Jessica Chiarella - And Again

We meet in the conference room, as we always have. We take our normal seats. It’s David’s doing, that we’re all here. David, with his opposition research. He was the only one who could bring the rest of us together in the end, for our final meeting, one year since we opened our new, light-blind eyes for the first time. We all look a bit worse for the months we spent apart, and I think of all the things I have not told these people, about Sam, about Lucy, about what has happened between David and me. About how I can still see the world in that old, beautiful way even though I cannot paint it. I wonder what secrets the rest of them must be keeping as well. I wonder how much has gone unsaid between us, all along.

“So, here we are,” Connie says, clasping her hands together. “I don’t know about you, but I think it feels good to have the band back together for this little reunion tour.”

“Well I haven’t missed you that much,” David replies. “I see you almost every time I take the Red Line. Those goddamn ads are inescapable.” I smile at this too, because I’ve been just as startled as David when I board the L and see Connie’s face lining the cars, staring out from her ads for some new anti-aging cream. It’s Connie winking at the camera, her face pale and pristine, her lips bright red, her hair all slick golden-blonde. The text reads, Ask my age, I dare you.

“You don’t think it’s false advertising? I mean, me hawking a fucking wrinkle cream?” Connie glances at Linda, who shrugs.

“I think if that’s the most morally ambiguous thing you’ve done since the transfer, you’re lucky,” Linda replies, and we all exchange unsteady, knowing glances. “Maybe they shouldn’t have left it to chance. The lottery. Maybe they should have picked someone stronger than me, someone who would have been better at everything that comes after.”

“People who deserve it more,” Connie adds, the straight line of her front teeth capturing her bottom lip. I’m sure we’ve all thought the same thing, more than once. I know I have, especially now, after all the damage I’ve caused.

“I think we were foolish, in the beginning,” I say, unable to keep myself from looking at David, or thinking of all my towering mistakes. “To think that going through what we did wouldn’t have an impact. To think we could just keep going in spite of it.”

“Whatever the case,” Dr. Bernard says, “I think you all need to appreciate what a singular experience you’re having. This might be the next frontier of human evolution. I think you need to reflect on your place in history.”

Pioneers, I think. Blazing the trails. And then Connie snorts.

“I’d love to reflect and all, doc,” she says, smirking from under a messy knot of blonde hair. “But all I really want is a nice strong cup of coffee.” We toast to this, raising our cups of cocoa.

“I had a dream last night.” I can feel the pulse of disbelief around me as soon as I say it, followed by a thrill of elation.

“What?” Connie asks, leaning forward, her hands tight around the sides of her chair. “Are you sure?”

“I know what it’s like to dream,” I reply, before thinking that our last meeting might be a good time to temper the snippy edge in my tone. “I’m sure.”

Connie breaks out into a smile; Linda clasps her hands together in front of her mouth. Even Dr. Bernard gives a small, sharp chuckle.

“You know what this means?” Connie says, her eyes wide. Linda speaks before I do.

“Maybe it will all come back,” she breathes. “Maybe if enough time passes, the rest of it will come back too.”

Dr. Bernard adjusts his glasses, uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. I can tell he wants to warn us not to grow too hopeful, that dreaming is one thing, while being able to drink coffee or paint or have children is another thing entirely. But he remains silent, perhaps because it’s our last meeting, or perhaps because he realizes how much we all need to hope irrationally for a little while. For now, it’ll be enough.

We’re all talking at once, our voices crisscrossing our little circle, notes of laughter bouncing from person to person. And then Connie shouts over everyone, silencing the room until it’s all one muted note of expectation.

“Hey, Hannah. So what did you dream about?”

I take a moment to remember, pull it all forward, to drape myself in the feeling of it. Standing at the water’s edge. Feeling the cool wind on my face. Feeling him approach behind me, warm and solid, the way you can in dreams when you can feel the whole world because the whole world is inside your body. Waiting an extra moment, savoring the weightlessness of it, feeling myself drifting out of my skin, pulled by the wind until I’m sure I could let go of my body and fly out over Lake Michigan if I wanted to. But instead I hold on. I remain. And then I take a breath, and turn.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Rebecca Johns Trissler for being such a wonderful mentor. Thank you for so much, but especially for never letting me second-guess my work. Many thanks to my agent, Melissa Kahn, for her skill in championing this book and her patience in guiding me through this process. I am so grateful to my editor, Sally Kim, for her enthusiasm, her kindness, and for providing such insightful answers to all of my questions. Thank you also to the fantastic team at Touchstone for making this process such a joy.

Thanks to Jeremy Barr for his lawyering skills and for being generous enough to let me put my writing first. Thank you to Mandy Graber for being such a wonderful source of support and advice along the way. Many thanks to Valerie Paulson, Janet Hickey, Daniel Stolar, and everyone who made DePaul University feel like a second home. To my support group, the incredibly talented class of writers who lived through the first draft of this novel with me, thank you for the early advice and for always keeping my feet on the ground.

Love and thanks to Vanessa Bordo and Ashley Grebe for keeping me sane for over a decade. Thank you to my brother, Christopher, for being my 3 a.m. phone call. And, finally, thank you to my Mom and Dad for giving me a childhood filled with stories. This one is for you.

And Again

By Jessica Chiarella

Introduction

Four terminally ill patients receive the chance to enroll in the SUBlife program, a scientific advancement that gifts them with brand new bodies free from their old illnesses and the ravages of time. They’re exact replicas of their former selves. . or so it seems.

The four patients are Hannah, an artist who cannot seem to recapture her prior inspiration; David, a politician whose meddling with FDA approval for the SUBlife program is a secret he’s hoping to keep; Linda, who spent eight years in a “conscious coma” and is trying to reconnect with the family from whom she became estranged; and Connie, a soap-opera actress trying to revamp her career. And Again raises the question: is getting a second chance at life as miraculous as it seems?

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. When David wakes up with his new body, he vows to be a different man who won’t drink, won’t smoke, won’t indulge in extramarital affairs. How much of our habits are tied into our psyche and our genetics? Do you think old habits die hard? Or can we really re-train ourselves?

2. Speak to the ways in which each of the four characters sees their body as a tool, an object separate from them, something not their own, after the SUBlife program. Hannah cannot summon her old passion for painting. Linda feels helpless after her husband signed consent papers while she was in her coma. Have you ever felt separated from your physical body in this way? How much of your personhood do you think lies within your physical body?