The Here and Now

by Brashares, Ann

  “Time doesn’t want anything. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “I did, but—”

  “We are together. Maybe time is not the one in charge.”

  I cry into his T-shirt. I get it wet. I love the feel of him and the smell of him. I love him. But my job is to protect him. I made sure he lived past May 17, and I’m going to make sure he keeps on living.

  I love his living heart beating against my temple. For a long time it syncopates the sound of the river sliding by us.

  “It’s not over, Prenna. Someday you’ll realize it too.”

  I guess it’s Monday evening when the knock comes at the door of my room. I think it’s Monday. I’m not sure. I’ve spent most of the time since Friday night in my bed, and the hours and days kind of blend together.

  It feels like a world-changing effort just to get out of bed and open the door. I don’t really bother about the fact that I’m in pajamas and my hair is going in twenty directions and I haven’t brushed my teeth in how long.

  “Hi, Prenna.” It’s Katherine. I can tell she wants to reach out and hug me, but she hasn’t quite got the knack of physical contact yet.

  “Hi, Katherine.” She’s not wearing her glasses. She looks so young and pretty.

  “Put on some clothes, okay?”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because we’re going on a little trip.”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see. Come on.” She goes to my dresser and starts pulling things out of the drawers. She seems to understand it’s not going to happen on its own.

  I get back in my bed. “I’m tired,” I say.

  “That’s what you said yesterday. And Saturday.” She hands me a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and a red bathing suit.

  “Well, I’m still tired.”

  “Just put them on.”

  I sigh. “Why the bathing suit?”

  “Just put it on. You’ll see.” She opens the door to my bathroom and points the way. In case I forgot. “And brush your hair. And wash your face. And brush your teeth.”

  I glare at her, but I’m too tired to be defiant. Katherine’s a lot more stubborn than she looks.

  I carry the clothes into the bathroom. I put them on and get washed, trying not to look in the mirror as I do it. It’s just depressing.

  “Go get in the car,” she says. “I’ll be right there.”

  “I thought I was supposed to be the leader.”

  She laughs and marches me down the stairs. She stops off in the kitchen. I hear her talking to my mother, and she comes out carrying a picnic basket.

  “Your mom packed us some treats,” she says brightly.

  I peer in and see all my favorites, including mango smoothies and a new box of Mallomars. “All this sympathy and I’m going to get super fat,” I mention dully as I follow her to her car.

  Katherine plays music loud, all songs she knows I love, and we drive with the windows open. It does feel good to be moving.

  “We can just talk, you know, Pren,” she says over the music and the wind. “Thanks to you, we can talk about anything we want.”

  I stare out the window. That’s something I’ve hungered for since we got here. Now I don’t know what to do with it. “What should we talk about?”

  Katherine has a look of mischief about her. She turns the music down. “We could talk about how awful Ms. Cynthia looks with her new haircut. How bad her breath is. How much fur Mr. Robert has creeping out of his nose.”

  We try that for a while but it peters out. We both know they don’t matter anymore.

  Instead, we talk about the future. Not the far future, but the near one. I can tell she has something she wants to tell me. “I was thinking I might apply to be a counselor,” she says. I can see she is shy about it.

  “Oh, Katherine. That’s the best idea.” I feel a stirring in my chest. I can’t help it. What a beautiful thought. The worst of our community replaced by the loveliest.

  We drive for a long time, and I can feel it when we’re getting close to the ocean. I can feel the warm salty air in my face.

  She parks near the lighthouse at Fire Island. We shed our clothes, pull socks off our tender feet, and skitter over the sand like newly hatched turtles. We hold hands and wade into the calm night ocean.

  I look up at the glorious pink moon gazing at herself in the dark water. It makes my heart stir again. It’s not a moon to take aim at; it’s a generous moon with light enough to bathe in.

  No matter how our hearts break, we bend toward life, don’t we? We bend toward hope.

  I think back to yesterday, late in the day when I heard a car pull up to the house, and even under two layers of blankets, I knew it was Ethan’s car. I made my tentative way toward the window and watched him walk up to the front door with an envelope in his hand and drop it in the mail slot.

  Halfway back to his car he looked over his shoulder and saw me standing in the window. He turned and lifted his hand to me. I pressed five fingertips against the glass. We both stood there, him a cutout against the pink sunset sky. I tried to hold back the crying until he was gone.

  In the envelope I saw the newspapers and the cash we’d brought on our trip. I was going to leave it untouched in the top of my closet and shut the door, but my eye caught a bright yellow Post-it note stuck to one of the newspapers. I took it out and followed the arrow Ethan must have drawn to an article on the front page of the last paper, dated June 2021.

  The article described in ominous terms the triumph of a billionaire oil and gas tycoon in his crusade to bring down the last of the regulations against carbon emissions, the last gasp of government hope to fight climate change. I didn’t recognize the name, but I certainly recognized the face in the picture. Whatever the name, Ethan knew and I know it is Andrew Baltos.

  We didn’t need proof to know we’d opened up the future. But it sure doesn’t hurt.

  When I fell asleep later, I dreamed of my brother Julius. He wasn’t in the old world where I’d always dreamed him before. He was here, healthy and strong, striding up the front walk of a house a lot like our house, holding a bunch of yellow daffodils in his hand.

  I think of that dream now as Katherine and I turn our faces up to a blanket of stars so vast and ancient and magnificent that you just know you are living in a world that has thought of everything.

  Still holding hands, we swim out far beyond where our feet can touch. It’s scary and uncertain, but it is also thrilling.

  Because who knows what happens next?