“‘Don’t give up on me,’” I said. “That’s what I’d tell her.”
“Maybe she felt the same way. I mean, it was her mistake.”
“Maybe. We’d both gone down the wrong path and ended up somewhere we didn’t want to be. I just wish we could get a do-over. A second chance. I want that more than anything in the world.”
“Yes, it would be nice if life worked like that. I think about that a lot.”
“I’m sure.” I frowned and then said, “I heard what happened to you. Your mother. And everything after.”
Karly nodded. “I don’t run away from it. Not anymore.”
“I probably didn’t tell you about this when we met. The Dylan from back then didn’t like to share personal things. My parents died when I was a kid. My father shot my mother, and then he killed himself. I was there to see it happen. It changed me. I had to make a lot of choices in my life after that, and believe me, I didn’t always make the right ones.”
She sipped her tea, but her eyes never left mine. To me, it felt unbelievably intimate. “That’s an interesting way of phrasing it.”
“What’s that?”
“‘The Dylan from back then.’ Almost as if you’re not the same person.”
“I’m not. Not really.”
“I’m well aware of that feeling,” Karly said.
“I imagine so.”
“Why are you telling me this, Dylan?”
“I guess I want you to know who I am.”
“No offense, but why does that matter?”
“Because I learned who you were from your poems, and you never got a chance to know me.”
“It was only one date,” she reminded me. Then she said something extremely strange. “Wasn’t it?”
I wanted to say: No. No, it was so much more than that. But I didn’t.
“You’re right. It was just one date.”
She almost looked disappointed at my reaction.
I realized that my coffee cup was empty. I picked it up and crumpled it in my hand. She smiled; I smiled. Two nervous, awkward smiles. I checked my watch, and she checked hers. We’d swayed on the edge of being something other than strangers, but that was all we could be here.
“Well, it was good seeing you, Karly.”
“You too.”
“Take care of yourself. Be safe.”
“I will.”
“Maybe—” I began, then stopped.
“Maybe what?”
“I don’t know. It’s foolish. I was thinking, maybe sometime we could try a do-over. On our date, I mean.”
She hesitated. “Maybe.”
I got up from the table, but then sat down again immediately. I couldn’t let go of her so easily. I couldn’t let this be nothing more than a vague promise of seeing her again sometime in an uncertain future. I needed more than that. “Actually, do you mind if I ask you one other question?”
“If you like.”
“It’s about your book. Why Portal?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no poem by that name in the book. And the cover, with the endless mirrors. I didn’t see any connection in the poems. What did any of that have to do with what you wrote?”
An answer rolled smoothly off her tongue, as if she’d said it a million times. “I tell people that the book was a portal from who I was to who I am. I was leaving my relationship with Susannah, and my guilt over what happened to her, in the past. I was stepping through a door to somewhere else. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, it does.” But somehow I thought she was testing me, so I relied on my instincts and plunged ahead. “Except I feel like that’s not the real reason. Is it?”
She hesitated. “Actually, no. It’s not.”
“What is?”
Her fingers twisted strands of her hair in a gesture I knew very well. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Trust me, I won’t.”
“I have no idea why I’m saying this to you, Dylan. I don’t know you, and I’ve never admitted this to anyone.”
Because we’re still connected, I thought.
“I’ll keep your secret,” I told her.
Karly stroked her cheek as she stared at me, studying me, evaluating who I was. A stranger. I could feel her debating with herself. When she spoke, even before she formed the words, I knew she was going to say something that changed absolutely everything. “Have you ever heard of something called the Many Worlds theory? It’s from quantum mechanics in physics.”
I wanted to scream, but I could barely breathe. All I could say was, “I have.”
“Do you know what it says? About the idea of living other lives? About parallel worlds?”
My voice was almost inaudible. “Yes.”
“Do you believe it’s possible?”
“Actually, I do.”
“I tried to drown myself,” Karly went on. “I nearly died.”
“I know.”
“I was in a coma for almost a month.”
“Yes.”
“The thing is, while I was in that coma, I went somewhere. I didn’t even recognize the place. It was some kind of — some kind of dollhouse. I know that sounds weird, but it was a huge dollhouse. There were other Karlys there. Endless numbers of them, all like me, as if they were passing through on their way to somewhere else. It was like I was inside those Many Worlds, at a kind of crossroads.”
She stopped. Embarrassment filled her face. “See, I’m crazy.”
“No. Go on.”
“I met one of the others there. I know how it sounds, but this woman was another me, living a totally different life. I told her everything that had happened to me, about Susannah, about how bitter she was about her business failures, about how we never got along. And then how I lost myself after she was gone. This other Karly understood my dark side, even though she had a much happier life. She was in love. She was married to—”
Karly stopped.
“Who?” I asked urgently. “Who was she married to?”
She looked down. “It doesn’t matter. I told you, she had a different life. Anyway, she wasn’t a poet, but she was talented and funny. We sat in a corner of the dollhouse, watching the other Karlys coming and going, and we wrote poems together. We wrote Portal. Her and me. We sifted through all that dark matter together and came out the other side.”
“That sounds like an amazing experience.”
Karly shook her head with something like wonder. “It was. Except none of it was real.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course it wasn’t. It was me talking to me. All I know is, when I came out of my coma, most of the poems from that book were already in my head. I knew what I needed to do with my life. I was finally ready to let go of the past and become a different person.” Suddenly, Karly pushed her chair back and stood up. “God, what am I doing? This is nuts. Please don’t tell anyone I said this.”
“I won’t.”
“I need to go.”
“No, wait, stay. I want to talk more. There are things I need to tell you.”
“I’m sorry, I really have to go. I’m meeting a student in my office. I don’t know how you found me, Dylan, but I’d rather not discuss any of this again. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
She gathered up her laptop and her papers, but I put my hand gently on hers. The hand where I wore my ring. “Meet me tonight,” I said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please. I want to tell you a story.”
“It’s better if you and I don’t share anything more. We don’t know each other.”