Sublimation(86)

YJ


You’re standing between the chips and the beef jerky, contemplating the merits of sour cream and onion versus salt and vinegar, contemplating whether you should be eating chips after going to the gym. You answer the phone after glancing at the caller ID.

“Hey, did you want to do s—”

“I’m at the natural history museum,” Soyoung says. “Megan just walked in, and I’m watching her from across the gallery. I’m going to go talk to her. I assume you want to listen in? I can put you on speakerphone with the volume down.”

“What?”

You drop the bag of chips you’re holding. The guy at the register gives you a sidelong glance. You mouth an apology while jamming the phone between your shoulder and your ear, bending down to pick up the bag.

“I see Megan.”

“How do you know it’s her?”

“YJ, I have the internet,” Soyoung says.

“Did you stalk her?”

“No, I just saw that she had liked a few posts about an after-dark event at the museum.”

You’re stumped. You put the bag back on the shelf numbly. You think that still counts as stalking.

“It was a little bit of a long shot,” Soyoung says. “But I had nothing going on tonight.”

“Soyoung, let it lie, seriously. I’ll talk to her myself.”

“YJ, do you think if you approach her in her office again, she’ll tell you the truth?”

You stare at the chips in front of you. There are Original Tasty, Salt & Vinegar, Sweet & Spicy, Dill-icious Pickle, Sour Cream & Onion. You wonder why there are so many flavors that are combinations of two different flavors, how many decisions people made that enshrined Dill-icious Pickle as part of the flavor canon, because you’re pretty sure that five years ago you weren’t seeing nearly as many pickle flavors as you do now. There is someone deciding what chip flavors go to market. The Drew of pickle chips.

You want to know what Megan meant by if Drew were removed. You want her to know that you received the USB drive, and ask if there was anything she wanted to tell you, away from your official titles. You think about where you are in relation to the American Museum of Natural History. A twenty-minute drive, if the traffic’s bad. Ten minutes if it’s good. You could take the subway, but then you’d have to get off the phone.

“Go ahead and talk to her. Keep me on the line, please. I’m on my way.”

You walk out of the bodega, and you hail a cab.



* * *



In Eden, which was the entirety of the world, there was no hiding from God. God had created everything in Eden. God walked with Adam and Eve as their companion. God had made them in his reflection. God was the one who understood the division between the self and the other. And yet, Adam and Eve attempted to hide their transgressions. Adam and Eve bite the fruit of knowledge. Adam and Eve, so enamored with their new understanding, forget that lying is an old skill, for God.





SOYOUNG-ROSE


Megan is standing underneath a whale. The whale is a full-size replica of a grown blue whale, hanging weightlessly above a dark, two-story hall, illuminated only by spotlights and the luminescent glow of the backlit dioramas. Dead fish and dead birds and dead amphibians, everywhere, arranged as if they’re still alive. Soyoung is leaning against a railing, watching Megan order something from the temporary bar cart set up under the whale. The whale is magnificent—she remembers Rose’s memories of being thirteen and going on a field trip here and walking under the whale, being unnerved by the weight of it, how it loomed over everything, how it was being held by such thin, invisible wires.

“I’ll let you ask the hard things, I guess?” she says to YJ, over the phone.

“Yes, please,” he says.

“I’m going to tell her that you know about stuff. And I’m going to tell her I’m your girlfriend. As an alibi.”

“I—sure.”

Soyoung walks around the balcony, keeping her eye on Megan. Around her, there’s a few strangers holding canned spiked seltzers or teeny little plastic cups of white wine or water. She locates the stairs. She likes that the museums in New York do nights like this to get people in their doors. Rose hadn’t been back since she was a kid. Soyoung’s never been here before.

“I really don’t know why I’m surprised you did this,” YJ says. “You flew to the States just to ask me to help you get separated. Stalking someone is nothing, compared to that.”

“It wasn’t stalking. Her socials are public.”

“Were you afraid of instancing, then?”

“No,” Soyoung says. She thinks back to how it felt leaving, this time. She hadn’t thought about it until she was about to land. “I knew what I wanted.”

“The thing that gets me,” YJ says, “is that with Mitosis, no one would have to be scared.”

Soyoung sweeps around the curve of the balcony. She passes the arced windows that show: herons mid-spear of a bluegill; starfish and sea urchins beneath kelp; seahorses clinging to rock formations.

“You know what’s a little funny? This is like when Yujin came with me before I met my instance for the first time. For moral support. We got coffee. I asked him whether he thought reintegration was like dying—”