CHAPTER SIXTEEN
My science teacher, Mr. Giuliani, was my favorite ever. Of all the people from high school, students or teachers, he was probably the one I wondered about the most. He had taught us about the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty way before Breaking Bad had come along on TV, and he had tried like hell to be engaging and get us enthusiastic about science. And he probably did ratchet up the interest of those who were already inclined. But most of his students didn’t get, or care about, his brilliance.
To be honest, my worst grades had been in his class, because I just felt like I couldn’t get it. It was the only time in my life I’d felt downright stupid. But he had been the teacher who I thought cared the most. Proven, perhaps, by the fact that he was my favorite even though I’d barely scraped by in the end with a D (and that was thanks to extra-credit work he’d given me).
Eventually, though, what he’d taught had begun to make sense to me. This, after college classes and twenty years of just plain living, and I’d often wished I could find him and thank him for his patience. Tell him it hadn’t been all for naught.
He had reserved our last day of class for us to ask any lingering questions we had, just for the sake of learning, since our grades were already turned in. That’s how passionate he was about his subject; he just wanted us to learn, to be as enthusiastic about the possibilities as he was.
I remembered that last day and the disappointment on his face when no one had raised a hand to ask anything even remotely interesting. There had been a lot of fidgeting, eagerness to leave for the last time, the quiet scratch of some surreptitious yearbook-signing. But no interest in our topic, or our instructor, now that he no longer had an impact on our futures.
I remember frantically trying to come up with an interesting or relevant question that day, just to make him know that his efforts hadn’t been in vain, but I’d done too poorly to have retained anything.
Now, however, that was no longer the case.
I raised my hand.
To his credit, he didn’t show any impatience or lack of faith in what I was going to ask, though he was probably ready to bet money I was going to ask for a hall pass to go to the bathroom. “Ramie!” he said, as if he were delighted to entertain anything I might say. “Question?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “I’ve been reading up since finals”—certainly some explanation was necessary, and telling him I’d come up with some thoughts after being desperate enough on a long flight to read an article in Scientific American probably wasn’t going to play—“and I think I’ve finally figured some things out.”
He looked very pleasantly surprised. “Excellent.”
“So I’ve been thinking. Do you think if we all had our stem cells from birth, which is obviously too late for all of us, we would be able to reintroduce them into our systems with some regularity and, theoretically, extend our lives and resist disease continuously? You know, kind of like using bio-identical hormones to maintain certain systems?”
To say he looked shocked would be a vast understatement. “What an incredible insight!” His unexpected enthusiasm, and I suppose my unexpected comprehension, got the attention of some other students, who looked up at him with curiosity.
Mr. Giuliani composed himself and said, “I have proposed this as a longevity intervention myself. Yes, if we could figure out how to introduce them so they differentiate correctly into adult stem cells, that could work. They have tried simply injecting stem cells into arms or legs and they produce teratomas, which are cyst pockets of all kinds of mixed-up tissues, including sometimes teeth and bones.”
“Gross!” someone said, echoing probably everyone’s thoughts, but, at the same time, calling the attention of some other students who had resisted the siren call of Ramie Phillips getting something right in science.
Mr. Giuliani nodded, clearly thrilled. “Really yucky. But there is a whole field called regenerative medicine that is working on using embryonic stem cells to renew several specific kinds of tissues, like regrowing damaged spinal cord tissue. Allowing the paralyzed to walk again.”
It was rather amazing that we’d all had access to such a brilliant mind in high school and we’d wasted it by coming into class high or sharing notes and copying others on tests.
It was Kelvin Lee who spoke next, unsurprisingly. He aced everything. I don’t know what became of him as an adult, but I’m positive he’s at the very top of whatever field he entered. “You said there is a hierarchy of cells, adult stem cells that can differentiate into specific blood, muscle, or other kinds of normal cells. Does that mean that even during the gestation period those stem cells go from being essentially anything to having designated properties? So that by the time the baby is born, and cord blood can be safely collected, some of the ‘universal’ qualities are gone?”
Honestly, Mr. Giuliani looked like he had just learned he’d won the lottery. “The short answer is yes for most of the cells in the newborn baby itself. The baby has much growing to do, but by that time all two hundred varieties of cells are already in existence. But the placenta and the cord both contain a lot of embryonic-like stem cells, and these are often being used for harvesting stem cells nowadays.”
I took a shot at one more question. “Is there some safe method of harvesting stem cells prior to birth?”
He nodded. “You could probably get them from the amniotic fluid, but I would not want to mess with the fetus itself; that could be dangerous. But just one tiny cell could be replicated to create an infinite number, if needed. It’s actually very old technology.”
Kelvin raised his hand, but the bell rang and in the clatter of everyone eagerly gathering their things to get the heck out of there—cysts with teeth were one thing, but replicating cells didn’t light a fire under the average student—his question was lost in the chaos.
When I walked past Mr. Giuliani to go out the door, Kelvin was talking with him privately and Mr. Giuliani looked more alive than I’d ever seen him before. It gave my heart a little thrill. I’d always wanted to thank him for caring about my education, but I’d never found a way.
Maybe now, in some small way, I had.
* * *
EVEN THOUGH IT had been a long, long time, I think I can honestly and confidently say that I had never come home from school as rattled as I did that last day.
When I was little we went to Disney World. I remember going on the Haunted Mansion ride and being terrified, but compelled, by all the “ghosts” there, the stories implied by the setting and decorations there. I’d even gotten a set of View-Master slides, which I played in my room on the ceiling, rewatching, reliving, the ghostly ride and scaring myself to sleep each night.
It was so perfectly rendered as fantasy that I never believed it deep in my soul. I always knew it was pretend, and that’s why I had the luxury of spooking myself. I think human beings have a need to feel big things, particularly in the safety of home or bed, or a theme park where they can walk off the ride and get an ice cream shaped like a mouse head covered in hard chocolate and forget the fear in ten minutes.
But the experience I had going back to school and interacting with all those ghosts from my actual past—including some kids who were headed toward their doom, whether death or ruin, and had no idea—was seriously disconcerting. I felt completely discombobulated and didn’t know what to do with myself.
“Why are you so frickin’ quiet?” Tanya asked on the way home. “Hello? Last day of school—you’re supposed to be elated.”
I looked at her. “Are you?”
“Obviously!”
“Do you realize how much is over?”
She snorted. “Yeah. English, math, typing, notes for being late, notes for being sick, visits to the principal’s office. I think I have a pretty good idea how much is over.”
I smiled. “True. But, Tanya, this is the end of our childhoods. This is the end of all the things we had to do. It’s like … there really is no Santa Claus.”
; She feigned a look of shock and horror. “What?”
I sighed. “You know what I mean. We’ve gone from kindergarten to twelfth grade with at least half these people. That’s almost like being in the cradle. Now we’re finished.”
“I could not be happier about this.” Her tone was definite. She guided the car carefully down Gainsborough Road, where there were always speed traps around the turnoff for my house. “And neither could you. You’ve said the exact same thing for the past month. Now, all of a sudden, you’re this old woman looking back on our lives like they’re over. Get ahold of yourself!”
Was I an old woman? Was thirty-eight so old compared to eighteen? I used to think I had a pretty good grip on things like age. Other teenagers would talk about thirty like it was the other side of midnight, but I knew thirty was still young. Didn’t I?
Well, I certainly did now.
“So—tonight,” Tanya said, tired of the Vitamin C song I was paraphrasing. “What are you wearing to the party?”
“I don’t know, cutoffs, a cute top. Something that looks like I’m not trying.”
“Hmm.” She nodded, considering this. “Good plan. I got a strapless cotton dress at Express last night, but I think maybe your plan is better. Look like we just came in from walking the dog.”
I laughed out loud. That was a perfect description. “Exactly. The walking-the-dog look. We’ll start a sensation. Honestly, we should be designers.”
She nodded and turned onto my street, slowing down next to my house. “You want me to drive?”
Actually, I had originally gone with Brendan, but when we’d gotten in that fight, Tanya was already gone and I’d walked home. It had been a long walk. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
“No problem.”
I opened the door. “Call me before you come.”
“I’ll be here at seven. Make sure your ass is ready.”
“Call me so I can be!”
She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, fine, fine. Whatever you want, Princess Di. Let me know if there’s any other way I can be of service to you.”
“I’ll give it some thought.”
“Great.”
I shut the door and turned to go up the freshly cut front lawn. It smelled of grass and earth, with a hint of the wet-penny smell of the neighbors’ sprinkler, which was easing back and forth over a small patch they’d reseeded. I had to hand it to them, though, the Connors’ lawn always looked fantastic. Even to this day. All their work paid off. Even if it did make the rest of the lawns in the neighborhood look burned out and shabby.
I opened the front door, smiling at the old creak of it, and was about to go upstairs and prepare for my first teenage party in twenty years when I heard my mother’s voice from the kitchen.
“Ramie.” It was sharp. Angry.
“Yeah?”
“Come in here.” This was about the harshest I’d ever heard her. “Now.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
This was a tone I hadn’t heard in a long time. Admittedly not quite twenty years; I’d continued to get in trouble for a long time past high school, but still.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, walking into the kitchen. My mind was at ease, but my body responded with a familiar twinge of apprehension. Guilt. Bracing myself for the worst.
She leaned both hands on the counter, fingertips pointing to the sides, her weight on her palms. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong, Ramie Jane?”
She almost never called me that. Later she’d told me she didn’t even know why she’d given me that middle name, since she hated it—it was only that it flowed. It certainly did now, when she was apparently using it to make a point. “I’m … not sure?”
“There’s nothing you want to tell me?”
“About the last day of school? I didn’t get my grades yet, but as I recall they were—”
“About the missing vodka,” she interrupted, just in the nick of time, actually. Snippy, angry, but she stopped me from doing any “mysterious prognosticating” about my grades and graduation.
“What missing vodka?” I asked, for a moment completely forgetting the previous morning.
“I came in here this afternoon to make sauce for my penne alla vodka and took the bottle out to find there was a considerable amount missing.” She raised an eyebrow in that way that used to be completely intimidating to me. It was a motherly art. “I know because I had it out to make screwdrivers for bridge last week, so I know exactly how much was in the bottle.”
My first mental response was, Phew! followed by a quick, I thought it was something serious. “Oh, that. I had some yesterday morning before school. I was so nervous you wouldn’t believe.” I shook my head, and meant it more than she could ever imagine. “It was gross, but better than throwing up my Froot Loops all over because I was so nervy.”
She looked at me in disbelief. “So you admit it? You had vodka for breakfast?” Her tone was new. Something between heartbreak and defeat. Like I’d just admitted something that, in the mother-daughter game, I was supposed to deny, and now I’d broken the barrier and she was going to have to deal with it.
How did I keep forgetting? Maybe it was because her kitchen hadn’t been redecorated in decades, so my subconscious kept finding this environment to be normal, in part. And, let’s face it, I wasn’t used to being eighteen.
“Wait, no.” I thought fast. Not well, but at least fast. Vodka for breakfast sounded bad. I’d never do that under normal circumstances, but it was far worse under these circumstances.
“What do you mean, no?” she demanded. “The vodka is missing. I think we just established that quite clearly.”
Think think think. “No, I didn’t drink it. I was nervous about how I looked. And I just read in a magazine how rinsing your hair with vodka makes it really shiny.” I touched a lock and pulled it around as if I were trying to examine it. “But I’m not sure it really made much of a difference. What do you think?”
“I think that sounds like a lie.”
I feigned surprise. “What do you mean?”
“How, pray tell, would rinsing your hair with vodka keep you from throwing up because of your nerves?”
Good point. Of course. Although the whole rinsing-with-vodka thing really does make your hair shiny. “You know, because I didn’t think I looked good.” This was lame. Just like I was in high school. So, in a way, I was being convincing, even though my story was idiotic.
My mother was having none of it. “Go to your room.”
“God, Mom, you don’t seriously think I’d have vodka for breakfast, do you? How gross!”
“Your room!”
“O … kay?” I mean, what could I say? I’d done it. She didn’t know who I was now; she only knew who I was “now,” so this was an infraction of the rules. “Why?”
“You’re grounded.”
Grounded! I was grounded? I couldn’t be grounded! I didn’t know how long I would be here, and I had to go to that party tonight. “But, Mom, it’s the last day of school! There’s a party tonight! I can’t miss that!”
“Oh, you’re missing it, all right!”
“Mom!” Suddenly I really felt the urgency to not be in trouble. “It’s the last chance for a last-day-of-school party. Come on, please? Don’t make me miss out because of one understandable mistake!”
“Understandable?” She scoffed. Really well, in fact; I realized now where I had learned my best derision skills—from her. “I can’t trust you!”
But she could! I’d always been really careful, even in high school. She could trust me! Especially now—I was a grown-up! Why, I was more capable of handling any sort of emergency or problem than anyone else who would be at that party! I had to pull out my adult powers of persuasion. “Mom, seriously, do you think I could have made up such a crazy story? You know you can trust me.”
She looked at me evenly. “You’re right.”
“I am?”
“Yes, it is a crazy story. Go to your room.” Her voice was
firm. Like, steel-firm.
This wasn’t good.
I needed to think, though. And she needed to calm down. This was something I’d learned in the years since high school. If I stood here and argued with her, she was going to continue to say no, if only so that she wasn’t teaching me that I could bulldoze her.
“Fine, I’ll go upstairs. But will you think about it? Please?”
I could see her hesitate, so I jumped on it.
“I mean, seriously, look at my hair. Smell it!” Because confidence went a long way toward covering a lie, I moved toward her, but she shot me a look and I stopped. “Anyway, you saw me yesterday morning and I was obviously not drunk. I mean, I’d totally have been drunk if I drank all the stuff I poured over my hair, wouldn’t I?”
“Well…” She looked wobbly within her determination. And it wasn’t because she was weak or ineffectual; it was because she trusted me. I knew that. I always knew that.
But I couldn’t count on it now until she realized it.
“Think about that, Mom. Please.” I didn’t give her a chance to refuse. Instead I just turned and headed for the stairs. “I’m doing what you asked because I know you hate when I argue, but please let logic prevail here. You know me. I’m not a drinker and you know it!”
Yes, it was a semi-lie—I’d had the vodka in the morning, but at the time in question, the age at which I was being accused of this indiscretion, I definitely didn’t drink much, and since then I’d never had cause to worry that there was a problem. So I didn’t feel an iota of guilt for fibbing.
On top of that, I had seen my mom have screwdrivers with brunch many times while I was delicately sipping a mimosa so I could be the designated driver. That was vodka for breakfast! And for another thing—it can’t be said too much—I was thirty-eight years old. My teenage self and future were not in jeopardy because I’d calmed my time-traveling nerves a little bit the other morning before school.
I went upstairs, Zuzu following me, her nails clicking solemly on the wood, and hoped like hell my mother would reconsider. But given the state she was in—and the state she thought I was in—that didn’t seem all that likely.
If I Could Turn Back Time Page 13