The Love of My (Other) Life (12 page)

I gawked and took in the crowds who had come to hear Dr. Brian Tennyson’s lecture. “His books must be something if he can pull in this big an audience!”

Brian winced. “So he’s a little more successful than I am. But he didn’t get to love you, and I did.

So I say that I came out ahead.”

This professor was really packing them in. He must be a superstar in the physics world. I murmured, “Relationships are great, so is success.”

“Says the pot to the kettle. At least I had a relationship. All you have is old people.” Brian pushed me into the row, muttering apologies to other seated folks. We got center positions near the front, which seemed to please him.

“My eldercare work is very fulfilling,” I argued sotto voce.

“Maybe. But not like a good marriage.” He leaned into me. “You forget that I invented a device to traverse parallel worlds. His books are nice, but my achievement is huge. We’re talking Nobel Prize huge.”

“Shh,” I said because the other Brian was smiling and waving to the audience. He certainly was cute, polished to a fine sheen and slicked up like a rock star. The Brian goofiness was toned down and the Tennyson intelligence stood out in high relief.

Then the lights dimmed.

The President of Columbia introduced him, and then Professor Tennyson of this world spoke for an hour and a half about the cosmos and time and mirror symmetry and something called strings which allowed the universe to tear apart. It made approximately no sense to me, except that I was mesmerized by the doppelgänger effect. The man on stage was a mirror image of the one sitting beside me, and it was all happening before my eyes, though I was the only one who knew it.

Was it possible that Brian had been telling the truth this whole time?

What about Ofee’s information?

Professor Tennyson called for questions. Brian’s hand shot up.

“Yes, you there,” Professor Tennyson smiled graciously at Brian.

“Professor Tennyson, this is all most impressive, you’ve done your homework on mirror symmetry. Here’s a question, what’s your take on the many worlds interpretation?” asked Brian, affecting a clipped British accent.

Professor Tennyson shrugged. “Hm. Well, it’s sexy, no question. But it denies the actuality of wave-function collapse.”

Brian stood up. “You can’t believe that reality is a single unfolding history. And Everett did remove the postulate of wave-function collapse from the theory. Brilliant work really.”

“Schrödinger’s equation always applies. A fine invocation of Occam’s razor,” Professor Tennyson nodded. “Of course, if you remove wave-function collapse from the quantum formalism, then you need to derive the Born rule. Though Deutsch did good work on that front.”

“Exactly!”

“Perhaps we’ll take the next question,” interjected the President of Columbia.

“One more question, if I may.” Brian threaded his way out of the row to the aisle. He flicked the long blond hair over his shoulder. “Let’s talk Level III multiverse.”

A feeling of horror crept over me, and I beckoned quietly for Brian to return to his seat. Four hundred people were watching him, and maybe the two Brians weren’t supposed to come together, like matter and anti-matter, or Clark Kent and Superman, or peanut butter and tuna fish. My Brian ignored me.

Professor Tennyson looked intrigued. “If space is finite, there are only finitely many multiverses at Level I but still infinitely many at Level III.”

Brian beamed and gestured with both arms, like the conductor of an orchestra. “If space is infinite, there are infinitely many multiverses at both Level I and Level III, and just as many distinguishably different Level III as Level I multiverses.”

“I really think other people in the audience—” started the President of Columbia. But he couldn’t interrupt the two Brians, who were magnetically bonded to their conversation.

“Level IV is just crazy,” said Professor Tennyson, staring at Brian.

“Absotively, posilutely nuts,” Brian agreed, gesticulating. His fake accent had vanished from his speech.

“But please give me an alternative explanation of why we keep uncovering more and more mathematical regularity—” said the Professor.

“In the physical world!” both Brians chorused in identical voices. They beamed at each other.

“It begs the question,” said Brian, “what did the nuclear physicist have for lunch?”

“Fission chips, of course,” said Professor Tennyson. “Reminds me of the time two electrons were sitting on a bench in the park. Another electron walked by and said, ‘Hey, can I come join you?’”

“The electrons said, ‘Of course not, we’re not bosons.’ You know, I hear you are holding a seminar on time travel two weeks ago,” Brian said. “I really want to go. I still might have.”

Dr. Tennyson laughed. “Why did the chicken—”

“Gentlemen, this discussion is best continued after the Q and A,” insisted the President of Columbia, firmly. “There are other members of the audience who would like to ask questions.”

“Come back, right now!” I motioned again, more vehemently.

Professor Tennyson spied me, and his gaze crossed mine. He flushed scarlet from his collar-bones to the widow’s peak of his well-coiffed hair.

“You!” he said, in a tone of pure horror.

I shielded my face with my hands and sank down in my seat.

Luckily a guy sitting behind me thought he was being called on, and he jumped up and asked a question about Planck length and supersymmetry.

Looking like the cat that had swallowed the eponymous bird, Brian slid in next to me. He put his hand on my shoulder and winked. “Now do you believe me?”

“Really, you had to call attention to yourself?”

I whispered. “Now he noticed me. I think he saw the video, look how he keeps looking at me and blushing.”

“Well, if he did, he ought to thank me, I’ve made him a sex symbol,” said Brian, looking pleased with himself.

“He already was one to every female science nerd in the world,” I muttered.

Brian flashed a hurt look at me. “Just because no one knows about my work on decoherence doesn’t mean it’s any less impressive. It’s more impressive, really. We can go up and talk to him after the lecture. He’s a fine fellow.” Brian threw his arm around me and squeezed. “Then you know what we’ll do?”

“I have no idea.” The set of possibilities of what my Brian would do was literally infinite. I braced myself.

“The only thing you can do when you’re broke, homeless, a rejected artist, and a porno star—”

“Who is in shock because there are two of you,” I finished. Suddenly I felt a little brighter. I thought I knew where Brian was headed, and it was my kind of solution. “Get drunk?”

Brian grinned. “Get drunk and sing!”

Before the event ended, it came to me, in a moment of hyper-real clarity, what was really going on. The glossy, famous Professor was Brian’s identical twin brother. Brian must have felt jealous of his twin, and made up the parallel worlds story when he had his psychotic break. It made me feel sorry for Brian, that he was so desperate for validation.

On pain of no more sex, I forbade him any more contact with the Professor—I didn’t want to get entangled in a sticky family reunion—and dragged Brian out for that drink he’d promised me.

We hunkered in at the cheapest karaoke bar in the city, a grungy place on the Lower East Side, where I sat at a table littered with shot glasses.

Brian perched onstage, singing off-key, swiveling his hips out of rhythm with the Guns N’ Roses anthem he was caterwauling. He was so bad that other patrons, classy as they were, and most of them were knuckle-draggers, stared in open-mouthed disbelief.

“I’m throwing a bottle at him,” yelled a drunk man.

“Is this supposed to be funny, or is he just awful?” demanded a boozy woman.

“Look, he’s serious,” said a tipsy motorcycle enthusiast.

“Throw bottles!” yelled the first drunk man.

I jumped up and ran onstage. “Brian, you’re great! Now it’s my turn.”

Brian grabbed me, dipped me, and kissed me passionately.

Whistles, catcalls, and cheers erupted. This was much more to the clientele’s liking.

I should refer them to a particular art video.

I finally pushed Brian away, and he clasped his arms overhead victoriously. He leapt off the dais and jogged around, high-fiving our Neanderthal comrades. I turned to the Macbook Pro that sat on the speaker that controlled the music. I tapped in a song.

Might as well play the part. Sultry riffs of a favorite Madonna tune curled out into the air, and I unbuttoned my blouse to my cleavage, then tied it up around my midriff, exposing my tummy. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? Wasn’t that always my motto?

Wasn’t it time I had better mottos?

How drunk was I? I pushed away the nauseous feeling that was starting to curdle my gut. I was only about as good at drinking as I was in bed, which is, to paraphrase Cliff, enthusiastic but hackneyed.

The music streamed on, and I ran my fingers through my hair, fluffing it up into a wild mane. “I wanna kiss you in Paris, I wanna hold your hand in Rome. I wanna run naked in a rainstorm, make love in a train cross-country. You put this in me, so now what?”

At our table, Brian looked amazed. For once, I astonished him. Turnabout was fair play, right?

It gave me a wicked thrill and prompted me to even more lascivious movement. I swayed my hips, writhed, and pulsed.

The audience screamed. They loved me.

Brian’s eyes widened.

“What are you gonna do? Talk to me, tell me your dreams, am I in them?” I sang.

The crowd roared in approval. Maybe I had been too harsh on them. Weren’t they all just adorable?

Brian jumped out of his chair and ran out of the bar.

Brian paced on the dark street. Tessa, weaving and unsteady, came out toward him.

“Brian, sup?” she slurred.

“That song means something to me and you in my world,” he told her. Remembering what it meant made him hurt all over again, made him feel the constant familiar ache of loss and loneliness. He was reminded again that he was bereft, not just of his wife, but also of his foundational faith in the goodness of things. He swallowed. “That’s, like, our song.”

She giggled. “It can still be our song.” She broke into a lilt. “I wanna kiss you in Paris … .”

What the hell was wrong with her? Couldn’t she see he had feelings? Didn’t she understand what he’d been through? “God, Tessa, you’re more sensitive in my world.”

“Nope, not anymore,” she said, pronouncing her words with exaggerated care. “I’m dead in your world. ’Member? Do you see dead people? Whoooo.

Boo!” She danced and chuckled. Then her cell phone rang.

“Ofee! I love you. Kisses, hugs,” she hollered as if Ofee was hard of hearing.

Then she dropped the phone and swayed.

Brian grabbed up the phone and placed it in Tessa’s hand. She curled her fingers around it and accidentally pressed the speaker button.

“Tessa, I had to call you. I remembered something about that guy you asked about,” said Ofee.

Brian had a strong impression of Ofee pretzelled up in an impossible yoga pose with his foot holding the phone.

“Brian, he’s crazy, but he’s some kinda sexy.”

Tessa leered at Brian, who suddenly felt queasy.

“Tessy, listen, he’s crazier than you know. Norma said that when they took the guy away, his apartment was filled with thousands of photos of some woman he was stalking. He wrote essays about sick things he wanted to do to her.”

“What?” Brian demanded. “That’s not me! I’m not a psycho killer—”

“Is that him?” Ofee yelled. “Tessy, save yourself!”

“Brian, tell me the truth,” Tessa said. She scrunched up her face with excessive ferocity. “Do you have an identical twin brother? And how long did you follow me before I saw you that day across the street?”

Brian would have answered, but Tessa suddenly looked distressed and unsteady on her feet. She dropped her phone onto the ground, and it hung itself up.

“Brian,” she moaned. She vomited on him, then pitched forward into his arms.

Brian struggled to hoist her over his shoulder.

He grunted, trying to position her correctly.

“The end is not the contemplation of something beautiful, but an experience of a carnal and primitive sort,” said a voice behind him.

Brian turned slowly. “Guy. What are you doing here?”

“I want the piece.” Guy slinked up to him from the shadows. “I have a buyer lined up.”

“Tell your buyer to stand down.”

Guy took out his knife and stared at it reverently.

He tested the edge with his thumb and nodded in satisfaction. “No one backs away from a deal I have set up. There are no second chances.”

“There are always second chances,” Brian said.

He staggered a little, shifting Tessa so that her chin didn’t bang onto his shoulder blade. “We need some time.”

“She is traversed by a double caesura. Your pretty girlfriend needs her thumb for her work. I know that from experience.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend, I’m faithful to my wife!”

snapped Brian.

“You will have to surrender before the syncretism and the absolute and unstoppable polytheism of consequences. We all do.” Guy’s eyebrows rose and he shrugged with far more eloquence than he would ever achieve with words. “I want it. By tomorrow. Or else.”

I t was a typical university ghetto apartment for assistant professors, the kind of shoddy, dilapidated apartment that always made Brian wish he could do better than this. His wife deserved so much more.

He should be able to give her more, to give her the rich, elegant life she deserved. He just didn’t work as much as he should because he preferred to spend his time with her. His research went unattended, and, if he was honest with himself, even his teaching was perfunctory.

He stood watching her as she practiced the cello.

She was beautiful and peaceful, mellow and self-assured as she played the melancholic strains of Kol Nidre, penance and atonement, ends and beginnings.