In Between

by Beca Lewis

  She was waiting for Valerie. Valerie and her two sons lived in the only house set around the traffic circle that surrounded the park. The rest of the buildings were stores, the bank, a gas station, the Diner, and of course, the coffee shop.

  Grace had told her that Valerie’s house used to be a bed-and-breakfast, but after her husband died, Valerie quit being the principal of the high school and turned half her home into a design studio.

  As far as Rachel knew, it was quite a success. Along with running a local interior design business, Valerie ran a craft website that sold handmade items made by people who lived in the area.

  Sitting in the park, Rachel was in the center of Doveland. The four roads that led to the traffic circle around the park were from the four directions. That made it easy to know where you were going, something she had always loved about Doveland. It was hard to get lost.

  South of the circle was a hardware store and a bar. The north road led to a new arts school located on a site that used to be a hippie community. While the school was being built, the town discovered the graves of four young women and that led to the discovery that their beloved town doctor, Dr. Joe, was a monster hiding in plain sight. It was Grace and her friends who had uncovered what Dr. Joe had done.

  Rachel was sure Grace and her friends were at least partly responsible for how quickly the town had healed from the revelation. One of Ava’s friends, Craig Lester, who was part of the group who moved to Doveland, was now the new town doctor, and the new man in Valerie’s life.

  The arts school transformed into an arts camp in the summer. A woman named Emily and her recent husband, Josh, ran it together. Rachel wished it had been around when she was young. But she had heard they had adult classes. Maybe she should try them out.

  The road leading west went by Ava and Evan’s home. It also led to the town of Concourse. Hank Blaze—another of Ava’s friends—and a crew of high school students with the help of Hank’s construction company, had built a bike path alongside the road that traveled the entire way to Concourse. Someday she would have to take it. Maybe she could convince Bryan to go with her.

  The road to the east led to a lake. Besides being a popular summer destination, it had been another burying place for some victims of Dr. Joe’s experiments.

  Yes, the town had secrets. Even though she had lived in Doveland her entire life, she had not been part of those secrets, although she had her own. She knew Dr. Joe, for example. That was not unusual. He had been everyone’s doctor. He had helped her through her childhood and was the person she had gone to when she had a decision to make that haunted her still. With all that, how had she not noticed that he was evil?

  It worried her, and it scared her. Evil had lived among them, and until Grace and her friends had come to town, no one knew. Or if they did, they had said nothing. Which was worse, that she hadn’t noticed, or that people had noticed and didn’t speak up?

  Rachel knew that saying yes to what Bryan needed had brought her into the center of yet another old mystery centered in Doveland. It was giving her a chance to wake up. She wanted to be the kind of person who spoke up when there was a problem. And she was tired of pretending that she had it all together. After this Connie thing was over, she and Bryan had some talking to do,

  Rachel was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice Grace until she felt the bench shift under Grace’s weight.

  Grace handed her a coffee made just as she liked it and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, but when I saw you sitting here, I thought I would join you before the shop gets busy. This is my favorite spot to watch the world go by.”

  Rachel nodded and sipped her coffee. It didn’t surprise her that Grace remembered how she liked it. Grace was like the park bench. At the center of everything. A safe place to see and be seen.

  Rachel knew that a few years before, a man had passed away one night on the bench. He had come to town to find a long-lost sister. She had died before he found her, but his arrival had brought many mysteries to light. There was an excellent outcome for that story. Josh had found his long lost love, Emily, while searching for his grandfather, the man on the bench.

  Yes, Grace and the bench have known both sorrow and joy, Rachel thought.

  Across the street, Valerie’s door opened. She waved and headed to the coffee shop. Grace and Rachel followed her.

  Rachel knew that she would tell them about her first day being an anchor for Bryan and Connie, and they would provide both a listening ear and guidance if she needed it.

  She wasn’t sure why she had waited so long to reach out to other people, but happy that she had finally learned the value of a community of friends.

  Imagine that. She had found it right here in her hometown.

  Thirty-Seven

  The next week Connie struggled. Not with what she thought would cause her problems. Connie struggled because it was over fifty years in the past.

  When she wanted to call someone, there was no effortless way to do it. It took time. She had to find a phone, find their phone number in the phone book, and then hope the person she was calling was home. If she wanted to look something up, she had to go to the library and search for it.

  How in the world had they ever lived then, Connie wondered. Probably because they didn’t know about what was coming.

  But she did, and the way things were in the past was making her crazy. She had to hold a book in her hand and turn the pages. And read magazines and newspapers that were entirely out of date. Not because they weren’t reporting the news correctly, but with the wisdom of hindsight, they had missed so much of what was really going on.

  The novelty of remembering how life used to be wore off quickly. The problem of adjusting to a slower lifestyle, and lack of information, was difficult. What made it worse was she had arrived in her past body and past life just as they were taking finals.

  Her test results didn’t matter that much. She had good enough grades to graduate. But her study habits had deteriorated, and the answers to the tests were often incorrect given what she knew now. But since she was in 1968, she had to answer it as they thought it was. All of it was driving her crazy.

  She might have hidden away in a small town, barely living her adult life, but it was more living than what this new Connie felt was going on in the past. But slowly, she adjusted to it, at least enough so she wasn’t constantly looking for her phone to find out where she was, or to find out what she needed to know, or to text Edith. She even remembered to wind her watch.

  She learned to check what she was saying, so she didn’t say things like, “Google it,” or “text me,” or even phrases like “Black Lives Matter.” Luckily Edith was so wrapped up in Theo she barely registered the differences in Connie, and no one else was close enough to her to notice.

  Except Bill. When he came to their graduation.

  Everyone came to their graduation. Well, everyone in Edith’s family. Connie had never seen or heard from her father again, a fact for which she was grateful. But now Connie could admit that she was angry about it, too. It was irrational, and she didn’t like that about herself.

  Her friends at the trailer park hadn’t come either. She had stopped writing to them, so they didn’t know she was graduating, and even if they had known, they wouldn’t have come.

  Now that she had more wisdom, Connie knew that was her fault. They didn’t come because it worried them that they would embarrass her.

  I should have known better, she told herself. That was a constant refrain for Connie in her twenty-two-year-old body and seventy-three-year-old mind. She should have known better.

  It was a struggle not to change what she had done. She almost went back to see the women, especially Mama Woo. She had packed her car for a visit until she remembered that she couldn’t change things.

  There was only one thing she had to do differently, and that hadn’t happened yet, a
nd might not if she messed around with her past self.

  Graduation day had been a perfect summer day. Soft white clouds floated above the ceremony. A light breeze was blowing, so they never got too hot. The first time around, Connie had barely remembered the day. It was just one more step in her life plan.

  This time she felt every moment. This time hearing her name called brought her to tears. She savored the hugs from Edith and her family. Theo was with his family for the graduation, for which she was grateful. Even then, she had disliked his parents. Now she had to work hard to hide her disdain for them.

  This time, Connie reveled in the feeling of walking to the stage to get her diploma. That diploma had hung on her wall for years until she found she was too embarrassed to look at it. It was a constant reminder of what she could have done with her life.

  This time, as she watched all the graduation caps fly into the clear blue sky, she laughed out loud with the joy that came over her. She had done it. With the help of friends, she had done it. How had she forgotten that? How had she become so lost that she thought she could walk away from them?

  Connie shook herself and smiled at Lorraine and Ralph. She hugged them so hard they almost fell over. She decided these minor things she was doing couldn’t possibly change anything.

  Telling them how much they meant to her would not change the future. She hoped.

  Because she had to do it. She had to let them know. In the past, she had broken their hearts, and she would do it again because she had to, but that day Connie wanted to tell them how much she loved them.

  Bill kept looking at her as if he had never seen her before. Connie knew that, in a way, he hadn’t.

  This was Connie from the future, living in Connie from the past’s body. Bill asked her more than once if something was going on with her, but she just shook her head and said that she was happy to be graduating.

  Then she lied some more and said she was happy because Edith was getting married.

  “It’s just what Edith wants and isn’t Theo the perfect catch?”

  She had never said that in the past. And Bill knew she didn’t mean it.

  He shook his head and said, “You’re lying to me about more than how you feel about Theo, Connie. Something is different about you. What’s going on?”

  Connie looked Bill straight into his blue eyes and said, “No, everything is okay. I am just hyped up over graduation and the wedding.”

  Bill took her hand and stared right back. “You are still lying. You know you can tell me anything.”

  Connie knew she could. She had back then, too. Now, seeing him again, Connie felt an overflowing love for him. He had secrets she kept for him as he had for her. She knew he had years of pain to work through, but if all went well this time around, he would once again end up with the love of his life.

  The urge to tell Bill the entire truth was powerful. Would he understand that she was not the Connie he knew, but a future one? Would he tell her then he hated her for what she had done? For what she had taken away from him?

  Connie didn’t know. Instead, she rose on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, whispering, “You know I love you, Bill.”

  They touched foreheads, and for that moment, all was right with the world.

  Connie knew it wouldn’t last long.

  Thirty-Eight

  The next month flew by. Bryan checked in with Connie every evening as Eddie had told him to. Bryan had asked why it was necessary. Wouldn’t Connie call him if she was in trouble or needed him?

  Eddie had answered with a clipped voice, “Just do it.”

  So he had. And after a few weeks of doing so, Bryan could see why it was necessary. Sometimes when he checked in with her, it would startle Connie as if she didn’t know who he was.

  It seemed to Bryan that Connie was forgetting that she was there for a reason. It worried him that the memory that she was the Connie from the future had sometimes faded into the background.

  Or at least that was how it appeared to Bryan. Eddie had gone somewhere and not come back, so the only person Bryan could talk to about it was Rachel. Now Bryan understood why Eddie had insisted that Rachel be part of the plan. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the arrangement. He was ecstatic about it. But he hadn’t understood that Rachel would not only be the grounding for when he was with Connie, but in everyday life.

  Rachel gave him a place to talk over what it felt like to be out of the body and back in time. Not only when he was checking in with Connie, but when he was helping other people. Once Eddie had shown him how to assist people when he left his material body behind, he often found himself in situations where he could do something.

  It amazed Bryan that the people he helped—if they saw him—thought he was an angel. Bryan knew he wasn’t. He was an ordinary man. It was Rachel who said that was what angels were, ordinary people who did kind things for others. He just happened to be able to intervene in some situations where no one else could. But everyone could be an angel to others in daily life.

  Listening to Rachel, Bryan almost had to bite his tongue to stop himself from calling Rachel his angel. But he thought she probably knew. Still, he had promised himself that he would do this thing with Connie before addressing his increasing acceptance that he had always loved Rachel and never wanted to be without her again.

  A successful mission with Connie would give him the confidence he needed to ask Rachel to marry him. Until then, he had to be content knowing that Rachel wasn’t going anywhere. She had promised Eddie, and one thing Bryan knew about Rachel is that she kept her promises.

  Bryan’s concern about Connie was justified. Connie was often startled when Bryan checked in with her. Sometimes hours would go by where she forgot that she had come from the future. Connie found that adjusting to the past became more manageable every day. Bryan’s intervention every evening sometimes made her mad. And when she was thinking clearly, that reaction worried her. She knew that she was there to correct what she had done, not become part of the past.

  Eddie had never told her what would happen if she forgot why she was there. But she assumed it became another variable in the multiple universes of infinite possibilities. Would that matter? Why not just let this life play out the way it was going? Someday she might actually forget that she used to be someone else.

  The ease with which she was accepting those ideas sometimes terrified her. Other times she would shrug and say to herself, so what. To get back to her mission, she would think about Karla. Or Edith and what would happen to her if she didn’t remember why she was there.

  An enormous part of the reason that Connie’s memory of the future was fading from her head was the wedding preparation. After graduation, they all threw themselves into getting ready. Even though Theo’s mother kept hijacking Edith’s plans, they still had plenty to do.

  Connie’s primary function turned out to be a sounding board for Edith’s feelings about Theo, the wedding, Theo’s parents, and her future. She was also the errand girl. Whatever Edith needed, Connie would rush to the store to buy it.

  That’s when she missed how it used to be when she could go to her computer and order things, and they would show up in a few days.

  Now, no one had ever heard of a computer. Well, not personal ones. They knew there were refrigerator-sized behemoths that hummed and blinked called computers and people doing calculations for NASA called computers, but it had nothing to do with daily life.

  Connie’s frustration with how hard things were to get done helped her in one way. It helped keep her grounded in who she was and why she was there. Eddie had warned her about not using her knowledge about what would happen to make life better for her future self, like investing in stocks she knew would rise.

  She couldn’t do that on her own anyway, since in 1968, women needed a man to open the account and a man to make the trades.

  She could ask
Bill, but then would have to explain why she wanted to take her tiny savings account and put it into McDonald’s stock. He would ask questions she couldn’t answer. And besides, it would break the rules she had agreed to with Eddie.

  During the month before the wedding, Connie stayed away from Theo as much as possible. But it wasn’t always easy. Edith wanted her to be part of everything.

  The tension between Connie and Theo grew whenever they were in the same room. Connie knew Theo for what he was underneath all that simpering charm. She had suspected it then, but now she knew it.

  Having to hide her hatred was easier than hiding her fear. She flinched when he came near. She glared at him, and he at her. She wanted to take something heavy and bash him over the head with it.

  One night she asked Bryan if he thought she was making an unknown future because of her knowledge of what would happen—what she would let happen because it had to. Neither of them knew the answer, and Eddie was not around to tell them.

  So Connie flopped back and forth between forgetting who she was and why she was there, to remembering with such force she was afraid she would do something that would jeopardize all their lives.

  Sometimes as Connie lay awake in the Warren’s spare bedroom, she thought she could feel that dark shape that she and Bryan had seen when they had visited the house the first time.

  But when she looked at it directly, it would vanish, leaving in its wake a feeling of dread and despair.

  It occurred to Connie that perhaps it was her memories haunting her. She wasn’t sure if that made the apparition more or less terrifying.

  Thirty-Nine

  Theodore Prince stood in front of the mirror and smiled at himself. He raked his glossy black hair away from his face with his fingers, the gesture an exact copy of what he had seen an actor in a movie do. It was very effective in giving him the look he wanted.