My mind whirled through what slight memories I had of the movie, but after his face didn’t crack into the familiar mischievous grin, I realized he wasn’t making a joke at all, but was serious. But what did he mean? His stress on the word “want” didn’t give me any insight. And why was he suddenly so serious after cracking jokes a moment earlier?
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, he sighed in frustration and turned his attention to the front of the room. Despite my brilliant gift of intuition, I couldn’t fathom what he meant.
“What…like in life?” I shot out a wild guess. Then it dawned on me that he might have meant us. All these silly rules, the thing he wasn’t going to do that his grandfather asked—perhaps he needed to know how serious I was about him? I had been afraid to say things, held them back to not scare him off. “Oh, do you mean…er…with us?”
Archer’s head turned so quickly, I wondered how he didn’t get whiplash, “I…” he stopped himself, his eyes illuminated abruptly with astonishment. Then he looked back to me, those alluring eyes drawing me in, “I really—”
“Mr. Ambrose. Miss Syches. That’s enough!” Mr. Montgomery barked at us, interrupting whatever Archer was about to say.
I felt my face flush brightly from embarrassment as the class’s eyes all turned to stare at us. I’d called it. We were in trouble.
“Sorry, sir,” Archer said dutifully.
“Detention after school for both of you.”
I sighed, annoyed. What a fascist! Detention without a warning first—so unfair! I felt my anger flare up, and the unfortunate Archer was the recipient of my bitter glares. His apologetic eyes met mine, and then he turned forward to pay attention to the lecture, which resumed in the front of the class. I felt his hand seek my own under the table, and when he found it, he gave it a squeeze and then let go.
I longed to hear what he would have said if he hadn’t been interrupted by dreadful Mr. Montgomery. I could’ve sworn he was about to declare something profound. That he loved me? I felt my heart race at the thought because I realized that I loved him already too.
Once we were in the hall after class, I grabbed Archer’s hand in mine, hoping to continue the conversation. He studied our hands, then gave me a crooked grin. He intertwined his fingers in mine.
I decided to be blunt and just ask him what I was dying to know. “Archer, what were you going to say before Mr. Montgomery yelled at us?”
“Oh…uh…just that I really enjoy spending time with you,” he said a little timidly. However, something else in his voice set me off. He was lying or had decided against what he’d planned to say. “Sorry about detention.”
“At least we’ll be together.”
“Mr. Montgomery will probably make us sift through old books and catalog them. That’s what he usually does. He’s sweet on Miss Hutchens, the librarian.”
“Good, I was worried he’d make us clean Bunsen burners or feed mice to snakes,” I said, cringing.
After school, we showed up to Mr. Montgomery’s classroom, but instantly, as Archer had predicted, he whisked us away to the library’s basement. Our punishment was to sort through old yearbooks and organize them on shelves by year. Apparently, Miss Hutchens was attempting to open an archive in the basement, which appeared to have been renovated lately, although the smell of mildew and dust remained.
Archer and I set to work opening boxes and emptying crates, agreeing to first compile them into decades and then arrange them on the shelves by year. As soon as Mr. Montgomery was satisfied we were working hard, he slipped from the room. Archer sighed, put the books down, and pulled me to him, kissing me gently and smoothing my hair down my neck.
“Come on, Casanova,” I teased. “We’ll be here all night if you keep that up.”
“I don’t care.” He held me tight and kissed me again.
“Didn’t you want to go to a museum?” I wasn’t about to let his honey-sweet scent or addictive charisma get me into any more trouble.
Archer sighed, torn, then kissed my forehead and let go. We grudgingly got to work, quietly at first, before Archer broke the silence. “So where do you go after graduation?”
This was random. “What do you mean?”
“Colleges. Your dad said something about you continuing your education. Where’d you apply?”
“Why do you want to know?” I teased him. So, this was what he had been digging for earlier. He wanted to know my future plans, like I ever made them.
“Might want to visit you someday…maybe,” he wittily bantered back with a smirk while still stacking books. He was feigning a lack of interest, telling me in a roundabout way that he really was contemplating a future with me. I wasn’t sure if I should fess up my feelings or make him squirm.
“I’m not sure where yet. Applied to NYU, Berkley, Hunter, and King’s, but it all depends on what happens with my dad. Have to stay close in case…he needs me.”
“So, you might put off school and spend time with him?”
“I want to, but he is very insistent that I get an education, no matter what. So this was best. I could commute and still live at home.” I didn’t add my thoughts about how it all hinged on whether the doctors could give us that much time.
“He also wants you to be an archeologist, take Greek—”
“Your point, Archer?” I didn’t like anyone talking about my dad that way, not even Archer.
“I’m just saying you should do what you want to do, not be at your father’s mercy. I know he’s ill, but you shouldn’t make a martyr of yourself for him. That has to be the last thing he’d truly want. What do you want to be, Callie?”
“I don’t know,” I mused. It had been a long time since someone had asked me what I wanted. I remembered taking a career aptitude test that said I should be a psychiatrist, lawyer, or historian. Dad, of course, only supported the last option. I never wanted to think about my future, almost as if putting it off would allow Dad to live longer. I would have time to decide what was best for me later. “I’ve thought about psychiatry or something else in med. school maybe. I’d like to help people.”
“You seem to have a knack for that. Helping people, I mean. You do it too much already. You’re too selfless, Callie. What else do you dream about? What do you expect out of life?” He was getting awfully philosophical for detention. These questions were building up to a more important one. He was oddly cautious.
“Oh, the usual,” I said, sorting through another box. “Is that pile you’re making the 1930s?”
“Forties,” he corrected. “What’s the usual?”
“Oh, you know, a good job I’d actually like doing, nice husband, a nice house, a couple kids…oh, and I want to travel all over the world as well…”
Archer broke into a wide smile, shaking his head, laughing quietly at an inside joke.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He composed himself. “Tell me more.”
“Well, what I want most in life is to be happy.”
“And you’re not right now,” he insinuated more as a fact than a question. His voice was again layered with various emotions, trying to verbalize all the multitude of sensations he believed I was feeling.
“I am happy at times,” I insisted vaguely so as to not hurt his feelings. His presence made me happy. The only time I felt happy was when he was around, but it felt too soon to admit that. Again, I felt torn between admitting all my feelings and the fear I’d scare him off. It was a tight balance with boys; sometimes they bolted like deer at the L-word.
I wanted the subject off me, and I wanted to hear about him. “So, what about you?”
“I haven’t a clue. Probably take some time after graduation to travel, settle somewhere incredibly warm,” he said nonchalantly, flipping through one of the yearbooks, barely glancing at the pictures.
“No college?”
“Maybe NYU, Berkley, Hunter, or King’s.” He gazed at me with his dazzling eyes. He sounded serious yet simultaneousl
y joking, so I wasn’t sure what to think.
I laughed it off and then flipped through a yearbook, examining the photos. “Look at these people!” I laughed, pointing at a couple dressed in cheesy ‘70s prom attire. A change of subject felt necessary.
Archer peered over my shoulder and laughed a bit. “I will never understand the evolution of style. How did they actually believe they looked good?” he murmured as he went back to sorting.
I flipped through some more albums, well aware that I was wasting time, but any time with Archer, even detention, was worth it (sad but true). I came across a very old album, one tattered so badly that the spine was cracking. I opened it carefully, trying not to damage it any further. It was a book from Ithaca High School, a school in New York dating back to 1912, and was by far the oldest one I had come across.
“Oh, wow,” I said quietly. “This one’s really old.”
Archer peered over at it briefly without much interest as I began leafing carefully through it. The people were in old-fashioned clothing, all unsmiling, like when cameras were so old that the flash took a minute or so to fully capture the scene. I remembered seeing some blurry old family photos of my great-great-grandparents, and Dad had explained to me about the long flash.
I flipped through the senior class photos of serious-looking students: the girls with wispy, voluminous hair culminating in a knot atop their heads, with dresses buttoned up to their necks; and the boys with severely parted hair slicked down on their heads, suit collars showing. Then, right in the middle of the page, I came across a photo that made me freeze.
I don’t know how long I had been inspecting the photo when Archer’s voice broke my trance: “Callie. C’mon, let’s get this over with.” His voice was oddly commanding, his eyes full of worry, yet he was masking it, not wanting me to know he was troubled. He tried to take the book from my hands, but I refused to let go, daring to stare again at the specter on the page.
“You’ll ruin it,” he urged, trying to unlatch my hands. “Callie, what is…” He stopped as he peered down at the cover of the album. He instantly went pale, his body rigid, and his eyes locked on mine. The shock left him just as quickly as it came, and he had on a laughing smile again. “What’s wrong?”
I peered down at the photo again, willing it to change or to just be a trick of my sometimes overactive imagination, but I saw exactly what I had seen previously: a young man in a suit with a small smile barely on his lips, his light hair parted and slicked into smooth waves. The eyes, although gray, shone eerily off the page. It was Archer, or an exact replica of him as if he’d walked into an old-time photo shop where they dress you up in Wild West clothes and take your black-and-white photo.
My mind reeled, attempting to make sense of what I saw. How was this possible? It was too accurate to be some uncanny coincidence. It was my boyfriend, only drained of color and planted in 1912. My gaze darted from the book to Archer and then back. The only differences were the hairstyle and the clothing. I inspected him, realizing that it was him; somehow, this was Archer. Then his words from the weekend echoed in my mind: ”What if I told you I could never tell you everything about me, Callie? Would you still want to be with me? What if knowing these things would put you in danger? Could you live without knowing them?”
Archer gave me another forced smile and took the book away from me. I let him, unable to say a word to stop him. He peered at the book again quickly, closed it with a hard bang, and dropped it in the earliest pile we had formed.
“Archer?” I finally found my voice as he silently sorted more yearbooks, ignoring the photo entirely. He could not pretend that the photo meant nothing. I wouldn’t let him get away with it.
“Hmm?” he murmured nonchalantly.
“Um, that photo?” I reminded him with agitation.
“What photo?” He was extremely guarded again, which made me even more suspicious.
“That photo. That guy. He looks exactly like you.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Look at it!” I insisted, grabbing for the book again. Archer prevented me by grabbing my hands in his.
“I did!” he said a bit sharply. Well, this was a sudden shift in mood. “He sort of did. ‘Exactly’ is a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think? Maybe he’s some long lost relative?” His voice was jagged. He was deeply annoyed at my line of questioning.
“‘Exactly’ is not an exaggeration. ‘Exactly’ is exactly the right word.”
“A coincidence.” He shrugged.
“It’s a bit too coincidental then.” I gave him a glare to show him he was far from off the hook.
Then a huge smile spread across his face as he squeezed my hands gently. But his eyes were unsmiling, with fear behind them. He was exposed and vulnerable behind this mask of feigned ease. For once, I felt I had the upper hand—the power to unlock his eerie secrets.
“So, what you’re trying to say, Callie, is that someone alive in—” he paused to pick up the book to ascertain the date and dropped it in a different pile “—1912 is the same person here now before you, at roughly the same age, unchanged by time?” The way in which he worded it made me feel foolish, but something deep down within me couldn’t let it go.
If he’d play these little games and deny me some real answers, then I could too. “You’re right. What was I thinking?” I laughed, hiding the doubts in my mind.
“Just a coincidence,” he said, gently drawing me toward him. He kissed my lips softly at first—one of those kisses that built up and made me never want to pull away. My body went limp in his arms; he had kissed away all my doubts, fears, and shock, making me feel foolish for the ridiculous conclusion I had jumped to.
We continued to sort the rest of the books, forgetting about the entire incident. Before we knew it, Mr. Montgomery came back to dismiss us. As we were leaving, I felt the urge to take the yearbook, just to examine it one more time. I’d return it—I only wanted one more peek to reassure myself I wasn’t going mental. But when I went to find the book again, it wasn’t in either of the two piles I’d seen Archer place it in or on the shelf.
I suspiciously scrutinized Archer, but his hands were empty. His eyes studied me and were firmly set, most likely willing me to forget everything. He knew what I was scanning the room for. I’d never be able to forget it or fully let it go. It would fester in the back of my mind, my imagination creating more layers on top of it. And if I didn’t get to the bottom of it all, the very idea would ruin everything. But how can you question someone about things that are utterly impossible? The glowing eyes, the strange rules, the necessity for secrecy, and now this photo?
It was impossible. The logical part of my brain acknowledged that. Archer couldn’t have been alive and eighteen in 1912 and be here today at the same age. But the logical part of my brain had to admit that no one could look so identical. My mind was not one that could live in the dark as Archer had made me promise. I was born with an innate intuition and a curiosity that was unquenchable.
I felt his firm, warm hands in mine, and again, as if by magic, the doubts began to drift away. His eyes puzzled me—he was upset, confused, angry, and torn, yet all the while, they shone with love for me.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, his voice on edge as if my answer determined everything.
I didn’t want to let it go, but I didn’t want to lose him either. “How utterly complex you are.”
He smiled at this, the answer satisfying him. “Hardly.”
“No, really, when you say things, there are so many meanings in your voice. I can hardly tell what you really mean.”
“You really do have an active imagination, Callie,” he said with a genuine smile and pulled me tighter to him. “Let’s use that to our advantage. Hmmm, you have to make up an interesting story about every piece of artwork we come across.”
“We’ll be there forever.”
“If only we could have forever,” he mused, his thoughts far away.
At the museum, he
didn’t ask me to tell him stories, but we enjoyed silently viewing the paintings. He held my hand so tightly the entire time that I thought if I tried to pry it loose, I wouldn’t be able to. He had a stone-set grip on me, but I didn’t test the theory, wanting to hold on to him tightly as well. I had this idiotic feeling that if we let go, our relationship might slip away.
When I finally got home, Dad was eager for my help. He was attempting to draw out a diagram that showed the gods he discussed in his book in a family-tree sort of set up. He was having trouble because his arm was tired, making his hand cramp and his fingers shake. So instead of doing my homework (as I should), I helped him. After all, it proved more interesting than labeling the periodic table or translating Greek.
With a ruler, I copied Dad’s scribbled diagram. It was kind of odd. His chart did not match the one in my world mythology book. I wondered if he had done this on purpose or if the meds were affecting him negatively.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Hmm?” His eyes were closed and his head back, almost asleep.
“Why do you have the family tree all discombobulated?”
“I have it correct. History books have it discombobulated.”
“But…”
“Do you believe everything you read?” He sat up straight. “You move from one text to the next, and the mythology changes. Take the lesser gods, Hymenaios for example. Is that god male or female? Is this god a child of Apollo and a Muse, Dionysus and Aphrodite, or the other combinations the ancient poets professed?”
He was getting annoyingly Socratic on me, so I attempted to stop him. I shot a question at him to prevent him from questioning me further. “How do you know you are right?”
“I don’t know if I have it all right, but I do know I am right. They did not all descend from Zeus.”
I guess it was another one of his harebrained ideas. You never know with Dad, though; he could be right. I let it go and finished the diagram for him.
Afterward, I stayed up until two finishing all my homework, except for my Greek translations, but Archer could do them during lunch for me in minutes. If Dad had known my homework wasn’t done, he would’ve refused my help. To avoid explaining detention and my date with Archer, I told him a small fib of being at Archer’s the entire time doing homework, which I felt a little guilty about.
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