The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernández Read Free Book Online Page B

magician, and the field grew a little darker. “Can I be really honest, too?” Karen asked.
    “Sure.”
    “I
did
fall for you because you’re Spanish. Latino. Whatever. I mean, your name
sounds
super-Latino—Jesús Camacho!—and you have brown skin and kinky hair. But you’re right. I mean, you speak perfect English. Better than me.”
    “Better than ‘I.’”
    Her laugh ascended to the stars. “See? So yeah, fine, you’re white.But off-white. I was lonely without Chase, and you were different enough to be exciting. But not
too
different. Just enough.”
    Maybe some people in my shoes would’ve been offended by Karen’s words. I wasn’t. Because—again, being totally honest—I thought of myself in exactly the same way: Latino enough to be interesting, but white enough to fit in. Before Karen, I had no idea how much racism I’d internalized.
    “You know why I fell for you, Karen?” I asked her.
    “Seriously, no idea. I’m an administrative assistant with a high school diploma who eats too many whoopie pies and goes to church mostly for the gossip. You could do a lot better.”
    “I fell for you because you’re so honest. Even when it makes you look bad. Everyone else keeps their evil parts hidden. Not you. You share everything you’re thinking: good, bad, ugly, whatever. It’s so refreshing.”
    Her face became mannequin hard. She told the moon, “You mean, except for the part where I was lying to you about my husband, and lying to my husband about you.”
    What could I say? “Yeah. Except for that.”
    I thought I had ruined the moment, but I saw her squint a little; she was thinking, and the thought seemed to amuse her. “You know what I want, Jesús? I want to know how the other Karens did it.”
    “Did what?”
    She rolled over and got make-out close to my face. “How they managed not to fuck up our relationship. In some universes right now,there are Karens and Jesúses who are perfectly happy together, even after Chase came back. Every possibility can happen, right? Somehow, some brilliant Karens out there figured out a way to keep seeing you.”
    As gently as I could I said, “That sounds impossible.”
    “With all the gagillions of universes out there, you’re telling me there isn’t a single Karen in the entire cosmos who figured out how she could keep you
and
Chase?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe. But we still only get to live in this universe. And in the here and now, I don’t see how to make that happen.”
    “But we have a ClassAgg! Don’t you see? That thing is a fucking crystal ball! We can search for those universes. Find out how they made it work.” She took my hands. “Jesús, there’s a way! A way we can be together again!”
    She was almost crying she was so happy. She wanted so much to be right. And she was, kind of. But when physicists use the word “information,” they mean mass, particles, position in space and time. They don’t mean philosophy and morality. It’s true that we could spy on all the Karens and Chases and Jesúses living their lives across realities, but we couldn’t talk to them or ask them how we should fix our broken lives. The ClassAgg only let us spy on others. It had no opinion on what anything meant.

    It was Chase who called me. “Jesús, it’s time, man, it’s time! Her water broke!”
    “I’m on my way. What do you need?”
    “Nothing man, just get your ass to the hospital! Wahoo!”
    I wasn’t family, so they wouldn’t let me in the delivery room, even though Karen and Chase told everyone in the hospital I was more than family. But rules are rules, so Chase came out regularly to update me, and every time he reported, he thanked me for the miracle I’d given Karen and him. He called me his angel. Twice he summoned me into a hug, and each time I locked his wheels so I wouldn’t lose my balance, then stooped over and embraced him until he had finished crying.
    At 4:40 AM, Karen and Chase became the proud parents of a healthy 8