Dad was perky this morning. He said, “I wish you’d do something constructive with these days. You could paint or sculpt or something. At least you’d be productive.” He didn’t hear the spaces between those words. He didn’t hear the rests between the notes. “But I know you’re going to school today because we have a deal, right?”
Deals. That’s what life with Dad is—a series of deals. He thought I was going to school on the bus and I did go on the bus, but I didn’t get to school. I got off one stop early to catch another bus, like I’ve done for the last eight school days. I could be shooting heroin or dabbing or smoking meth. I could be flirting with boys after school like normal girls do. I could be pregnant. Of course, none of those things are original, but they would be constructive and productive, which is what Dad seems to want. Right now, I’m going to City Hall.
I still don’t know what name I’ll choose. I have twenty minutes until I have to decide. I catch my distorted reflection in the windows of the passing cars, and I think about how people elope to City Hall and get married without telling anyone. I’m doing that, but I’m doing it by myself. I will elope with the new me. I will come out with a new name but I’ll still have the same face and everyone will call me Sarah but I’ll really be whoever I decide to be. I will confuse the Social Security Administration. My number will now match the wrong name. I will not tell my parents what my new name is. I won’t even tell myself.
A woman walks up and sits down next to me in the bus shelter. She says hello and I say hello and that’s not original at all. When I look at her, I see that she is me. I am sitting next to myself. Except she looks older than me, and she has this look on her face like she just got a puppy—part in-love and part tired-from-paper-training. More in-love, though. She says, “You were right about the blind hand drawings. Who hasn’t done that, right?”
I don’t usually have hallucinations.
I say, “Are you a hallucination?”
She says no.
I say, “Are you—me?”
“Yes. I’m you,” she says. “In seven years.”
“I’m twenty-three?” I ask.
“I’m twenty-three. You’re just sixteen.”
“Why do you look so happy?”
“I stopped caring about things being original.”
When the bus comes she gets on it with me, and to prove she’s really real she stops and slots a token into the machine. There are two Sarahs on this bus. We are going to City Hall.
“We’re eloping,” she says.
I’m conflicted. Is this what eloping with the new me looks like? Riding to City Hall on a bus with myself? How will I ever fool the Social Security Administration if there’s a witness? Even if the witness is me? I try to concentrate on names I like. Wild names. Names that surprise people. I can’t come up with any names. I just keep looking at twenty-three-year-old Sarah and my brain is stuck on one name. Sarah. Sarah. Sarah. I can’t get away from myself.
Suit Yourself
I’m stuck on a bus with Sarah who is twenty-three. She has a snazzy haircut and highlights. My hair is still long and stringy like it always has been. It doesn’t stop people from staring at us like we’re identical twins. She’s comedy and I’m tragedy. Even that thought isn’t original.
She says, “You’re not really going to change your name, are you?”
I say, “You tell me.”
She smiles again and I want to tell her stop smiling so much. We have an ordinary smile and it annoys me.
She says, “I’m still Sarah.”
“I’m still going to City Hall,” I say.
“Fine with me.”
“I don’t want you to come with me.”
She smirks. “You can’t even change your name yet. You’re only sixteen.”
“I’m practicing,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “I guess.”
When the bus nears the next stop, I repeat myself. “I don’t want you to come with me.”
“Suit yourself,” she says.
She gets off at the next stop, and as the bus pulls away, I watch her walk up 12th Street and see she still has our favorite umbrella.
Maybe I’m snapping. Maybe I’ve already snapped and I’m coming back to real life. Maybe this is some sort of existential crisis. I couldn’t tell you right now whether my life has meaning or value. I don’t even know if I’m really living. Either way, I’m going to City Hall. Either way, I’m changing my name.
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