Waking in Time

by Angie Stanton

  “My daughter is only fifteen, so having a granddaughter would be quite a shock,” she laughs, and my heart aches, knowing that in my world, that laugh is gone.

  Tears run down my cheeks. “I guess it would.” I try to imagine Mom at fifteen, probably immersed in school and working toward the straight As that will lead her to a successful career in software programming. I’d like to talk to her, hear her confident voice, and beg her to help me. But she’d think I was nuts.

  “You have a nice day,” Grandma says. I’m losing her again.

  “I’ll try. Thank you.”

  I hang up and lean my head against the wall, the coiled phone cord swinging next to me. I wipe away my tears. All I want to do is call Grandma back and tell her everything, that I really am her granddaughter, that her own daughter will marry late, become a widow early, and move into a house just down the block from her. That she and I are like best friends who share a love of natural disaster movies, blue nail polish, and Cheetos. I could tell Grandma everything about her life, but it would be cruel to scare her that way.

  “Abigail? Are you all right?”

  I look up to find another girl wearing ginormous glasses standing in the doorway. She looks like an owl with shoulder-length dark hair and feathered bangs. “You know me?” I ask.

  “No duh,” she says. It takes me a second to realize she means yes.

  “How long?”

  “Since welcome week… ? You’re freaking me out. What’s going on?” She steps into the room.

  “And we’re friends? You and me?”

  The girl nods, but she’s looking at me strangely. I have no idea who she is.

  “What the hell, Abigail? It’s me, Margo. You know that. What’s wrong?”

  I shake my head and try to get a grip on myself. “I don’t know. Nothing. I had a strange dream. Were we together last night?”

  “Yeah, at Headliners. We went with half the floor to hear a band.”

  Same answer as the girl in the pink robe. “That’s right,” I say, pretending to remember.

  “You sure you’re all right?” She narrows her eyes in concern.

  “I’m fine. Really. I must have hit my head or something. Can we go back again tonight?”

  “I guess. Why?”

  Because maybe that would jog my memory. Or, since it’s where I apparently was last night in 1983, it might have something to do with why I traveled back in time.

  * * *

  That night, along with Linda, Margo, and some other girls from the floor, we go to Headliners. I’m wearing Guess jeans, a cheesy graphic top with an Esprit label, and a pair of ankle boots that I actually kind of like.

  As we cross Library Mall to State Street, I struggle not to stare and point out how all the stores are different. The Walgreens is gone and a Rennebohms stands in its place. Traffic crowds State Street, but just yesterday State Street was closed to all but city buses and bikes. When we turn onto University Avenue, I’m shocked to find the entire University Square four-story building and the parking ramp across the street gone. In its place is a small one-story building with a parking lot across from it. Every time I turn a corner, I blink to digest the staggering changes. But I can’t let myself fall into a heap of despair. I have to figure this out so I can go home.

  Once inside Headliners, everyone starts pulling out their IDs.

  I pull Margo aside. “I don’t have a fake ID.”

  Her brows narrow in confusion. “I thought you were eighteen.”

  “I am.”

  “Yeah, so you don’t need a fake. Duh! Don’t you have yours with you?”

  I dig through the purse I found in my room and pull out the wallet. Sure enough there’s a photo ID with my face, my name, and my birthdate. But the year is different: 1962. Holy crap.

  I show it to Margo.

  “Not me, ya goof. Him.” She pushes me toward the guy checking IDs.

  He glances at my ID then smears the back of my hand with an ink stamp. I’m pushed inside the dark nightclub and engulfed by the thumping bass of vaguely familiar music.

  We crowd the bar for a drink. Our IDs aren’t needed since our hands are stamped. Apparently the drinking age is eighteen in 1983—the only improvement I’ve noticed so far. Margo pushes a bottle into my hands, but it’s not a beer. I check out the label. Bartles & Jaymes black cherry wine cooler. Seriously? But everyone’s drinking them so… bottom’s up.

  After downing my second disgustingly sweet fruity bottle, the burning fear inside me eases. This is better. If I have truly traveled through time, why not make the best of it? Or maybe if this all turns out to be some bizarre dream, I’ll kick myself later for not taking advantage of the situation.

  The club is packed with students, and there’s a general wild party vibe. Some guys are wearing jeans, but others are wearing ridiculous snug-fitting pants with lots of zippers. A lot of people sport mullets, an unfortunate look if you ask me.

  The band plays classic rock. I recognize several of the songs from my mom’s oldies playlist, like “Surrender” and “Dream Police.” I take a moment to check out the band. The drum kit reads Cheap Trick. I am listening to the actual band Cheap Trick! My mom loved them back in the day and still has their original vinyl albums. The lead singer has long blond hair and is wearing an open vest with no shirt, and parachute pants. I grin. He’s appropriately hot. What I wouldn’t give for Mom to see this.

  The night is a blur of pounding music, pulsing lights, and a dance floor sticky from spilled drinks. A bunch of guys have infiltrated our group. Everyone is flirting and yelling to be heard over the loud music. Everyone except Margo, who keeps watching me, still weirded out from my oddball questions earlier. I lift my bottle to hers. At this point, who cares how much I drink? I’ll pay the price tomorrow with a hangover, but maybe I’ll wake up back in the present, where I belong.

  A long-faced guy named Jim wearing a Members Only jacket has been hitting on me for the past half hour. He gives me a drunken smile that comes off as more of a leer. I turn to ignore him, but he grabs me by the hips and pulls me in for the sloppiest, most disgusting kiss ever.

  I shove him away. “What the hell! Back off!”

  Before I realize what’s happening, some guy with sandy-colored hair appears out of nowhere and slugs Jim, sending him falling back into the crowd. Jim quickly recovers his wits and tackles my heroic defender before I can see his face. They go down in a violent tangle, knocking into other people.

  In a flash the two guys fighting multiplies into more and more until there’s a full-fledged brawl. Linda screams and Margo grabs my arm as people push in our direction to escape the fight. I’m about to follow when I hear someone yell my name. I glance around, but it’s wall-to-wall people, and I see no familiar faces. Not that I know anyone in 1983 anyway. I’m familiar to these people (because in their world I’ve apparently been here all along?), but I don’t recognize a soul.

  I hear it again. It’s a guy’s voice and he sounds desperate. I whip around but can’t spot anyone familiar in the mass of hysteria.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Margo yells over the music.

  “Abbi, over here!” the voice calls again, and it’s urgent. It occurs to me that everyone else in this time has called me Abigail, so why is this person saying “Abbi?”

  I spin around and search the crowd. Guys are shoving each other and some throw punches. In the panic, the whole crowd surges forward. Margo drags me outside.

  “Wait! Someone is calling my name. I have to go back.” Is it the guy who hit Jim?

  “Are you bonkers? You’ll get trampled.”

  But that voice knows me. I don’t know how, or who he is, but my gut says it means something. I try to go back, but squad cars with flashing lights line the curb, and more sirens blare in the distance. Campus police push the crowd back, and students scatter like ants.

/>   “I need to get in. My friend is in there,” I lie.

  “Miss, unless you’d like a drunk and disorderly, I suggest you go home.”

  “Abigail, we have to go!” Margo hauls me away, but I keep looking back, wondering what or who I’ve just missed.

  We stagger back to Liz Waters, most of the group giggling and talking about the hot singer in the band and the excitement of the fight I caused. We climb Bascom Hill, which is exhausting when sober and near impossible when you’ve drunk enough alcohol to block out a shift in time.

  Back in my room I down an aspirin, change into my own baggy T-shirt, and fall into my messy bed. It occurs to me that I was drunk last night, drunker than I’ve ever been, and I time traveled. Let’s see if it happens again and sends me home.

  I’m trying to stop the room from spinning when my leg bumps Grandma’s hatbox. I heard her voice today. It reminds me of one of our last conversations before she died and that bizarre promise she asked me to make. She was confused and kept saying I had to help her find the baby, and that I should keep searching. She got herself all worked up and started to cry, and the nurse had to give her a sedative. I blink my watery eyes and run my hands over the familiar patches of her quilt.

  The full moon shines through the window, illuminating Linda’s Michael Jackson poster. I pray that when I wake up I’ll be back where I belong. In my hazy stupor, I yawn and close my eyes. Sleep tugs at me like a familiar friend.

  Just as I’m at the edge of sleep, I hear bells playing and wonder again why they play so late at night. Before I can come up with a reason, I drift off.

  * * *

  I wake in a hangover fog. For a minute I’m confused and don’t know where I am. Then yesterday comes crashing back. Somehow I was transported to 1983. Looking around, the room is totally different from yesterday. Gone is the “Thriller” poster. In its place is a poster of a yellow smiley face. The bedspread is tie-dyed, clothes litter the bed and floor on the other side of the room, and something stinks.

  No! This can’t be happening again. I’ve got to be hallucinating or in some deep REM state that won’t allow me to wake. I sit up and dangle my legs from the bed. My bed, with my quilt and Grandma’s hatbox. It’s all mine, except what’s on the bedside table. Everything from yesterday is gone, replaced by a new array of retro items.

  I look around for the bad smell. My roommate’s nightstand has sticks of burned-out incense in an old amber-colored ashtray, the kind Grandma saved from when my pipe-smoking grandpa was still around.

  At the end of my roommate’s bed is a huge orange beanbag chair next to an ancient stereo and a stack of vinyl albums. My pulse begins to rev toward full-blown panic as I grasp my new reality. I’ve traveled again. And in the wrong direction.

  My closet door is covered with long strings of beads, hanging like a curtain. I spy a calendar on the wall. I can already tell it’s different from yesterday. I rise slowly, afraid of what I’ll find. And then I’m close enough to see it.

  August 1970.

  I gasp and quickly cover my mouth so as not to wake my hippie, incense-burning roommate. She stirs, so I grab a towel from a hook and run for the bathroom. The bathroom is familiar—the only difference is the white painted walls. I take the last shower stall and blast the water. Why am I trapped in time? Under the hot, stinging spray, I let myself cry.

  I hide in that stall for nearly an hour. Is this really happening? And why? Girls come and go, and I’m grateful that no one yells at me for hogging one of the showers. I can’t bear to face these strange girls who might say they know me.

  When all is quiet, I sneak back to my room. Thankfully my roommate is gone, her bedding heaped as if a mole just crawled out.

  What should I do? I can hide out here and hope that tonight I go back to my own time. But I’m not sure I can drink myself into a stupor three nights in a row. Also I can’t just stare at the walls of this room all day, breathing in the stench of that incense. Maybe I should try to blend in and pretend to be a normal college student. In 1970. Yeah, right.

  I pick up the class schedule lying on the desk. According to the days checked off the calendar, today is August twenty-third. That means I have physics. What is with all the physics? I don’t even like the subject. After dressing in jeans with obscenely wide flares and a peasant shirt, I stuff the class schedule and a pen into a funky macramé bag I find on my dresser and head off to Bascom Hall, feeling like an imposter.

  I take a seat near the back. The lecture hall looks the same, with the old wooden seats and cement floor. But the high-tech stage is replaced by a plain podium and chalkboard. A distinguished-looking man with graying hair at his temples and wearing glasses and a tweed jacket gives a stack of papers to a student in the front row to hand out.

  “Good morning. I’m Professor Smith. Welcome to Physics 101.”

  Colton took pictures in front of the brand-new Smith Physics Library two days ago. Is this the same Professor Smith? He must be dead in my time. Poor guy. I wonder how he’d react if I sprang that little tidbit on him.

  The professor gives an overview of the course and how we will be discussing laws of thermodynamics, string theory, and quantum mechanics. I glaze over as he speaks. I’ve got my own scientific conundrum to figure out. Two days ago I was in present day, yesterday in 1983, and today in 1970. I desperately want to go home but have no idea how. I need to think about this logically.

  I list off the things in my head that happened both nights and that might be relevant: Getting drunk? Obnoxious guys trying to kiss me? Those ringing bells?

  As I search my memory, I notice the professor surveying the crowded lecture hall while he speaks. When his eyes land on me, he startles and breaks off mid-sentence.

  A huge smile breaks across his face. I turn back to see who he’s looking at, but when I turn forward again, he’s still focused on me.

  “I think that’s enough for today,” he says, abruptly dismissing everyone. “See you all back here on Wednesday.”

  The students, thrilled to have a short class, gather their books and herd toward the door. I stay glued to my seat as they pass. Something is up and I’m not sure what. The professor approaches with eagerness in his brown eyes.

  “Abbi, I’ve been waiting a very long time to see you again.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The last of the students file out, and it’s just the two of us in the empty lecture hall. My heart takes off like a shot. “You know me?”

  The professor stands over me and grins, his eyes bright with excitement as I shrink down in my seat. “Yes. We’ve become good friends over the years.”

  I don’t know if it’s relief or dread I’m feeling, but it’s more information than I had before. “Over what years? How is that possible? How is this possible?” I whisper, gesturing to the room—and the fact I shouldn’t be here. He’s the first person who seems to know that I’m not from this time, so I decide my only option is to trust him.

  “It’s a scientific anomaly, Abbi. Your unusual capacity to move through time has been my life’s work for the past two decades. May I sit?”

  I nod, stunned, and he lowers himself into the creaky seat next to me. Up close I notice the crow’s-feet at his eyes and that his hair is peppered with gray throughout, but he doesn’t seem terribly old.

  “I have several theories that prove promising. A great many things are coming together right now.” He smiles, apparently happy about all this and not at all concerned that I’ve traveled through time.

  “If you know me, but I don’t know you, then I must have met you in the past—or, your past.” I stop short, realizing what that means. “Oh, God. I travel further back in time!”

  My face flushes with panic, and I can’t catch my breath. Why is this happening? I grip the wooden armrests as if they can hold me in one place. “I can’t keep doing this. I need to go home,” I say with pleading eyes.<
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  Professor Smith lays his hand on my arm for a moment and reassures me in a patient voice. “It’s all right. I’m working as quickly as I can to help restore you to where you belong.”

  My mouth goes dry. “How many times do I travel back?” I ask softly, terrified of the answer.

  His forehead wrinkles as he considers my question. “Abbi, it’s not a good idea for me to relay anything to you about your future.”

  I want to scream that my future should not occur in the past. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” It appears he’s the only person who knows what’s going on, and he’s not going to tell me?

  The professor forms a steeple with his fingers and pauses, deep in thought. His eyes are steady and his jaw is set when he says, “I’m trying to untangle how this is happening, and I fear anything you do to change the natural course of events could jeopardize my zeroing in on the solution.”

  I can’t believe it. He’s going to leave me in the dark, floundering on my own. “Please, Professor, you have to help me,” I beg in desperation. “I can’t keep bouncing through time.”

  He looks me in the eye, reminding me of my grandfather when I was a little girl. “I shouldn’t say this, but I promise you’ll be fine. You actually become quite adept at acclimating to new times. And trust me, I’ve dedicated my career to trying to solve your time traveling. Honestly, if this can be solved, I will do it.”

  His whole career? He says all this as if it’s great news. If I hadn’t already cried myself out in the shower this morning, I’d start bawling right now.

  I slump in my seat, dejected. “You don’t know how to help me.”

  He changes the subject, which depresses me even more.

  “I do have questions for you. Since it’s fresh in your mind, tell me everything you can about who you interacted with here on campus before you traveled the first time.”

  Pulling myself together, I look into his confident, steady eyes. It’s clear he wants to help, and if there’s anything at all he can do, then I want to help him help me. Heck, he has a library named after him in the future, so he must be brilliant. He holds my gaze. I smile weakly. “I can’t believe we’ve talked before. This is so weird.”