All Our Wrong Todays(53)

Everyone has gotten quiet. My mom stands in the kitchen doorway, chewing a fingernail. My dad stays very still. Penny stares at the intricate pattern on the tablecloth. Greta sits up on the couch. I finish my bourbon and the empty glass smacks against the table a bit too hard.

“Dude,” Greta says, “are you going completely fucking crazy? You can tell us. We love you and we’re here to help.”

“I’m just talking, like, hypothetically,” I say.

“Bullshit,” says Greta. “This is all that stuff from your novel. Or what you call your novel. John, do you actually think this is happening to you?”

I look at Greta, and I look at my mom, and I look at my dad, and I look at Penny.

“My name’s not John,” I say.





86


There’s a long, sour pause. I feel spinny from the wine and the bourbon, and the total inappropriateness of my outburst starts to weigh on my chest like a freezer full of body parts, especially since this had been more or less the greatest introduction of a girlfriend to parents in the history of girlfriends and parents.

“You sound like a paranoid schizophrenic,” my sister says. “You get that, right?”

“Theoretically speaking,” my dad says, “what he’s saying is possible. Simultaneous consciousnesses within a single corporeal form, I mean.”

“Victor, this isn’t an amusing scientific debate,” my mom says. “It’s our son.”

“Sorry,” says my dad.

“John,” my mom says, “and I assure you that your name is John because that’s what we called you when you ejected from my uterus, you’ve had some kind of neurological trauma that the doctors were either too incompetent or too overworked to identify. I should’ve spoken to Rogier Ames as soon as this happened. He heads the university’s Neurology Department and he owes me a favor because of some finicky library acquisitions I assisted him with. Yvette Magwood, too, she’s dean of medicine. We’ll help you through this, I promise.”

I press on my temples with stiff forefingers. Why did I say anything? My chair feels like it’s bobbing in an ocean of shame and regret and I grip the table for balance.

“Guys, it’s fine,” I say. “I drank too much. I made a bad joke. This is why people shouldn’t drink with their parents. I’m sorry if I worried you. Everything’s okay.”

“You think I don’t know when you’re lying?” Greta says. “You’re the idiot who taught me how to lie when I was five years old and broke Dad’s desk lamp.”

“That was you?” my dad says.

“I’ll call them first thing in the morning,” my mom says.

“I have some contacts too,” my dad says. “Maybe in Cognitive Science?”

“What if it’s true?” Penny says.

There’s another pause, but this one’s a lot edgier.

“I knew it,” says Greta. “I knew you couldn’t be so perfect. You’re an enabler.”

“Penny,” my mom says, “you seem like a lovely young woman. Let’s not spoil that impression.”

“I don’t presume to know John as well as you do,” Penny says. “I only met him two weeks ago when he walked into my store and told me what is without a doubt the weirdest story I’ve ever heard. I can’t rationally explain any of the things he said to me. But you know what else I can’t rationally explain? How he makes me feel. I’m a basically normal person. I’ve lived a basically normal life. I’ve had good things happen and bad things happen, but very few crazy things happen. I didn’t ask for him to walk into my life. I didn’t ask to fall in love with him. But I did. And I haven’t even said that to him yet. Which makes it so much more awkward that I just said it in front of all of you. Shit. I’ve been in love before. I almost got married once. But it’s never felt like this. Like I don’t know what’s up or down.”

“It’s easy to know what’s up and down,” Greta says. “You just open your eyes.”

“You think I don’t know how corny this sounds?” Penny says. “You think I like feeling this corny?”

“I can’t answer that,” Greta says. “I don’t know you.”

“Well, it’s scary,” Penny says. “Especially when he may or may not be completely psychotic.”

“He’s not psychotic,” my mom says.

“Mom, he thinks he’s from the future,” says Greta.

“Not the future,” says Penny. “An alternate timeline.”

“What’s the difference?” Greta says.

“You should’ve read my book,” my dad says.

“Dad, nobody read your book,” Greta says.

“I don’t want him to be telling the truth,” Penny says. “It’s weird and it’s messy and it freaks me out. But I’m taking it seriously so I can understand where he’s coming from. Because, I know it sounds demented, but what if it’s true?”

“You’re right,” says Greta, “it sounds demented.”

“Mr. Barren,” Penny says, “you’re as close as we’re going to come to an expert in time travel . . .”