“Are you sure you’re going to be okay for the weekend?” his mother asks. Then she opens the refrigerator, which looks like it’s been stocked for at least a month. “I think there’s enough here, but if you need anything, just use the money in the envelope.”
I feel something is missing here; there is something I should be doing. I access and discover it’s the Lins’ anniversary tomorrow. They are going on an anniversary trip. And Alexander’s gift for them is up in his room.
“One second,” I say. I run upstairs and find it in his closet—a bag festooned with Post-its, each of them filled in with something his parents have said to him over the years, from A is for Apple to Always remember to check your blind spot. And this is just the wrapping. When I bring the bag down to Mr. and Mrs. Lin, they open it to find ten hours of music for their ten-hour drive, as well as cookies Alexander has baked for them.
Alexander’s father wraps him in a thankful hug, and Alexander’s mother joins in.
For a moment, I forget who I really am.
Alexander’s locker is also covered in Post-it quotes, in a rainbow of handwritings. His best friend, Mickey, comes by and offers him half a muffin—the bottom half, because Mickey only likes the tops.
Mickey starts telling me about Greg, a boy he’s apparently had a crush on for ages—ages meaning at least three weeks. I feel the perverse desire to tell Mickey about Rhiannon, who is only two towns away. I access and find that Alexander doesn’t have any crushes himself at the moment, but if he did, they’d be female. Mickey doesn’t pry too much about this. And quickly other friends find them, and the talk turns to an upcoming Battle of the Bands. Apparently, Alexander is playing in at least three of the entrants, including Mickey’s band. He’s that kind of guy, always willing to chip in with some music.
As the day progresses, I can’t help but feel that Alexander is the kind of person I try to be. But part of what makes his personality work is his ability to stick around, to be there day in and day out for people. His friends rely on him, and he relies on them—the simple balance on which so many lives are built.
I decide to make sure that this is true. I zone out of math class and tune in instead to Alexander’s memories. The way I access him, it’s like turning on a hundred televisions at the same time, I’m seeing so many parts of him at once. The good memories. The hard memories.
His friend Cara is telling him she’s pregnant. He is not the father, but she trusts him more than she does the father. His father doesn’t want him to spend so much time on the guitar, tells him music is a dead-end calling. He drinks his third can of Red Bull, trying to finish a paper at four in the morning because he was out with friends until one. He is climbing the ladder of a tree house. He is failing his driver’s test and fighting back tears when the instructor tells him. He is alone in his room, playing the same tune over and over again on an acoustic guitar, trying to figure out what it means. Ginny Dulles is breaking up with him, saying it’s just that she likes him as a friend, when the truth is that she likes Brandon Rogers more. He is on a swing set, six years old, going higher and higher until he is convinced this is it, this is the time he will fly. He is slipping money into Mickey’s wallet while Mickey isn’t looking, so later on Mickey will be able to pay his share of the check. He is dressed as the Tin Man on Halloween. His mother has burned her hand on the stove and he doesn’t know what to do. The first morning he has his license, he drives to the ocean to watch the sunrise. He is the only one there.
I stop there. I stop at this. I lurch back into myself. I don’t know if I can do this.
I can’t block out the temptation that Poole offered: If I could stay in this life, would I? Every time I pose the question to myself, I get knocked back into my own life from Alexander’s. I get ideas, and once they take hold, I can’t stop them.
What if there really was a way to stay?
Every person is a possibility. The hopeless romantics feel it most acutely, but even for others, the only way to keep going is to see every person as a possibility. The more I see the Alexander that the world reflects back at him, the more of a possibility he seems. His possibility is grounded in the things that mean the most to me. Kindness. Creativity. Engagement in the world. Engagement in the possibilities of the people around him.
The day is nearly half over. I only have a short time to figure out what to do with Alexander’s possibilities.
The clock always ticks. There are times you don’t hear it, and there are times that you do.
I email Nathan and ask him for Poole’s email address. I get a quick response. I email Poole a few simple questions.
I get another quick response.
I email Rhiannon and tell her I’m going to come by this afternoon.
I say it’s important.
She tells me she’ll be there.
Alexander has to tell Mickey that he can’t make their band practice after school.
“Hot date?” Mickey asks, joking.
Alexander smiles mischievously and leaves it at that.
Rhiannon is waiting for me at the bookstore. It’s become our place.
She knows me when I walk through the door. Her eyes follow me as I come closer. She doesn’t smile, but I do. I am so grateful to see her.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she says.
She wants to be here, but she doesn’t think it’s a good idea. She is also grateful, but she is sure this gratitude will turn into regret.
“I have an idea,” I tell her.
“What?”
“Let’s pretend this is the first time we’ve ever met. Let’s pretend you were here to get a book, and I happened to bump into you. We struck up a conversation. I like you. You like me. Now we’re sitting down to coffee. It feels right. You don’t know that I switch bodies every day. I don’t know about your ex or anything else. We’re just two people meeting for the first time.”
“But why?”
“So we don’t have to talk about everything else. So we can just be with each other. Enjoy it.”
“I don’t see the point—”
“No past. No future. Just present. Give it a chance.”
She looks torn. She leans her chin on her fist and looks at me. Finally, she decides.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” she says. She doesn’t understand it yet, but she’s going to go with it.
I smile. “It’s very nice to meet you, as well. Where should we go?”
“You decide,” she says. “What’s your favorite place?”
I access Alexander, and the answer is right there. As if he’s handing it to me.
My smile grows wider.
“I know just the place,” I say. “But first we’ll need groceries.”
Because this is the first time we’ve met, I don’t have to tell her about Nathan or Poole or anything else that’s happened or about to happen. The past and future are what’s complicated. It’s the present that’s simple. And that simplicity is the sensation of it being just her and me.
Even though there are only a few things we need, we get a shopping cart and go down every aisle of the grocery store. It doesn’t take long before Rhiannon is standing on the front of it, I’m standing on the back of it, and we are riding as fast as we can.
We set down a rule: Every aisle has to have a story. So in the pet-food aisle, I learn more about Swizzle, the malevolent bunny rabbit. In the produce aisle, I tell her about the day I went to summer camp and had to be part of a greased-watermelon pull, and how I ended up with three stitches after the watermelon shot out of everyone’s arms and landed in my eye—the first case of watermelon abuse the hospital had ever seen. In the cereal aisle, we offer autobiographies in the form of the cereals we’ve eaten over the years, trying to pinpoint the year that the cereal turning the milk blue stopped being cool and started being gross.
Finally, we have enough food for a vegetarian feast.
“I should call my mom and tell her I’m eating at Rebecca’s,” Rhiannon says, taking out her phone.
“Tell her you’re staying over,” I suggest.
She pauses. “Really?”
“Really.”
But she doesn’t make a move to call.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Trust me,” I say. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You know how I feel.”
“I do. But still, I want you to trust me. I’m not going to hurt you. I will never hurt you.”
She calls her mother, tells her she’s at Rebecca’s. Then she calls Rebecca and makes sure the cover story will be intact. Rebecca asks her what’s going on. Rhiannon says she’ll tell her later.
“You’ll tell her you met a boy,” I say once she’s hung up.
“A boy I just met?”
“Yeah,” I say. “A boy you’ve just met.”
We go back to Alexander’s house. There’s barely enough room in the refrigerator for the groceries we’ve bought.
“Why did we bother?” Rhiannon asks.
“Because I didn’t notice what was in here this morning. And I wanted to make sure we had exactly what we desired.”
“Do you know how to cook?”
“Not really. You?”
“Not really.”
“I guess we’ll figure it out. But first, there’s something I want to show you.”
She likes Alexander’s bedroom as much as I do. I can tell. She loses herself in reading the Post-it notes, then runs her finger over the spines of the books. Her face is a picture of delight.
Then she turns to me, and the fact can’t be denied: We’re in a bedroom, and there’s a bed. But that’s not why I brought her here.
“Time for dinner,” I say. Then I take her hand and we walk away together.
We fill the air with music as we cook. We move in unison, move in tandem. We’ve never done this together before, but we establish our rhythm, our division of labor. I can’t help but think this is the way it could always be—the easygoing sharing of space, the enjoyable silence of knowing each other. My parents are away, and my girlfriend has come over to help cook dinner. There she is, chopping vegetables, unaware of her posture, unaware of the wildness of her hair, even unaware that I am staring at her with so much love. Outside our kitchen-size bubble, the nighttime sings. I can see it through the window, and also see her reflection mapped out on top of it. Everything is in its right place, and my heart wants to believe this can always be true. My heart wants to make it true, even as something darker tugs it away.
It’s past nine by the time we’re finished.
“Should I set the table?” Rhiannon asks, gesturing to the dining room.
“No. I’m taking you to my favorite place, remember?”
I find two trays and arrange our meals on them. I even find a dozen candlesticks to take along. Then I lead Rhiannon out the back door.
“Where are we going?” she asks once we’re in the yard.
“Look up,” I tell her.
At first she doesn’t see it—the only light is coming from the kitchen, drifting out to us like the afterglow from another world. Then, as our eyes adjust, it becomes visible to her.
“Nice,” she says, walking over so that Alexander’s tree house looms over us, the ladder at our fingertips.
“There’s a pulley system,” I say, “for the trays. I’ll go up and drop it down.”
I grab two of the candles and scurry up the ladder. The inside of the tree house matches Alexander’s memories pretty well. It’s as much a rehearsal space as a tree house, with another guitar in the corner, as well as notebooks full of lyrics and music. Even though there’s an overhead light that could be turned on, I rely on candles. Then I send down the dumbwaiter and raise the trays one by one. As soon as the second tray is safely inside, Rhiannon joins me.