by Gaby Triana
Jake must read my mind, because he whispers, “I doubt they’ll come here looking for you. You’d be stupid to hide here.” As if taking the ominous cue, a shipwrecked pirate ship appears out of the darkness on the beach of the island.
“That’s the Walrus,” Jake mumbles, gesturing to the ship.
“Doesn’t look very walrus-y.” I follow him into what appears to be the backstage area of the island. There’s no pirate paraphernalia, no crude-looking signs pointing this way or that, no roped bridges or fake pirate ships here.
Jake reaches a wooden door to a shed and opens it. Inside, there’re some coils of rope, an old Discovery Island sign, and a life vest. He ushers me inside. “Your stateroom, mademoiselle.”
“What? This is it?”
“This is it. What did you expect, a spa?”
“No, but . . .”
He walks in with me, maneuvers the life vest over to the blob of ropes, and points to it. “That’ll make a great bed.”
I turn to him, trying to make out his features in the dark. “Jake, I’m nervous. This place is creepy. I’m scared the employees will find me here in the morning.”
“Trust me, just stay put. But if they do see you, tell them you’re friends with Jake Hewes, the lifeguard from River Country,” he says importantly. “They’ll wonder what the hell’s going on, but they won’t turn you in.” He rubs my arm, runs his hand down to my hand, and squeezes it.
“Thanks,” I say, battling the urge to let it all out. Stop, Haley. Time travelers do not cry.
“Don’t mention it. I’ll have my brother come out here as soon as he can, so if you hear someone walking around, look through this hole first.” He points to a crack in the wooden door, a crack he’s probably peeped through many a time, it seems. “And make sure it’s him.”
“And if it’s not?”
He laughs softly. “What’s the worst that could happen? They’re not going to shoot you, Haley. This is Disney.” He turns around and leaves, and for the rest of the night, I’m left with the sounds of birds, crickets chirping, soft waves against the shore, and the realization that he didn’t take back my phone.
nineteen
I know it’s sunrise when birds start squawking at each other. My nerves, having calmed the last few hours, flare up again. The avian residents of the island are excited for the start of a new day, but I am hiding in a shed, awaiting my fate. Yes, fate. Because for once, it all seems entirely out of my hands.
For all I know, cast members may already be here on the island, feeding the animals and preparing for a full day of touring. One of them may suddenly decide he needs extra rope and remember that there’s some out in this wooden shed. Then, surprise!
My stomach grumbles like crazy. What happens if neither Jake nor Jason shows up? How do I get out of here by myself? A minute later I hear shuffling outside. I hop to my feet and cautiously peer out the hole in the door. I don’t see anyone. Maybe it’s a seagull looking for its own breakfast. If it’s a vulture, it can just wait for me to die of fear in here, then feed off my carcass.
Then there’s a scratching sound on the door, and I freeze.
I can feel someone standing outside the door. It’s not a seagull. “Haley,” someone whispers.
The door creaks open, and there’s Jason, wearing the same Police shirt he was wearing the night before, with a brown paper bag in his hands. He has dark circles under his eyes, dark circles I know I caused.
“Jason!” I pull him inside and throw my arms around him. My fingers hook into his hair, and I just want him to take me somewhere, anywhere, I don’t care, as long as we’re together. I couldn’t care less about whatever food he’s brought me. He pulls back and kisses me. I melt into his kiss, and for a few moments nothing else matters.
Nothing.
“You have to go, Haley.” His breath is soft and sweet against my face.
“I told you I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“I mean, out of Disney. You have to leave.” He tugs at my hair, framing my face with it.
“I can’t. I have to stay near River Country. I think it’s my portal for going home. What happened after I left that office?”
He sighs heavily and collapses to the ground. “They asked me to bring my parents, but I had to confess that my dad is nonresponsive. It’s just me and Jake. Been for a while.”
“What?” I pull away and look him in the eye. “What does that mean, nonresponsive?”
He shrugs, then looks to the floor. “My mom died, Haley. Two years ago—overdose. My dad just sits in his chair, doesn’t speak to anyone. Me, I’ve had a rough couple of years. That’s why Jake is obsessed with keeping me—us—on the straight and narrow.”
“Straight and narrow,” I repeat. “What does that mean? I can’t think.”
“Keeping me in line. So I don’t want them to find you here. I don’t know if you’re telling me the truth or not, about coming from the future. I don’t know what the hell’s happening anymore, but I know I want you safe.”
I hold on to his shoulders and press my face against his chest, finding comfort in the rhythmic beating of his heart. Outside, the new sound of rain sloshes on the roof of the shed, and just as quickly, humidity seeps in through the opening of the door. “What if I stay?” I propose. “What if I live with you? I mean, if your dad won’t mind.” It’s a possibility. I might be crazy for even considering it, but if I can’t leap back to 2014, then Jason’s all I’ve got.
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
He pulls back and holds me at arm’s distance. “Because I have to leave too.”
“What? Why?”
“They fired me, Haley.”
I stare at him. He isn’t kidding. “But you didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Actually, I did. I helped you hide instead of bringing you to their attention sooner,” he says, mocking someone’s tone, probably In-Charge’s. “Not wrong to me, but obviously to them.”
I can’t believe this. I got Jason fired from his job, the job that was supposed to save him and get him back on the right path. I ruined everything. In allowing myself to have a summer fling while I was stuck here, I ruined his life. My dad is right. I’m totally selfish.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” Jason says. “They’ll be at my trailer tonight to make sure I’ve packed up all my stuff.”
“But where will you go?” My heart feels like it’s going to split into pieces, and he can keep them all. They’re all his anyway.
“Army, I guess.”
“No, Jason.” I shake my head. Nothing wrong with the army, except . . . that isn’t his dream. “Study first. Write about your mom dying on the college applications. Tell them how you want to be something. Come on, Jason. You can’t just give up on your dreams.”
He turns away from me and rests in the open doorway, arm up on the frame. “It’s not that easy.”
“Okay, what about ROTC then? Don’t they, like, pay for your college, then you work for them, but after your obligation is done, you’re free, right? Isn’t that how it works?”
“I think so. I don’t know. I’ll see.”
“Why can’t I come with you?” I plead.
I want to. I want to stay with Jason and support him, after everything he’s done for me, stuck out his neck for me, got fired for me, and on the Fourth of July, no less. It’s the least I can do.
I want to let the big tears out. I want them to push up past my throat and spill before I can do anything to stop them. Why can’t I? Not since my parents split up six years ago have I been able to really cry. I’ve been so numb. But I could do this. I could make being in 1982 work, be with Jason, somehow. I come up behind him and wrap my arms around his torso. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“I don’t want to lose you either, Haley, but you have parents who care about you.
You don’t know how special that is. After I’m gone, you must find your way home. But if you’re still stuck here after I leave, stay with my brother and wait for me, okay?”
Ugh. I can’t say I don’t care about my parents, because I do. I care a lot. But they’ve lived; they would understand if I found love and didn’t want to ever let it go. They wouldn’t be able to blame me. But waiting around with Jake for Jason to finish with the army doesn’t sound like how I want to spend my life. “God, this sucks.”
He laughs and turns around to hug me. “Listen, we’ll have one last day together.” He’s not done, but already his words are making me cringe. “And we’ll have a blast. We’ll do whatever you want. We’ll watch the fireworks tonight. We’ll watch them from the beach, or stay here, if you prefer.” He kisses me long and sweet. I know just what he means. And I can’t say I disagree with his plan. Watching the fireworks with Jason in this hidden spot where anything can happen is very much in line with how I feel right now.
I think about Marsha’s words the first day I arrived, how Jason had not wanted to hook up with anyone so far this summer, and how that made me the pick of the litter. I’m happy knowing that he decided to spend his time with me, that whatever he felt was too fragile and special to share with just anyone, he chose to share with me.
And if this has all been a dream after all, so be it. It’s how I’d want the dream to end.
“But, Jason, before you leave, I need you to do something for me.”
“Something else?” He smiles and kisses me again. I feel the pull of his body, drawing me in, making me dizzy.
I pull away and touch his mouth with a fingertip. “I need you to turn on my phone.”
He taps his forehead. “Oh, that’s right. Where did my brother put all that stuff? Damn, now I have to go get it.”
I run over to my makeshift bed and pick up the plastic Radio Shack bag I brought with me. “It’s all right here.”
“Radical.” He comes over and looks inside. “Five-volt, wires, okay, but I need a soldering gun. Idiot doesn’t think I can connect wires without soldering them, does he? Can I see your telephone?” I hand him the phone, and he inspects it, staring into the charging slot for a long while, mumbling to himself. “This looks nothing like a phone. Wait here, Haley. I’m going to go search for a soldering gun, and I’ll be back soon. Eat what I brought you. Oh, and here, take this. . . .”
He pulls a folded map of Discovery Island from his pocket. I must say I’m excited to have something to look at in my dungeon besides a life vest. “Yay, a treasure map,” I say.
He unfolds it and points to a spot near the Walrus pirate ship. “You’re on Shipwreck Beach. If you have to run, wait outside this trail until you see a group of tourists. The guide will start talking about the wildlife that lives in these parts. You can slide in through the trees here, and nobody will ever notice that you weren’t part of the group already.”
“Okay, but it’s still raining. I’ll probably stay here.”
“Good idea.” He kisses me one last time, and then he’s gone again, leaving me with my empty shed, my dead phone, and some light reading.
***
I’m not one to sit around, even if it is waiting for Jason to come back, so as soon as I’ve read the entire map three or four times and it stops raining, I venture out of the shed as quietly as possible. I feel exposed, as if everyone on every boat crossing Bay Lake and every guest at River Country, a mere hundred yards away, can see me.
It’s not a big island, but they’ve packed a lot to see into such a small space. I can’t believe I’ve gone by this place on a boat to the Magic Kingdom at least three times before in my life and never even knew it was here. I thought it was an unoccupied, uninhabited place. It’s like a secret jewel. I love it already.
I cross over the South Creek Inlet and spot the first people of the day, a girl and a guy wearing gloves and carrying buckets. They’re busy opening cages and distributing feed. For a moment I think the girl sees me, but she’s only perking up to hear an announcement made on a radio. I stay away, heading a little farther down the beach. There’s the sound of water rushing. Following it means squeezing between trees, which I do, and I am immediately rewarded with the prettiest sight of the day.
A tall mass of rocks, real rocks, not the engineered, stage kind over at River Country, looms over me, and right between two of the biggest formations rushes a little waterfall, a lovely treasure in the middle of Discovery Island. I want to whip out my phone and take a picture, it’s so pretty, but I curse at the impossibility. I hope Jason will change that soon. I sit here for the longest time, hearing the sounds of people in the distance, guides talking about parrots and flamingos and lemurs. There’re lemurs here? As with River Country, I wonder why this attraction isn’t open in my time either.
A melancholy sadness comes over me. If it weren’t for my family, I think I’d stay here, as absurd as the thought may be. But I wouldn’t be able to live on Discovery Island anyway. I may as well enjoy this moment, because quiet interludes in natural settings are few and far between. Tonight, everything will change. Whether or not I can re-create the conditions necessary for jumping back to my time, it’ll be Jason’s last night here. And right now, for me, Jason is Fort Wilderness.
As much as I’d love to hang out in this private spot all day, I need to get back in case Jason returns with the soldering gun. Where does he plan on plugging that in, anyway? I’m heading back to Shipwreck Beach when I hear chatter about which animals to feed and when right around the corner. I duck back into the trees to keep from being seen. After the voices become muffled, I emerge and run down the beach to my shed. But there’s something there now that wasn’t there before.
A light blue speedboat, like the one I came on last night with Jake, is perched on the sand. Someone bursts out of the shed frantically, and though my heart jumps into my throat, it’s only Jason. “Holy crap, Haley, you scared me. I thought you got caught.” He comes up to me and pulls me by the arm. “Come on, get in. We can’t charge this thing out here.”
He hands me the Radio Shack bag, and I hop into the speedboat. As soon as we pull away, someone spots and points to us. “Right there, see them?” I overhear a girl wearing a tropical flowered shirt say.
A cast member dude emerges from the trees, shielding his eyes from the sun.
“Crap, they see us. What do we do?” I ask.
“We wave,” Jason says. And he does with a smile and points to his River Country name tag pinned to his shirt. I wave too. We casually smile and wave, smile and wave. The couple of cast members see that it’s all fine, that the two unauthorized people who just left the island are one (fake) cast member and one (fired) cast member. They smile and wave back. It’s all good.
“Wow. Amazing how well that trick works.”
“No kidding.”
“So where are we going to do this? People are bound to notice.”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Jason says, pulling into the marina not one minute later.
I want to laugh. He sounds a bit like my dad with some of his sayings. I suppose the way I talk will sound funny to someone thirty years from now too, so I shouldn’t judge. He helps me up onto the docks, and together we walk, for the first time, I think, holding hands out in public. Jason is unusually quiet, contemplative, and I wonder what he’s thinking.
Down the boardwalk, over to the Settlement Trading Post, and down behind the general store we go. He stops and looks around, his eyes scanning the grounds.
“Okay, now what?” I ask.
His eyes stop at an electrical post for charging golf carts. “There. I hope this one has power.” He looks around, presumably to make sure nobody is coming, and crouches in front of the post.
I crouch too and open the bag for him. “What do you need first?” I ask, excited for this experiment to begin.
“The
five-volt power source. That one.” He points to a black charger that looks like something that might charge a video camera. He takes it and bites down on the adapter at the end.
“You’re going to eat it?” I tease.
He glances up at me with those blue eyes, and I relish the thought that he wants to admonish me for my smart mouth. He rips off the adapter and surrounding plastic, exposing two live wires. “Plug this in, please.” He pulls out of his pocket a soldering gun and hands it to me.
“Whoa, where’d you get this?” I plug the gun into the electrical post.
“Boat rentals. I asked if they had one, and they said no. So I asked to use their restroom and found one in the back.”
I cock my head at him. “You are just MacGyver, aren’t you?”
“Who?” I thought I was being clever by quoting something eighties, but I guess that show hasn’t started yet from the quizzical look he’s giving me.
“Nothing. Okay, so it’s plugged in. Now what?”
“Now, reach in my other pocket and find a small coil of wire.” He angles his body toward me so I can fish around in his shorts.
“Um, why am I doing this when you have a free hand?” I ask, biting my lip.
He laughs, and I pull out the thick metal wire wound tightly. “You’re the one who fell for it. Okay, now hold your phone out. Before I melt this, let me make sure these are the pins that need to connect. Stay away from the live ends.” He plugs in the power converter and slowly comes toward the phone in my hand, inserting the two exposed wires into the slot where the charger would connect.
Nothing happens.
He takes them out and moves them over to another spot. “I think it’s this one. I hope five volts isn’t too much and I don’t fry the board.”
“Why? What happens if you fry the board?”
He looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “You stay here with me forever.”
