Samantha Martinez sits at her computer and watches a short video of a woman who could be her reading a book on a beach. It’s the woman’s honeymoon and the videographer is her newlywed husband, using a camera the two of them received as a wedding gift. The content of the video is utterly unremarkable—a minute of the camera approaching the woman, who looks up from her book, smiles, tries to ignore the camera for several seconds and then puts her book down and stares up at the camera. What could be the Santa Monica Pier, or some iteration of it, hovers not too distantly in the frame.
“Put that stupid thing down and come into the water with me,” the woman says, to the cameraman.
“Someone will take the camera,” says her husband, offscreen.
“Then they take the camera,” she says. “And all they’ll have is a video of me reading a book. You get to have me.”
“Fair point,” says the husband.
The woman stands up, drops her book, adjusts her bikini, looks at her husband again. “Are you coming?”
“In a minute,” the husband says. “Run to the water. If someone does steal the camera, I want them to know what they’re missing.”
“Goof,” the woman says, and then for a minute the camera wheels away as she comes toward the husband to get a kiss. Then the picture steadies again and the camera watches her as she jogs to the water. When she gets there, she turns around and makes a beckoning motion. The camera switches off.
Samantha Martinez watches the video three more times before she gets up, grabs her car keys and walks out of the front door of her house.
“Samantha,” Eleanor, her sister, says, waving her hand to get Samantha’s attention. “You’re doing that thing again.”
“Sorry,” Samantha says. “What thing again?”
“That thing,” Eleanor says. “That thing when no matter what someone else is saying you phase out and stare out the window.”
“I wasn’t staring out of a window,” Samantha says.
“You were phased out,” Eleanor says. “The staring out the window part isn’t really the important part of that.”
The two of them are sitting in the Burbank P.F. Chang’s, which is empty in the early afternoon except for a young couple in a booth, across the entire length of the restaurant from them. Eleanor and Samantha are sitting at a table near the large bank of windows pointing out toward a mall parking structure.
Samantha is in fact not looking out the window; she’s looking at the couple and their discussion. Even from a distance she can see the two aren’t really a couple, although they might have been once, and Samantha can see that the young man, at the very least, wouldn’t mind if they were again. He is bending toward her almost imperceptibly while they sit, telling her that he’d be willing. The young woman doesn’t notice, yet; Samantha wonders if she will, and whether the young man will ever bring it to her attention.
“Samantha,” Eleanor says forcefully.
“Sorry,” Samantha says, and snaps her attention to her sister. “Really, E, sorry. I don’t know where my head is these last few days.”
Eleanor turns to look behind her and sees the couple in the booth. “Someone you know?” she asks.
“No,” Samantha says. “I’m just watching their body language. He likes her more than she likes him.”
“Huh,” Eleanor says, and turns back to Samantha. “Maybe you should go over there and tell him not to waste his time.”
“He’s not wasting his time,” Samantha says. “He just hasn’t let her know how important she is to him yet. If I was going to tell him anything, that’s what I would tell him. Not to stay quiet about it. Life is too short for that.”
Eleanor stares at her sister, strangely. “Are you okay, Sam?” she asks.
“I’m fine, E,” Samantha says.
“Because what you just said is the sort of line that comes out of a Lifetime movie character after she discovers she has breast cancer,” Eleanor says.
Samantha laughs at this. “I don’t have breast cancer, E,” she says. “I swear.”
Eleanor smiles. “Then what is going on, sis?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Samantha says.
“Our waiter is taking his time,” Eleanor says. “Try me.”
“Someone sent me a package,” Samantha says. “It’s pictures and videos and love letters from a husband and wife. I’ve been looking through them.”
“Is that legal?” Eleanor asks.
“I don’t think that’s something I need to worry about,” Samantha says.
“Why would someone send those to you?” Eleanor asks.
“They thought they might mean something to me,” Samantha says.
“Some random couple’s love letters?” Eleanor asks.
“They’re not random,” Samantha says, carefully. “It made sense to send them to me. It’s just been a lot to sort through.”
“I get the sense you’re skipping a whole bunch of details here,” Eleanor says.
“I did say it was hard to explain,” Samantha says.
“So what’s it been like, going through another couple’s mail?” Eleanor asks.
“Sad,” Samatha says. “They were happy, and then it was taken away.”
“It’s good they were happy first, then,” Eleanor says.
“E, don’t you ever wonder about how your life could have been different?” Samantha asks, changing the subject slightly. “Don’t you ever wonder, if things just happened a little differently, you might have a different job, or different husband, or different children? Do you think you would have been happier? And if you could see that other life, how would it make you feel?”
“That’s a lot of philosophy at one time,” Eleanor says, as the waiter finally rolls up and deposits the sisters’ salads. “I don’t actually wonder how my life could be different, Sam. I like my life. I have a good job, Braden’s a good kid and most days I don’t feel like strangling Lou. I worry about my little sister from time to time, but that’s as bad as it gets.”
“You met Lou at Pomona,” Samantha says, mentioning her sister’s alma mater. “But I remember you flipping a quarter for your college choice. If the coin had landed on heads instead of tails, you would have gone to Wesleyan. You never would have met Lou. You wouldn’t have married him and had Braden. One coin toss and everything in your life would have gone another way completely.”
“I suppose so,” Eleanor says, spearing leaves.
“Maybe there’s another you out there,” Samantha says. “And for her the coin landed another way. She’s out there leading your other life. What if you got to see that other life? How would that make you feel?”
Eleanor swallows her mouthful of greens and points her fork at her sister. “About that coin toss,” she says. “I faked it. Mom’s the one who wanted me to go to Wesleyan, not me. She was excited about the idea of two generations of our family going there. I always wanted to go to Pomona, but Mom kept begging me to consider Wesleyan. Finally I told her I would flip a coin over it. It didn’t matter which way the coin would have landed, I was still going to choose Pomona. It was all show to keep her happy.”
“There are other places your life could have changed,” Samantha says. “Other lives you could have led.”
“But it didn’t,” Eleanor says. “And I don’t. I live the life I live, and it’s the only life I have. No one else is out there in the universe living my alternate lives, and even if they were, I wouldn’t be worrying about them because I have my life to live here, now. In my life, I have Lou and Braden and I’m happy. I don’t worry about what else could have been. Maybe that’s lack of imagination on my part. On the other hand, it keeps me from being mopey.”
Samantha smiles again. “I’m not mopey,” she says.
“Yes you are,” Eleanor says. “Or maudlin, which is the slightly more socially respectable version. It sounds like watching these couple’s home videos is making you wonder if they’re happier than you are.”
