This was Brian: in love with his wife, that other Tessa. Not with me. With her, always her. It was bittersweet, and I felt a pang of sadness. But he had done so much for me that I wanted to help him.
Maybe I could ease his sorrow. “You must have been so proud of her.”
“Proud. Spellbound. Awed. I never told her how much. I told her I loved her, but I didn’t really say how much she meant to me. That’s why it’s so hard to let go of her. I still have so much left to say to her.” His eyes were suddenly shiny with a slick of tears.
I thought of his wife as I had glimpsed her that once, like a wraith in his aura: gaunt and dying in his arms. It must have been unimaginably painful for him. He had built his entire world around her.
He smeared at his eyes with the back of his hand.
All at once, because I was filled with new hope and new promise, I knew what to do for him. I stood.
“I can help you with that.”
Brian gave me a somber, quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“You came to this world to see her again. To tell her one last time that you love her. That’s why you followed me around.”
“Yes, so?”
“So, I’ll be her.” I felt a connection to her, felt her nearby. “I’ll be her right now. So you can say all the things you want to.”
“Tessa, you’re not my wife!”
“I look enough like her to play her,” I said, smiling crookedly.
“She’s a completely different person.”
“I’ll imagine who I’d be if I hadn’t quit the cello and started drawing when I was twelve. If I’d succeeded in seducing my brother’s tutor. If I’d gone to Yale instead of following David to Columbia.” I would imagine myself after every decision that she had made until she slipped into me, like a hand taking on a glove.
Brian, sweet man, was imbued with native effervescence the way deep reds are saturated with blue.
He rose to his feet, warming to the idea. “If you hadn’t studied art but had come to New Haven and met me!”
“Ooh, that’s a hard one: you or Renaissance art,” I teased. “Just kidding. Give me a moment.”
I stepped away, and passersby instinctively gave us a wide berth. My eyes mostly closed, except for a thin slit. I imagined another life, other choices. It was easy for me because I spent so much time in my imaginal world. But the stakes were high—Brian’s happiness—so I went deeper into it. I gave my whole being over to the exercise, every heartbeat.
A pale blue light shimmered around me. In transparency, like a ghost, another me, another Tessa, softer and more confident, stepped up beside me. I continued to concentrate on those other paths, the ones not taken.
My breathing deepened and slowed, and time stopped. The blue light around me pulsed. It intensified. The space between heartbeats stretched into an eternity, and the other Tessa walked into my body.
For a moment, we smiled at each other.
Then I stepped out.
“Hello, Professor,” said Tessa, in a teasing voice.
Brian jumped. “Tessa! It’s you!”
“Silly boy. I’m always around you,” she said.
“Always.”
Brian grabbed her hands and clutched them to his chest. “Why did you leave?”
“It was my time. My life had run out, kind of like the joke at the end of a Haydn piece. The loud chord in the Surprise Symphony. You don’t expect it, and there it is,” she said, squeezing his hands back.
“It wasn’t funny to me,” Brian said raggedly.
“You always became humorless at just the wrong time.”
“You’re always so smug and sure you’re right.”
“Am I here to argue with you?” she asked with a fake yawn to show how boring that would be. “You know how that’s going to end. I win, because I’m the superior wordsmith.”
“I want you back to argue with me every day,” Brian choked out. He put his arms around Tessa and held her tightly.
“I’m not coming back, Professor.”
“But I love you, I love you so much.” Brian’s voice was raw, undefended.
“I know, and wasn’t I good? I planned it that way.” Tessa leaned her head to rest her cheek against Brian’s.
“I was the one who chose you!”
“Silly. I knew you were going to love me the first day I saw you at Freshman Orientation,” Tessa’s laugh was silvery and sweet, as he remembered it.
“But you said we could only be friends. I thought I was the consolation prize because perfect David broke up with you.”
“You were never second best, Brian. I wanted you. I wanted what we had. I love you, too. I always will. In every universe.”
Brian couldn’t speak. He struggled to hold in his tears but they spilled down his face. He clutched his Tessa to himself, feeling her every bone and muscle, every molecule, against his being. He engraved her into him. “You are the most amazing woman I ever met. The most amazing person.”
“You don’t have to say that. I already knew you felt that way.”
“I miss you. I miss you every day. I miss holding you.”
“I know. I feel your ache.”
“What am I going to do without you?”
Tessa nodded against him. “Go on, and be happy.
That’s what I want. You to be happy. You know you always end up doing what I want.”
“Always,” Brian swore. He kissed her. For a long moment, or a half-hour, I was never sure which, they remained merged together, like two candlewicks into one flame.
“It’s all good,” she whispered. “We’ll be together again.” Then the other Tessa stepped out. She touched my hand briefly, and I felt her sweetness and lightness. Poor Brian, that he lost her. My heart swelled for him.
And for me, because I had to find a way to incorporate some of her into me.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Then she was gone.
I was me again, incarnated.
“Oh! You’re back,” Brian said, releasing me.
“Sorry,” I said, softly.
“No, no! God, Tessa, thank you. That was amazing. She was here. I felt her, I held her, I talked to her. My wife. My Tessa.” His face was radiant, awe-struck. The constant tension, like the tight boing of a spring, had eased from his body.
“I felt her, too. She’s like me, but she’s not me.
She’s herself,” I said. “She’s amazing. So sure of herself, but in a quiet way.”
“My Tessa had a way of assuming that she was right and would get whatever she wanted,” Brian smiled and wiped his hand across his face.
“It didn’t put you off.”
“Nah, I knew she was a loon. A brilliant, sweet, sexy, nut case. Certifiable. I would look at her and think, ‘I’m the one holding you.’”
“She was lucky to have you, Brian,” I said wistfully, because I wondered, would anyone ever feel anything like that for me? David had been, well …
imperious. Self-involved. If I was honest with myself about him. I had accommodated him because we had been together for so long that our history carried its own imperative. I repeated, “Yeah, she was lucky to have you.”
“I know, right?” He laughed once, then stared off into the starlight. After a few moments, he said, “Actually, I was the lucky one. You go all through life, doing and performing and accomplishing, running like a gerbil on a wheel. I mean, I was a math star when I was ten. Teachers calling my parents, pressuring them to stick me in university early.
‘Send him to Oxford, send him to Princeton.’ Lucky for me, my mom’s got a spine and some sense.
“My parents said no, he needs the social development with his peers. So, all the while I was getting educated, I was with people my own age. And that was lucky.
“Because if you’re lucky, really lucky, you get to meet that one person who teaches you that all the doing and performing and accomplishing doesn’t mean anything. Nada. Zero.
“What really matters is the non
-physical, non-quantifiable thing, the feeling that when you’re with her, you’re more alive than you ever imagined possible. Even when it hurts. Even when she’s gone.”
I hugged Brian. “You’ll love again.”
“Maybe,” he said softly.
“I wish it was going to be me.”
Brian draped his arm around me in a friendly fashion and kissed my forehead. “I can’t rule out another love anymore. Even if the ache lasts for a long, long time.”
“Maybe it’s supposed to,” I said.
Brian nodded. “Next time, she’ll have some bite to her. Like you. But she’ll be just as kooky as you and my Tessa. I like being able to hold a woman. It makes me feel whole.”
“What about holding me?” I asked, plaintively.
“I’d really like that!”
Brian squeezed my shoulders gently. “You’re not my Tessa. It’s not my place.”
* * *
* * *
34
Burnt eggs and Chagall
We went back to my apartment because I’d broken in, and because, after all, I hadn’t been properly evicted. The final morning, after sleeping on my couch, Brian scrambled eggs. He burnt them but didn’t pay attention, and I was too busy watching him and feeling forlorn to care.
“Hey, what’s this package?” Brian asked. He lifted a parcel from my messenger bag.
“That’s a gift from Mrs. Leibowitz. She said to open it after Saturday.”
“Well, it’s Sunday, so what are you waiting for?” he asked, cheerfully. He swirled the wooden spoon in the blackening eggs, a perfunctory motion. His gaze was focused on the package. “I love presents!”
“Me too,” I said. I unwrapped the brown paper, pulled it away to reveal a small but exquisite Chagall painting of a nude woman on a dappled horse that was rising into the air. The woman held a paintbrush.
“Nice!” Brian ejaculated.
I was speechless. Finally, I said, “Nice? It’s a Chagall.”
“Real art?” Brian teased.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, with a deep breath. “I don’t know this piece, but the colors, poetic images and folk story-like ambience…”
“There’s a note taped to the back,” pointed Brian.
“‘Dear Tessa, I hope this inspires you.’” I burst into tears. Brian patted my shoulder. “‘And brings you many hours of pleasure. Thanks for all your time and care. Love, Mena Leibowitz. PS: Note her beautiful ass. Don’t waste yours taking care of everyone but yourself.’ Oh Brian.”
“That lady had style! And she’s absotively right about your ass.” He winked at me, but it was like a brother, not like a lover.
“Isn’t there any way for you to stay longer?” I asked.
“My time expires at 12:22. That’s my limit.”
“But who’s going to appreciate my ass when you leave?” I was trying to be playful, but it came out mournful.
“You will, silly,” he said. “I had my own Tessa.
You have to find your Brian. Or Mark or Joe. I don’t know who your destiny is here. There are so many possibilities. I think you should start enjoying them.”
But I want you to be my destiny.
* * *
* * *
35
Beaming up
Just after noon, we sat shoulder to shoulder on a bench in a quiet part of Riverside Park. I tried to think of my life without Brian. It was hard to believe that so short a span of time, five days and four hours and twenty-two minutes, could leave an indelible mark on me.
I asked, “So, you’ll go back to your world and what, publish a paper about your invention and win your world’s Nobel Prize?”
“Nope. I’ll write that book, How the Enterprise Can Beam Us Up. It’s good. I’m smart here. But I’m smarter in my world. I can do an even better job.”
Brian looked eager to throw himself into the project.
“But you could be bigger than Einstein,” I noted.
“Your decoherence machine is, I mean, wow!”
“Look what they did with Einstein’s work,” he said softly. “Turned it into bombs. I’m destroying the device.”
It seemed like a hugely irrevocable decision, but it was his to make. “I just found you and I’m losing you,” I said, with sorrow.
“You haven’t even met me yet. Your me, anyway.”
“I don’t know if he wants to meet, you saw how he turned red every time he looked at me. He’s horrified by that video.”
“Have a little faith, it’s all good,” Brian said, squeezing my elbow. “He has good taste. He is brilliant, after all. And you are beautiful and creative and kooky. It’s an irresistible combination.”
“How am I going to meet him for real? I’m so embarrassed about the video,” I murmured. “How could I ever approach him?”
“You might not,” Brian said with the disarming honesty that I’d come to love. He shrugged. “I don’t know what choices you’ll make here to create what universes. But in case you do, I have something for him.” He gave me an envelope labeled PROFESSOR
BRIAN TENNYSON. “This is for you.” He handed me the wedding photo of him, Ofee, and me.
“Happiest day of my life,” he said softly.
“I can’t take this.” I thrust it back at him. “It’s your keepsake of your dead wife.”
“I don’t need it now, I have her in my heart.
Besides, it may turn into slime in a few minutes.”
He stood up from the bench and shrugged, a giant, jovial gesture that was completely typical of him.
“Not sure, cause it’s not organic.”
“Well, then, great, thank you. I love slime,” I said. I blinked rapidly to keep tears from veiling my eyes. “I have something for you, too. Probably should have given it to you earlier.” I held out a small wrapped package.
Brian tore it open and then exclaimed and chortled. “Superman undies! My favorite!” He hugged me.
“I hope they decohere back with you.”
“Me too.” He released me and pulled a folded-up paper from his pocket. “I hope this does, too.” He unfolded one of my drawings. “I love this one where they’re having a picnic. I can’t wait to show it to Rajiv. He’s my assistant back home.”
“They’re not—okay, they’re having a picnic,” I said. I tried again to restrain tears. “Just promise me you won’t forget me. Not your Tessa, me.”
Brian tilted my face up to look him in the eyes.
“How could I? You’re a wonderful, breathtaking Tessa Barnum. You’re not the Tessa Barnum I married, but you’re a perfect flowering of the Tessa Barnum seed that was planted and bloomed in this world.”
I wanted to answer, but a deep hum sounded. A blue portal swirled open, like a door opening suddenly in space. It was filled with concentric rings like a pond after a rock is tossed in.
“Beam me up, Scotty!” Brian laughed. “I always wanted to say that.” He stepped into the shimmering blue portal and vanished.
The portal collapsed and the hum stopped abruptly.
I felt more empty, and at the same time, more full than I had ever felt in my life.
* * *
* * *
36
The sting
Looking mighty uncomfortable with his hair slicked back and a pencil mustache drawn on his face with mascara, Reverend Pincek wore a slinky black suit, compliments of Frances Gates.
My Fishnets friend from jail clung to his arm and cooed at him. She was playing her part as his girlfriend to repay me for her portrait. She was all over him like the smile on the Mona Lisa, but a lot less restrained.
The rev was white-lipped, and his face was covered with a fine sheen of perspiration, but he was doing his best to hold up his end of the charade.
I wondered if he’d ever had this much play in his whole life? It was too delicious, and I felt wicked for enjoying his discomfiture. I had to take a few surreptitious photos with my camera phone.
The two of them walked toward Rat
Rock. Guy stood in his old place.
There were some words and gestures. The rev started nodding. Guy opened his bag. The rev held up his hands as if sermonizing.
A S.W.A.T. team erupted from behind trees, inside bushes, and under baby carriages to close in on Guy.
The look of surprise and horror on Guy’s face was even better than if he’d succumbed to lung cancer.
I wished Brian was here to see it. I closed my eyes for a moment and sent him a loving thought, wherever he was in the multiverse.
* * *
* * *
37
The return of the king
A couple of detectives and a police officer, the guard, me, the rev, and Fishnets all stood in Frances Gates’s gallery alongside two cameramen with reporters and a live-blogger filming the event with his iPad.
Frances replaced the skull on its pedestal, and we all applauded while he took a bow. We all clapped for the rev, who gave a queasy smile, when Gates pointed to him. Then Frances walked over and gestured at the Warholish nudes. Frances winked at me, a clownish, exaggerated thing.
Fishnets whistled with her thumb and forefinger between her lips. The rev stared, wide eyed.
“Well, Tessa, darling,” Frances said. “I’m pleased.
I am so happy that I’ve made a decision: I will buy your oil-on-eviction notice outright.”
“Make the check out to the church,” I said, immediately. “There’s a leak that has to be fixed.”
“Sure. I won’t pay you much, and in a few years, when I’ve made your name, this’ll be worth a fortune,” Frances said affably. “It’s all good.”
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hands. I gave the rev an apologetic look. “Make the check out to me.
I have to take care of myself first. And pay my bills.
Sorry, Rev.”
“No need to apologize, Tessa,” Reverend Pincek said. “You’re not ready to be an angel yet. You’re too alive for that. I guess none of us is quite ready to be beatified.” He snuck a glance at Fishnets, who blew him a kiss from her Shanghai Red lips.
The Love of My (Other) Life Page 13