I know I promised you more information about where my relationship with Suzy went toward the end of the summer. I guess I’d better get to it. That story started one day in August when I got called into the office. By then I spent every day entertaining that idea that maybe life in the 1990’s wouldn’t be so bad. I had no idea how I’d make a living, but there was something so appealing about a life with Suzy. There was a kindness to her that I’d never experienced anywhere else, even in the good times with Helena.
Anyway, Uncle Jim came riding up to me on a golf cart while I was taking my break down by the lake. If he was trying to hide his worry, he was doing a shitty job of it. “Justin, I need you to go see Arthur up in the main house.”
Arthur (Uncle Arthur to the kiddies) was one of the owners of the camp and the most involved of the big bosses when it came to interacting with the staff and campers. “There a problem, Jim?”
He took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his brow. “Hope not. It seems a call came in that raised some questions. Arthur just wants to clear up a few things. Shouldn’t be a big deal.”
“Okay, I’ll go see him.”
“You want a ride up?” he asked.
“Nah, I’m okay, thanks.”
I walked the length of the camp. Jim kept his distance but he drove slowly, watching me the whole way. I couldn’t figure out what they could possibly have on me based on a phone call. It’s not like calls came in from the future with any regularity. Yet something didn’t sit right with me. Jim had been sent to track me down wherever I was, which turned out to be pretty damn far from the main office. The thing is, I worked in the white house. Why not just wait until I came back in the building to tell me they needed a word? What was so important? The whole thing was fishy.
I came into the office and walked back to the room where Arthur was sitting at a desk, his fingers laced together. “Justin, come in. Take a seat.”
I did as he said. “Is everything okay?”
“I guess we’ll see. Justin, we got an anonymous call here at the office. Said we might want to check your credentials with Waldorf High. I was only able to get a summer receptionist on the phone but she didn’t seem to have any idea who you are.”
“Well, Arthur, there are definitely people at that school who don’t know me and I don’t know them. It’s not as much of a family atmosphere as this place.”
“That’s kind of you to say. I asked her to look a little deeper and make sure that somebody at that place knows Mr. Bieber the computer teacher. She’s supposed to call me back.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Okay…well I’m sure she’ll find what she’s looking for.”
He studied me. “Alright. Fair enough. But here’s what I want to know: who would want to raise suspicions about you? You have any enemies?” He leaned forward as if we were sharing dark secrets. “Steal somebody’s wife?”
I laughed and hoped it sounded natural. “No, I don’t think so.”
He smiled. “That’s what I thought. You and Suzy are an item now, right?”
“Yes, I guess that’s right.”
“Good, good. She’s been here since she was a little girl. Like you said— family. Do right by her, you hear?”
“Of course, Arthur.”
I left the office in a sweat that couldn’t be blamed entirely on the temperature, though it had brutally continued to hang in the eighties every day for at least a week. I was worried, and mad at myself for creating a situation where I could be worried. Look, you probably don’t need me to explain the predicament to you, assuming you’re still following my story. I had messed up, linking myself emotionally and practically to both Danny and Suzy. Not only did I not want to leave yet, I had now hooked myself in so deep that my sudden departure could do serious damage to them.
I didn’t have any reason to believe that Suzy fit in anywhere in my normal timeline, and therefore I had no reason to expect that my breaking her heart would change anything for me in the future. That didn’t matter though. I cared for her more than I could say. Our relationship had reminded me of the spirit I had once possessed before things with Helena had taken such a sour turn. I was happy with Suzy. I simply couldn’t accept that my actions could screw up her life. Now, of course, I can look at it and realize that my relationship with her had already modified her life’s track.
I couldn’t understand what had happened. How had somebody known that I wasn’t telling the truth? Maybe one of the male counselors who had a thing for Suzy had done some digging? How was that even possible for someone that young in 1993? Had they called Waldorf?
I knew that Arthur didn’t want to fire me. He would have to explain to parents, and telling them that he hadn’t performed a background check would raise questions about who else he was hiring to watch their children. Was that enough though? There were two and a half weeks left of camp. Maybe the woman from the high school would get caught up in other work and not call back in time.
That night I planned to take Suzy out to the movies. We were going to see the newly released Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which I had seen already and remembered not liking all that much beyond a few standout jokes. When I picked her up, she and I both noticed that the other didn’t look quite right. “What’s wrong?” we said simultaneously. That provoked a tiny burst of laughter that lightened the mood.
“You go first,” I said.
“I don’t really know how to say this…”
Uh oh, I thought, that’s never a good opening.
“My parents got a call. Some guy who said that you’re not who you claim to be. What the hell does that mean?”
I could feel my palms starting to sweat again. I wished that I had the ability to resist plastering “guilty” all over my face.
“Is that all he said?” I asked.
“They tried to get more information from him but he hung up.”
“They didn’t use star sixty nine?”
“Didn’t go anywhere. Whoever it was had covered his tracks. Maybe called from a payphone? I don’t really know how those things work. What did he mean, Justin?”
“I…I really don’t know. But it’s related to what I’ve been thinking about. A guy…the same guy, I guess, called Arthur at camp and said basically the same thing as your parents heard.”
“Someone’s trying to hurt you. Why?”
“I have no idea.” That part, at least, I could say with total sincerity.
We both sat in silence for most of the drive. It was an uncomfortable, unnatural thing to be with Suzy and not blabbering away for hours. I had made so many poor choices and somehow they had finally caught up with me. Suddenly, I decided something. I wanted to come clean to Suzy. I knew I’d done plenty to change the past, willingly and inadvertently, and in the case of Brian’s accident in a way I couldn’t explain. I could feel fairly sure that enough had been altered that the incident that screwed everything up with Jeff Berger and his friends wasn’t going to repeat itself, even without my being there. If I had to return to the present to escape some kind of trouble, I could do that. What I couldn’t do was leave things unfinished with Suzy.
I knew that telling her anything resembling the truth was going to cause some grief, but I couldn’t string her along, never taking her to my house and then disappearing in September. I just couldn’t look at her and keep up the lies. I parked the car. “Suze,” I said, “We need to talk.”
Chapter 17
1
After I opened the conversation with perhaps the most clichéd line in the history of mankind, Suzy looked appropriately nervous. “What is it? What’s wrong, Justin?”
It was too late to turn back. “My name isn’t Justin,” I said.
She froze for a second, then laughed. “You’re screwing with me.”
“I wish I was, believe me.”
Her smile faded. “You’re serious? Who…who the fuck are you?”
“My name is Daniel. Daniel Wells.”
“Daniel Wells… wait. Dan
ny Wells is that kid you helped get a girlfriend. What is this?”
She started to unbuckle her seatbelt as if I had morphed into something that might bite her if she didn’t escape quickly.
“I’m him…he’s me. I mean… I don’t know how to say this. I’m from the future.”
“Fuck you. You’re either insane or a total asshole.” Tears were glistening in her eyes. She finished fumbling with her seatbelt and opened the door.
“Please, Suzy! Just let me explain. I won’t hurt you, I promise. I just want to explain everything and then if you want I’ll go away and you’ll never see me again.”
“Explain what? You’re some kind of alien or something?”
“No! Jesus Christ, I’m not saying I’m from another planet. I’m Daniel Wells and I’m from 2013. When I was eleven I was Danny Wells and I went to Shady Pines. You have to admit we look alike.”
“It’s bullshit. Such bullshit.”
“I…I can prove it.” I launched into a long description of what to Suzy was the distant future. Smartphones. Navigation systems. Televisions with crystal clear images and hardware so thin you can hang them on the wall like a painting. The first African American president. I went on and on. The more I spoke, the more Suzy’s face changed, not to belief but to concern and sadness.
“You don’t believe me,” I said.
“Justin…Daniel, whoever you are, you’re the computer guy, right? You know so much about where all that technology stuff is heading. I think you’ve just convinced yourself that you’ve really seen the world where all of that exists. You need help.” She was crying now, and it was killing me to see it.
“There’s no way I can prove it to you?”
“Tell me this…what am I doing in 2013?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know you before I came back here.”
“And what do you do there? In the future?”
I told her about my job, and about my wife.
“You’re married?” she screamed at me.
“So you believe me?”
“Yes…no… I don’t know!” she cried. “Just go away. I want to be alone, and I really think you need help.”
“Suzy… I came back here to fix a mistake I made the last time I came back. I didn’t come looking for you, and I didn’t know that all of this would happen with us. I’m sorry that I interfered with your life. I’ll go back where I came from and you won’t ever have to hear from me again.”
“Fine.” She slammed the door. I didn’t know how she’d get home, so I decided to circle the parking lot just in case she changed her mind. My chest felt tight. I could barely breath. I had never wanted to hurt her. I’d known exactly what her reaction would be, and yet somehow a part of me was still surprised. In some way I’d held out hope that she would accept my stories as true, and we’d spend the rest of the night with me answering all her questions about the future before heading back to my hotel together.
When I circled back to my starting point I fully expected Suzy to be gone. Instead, she was there, waiting for me. I pulled over and she opened the door. I immediately disliked the look on her face. I knew this wasn’t going to be good. “I’m sorry, Justin,” she said.
“It’s Daniel,” I reminded her.
She winced. “Sure, okay, Daniel.” She worked her way into the car. The curvy body I had just been sure I’d never see again perched stiff on the edge of the seat. She turned to me and that look was still on her face. A look of pity. “I…really hate you right now.”
“I deserve that,” I said.
“But I also…I’m in love with you, whoever you are. I think…I think what you need is to see a doctor. Like a specialist. They have people who can look at your brain and find out what’s going on. I’m…I’m willing to stand by you and figure out whats happening.”
I don’t think it would be possible to feel more like a piece of shit than I felt right then. “I’ve been to doctors, Suze. When all this stuff started happening to me I got checked out. There’s nothing wrong with me. I just… I can go back in time.”
“Okay, babe,” she said. I could see how hard she was trying to remain calm. “Will you just agree to go to a doctor with me one more time? We can make an appointment.”
“Yeah… alright. Do you want me to take you home now?”
She sighed. “I think maybe that’s a good idea. I need a chance to make sense of all of this.”
“Okay. For what it’s worth, I’m in love with you too, and I’m sorry.”
She nodded and stayed quiet until I dropped her off. She gave me a cursory kiss on the cheek and said goodnight. There was an invisible wall between us now and it was growing in strength. That tightness in my chest and lungs was becoming unbearable. I truly was in love with Suzy. I loved her deeply and had hurt her even more deeply. I didn’t have to drag out a conversation to know what I had seen in her eyes. She had seen a future with me. A real relationship. Now I’d ruined that possibility.
The notion that I could have stayed in the past and tried to make the Justin Bieber charade into reality was dead and gone. But was it really? Though it had only crossed my mind occasionally before, in my anguish it finally seemed like it may have made sense. I drove to Shady Pines and parked in the empty lot. As I ran across the moonlit campgrounds it all seemed so simple: I could still stay with Suzy, if she would have anything to do with me, and make sure that young Danny grew up to find Helena and marry her. Simple, except that I didn’t want an alternate version of myself to be with Helena. She was my wife and I loved her despite all the evidence to the contrary provided by my recent behavior. I missed her and wanted to be with her.
My mind spun around, thoughts overlapping each other in a chorus of madness and a sadness that could never fully be expressed. I reached the lake and thought about the young boy who had nearly died because of something I did, whether I could understand the connection or not. Without knowing I was going to do it, I jumped in. I knew I was soaking my clothes, my car key, my wallet full of cash and falsified identification. I just didn’t care. I floated on my back under the bright stars and felt tears trickle down my cheeks. I didn’t know how my cover had been blown in the past, I didn’t know how I had been so stupid as to let myself fall in love with a girl from the past…let alone to meddle with Danny’s path the way I did. I had botched everything in an attempt to fix my previous mistakes. Everything in my tortured mind and aching heart just wanted to go home.
Slowly the stillness of the stars calmed me. My breathing slowed, and the pressure released a little bit. Acceptance crept in and it relaxed my thoughts. Suddenly, a sharp pulse in my temples. I had a second to think, stress headache, and then the pattern of stars overhead changed.
Chapter 18
1
The shock of seeing the night sky transform was nothing compared to the shock of the freezing water. I floundered and splashed in the lake. My clothes were heavy and they tugged me down, threatening to submerge me in the icy depths. I righted myself as quickly as possible and swam toward shore. The dock was larger than the one I had just jumped from. I pulled myself onto the wooden surface. While the smaller dock had been covered in goose droppings, this one was almost completely clean. I rolled onto my back and caught my breath, shivering in the cold as steamy air poured from my open mouth.
I gave myself a minute to get it together, then I got up and walked away from the lake. The water dripped from my clothes onto the frosty grass as I went. In the dark it was hard to see the buildings in the distance but as I drew near I saw that several of the familiar camp landmarks were gone. There were a few more bunks than there had been previously. I was disoriented but it didn’t take me too long to understand that I was back in the present day. This was once again Shady Pines as it looked following Uncle Arthur and his partner selling to the township and retiring, laughing at all of us from their vacation destination.
Though I’d never really memorized how many bunks existed in the new camp or how everything was laid ou
t, it seemed the way I remembered it should be. My adventure in 1993 hadn’t modified the landscape in any noticeable way. I arrived at the parking lot, passing by a large expanse of grass where the main house had once stood. The blank slate of ground set off a range of emotions that I couldn’t have anticipated. I looked up, fixing my eyes on a piece of sky where the window of my computer attic had once been. The fresh memory of my time there in a long gone summer brought tears to my eyes which stung as the cold wind flicked them away. In the parking lot, I wasn’t exactly surprised to see that the Taurus was gone. Hauled off by a tow truck long ago, I imagined. It didn’t matter. I had left the keys in the lake in 1993 along with my wallet and all its contents.
I was a long way from home with no easy way to get there and with chilly winds whipping around me. I walked through the night, not seeing anything out of place. I couldn’t feel my feet inside my wet loafers. I wasn’t sure if it was a lucky thing or not that they had stayed with me. A mile down the road I saw a gas station and ran to the little store behind the pumps. I was so happy to get out of the cold.
“What happened to you, buddy?” asked the Indian man behind the counter. “You fall into a lake?”
“Actually, yeah,” I said. “I lost everything. My wallet, my money…everything. Can I just hang out here and dry off before I freeze to death?”
“Yeah, man, yeah. I’ll get you a blanket. You go sit there.” He pointed to the middle aisle with snacks on one side and jugs of antifreeze and squeegees on the other. I sat down, trying to will my body to stop shaking. He returned quickly with a big, heavy blanket like the kind I’d seen in the trucks moving companies use. I wrapped it around me. It wasn’t comfortable but it absorbed the remaining water from my clothes and made me feel warm. Even so, it took almost a half hour before I stopped shivering.
The Traveler: A Time Travel Thriller Page 14