A More Better Bertie
A girl who looked exactly like me stood with hands on her hips. She was even wearing the same clothes.
“Ack!” I was so shocked by the sight I tripped and fell––off went the sunglasses. I looked around the chapel, but the other me had vanished. The blue carpet was no longer a lake.
With shaky hands, I picked up the glasses and inspected them. They must have had trick lenses, because when I put them on, everything was back to normal. I looked to my right and then behind me. No twin. No flames. No living trees.
“Yoo-hoo, sweet cheeks, over here.”
I glanced to my left. The other me sat on a bench, crossing her eyes and puckering her lips. I couldn’t help but laugh, even though I was freaked out by the sight of a second me. When I’m nervous expect laughter or even girlish giggles. It’s humiliating.
“Now that I have your attention, please leave the glasses on so we can have a Bertie-to-Bertie chat,” she said.
I didn’t listen. Instead, I yanked the glasses off like they were possessed by demons. The other me was gone. Was I losing my mind? Was I destined to be the new great-aunt Tillie? Mental illness ran in my family. Now it was my turn to show symptoms.
Curiosity got the better of me. I slid the glasses on. My twin stood before me, nose-to-nose. I gasped.
“Relax, Bertie. You’re not the new Tillie,” she said. “You’re you, and you’ve got to wise up, girl. And I mean fast. You’ve been making some major league idiotic decisions.”
I tore off the glasses, and the other Bertie was gone. The room fell silent, except for my head pounding like a war drum.
This could not be happening. Since the first night I drove past that cursed Welcome to Altoona sign, nothing had gone the way it should have: I’d cracked. Wolves in the road, footsteps in the grass, ghosts in the house, the axeman, the strange crow, Mac getting hit by a truck, LED messages from the snack machine, weird texts from no one, and now I’m talking to another me? No, it was too much. The trauma of watching Mac suffer had pushed my brain past the brink.
Looking down at the sunglasses in my hand, I swallowed a long breath. Despite my fragile mental condition, I put them on. The other me stood to my left.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Dude, you already know who I am,” she said. “I’m you. Not to seem judgy, but I’m a better version of you. And because I’m better, and smarter, and kinder, I see life differently, like how it’s supposed to be.”
“Better Bertie?” I huffed. “Well, lucky for me you didn’t get judgy.” Looking closer, I saw she had a glow around her. It looked amazing. But no way was I telling her.
“Imagine a horse race with two horses,” Better Bertie said. “One horse…”
“Could they be wolves instead of horses?” I asked.
“What?”
“Wolves! No horses!”
“Okay. If you want wolves, fine.”
“I want wolves.”
“So one wolf takes the high road, and one wolf takes the low road. It’s up to you which wolf you want to ride. Not that anyone actually rides wolves.” Better Bertie seemed a bit flustered. “Look, the visual works way better with horses.”
“Relax, I get the gist,” I said. “There are two of us, a higher me and a lower me. But if that’s true, why am I just meeting you now?”
“You’re not. You’ve always known about me. And you always forget me,” Better Bertie said. “Remember on your sixth birthday when you saw a meteor shower and you felt so incredibly lucky to be alive? Or the day Leon appeared on our porch and your heart swelled fifty times bigger because you knew you had just found a new best friend?”
“So wait, you’re only here for the happy times?”
“Baby girl, I am the happy times,” Better Bertie said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I am you when you choose to be happy.”
“Oh, c’mon. You don’t get to choose to be happy,” I said.
“Sure you do,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like that because you keep choosing to be unhappy. Or choosing to be mean. Or angry. Or vengeful. Or difficult. Or dishonest.”
“None of those were a choice!” I said. “They just were!”
Better Bertie shook her head.
“Sorry, Bertie, wrong answer. The correct answer is that every one of them was a choice.” She grinned, and then she did a surprisingly good karate kick. “And when you choose love, or happiness, or gratitude, that’s me. Ta-da!”
“If that’s really true, then why would anyone choose to be unhappy?”
“Great question.” Better Bertie smiled, but she didn’t say anything.
“Well, are you going to tell me or not?”
“I have told you! Over the years, I’ve told you a million times. But since Mom and Dad’s divorce, you’ve gotten too proud to listen. You would rather be right than happy. Nobody wins that way. This week alone you’ve made forty-seven terrible choices.”
“Forty-seven?” I said. “Wow. Figured there’d be more.”
“Oh, there were more—lots more. I was actually being kind. So are you ready to get started?”
“Started with what?” I asked.
“Being a better version of yourself.”
“Or not!” I said, taking off the sunglasses. Better Bertie had vanished. “See you later, loser,” I mumbled. I quickly realized that I was calling myself a loser, and felt incredibly dumb.
Ping. I got a text from my mom.
ok 2 come up 2 mac’s room now
I read it again. What would I be coming up to? Mac still asleep? Tabitha giving me the evil eye? Howard crying a million tears? As I pondered my next move, things got really-really strange.
The chapel turned dark and menacing. Winds from nowhere whipped at my hair, and the walls literally started to close in.
But worst of all was the weight. I felt a gigantic sadness pushing down on my shoulders, the same crushing sadness I experienced my first night in Altoona. The pressure was so overwhelmingly powerful I could hardly move.
“AHHH!” I screamed.
Struggling to lift my hand, I put on the hoodoo glasses.
The air settled
The walls went still.
The weight lifted from me.
The chapel was beautiful and bright once again.
Swallowing a breath, I got my bearings.
Better Bertie stood close to me, smiling and glowing.
“That was you?” I asked, amazed by Better Bertie’s ability to make her point. “The wind and the pressure and the wall thing?”
“Told you I was gonna blow your mind,” she said.