23 Minutes

by Vivian Vande Velde

  Daniel takes a breath, and she keeps on talking, not giving him a chance for questions. “And I was like ‘Whoa!’ and she was like ‘What?’ And that was the first time. Jessie had no memory of any of it. She was all, ‘Well, if you don’t want to race, just say so. We don’t have to race.’ And I was all, ‘No, but we did: down Thurston, around the corner to Congress, then around the corner to Fairview, and you smacked right into the Greenbergs’ car.’ And she said, ‘It’s Saturday—the Greenbergs aren’t allowed to leave their house,’ and I said, ‘Greenbergs don’t keep Sabbath if Mrs. Greenberg wants to go out to dinner,’ and Jessie still didn’t believe me, so we got on our bikes, but we’d spent so much time arguing that we were just going around the first corner when we saw the Greenbergs drive by.”

  Zoe can tell she’s given Daniel way too much background information, but this is the first time in so long that she’s talked about that day, the words come spilling out of her as inexorably as Jessie going over the back of the Greenbergs’ car.

  “OK,” Daniel says, trying to process it all. “So …”

  “So, Jessie kind of believed me, on account of she saw the Greenbergs’ car. Her mother didn’t. Her mother eventually said maybe we shouldn’t hang around together so much.”

  Zoe suspects that right about now Daniel might be identifying with Jessie’s mom.

  Zoe says, “Did I not warn you that you would find this hard to believe?”

  “Fair warning indeed.” Daniel starts again, “So … you’ve told other people?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve done this reliving of an incident other times, too? Besides with Jessie and the Greenbergs?”

  “You’re missing the point.”

  He looks relieved to hear this, as though still hoping the conversation might turn rational.

  Zoe doubts her further explanation will keep him relieved for long. She checks out the window facing the bank and sees—so far—no sign of commotion. She says, “Let’s say that at exactly twenty-three minutes after the hour, something bad happens.”

  Daniel has seen her eyes flick toward the window, and he, too, glances outside. “Any particular hour?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “Any particular bad thing?”

  “No.”

  “Am I one of the Greenbergs?”

  “What? No.” She puts her hands on her hips and stares him down. “Why would you even ask that?”

  “Don’t know,” he admits. “People not remembering things. All those Greenbergs unaccounted for … I thought you were going to tell me I have amnesia.”

  Zoe suspects he is trying to break the tension. Either that, or his mind has begun to wander. She says, “You’re supposed to be taking this seriously.”

  “I am,” he protests, though he clearly is not. “Sorry,” he says, though he clearly is not that, either. “Just checking.”

  “No amnesia,” Zoe says. “No stray Greenbergs. Twenty-three minutes after an hour—the time chosen purely for illustrative purposes and for the sake of saving me from having to do math—something happens that I feel needs changing. I say, ‘Playback,’ which plays back time, which goes back twenty-three minutes—in this example, just to make a point, to the hour. I try to improve things by doing something differently. But I don’t like the way it’s going. So, maybe twenty-after, I call it quits. I say, ‘Playback’ again. Suddenly it’s exactly on the hour again—even though I only used part of the twenty-three minutes. I can keep on going back and keep on going back—always to the exact same starting point—until I’m happy. Or, more likely, till I’m willing to settle. Or, up to ten tries. And the other limitation is, once the time goes past twenty-three minutes, then that’s it. Once minute number twenty-four starts, that whole previous twenty-three-minute block of time is closed, and I can’t go back any more than anybody else can. Oh, yeah, and the last limitation is: I can’t take anybody or anything with me. Which means nobody else remembers. So it’s kind of hard to prove.”

  “I can imagine,” Daniel says. Then, seeing her don’t-talk-down-to-me look, adds, “The hard-to-prove bit.”

  “Uh-huh,” Zoe says. She watches him taking all this in, then adds, “I’m not on any prescription meds.”

  He asks, “Are you supposed to be on any prescription meds?”

  “Not at the moment. I gave up trying to convince people. It was just easier that way. So, no more meds, and visits with a psychiatrist only once a month.”

  “And you’re telling me this …?”

  “Because something bad has happened. Something very, very bad. I’ve been trying to change it.”

  Daniel, clever young man that he is, catches on. “Which is where—or, rather, when—we met before? How you learned my name?”

  But even though he’s said it, she suspects he doesn’t believe it.

  “We both know that my knowing your name does not prove we’ve met. All sorts of ways I could have learned that. So what I’d like you to do is come up with a secret word or phrase that has meaning only to you.” She can tell he’s not following. Before he can ask, she says, “I don’t mean your computer password or social security number.” The last thing she needs is for him to suspect she’s trying a scam. “And I don’t mean something you make up here and now. Maybe something from your past. Something that—next time I see you—when I say it, you’ll know there’s no way I could be familiar with that word or phrase or idea except by your telling me.” She sighs. “You don’t understand.”

  “No kidding,” he tells her.

  “It’s not that I’m asking you to give me a word that will help you remember me. I’m asking for a word that only has meaning to you, so if a stranger comes up to you and says that word, you’d …” She drifts off, thinking the whole thing is hopeless.

  “The stranger being you?”

  She nods, but he sits back in his chair and she can tell he’s done humoring her.

  “One more minute,” she says. “I’m not asking you to tell me right now.”

  “Zoe …” Daniel shakes his head. “I wish I could help you, I really do—”

  “There’s a man across the street, even now, as we speak,” Zoe says all in a rush, “robbing the bank.”

  That’s gotten him focused again.

  He’s looking out the window, although he can’t make out what’s going on inside the bank any more than she could.

  Outside the bank, however, Zoe sees that this time, finally, the woman with the stroller has reached her car, parked in front of the bank. She has turned on the engine to warm the car, and has gotten her child unstrapped from the stroller. She is now half-in/half-out of the backseat of the car as she works to fasten the toddler into his car seat, while the stroller—and her lower half—continues to get rained on.

  It must be almost 1:39. Then it won’t be up to Zoe anymore.

  “I don’t know the man,” she assures Daniel. “It’s not that I overheard plans or anything like that. But I was in the bank the first time it happened. And so were you.”

  Daniel stands up, as though he feels compelled to be doing something but has no idea what that should be.

  “What time is it?” Zoe asks.

  Daniel looks surprised she needs to ask—as though everyone in the world has a cell phone—but he checks his. “One thirty-seven. When you say—”

  Zoe interrupts, knowing she only has about a minute and a half before this twenty-three minutes will close to her. “Never mind,” she says.

  Let Daniel think she’s a grade-A crazy. The robber has not shot anyone, and she is going to assume he will not. Of course, someone could get killed at minute twenty-four, and then everybody will be out of luck.

  But this is not her problem.

  “Never mind?” Daniel echoes, somewhere between incredulous and angry.

  “I think it’s fixed itself,” Zoe tells him. She watches the young mother back out of her car.

  The door to the bank flies open.

  No no no! Zoe t
hinks, figuring the robber has picked the worst possible moment to make his getaway from the bank.

  But it isn’t the robber. It’s one of the customers who comes running out.

  There’s the crack of a gunshot, and the customer goes sprawling on the sidewalk.

  More shots.

  Screams heard through the open doorway.

  Now the robber does run out. He collides with the young mother. He shoots her, then jumps into her car, probably not yet even noticing the child in the backseat. Not yet. He takes off with a squeal of tires.

  Daniel’s eyes have gotten big. He is looking at her in horror, as though she’s the one responsible for all this.

  Which she is.

  In a way.

  Staff and customers from Dunkin’ Donuts crowd around the window to see what is going on, blocking Zoe and Daniel’s view.

  He asks her, “It happens like this every time?”

  “There are differences,” she says.

  She suspects he knows what one of those differences might be. But he says, “If you can change things, you have to try again.”

  So she comes out and says it: “I’ve seen you die.”

  She sees him take in this information. Mentally weigh things. He considers. He may even try to talk sense into himself. But, if so, he fails. He takes a deep breath and says, “Armadillo.”

  “What?” she asks.

  “When you see me next time, tell me that I told you to say armadillo.”

  She nods.

  She, too, hesitates.

  But in the end she hugs herself. And she says, “Playback.”

  CHAPTER 8

  TIME RESETS TO 1:16.

  The situation is not as hopeless as it has seemed. Daniel has become more than a victim, a potential fatality who needs rescuing. He may well be an ally.

  Zoe sees a garbage can in front of the store two doors down from Tops ’n Totes. She tosses her formerly precious folder of papers into it as she takes off running toward Independence Street.

  Daniel denied working at the converted-into-offices Victorian place, the Fitzhugh House apparently, but she knows she saw him coming out of there. She bursts into the front hall and is faced with a sign listing the people who have offices: one law firm takes up the entire third floor; an evidently smaller law firm and a photographer share the second floor; and the ground floor is home to a real estate agent (Room 1A), an acupuncturist (1B), and someone (1C) described as “M. Van Der Meer, Designer,” though designer of what the sign doesn’t specify.

  Zoe takes a second to pull her ponytail out of its elastic. She gives her blue hair a quick fluff-up, telling herself this is to look older and—by extension—more credible. Also, she suspects it’s more becoming. Pathetic, she chides herself.

  A door on the second floor opens, and Zoe hears Daniel’s voice, saying thanks and good-bye to someone.

  She runs to the staircase with its old-fashioned wooden banister in time to see him close the door labeled 2A, the office of Nicholas Wyand, Attorney-at-Law.

  Racing up the stairs, she intercepts him on the landing between the first floor and the second, by the leaded glass window that is letting in the last of the sunshine before the rain will take over.

  Daniel has already stepped aside to let her pass, his envelope of papers in one hand, sunglasses in the other.

  “Daniel!” she says.

  “Yes,” he answers, his voice bright to match the enthusiasm of hers, though he makes no attempt to bluff that he has any idea who she is.

  “Armadillo,” she tells him.

  “Excuse me?” he says.

  Well, of course she knew it wasn’t going to be that simple:

  ZOE: Daniel!

  DANIEL: Yes.

  ZOE: Armadillo.

  DANIEL: Wow, you must be someone I met and trusted in an alternate reality. Tell me what you want me to do.

  In place of that scenario, Zoe says, “My name is Zoe. We’ve never met—well, we have, but not exactly—but you said I should say armadillo.”

  Daniel already looks like he’s having trouble keeping up. “I did?”

  “It’s … sort of a code,” Zoe explains. She should have asked for more details, but had been too afraid of getting stranded on the wrong side of her allotted twenty-three minutes. Now she has to admit, “I’m … not sure what’s the significance of the word itself. But my saying it is supposed to let you know you can trust me.”

  He’s amused and intrigued—an expression that very much suits his features.

  Zoe hopes she isn’t looking at him in the drool-y sort of way she and Rasheena have caught Mrs. Davies looking at actors in those old black-and-white movies from the forties and fifties. Zoe remembers Mrs. Davies sitting in front of the TV. Rasheena asking her, “You like that guy?” Mrs. Davies nodding. Rasheena saying, “Don’t you know that guy been dead longer than we been alive?”

  Dead guys is not a topic on which Zoe wants her mind dwelling.

  So it’s a good thing when Daniel says, “I see. Well …” He looks around, but there are no chairs in the small lobby, so he sits on the floor of the landing, his feet on the next step going down. Apparently willing to trust her at least long enough to chat with her.

  “That’s not your office up there?” she asks, just to make sure, in case Daniel was being evasive before because she was coming off as stalkerish. An office would be more comfortable, more private.

  “Just visiting someone.” The way he chooses that moment to set down the envelope he’s been carrying, putting it behind him on the landing, suggests to Zoe that he was seeing the lawyer on the second floor about those papers—which still doesn’t mean he isn’t a lawyer, too. He asks, “You know about armadillo, but not where I work?”

  He’s left room for Zoe to sit next to him, and she does.

  It’s a bit of a tight fit. She squashes herself against the banister so as not to press against him, and she tells herself not to get flustered by his eyes. Or his hair. Or his smile.

  “No,” she admits. “Why armadillo?”

  He hesitates, and she’s about to tell him never mind when he says, “When I was … maybe ten, and I’d been spooked by stories of kids being snatched by strangers who claimed to be sent by parents—that was the code word I told my family to use: If they absolutely had to send a stranger to pick me up from school or wherever, make sure the stranger said armadillo, so I would know they had really sent him.”

  Zoe suspects Daniel’s parents were not the kind of people who ever sent strangers to pick up their son from anywhere. Zoe often had strangers pick her up—though more often didn’t have anyone show when she needed fetching—and yet she never even thought of having a code word. She can’t imagine her mother having the patience.

  “Why armadillo?” Zoe asks. “Are you originally from Texas?” Not that she would have ever thought so from his speech.

  “No, I’ve always lived here,” Daniel tells her—which is what she would have guessed. “I suppose it takes someone from Rochester, New York, to think an armadillo is cute.”

  “OK,” Zoe says in the same deliberate manner she’s heard him use—just, not yet.

  Daniel asks, “So … how did we meet—but not exactly—and why did you and I need a code word?”

  The whole purpose of having a code word was to get things moving faster, so Zoe jumps right in. She says, “I had just told you something that—on the face of it—seemed impossible. But something happened that made you believe me. That’s when you gave me the word.”

  He’s watching her, not closed-faced as when they’d sat in Dunkin’ Donuts, but trying to take this all in.

  He says slowly, piecing it together, “So you and I have met … and it’s not that you’ve changed your appearance …?”—she shakes her head—“but I don’t remember meeting you … and you knew I wouldn’t remember you …” His blue eyes are scrutinizing her, which is disconcerting. He doesn’t sound challenging, just looking for information, when he asks, “Why don’
t I?”

  It’s to avoid the intensity of his eyes that she glances away from them, from his face. Sitting has caused his jacket to gap, and a glint beneath the jacket catches her attention.

  Zoe freezes.

  He has a gun.

  Damn. He has a gun.

  Her thoughts ricochet around in her head. He can’t be a police officer. He never identified himself as one. And surely he would have. Maybe not that first time in the bank. Conceivably he might have thought that would have just complicated things, with the robber already all freaked out at the bank guard. But surely this last time, when they were talking in the doughnut shop. He would have said, once he believed her: “Zoe, I’m a policeman. I can handle this.”

  But he didn’t.

  Who else carries a gun?

  Well, her mother did that one time, but Zoe doesn’t want to think about that.

  Yeah, right. A lot of good not wanting does. The thoughts come anyway …

  The impossibly long ride to the Family Counseling Center, with her parents bickering and sniping all the way, her attempts at making peace only seeming to escalate their hostility playback through playback, her father, who simply would not stop shouting, even once they got into the office. Her mother, finally quiet, pulling the gun from her purse. The family counselor (who would have guessed such a fat old man could move so fast?) diving for cover behind the couch. And she herself too stunned to move, despite the clear hints anybody with any sense would have picked up on. Continuing to sit like a pathetic, useless lump. Like a target, if that had been her mother’s intent. Like her mother’s accomplice, for all the help she was to Dad.