“Don’t get me wrong, I was ecstatic for you. Getting discovered by a network head right out of college, just for being yourself at a Yankees game?”

  I stare at him, stunned, as he keeps talking.

  “The luck required there,” he says, scratching his head. “It stills blows my mind.”

  Does Jake mean what I think he means? The famous Yankee game where real-life Jake got discovered . . . I was the lucky one that day? I left the Bronx with the life-changing job opportunity? It’s a memory I’m dying to access, unpack, and examine from different angles. But all I can do is hear Jake out.

  “Good old Section 15B, Row 2, Seat 9,” Jake says, in a haunted tone that confirms that in another world that seat was meant for him. I took Jake’s seat at the baseball game, then I took his place in life.

  “After that game,” he says, “life looked so different from everything we’d planned. I’d just started at the Times—”

  “The New York Times?” I balk accidently out loud.

  Jake worked at the Times after college? Like the yearbook said he would?

  He laughs, like I’ve made an old inside joke. “And you were beginning to audition on Broadway . . .”

  Like the yearbook said I would.

  “You’d gotten twelve callbacks . . .”

  “But no offers,” I fill in. It’s just a guess, but Jake nods.

  “And of course,” he says, “your loan payments . . .”

  “Right,” I gulp. “Of course. Those. They were . . .”

  “Huge.”

  What loan is Jake talking about? In my real life, there had been no loan to pay back, because there had been no Juilliard. Only a hard conversation with Lorena at the kitchen table two weeks after my dad died. I closed the door on my plans, and that was that. I try to imagine what I’d done differently here.

  “So when Amy made you the Zombie Hospital offer,” Jake continues, “we chucked it all, flew out to LA, and six years later, here we are.”

  “But why?” I blurt out.

  “Why . . . what?”

  “Why did you just . . . give up your dream? You had a great job—”

  “I’d always wanted to learn to surf—”

  “Jake. I’m serious.”

  “You know the answer, Liv,” he says and puts a hand on my knee. “I didn’t think of it as giving up my dream. I thought of it as an adventure. I told you, on the very first night we got together, that I believe when a person finds something they love this much, they should shape their life around it.”

  Jake did tell me that, but in the version I remember, he was speaking about my acting.

  “I found you,” he says today. “I’m glad I was naive about journalism out here, about the jobs I’d be able to get. Remember those two weeks when I was a paparazzo?” The squeeze of his hand sends heat up my thigh.

  I laugh, but only because I know it’s my cue to laugh. Jake worked for the paparazzi? That sounds awful. Completely dispiriting. How could he not resent me, after going from the New York Times to TMZ? The irony that this man, object of the paparazzi’s gaze in my real life, worked as one, however briefly, here . . . it’s too much.

  “I knew then what I know now,” he’s saying. “That I’d found the most important thing. The rest of it I’d figure out, as long as I had you.”

  “You don’t regret—”

  “A thing,” he says without a moment’s hesitation.

  It makes me think of how, just a few days ago, in my mother’s garage, I’d used the same words about not going to Juilliard. I didn’t regret it. Can it really be that Jake doesn’t regret this life either? Can it be that when you love someone, no matter what life deals you, you still win?

  “Besides,” Jake says, “if I’d stayed a staff writer in New York, the podcasting world would have been deprived of all this.” He spreads his arms and laughs.

  I take him in, gorgeous in his robe and ridiculous briefs. I can’t tell how deep his joke runs at his own expense. I wish that he knew what I knew, about the life he could have had if things had gone just slightly differently.

  If he’d sat in Seat 9 at the Yankees game that day.

  “Olivia,” he says, almost but not quite reading my mind. “If you’d passed on Zombie Hospital, if we’d never come out to LA, you always would have wondered: What if I’d taken my big shot?”

  I’m holding my breath because the parallels and missed connections are too insane to process. In this life, I pulled him away from the career he’d originally wanted. Now he’s trying to find the job he’s meant to have—and judging from last night, he’s every bit as good at connecting with people as he is in Real Life—only somehow, he hasn’t caught his break.

  I can’t help feeling this is all my fault. I can’t help wanting to fix it. In this realm, I’m the only person who appreciates Jake’s potential. And that feels criminal.

  “I think this podcast is going to be good for me,” Jake says. “I know you weren’t wild about it at first, for obvious reasons . . .”

  He nods, and I nod back, like I have a clue what he’s talking about. What reasons would I have for not wanting him to do a podcast?

  I feel unmoored by all that I don’t know about our recent past. I feel surprised by how much I want to know it, sad that I don’t think I ever will.

  “You have a gift, Jake,” I say. “You know that, right? You have this way of connecting with people, of lighting up a crowd. Last night—”

  “That was nothing.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Thanks, Liv. You always see the best in me.” He meets my eyes. He’s not placating me, but also, he doesn’t know the things I know. He hasn’t seen the Jake I’ve seen.

  He looks out across the canyon. “Maybe by the time our firstborn can talk, they won’t have to say, ‘Daddy’s a bum.’ They can proclaim, ‘Daddy only has ten subscribers, but he’s sure proud of that podcast.’ ”

  “Sounds like a pretty judgmental kid,” I say. “Maybe they should take a look in the mirror at the back of their car seat now and then.”

  Jake laughs, but I feel an enormous weight settle over me. I’m not staying in this life, but this version of Jake—this tender, open, dazzler of a man—is staying here.

  And I’m not sure he’s thinking big enough.

  I decide that for as long as I’m stuck here in the High Life, I will do some good. I want to help Jake get what he deserves. Maybe not Everything’s Jake, but some version of it—a career where he’s celebrated for his charms, for his preternatural gift of connecting with people, of connecting them with one another. A vehicle that gets his gorgeous face and soul on camera, like they were meant to be.

  The world I come from is partly powered by Jake Glasswell—by moments where he made someone’s day brighter, someone’s long-lost friend pick up the phone, someone’s fiancée say yes, so many someones’ lives a better place. And I’m going to bring it to the High Life.

  “Hey, Liv,” Jake says, startling me from my schemes.

  “Huh?”

  “Truth or dare?”

  Oh great.

  There’s no way I’ll get a truth right, so I say the dreaded “Dare.”

  Jake settles back in his chair with a smile. He presses something on his phone, and Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” begins to play.

  “Dare you to give me a lap dance.”

  I know I need to keep a safe physical distance between Jake’s body and my own. But when he looks at me like that, his green eyes on fire—for me—I find myself slowly rising from my chair.

  “Don’t miss the chorus,” he says as Marvin winds down the first verse of the song.

  I step toward him, half clad in my silk robe, laughing and fizzing with a nervous thrill. I stand with my legs on either side of his. He runs a hand up my thigh and I shiver.

  Okay, fine, I want this man. I want all the sex there is from him. And I’m terrified, because he loves me, and to sleep with him feels like it would be cheating on the woman he believes he’s married to. So I shouldn’t. But I also don’t know if I can stop myself, because goddamn, when I sit down he almost catapults me across the canyon. There’s practically no way to adjust in his lap without coming.

  He grabs my neck and pulls me close until we’re just about to kiss, and this is it. The moment when I’ll finally know what it was like, that bolt of lightning that changed our lives, the vital flashing root of everything.

  My phone comes to life somewhere nearby. The ringtone is “Tossing and Turning” by the Ivy League.

  Jake exhales a groan and says, “Let it go to voicemail—”

  But I take this interruption as a sign and leap up. I find the phone in my crumpled sweatpants. I look at the contact photo on the screen.

  Ivy. On a unicycle. Apparently at Burning Man.

  “I have to take this,” I say and run to the far side of the pool.

  “Ivy,” I say into the phone. “Did you match the plates?”

  “Are you on a run? You sound really out of breath.”

  “No. I’m fine, I just . . . never mind. What’d you find? Who is he?”

  “The car is registered to a T. Lennox of Eugene, Oregon—”

  “Roger that,” I say. So Yogi Rabbi Dan’s real name is T. Lennox. I’ll find him. I’ll make him take me home.

  I look back at Jake, at the beautiful garden on our deck, and I can’t help feeling pride at our accomplishment. I can see that Jake’s proud too, his bare feet tapping to Marvin as he surveys the job.

  “Olivia?” Ivy’s voice comes through the phone.

  “What! Yes?”

  “T. Lennox is Ms. Teri Lennox. A dental hygienist.”

  “Right,” I say. “Eugene, hygiene, we all Gene for ice cream. Teri must have a husband or a brother—”

  “Olivia, the car was reported stolen five days ago. I’m sorry. The plates are a dead end.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “The Hippocratic oath applies to zombies, too,” I growl at a freckle-faced eight-year-old the following morning.

  The kid stares at me for a moment, then his lip trembles and he erupts into sobs. “But he ate my mommy!”

  “Cut,” the director calls from behind her chair. “That was . . . convincing. Did I say that? I’m stunned. You’re both free till after lunch.”

  Blushing with a bit of pride, I put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “You okay? Did I push too hard?”

  “Lois!” the kid yells. “She’s touching me again—”

  “Olivia, please,” the director says. “Buster’s asked you several times.”

  I don’t know why I’m relieved by this continuity with my High Life self, or why I was relieved yesterday when Ivy called to give me her bad news. Or why I felt relieved for the rest of the afternoon, laughing and dancing with Jake while finishing Deck Day, until we collapsed into bed, too physically exhausted to do anything but sleep.

  I’m still going to find Yogi Rabbi Dan. I’m still going to make him take me home. This is just a temporary setback. But if I must endure more time in the High Life, so be it. Now that I have a vision for getting Jake’s career on track, I’d like to see that plan get started. Then I’ll feel right about going back, happy that in every version of the multiverse I know, Jake enjoys his just desserts. I can leave feeling like our two souls are karmically cool because of the kindness we shared here.

  I head toward my trailer. I should go over my new lines for the afternoon. But the only lines I want to run are the ones I have for Jake. The story he told about us yesterday on the deck answered one question about the state of our careers but raised so many others about our life these last ten years.

  What other curveballs did life throw at us? Why did we have our biggest fight, and how did we get past it? What was the best weekend getaway we ever took, and what was the worst? What do we write in our anniversary cards to each other? Where do we dream of retiring?

  When Jake looks at me, I see the stored treasure of all the life we’ve shared together. It’s in his eyes and in the words he whispers to me half asleep, and I can’t help feeling jealous that I don’t have some of that treasure myself.

  Even if it isn’t real.

  “Bad boy! Bad!” a voice scolds inside my trailer. With trepidation, I open the door and see Aurora’s back. She’s crouched down near the floor and wagging a reprimanding finger at—

  My legs go weak as I take in a tiny white terrier mutt with an underbite. “Gram Parsons?!”

  Aurora whirls around and stands, scooping up the dog—my dog—in one hand. With the other she pats her newly short hair self-consciously.

  “Okay, you hate the cut,” she says, looking hurt. “I was going for Florence Pugh, not Gram Parsons—”

  “No, the dog—” I hold my hands out. It’s all I can do not to snatch him from her arms.

  “Ugh, meet Tito,” she says. “My awful sister randomly moved to Sun Valley this weekend and dumped this gremlin on me.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I breathe.

  “I know, right? She doesn’t understand”—Aurora gestures between us—“we can’t be beholden to a dog. Our work is our life. And when we leave here at the end of each day, there’s nothing left in the tank for some micro turd factory—”

  “May I hold him? Please?”

  “Be my guest.” Aurora plants Gram Parsons in my arms. “Watch out, he pees.”

  I turn to mush feeling his warm weight. I dissolve in a storm of his kisses. It feels so good to hold my dog I begin to cry—silently, blinking madly because I don’t want to explain it to Aurora. Not that she’d notice, anyway.

  I scratch Gram Parsons under his chin, and he locks my hand there. I soften into his brown gaze, feeling a peace I haven’t known for days, a peace that used to be available any time I wanted. But instead of making me homesick, a strange instinct finds my heart: I want to introduce Gram Parsons to Jake Glasswell.

  “I’ll take him off your hands,” I tell Aurora.

  “What?” she says. “Why?”

  “I like dogs.”

  Aurora seems suspicious.

  “And because,” I say, “we’re friends. And I know you have so much on your plate with, uh—”

  “My birthday plans?” she whispers, touching fingers to her chest.

  “Such a big event,” I say.

  “Thank you for seeing me.” Aurora’s now blinking back tears herself.

  “I do,” I say. “And you’re enough.”

  Gram Parson’s goes belly up in my arms.

  “Should we get wasted tonight at Soho House?” Aurora sniffles. “Or you know what—I just joined the Mulholland Tennis Club. We could wear tiny skirts and sneak margaritas on the court.”

  “Let me check my calendar,” I say, pulling out my phone until I can make something up. Then I see I really do have plans.

  Baseball Playoffs vs. Cardinals. North Weddington Park. 6:00 p.m.

  Jake and I play in a baseball league? Of course we’re in the playoffs. I picture Jake in tight polyester pants and—

  “Olivia?” Aurora snaps her fingers in my face.

  “I can’t tonight. I’ve got a baseball game with Jake.”

  She gags. “When are you going to divorce that loser?”

  I stare at her. “What did you just say?”

  “Oh honey, I’m kidding!” she coos. “I mean, I’m kidding if you want me to be.” Aurora looks me up and down. “Because you know there are other teams that would love to have you ride their bench.”

  “You can stop talking now.”

  She waves me off. “You always get like this when I rag on Jake. I simply want the best for you. For you to know real life. Imagine combining your income with another big earner’s wad—”

  “Please leave,” I say and open the trailer door. “Now.”

  “I appreciate your feeling safe enough with me to express your marital frustrations—”

  “I’m happy,” I say with savage intensity. I’d only meant to shut her up, but the words feel true. I’m happy in my marriage to Jake Glasswell. Not the real me, of course, but the me who ended up married to him. She likes it. She has fun and feels safe. She sleeps well and eats well and laughs a lot and sends flirty texts for no reason and looks forward to what otherwise would be considered extremely tedious household maintenance.

  She’s in love. And she is stronger for that love.

  “Okay, I’m out,” Aurora says. “My sensual masseuse is waiting in my trailer.”

  I slam the door behind her, fall onto my papasan, and cuddle with Gram Parsons.

  “Wag your tail twice if you know me from another life,” I whisper in his soft, gray ear.

  Lo and behold, he does.

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  Driving to North Weddington Park that evening, I’m feeling good. Gram Parsons is riding shotgun, and I’m about to play my favorite sport on the same field where I used to play as a kid.

  I’ve left a message with Amy Reisenbach’s assistant about setting up a lunch to broach the topic of Jake’s career. I asked Ivy to call Masha’s mother to get Yogi Rabbi Dan’s contact info. Plans are falling into place. But as I head north on Lankershim, my eyes fall on a billboard that almost makes me flip my car.

  I pull over and park beneath a huge ad for a podcast called Call Your Mother. I stare at it. I blink. On the left side of the billboard is my mother’s image, thirty feet tall and airbrushed. She’s wearing her favorite ombre mai tai outfit, complete with the purple orchid behind her ear.

  On the right side of the billboard is a woman I don’t recognize. She’s closer to my age, her hair is dyed the same shade of red as Lorena’s, and her outfit’s accordingly mai tai’d.

  “Mom, what’s going on?” I dry-heave as I type the title of the podcast into my phone.