Time After Time

by Tamara Ireland Stone

  Anna picks out a button-down shirt and holds it up to me for size.

  “What do you think?”

  I don’t even look at it. I just grab her by the shoulders and pull her into me, and she looks down and laughs when she sees the shirt she picked out smashed in between our chests. “It’s perfect,” I say, and I kiss her, right in the middle of the Gap.

  An hour and four stores later, I have a new pair of Chuck Taylors and enough mid-90s fashion to get me through the next few months.

  We head over to the deli and order huge subs to eat in the park. We hang out for a long time, talking about everything but the upcoming school year. I ask her about concerts she wants to see, and quiz her about the places she wants me to take her next. She asks me questions about San Francisco, and I tell her how I’ve spent most of my summer skateboarding around the city, climbing on an indoor rock wall, and missing her. I realize how pathetic I sound, but Anna must not hear it that way, because she scoots in closer and hooks her arms around the back of my neck.

  She kisses me. When she pulls away, I look straight into her eyes. “What was that for?”

  She shrugs. “I just love you.”

  “Good. I just love you too.”

  She kisses me again. Then she stands up, brushes the dirt off her shorts, and offers her hand to help me up. “Time to get you some music.”

  Justin is busy ringing up a customer, but he waves when he sees us come in. Anna waves back, and then leads me down one of the narrow aisles. I twist my head as we walk by the wooden bins, trying to get a better glimpse of the CDs.

  We’re near the back of the store looking through the Hot Summer Sounds kiosk when Justin comes up behind us. “You’re back. How was the world?”

  Anna flips around. “I don’t know about the world, but Mexico was really, really good,” she says, throwing her arms around him. When Justin hugs her, he closes his eyes. But it must click that I’m standing here watching, because they suddenly spring open and lock on mine. I smile at him as his arms fall to his sides. He takes a big step back.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re home,” he says to her.

  “Me too.”

  He lifts his chin in my direction. “What’s up?” He raises his hand in the air and I start to give him a fist bump, but then I realize that his palm is open. I correct quickly, giving him a high five instead. “So, you’re back.” The inflection in his voice makes it more of a question than a statement.

  “Yeah. For now.”

  Anna shoots me a sideways glance and changes the subject. “What’s this?” she asks, pointing up to the ceiling.

  “Latest from Blind Melon.” He gives a disappointed shake of his head. “Nowhere near as good as the last one. I think they’re done.” When Justin turns his back, Anna gives me a questioning look and I return it with a shrug. I’ve never heard of them, so I can only assume he’s right.

  “You two catch up, I’m going to go look around.” I’m happy to leave them alone. This place is far too fascinating to spend another second talking when I could be thumbing through the bins.

  Hand drawn signs hang from the ceiling and identify each section—R&B, Jazz, Rock. I wander around the record store, picking up CDs and turning them over to read the track lists, adding to my mental list of concerts I want to check out. I’m heading to the Ska section when I spot the poster rack in the far corner.

  This proves to be even more entertaining. I stand there for a long time, flipping through the posters, wondering who half of these musicians are, and laughing out loud at the impressive collection of 90s boy bands.

  I flip a few more frames and stop. “That one,” I hear Anna say from behind me. I didn’t even know she was standing there. She slides in front of me and taps on Billy Corgan’s chest. “Please tell me you know these guys.”

  “Yeah.” I nod, staring at the Smashing Pumpkins, marveling at the ridiculous amount of eyeliner they’re each wearing.

  “Have you seen them?” she asks.

  I glance around to be sure Justin’s nowhere near us. “Three times,” I say. I rest my chin on Anna’s shoulder and whisper in her ear, “Miami in ’97, Dublin in 2000, Sydney in 2010.”

  She tilts her head toward me. I can tell from the look on her face that she’s surprised to hear me share even the slightest hint of future information. “Good,” she says with a satisfied grin. “They’re from Chicago.”

  “I know.”

  Then I tell her what Maggie said about decorating my room and making it my own. “I could hang this one next to the window. Or maybe on the wall by the closet.” I shrug. “Of course, it’s kind of pointless to put posters on the walls if I won’t be coming back here to visit.”

  She bites her lip and stares at me. Then she reaches down into the bin, grabs a rolled-up poster, and hands it to me. When I take it, she turns on her heel and walks away. I’m smiling as I pick out a second one.

  By late Friday afternoon, my room at Maggie’s is starting to come together. Anna’s photograph of our beach in La Paz is in a new frame and hanging above my bed. The closet is filled with enough new clothes to take me through the rest of the summer and well into fall, and I already had plenty of stuff to keep me warm this winter. I thumbtacked the postcards that used to be hidden in my top drawer onto the wall above my desk, and I hung a 1995 wall calendar there too, so I wouldn’t forget when I am.

  We hung the Weezer poster on the left side of the window and we’re almost done hanging the Smashing Pumpkins on the right. “Down just a bit,” Anna says. “There. Stop.”

  “It’s good?” I raise an eyebrow and look over my shoulder at her. When she nods, I tape the corner in place and then take a few steps back to check out the result. “Better?” I ask.

  She flops down on the edge of my bed and folds her legs underneath her. Reclining back on her hands, she slowly scans the room. “It’s starting to look like you,” she says. I take my own glance around. She’s right: it does look more like me, but that wasn’t my only intention. I wanted it to look more permanent, partially for me, but also for her.

  “What are you going to do if I tell you I don’t want you to keep coming back?” she asks.

  I walk toward her, shaking my head. “I don’t know.… Show up in a few weeks, I guess. Say good-bye to you and Maggie. Haul all this stuff up to the attic as slowly as possible, hoping the entire time that you’ll change your mind.”

  “You seriously want to keep coming back here?”

  I plant both palms on the bed, right next to her hips, and lean over her. “I told you before. I’ll keep coming back until you’re sick of me.” Her lower lip quivers, like she’s trying not to smile. “I don’t know. Something tells me you’re not sick of me yet.”

  She stares at me but doesn’t speak for the longest time. “No,” she finally says. “I’m not sick of you yet.”

  I brush my lips lightly against hers. “Good,” I whisper.

  “So,” she begins, never breaking eye contact, “how would this work, exactly, you…visiting but not…staying?”

  “I’ll be here for anything that’s important to you—races, dances, parties, whatever. We’ll plan it all out, down to the minute. You’ll never be surprised.” She fakes a pout. “Well, not in a bad way, that is.” That gets the slightest hint of a smile before her expression turns serious again.

  “I’ll know when you’re leaving?”

  “Every time.”

  “And when you’re coming back again?”

  “Every. Time,” I repeat, this time with more emphasis on each word. “I promise.”

  “How can you be so certain you won’t get knocked back?” I think about what she said the other night. How she fell apart after I left.

  “I’ll never stay longer than a few days. I’ll be in control the whole time. If I ever feel like I’m losing control, I’ll tell you right away.”

  She licks her lips and considers me for a moment. I think she’s about to say something, but instead she slides one hand up
my arm and around the back of my neck.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Okay?”

  She nods and I feel a smile spread across my face. “Yes,” she says as she hooks her finger into my belt loop and scoots back, giving me a little tug. I climb up and settle in next to her. “But I have a condition.”

  I kiss her. “Let’s hear it.”

  “You need to tell Maggie who you are.” I pull away from her. My first instinct is to shake my head no, but when I see the look on her face, I decide against it. I bite my tongue and let her finish her thought. “You could come and go without having to hide anything. Besides, don’t you think she deserves to know?

  “Also—and this is totally selfish, I realize—but when you left last time, Maggie was the only person I could really talk to. And now you’re going to leave again. And again. And when you do, it would be nice to have one person in my life that I can talk to about you—one person I don’t have to keep your secret from.”

  I rake my hands through my hair while I consider her request. I was all ready to tell Maggie the other night, but only because I thought she already knew who I was. I didn’t think I had a choice. But she seems content with the way things are. I certainly am.

  I decide to stall. “Do I have to tell her before I leave tonight?” I ask.

  She shakes her head no and I blow out a breath. “Just…whenever…”

  Whenever. My mind starts racing with all the ways I could tell Maggie who I am, and each time, my stomach knots up. But then Anna wipes the whole thing from my mind when she scoots in closer and kisses me hard, her hands on my skin and her hair everywhere, reminding me of all the reasons I’m here and all the reasons I have to keep coming back and the fact that I’ll do anything to make her happy. When she pulls away, she smiles and says, “Emma’s eighteenth birthday is in three weeks and her parents are throwing her a party. It’ll be embarrassingly over the top.”

  “Then I’ll be here.”

  “I have a few cross-country races you could come to. And homecoming’s in October. Wait, we need to write this down.” She hops up off the bed and comes back holding a pen and the wall calendar, and over the next fifteen minutes, the rest of our schedule falls into place. Homecoming. Cross Country State Finals. Thanksgiving. Christmas. We have plans to see each other every two or three weeks, but I can already tell that won’t be enough. I’m not sure how to do it yet, but I’m already concocting ways to squeeze in more time with her without making her parents suspicious or running the risk of getting knocked back.

  Anna closes the calendar and tosses it on the floor. “When are you leaving?” she asks.

  “Soon,” I say as I play with her curls. “Maggie will be home in a few hours. I should take off before she gets back; otherwise I’ll have to stage some elaborate cab ride to the airport or something.”

  She reaches up and brushes my hair off my forehead. “I want to be here when you go.”

  I can’t imagine how that’s going to make this whole thing easier, but she looks pretty determined. “Are you sure?” I ask.

  She nods and says, “Positive. In fact, do you mind if I stick around for a little while…afterward?” Her nose crinkles up. “Or is that just weird?”

  I smile as I picture Anna and Maggie, hanging out in the kitchen drinking tea. “Stay as long as you want to. I bet Maggie would like the company. You can even come over when I’m gone.”

  She rolls her eyes before she covers her face with her hand. “I did that last time you left. I moped around in here for hours.” She looks at me and says, “I even put on your coat,” and then hides her face again. She lets out a sigh and shakes her head, like she can’t believe she’s admitting this to me. But I like the idea of her wearing my coat. I like the idea that this room might help us feel some kind of connection to each other, even when we’re apart. I pull her hand away from her face and knit her fingers together with mine.

  Before I can say anything, she changes the subject. “You should probably leave Maggie a note before you go.”

  “Good idea,” I say. I come up on my knees and pin her hands above her head. I kiss her neck and she squirms underneath me. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

  Downstairs on the narrow desk in the hallway, I spot the Post-its right away. I write a note telling Maggie I’ll be here in three weeks, and stick it on the shelf next to the basket where she always drops her keys.

  Then I stare at it. I picture Anna, sitting in my room after I’ve left, alone and wishing she weren’t. I picture myself doing the same thing in a different room two thousand miles and seventeen years away. I don’t want to leave. But at least I’m here now.

  I race back up the stairs and open the door.

  And she’s right where I left her.

  I shut my eyes tight and lift my forehead off the steering wheel. My neck goes slack and I fall back into the seat, gripping the sides of my head and trying to piece together where I am. There’s a faint bit of light streaming in through the cracks on each side of the garage door, and I strain to read the clock on the dashboard: 6:03 P.M.

  I rip into the box of supplies on the passenger seat, blindly groping for one of the water bottles. I down the first one without stopping and reach for another. My eyelids are still half closed when I pop the top on the Starbucks Doubleshot, and I let them fall shut completely as I tip my head back, letting the coffee slide down my throat. My whole body is shaking, and there’s sweat dripping down my face even though I’m freezing.

  It takes a good twenty minutes for the pounding to turn into more of a dull throbbing, and when it does, I reach into the glove compartment for the car keys and my phone. The screen shows two missed calls from Mom back on Wednesday night, and four texts from Brooke over the last two days. I open the texts first and read them in order:

  Ugh. Too quiet without you here. Having fun?

  Seeing a show @ the Bottom of the Hill tonight. In real time. Like normal person I am. Borrring…

  Worried about you. Reply when you’re back, okay?

  No “mom” jokes in reply to last text, pls. Miss ya.

  I squint at the screen, hit reply, and type out my message:

  No jokes. Back home now. C U soon.

  My mouth is still dry and my limbs feel weak, so I reach for another bottle of water and recline back in the seat, looking around the garage. In his e-mail, the owner had mentioned that it was “on the small side,” but that turned out to be a major understatement. When I first opened the door, I stood in the alley for the longest time trying to figure out if the Jeep would even fit.

  It proved to be as challenging as it looked, but I folded the side mirrors flat against the frame, backed in slowly, and pressed the button on the electronic garage door opener, hoping for the best. I was a little surprised when it actually closed. I press that button again and the garage door jolts to life, squeaking and rattling and eventually settling into place over my head.

  In the alley, I leave the Jeep running and hop out. There’s not much back here other than trash cans and rusting garden equipment. I grab a water bottle and throw my backpack over my shoulder, heading toward an abandoned pile of old flowerpots, and then I take a handful of dirt, dump some water over the top, and work the mud into the grooves of the shiny carabiners that hang from the external straps of my backpack.

  But my cover-up efforts turn out to be unnecessary. When I get home, there’s a note from Mom on the counter saying that Brooke’s out on a date, Dad’s at a dinner meeting, and she’s going to the movies with friends. So much for family night.

  I make myself something to eat and flop down on the couch. For the rest of the evening, I flip through channels, stare at the empty space next to me, and wonder how Anna and I are going to pull this off. She should be here right now. Or I should be there. But we shouldn’t be this.

  I must eventually drift off because when I open my eyes again, the room is pitch-black, the television is off, and I’m covered with a blanket. I haul myself
up to my room and fall into bed, still wearing the same clothes I had on when I left Evanston.

  The voices coming from the TV in the kitchen are low but audible, and when I turn the corner, I find Dad with his hip against the counter, spooning yogurt into his mouth and watching the news. He looks up when I walk in.

  “Hey. Welcome home. How was your trip?”

  I’m grateful that he asked the question the way he did so that I don’t need to lie when I answer. “The trip was great. A lot of fun.”

  Dad takes his glasses off and cleans them with the edge of his shirt. He puts them back in place and looks at me over the top of the frames. “The nights must have been cold.”

  It takes me a second or two to think about how to phrase this one. None of the nights in Maggie’s house were even remotely chilly. “No, the nights were actually really warm,” I say. Too warm, in fact.

  Dad finishes his yogurt and pours himself a glass of orange juice. Once I start in on my cereal there’s a lot of crunching, but the only voices in the room are coming from the television. He glances up at me a few times, as if he’s trying to think of something to fill the uncomfortable silence. But then something on the screen gets his attention, and he’s off the hook.

  He reaches for the remote, turning up the volume, and pivoting to face the screen. “Breaking news this morning,” the anchorwoman says. A red and blue graphic that reads TRAGEDY IN THE TENDERLOIN flies in from the side of the screen and stops in the center—large and ominous, for effect—before it shrinks and settles at the bottom where it can’t interfere with the video footage of a building ablaze against the backdrop of the early-morning sky.