Page 32 of In What World

“What about Dallas?” I ask.

“WhataboutDallas? He’s spent decades making this thing, he got it to work—but apparently not even work correctly—and he left without saying goodbye. I think we’ve done plenty for him.”

As a kid, how many nights had I stayed awake, completely alone, excited to see my mom when she got home from her late shift at the bar, only to be greeted with a “You shouldn’t be up right now. Go to bed”? No one deserves to be neglected without explanation, and certainly not by someone they love.

“Here,” I say, releasing Marlowe’s wrist and opening the door. “Back to the reality you love so much.”

We don’t get more than a step out of the machine before we see her—a woman with dark red hair tapping her foot, taking a phone call as she paces the darkened stage while sipping on an iced coffee. From the back, she’s dressed in my same outfit, down to the black platform boots I bought after seeing my publicist wear them and the leopard print coat with furry cuffs that a stylist let me take home after a photo shoot a few years ago.

After my parents’ divorce, when my mom started leaving me home alone to fend for myself, I used to fantasize about having a twin. I knew I liked myself enough to tolerate another version of me, and I figured the same would be true the other way around. Maybe we would be the only two people in the worldwho could do such a thing, since no one else ever seemed to want to stick around for very long.

“I don’t care how long I’ve been stalling this production. It’s a commercial. They’ll survive. I’m not putting on a chicken suit,” the woman says into her phone. “Tell Matt he needs to be realistic with my time and energy. And respectful. Really emphasize the respectful part.”

“Looks like I got my wish,” I say.

“No, no, no,” Marlowe mutters with increasing urgency. “I need to gohome.”

The woman turns around.

I prepare my biggest smile for her, but it’s not another me wearing my clothes. It’s not another me with the fake-red hair and the cloud of expensive perfume that was gifted to me at an award show years ago and I still use to this day, because some Midwestern frugalities can’t leave me, no matter how high my paychecks have gotten.

It’s Marlowe.

Definitelynotthe Marlowe we left hiding in a closet, too skittish about her girlfriend—Alice Yeung, which is something we definitely need to discuss further—to face the question of them living together. No. This Marlowe has a glint of egotistical self-satisfaction in her eyes I know in my bones, having seen it in enough other actors to be able to recognize it on sight.

Marlowe—the Marlowe I’ve come here with—rocks on her feet. “I’myou.”

Sheisme. Though she pulls off this particular outfit with much less of a chic, devil-may-care energy than I do. It looks like a costume on her, not an outer representation of her fun and resilient spirit.

“What the fuck?” says the other, obviously famous Marlowe.

She’s right about everything she said about the commercial,which must be the same one I just shot back in LA. I didn’t mention any of my concerns or embarrassments. It felt like courage in the moment, to roll with it and “be a good sport,” whatever that means. Hearing her push back, though, it now feels like cowardice. Why didn’t I stand up for myself?

“I have to go,” Famous Marlowe says into her phone. “Tell them to rework the premise. I won’t show up to be laughed at.” She jams a finger to the screen to end the call, slams her iced coffee down on the table, then walks right up to the Marlowe I know. “Did you go to Turkey and get your entire face done? You even have the same freckle on your ear as I do. What the fuck?”

“Mars?” someone else calls out. “Where did you go? You really shouldn’t be on our stage. We have a lot of set pieces that are very delicate, and—”

Another person skitters through the curtains, halted in her tracks by what she finds.

This time, itisanother me.

“Oh. Wow. Um. Hmm. Okay…” Other Me says, taking two steps forward, then another two backward, over and over, stuck in a confusion loop.

This version of me wears—well, there’s no easy way to process this—she wears a sweater-vest that looks almost identical to the one Marlowe has on. It’s a brown woolen V-neck one over a white T-shirt, with matching white sneakers and a pair of small studs in each ear. Her hair is shorter than I’ve worn it in years, though it’s not shaggy like Marlowe’s is. It’s the brown my original hair color would be if I didn’t have salon appointments every six weeks. It’s been well over a decade since I’ve seen this color on myself.

I think again of Erik, waiting to hear if he should request acolor change for my next appointment. The brown does look nice, though it also has the effect of making Other Me look not younger, but meeker. Not enough like Cilla Cove. Way too much like Priscilla Covington-French.

“Hello, me!” I say to Other Priscilla. Maybe my straight-backed, big-smiled confidence will transfer to her in some kind of shared-DNA symbiosis. “Let me guess, you’re a teacher?”

She manages a nod. Or it’s the last act before she stiffens into a board and falls face-first toward the floor. Anyone’s guess.

“To sum it up quickly, we are all duplicates of each other,” I tell her. “And I’m really sorry, but we don’t have time for either of you to process the shock. We’re still processing it ourselves, and look at us! Out and about!” I glance between this Priscilla and Famous Marlowe—or excuse me, Famous Mars—then over to the Marlowe I know. “If you don’t mind compartmentalizing it for the time being, that would be a big help to us.” I nudge Teacher Priscilla in the shoulder. “I know you’re good at that.”

She almost tips over.

“The Memory Machine sent us here from an alternate reality,” I continue. “Greetings, earthlings! We come from a land where we have each other’s jobs!”

“The Memory Machine?” Teacher Priscilla questions.