Circa Now

by Amber McRee Turner

  And that’s when a notion so impossible, yet so suddenly inescapable, began to take shape in Circa’s brain. Her mind raced in a dozen directions as she assembled the growing pile of clues. Miles’s crinkle, his snoring, the way he had defended her, his crooked smile, the déjà-vu feeling she’d had the first moment she laid eyes on him. The Linholt Reunion, Miles’s blank, start-fresh memory. The Shopt photo of a reunion that happened thirteen years ago. That baby.

  “This one’s hilarious,” said Miles from what seemed like the other end of a tunnel.

  “I know,” said Circa, in that slow-motion way a person does when an idea flattens her good. No way, she thought. No way. She looked at Miles. Then she snuck another look at the picture behind her.

  “You didn’t even see which one I was talking about,” said Miles, but Circa was oblivious.

  Could that baby…No. It can’t be.

  No, of course he couldn’t. It was, after all, an impossible thing. Yet for some reason, she couldn’t seem to shake the thought. The what if simply wouldn’t leave her alone.

  Circa reached out, pretending to stretch, and slid the reunion photo under the desk.

  “So what was up with that one?” asked Miles. “Why didn’t your dad write a story for it?”

  Circa cringed at the thought of Miles finding the reunion photo. There was simply no way she could possibly explain the ideas in her head to him right now. Unfortunately, when she scooted closer to him, she realized that he’d discovered something nearly as bad. She’d been so busy trying to hide the reunion picture, she hadn’t even taken notice of the very last picture waiting inside the Shopt file…a folded-up one that Miles had already smoothed open onto the floor in front of him. It was the old World War II soldier picture she’d tried her hand at editing days before. The one she’d added the poor incomplete baby into. Mom must have found it on the floor and put it in the folder.

  “My dad didn’t write a story for it because I did that one,” Circa said, both relieved and disgusted. “And I hate it.”

  “You hate it? Why?” said Miles.

  “Because it’s terrible,” she said. “Look how bad I did that baby, all lumpy and pixelated. I forgot to even put his other arm on.”

  Miles laughed. “Well, I agree it’s not as good as the rest,” he said. “But it’s not as bad as you think.”

  There he went with that Dad way of encouraging, thought Circa. “Thanks,” she said. “Even though you’re wrong.”

  Miles looked at the picture again. “So then did you give this one a story?” he said.

  “Of course not,” said Circa.

  “Don’t you think you’re being unfair?” said Miles. He looked Circa right in the eye, so serious it made her squirm. “I mean, come on, Circa. Doesn’t that lumpy, pixelated baby soldier deserve a story as much as Potty Doll?”

  Miles put on that mischievous brow crinkle again, leaving Circa unsure whether to punch him in the arm or laugh. Since his scarred arms had seen enough trouble, she laughed.

  “I got you,” he said.

  “No, no. You’re exactly right,” said Circa, feeling a rush of silly mischief herself. She picked up the picture and wondered what in the world Dad would have concocted out of the black-and-white disaster before her.

  “As a matter of fact,” she began. “I do happen to know this baby’s story.”

  “Tell me more,” said Miles.

  “You see,” said Circa. “This baby here is one of your ancestors.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. He’s your great-uncle Mileage.”

  “Great-Uncle Mileage?”

  “That’s him.”

  For quick inspiration, Circa looked to the snapshot of Dad and Mom and her as a newborn that was taped to the edge of Dad’s monitor. She thought of the kind of adventure Dad might scare up for a pixelated baby in the midst of all those army men.

  “Your great-uncle Mileage was the only baby soldier to be in the war,” she continued.

  “Oh, yeah?” said Miles. “Seems kind of cruel to let a baby fight in a war.”

  “Of course it does,” said Circa. “What I mean is that he was a soldier who spied during the war.”

  “Great-Uncle Mileage, the baby spy,” said Miles.

  “That’s right,” she said. “The good guys would place him all bundled up on the enemy’s doorstep so that they’d take him in. Then he’d fake being asleep while listening in on their plans and crawl out in the middle of the night to be picked up and debriefed.”

  “Debriefed. Ha. Good one,” said Miles. “Meaning he’d have his diaper changed and share the info, right? I’m guessing he could talk too?”

  “Nope,” said Circa. “He tapped out messages in Morse code. With his nonmissing arm, of course.”

  “Of course,” Miles said. “Great-Uncle Mileage, the one-armed, code-tapping, escape-artist baby spy.”

  “I was worried you might not be able to handle it,” said Circa.

  “Handle it?” said Miles. “I wish I could meet him. This is the best thing I’ve heard about my past in days.”

  “It’s the only thing,” said Circa.

  “Exactly,” Miles said.

  Circa felt pleased and energized. She’d surprised herself with the ability to make up her own Shopt story. Together, she and Miles gathered up the photos and stacked them back into the Shopt folder. As soon as Miles looked away, Circa snuck the hidden reunion picture from under Dad’s desk and slid it back in as well.

  Miles muttered Potty Doll under his breath and laughed.

  “Really,” he said. “Thanks for showing me all that stuff. It sounds dumb, I guess, but it kind of helped me to forget.”

  “Forget the forgetting?” said Circa.

  Miles crinkled again, making Circa’s mind reignite with thoughts of Shopt magic. “Hey, Miles,” she said. “This might be a weird question, but do you remember seeing any crazy stuff that day at the reunion? Like a really giant potato? Or, um, a beaver with a bugle?”

  Miles nodded an emphatic yes. Circa’s heart raced. “Yes? You did?”

  “No,” said Miles. “I meant yes, that was a weird question.”

  “Oh,” said Circa. “Sorry. Never mind then. But, um, did you?”

  Miles shook his head.

  “You know,” he said, handing Circa the soldier photo, “you really should do some more of that photo work. I think you’re actually pretty decent at it.”

  “I don’t know,” said Circa. “I want to, but—”

  “But what?” said Miles. “You said he taught you how, right?”

  “Yes. He did,” she said, looking to the family photo once more.

  Miles looked to see what it was that kept stealing her attention. “So,” he said with a laugh. “Did your dad Photoshop that lumpy baby?”

  “No.” Circa laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “That one’s me, you jackola.”

  Meet Little Tish, who was carefully looked after by a skilled, if smelly, trio of nannies. There was Audrey to sing her to sleep at night, Reuben to make her toast, and Gus to keep her from falling into the lobster pit. All three would work tirelessly for years to make sure Tish was completely koala-fied for the challenges of adulthood, and one day she would greatly appreciate their efforts. (But on this particular Wednesday, she was far too captivated by her new chunky white shoes to notice.)

  Circa slid the Shopt folder back in its spot as Mom peeked into the studio.

  “Miles,” Mom said. “Why don’t you come upstairs and pick out some clothes that’ll fit you. I figure if you’re going to be with us a little longer than we thought, you’ll need something more than two shirts and a pair of jeans. And I’ve found an old box of things Mr. Monroe hasn’t worn in years.”

  Miles looked at Circa as if to ask her whether she was okay with that plan. She did feel a little
funny about it, but gave him a nod anyway. She was itching for some alone time at Dad’s computer.

  “Sorry we can’t afford to get you something new,” Mom called from the kitchen, but Circa knew that even if she found five hundred dollars in her pocket, Mom wouldn’t go out shopping.

  “I thought you said she couldn’t handle anything?” whispered Miles as he stood and stretched. “She seems like she’s doing pretty okay tonight.”

  Mom and Miles went on upstairs, but Circa stayed behind in the studio. She sunk into Dad’s chair and woke the computer, gazing at the screen so intently, the icons started to blur into little glowing shapes, one for each of the new questions in her mind. She wondered what it was about Miles being around that seemed to be making Mom able to do things that were impossible for her before. Could it be that Mom sensed the same weird connection to the boy that Circa had? Circa thought about the appearance of that nest and the disappearance of Nattie’s wart and wondered if her own Shopt bits had just been pointing her toward the real answer to the Miles mystery. But how? And why? Could someone just appear?

  Then in an instant, Circa considered the insanity of it all. That she’d completely flipped out, just over a nest, a wart, and a stranger. How she was missing Dad so bad, her mind could very well be playing tricks on her. The evidence seemed like so little and yet somehow just enough to build a dream on. She wondered what Dad would have said about all this. Whether he’d have told her to calm down or, even better, been just as caught up in the possibilities. Or what if all this was because Miles really did have a message for her and just hadn’t remembered that part yet?

  As Mom and Miles banged around moving boxes upstairs, Circa wondered if she should reveal her suspicions to Miles. Then she considered how she would feel if someone said to her, “Hey, so I’ve got this crazy idea that you may have magically appeared out of nowhere because of this goof my dad did.” And there she found her answer. There was simply no way it would help Miles to know that either Circa was crazy or that he was Shopt.

  Circa was tempted to take a new picture with Mom’s camera and do a Shopt test on it, but she knew that Mom and Miles would be back down any minute. So instead, she decided to just practice her skills on whatever inspired her. She turned on the iPod and swiped to Dad’s favorite song, turning the volume down just low enough to be background music. Then Circa launched Photoshop and clicked on the folder where Dad had stored their own family snapshots. There, she opened the first picture in the list, one taken just a few weeks ago of her and Nattie sitting in the Boones’ front yard. They were right next to the empty doghouse that Nattie had built two years before in hopes of getting a dog that she would name Ernie Brown. In the picture, Circa and Nattie were playing “rock-paper-karate chop” with each other like they had when they were younger, and Mom had captured them in a fit of laughter. Just looking at the picture made Circa feel bad about blowing Nattie off earlier. Inspired by the words of the song, she set to work adding a cloud shaped like an angel into the vast blue sky above them. As she worked, she repeated in her head her dad’s special techniques that he’d shared with her over the years.

  Once the fluffy angel was complete, Circa rolled the chair back and took a good look. Even if clouds were among the simplest Shopt things to do, still, she was delighted by the result. So much so, it was just as if Dad were sitting on the stool right next to her, egging her on. She considered the sad fact that Miles being Shopt would mean that there was no story for him to even pull off the shelf. No matter how hard he searched, it would go back only so far. This thought alone let her know what to do with that angel. “Let’s give it a story,” she could almost hear Dad saying. Something else about that soldier baby. So she did.

  While the photo printed, Circa found the very same pen that Dad had used for Shopt stories, the kind that would write on glossy photo paper without smudging. She wrote underneath the picture:

  Great-Uncle Mileage, as it turns out, loved the sky and always wanted to be a pilot, but had to of course wait until he was no longer a baby to become one. As a grown-up spy, he got real good at being a skywriter and sending his spy messages in the air. And many years later, when he retired from spy work, he still used his skills to make smoke drawings for fun. Smoke donuts, smoke hearts, and smoke shamrocks that lingered like clouds in the sky. Once, he did his stealthiest mission yet, puffing out an angel far above two unsuspecting Georgia girls’ heads. He was hovering above Georgia, though, for a mission a lot more important. He was on the hunt for his long-lost nephew…code name Miles.

  Just as she finished writing the last line, Miles poked his head into the studio and said, “Well? Is it me?”

  Circa turned to look. Miles stood in the doorway wearing one of Dad’s outfits from way back when Circa was little and when Dad was skinny. An Oscar Mayer Wienermobile T-shirt and gray sweatpants from so long ago, Circa was surprised that they even still had them. She knew in her gut that she should be saddened by this scene, but it felt all right to her. So much so, she struggled to hide her perplexed look from Miles.

  “Hang on,” he said. “I forgot the best part.”

  Miles looked away for a second and turned back around wearing something that made Circa have to do a double take. It was a pair of purple, star-shaped glasses. Glasses just like the ones she had added to Dad’s picture the other night. Circa couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Where in the world did you get those?” she asked.

  “In the same box as the old clothes,” said Miles. “Why? You want to look this cool too?”

  “Let me see them,” she said.

  Miles walked over and handed her the glasses. Circa turned them over half a dozen times, gawking at and feeling every inch of them.

  “Bad move, I guess,” said Miles. “Did I just make you sad?”

  “No, no,” she said, inspecting every scratch and scuff. “Definitely not sad.”

  She set the glasses carefully on Dad’s desk, planning to follow up on this mystery as soon as possible. “Look,” she said to Miles. “I did something while you were upstairs.”

  Circa handed him the freshly edited pic. “It’s not much,” she said. “But I think you’ll like it.”

  “You Shopt,” he said with a hint of delight in his voice. “And fast.”

  “Look,” she said. “I did a story too.”

  Miles mumbled the story to himself, enjoying every bit of it. “You’ve definitely inherited your dad’s weird imagination,” he said. “I dig it. Great-Uncle Mileage makes me proud again. I can’t wait to hear about what he does next.”

  Miles handed the picture back to Circa, but when she moved to set it on top of one of the messy stacks of business on the desk, he stopped her.

  “Why aren’t you putting it in the Shopt folder?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Circa. “Didn’t seem good enough, I guess.”

  “Of course it is,” said Miles, grabbing it from her and putting it into the folder himself. “Great-Uncle Mileage will not be denied his proper place!”

  “Thanks,” said Circa.

  “I gotta go,” said Miles. “Your mom told me to pick out a couple of dress shirts before she puts the box away. I’ll see you later.”

  “And don’t worry,” he said on the way out. “I won’t take the Wienermobile shirt with me when I go home…or the purple glasses.”

  “So glad,” said Circa, wearing a grin, but feeling a twinge of sadness at the thought of him leaving. “Good night.”

  Mom and Miles passed each other in the doorway.

  “Circ,” Mom said, coming over and giving Circa a big hug from behind the chair. “Don’t linger too long in the studio tonight, okay?”

  “Okay, Mom. I won’t.”

  “Oh, I just love that shot of you and Nat,” Mom said, coming closer to Dad’s desk than she had in weeks. She stopped halfway there and gazed at the sc
reen. “And would you look at that? I never noticed that cloud looks just like an angel. How sweet.”

  Circa puffed up inside. But she was far too distracted by a purple plastic mystery to revel in her Shopt success for too long. This felt big. This felt like proof. Yet even Miles had mentioned that she had her dad’s weird imagination. So could that be what this Shopt theory of hers was? Just imagination?

  “Mom,” she said, feeling chills run up both arms. “Didn’t you say you’d never known Dad to wear star glasses?”

  It was a really big deal, the first time Lady Liberty sneezed.

  Circa swiveled around and handed Mom the glasses.

  “I did say I’d never known your dad to wear these,” Mom said, looking them over thoroughly. “He must have picked them up as a joke way back when,” she said. “I’m surprised you remember them from when you were so little. I don’t even remember them.”

  Mom left for bed with a last reminder for Circa not to linger too late. But Circa wasn’t so content. She shuffled around the desk until she found the edited version of the picture of Dad. Then she held it up and compared the real glasses to it. The ones in the picture looked new and bright, but the real deal glasses were warped and faded like they’d been in an attic for years. Still, Circa couldn’t help wondering if the glasses were yet another in a series of extraordinary events, perhaps the most extraordinary being Miles. But who in the world could she talk to about it? Certain that she had no one in the house who could handle her going loopy, Circa picked up the phone and dialed.