by Amy Saia
“I still do.”
I sat down. We both stared at a blank screen with one blinking cursor. “You’re not doing anything.”
“Yes, I am. I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
Eyes still glued, William moved his head toward me to speak. “Something’s occurred to me about this thing.”
“And?”
William’s gaze finally broke away, and a pair of excited eyes met mine. “I’ve figured out time is a lot like this computer.” Geez, his face really beamed when he was onto something. “We enter data, it stores data. Data can be changed, edited, erased, all with a stroke of a key. Right?”
I nodded, then shrugged. “Right.”
“And so, time is the same way. It has a memory of its own. We do things, and it’s like entering data into this computer. Someone like me has the power to go back and retrieve the data and rearrange it, erase it, etc. Though, sometimes a malfunction can occur, and data can be lost.”
“Oh.” I kind of understood. He’d spelled it out to me in plain language, but still, hearing about time and data made my brain ache a little. Now I felt the same way William had when he’d been forced to enter all those book numbers. “So, we can go back, just like opening up a file here in the TRS-80, and use the information, or manipulate it as we see fit?”
“Yes, Emma. And it’s all laid out, so when one file is changed, the rest don’t have to change too.” He saw the confused expression on my face. “Ever hear of the butterfly effect? Someone goes back in time and kills a butterfly; the future is destroyed. In reality, time isn’t really like that. It has different files, separate texts for different eras, events, years, decades. It’s not all on one file. You see? We can go back and kill the butterfly, so to speak, without changing everything in the future. Just certain parts. The parts we choose.”
“And the butterfly is Marcus,” I said, hands clenching. I wanted to be the one to smack him down, to break his miserable wings the same way he’d broken Jesse’s.
“Yes. You could say that.” He kept staring at me. A slow grin spread across his face, happy I’d kept up with his theory.
“What about the malfunction?” I asked.
His grin faded. “Well that, that’s something I haven’t quite figured out yet. Files have a funny way of getting lost. I’m worried time can’t remember everything. I mean, I have a certain amount of power with the memories I’ve stored, but even then, there’s a danger.”
“Okay, I don’t want to hear about this part.” I shot up from the stool, hands in my jacket pockets. “Don’t try to scare me out of going, Will.”
“I’m not. Honest.”
“And we’re doing this tonight, remember? No excuses.”
“Tonight.”
“All right, then,” I said, sitting back down. “Tell me more about time and data, and this,” I patted it on its plastic cubed brain, “TRS-80. Because I’m still a little confused. But leave out the malfunction part, ’cause I don’t wanna know.”
¤ ¤ ¤
A few minutes after three a.m., we left the library and bundled ourselves against the arctic air which seemed to be making a permanent residence in Penn Peak. Last night’s snow had managed to turn campus into a brilliant landscape of white marshmallow drifts, but some of it had melted and left slippery patches underneath. William reached out to steady me when I nearly slipped on the path. I gave a laugh. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
He stared ahead. “Are you nervous about tonight?”
“No,” I answered, though it was a lie.
Our plans were as such: Go home, sleep all day, eat a quick dinner, and then get dressed in the clothes we’d picked out. Yes, that was the fun part. I’d been forced to read every LIFE and Look so I could learn the hairstyles, the language, the products, the world as it was in 1956—the year we were going back. We would enter Springvale before the Seekers’ cult had turned William into a ghost, before they’d killed his sister by running her over. It would be summer, not this brittle cold we shielded ourselves from with scarves and heavy coats.
I glanced over at him and smiled. “We’ll be warm, at least.”
He stopped in his tracks. “Emma, I’ve been thinking. There’s something you should understand, about me, in case something goes wrong. I’ve never told you because I thought I’d never need to, however—”
“Are you trying to scare me again?” I asked, cutting him off. “Because if you are, it’s not going to work. I am going. Tonight. End of story.”
“But, Emma—”
“No. Stop trying to frighten me out of this.” It was freezing, and the car was only a couple of feet away. “Are you done, then? This wind is evil.”
He sighed. “Yes, I’m done.”
“Good.”
We reached the car and rushed to get in. William dug in his pocket for the keys and inserted them into the Camaro’s ignition. There was no roar of an engine, no revving when he pressed the gas. “Well, what do you think about that? She’s dead.”
“She?”
He tried again and again. Nothing. “This is strange. I tuned her up myself, checked all the fluids, the belts. This car is practically new. Hold on a minute.” William leaned over to kiss my cold cheek with his own cold lips. His beard was nice and warm, though. “I’ll be right back.”
I watched as he stepped out to inspect the engine, lifting the hood with a swift motion and locking it in place. “This isn’t going to work,” I mumbled to myself. “I know what you’re doing, Will. You’re trying to scare me, throw me off somehow.” When he peered under the hood to smile, I smiled politely back, muttering through my teeth, “I’m not giving in.”
After a few minutes, he dropped the hood and resumed his place behind the wheel. A twist of the key, and the engine roared to life. “You can never be too sure of things, Emma. See how it started, but before it was completely dead? All I did was jiggle a couple of wires.”
“Yeah. Uh-huh.”
With a yank of gears sending us into reverse, we were headed out, snow crunching under the tires. “Doesn’t that idea scare you?”
“Nope.”
He grimaced, and I heard him say under his breath, “Dammit.”
¤ ¤ ¤
Mascara, yes. Lipstick, yes. Powder, yes. False eyelashes, no. Grabbing a rumpled copy of Harper’s Bazaar for the umpteenth time, I again read the step-by-step instructions on how to transform myself into Grace Kelly. I could have gone for Debbie Reynolds or Doris Day, or if I’d been in a really wild mood, Joan Crawford. But I thought Grace Kelly would be more my style. Hint: she was more of a natural girl.
I heard a sound outside the door and peeked over my shoulder to see William still pacing in the hall. “Go do something!” I yelled when his footsteps stalled. I applied a moderate coating of lipstick from Coty Cosmetics—“Smooth, easy to apply yet never smears!”—in a shade of red which had never gone out of production, then I blotted my lips with toilet paper and stood back to look. Not bad. Nothing I’d wear on a daily basis, but for a trip to the 1950s, sure.
I shot a hand up to loosen a foam curler from my hair. The article said to set while wet using a good dollop of Dippity-Do gel, wrap the hair backward, and allow to dry overnight. I’d only had a few hours, so I used the hairdryer to speed things up. With the removal of one curler, a long section of hair fell into my eyes like a golden S. Each one fell the same way. My thick hair was almost impossible to pin, but I had another article explaining how to do that as well. For the old-fashioned girl who still had the locks of her youth, five strategic bobby pins would do the trick. Five, painful, industrial strength bobby pins. Ouch. In ten minutes I had a chignon to make Grace Kelly scream with envy—or pain.
“Are you done yet?”
“No.” I used the pointy end of a comb to eas
e out a few extra-tight sections. There. Less pain. And it looked good, it really did. Next came the outfit, a light blue blouse and tan skirt with black patent leather belt right above the waist. A nice touch since, with the way the skirt spread slightly outward, no one could see my expanding abdomen.
A pair of black pumps and some darling little pearl earrings, and I was done.
But now I felt sick. My hands shook as I carefully reinserted every item of beauty into the vintage bag William had bought for me at his favorite second-hand store. Among the curlers and lipsticks was a girdle I couldn’t bear to put on. I stuffed it down even farther and placed over it the wallet full of vintage ten and twenty dollar bills I was to keep safe for both of us.
But this wasn’t what made my hands shake. It was William, standing outside, waiting. I knew how much it meant for him to see me dressed like this, in the fashion and style of his upbringing. I would never think of wearing these kinds of clothes, or to do my hair in a chignon. Never. I liked my fashion light and loose. Natural and earthy. I imagined he’d been waiting for this moment since the day we met.
What if I failed to match his ideal of 1950’s womanhood? The one he’d fantasized about, harped on, yearned for all these months?
I squared my shoulders and raised the tip of my chin. Right. It didn’t matter what he thought. I may appear vintage, but my thoughts would be modern woman. Not a weak, apron-wearing, in-the-kitchen Pollyanna. Nope. If he didn’t like it, then too bad. Too darn bad. He’d have to deal with the mess called me.
“Here we go,” I said to myself, opening the bathroom door. I was surprised to find the hall empty. Hadn’t he been out here only minutes ago, wearing a path into the carpet? Light from his office spread out in a long, angled glow of amber. I approached quietly, opening the door with a gentle hand. His back faced me when I stepped inside the room. He sat hand over typewriter, lost in a stilted train of thought.
“Ahem,” I said, standing before the desk with my hands clutched together at my waist, in kitten gloves, no less.
The chair turned toward me. William had shaved off his beard and put on his old getup of flannel shirt and blue jeans. His eyes took me in. My heart raced. Oh, I did care. I did! I wanted him to like me, love me, in this stupid old getup. If he didn’t, I’d be severely hurt.
William said nothing. He stood, eyes drinking in every inch of my body like I was a glass of water in a forlorn dessert. “My God, Emma,” he said at last. “It’s more than I imagined. You’re . . . you’re . . .”
The scene of Lauren Bacall from the movie The Maltese Falcon entered my head, and I sauntered across the room. “You like it?” I held up a hand and angled myself around.
“Like?” he said, walking toward me. Then he laughed a few times, shaking his head. “Like isn’t a proper word. You’re amazing. Really, really amazing.” He placed his hands on my shoulders, smiling. “More than I ever dreamed.”
A spark ran through our skin. A very painful one, but it was a good sign. His eyes lit up, met mine again. “It’s time.”
We broke apart. William gathered his things: a pocket watch, an old jacket, jeans and shirts. I watched as he carefully placed those inside a leather briefcase with care. Then he slid open his desk drawer and pulled out something I would never have expected to see in a million years.
“This is for our protection, Emma. I hope you understand.”
“A gun?” I felt sick. When did he decide upon this little detail? And what did he expect to do with it?
William wrapped the vintage pistol with a square of soft fabric. Before he was done wrapping, he inserted a tiny box of ammunition. “I was going to tell you, but I thought you might try to talk me out of it.”
I groaned. “Yes, I would. Waving a gun around will only get us some unneeded attention from the worst of people. I can’t believe you—”
“I’ll keep it in this briefcase and won’t bring it out until absolutely necessary. It’s merely there as a precautionary measure.”
“Right, okay,” I said, working to calm myself down.
The briefcase snapped shut, and William flipped a hinge into place. “Safe and sound.”
The kitchen was silent as a morgue when we entered a few minutes later, bags in our hands. William placed the briefcase on the table before moving to the kitchen sink. He pulled out two mugs and began filling them with hot water. The Ovaltine. “You’ll thank me,” he said, handing one over. “Drink a little now, and the rest will be for our return.”
I took a sip. Blech. Ovaltine had a metallic taste. I tried not to gag. Mineral-chocolate flavor with a strange aftertaste. “Mmm.”
William chuckled at my expression. “I never said it tasted good.”
“And it doesn’t.” I placed my mug down on the table. “So, how are we going to do this?”
William straddled a chair and placed his cup on the table within good reach. “The usual way.”
I sat down.
He carried on. “We hold hands, I describe the scene to get your thoughts in tune with mine, and slowly we go through time together. I’ve thought of a good one. A time in my life when I was happy, even if just for a second. I wouldn’t want to show you the miserable stuff.” He grabbed my hands. “You’ll have to take off those gloves, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” In quick motion, I peeled them off and slid them under my belt for safekeeping. My suitcase was tucked between my feet; I could only hope it would travel with me. If not, I’d have to start from scratch, with no money. It’d be good to lose the girdle, though.
William wove our fingers together. The two of us laughed. “Remember the time in the old library when we—?” I asked, thinking about a very happy moment in my life.
“Concentrate, Emma. Close your eyes.”
I did. I closed them tight and felt little waves of electricity sparking between us, like we were extension cords plugged together. One spark was particularly painful; it came from my ring finger, spreading down my arm in sharp surges.
William groaned; he broke the hold. “It’s our rings. I’ll take mine off and you can keep it with you, okay?”
“Sure.” I slid both into my pocket book. “Done.” I closed my eyes and felt our fingers intertwine again.
“Now, it’s very warm outside, and it’s night. We are in the town square with many people around: children, their parents, seniors, teenagers with ponytails and greased-back hair. Vendors are selling hotdogs and ice cream, and there’s a sweet smell of popcorn and fried dough. We stand near the gazebo, on the south side of the square. Music is playing, yes, I remember a vivid instrumental by the Springvale American Legion, a patriotic tune with big crashes of cymbals and rattling tom-toms.
“Fireworks are going off. Small at first; electric greens, sizzling reds and blues. It’s building into a brilliant finale that will light up the entire square. I’m standing there and wishing I had someone special to share it all with. Someone I could confide in and trust. Someone who would share a kiss with me, just like this.”
I felt William’s lips press into mine. A giant spark crackled, and the next thing I knew, I was hot, it was very humid, and there were loud explosions above my head. I could feel grass under my feet. A fly buzzed next to my ear.
When we pulled away from each other, I took a peek around to see that I was, indeed, in Springvale in the town square with a scalloped bow hanging from the gazebo in red, white and blue. Children ran past with sparklers waving in their hands. Their laughter surrounded us.
I reached for William. “Clever of you to make it the Fourth of July, with the fireworks and all. Just like you to throw in that little effect.”
He pulled away from me with a strange expression twisting and contorting every line of his face.
“What is it, William?”
His voice came out sounding like a wounded
animal. A wounded, bewildered animal. “Who are you? Why did you kiss me?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “You kissed me, so we could get here.” His face remained a picture of confusion, so I said, “William, why are you staring at me like that?”
“Do I know you?” he whispered, wiping his lips in hesitance.
I searched his face, taken aback by the untimely joking mood he was in, then remembering the rings hurriedly dug inside my pocket book. They rolled into my palm with a ting of gold clashing against gold. When I reached out to hand him his plain band, he jerked away. I stepped closer. He jerked away again. “Why are you doing that?” I asked.
“And I’ll ask you again, why did you kiss me?”
I took a deep breath. A horrible, horrible realization entered my skull. But it couldn’t be. The eyes staring into mine told me, however, it was true. “Oh my God, William,” I whispered, cold spreading through my entire body, “you’ve forgotten me, haven’t you? Something went wrong, and you don’t remember.”
He eyed me with a suspicious scowl. “You sound crazy, honey. Really crazy. You must have jumped out of those bushes over there and laid one on me for a joke or something.” He glanced around. “Who put you up to it? Where’s your friends—the ones behind it all? I’m like to chew somebody’s ass out for a stupid prank like this.”
Okay, so he wasn’t joking and he couldn’t remember me now, but he would remember in a few seconds, or hopefully, minutes. A delay of some sort? Yes. Like mail delivered to the wrong address. No problem. However long it took, I would wait. The modern day William had somehow become lost inside this James Dean and would eventually rise to the surface. At least, I hoped so. Meeting a set of sharp, frost-blue eyes, I wasn’t sure the William I knew was in there at all.
“Are you listening to me, sugar? Who put you up to this?”