The Pine Barrens

In the first alt I went to, my comforter had pink, blue, and green stripes. My comforter in my original universe had purple, blue, and green stripes. 

“You’re overtired,” my father--or my alt-father--said to me when I told him the comforter is different. “You study too much. It's always looked like that, Kate.”

“It is different. My comforter has purple stripes, not pink.”

“Okay,” he said. “Those are purple.”

“Those are pink,” I said. 

“Purplish-pink then,” he said, and picked up his phone to answer a text. 

This happened because I walked through the pine barrens. 

There are fire roads in the barrens, which makes walking easy. No one drives on them and you don’t have to worry about ticks. I walk there so often that I have the trees and the road memorized. This time something was different. There was a path I had never seen before off of the fire road. It cut its way through the ground-level scrub with the long branches of pines reaching over it. Oh, what the hell, I remember thinking. 

It took me through the heart of the barrens. It wasn’t a hiking trail--there were no markers on it. On the road I’d heard birds, the occasional cry of a hawk, or a cottontail rustling in the undergrowth. The path was silent except for my feet stepping on the path, and even that was muffled. The trees swayed and I realized that I didn’t feel a breeze. I was going to turn back--Where will this take me besides nowhere? I remember thinking. But I saw something up ahead. A crumbling stone wall of some sort. Curious, I walked closer, and I saw it was the remnant of a small building. I went inside where the door used to be, there was no sign of a floor or any sign of a fallen roof. Just the forest floor, with some scrub oak and pine saplings starting. On one of the walls were three letters spray painted orange--KLM. 

My name is Katherine Lynne Mullen. 

I wondered if whoever wrote that had been there that day. Maybe they were still nearby. Maybe it was me, I had thought, and laughed, but a little nervously. I saw the can of spray paint leaning against the wall, under the letters.

Enough, I thought, time to go back home.

When I walked back where the path was supposed to be, I saw trees and scrub. I took a few deep breaths to keep myself calm and then I walked around the building. It was behind the wall where the letters were spray painted--though I could have sworn I had come in from a different direction. Well, you got so wrapped up in checking out the walls that you probably just got turned around, I thought. Pay attention to your surroundings.

Everything was normal when I got home. Dad made chili, which he always does on Saturday nights. Mom asked me about my walk. I told them about the building in the pine barrens.

“I haven’t heard of that,” Dad said. “Your uncle Mark goes out there a lot to hunt turkeys and he never mentioned it.”

“There’s all kinds of weird things you can find when you go walking,” Mom said. “Your aunt and I went for a walk in the woods near Grove Pond and we found a bunch of plastic doll heads from one of the trees, like creepy Christmas ornaments.”

“Yikes,” I said.

I shrugged it off at the time, thinking it was weird but that there are a lot of little facts about our town we don’t know. It wasn’t a big deal. I was home. I was safe. I was eating chili.

I didn’t even notice the comforter until the next day. That’s when I said something to Dad, who said I was overtired and that I studied too hard. 

Maybe he’s right, I remembered thinking. Maybe I need to get out and breathe some fresh air because I’ve been chained to my books all year. It’s my senior year of high school, and I have heard too many stories about people slacking off and getting their admission revoked when their grades tanked. I am not going to an Ivy or anything but I am going to Central College--a decent private college--with more scholarships than I thought I would have gotten. I am smart enough, I guess, smart enough to know that I have to work really hard to get anything and I can’t take anything for granted. 

Not like Gigi Williams in my calculus and my French classes.

Gigi has conversations with Madame Fontaine in French class while I struggle with French verb forms and understanding what the teacher says to me, (Francais suelement, Madame Fontaine says to me and I know what that means at least). 

Gigi completes her equations and knows when we would use the math. I get the concept, but I often forget a step and then wonder why my answer is wrong and what I’ve missed. 

Outside of school, Gigi wears thrift store dresses that she alters and it’s cool because she’s rich. I wear things from Target because it would not be cool or unusual for me to wear thrift store clothes. Also, I can’t sew and don’t know how to alter things to make them look better. We go to a Catholic school and wear uniforms, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter anyway. 

Gigi is going to Stanford. I don’t know if she’s getting a full ride, but I know her family can afford it. She spends her summers on Nantucket, winter vacations in Vail. She drives a Lexus to school. “It’s used,” she says by way of apology. 

Central College is a small private college that no one has heard of and I am the cream of the crop there. My guidance counselor suggested it when I told her I was worried we couldn’t pay for college--even the state schools are expensive as hell, and many of the private ones dwarf them. Central College is more expensive than the state schools, but my aid package (tuition and board) is big enough that we’ll be paying less than if I go to a state school. A state school won’t have aid for an average girl with average means and no real talent.

I know that my situation isn’t that secure. I have the second largest package they offer, and I have to maintain my grades, even now. If I don’t, I could lose everything. So I read my assignments, I write my papers, I go over calculus equations, I drill myself in French verbs. 

My father probably had a point about me studying too much. 

Still, other things--little things--jumped out at me. There’s a mug that says World’s Best Dad that I gave to my father for his birthday years ago. It’s white with red lettering. Or it’s supposed to be. The one I found was red with white lettering. I remember white towels in the bathroom, but when I took a shower and got one from the linen closet, they were pink. 

“They’ve always been pink,” Mom said. Mom, who I remember having blonde hair, now has strawberry blond hair.

I was able to log into my email, I saw the acceptance and the aid offer, so that at least wasn’t different.

Gigi was still Gigi except she drove a used Infiniti. 

Maybe I should have left well enough alone. But I was spooked enough that I thought I’d go back to the pine barrens, and see if I’d go back to my real home. Or maybe just reset things. I don’t know what I was thinking exactly, other than I thought I could retrace my steps. And that I wanted an explanation.

So I went back the next weekend, and found the path. And like the last time, the pines swayed in a breeze that didn’t seem to exist. The building was there, KDM in orange on the wall. Next to it were the words GO BACK. The canister of spray paint was a few feet away, as if the person who wrote those words tossed it and then ran.

I picked up the spray paint and wrote I’M TRYING next to GO BACK.

I found the path, got back to the fire break, and walked home. Dad made chili like he always does. Mom asked me about my walk. After dinner, Dad turned on the television and Mom had a call from one of her friends. I spent the evening in the living room, reading Ethan Fromme for my English class.

When I went to bed, my comforter had yellow, blue and green stripes.

I went to the pine barrens the next day. And instead of my initials there was a message: 

MAKE THIS YOUR LAST TRIP. STOP COMING THROUGH.

I didn’t. Maybe I should have. I've been wandering through alts and time is getting mixed up.

Alt number 3: This comforter had a black and white geometric pattern. The good news: I was accepted to Boston University on a full ride. The bad news: Mom died when I was two and Dad was dating some gum-cracking twit named Camille. 

Alt number 10: My comforter had yellow, green, and red stripes. The World’s Best Dad mug was white with navy blue letters. My father had a beard. Mom was alive but they were divorced and she lived in California. Gigi drove a Nissan Rogue. 

Alt number 307: I don’t know what my comforter looked like there because other people were living in my house. We had moved eight years ago.

Alt number 522: Blue paisley comforter. Dad made pizza on Saturdays, not chili. Mom had a blond pixie cut in this one. She asked me if I’d like to go shopping to buy some things for the dorm at Bowdoin. 

“Bowdoin,” I said, stunned. I realized I needed to sound like this wasn’t news to me. “I – I just don’t want to take that for granted.”

“Kate, we’ve been through this. You’re incredibly smart. And you’ve done so much. Starting Hand to Hand to help kids and teens in crisis. They loved that. You can do this. That’s why they gave you a full scholarship.”

“It’s just. . .Gigi–” I was going to say Gigi Williams is the one who goes to schools like Bowdoin, not me but my mother interrupted me.

“Gigi Williams has problems. I know you feel sorry for her, Kate, and you’ve been great about supporting her, especially through Hand to Hand, but she didn’t want help. Maybe this is what she needs to make her realize she needs help. She isn’t going to jail–she’s not even facing charges. Her father saw to that,” Mom said.

“Charges?”

“From the accident. Getting hammered, totalling her car. She’s lucky no one was hurt,” Dad said. 

The world tilts. I felt sorry for Gigi? Gigi is always perfect. Always. 

That night in bed, I thought about Bowdoin, and being the smart, perfect girl. The girl who started a nonprofit, and that’s why Bowdoin gave her a full ride. The girl who has done great things and will do more great things. What more great things would the world expect?

But I knew that I am not that girl. I don’t start nonprofits. I don’t do things perfectly. The minute I got to Bowdoin, they would know.

Sometimes I get a can of spray paint before I head down to the abandoned building in the pine barrens. It seems only polite. There is a small collection nestled against one of the walls, all the colors of the rainbow to choose from. 

The walls have messages and questions from me and my other selves. DOES YOUR DAD HAVE A BEARD? WHAT COLOR IS YOUR MOM’S HAIR? DO YOU HAVE A DOG? DO THE JENKINS LEAVE THEIR CHRISTMAS LIGHTS UP ALL YEAR? (I wrote WHO ARE THE JENKINS?)

 Some of my selves asked about Gigi. Once I saw the words SUBARU FORESTER-USED scrawled on the wall and I knew exactly what it meant. Well, Dad says Subarus are great cars, so good for her.

I am now in an alt where I have been accepted to a college--not Central College, the one I was originally accepted to, but Western Regional College. It’s comparable to Central and I have a free ride. My comforter has purple, blue, and green stripes. My father is clean-shaven. My mother’s hair is blonde and cut into a bob. Our towels are white, and the World’s Best Dad mug is white with black letters. Gigi is going to MIT and drives a new Corolla. We have a cat in this one--a moody old orange tabby my mother coaxed out from an alley. 

I am going to stay. This is exhausting, and if I’m not careful, I could end up in a universe where the dinosaurs never went extinct or Earth never developed an atmosphere. I’ll just quit while I’m ahead. That first message was right. I’d go back and write it but who knows where I’ll end up when I’m done?

Instead of going to the pine barrens, I’m in my room, lying on my correct comforter, with a book open but not able to focus on it, the cat lying next to me and accepting my head scritches. Dad is at the store because we ran out of chili powder. Mom is at her sister’s house for the afternoon. 

I’m thinking of musical chairs, and how it’s sometimes a relief to just stop. 

I hear the front door open and when I don’t hear the sound of pots and pans clattering in the kitchen, I know something is wrong. The cat is sitting up, ears forward.

After the first few times of crossing over to a new place, I developed a habit. I’d go straight to my room to check out my comforter.

I had decided to settle where I was, but the others may not have. It’s not as if we could discuss it.

The stairs creak with footsteps. Lighter than Dad’s, quicker than Mom’s. I’m sure they belong to a 17-year-old girl who is about my height and weight. 

I wonder what her comforter looks like.