by Amalie Jahn
Obviously, it was my hope that there wouldn’t be much of my old life remaining when I returned. No more dead end career. No more crappy apartment. No more feeling as if life and all its glorious promises were passing me by like a ship in the night beside a stranded, sleeping castaway on a raft. In fact, the only thing I was desperately hoping would remain the same was Meena. I didn’t know what I would do if we were no longer together when I returned.
And although my heart ached with the foreshadowing of regret as I backed out of the bedroom we shared, I knew losing her was a risk I was willing to take. Because of course, I had a promise to keep.
The local time travel building shone like the beacon of innovative progress that it was, with stainless steel spires and holographic images adorning the exterior. The facility was constantly changing - a work in progress, always modernizing outdated equipment and methods. Sometimes they would decide to change the means of transport or the testing requirements without any notice, throwing instructors into a tailspin. I knew a guy in college who was assigned to return to the present via seclusion, not realizing protocol had changed two days before his trip issuing mandatory facility returns. He got trapped in the past for several weeks longer than his allotment while they scrambled to find a way to bring him home.
After completing my in-processing, consisting of more oaths and signatures, I was led to a cramped waiting room overflowing with other travelers. Apparently Saturdays were big travel days – it seemed people were reluctant to take off work to accommodate their trips. There were no chairs available so I leaned against the wall beside a pensive looking teenager and waited for a seat to open up.
The sheer volume of travelers surprised me and made me wonder how many were hoping to make changes to their pasts. Surely I wasn’t the only person endeavoring to improve the future. To that end, I’d been over my plan a dozen times and began mentally ticking off my goals as my fellow travelers were called backed to the chambers one by one.
I was going back for the maximum amount of time permitted by law – six months. I figured the more time I had the better, especially if something went wrong and I needed to make adjustments. I would spend just over four months living before the election, giving myself about seven weeks afterwards to prepare for the life I would return to following my extraction. It would be a time to tie up loose ends and set my course for the future.
My future. My future as a United States Senator.
The congressman’s daughter would be my main focus during the initial weeks. Meeting her. Getting to know her. Seducing her.
I hated that word – seduction. But it was essentially what I was planning to do. I needed her to fall in love with me. To make me a fixture in her parents’ house, convincing her father to grant me the endorsement I so desperately needed to kick start my political career. I would do whatever it took.
Considering the seduction, I thought briefly of Meena, still sleeping in our bed, unaware of the calculated risk I would soon be taking with our lives. I wasn’t a cheater. I’d been loyal to every woman I’d ever been with, but somewhere in the darkest recesses of my mind a nagging voice whispered that for the first time in my life, I was going to be unfaithful. That there was something inherently wrong about putting one’s own desires above all else. That perhaps there was something misguided about the path I had chosen to walk along on my quest for fulfillment.
But I ignored whatever doubts my conscious tried to bubble up.
In the months spent planning, I mollified the guilt of my betrayal, rationalizing that I technically wouldn’t be cheating since any indiscretions would be happening in the past - a past in which I was not yet involved with Meena. Even still, I was hoping to keep my relationship with the congressman’s daughter PG and would only take things to the next level if the situation warranted further persuading. I’d also decided it would be necessary to end whatever relationship I established during my trip before returning home as a means of securing my future with Meena.
It wasn’t a great failsafe, but it was all I had.
When his name was called, I watched a grey-templed man hoist himself from the bench beside me and scoot toward the exit, where the time travel technician waited impatiently from just inside the door. With no one else still waiting for a seat, I slid in beside a middle-aged woman, worry-lines crinkling the fragile skin around her eyes. She turned to me immediately.
“Are you excited?” she whispered, as if she was committing a terrible faux pas by openly discussing her trip with another traveler.
“Yeah. I guess,” I replied, without giving it much thought. I didn’t add that I was actually nervous about destroying my whole future. “Are you?” I asked.
She nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes. I’m going back to see my best friend who lived across the street from me growing up. She passed away this past year. It was bladder cancer. I’m going back to just before she got sick to relive the last girls’ trip we ever went on together. An amazing wine tour of the Napa Valley. I had no idea it was going to be the last one.” She fiddled with the charm bracelet encircling her wrist but continued speaking before I had a chance to respond. “That’s the thing about ‘last times’ you know? You don’t know that’s what they are until they’re already over.” She fingered the tiny ribbon charm on the bracelet. “I just miss her,” she said finally.
I nodded sympathetically and thought about my mom and how lucky it was that I wasn’t using my trip to go back in time to see her one last time. And then I thought again of the chaste peck I’d given Meena that morning and silently prayed it wouldn’t be the last time my lips ever touched her skin.
Perhaps, I admonished myself, I should have kissed her more passionately, just in case it turns out to have been our final kiss. But as the woman beside me pointed out, there was no way of knowing when something was going to be the end.
I was still stewing about the finalities of life when a technician appeared, beckoning with her index finger for me to follower her down the hall. We wove through a series of winding corridors, wordlessly, until we arrived at the chamber itself.
It was smaller than I’d imagined it to be – stainless steel with a glass panel separating the interior from the exterior. The technician, a slight Vietnamese woman with silky hair and almond eyes, made idol chit-chat with me while we waited for the signal from the main station that I was clear for travel. Two minutes later, we were given the green light and without so much as a nod goodbye, she backed quickly out of the room.
There was no hesitation as I stepped into the chamber. The door sealed behind me and instructions were piped in through a speaker system. I did as I was told. A timer on the wall counted down the seconds. There was a warm brightness that was nearly blinding, and before I knew it, I was back.
Chapter Five
25 Years Old (Again)
I never imagined there would be a reason to return to the dreadful apartment over the bar, with the threadbare sofa and dysfunctional appliances, but there I was. It was the first week of July, seasonably hot, and not surprisingly, my air conditioner was on the fritz. Sweat began beading on my upper lip before the disorientation of being thrust backward through time had fully dissipated.
Because I didn’t know quite what else to do, I crossed the kitchen and began pulling lunchmeat from the refrigerator. I fixed myself a sandwich and considered my next move – the congressman’s annual Independence Day celebration the next day. In my researching, I’d discovered it was always held on July 3rd so he was available to attend other functions in an official capacity on the fourth. I pulled up the map of his estate on my phone, which was situated in the countryside west of Richmond, in a quaint little town nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians. I traced the route from my apartment to his house with my finger, and lamented that although I’d looked into every nuance of the event itself, there was still the matter of getting myself through the front door.
As I robotically chewed bite after bite of my bologna sandwich, I though
t about my first election years ago, when sitting in the same metal folding chair, I watched the local TV anchorman announce my first loss. I was convinced every political misstep since then stemmed from that initial failure, and I knew the only way to reset the course of my career was to win against Carson Rollins. To that end, I would do whatever it took to keep the promise I made to my mother as a teen, that no one should have to suffer as we did because of an illness.
I woke the next morning with clear resolve and dressed in a crisp red, white, and blue plaid linen shirt, tan slacks, and loafers. Casual, yet American. For the first time in my life I knew I was wearing the perfect outfit. I studied myself briefly in the chipped bathroom mirror, adjusting my collar and hoping the congressman’s daughter was into preppy, clean-cut guys. I assumed she would be, given her boarding school education, but there was always the chance she would roll the other way, favoring bad-boys instead.
I doubted I could pull off Danny Zuko, even if I tried, so I hoped she might be attracted to momma’s boys instead. Just in case, I disheveled the front of my hair a bit before leaving the bathroom, and then began searching for my phone.
Thanks to several photographs in the online edition of the Virginia Spotlight, I knew Dustin Vorhees had not only attended the Independence Day celebration in the year of the election, but had spent time carousing with the congressman himself. Vorhees had been a senior during my freshman year at college and was my incoming orientation leader during my first week on campus. He showed us where our classrooms were and how to register at the library, but mostly he spent the majority of our time together pointing out the best places to find hot girls and buy beer. He was just the sort of guy who wouldn’t mind getting me into a party, as long as he remembered who I was.
I had no trouble tracking down his number, and forced myself to dial quickly just in case my nerves suddenly got the better of me.
Vorhees answered on the third ring.
“This is Dustin,” he said brightly, as if he welcomed the disruption from whatever he was doing.
“Uh, hey Dustin, this is Phil Johnson. I’m sorry to call you like this out of the blue, but we went to college together a few years ago and you were my orientation leader in the beginning of your senior year.”
He interrupted me before I could go on. “Oh yeah, man! I remember you. You came out to Senora’s with us a couple times, and now you’re running for something, aren’t you? Commissioner or something? I’ve seen your campaign posters on the side of the road.”
“Uh, yeah, I’m running for city council actually,” I corrected him, relieved that he remembered who I was.
“That’s super, man. Congrats on that. What can I do for you?”
I took a sharp breath in through my nose and held it in my lungs for just a moment. “Actually, I was wondering if you were going to the Weddington estate this afternoon for their annual party?”
“It’s funny you should bring that up because I was planning on heading out there to see the old coot,” Vorhees chuckled to himself. “Why? Are you going?”
I quickly brought to mind the little speech I’d prepared prior to my trip. “I was thinking about it,” I said. “I thought it might be a great opportunity to mingle with a few of the guys at the top of the food chain, and I saw online somewhere a while back that you two knew each other. I thought if you were going, maybe we could drive together.”
I waited for him to freak out and realize how ridiculous it was for one grown man to call another grown man he barely knew to ask about carpooling to a party. But he didn’t. “Yeah, man, that sounds great. I just got myself a sweet roadster last month so I can totally pick you up. Where are you?”
Vorhees and his girlfriend Jessica met me on Stuart Avenue, where I was sitting on the stoop of a grand shot-gun style row home from the early 1900’s. Of course, it wasn’t my home. It wasn’t even my neighborhood, but the ten block walk was a small price to pay for keeping my own living conditions under wraps.
I made small talk with the couple on the drive through the countryside to the congressman’s estate, listening to the story of their whirlwind courtship and subsequent engagement which sounded to me like the work of the brothers Grimm. While they prattled with one another in the front seat over the party’s possible menu selections, I adjusted my knees into a slightly more comfortable position in the car’s tiny back seat and thought of my mother. She would have loved to have been invited to such a grand celebration.
Someday, when I’m a Senator, I thought to myself as I gazed at the farmland zipping past, I’ll be the one throwing the parties and Mom will dine on foods she can’t pronounce from places I’ll send her to visit.
The party itself did not disappoint, with its opulent locale and tuxedoed servers bearing silver trays of petite h'ordervres, but it wasn’t until later in the evening, when the mild night air began drawing partygoers outside to the large backyard veranda, that I finally saw who I’d been waiting for.
Across the terrace, leaning against the balustrade and gazing across the grounds toward the darkening tree line of the forest, was Weddington’s only daughter. The online photographs I’d discovered during my research did not do her justice, and to say that she was beautiful was a great disservice to the loveliness of her features – her meticulously arched brow, her slight nose and chin which served only to frame the rosebud of her lips. The wind swept up, billowing the thin chiffon of her wrap, and for an instant, it was as if she was a butterfly about to take off into the twilight.
Seeing her now, as a person and not just part of a plan, I sensed that spending four months getting to know her was going to be far easier than I’d expected. In fact, if I paid any attention to the anticipation fluttering around in my chest, I would have to admit it was probably going to be one of the most pleasant experiences of my life.
Leaving her behind at the end of my trip, I realized immediately, would be another thing altogether.
I scanned the veranda for Vorhees and spotted him engrossed in conversation with two middle-aged men as well as the congressman himself, exactly as they’d been in the online photograph in the present. I made a beeline in their direction and sidled up beside him.
“Ah! There you are, Phil!” he exclaimed. “Have you met Representative Lars Michaelson from Vermont and Representative Carlos Rivera from Arizona?” he asked, gesturing to the men who immediately extended their hands in greeting.
“I don’t believe I have,” I remarked, shaking their hands firmly. “I’m Phillip Johnson. It’s so nice to meet you both.”
“I don’t believe we’ve met either,” Weddington announced, stepping forward to shake my hand as well. “You’re not on Capitol Hill already, are you? You seem a little young.”
“No, sir,” I said, feeling decidedly less confident about my plan now that I was finally meeting him face to face. He was far more intimidating in person than I’d imagined, and I had trouble forcing myself to speak. After hazarding a glance at his daughter, who remained a solitary silhouette against the darkening sky, despite the bevy of partygoers mingling nearby, I was finally able to continue. “I live in Richmond,” I told him.
“Not far from me,” Vorhees interjected. “He’s actually running for city council this fall, aren’t you, Phil?”
Vorhees was proving to be the best wingman I could have hoped for, giving me the opening I needed to discuss my campaign with Weddington himself. After several minutes of back and forth about my platform and strategies, I could tell he approved of my agenda. I couldn’t believe my luck when he motioned one of the servers over and instructed him to invite his daughter to join us.
And then she was there, just inches from me, inhabiting the space Rivera had occupied only moments before. Heat rose to her face as the introductions were made, and she smiled at me from beneath lowered lashes. I was surprised by her demure demeanor as there had been nothing online to indicate that she would be anything but fiercely confident.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I
told her at once.
“You too,” she replied, finally raising her face to meet my gaze. What I saw in her eyes surprised me. A quiet desperation. A longing. Was it a general desire to be included or was there something else there? Perhaps the desire I detected came as a response to my presence.
If that was the case, securing her father’s endorsement was already as good as done.
As the final explosion erupted in the eastern sky, we watched the wind carry off the impression of the blast, and the Weddingtons’ annual fireworks display was over.
“Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday,” she whispered up at me as if speaking aloud would somehow disturb the magic of what had just transpired. “And it’s not because I’m particularly patriotic, which of course I should be, given my father’s position. I just always loved riding in the backseat of a convertible with him when I was a child, in little towns around the state each year, looking into the sun-kissed faces of all those other children who I knew were wondering what it would be like to be a part of the parade instead of merely a spectator.” She paused then and sighed deeply, and I thought for a moment she was going to rest her head on my chest. “But the fireworks… they’ve always been the best part.” She stopped, as though she wanted to go on but thought better of it. “Did you like the fireworks when you were a kid?” she asked.
I tried to remember the last display my mom had taken me to see. It was in middle school down at the waterfront with some of the other families on the street. With so much life between then and now, I had trouble recalling many of the details.
“I did,” I told her at last. “I liked the booms the best.”
She tilted her head slightly so she could see properly into my face. “Me too,” she said. “The ones that are so loud they reverberate in your chest and in your head. That make you feel like the firework is actually going off inside you. It really makes you feel… alive.”