Mallory’s breath grows shallow as she steps toward Ilena. She places a hand on the shelf of Ilena’s stomach. “And?”
Ilena encases Mallory’s hand with her own, displaying a platinum wedding band instead of her usual gold one. “Felix made a corny dad joke this morning.”
Felix.It’s like being dropped in a black hole with not even a pinprick of light to suggest a way out. “But how?”
Ilena releases Mallory’s hand. “That’s a question, but notthequestion.Thequestion is...” Her soft fingertips glide over the red marks on Mallory’s forearm. “Have you... did you...?”
“KillGrayson?” Aubrey says. “Of course she didn’t.”
They wait for a confirmation that Mallory cannot give. She steps back, allowing them to enter the penthouse.
Ilena moves with a speed that, though not swift, must be her top in this state. Aubrey follows a reluctant several paces behind. A humming clogs Mallory’s ears, but soon through the fuzziness comes the scuffling of knees on a floor, a long cry, a gasp, a “Grayson!”
Mallory remains still. Ilena appears in the hall, her face tight, her eyes wide, but somehow still managing to exude her usual calm. She extends her hand. “Come.”
So Mallory does. She lets Ilena take her hand and guide her to the couch where Aubrey’s sitting with tears in her eyes and Harley in her lap. The television’s still on, the morning show continuing to play on mute, and Mallory wants to turn back the clock and live in that brilliant span before she saw Grayson when the only thing on her mind was AIM being onThe Shandy Shane Show.
Ilena settles herself in the armchair beside the couch. “I’m assuming you haven’t called the police?”
Mallory shakes her head.
“And you have no memory of last night? Of...” Ilena gestures toward the kitchen, swallowing audibly.
Again, Mallory shakes her head, a chill starting in her toes and snaking up her legs.
“Then you have no idea how?” Ilena says.
That chill shrouds her torso, seizing her lungs. Grayson was always careful. He never ate anything without checking. Organic, GMO-free, grass-fed, all of that, for his health, sure, but also for his allergen and that “slight” complication of anaphylactic shock.
“Mallory?” Ilena prods. “Do you?”
“No,” she lies, pressing her teeth into her bottom lip. “I just woke up and found him. I don’t—I just woke up.” The weight of Ilena’s stare nearly suffocates her.
Finally, Ilena’s eyes detach from Mallory’s. They flicker to thered lines on Mallory’s arm before Ilena says, “Okay.” She takes out her phone and starts dialing. Mallory sees the “9” on the screen and snatches the phone out of Ilena’s hand. “Mallory!”
“What, Ilena, what? You actually want to call the police? You think they’re going to believe I just happened to wake up in a dead man’s apartment with no memory of the past fourteen hours?”
Aubrey’s hand quakes as she adjusts Harley. “But it’s not just you, it’s all of us.”
Details follow of Aubrey and Ilena waking up to homes and lives that are a degree or two or a hundred off from their own. None of this should be possible. Have they all been drugged for some practical joke? But it’s so elaborate, involving so many people and the renting and staging of apartments. And how could anything of this magnitude be done in that short amount of time? And Ilena would have to be in on it, wearing a fake belly and—
“How can the world just change overnight?” Aubrey asks.
“It can’t,” Ilena says. “Life is logical. Which is why I never believed in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or monsters under the bed. There must be a perfectly reasonable explanation—”
“One that also explains this?” Aubrey holds up her hand. “I remember everything up to the sandbox, including the mosquito bite on my thumb from last night that’s magically gone.”
Ilena peers at Aubrey’s skin. “But you swell up for days.”
“I know.” Aubrey sticks out her thumb. “But nothing. Unlike my nails. Pink polish? Did I sleepwalk and paint my nails? And look at my cuticles. As perfect as yours. And this?” Aubrey pulls on the waistband of her pants. “Two sizes smaller, but they fit. Not even snug.” She reaches across the couch and pulls an elastic out of Ilena’s hair. “And unless this is a wig...”
Ilena’s ballooned belly overshadowed it, but her hair is longer, nearly to her shoulders, and Aubrey’s face does look thinner, herwrists, chest, waist, all just a bit smaller, yes. Mallory reaches for her own hair, the same length as it’s been for the past ten years. Her body feels like her body, feels the same, but is it different? Besides her jumpsuit not being aubergine but a rather hideous shade of Crayola crayon grape? She rubs the fabric, cheap and fit for a clown. The one she wore yesterday was couture. Thanks to AIM, she’s become a public figure, one people pay attention to, down to her shoes.
Mallory’s mind churns, trying to put this in some box that makes sense. “We agree we’re alive, right? Not in some sort of joint hallucination or purgatory?”
Ilena’s hand reaches for the ends of her long hair. “Logic would say so.”
Logic. Right, okay, logic. Logically, what do they know? They were at their summer outing last night. They played a game. They woke up with no memories of anything in between. Except they woke uphere. In this place. This place with these differences. These differences that are all connected to the game.
