In Some Other World, Maybe: A Novel (3 page)

The ache in his head and pain in his side are nothing compared to the sudden crush of his lungs, like he’s breathing through cheesecloth.

“I’m gonna go,” he says.

He doesn’t realize he’s shaking until his mother pulls over to the shoulder of the road, unhooks her seat belt, and reaches across the gear console to run the back of her hand down the side of his face that isn’t purpling and unnaturally warm.

“Of course you are. You know how proud of you I am, right?”

“I … I’m so sorry.”

“Shh, shh, s’okay, baby.” Her fingers are cool on his cheekbone. “You’re my good boy.”

CINCINNATI

The movie credits are still rolling when Sharon Gallaher, tears streaming down her face, decides she’s going to see
Eons & Empires
again.

Wiping her nose on the sleeve of her denim jacket, she checks her Swatch. It’s 2:15
P.M.
, thirty minutes before the next showing. She could probably hide in the bathroom and sneak into the theater without paying admission again, but she’s already skipped school; the last thing she needs is an irate manager calling her parents. So Sharon goes back to the box office and buys another ticket with the last five dollars in her wallet.

Afternoon on a Friday, this showing is more crowded than the first, and it takes a few minutes before she finds a spot in the back near two older boys talking about how the film probably won’t be as good as the comic books.

“Ed Munn didn’t want anything to do with the movie,” the blond guy is saying. “He wouldn’t even let them list him as the creator.”

He’s wearing a Walnut Hills ring, and Sharon realizes the boys are seniors at her high school. The dark-haired one’s locker is down the hall from hers—he sometimes wears a
Star Trek
shirt that says
BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY.

Bob of panic in her esophagus that they might recognize her. Then Sharon remembers she’s a freshman with only a handful of friends (most of whom are really only friends with Laurel Young—the daughter of her father’s business partner). These upperclassmen would have no idea who she is.

Still, the nervousness lingers as she settles into her chair and a preview starts for
Jurassic Park.
She worries the film will be less special this time with these reminders of her own reality so near. The sensation begins to fade when the film opens with bald Captain Rowen and Commander Bryce fighting over the Neutrocon (which makes alternate-universe travel possible) as their plane plummets toward the desert sand. Sharon is completely absorbed by the time Rowen throws open the aircraft’s hatch and jumps out, sans parachute, at the last minute.

*   *   *

Two years earlier Sharon read her first
Eons & Empires
comic book the way most twelve-year-olds probably examine their first
Playboy
—locked in a bathroom, heart tangling in her throat, fearful of being caught in the act of something naughty.

The couple next door had a weekly date night on Fridays (so completely different than Sharon’s own parents, who were far too practical for such an extravagance), and Sharon babysat the Robbins’ four-year-old son. After putting Elliott to sleep, Sharon would rummage through the Robbins’ bookcases, crowded with volumes crammed three deep—thin pamphlets of poetry, hefty Victorian novels, some books new, others with covers softened by age or notes marking specific passages. Her own house had only her father’s accounting textbooks and a handful of mass-market paperbacks by Mary Higgins Clark and Dean Koontz. Sharon told her friends (well, she told Laurel) that she took the babysitting gig because she needed money, but the truth was she actually preferred reading the Robbins’ books to going anywhere kids her age were headed.

That particular Friday, Sharon was putting back
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
(which she’d heard was scandalous but had found boring) when she noticed the stack of comic books behind
Shakespeare’s Collected Works.

Eons & Empires, Issue 1: Rowen Rising
was on the top of the pile in a clear plastic sheath. The cover was a washed-out gray with dozens of striking blue Earths of different sizes seemingly bouncing around the edges. In the foreground two women—one a blonde and one a redhead—clung to each other while a bald man in black and a buff guy in white clashed swords. The title and Ed Munn’s name were written in crimson across the top.

In the same way everyone knows a little about Spider-Man or Wonder Woman, Sharon had a passing familiarity with
E&E
. Knew Captain Rowen was the bad guy, Jason Bryce was good, twin sister scientists were in the mix, and it had to do with parallel universes and nuclear war. Still, she’d never actually seen the comic books, and holding the decade-old first issue from 1981 gave her a rush of warmth she couldn’t explain.

Even though it was date night and the Robbins wouldn’t be home for hours, Sharon tucked the issue into her purple book bag, went to the powder room, and bolted the door. Before reading the text she studied each panel—the artwork minimal and haunting, all grays and blacks in World 1, the other universes each a different color palette. It read like a book (a more interesting one than
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
, anyway). All about Commander Bryce and the Snow sisters traveling to the parallel Earths in the hope of stopping Captain Rowen from blowing up North America in their own world. Midway through volume one, Sharon realized she was dizzy from holding her breath.

It wasn’t that she could identify; it was the exact opposite. The world-hopping struggles between Rowen and Bryce had less than nothing to do with her own life in the suburbs. With her friends (well, Laurel and Laurel’s friends), whose universe was all about ballet flats and grades and getting asked to school dances. With her parents, who were still married to each other, had one cocktail at precisely 6:30 after work each night, paid their taxes, and were absolutely adequate and innocuous in every meaningful way. In
E&E,
things mattered, decisions had consequences, character was tested.

And Captain Rowen—wonderful, tortured Rowen—who wasn’t so much evil as misguided, who loved Cordelia Snow with all his heart no matter what universe they were in. Rowen was infinitely more interesting than any of the boys Laurel and Laurel’s friends found attractive.

For the next eighteen months, Sharon read and re-read every issue at the Robbins’ house on date night, even after Laurel and her friends began including Sharon more and more on trips to the mall and slumber parties. When the Robbins moved to Minneapolis, Sharon stole new
E&E
comics from the library or the racks of the Waldenbooks at Northgate Mall and hid them in plain sight among the mess of papers and clothing in her room. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the money to buy them—she’d saved almost everything from her babysitting gigs—it was about not wanting to share
E&E
with anyone, even cashiers and librarians. Talking about the comics had the potential to make those worlds less real, to weigh them down with the boredom of Cincinnati.

Two months earlier, Sharon, Laurel, and Laurel’s friends had seen
Candyman
at the Esquire Theater, and there had been a preview for the
E&E
movie. As the screen filled with the ash of nuclear winter and the dashing Jake James appeared dressed as Commander Bryce, Sharon had felt naked and exposed, everything in her digestive system chugging to a halt.

“Jake James is so hot,” Laurel had whispered in her ear. “We should see that.”

Sharon had made an affirmative sound. Movies Laurel’s friends saw were never about the film but were about going to the bathroom in pairs to apply sticky pink lip gloss, about which of the older kids with a driver’s license might give them a ride to Pizza Hut or the Busy Bee afterward. Sharon understood and even had fun when the girls helped her apply blue shadow that matched her eyes or used their curling irons to give her straight black hair body. But the thought of seeing
her
Captain Rowen battling Bryce and his passion for Cordelia Snow while Laurel and Laurel’s friends discussed the attractiveness of the boys behind them was intolerable.

That was when Sharon began planning today. Taking a map from the glove compartment of her father’s Taurus, she plotted a course to the mall and checked
The Enquirer
daily in case the matinee listings changed. She’d even pretended to feel a little sick at school yesterday so her absence wouldn’t come as a surprise.

Though her parents were usually busy getting ready for work when she left to catch the bus, Sharon made a point of saying good-bye and going out the front door. Instead of heading to the bus stop, she wandered the wooded area behind the house until both their cars were gone, then ducked back inside to call the school attendance office. She’d tried to take on her mother’s slight Midwestern accent as she pretended to be Joan Gallaher explaining why Sharon wouldn’t be coming in.

Cincinnati isn’t a city designed for walking—even downtown, and especially in her suburb right outside the limits—but the trip to the theater wasn’t bad. Before she and Laurel had quit Girl Scouts, Sharon had earned all the badges for reading maps and using compasses, and most of the journey had been a straight shot along the highway. It was an unusually nice December day, where a jacket was sufficient, and although she brought an umbrella, she hadn’t needed it. The whole walk had taken little more than an hour; it was quite possibly the most daring thing Sharon had ever done.

As she watches the movie again, Sharon notices subtle details. The filmmakers had kept the color palette the same as in the comics, and much of the dialogue was lifted verbatim as well. She could have recited it along with the actors. And the boys from her high school are plain wrong; the movie is actually better than the comics.

When the credits begin after the second show and she wanders back into the mall, with its glittery holiday decorations and Victoria’s Secret smell, Sharon is not crying but bone-crushingly disappointed, pining for that world where everything is significant. That it will be another year and a half before the sequel comes out is as horrifying a thought as three more years of high school.

Even through the spray-can snow on the mall’s glass doors, Sharon can tell it’s darker outside than it should be at 4:30
P.M.
Further inspection reveals that it’s pouring rain, the fat drops a little like the nuclear fallout in the film.

At some point she must have lost track of her umbrella. She’s mentally retracing her steps when there’s a tap on her shoulder.

“You go to Walnut, right?” It’s the beam-me-up senior from her school. A few feet behind him, his friend is talking to a trio of girls in Country Day uniforms.

“Yeah, I’m a freshman. I wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I didn’t make it in.” Bites her tongue; sometimes, when she’s nervous, Sharon talks too much.

“Thought I recognized you. You’ve got those pretty eyes.” The boy is tall and lean, has soft-looking ears and a fascinating mix of stubble and red bumps on his chin. She wonders what a girl like Laurel would say in return, what a girl is supposed to say.

“Did you like the movie?” he asks, and Sharon can hardly breathe. She can’t talk to him about Rowen and Cordelia’s tragic love story and the struggle to find the right universe that will allow everyone to save World 1, not here, where things are safe and comfortable, where the Gap is having a sweater sale and a Muzak version of “White Christmas” blends with the fountains.

“It was pretty good,” Sharon mumbles, grabbing the door. “I need to go. My ride is waiting outside for me. It’s my parents here to get me.”

She’s at the edge of the parking lot before registering how much colder it’s gotten since the afternoon and how hard the rain is coming down. But even if she had enough money for another umbrella, she’d run the risk of bumping into the guy again. Pulling the front of her jacket tighter, she hunches over and trudges toward the highway.

As she follows the grassy path along the shoulder of the road, everything feels slower than on the way there. There’s more traffic this time of day, so she moves farther from the highway, the ground mushy and hard to navigate. Water soaks through her sneakers and socks, every step like squishing cold Jell-O. In ten minutes the saturated denim of her jeans goes from annoying to debilitating.

She thinks of Commander Bryce and the Snow sisters in the movie leading groups of survivors through the cold ash and burning sun of nuclear winter, and even through her own discomfort, there’s that stab of longing to be out of this world and in a more unpleasant one.

Another ten minutes and her teeth are chattering, hands stiff and numb.

She flirts with the idea of calling her parents. Obviously they’d never understand about
E&E
and Captain Rowen, but she could invent a story about a fight with Laurel and Laurel’s friends at the mall after school. Her mom especially seems to like it when she “gets out there” and does “normal” teenage things.

No phone booths anywhere.

Rain stings her eyes, and she realizes she can’t keep going, might not even make it to the exit ramp thirty yards away. So Sharon just stops and feels sorry for herself.

An old station wagon with wood-paneled sides pulls to the shoulder of the road. The driver leans across the passenger seat to roll down the window.

“Where you headed?” asks a man, maybe fiftysomething, with a salt-and-pepper beard.

She tells him Reading Road.

“It’s on my way,” he says. “I can drop you.”

He pops open the door.

For years, after-school specials and PSAs have spouted reasons
not
to get into cars with strangers, but none of them are as compelling as getting out of the freezing rain. Sharon slides in, instantly creating puddles on the cracked vinyl seats and floor mats.

“Thank you,” she says as welcome heat blows at her face from the vents.

So relieved, Sharon takes a few seconds—until the car is zipping at fifty miles per hour—to notice her surroundings. Smell hits first, something long past ripe and decaying. Then she glances behind her, where the whole hatch of the back is filled: yellowing newspapers and plastic IGA grocery bags, oil-soiled rags, gardening tools with clumps of dirt clinging to sharp edges, what looks like the blade of a chain saw. On the dashboard there’s a saint figurine, and rosary beads dangle from the rearview mirror along with a military-looking medal.