“You’re not pathetic,” she says from her depths. “It’s never pathetic to love someone, and it’s certainly not pathetic to mourn them.” She laces her fingers together and brings them to her mouth, contemplating. “And what you’re doing . . . looking for her, risking everything to be with her again . . . it’s heroic.”
She watches as Jonas warms to that idea. Sees him sit up just a little straighter, his flagging resolve recharged by her endorsement. A smile spreads on his face. She’s surprised to find it attractive but instantly sheds the thought. Jonas either has a mental illness, hails from an entirely different universe, or—potentially—both. Still, that smile . . .
Evening has fallen by the time Jonas and Eva exit the pub. The air is crisp and smells like smoldering wood. The buildings’ nighttime illumination only enhances the odd hybrid of European and Japanese architectural styles. Jonas resists the almost overwhelming temptation to ask Eva to summarize the entire history of this alternate world. There will be time enough for that, he reasons. He’ll be able to dive as far down that rabbit hole as he pleases. But he knows he can’t stay in this universe. It no longer has who he’s looking for . . .
“Can I ask you another question?” Eva says, stirring him from this reverie.
“I couldn’t fathom setting a limit, after everything I’ve told you.”
“Well, this one’s kind of delicate.”
“Sounds like the kind of question a psychologist should be asking.” Jonas leans back in his chair. Spreads his hands. Hit me.
“If I understand the Many Worlds Theory correctly, there’s a universe where you and your wife are both alive, where perhaps the accident never even happened.”
“What’s your question?”
She gives him a tremulous glance. In the end, she doesn’t ask a question. “There’s already a world,” she asserts, “where you’re happy.”
“I don’t know what that world looks like.” His voice cracks with emotion. To will himself not to cry, he gazes out at the street, at the flotsam and jetsam of an entire city—representative of an entire world—full of people whose lives have unfolded in an infinite number of ways that differ from those in his home reality. His mind swims with the enormity of it. What had been theoretical for years is now real and tangible, almost beyond his ability to fully comprehend.
“So,” Eva says skeptically, “you’re just going to jump around universes until you find her?”
“I can’t,” Jonas answers. “Eventually, I’ll expend the energy I got from the collider. And that’s assuming I don’t reality-slip into a wheat thresher or some such first.” He feels stress rising, hope descending, as he considers the dangers of his mission. “I ended up in the reality I intended, but it was the wrong one. My math was off somehow, in some way. I need to figure that out first, or I’ll just get lost again.”
“If that’s why you decided to trust me,” she says, “I have to remind you that parallel-universe theory wasn’t my field.”
Jonas cocks his head and gives her a mischievous smirk. “But didn’t you get an A in quantum mechanics?”
That draws an amused look. And Jonas senses a connection, an invisible electricity between them, the type of valence that could form the foundation of a lifelong friendship. The last time he felt such magnetism was five years ago.
FIVE YEARS AGO
The name of the restaurant was unimportant, a neighborhood place in Tribeca that would be out of business within eighteen months. Still, Jonas would never forget it was called Jackson’s. The decor was exposed brick and piping. Apparently the designer’s only artistic vision was to strip away every wall and inch of ceiling, then populate the space with chairs and tables sourced from Architectural Digest and art inspired by postcards from the gift shop at the Museum of Modern Art.
He had been so nervous that before their date, he ran out to a liquor store two blocks from his apartment and bought a bottle of whatever whiskey the man at the register had recommended. He poured it into a glass he had filled with ice and took a generous swallow. The whiskey burned the back of his mouth, shot fire into his chest, and rendered him no less anxious. He stared at the bottle and questioned if it contained any alcohol at all.
But in hindsight, Jonas didn’t need an alcoholic sedative. Just seeing Amanda again was like unwrapping a present. She was light. She was sunshine. Radiant warmth in human form. And she was here. Real. Spending time—time she could spend in an infinite number of ways—with him. His whole life had been devoted to the academic. The theoretical. But she was real.
And she seemed to like him. Jonas had always seen the gulf between art and science as unbreachable, two sides of two very different coins. Never would he have imagined that paintings and quantum mechanics would find a connection, but Amanda had seen it instantly. Their work, she said, required them each to identify patterns and connections. They both labored to conjure reality—the appearance of it at least—from the speculative. His work and her art (as she practiced it) were even bounded by the same inalterable physics. Light. Perspective. The limits of human observation. They were both in the business of understanding and interpreting the marvels of creation.
“What are you working on right now?” she asked.
“Nothing all that interesting,” Jonas promised. “How about you?”
“I’m scouting locations, looking for the next rooftop I’ll paint from, the next ‘vantage point,’ I like to say, because it sounds more impressive,” she added with a touch of self-effacing whimsy. “So what about you?”
“I’m working on a mathematical proof of the existence of parallel universes.” The second the words left his mouth, he regretted them. They sounded ridiculous, esoteric. He drained his wineglass.
“Parallel universes?”
“Have you heard of them?”
She shrugged. “Everyone’s heard of them, I guess. I mean, everyone’s seen the movies. At least one of them, right? I think . . . parallel universes are one of those things everyone’s heard of but never really understands.”
“That’s an accurate way of putting it,” he said.
“But it’s not real. I mean, it’s just theory.” She wrinkled her face with disapproval. “I’m sorry. It sounds like I’m shitting on your work, and that’s absolutely the last thing I want to do.” She paled, catching herself. “I mean—”
Jonas held his hand up. “It’s okay. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. It’s weird and even a little silly. I mean, what’s the difference between science and science fiction, right?”
“I think you’re supposed to tell me.”
Jonas tipped his head. Fair point. “Do you have any money in your pockets or your purse?”
“Wow. And the check hasn’t even come yet.”
Jonas canted his head. Good one. “Do you have any coins? Preferably a quarter?”
“Are you going to do a magic trick?” she asked playfully.
“You’ll see,” he teased. “Do you have a coin?”
She reached for her purse and dug around in it until she’d successfully excavated a quarter. She offered it up, but Jonas shook his head. “No. You keep it.” She stared back at him quizzically. “Just flip it. Flip it, and catch it in your hand. But don’t look.”
“Seriously?”
