by Gaby Triana
A lightning bolt shoots out of the sky and splits me in two as I stand there looking at him. At least it feels that way. Nineteen eighty-two? As in 19 . . . 82?
As in my mom and dad were . . . fifteen and sixteen?
Slowly, a smile spreads across my face. I laugh. This is great. This is just friggin’ fantastic! I’m just going to enjoy this until I wake up, and then I’m going to write it all down as the awesomest, most vivid, wacky-packy dream I have ever had in my entire life. “No, that’s all, thank you.”
“You’re very welcome. Have a magical stay here in Walt Disney World!” Jason smiles politely, then proceeds to make his way behind the help counter at the rental shop.
“Thank you!” I call out, watching him assist the next customer, a mom with a striped shirt tucked into white, elastic-banded shorts, and her little girl with pleated barrettes in her hair, carrying a Strawberry Shortcake doll. The girl has on light blue shoes that look like they’re made of jelly, and I so want a pair!
I love this dream!
But there’s only one way to know if it really is or not. I turn back around, open up my camera app, and start snapping off picture after picture of the famous River Country. The green lagoon ahead of me; the quiet beach area to my right, next to all the cypresses I swam through; and the blue pool to my left, where people are plunging down two slides that drop them about six feet above the water level. Those had vines all over them just yesterday, or whenever it was that I last saw them. If it’s all still on my phone when I wake up, then I wasn’t dreaming.
I smile and take in the sights and sounds. Even the smells of suntan lotion and BBQ cooking from somewhere nearby. I can’t send these photos until I have a signal, but at least I have them. And just to ensure that Dina, Rudy, and Marcus don’t think I stole these off the Internet, I turn around and snap off a few selfies with the water park in the background as well.
Say River Country!
“I see you’re feeling better,” someone says. Shielding my eyes, I find the source of the voice lying on a long towel on a lounge chair in a really cute red bikini. “I was over there when they pulled you out of the water. It was a bit scary, I gotta say. Glad you’re okay, though.”
She sort of looks like Dina in that sandy-blond-hair way, but a tad older and with feathered hair. She opens a little door in her music player, flips a cassette tape around, closes it, and presses down the play button. Then she puts big foamy headphones over her ears and closes her eyes against the sun. I take a quick pic of her, too.
I sit in the grass bordering the sandy tanning area. Think, Haley. What do you do? A good plan would be to Google symptoms of seizures again. Back when I had my first one in March, I read somewhere that people sometimes experience time-travel hallucinations during one. This could be one. Yet it’s all so real. These chairs, that loglike garbage can right over there, that water tower that says RIVER COUNTRY, the people having a good time. How can any of this be a dream? But I can’t research anything, because according to Jason, it’s 1982, so there’re no computers, that I know of, much less Google.
Next plan . . .
I watch Jason inside the rental booth. Look at him. He’s already forgotten about me as he hands out tickets and towels. Given a different haircut and a better pair of shorts, that dude would make the perfect summer fling in real time. He’s sweet, even though I exasperated the heck out of him. But there’s no point in flinging with him, because I have to find my way out of this hallucinogenic episode of Doctor Who.
But how do I do that? Find my way back home?
Jason catches me staring at him. Embarrassed, I look away. A moment later my gaze finds its way to him again. He’s writing something on a clipboard. He turns it around, and I’m a little surprised when I see that it’s for me. In permanent marker, he wrote: “Medics on their way. Wait there.” Is that how they did it before texting? How cute!
I nod, but the thing is, I can’t wait for the medics. How will I explain where I came from?
“He’s a bit the loner type, but cute,” Red Bikini Girl says. She taps her feet to the music. “I’m partial to Jake, his older brother, but Jason’s nineteen. Perfect for you.”
“Oh, I don’t really . . .” Whoa. Nineteen? Nice.
“Honey, girls have been swooning left and right since he started working here last month, yet he hasn’t dated a single one of them. You’ve gotten the most attention out of any girl here. That makes you the pick of the litter.”
What makes her think he’d want to date me? He can hardly stand me!
A second later a guy appears next to us, oiled and shiny, brandishing two big cups of soda—one for her, one for himself. He looks a little young for her, judging from his skinny body type, if I could only get a look at his face.
She looks up, surprised, and takes the drinks. “Oh, thanks, Oscar. You didn’t have to do that.”
Oscar? Funny, that’s my dad’s name.
“This is my friend, uh . . .” Bikini Girl waits for me to give her my name.
“Haley.”
“Oscar, this is Haley.”
The guy sits on the lounge chair next to her, and . . . no . . . way. I see the familiar, sunny-eyed smile I’ve known all my life, minus thirty pounds, the gray hair, and, apparently, the ability to recognize me. You have got to be kidding me!
Deep breaths, Haley.
Dad? Paternal parental? No way! No friggin’ way!
Immediately, I feel like he’s going to yell at me for not answering his texts. My instinct is to turn around and run. But then I remember—1982. My dad has never even seen me before! He can’t possibly know who I am.
“Hey, Haley. Nice to meet you.” As soon as I hear his voice, his identity is confirmed. Oh my God, Dad! He smiles a smile I adore, have always adored, and does a little what’s up nod.
Someone taps my shoulder lightly. “Miss, are you the one needing medical attention?” Which is great, because staring at my dad as a teen right here in front of me, I just about have another seizure.
six
I look at the Disney paramedic with his white shorts, white shirt, and first aid kit. “Yeah, give me just a minute, will ya?” I turn back to my dad and wave cautiously. “Hi there.”
He looks at me oddly. I can’t say I blame him. I’m a stranger who should be going off with the paramedic instead of lingering around staring at him.
Apparently, Bikini Girl feels the need to explain. “Haley was feeling a bit sick over there at the lagoon, but Jake and Jason pulled her out.” She takes a sip of her drink.
“Oh, I get it.” My dad nods politely, but with a look that suggests I need to get a move on. One, because there’s a paramedic waiting patiently for me, and two, because I’m probably messing up his game with hot, older chick here. “You’re still looking a little pale, though. Maybe you should get a drink too. You want me to get you one?”
“That’s very nice of you, but I’m good. I was on my way out anyway. Thanks.” I turn to the paramedic. “I’ll be fine. I don’t really need—”
“You know, you look a lot like my cousin,” my dad tells me suddenly, squinting up at me. “Where are you from?”
I can’t tell him Jupiter. My family has lived in Jupiter all our lives. It would raise a red flag. “Uh . . . Atlanta.” It’s the first thing that falls out of my mouth. If Dad is here, Anma and Ampa must be here too.
“Where in Atlanta?” And even though, technically, I’m a year older than him, I feel obligated to answer his interrogation. But this is enough. I’ve absorbed too much for one half hour. I need to get away for a bit and rest my brain. Plus I need shoes.
“Peachtree Street.” Or something. “Well . . . great to meet you . . . Oscar . . .” I back away slowly. I just called my dad Oscar. “And, uh, I’m not sure I got your name,” I say, looking at Bikini Girl.
“Marsha.”
“M
arsha, Oscar . . .” I back into a trash can, making a super-loud crashing sound, and they look at each other, trying to suppress their laughs. I need to exit . . . now. “I’ll see you guys later?”
“For sure. We’re always around. Just look for us here or on the beach.”
“I will do that!” I’m practically yelling.
Wow . . . wow! My dad! In 1982? Right where he said he always spent all his summers! And he was getting his game on with a girl who seemed older than me! How unfatherly, not to mention awkward. Quickly, I turn around and realize I forgot all about the dude in the white shorts and white shirt waiting for me. “Ready? Right this way, ma’am.”
Breathe, breathe, Haley.
If my dad is here, could my mom be too? They met in Fort Wilderness, and supposedly Mom’s family and Dad’s family would stay in the same loop every year. I don’t know what to make of all this. I’m pretty sure I’m going to wake up any moment, and everything will be back to normal. Except I will never be normal after this.
“Where are we going?” I ask the paramedic, stopping for a moment to slip on a pair of brown flip-flops belonging to someone else who must have stepped away from her chair.
“Just over to the clinic. We’ll check you out, contact your party, make sure you’re all right.” He’s very bouncy when he walks, like he’s got springs in his shoes. He leads me to a golf cart that’s bigger than the guest ones and motorized, I think. I get into the passenger seat, and he starts driving.
A few minutes later we arrive at a little cabin behind another cabin, and I feel like I need to lie down. Not because I feel sick. Just overwhelmed. Nineteen eighty-two? That’s thirty-two years ago.
“My name is Ed, by the way.”
“Hey, Ed, I’m Haley.”
“Like the comet? That’s a unique name. Nice to meet you, Haley.” He opens the cabin door for me. Inside, it’s nice and cold. There’s an AC unit rattling in the corner of the room. “Go ahead through that other door right there and lie down on the cot. Nurse Thomas will be with you in a moment.”
“Thanks,” I say, finding my way over to a cot covered in white butcher paper. I lie down on the crinkly bed. I shouldn’t be here. They’re going to ask me a bunch of questions I’m not going to be able to answer. I don’t know where my parents are; I don’t know where I’m staying, nor how I got here. They’re just going to chalk it up to epilepsy disorientation and hold me until they can find my parents.
Which they won’t.
So I never should’ve come here.
Nurse Thomas, I suppose, walks in, closes the door, and smiles. She’s an older woman, and she’s wearing a white dress with white shoes like in the old days. Well, that makes sense. “Hi, Haley. What brings you to us today?”
“I . . . uh . . . think I had a seizure. I mean, I’ve had one only once before, but I really feel fine now. I don’t think I need to be here.”
She reaches over and touches my forehead. “When was your last episode?”
“March. I’m just tired.”
Then she pulls a thin glass tube out of a standing red container, wipes it clean, then shakes it several times. She turns to me. “Open.”
I open my mouth, and she places it underneath my tongue. It smells of rubbing alcohol. “Close.” I wait there with this glass thermometer, I guess, in my mouth for what I swear seems like five minutes. It never beeps, and I’m starting to think I have a fever of 125 degrees, it takes so long. Finally, she takes it out, examines it, and shrugs. “Ninety-eight. You’re fine.”
You mean I waited all that time for a normal reading?
“So tell me, dear, what were you doing before you passed out?” she asks, a polite smile across her face. I don’t know why I’m intimidated by her. Maybe because she’s wearing light blue eye shadow all over her lids.
“I was just swimming.” Yes, it’s a lie, but I can’t quite tell her I was trespassing on abandoned, private territory.
“Did you feel light-headed or get the sense of déjà vu?”
All the standard seizure questions my doctors asked me. “Yes.”
“Okay, well, go ahead and rest while we try to find your parents. Any idea where they might be? River Country, still, I would imagine?”
Time to lie, Haley. “Yes. Well, actually, my mom returned to the cabin to get my medication. She said she’ll be right here.”
“Cabin? You mean trailer.”
“Yes, trailer.”
“Oh.” Nurse Thomas looks pleased that she won’t have as much work to do as she thought. “Okay, well, that certainly makes things easier. What medication are you on?”
“I don’t remember.” It’s Tegretol, but I want her to go away. I throw my arm over my forehead. “I’m just tired.”
“Of course, dear. Just lie there and relax. I’ll be right outside the room if you need me.” She smiles, and I can tell she might have been pretty once. My leg is bouncing like crazy. I look around the room. There’re two windows flanked with brown wilderness-print curtains; a few framed pictures of Mickey Mouse dressed as Davy Crockett, holding a rifle; a brown cabinet; and a watercooler with paper cups.
There’s also a door to the outside with a dead bolt. Note to self.
I reach over, pull down a paper cup, and fill it with the best water I have ever drunk in my life. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was, with all that’s going on. I fill the cup three more times. I may need to employ the services of that door, even though it’s probably locked. I can’t stay here. My fake mother is never coming to bring me fake medicine. They’re not going to find records of my family here.
I need to leave.
In the other room, I hear the medic and the nurse talking quietly. “They said she appeared out of nowhere. Nobody saw her slide down the slide. I know, it is strange.”
“It’s odd that her mother wouldn’t bring her in, don’t you think?”
Yes, I agree it’s all very strange. I understand it even less than they do.
Nurse Thomas pokes her head into the room. “Haley, are you staying at Fort Wilderness, or were you just visiting River Country for the day?”
Hmm, I didn’t know you could visit River Country for the day. I wonder if that would absolve me of having to explain what trailer I should be registered to. “We were just visiting family that’s staying here.” Wow, this lie is getting bigger and bigger, I’d say.
“I see. Would you happen to know whose name the registration might be under?”
“Petersen?” I mean, if my dad is here, he’s probably with Anma and Ampa, but holy cow, I shouldn’t have said that. What if they call my grandfather to come and identify me? He wouldn’t know me from any other stowaway roaming around the campgrounds.
“Petersen,” she repeats, and I think I hear the medic punching in numbers on a desk phone.
No, I can’t stay here. “Where’s the bathroom?” I ask. If I can’t escape through a bathroom window, I’ll just fake her into thinking I’m in the bathroom, then try that outside door and hope it’s unlocked. Where would I even go? Ugh, I am the worst escape artist ever.
“It’s right back there, dear, across from the closet.”
“Okay, thank you,” I call out. I head back there to check it out, but a few seconds later I hear a knock on the examining room door, even though it’s open. I turn my head and see Jason looking into the room.
“Hi there,” he says, all tanned and summery.
“Hey.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah, yeah . . . come on in.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m good, I’m good.” I come back and sit down on the cot. “Listen,” I whisper, “I really don’t need to be here. I think I’m just going to leave. I really am feeling fine. Seriously, this happens all the time. Do you think you could tell her that you found my parents outside, and that I don
’t need to stay here?”
He seems to have forgotten his Disney responsibilities and is listening to me like any other friend of mine. Which is what I need. “I could, but are your parents really here?”
“No, but . . .” He’s nineteen. I’m sure he understands what it’s like getting in trouble. “Look, my dad would get really mad if he knew I was sliding down a slide when I’m not supposed to, so I don’t want them to know about this.”
His face reflects his confliction. “Okay, let me see what I can do.” He gets up, but turns to me and whispers, “If we don’t talk again now, look for me outside the pizza parlor at Pioneer Hall.”
“Why wouldn’t we talk again now?” I ask, but he is already out of the room, nearly closing the door behind him. “When do I meet you?”
He doesn’t answer. Ugh, and he can’t text me!
In the reception room, I hear him talking to Nurse Thomas, but I can’t tell what they’re talking about with the door almost completely closed. Then the door is cracked open, and Jason’s hand appears. He throws me something that lands on the butcher paper and gleams gold.
A key.
To the door! Right!
I shoot off the bench over to the exterior door, sliding the key into the keyhole. As quietly as humanly possible, while Jason talks Nurse Thomas’s ear off, I turn the key and unlock the door. I hear Jason talking louder at that moment. He even pops his head in, as if checking on me, saying, “Oh, no, she’s sleeping. Yeah, she’s dead asleep. Best if we leave her alone.”
I almost laugh out loud, but it gives me just the time I need to place the key on the cabinet and slip out the door. As soon as I’m out in the sunshine again, I breathe a huge sigh of relief, until I see—guess who?—my grandfather, Ampa, younger and really handsome, walking toward the cabin escorted by a Disney cast member. He’s coming to see the girl claiming to be staying with the Petersen family.
Holy crap, I am out! I run in the direction of Pioneer Hall. There’s a crowd of people hanging out on the veranda, kicking back in rocking chairs, and I throw myself into the middle of them, where I hope I can blend in better. That was close. Will they come looking for me? Hopefully, they’ll just chalk it up to a girl who didn’t want to be there. I sit here, people watching while I wait for Jason. It’s hard to appreciate the thirty-year difference around me when Pioneer Hall looks pretty much the same now as it does in the future. It was designed to look like the eighteen hundreds, so it’s all sort of timeless.