Chapter Five

JOEY HAD ALWAYS suspected Taylor had sent the valentine, and now it seemed clearer than ever. She’d looked for Taylor after school that day and was pretty sure she hadn’t seen her. Was it because Taylor had been waiting for her behind the gym? Had she left her friend there, sad and alone, on Valentine’s Day?

Taylor had made it all the way through high school without anyone finding out her secret. Joey never told a soul, and she pretended to be surprised when she heard years later that Taylor had come out after landing a spot in some fancy Paris orchestra after attending a conservatory in Europe. She’d never even told Dan. He wouldn’t have been judgmental or anything, but she couldn’t figure out a way to tell him what she knew without sharing how she knew it.

Joey and Dan had been famous for being each other’s first and only everything. People thought it was so neat that they were each other’s first kisses and they were the perfect high school sweetheart couple, eventually getting married and only being with each other. “You mean you’ve never kissed another man?” new friends would ask Joey in shock and amusement.

And since Taylor had been the only other person she’d kissed, she’d answered honestly while keeping her secret safe for decades.

Joey opened her closet again and found a box of keepsakes stuffed in underneath old yearbooks and other scholastic detritus. Inside the box, she found school music performance programs, notes passed between her and friends between classes, and a pile of Valentine-grams from over the years. On the very bottom, still wrinkled from its original crumpling, lay the one she’d gotten last year. She opened it and pictured Taylor writing it. She had been so brave to put her feelings down on paper and to try to let Taylor know she still felt those feelings, even after all these years.

Okay, only four years, but that’s a lot when you’re eighteen.

Joey began to search her brain again. What would Taylor have been doing today? She only lived a few streets away, and Joey pictured herself showing up on her doorstep, holding the valentine and saying…what?

“Hey, it’s me, Joey! I actually am bi, and I’d love to kiss you and touch your other boob?”

No, that wasn’t right. It was definitely what she wanted to say, but she couldn’t reference the valentine without explaining why she suddenly knew how significant it was. And saying they should get married after only speaking as friends/acquaintances all through high school felt absurd.

If she was remembering correctly, Taylor would be leaving that night for Europe. Everyone had talked about how glamorous it was that she’d be skipping the graduation party to start her conservatory program early. At the senior yearbook signing party, Joey had asked Taylor a bit about it and remembered two things: she was going to live in London for school and she was really nervous to be going alone.

Was that what she was sent back here for? To go with Taylor and save her from that loneliness? They’d lost touch through the years, but Joey had heard things were going well for Taylor. She was pretty sure she’d even gotten married to a woman and had no reason to think things were anything but perfect for her.

But wouldn’t people say the same thing about her and Dan? And as only she knew, things were far from perfect for her in 2022.

Joey sat back down and looked at her list. This was definitely not heaven, so she erased that column. If she had time traveled here, certainly she could time travel back. But how?

Mary Fate. If Mary had sent her here, surely she could send her back, right? She opened up her internet browser and waited while it loaded. Then she remembered she was in 2002 and this was going to take a minute, so she walked to her closet to get dressed for the walk she now knew was coming. As she sat back down, she wondered if Google was a thing yet, and typed it into the address bar. It opened but looked nothing how she knew it would in 2022.

I should invest in Google, she thought to herself as she typed “Mary Fate” into the search field. A crude but working webpage was the only result and Joey laughed as she saw a young Mary’s picture slowly load on the screen. Apparently, she’d invented the Madam Fate persona somewhere between now and the now Joey had just come from, but she did have an address in Phoenix where it said she offered various psychic services, including parties. Joey jotted it down and set it on her dresser.

She then searched for flights leaving Phoenix that night for London, called the only company that had one (British Airways), used the credit card she’d opened last year for emergencies, and booked herself a one-way ticket.

She wasn’t quite sure yet that she’d use it, but it was better to have it, just in case. And if she had a plane ticket, she should probably also pack. She looked around at her room and wanted to cry. When she lived this date the first time, she’d been so focused on her graduation that night she’d forgotten to say goodbye to her room, her childhood. She had assumed she’d have the whole summer before moving out into a dorm and would spend late nights with Betty, eating junk food and watching old movies.

But in addition to a ring, Dan was probably also putting the deposit down on the apartment they were going to rent. It was such a Dan move. He realized if they signed a one-year lease when school started in August, they’d have to renew that month every year. If they moved out in May, the lease would be up when they graduated in exactly four years, because of course they’d graduate on time.

And they had graduated on time, so it worked out perfectly, but that was beside the point. Joey had been so excited to be out on her own and living with Dan that she’d missed out on giving her family a proper goodbye. Sure, they’d still seen each other often, but it wasn’t the same after she moved out. For someone who loved Peter Pan as much as Joey did, she’d grown up too quickly. And sure, she had loved being a young mother and that felt like getting a second childhood, but when you go to bed stressed about bills and exhausted from chasing toddlers all day, no amount of playtime during the day can keep you from feeling old.

Joey quickly threw her favorite clothes and shoes into a suitcase and decided she’d buy whatever else she needed once she got to London, if that’s what she actually ended up doing. She found her passport and searched the pile of papers on her desk for her acceptance letter to the London School of Creative Writing. She hadn’t even told Dan she’d applied, let alone been accepted, and managed to secure a student visa without her parents knowing either. Smart, logical Joey knew her full ride at Arizona State University was the most sensible option. She and Dan had both gotten degrees without incurring any student debt and moving to London would cost a fortune, but she still couldn’t help applying and dreaming of living abroad.

Maybe she hadn’t time traveled just to see what her life would be like with Taylor. Maybe she was meant to live an entirely different life, after all, and maybe stepping into that tent wasn’t some random occurrence.

Maybe it was Fate.