Page 76 of Under Story

When she and Eli were married, people often addressed Laurel this way, even though she had never taken Eli’s last name. The other Laurel didn’t, either, judging by her ID: Laurel Salter, it reads, beside a straight-faced doppelganger.

“We have a suite for you—my favorite room, actually,” says the concierge, “with a sitting room and a king bed.”

“Actually,” says Laurel, “could we have one with two queens?”

“I’d be happy to look,” the concierge says, without pause. Laurel makes a note to tip him for this alone. Surely he’s encountered other couples like them—bickering, or worse—and after rebooking Laurel and Eli, he passes them two keys.

—

The room is larger than the one they shared in Antarctica, but somehow, it feels more claustrophobic. At McMurdo, they had the distraction of work and a station full of other people, as well as separate bathrooms. There are no such buffers here.

They decide to order room service for dinner: night is falling, and navigating Christchurch feels ambitious. The menu is entirely vegetarian, a rarity, and the costs are exorbitant. They pay with the other Laurel’s credit card. If Laurel feels like a criminal, she also wonders whether their doubles are doing the exact same thing.

While they wait, Eli brings his laptop to the table.

“What are you doing?” asks Laurel. They already perused the laptops at McMurdo. Like the cell phones, both had been restored to their original settings.

“Logging onto Wi-Fi. I have an idea,” he says. “What if we can get into their faculty email addresses?”

“Brilliant,” says Laurel. She retrieves the other laptop and opens the landing page for WiscMail.

The NetID is easy—lsalter—and her passwords have always been apple trees. But when she tries her favorite varieties, the rectangular box shakes stubbornly.

“I’m in,” says Eli.

Laurel comes to peer over his shoulder. “What was the password?”

“Physics term,” says Eli, his eyes on the screen.

Laurel scans it, too. “There are only eight messages.”

The emails are commonplace: spam, a utilities bill, a notice to schedule his annual physical. Most interesting is a note from the chair of the physics department. She welcomes Eli back from Antarctica and confirms that his leave extends through summer: he isn’t due on campus until the spring semester begins in May.

“And all of them have come in since the dive. He must have emptied this account, too.” Eli sighs. “They knew what they were doing.”

“More than we did, at least. Why were they so cautious? I didn’t even think about my laptop.”

“Maybe they were more confident that the portal was real. They might have planned more than we did. More tracks to cover up, if they didn’t want to leave a trail.”

A waiter arrives, balancing a large tray between his hand and shoulder. He spreads a white cloth over the table. First, he unloads silverware, napkins, and ice water with dainty paper covers. The meals themselves are hidden under ostentatious silver domes. Eli doesn’t pay much attention, but Laurel thinks of the galley, where the kitchen staff take pride in what they do. She understands the waiter’s choreography as a dignified performance, and she tips enough to make Eli raise an eyebrow.

The food is extravagant. Laurel can taste the cream and butter, things she’s gone so long without. By the end of the meal, she feels lethargic. Eli offers her the first shower, but she waves him ahead and lies down. After McMurdo’s vinyl mattresses, the bed is a revelation: springy and thick, with a duvet instead of an army blanket. A wide-screen TV is bolted to the wall. Laurel turns it on.

A blond woman stands beside a firepit. She wears high heels and a bikini. Facing her, six men stand wide-legged in swim trunks, their hands clasped in front. Surveying them, the woman says, “I want to couple up with this boy because—”

Laurel changes the channel. A kitchen appears, chaotically cluttered. Belongings teeter atop every surface.

“After being provided with a face mask,” a narrator says, “Beverly agreed to go back inside her sister’s house.”

Laurel watches Beverly proceed with lazy, morbid fascination. She wishes that Louis and Charlie were here—Louis providing running commentary, Charlie injecting compassion—and then she remembers stretching in the break room, chatty and deviceless, the tension in her hamstrings melting. When Eli returns from the bathroom, she’s turned the TV off. Instead, she holds the wall, working on her calves.

“Sorry,” she says, embarrassed. “Long flight.”

“Probably a good idea,” says Eli.

Laurel brings her pajamas to the bathroom. Every detail feels luxurious: the heat and pressure of the water, the thick towels, the bath mat beneath her feet. If she and Eli were still together, she would only put on one of the plush, heavy robes that hang from a peg behind the door. Instead, she changes into the other Laurel’s pin-striped pajamas.

When she opens the door, the bedroom lights have been turned off.