The Next Place Along

In the desert, time takes off its mask, and I see the slow stretch of existence for what it is. The shadow of a cactus inches along the dirt. A lizard scuttles over a rock.

My beat-up red car is a flash of anger in a dreamscape of bleached blue and beige. I lean against the hood, waiting in the sweltering sun.

Will she come? Perhaps she was only joking when she said to meet here at noon. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems. A picnic in the desert with a woman I’d met yesterday? So stupid.

I push myself off the hood and check my reflection in the wing mirror. My mascara is smudged with sweat, my brown hair is escaping my bun, and my green polo shirt, embroidered with John’s Liquor Basket, is embarrassingly wrinkled.

She’s now thirty minutes late. Whatever. I pull my keys out of my pocket. I’ll just go grab some lunch and head to work for my shift, as usual. Then, after work, Alex and I will curl up on our little couch and watch Love is Blind while scrolling absentmindedly. I’ll send reactions to mom’s Instagram stories – our main form of communication now she’s all loved up with her new man. Alex and I will show each other a few memes, and then we’ll go to bed.

As I open the car door, a lonely hawk screams overhead. I take one last reluctant look around.

No sign of her.

Until she walks over the crest of the hill.

She wears men’s clothes and a wild grin. Her black hair bounces with her unselfconscious gait. My heart beats faster, and I close my car door. She waves big and enthusiastic, like a kid.

“Hey,” I say. “You came.”

“Right back at you.” When she smiles, her skin crinkles around a scar that crests her nose like a sand dune. “Come along then, we’re heading out.” She gestures broadly at the arid landscape.

“Just, like… straight out into the desert?”

“And far beyond,” she says, wriggling her ring-laden fingers toward my face.

She strides off into the wilderness, tugging the straps of her overstuffed backpack. I brush off my cargo pants and hurry along after her.

We walk under the corn-yellow sun.

Or rather, she walks ahead of me, striding purposefully like a woman with a deadline to meet. She doesn’t turn around to look at me, even once. I open my mouth to ask her a question – I’m not sure what. Maybe just small talk, something to remind her that I’m here, too. But then I think better of it. She doesn’t seem to want to chat. Her black hair falls over the backpack, the curls glossy.

We hike on, kicking up taupe dust from the rocky, sandy ground. Sweat runs down my brow. What’s in her backpack? Could it possibly be an umbrella for shade, a picnic blanket, and food? It doesn’t look likely.

This is weird. This is super weird. The high of not being stood up wears off, replaced by irritation. At what point do I just turn around and walk away?

I’m about to tell her I’m heading home. But we clamber over a rock, and she points straight ahead.

My mind goes blank.

A few paces from us, in the middle of the desert, someone has cut a hole out of the air. Through that hole, I can see another place – a moonlit forest in a rainstorm. Wet drops fall through to our side, landing fat and heavy in the ochre dust.

“What the hell is that?” I gasp.

“The way home.”

My mind races, trying to make what I’m seeing match my concept of reality, of physics.

“W-What…” I stutter. “Are you some kind of… alien?”

“No,” she snorts. “I’m just from the next place along.”

###

I hadn’t even noticed when she walked into John’s Liquor Basket yesterday evening. The little bell on the door jingled, but I didn’t look up.

Vaguely, I hoped it wasn’t Gary, the middle-aged creep who came in regularly to stock up on spirits and brag about his extensive car miniature collection. His wet lips always wormed their way into an eager smile as he looked me over in my frumpy green uniform. I must have mentioned a million times that I was dating the son of the liquor store owner—yes, the very liquor store in which we stood. Gary didn’t care.

Instead of confirming whether it was indeed the old alcoholic, I opened Instagram. My last picture of Alex tucking into a big plate of spaghetti at Trattoria Notte had barely scraped 14 likes. I should have posted on TikTok, tried the latest dance. But who would I have done it with?

The girls I’d gone to high school with were either busy with their newborn babies or graduating from college and heading into fancy jobs in Silicon Valley. And I was here. As always. I knew I should care, should feel some spark of motivation to take the next step in my life. But all I felt was fuzzy, numb.

A bottle of wine thumped down on the counter. I startled up and saw a girl around my age, with a constellation of freckles and curly black hair. She wore black cargo pants and a baggy green shirt, with an overstuffed black backpack.

“Okay, so I just got into town today,” she said. “What’s there to do around here?”

“Uh.” I felt like I’d been dropped into the middle of this conversation. “Nothing much. A strip mall. A strip club. A Tex-Mex place.”

“That’s what I thought!” She leaned forward eagerly, eyes alight. “But then I told myself, that’s not possible, right? Everywhere has something. I’ve been traveling for years now, and everywhere has something.”

Traveling for years? She didn’t look rich. Maybe she jumped trains. Something about her looked windswept, like she was about to leap.

“It’s pretty quiet around this area,” I said.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I like quiet, I guess.”

“Huh. Quiet never did it for me.”

Okay, condescending. “Well… my boyfriend and I were both born and raised here. After high school, we figured it was a nice enough place to settle down. We’re saving for college.” I wasn’t sure why I added this last part. It was hardly true anymore. A dream from long ago that we both seemed to have conveniently forgotten, allowing rent payments to take over instead.

“Cool.”

I felt my cheeks flush and my pride bite. “Well, we can’t all be traveling day in, day out. It doesn’t make you better than anyone else.”

“No. I know I’m not better than you.” She said it with such sincerity that I scanned her face. Did we know each other? Maybe I once beat her in a school spelling bee or something. But no, I didn’t recognize her. She had the kind of face you didn’t forget.

I shook my head, grabbed her wine, and rang it up.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just… jetlagged. I was being a dick. My name’s Callie.”

I sighed. “I’m Ilana.”

“Well, if there’s nothing to do in town, I guess I’ll camp in the desert tonight. That’s something.”

“Watch out for coyotes.”

“Nice. Any other cool wildlife?”

“Yeah, actually there’s a lot!” If I ever made it to college, I’d study zoology or veterinary science. “Roadrunners, jackrabbits, and prairie dogs, among many others.”

Her face lit up. “I love dogs.”

“They’re not actually dogs.” How had she never heard of prairie dogs? “They’re rodents.”

“That’s dumb,” she said, but she grinned like she liked the idea.

“Isn’t it?” I laughed. “Anyway, most of all, you’ll spot stars. I used to drive out there when I was a teenager and just stargaze hours away.”

She picked up an origami swan off the counter. I’d made it from a receipt. Her fingers delicately traced the line of the wing. “Good tip, Ilana the liquor store girl. You want to come with?”

“Uh, what?”

“To the desert with me. I’d love a tour guide, in case I run into any rodents that are actually dogs.”

“I can’t tonight. I’m busy.” I thought about scrolling on the couch with Alex. Tracking my Amazon package. Doing my ab workout.

“Suit yourself,” she grinned, wolf-like. “Wine under the stars for one it is, then.” She patted the wine bottle, and I put it in a bag for her.

She walked out with a cheery wave. A hot flush of shame threatened to overwhelm me. Why? I didn’t do anything wrong. I quickly opened Instagram again.

Raised voices tore my eyes away from my phone to the front window. My stomach dropped. Gary was standing outside the store. He had that smug look on his face and his eyes locked on Callie. He said something to her. She crossed her arms and said something back. He got up close to her face, and she laughed. He swayed like he was drunk. Shit.

I dropped my phone and rushed outside into the thick heat of the night. Sweat slicked down Gary’s face.

“Is everything OK?” I asked the space between them, unsure who to focus on.

“Did this girl cause problems for you in the store?” Gary asked me.

“No. She was fine.”

“Me, cause problems?” said Callie. “I’m not the creep who –”

“Listen, bitch,” said Gary. “I asked if you were new in town and you suddenly went crazy on me. No point trying to hide it, now.”

“You’re an asshole, and that’s not what you asked me.”

“Don’t get aggressive now,” he said. His hand flicked towards the gun I knew he kept in his waistband.

Callie opened her mouth to protest.

“Look, Gary, don’t waste your time on her,” I said, quickly. He hefted himself up to his full height and gazed at me, so I continued, “We had a sale on your favorite whisky yesterday. I was planning to extend the discount to today, just for you.” There was no sale, but I’d just give him 20% off his usual. I smiled. “My best client.”

Slowly, he nodded. “That’s a good girl,” he said, hand drifting away from his gun.

“Let me just give my friend here some directions to her hotel, and then I’ll come in and get you taken care of.”

“Alrighty, then,” he said, and walked inside.

When the door closed, Callie spun to me and grabbed my wrist. “That was so cool! You played him. Thank you!”

“No worries.” Her hand was warm on my skin.

“Look, I know you’re busy tonight, so come for a picnic with me tomorrow? I want to thank my knight in shining armor.”

“A picnic?”

“Yeah, just like a picnic in the desert tomorrow. It’s nice around there.”

“That’s… such a weird plan.” I couldn’t stop the smile creeping onto my face. “Sure.”

“Great, let’s do it then. Just two gals hanging out in the desert.”

She pulled up Google Maps on her phone and showed me some spot that she’d seen and liked. I took a picture of the screen and agreed to meet her there the next day at noon. She hugged me goodbye, and her hair smelled of pine needles.

The rest of my shift passed slowly.

###

Share

The window in the desert is a slice of emerald, glittering and wet. We walk right up to it.

“So essentially,” Callie says, “I’m your dimensional neighbor.”

“Like… an alternate reality?”

“Exactly.”

I can smell the pine-fresh rain, feel the breeze of another reality on my skin. I want to cry and laugh at the same time. This is the truth. The answer to a question I’ve never dared to ask. Life is far vaster and far more intricately beautiful than I believed possible.

My brain wants to reject this, but the proof of it is right in front of me.

“I… it’s stunning.”

“And it’s barely the beginning. There are parallels out there so different that you can’t even imagine. In my reality, we invented Cutters and can just slice through.” She pulls a metal circle out of her backpack and points it at the air, as if showing me how it works. “My people travel and then we come back to the settlement and share stories, food, and wine.”

“The settlement?”

“There’s only a few thousand of us humans, in my parallel. The settlement is our base when we’re not traveling.”

It’s too much to wrap my head around. “Why did you bring me here?”

Callie gestures at the hole in space and time. “To see if you want to go through with me!”

“To see if I… why would I want to do that?” But we both know exactly why I’d want to go through. I am enraptured.

“This window is closing in a few hours. It can’t be reopened. So, I’m heading in there.” She gestures at the glittering emerald forest. “I reckon I’ll explore for a bit, then Cut through to the next place, and the next. I may end up a few parallels away.” Callie kicks at the dust with her boot. “So… come with me?”

My fingers twitch towards the forest. I shove my hand in my pocket. “Why me?”

“As a thank you for saving me!”

As if. I think of the way Callie looked at me, back in the liquor store. It was like she knew me. “Don’t bullshit me.”

She looks up at the sky and tightens her backpack straps. “Ok, fine, confession.”

“Go on.” My heart pounds in my chest.

“It’s a bit creepy… but I’ve met an alternate version of you. Like, super briefly.”

Another version of me? “Explain.”

“Well, sometimes, parallel worlds contain parallel people. Not always. But I met you, the other you, ages ago. It was at a space station, a bunch of worlds away. And you were this supernova, Ilana. You literally stole every scrap of attention in the room and you deserved it, too. Badass captain, coming in to barter for spare parts. It was a rough space station, but you called the shots. Anyway, I came to this version of reality and spotted you through the window of the liquor store. I couldn’t believe it. I thought across every reality, you’d be off doing something wild. But here, you look…. wilted.”

“As in… like a dying plant?” That stings.

“Well, in this world, it’s hardly your fault. You’re just following the rules, right? You said you met some guy and moved into a house together. That’s like, the goal of this reality. I bet I’m wilted too, if I exist here.”

I press my fingers against my temples.

“Normally,” she continues, “it’s good etiquette to leave people’s alternates alone, but I just… the difference was insane.”

“So, you took pity on me.”

“No. Yes? I was curious. And I came in to find out more about you. Then, I was going to leave you be, but you saved me from the creep, and I knew I owed you this. A chance to do something you’d love.” She looks down and then meets my eyes, confident. Her freckles are brilliant in the sunlight. “Plus, I liked talking with you yesterday. I didn’t really have that same spark with the other you. I just sold her some spare parts.”

My stomach jumps and I push the feeling away, letting anger take over instead. “That is so rude. I have a life here.”

“Do you?”

“I have…” I splutter. “The dignity of a small life well lived.” I bat away thoughts of the monotony of my regular Starbucks order. Driving to the gym and then back home. My dead-end job at John’s. “Thanks for your pity party, but I’m good. And you may think your life is so amazing, but you’re clearly lonely. Picking up random girls in liquor stores like some weirdo. Judging their choices.”

“That’s not what this is.” Now her scar pulls taught as she frowns. “But suit yourself.”

I turn and walk away.

###

Share

Our apartment is hot. Alex sits on the couch in his grey shorts and hardly looks up from his laptop as I slam the front door shut. I tuck in my stray hairs and brush the desert dust from my pants. I swear I can still smell the sharp pine needles of another world when I inhale. I blow my nose. I need to let my impossible morning go. Forget Callie.

“Dad’s coming over for dinner tonight after work. I’ll pick up a few of those oven lasagnes.” Alex says. Storage Wars blares from the TV.

“Sounds great, babe.” I join him on the couch, slotting into the spot where the pillows have molded around my body. I try not to stare at my phone, which shines the time as if screaming that the window is closing soon, soon, soon. I don’t care, because I’m not going.

Sweet, kind Alex. When my mom moved in with her awful ex, his family took me in like I was their own. It’s been years. He’s my family, now.

“Hey, we should drive to California this weekend,” I say.

“Uh, what?” He doesn’t take his eyes off his laptop, except to briefly glance at the TV.

“Yeah! I mean, we always talk about it, right? Let’s go see the ocean.”

“Gas is expensive, hon.”

“Well, what have we been saving for if not stuff like this?”

He sighs, pauses the TV, and looks at me, confused. I’d built this groove with him; why was I trying to break it?

“I’m watching the game with the boys on Saturday. Maybe the weekend after.”

“It’s your mom’s birthday the weekend after.”

“Some other time, then.”

“OK,” I say and settle back. “Some other time.”

We finish the rest of the episode, and I kiss him goodbye, grab my purse, and walk to the front door.

“I’m heading to work.”

“Bye, babe.”

###

I drive past John’s Liquor Basket. The road leads me out of town and I accelerate into the desert like a woman possessed. Tears stream down my face. Screeching the car to halt, I leap out and run into the silent desert as the sun sets. Sweat and tears, hope and fear mingle and curdle in my body.

I sprint and pray Callie’s gone so I can be done with this. Then, I pray she’s still there. Scrambling over the rock, I breathe heavily, gasping for air.

Callie is nowhere to be seen… but the window is still open, and the vivid green forest fills my vision. Another reality. In there, dawn is just beginning to break, and this new world calls like a siren song. A magnetic pull.

Running my hands through my hair, I groan and pull out my phone. One bar of signal. I tap my iMessage with Alex and type out a text that is not enough. It will never be enough, but it’s all I can do. With choking sobs, I explain that we’re holding each other back and that I’m leaving. And that I’m sorry. I press send. It’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.

Without giving myself a second to think, I run and launch myself through the window. Stumbling, I fall on the mossy grass. It leeches water through my pants.

A forest of evergreens surrounds me – feathery not-quite-pines that are larger than any trees I’ve ever seen. Overhead, the pale full moon hangs in the dawn-bleached, purple-tinged sky. The air smells tangy, like herbs and honey. I breathe deeply to calm my tears.

What must have happened to create a forest where there once could have been desert? Dawn, where there could have been sunset?

Behind me, I hear a disbelieving laugh.

Callie stands next to a silver pod – a tent? A spaceship? Questions push and shove at my lips, beaten out by my heavy breathing.

“Aaand she does it!” Callie says.

“What?”

“Bravery! You leaped through that window without a second thought. It could have been painful — maybe you couldn’t even breathe the air here. But you jumped through anyway.”

Honestly, none of that had crossed my mind. It doesn’t, when you’re fleeing your old life like a panicked animal. When you’re awakening after years of feeling numb.

“You waited,” I say.

“Well, I was hoping…” She walks over to me. “It’s good to see you.”

“I’ve just done something awful,” I say.

“We all do awful things. Can you live with it? Can you make it worth it?”

I don’t know. “Is this world better? Is it good?”

“There’s an entire universe of realities out here.” She shrugs. “A badass like you is going to find what’s good, I’m sure.”

A badass like me.

I laugh, and her eyes crinkle, warm. We gaze around at the new world that surrounds us.

Silver-furred creatures stir in their trees, leaping from branch to branch. Trilling birdsong fills the air. And time takes off its mask.