“So Jane, she reminds you of her mom?”
He nodded. “Oh sure, in so many ways.” He paused. “I’m embarrassed to say it but I think I pull away from her a little bit because it’s too painful to feel that reminder.”
I had known when I spoke to the older Peter that there was more behind his distance from his daughter than not seeing eye-to-eye. It took traveling decades back in time to learn the truth.
“I think, if you don’t mind my saying, that you can’t let that get in the way.” I expected him to get angry but he didn’t. Just looked sad. I continued. “I think your daughter needs her dad and in time you’ll probably come to cherish the reminder of your wife. Then again, it’s none of my business.”
“No,” he said, “no, you’re right. I’ll try to keep that in mind. Anyhow, I should get back to the little guy. Nice meeting you, Justin.”
We parted, leaving me wondering if I’d helped anything at all.
2
With that awkward handshake in the second week of camp, I committed myself to finding Danny a girlfriend. I knew enough about kids to understand that it was more complicated than my general advice to “broaden one’s horizons.” True, there were definitely great girls that he wasn’t paying any attention to, but some of them might not meet the standards of Danny’s friends. Kids couldn’t help but give in to that shit. Teenaged couples throughout history loved to flip the bird at their disapproving parents and do whatever they want, but if friends frowned on the relationship it just wasn’t going to happen.
I didn’t think I could get Danny new friends, not within the confines of Shady Pines, anyway. He already got along well enough with everybody for a shy kid. So that meant I had to find him a girl who wasn’t incredibly popular, who didn’t already have her head overinflated by the attention of every guy of the proper age and a few of improper age. And she had to be pretty enough that Danny’s friends would give a casual thumbs up. Shallow and shitty, I know, but this is how kids operated then, and I’m pretty sure it’s how they will operate for the rest of eternity. I may be able to change time itself but basic human nature, especially that of the youngest humans, is beyond even my reaches.
I used my one class a week with the eleven and twelve year old girls as well as some of my limited free time to take stock of the contenders. It felt like a creepy thing to do, and it probably was. What could I say? “The pre-teen isn’t for me, officer, it’s for my younger version!” Fortunately, I was familiar with all these girls and it wasn’t long before I found the perfect option. Her name was Jamie. She was actually thirteen, so I’m not quite sure how she got into the bunk. She was very tall, with long curly hair, and though she was pretty she was incredibly uncomfortable about her appearance. It’s something I picked up on easily, but I knew Danny had never noticed.
“Uncomfortable?” he asked when I presented my findings to him while sitting on the outdoor drama stage one afternoon. “Jamie’s not uncomfortable.”
“Danny, man, I’m telling you she’s completely awkward. She probably thinks she looks like a big goof compared to the other little girls.”
He frowned. “I don’t know. Let’s say I believe you. How does that help me?”
The relaxed tone he used made me smile. I had never been that comfortable with adults at his age… I mean, when I was him. I was proud of him and thrilled with myself that he had a rapport with me. It seemed to me that something had changed in his behavior. I had crossed the chasm that no adult had been able to previously, or perhaps nobody had ever tried hard enough. Danny’s confidence was blossoming and I was excited for him and pleased with my accomplishment.
“It helps you,” I said, “because once you understand that a girl is as insecure as you, once you really get that into your head, you won’t see her as someone so intimidating that your tongue gets into knots around her. Make sense?”
“Yeah, sure. So what do you want me to do?”
“Talk to her.”
His face wrinkled with concern. I hated that I had once been like that. There were still parts of that personality inside me and it frustrated me to no end. “Talk to her alone?” he asked.
“Good question. I think try to make some conversation in a group setting. Just talk to all the girls but focus on her… but don’t stare at her! That’s just creepy.”
“Focus, but don’t stare. Got it.”
“Right. Just focus a little. Don’t want to seem like you’re too interested. She should think you’re just as likely to be interested in her friends. And she will think that because she’s—”
“Insecure. Right.” He scratched his head. “Do I really have to play all these games?”
“You don’t have to but it’s the only way I know. Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“Yup.”
“But the good news is that if you listen to me you will up your game tremendously.”
“My game?”
I laughed. “Your game…your way with women. You know? Anyhow, I’m not going to guarantee you’ll win Jamie over but you never know what other girls you might be impressing along the way.”
“But, how do I talk to her?”
This led to a ten minute lecture where I tried to explain flirting, that psychotic language shared between horny men and women that involves walking the fine line between teasing and insulting. Took me a long time to get that right as I grew up, but now here I was jumping the gun for myself by several years.
“Does any of that make sense?” I asked.
“It’s a lot to think about,” he said, “but I guess I’ve got it.”
“So… you’ll give this thing a shot? You’ll talk to Jamie?”
He shrugged. “Yeah,” he said with a small smile. “Why not?”
Chapter 15
1
The following week I left the main house at the start of my break period and walked toward the lake. As I passed the picnic grove I heard Suzy’s voice as she chatted away with her friends.
“Hello, ladies,” I said as I approached.
Suzy’s two counselor friends giggled. “The stars have aligned!” Jen exclaimed. “The lovers have the same break period today!”
“Are you serious?” asked Suzy. “What are you guys, ten?”
“Nah,” said Kimberly. “We just like seeing you so happy and flustered. Right, Jen?”
“Yup,” said Jen. “Our girl is smitten like a kitten!”
Suzy blushed. “Justin, do me a huge favor and get me away from these maniacs, will you?”
I held out my arm and she linked hers through. We walked through the camp, Jen and Kimberly’s giggles fading into the distance.
“Sorry about them,” Suzy said.
“Don’t worry about it!” I said. “I can take a little teasing. You’re worth it.”
“I would so kiss you right now, if it wasn’t against camp policy,” she said, making one of her cute pouty faces.
“Damn those rules and regulations,” I laughed. “Well, I’ll give you plenty of opportunity later, promise!”
“Did you know that I went to camp here?” she asked.
“Whoa, do you have a ticket for that train of thought?”
She stopped walking. “That is, quite simply, the single worst line I’ve ever heard.”
“Give me time, babe. You’ll hear worse.”
She laughed. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Okay. The answer is that I assumed as much. You just have that aura about you of having been around this place a long time.”
“You know what’s funny?” she asked. “I would swear I could say the same thing about you.”
I paused. “Well… I went to a camp that was very similar. Same simple thing, with a lot of sports and a few clubs to join and not much else.”
“I guess you must have liked it though, to be working in one now, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I did. School wasn’t especially pleasant for me, especially by middle school. I enjoyed the summers so m
uch more. How about you?”
“I loved it here,” she said. “It’s a family atmosphere. I looked forward to it every year. I used to really like the bunk shows, isn’t that lame?”
“A little,” I said.
“Hey!” Suzy said. “I liked being able to sing and dance, what can I say?”
“Were you any good?”
“Nah, not really,” she said, “but I had the good sense to remain in the background. There was this girl named Martha Merriman who used to always go up and grab the microphone. She sucked.”
We laughed together. By then we had reached the lake. The nine-year-old boys’ bunk was out on paddle boats. Suzy and I sat down on the bench, which was one of those covered dugout seating areas like they had for the teams on either side of the baseball diamond. We waved at the boating and fishing instructor.
“So what happened to Martha?” I asked.
“How should I know?” Suzy replied. “She didn’t go to my high school and she left camp before CIT summer. Never came here to work or anything. I’ve lost touch with a lot of people over the years, and I cared about many of them much more than Martha Merriman, believe me.”
“Yeah, I guess that happened a lot. People leaving the camp, I mean.”
“Sure, there are other camps. Overnight camps and stuff like that. By the end of my time here we only had some pretty diehard Shady Pines people left.”
“Same thing with me,” I said. “I actually got an award for the amount of years I went to my camp.”
“I got one of those!” she said. “And some athletic trophies.”
“Ooh, you’ve got me there,” I replied. “I won like most enthusiastic sportsman or something like that but nothing that would even hint at any athletic ability.”
Suzy laughed. “Well, you sort of hint at a little athletic ability now, if that helps.”
“The hint is a lie, believe me.”
She shrugged and pointed at the lake. “Did you have something like this?” she asked.
“Yeah, just like it,” I said. “I liked going out in the paddle boats. Was never really fond of the canoes. Always seemed like they’d tip and dump me into the lake. I couldn’t imagine being in that water…it seems pretty nasty.”
“You’re a wimp, you know that, Justin Bieber?” Suzy asked.
“Yeah, I know. I admit it. And yet…”
“And yet I love you,” she said, and flushed as she realized what had come out of her mouth. “I mean…”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I love you too.”
I leaned in to kiss her, rules or no rules, and someone screamed.
“Help! Help! Brian’s not coming back up!”
I looked out at the lake. Several of the boys had jumped in the water and were splashing around. The boating instructor and the bunk’s counselor ran out on the dock and jumped in the water, swimming over to the chaos.
In a minute Brian had been located and dumped onto one of the boats. The two men paddled furiously toward the shore while yelling at the panicked boys to get back in their boats and return to land. The whole thing happened quickly but it was frightening. Suzy and I ran to the dock as the paddleboat returned. I took hold of the unconscious boy’s arms and yanked him onto the dock. Suzy and I made eye contact. “Go get help,” I said. She nodded and ran toward the main house.
I was trying to remember the CPR that I’d learned at the start of the summer when the boating instructor pushed me out of the way. He took control and I backed up and sat down on the bench. Relieved of my responsibility, shock started to set in.
Suzy returned and I heard her say that an ambulance was on its way. The counselor was doing his best to keep the campers away from their friend, and the boating guy kept trying to resuscitate the kid. After a frighteningly long time, Brian squirmed and coughed up lake water. Suzy turned to me with tears in her eyes. “He’s conscious!” she said. “Maybe he’ll be okay.”
I nodded. Something wasn’t right. Soon the ambulance came and Brian was taken away on a stretcher. He had remained awake and seemed responsive. Everybody was happy but me, and Suzy picked up on it.
“What’s the matter, Justin? He’s going to be okay. The EMT’s said so.”
“This…this never happened before,” I said, and this time it was me who had let something slip that I hadn’t meant to say.
“What do you mean?” Suzy asked.
“Just…you know, I’ve never seen anything like this firsthand. It’s scary.” That was my weak explanation, but she bought it. We held hands for a while after, our moment of exchanging proclamations of love now forgotten. After, as word spread all around the camp about the accident, the thought kept going through my mind: This hasn’t happened before. Something changed.
How could I have made this happen? My relationship with Suzy and my mentoring of Danny didn’t seem to lead in any reasonable way to young Brian falling out of his boat and hitting his head underneath it. That was a freak accident, yet it hadn’t happened when I was a child that same summer. I was sure of that.
Chapter 16
1
Danny returned from his mission with a full report two days after the incident at the lake. “How did it go?” I asked him with genuine interest.
“Okay, I think.”
He told me that he had made an effort to flirt with Jamie a bit in a couple different group settings. Then, by chance he had run into her while she was walking alone and he had walked with her, getting to know her a little.
“Look at you, man, talking to a girl, and an older one at that! I’m impressed, buddy.”
He beamed. “Well, it’s not like she’s my girlfriend.”
“Relax. This stuff takes time…wait. You haven’t told anybody you ‘like’ her, have you?”
He blushed. “Just my one friend.”
“No!” I shouted. “No more telling your friends. Don’t you understand how that stuff gets around?” I saw him looking at me confused. “Okay, I guess you don’t understand. The point is, you don’t want to offer up information that you’re into her. It can change the whole dynamic of this thing, and not in a good way. Let her wonder. It’s all part of this annoying game.”
“Yeah, super annoying.”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing. Play it cool.”
By the time he checked in with me again another week had passed and he had it on good authority that Jamie liked him. I got one of those red flags of caution right about then, something in my mind saying, “Maybe that’s enough. Maybe you pull back and let the experiment proceed on its own.”
I almost listened, but then Danny said, “I need you to help me, Justin. I can’t do this on my own.” There was just no way I could turn my back on him. I gave him whatever advice I could, though I tried to keep his expectations in check and reminded him constantly not to get too fixated on one girl until it was a done deal.
Danny got permission to switch to my computer club, but we didn’t talk much about his quest during those sessions. I just enjoyed watching him interact with his friends. When he and I were hanging out I would forget that he was me. His demeanor around me had changed so much and I was so deeply invested in his “situation” that I just treated him like a younger brother, or something like that. When he was with his friends he was more like I had been at that age and I could sit back and marvel. It was like watching old home videos in incredibly vivid high definition.
He updated me on his progress nearly every day. It was not without its missteps. Even with the influence of an experienced adult, he was still uncomfortable interacting with girls. I wasn’t surprised in the slightest when he told me how he’d fumbled a few witty phrases he’d wanted to use. “Sometimes I get nervous and it gets all jumbled,” he said.
“It’s really okay,” I told him. “Just stop worrying about being flashy. Talk normally. Ask questions. Like we’ve talked about.”
He picked up the pace after that, and by the end of the month he came running up to me with overwhelming
excitement. “What?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“She said yes! Jamie said she’d be my girlfriend!”
“That’s awesome!” I slapped him on the back. “I’m proud of you, man.”
He trotted off with a whole new pep in his step. I watched him go, a smile on my face. Then, my better judgement started talking to me. What do you think you’ve accomplished here? the voice said. This isn’t stepping on a butterfly. This is fundamentally changing the course of your own life.
I started to worry as I walked around the camp, finishing my break period as I often did, looking at the woods around the edges of the fields. In years to come those woods would be thinned as builders erected new residential developments. Eventually, even just ten years from the moment I was in right then, one would be able to launch a ball from the camp into somebody’s backyard with a good throw over the trees. In 1993, the woods still had “indian trails” and paths and strange structures built by the nature staff. To me, those seemingly endless collections of trees were filled with a scary mystery, one that didn’t exist in a time when whatever woods remained could be viewed from overhead on Google Earth.
I cut into the woods along one of the ominous trails. I was yelling at myself instead of enjoying my little triumph. I was scared of what I had done, scared of the snowball I had started rolling downhill. Even knowing that I had probably already done enough to avoid the Jeff Berger beating in September didn’t satisfy me. I would have returned to the future right then to see what happened but I couldn’t leave things unfinished with Suzy.
I thought that I could minimize the destruction by removing my support from Danny and letting his young relationship proceed as any relationship between kids would go. Catch a few movies, eat some pizza, maybe a few gentle kisses, then call it quits when the summer ends. The confidence I instilled in him would change things, sure, but I could cut my losses by going hands off from then on.
2
Something strange started to happen to me as I dwelled on my foolish missteps. I began to wonder if I really needed to worry about the future after all. I mean, sure, that was where I’d left my true life behind, but what did it really matter? Little Danny would grow to have whatever adult life he was going to have after my meddling, and maybe there was a possibility that I could be Justin forever more. It would be a funny thing when the pop star came to international recognition, but that was years away.
The Traveler: A Time Travel Thriller Page 13