by Lexa Hillyer
You’ll never guess, Tali thinks smugly. We are heading forward in time. We’re emissaries from the future. You didn’t know?
Finally they are ready. Or as ready as they will ever be. Zoe’s newly won fencing medal hangs from her neck. She and Zoe still haven’t exactly reconciled after their fight, but Zoe seems oddly subdued—not her usual chatty self. Tali feels somehow scared to apologize, like the wounds are still too fresh, like she’ll somehow make it worse.
Meanwhile, Joy is wearing her lucky green cardigan, the Miss Okahatchee tiara, and an expression of complete uncertainty in her eyes, which briefly unnerves Tali. And Luce has on her favorite floral romper, which is both weirdly childish and, at the same time, fitting, with her badge pinned to the breast pocket. They look pretty much exactly as they did in that original photo strip, from what they all mutually recall.
Tali sucks in a breath as she glances around the cabin for one last (hopefully) time. Positioned cross-legged on her bottom bunk, Hadley raises an eyebrow at her but keeps playing. Mildewy towels litter the floor, scenting the air, but not enough to disguise Jade Marino’s cigarette smoke. In a corner, Paige is bent over a stack of a few mislabeled Feddies, sorting through the leftover packages like Santa’s little helper on Christmas Eve. Other than that, the cabin is empty, most of the Blue Herons having left to enjoy the festivities at least an hour ago.
“Come on, girls, it’s now or never,” Joy says.
Tali tries to release the tension in her shoulders as she follows her old friends toward the door, tucking the Batman boxer flag into her side so as not to draw suspicion. But a part of her is filled with sadness. She feels upturned, emptied, all the stardust of the past flying out of her pockets and away on the breeze.
She wonders if the other campers, along with the alums who have begun to show up for the festivities, can sense their nervousness as the four of them hurry through the crowd on the Great Lawn. She finds herself scanning everyone she passes and realizes she’s searching for Shane. He must have left the campgrounds by now, though, and the thought sends a stab of regret through her. She can’t stop picturing his hands, his kisses, his kind eyes, his laugh. Their amazing conversation. How well they seemed to fit together despite the initial surprise of it—not that it was really surprising at all, come to think of it. The most surprising part was how utterly idiotic Tali had been up to that point. Her heart rate picks up, thinking about how furious he was when he stormed out of the cabin. She’s still an idiot.
Zoe taps on Tali’s shoulder, snapping her out of her memories and pulling her back from the other two girls. “Tal,” she says with urgency in her voice. “I just want to say sorry, for, you know, what happened at the party. Everyone thinks I . . . well, that Blake and I—” Zoe’s face turns beet red.
Tali swallows. She can see how sorry Zoe is from the pinched expression on her face. It makes Tali feel pinched, too, somewhere deep inside. “Whatever happened, it doesn’t matter to me anymore.” She means it. She just hopes Zoe knows she means it.
“But really,” Zoe insists. “It matters to me. I wanted you to know that’s not what happened. And I shouldn’t have called you self-absorbed.”
Tali looks at Zoe and can’t help herself. She laughs. “Zo, I am a little self-absorbed. At least, I know that I have been recently. And I want to fix that. I want to be better . . . be a better . . .” For some reason the word stops on her tongue.
But it’s as though Zoe can read her mind. She nods, her eyes brimming with tears. “I want to be a better friend, too.”
Tali’s throat starts to close up, but she’s not going to cry, not when there’s so much at stake for this photo. “So what did happen that night, anyway?” she asks.
Zoe’s face blanches and she swallows. “It was just a coincidence that Blake showed up when he did. I wasn’t making out with him, I was making out with . . . someone else.”
“Who?” Tali feels a bullet of excitement—the old kind they used to have when sharing secrets.
Zoe gulps. “Blake’s sister.” She looks like she can’t believe she just said it.
There’s a pause where Tali’s brain has to catch up—she’s not sure she heard her correctly. And then, in an instant, it all clicks into place. This is Zoe, moving forward. Getting unstuck. “I don’t blame you,” she blurts. And she means that, too.
Zoe startles, her face a cross between shocked and amused.
Tali shrugs. “I mean, the girl is smokin’.”
Without warning, Zoe flings her arms around Tali, wrapping her in a hug. The relief of Zoe’s confession radiates out from her, and Tali squeezes her back, feeling closer to her than she has in a long time. Maybe closer to her than she’s ever felt. It’s clear this wasn’t about a single hookup. It was about Zoe, figuring herself out. Maybe Tali wasn’t the only blind one.
She wonders if there’s a chance they can start over, form a real friendship again. Maybe not one involving riding on each other’s bicycle handlebars, but something else . . . something new.
Before she can say more, Luce lets out a huge huff, pointing to a long line of people waiting before them at the photo booth.
Tali steps forward. “Excuse me, kiddos, but we’re Bunk Blue Heron and it’s our last night here so we really need to exercise our line-skipping privileges.” When the two eleven-year-old girls in front of her—wearing matching BFF necklaces—look at her funny, Tali rolls her eyes and gives them a nudge, and they begrudgingly shuffle out of the way, letting Tali, Luce, Joy, and Zoe through to the front.
“Nice one,” Zoe says, giving Tali an approving smile.
“Thanks,” Tali says, smiling back at her, and knowing, without knowing how, that they’re going to be okay—that some things are going to be different now, including them.
Once they are inside the photo booth, the thick curtains muffle the sounds of the carnival. The girls are, again, practically piled on top of one another, and there’s a mad shuffle to try to get into the exact positions they had in the old photo. Luce is convinced she was sitting on Zoe’s left, but Zoe swears Luce was standing, hovering over her from the other side.
“I know I’m right because I had my left arm around Joy,” Zoe insists.
“Fine,” Luce says breathlessly, once again scooting around to rearrange herself.
“Guys, are we ready? Guys!” Tali says, having to shout just a little for them to pay attention. Sweat lines her palm from gripping Blake’s boxers so hard, and in her other hand, she fumbles for the camera remote.
“Hit it,” Zoe says.
And so she does. Tali presses the big green button on the remote, and they see the camera light up, then do its 3-2-1 countdown. Then there’s a loud snap and a giant, blinding flash.
And then . . .
Nothing. Tali instantly feels for her boobs—the surest sign of what time period they’re in—and comes up A-cup only.
Joy grabs at her hair—still long. “It didn’t work,” she says.
“Hurry up in there, we’re waiting!” someone calls from outside, ruffling the curtain.
Zoe lashes out, punching through the curtain. “Back off!” she calls. “We need a minute!”
“Why isn’t it working?” Tali asks, her head feeling hot. The photo booth is tiny and smells like her grandmother’s attic in the summer.
Luce whines, “We have all the elements together, don’t we? What’s missing?”
“Just let me think!” Zoe bursts out. “Let’s reverse our positioning. Tali, come to the other side. Yeah, exactly. And Luce, you stay there, but Joy, move around her. Good. Okay, let’s try again.”
No one voices the obvious: that this whole entire plan might have been a dud. It’s what they’ve all been thinking and wondering about, she knows, all week. But somehow, it seems too weighty, too horrifying a concept to fully consider. That the photo booth might not work. That they could be . . . st
uck.
Instead, they do as Zoe said. They shuffle back into place in the opposite arrangement and Tali once again clicks the remote.
FLASH.
Pause.
Nothing.
“Oh, come on!” Luce cries, clearly on the verge of panic.
“It’s okay,” Zoe says, her voice wavering. “We’ll figure this out.” She sounds anything but certain.
Tali’s mind is racing. All this time, she’s held the fear at bay, the looming, obvious question as to what might happen if this didn’t work, if they really stayed stuck in the past. She knows she would still have two more years of high school to relive. She’d have to start all over with Ashlynn and the popular kids—she’d have to decide if that’s what she even wants.
She wipes sweat off the back of her neck and tries to stay calm.
“Maybe we need to force the fuse to blow somehow?” Tali suggests.
“I would really rather not get electrocuted if we can avoid it,” Luce says.
She looks around at the others. “Any better ideas?”
Joy stands up in front of the camera and pushes Tali into a seated position next to the other girls on the tiny bench. “Okay, everyone sit still for a second,” she announces.
Immediately, Tali finds herself focusing on Joy. She notices that the other girls do the same. They sit there, awaiting further instructions.
Joy clears her throat. “Maybe we just haven’t given our pasts a proper good-bye. Everyone take a minute to think about what you’ll miss.”
“But—” Zoe begins.
“Just do it!” Luce says, nudging her.
Zoe grumbles but falls silent, closing her eyes.
At first, Tali feels restless inside the tiny, cramped space, coated in years of graffiti. But then she starts to think about everything that has happened these past few days—the fight and reconciliation with Zoe over Blake. The fight with Luce over Shane. Shane.
What if when they get back to the present, all that has disappeared again? How will she know what sticks and what fades? Will Joy be gone from their lives again? What about Luce and Zoe?
She can’t even remember how she managed to get through the last two years without them.
Her eyes fling open in a panic. Maybe this is all a mistake. Maybe they should stay. She’s not sure what to do—if she should bring up her doubts—but the other three girls still have their eyes closed, so she begins scanning the graffiti on the walls around them. She feels tears welling up behind her eyes as she reads:
Sammy & Gina, ’12.
Dave is da bad ass. Crossed out to say: Dave is an ass zit.
Eat me.
Long live the Cruz.
For a good time call Emily Fargo.
Indigo Perez is a ho.
And that’s when Tali realizes one piece of graffiti is missing.
“Luce,” she says, nudging her shoulder. “Luce! Do you have a pen?”
Luce opens her eyes and searches her bag. Of course she has a pen. She doesn’t travel without one. She hands it to Tali, and Tali stands up, leaning over Joy’s shoulder.
On the wall behind Joy, she scrawls: Z, J, T & L, friends forever.
Joy looks at what Tali has written and smiles slowly. “Forever” is all she says.
“Forever,” Luce and Zoe echo. Zoe finds Tali’s hand and squeezes it, and Tali feels her heart squeeze, too, as though in response.
Joy sits down next to them, takes the remote from Tali’s other hand, and hits the green button. At the last second, Tali holds the boxers high in the air, like she’s giving a final wave to her past, to her crush on Blake, to her botched romance with Shane, to all of it.
Blackness. A soft humming fills her ears, like distant buzzing bees. The whole photo booth is rattling slightly and there’s a slim line of smoke snaking up out of the camera. The girls have leaped up with a collective gasp, and now they push through the thick curtains in a jumble. Tali inhales deeply, letting the night air fill her chest.
Her ample, perky, C-cup chest.
She lets out her breath in a huge half laugh, half sigh as she looks around at the faces of her three friends. They are all wearing mixed looks of shock and relief. Gone are Joy’s tiara and Luce’s badge and Zoe’s medal. Their faces each look somehow more sharply chiseled, less blurry and more real than they have since they stepped into the booth in the first place—in the very first place. But Joy’s most of all—gaunt, almost harshly so, its angles accented by her pixie cut.
“Adorable!” someone booms from behind them. Tali swivels around to see the Cruz holding a strip of four photos that have spit out of the machine. “This will be perfect for the memory wall. Come along to the rec hall so you can sign your names!” She walks off with the pictures, and just like that, the bubble pops and reality sinks in.
It’s the present. It’s reunion night. Tali’s whole purpose in coming here was to get with Blake, but now . . . that seems like a lifetime ago. She snorts and shakes her head just thinking about it.
They follow numbly behind Bernadette Cruz’s austere form, and Tali squints as they enter the brightly lit rec hall. She takes in its familiar scent of glue and citronella, watching the Cruz pin up the photo of the girls—the modern photo, not the one from the past. In it, Joy’s cropped hair makes her face seem like it’s glowing from within. Luce is staring at Joy and not the camera. Zoe is shifting her shirt as though uncomfortable in it, and Tali is checking her iPhone. They look, once again, like four girls long estranged, not close friends. A chill washes over her, and the sounds of other campers and alums talking and laughing and squealing across the room at one another seems muffled and muted. Was any part of the last five days real, or did she just imagine it all?
And what will happen now? They all promised they would stay friends forever. But Tali knows what happens to most promises. And forever is a long time.
Andrew has entered the rec hall and calls Luce over to him. Joy looks a little nauseated, so Zoe walks her over to the corner of the room where there are chairs set up and goes to get her a glass of water. But Tali can’t bring herself to move. Staring at the picture on the wall, she feels loneliness and confusion writhing in the pit of her stomach.
She came to reunion night with a simple mission—hook up with Blake. Instead, it’s like she tumbled backward down a well, finding herself surrounded by memories: some beautiful, some funny, some painful. She didn’t expect to feel this way. She didn’t expect to miss her old friends and her old self so powerfully that she was somehow transported back in time. If it even was real. And even stranger than all of that is the sense, somewhere in the dark corners of her mind, that she’s missing something—that some puzzle piece still hasn’t fallen into place.
She turns away from the photo strip at last, looking around the room. She sees alumni and current campers alike traipsing in and out, patting one another’s backs, hugging, laughing, catching up. And then, through the throng of people, she sees a familiar baseball cap. He turns so she can see his profile, and she knows instantly that it’s Shane.
The heat of mortification creeps up her face. She can’t believe she didn’t even remember him in the truck earlier—he’d looked familiar, but she’d written it off, when he obviously remembered her. She’d been such a dismissive bitch toward him. Don’t I know you? he’d said. And she’d blown him off. Oblivious.
She isn’t about to let that happen again. Steeling herself, she pushes her way through the pack toward him, then takes a breath before tapping him on the shoulder.
He swings around to face her, and he’s even more handsome than she remembered. Rugged-looking, with faint stubble lining his jaw, making it look more square. He is strong but lean, like he has grown out of his bulk. He’s wearing a faded blue baseball hat, turned backward, accenting his clear green eyes. He has on a grease-stained T-shirt and ratty jeans and smells li
ke car oil. . . .
For a second his eyes light up and she thinks he’s about to smile at her, but the smile quickly fades and he takes a step back.
“Wait,” she says urgently, touching his arm, even though he’s not going anywhere. He looks down at her hand, and she instantly lets go. “Please. Let me say something. . . . Let me apologize.”
Shane has a curious look on his face.
“For earlier,” she stumbles on. “For not remembering you. I’m an idiot. I don’t know how I failed to see it sooner. I don’t know how you’ve ever put up with me, Shane, I really don’t.” She wants to go on, but she doesn’t know what she’s even saying. She doesn’t know what actually happened—what’s memory, what’s dream.
“So you do know my name,” he says, tilting his head slightly. “You know, from the way you acted earlier, in my truck, I almost thought I had it wrong. You couldn’t have been the same girl I recalled from camp two summers ago. But then when you had me drop you off so close to Okahatchee, I figured it had to be you. . . . I just hadn’t realized how much you would have changed. I mean”—his face flushes—“not that we really knew each other. I just . . . had a different impression of you from afar is all, but . . . well, never mind.”
She fumbles. It’s like their new version of the past never happened—at least not for him. He knows who she is, but only as some random camper. “A lot’s happened in the last two years . . . ,” she starts. “And . . . I really wasn’t myself earlier tonight.” And that’s when it occurs to her that she’s right: that Tali from earlier wasn’t her. This Tali—the one surrounded by friends, with Shane by her side—this is the real her.
He just doesn’t know it yet.
“Well, I’m not gonna lie,” Shane says, “I was weirded out by the whole thing. I realize we never really talked that summer—and it was my only summer working there. But I went home and couldn’t stop thinking about it, which is why I decided to come to reunion. I had to see for myself. I figured if my hunch was right, I could give this back to you.” He digs into his jeans pocket, blushing again. “I’ve had it for two whole years and I thought you should have it back. It looked valuable. You left it on the dock during swim session that last week of camp. I didn’t know how to get in touch with you, otherwise I would have. . . .” He extracts a gold strand—a necklace. As he pulls it out, a pendant swings on the end of it—a tiny Taurus symbol. It’s the necklace that Tali always used to wear when she was younger. The one her father bought her, to remind her that she was just like a stubborn bull, and he loved that about her. The one that she lost the night that she and Shane . . .
