After I finished my duties on these days I trudged up to Apartment 205, the one never mentioned on the show. I unlocked the door and sat on the nondescript gray couch. In front of me was a modern television, along with a DVD player and modern amenities. I switched it on and proceeded to binge Three’s Company, as Bonnie Lincoln, to console myself.

These guilty occasions sometimes lasted for hours—one time, I’m ashamed to admit, an entire day. In that featureless living room I watched the show on my DVDs as I used to in my trailer, and I kept a stash of Bonnie clothes there in the closet, right above Bonnie’s old milk-carton shelves that held the DVDs and DVD players. Visiting 205 was like being inside a waiting room—somewhere not belonging to my past but not to the current era, either, or to the show, though it carried faint echoes of all three places.

After my little marathon watch sessions I’d return to Apartment 201 and resume life as Janet. After a few months of this routine, the missing time started eating at me. Where had I been during the off days?

I stopped falling asleep instantly after turning out the light. I lay awake in the single bed. What had I, Janet, been doing while Bonnie Lincoln was puttering around, restocking the meat freezer? My head buzzed with Bonnie thoughts, with off-day thoughts. Was I tainting my new world with my old habits? Should I have kept on a few people to restock shelves, maintain the plumbing? And then I considered calling a few of the trustiest caseworkers, asking them to check on things that I’d been checking on, but after mulling it over a few minutes I stopped myself short, sick at my own betrayal. Was merely considering this possibility jeopardizing my complete immersion, threatening the world I had worked so hard to achieve? I sat up and kicked away the covers, put on my robe and slippers, and went out into the living room late at night, where a light from somewhere outside cast a bluish hue into the darkness. I turned on the television, only to find static.

On the end of the couch the dog lay sleeping and grunting, making everything worse. The bird, thankfully, remained silent.

On these nights I considered sneaking off to Apartment 205 and watching the DVDs. In the before-times when I had suffered insomnia, Three’s Company had been my narcotic. Through several sleepless nights in the trailer park I had consoled myself with the show—“taking the cure” was the way I’d thought of it. But what was the cure now? Now I was living in it, and I was still wide awake at 3 a.m.

And there could be no shortcuts. I had made that rule for myself a long time ago. There was a library a few blocks away, stocked with era-specific books and magazines, first editions when I could find them, and I often thought about its inviting aisles during these endless, elliptical nights, longing to distract myself. What was stopping me from walking there, after all?