Time-Travel Duo

by James Paddock

  “Yeah. Maybe they will.”

  Mary looked at Annie for a long time and then said, “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re doing something this morning that you’re not telling me about.”

  “No, really. Patrick and I are going to breakfast and then I’m just going to hang out.” She pointed at the laundry bag. “I’ve got laundry to do and my journal to catch up on. I’ll do a little hiking this afternoon maybe, or go shopping.” She picked up War and Peace. “Or do some reading.”

  Mary made a face at the thick novel. “I’d be asleep in thirty seconds.”

  Annie closed the door behind Mary and then looked down at her bag of laundry and thought about the wet clothes hanging in the shower. What was she going to wear for her first adult trip through a wormhole? She loaded the coffee maker with grounds and water, started it, and went up to the loft to look in the closet and the bureau drawers. She had a clean MIT sweatshirt, one pair of clean socks, several pair of underwear and a pair of cargo pants that she bought in Kalispell on a whim. She wore them once to go walking with Mary and felt stupid with all those pockets sticking out everywhere. She was intending on returning them. After considering her options again, she put them aside and went back down to the laundry bag and dragged out a pair of jeans, took a sniff and put them on. She pulled out a bra, cringed as she put it on, and then returned to the bedroom for the sweatshirt. She put that and the socks on and padded back down the stairs to the bathroom to stare at her hiking boots. Until last night they had looked new. Now they looked like an old pair of boots. She stuck her hand inside one of them. They were wet but not dripping.

  “This is pathetic. Back home I’d just go out and buy new stuff.” She thought about that for a minute but knew that there was nothing open this time of morning except Wal-Mart and she didn’t have time anyway. She pulled out her blow dryer and held it inside one of the boots.

  “Tony is going to laugh.”

  Her head came up. The words she just heard had spilled from her mouth with nary a thought. She leaned back on the sofa, turned the blow dryer off and cried.

  Annie opened the door about ten minutes before the time she expected Patrick to show and then went about straightening up her cabin, a chore she had been neglecting for some time. Cleaning was not her strongest suit, something over which she and Tony had differences. He liked neat. Frankly, so did she but she didn’t have time for neat. Now, away from the demands of school, she had time, so what was her excuse?

  It was as she was wiping out her bathroom sink that she realized she had gone from straightening to cleaning. Why was she cleaning? For herself? The place certainly needed it and she did feel better when it was neat and clean. Or was she doing it for Patrick?

  That question stopped Annie mid-wipe.

  She came up straight, frowned at herself in the mirror and then carried her cleaning rag to the laundry bag. Fix things with Tony first. Then and only then would she be deserving of someone else. She sat back down on the sofa, angrily poked the blow dryer back into her boot and turned it on.

  “Hello!”

  Annie turned off the blow dryer and looked up at Patrick standing on the porch. “Door’s open.”

  “Yeah; just like it was open yesterday when I got my head bit off for walking in.”

  “That was then; this is now.”

  “Female logic.”

  “Your point is?”

  He walked in and sat in a chair facing her. “Is that what you’re planning on wearing?”

  “What’s wrong with it?” She looked at her jeans. “Do they look dirty?”

  “No. They’re fine. It’s just that they’re not what you were wearing when you arrived last night.”

  “When I arrived?”

  “You know; when you time traveled from this morning. You were wearing cargo pants.”

  “I was?”

  “Yep.”

  Annie stood and went up to her bedroom. When she came back she was wearing the cargo pants. “Was I wearing this sweatshirt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “You were wearing the boots.”

  “Right.” She nodded thoughtfully. “It’s just like we talked about last night.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m wearing these cargo pants because you told me that was what I was wearing. It’s not what I would have chosen. It means that . . .”

  “That what?”

  Annie remembered her journal entry to her mother. “Life is not random. All prior occurrences are precursors to predetermined future occurrences and are dependent upon those future occurrences.”

  “What?”

  “My wearing cargo pants last night was dependent upon you telling me this morning that I was wearing them. A prior occurrence that was dependent upon a future occurrence.”

  Patrick leaned forward in his chair. “Oh.” He thought for a moment. “Could you change back into the jeans and alter the outcome?”

  Annie thought about that for a long time. “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you try it? Go up and change back.”

  “An expression of my free will,” Annie said and took two steps toward the stairs. “But if I do it because you suggested it, is it free will or an exercise in determinism?” With that she climbed to her loft bedroom.

  When she returned she was in the jeans, glad to be out of the cargo pants. Facing Patrick she held her arms out and turned around. “Freewill. We’re about to change history.”

  “Jeans look good on you.”

  She blushed. “Thank you.” She sat down in the other chair and wrapped her hand around her coffee mug. She took a sip. It was cold. She had forgotten about her coffee five minutes after pouring it. She set it aside.

  “What’s determinism?” Patrick asked.

  She considered the term for a moment. “Basically, it means that what happens now is determined by what happened before, that everything is linked; there is no randomness, no freewill. Everything is predetermined.”

  “Everything?”

  “It’s just a theory.”

  “If I raise my arm like this, isn’t that freewill?”

  Annie looked at his hand, dangling limp from the end of his arm. “You raised it because of this conversation. If this conversation hadn’t taken place, you wouldn’t have raised it.”

  “And this conversation was predetermined by you changing pants.”

  “You’ve got the gist of it. It’s a very old philosophical argument—goes way back—but it was Newton who put it into common thought, he and his three laws of motion. He was the one who demonstrated that the orbits and shapes of the orbits of planets around the sun could be predicted, and that they affected ocean tides.”

  “That’s physics. What’s that got to do with my raising my arm or you changing your pants?”

  “If one had knowledge of all the variables at one particular moment he could predict that you would raise your arm.”

  Patrick lowered his arm; he thought for a moment and then said, “Would he predict what I would do next, like raise it again?” With that Patrick started to shove his arm into the air only to slam it into the underside of the table. The table jumped and so did Annie’s coffee mug.

  As fast as she tried to react, Annie was too late. The mug bounced off the edge of the table and flipped upside down in her lap. She jumped up, knocked the chair backwards and watched as the mug clattered across the floor unbroken. She looked down at herself and gritted her teeth at the cold liquid running down the inside of her legs. She looked at Patrick.

  “That was certainly predictable,” he said. With a sheepish look he added, “Sorry.”

  Annie grabbed a towel out of the laundry bag and started wiping the floor. “Yeah, well, crap happens.”

  Patrick took the towel away from her. “I’ll clean this up. You go take care of yourself.”

  When Annie returned Patrick was sittin
g on the porch steps staring out into the common area. She sat down next to him. “So much for free will,” she said. “We tried to change history but here I am, back in the cargo pants.”

  “You said that your mother believed she was sent back to ensure history took place as it had already been recorded, not to change it. Maybe she was right.”

  “Yeah . . . maybe.”

  He took her hand. “You don’t really believe that you could stop 9/11, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you think you can go back and keep your husband from getting killed?”

  She looked up at him and then shook her head again.

  “But there is something else, isn’t there? There’s something you think you have to fix. What is it?”

  Annie opened her mouth but nothing came out. She closed it and stood, walked over to the passenger side of Patrick’s Blazer and opened the door. “Let’s go.” She climbed in and gently pulled the door closed.

  Patrick considered her for a moment, picked up her backpack that she left behind, and handed it to her as he got in. “Let’s find out if these guys can cook breakfast,” he said and then started the truck and pulled away.

  Chapter 51

  June 15, 2007

  “That’s it!” Annie said as Patrick drove past the turn.

  “You sure?”

  “Not totally, no, but it seems about right.”

  He turned around in the middle of the road, came back to the spot and pulled off onto a dirt track. “I hope you’re right. After last night’s rain I could get stuck down here.”

  Patrick inched the truck along, skirting the deeper mud holes where he could. They entered the tree line and proceeded until they could see out the other side. “This is it,” Annie said when she spotted the trailer and RV. “Stop.”

  Patrick stopped the truck and looked at her.

  “You’re accepting this very well,” she said. “Haven’t you considered that we might all be insane?”

  “If you are then so am I.” Patrick put the truck in neutral and set the emergency brake. He turned to face her. “The words cult and deranged came to mind when I was hiding under the trailer, and then I saw what I saw . . . the hamsters and then you. You were standing there and then only your clothes were standing there as your body faded away, and then they fell to the ground. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t asleep and dreaming.” He held his arm out and pulled his jacket sleeve up. “See the bruise! I’ve got others. That’s probably when you spotted me. I was moving around pinching myself.”

  Annie laughed.

  “Do you have any idea how much sleep I got last night?”

  Annie shook her head.

  “Almost none. I lay awake replaying the entire thing in my head . . . over and over and over again. When I did sleep I dreamt it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He put his hand up. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m the one who pushed myself on you. You’ve tried to keep me away but I just kept on. And then I followed you. Probably shouldn’t have done that either.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.”

  “But here I am.”

  “But here you are.”

  There was silence for a while. He shifted in his seat and Annie put her hand up. “Please,” she said. “Don’t try to kiss me again.”

  He settled down. “I wasn’t. Honest.”

  “Until . . .”

  He looked at her, waiting for her to finish her sentence. When she didn’t he said, “Until what?”

  She shook her head and looked away. “Nothing. Just not yet.”

  “Until you fix whatever it is you have to fix?”

  She continued to look away; did not acknowledge his question.

  “We both have things to fix, you know. Maybe everybody does. Maybe everybody has some secret little thing that they wish they could go back and fix.”

  She looked at him. “What you and I have isn’t little.”

  “All right; some secret big thing they wish they could go back and fix. You know mine; that I could go back and stop what happened to Leslie. Why don’t you tell me yours?”

  Annie wanted to turn away again, and she wanted to tell him. She closed her eyes and saw Tony make his final wave, and she saw the picture she had formed of Leslie flipping upside down onto her head. She opened her mouth but all she could do was cry, and then her crying turned into huge tears and sobs. When he reached across the center panel to put his arms around her, she collapsed into him.

  Her body shook and heaved until it ran out of steam. She took a couple of deep breaths and sat back up in her seat. “I’m sorry.” She tried wiping at her face. “I need a Kleenex.”

  Patrick reached behind her seat and came up with the same beach towel he used when he gave her the foot message what seemed like ages ago. She took it from him and dabbed at her face. “It smells like massage oil.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s all I’ve got right now.”

  When she was satisfied with her repairs, she folded the towel onto her lap and pushed her hair back. “You know we probably can’t fix what happened to Leslie.”

  “I know. Can’t change history.”

  “All we can do is make sure it happens as recorded.”

  “I don’t like the thought of going back and making sure Leslie has her accident.”

  “Then we don’t go back at all.”

  “What about you and Tony. Did you think you could prevent his death?”

  “I did at first, but I think I knew all along I couldn’t.” She took a deep breath. “The last time we saw each other, Tony and I had a fight.”

  “That’s what you want to fix?”

  “Yes.”

  “Guilt.”

  She turned her head to him. “Yes.”

  “You and I are both full of guilt. We know we can’t stop what happened. We just want to get rid of the guilt.”

  “Yes.”

  Patrick put the truck in gear and released the brake. “Onward and upward we go, we who are full of guilt and intent on righting the world.” He thought for a moment and then added, “Is treasa dithis a’ dol thar àn àtha na fad’ o chèile.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Two should stay together when crossing a ford.” He touched the gas pedal and proceeded into the clearing.

  Chapter 52

  June 15, 2007

  Patrick parked next to the Yukon and the two of them got out. Charles was flipping pancakes. Howard had a tape measure and was busy with something at the circled X. The hamsters were in their big cage, one playing with the ball, the other watching her with its big brown eyes.

  Thomas stepped out of the lab and then immediately poked his head back in the door. “Annie’s here,” he said and then came down the steps and greeted her. “Good morning. The plant is nearly ready. Go on inside. Your grandfather wants to brief you before breakfast.”

  As Annie started up the steps, Thomas moved between her and Patrick. “Just Annie,” he said.

  Reluctantly, Patrick watched Annie disappear into the trailer with little more than a glance back. Thomas put his hands on his shoulders, turned him around and steered him toward Annie’s chair. “Have a seat. We need to talk.”

  Patrick sat. Thomas pulled another chair over close, and then so did Howard. They both stared at him for a long time. Finally Thomas said, “We don’t know anything about you.”

  “What do you want to know? I attended the University of Montana.”

  “Wow!”

  Patrick glanced over his shoulder to the source of the exclamation and found Charles looming over him.

  “Three point three five in forestry,” Thomas said. “Yes, we know about that. You are Erik Patrick O’Reilly, Jr. We also know about your army service in Afghanistan, your bronze star, your failed relationship with a music major in Missoula—she became bored and found a biology student to nurse—your lukewarm standing on the university golf team, your lukewarm job at Wa
l-Mart. You still live with your parents.”

  Patrick stared back at them, his mouth hanging open.

  “You broke a wrist when you were thirteen, trying to skateboard down the steps of your parents house, not the one in which they and you are now living. That was only a few weeks after you were caught shoplifting. You paid for that crime by working for the grocery store cleaning floors, until you broke your wrist.”

  “Not the most memorable summer of my life,” Patrick said.

  “You are a bow hunter, come from a long line of bow hunters, all the way back to the Kalispel Tribe of Indians in the mid-1800s. You are a member of the Montana Archery Association and the United Bow Hunters of Montana.”

  Patrick sat back, his brow furled. “How did you all find this information since last night? Very few people know of my Kalispel Indian blood?”

  “What we are doing here is, to say the least, highly sensitive . . . top secret. You’ve stumbled into it. We don’t like it but here you are.”

  “We either have to trust you . . .” Howard said.

  “. . . or kill you,” Thomas finished.

  After an extended silence Howard said, “What are your intentions with Annie?”

  “What do you mean what are my intentions?”

  “When the summer is over she’ll be returning to Boston. She isn’t ready yet to get emotionally involved with someone, especially one who is on the other side of the country. You do know about her husband, don’t you?”

  Patrick nodded his head. “Yes.”

  “Then you know she is extremely vulnerable. We don’t want to see her hurt again and you’re setting her up for just that.”

  “I’m not doing anything that would hurt her. I care about her. I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “Have you kissed her?”

  The question came from Charles who had left to check his pancakes and was again standing directly behind him. Patrick didn’t acknowledge the question. Instead he looked at Howard and said, “We are not emotionally involved. We’re friends.”

  “The back of his neck turned red,” Charles said. “He’s kissed her.”

  Patrick stood up, stepped out of the circle of inquisitors and turned around to face them. “I promise. I will not tell anyone about this. Who’d believe me anyway?”