You Cannot Mess This Up

by Amy Weinland Daughters

  It was TAB, the diet soda, a pink can that screamed not once, but twice, in an Astro-inspired, yellow-and-white font SUGAR FREE! SUGAR FREE! I popped the top—which again came completely off—and took a long, deep drink. It was horrible, the nastiest single calorie I’d ever not enjoyed. It was so bad that I shouldn’t have continued, but like a hungry Texas girl stranded at a Cincinnati chili restaurant, I consumed out of need, not out of desire.

  As Mary sipped her Tab, I thought of the notebook, still in my breezy pocket. Holding it up, I asked, “Can I keep this, just this?”

  “No,” she responded firmly, but not without feeling. “Those notes will be transferred to your iPhone … So, well, you can find them there … You know, later.”

  “Oh …” I said, looking achingly at the notebook. It was like somebody saying that they were taking away, forevermore, my old, worn copy of The Raven by Marquis James, my all-time favorite book. “Not to worry,” they’d reassure me, with a condescending tone. “The contents of your old, dated book will be copied onto your Kindle, where it will remain safely, f o r e v e r.”

  But the Kindle, which could fritz out and never work again, also wouldn’t have the coffee stain on the back cover, or the writing on the first page from the previous owner, or the pictures and antique maps in the middle.

  I felt the same way about my little notebook, with Old Milwaukee splashed on page two, mint lip gloss on page eleven, and drunk scrawl on page ten. Later, when I returned to reality, I could pull it back out, at my desk, next to my laptop, and read it. It would make me feel I went back again, or if nothing else, I’d remember the entire episode with greater clarity, just by looking at the actual pages and seeing my own handwriting. I wasn’t sure what I’d actually do with it, back in the future, but I knew I needed it.

  Scanning my observations on the yellow, lined pages of the iPhone’s notes app, using my finger to scroll, could never achieve that.

  I could feel myself falling apart all over again. Of all the stuff I was going to be forced to give up again, right now, forever, I just couldn’t bear giving up my words—they were my own freaking words.

  “Well,” she said, getting that this was a sticking point, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You mean it?” I said, like she was a parent who could pull off whatever impossible magical boloney I believed she could.

  “Yes,” she said. “It will cost me, but I think we can work that out.”

  Smiling, she returned to her position behind the wheel, put the car into gear and reversed out of the parking spot. Turning right out of the school’s lot, slowly, almost lumbering along, we began retracing our steps to the airport, through the seemingly everyday landscape of dense pine forests and open pasture. Reaching down, Mary turned on the radio. Like before, I was sure I knew this song. Yes, it was etched somewhere on a forgotten corner of my soul. The female voice became more dramatic with each note, suddenly joined by a loud, shrill, overbearing flutist. Though my lips remained pursed tightly, my heart sang quietly along.

  It was Debby Boone’s smash hit “You Light up my Life.” It was like a supernatural salve, oozing out of the plastic burl wood speakers, filling the emotional crevices gaping open in my time-weary heart.

  It was my story, it was everyone’s story. Mary, her Michigan accent shining through, was singing almost vociferously now, as if on cue, but I couldn’t join in. I would never join in.

  But really, honestly, did I even know who I was? And if anyone could change it, or redefine it—the person that was me— wasn’t it, well … .me? Could I, after this, this supposed journey of answering questions I didn’t even have, finally drop the solo act and sing a duet? Sing about the truth and celebrate it, both the good and the bad? Could living in the land of honesty, where I was truthful with myself and everyone else, save me? Could it save us all? Could love really fix anything?

  Switching off my brain, and relying completely on my heart, I snorted, coughed and joined Mary in song. It was as if we were destined for this moment of musical solidarity. Her, the chosen caretaker of my yellow brick road through time, and me, her reluctant follower, needing to feel comfort and understanding, but from a distance. Needing to feel not alone. Needing to bond on velour seats. But, also desperate to be seen as infinitely resilient, incapable of joining souls over something that had never even happened.

  My days were being lit up, and as for my nights, yes, they were filled with love.

  West on Root Road, a hard left onto Dowdell, left onto FM 2920, right on Stuebner Airline and finally, at long freaking last, right into the David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport parking lot.

  I didn’t want to go back, but I did. I knew I had to get out of here, but I wanted desperately to turn around and retrace every beautiful, painful step.

  It couldn’t be wrong, especially when it felt so damn right.

  With visions of Debby Boone looking out a window and singing to the endless ocean, I fantasized about candles, and a lighthouse, and a boat, steered by Tennille’s Captain, and Isaac from the Love Boat, and maybe that guy who used to swirl around in the toilet bowl in a little yacht. No, hold on, cancel that, the Ty D Bol guy wouldn’t be right. This was a job for the Gorton’s Fisherman—manly, bearded, in a protective yellow slicker and a blue woolen scarf. Sexy in a Grizzly Adams kind of way. Like the Brawny Paper Towel guy, but instead of swinging an axe in the dense forest of disposable napkins, my hero was out bravely dropping his nets for hand-dipped fillets.

  I would dip the bounty of his harvest in catsup. Tomato catsup. Because that’s how we rolled here. In 1978.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I’VE GOT A GOLDEN TICKET

  What kind of car does your dad drive?” Mary asked, as we sat waiting in the parking lot of the West Houston Airport. It’s where we had agreed to meet my dad in the first place, before our flight, and lives got temporarily diverted to David Wayne Hooks Airport, home of the Aviator’s Grill.

  Just then, Dad’s white Toyota Highlander pulled in. I watched as Kim and Rick, who looked like shiny aliens, got out of the car. Kim was wearing skinny jeans, high heels and a beautiful, colorful blouse. Her oversized hoop earrings, rose-gold watch and platinum-blond hair created what almost looked like a haze around her entire body. Rick wore a straw fedora, a brown t-shirt, jeans, and his regular waxed mustache and goatee. My friends had always said he was hot. I never got that, which seemed a terribly appropriate and decent way to feel.

  They appeared to be almost magical, standing there, all grown up, realer than they had ever seemed before, but also like a mirage. I knew now that they were transparent, destined to change as the time that hadn’t yet, but inevitably would, march by. I had always known that I loved them, but I hadn’t ever fully grasped just what their long-term presence had meant. I suppose I had taken for granted that they would be around, thirty years later, assuming that normal would continue on being itself, normal. And I had never made the connection that they, at whatever age, were the living link to my past, to our past.

  Looking at Mary, I didn’t know what to say. “Ummm … I’m not sure …” I started.

  She grabbed my hand from across the landscape of the much smaller car. The act of physical touch didn’t seem so foreign now. “You don’t need to say anything, Amy, I understand.”

  “There is so much I should thank you for …” I said, desperately wanting to bridge the gap between what had happened over the past forty-eight hours and the fact that I was now teetering on the perimeter of my regularly scheduled life.

  “No,” she said firmly, “I did what I was supposed to do. I wasn’t chosen for this assignment, I wanted it. I suppose I needed it too. I’m glad it was you that I got to take back home.”

  What could she possibly mean by that? She had wanted to do it? I hadn’t considered her having a choice. Did she log on to some website, like WTF.com, and scroll through time-travel job postings, see mine, obviously posted by somebody other than me, and think, “YES! I’ll do THAT.”
She hardly knew me as much as I hardly knew her. And as far as her “needing” it, my trip backward, as much as I did, that seemed unbelievable.

  First, this was all about me, right?

  Life was all about me, especially my life.

  Beyond that, what did she see in me? What had she seen all these years, other than a heavily buzzed underling at the cheese platter at the Christmas party?

  I had no clue. No freaking clue. And, if I was a betting person, I’d never ask her. Never in a million years. That’s why this “relationship”—our connection—worked for me.

  Is it why it worked for her too?

  Unhooking her seat belt, she smiled, perhaps the most meaningful look anyone had ever given me, in a flash, full of everything I needed to see. “Well,” she continued, “I guess I’ll see you at the Christmas party next month.”

  “Ah, yes …” I said, hurled back into reality. “Yes, I’ll definitely see you then.”

  That was it, it was over. We were back to normal. She was going to act like it was normal. I was as thankful for that as I had been for anything in my life. Well, that and the fact that I could feel the self-adhesive absorbency securely in place in my Old Navy skinny jeans.

  The only thing that worried me, the annoying little thought that was trying to unsettle how settled I felt, was what would happen if, next month at the Christmas party, after three glasses of Cabernet or Malbec or Riesling or Carlo Rossi Moscato Sangria … I tried to take normal back from Mary?

  Fear of fears, what if she continued playing her normal card only to have me come out of the ladies’ room sobbing, needing only momentarily, blurrily, to play the keep-it-real card, a move that would require her to discuss “it,” all of it, in front of the ice sculpture, the well-lit carving station and the huge, boiled shrimps?

  What then?

  Getting out of the car, I met Mary around the back as she raised the rear door of her Lexus SUV, smaller than the LTD we had been in earlier, but at a more reasonable height. As we took my bags out— a backpack and rolling suitcase—I heard Dad’s voice behind us.

  “Well, hello there!” he said. “Welcome back to Texas!”

  He looked ancient, shrunken, wrinkly, and as white as a sheet. He wore a blue golf shirt with colorful horizontal stripes, tucked into a belted pair of Wranglers. When he turned to help with my bags I could see that his butt had magically flattened— a pancake replacing what had once been hot crossed buns. Yes, friend, my father, my dear dad, was suffering from a serious case of the Gone-Asses.

  The thirty-odd years that had passed since I saw him last, just a couple of hours ago, had been good to him, but still, they had been.

  “Hi there, neighbor!” Rick said, offering up his routine half-embrace.

  “Sister of mine! It’s good to see you!” Kim chimed in, providing a fuller hug. “You ready for Death Camp Thanksgiving Eve?” she continued, referring both to today’s meetings and back to the ‘arrangements’ conference Dad had put on the year before.

  I was speechless, but I don’t think they noticed.

  I looked at my siblings again closely as they joked around and introduced themselves to Mary, who Dad was regaling with tales of his recent photography safari to Africa. She was no doubt deeply thrilled that he got his 2,500 photos down to a “tight” 271. If I looked ever-so carefully, I could see their younger counterparts, the ones on the “other side” of that magical wall, but it was just a glimpse, glowing stronger today because of our recent reunion in the past. I knew that soon, very soon, time would, once again, fade the memory of their youthful countenances. All that would remain were the adult forms, the ones that existed in this version of reality. It was tragic, and beautiful, and disturbing.

  “Well, kids,” Dad said, looking down at his Fitbit. “We had better make a move to our meeting.”

  “Yes,” Kim said. “We’ve got important death business to attend to.”

  I gave Mary a final hug, awkward but meaningful, resisting the urge to make it seem like the big deal that it was. I didn’t need to do that, because she understood. Maybe the best thing in life is when somebody “gets it,” even one person. For me, it’s even better when they get it and don’t want to talk about, unless of course, I do.

  Maybe that’s what being a good friend is, knowing when and when not to get it and knowing when and when not to talk about it. Crap. I needed a package of thank-you notes and a dozen Bic pens. This time, it would be good if I actually sent the letters.

  Loading up in Dad’s car, we all simultaneously put our seat belts on. Rick got in the front, just like the old days, and Kim and I shared the back. Driving away from the airport, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. It was over, my magical journey of hallucination had ended. Looking out the window, I watched as West Houston, busy, crazy Houston, passed by in a blur. Strip malls, nail bars, abandoned Walmarts that were now Goodwill stores and dialysis centers dotted the sides of the road.

  I had gone misty, small tears sputtering out of my eyes. I couldn’t help it. I felt almost stuck between the two times, the one I had left behind again, forever, and this one. The same people were in both, I had experienced it all with them, but they didn’t understand it. They would never understand it. Either because it never happened or because it actually did, but only to me. It meant that I had no one to discuss it with, nobody to relive each detail with. It meant that it wasn’t a memory at all, or at least it felt that way. Like it never happened. Perhaps that’s what makes certain things unreal. It’s not about whether something really happens or not, it’s about whether it can be shared.

  Glancing back over at Kim, I was met by a wide-eyed stare. “Are you CRYING?” She laughed. “What are you CRYING about?”

  “I’m not crying …” I retorted, “I’m just tired … and my contacts are bothering me …”

  “Amy’s crying back here,” Kim blurted out. “This whole thing, this flying on little private planes and the talk of arrangements … it’s too much for her!”

  Rick looked back and smiled. There was no way he could have known what was going on, but his compassionate demeanor made me think it was more than just a smile. He was just being nice. That was his deal, that and having the penis. And I was clearly just being the Great Erroneous Assumer. That was my deal—that and thinking I was hilarious.

  “Well, kids,” Dad said, almost like we were back at the Greenspoint Mall play center, “we’ll go straight to the Fidelity office, and then to lunch, and then home to see your mother.”

  Looking back down, I noticed a book sitting in the seat between Kim and me. “Is this yours … you’re reading The Thorn Birds?” I asked, picking up the weighty volume.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was a book before it was a miniseries.”

  “Oh,” I said, clearing my throat. “Yes … I know that one … It’s a beautiful story, one of the greatest romance novels of all time, it covers three generations of a family in Australia.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “I just started reading it. I thought it was about a hot priest who gives up his priesthood to sleep with a woman.”

  “Yeah, that too,” I said.

  Silence.

  Eventually we were back on I-45 North, basically retracing our steps from earlier, thirty years earlier. The differences were stark. The road was a couple of lanes wider, the fence-like barriers between the north and southbound lanes were replaced with concrete bunkers and the lights were taller and fewer. The cars were smaller, but also taller, with smoother, less boxy lines, and they moved faster. Everything moved faster.

  Was everyone in a bigger hurry or were their cars just capable of doing more? Was it technology or personality that had changed, or had one coerced the other over the edge? Or maybe my perception was the only thing that had changed?

  Coming past the beltway, we passed by Greenspoint, still standing, but only a shadow of its former self on the east side of the freeway. Though I certainly wasn’t surprised by the decay, I had a much better gauge for the level o
f decline. Seeing it in its prime made me realize not only how far it had fallen, but what a waste it was. Though you could argue that the deterioration in the general area precipitated its fall from grace, what if it had been kept up? What if money had been pumped into it, enough to give premier retailers no choice but to stay? Was it inevitable or reversible, and at the end of the day, did it even matter? Who would care when they eventually tore it down, only to build another shopping center atop its ashes?

  Gone also was the Goodyear Blimp base. In its place were a Home Depot, a Sprint store and a Lowe’s Home Improvement Center. It was the kind of set-up you could find in virtually any city in the country, but underneath it, hidden by parking pads and lookalike structures, was a part of aviation history. I wondered if anyone else remembered.

  Reaching down, I patted my brown leather jacket pockets. It was impossible that my notebook would really be there. It wasn’t like a vacation where I could and would bring stuff home, souvenirs and photos, intended to help me remember my trip. Perhaps it had all been downloaded onto my iPhone, a device that didn’t seem near as critical now. If fact, I hadn’t even checked it since we landed. It didn’t seem as necessary.

  That was as shocking as almost anything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours.

  At the very least, I would have Dad stop at Walgreens and I would buy a notebook, similar in size and color, and try to rewrite my observations based on either the phone version of my notes or my sketchy memory. It would have to be done quickly, as I knew the longer I spent here in glistening Future Land, the quicker it would fade.

  Putting my hand in my left pocket, I found nothing. Slowly inserting my opposite hand in the other pocket, I felt myself morphing into little Charlie from the Chocolate Factory, slowly taking the wrapper off a Wonka Bar to see if I, little ole’ me, had been the one-in-a-million winner of a Golden Ticket.

  If it really was in there, my version of the priceless coupon, I would dance with my four grandparents, who were dead today but alive three hours ago, emerging from the huge, two-sided bed they all shared in our living room. I WANT AN OOMPA LOOPA NOW, DADDY!