Change Places with Me(29)

Clara ought to apologize.

But the girl gave her a big, warm, open, completely spontaneous smile and said, “Oops.”

In that moment Clara felt an intense surge from her innermost core to the outermost reaches of her being:

Change places with me.

One of the therapists Clara had been taken to had told her that every thought and emotion reached out to every cell in the body. It hadn’t made sense until now. With everything in her and more, Clara wanted to be this girl in the jean jacket, think her thoughts, live her life—which Clara could already imagine with perfect clarity. This girl was on her way to meet her friends, because of course this girl had lots of friends, and they’d all listen to music or go to a movie, it wouldn’t matter what, because just being together would be wonderful by itself. And they’d send messages to one another because they had something funny to say, not messages burning with leaping flames. And time would just zip by, not drag from one moment to the next. This girl was kind and had a big heart; she loved animals, clearly—she’d put a sweater on her dog—and she reached out to those in need, people who seemed lonely, and everyone remarked on it, what a good soul she was. Her parents were so proud and astounded by how lucky they were, having such a daughter.

If only, Clara thought, I could change places with her. Not that she’d ever want to. . . .

Although—some ads for memory manipulation and the new techniques available had popped up on her phone. She’d never checked out the long versions. If Clara could somehow slide this girl’s memories into her head, replacing her own, that would be just as good, right?

Or, no—it sounded too crazy.

Clara, who wouldn’t stop for sunsets, turned to watch the girl walk away. There was a large embroidered rose on the back of the jean jacket. Clara had never seen anything like it: layers of gorgeous red petals, maybe a little uneven; she imagined the girl’s mother hand sewing it. Here, try it on, she could hear the girl’s mother say. Now go to the mirror and turn around.

Why should I—?

Look over your shoulder.

Oh . . .

Do you like it?

I love it!





CHAPTER 17


Clara’s block, with its complex of two-family redbrick houses arranged in a long line of two-story buildings, felt crowded and claustrophobic to her, with pairs of families on top of one another and stuck to other pairs on either side, all in the long shadow of the monstrous Belle Heights Tower.

Upstairs from Clara and Evil Lynn lived an old lady who had always had two enormous dogs. At night Clara could hear their toenails clicking on the floor overhead. Didn’t the old lady have carpeting?

As it happened, the old lady was coming downstairs just as Clara and Evil Lynn reached their front door, those huge dogs panting heavily and pulling at their leashes. One of them barked, shrill and hollow; it echoed in the stairway.

“Do you see that sunset? Isn’t it breathtaking?” The old lady always tried to engage Clara in conversation, but Clara never, ever engaged back.

Evil Lynn took a moment to agree that the sunset was lovely.

“Oh, my dear, you look terrified,” the old lady said.

“I’m fine,” Clara said, even as she felt her breath catch in her throat. Those dogs could lunge at you, it suddenly occurred to her, not just want to lick your hand. How would you know, until it was too late?

“But my dear, they wouldn’t hurt a soul!”

Clara went straight to her room, closed the door, and waited for her heart to stop thudding. She grabbed the old elephant, the stiff, bald toy that had belonged to her mom, and held on for dear life.

That night Clara did the dishes; hot soapy water bubbled up between her long fingers. Usually she wore dishwashing gloves, but after that bio lab she would never wear them again.

Evil Lynn, in a striped red-and-black kimono, sat watching TV in the living room on the couch she had reupholstered herself. Clara had liked the old, faded, wheat-colored fabric, despite several large holes shredded around the edges; Kim used to say it looked like a stray cat had snuck in during the night. Now the couch had a dark floral pattern Clara had never warmed up to. Over the years Evil Lynn had done other things to the place that seemed, well, out of place. A piece of yellow silk draped over the back of her dad’s favorite blue chair was an obvious mistake, because it kept sliding down. A huge rug from a flea market, disgusting. Who knew anything about the people who’d owned it before? And hanging up a patchwork quilt—why would anyone put a blanket on the wall? Blankets belonged on beds.

On-screen Clara saw a young woman who looked sad and scared and lost.

“What’s wrong with her?” Clara blurted out.

Evil Lynn turned, surprised to see Clara standing behind her, even more surprised that Clara was speaking to her. She cleared her throat. “She thinks her husband is still in love with his first wife. This girl is rather plain and awkward, and terribly shy, and the first wife was sophisticated and gorgeous.”

Clara stared at the actress. She was actually very pretty, with soft, swept-back brown hair and beautiful dark eyes, but she looked so deeply unhappy, even as she insisted to her husband, “We’re happy, aren’t we? Terribly happy?”

Clara’s dad had met Evil Lynn at a bus stop. They’d both been waiting for a long time before someone showed up and told them the bus stop had been moved to a different street because a water main had burst. Together Clara’s dad and Evil Lynn had walked to the temporary bus stop, taken the bus, begun dating, and were married only a few months later. At which point he said this was partly for Clara’s sake! “I didn’t want to introduce you to a string of women,” he’d said, smiling gently. “I wanted something everlasting.”