by Max Barry
“What’s your name?” he said, and all the false charm was gone.
She backed away around the bed. Her elbow hit the trolley with its plastic dinner tray. She snatched up the dinner tray and held it like a shield.
“First Hugo, now someone new?” Clay said. “Are you shitting me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m done taking orders from all of you. I’m not interfering with what you’re doing. But you won’t leave me alone!”
“I’m not with them.”
“You must be. Then who are you?”
“I’m no one,” she said, clutching the tray. “I just got caught up in this.”
He was silent. “All right.” He stepped to the side and gestured. “Then go.”
She glanced down at Maddie. “What are you going to do to her?”
“What do you care?”
Good question. She didn’t know Maddie. She was not here for Maddie. But she couldn’t let him murder her. She stayed where she was.
Clay’s watch beeped. His jaw tightened. He reached into his backpack and pulled free a hunting knife: fat, serrated on one side, gleaming new. A couple of things I could buy. “Get out.”
“No.”
He took a step toward her. She raised the tray. “Are you stupid? You can leave! Just walk away!”
The thing was, she believed him. He didn’t care about her. He wanted only to finish his business with Maddie May. She could stand aside and let him, and it would be just another one, another notch in the tally.
“No,” Felicity said.
He lunged at her. She jerked the tray up. His eyes were already sliding to Maddie, and it was a trick, she realized; she genuinely didn’t matter to him at all, except insofar as she stood between him and what he wanted. And now she was falling back, trying to save herself, so he would turn and execute Maddie with the efficiency of a man who’d done it before. Without thinking, she swung the tray, moving it from her own body to Maddie’s.
The blade struck the tray and skittered across the plastic. She fell across the bed and Clay was all around her, the knife she didn’t know where. His elbow struck her chin. She tried to cling to him so that he couldn’t swing again.
He threw her to the floor. He’d lost the knife. She didn’t know where it was. His expression was full of rage but also something that looked like grief. His watch was beeping. He whirled and thrust aside the curtain. He could have left through the main door, but instead he pulled open the bathroom door.
Don’t let him out of your sight.
She dragged herself to her feet. There was a wetness around her thigh. That wasn’t good. That couldn’t be good. She staggered to the bathroom door and tried the handle, but he was holding it from the other side. Through the window, he stared back at her.
Unexpectedly, he released the handle. A plastic shower curtain swept past the window. Before she could decide whether she wanted to pursue him, the main door opened, and there were people.
“Felicity,” Levi said. “Jesus. What happened?”
“He’s in there,” she said. “He’s got a knife.”
“Lie down. You’re bleeding. Felicity.”
A nurse opened the bathroom door and swept open the curtain. The room was empty.
“He tried to kill her,” Felicity said. The nurse moved to the bed. “Is she . . .”
“She’s fine,” the nurse said.
“What happened?” Levi said. “Felicity, talk to me.”
She was too light-headed to answer. She’s fine. She’s fine. Clay had gone. He had moved. Wherever he’d gone, there would be another Madison May. But here, she was fine. She was fine.
10
There was an intensive manhunt for Clayton Hors in progress, Felicity was told by a serious-faced sheriff’s deputy the following morning. She’d been kept overnight by the hospital, and spent a lot of time answering questions from people like this man, who read from a small notebook with his broad-brimmed hat in his lap. “Just to be clear,” he said, “when you say he ran into the bathroom, is it possible he really went out into the hall?”
“No,” she said, and it didn’t matter, because he assumed she was confused.
She was eager to get moving. Her bag was by her bed, the egg inside, and she was sure the blond man who’d attacked her outside her apartment was coming for it. Clay had moved away, but the blond man could have used the same moment to move in, and even now be driving toward Carmel, chewing up the distance between them.
She’d spent the early morning on her phone, grappling with the academic paper she’d found online for Professor Creighton’s oscillating bubble collisions—the bus schedule that said when people could move. Because it had occurred to her that she’d accumulated three data points: Hugo had pushed her off the subway platform late Tuesday afternoon; on Friday night, she had woken in a different apartment; and yesterday, Clay had disappeared just after 3:33 p.m. So she might be able to decode the bus schedule just by scanning every line until she found a sequence that fit.
At first, she hadn’t been able to make it work: there was too much time between her first two data points. Then she remembered her argument with Hugo in the lobby of NewYork–Presbyterian Brooklyn. His watch had beeped, she recalled. That was another data point, between the first two. At last, she found four consecutive entries that lined up exactly right. She had done it. She knew where she was in the timetable. The next moment to move would be tonight, at 1:06 a.m.
The deputy asked her to remain in the local area for the next twenty-four hours. Felicity agreed, intending no such thing. When he was gone, she walked to the desk and got herself signed out. Levi had left the night before, but she could hire a car, or a rowboat, or something. As she reached the elevator, a nurse hurried up to her.
“I’m so glad I caught you,” said the nurse. “She’s awake.”
She meant Maddie, of course. Felicity tried to make excuses, but the nurse was insistent, and escorted her to the ICU. A uniformed cop was stationed outside room 303, which was new. He nodded to Felicity and the nurse, who knocked and opened the door. Inside, Maddie was propped up by pillows. It was the first time Felicity had seen her eyes.
“Maddie,” said the nurse, “this is Felicity Staples, the woman who saved you.”
“Hi,” Felicity said.
“I’ll leave you alone,” said the nurse.
Maddie was silent. Her left eye was half closed. Exactly how much of this Maddie was taking in, Felicity couldn’t tell. “I didn’t mean to bother you.” She adjusted her bag. “I should let you rest.” Still no response. Now it was awkward. She turned away.
Maddie said, “Who are you?”
She jumped a little, despite herself. “Just someone in the right place at the right time.”
Maddie digested this. She was alert, Felicity realized. She was just trying to figure Felicity out. “They said he attacked me. But you stopped him.”
She nodded. “That’s right.”
“Why were you in my room?”
She grimaced. “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone.” This felt inadequate, and she groped for the door handle before Maddie could recognize it as such.
“I don’t know who that man is,” Maddie said. “I don’t know why he wanted to kill me.”
“You don’t have to. You’re safe. That’s all that matters. I’m sorry. I have to go.” She turned away again.
“I can’t be safe until I understand.”
Felicity stopped. Maddie’s right eye, the open one, was clear and focused. Beneath the bruising was the face Felicity recognized from the real estate website, from the news articles.
“Please,” Maddie said. “I need to know.”
“They’re going to look for him and he’s never going to be found. Not by the police. Not by anyone. Ever.”
; “Is he dead?”
Felicity hesitated. But only one answer would be sufficient, and it was close enough, wasn’t it? Clay could never return, so he was as good as dead, from Maddie’s perspective. “Yes. I promise.”
Maddie began to cry. She reached out her arms. Felicity leaned in awkwardly.
“Thank you,” Maddie said. “Thank you, thank you.”
* * *
—
When the elevator opened in the hospital lobby, a man rose from the seats and moved toward her. She had a moment, but it wasn’t her attacker, not the blond man, but Gavin, the hirsute one. He wrapped his arms around her, warm and familiar-smelling. Even his beard on the side of her face: not so bad, in this moment. “I’m so glad you’re all right,” he said.
At first the car ride was silent, with Felicity, in the passenger seat, lost in her thoughts. As they crossed the low bridge out of town, though, she said, “I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your messages yesterday.” He shook his head like it didn’t matter. But it did; she felt bad about that now. “You’re a good person.”
“So are you.”
“Am I?” She wasn’t feeling that. She felt like she was lying to him just by existing. Like she was wearing the skin of the woman he knew. How could she get past that? How could she ever tell him? Which was worse: to confess or to let him believe the lie?
“You just saved a life,” Gavin said. “Of course you’re a good person.”
She couldn’t stand the admiration in his eyes. “If you could change something about me, what would it be?”
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
“If you had to.”
“I’ll be honest,” said Bearded Gavin. “This sounds like a trap.”
“I’ll go first. I would change that beard.”
He looked surprised. “You don’t like the beard?”
“You look better without it.”
“Huh,” he said. “You want me to shave?”
“I’m not saying that. I just want to know what you’d change about me.”
He glanced at her. “I’m serious. Nothing.”
“Come on,” she said, touched, but also aggravated. “There must be something.”
“Nothing springs to mind.”
“We’re going to change. We’ll get older. I might change my job. I might get into kickboxing.”
“That would be awesome.”
“I’m serious. You can’t say everything is perfect, because it can’t stay that way.”
“That’s different, though. That’s growing old.”
“How is it different?”
“We’re doing it together.”
She stared at him. She wanted to find the flaw in his logic but couldn’t. “Why aren’t we married?”
His eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“We’ve been dating, what, three years?”
“Yes.”
She waited.
“What?” he said.
“Why haven’t you asked me to marry you?”
“It’s not the Dark Ages. You can ask me.”
“I know. But why haven’t you?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes. Please.”
He watched the road. “I wasn’t sure what you’d say.”
“What?”
“I love you. But sometimes . . . I don’t know. I can’t tell if you’re happy. If I propose, it forces the question. You’d have to choose one way or the other. And I worried you might choose the other.”
She felt opened up. He glanced at her. He might be about to propose, she realized. She had, in fact, basically manufactured a moment in which he must propose. It was rushing toward her. And that was worse: That was a true nightmare, in which she betrayed him completely.
“Pull over,” she said. “I don’t feel right.”
He guided the car into the emergency lane. She rolled out of the vehicle and bent and stuck two fingers down her throat. He came to her and rubbed her back. She stayed curled over on the side of the road as cars rushed by and it was terrible.
* * *
—
They ate dinner: Chinese takeout. No suggestion of cooking. She’d known that already, before she’d left for Carmel, that he was not Cooking Gavin. The mood was amiable but strange. They sat on the sofa and watched TV, a show she didn’t even recognize, but which they watched together, apparently. Or, rather, Bearded Gavin had, with Previous Felicity. She couldn’t follow it. She was trying to do what Hugo had said, trying to make a life here, but everything felt wrong. She was a wrong woman in a wrong apartment with a wrong man.
Is he dead? Maddie had asked, and Felicity had answered: Yes. It was a lie, but the only part of this that felt right. Saving Maddie had been the first unequivocally good thing Felicity had done since Hugo pushed her off the subway station.
I promise. She was dooming another Maddie. Clay was probably looking for her already, in a place Felicity couldn’t see. He would surely find her again, like he’d found her before. Felicity’s promise would be betrayed. And the egg would be used anyway, when the blond man or Hugo recovered it. If Creighton’s theory was correct, and moving meant replacing, that would occur with or without her. And his theory might not be correct. It might be wrong.
She watched Gavin. She hardly even knew him.
On her thighs, Percival purred softly. As she stroked him, she gathered his loose hair. The show ended and they went to bed. Gavin looked at her. “Are we okay?”
“Yes.” She touched his face.
“I feel like I’m losing you.”
“No,” she said, and kissed him, to close his eyes. It was unbearable, what she was doing, and she could only hope it was right. On her bedside table, her phone was set to vibrate shortly before one a.m. Beneath her pillow was the egg and a tuft of Percival’s fur. She kissed him as if neither of these things were true.
* * *
—
At five-thirty, she couldn’t stand it any longer and slid from the bed. In the living room, she drew back the blinds to reveal Percival nestled on the sofa. The table was the right way around. On the kitchen counter she found two ticket stubs to the opera, which she inspected with interest. She had actually never been to the opera. Hadn’t cared to. But maybe she would like it. Her and Gavin, dressed to the nines, holding fancy drinks, chatting with people, at the opera.
The pantry suggested a takeout-leaning Gavin. In the bathroom, she found an assortment of female beauty products she’d never seen. She sniffed a perfume. She sifted through drawers and found no evidence of beard trimmers. There was a box of something named Maxi-HairGro, which gave her pause. Gavin had stupidly thick hair, like a child. They sometimes joked about it.
In the fridge were film-wrapped bowls of muesli on which someone (her?) had written days of the week. She took the Monday, added milk (skim), and the more she ate, the more she liked it.
Gavin hadn’t stirred by six-thirty. Impatient, she found a set of running clothes at the bottom of the laundry hamper and headed down to the street. It was a fine morning, the air relatively clean and light. She was free from the blond man for at least a day or two, she figured, but she checked both directions anyway. The egg was in her running belt. In Prospect Park, near the baseball field, when no one else was near, she hopped the little fence and forged into the forest. There was a tan-colored rock the size of her head and she levered it up with a stick and hid the egg underneath.
On her way home, she walked by stores to see what was new. In a convenience store, she found a flavor of Oreos that she’d never seen in her life, Butterscotch Creams, and bought them. This is what she should have done last night, she realized. She might have already missed opportunities to gather things she wanted to preserve.
She explored the neighborhood, eating Butterscotch Cream Oreos. They were good but
not amazing. She wasn’t sure they were mooring quality, i.e., worth warping the fabric of space and time. Was there an item limit to moorings, she wondered, like a grocery checkout? Could she take as many things as she wanted?
She returned to her building. The lower step, which had been cracked for as long as she had lived there, was whole and unbroken. She took the stairs and unlocked the apartment and found Gavin at the kitchen sink. He was tall and handsome. His face was beard-free. His hair was fine; she didn’t know why he had the HairGro.
“Did you eat my breakfast?” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “I guess so. Sorry.”
He rinsed a plate. He was already dressed. His suit was better. It had a better fit. Or maybe he was in slightly better shape. “Since when do you like muesli?”
“I felt like trying it.”
“I had to eat toast.”
“Sorry,” she said. She watched him gather his keys, phone, and briefcase. At no point during this process did he look at her. As he approached, she stood on tiptoes to offer a kiss. It was like the brush of a bird’s wings. “Have a good day,” she said.
“You, too.” The door clicked. He was gone.
Percival, ever the sensitive one, curled around her ankles. She sat to scratch behind his ears. She felt very taken aback by what had just happened.
She thought: This Gavin doesn’t love me very much.
God knew they’d had mornings like this before, one or both rushing out the door, already mentally halfway to work, navigating each other like roommates. It might be nothing more than that.
Then again. The nicer suit, the hair regrowth product. He might have met someone. It felt like a stab to her heart, which was ridiculous; she’d only just arrived; he owed her nothing. Very possibly, she had done a terrible thing to a Gavin of her own only hours earlier. Still, it was shocking: an injury in an unexpected place.
She might be wrong. But she didn’t think so. Maybe Previous Felicity had been unaware, like the frog in boiling water, because the changes in Gavin had come slowly. But she, actual Felicity, was seeing them all at once. He was cheating.