I could tell he was itching for a cigarette. I was annoying him, but I was right!
“When we went to the shelter and got Bailey, what did we learn about her?”
“That her horrible previous family had given her up because she got too big. Once she wasn’t a cute little puppy anymore, they didn’t want her. Jerks.”
He nodded, too patiently. “And she’d been in the shelter for how long?”
I thought about it. “A few days. Three, maybe?”
“Right. So you see my point?”
“No.”
“If we hadn’t gotten Binky first, we never would have ended up having Bailey.”
I wasn’t so sure. “Or we could have just waited and gotten Bailey in the first place, and then we would have saved all the trouble of the Binky Month.”
He shook his head. “You were not waiting one more day to get a dog, much less a month and three days. Everything on our path led us to that day, to that shelter, and to that dog. And so it will be with all the Binkys of your life, whether they are bad jobs, nasty bosses, even, god forbid, a dud husband. Whatever happens, as long as you’re doing your best and putting one foot in front of the other, you will live your destiny.”
“Are you sure? Really sure?” My voice sounded small, embarrassingly childlike.
“As sure as I’m sitting here.” He patted my head. “This is one thing I know to be the truth.”
I was crying again—or had I never stopped?—and reached over to hug him. “I miss you so much, Daddy.”
“I’m right here.”
“I know, but … I don’t want you to ever go away.”
“I never will,” he reassured me. “I’ll always be here when you need me.”
It was eerie how wrong he was about that. In less than two years he’d be gone forever, and he had no idea.
* * *
AFTER TALKING WITH my dad, I made a cup of hot raspberry herbal tea and took it up to my room. It was a cool night for May, and my windows were open, blowing in the glorious scent of viburnum and magnolia. The magnolia tree had gotten out of control, growing up taller than the roof of the house, and when the wind blew, it scratched on the screen like fingernails. It was really creepy, but when it bloomed it made all of that worth it.
I went to my bookshelf and pulled out a book. Illusions by Richard Bach. I hadn’t thought about it for years but as a teenager I remembered thinking it was incredibly profound. I stood and flipped through it for a moment, then creaked into the old canopy bed, and snuggled down comfortably against the pillows.
Crickets chirped outside, and in the distance I could hear the Henley family laughing on their porch. That was the sound of summer to me. They had a straight-up legitimate screen porch—one season—and they spent virtually every summer night out there, playing cards, drinking, and telling anecdotes, whatever. Sometimes my parents went over and I could hear my father’s booming laugh rising over the trees and floating down to where I lay in the dark in my bed, safe and sound in the knowledge that my parents were just a few steps away if I needed them.
It has to be said, I have never slept as well again in my life as I did as a teenager. No great tragedy had yet befallen me, nothing weighed heavily on my mind or conscience. My body was light and efficient and worked all day and slept all night. I was looking forward to that tonight. Many times I’d cited my wonderful memories of reading well into the summer night, then waking up and picking the book up off the bed next to me and starting where I’d left off, no cares or responsibilities in the world.
The little brass reading light next to my bed was really misnamed. My thirty-eight-year-old eyes couldn’t have stood the strain, but my eighteen-year-old eyes had no problem. I wished that were something I could take back with me.
Then again, I had no guarantee I was going back. And, naturally, that thought was constantly with me. It was hard to just let go and enjoy the fantasy a little bit, because I was always aware that this was an unknown phenomenon and it could end, abruptly, at any moment.
Or not at all.
I’d wanted to talk to my dad about it, but I knew it would have just been alarming to him. Not the death part, I never would have mentioned that at all, but that I believed myself to be a time traveler. What is a sane person supposed to say to someone who announces something like that?
I opened the book and started to read, hoping to let go of the spirographic circles that were going around and around in my brain like madness in print.
I don’t know how long I was reading when I came to the passage that struck me:
You seek problems because you need their gifts.
Wasn’t that basically what my father had just been telling me? And here it was again, in black-and-white. There was a message there, I knew it. Or at least I hoped it. Though I wasn’t generally superstitious, I did tend to take signs seriously.
So … extrapolating from that … maybe the whole reason I was here was to dig deeper into some of the mistakes I thought I’d made in the first part of my life. Because obviously I hadn’t learned enough from them to keep me from wondering.
Maybe now I needed to really dive into this part of my life and see what I could do with it. Live it, breathe it, really commit to it as much as my logical mind would let me, and see what happened.
Maybe I could even change some of the things that continued to haunt me into adulthood.
It seemed as good a plan as any at this point.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next morning I was lying in bed reading when the phone on the bedside table trilled, scaring me half to death.
But I had reached over to answer it before I even had time to think about what I was doing. Funny how reflexes work to cut through all thought processes.
“Hello?” I have never answered the phone with more curiosity. It could have been just about anyone. It was bound to be interesting.
“Why do you sound like you’re asleep?” It was Tanya. But, disconcertingly, a much younger version of her than the one I’d talked to a few days ago from my hotel in Miami.
“I’m not,” I lied. I wanted to keep the conversation going. To keep hearing this version of her voice. To remember, in such a pure way, the roots of our friendship.
“You totally are.” It was going to be hard to get any depths out of this.
I had to laugh. Might as well go with it as she was expecting. “Well, I’m not anymore.”
“Get your ass out of bed. I’m picking you up in twenty minutes, I just wanted to remind you to bring my yearbook. Finish signing if you didn’t already.”
“Picking me up in twenty minutes?” I was completely disoriented. I looked over at the clock. Seven A.M. Where could we be going at 7:20 A.M.?
“You know if we’re late they’re going to mark us absent and we’re going to have to totally jump through hoops to get our credits without having to go to summer school. Mrs. Sykes has it out for me and she’d give anything to screw me over like that.”
Oh, yeah. School.
Wow.
I was not up for this.
“She would,” I agreed, because … she would. Tanya’s guidance counselor seemed to hate her inexplicably. I’d gone on to know a lot of Mrs. Sykeses in my life, and pinning someone with the letter of the law—even something as small as marking a “tardy” as a technical “absence”—was a source of great pleasure for them.
“Clock’s ticking, tick tick tick,” Tanya went on, for all the world sounding like a small version of her bossy mother self. “Get up. And don’t forget my yearbook.”
The yearbook. That rang a bell and, in so doing, brought back a big heap of memories.
Actually, I had forgotten her yearbook when I first went through this. I remembered that now. She’d had a crush on Kenny Singer and she was absolutely convinced they were soul mates and they would be together forever. The problem was, he’d barely ever said two words to her. So her plan was to get him to sign her yearbook, thereby basically necessitating that h
e ask her to do the same, whereupon she would write:
Kenny, I’m sorry I never really got to know you but it’s not too late! My number is 555-5801 so give me a call sometime! Have a great summer!
Lord, I still knew it by heart because she had hammered it to death, trying to make it perfect, changing one word, then another, then changing them back, despite all of my suggestions that perhaps silence would be golden.
According to Tanya’s plan, Kenny was supposed to read that, realize that he had been missing out on this great thing all this time, and he was going to call her, and so on. Eventually they were going to have three kids. All boys. She thought Kenny would like that.
I thought the plan was stupid at the time, but now, with a lot of years on me, I actually thought it wasn’t too bad. Not brilliant, but at least an overture that he could seize or ignore. If he was shy—and I had no idea, because I’d never heard another word about him—maybe this was all he needed. If he was not interested, there was no harm, no foul. She’d still end up in the same place: she’d eventually meet Vince Langston, marry him, and have two beautiful little girls and live happily ever after.
And if she got that opportunity to get Kenny out of her system, she could avoid the entire year of blaming me for screwing up her fate. Given the ferocity of her belief, I wondered if she might still, somewhere deep in her subconscious, wonder if Kenny was the Real One for her.
That was silly, of course. She was a sensible person, not prone to romantic notions about her past.
Still, you never know.
I got up, amazed, as before, at the ease with which I could just spring out of bed. Man, it was nice to be thin, and strong, and young. I went to the bathroom, brushed my hair and my teeth, then quickly did a better job with my makeup than I’d ever done in high school the first time around. No green eye shadow. Throw that electric-pink lipstick away. Get rid of that eternally orange foundation that smelled like medicine. It wasn’t fooling anyone, and I was pretty sure now I’d probably always had monkey-face, that ugly line along your jaw where your makeup and real skin collide and tell the world you’ve been doing your face like an amateur in bad light.
Which, of course, I was.
I went through the drawer and took out the most egregious items just to save me from myself if I should suddenly pop back into the future and leave my poor hapless high school self with all those loud, unflattering drugstore cosmetics.
But while I was digging in there I saw a bottle of Gap Heaven perfume. Oh, my god, I hadn’t smelled that in ages! I spritzed it on and was immediately transported to … well, now. My eighteenth summer. The smell conjured memories of steamy backseat sex, warm summer nights, the county fair, and love.
It also conjured my breakup with Brendan, the hurt in his eyes when I told him and every time I ran into him afterward, and the dull ache it had left in me for longer than I’d expected.
I shouldn’t have done it. I’m not saying I would have married him, I have no idea what could have happened, but I shouldn’t have ended such a sweet relationship for such a stupid reason. I was going away, moving on. I thought it made sense for us to end things before we were torn apart by circumstance (i.e., the fact that we were going to different colleges, hundreds of miles apart).
The truth is, a college student spends much more time at home than they think they’re going to. And I missed Brendan, I really did. Sometimes I thought I still missed him. Certainly I’d never found anyone I could be quite so myself with, though maybe that was because myself got guarded with age, the way adults tend to. Unless they want to be weirdos played by Will Ferrell in the movies.
But I couldn’t help thinking, what if Tanya wasn’t completely wrong about that whole soul mate thing? What if our destinies could be screwed up by one mistake? Like I said, Tanya’s life hadn’t been a mistake, so I’m not saying she was right about that, but what if the whole reason I was back here was because one of the wrongs I needed to right, maybe even the main wrong I needed to right, was not to dump Brendan?
It would be interesting, albeit scary, to see how my life might change if I hadn’t done it. But was I scared of that? I shouldn’t be—I already possessed all the knowledge my career required to get me to this point, so I could have my life back no matter what. What was there to lose? Maybe it was time to see what a reset could do.
But, man, could I really go back into the halls of high school?
It didn’t look as if I had any choice.
I went downstairs quietly, avoiding the squeaky stair fourth from the top, and into the kitchen. The cabinet under the counter was the liquor cabinet and it was unlocked, because I never stole anything from it. But today, come on—today I needed a little help.
I took out the bottle of Smirnoff and drew a slug of it. It burned going down, but other than that I felt nothing.
So I took another.
Then two more before I finally started to relax a little bit.
I could do this.
I could do it.
I could do it.
You can do it.
You can do it.…
Tanya’s horn blasted outside, and I started, jerking my hand and spilling vodka all over myself and the floor. I looked at my shirt, and sniffed it. Fortunately the scent was mild, and the shirt would dry by the time we got to school. With a little luck no one would be any the wiser.
I ran to the door and signaled to her that I’d be right out.
Then I dashed back upstairs to brush my teeth and squirt on a little more perfume.
Admittedly it might have been a little obvious to come out smelling so strongly of toothpaste and Gap, but it was better than smelling of alcohol. I rinsed, spat, and took off down the stairs again.
Shit, the yearbook!
I held up a finger to her from the door: Wait! Then I ran back up, grabbed the book from next to my bed without even thinking about it, and ran back down the stairs and out to the big gray Buick that was chugging perilously in the driveway.
I got in and she immediately said, “Did you get a new job at the Gap?”
“Too much?”
“Little bit.” She backed out of the drive, making a distasteful face. “Open the window.”
I did. I cranked it down by hand. I couldn’t even think when the last time I’d done that was. “Sorry.” I set the yearbook down on the seat between us.
“Hey, you’ve smelled worse.” She gave me a sidelong smile. “You probably smelled worse before you put it on this morning.”
“Thanks.”
“Always here for ya.”
We rode the mile and a half to school in silence. So many thoughts crowded my mind, while I’m sure she was just idly thinking how glad she would be to graduate.
She weaved her way down the road in front of school, looking for a parking space on the car-clogged street. Soon the neighbors would get sick of this scene and demand permit-only parking, but for now it was still a madhouse.
And for me it was fascinating, passing all these long-forgotten faces, like being inside an old home movie.
I pointed, like a child at the zoo seeing a panda for the first time. “Good lord, it’s Frances Lee!” I cried, seeing the girl whom I later saw running in the Olympics.
“Obviously,” Tanya said, screwing up her brows. “It’s always Frances Lee. She lives on that track. Why is that so fucking surprising today?”
“I—” What could I say? “I’d heard she had mono and wasn’t going to be back before the end of term.”
“Frances Lee.”
“Yes.”
“You heard Frances Lee had mono.”
I knew where this was going, but I had no choice but to stick to my lie. “Yes.”
Tanya snorted. “Where, pray tell, would that girl possibly get mono? I seriously doubt she’s ever kissed anyone.”
“It’s not literally just a kissing disease,” I began, but it was a stupid waste of time to back up my lie with pointless facts. From now on, I just had to be caref
ul not to be outwardly shocked to see anyone. “Anyway, there she is!”
“Yup, there she is.” Tanya gave another snort as she parallel-parked her car, and we got out.
I took a bracing breath to steady myself before going in, and wished I’d had a lot more than the four shots I’d had. Vodka was powerless compared to the adrenaline-fueling strength of high school.
* * *
THERE IS SOMETHING about the smell of school that you never completely forget. It stays lodged in your subconscious, ready to resurface unexpectedly, when you least need to feel anxious and uncomfortable. I couldn’t have recalled it, or pegged any particular characteristics to it, but as soon as I walked in, I knew it well. A thousand, maybe even a million, memories flooded into my head, most of which I couldn’t have put words to, but I could feel them.
School.
Some tangled combination of old books, xerox paper, heated processed food, and … fear? Embarrassment? There was some note I couldn’t define and I couldn’t say if it was sweet or sour, but it made my heart pound a little faster. Not in a good way. My stress rose like a cat jumping neatly onto a counter.
“What’s wrong with you?” Tanya asked me.
“Mm?” I returned my attention to her, trying not to seem nervous. “What do you mean?”
She gave me a what-the-fuck look. “I just totally watched the blood drain from your face.”
I had to laugh, despite myself. I’d felt it myself. “I’m fine. Just … a little sad.”
“Why?”
I looked at her. The youthful face that I would watch move through subtle changes, like in time-lapse photography, for at least the next two decades. Through jobs, marriage, pregnancy, kids, dogs. “Because it’s almost our last day here. After four long years, we’re never going to walk through these doors again. Probably,” I amended hastily. “Tomorrow is our last day of high school.”
“Thank. God.” She did the sign of the cross.
“Someday you’re going to feel melancholy about this, believe me. You’ll be off in some suburban home with two kids and a job that you’re sick of and you’re going to remember how nice it was to be in high school.”
If I Could Turn Back Time Page 9