The Love of My (Other) Life (16 page)

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

“It’ll be a long time before I’m ready,” I murmured.

“Amen!” The rev snuck a look at the Warholish paintings. “Frances here offered to curate a small show at the church and donate the proceeds.”

“Just to thank you for your part in the sting that recovered Tessa’s head and that she is allowing me to exhibit,” Frances said.

“Well, I think I played a believable rascal,” the rev said, modestly.

“Rev, you were a fabulous rascal,” Frances said.

“Keep the black suit, it looks smashing on you.”

“I don’t think so,” the rev started.

Fishnets cut him off. “You can wear it to take me out. On the house, of course.”

“I’m much too busy at the church,” the rev said, dismayed.

Frances gestured for me to follow him to his office. I obeyed.

“Frances, despite the terrible art you show, you’re a good guy,” I said.

“Watch it, I’ll be showing your art in a few months. And quit hugging me! What is it with you people?” he gargled.

Brian-like, I had wrapped myself around him, in gratitude.

Reverend Pincek and I went from the gallery to the cemetery. Along the way, the rev scrubbed his face and changed his jacket. I stopped and bought a pair of racy, gold sling-back stilettos. The rev raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment.

The funeral was a solemn affair with Mrs. Leibowitz’s children and their spouses and children, some friends, and a bearded Rabbi who led us in Mourner’s Kaddish.

I thought of all the times Mrs. L had made me laugh, how much I had enjoyed her over the last few years. I thought of her arch way of speaking and her kindness and her love for her Bernie. I was going to miss her. My heart ached with absence.

I pulled out the photo Brian had given me. It had changed. Brian and Ofee were gone. It was now a picture of me by myself, radiant in the white confection of the wedding dress. I had to smile through my tears. The future was open for me with all its possibilities.