Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

Vanessa and I stand silent in the window, as the sun dips, then dips lower, then lower still below the jagged peaks of terrain, and I wonder just how impossible it is to change that — that path, that destiny, if it can even be changed at all. Even though I’m here, in Seattle, not there, stuck in New York, where I was a day ago, or a week ago, or a month ago…how hard must one have to work to shift the pieces in her fate?

“I hope you’re not doing what I think you’re doing,” Vanessa says later, when she emerges from the shower, with a white robe wrapped tight and a towel like a turban around her head.

I shutter my laptop quickly. “I don’t know what it is that you think I’m doing, so I can’t say.”

“You’re looking at Shawn’s Facebook page.”

I stare at my toes.

“The blue reflection on your face gave you away.”

“I could have been looking at anyone’s page.”

“But you weren’t.”

“He’s my husband. Did you know he knows the Zuckerbergs?”

“I don’t care who he knows. You’re on a break.”

“Well, I could have been looking at Theo’s,” I say, as if that would have been any better. Ex-boyfriend, on-a-break husband. Really, it’s splitting hairs here, in terms of google-stalking.

“Well, you could have been looking at Theo’s, but you didn’t reply to his email. So if you’re looking at Theo’s page and wondering if you should reply, then you should actually…you know…do something about it. Resist inertia .”

I sigh and collapse on the bed, pulling the pillow over my head.

“Look, can I just say something?” she asks.

“Go ahead,” I answer from underneath the pillow.

“I know that Shawn’s leaving gutted you.”

“It did,” I say, my voice muffled.

“But did it really?”

I sit up quickly.

“Of course it did!”

“Okay.”

“Shawn and I did everything together!”

“Uh-hum.”

“What?”

“That’s a reason to miss someone, to be sure. That’s not a reason to be married to someone.”

“What the hell, Vanessa? Just because I don’t, like, sit here and sob into my figurative Cheerios, that doesn’t mean I’m not gutted.” I sit up straighter. “He’s my husband. He’s basically my whole life. I pretty much counted on the fact that he was my meant to be.”

“Maybe you counted wrong.” She says this quietly, and if I listen closely enough, I can hear the devastation that the words imply.

Instead, I lean back against the headboard, and she moves next to me, shifting the computer to her own lap.

“We’re just on a break,” I say. “In August, everything could be different.”

“You’re right,” she said. “But only if you open your eyes and write your own map instead of following it.”

“Step three in my dad’s table of contents. I get it. You don’t have to feed me the self-help stuff. And when I said ‘different,’ I meant that maybe Shawn will reconsider.’”

“I knew what you meant.” She scoops the laptop off the bed and rests it on the desk, out of my clutches. “But my point is that if you chart your own course, maybe you’ll be the one who reconsiders first.”

Bookmarked Favorites

Facebook/Login

Shawn Golden

Friends: 2254

City: Palo Alto

Occupation: Taking over the world!

Relationship status: Married

Religion: HTML

Shawn was at Chipotle Mexican Grill (21 mins ago)

(me: great, he’s putting on weight!)

Shawn listened to Arcade Fire on Erica Stoppard’s Spotify list (3 hrs ago)

(me: Arcade Fire? He doesn’t like hipster music! And who is Erica Stoppard?)

Shawn changed his hometown from New York City to Palo Alto (1 day ago)

(me: only temporarily, and that sort of violates the rules of our agreement!)

Erica Stoppard to Shawn Golden (2 days ago): S, it was so cool to meet the god of coding at The Wine Room last night!!! Don’t be a stranger! Thanks for the friend request! So glad Cilla Z introduced us!

(me: WTF?)

Shawn Golden is now friends with Erica Stoppard and James Pichard.

Shawn logged into JDate.com: The Place for Jewish Singles. (4 days ago.)

(me: shit.)

Google.com/search

Search terms: Erica Stoppard

Daring Yourself to a Better Life!

By Vanessa Pines and Willa Chandler

PART ONE: REVISING YOUR MASTER UNIVERSE WAY

Welcome readers! We are so glad to have you along for our journey, our journey of dares, our journey of how we changed our own lives! We know that bookstores are littered with self-help books, and we’re not going to make you promises (like they may) that by merely reading this, everything will change. No. Nothing is that simple. This isn’t the quick fix. For the quick fix, we’ll direct you to the book we are arguing against: Dr. Richard Chandler’s Is It Really Your Choice? Why Your Entire Life May Be Out of Your Control . Why yes, we really did go and mention the competition. Why? Because we want you along for the ride only if you are with us. It is that type of book. You’ll be dared to make hard choices. You’ll be dared to reconsider old truths. You’ll be dared to make yourself uncomfortable and maybe even temporarily unhappy. And if you’re not interested in being this sort of daring, by all means, set the book down now and pick up Chandler’s, which is on the display case at the front of the store (for those of you browsing at Barnes & Noble, not just downloading the sample Kindle chapter, unsure of making the commitment).

But if you stick with us, we will change your life. Chandler will tell you that you cannot change your life. But he’s wrong. If you are daring enough to turn left when you always imagined you would turn right, if you swing for the fences when you’d much rather sit on the sidelines, if you do the opposite of your own low expectations, then you will change your Master Universe Way. Or as we prefer to call it, your master plan. Or how about, just…life? Destiny isn’t something that just happens, as Chandler would argue. Destiny or fate or whatever is meant to be is something that you steer yourself.

Don’t believe us? In the ensuing chapters, read about how we changed our own lives, and then come back here, to the bookstore, in this aisle, or log back into your Kindle, and dare to pick up the book and start a journey of your own.

Vanessa wakes me up early, too early, even though I am still on New York time. I haven’t slept well, haunted by the notion of Shawn skulking around JDate, and skulking around Erica Stoppard, who has a remarkably light Google footprint, despite my better efforts at prying. I pieced together a few facts: that she may or may not have been from Chicago; that she may or may not have been a tech reporter of some sort, but even that proved thin — a byline here and there, nothing conclusive. She appreciated hipster photos — with odd lighting and skewed perspectives — as profile pictures, and thus I couldn’t even assess if I’m prettier than she is. And she is friends with Cilla Z, who I have used my detective skills to identify as Priscilla Zuckerberg, Mark’s wife. Well, great.

I marinated in all of this quasi-info through the night, sleep coming in fits and starts. I finally fell into a deep sleep at around 2 a.m., but was shaken from it shortly thereafter with a dream of Erica Stoppard, who was dressed as a tragic Brooklyn hipster — a half-skewed beanie atop her head, a worn peasant shirt draping her lithe torso, a wrist covered in prayer beads, a knitted scarf swirling around her neck — slowly smothering me to death with my pillow.