Second Chances Box Set

by Jason Ayres

  She heard the unmistakable hiss of a deodorant upstairs and the running of a tap before he rushed back downstairs, only a couple of minutes after he had left. There was a blob of toothpaste on his T-shirt. Bless him – he was making an effort.

  “How about this coffee, then?” she asked, unable to resist adding, “Preferably without any laxatives.”

  This comment was also meaningless to this version of Kent, who just looked at her with a perplexed expression on his face. She would have to stop dropping these little references into the conversation, as the last thing she wanted to do was make him uncomfortable.

  “Joke,” she explained. “Don’t worry about it.” She smiled at him to reassure him.

  “Come through to the kitchen,” he said. “You look lovely in that dress, by the way.”

  It was a genuine compliment, which she appreciated, and he had made it without ogling her breasts. As he busied himself preparing the coffee she made some small talk with him, asking him how his exams had gone and if he had any plans for university. Once they were both seated at the kitchen table, she decided it was time to get to the point.

  “I expect you’re wondering why I’m here,” she said.

  “It had crossed my mind,” he replied. “Would you like a biscuit?” He offered her a round tartan tin and she took out a milk chocolate digestive. He seemed a little more relaxed than when she had first arrived.

  “Well, it’s quite simple really,” she said, munching on her biscuit. “It’s about the ball tonight.”

  “You’re going with Glen, aren’t you?” he said, not managing to conceal his disappointment.

  “As it happens, no,” replied Kay, and promptly launched into the tale of Glen’s subterfuge.

  “What a snake!” exclaimed Kent. “It doesn’t surprise me, though. He’s always screwing people over but I never thought he would do it to me. Fancy going around telling people that I’m gay! I’m supposed to be his best mate.”

  He looked pretty annoyed. Never mind, she had something much better to offer than his so-called best mate’s fake friendship.

  “Well, now you know what he is like, I suggest you don’t get mad, but get even. That’s where I come in.”

  He looked up hopefully, wondering what was coming next.

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

  “About the ball – did you manage to sort yourself out with a date?” asked Kay.

  “Sadly not,” he replied despondently. “Quite honestly, you were by far and away my first choice, and when that didn’t work out, I didn’t have the heart to ask anyone else.”

  “Well, it’s all worked out nicely now,” she said. “I’ve ditched him. So, Cinderella, it’s your lucky night. That’s if you still want to take me, of course.”

  His face lit up at her offer. “I’d love to,” he said. “But should I do the dirty on a mate like that? It’s not really right, is it?”

  “You mean your mate who treats women like shit and stabbed you in the back the first opportunity he got?” asked Kay.

  “Well, when you put it like that,” said Kent, “I’ll be delighted to take you to the ball.”

  “Consider it a date,” she replied. “And now that’s all sorted, what are you up to today?”

  She had only one day with him, so wanted to make all of it count.

  “Well, nothing planned, really,” he replied.

  “You do now,” she said. “I don’t just want a date for the ball. I want you to be my boyfriend.”

  Kent was lost for words, scarcely able to believe his luck. Without further ado, she got up from her chair, walked over towards him, leant down and kissed him, sparing him the need to respond with words.

  They kissed for about fifteen seconds. It was a pure, wonderful kiss, the sort that harkened back to times when a kiss wasn’t merely the prelude to sex but enjoyable merely in itself. She had forgotten how amazing that felt.

  Despite the purity of the moment, it could easily have led on to more if she had wanted it to. She was sure he wouldn’t resist if she took his hand right there and then and led him up the stairs, but she wanted more from the day than just sex. She wanted to spend the whole day getting to know this younger him, savouring the anticipation, before she seduced him at the end of the evening.

  She broke off the kiss and jumped up. “Come on,” she said. “If you’re going to be my boyfriend, you can take me out for the day. Let’s make it one to remember.”

  A day to remember it certainly was. They took the bus into Oxford, bought sandwiches from the M&S Foodhall, and had a picnic in Christ Church Meadow. They walked through the parks, holding hands, chatting and kissing in the sunshine. Then they hired a punt, something Kay had always wanted to do, and spent a lazy couple of hours on the River Cherwell. That was another box ticked off under things she had always meant to do but never got round to.

  Later they went into town and browsed around some long-gone and fondly remembered shops. Cornmarket Street had never been the same for her since the day HMV had closed. Browsing through the racks of records and CDs they discovered that they had more than a few artists in common.

  When the store started playing a recent Saint Etienne single and he remarked how much he liked them, she felt a rush of happiness at finding such a kindred spirit. He was everything she had hoped he would be and more. She would even go so far as to say she had found her soulmate. It was potentially heartbreaking that she had found him in the wrong universe and in the wrong time zone, but she tried not to think about that.

  Before they got the bus home, they went to Old Orleans, Kay’s all-time favourite restaurant in Oxford. It had stood on the corner of George Street just down from The Apollo for decades when Kay was growing up. She had been gutted when it had closed down in the late noughties.

  As with HMV, she relished the opportunity to visit this old haunt one final time. Drawing fifty quid out of the cashpoint, she treated him to a meal. He was flattered, and wanted to pay half, but she insisted. The money was of no future use to her in this world, so she may as well make use of it. And fifty quid went a long way in 1994.

  She ordered a rib and wing combo, while Kent chose a steak. As they ate, they chatted away about every subject under the sun. The more they talked, the more she felt her affinity with him grow.

  Smitten as she was, there was an unpleasant flip side to all of this that she was trying not to think about. Was she merely making things worse for herself by acting out this fantasy of what might have been? Was living this romantic dream right now going to make the pain of going home that much more unbearable when the time came?

  Her feelings for him were being magnified with every passing moment. She couldn’t remember feeling this intensely about anyone for a long time, but then, her feelings could be being enhanced by teenage hormones, something over which she had no control, even if her thoughts were those of a forty-three-year-old.

  She had just about accepted that Kent couldn’t be hers in the future before she had come here, but she knew that she was going to have to deal with those feelings all over again when she got back to 2018. No matter, she would just have to live with it. She remembered that old phrase: it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Well, she was just going to have to give him his whole lifetime of loving in this one day.

  Catching the bus home, they reluctantly parted for a couple of hours at teatime, returning home to get into their costumes. This gave her the opportunity to spend a little time with her parents. Her mother had made one of the gorgeous beef casseroles that had been Kay’s favourite meal when she was growing up.

  It was a serious case of pigging out on top of the meal she had eaten only an hour or so before in the restaurant, but there was no way she was missing the opportunity to enjoy her mother’s cooking. It wasn’t as if she had to worry about the extra calories either. Just like with spending all her money, she wouldn’t have to worry about it later.

  A moment on the lips, a lifetime
on the hips, her mother used to say. Not today it wouldn’t be. Kay hadn’t eaten so well for months, living primarily off junk food since she had split with Alan. As long as she could still fit into her Catwoman costume after eating two dinners, she would be fine.

  She enjoyed a great chat with her mum and dad over the meal, reminiscing about some of the holidays they had had when she was a kid. She wished she could have spent more time with them, but tonight was all about her and Kent. There would be more opportunities for family time later. In fact, she already had an idea in mind.

  As soon as she had eaten, she headed upstairs to make herself look beautiful – not that she really needed to. Looking at herself in the mirror, she had to admit that she looked amazing. She was a flower in full bloom, before the inevitably of aging had made that flower begin to wither. There was no going back for most people, just a long, slow decline into death. But Kay briefly had been given the chance to bloom afresh, and here she was now, dressed to kill in her Catwoman outfit.

  Almost ready to go, she checked her handbag, making sure she had stowed the pack of condoms inside. She had been keeping them in her bedside table as a teenager for just such an occasion. Just as with the money she had spent and the calories she had consumed, she was aware that when it came to sex, taking precautions had no consequences in this body. But she would take them, anyway. This version of Kent didn’t know that his world wasn’t real and if he wanted to use protection, she had to respect that.

  Most men didn’t want to use condoms in her experience, despite all the warnings. Perhaps it was down to some sort of primeval urge to ensure their sperm hit the target. Then again, perhaps the men she had been with were not representative of the population as a whole, considering that she generally picked arseholes. Nearly all of them either conveniently forgot or made up some bullshit like Glen had about being allergic to latex.

  Kent was right on time calling for her, and within an hour they were at the ball. Of Glen there was no sign. It seemed he had wisely heeded her advice and stayed away to avoid any further humiliation. Despite all his bravado, he was clearly a complete coward when someone stood up to him like Kay had.

  Kay couldn’t have hoped for a better evening. It wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say that it was the happiest day of her life, and that included her wedding day, which wasn’t actually all that great. How could it have been? She had been lumbering herself with Alan for twenty years.

  This night may have been taking place in a fake universe, but in Kay’s eyes, it would always be real. The memories she was making tonight would be precious, and she would be able to carry them with her for the rest of her life. Nothing could take them away from her.

  She and Kent were inseparable all evening, cherishing every single moment together. Of course, he had no way of knowing that it was only for one night. It seemed almost cruel in a way. Was it right of the angel to create new universes at will and then delete them at her leisure?

  Was that not tantamount to murdering the people who lived in those new universes, even if their counterparts lived on in the original? Who was to say? At least in Kent’s case, ignorance was bliss. He was clearly deliriously happy at what was happening, unaware that he would soon cease to exist.

  At least there was another Kent, the original one back in 2018 who had got to live his own version of this day again. She wondered how he had felt when he returned. Had he fallen for her in that timeline, just as he had in this one? It would certainly explain why he had been so much kinder to her in recent weeks in the real world.

  In this world, the evening was racing past far too quickly for Kay’s liking. It seemed like no time at all until they were sharing the last dance of the night, a smoochy ballad from Wet Wet Wet. As the song came to a close, she knew it was time to tell him what she wanted to say and what she hoped he wanted to hear. She whispered into his ear, “I want to come home with you tonight.”

  He didn’t resist, just as she had hoped. Within an hour of that final dance, the two of them were making love in his bed. The contrast with the original version of this night could not have been greater. Glen had wanted her purely for sex: this was different. This was more like the movie sex she had always believed was a myth. No man had ever gazed into her eyes before in the way that he did. It was without a doubt the most intimate experience of her life.

  Later they held each other tightly, cuddled up in the afterglow. This wasn’t something she was used to, either. Alan used to just roll over and go to sleep straight after sex and none of her one-night stands during the past year had shown her the slightest bit of affection.

  Right at that moment, curled up with Kent, she had never felt so close to another human being in all her life. She tried desperately to cling onto the moment and stay awake as long as she could, willing the angel not to take her back, but in her warm and contented state, sleep soon came.

  Chapter Eleven

  December 2018

  The next thing she knew, she was back in the bathroom in her flat. It was all over. Strangely, she didn’t feel sad at being dragged back to reality. Instead, she felt a sense of triumph. She had achieved everything she had set out to do and the results had massively exceeded her expectations.

  She turned to the mirror, a smile on her face.

  The angel was waiting for her.

  “That’s the happiest I’ve seen you,” remarked her reflection.

  “It should be,” said Kay. “I’ve just had the most amazing day of my entire life. Whatever happens in the future, nothing and nobody can take that away from me now.”

  “That’s great to hear,” remarked the angel. “I can see that my presence here is doing some good.”

  “I’m very grateful,” said Kay. And she meant it. What the angel was doing for her was really starting to turn her life around.

  After two trips back in time her head was brimming with ideas. Her easy disposal of Glen had made her keen to serve up some just deserts to Alan, too, but she wanted more than the satisfaction of some short-term revenge. Kent’s tale of his antics with the dinosaur had made her think of all sorts of humiliating pranks she could pull on Alan, but it would only be a brief moment of satisfaction, and that wasn’t enough. She wanted to do something in the past that could actually make a tangible difference to her life here in the present.

  “That’s what I’m here for,” said the angel. “It’s good to see you making good use of your days.”

  “There’s plenty more I want to do yet,” she said.

  “So I see,” replied the angel, probing her thoughts. “You’re a smart girl. I can see you are looking at ways to make the most of this experience. Not everybody does. Far too many just squander it on pleasure seeking and trivial things.”

  “Well, I’ve got a good idea what I want to do next,” said Kay. “But I’m not sure I might not be breaking the rules doing it.”

  “It’s not actually physically possible to break any rules,” replied the angel. “There’s no way to cheat the system – say, to smuggle some money forward through time, for example.”

  “I realise that,” said Kay, “Though what I have in mind does involve money.”

  “I can see what you’re thinking and there’s nothing to say you can’t do it,” said the angel. “Just keep in mind the physical limitations of what you are trying to achieve. The golden rules remain set in stone. You can’t take anything into the past with you and you can’t bring anything back from the past into the present day. If you can figure out a way that works around that, then I would say go for it.”

  “I will,” replied Kay. She would certainly figure it out. The angel was right. She was still that smart, clever nineteen-year-old inside, despite the wasted years since. It was time to put that intelligence to good use.

  “Well, you have all day to think about your plans,” said the angel. “Good luck.” The image of Kay’s younger self faded from the mirror, to be replaced by her present-day reflection once again.

  She could s
pend the day at work thinking about what she was going to do and then run it by Kent in the evening. Despite it being Sunday, it was no day of rest for her. This was the ninth day of ten in a row that she was working, up to and including Christmas Eve. She needed every penny she could get, especially with the pressure McVie had been putting on her.

  She hated the job, but no matter. It was only two more days. Then, hopefully, she would be finished with it forever. She was formulating a big plan to get her out of this mess, and this next trip could be the key that would unlock her future.

  She had an earlier finish at work with it being a Sunday, the store closing at 4pm. Despite that, it was already dark when she left the shop not long after, and remarkably there was snow beginning to fall. Surely they couldn’t be in for a white Christmas, could they? She had waited her whole life to see one. They happened in every Christmas movie or festive TV special she had ever seen, but never in real life.

  Snow or not, maybe this Christmas really was going to be the one when all her dreams would come true. As she walked up the street, watching the light, powdery snowflakes lit up by the glow from the street’s Christmas lights, she began to feel quite festive. Yes, this was going to be a Christmas to remember. Or possibly even two. She had come up with an idea that would enable her to uniquely enjoy two Christmas Days this year.

  Arriving at the shop, she could see that it hadn’t yet opened for the evening. McVie usually shut it for a few hours in the afternoon, opening again about 5pm for the teatime rush.

  When Kay was young, it would have been unheard of for a chip shop to open on a Sunday. Her family, like most others, always sat down to a traditional roast dinner on that day. It seemed that people didn’t bother so much with that anymore. Most shops and fast-food places were now open seven days a week. Kay thought that was a shame – she had liked it when Sunday had been special. Now it was just a day like any other.

  The lights were on inside the shop, but the door was still locked. She let herself in with her key, not happy to see her dreaded landlord behind the counter after the way he had harassed her the day before. He had his back to her and was once again berating Anna, the young Polish girl.