If You Were Here

by Stephanie Taylor

  16

  December 19, 2016

  Unclear

  Roger wasn’t the only unexpected ghost from Daniel’s past to visit the ICU floor in the days following the shooting. Lisa came and went, staying as long as her frayed nerves would allow, but she always left when the sight of her son lying comatose in a hospital bed proved to be too much to bear. During one of her extended cigarette breaks, a woman in a pair of black suede pants and a black turtleneck sweater stepped off the elevator, bypassing the nurses’ station altogether and choosing not to sign in as a visitor.

  She took the loop around the floor in her high-heeled boots, clicking purposefully down the hallways like she knew exactly where she was going. Her hair was still dark and straight, but longer than it had been when she was eighteen. Avoiding the sun her whole life had kept her face remarkably unwrinkled, and even at forty-eight, she looked sharp and youthful.

  Without hesitation, she opened the door to room 314 and entered as if she belonged there. Again, Daniel was alone on the snowy mountain of sheets and pillows, the shell of him propped up by machinery and pharmaceuticals. The rest of him—the best, most essential part—was somewhere else. She knew that, but still, the sight of him nearly took her breath away.

  At his bedside, she set her black purse on the chair and carefully laid her overcoat across the back of it, spending more time than was necessary on the arranging of her personal belongings. Having something else to focus on gave her the chance to compose herself, to prepare for the way he looked there in the hospital bed.

  Like Roger, she hadn’t known how to approach him after all these years. In fact, she’d known that even finding him would be fruitless. He’d know nothing about her, wouldn’t remember their past, wouldn’t understand why a woman claiming to be a music journalist from New York City would show up in Westchester wanting to talk to him about a time and place he wouldn’t remember having lived through. At best, he’d think she was some over-the-hill Gen Xer looking to write a story about teenagers and how their tastes in music had changed over the decades. At worst, he’d peg her as a cougar and tell his friends he had a MILF on his trail. She couldn’t have lived with herself either way, so she’d stayed away.

  But now she’d had to come; there’d been no choice. When Roger had tracked her down and told her about the school shooting, every fiber of her being had burned hotly and then frozen inside as she’d held the phone to her ear, leaving her numb and in shock. Sure, she’d imagined him growing up in Westchester in the house next door to Roger’s. Sure, she’d thought about him over the years, wondering whether time had played the same tricks on other people that it had played on them. But her life had kept her far too busy to even consider throwing a wrench into the universe and creating another wrinkle in time. Until now. Now she had no choice.

  “Daniel,” she whispered, leaning over the bed as she slipped her hand into his still one. She squeezed, hoping that he might open his eyes just as much as she prayed that he wouldn’t. “Hi. I’ve missed you. Oh my God.” Her eyes filled with tears and her throat closed in on itself as she tried to swallow thirty years of grief and confusion. “It’s Jenny,” she said, trying her voice to see if it would hold the weight of her words. It did.

  “Roger told me you were here, and I had to see you.” Jenny squeezed his hand again. “It’s been a long time, and I wanted to see you. You look the same,” she said, marveling at the fact that the eighteen-year-old Daniel she’d known in 1986 was here in the flesh and that she was holding his hand.

  “Daniel, I wanted to see you and tell you something. I wanted to tell you about your daughter.”

  17

  January 14, 1986

  Mirrorball

  “Hey, Future Boy.” Roger waved me over. He was standing at his locker in the senior hallway with the door open a crack.

  A girl zipped something into her purse and walked away.

  “Nice doing business with you,” Roger called after her.

  “Whatcha got going here?” I asked him, nodding at the locker.

  “You know, just making a few bucks.” With a surreptitious glance up and down the hall, he opened the locker wider and let me have a look inside. On the door was a large piece of construction paper with several envelopes glued to it. Each envelope held what appeared to be small rectangles of paper. “Concert and event tickets,” he said, running a hand along the envelopes. “I got Rangers tickets. I got Prince in February at Madison Square Garden. I got The Bangles. What can I hook you up with?”

  “You’re selling concert tickets?” I laughed, leaning in closer to eyeball his selection.

  “At a profit, of course,” he clarified. “Hey—do you remember who won the Super Bowl this year? We could place a bet. Make some money.”

  “Uhhh, I wasn’t even born in 1986,” I said. “I definitely don’t remember who won all the Super Bowls for the next thirty years.”

  “Any chance we can look it up on that little computer? You said you could find any information you wanted.”

  I was about to answer when a short girl with braces walked up and stood too close to Roger. “I heard you had Whitney Houston tickets.”

  “I do. Step right up,” Roger said. He shooed me away. “I’ve got business with this young lady here. I’ll catch you on the flip side, Future Boy.”

  “Pssst,” a voice said from behind me as I was crossing over the threshold into Mr. Young’s biology class. I felt a tug at the back of my shirt. It was Jenny. “Come on,” she hissed, keeping one eye on Mr. Young, who had his back to the door as he scrawled across the blackboard with a piece of white chalk. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I stepped out into the hallway. “Hey,” I said, standing as close to her as I could get away with. “What are you talking about?”

  “Let’s go. I have my dad’s car.” She smiled up at me. Her lips were a deep purple today instead of the red she usually wore. They matched the lavender color on her eyelids. “I want to go into the city.”

  “New York?” I watched her face to see if she was kidding. “Are you serious? But it’s almost lunchtime.”

  “So? Who cares? My dad won’t be home until midnight, and your parents won’t ask questions, will they?”

  I thought of my grandma and the way she hounded Andy and dogged his every move. It was on the tip of my tongue to protest Jenny’s assumption and to tell her that my grandma was hyper-vigilant about our whereabouts, but then I thought better of it.

  “No, they won’t care,” I said, taking another step closer to her so that our bodies were only inches apart. “I’ll just tell them I’m hanging out with Roger.”

  “Hey, whatever buys you some freedom.”

  “So you really want to just leave?”

  “What, you’ve never skipped school?” Jenny wrinkled her nose. “Come on.” She looked at me like I was pulling her leg.

  We walked quickly through the nearly empty halls, ducking out a side door that led to the student parking lot. I followed Jenny to a black Honda Accord and tossed my books into the backseat without even looking to see where they landed. Within minutes, we were on the expressway, headed into the city.

  The first thing she wanted to do was go to Tower Records, so we parked in a lot on the outskirts of the city and took a short train ride. It was a sunny and cold winter day, and the harsh afternoon light fell through the windows of the train as we sped into the city, broken up only by the buildings and bridges that occasionally blocked the sun. I watched Jenny’s face the whole time.

  We held hands as we cut through the busy streets, walking with crowds of people in business suits. The men wore patterned ties, and the women had on white tennis shoes with their matching skirt-and-jacket work suits. On one corner, steam came up through the grates in the sidewalk and the rush of the underground subway rattled beneath our feet. I stopped and took in the scent of hot dogs and roasted peanuts and cashews, watching as people handed over wrinkled dollar bills in exchange for fast lunches that they could
eat on their breaks from work.

  “You hungry?” Jenny stopped at a cart that sold gyros. “We kind of left school before lunch.”

  “Yeah, I could eat,” I said, putting my hand on my back pocket to check for my wallet. “I think I have money.”

  “I’ve got it,” Jenny said, opening up the purse she’d slung across her body and held clenched against her side. She pulled out a denim wallet and unzipped it. “I have fifty-six bucks. Let’s get lunch.”

  I took out my own wallet and examined its contents, which were much more paltry than hers. I’d never had a job—not in 2016, and not now—and I had no idea how to accumulate enough cash to do anything substantial. So far, I’d relied on the kindness of my mom and on the sale of things I no longer needed to make a few bucks here and there in my regular life. “I’ve got twenty-two dollars,” I said, counting the cash I’d found in the top drawer of my dresser and shoved into my wallet.

  “Let’s get a hamburger.” Jenny pointed at a cart down the street. “That sounds better than gyros or hotdogs.”

  “As you wish,” I said grandly, opening up a hand to indicate that I’d follow her wherever she wanted to go.

  We got lunch at a cart and sat on the steps in front of a giant church, sharing a can of Coke. She smiled at me as she passed the drink over. Her face was happy, her nose red from the cold.

  “You wish we were at school?” she asked, winking at me as she took a bite of her hamburger.

  “Yeah, I’m really missing out on a stellar educational opportunity.” I rolled my eyes. “And you’ve got ketchup on your nose.” I reached out and wiped the end of her nose and she laughed.

  “Thanks. I need you around to keep me in line.”

  We ate quietly for a minute, watching people pass us by.

  “So, tell me about your family,” I said.

  “You mean about my dad?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  “There’s not much to tell. It’s just us.” Jenny looked away as she talked, holding the can of Coke in her hand. “I haven’t seen my mom since I was two or three.”

  “Oh. Wow.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Where did you live before you came to Westchester?”

  “Everywhere.” Jenny put the soda can to her lips and drank. “We lived in Pittsburgh until three months ago. We go wherever my dad’s work transfers him.”

  “Do you like it here?”

  Her lips turned up slowly at the corners. “I’m starting to like it a lot better.”

  I knew what she was getting at, and it made me smile like an idiot. “Hey, what’s Tower Records like?” I ate the last two bites of my burger and reached for the Coke again.

  Jenny’s eyes went wide. “Are you serious? You’ve never been to this one?”

  I hadn’t been to any Tower Records period, but I’d definitely never been to this one. I shook my head and kept my lips on the can of Coke so I wouldn’t have to say anything.

  “It’s way bigger than the one at the mall,” she assured me.

  We threw the rest of our trash away and walked over to 4th and Broadway in the Village. Tower Records was impossible to miss: the giant yellow sign with its red lettering ran the length of the building, and people streamed in and out of the front door carrying slick yellow shopping bags.

  Jenny took my hand and pulled me through the door. My mouth fell open. The whole ground floor was music. Shelves and stacks of vinyl and walls covered with huge, life-size posters of famous musicians. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Beatles. Everywhere I looked, I was confronted by reminders of what made music great. Without meaning to, I let go of her hand and started wandering.

  The racks closest to the door were filled with new releases, and I flipped through the big square sleeves that covered the record albums. The Bangles, Depeche Mode, The Jesus and Mary Chain…I picked up a copy of LL Cool J’s Radio and flipped it over, inspecting the back cover. I looked at the Fine Young Cannibals and UB40 and U2 and The B-52s, reading through the tracklists and then slipping them back into their alphabetical slots with reverence. I’d never seen a store like this, and an hour disintegrated before my eyes as I flipped through albums by artists I’d never even heard of.

  “Help you with something?” A short girl with an aggressively pink mohawk stood in front of me. She had an arm full of vinyl and was shelving them quickly, barely glancing at the order they went in, but somehow never missing her mark.

  “Um, where are the cassette tapes?” I watched as she dropped an album by Madness into its slot.

  “Up on the mezzanine,” she said, tipping her pointed chin at a space at the top of the stairs. “You’ll find almost all of our cassettes up there, and anything you don’t see, just ask someone for and we’ll see if we can track it down, yeah?” Without really looking at me, she flicked a wrist, causing a stack of silver bangles to jingle like bells as she walked over to the next aisle. “Help you with something?” I heard her ask an older man in a sweater vest. His gray mustache twitched as he tried to keep the disapproving look off his face. He stared at her spiky pink hair and at the line of earrings on her earlobe as he ran a hand over his rounded belly, cradling it like a pregnant woman might.

  “Do you have any Lawrence Welk Christmas albums?” he asked her, studiously avoiding her face with his eyes. I wondered how you’d get by in New York City if a girl with pink hair and too many earrings threw you that much.

  It was Mohawk Girl’s turn to keep the disapproval off her face, though I imagined that she got requests for all kinds of shitty music throughout her day. “Not in the new releases,” she sniffed, pointing her arm at the stairs. Her bracelets jingled again. “Try Upper Level. It might be mixed in with jazz and blues or something. I’m not sure.” She walked away without another word.

  I kind of wanted to follow the guy upstairs to find out what exactly Lawrence Welk was—this was how curious I felt in the presence of so much music—but instead I peeled away from him at the next level and wandered across the mezzanine. I could see Jenny below, still on the first floor as she waited her turn at a listening station, arms folded impatiently. She looked up just then and caught my eye, pointing at the line she was waiting in.

  There were still a few people ahead of her, and it was clear by the headphones tethered to the stations that this was the place you previewed the music you were interested in, so I gave her the “ok” sign with my fingers and walked away from the railing.

  The cassettes were lined up on the wall in alphabetical order by genre, so I searched for Pop/Rock. A boy several years younger than me was on his knees in front of the cassettes, searching for something intently.

  “Excuse me,” I said, moving around him. He looked up and frowned at me like I’d stepped on his fingers.

  I had no idea what I was looking for, but as I ran my hand over the hard cases of the cassette tapes, I decided that I’d buy at least one. I wanted a souvenir of this trip into the city with Jenny. Something to remind me of being with her. I traced the stacks of tapes, letting my fingers stop wherever they wanted to.

  Linda Ronstadt? No. I had no idea who that was, and the cover didn’t look appealing. Next.

  Hall and Oates? Nah. Their mustaches made them look like porn stars. Next.

  I stopped at The Smiths. This was it. I slid a tape from the stack and looked at the cover: the black and white profile of a guy. Blue lettering. It was called Hatful of Hollow. I found “How Soon is Now?” on the tracklist on the back. This was the one. It was the song we’d listened to in the car at the movies, and I knew how much she loved The Smiths.

  “Find anything good?” Jenny was right next to me, looking over my shoulder at the tape. “Oh, nice choice.”

  “What did you find?”

  “R.E.M.,” she said, holding up one album. She slipped it behind the next one. “Killing Joke, and Cocteau Twins.”

  “Huh,” I said, nodding at her choices. I knew R.E.M., but the other two bands were complete mysteries to me. “Cool.”

>   “You ready to go? There’s a thrift shop here in the Village I want to take you to.” Jenny walked towards the stairs. “Wait, do you like thrift shops?”

  “Do you?”

  “I mean, yeah,” she said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Then I do. Definitely.”

  Jenny laughed. “Okay. Let’s pay.”

  We walked out of the store with the same shiny shopping bags I’d seen other people leaving with, and she took my hand again without a word, walking next to me as yellow taxi cabs sped past us, honking at one another and at the endless stream of people who flooded the crosswalks.

  At a corner, Jenny tugged my hand and led me down a narrow staircase into a basement I would have never seen from the street. Inside was a dark, windowless room filled with racks of clothes and shoes. The only light came from a row of buzzing fluorescents overhead.

  “Men’s stuff is over there,” a man behind the counter said in a bored voice, pointing at a row of coats and shirts jammed onto a rack. The whole place smelled faintly of an attic and of old books and clothes.

  We browsed for a while, holding things up to show each other. Jenny came over and picked out a shirt for me. “This one,” she said, nodding definitively. “This would look good with your eyes.”

  “It’s kind of…” I couldn’t find the right words. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure, I’m sure.” She stared up at my face. “Are you questioning my taste in fashion?”

  I looked at her short black skirt and at the black-and-white striped tights she was wearing underneath it. She had on a dark green sweater that hung down over her hands. On her feet were the black Doc Martens she always wore.

  “I would never question your taste in fashion,” I assured her. “I’ve made enough fashion mistakes in my life that I’m disqualified from commenting on other people’s clothing choices.”

  “Like the parachute pants?” Jenny teased. Her eyes flicked over me, taking in my dark wash jeans and the navy blue windbreaker I had on over my white t-shirt. “This look is a huge improvement.”