“I can’t help my reaction against nepotism. Against not doing everything on my own. Accepting Dad’s help would have meant turning into him—”

  “Which you could never do,” I say, realizing this is true. It’s why Jake is estranged from his father, because he didn’t follow the family path. He chose his own way—both in this life and the one I came from. The painful beauty of this dawns on me: his choice to strike out on his own defines him. It matters more than whether Jake has the fame and fortune he has on the other side.

  “But you’re not my father,” he says. “And I should remember that you love me for who I am, not who you want me to be—”

  “I do,” I say. I take a breath. “Of course. But I still shouldn’t have said that on the yacht. I did it because . . .” I rest my head on his shoulder. “When I’m anxious, I fixate on solving external problems that belong to someone else. Sometimes I’ll even invent a problem, just so I can solve it. I used to feel like that was the only way I could steady myself, to be useful. But it also lets me avoid dealing with my own issues. That’s what I did to you on the yacht. And I’m sorry. The truth is, I don’t care what kind of job you have. Just like I shouldn’t care what kind of wedding Masha has or what kind of podcast my mom has. I need to let that go. Not just here, in this life, but . . .”

  “Where else?” he asks. I shouldn’t be surprised by how closely he’s listening, but I am.

  “Everywhere,” I whisper. “All the wheres in all the worlds.”

  When he nods it brings tears to my eyes.

  “What I’m starting to see,” I say, “is that when I start here”—I put my hand over my heart—“when I’m true to the people I love, when I show up for them honestly, that’s when I get steady. That’s when I feel right.” I take my hand out of his pocket, cup it to his cheek, the way he once cupped mine. I see in his eyes that it feels as good, as reassuring to him as it felt to me. “I feel right with you, right now.”

  “I’ve felt right with you from the first moment I saw you,” he says. And then a playful glint comes into his eyes. “My first day of school at Palisades, junior year.”

  “Oh, come on. That’s revisionist history.” I bump his shoulder. “It was definitely prom. Not a moment sooner. It was us on the curb, when I leaned in and kissed you—”

  “First of all, as has been established, I kissed you.”

  “Wrong!” I make a buzzer noise, energized by this little spat. I’ve missed fighting with him. We’re kind of awesome at it. “I have proof. Documentation in diary form.”

  “Yeah, well, I see your diary,” he taunts, “and raise you one meticulously detailed Moleskine journal.”

  “You do not have a Moleskine—”

  “Third drawer of my desk in the office. You think you’re the only one who writes? My account goes all the way back to my first day at school, the first time I saw the first girl I’d ever fall in love with. And it includes the truth about what happened at the audition for Romeo and Juliet.”

  I stare at him, trying to gauge whether he’s messing with me. I know which moment changed the course of my life, and it was that kiss at prom. It’s the demarcation point between Real Life and High Life. That Jake had feelings for me before then doesn’t seem possible. Yes, he referenced the audition when he was stuck up in the palm tree, but I didn’t know enough then to believe him. I want to argue this point further, but then—if he really did keep his own written version of events, am I supposed to know about it? Have I read it?

  I tell myself to stop worrying about what I’m supposed to know in this life. The details of our past aren’t real anyway. Or at least they won’t be when I go home.

  “Jake?”

  “Yes?”

  “If we’d never kissed at prom, if you’d leaned away—”

  “You mean if you’d leaned away?”

  “If one of us had leaned away, and we never got together—if we spent these past ten years apart, where do you think you’d be now?”

  He considers this a moment, staring at the sea. He takes a long time answering, and I can’t tell if the question annoys him. But then slowly, seriously, he says, “I think I would be living far away from you. I think I would have needed that distance between us, thinking it would let me move on.”

  “New York?” I say.

  “Probably.” He nods. “But it would have been useless. I wouldn’t have moved on. I’d probably be channeling all that energy into some job, who knows what. Maybe it would make me successful. But I wouldn’t be happy. I’d be dating the wrong person and realizing right about now the relationship would never work in the long run.”

  “Why not?” I say.

  Jake turns from the sea to fix his gaze on me. He takes my hand. “Because there is only one long run for me. There only ever has been one. If we’d never gotten together, if we’d spent these ten years apart, I’d be making my way back to you now. I’d do anything to get another chance.”

  I try to see him as Glasswell, getting into my Lyft at LAX. He’s the same person, but he isn’t. And as beautiful as his idea of us is—that our love is inevitable—I’m the one who knows it didn’t turn out that way in Real Life.

  “The question is,” he says, “if we’d spent the past ten years apart, and I came to you and told you the biggest mistake I ever made was not kissing you at prom, what would you do?”

  I swallow the sob rising in my chest. “Luckily,” I say, “we’ll never have to worry about that.”

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” says the security guard at Milo and Lhüwanda’s, the weed café in Santa Monica. I remember him from the last time I was here, a week ago, back in my Real Life. He didn’t want to let me in then, either.

  I put both hands up. “I’m chill, okay?”

  “We’re only serving straight food today. No joints, no edibles.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re out of weed.”

  “You’re out of weed?”

  “It happens. Once I went to Taco Bell and they were out of tacos.”

  I spot Rabbi Dan past the guard, with his yarmulke and short sleeve button-down shirt, his silk tie printed with menorahs. He’s sitting at the zinc bar, reading a mass-market paperback, eating a slice of pound cake.

  “Hey, you’re on that show,” the security guard says to me. “Whose dumb idea was it to mash up—”

  “I completely agree,” I say. “Zombie Hospital sucks so bad everyone involved should be imprisoned. Thing is, I’m here to see that gentleman.”

  “Rabbi?” the guard calls. “This B-list celebrity with you?”

  Rabbi Dan looks me up and down, chews his cake. “Depends on what she wants,” he says.

  “I want to talk to you,” I say to Yogi Rabbi Dan. “I want to go home.”

  Rabbi Dan wipes his mouth with a napkin and nods to the guard. “Let her in.”

  “Thank you,” I say, sliding onto the stool next to him.

  “Did you bring it?”

  I open my purse to show him the giant joint Jake put there the last time we were at this café. Right before Masha’s wedding, right before the multiverse swallowed me whole.

  “You haven’t smoked it,” Rabbi Dan says. “You must like it here.”

  “I took one hit. Nothing happened. You said it wouldn’t work, anyway.”

  “That was then,” he says. “You’d just arrived. But your eyes say now you’re a different person. You believe.”

  I wonder if the rabbi’s right. I decide he is.

  “Where’s Jake?” he asks.

  “He’s on his way home,” I say, picturing him when we’d said goodbye in Zuma. I’d held in my tears as he kissed me, until I was alone in my car. “We were just at the beach together—”

  “One final sunset?” Rabbi Dan smiles.

  “I told him I’d meet him at home but . . . what happens when I leave here? To this version of him? What happens to everyone when I leave?”

  “That’s not for you to know,” Dan says. “It’s not for anyone to know. You make your choice and surrender to the universe.”

  My eyes fill with tears.

  Dan tilts his head. “May I ask why you want to leave?”

  “Because it isn’t real,” I say. “And I know you’re going to say reality is overrated—”

  “Do I talk like that?”

  “But history is real,” I say with conviction. “Experience is real. All those moments are the basis for love, and I missed too much of what built our relationship in this life. I can’t stay any longer. I have to go back.”

  “Oh,” the rabbi says, looking concerned. “You do know, Olivia, there’s no guarantee of a return trip. This isn’t an airline. You might leave here, but . . .”

  “What do you mean? I could end up in some third reality?”

  “Or fourth or fifth or thousandth,” he says. “So you need to be sure you really want to leave.”

  My mind flashes to Jake an hour ago at the beach. The feel of my hand in his pocket. I don’t want to leave that. I don’t want to leave him. And yet I’m sure I’m not supposed to be here. If I think about it any longer, I might change my mind.

  “I’m ready.” I take the joint out of my purse and place it on the table. “I’ll take my chances. Let’s go.”

  The rabbi lights a match and puts the joint between his lips. He inhales, a bit unceremoniously for my liking—shouldn’t such a moment be treated with more gravitas?

  “ ’S good shit,” he wheezes and passes the joint to me.

  I hold it between my thumb and middle finger. “So I take a hit and . . . leave this reality?”

  “Not exactly,” the rabbi says. “What did you learn while you were here?”

  “I learned the value of my mother and my best friend—”

  “But you already knew that.”

  “I learned there’s a world where Glasswell and I . . . don’t hate each other.”

  “Wow,” Rabbi Dan says. “You haven’t even left and the Walls of Jericho are going up.”

  “What else am I supposed to do? In my Real Life, Jake’s a god and I’m a wad of gum stuck to the universe’s shoe. I’ve got to toughen up if I want to survive.”

  “Or . . .” Dan says.

  “Or what? Go back to my Real Life and tell Glasswell what I learned about us here? That we could be in love, and it could be so beautiful neither of us should waste another moment not trying to recreate it?”

  Rabbi Dan laughs . . . and laughs, for a solid minute, banging a fist on the bar as tears well in his eyes.

  “My point exactly,” I say. “I think I’ll take my chances with my walls.”

  “I’m not laughing because what you proposed is ridiculous,” Dan manages to say. “I’m laughing because this weed is bubonic.”

  I sigh and hold up the joint. “How long is this going to take?”

  Dan’s eyes rove from me to the joint, then back to me. “You don’t think that joint’s magical, do you?”

  “What else would I think? I’ve been carrying this around all week!”

  Dan laughs again. “You’re hilarious. There is no magic joint.”

  “Where is the magic then?!?” I yell.

  “Hey now—” the security guard says, standing up behind his desk.

  “I’m chill,” I lie to him. “I’m fucking chill, okay?”

  Rabbi Dan leans toward me, taps a finger on my chest. “You’ve had it all along.”

  “Then what the hell do I need you for?”

  “You don’t.” Rabbi Dan shrugs.

  “Damn it, Dan. Why am I still here? How do I leave?”

  “How did you get here?” the rabbi asks in a far-out stoner voice.

  “How did you steal a Honda?” I ask.

  “Hey, hey,” Dan says, throwing up his hands. “Tithing takes many forms.”

  “You are so infuriating,” I say. Then I allow myself to consider his question. How did I get here? Masha’s ceremony. Rabbi Dan said those words about two people becoming inextricably entwined. Then I stared at Jake. There was a burst of light, a tremor in the ground. And that’s when it happened.

  “A light bulb is turning on in your mind,” Dan says and smiles as if he’s been waiting for this all along. “Right on.”

  Is that it? Do I need to don my maid of honor hat and make Masha’s wedding happen a second time? Do I need to go out the way I came in?

  “Can you meet me tomorrow morning at ten at Lifeguard Tower 28?” I ask Rabbi Dan.

  He nods and we rise from the table, the deal struck.

  “Don’t forget to bring the joint,” he says. “There appears to be a shortage.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I spend a sleepless night alone in the bridal suite at Shutters on the Beach, attempting to recreate the details of Masha and Eli’s Real Life wedding. By ten on Sunday morning, I’m dragging toward Tower 28 a chuppah made of plywood, hot glue, and lace.

  I hear the beep of a large truck in reverse, and I look toward the sound. A tow truck pushes a red 2012 Nissan LEAF out of the Shutters parking garage. Somewhere deep inside I’m panicked and intrigued. But I don’t have time to think on it more.

  I’m wearing a golden shift that approximates my maid of honor dress. I’m barefoot and have painted exactly half of my lips red. I made four handwritten programs, one for every person I’m hoping will show up today. I affixed the programs with popsicle sticks. I bought a small bouquet of white and yellow calla lilies from the florist up the beach. I have a sack of take-out pupusas, a string quartet version of “Just Like Heaven” downloaded on my phone, a sunny sky, and a heavy heart.

  “I recognize this maid of honor,” a voice behind me says.

  I turn to find Rabbi Dan making his way down the beach. He’s dressed as his alter-ego yogi self—his Jewish novelty tie replaced with the unnecessarily sheer white kurta, his yarmulke swapped for a sand-colored headscarf.

  “How do I look?” he says and spins like the sand is a catwalk.

  “Like a man I’d drag out of a weed café so he could be twenty minutes late to officiate my best friend’s wedding,” I say.

  “Where is everyone?” Yogi Dan says, scanning the quiet beach. “I’ve got a bris at eleven or a kundalini class at eleven thirty. Depending on how things go.”

  I check my phone, but there are no new messages. Jake hasn’t written me back since last night, after we text-argued about my decision to stay in Santa Monica. He was shocked, then confused, then annoyed. He wanted to come meet me, said he’d pack a bag and bring Gram Parsons and be at Shutters in an hour. When I responded that I needed some time, that I’d explain everything today, he called. And called. I put my phone on silent, knowing that if I picked up, I’d end up spending the night in his arms, and I’d lose the will to do what I have to do right now.

  If he’d called one more time, I probably would have caved. But he didn’t.

  Now I’m terrified I’ve blown it anyway. Terrified he won’t show up.

  “He’ll be here,” Yogi Dan intuits. “The wild card is the bride.”

  He’s right. When I’d called Masha last night to invite-slash-beg her to come today, she’d sent me to voicemail. I was in the middle of leaving a long, ungainly voice memo when I got her text.

  Masha: You’re still here? Didn’t I tell you to go home?

  Me: About that.

  Me: I may need a tiny bit of help.

  Masha: Wrong number.

  Me: Please, Mash. If this works . . . you’ll never hear from me again.

  Me: I mean, you’ll never hear from me in this realm. In my world, I’m probably going to need an extended girls’ weekend to hold you close and parse this shit.

  Me: Not your problem, sorry.

  Masha: . . .

  Me: One favor, Mash.

  Masha: What

  Me: Twenty minutes of your time.

  Masha: When

  Me: Ten am tomorrow. Lifeguard Tower 28. Bring Eli.

  Masha: If I do this, you’ll leave me alone? For real?

  Me: Wear white.

  “She’ll be here,” I say to Dan, willing it to be true. “We want the same thing.”

  “Everybody does,” he says. “Some of them just don’t know it yet.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a familiar blur of movement. Even when she hates me, Masha still walks the same way: her dark, curly head tipped a little to the right, a slight bounce on her heels. I hold my breath in gratitude as she and Eli approach on the boardwalk, hand in hand. He’s wearing jeans and a white polo—I’ll take it. She’s in a short white sundress printed with tiny yellow daisies. My palms sweat as I grip the improvised bridal bouquet. My hands need something to do so they don’t fold Masha in a hug.

  She and Eli reach a concrete divider on the boardwalk. I watch as Eli stops her, lifts her in his arms, and carries her, threshold-style, over the ledge.

  “I can walk,” she says, laughing. “I’m pregnant, not paralyzed.”

  “Why should you exert yourself?” he says, seeming reluctant to put her down even on the other side of the barrier. “You should save your strength.”

  “Save your own strength,” she says. “Once we hit the third trimester, lifting me will tear your arms out of your sockets.”

  “Who needs arms?” When he kisses her, I let out an adoring sigh.

  The sound of it reaches Eli, who looks up and takes in the chuppah. Then me beneath it. He rubs his eyes.

  Clearly Masha hasn’t told Eli about meeting me today.

  “Morning.” I wave innocently.

  Before Masha even sees me, Eli’s got her by the shoulders, turning her back in the direction they came.