“Guys!” Kelsey is waving to us. “Come over here!”
I glance at my watch. It’s getting late. I don’t have much time left.
Kurt tilts his head in Kelsey’s direction. “Should we?”
“Probably. Kelsey doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“I gathered that already.”
Kurt stands and holds out his hand to help me up. I pretend I don’t see it and jump to my feet. He gives me a bemused smile. “I don’t bite, you know.”
“I know.”
I run down to join Kelsey and the guys. Kurt follows me.
Kelsey is lying on the sand. She pulls me down beside her and points at the sky. “We’re arguing about what that star is called,” she says.
I follow her finger. “It’s probably a planet. Maybe Jupiter?”
Kurt lies down on my other side. “Wow, the stars are bright tonight.”
“Can you see the southern cross?” Kelsey asks.
“Of course,” I reply.
Kurt leans in close to me and points upwards. “My favourite star is next to Mimosa, which is the left point of the southern cross. Can you see it?”
I look carefully. “I think so.”
“It’s actually a cluster of stars called the Jewel Box and they’re over ten million years old.”
“Wow. How do you know this?”
“My grandfather was really into astronomy and he used to show me all this cool stuff with his telescope.”
I focus on the sky and think about how the stars look the same in the future. It’s comforting.
“The Jewel Box will remind me of you now,” Kurt whispers.
I’m about to tease him about bad pick-up lines when I start to feel dizzy. I reach out and grab Kelsey’s hand. “It’s Cinderella time,” I tell her.
She sits up and leans over, brushing my hair away from my face. “Come find me in the future,” she says so softly that only I can hear.
I nod, but everything is spinning and there’s a chance my head doesn’t actually move.
Kurt seems to understand something is going on and he reaches for my hand. I only have a split second to appreciate the warmth of his skin on mine before it fades.
And then everything disappears.
ELEVEN
I wake up in bed in Brisbane. The clock says it’s 6am. It’s so weird, sleeping all that time and not feeling any different than if I lived a whole day normally and then had a proper night’s rest. Does my brain just switch to sleep mode around 8pm? I wonder what would happen if I took the compound at 3am. Would I still sleep all the way through to the next morning even though it would wear off at 3pm?
I rub my eyes and sit up. Am I causing damage to the universe, despite it not affecting my current one? I revisit my original assumptions of how the compound works. At least I can rule out a Back to the Future scenario.
I still don’t know if I’m hallucinating or dreaming, but I guess for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t really matter what I call it. Except, I still don’t know whether a) my brain is making up everything as I go along, or b) I’m slipping into the real 1996. And if it’s B, where is the other Anna’s brain while I inhabit her body? And does everyone in that version of reality go back to the original timeline the next day as Kelsey proposed?
I lean back against my pillows and contemplate yesterday. In particular, last night. It was so lovely hanging out with Kelsey again. And seeing Kurt…the way-too-nice-for-his-own-good Kurt. I know nothing happened between us, but I still feel bad. Probably because when he grabbed for my hand, I didn’t want him to let go.
I go out into the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea. It takes a few minutes to readjust to this body and time.
The kettle is still boiling when my phone rings.
Ed.
“Hey!” I say brightly. “How’s your trip so far?”
“Busy. I was in meetings all day yesterday, and I have a client breakfast in about ten minutes. Sorry I didn’t call last night, but I didn’t get back to my room until almost midnight and I didn’t want to disturb you. How are you doing?”
“Not too bad.” I don’t know how else to reply, because I’ve done nothing outside of 1996 since he left. And then I think about how sterile our communication has been lately compared to the conversations I’ve had with Kelsey and Jackson…and Kurt. I flounder around for something meaningful to ask.
“Ed? What was your life like before you met me? I mean, I know you said you hated high school, but tell me something fun that you remember.”
“You want to do this now?”
“Yes! Why not?”
“Um, because I just told you I have to be at a client breakfast in ten minutes?”
“So you won’t have any time to talk to me while you’re away?”
He sighs. “I didn’t say that. It’s just, I have a lot on my plate right now. Work is ridiculously busy, and I need you to understand that and give me a bit of leeway.”
“What does that mean? Would you rather we didn’t have any contact until you get home?”
“No, no. But I can’t really do the whole deep and meaningful thing first thing in the morning in the middle of a business trip. Sorry.”
I feel like there’s more to it than that.
“Why don’t you like talking about the past?” I push.
He doesn’t reply for a moment. “I just don’t.”
“Were you bullied?”
“No.”
“Did you have a bad experience at school or university?”
“No, it was nothing like that. It was just a crappy part of my life that I’d rather forget, okay?”
“Is it because of your mum?”
Silence.
Ed’s mum died a year after he finished high school. Obviously I have always suspected it wouldn’t have been a very pleasant time in his life, but that doesn’t explain why he doesn’t look back fondly on the time before that. His mum died suddenly from a brain aneurism, so there was no warning or suffering beforehand.
“I just finished telling you that I didn’t have time for this crap, and now you want to delve into the worst thing that ever happened to me?”
“I’m sorry, Ed. I’m just worried. We’ve been together for a large part of our adult lives and I still barely know anything about you from before we met. Isn’t that weird? You know all about my life.”
“But I never asked about yours. You volunteered the information. And to be honest, I didn’t want to know the names of all your ex-boyfriends or anyone you had feelings for before me.”
I feel like I’ve been slapped. Ed has never even hinted he was upset about me bringing up my past before now.
“Well, maybe you should have mentioned that at the time.”
“Look, I know you’ve had a marvellous life, pretty much since you came out of the womb, but not all of us were so lucky. It was bad enough the first time. I don’t want to have to rehash everything over and over for eternity.”
“Fine,” I say quietly. I didn’t have a ‘marvellous’ life as he so patronisingly put it, but I’m not going to argue with him when he’s acting like this.
“I’ll call you again when I get a spare moment. Talk soon.”
He hangs up and I sit there, staring at the wall.
Wow. Okay, then. I guess that conversation is over.
***
All morning, I feel out of sorts. I’d like to think I have thick enough skin to deal with a moody Ed by now, but my whole world has been quite bizarre lately, and I’m not feeling particularly stable.
I work on a new post for my blog, just to ground myself, and then go to the bookshelf and pull out Ed’s and my wedding album. I need to be reminded of happier times.
Ed and I met when I was twenty-two and he was twenty-four. It’s quite funny, because he grew up around Shell Beach too, but we didn’t meet until a night out in Brisbane after we’d both moved there. I’d already been to France to do my pastry chef training, and I was partway through the di
etician course. I know it sounds like a strange combination, but I wanted to first know how to make great-tasting food, and then how to make it healthy. I worked in patisseries for a while, and a few high-end restaurants, but after my blog took off, I decided to pursue that full-time.
The first time I saw Ed was inside the Family nightclub in the Valley. It was at the height of its popularity, with long waiting lines out the front and packed dancefloors on both the ground and third floors. I wasn’t friends with Kelsey by that point, so I was out with an acquaintance from the restaurant I worked at.
We were sitting at one of the bars on the third floor when Ed walked over to order a drink. He looked sad, and I felt compelled to make him smile.
“I seem to have lost my phone number. Can I have yours?”
He looked at me, taken aback, and then burst out laughing. “I haven’t heard that one before, but it sounds like something my friend Chandler would say.”
“I’ll bet that Chandler is a smart guy,” I teased.
“Yeah, but he’s not really my type,” he said, eyes twinkling.
“So is this Chandler out with you tonight? I want to make sure we’re not using the same material. That could get a little awkward.”
“Nah. He’s up at Shell Beach visiting his family this weekend.”
“Shell Beach?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I grew up in Shell Beach!”
He looked at me strangely. “Really?”
“Yeah! I went to Shell Beach State High and graduated in 1997.”
“I grew up in Shell Beach too! Well, for a few years, anyway. We moved around a lot on the coast.”
“Did you go to my school?”
“No. My parents sent me to St. Helens.”
“Ah. Private school boy.”
“And I graduated a couple of years before you.”
“How random. Hey, your friend Chandler doesn’t happen to have the surname Robinson, does he?”
His jaw dropped. “You know him?”
“A little. I think my sister Amy dated his younger brother for a while.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, but you know how small Shell Beach is. Everyone knows everyone.”
“Still.”
After that, we spent the whole night dancing and talking. I can’t even remember what happened to the woman from work that I’d gone to the club with.
Ed and I dated for six years before we finally got married. I wasn’t in a huge hurry, and Ed always seemed reluctant to fully commit. Not that I ever questioned his feelings towards me. I always just thought it was a guy thing.
And I think back fondly on all those years. Our wedding was low-key, but beautiful. Ed was slightly melancholy on the day, which I assumed was because his mum wasn’t there to be a part of it, but otherwise we were happy.
I flick through the pages of the wedding album. We had some of our photos taken on Shell Beach, and one of my favourite shots was of us barefoot with the pinky-purple early evening sky behind us. The ocean was a pretty blue-green and the sea foam glowed white.
I wonder when this distance set in between us. Maybe it’s been going on for a while, but I only noticed once I experienced a different reality.
Either way, I’m going to make things better. I’ll try to stay upbeat on the phone each night while Ed is away and then really work at making our relationship strong again when he returns.
I suddenly have a brainwave. I won’t be able to see Ed for the rest of the week here in the present, but I could track him down in 1996. If this version of him won’t tell me what happened in the past, I’ll get the eighteen-year-old version to tell me.
I sort of feel like I’m betraying his trust, but at the same time, I’m intrigued. I want to know what he looked like…how he thought…if he’s the same guy I know now but just in a younger body. And I feel like it will bring us closer in the long run if I knew where he came from. This will be good for our marriage.
I spend the rest of the day looking through our garage for any hints of Ed’s past. I’ve never snooped before, but I’ll need some help if I’m going to have any hope of finding him. He was one of the first students to study at the Sunshine Coast University, enrolling in a business and law degree and going on to do a post-grad course in Brisbane later on.
I trawl through a bunch of unlabelled boxes and those that just have the word Miscellaneous written on top. Some are mine—full of old books and school reports. Some are Ed’s, but it’s only stuff he’s collected since we met.
I’ve almost given up when I stumble across a shoebox that I don’t think I’ve seen before. It’s tucked away in the corner behind the Christmas tree decorations.
I gently lift it down and open it up.
Jackpot.
I pick up a bunch of old photos and flick through them. They’re mostly of Ed and his parents. He’s an only child, although he does have a ton of cousins that made sure he was never lonely, especially after his mum died. I had never seen any childhood photos of my husband—something I think is definitely not normal. He was such a cute kid too. The photos are clearly from the eighties, with Ed wearing tiny little football shorts and tight navy-blue singlets. His hair was styled in a crewcut and he looked so happy. My heart breaks for the little boy who will lose his mother before he’s had a chance to completely grow up.
There aren’t many photos from his teens, but I find a couple from a family holiday when he was about fourteen. I wonder why he doesn’t have any others. Are they at his dad’s? At least I’ll know who to look for when I go back.
I’m disappointed that there aren’t any letters or paperwork from when he was younger. I’ll still have no idea where to find him.
I’m just about to close the box back up when I catch something glinting in the corner. It’s a little silver sun-shaped charm, like one from a bracelet. I turn it over in my hands, but it doesn’t give me any clue as to why it’s there.
I shrug and put it back in the box, returning everything to its spot behind the Christmas decorations.
I think I’ll have an early night. It’s going to be a big day tomorrow and I’m going to need all the energy I can get.
TWELVE
After a quick shower the next morning, I make up a dose of the compound and gulp it down.
I wake up again in my old room with the sun only just peeking over the horizon. I change into my school uniform and pack some regular clothes in my schoolbag. I have no intention of going anywhere near the school gates today, but I’ll have to make sure Mum goes out so she won’t be able to answer the phone if the school calls. Dad will be leaving for work soon, and Amy won’t notice if I’m not around. We never saw each other during the day, and we certainly never walked to or from school together.
I make sure my mobile phone is charged and throw it in my bag too. I wish I had my iPhone. This thing I own in 1996 can only make phone calls and send text messages. It doesn’t even have a touch screen, so texting is a nightmare. If I had the internet, email and GPS, it would be so much easier.
I go downstairs and make myself some breakfast. I’m starving.
As I’m putting some bread in the toaster, Dad appears.
“Hi, sweetie. How did you sleep?”
“Not bad, thanks.”
“Do you have a busy week at school?”
“No more than usual, I don’t think.”
“Are you on track with all your subjects? I was thinking the other day it’s not too late to switch from home ec to physics. I know you’re already doing biology and chemistry, but it would look good on your university application if you’d done all three of the sciences.”
“You mean for dentistry?” I clarify. I think back to my conversation with Kurt the other night. It’s funny how we were talking about these very subjects. “I like what I’m doing now, but I appreciate the suggestion.”
“Are you sure? Home ec is such a cop-out.”
I take a deep breath. “It’s not a cop-out. I don�
��t see why just because something is fun, it should be considered less important. Besides, don’t you think you should learn to cook and look after yourself as an adult?”
He laughs. “Of course I do. But you don’t need to waste a school subject on it. You figure out that kind of stuff on your own.”
I so badly want to tell him I had a huge advantage in my pastry class thanks to the lessons we dedicated to making profiteroles and eclairs in high school home economics.
“Please, Dad. Let me make my own decisions.”
“Okay. Sorry. I just want to make sure you’re financially secure when you’re older.”
I sit at the dining table and start to eat. It makes me sad knowing that even if you do all the right things, life still might not work out the way you want it to. I mean, look at Mum getting sick and Dad having to sacrifice his job for her. Mum worked in a department store before Amy and I came along, and had been talking about re-entering the workplace right before she fell ill. But once her energy levels dropped, she was basically housebound.
“Morning, honey.” Mum enters the kitchen, tying a bow in her dressing gown belt. “You’re not normally up this early.”
“I guess I just wanted to get a head start today.”
“Good for you. Do you need me to pick you up this afternoon, since you’re working at three thirty?”
“Oh. Um, maybe.” Damn. I’m working? I guess that will be another thing I disrupt today. I’ve decided from now on, I’m going to assume this reality continues after I leave, so I hope this version of Anna forgives me if she gets fired for not showing up at her job. I worry that my last visit and the whole fake pregnancy thing will have completely ruined that Anna’s life.
“How will you get there otherwise?”
“All right. Thanks, Mum. Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
I figure I can always phone later and tell her I’m getting a lift with someone else. I won’t worry about it now.
Dad gives me a kiss on the cheek. “See you later.”
“Bye, Dad.”
He gives Mum a kiss too. They seem more playful now than they do in the future. Which is understandable, but still depressing.
1996 (90s Flashback Series) Page 9