Rachel's obstetrician said that Lily was a textbook birth. Rachel said she'd like to watch him push the textbook out through his vagina.
The contractions began at one in the morning on the due date, and by four a.m., Jake was holding his little girl for the first time. She was disgusting of course, covered in whatever fluid and muck accompanied her from the womb, but after he held back a gag, he was able to see how small and beautiful and perfect and amazing she was. It was the first and last time in many years that nothing, not work or his immortal problem or lunch or sleepiness, was crowding for a place in his thoughts. He held his tiny daughter, wrapped in her pink delivery blanket, and he couldn't breathe.
A nurse had to shake his shoulder and take Lily from him so they could take her to get cleaned up.
Jake went to his wife's side and kissed her. "You are so good at that. Let's have another."
Rachel gave a weak, half-asleep laugh. "Give me a little time to recover," she said.
Jake and Rachel had decorated their new daughter's nursery with cordial tigers. Her blanket and the border along the top of the walls featured baby tigers playing with rattles and bottles and balls. Lurid orange tigers climbed on the letters of Lily's name that hung across from her crib. Jake's favorite was the alarm clock tiger sitting companionably with its elephant friend.
In a few years, the crib and most of the tigers were replaced by the Disney Princess décor and a child-sized canopy bed with bubble gum pink hangings. Jake never said anything against it, but the room made his teeth hurt. Only the alarm clock survived the tiger purge, and the elephant now wore a tiny tiara that had formerly belonged to Barbie.
No more snack hallucinations or daughters appeared as the morning approached. The Other Jakes probably thought there was no point once he gave in to the Lily scam. The worst part of that was that Jake couldn't think of a way to figure out if she was the real Lily or just another trick. If the Other Jakes could pull a perfect picture of his daughter out of his mind, they could also pull out any little tidbit he could think to ask her to prove she was real.
But almost as soon as he thought this, an idea came to him that he prayed would work. He stopped thinking about it immediately, and turned to the little girl.
"Lily, when is your birthday?" he asked, knowing she would know.
"February 4th," she said, looking up at him like he was crazy. "Daddy, why—"
"Don't worry about it right now, sweetie. How many chairs are there around Mommy's kitchen table?"
She thought for a moment. "Six."
"How many goldfish do you have?"
"One."
"What's his name?"
"King Midas."
"What's your mom's name?"
"Rachel."
"What's your middle name?"
"Rosemary." She was answering faster as he gave her each question. He didn't want to give them time to think, and even as he came up with questions to ask, he tried to keep his mind blank and closed.
"What grade are you in?"
"Almost kindergarten."
"And how old are you?"
"Five."
"Who is E. E.?"
"Your friend."
"Who is Wendy?"
"Mom's friend."
"Who is Mr. Gripp?"
"Your boss—" The image next to Jake sucked in its breath as though thinking hard to remember if this bit of information was something Jake's daughter would know.
"Have I ever called him Mr. Gripp in front of you?" Jake asked calmly.
"No," the image said quickly. "Mom did. Mommy did. You always call him Principal Bigot."
The image smiled sweetly, but it was too late. Jake didn't know if Rachel had ever mentioned Principal Bigot to Lily. It didn't really matter. Jake had seen what he'd been looking for, the flash where, just for a moment, the image faltered.
Still, if he was wrong….
"Stay here," he said, standing and pulling the phone booth door open.
"No!" the image said. "Daddy, don't leave me alone! I'm scared. Daddy, please."
Jake looked at her, trying to make himself feel sure about his decision. "Trust me," he said, unsure whether he was talking to himself or to whoever sat on the floor of the phone booth, knees-to-chest in a ball of panic.
The sun was full in the sky now, and the first bit of warmth radiated from the sand. Jake approached the Other Jakes, who were reclining in a shady place with a good view of the phone booth.
"I'm leaving," he said. "You can follow me out in the desert and watch me die if you're into that sort of thing, but I'm not going to stay here and be your toy."
Other Jake 2 looked Jake up and down. At least, Jake thought it was Other Jake 2. Neither was bleeding from the nose anymore, but he figured they were manifestations of the same creature anyway. The girl, too.
"There's no one out there to help you," Other Jake 2 said.
"I wasn't counting on it."
Other Jake snorted. "You'd rather die in the desert than stay in the oasis? Aren't you—"
"I'm through discussing it,��� Jake said, and he turned toward the open desert, toward the place where he thought he'd seen pyramids before. They said there was no one out there who could help, but they weren't exactly trustworthy.
He'd trudged nearly two miles straight away from the oasis without glancing back when Other Jake appeared, looking sullen.
"I'm bored with you, dear," he said, then his Jake-face rippled off like Rachel's white silk nightgown falling to the floor, and a tall woman with dripping oily skin and dirty hair was revealed in Other Jake's place.
The oily woman said, "You're not nearly as much fun as the old gypsy woman. She was willing to bargain." She straightened her tattered dress. "I considered letting you die out here. The show would be quite good, but sweet men like you are rarer than snowfall in this place, and besides, if you died I couldn't use you."
"I'm not—" Jake protested.
"Don't reject a deal before you've heard it, sweets. If I send you back, you must pass the ring to someone else within an hour, or I'll bring you back and make you amuse me. The gypsy woman had a whole week to pass it off, which was obviously too much time. I bet she made a profit from it, too. Well," the woman said, and then she shrugged as though to say she had learned her lesson.
Jake didn't say anything. He was so hungry, so desperate, but the thought of bringing someone else here in his place made him lose his appetite completely.
The oily woman seemed to know what he was thinking. Jake gave his head a little shake. Of course, she did know what he was thinking. She said, in a harsher tone, "If I'm going to be stuck here forever, I'm going to have some entertainment, and I can't assure you that you can only die once in this place. I could probably watch it happen again and again."
"Okay," Jake said. He had to get back to Lily. That was most important. Besides, he had an hour. He could figure something out.
The oily woman motioned to his hand, where the ring fit snugly around his little finger once again. "Blow, boring Jake," she said, and he did.