stop him, but I can’t even speak. I’m hypnotized.

  “I don’t care if you don’t believe me. I think you’re special,” Henry says. “You’re not holding me back. You know what you give me? You make me feel like someone sees the real me and likes me anyway. And you make me feel important. You have these whole worlds in your head full of all the weird things you like. And the fact that you think I’m as interesting as all those things makes me feel like a hero. Like I’m interesting.

  “And I love our curiosity, and our habits, and our silliness, and our inside jokes. I love that I can rely on you, and that you want so badly not to hurt me that you are willing to totally ruin our relationship just so you won’t hurt my feelings. I love that you care that much.

  “And you know what? I think you’re so beautiful. I mean, so sexy. Like, you drive me crazy. I can’t say it as well as you can, and I don’t know what the right word is, but whatever perfect movie quote you have up your sleeve, can you please pretend I said that? Because you’ll never understand how much I want you unless I can say it in your language, and I don’t speak it yet. I’m still trying to learn.

  “You have such beautiful eyes. I will always think you are the most perfect person in the world. I will never love anyone this much. I want us to be together forever.”

  “Henry…” I try to think of what to say, trying to stop him from saying anything more. That’s the worst thing: Henry’s secrets aren’t anything more than the truth, our truth, that he holds on to for us both. It’s too much. I can’t hear it. But I can’t say anything because I’m so happy and so sad and so everything.

  I know that I love him. I know that he meant what he said. He’s always been that way: certain.

  But I’m not. I don’t deserve him.

  We talk and we touch and we kiss the way that we always do, and it all flies by in that happy light he carries with him, burning everything else away. He leaves and I expect the darkness to come flooding back. But it doesn’t, for minutes, then hours, and I’m somehow still glowing. I’m left with only the truth of us:

  Henry is my still harbor, my anchor, even when I’m out to sea.

  I don’t want him, because I don’t believe in forever.

  But then he’s here, and I do.

  Sadie and Henry were breathless, hands clasped as they cuddled across the gap between the seats, eyes on the screen. Up there in shades of gray, framed by red curtains, Paul Henreid and Bette Davis were falling in love as they did every time the movie played. For them, every time, it was brand-new. For Sadie and Henry it felt new too.

  As Sadie watched the closing scene, she felt her stomach turn. Even sitting in the movie theater curled under Henry’s heavy arm, Sadie couldn’t help but see George in black-and-white on the screen. He was always with her. She hated herself for thinking of George every time she remembered whose hand she was holding, whose Old Spice smell she was breathing amid the fake butter.

  They left the Tivoli Theatre—their special spot—in a strange mood. Sadie was distracted. Henry didn’t even ask her where she was in her head. He’d stopped trying.

  Sadie tried to gather herself, to be there for Henry. She had to. As Henry threw away the popcorn, she shook her head as hard as she could, jumbling brain cells, clearing her mind. When he came back, she had her smiling mask on.

  “Race you?” she asked. He laughed. He could see she was back.

  They were addicted to the Tivoli. Leaving the theater they were always strangely electric, whether from the story on the screen or sitting skin to skin in the dark. They sprinted to the car. She reveled in the stolen minutes in Henry’s backseat. That true, real romance took her spiraling into the present.

  But she was so afraid even then, even while kissing him. There was always that voice in the back of her head, observing and shaming her. But he didn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know what shameful things she had thought in the dark of the theater, her shameful love of someone who wasn’t and never would be real, and her constant shameful need for that other world.

  Henry’s mouth. Henry’s eyes. Henry’s hands. She focused on those things.

  When they were together, talking and laughing and touching, she felt real, sometimes just for a moment. But she couldn’t stay.

  She was never free. The pull of other worlds caught her heels wherever she went.

  * * *

  When Henry dropped her off after seeing Now, Voyager, they gave each other a chaste kiss in case anyone was watching, and Sadie ran inside. She didn’t know why she was so shy about it. After all, Henry was graduating in a month, and next year she’d be a senior. They’d been dating forever. They were unendingly seeking closed doors behind which to commit carnal acts, and the game of secrets brought them closer. They’d found a lot of closed doors that year. But she always felt like if anyone saw them together in public, their love affair would evaporate: like having Henry was imaginary somehow.

  Everything felt imaginary, more and more.

  She muttered a greeting to her parents. She didn’t even take off her shoes. She went straight downstairs, to her room.

  Another world was calling. She could barely keep herself from falling out of this one.

  On her desktop computer, she paged through link after link, absorbing every detail of Now, Voyager. The production. Interviews with the cast. She consumed it all. She’d seen this one before, she was certain, but she couldn’t remember it at all. It had been hiding in a locked box, which she had inadvertently opened with a movie ticket.

  “The untold want by life and land ne’er granted / Now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.” The poem echoed in her mind. Whitman. She’d known those words, but now they exploded with meaning, every word a firework. But what did it really mean? The Internet had so many opinions on that.

  To seek and find. It was such a tiny phrase, but now she felt it meant so much. Wasn’t that what she was meant to do?

  Her mind went out, seeking fantasies.

  She paused, looking at the clock. Two a.m. She’d been online for hours, lulled senseless by gentle waves of browsing. For the past few months she’d been falling into the Internet. She would spend hours awash in pictures and articles. Her desktop was a collage of links and files and ideas. All her school binders were filled with facts she had no use for. She’d barely done her homework in weeks.

  How had she gotten to two in the morning? Time vanished. She had school the next day.

  As soon as she wasn’t with Henry, she felt like she didn’t even exist. Not in the real world. Everything felt like a daydream.

  And the worst of it was, even though she felt bad, and even though she wanted to want only Henry, she desperately missed George.

  At home, the shame was worse and worse. It beat at her consciousness, dragging her out like the tide. She tried to stay busy. She tried to keep her mind on Henry, on the real. But tonight, something about the movie had tripped her. It had been too perfect. A subtly shifting figure lit two cigarettes and mused about happiness. Sometimes it was Paul Henreid. Sometimes Henry. Sometimes George. Sometimes it seemed to be all three.

  The undertow had pulled her down. She was already out to sea. The rush of the tide became whispers and—

  No. She shook her head as hard as she could until her ears rang and her mind was blank. She looked at the floor of her messy
room, ignoring all the books and adventures, ignoring temptation. But everything was temptation.

  If she tried to sleep, she would lie half-awake, half-dreaming for hours. She grabbed her backpack from under her bed and dug around for overdue assignments. School was never hard, so she would never fail, but sliding by made her stomach turn. She used to like being homeschooled. She even liked real school sometimes. But she didn’t like anything anymore, really. Even obsessing over movies didn’t feel like liking something.

  She focused on her AP physics homework and the concepts of distance and time and speed and what they all meant, and how she could never go back and relive the time she had lost to dreaming or get back the things she had missed. She remembered the cruelty of what Einstein had said about time: “The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” So forever, she would be locked in this cycle of regret. She would have given anything to vanish out of time.

  “Come away with me,” George whispered behind her, his lips on the back of her ear.

  The world was already narrowing and falling away. Once more, she was gone.

  * * *

  The ballroom fell to a hush as Sadie entered. It was full of static and strangers, eyes glittering in the candlelight like those of predators.

  Sadie’s white dress swept the floor as she made her way into the unfamiliar room. Her jacket was embroidered with a butterfly, and she would have given anything to escape on those borrowed wings. Her heart raced in time to the orchestra.

  “Miss,” a familiar voice called behind her. She turned too quickly, her nose suddenly facing a gold button.

  “George, I thought we were being discreet.”

  “This is discreet. It’s perfectly discreet to dance with a lovely unexpected guest.”

  “Not in this dress, it’s not. Where did you find this?”

  “Well, I had to dispose of the femme fatale who wore it last, but it seemed a shame to let it go to waste.”

  “We can’t be seen together.”

  “Indulge me,” he said, taking her hand.

  “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can. The question is, do you want to?”

  “Unequivocally.”

  “Then just follow me.”

  “I always try.”

  He let her have the last word, leading her to the floor. The murmurs of the crowd resumed and they were invisible once again. They fell into the familiar rhythm: one two three, one two three. But as they twirled, George winced.

  “You’re hurt,” Sadie whispered, peeking under his jacket. Blood bloomed over his heart.

  “Shot, I’m afraid.”

  “George!”

  “I wanted to say goodbye in case I don’t make it. One should always say a proper goodbye—it’s the most important part of dying.”

  “I can help you!”

  “No, it’s too dangerous.”

  “You dress me up like a spy, teach me to think like one, but now that there’s something real to do, it’s over?”

  “Not for you. It’s just beginning for you. But I’m racing time, Sadie. My number is up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They know my face. I’ve been made, darling.”

  Sadie glanced over George’s shoulder. She could see men in black suits with dark eyes scanning the crowd. George kissed her lightly on the cheek and pulled away, but Sadie clung to him.

  “I only want what’s best for you,” George said. “You’ve got to let me go.”

  “Let me come with you.” The music slowed and they stopped in the middle of the floor.

  “Darling, I would never want to take you where I must go. I’m dying, love. I’m made. I’m already dead.”

  “Why do you have to go? Can’t we run away together? Can’t we escape?”

  “Sadie,” he started, breaking character. He looked at her as himself, as her best friend, and continued: “Sadie, you can’t run forever. This isn’t escaping. We never really get away. We’re just going in circles. Can’t you feel it? Something is wrong.” Her heart broke open as she felt herself slipping; she was not a spy, she was only Sadie, and she didn’t want to hear. There were other memories seeping into this one. The stars above looked like shards of glass. He opened his mouth to say more, but she kissed him before he could. Time stopped.

  And then he pulled away, and they were both spies again, and the real world was forgotten.

  Everyone was staring. The men in black suits threaded the crowd.

  “Stay,” she pleaded. His escape was cut off. His eyes read the room and decided on the regrettable: a shootout. “Please, George. We’ll do this together. Take me with you.”

  He didn’t like to be challenged, but he too had a streak of selfishness in love. He was dangerous, beautiful, and angry, and he was going to say yes. She watched his face soften as he came to the same realization. What bliss it was to anticipate. She put her hand on her gun, ready to go down fighting rather than be taken prisoner. There were so few surprises for a spy as clever as she. But the inevitable was no less intoxicating in these rapidly escalating moments—

  * * *

  They were back in Sadie’s basement.

  “What happened?” Sadie gasped.

  “I’m done,” George said.

  It was as though an episode had been cut short by an emergency broadcast. Sadie could feel the cliff-hanger in the air. Something had changed.

  “What do you mean you’re done?”

  “I mean I’m done with this. All of this.”

  Sadie’s voice crumbled. “With me?”

  “With all of this! With the wish fulfillment and the romance and the bullshit! And these games! How does it always end up the same?”

  “We’re just…having fun.” She wanted to put her arms around him, but she was afraid.

  “Fun? You think this is fun?”

  “If you don’t like me anymore…”

  “Like you? Like you? What is there to like? Who are you, Sadie? Who are you without me?”

  Her heart was racing.

  “Who am I? Who are you?”

  “I’m whatever you want me to be!” George shouted. “God damn it!”

  He knocked everything off her desk, worlds clattering to the floor. One hand flew to his brow, and from between long fingers he glared at her. Then he marched right up to her. She could feel his breath.

  “And oh, what glory, being a girl’s fantasy. Princes and poetry. Spies. Great romances. Tragic romances. But nothing real. You’re afraid of anything messy. If it isn’t movie magic, it isn’t good enough for you. But that’s not real, and you know it! There’s nothing real about love anymore….” He trailed off, shaking his head, grinning like the devil. “Oh, Sadie, with you it’ll never be anything more than an act. You don’t love me. You don’t know what love is.

  “And do you think that’s fair to me? Making me this demented Prince Charming you’ve imagined all for yourself? Is that who you think I want to be? Constantly clever, constantly perfect. Never sweats, never shits, never has a moment of weakness or an unkind thought. It isn’t fair.

  “You don’t care about me. You only care about what satisfies your childish dreams. You want a story, not a flawed, living person. You only want what fits into your fantasy. You’re getting a little old for that, Sadie. And I’m getting tired of treating you like a child.”

  “Then leave,” Sadie snarled.

  “I can’t! Do you think I want this?” George gasped, so angry he didn’t have the breath left to yell. “Do you think that I want to be stuck here, with you for eternity, all because you thought of me? Do you think I want what has been set out for me?”

  “George…”

  “You think you’re special. You think you’re this tragic hero. It’s all you’ve e
ver wanted: to be fascinating, to be interesting. But you’re not. Not without me. Well, I’m sorry you’ve damned yourself to this boring nothing of a life, but I don’t want this. I don’t want to be trapped here.”

  “You’re not trapped in anything! You’re not real!”

  Crack!

  The shock of the slap made her ears ring. She felt the hardness of him, the bones in the back of his hand as it threw her off her feet, the hot metal of his ring.

  “Don’t you ever say that,” George said, kneeling close to her on the floor, his finger pointed straight at her heart. “Don’t you ever, ever say that.”

  Sadie was quiet, biting back tears. George leaned forward and kissed her and then vanished.

  Henry. Henry. Henry.

  I basked in the afterglow of Henry all yesterday, even after he left. It got me all the way through Day 8 of my confinement, and I slept right through the night.

  I smile as I write his name over and over. I like the shape of the letters, the straight lines of the H’s. But even as dawn breaks on Day 9, that warm thrill of Henry gets sanitized by the too-bright lights and the medicinal soap and the breakfast I don’t want. The hospital closes in and he’s no more than yesterday’s memory and I’m alone. And sitting all alone with no one but myself to judge me, I have in my hands a document that a better person would not open. I struggle valiantly with the morality of what I know I am about to do. But if you end up doing the wrong thing, then you were going to do the wrong thing all along, right? All those near misses of doing the right thing, they don’t count even a little bit, because of how the story ends. The idea that you might count them, and that the chances were a million to one…that’s a fallacy, if you believe in destiny. If you believe in destiny, then the chances were always one hundred percent that you would do the wrong thing.

  I run my hand over the cover of Eleanor’s red journal, the twin of my own.