Did I really kiss Jennifer? It felt as real as anything I’d ever felt before. The most amazing kiss.
“Table for two,” I tell the waitress as she approaches. She pushes her striped red hair from her eyes. She leads us to a narrow corner. We squeeze around an iron table with a round tabletop.
“Now
this
place has chocolate,” Jennifer says.
I don’t want to let go of her hand, but have to so that she can sit.
“I believe you,” I say with amusement. As I lower myself onto the seat, the front door opens. A waft of air comes our way, filled with the smell of grilling sausages and hot dogs.
When I hit the seat, it rumbles beneath me. I look up.
What? Where am I?
I look around in shocked confusion. I’m sitting on a subway train! A graffiti-covered sign reads
TTC
. Toronto Transit Commission. The smell of gears and oil is overwhelming. I try to shut my nose from it but can’t ignore what this means.
“What the hell?” I jump to my feet and shout. Have I time traveled again?
Heads turn in my direction. The car is half full. Where’s Jennifer?
Nowhere. I look around in a panic.
Nowhere!
I swear and kick the bottom rung of the seat. We were just together!
People are staring so I sit down again, racking my brain to figure out what happened. Someone’s shoes stink. I turn my head away from it. When I run my hand through my hair, I notice I’m back to short bristles. My arms are skinny again.
Think.
I was at Holden Square, wasn’t I?
An announcement comes over the speaker. “Next station, Islington…”
Islington.
That’s the second-to-last station on the west side. I’m heading toward home. We come to a rocking stop beneath underground lights. People climb in and out. It’s a mass jumble of scents – perfume, suede, and bananas. I exhale and take deep puffs to stabilize. I take out my cell phone and check the time. Six-twenty. Why hadn’t I thought to check my cell phone when I was with Jennifer? I knew it had to be Saturday, last year, last fall, but it would’ve been great to see what my cell phone would’ve said about the time and date. I go to check today’s date but my cell phone is blacking out.
“Excuse me.” Confused, I turn to the heavy lady across from me as the train rolls out again. She’s surrounded by glossy shopping bags and is wearing a tailored jacket. I can smell the new clothing in her bags. And something plastic. Something awfully plastic. “What day is it?”
Her face sours. She pulls away from me. Maybe I’m scary-looking, taller and bigger than her, and my voice is freaked out.
“Is it Tuesday? Tuesday, right?” Tuesday is the day I went to Burgen’s.
She nods.
“Thank you.” Had I fallen asleep at Burgen’s? Did he hypnotize me? I hadn’t taken any meds that I recall, so my mind was entirely clear then.
I scramble through my pockets for any evidence at having been with Jennifer. I pull out two folded ten-dollar bills and two red dice.
“Burgen’s dice,” I mutter to myself. But it’s not proof of anything.
I examine my shirt, my pants, my cell phone, anything to find a clue that I had just been with her.
I find nothing. No proof of any kind that what just happened, just happened.
All right. I have to call Burgen. My cell phone is searching for a signal. The next stop will be mine, so I’ll get out and do it there. I search my pockets for coins for the phone booth. I find some. I’ll make a call at the next stop. It’s after hours, but Burgen once told me that he has twenty-four-hour emergency service.
This
is
an emergency. I might be going insane.
I gaze out the window, watching the dark tunnel whiz by. The glass pane smells like ammonia cleaner. I gag.
Why was I pulled out of that timeline and brought back to this one?
I recall the scent of grilling hot dogs as I was sitting down with Jennifer. The sausage guy must’ve rolled his cart to the street somewhere outside our door. That smell was the initial trigger that sent me there in the first place. Plus repeating the last sentence...
Wait a minute.
When I was with Jennifer in the cafe, the last thing I said as the smell of the barbecue reached me was “
I believe you
.”
That’s what I said to Burgen in the park, the trigger that sent me back in time. I said, “
Okay I believe you.
”
Had I used the same system of triggers to come back, as I had to go there? Smell memory and repeating the last words of the time I wished to travel to?
I pull out the dice, fill my mind with the scent of the grilling dogs, and quickly repeat, “Okay, I believe you. I believe you.”
Nothing.
I repeat the words.
It doesn’t work. I’m not back with Jennifer. I’m still here. I curse under my breath.
The lady across from me glares again.
I ignore her, shuffle my large feet, cram my legs into the seat, and think. Why did I travel back here to the train, and not back to the park across from the hospital with Burgen?
Maybe because the same amount of time has passed in both timelines? Roughly an hour and a half with Jennifer there, and roughly an hour and a half past the point when I usually leave Burgen’s session and head for home, here.
But there’s no proof that I was actually there with Jennifer. It might be in my head.
How could a person actually time travel?
That wouldn’t be normal. And normal was what I wanted more than anything. Wasn’t it? Or did I like this new abnormal situation?
Something flashes off my sneaker. I glance down and slowly turn it over. A gob of blue bubblegum’s stuck to it.
That kid. It belongs to that kid in the alley who saw me and Jennifer kiss.
The gum is fresh. I
am
time traveling!
I laugh.
Only when I lift my foot can I smell the gum’s blueberry scent. The air smells stale in the train, but not overwhelming. My senses are back to normal.
The train comes to a stop at Kipling Station. I jump off, enter the underground building and find a pay phone since my cell phone’s still got a sketchy signal. I scroll through my cell list for Dr. Burgen’s number and punch it into the greasy black phone.
“Doctor’s office,” says a female voice on the other end.
“Hello,” I gasp.
She talks over me. “The office is now closed.” Hell, it’s a recording. “If you need assistance, please leave a message and someone will get back to you shortly. Currently on call is Dr. Adams. If this is a crisis, please go directly to your nearest hospital emergency room or call the crisis hotline at–”
She keeps talking but I hang up.
I don’t need the doctor on call. I need Burgen.
I race through the tunnel toward the buses. People are coming home from work. Stomping feet echo off the tiled walls. Okay, so I would skip classes in the morning and go directly to his office when it opens. I would force him to explain this to me.
My mind is whirling. My face is sweating.
I hop onto a bus. I have to get home, but need to make one crucial stop first. The last place I saw Jennifer. I’m already headed in the right direction.
Schultz’s Desserts.
Maybe she’s still there.
CHAPTER FOUR
At
Schultz’s Desserts
, I press my fingers on the cool storefront window and peer inside.
I don’t see her.
I push my way inside the crowd, scour the back tables, and still don’t see her.
Two women come out of the restroom. I ask if a girl by Jennifer’s description is inside, but the answer is the same.
Jennifer is not here. I sag with disappointment.
The tables are arranged differently, so the one we sat at isn’t here, either.
“Can I help you?” asks a blond waitress.
“Is there a waitress with red hair working today?”
She blinks. “Red hair?”
“Yeah. Striped red hair.”
She pops her bubblegum. “I don’t think anyone with striped red hair works here. But I only started yesterday.”
“Okay, thanks.” If I
was
here a year ago with Jennifer, the waitress might have dyed it since then. Girls are always doing that. Changing colors.
I shove my hands into my pockets and leave. I head for home in the warm, setting sun, wondering what to make of today.
The kiss felt real.
I want it to be real.
There could be something real between us. Something more to my relationship with girls than going to parties on the weekends with my buddies and drinking, and all that other stuff that used to occupy my time but now bores me. I want Jennifer to be in my life. She’s different than any other girl I’ve ever met. We click on every level.
Maybe Jennifer was a dream. Maybe I’m dreaming now.
But it feels real. Look – the hot sun on my face tingles, doesn’t it? The pavement beneath my feet feels hard? The leaves above me smell good?
I’m
not
dreaming.
I turn the corner onto Poplar Street and head to the two-story brick house. The shingles need redoing and the porch needs repainting. My dad used to keep it up but at some point, some painful point, he stopped. It’s my job to cut the grass, and it’s shaggy. Guilt hits me. I’ll do it tonight.
Dr. Burgen once asked me if I believe in an afterlife.
I’d like to hope there’s one, but I’ve never seen or felt any evidence of it. We used to go to church but after I was diagnosed, my mother stopped going. Then so did the rest of us because she was always the one who got us up early on Sunday mornings.
What no one knows about me is that I still pray sometimes. They’re little prayers, I mean I don’t get down on my knees or anything, so I wonder if Anyone Up There hears me. Prayers for my sister not to take this so hard, prayers for my brother not to hate me, prayers for complete strangers on the news who need help after their house is flooded. Secret prayers for my parents...
I asked Burgen what he believes about an afterlife. He insisted these sessions are about me, but I bugged him for weeks until he finally said that yes, he believes in an afterlife. I don’t know why, but that makes me feel like cheering.
I hop onto the porch, two steps at a time. A flaked, chewed rubber ball rolls out from beneath the planks. Rusty’s. My old Chesapeake Bay Retriever. We used to play fetch for hours with it. Wish he was still around. He had a way of waving his tail that always made me happy. I drop back to the ground and kick the ball under the porch, saving it as a reminder of my best friend.
Rusty would’ve liked Jennifer.
Every bone in my body aches to see her. In fact...instead of waiting for time travel to happen, maybe I should try looking for her in
real
time. Maybe that’s what this lesson of Burgen’s – if that’s what it is, a lesson – is all about. How to change my present situation by thinking about my past?
I leap up the stairs again, open the screen door and enter. The door bangs behind me. “Hey!” I holler to no one in particular and toss my shoes on the pile.
“Hey!” my mom hollers back from the depths of the kitchen. “Is that you, honey?”
“No, just me.”
She appears, drying her hands on a dish towel. “That’s who I meant, silly.”
I’m kidding.
She’s smiling, but her eyelids are pink and swollen. She’s been crying again. I pretend not to notice. At least she hasn’t been crying so much lately, not since my remission status of ten days ago. I know it’s tentative and fragile and could be shaken at any time, but remission is a huge achievement. Maybe she was crying about our money situation. If I tell her I was time traveling, she’d freak out, so I can’t.
I try to cheer her up the only way I know. “I got a C on that English essay.”
“Really?” Her eyes lift. “That’s wonderful.”
It is, considering all the time I’ve missed in school.
It’s better than the D’s I’ve been getting. Some of my teachers are sorry to give me low grades. Some of them even apologize privately for having to do it, due to all the missed assignments they had to give me zero on. They all seem to know what I have, like they discuss me and my condition behind closed doors. That bugs me more than the crappy grades.
But not today. Today I’m officially a C. Not like the A’s I used to get in English, back when I had time to read a novel from cover to cover. Time to write an excellent essay, formulating opening paragraphs and metaphors and great persuasive arguments. Before I had to spend my hours at the hospital.
Today, however, my C makes me feel like a genius.
“You know, honey, we could still switch to home schooling–”
“Don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Mom, but–”
“It’s okay.” But she says it like it’s not okay. Like she disapproves and wishes I would give in to her better judgment. “Dinner’s almost ready.” She nods toward the living room. “TV’s on.”
I head to the sound of girls screaming. I love when I hear girls screaming. In horror flicks, of course. Horror always makes me laugh, sometimes more than comedy.
I spot my sister’s sock foot dangling over the edge of the sofa. Great opportunity. As the music builds to a crescendo, I sneak toward her toes and grab them.
“Ahh!” she shrieks, bolting upright.
My younger brother, Simon, and I laugh our heads off.
“You jerk!” Ivy hollers, then giggles. Her black hair wobbles. It’s not spiky anymore, but longer and plainer and hangs over her ears. She hides the hawk tattoo on her upper arm, and doesn’t wear freaky dark lipstick anymore. I don’t know why, but since my diagnosis, she’s turned into this squeaky clean girl. I don’t like her this way. I want her to be who she used to be.
Although Ivy is a year older than me, Simon is more than five years younger, in the fifth grade. He looks like a regular kid – short hair, no frills. The three of us are tossing pillows at each other when my mom calls us to dinner. We haven’t laughed together like this for a couple of weeks.
But Simon still won’t look at me.
“Sorry,” Ivy whispers. “I didn’t mean to call you a jerk. If that’s the last thing I say to–” Her face falls. “That’s not what I meant, either.”
I shrug. “It’s okay.” I whack her with a pillow, she laughs and aims for my head.