I Love the 80s

by Megan Crane

  ‘Look,’ she said when she felt Tommy come up behind her. He ran his finger over the little plate that read JENNA JENKINS. He looked at her, almost shyly, and smoothed a hand down her back.

  ‘I guess you’re real,’ he said.

  Jenna let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, and opened the door to her office. Everything was exactly the way she’d left it, just over a month and more than twenty-odd years ago.

  Except for the fact the place was immaculate.

  The posters of Tommy still pouted from the walls. Duran Duran and Wham! still held their iconic poses, too. But it was an adult’s office with vintage posters, not an over-grown adolescent’s den. Jenna could see the difference. She could even appreciate the new ficus plant that stood near the window, looking strong and healthy.

  Thank you, Aunt Jen, she thought. I get it now.

  Then she watched Tommy, who was taking in all the posters of himself with an arrested sort of look on his face.

  ‘What?’ Jenna asked, with only a hint of defensiveness. Okay, maybe a strong hint. ‘You’re a good-looking man.’

  Tommy didn’t respond. He walked over to the window, and looked out at a very different Times Square from the one they’d just raced through the night before. She heard him make a soft noise. She remembered what that felt like, that first long look – how disorienting it was.

  ‘I’m going to go get us some coffee,’ Jenna said, unzipping her soggy sweatshirt and hanging it on the the coat rack, where there was no sign of an alternative wardrobe. At least the T-shirt she had on underneath was a dark colour, or she’d be putting on quite a show.

  ‘Coffee would be good,’ Tommy murmured, sounding taken aback. He moved away from the window and collapsed into Jenna’s desk chair. He looked at the computer, and she could see him swallow. He reached out and touched the screen. Then he looked at the desk calendar in front of him, and Jenna heard his breath come out in a rush.

  ‘It’s weird, I know,’ she said.

  ‘It was one thing to accept that you believed what you were saying,’ Tommy said, still sounding dazed. ‘But this …’

  ‘I know,’ Jenna said.

  She slipped out of the office and headed down the hall to the little kitchenette and break area. She couldn’t believe it had worked. She couldn’t believe she’d brought Tommy with her. And she had so many things to discuss with her aunt. Jenna fixed two cups of coffee, and turned to head back to her office—

  But instead, she came face to face with Aimee.

  Aimee’s perfectly made-up face went from a happy smile to a concerned frown in seconds. It was so good to see her that Jenna overlooked the frown.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, unable to contain her grin. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Are you okay?’ Aimee asked, her eyes wide as they travelled over the length of Jenna’s waterlogged body. ‘Why do you look so … bedraggled?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Jenna said. And she was, finally. But what could she possibly say? I was running through the pouring rain in 1987 … Sure. Aimee would have her committed on the spot. Or, worse: burst into tears.

  Jenna stepped around her and started back down the hall towards her office, with Aimee following close behind.

  ‘You look like you were rained on,’ Aimee said gently. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it rained last night.’ It was so nice to hear Aimee’s actual voice, instead of the one in her head, that Jenna didn’t even mind the too-careful tone her friend was using. ‘Not this morning.’

  ‘I really am fine,’ she said. ‘Haven’t I been more than fine the last month and a half?’

  She glanced over her shoulder, and saw Aimee blink.

  ‘Well, sure,’ she said. ‘You got that promotion, you dress much more professionally …’ She looked at the all-black, still-damp clothes Jenna was wearing, but rallied. ‘Most of the time. You even spring-cleaned that office of yours.’

  Jenna only smiled. That answered one question. Yes, apparently, Aunt Jen really had taken her place in Jenna’s life. Jenna wondered who she had saved. And then realized that it had been Jenna’s career, at the very least.

  ‘See?’ she asked. ‘I’ve let go of all that crap, Aimee. Adam. The past. Whatever. I’ve moved on. Just like you wanted me to.’

  At Jenna’s office door, Aimee sailed right on in behind her.

  ‘And doesn’t it feel good?’ Aimee was asking, her voice filled with obvious excitement for this whole new Jenna, but then she looked at the man sitting behind the desk and stopped dead in her tracks. Her mouth actually dropped open.

  Jenna exchanged a glance with Tommy, who was lounging there like the international superstar he was, and set his coffee down in front of him.

  ‘I loved you before,’ he said fervently, grabbing the cup and lifting it to take a gulp. He shoved his hair off his forehead with his other hand. ‘But this takes it to a whole different level.’

  ‘He really likes coffee,’ Jenna told Aimee, biting back the smile she couldn’t seem to control.

  Happily, Aimee wasn’t paying her any attention – she was too busy staring at Tommy.

  Jenna wondered how she was supposed to handle this introduction. He couldn’t go around calling himself Tommy Seer, could he? But what was he going to call himself?

  Not, of course, that his name was the real issue here.

  Aimee looked at the wall of posters behind Tommy, all of them showing his face from different angles. She looked at Tommy. Then back at the posters.

  Then, finally, she looked at Jenna, her eyes wide and, yes, concerned.

  ‘A Tommy Seer impersonator?’ she asked, in a small, horrified voice.

  Jenna saw the wicked amusement bloom across Tommy’s face, and could do nothing but shrug.

  ‘You know, he’s got a great talent,’ she said, managing somehow to keep from laughing. She had to press her lips together.

  ‘It’s true,’ Tommy agreed. ‘I’m the best Tommy Seer impersonator around. People think I am Tommy Seer, that’s how good I am.’

  ‘Oh, Jenna,’ Aimee said, her voice just as sad as the last time Jenna had heard it. ‘Really?’

  But this time, Jenna just laughed, and gave her best friend a quick, fierce hug.

  ‘Trust me, Aimee,’ she said quietly. ‘I finally know what I’m doing.’

  One month later

  Tommy liked the future.

  He liked Pixar movies, and the Internet, though he still had trouble with his cellular phone. Which he never remembered to call his iPhone. He liked his hair shorter and his jeans baggier. He liked coffee on every corner, the cleaned-up version of Times Square, and the stunning variety of available channels on the television. He was obsessed with catching up on everything he’d missed – television shows, DVDs, the grunge era, Barack Obama.

  Most of all, he liked being anonymous. He liked being TJ Searcy, which was, when all was said and done, his name. Thomas John Searcy.

  And he loved Jenna.

  He loved how embarrassed she was by her creepy apartment, the shrine to her obsession with him which she’d made clear was actually the result of a bad break-up, and not an ongoing life choice. But how creepy could he really think it was, when her obsessiveness had saved his life? The woman liked her research. It had saved them both.

  ‘Richie was suspected but never charged in your murder,’ she’d told him the morning after they’d arrived in her time.

  Tommy had been lying in her bed while she explained the Internet and Wikipedia and it had all gone over his head. He’d just liked to hear her speak. And he’d definitely liked his first glimpse of HDTV, despite the fact she claimed she couldn’t see the difference.

  ‘After he was found almost beaten to death in an alleyway, Sebastian not only told the world that he had all that gambling debt, but broke up with him and came out. All in the same week.’ She’d tapped at her keyboard, her curvy little body practically vibrating with excitement. ‘Everyone thought you were having an affair with my Aunt
Jen, but she, Eugenia, and Duncan all denied it and the rumour eventually died. And then she cleaned up on the stock market. That’s how she got so rich. Oh, and Ken Dollimore is alive and well. He moved out to Los Angeles and opened his own—’

  He’d silenced her the only way he could.

  He loved her because she hadn’t been excited when he’d told her he’d had his lawyer transfer his considerable fortune to a numbered Swiss bank account – she’d been worried that someone could trace him and discover his secret. He loved her because she thought he should buy one of those ugly hybrid cars, but pretended to understand why he insisted on buying another Spider. And a wicked Corvette. He loved her because she refused to even consider giving up her new VP job. He loved her because she’d flatly refused to live in an apartment like his old one – because, she claimed, it had been soulless – so they’d found a sweet pre-war building with a floor-through apartment in the newly fancy West Village, with enough room for Tommy to think about making his own studio some day. He loved her because she’d packed away all those posters and 45s and teen magazines that featured him, but she’d refused to throw them away.

  He loved her because she didn’t seem to mind that he morbidly watched all the documentaries about himself and wondered what he should do with himself, now that he was dead.

  He loved her because he’d told her that someday he might try to find a way to reach out to Nick, the only person he missed, and she’d only nodded as if that was a given.

  He loved her because when he’d pointed out that he was really in his fifties, not his thirties, and he was therefore robbing the cradle, she’d laughed and told him she’d always wanted to be a Geezer Pleaser.

  But most of all, he loved her because he’d given her about an hour’s notice and one cryptic phone call, and she’d come anyway.

  He could see her over the heads of the few people in the crowd – who had come for the beer, not the open-mike night. He played a few chords, and started to sing.

  Jenna walked towards the stage, her smile bright with love, and joy, and promises Tommy had every intention of keeping.

  He wasn’t a ghost.

  He was real, and so was she.

  And he knew that finally, all his dreams had come true: just a stool, a guitar, and the love of his life.