Waking in Time

by Angie Stanton

  His eyes soften. I can tell he’s moved by my plea, but that he doesn’t believe me. “And how could I possibly do that?”

  “Because you’re freakin’ brilliant!” I blurt loudly and throw back my arms.

  He cracks a smile. “But I don’t want to teach. I want to work for a private corporation doing high-level mathematics. There is talk of creating a machine that can do math. Not just an adding machine, but complex equations like trigonometry and advanced calculus.”

  “Yes, that happens, but you don’t invent it. You’re here on campus, helping me.”

  “Abigail, this is a fascinating story, but you haven’t given me any actual proof.” He crosses his arms and pushes back his chair.

  “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you anything.”

  “All right.” He thinks for a moment before continuing. “If you know me so well, why didn’t you know that at this exact time I was here going to school? Wouldn’t my future self have told you?” He cocks his head knowingly.

  I can’t help grinning. “Good point, but your future self happens to be extremely stubborn about telling me anything that has already happened. Professor Smith is a terrific guy, but he’s dead set against sharing what he knows about where I’ll be, or what happens.”

  He leans back in his chair again. “How convenient for your story.”

  “And… he refuses to let me tell him about the future,” I say, still annoyed with the future Smith for that.

  “Why does he, or should I say I, not want you to talk about the future?” he huffs.

  “Professor Smith fears that if we know too much about our futures, we might do something different that will affect what happens. It could make it impossible for me to get back.”

  Smitty frowns. “Well, that seals the deal. You have nothing concrete to prove your point.”

  “Hold on. I’m not finished. That was the professor who felt that way. You clearly have a lot of work to do before I’ll consider you Professor Smith. You’re not my teacher or mentor. Heck, at this point we’re barely on the edge of friendship.”

  He grunts, which I’m not sure is agreement.

  “You never told me anything personal, but I do know you have a bunch of kids.”

  He seems to perk up at that. “Where do I live?”

  “You never mentioned, but I don’t think it’s far from campus.”

  He gives me a skeptical frown. “Easy guess.”

  “Fine. I don’t know much about you, personally, but I know the future. What year is it? 1951? Is Elvis around yet? He’ll be huge. And the Beatles. They’re a singing group, just as huge as Elvis.”

  “I’m a numbers man, not a crooner. Try again.” He scratches his fingernail against the upholstered chair. He’s losing his patience.

  “We put a man on the moon in 1969, I think. President Kennedy is assassinated around sixty-three.”

  “I’ve never heard of the man.”

  “You will.”

  “Telling me of supposed future events that I can’t verify hardly convinces me of anything other than your vivid imagination. If all this is really true, why didn’t you tell me about it when we met freshman year?”

  I consider his question, hating this bizarre predicament I’m in. “Honestly, I don’t know—because I haven’t experienced it yet. But there must be some reason.”

  Confusion clouds Smitty’s eyes.

  “You see, I only seem to go backward in time, not forward. So you met me three years ago, but for me it hasn’t happened yet. It will be the fourth time I’ve met you, but it will be the first time you meet me.”

  He looks at me in wonder. “You have no memory of our time together three years ago?”

  “Nope. I haven’t been there yet,” I repeat, trying to tamp down my frustration. “If you tell me now, I’ll know what to expect. How do we meet?”

  Smitty shifts in his seat. “If you don’t remember, I’d rather not say.”

  “Why?”

  “It was embarrassing.” His eyes dart away.

  I throw my hands up. “See? You’re as bad as your future self, all filled with secrets.”

  He rubs his forehead. “This is quite a tangled story you’re telling me. How could this possibly be?”

  “I don’t know. Time travel is the only explanation I have. We could have this conversation again when I get there to meet you for the first time, but since you clearly don’t know anything about it, we must not have.”

  Smitty stands up and paces. He is, at least, considering my story, which is a good sign.

  “Isn’t there some sort of proof?” he asks.

  I think of the hatbox and all the items in it, but from what I’ve seen, most of it is from this time, when Grandma was in college. Nothing from the future. There’s the macramé purse back in my room. It still holds the bandana from 1970 inside, but I’m not sure that’s enough to convince him. Then I get an idea.

  “I know. See the holes in my ears? Everyone pierces their ears in my time. I’ve had mine pierced since sixth grade.” I move my hair and pull the collar of my dress back to reveal the tattoo of a star on my shoulder that represents Grandma, up in the heavens. Smitty leans in for a closer look, lingering a little longer than I think necessary.

  “Why would you have yourself tattooed?” he asks.

  “In my time we call it a tat.”

  “Why is my question. You’re not a sailor. You weren’t in the military.”

  I let my collar slide back into place. “No. I got it when I turned eighteen, shortly after my grandma died. My mom wouldn’t let me get one any sooner.”

  “Your mother sounds like a smart woman.”

  “She is,” I say with a sigh, missing her. All this talk is getting me nowhere.

  “What does she think has happened to you back in your time?” Smitty asks with a spark of interest. Maybe I am making progress.

  I picture mom’s face as we said goodbye and then her car pulling away. “I have no idea. I don’t know if I disappeared off the face of the Earth, or if time is standing still back there. God, I hope she doesn’t think I was murdered or something.” I hadn’t thought of that before, and now that I do, it depresses me more.

  “You don’t have any proof that stands the test of time. Get it?” Smitty laughs not realizing how helpless I am. If he did, he wouldn’t be making jokes.

  “I don’t,” I answer, dejected.

  “Are you sure you aren’t a creative writing major?” he teases.

  “Positive. Listen, you clearly haven’t become the professor yet, so I’m going to tell you something important, something that you didn’t want to hear. Do not work late at your office in Sterling Hall on the night of August twenty-third in 1970.”

  “Why?” he asks, bewildered.

  “That, I won’t tell you.”

  “See, you’re no help. This only works if you tell me something important.”

  “This is important,” I stress.

  He crosses his arms again and glares at me. “Sure it is.”

  “Smitty, I will only say this one last time.” He has to listen to me, and he has to remember. I stare him straight in the eye and repeat the words, this time in a serious voice, like the doctor who told us my grandmother was dying of cancer. “Do not work late at Sterling Hall on August twenty-third, 1970.”

  I hold his gaze and refuse to look away.

  Smitty shifts uncomfortably. “Why, do I die or something?”

  For a moment I say nothing. I’m not sure if I’m messing with the future but hope I can ensure his safety. I whisper, “I don’t know.”

  He swallows.

  “I slipped back in time again before I could find out.”

  He considers my words. “I won’t say that I believe in time travel, because I don’t. But I think you believe what you’re sayi
ng.”

  “I’m not lying,” I say in dead seriousness.

  “Perhaps, perhaps not.”

  “You don’t have to believe me, but in time, you’ll see that everything I’ve said is true. Even you commented that I look the same. For all I know when I leave this time, I go straight to your freshman year.”

  “So, you’ll see me again soon,” he says dryly.

  I shake my head. “I hope not. I’m not ready to leave this time. I want to be here when Sharon comes back. If she comes back.”

  “Why do you care so much about Sharon?”

  I level him with a steady gaze. “Because she’s my grandmother.”

  CHAPTER 11

  I spend the night staring at the stars hanging in the frozen sky outside my window like sparkling crystals, willing myself not to fall asleep. As the tedious minutes drag by in slow torture, I replay my conversation with Smitty over and over.

  I suppose it doesn’t matter if he believes my story. One way or another he’ll figure it out, and hopefully I haven’t ruined the future by telling him. After my comment about Sharon being my grandmother, he turned a bit pale. I’m sure he thinks I’m nuts, but I also saw a sliver of curiosity in his narrowed eyes. As a future physicist, he should be keeping an open mind to all possibilities, but at the moment he far more resembles an awkward bookworm.

  The next morning, instead of crawling into bed and catching up on sleep as I usually do, I head to class like the rest of the students. I can’t afford to get kicked out, not if I want to be here in case Grandma returns. Not to mention losing my place here at Liz Waters and possibly never getting back home. Anyway, the professor is here, and more than anything, I need to convince him to start thinking about time travel.

  But my immediate issue is finding the Home Economics Building for a food science class that starts in five minutes. I’m standing on the corner of Charter and Linden, at a loss for which direction to go, when the young professor appears, weighed down with thick books.

  “You’re still here,” Smitty says with a touch of sarcasm.

  I smile, glad to see his gawky form ambling toward me. “Were you hoping I’d be gone?”

  He ducks his head and grins. “No, just making an observation. You said you might jump back in time at any given moment.”

  “I told you I have no control over when or where I go when I sleep.”

  He snorts his disbelief.

  “Hey, I spent the whole night trudging through the cold halls of my dorm trying to stay awake to keep myself here.” It’s curious how long I’ve been able to stay in this time, and then I remember something I thought of last night. “Smitty, I did think of one thing you told me. It might not mean anything to you yet, but you made a comment once about how you almost took a job out of state. I think it was with some big company in New York.”

  His eyes go wide and his jaw drops open.

  “Oh my God, that means something!” I squeal and clap my hands.

  “How did you know?” Smitty is totally bewildered.

  “You told me. You said it off the cuff. Something about how it was a good thing you didn’t take the job in New York. It’s happening now, isn’t it?”

  He nods. “How could you know that? No one knows. I received the letter offering me the job yesterday. Did you sneak into my room?”

  “Of course not. I don’t even know which dorm you’re in.”

  “I’m not in a dorm. I live in a boarding house on Monroe Street.”

  I give him a satisfied smirk. He’s starting to believe.

  Smitty suggests we find a warmer, quieter spot than a street corner to talk. We duck into a nearby building and find an empty study room with a scratched-up wood table and four hard chairs around it. A single small window with a view of the next building adds the only natural light.

  Smitty spends the next two hours asking questions, most of which I have no answers for, like why I travel and how I travel. I explain what we had figured out with the Carillon Tower and the bells, that it only seems to happen at night, and maybe only around a full moon. There are so many variables and yet nothing I know for sure.

  “Does anyone else travel through time like you?” He looks up from the loose-leaf paper he’s been scribbling notes on.

  I hesitate, not sure if I should say.

  “There is someone else!” He points at me with his pen.

  “Yes. And you’ve met him.”

  He leans back in his chair, surprised. “Who?”

  “Apparently you met him your sophomore year. His name is Will.”

  Smitty’s brow furrows as he thinks back. “Did he have blond, kind of sandy-colored hair?”

  “That’s right!”

  “I remember him because he was always chewing on a blade of grass.”

  “That’s him,” I say wistfully, suddenly feeling nostalgic and missing someone I met only for a day. I think of the humor in Will’s eyes, his steady confidence that offered me hope, and his ability to annoy me with his secrets.

  Smitty watches me like he’s analyzing a lab rat. Then, as if coming to a brilliant conclusion, he blurts, “You’re sweet on him!”

  “No!”

  “Yesterday you said that you maybe had a boyfriend. He’s got to be the one, but why did you say maybe?”

  I laugh at the strangeness of the situation. “Because I’ve only seen him once and it didn’t end well. Will more or less said that the two of us were an item, but since I’d just met him, it was pretty one-sided.” Except for that kiss—he’d caught me off guard with that. And yet it was so… familiar.

  Smitty is back to recording notes so thankfully doesn’t see my expression. “When do you meet him?” he asks without looking up.

  “He never told me.” I frown. “So, you never saw us together?”

  “No, I only talked to him once or twice. He was in one of my classes.”

  “Physics?” I ask.

  “That’s right. But then he didn’t show up one day and I never saw him again,” he says thoughtfully.

  “You’ll see him again. Trust me.” And the hope that they’ll have each other to talk to going forward is a relief, even though I’ll be who knows where and likely by myself.

  “How do you know?”

  I grin. “Because I reintroduce you two in the future.”

  Smitty holds his head with his hands. “This is so confusing.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So in the future, you said there’s a building named after me.”

  I nod. “A physics library.”

  “That’s impossible. I’m nobody. I don’t have two nickels to rub together,” he says in disbelief, but there’s also a glint of excitement in his eyes at the prospect of becoming someone important.

  I shrug, not sure what to say.

  “What year do you come from? What year is the library built?”

  “I don’t know if I should say.”

  “Are you kidding me? You ask me to believe your cockamamy story about time travel, and then you refuse to tell me what year you come from because you think, or maybe you know, that I’m dead?”

  I hated it when he and Will kept information from me, so I give in and tell him.

  He drops his pen and falls back in his seat. “By then, I’ll be dead.”

  “We don’t know that,” I say with a gulp. “Not for sure.”

  He studies my face. His earlier excitement is replaced with resignation. “I think it’s pretty obvious we do.”

  “Well, then live a healthy life and make sure you stay alive. And don’t smoke. Do you smoke?”

  “Everyone does.”

  “Lung cancer is one of the biggest killers out there. Quit. Today.”

  He smiles at my bossiness. “Are you certain you’re dating Will? I mean, it hasn’t actually happened yet, a
nd I think you and I would get along mighty fine.”

  “I can’t go out with you,” I say gently.

  Smitty picks up his pen and rolls it between his fingers. “You see, I’ve been on my own my whole life. I’d really like to find someone special I could settle down with. I have trouble talking to girls, but with you it’s easy.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not the one for you. I never stay in one place for long. Go find yourself a nice, pretty, smart girl, and not some needy chick trying to trap you for her MRS degree. I promise, you’re going to get married, have a bunch of kids, and be deliriously happy.”

  A hopeful smile spreads across his face.

  * * *

  Two days later the ding of my dorm room bell wakes me from a dead sleep. The bell means I’ve either got a message or a visitor. What am I in trouble for this time? A knot develops in my gut as I realize I’ve overslept and missed my morning classes. Again. After barely staying awake last night, I was so tired, and I wanted a quick hour of sleep. But in my fog I must not have set my alarm.

  I dress and trudge to the lobby to see what new disaster awaits, and then it hits me that maybe Will is here. Yesterday I made the trek out to Picnic Point to see if the snow had melted enough to find his treasure, but it was still deep and undisturbed other than some rabbit tracks.

  Still, I race the rest of the way, hoping to find Will’s reassuring face. Instead, Smitty is shifting uncomfortably with a large book tucked under his arm. His eyes dart away shyly when girls peek at him as they pass.

  I walk up behind him. “They won’t bite. I promise.”

  Smitty jumps. “Oh, hello, Abigail,” he says with obvious relief.

  “It’s Abbi. At least that’s what my friends call me.”

  “Abbi it is.” He beams as if I’ve let him into a special club.

  “Are you really that uncomfortable around girls?”

  “Of course not! It’s just that I’ve never been inside a ladies’ dormitory before.” He adjusts his glasses as if they’re a pseudo security blanket.