How could she have forgotten that?
Uncle Stan was the one who would religiously take her and Sky to the ice cream parlor on Ward Avenue every Sunday and then he would drive them around and show them the houses that the Porter Brothers had built. Then he would tell them funny stories and listen to them if they had problems and offer solutions.
Addi felt a deep ache inside her chest as she watched him. It was inexplicably good to see him again.
He tooted and drove towards his garage.
Addi's eyes welled up with tears. Tears she knew she didn't want Sky to see.
"What's wrong?" Sky asked coming to stand in front of her.
"Nothing." Addi sniffed. "I was just thinking."
Sky looked at her suspiciously. "What's my dad doing in 2017?"
Addi sighed. "I need to give you your book."
"Which book? "
"You sent me back with a book addressed to you." Addi sighed, "I don't know what's in it."
Sky scratched her earlobe and then shook her head. "I don't think I want to hear anything else about the future for today, Addi."
Addi looked at Sky in surprise. "What?"
"I have a funny feeling, here." She pointed to her stomach... "This is too much information to be dumping on me."
Sky inhaled. "Just give me till next week. I don't know if I believe any of this future stuff. If you are not playing with me and you really know the future that means you know what's going to happen next. It's not like a mystery for you is it?"
"No," Addi said frankly. "And all of that shouldn't matter. What matters is that we need to move on this quickly."
"But this means you are not really my Addi, are you?" Sky asked her voice quivering. "You are like an older Addi trapped in my present cousins body, like an alien."
"I wouldn't exactly call it trapped." Addi was getting annoyed. "And you are the one who convinced me to come back. You are the one who had some big secret in 92 that I had to help you with. You are the one that killed herself and...."
Sky gasped. "What? I would never do that."
Addi grunted. "You did. Don't take too long to come to terms with this Sky. This summer is a huge deal for our family. The longer you take to get on board the more certain things will go down as it went before."
She stomped toward the veranda and almost crashed into Randy who was walking out of the house.
"I need to talk to you." He gritted out before she could move around him.
Addi stopped. "Why?"
"You know why!" Randy seethed. "My grandmother called today and told me about the scholarship."
Addi nodded. "Good. Congrats."
"Not good." Randy gritted out. "Not good. What you told me can't be real. Follow me to the office. Your mother is inside. She can't hear this conversation."
Addi walked behind him, but her legs couldn't keep up with his. He held the door opened to the office and waited as she walked by him.
"How do you know what you know?" Randy asked her his voice clipped.
"I told you," Addi said plopping herself down in one of the office chairs. She looked around the office. At both ends were desks with two ancient looking computers on both desks. Ancient to her recently traveled eyes but new for their time.
One belonged to her dad the other to her uncle. She remembered how proud they were to buy them. How rare it was to have personal computers in 92.
In the middle a bank of file drawers. Before each desk were chairs and a fairly large space between each. A potted palm stood near the opened louver window where she could clearly see the blue rock in the distance.
The window to the back of the office clearly showed her, Mr. Jones, their neighbor wrangling with a car. He looked like he was knocking out a dent at the side of the thing or was he creating one?
She refocused on Randy who was leaning on the door his arms crossed. "Addison. Please. I need to know. Are you clairvoyant? Some kind of witch?"
Addi chuckled and flung her leg over one handle of the chair. "If I were fifteen, clairvoyant might be a word that I would have to look up."
"If you were fifteen?" Randall groaned. "So we are back to that?"
He moved away from the door and ventured further into the room. He sat heavily in the seat at the desk and looked at her sternly. "You will tell me now, Addi, how you know what you know."
Addi laughed. "The stern voice thing does not work on fifteen year olds, Randy. I have found through the years that teenagers on a whole don't respond well to barked orders"
Randy sighed and leaned back in his chair.
"You know what I used to do the first time I was in 92," Addi said contemplatively, I used to sit over at Uncle Stan's desk and play computer games, like Tetris and Gobman and Pacman. You and I had a best score competition going and sometimes we would listen to the radio. JBC radio for Quench Aid Guess the Riddle and RJR for the guess the song competition.
"You know that JBC radio is no longer around? Come to think of it, JBC TV is no longer around either. It is called TVJ.
"Now Jamaica has one TV station and only five radio stations. In the twenty first century it has over twenty radio stations, and as for TV there are so many local channels. The last time I came here from America, I was shocked to see how many there were. Though, why I should be shocked I have no idea."
She got up and headed for Uncle Stan's computer. She pressed the power button and it came to life with a whirring, beeping sound. She looked up at Randy. He hadn't said a word through all of her ramblings."
He had an incredulous expression on his face.
"Computers get smaller." She sat before the computer and swung in the chair. "Very small, like palm-sized small.
"Technology takes off grandly. You remember the words Microsoft and Apple. They will be big names in the computer industry. Telephones get smaller too and they are wireless. No more telephone booths at street corners. I don't really remember when the cell phone explosion began..."
Randy hadn't spoken. He was squinting at her contemplatively.
"The truth about '92 before is that, I was just living my life. I was so self absorbed. I had no idea of world events or changes around me. I mean only a few fifteen year olds do, right?
"I think for the majority of us we just live our lives. We live the small picture. We do our best. We struggle along with our lot in life, we make choices and decisions that are sometimes wrong and sometimes we get it right. For some things we cross our fingers consult a higher power, follow our heart, and we hope it will be all right in the end.
"For some of us, it never really is. For some of us we might be better off in terms of material possessions but at the end of the day when it comes to people and relationships we are stuck."
Randy was twisting his thumbs around. He dragged his eyes from hers and then looked at the desk.
There was only the silence of the machine as it finally started up. Her Macbook would have started a long time ago.
Randy leaned back in the chair, his hand over his eyes. "Addison."
"Yes Randall," Addi said raising her eyebrows at him.
He sat up straighter in his chair and looked at her. "That's enough story telling for the day."
Addi grimaced. The skeptic hadn't died. "Okay. I hear ya."
Chapter Eight
The family went to church together that Sunday. She dressed in the most sophisticated outfit she could find in her teenie bop closet. An all black simply cut, simply designed all lace dress, was one of five choices. It was a style that had made the rounds again in the 21st century.
She did a braid out on her long thick hair, and it looked good. It looked like a wig she once had. Good grief, her hair now was her wig goal in the future. Her parents did a double take when they saw her.
"See, you do not need to process that hair of yours," her mother said a thread of admiration in her voice.
"I hear you," Addi had responded. "You are right, Mom." She had bothered her mother for years to get it processed when she
had entered high school.
Her mother had been prepared for an argument she opened her mouth and then closed it. "Well, then, it is good to know you have seen the light."
"The girl is growing up." Her father had laughed, seeing the incredulous expression on her mother's face.
Randy had entered the hall area at that time in a black suit and light blue shirt with a striped blue and red tie.
He told them good morning.
His eyes had lingered on her a bit though.
Sky turned away from him. Cursing herself for the unnecessary flutter that her heart made when he came into the room. Randy in a suit had always been impressive. That unfortunately was a fact of life.
His ever-present handsomeness was like an itch under her skin. She sat between him and Josh. Uncomfortably aware that his hand was brushing hers.
He glanced at her once or twice and then away again, a small smile crossed his face as if he knew he affected her in some way.
I will show him. Addi fumed. As soon as it were possible she would be dating other people. She had to make a list of possible suitors. She had three long years to wait but she would definitely be over Randy. Her life was not going to take the same trajectory as it did before.
Their church was one of the oldest churches in parish of Manchester. St. Mark's, or The Mandeville Parish Church as it was called, was in the center of the town.
It looks the same as it does in 2017, Addi thought looking around the outside of the old building.
It certainly would be familiar to some runaway slaves in the past and even the English soldiers who were buried in the cemetery from the mid nineteenth century.
She exited the car and inhaled the air. Very cool almost a bit too much. She walked to the set of graves at the side of the church and read the stones. It had always been a fascination of hers—reading the headstones on old graves.
The dates on the stones were unbelievably ancient. The church was founded in 1816, she remembered her aunt Ivy coming out for the 200th anniversary celebration in 2016.
Aunt Ivy had actually just returned from Jamaica when Sky had dramatically killed herself.
She rubbed her hand across one of the graves and wondered if any of the people, now long dead had been resetters.
She wondered how they handled going back. How did handle living their lives already and then going back to the past to change things? Who would believe such a thing?
She sighed. But how could you change lives if no one believed?
She felt a tremendous burden on her heart for the many things she would have to do this summer of '92 with no help whatsoever.
Sky was avoiding her like the plague.
She could understand Randy doing it. She had gone philosophical with him. Their very first conversation she had told him that they had been lovers. He had good reason to believe that she was crazy, but not Sky.
Sky was her partner in crime. The chief instigator of all things ridiculous. The reason she had come back here for heaven's sakes.
She turned away from the graves and her eyes met Randy's.
She wondered what he was thinking. He was standing at the door waiting for her.
"Your brother said that grave stones were your thing. A witch trait perhaps?" He smiled at her when she approached him.
"Yes," she nodded. "Aren't you going inside?"
"Sure. Just waiting for the most colorful and imaginative girl I know to stop caressing the old stones so I can escort her inside."
Addi squinted at him. "You don't know that many girls then."
Randy chuckled.
Sky went to sit with her parents. Both parents sat in the same aisle. Uncle Stan sat at one end, her dad sat at another.
Their wives and children sat between them. Usually she and Sky would sit together but not this particular Sunday—Sky sat between her parents, as if she was ensuring that Addi had no access to her.
She held her head straight throughout the service.
Addi couldn't remember a word of what the Reverend preached. She was sure she had heard it all before anyway and she was too busy glancing over at Sky trying to catch her eye but to no avail.
Aunt Ivy kept looking between Addi and Sky, her brows puckered in puzzlement. It wasn't unusual for her and Sky to have disagreements and supposedly malice each other for days, but the family usually let them work it out. So after a while Aunt Ivy, ignored her trying to catch Sky's eyes and gave a small shake of her head.
Addi sighed. Her cousin was acting crazy.
"That's a big sigh," Josh whispered to her.
"That's because Sky is acting weird," Addi whispered back.
"You are the one that is acting weird these past couple of days," Josh replied from the corner of his mouth. "I don't know what's wrong with you. Yesterday Randy asked me if I think you are possessed."
"Possessed." Addi gasped and glanced over at Randy, "Possessed as in demons?"
"Yep," Josh murmured. "You've been telling him about having a past life and all sorts of nonsense."
Addi crouched down further in her seat. She had thought that she was getting through to Randy, at least a little. Apparently she wasn't.
She sighed again.
"Stop sighing." Josh pinched her and chuckled. "I don't think you are possessed or crazy. I know what's bothering you."
"You do?" Addi sat up straighter.
"Yup," Josh whispered. "It's obvious. You like him and you don't know how to act around him. It's cute. But I warned him not to even think of entertaining this crush. You are my little sister, which means you are off limits. Way off. You are not to like any guy until you are twenty-five or so. Dad and I agreed that twenty five is a good enough age for you to start dating."
Addi giggled and then clapped her hand over her mouth. Her mother was looking at her with a disapproving frown.
After the service they greeted the reverend at the door.
"You are looking lovely today Miss Addison." The reverend declared with a smile.
"Thank you, sir." Addi grinned. She had liked the Rev. He had been a truly Godly man. A man who carried a burden for his parishioners and took his job seriously.
She wasn't surprised to see Monica at the front of the church in a light pink suit and a string of pearls. "Here you are Addi."
She handed four stacks of black diaries to her. "These were grammy's…handle with care."
"Thank you." Addi nodded. "I will take care of them. Maybe I will give them back to you in 2017."
"That would be lovely." Monica nodded. "I am happy that somebody else can read them and find joy in them. A fellow believer."
Addi nodded.
"About Walter Sparks," Monica whispered before Addi could walk away. "He is a divorcee with three children. He likes me. He is a customer at the credit union where I work. We talk all the time and I thought that things were getting serious. Thank you from the bottom of my heart."
"No problem. You were the one that actually gave me that extra push to come back. How did your grandmother handle it?" Addi asked, "The resetting thing. Did anybody believe her when she went back?"
Monica patted Addi's shoulders. "She never reset anything. She owned the land with the blue stone. Sold it to your people years ago. She said it was a constant temptation. But everyday she would go to the back of our property and look down at it, not in regret. Grammy didn't regret anything, but she needed to reassure herself that everything that happened in her life made her who she was. She liked things the way they were.
"When she was older, she contemplated it, but she never did go back. She always said this life was only worthy living once."
Monica left Addi soon after that with what Addi thought of as both a rebuke and a truism.
A resetter who didn't believe in do-overs. Maybe because do-overs were trouble and nothing was really accomplish anyway because no one believed.
****
I am going to pick up Ellie. Josh pushed her half opened door completely opened. She had been sit
ting and staring at Monica's grandmother's diary after they got in from church. She was feeling sort of reluctant to open them.
She looked up at Josh. "Okay. Have fun."
"We are going to Black River to pick up her little brother. Want to come? You can get to meet her."
"Really? "
"Yes, really." Josh grinned. "I might take her back here for dinner too. Mom is doing fried chicken and glazed sweet potato. It smells good."
Addi sniffed the air. She could here the sound of the chicken sizzling in the pot and the pungent aroma of deep fried chicken. "It does smell good."
"Come on." Josh nodded at her.
"Should I change?" Addi looked down at herself. She had put on a black and white polka dot sundress earlier when she had come home. It was ridiculously short, reached her mid thigh.
Josh looked her over. "No, you are fine, let's go."
She bounced off the bed. This was a great opportunity to meet Ellie. The first time around she had met her later in the summer. Maybe sometime in early August when Josh had actually started sleeping with her and had sneaked her in the house for an overnight stay.
She had woken up in the night and seen this strange girl in the bathroom. Things were already changing and she hadn't yet done anything to intervene. She hadn't told Josh about his new lady love yet.
She followed Josh through the living room.
Randy was sitting in there with her Dad, they were reading the Sunday Gleaner and commenting on news items.
"Going to Black River," Josh stopped at the doorway, "to do a favor for Ellie."
Her father grunted.
"Hey, where is that?" Randy piped up. "Can I come?"
Addi groaned.
Randy glanced at her and grinned. "I don't know this side of the island well."
"Sure, come on." Josh glanced at Addi. "She can tell you more about her previous life and freak you out."
Addi rolled her eyes and followed Josh to the car. She got into the back seat and Randy got in with her.
"I come in peace," he winked. "Doesn't make sense I go up front. Josh will soon be picking up Ellie."
Josh turned the car stereo to Power 106 and turned it down. He changed his mind when Whitney Houston's, All The Man That I Need came on.
Never Too Late (Resetter Series Book 1) Page 6