Time Travel for Love and Profit

by Sarah Lariviere

  The crowd laughed. Clyde Watkins shifted in his wheelchair, like he wanted to find a more comfortable position. Dad hustled to help him.

  As Clyde Watkins showed more slides, I thought about how people are like cameras, recording the moments of our lives. If only I could print pictures of the things I’d witnessed over the years. The impossible things you’d have to see to believe. Like once, when I was shooting through the wormhole in the quantum foam, I saw a redwood tree two hundred feet tall shrink in a glittery flash and become a seed again, and then blow away in loop-de-loops on the wind. And once I saw a baby hawk being un-born, its crackling eggshell sucking shut around it.

  But even if I could print pictures of my time travel, you’d have to wonder. Photographers could play tricks on you. Like how Harry Callahan had made Chicago with the double exposure. What if I only saw those things because I wanted to see them? What if my mind had made them up? Pictures could make you believe in impossible things. Or maybe they showed you that the things you thought were impossible aren’t.

  Eventually, Clyde Watkins gave Dad a signal like he was slitting his own throat, and Dad flipped on the lights. The thirty or so people in the audience clapped.

  “Clyde,” said Dad, “a few of these folks may want to ask you some questions. That okay?”

  Again, I silently practiced my question for Clyde Watkins. Do you think a photograph can have a soul? And after everybody left, I’d introduce him to Chicago.

  I mouthed my question silently, over and over, to be sure I wouldn’t clam up. When I tuned back in to the questions, Clyde Watkins’s face was even brighter than before, like someone had switched on his whole power grid. “Yes! Photography is a sort of magic. I’ve always thought that. Young man, what’s your name?”

  “I go by Jazz.”

  “Jazz,” said Clyde Watkins. “A name that suggests the joy of improvisation. I have an extra camera here in my bag. A digital one I can’t figure out how to use. That’s an exaggeration, but I hate it. You can take too many pictures, too fast. You think you’ve got infinite opportunities to get the shot. The constraints of film are a better reflection of the human condition. You get a couple shots, and after that…poof! Your moment is gone. Film requires you to pay attention the first time. Besides that, it costs too much and today it’s as good as dead, like me. Jazz, after that whopping endorsement…” Clyde Watkins fished in a sack and pulled out a camera with a long lens. “Could I convince you to take this digital nuisance off my hands? They tell me it’s top of the line.”

  He handed the camera to Jazz, who smiled in his off-kilter way, like a mobile that shouldn’t be balanced but convinced you that it was, while the audience gave another round of applause.

  I spent quite a while in the upstairs bathroom, washing my face. I wasn’t sure what was bothering me, but something was, and washing my face usually made me feel better. As I dried my chin and cheeks with a paper towel, I decided to ask Clyde Watkins my question some other time. Slip out the back door of the bookshop, cats be damned, and go home.

  As I was leaving the bathroom, Airika almost crashed into me. “Fi! I was looking for you. The cookies are by the cash register.”

  “No thanks,” I said, and tried to get around her.

  She said, “Aw, really?”

  I wanted to scream, “Will you stop being so nice to me, Airika? As soon as you get to know me, you’re gonna realize you hate me and flee! Let me save us both some time.”

  Airika tilted her head. “I’m going to hate you?”

  I could not believe I had just said that out loud.

  Jazz stepped out of the Poetry aisle, holding his new camera. I wanted to—hmm, how should I put this?

  Die.

  He said, “Hey, Fi.”

  My neck was on fire. I ran downstairs and pushed through the crowd, passing close enough to Clyde Watkins to notice that he smelled like cigar smoke. When I opened the screen door, I nearly smashed a cat. Its screech seared my ears as I ran through the parking lot into the night. I’d text my parents in a few minutes, tell them I felt like throwing up.

  As I hiked up the hill toward home, foghorns moaned their bleak tune and the wind shot through my clothes. I was shivering. My sneakers crunched sand and fallen fruit and foliage. Nature and its garbage in the dark.

  Suddenly, I felt incredibly stupid.

  Seriously.

  I mean, seriously—what was wrong with me? Was this who I was now? Someone who exploded at people and stormed off in the middle of sentences?

  But how could I let them be nice to me? How could I pretend to be a normal teenager when I wasn’t?

  I’d never been normal. That’s why I’d built Dirk Angus in the first place. Now I was worse than abnormal. I was the monster my mother had sworn I wasn’t when I was little, and my aggressively weird talent for math had made me stand out.

  The cats knew.

  I walked up our porch steps with their splintery cracks and their peeling paint and inhaled the smells of decaying fish and decomposing wood and watched the Main Street lights shimmer as the fog settled over Redwood Cove. Everything was disintegrating thanks to my enemy, time, plus the wind that never stopped and my next-door neighbor, the sea. The exact things that made my home the most beautiful place I could dream of were the things that would rot it to ruins.

  And if my time machine kept failing, I’d never save the earth, and pretty soon humans would suffocate the ocean with plastic bags, and climate change would boil us all to death.

  Everything was going to be obliterated. Everything.

  I rubbed my arms to keep warm. Was that it? Was I afraid of dying now?

  Or was I afraid of living forever? Eternal life in a fog that got thicker and thicker until I didn’t care where I was going anymore, because I’d never arrive?

  In the fog, I saw a blob of someone walking up the hill, and for some reason I let myself imagine it was Wylie Buford. I remembered that afternoon all those years ago, when we’d chatted in the bookshop. How I could see, clear as a clean picture window, Wylie and me becoming friends. Before my first trip in my timeship. When I’d been nothing more complicated than my aggressively weird self.

  How was Wylie doing now?

  Yes, I could take out my phone and search for him online. I could find out where he went to college, where he lived, maybe even what job he had, whether he had children, who his friends were. But the types of things people posted online would never tell me what I wanted to know.

  Which was: How was Wylie actually doing now? How was he really, truly doing?

  How did Wylie Buford turn out?

  Monday morning I saw Jazz and Rex outside the high school messing with their bikes, which looked like Frankensteins of lots of different bikes. That must have been what Airika was talking about with the dumpster-diving bike-building thing. Rex’s had a huge tire in the front and a small one in the back, and the body was spray-painted gold. Jazz’s was blue with chunky tires, and the handlebars were coiled like a ram’s horns.

  I was still beyond mortified about making a fool of myself at the bookshop Friday night. Jazz must’ve thought I was a big, fat nutball, or a deep-fried cheeseball, or some other ball-shaped thing it was best to keep at a healthy distance. I pulled up my hood and walked out of my way to avoid them.

  * * *

  —

  When second period ended, I ran past the blur of kids and lockers as announcements rained down from the speakers. The sound kept blinking on and off, chopping the words and making them incomprehensible. I was desperate to get to third period and see Serrafin, aching for our first lunch together so I could get to work. I was almost there when I heard, “Hey, Fi!”

  Jazz was leaning against the lockers, smiling in his uneven way, wearing his signature outfit of tuxedo jacket and ripped jeans. One of his knees was bent; he was tapping his foot on a lock
er door. His body was long and bendy. He looked like a praying mantis on its way to the insect prom.

  “Nephele Weather, your parents’ bookshop has an outstanding poetry section. As William Blake wrote, To see the world in a grain of sand…wait. What’s next? I forget the next line. But the rhyming part is, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand. Poetry puts personal problems in perspective.” He looked at the ceiling and smiled. “Peter Piper picked a peck of personal problems….”

  Peter Piper? Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Who are you?”

  He said, “My name is Jeremiah—”

  “No, no, I mean, did you just move here?”

  He said, “Did you?”

  I said, “No.”

  The late kid ran a hand through his curls. They were so black. Like black licorice. He said, “I totally know you didn’t just move here. I was trying for…yeah. That was failed banter.”

  He said that word. “Banter.”

  I said, “If that was banter, it needs a Brobdingnagian amount of work.”

  Jazz got this glimmer in the purple pools of his eyes, like there was a fat, gold koi swimming around in them, and he wagged his finger. “Brobdingnagian. Huge. Like the giants in Gulliver’s Travels.” He snapped. “I wish I’d said that.” He looked at the ceiling again, shaking his head.

  I let myself stare at him for another second or two, felt a wave of something between hunger and nausea, and decided to leave before I accidentally exploded at him for no reason.

  There’s a scene in Thirsty for Thrills when the heroine says, “I’m tired of playing the victim. Sit down and shut up and let me show you how it’s done.”

  And Dirk Angus holds up his hands. “Don’t shoot,” he says. “I’m only in love with you.”

  That was banter.

  There was no reason for Thirsty for Thrills to be in my head right now.

  Jazz flinched. “Ah! I remember what I wanted to tell you. A weird number is a natural number that is abundant but not semi-perfect. Seventy is the smallest one. That’s why it’s special.”

  Wow. I folded my arms into a tight pretzel. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?”

  “No idea,” said Jazz.

  What was I supposed to say? Thank you for researching my favorite number online?

  Holy jalapeños. He did that. I couldn’t help it: I fled. I walked as quickly as possible into Serrafin’s classroom. Was he behind me? I would not check. I had to check.

  But no. There was no room in my brain to be nervous about the late kid or his mesmerizing eyes or his iffy banter!

  Because it was finally third period. Serrafin and I were finally about to create Dirk Angus 10.0 so I could bust out of the present and grow up the way I was supposed to all along.

  Poetry?

  Peter Piper puked a peck of poetry. Peter Pan poked his purple pupil. Perky people pummeled them with pumpkins.

  Pigeons pooped, penguins peed….

  Yeah.

  So…

  Right.

  * * *

  —

  When I got to the classroom, the principal, Dr. Bellows, was sitting on top of Mrs. Saint Johnabelle’s desk, swinging her legs and talking to a skinny guy with a goatee and glasses. Another substitute? I wanted to weep. And did Serrafin really need the principal’s butt print on her attendance sheet? I took a seat at my usual lab table, and Airika sat beside me.

  Which was surprising. When our eyes met, Airika didn’t do the full sunbeam smile; it was more of a trickle-of-sunlight-through-a-dirty-window smile. I didn’t know how to react. And I was preoccupied about Dr. Bellows, which is probably why I found myself making a What’s-up-with-the-principal-being-here? face at Airika. Airika made an I-have-no-idea face back.

  Then Jazz walked into the classroom and waved at Airika and me. I felt tingly, like he had quietly rung the prettiest little bell.

  Meanwhile, the principal and goatee man were chatting about the fall assembly. The location of the earthquake kits. Things goatee man did not need to know.

  Dr. Bellows slid off the desk and clapped. “Listen up, freshpersons!” The principal’s announcement voice was always alarming. She could be announcing that we’re all getting free doughnuts for life and I’d still feel the need to duck and cover. “Warm welcome here for Mr. Zuluti. Just spent two years teaching in Japan. Redwood Cove scored a genuine world traveler; who knows why. But here he is.”

  “And I couldn’t be happier about it,” said the man.

  Um? My hand shot up.

  “Plenty of time to ask all your questions about Japan,” said Dr. Bellows, and she turned to leave.

  I stood. “Where’s Serrafin? I mean where’s Mrs….”

  Dr. Bellows rubbed her forehead. “I’ll be notifying your parents by email this afternoon.”

  Airika said, “Notifying them about what?”

  The principal looked at goatee man. Goatee man clasped his hands. “Mrs. Saint Johnabelle was, well—she was incredibly brave.” Goatee man looked at Dr. Bellows. Dr. Bellows looked at the ground. Goatee man scratched his ear. “It is with great sadness that…well.” He paused. “After battling a long illness, Mrs. Saint Johnabelle has died.”

  There were sounds. Not quite whispering. Shifting.

  Shifting.

  Airika said, “No! When?”

  Goatee man said, “Early last week.”

  Early last week? A long illness?

  Nobody told me. Nobody told me!

  Of course, why would they tell me? Everyone thought I’d only known Serrafin for two days….And what about Serrafin?

  Did she die without knowing me?

  I was still standing. My throat was swelling shut. I felt a hand on my back. Airika. She must’ve thought I was deranged, between exploding at her at the Big Blue Wave and making a big deal about somebody I should’ve barely known.

  Goatee man was looking at me with giant eyeballs, like he wanted to comfort me—like he could possibly comfort me, or be anything other than a terrible imposter.

  Then goatee man asked everybody to take out paper and a pen. I was shocked. I looked around through blurry eyes. Everybody was doing it, and it was totally inappropriate. I saw the teacher coming toward me and I bolted out of the classroom and down the hallway and out the school’s front doors.

  I ran past the bike racks into the redwood forest and kept running. My breath stung my chest and stuck in my throat, and dry sticks snapped beneath my feet. My stomach was lurching like a sinking ship. I ran until my legs were weak, and I was standing on the edge of the cliff, and all I heard was the pounding ocean and the screeching hawks.

  The screeching echoed. The universe didn’t care what happened to me or to anyone. It was going to strand me here. Take everyone I loved and leave me stranded in the forest, alone.

  * * *

  —

  Maddy Weather was walking down the path from Highway 1 toward the high school. She was wearing slouchy white pants with a grass stain on one knee and a hand-knitted sweater that was spilling off of one shoulder. Her silver waves were blowing in the wind, and her paint-splattered sandals were older than me, including the ten extra years nobody counted.

  I was sitting on the redwood stump, waiting for her. I knew they’d call Mom. She was the only person I wanted to see. As soon as I felt her cool palm on my face, I started crying. She sat beside me on the stump and dried my tears with her thumbs. She didn’t ask any questions. I couldn’t believe my mother had ever annoyed me. She was irreplaceable.

  I felt the heat in my belly and inside my rib cage. Rage, frustration, hopelessness. Death. I felt Mom’s fingers touching my skin. Life.

  Mom said, “Let’s go home.”

  I felt my feet inside my sneakers taking one step, then another. I felt them landing on the packed earth,
the hard sidewalk. I saw flowers with dried faces, dull and full of seeds. Everything living was dying.

  Except me. I was living inside a body that was tricking time. So why did it feel like time was tricking me?

  Inside our house, it smelled like spicy chili. I needed to take off my sneakers and I wanted to say something to Mom, but I couldn’t move or speak. My stomach was still swaying, burning, turning in on itself, like bits of it were trying to squirm away. Mom was looking in the antique mirror, adjusting her floppy sweater. She didn’t know how old she was when I was born. She didn’t know how old I was supposed to be. My experiment was ruining her. It was ruining me. Wrapping us in blackness and white noise.

  I’d never thought it would come to this. Time travel hadn’t felt like a game for a long time, but the consequences had always seemed reversible. My timeship app was far from perfect, but it had seemed to promise me infinite tries to get things right.

  But that was an illusion. Time would run out if I kept looping. Or at least my life would become less and less recognizable. I’d never wanted to grow up with my experiment only half-complete. But could I stay fourteen forever? And watch everybody I love—

  Mom spun around quickly, like a fox or a sea otter or some other animal who takes action the second it decides something. “Let’s bake cookies. It’s been so long since we’ve done that together. We have those autumn-leaf cookie cutters. We’ll make colored icing. You know what we can use to make the red? Beets. I’ve always wanted to make red dye with beets.”

  “Beets,” I repeated. “Won’t it taste weird?”

  “Maybe,” said Mom, smiling.

  I said, “Don’t die, Mom.”

  Mom’s smile disappeared. “So that’s it.” She wrapped me in her arms, which were wiry and strong. “Oh, Fi. With any luck, I won’t die for a very long time.” When she pulled me away to look at me, all I saw were wrinkles. Hundreds of them branching like rivers. Like cracked earth. The map of time on my mother’s face. Maddy Weather was being eaten by time. I closed my eyes.