29

Leila didn’t scream, and that was a big achievement.

Auntie Flora, aka Catsquatch, had vanished along with her pile of possessions. Leila’s bed and all her furniture were gone, too. Her bedroom was four blank walls. In the middle of the floor were stacks of cardboard boxes labeled GOTHAM MOVERS. Which meant that it was not yet her bedroom.

Because she had not been born yet.

“Ohhh-kay,” Leila whispered to herself. “Hang on to your head, Leila.”

The nail file, hot as an iron, fell from her hand. It tinkled as it hit the floor. During her whole life, Leila had never seen the wood floor beneath her carpet. The room was spotless, and poster-less, and she could smell the fresh paint. Outside the window, Central Park was a pattern of darkness and streetlamp lights. At least that looked the same.

No, not exactly. A rack of public bicycles, which had been installed on the sidewalk when she was little, was gone.

Leila had to steady herself against the wall. She wasn’t prepared for this. When Auntie Flora told her to hold the nail file and try to mentally transport herself to 2001, she couldn’t stop cracking up. That tiny nail file like some dollhouse Excalibur sword. It seemed ridiculous. She was sure Corey would be the only one who could do the real deed.

“Honey? Did you drop something?”

At the sound of her dad’s voice, Leila choked back a gasp. He was here. Living here. Before Leila had even been born. Way before he had met the account executive with the small eyes and big feet and moved with her to Parsippany, New Jersey. Leila could not remember him ever calling her mom “honey.” It was hard to imagine them ever being in love. It sounded so nice.

“I think something fell in the front room,” came her mom’s voice, sounding sweet and young.

At the thumping of footsteps, Leila scooped up the nail file and darted into the closet. Without all her stuff, it was empty and weirdly large. She shrank to the back wall, where one day there would be shelves.

Now Leila could hear the bedroom door open. She eyed the closet’s doorknob. Beneath it was a keyhole. Carefully she kneeled down and looked through.

Mom was standing in the middle of the mess, gazing down at the floor. But not Mom exactly. It was as if one of Mom’s old photos had come to life. Leila had seen her looking exactly like this, young and girlish, with the same floral shirt and high-waisted jeans. But here she was in three dimensions, breathing and walking and humming a tune Leila had never heard in her life.

She was dying to talk to her. What would happen if she just pushed the door open? Papou had explained that the past could not be changed, even if you tried. And her mom’s past did not include meeting the thirteen-year-old Leila. If it had, Mom would have told her.

But maybe Leila was a Throwback, too. She’d made it this far. Mom might freak out a little, but she’d get it. She was a writer. She had an imagination. She was open-minded.

Leila put her hand on the doorknob and pushed the door open. But Mom was already out in the hallway, scurrying away. “Do you see the time, George? We have a reservation at Ticker’s!”

Ticker’s. Columbus and Seventy-Fifth. Where they had met. When Leila was a little girl, there was a framed photo of them on the wall, standing happily in front of Ticker’s. The place had gone out of business, right around the same time Mom and Dad’s marriage had, too.

They were out of sight now, giggling and making kissy noises in the hallway. It gave Leila a funny, queasy feeling. She hung back in the room, listening as her parents rushed down the hallway and left the apartment.

She looked out her front window and waited a few moments. Her parents walked out the door, arm in arm. Dad had nearly a full head of brown hair, not yet gray and balding. Mom’s was long, straight, and a deep brown that wasn’t yet aided by a colorist.

They seemed so happy.

With a deep sigh, Leila sneaked out of the room. The hallway was bare and carpetless. All the photos that had gathered dust on the walls through her childhood hadn’t yet been put up.

As she tiptoed past the kitchen, she glanced inside. The same old digital clock was on the wall, only without the chip from when Leila had dropped it at age nine.

It said 9:07 p.m., September 10, 2001.

She was here early. Corey had hopped to the morning of the eleventh, so he wouldn’t be here yet. Leila heaved a sigh. She wanted to kick herself. If she’d waited till the morning, she wouldn’t have to find someplace to hang for a whole night. She would have been able to get a full eight hours’ sleep before traveling into the past.

For a brief moment she considered calling the creepy account executive with the small eyes and big feet from Parsippany and telling her to stay away from her dad.

Maybe another trip.

Now she had a job to do. Maybe she didn’t need to wait until tomorrow morning.

She knew the odds of being a Throwback were slim.

But it wouldn’t hurt to try.