“You’re funny!” The waitress scribbles in her notepad and I’m not sure if she’s written that down too, like a therapist. “Have you guys had a good day so far?”
And they’re off: chatting about the weather, which inexplicably leads to how long the restaurant has been open and what profits are like around here and whether they’re thinking of eventually setting up a permanent base, while I study the menu as if it’s The Iliad. How do people do this? How do total strangers weave conversation back and forth like this without tying themselves up in knots? How do they know what to say next? More importantly, why? It’s like watching a musical where they all break into the same dance without rehearsing it first: totally inexplicable.
The waitress finally leaves with our order and I feel Will assessing me.
“Cassie,” he says quietly.
I look up. “Yes?”
“You realize we were just talking, right?”
Now I’m really confused. “Yes.”
“So what’s with the face?”
“The face? Which face? My face?” I pick up a knife and hold it up, but it’s too deliberately tarnished to see anything. Embarrassed, I start frantically rubbing at the dried fake blood from the protest. “Will, why didn’t you say something?”
“Why didn’t I say something about what?” Will puts his hand on my bouncing leg again. “What’s going on? Talk to me, Cass. You’re all over the place this evening.”
I breathe out slowly. Oh, not much going on, Will. Just dumped myself, went into unnecessary mourning, got fired, stole a plant, had the plant taken back off me again, cried over a muffin, got covered in blood and imploded in the doorway of a Dickens pun. None of which makes me sound like a woman you want to hold on to permanently and I’ve only just got you back.
“I’m fine,” I say, smiling widely. “Thank you for asking. How are you?”
“I’m excellent.” Will looks up as our food arrives looking—a very real bolt of confusion—exactly like I knew it would, despite the lack of photographic evidence. “I’m brilliant, actually. I just got some great news, but...”
My boyfriend looks at his maced chicken, then back at me, then back at his chicken. I suddenly sense a torrent of colors: a strange mix I can’t untangle, like a ball of different-colored wools. There’s something new in his eyes too, but I can’t read that either.
“So I just got offered an assignment in India.” Will reaches for his wine and takes a way-too-big mouthful. “To shoot a documentary on pangolins. I’m leaving on Saturday, for a month.”
What in the love of basic narrative continuity is going on?
“Yes.” I frown, putting my fork down. “I know.”
5
Scientists don’t know what déjà vu is.
Is it a memory formed so quickly we remember an event even as we experience it? An electrical malfunction that fires both the “now” and the “past” parts of the brain simultaneously? A skipped neurological pathway? A wormhole, a religious experience, a glitch in the matrix? It’s unclear, but as Will launches into a monologue I’ve already heard, eats a meal he’s already eaten and sips wine he’s already sipped in a themed restaurant I am now positive we’ve already been to, the back of my neck prickles.
“Cassie.”
A bottle smashes behind the tiny bar, and a mobile phone rings with a film soundtrack I’ve heard before.
“Cassie.”
The front door slams and the water jug—
“Cassandra, will you please put bloody Google down for a second? I am trying to talk to you.”
Blinking, I look up from the Wikipedia entry on déjà vu.
“Look at me,” Will says, gently taking my phone out of my hands and putting it on the table. “I know this might be a bit of a surprise, but it’s a really great project and I’ve been away for work before, so there’s no reason we can’t—”
“When did you find out? How long have you known?”
Will frowns. “About 5:00 p.m. Why?”
I continue to stare at my untouched pancakes. We haven’t spoken since I left for work this morning, which means there are only two possibilities: either my boyfriend is gaslighting me to the rafters, or a key wire in my brain has dislodged itself. Glancing up quickly, I study Will’s face. It doesn’t look or feel like he’s lying, but I’m too disoriented now to work out whether the emotions I’m sensing are his or mine.
One of us has gone insane. Judging by today, it’s me.
“I don’t feel good,” I say abruptly, standing up and knocking over the flaming water jug. “I think I’ll go home now, please.”
Lap dripping, I lurch from the table. Whatever it is, I cannot risk another meltdown: not here, not now, not in front of the loveliest man I have ever dated. Two in a day would be unprecedented, but maybe I hit my head. Maybe I’m experiencing some kind of time-delay concussion. Maybe all my carefully arranged neurons have been mixed up, like the tiles in a Scrabble bag.
“Really?” Will grabs a handful of sopping napkins, looks with longing at his meal and back at me, clearly torn. “Right now? Can’t we discuss this while we eat?”
A distinctive shriek of laughter from the red-haired woman behind me and I remember that laugh, I do, or at least it feels like I do.
“I’m leaving,” I reiterate firmly. “Now.”
“Then I’ll come with you.” Will grabs a bread roll and stands up. “I didn’t think you’d react like this, Cass, or I wouldn’t have just thrown it out there like that. It’s an amazing opportunity and I thought you’d be happy for me.”
Except I’m pretty sure that last time I was. I showed him an interactive map of India on my phone and excitedly monologued about the pangolin with my mouth full. I did an impression of the subservient way they hold their little hands together like underpaid butlers, and Will laughed until post-dessert coffee came out of his nose.
Except apparently that didn’t happen, which means something in my brain is moving either too fast or too slow and it’s a big problem, like a car in the wrong lane. All at once the shipping container feels way too contained. Holding my breath, I stagger out of the entrance and stand in the busy street with my eyes shut, holding my thumbs tightly and trying not to feel completely terrified.
Breathe, Cassandra. Breathe.
But not too fast or you’ll black out again.
“Cass?” Will emerges behind me a few minutes later. “I’ve paid, but they can’t doggie-bag the food. Apparently, the eighteenth century wasn’t made to go. What on earth is going on? This behavior is eccentric, even for you.”
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe...
Cautiously, I open one eye and then another.
It’s gone. As fast as it came, the déjà vu has disappeared. Everything is back to normal, my synapses have adjusted, the world is no longer warping and I’m going to pretend Will didn’t just say that last sentence.
“Allergy?” I attempt faintly.
“You didn’t eat anything.” My boyfriend sounds tired, as if having dinner with me is like climbing a mountain in inappropriate footwear. “But let’s just go back to yours. We can talk about it there.”
We don’t speak the whole way back, and with every step, my glitch feels more surreal, the way a dream slowly drains away when you open your eyes. I repeatedly glance at Will, but he’s not looking at me. His jaw is set. We’re holding hands, but his hand feels wooden. Not real. A fake hand. As if I’m romancing Pinocchio.
All the way home something lime-colored is arching out of him, and I know most people think green is jealousy, but it’s not: not this time, anyway.
It feels like a decision is being made.
“I’m really sorry,” I say for the fifth time, removing my navy work jumpsuit and hanging it up carefully before remembering I might as well throw it on the floor or into a furnace: I won’t be needing it next week either way. “I don’t know why I behaved like that.”
“It’s fine.” Will unzips his jeans and climbs into my bed. “Honestly.”
Which is a problem because people only say that when they want you to know they’re lying. Gingerly, as if my boyfriend is a tiger, I climb under the duvet and stare at him. Are we going to have sex tonight? It’s difficult to tell. On one hand, it might break the tension, but on the other, I’m not entirely sure the right tone has been set.
After a few seconds, Will grabs a book out of his bag—some kind of biography of David Attenborough, a bit on the nose—so I obediently take my cue and grab my book too (The Penelopiad). I could always take off my bra and see if that has any kind of impact on the atmosphere.
“You know, Cassie,” Will says after a silence, putting his book down, “if you’re upset about something, you can talk to me about it. I need to know. Don’t just run out in the middle of dinner without any explanation like that. That’s not how adult relationships work.”
I flinch. “Okay.”
“It’s my job. I take what I’m offered. I don’t get to choose where I go and when.”
“I know.” A pause. “It was the beginning, though.”
“What?”