My mind isn’t working at an efficient enough pace to figure this puzzle out. It’s still Monday. Yesterday, the second Monday, when I woke up, the tear was gone and it was sitting on the chair, where I had left it before. What does this mean? Why is this the only thing that’s different? Is this the only thing that’s different?

I press both hands against my head. Why did the torn shirt stay in the closet where I put it, but everything else is the same as it was that first Monday? But it’s still Monday!

The closet is magic? Sounds about as rational as any other theory right now.

There’s no time to ponder the ramifications of a mystical closet. I have to go to work. I have to . . . Why am I going back there to be fired again? How can I make it different? How can I prevent being fired? What if I can keep my job somehow? What if this whole thing is an opportunity to get it right?

I stare at my briefcase. Maybe I shouldn’t go to work. But what if today is different? The shirt thing was already different. I can’t risk it. What if today I don’t get fired? What if Mark doesn’t . . . ugh I don’t want to be with Mark, even if he suddenly decides he loves me and wants to run away together and get married and have a million babies. My stomach wrenches at the thought of yesterday. Both yesterdays.

I can’t do that to myself. Not anymore. But the thought of confronting him makes me equally sick. I don’t even want to talk to him. What do I do? Maybe I can find a way to avoid him. Good ol’ reliable plan B.

I make it out of the apartment building to the sidewalk, wearing the blue boobie blouse. My gaze drops periodically to check out the buttonhole situation, which is precarious at best.

One thing I can do . . . I can avoid the BART.

Screw the train. If I’m stuck in this day, the money will magically reappear overnight in my bank account anyway, right?

Except I don’t have a phone to call a cab. I glance up and down the block. There probably hasn’t been a pay phone here in decades.

Sigh. Train it is.

When it lurches to a stop, instead of grabbing the pole, I grab the redhead in the bright clothes.

“Excuse me,” she snips.

“Sorry.” So not sorry. My hand is clean. I would never grab someone, normally, but my hand is too clean for me to care.

I walk briskly down the sidewalk toward the Blue Wave building.

Work is the same nightmare, except worse. I’m so flustered and befuddled that I have a hard time eking out more than a few clipped words to pitch the same old idea I already know they hate.