by Amy Saia
When I’d completed the last sketch, I put it on his desk and then walked away. A minute later, there was an unsmoked cigarette in my palm with a “thank you” of red ink written on it, followed by, “MAX.” “You’re welcome,” I said with a smile, placing the cigarette in the front pocket of Jesse’s black leather jacket. “I’ll keep it forever.”
“Please do. I might need it if this contest falls apart.”
I wanted to say, “Don’t worry, Max.” But I didn’t want to jinx it. If it were only me, winning the contest wouldn’t be a big deal. I had other things to worry about. But for him, it was the whole world. His baby. His life. No pressure, he kept saying.
The first week of December, we mounted the drawings to black cardboard with adhesive spray. We filled out a form for each with a title, story of inspiration, and what media we’d used, then he made me type up a bio on his office typewriter. I had to fib a little, leave out the part about Springvale and how I’d escaped a soul-stealing cult. He said what I’d written was boring and decided to add a few little details of his own about my supposed life growing up in Paris and then New York. How I’d been a runaway until he found me hanging around the college and took me in, teaching me everything I knew.
“I always wanted a protégé,” he said, sitting back to read.
December fifth was a Friday. I’d been telling William about it all week, adding for him to make sure and wear a tie, to not be late, and how there would be a little get-together afterwards. Like a cocktail party. He liked those.
“Friday, December fifth, got it,” he’d say, finger in the air to mark an invisible box.
I wore my best dress, a blue satin with a V-neck and spaghetti straps. I even splurged on a brand new pair of gold pumps. And to top the whole outfit off, I wore Jesse’s jacket. I figured it wouldn’t be right to be there without him, and anyway, it helped distract from the way my abdomen had begun to push out like a little round hill.
Max dressed up, too. No army jacket, no blue jeans. He wore slacks and a button-down, long-sleeved dress shirt and tie. He even combed his hair.
“You look nice,” I said when I saw him walk into the college meeting room-turned art gallery.
“So do you.” His eyes swept over me in rapt appraisal, then, “Where’s that jerk husband of yours?”
“Coming,” I said, scanning my watch. I stepped back a few inches to get a better view of the entire display. My work, among a few other students from Penn Peak and colleges in nearby towns, hung mid-wall with little spotlights shining down for affect. Jesse was stunning. No matter where you walked, those rebellious eyes stared you down with every step. You couldn’t escape it, or the way his lips twisted up in a familiar smile. Max came to put an arm around my shoulders. “You did good, Bennett. Real good. If you don’t win this damn thing, I’ll set fire to Penn Peak, and we can both hitch a ride to Vegas, okay?”
“Okay.” I was so glad Max was there to comfort me. Artist to artist, he knew how much it meant to see my work up there, and how hard it had been to create every single headache-producing line.
But I needed William, too. I wanted him to see what I had done, to tell me how proud he was. And then afterwards, I would tell him he was going to be a father. He and I, the two kids who had escaped from Springvale only a year ago, had created a life. Beautiful life.
Max placed a glass of fruit punch in my hands and then meandered the room, making small talk with anyone who’d come out to view the show. I heard him say my name repeatedly, and I blushed every time. Later, we stood in the shadows while the judges inspected each piece in a slow manner. He kept eyeing my front pocket because the cigarette was there, and I kept eyeing my watch. William still hadn’t shown.
When they announced my name, said I’d won, I stood back in shock. Max threw his arms up in the air, and then grabbed me for a big, swirling hug. “We did it, we did it!”
I smiled. I cried.
Half an hour later, when the room had cleared and Max and I had schmoozed all the judges, I gave one final check of the time and knew he would never show. Max cracked his knuckles in anger. “That bastard. I’ll kill him if he shows up now. You want me to, Bennett? I’ll do it, honest-to-God.”
“No, Max, I don’t want that. He just forgot, that’s all.”
“Forgot?” Max shook his head. “A good husband don’t forget his wife’s finest moment. I wouldn’t.” He gave me a once-over, then raised a brow. “And here you are, ready to give it all up to have his child.”
I stammered like a dry fish.
His eyes softened. “I knew it. Didn’t have to tell me, but you could have. Poor, young thing.” He touched my face with a gentle caress. “Give him the good news yet?”
Heat spread all over my body. And sadness. “I was going to, tonight. And now . . . I’m not sure what to do.”
¤ ¤ ¤
We pulled up to the house in Max’s coughing Volkswagen van, snow sifting slowly past the rattling windows. A blizzard was coming. The station humming away on his dashboard radio reported weather warnings in between the sixties pop music he loved so much. “Sure you don’t want me to go in there and kill him for ya?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I leaned across to give Max a kiss on the cheek and saw him glance away with a sadness I couldn’t understand.
“Your work looked good up there. I want you to do a million more shows, baby or not. Husband or not. I’ll help you, hell, I’ll . . . I’ll stay around if I have to. You hear?”
“Yeah. And that’s real sweet of you.”
His fingers tapped on the steering wheel. “I love you, Bennett. No one’s ever given themselves to me before like you have, no sex or anything, just pure heart. You worked real hard to help me out and I can’t thank you enough.”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed for an eternity. Finally, I broke away and threw my arms around him. “Oh Max! You softie! I love you too.” We laughed and hugged each other, rocking back and forth.
“Hey now, let’s not crush that cigarette.”
I patted its sacred location and gave one last lingering hug of gratitude. “See you on Monday, Max. Drive safe.”
On the porch, I shivered and watched as he drove away. The Volkswagen’s taillights faded into a swirl of white flakes. My feet were like ice blocks in the stupid gold pumps, and I couldn’t wait to get inside and warm my toes by the radiator. I had no idea what I was going to say to William, but tonight he would find out about the pregnancy. He could forget about me, and the art show, but fatherhood was something he would have to face.
I opened the door to a pitch-black living room. The kitchen held a soft glow from the light above the sink, but this alone made no indication of life, as neither of us ever turned it off. I removed my jacket and stuck it on our rickety old coat hanger, then dropped a gold pump from each foot. They clattered to the floor, and then all was quiet. “Will?” My voice echoed through the house with no response. “Are you home?”
His coat was gone, as was his fedora. The boots gone, too. The car was in the driveway. But surely he wouldn’t have walked in the blizzard? I’d gone to school in my sneakers earlier, when it was still mild enough to do so, but anyone walking at this hour would become frozen in an instant.
I called his name before heading upstairs. The hallway was dark, but a light beamed out from under the door. A turn of the knob, and the door yielded against my prodding hand.
Inside it was warm; it smelled of his scent, but he wasn’t there. Many weeks had passed since I’d last visited the room, and I felt a shock upon seeing all the new items he’d accumulated: more radios, trinkets, piles of magazines, shoes, a cane, books, food tins, and glass Coca-Cola bottles. I picked up an antique canister of Ovaltine and opened its lid. The contents were half used. Why would he spend his money on something so stupid? I placed it back on the desk. A mug sat ne
xt to it with remnants of the chocolate powdery drink inside. It smelled fresh. The mug was still warm.
I dropped into his chair and swiveled around. A paper sat half-typed in the old hammer-key typewriter, but I had vowed never to read his work unless he asked me to. So far, I’d never been asked. It was a little insulting. But I wouldn’t do it. I turned away.
A Life magazine stared at me. Marked 1956, it was perfect, with a front cover so glossy and void of flaws I had to lean in to make sure it wasn’t a fake. The paper wasn’t dingy, or yellowed, and it didn’t crinkle against my fingers. I opened the cover and read a color advertisement for Lark cigarettes. A very tanned man in his forties leaned back with a red packet in his hands and one cigarette sticking out in seduction.
Flipping through, I saw more advertisements; mostly black and white with descriptions of how each product would make one’s life easier to live. In between this was the current news, opinions, politics, slice-of-life stories, and large spreads on the arts and humanities of the day. Before closing, I caught a story headline on the inner last page and felt my breath shut down.
More Adventures in Time Travel, by W. J. Bennett. It even had his picture, a black and white of him wearing the familiar fedora and tweed coat. My fingers crushed into the magazine, which had the effect of ripping a few pages out of their staples, then I threw it across the room with a strangled cry. I opened another Life, an issue released a few months earlier, and found in the back a similar article, titled “Theories on Time Travel.” Again, a picture had been included, this time before he’d grown his beard.
“Damn you, William!” I curled up and cried. Lies, lies. And all the while I was here in the present day working hard, taking care of him, and going to a cold doctor’s office alone because somehow I knew he wouldn’t really be able to handle the truth.
It dawned on me William was in the past now. His warm cup of Ovaltine and the little clocks and items were foreplay to his departure. I’d reminded him all week of the contest, and yet he’d succumbed to his own need—a kind much worse to me than cheating.
I picked up the magazine and bitterly scanned through the article. Maybe I could find out where he was so when he lied I could tell him I knew everything. I had been stupid for this long, but not forever. I would arm myself with information and then hurl it at him like a hatchet. With my index finger, I scanned over each line. My unique gift of perception allowed me glimpses of a future world, one not unlike our own. I used only my mind, no instruments or fancy machines such as Orwell’s great contraption. Those would only get in the way. I believed the only kind of time travel which existed, existed inside our own consciousness, and as such could only be left as an anecdotal event. God, he was a pompous ass. I continued reading. It wasn’t much more than how he did what he did, which I already knew, and what he thought of the modern world. According to this article, he found us modern folks wild, out-of-control, and lacking morals, but lovable nonetheless. I supposed I could be included among the lovable, but at the moment I felt more like one of the out-of-control.
I reached the end of the article and saw something which had the effect of clenching my heart up like a knotted rope. “My next travel will be undertaken with a female partner, a Ms. Betty Jacomber, who also specializes in the mental capacity for quantitative time travel. She has much to say about this subject, and I look forward to our journey.”
I threw the magazine across the room to join the other. So, he was cheating on me, not only with time, but with her.
I would leave and never look back. Call Max and tell him to pick me up again. If William wanted her and all of this, then he could have it. I’d tried, honest-to-God, to make him fit in, to help him adapt, but apparently he saw me as a tool for his observations, and nothing else.
I left the chair and walked to the door. It hurt. It hurt so much. Everything I knew as normal was now gone, and I had barely understood normal to begin with. I reached for the handle and gave it a slow twist, but it was too much. I rested my head on the door for a moment before leaving.
I heard the sound of coughing behind me and felt a cold rush of air sweep through the room. Electricity prickled my spine.
What I saw sent me running to his feet. William was choking, eyes rolled back, hands grasping at the chair’s arm rests. Snowflakes covered his fedora and jacket, but I didn’t have to rush downstairs to see if there were footprints in the drive. The flakes were decades old, probably void of trace chemicals and soot. William grabbed for me, but I felt useless sitting there, unable to find a way to put breath into his lungs and words in his mouth.
“What is it? What can I do?”
Gasps came in horrible shrieks. They slowed and hit a good rhythm before fading away. He sat there swallowing air, chest moving up and down like hurricane waves. “Hand me the cup,” he gasped, and I turned to the desk to grab it. When he saw it was near empty, he motioned for me to run down the hall. “Fill it up with hot water, quick, Emma!”
I jumped to my feet, backed away for a second, and then raced to the bathroom. The stupid water heater always took forever, especially when it was so cold outside. Finally it rushed out warm enough to steam, and I filled the cup and raced back to William, spilling precious dollops all the way through the hall.
I watched as he dumped a few scoops of Ovaltine inside, stirred, then swallowed the entire contents in one long gulp. “The iron helps.” His breath still came under difficulty. “I get very weak afterwards, and there’s a lot of iron in Ovaltine.”
His eyes flashed up at mine, and there was remorse.
I had to turn away. He appeared pale, sick. His eyes were glazed and dead. It wasn’t the William I loved. Not the man whose child I’d been carrying for almost four months. It was a man who’d betrayed me. All for the sake of time.
Chapter 6
William rose from the chair, but I put up a hand of warning. If he came near me, I’d go crazy. I’d hit and scream and rip at his jacket. He didn’t want any wild modern stuff on him, right?
“What can I say? I did it for you.”
My mouth dropped open. “For me? You did it for me? Are you joking?”
“You couldn’t possibly see the whole picture, but please understand there are reasons for what I’ve done. Reasons which directly affect your well-being.”
“Shut up! Don’t tell me why or make it sound okay. I don’t care.” I smacked at the door, then stood in silence for a long time. Damn tears. “I had something to tell you tonight at the show, but you weren’t there.”
“The show . . .” he sounded remorseful, yet lost in trying to remember which show, and where, and what time, and what decade. “Oh yes, your art show. Forgive me, Emma.”
I nodded, still unable to look at him. He was a liar and a betrayer, the worst kind. I opened the door and left the room, heading for the stairs. He soon followed. His steps echoed mine to the landing. I made a turn for the kitchen. Despite it all, I was starving and there was a baby inside me to feed.
I yanked the refrigerator door open and pulled out a plate of cold chicken. At first I had hated meat, but now I craved it. Once the horrible nausea had eased off, I could eat almost anything, but only small portions at a time. Too much caused heartburn, enough provided a subtle relief to the hunger which never seemed to end. I heard William step into the doorway.
“Have you noticed me eating more? Hmm? Have I worn my old jeans lately? Maybe you haven’t noticed. You’ve been a little busy.” I took a large bite of chicken leg. Sometimes it felt like I’d bite off my own tongue if I didn’t eat fast enough. What was it going to be like months from now? I’d be a horse, chewing away hour after hour and getting fatter and fatter. Maybe it would be best if William weren’t around. He could stay in his beloved past and I could get fat alone.
Swallowing, I took a drink of water and then chomped down again. Tears ran down my fac
e; I knew I looked horrible. “Figure it out yet?” Holding up the chicken, I modeled the satin dress for him, making sure to provide a generous profile view. His eyes took in every inch. At last they settled on my middle. They grew wide and blinked. “Are you telling me—?”
I swallowed more chicken. “Not that it matters. Why don’t you go call her up? Tell her the happy news.”
William stammered in place. His hand lifted to rub at his chin while he thought. “Do you mean Betty?”
“Yes, Betty.” I hated saying her name. I threw the stripped chicken bone in the trash before taking another gulp of water. “I can’t figure out what upsets me more—you taking these trips, or you doing it with her. Who is she? Just your English teacher, for God’s sake! So I wouldn’t go, well, why did you have to ask her to come along?” It felt like I was really going to choke on my tears, so I drank more of the water to swallow them down.
William came to my side and took the water out of my hands. He tried to get me to meet his eyes, but I kept moving out of range. “Please, Emma. Look at me. How long have you known about the pregnancy?” I couldn’t help but notice the twinkle in his eye upon saying the word.
“For a while now.”
He removed his hat. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“You were never here to tell.”
William thought about it for a long time before giving a slow nod. “Will you let me explain why?”
“No.” I glanced at the phone and, grabbing the receiver off its lime green wall-mounted base, dialed “0” for information. Will tried to speak again, but I held a hand up. A woman’s voice came through the receiver. “Uh, yes, I need the number for a Mr. Maxwell Hershel, here in Penn Peak.”