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1
THE NIGHT AFTER I made a pact with my younger self, I came back to the hotel and saw Carl at the desk. Though our original conversation about outer space and all that hadn’t happened yet (or might never happen, I wasn’t sure which) I had become quite chummy with the guy. The hotel didn’t have many guests and I was a regular presence.
Carl was an interesting character. He’d been married twice (“My two expensive mistakes,” he said) and still kept pictures of himself with each of his exes. When I asked him why, he coughed—Carl did a lot of coughing— and said, “Those two periods of time make up nearly a decade of my life. I’m not going to pretend that all that time didn’t happen. Anybody doesn’t like it can go screw, pardon my language, Mr. Bieber.” I had told him to call me Justin but he refused. Said it would be “disrespectful.”
He had three kids; one from the first marriage, two from the second. He didn’t get to see much of them, and I could see the hurt caused by that separation. He was a good guy, Carl, and I enjoyed our talks immensely. I tried to pry about his medical condition but he would never take the bait. I guess some people choose to pretend that bad things don’t exist. I always believed that dealing head on was the only way to solve anything. Of course I was coming to learn that the aggressive approach had its drawbacks.
That night Carl greeted me with his usual, “Good evening, Professor!” Ever since he learned about my computer specialty, he thought it was pretty damn hilarious to praise my intelligence. I wasn’t going to stop him.
“Evening, Carl,” I said.
“How’s everything?” He studied my face. “You got some stuff on your mind?”
Carl was prone to thinking I had things on my mind. Usually there wasn’t much to report. On that night I decided to vent a little. “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s this girl...”
That set Carl into one of his fits of painful-sounding laughter. “A girl! Mr. Bieber has a schoolboy crush! I love it.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I like about you, Carl? It’s the professionalism.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, go on. Tell me about your lady friend.”
“She’s...she’s great. Beautiful. Fun. Sweet...smart...I could go on.”
“It sure seems like you could,” said Carl. “So what’s the problem, Professor?”
I sighed. “The problem is that she’s not my age.” I saw his eyebrow rise in intrigue. “She’s not ‘underage,’ Carl. Don’t get too excited. She’s just a lot younger than me. Recent college graduate.”
“And does she seem young?” Carl asked. “Act like a kid?”
“No. She’s mature. Focused.”
“So what’s the problem?”
I wasn’t sure how to explain the whole thing. “I just worry that I’m doing the wrong thing.”
Carl leaned on the desk. “Let me tell you something, and this comes from a guy who’s had his share of good and bad romantic experiences. Your brain is always gonna try to interfere in matters of the heart, but you should do what makes you happy. You only live once.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that saying before.”
“Well,” he said, “let me tell you another one: ‘The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.’”
“Wow,” I said, “where did you pick that one up?”
“College, my dear Professor. I didn’t learn much but that little nugget stuck with me. Can’t remember who the quote is by, though.”
“What were you in school for?” I asked.
“Business. The quote I picked up in an English Comp class I had to take for basic requirements or whatever they called it.”
“Business degree, huh? Is that what led you to this job, Carl?”
He shook his head. “Nah. What led me to this job was the heartache of divorce. I used to set up conventions for a pharmaceutical company. You know, they’d have a booth at these big shows, right? And I was in charge of making all the arrangements in advance, and then the company would fly me out to wherever the show was— Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, all the big ones, and some smaller places too, like Lincoln, Nebraska. Now I could tell you some stories about Nebraska...” He waved off that thought.
“Anyway, I’d go to these cities and run the booth. I got to meet so many people and I became a real player in the industry, you know? Well, eventually that took a toll on my marriage... this is marriage number two I’m talking about. The wife didn’t want me leaving so much and didn’t seem to understand that that was what put food on the table. She raised all kinds of hell and we had one messy divorce. Got to the point where I couldn’t think straight. I’d try to organize the booth and I’d screw up details...forget to print flyers or send the banner a week early. Eventually I got called in for a meeting with the bosses.”
“Didn’t you explain to them about your personal problems?” I asked.
“I did. They weren’t very sympathetic. And somewhere in the middle of that conversation I just started venting all the frustration I’d built up...all that anger that should have been directed at my wife just came out at these two guys. I was done after that, not just in that company but in that whole line of work. I drifted for a while after I got canned, and found myself here. I’ve been here a long time, and this hotel is good to me. I still get to meet interesting people, present company included, though not as many as a few years ago.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I would go back and do it over if I could, Mr. Bieber, maybe find a better balance between work and family...sure as hell wouldn’t go running off at the mouth in that meeting with the head honchos. Yeah, I’d do it over if I could.”
He straightened up. “Point of this whole sob story is this: If you have a chance to be happy, grab a hold of it as hard as you can for as long as you can. Life is kinda like... one big fall off a really tall building. Eventually, you, me, and even the Pope, we’re all gonna hit the ground. Now your goal is to keep yourself floating in the air as long as possible. I don’t know, I’ve never been great at analogies. What I’m telling you is this: live your life and be happy, Mr. Bieber. That’s the truest advice an old screwup can give you.”
2
I took Carl’s words to heart and allowed myself to be open to something developing with Suzy. Things progressed a little each day. By the end of the second week of camp, she and I were all but attached at the hip, but I had yet to make any attempt to see her outside of the confines of Shady Pines Day Camp. Though I now planned to have a perfect, fun summer with her while waiting for the original time traveling Daniel—let’s call him OTT Daniel—to show up and get himself into trouble, I had run into an obstacle. That obstacle was the Jenkintown Hotel, or rather the fact that I stayed at the Jenkintown Hotel and did not have a house or apartment of my own like one would expect of a thirty-something teacher from one of the local high schools.
This made me reluctant to take the relationship to a level that might be anticipated for two grownups. It wasn’t like we would be able to go to her parents’ place without an uncomfortable level of scrutiny. Suzy wasn’t stupid; far from it, actually, and before long she had picked up on my hesitation. She confronted me in the parking lot on the Friday of the second week, as I leaned against the hood of the Taurus, hands in the pockets of the board shorts I had purchased. As an aside, I had picked up a couple pairs of jean shorts as well, but I hadn’t gotten to the point where I felt comfortable wearing them even though everybody around me seemed totally fine with the style.
But anyway, there I was, chillaxing, as they say in a time way beyond 1993, and along came Suzy looking perturbed. “Hey, Suze,” I called.
“Hey yourself.” There was a chill to her voice.
“Everything okay?”
“What are you doing tonight, Justin?” she asked.
I hadn’t actually thought about it yet. I enjoyed my freedom to make plans spur of the moment and I hadn’t planned anything more than a day in advance since I’d returned to the past. “Might see a movie or something, I don’t know.”
“Uh huh.” As a guy in a very bad marriage, I knew when I’d stepped into some kind of trap.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
“Yes...no...I don’t know.” She sighed and nudged me down the hood so she could lean against the car with me. Even in the panic of realizing I’d been caught in some kind of trap, her long legs caught my attention as she propped herself up. “Do you have a girlfriend that I don’t know about?”
No, I thought, I have a wife you don’t know about, but she’s a child.
“No!” I said, trying to sound shocked at the very notion. “Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know, it’s just... we’ve been getting pretty close, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well... my friends think you’re trying to avoid me or something. I mean, it’s the weekend, shouldn’t we be going out somewhere?”
“You’re right,” I said. “Look, there’s no other woman, it’s just that I was in a pretty serious relationship... not that long ago and I don’t want to go for something until I know my mind’s in the right place.”
“Oh. I see.”
I was screwing things up and needed to come up with a solution. “You know,” I said, “it’s the fourth on Sunday. I was thinking of checking out the fireworks. Maybe we could get a group together or something? Give us a chance to hang out and get to know each other better without any pressure.”
She gnawed on the side of her mouth while she thought it over. Finally, she nodded. “Okay. I can ask a couple of the girls. Do you have any friends you want to bring?”
“Nah, I moved here for work, remember? I haven’t made any friends yet.”
“Oh that’s right, sorry. Well then I’ll try to get some of my friends who have boyfriends...wait, that won’t put too much pressure on you, will it?”
I started to respond, then saw she was joking. “I’ll get you back for that!” I promised. She laughed and walked away. “Wait!” I called, “how can I get in touch with you?”
“Come with me to the main house and I’ll write down my home number,” she said. “You aren’t afraid to call my parents are you? You’ll have to meet them when you pick me up on Sunday anyway.”
I exaggerated a sigh. “Fine, I’ll do what I have to do. Parents love me.”
We laughed together but I have to admit I was nervous about meeting her folks. I know it’s an ironic thing to say when I was spending my days actually hanging out with my child self, but being with Suzy made me feel like a kid again.
3
Early Sunday evening, after a stop at the pharmacy where I bought a soda and made an uncomfortable, last minute decision to buy condoms—better safe than sorry—I arrived at Suzy’s house. At that point in my visit to 1993 I had not often had reason to drive somewhere unfamiliar. Tracking down a strange address without a navigation system in my car or Google Maps on my iPhone made me nervous. I had lost all confidence in my own sense of direction and drove past Suzy’s house three times trying to look for a house number before I felt certain that I had found the right place.
Suzy’s mom answered the door. She looked very much like Suzy though she was a good amount shorter and I thought of that old adage that claims you could judge a girl’s future looks by her mother’s. If that was the case, Suzy had many good years ahead of her. “Justin, come in!” she said with a welcoming tone. “Suzy’s just finishing up.”
She led me into the house and to the family room where Suzy’s dad was sitting on the couch. A small table in front of him held the TV remote and a beer. He grinned at me as I entered, which was not at all the reaction I’d expected.
“So you’re the guy who’s taking my little girl out tonight?” I froze uncomfortably. “Relax! I’m just giving you a hard time,” he said. “Come watch some TV while you wait. Want a beer?”
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Ah...not much of a drinker, are you?”
“Not really,” I said, forcing a smile. “Is that okay?”
He laughed. “Is it okay that the guy going out with my Suzy doesn’t like to drink? Yeah, I’d say that’s just fine.”
I sat down next to him on the couch. It wasn’t really that I didn’t like to drink. I had no problem with a beer or two. What scared me was the possibility that any amount of alcohol hitting my brain could send me shooting back to 2013. It was just one of many things I didn’t know; one of many theories I hadn’t yet tested.
It would have been right to think that I didn’t want to risk a return home because of the real job I had come to do in the past. It would have been noble to say that I was prolonging my break from my wife because I had to save both of our lives and get the timestream back on track. Yes, all that would have been great, but when Suzy’s dad offered me a cold beverage and I turned it down it was because I didn’t want to miss out on whatever was going to happen that night. Simple as that.
“How old are you, Justin?” Suzy’s dad asked me.
“I’m twenty-seven,” I said. I hadn’t expected to lie, but nobody had ever asked me my age. I guess I was embarrassed to be so much older than Suzy. I knew that with my dark hair not yet showing any signs of grey I would be able to pull off the ruse. It’s not like I was professing to be a teenager. What are five years between friends?
He seemed to be okay with the results of the mental math my answer provoked. Then he hit me with another curveball. “So what do you think of Clinton?”
“President Clinton?”
“No, George Clinton. Of course the president. You think he’s the right man for the job?”
“Well...” where to begin? Even in 2013 historians hadn’t yet completely evaluated the impact of the Clinton Administration. It seemed to me that other than the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal later in the second term, people were pretty happy with life in the ‘90s. Of course, in the years that followed some people blamed the Clinton policies for everything from enabling the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to the financial collapse that marked the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. I had no idea what to say.
“I think if he’s careful he could give our country some very good years,” is what I decided to go with. Not a great answer, perhaps overly cautious, but Suzy’s dad seemed to find it acceptable. Right about that time Suzy appeared, looking gorgeous and carefree. I couldn’t be happier to be avoiding further questions and instead to be embarking on the kind of evening I had thought was long gone from my life.
I thanked Suzy’s parents for their hospitality and led her to my car. I was really starting to like driving the Taurus. It didn’t have all the bells and whistles of a modern vehicle. Hell, it didn’t have any bells and whistles at all. That was a good thing. Being away from all the screens of the present day was amazing for my mind. Even without all the fancy shit that modern cars are expected to have, the Taurus had charm, and I wasn’t embarrassed to drive Suzy in it. To be honest, I could have driven anything and as long as it had Suzy in it I would have felt good about myself.
“My dad wasn’t too tough on you, was he?” she asked once we got out on the road.
“No, he was actually easygoing...though he did try to rope me into a politics conversation.”
“He didn’t!”
“I’m afraid so. Wanted to know my opinion on the Clinton administration.”
“He asks everybody that! He voted for Clinton but he’s got a bunch of Republican friends and he’s so nervous that they will tell him he made a horrible choice.”
“In my experience, Democrats and Republicans are going to like who they like and there’s no real convincing them of anything else, no matter how a presidency plays out.”
“You’re pretty smart, Justin, you know that?” I looked to see if she was playing around with me but she was giving me a genuine compliment.
“Thanks,” I said. “I do my best.”
“So why was it that you wanted to drive all the way to Mifflin?” she asked. “Waldorf is much closer.”
“I didn’t want to run into any of my students...you know. It’s awkward.”
“Oh, yeah, I can understand that,” she said. Of course I didn’t have any students. It was little Danny I didn’t want to run into, as he would be with my father. I just wanted a night free from the confusing overlaps with the past. I wanted to tell a new tale. Fourth of July, 1993, take one, I had gone with my dad and some friends to Waldorf, so in Fourth of July, 1993, take two, I was going somewhere else. New memories to be made. As I drove I kept glancing at Suzy’s tan legs. I knew the night was going to be interesting.
We parked along the sports fields behind the high school and walked out among the vast throng of people on blankets. I had no idea how Suzy expected to connect with her friends, but she marched on, confident in the vague location they had agreed upon as a meeting place. I wondered if reliance on modern technology hadn’t weakened some fundamental part of human capabilities.
In minutes, Suzy had made eye contact with her friend Kimberly (one of the other counselors from camp) who waved us over with enthusiasm. She was sitting with her boyfriend Chris. “What happened to Jen?” Suzy asked.
“Not gonna make it,” said Kimberly. “It’s just us. That’s cool right?”
“Cool with me,” said Suzy. She turned to me with a spirited smirk. “Cool with you, Justin?”
“Yeah, no problem,” I said. The night had turned from a group gathering into what could not be anything but a double-date. I had a brief moment where I thought about the woman who was my wife in another time and another universe. Then I decided to throw caution to the wind, go with the flow, and any other number of phrases that mean that I decided to stop being a nervous, second-guessing ass and try to have some fun.
Kimberly and Chris were both roughly around Suzy’s age, and it was hard for me not to feel like an old man, even though they had no idea I was actually five years older than I claimed to be. Still, I talked to them, laughed at their jokes, and traded playful barbs with Suzy, her firm figure nuzzled up against me on the blanket.
Eventually word spread that the fireworks were about to start. I looked over at Suzy’s friends and saw that they were making out rather openly. I turned to Suzy and flicked my thumb toward Kimberly and Chris as if to say, “You believe these guys?”
“So...” she said, “I guess it’s just the two of us.”
“I guess so.”
Without warning she flopped backward on the blanket and pulled me down next to her.
“Do you ever just stop and look at the stars?” she asked me. “I feel like so few people really take the time to just stare up like this.”
“Well, you have to count the homeless people.”
She gave me a good-natured punch on the arm.
“Shut up, you ass. I’m being serious here!”
“Okay, okay, you’re probably right,” I said. “And no, I don’t usually do this. It’s...nice.”
“That’s my point. There’s so much noise and chaos in the world. I don’t know if it didn’t exist when I was young or if I just didn’t realize it as a kid but everything moves so fast and nobody really enjoys just being alive.”
“You’re right about that,” I said. I wondered how many people in different time periods had said something similar. It was a sentiment that definitely would have made sense in my time. Not only did she have a valid point, but there was something to be said for what we were doing, watching the night sky like that. Music played in the distance and there was nothing in my vision but the stars above. It was cleansing in a way.
“Do you think it will get better?” she asked. “Like, will people stop rushing around the way they do?”
“I don’t think so.” I was genuinely sad to tell her that. “I really think the world is going to get faster and faster and well within our lifetimes people will carry little computers on them that they’ll stare at all the time. I think there will be so many tiny bright lights on this field in twenty years that it will be hard to make out the stars at all.”
She sat silent for a minute. “You know what I think?” she asked.
“No...”
“I think that’s pretty fucking sad.”
“Yeah, Suze. I agree a hundred percent.”
After that we were both quiet, but she moved her hand against mine and I linked my fingers between hers. I watched the stars. They were time travelers too, in a way. I had learned in some class or other that light takes so long to travel from the stars to Earth that most of what I was looking at was actually a much older version of the night sky.
I wondered how long I could make things work, living in the past. At any point I could get in trouble and have to escape, or something could flip in my mind and send me back before I completed my mission. And what of that mission, anyway? Did I really have to wait around for OTT Daniel to arrive? Why couldn’t I just tell Danny to walk a different way on that day?
Even if he didn’t listen, even if I made him more curious to find out what would happen, he would recognize OTT Daniel as Justin the computer guy, and throw things off the track of how they transpired the last time around. It was feasible that I didn’t need to say anything at all. Maybe I’d already done enough just by spending that little bit of time with Danny.
Fireworks exploded in the air and I jerked forcefully. “Whoa, settle down there, tough guy,” Suzy said. “They’re just fireworks. They aren’t going to hurt you!”
“Hey!” I said. “I wasn’t afraid, I was just thinking about things and the noise—” she leaned in suddenly and kissed me. I kissed her back, slipping my arms around her and pulling her partially over on top of me. We stayed like that for the entire show, kissing and touching while lights bloomed in the air with concussive sounds over a patriotic soundtrack. It was one of the best experiences of my life.
When the show was over we said goodbye to Kimberly and Chris and walked back to the car. Her hand felt perfect in mine. It felt right, which I’m sure is a damned weird thing to hear from a married man about another woman who was born ten years before him, but that’s how it was. It was right.
I didn’t know where I could take Suzy after the fireworks. I couldn’t bring her to the hotel without having to do a lot of explaining. It turned out I didn’t need to worry. By the time I had turned the car on and locked the doors, she took over and before I knew what was happening we were in the backseat of the Taurus with our breath steaming the windows.