Time Travel for Love and Profit

by Sarah Lariviere

  Rex nodded at the pile of books on the couch. “Can I sit?”

  I said, “Sure,” and made room. Rex sat and Airika perched beside him on the couch’s arm.

  “You and me don’t know each other too well yet, Fi,” said Rex, “so it might be easier for me to lay this out.”

  Lay what out? I thought. I said, “No problemo, cowboy. Shoot!” Then I cringed. I’d said that in a flirty New Zealand accent. Plus, problemo? Who was I? New Nephele?

  Rex said, “Quit bullying Mr. Z.”

  Airika was twisting her friendship bracelets, avoiding eye contact.

  What?

  I said, “I’m not bullying—”

  Rex interrupted me. “Well, you give him a super-hard time. It’s uncool.”

  Okay: I knew I’d been rude to Mr. Replacement. But a bully? Could a freshman bully a teacher? And anyway, I’d been bullied! Which meant that the bullies were other people. I said, “But he’s such a stale dinner roll—”

  “See? That’s it. Right there,” said Rex, like he needed me to hear what he heard. “Unfunny.”

  Unfunny?

  “I’m not trying to be funny,” I said. “I don’t want to deal with some replacement teacher. I want our real teacher. I want her—”

  A feeling got caught in my throat. I envisioned Serrafin’s face, her mischievous eyes in the photograph at the funeral home. Was that the only place I could find her now? In photographs? In memories?

  No. I was going to go back and see her again. The problem was Mr. Zuluti. When he sat at her desk and wrote on her chalkboard, it was like this cruel joke from the universe saying, You’ll never get her back. Even if I knew that wasn’t true—that eventually, my timeship would work—

  “Jazzy says you freak out on people to protect yourself from getting hurt,” said Airika. “Jazzy is way into psychology.”

  What? “He is?” I said. “I do?”

  “Oh yeah. Jazzy says you’re as sensitive as a poet.” Airika draped her arm around Rex. “I agree. Of course, I’m not the one who’s in love with you. Too bad Jazz isn’t here, huh, Rex? Where is he?”

  “Dumpster-diving. He’s still looking for a crate to attach to his ride.”

  “Wait,” I said. “In love with—what?”

  “These guys find rad stuff in the trash,” said Airika.

  “You wouldn’t believe what people throw away,” said Rex. “I’m hooking up with him later to dig. You guys should come.”

  “Gross,” said Airika. Then she gave Rex a meaningful look and put her suntanned hand, with its many friendship bracelets, on my shoulder. “He’s in love with you.”

  Rex was in love with me? Well, that was, uh, unexpected. I fiddled with my pen. “Gosh.”

  I looked at Rex, trying to find a nice way to tell him that, like, we probably weren’t really meant to be together—wasn’t there a line in Thirsty for Thrills that addressed situations like this? Something like, I’m awful flattered, cowboy….

  “Not me,” said Rex, sounding offended. “Jazz!”

  My heartbeat did a drum solo. “…Oh.”

  Airika was smiling at me like I was as cute as a baby bunny, and Rex was giving her a dirty look. I had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to tell me that.

  Were angels singing inside my skull? I felt like bluebirds were draping me in ribbons. They did that for the ball, right? In someone’s fairy tale? But not to the bad guy. Not to the bully.

  They were right about Mr. Zuluti, of course. It wasn’t his fault that Serrafin died. It was illogical to be angry at him. My behavior made zero mathematical sense. I rested my head on the couch and sighed.

  “Why would Jeremiah be in love with me?” I asked. “I have psychological problems.”

  Rex shook his head. “Unclear,” he said. “Unknown.”

  I said, “Hey,” and smirked. When Rex smirked back, I was pretty sure it counted as a smile.

  Who was Rex, exactly? It looked like if you punched him, your fist would bounce off his face. Rex could definitely have been on the cover of a romance novel.

  I decided to ask Rex and Airika something I’d been wondering all fall. “Are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  “Rex is the brother I never had,” said Airika.

  Rex took off his bandana and shook out his shaggy hair. “Our parents’ houseboats were parked in the same marina up in Sausalito. We used to hang out on the docks, watching the herons.”

  “Then my mom married his dad,” said Airika.

  “You’re brother and sister?”

  “But we didn’t need a piece of paper to prove it,” said Rex. “I knew it as soon as I met Airika. This girl is my sister for life.”

  I said, “How did I not know that?”

  “You never asked,” said Airika.

  I hadn’t, had I? I thought about what Chicago had said. That if I stopped thinking about myself for five seconds, I might realize that other people’s lives were complicated, too.

  Sitting in the shop with Airika and Rex, I felt the same way I’d felt all those years ago with Wylie Buford. Like we could be real friends. I imagined Wylie standing with us in his alien T-shirt, a multiple exposure superimposed on the scene. I’d never been closer to meeting Wylie again. I could feel it.

  Then I remembered what Airika told me about Jazz, and his song started playing in my head—the happy-sad tune he whistled. I didn’t know how I remembered it. It clashed with the raging guitars on the record Dad was spinning, and it had nothing to do with Wylie. But there it was.

  I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it. And I wasn’t gonna say I was in love with it—but I really, really liked it.

  Monday morning, I left early for school so I could take a detour up Highway 1. The sun was crayon yellow and the air was crisp, like a high five. When I came to the crest on the cliff, I took the five-minute hike to the lookout point to watch the ocean. Below me, it was swirling and pounding, reflecting a hundred shades of blue and silver and white. Already there were plenty of surfers. I loved surfers. A loose flock of crows were cawing and hopping, flapping their way inland with their inky-black wings. I loved crows. California was magic.

  I hiked back through the forest and down the winding path to the high school, picking up random scraps of plastic—a candy wrapper, a torn shopping bag—along the way. The air smelled green, like dill and pine. Nature was all around me and flowing through me, and the universe felt like my friend again, even if it was obnoxious—obnoxious, like I could sometimes be. When I used pure mathematical logic to look at my rage at Mr. Zuluti, rage failed the test, so I was done with it. I had to be.

  Math was magic. I loved magic.

  I wasn’t wearing the bone necklace; it was unwearable. But it was hanging from a nail in my bedroom like a charm. I wanted to tell that to Jeremiah because I had kind of bolted when I’d had the knot revelation, and I didn’t want him to think it was because I didn’t like his gift. Or him.

  But I had an even better idea, and the thought of an international man of mystery possibly being in love with me was making me fearless.

  Before third period started, I went to the lab table where Jazz was sitting with Rex.

  “Hey, Fi,” said Jazz, half smiling.

  “Hey,” I said, half smiling back.

  When Rex puffed his cheeks, he resembled a tough gopher. He put his head down and made a show of scrolling on his phone.

  I said, “After school, do you maybe want to come with me to—”

  “Nephele? Excuse me,” interrupted Mr. Zuluti. “After school today you’ve got an appointment with me.”

  I gave him a look. Could the man not pick up on a flirting vibe?

  Jazz shrugged. “Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow I’ll come with you to, like, anywhere.”

  I crossed my arms. “Okay, tomorrow,” I said, t
rying not to think the word “date.” Because why would I think that.

  * * *

  —

  After school, I slowly made my way from seventh period, which was French class, in which Madame LeBlanc forced me to play the role of a merchant helping a picky customer select the right stinky cheese—the customer being Madame LeBlanc, who I’m pretty sure used a French swear word when I suggested the wrong one—to Mrs. Saint Johnabelle’s classroom for my meeting with Mr. Zuluti.

  I was dragging. I lingered in the hallway, inspecting the showcase full of golden statues of kids balanced on one foot, interacting with various projectiles. I imagined a statue of a kid holding a statue. And that statue was of a kid holding a statue, which was holding a statue…an infinite chain of sports heroes, stretching back to the beginning of time. I snickered. Then I lingered over the wall of painted self-portraits. One kid had put an extra mouth on his neck. I snickered some more. What else could I look at…?

  “Nephele?” called Mr. Zuluti from down the hall. “Please pick up the pace.”

  In the classroom, Mr. Zuluti sat on Serrafin’s desk. “I thought I’d ask you to help me clean while we talked. But everybody has been so good about that.”

  The lab tables were polished. The glassware was clean. The chalkboard was sponged down, too. I sat on a lab table across from him, thinking, Of course everyone is kissing up to you. Everybody loves you because you don’t make them do any work.

  Luckily, I caught myself before I could say that out loud. I said, “Listen, Mr. Zuluti—”

  Mr. Zuluti interrupted. “No, Nephele. I’d like you to listen. When I was your age—”

  I groaned, and then I interrupted myself. “Hey,” I said. “I’m—”

  At the same time, Mr. Zuluti was saying, “We have so much in—”

  We both cut ourselves off to listen. There was a crease between Mr. Zuluti’s eyebrows, like he was searching for the right next word.

  I said, “I’ll do the class assignments. I will.”

  Mr. Zuluti leaned forward, looking at me like he was trying to find something. “Listen, Nephele. I want to understand what you’re going through.”

  Um—okay. I was starting to feel a little explode-y. How could this stranger ever begin to understand what I was going through?

  Mr. Zuluti said, “When I taught in Japan—”

  “Japan?” I snapped. “What does Japan have to do with this, Zuluti?” I took a deep breath. Why was I still yelling? I muttered, “This is exhausting.”

  “What’s exhausting?”

  “Trying to solve my problems,” I said. “Which are real. And, like—large.”

  “Are you trying to be less worried?” said Mr. Zuluti. “Less worried about what the other students think of you? Less jealous of people who seem to know exactly the right things to say and do?”

  Hmm. Actually, after ten years, I was just beginning to get over that particular problem. I looked at Mr. Zuluti. The thinning hair. The reddish-brown eyes. The round face hiding in the slender body. He pulled out his wallet.

  “Are you gonna buy something?” I asked.

  Mr. Zuluti laughed. “No. I’ve hesitated to…”

  “To what?”

  Mr. Zuluti took something out of the wallet. “I wasn’t sure about telling my students, because I wanted to leave the past behind me. That’s been my goal since I was your age, Nephele. Since I sat in this classroom, feeling different. Like nobody understood me. And nobody wanted to.”

  Since he sat—where?

  Mr. Zuluti pressed his lips together for a few seconds. “I’m not from Japan. I just liked living there. Hope to travel back there this summer. I fit in there in a way that I never did here. Who knows why. But when my grandfather died, I inherited his house. The house I grew up in, over on Sandpiper Drive.”

  I was beginning to feel the slightest bit nervous. “What did you take out of your wallet?”

  Mr. Zuluti slid off the desk and handed me a photograph. “This is me, Nephele. When I was a freshman. My grandfather insisted on ordering school pictures. I hated being in photographs back then. I hated looking at myself. People teased me constantly, and I assumed they were right. I felt repulsive. I gave Grandpa his picture and threw the rest away. I threw them in the trash behind your father’s bookshop, as a matter of fact. Back then, I went to the Big Blue Wave whenever I could. To read comics, science fiction, books of puzzles. Anything that would transport me to another place and time. A world where I could live unnoticed, but be a part of everything. It was in my grandfather’s wallet when he died. Now that I’m a teacher, I keep it in mine. To remind myself how difficult it is at your age to know what’s going on. And to remember how important it is to be kind.”

  The young Mr. Zuluti was round like an apple. His hair was the color of sequoia bark. He was wearing the alien T-shirt. On the back of the photograph, it said, “To Grandfather W. I love you. Wylie Louie Buford III.”

  Wylie? My lungs were stiff. My vision was warping. I said, “But your name isn’t Buford….”

  “Zuluti is my married name. My husband made it up.”

  I looked at the teacher through my crazy soup of feelings and felt the world shrinking around me. Ten years ago, I’d missed my chance to be friends with Wylie, and I’d regretted it ever since. Now here I was missing it again! I was in the center of a drama I couldn’t escape from. Again and again, whatever I did, I ended up in the exact same spot.

  I had to ask Wylie if he—of course he wouldn’t, but I had to ask—“Do you remember…”

  Mr. Zuluti leaned forward, listening.

  “Do you remember a girl…named Nephele?”

  Mr. Zuluti looked confused, and shook his head. “You’re the only Nephele I’ve ever known.” He checked his phone. “Your mom just texted. She’s here. Can we be friends, Nephele? Or at least not enemies?”

  I wasn’t ready to go yet. I wanted to tell Wylie about all the years I’d been wondering about him, and how I’d almost told him, ten years ago, that I was building a time machine, and how lost I’d been ever since. And I wanted to hear about every single thing that had happened in Wylie’s life since high school. How he’d done it—how he’d gone from feeling repulsive to becoming this teacher that everybody loved. But if I started talking about that stuff, I’d freak him out, like I had so many times before. All I could do was stare through my tears at the man with the goatee, finding Wylie Buford in his face.

  “You and me were supposed to be friends all along, Wylie,” I said.

  “Isn’t that funny?” he said, shaking his head. “See, I’ve always thought so, Nephele. Since day one. Let’s do that, shall we?” When Wylie smiled at me, his lips turned down at the ends and so did the lines around his eyes. Like his smile had been someplace low and just managed to pull itself up. “Cheers, kiddo,” he said.

  “Cheers, Wylie,” I said. Cheers.

  * * *

  —

  The next day I had trouble remembering where I was. How I’d gotten there. I felt like I was outside of myself, watching.

  Watching myself eat breakfast at the green table. Watching myself slip on my sneakers, zip my hoodie and walk down the hill to school. Barely feeling the wind on my face. The ocean was a distant hush.

  In science class, my brain kept wanting to turn Mr. Zuluti into somebody different from Wylie Buford. I listened to Mr. Zuluti’s voice and imagined Wylie, and tried to force them into one person inside my head. Because they were one person. But it was like trying to listen to two different records at once. My brain had to turn down the volume on one of them. It refused to deal with the clash of information. It wouldn’t let both Wylies be Wylie. It wouldn’t let both things be true.

  After science, Jazz stopped me in the hallway. He was clutching a handful of his curls. “I can’t make it today, Fi. Circumstances beyond my control.
But I totally, totally, totally want to hang out tomorrow.”

  I was disappointed, but it quickly became clear that Jeremiah wasn’t lying. I could feel how frustrated he was. He explained something about somebody needing to be somewhere when the guys who delivered the counter showed up. I couldn’t follow him, but I believed him. Jazz couldn’t hide his feelings. Maybe it didn’t occur to him to try.

  Canceling our non-date turned out to be a good thing. It was a cold afternoon, the kind when the fog stretches out over the town and doesn’t get up until the next morning. When I got to the Big Blue Wave, the first thing I saw was my father, dancing to the Beatles song “Twist and Shout.” His head looked like a bowling ball. As in, he’d shaved it, along with his neck.

  “Oh no!” I yelled. “Grow something!”

  Dad rubbed his hands around his smooth head. “No? Not working for you?”

  “You look like an infant,” I said, running to touch it. It wasn’t slimy, but there was way too much skin. “Ew,” I said. “Ew, ew.”

  “Come on, come on, come on, baby, now!” sang Dad, twisting and letting loose a loud “Whoo!” with the Beatles. Mom was sitting behind the cash register, whittling. She held her knife over her head and twisted her shoulders to the beat.

  Since Mrs. Saint Johnabelle died, I’d been watching my parents more. I almost felt like I loved them more, even. Every moment with them was irreplaceable.

  At the same time, I’d never been more confident that my experiment was destined to succeed. Not like there was a scroll in the sky with my name written on it in swirling calligraphy. I believed that a true time-travel solution was out there, waiting to be discovered, and I had a hunch—“hunch” sounds like such a quiet word, but that’s essentially what it was—a quiet, unshakable feeling that lived inside me and had crystallized into something solid, like a diamond, that if I kept working, I would discover it. I would answer the time-travel question once and for all.

  And meeting Wylie again had made something else clear to me, something I’d never considered. Even when I made it back to the past, I’d never go back to being who I was in the past. I would never stop changing. That was the essence of the strange feeling. It wasn’t only the universe around me that was dissolving and reconstituting at all times. It was also me. I may have been semi-immortal, but in every instant I was living and dying. Over and over I was falling apart and sucking myself back together into one coherent girl. I was a continent with thundershowers and ice storms and volcanic eruptions, changing a little with every heartbeat. With every breath.