90s Girl

by Mia Archer

  “Yeah, I guess I’m starting to think of things a little differently,” I said.

  I mean sure there’d always been a part of me that wanted the whole nuclear family thing. A mom and a dad and a house in the suburbs. Only my life had always been anything but normal, and I guess I was starting to make peace with that in a way I hadn’t realized I needed to.

  I sighed. I’d learned a lot about my parents. I wished I’d gone over all this with Aunt Olivia a long time ago. Then I would’ve had some of this information ready to go when I found myself thrust back in time.

  “This is a lot to process,” I said.

  “Sure is,” Aunt Olivia said. “But you’re a smart girl. I think you can figure out what you need to figure out. Everything’s going to be okay. I know it.”

  Huh. That was so close to what I’d said to my mom back in the past that it was eerie.

  Then again maybe not. I’d taken a lot of my personality cues from Aunt Olivia, after all. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she was saying something that was so close to what I would say.

  “I hope you figure out what you need to figure out,” she said. “But you’re a smart girl. I think you will.”

  “Thanks,” I said, blinking a couple of times to get rid of the pesky moisture that’d appeared around the edges of my eyes. “I think I’m going to hit the sack now, but I do appreciate this.”

  “I know you do,” she said. “Get some sleep. You’d be surprised how often that helps you figure things out.”

  I really hoped it would help me figure things out. One thing was for damn sure. I was going to be heading back to the roller rink the next weekend. I figured the only way for me to really figure out what the hell I was doing was to get out there and talk with my mom, and maybe Jenny, and work out all this confusing shit.

  27

  Back to the Rink

  I stepped into the roller rink and took a deep breath. It was a little weird stepping past that old woman who I now knew to be Jenny’s mom. I wondered if she maybe recognized me as the same girl who’d been coming through here a few decades ago. She’d certainly been giving me enough weird looks as I came through, and that would explain a lot.

  Then again there were probably a lot of people who came through here who were the children of people she’d known when they were kids long ago. That was the thing about living a long life in a place that catered to the younger generation. Eventually you’d see a few generations coming through a place, falling in love, banging, and then sending their kids through to repeat the process.

  I didn’t have Candace or Felicity with me this time around. I didn’t need them tonight. Having them along, Felicity in particular, would mean a headache explaining why I was going back to that dance studio again. The last thing I needed was Felicity breathing down my neck.

  I got my skates and rolled over to the dance studio, though oddly enough the light was on. I paused outside the entrance to see if there was anyone in there, but the place seemed empty.

  It also looked like someone had been in there cleaning, though, and that was weird considering how abandoned and empty the place had been every other night.

  “Hello?” I called out, not really expecting an answer.

  I didn’t get that answer. I laughed a nervous laugh. I wasn’t sure why I’d expect anyone to be in there.

  Though there was at least one interesting explanation for why the lights might be on and the place deserted. What if someone had come in there to do a little tidying up, and they fell through the same hole in time I did?

  Would they go back to the same time I did if that happened? Was that what really happened? Could this time warp work on other people?

  I just didn’t know.

  “Weird,” I said, rolling into the place.

  I glanced around and blinked. Realized there was a sign hanging in there asking people not to come in on rollerskates because it could damage the wood paneling. I looked down at my skates, at the plastic wheels that had dings in them from years of use, and winced.

  I hadn’t realized I was causing trouble this entire time, though to be fair I also hadn’t ever really looked around this studio with the lights on.

  “Hello?” I called out. “Is there anyone in here?”

  I rolled around a couple of times, not paying attention to the warning that I shouldn’t be skating in here, and sighed. No one was in here, and there certainly wasn’t any portal to the past opening up and transporting me to the early nineties.

  “What the fuck?” I growled.

  Here I was ready to go back and try to sort out the mess that was my distant past, and it wasn’t happening. Dread rose in me as I ran through worst case scenarios.

  What if it wasn’t happening any longer? What if it was a one trip a night sort of thing, and whatever poor bastard came in here before me fell through instead of me?

  What if it’d all been my imagination and I really was losing it? I think most people were supposed to lose it in their mid to late twenties if they were suffering from schizophrenia, but maybe it was hitting me earlier than usual.

  Not a comforting thought.

  I did a little twirl. That’d worked in the past. I do a spin around and there’s Jenny leaning against the entrance smiling. Maybe spinning around on roller skates was the trick to the whole thing or something. Like the roller skate equivalent of traveling eighty-eight miles per hour.

  I finished spinning. Looked hopefully to the exit hoping to see Jenny leaning against the door with that smile on her face that said she was happy to see me and really looking forward to all the face sucking we were going to be doing later that night.

  She wasn’t there. Damn it. What the hell was going wrong here? Did they forget to give me skates with a time circuit at the skate rental?

  I rolled over to the exit. Looked out. Maybe she was still mad at me so she didn’t come looking for me tonight. Maybe it’d been long enough that she gave up on me coming back. There’d been a couple of times when I’d rolled out of the entrance and found myself in the past with no Jenny waiting for me, after all.

  Maybe that’s what was going on here. I didn’t believe it, but it could be true.

  I looked around. They were playing something from the early ‘90s, but I was pretty sure that particular Ace of Bass song had been popular after the time I’d been traveling to.

  I pulled out my phone more out of instinct than anything and tapped away at the screen to figure out exactly when that song had come out. It wasn’t until I’d pulled up the Ace of Bass Wikipedia article that I realized the very fact that I’d been able to load the page in the first place told me all I needed to know about what time I was in.

  “Why isn’t this working?” I growled.

  I thought about looking up something about time travel rules, but stopped myself before I searched for something I might regret. I worried if I started asking questions that were a little too specific then I might wind up on a government watch list. I really didn’t want black vans to pull up and take me off to some undisclosed research lab because the government knew what search strings to look for to snatch time travelers.

  I wasn’t interested in being poked and prodded by Uncle Sam, thank you very much.

  I rolled in and out of the dance studio again. Looked up and around. The music didn’t change. No, I was stuck in the present day, and no amount of trying to kickstart whatever had been throwing me into the past was doing anything.

  It was enough to make me want to go out on the skating rink and bang my head on the hardwood just a little to see if that did the trick.

  Panic wasn’t quite setting in, but I was getting close to it. What if I couldn’t get back there again? What if whatever magic or strange convergence of the universe that had allowed me to travel back in time was over, and now I was going to be forever stuck in the present where I wouldn’t see Jenny again?

  At least I wouldn’t see the Jenny I’d fallen for. After all, I was pretty sure that girl I’d s
een on that first night was Jenny. I wondered if the surprise of seeing a girl who looked so similar to someone she’d made out with and knew to be a time traveler from the past had been enough to freak her out and send her into hiding so she didn’t mess anything up.

  Actually, now that I knew I’d admitted I was a time traveler to her and I knew she knew who I was, and maybe knew who I’d been all along if this operated on Bill and Ted “everything has already happened and time is a closed circle so here’s a gun that shoots a Wyld Stallyns flag” rules instead of using Back to the Future time travel “Biff can still live long enough to travel back to 2015 and disappear in a deleted scene” wave changes to the future, her disappearance after that first night when she realized that circle was closing made a heck of a lot more sense.

  I sighed. That modern Jenny might be out here somewhere, but she wasn’t my Jenny. She wasn’t the girl my age I fell for while I was trapped in the past. A past I couldn’t get to.

  I rolled back into the dance studio, feeling pretty sad for myself. Maybe someone was using the place, but it was empty right now and seemed like as good a place as any for me to sit and feel sorry for myself for a little while.

  I stumbled as I rolled into the place. It was like the world spun around me, and I couldn’t help but grin despite the fact that I nearly fell on my ass.

  I grinned even though everything felt weird this time around. I saw double, which was normal, but then there was trouble with the two images coming together. Like the universe couldn’t decide where it wanted me to be.

  Which I could totally understand. I was having trouble deciding if I wanted to be in the present or the past myself, after all. As a teenager it seemed totally natural that the universe would take an interest in my life.

  Finally everything resolved, but I wasn’t sure which time I’d landed in. There was a boombox in the corner, but hadn’t that been there before? I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was something had happened, and I could only hope that meant I was back in the past.

  I turned around. The music pumping from outside was different. I was back, baby! I wasn’t sure what caused that delay, maybe whatever mojo was pulling me into the past was wearing off, which could be bad, but at least I was here for the moment.

  I shook my head as a wave of dizziness ran over me. That wasn’t good either. Whatever the heck had happened in there, the transition between time periods hadn’t been nearly as seamless. I shook my head again to try and clear out some of the dizziness, and after a few deep breaths the spinning was gone.

  “Okay Liv,” I muttered. “You can totally do this. Things might be a little screwy, but time travel is screwy, right?”

  There was no Jenny waiting for me, but that wasn’t necessarily bad. Still, that feeling that things weren’t quite right here was percolating down in my gut.

  Whatever. I had stuff to do. I needed to find Jenny and talk to her, and make sure everything was still cool between us.

  I could worry about everything else later. Right now I needed to find the girl who might or might not be my girlfriend.

  28

  Bullies

  I rolled into the arcade and the clear sound of a commotion rising over all the usual noises from the arcade.

  I frowned. People were shouting and it sounded like there was trouble brewing. I couldn’t help but think that if there was trouble brewing then my parents had something to do with it.

  One of my parents in particular.

  Though it could be a bunch of nerds getting into a fight over who got to play Donatello, the superior turtle, in the arcade game.

  I rolled through the arcade towards the noise. I rounded a Popeye cabinet and saw none other than George and my James facing off against each other with a circle around them egging them on.

  George didn’t have a chance against my dad though. He was skinny and didn’t look like he’d ever been in a fight. Meanwhile my dad had the sort of rippling muscles that evidently weren’t enough to get him into the college football program he wanted, but he could cause some serious damage to poor George if he wanted to.

  “Kick his ass!”

  “Teach that little faggot to hit on you!”

  I’d never get used to hearing that kind of language. Sure it was one of those things where I was pretty sure it was a word people used all the time in this time, something that made watching anything made before about 2004 problematic, but it was still a slap to the face hearing that kind of language coming from someone’s mouth.

  It made me see red. I wanted to go in there and pop my dad a good one on the mouth to let him know what I thought of him picking on the poor gay kid, only there was someone who was already there leaping to George’s defense.

  Jenny.

  She pushed her way through the crowd like an avenging angel, and the look on her face was one of pure fury. Like she was about to bring the hurt down on anyone who dared to pick on George.

  That didn’t stop me from making my way through the crowd, though. I figured if she was going to get herself in trouble with this asshole who happened to be the sperm donor that gave me life then I was going to be there to teach him a lesson right alongside her.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” she shouted. “Why the fuck do you have to bother George all the fucking time?”

  “Stay the fuck out of this Jenny,” James growled, staring daggers at George. “I saw this guy looking at me funny, and I don’t appreciate that shit!”

  “And I don’t appreciate you coming in here and acting like a fucking caveman,” Jenny said, her arm shooting out in the direction of the door. “Get the fuck out of this rink, and don’t ever come back. You’re kicked out.”

  “You don’t get to kick me out, bitch,” he growled, his hand pressing against her chest as he gave her a shove.

  I also noticed how his hand pressed against her chest. He could’ve pushed at her center of gravity, but no. He made sure to cop a feel while he was giving her a shove, and seeing him manhandling her pissed me off even more than I already was.

  I shoved my way through the crowd and then I was on him. I gave him a good shove, and he was so surprised that he took a couple of stumbling steps back. That was the only reason I could think of for why he would go flying back like that, because I sure as hell wasn’t strong enough to actually move him.

  He stumbled into the crowd who pushed back on him like… Well like we were in some cheesy ‘80s movie. Which I guess, in a way, we were. I didn’t like how much real life was like those movies, but here we were.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” he growled, his hands balling into fists at his side. That had me worried he was seriously on the verge of taking a swing.

  “Stay the fuck away from George, and stay the fuck away from Jenny,” I said. “Or I’m going to make you fucking regret it.”

  His response wasn’t quite what I’d thought it would be. I figured he’d get so pissed off that he might take a swing at me, but instead he threw his head back and laughed. Like the thought of me trying to take him on was pretty damn funny.

  I mean the idea of actually taking him on and winning was pretty ridiculous. I didn’t stand a chance against him, but that wasn’t going to stop me from being right there between him and Jenny.

  Only it turns out I didn’t have to be right there between him and Jenny, because there was someone else who was suddenly there between him and me. A little blonde hurricane who was pushing back on him, punching and slapping him, and this time instead of looking like he was going to hit back he was looking more surprised than anything.

  “Stay the fuck away from them!” the voice screeched. “You’re such a fucking asshole! You knock me up and you’re trying to leave me behind and now you’re trying to beat up my friends and I’m not going to put up with this shit anymore!”

  To say I was shocked would be… an understatement. The blonde hurricane was none other than my mom. I glanced at Jenny, but she was staring with her mouth wide open too.

  �
�Holy shit,” Jenny mouthed.

  “I told you she wasn’t a bad person,” I said. “Just confused.”

  I turned back to my mom and dad having one hell of a fight. I had the sneaking suspicion this was the big one. The fight that would keep my dad out of my life forever.

  Though given what I’d learned about him there wasn’t a chance I’d want him in my life.

  It was weird. I could try to be the peacemaker here. I could maybe try to have a family instead of just my mom, and eventually Aunt Olivia but now that I was on the verge of making that happen it was the last thing I wanted. Not if it meant subjecting my mom, and young me, to this asshole on a regular basis.

  I wouldn’t be able to fight back as a little baby or a toddler, but I sure as fuck could fight back now. Especially against this fucker who was raising his fist and looked like he was about to try and take a swing at my mom.

  Oh hell fucking no was that not going to happen on my watch.

  “You fucking slut,” he growled. “I’m going to teach you a lesson about talking back to me. You were a good lay, but…”

  I wasn’t sure what happened next. All I knew was one moment he was standing there with his fist raised like he was going to sock my mom across the jaw, and the next moment my knuckles really hurt and he was on the ground holding a hand up to his eye and writhing in pain as he screamed and cried like the little bitch he was.

  “What the fuck is your problem, you bitch!” he shouted.

  I figured getting laid out would be enough to cool his jets, but that wasn’t the case. His foot shot out. Clearly the fight wasn’t out of him if he was still trying to kick at me. The prick.

  I frowned and dodged him a couple of times before I got sick of it and wheeled back with my own foot. I figured if he wanted to play that game then I could play that game.

  A moment later he was screaming even louder. Those screams were loud enough that people on the other side of the skating rink were turning to have a look at the commotion even though The New Kids on the Block were doing their best to drown out the noise of my dad’s suffering.