If I Could Turn Back Time (12 page)

“Hello?” I have never answered the phone with more curiosity. It could have been just about anyone. It was bound to be interesting.

“Why do you sound like you’re asleep?” It was Tanya. But, disconcertingly, a much younger version of her than the one I’d talked to a few days ago from my hotel in Miami.

“I’m not,” I lied. I wanted to keep the conversation going. To keep hearing this version of her voice. To remember, in such a pure way, the roots of our friendship.

“You totally are.” It was going to be hard to get any depths out of this.

I had to laugh. Might as well go with it as she was expecting. “Well, I’m not
anymore
.”

“Get your ass out of bed. I’m picking you up in twenty minutes, I just wanted to remind you to bring my yearbook. Finish signing if you didn’t already.”

“Picking me up in twenty minutes?” I was completely disoriented. I looked over at the clock. Seven
A.M.
Where could we be going at 7:20
A.M.
?

“You know if we’re late they’re going to mark us absent and we’re going to have to totally jump through hoops to get our credits without having to go to summer school. Mrs. Sykes has it out for me and she’d give anything to screw me over like that.”

Oh, yeah.
School
.

Wow.

I was
not
up for this.

“She would,” I agreed, because … she would. Tanya’s guidance counselor seemed to hate her inexplicably. I’d gone on to know a lot of Mrs. Sykeses in my life, and pinning someone with the letter of the law—even something as small as marking a “tardy” as a technical “absence”—was a source of great pleasure for them.

“Clock’s ticking, tick tick tick,” Tanya went on, for all the world sounding like a small version of her bossy mother self. “Get up. And
don’t forget my yearbook
.”

The yearbook.
That
rang a bell and, in so doing, brought back a big heap of memories.

Actually, I
had
forgotten her yearbook when I first went through this. I remembered that now. She’d had a crush on Kenny Singer and she was
absolutely convinced
they were soul mates and they would be together forever. The problem was, he’d barely ever said two words to her. So her plan was to get him to sign her yearbook, thereby basically necessitating that he ask her to do the same, whereupon she would write:

Kenny, I’m sorry I never really got to know you but it’s not too late! My number is 555-5801 so give me a call sometime! Have a great summer!

Lord, I still knew it by heart because she had hammered it to death, trying to make it perfect, changing one word, then another, then changing them back, despite all of my suggestions that perhaps
silence
would be golden.

According to Tanya’s plan, Kenny was supposed to read that, realize that he had been missing out on this great thing all this time, and he was going to call her, and so on. Eventually they were going to have three kids. All boys. She thought Kenny would like that.

I
thought the plan was stupid at the time, but now, with a lot of years on me, I actually thought it wasn’t too bad. Not brilliant, but at least an overture that he could seize or ignore. If he was shy—and I had no idea, because I’d never heard another word about him—maybe this was all he needed. If he was not interested, there was no harm, no foul. She’d still end up in the same place: she’d eventually meet Vince Langston, marry him, and have two beautiful little girls and live happily ever after.

And if she got that opportunity to get Kenny out of her system, she could avoid the entire year of blaming me for screwing up her fate. Given the ferocity of her belief, I wondered if she might still, somewhere deep in her subconscious, wonder if Kenny was the Real One for her.

That was silly, of course. She was a sensible person, not prone to romantic notions about her past.

Still, you never know.

I got up, amazed, as before, at the ease with which I could just spring out of bed. Man, it was nice to be thin, and strong, and young. I went to the bathroom, brushed my hair and my teeth, then quickly did a better job with my makeup than I’d ever done in high school the first time around. No green eye shadow. Throw that electric-pink lipstick away. Get rid of that eternally orange foundation that smelled like medicine. It wasn’t fooling anyone, and I was pretty sure now I’d probably always had monkey-face, that ugly line along your jaw where your makeup and real skin collide and tell the world you’ve been doing your face like an amateur in bad light.

Which, of course, I was.

I went through the drawer and took out the most egregious items just to save me from myself if I should suddenly pop back into the future and leave my poor hapless high school self with all those loud, unflattering drugstore cosmetics.

But while I was digging in there I saw a bottle of Gap Heaven perfume. Oh, my god, I hadn’t smelled that in
ages
! I spritzed it on and was immediately transported to … well, now. My eighteenth summer. The smell conjured memories of steamy backseat sex, warm summer nights, the county fair, and love.

It also conjured my breakup with Brendan, the hurt in his eyes when I told him and every time I ran into him afterward, and the dull ache it had left in me for longer than I’d expected.

I shouldn’t have done it. I’m not saying I would have married him, I have no idea what could have happened, but I shouldn’t have ended such a sweet relationship for such a stupid reason. I was going away, moving on. I thought it made sense for us to end things before we were torn apart by circumstance (i.e., the fact that we were going to different colleges, hundreds of miles apart).

The truth is, a college student spends much more time at home than they think they’re going to. And I
missed
Brendan, I really did. Sometimes I thought I
still
missed him. Certainly I’d never found anyone I could be quite so myself with, though maybe that was because myself got guarded with age, the way adults tend to. Unless they want to be weirdos played by Will Ferrell in the movies.

But I couldn’t help thinking, what if Tanya wasn’t completely wrong about that whole soul mate thing? What if our destinies
could
be screwed up by one mistake? Like I said,
Tanya’s
life hadn’t been a mistake, so I’m not saying she was right about
that
, but what if the whole reason I was back here was because one of the wrongs I needed to right, maybe even the
main
wrong I needed to right, was not to dump Brendan?

It would be interesting, albeit scary, to see how my life might change if I hadn’t done it. But was I scared of that? I shouldn’t be—I already possessed all the knowledge my career required to get me to this point, so I could have my life back no matter what. What was there to lose? Maybe it was time to see what a reset could do.

But, man, could I really go back into the halls of high school?

It didn’t look as if I had any choice.

I went downstairs quietly, avoiding the squeaky stair fourth from the top, and into the kitchen. The cabinet under the counter was the liquor cabinet and it was unlocked, because I never stole anything from it. But today, come on—today I needed a little help.

I took out the bottle of Smirnoff and drew a slug of it. It burned going down, but other than that I felt nothing.

So I took another.

Then two more before I
finally
started to relax a little bit.

I could do this
.

I could do it.

I could do it.

You can do it.

You can do it.…

Tanya’s horn blasted outside, and I started, jerking my hand and spilling vodka all over myself and the floor. I looked at my shirt, and sniffed it. Fortunately the scent was mild, and the shirt would dry by the time we got to school. With a little luck no one would be any the wiser.

I ran to the door and signaled to her that I’d be right out.

Then I dashed back upstairs to brush my teeth and squirt on a little more perfume.

Admittedly it might have been a little obvious to come out smelling so strongly of toothpaste and Gap, but it was better than smelling of alcohol. I rinsed, spat, and took off down the stairs again.

Shit, the yearbook!

I held up a finger to her from the door:
Wait!
Then I ran back up, grabbed the book from next to my bed without even thinking about it, and ran back down the stairs and out to the big gray Buick that was chugging perilously in the driveway.

I got in and she immediately said, “Did you get a new job at the Gap?”

“Too much?”

“Little bit.” She backed out of the drive, making a distasteful face. “Open the window.”

I did. I cranked it down by hand. I couldn’t even think when the last time I’d done that was. “Sorry.” I set the yearbook down on the seat between us.

“Hey, you’ve smelled worse.” She gave me a sidelong smile. “You probably smelled worse before you put it on this morning.”

“Thanks.”

“Always here for ya.”

We rode the mile and a half to school in silence. So many thoughts crowded my mind, while I’m sure she was just idly thinking how glad she would be to graduate.

She weaved her way down the road in front of school, looking for a parking space on the car-clogged street. Soon the neighbors would get sick of this scene and demand permit-only parking, but for now it was still a madhouse.

And for me it was fascinating, passing all these long-forgotten faces, like being
inside
an old home movie.

I pointed, like a child at the zoo seeing a panda for the first time. “Good lord, it’s Frances Lee!” I cried, seeing the girl whom I later saw running in the Olympics.

“Obviously,” Tanya said, screwing up her brows. “It’s
always
Frances Lee. She
lives
on that track. Why is that so fucking surprising today?”

“I—” What could I say? “I’d heard she had mono and wasn’t going to be back before the end of term.”

“Frances Lee.”

“Yes.”

“You heard Frances Lee had mono.”

I knew where this was going, but I had no choice but to stick to my lie. “Yes.”

Tanya snorted. “Where, pray tell, would that girl possibly get mono? I seriously doubt she’s ever kissed anyone.”

“It’s not
literally
just a kissing disease,” I began, but it was a stupid waste of time to back up my lie with pointless facts. From now on, I just had to be careful not to be outwardly shocked to see anyone. “Anyway, there she is!”

“Yup, there she is.” Tanya gave another snort as she parallel-parked her car, and we got out.

I took a bracing breath to steady myself before going in, and wished I’d had a lot more than the four shots I’d had. Vodka was powerless compared to the adrenaline-fueling strength of high school.

*   *   *

THERE IS SOMETHING
about the smell of school that you never completely forget. It stays lodged in your subconscious, ready to resurface unexpectedly, when you least need to feel anxious and uncomfortable. I couldn’t have recalled it, or pegged any particular characteristics to it, but as soon as I walked in, I knew it well. A thousand, maybe even a million, memories flooded into my head, most of which I couldn’t have put words to, but I could
feel
them.

School
.

Some tangled combination of old books, xerox paper, heated processed food, and … fear? Embarrassment? There was some note I couldn’t define and I couldn’t say if it was sweet or sour, but it made my heart pound a little faster. Not in a good way. My stress rose like a cat jumping neatly onto a counter.

“What’s wrong with you?” Tanya asked me.

“Mm?” I returned my attention to her, trying not to seem nervous. “What do you mean?”

She gave me a what-the-fuck look. “I just totally
watched
the blood drain from your face.”

I had to laugh, despite myself. I’d felt it myself. “I’m fine. Just … a little sad.”

“Why?”

I looked at her. The youthful face that I would watch move through subtle changes, like in time-lapse photography, for at least the next two decades. Through jobs, marriage, pregnancy, kids, dogs. “Because it’s almost our last day here. After four long years, we’re never going to walk through these doors again. Probably,” I amended hastily. “Tomorrow is our
last day of high school.
”

“Thank. God.” She did the sign of the cross.

“Someday you’re going to feel melancholy about this, believe me. You’ll be off in some suburban home with two kids and a job that you’re sick of and you’re going to remember how nice it was to be in high school.”

She screwed up her face. “Okay,
Mom
, thanks for the lecture.” She shifted the weight of the backpack on her back and said, “So I’m going to turn all these books in so I don’t have to wear this stupid thing all day. See you later.”

“Tanya?”

She’d already started to walk away, but she stopped and looked back at me. “Yeah?”

“Can you write me a note and pass it to me in the hall? Just one more time? For old times’ sake?”

She looked at me like I was crazy. As well she should have. “If I have something to actually
say
, I will.” She shook her head. “You’re being weird as shit today. Weird. As. Shit.”

I laughed. Of course I was. I wasn’t very good at being myself, it seemed. What a bizarre problem to have.

After just a few minutes of wandering aimlessly, I realized I had no idea where I was supposed to go. I’d completely forgotten my schedule. I was, quite literally, living out one of my recurring nightmares: I had to go to class but I’d missed so many of them that I didn’t even know where it was, or who the teacher was, and there was no way on earth I was ever going to get caught up.

I went to the office and saw Mrs. Perrow, a smiling secretary with cropped gray hair and always-bright blue eyes, at her desk. “Miss Phillips,” she said, as she always did. She had the tiniest bit of a Texas twang.