exactly want to make Tammy any angrier than already she
is, so I try the less sarcastic approach. "I'm just going to the
bathroom."
"Did you hear anything?"
"Hear what?"
Tammy yanks again. Is she waiting for me to confess?
Bravado might be my only way out. "Why are you trying
to torture me?" I ask, reminding myself that I've known
Tammy since we were in preschool.
We were never great friends when we were younger, but
we always got along. Then in fourth grade, neither of us had
any really close friends in our class, so we ended up eating
lunch together every day. We even shared Twinkies.
She only started getting messed up when we were in
middle school. Something went down at home, and she
started getting tougher and tougher. I was sad when it happened.
I liked her. But she wouldn't talk to me about what
was £^>ing on.
Then, in eighth grade, after the whole Ouija board
thing that happened at a sleepover, she stopped talking
to me altogether. Thought I was making fun of her. But I
swear I wasn't.
By the end of eighth grade, she started getting downright
scary. Once I even saw her beat the crap out of some kid
during lunch. I wasn't exactly valiant or anything. No saving
the kid, jumping in front of her with fists at the ready. No.
I was one of the cowards watching the whole thing. Besides,
you couldn't really get in between the two girls. Even then,
Tammy liked grabbing the hair of her opponent. When the
teachers came to break up the fight, Tammy almost ripped
the other kid's scalp right off her head while the adults were
trying to separate the two of them.
Now, I realize, is not the time to be remembering that
Jenny Wilson almost became a scalpless wonder. Think
Twinkies, I tell myself. The image of a ten-year-old Tammy
stuffing yellow cream-filled pastries in her mouth does help
me face off against her. Even if the hair-grip is still killing
me.
how I can never hold on to anything... which is irritatingly
true, I realize, as I practically run the rest of the way from
the bathroom. And that's when . . .
// embraces me again.
I float for a moment, just remembering what it was like
to be Maddy Stanton. It seems that I have found the corner
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but I am still trying to find all the
edges. My life is lying in a heap of memories piled on top of
one another, small clips of partial images carved into funny
shapes. They aren't even sorted yet. Which piece do I even
start trying to build from?
Of c o u r s e . ..
The one with the Grim Reaper on it. The one that tells
me how I died. But I don't know where it is yet. I might have
to turn over a lot of pieces before I'm likely to even catch a
fragment of the Reaper's image.
It's time to start now.
I find the coach. If that and the sweatshirt are still here
in Is, why can't I find the charm bracelet? I wade off in
search of the bracelet once again.
Still gone.
What is the difference between the charm bracelet and
the handbag? Between the sweatshirt and the bag?
And then I know.
The real me, the alive me . . . she took the bracelet with
13
As she yanks even harder, I opt for the remember-whenwe-were-friends approach. "Okay. Jesus. Let go of my hair.
I did hear what was happening in here, but it's not like I'm
gonna tell anyone. Get real. We've known each other for
ages, Tammy. It's not as if I'm going: to rat on someone I
used to share Twinkies with at lunch."
"You'd better not," Tammy says. She gives my hair a
threatening reminder of her willingness to hurt me. "'Cause
if I get ratted on, I'm gonna know exactly who to blame."
Adults are always wanting you to tell in a situation like
this. We can protect you. It's for tbe good of everyone, Blab, Nab,
blab.
Right. Adults are so stupid. I can't figure out how they
have managed to live long enough to survive high school.
"I'm not going to say anything," I tell Tammy. I hope I
sound firm, disgusted at the mere possibility. But I hear a
squeak in my voice. She finally lets go of my hair, pushing
me away from her at the same time. "Get out of here."
She freezes me with this what-kind-of-an-idiot-nrr-you
stare.
Okay, then. Guess I'll just borrow money from Sandra
for lunch. I want to kick myself. I wouldn't need to borrow
money from my best friend if I'd just admitted to my
mother that I'd lost the lunch card. She'd have gotten me
a new one. But I didn't want to listen to her harping about
>9
her when she left the scene where I saw her. But the bag and
the sweatshirt... I didn't find either of those before I left
the scene. Who knows what ever happened to them? But
somehow I never got them back, and so here they are in Is,
still haunting me.
An idea hums through me: Perhaps if I don't find the
object, I can return to the moment I lost it, but if I do find
it, then I can't get back to that time.
Control.
I might have some control over what moments in my
life I can return to. I just have to keep myself from finding
something.
But wait. I don't know for certain this is how it
works....
Or even if I can change what happens when I return to
a moment.
I realize there's a way to find out.
I wade my way back to the purse and imagine myself
holding it again.
The stuffiness of an enclosed bathroom, the scent of
urine, myself walking toward me . . . it's all there again. I
embrace myself, and we join fluidly....
age 17
I so have to pee.
!l
I set mv coach on top of the roll of toilet paper, but it
falls off. Disgusting. This floor could have had—well, who
knows what—on it. I'm bending over to pick up the purse
when I realize I'm feeling that funny thing again. It's happened
to me a couple times before. I can't explain the feeling.
It's like I'm being spied on. It's creepy. I tried to explain it
to my mom once, and she told me she'd had creepy feelings
like that before, too. Said she'd felt "someone walking over
her grave." Like that makes sense?
Unfortunately, at the moment, it does.
Shake it off, I tell myself.
I set the bag back on the roll of toilet paper and look
around, like I'm expecting to see a ghost here or something.
How stupid is that?
"Anyone in here?" someone says through the bathroom
door. I know that voice. It belongs to Tammy Havers.
"I don't think so," someone replies.
Tammy demands payment.
Great. A drug deal. I pause in unbuckling my b e l t . . . I
so have to pee, but self-preservation? Yeah. Might be more
important at the moment.
I think I'll just try not to make
any sound....
Thunk.
My bag. The one with about three dollars in change in
it. Why did I have to lose my lunch debit card?
I really have to pee.
«
"Don't!" I tell her. "Of course I heard you. But it's not
like I'm gonna tell anvone about it. Get real. We've known
each other for ages, Tammy. And even if I do think it's kind
of stupid to be taking drugs, and even stupider to be dealing
them here at school—like, have you heard the word
expulsion? —I'm hardly going to rat on someone I used to
share Twinkies with at lunch."
She seems to give this some thought. "You'd better not.
'Cause if I get ratted on, I'm gonna know who to blame."
"I'm not going to say anything. Trust me." Thank God
I don't sound like I'm begging.
"Get out of here," Tammy says.
She lets go of my hair. I dash into the stall.
"What are you doing?" Tammv asks in disbelief as I
begin searching under the partitions between the stalls.
"Looking for my stusid money." I find it just inside the
adjoining stall. I must have hit it pretty hard with my elbow
when I knocked it off the roll of toilet paper.
"Just get the hell out of here," Tammy says.
"On my way," I say. I grab the handbag—
•
Back in //, I search, propelling myself through miles of
space, looking for the handbag.
It's gone. Just like the bracelet. The moment I touched
each, I was ripped away from life and returned to //.
M
Someone pushes on the stall door. Tammy, I'm pretty
sure, because now she's also demanding that I come out of
there.
"Uh, no, thanks," I say. That creepy shivery feeling
comes over me again. Must be because Tammy is crawling
under the stall now. I look around for my purse. As heavy as
it is, it might even make a good weapon at the moment.
I can't find it. Who knows where it landed?
Then Tammy is there, standing in front of me with this
totally killer glare.
She opens the stall door, grabs a handful of my hair,
and tugs me out. This is way too much. That creepy feeling
invading me, Tammy abusing me, majorly having to pee,
and being interrupted... how much does a girl have to put
up with?
"What are vou doing in here, Stanton?" She yanks on
my hair again for emphasis.
It's like my hair is a pull-string attached to my bladder.
If Tammy pulls on it again, I'll think she'll unleash a tidal
wave of pee.
"I asked you a question," Tammv says. "What are you
doing in here?"
"What do you think I'm doing?" I ask, my anger overflowing.
"I'm taking a pee. Or at least I was trying to."
"Did y°u hear anything?" She starts to pull on my hair
again.
33
Then how did I get back to Is from the moments when I
didn't find the objects? I reflect on the sweatshirt incident,
then try to compare it to the first handbag one. But I can't.
In fact, I can't recall anything that happened the first
time I went into that bathroom. The second time to that
bathroom, touching that handbag and getting launched
back to Is. But my second experience with that moment has
wiped out the first. It has become the new realit/ of my
life.
Is seems to work on a different plane of reality, though,
because I can remember the decision that I made to go back
and change that scene. So while I know there waj a time
when I didn't find the handbag, that time has disappeared
forever.
In a wav, this is pretty cool. It means I can make some
conscious choices about how to change my life. But—
changing my life so I find an object just seems to make it
impossible for me to go back to that moment. Why would I
want to do that:
Will it work the other way around? Can I keep myself
fiuiu linduiu buiiieiliiuu?
Probably . . . not.
Wouldn't I have to know—when I was looking for it—
that I didn't actually want to find the object? Since I can't
remember where the object will take me (or why and how I
lost it) until I've used it to go back to life, that would mean
35
I'd have to find the object, get sent back to Is, and realize I
wish I'd never found the object-By then, the object would already be gone from Is.
Crap.
The Universe isn't nearly as generous as I thought it
was.
Or maybe I'm not supposed to be messing around with
my original life that way.
I can't quite explain what's happened now that I have
changed the outcome in finding my handbag, but something's
different. About me. About my life.
About who I am.
And I'm not sure I like it.
When I went back and made myself find that purse, I
somehow became a new person. Someone who—first of
all—could sense that I was there. That must have been
what the creepy feeling was. My intention to change what
happened in that moment somehow changed everything. I
knew I was there. Well, kind of, anyway. Enough to make
the moment f e e l . . . spooky.
But that's not all. Other things changed, too. I just don't
know what they are. If I never found my coach in the first
version of my life, did I go without lunch that day? Did I
borrow money from someone else so I could eat? I have no
way of knowing, but whatever happened in that first version
created a different life than did the results of my second
16
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orchids
I .MISS EVERYTHING about being real. Using these objects to
return to l i f e . . . it's like an addiction. I have to have another
fix. I just can't decide which object to use next. The keys,
buttons, beads, pen, Barbie doll, key chain . . .
In the end, I don't actually get a choice. I come across
some orchids, eerie, almost skeletal in their luminescent
form, and before I know it, I'm remembering that I wore
them in my hair for my sister's wedding. The memory is
enough to earn' me home, to the moment w h e n . . .
38
visit to that moment.
Even being back here in // feels different than it did
before. I'm a whole different dead person than I was.
It's hard to describe what all this has done to me, but
it's as if I were listening to a song and when I got back it
was playing in a different key. Everything jumped up a half
note . . . or something like that.
Who knows what I could be messing with going around
and changing the way things happened in life?
Suppose I could keep myself from dying?
But I can't possibly know which of these moments can
lead to that outcome. At least at this poir.i.
And what if I end up making myself die sooner?
Making decisions in death doesn't seem to be any easier
tha
n making them in life: You never know what the outcome
is going to be one way or the other.
37
Age 16
I am on my knees in the grass, dark night surrounding me.
Gabriel is standing next to me, bent over at the waist, his
hand firmly gripping my upper arm.
"I ry breathing deeply," Gabriel urges me.
It sounds like a good idea, but I'm gulping more than
I'm breathing, and the extra air I'm taking in is making me
feel sicker, not better.
It has been an incredibly long day. I'm now convinced
I'll never consider having a wedding. If I ever want to
get married, I'll elope. What could Kristen have been
thinking?
Her wedding dress was beautiful, but how could she
have dressed me in this horrible, full-length strapless dress?
If she was going to make me be a bridesmaid (let's not kid
ourselves; I had no choice in this; Mom would have killed
me if I hadn't agreed to do it—or, worse yet, she might have
yammered on for days at a time about the importance and
meaning of family, about my lifetime relationship with my
older sister, etc.), why did she have to put me in such a long
dress? I've lived in fear all day of tripping over the hem of
the gown. That walk down the aisle? Nightmare. I almost
stumbled. And how humiliating, having to walk down the
aisle on the arm of Gabriel—one of the most gorgeous
19
guys at school, and cousin to the groom! His firm grip on
my arm kept me from making a complete fool of myself in
front of everyone in the church, but he obviously noticed
my clumsiness. He winked at me and everything. Winked!
Ohmygod. So unfair. Why couldn't I have walked down the
aisle with the groom's brother instead? I mean, he is, like,
thirty, so no attraction there, right? And he'd probably have
pretended not to notice that I was a complete klutz,
To make it all worse, a few days ago Gabriel broke up
with his girlfriend, Dana (who'd been his girlfriend for, like,
two years). I haven't been able to stop thinking about that
all day long. It's the kind of thing that, you know, gives a
girl a glimmer of hope—as if I had a chance with a guy as
hot as Gabe Archer.
Sandra's always telling me that I'm prettier than I think
I am—that my freckles are cute and that my brown hair has
just the right red highlights, but she's my best friend, so she
has to say stuff like that. It's not as if a few halfway decent
features will attract a guy who has absolutely everything