“Hello?” I asked.
It didn’t wake up. The screen reminded blank, not a single light popping on to indicate it was activated.
That was two ancient devices I’d found now. Standing straight again, I fought the rising panic and truly studied this place. As I noticed the details of the room, alarm ratcheted higher and higher. In a frantic rush, I searched for a single thing I could identify. Anything that would make sense to me.
I picked up a long dashboard kind of stick with buttons, the logo matching it to the “TV” on the wall. A couple of magazines lay on the floor next to the couch—real, printed, and inked paper full of ads with old-fashioned jeans and accessories. Why were there so many enormous watches? And helmet-style headphones? Did people really dress in such skintight garments like this? How could they breathe?
In the kitchen, I fought back a whimper as I scoured for anything that didn’t seem outdated. A coffeemaker with all kinds of buttons, this stack of weird, laminate-covered cups piled next to it. The refrigerator. Oh, my God. It hummed like it was alive. Inside, I did a double-take. I’d never seen so much plastic in my life! I grabbed a bucket-thing of white liquid.
“Milk?” I twisted the cap off and sniffed it. Yeah. Milk. So weird. Hefting the weight in my hand, I squeezed the container, scrunching my face at the pliable flex of the jug. How could this girl want to keep her milk in plastic? I gagged and screwed the cap back on, pausing at the expiration date stamped near the handle.
01-09-20
Once again, that 2020 thing. Fear spiked hard and fast, renewing the adrenaline rush that had slowly been fueling my panic since I’d found the phone.
It couldn’t be 2020.
Yesterday, it was January in 2071. There was just no way it could be 2020.
Yet, as I scrambled through the apartment, I couldn’t find a single clue to say otherwise. Food expiration dates demanded I believe I’d fallen back in time. The fat, heavy laptop on the counter was an antique. All kinds of strange contraptions with buttons in the cupboards in the kitchen. The doors. They all had doorknobs!
Confusion and disbelief mixed into a potent drive as I snooped. Curious? No, I was more on the edge of being freaked the hell out.
Back in the bathroom, I took care of business and tapped my finger at the metal slot on the side. It was so huge, the back of it. Like a sealed tub. Another flick at the slot, and it fell down a bit. Ah. A lever? I pushed more force into it, and water gurgled under the lid.
Oh, my God. You really had to touch it? Make it flush?
I shook my head and faced the sink. Those handles. Everything was just so…manual. So many things to touch and operate. I wasn’t lazy, but it was so unusual to think of doing everything.
Finished with drying my hands on the towel, I reached for the smartphone I’d put down. As I lifted it, the screen brightened, reminding me again that I had Val’s device. And it was now eight minutes past the start of my English Lit class.
“Oh, hell.” I’d gotten so sidetracked and sucked into exploring this place that I was late. My curiosity had always stolen me like that, something that had Aunt Helen calling me a daydreamer.
Well, I couldn’t stay here. I hadn’t found my tab anywhere, but that didn’t mean I had to linger. Maybe I’d left it…wherever I’d partied last night. Freddy—maybe he had it if we’d been together.
Before another inexplainable memory of fictional injuries could return, I left. I stepped into a long hallway and stared at the door to Val’s apartment. There was no retinal lock panel on the inside, so how would it know to lock? Frowning, I reached for the doorknob—so crazy—and turned it.
The hell? It opened again.
Why didn’t it automatically lock?
I ducked lower to study the metal sphere. Zigzags of a slit were darkened in the center. Huh. A key. Doorknobs and keys.
I licked my lips, pushing down the anxiety. I was becoming a pro at this, shoving down my logic to accept the fact that I was in the past. For as much as Aunt Helen was quick to scold and nag at me like the mother I never had, she had always complimented me on the ease at which I could adapt.
No. Hold up. This has to be a prank.
Maybe it was some kind of an exhibit, like an outreach of the history department on campus.
I could envision a guide explaining it on a tour. And this, class, is how students lived in the olden days. With handles and animal hides. And plastic! Imagine that!
Adapt. Sure. I’d pretend to play along. So, I woke up in another time. I could do this. Right? I could leave this place and figure out…something. Particularly the name of the booze that had such warped effects.
Standing up fully, I pinched my hand. Yep. I was awake, and there were just too many clues that I was somewhere other than 2071.
As outlandish as that belief could be, I swallowed my doubts and rode with it.
It was actually very simple. Freak out and panic, or deal.
Every step I took down the hall, I swayed back and forth in a rushed debate. On the one hand, I tried to convince myself that this was nothing but a joke. An elaborate prank. Set the drunk girl up in a funhouse to make her think she’d time traveled. Haha! I pep-talked myself into the conviction that as soon as I left this hallway and went outside, I’d be back in reality. My reality. The real reality of 2071.
That pep talk did squat, though, as I passed by someone in the lobby, dressed in suffocatingly tight denim and holding a smartphone to her ear. Holding. A. Phone. To. Her. Ear.
“Unbelievable,” I whispered while resisting the urge to stare at her. I headed toward the door as she didn’t even acknowledge me in the lobby.
On the other hand of my self-argument was that I had to be in the past. And there had to be an answer why. Maybe this Val Marien girl might know. Or I could borrow someone’s tab nearby and look up…
No. No tabs. They weren’t invented until sometime in the fifties, I guessed.
And look up what? How to return to the future?
“It’s just a joke, Everly. Just a joke.” My whispered statements were cheap lies as I stepped outside.
Because this outside was not reality.
Cars. Enormous, fat cars with wheels zoomed by on the street ahead. Cars on the ground.
Pavement lay cracked and stained under my feet.
Green fronds swayed overhead, the trunk of a palm tree near me. A tree in the city?
“’Scuse us.”
Startled out of my stare, I jumped out of the way as two guys strolled past on the sidewalk. The couple walked hand in hand, one holding a paper cup of a steaming beverage, the other leading a chicken on a leash.
Chicken on a—?
I did a double-take. All right, 2020 or not, I bet that was always unusual. Then again, if we were near campus, maybe the oddity of college students could explain that one. And U of Jamesin was known to attract an…eccentric crowd.
Lost, so, so untethered and out of place, I wandered. If I were in another time, I wouldn’t have to worry about English Lit. My class wouldn’t start for over seven decades.
At least I knew where I was, if not when. The buildings didn’t match the surroundings I knew, but the climate and names of the streets were the same. I was still in Florida, in the college town I’d been in yesterday, give or take.
Staring at the old structures, I was awestruck at the old-timey differences.
If I was being pranked, changing an entire block was a hell of a feat.
I huffed at myself and walked further down the sidewalk. A sidewalk! All this cement, so hard under my shoes. How did people step on this all day? And it was everywhere! On roads, walkways, toward buildings, around signs. Why was cement so abundant? Were people afraid they’d sink into the ground or something?
Time fell away from me—ha, ha—as I explored. So many strange things about 2020 captured my interest.
Each time I passed a tree, I stopped to marvel at it. Most were lodged like staffs amidst cement, trunks planted in a patheticall
y small circle of earth before the hard stone encased it. How they could live in such trapped spaces… Yet, they were there. Trees, greenery in a city!
Overhead, the sky was somewhat familiar, if too bright and vivid in such a gorgeous blue. Was smog not around back then—or, well, now? More startling than the beauty of the sky and puffy clouds was the absence of traffic. Bikes. Vehicles. Nothing sped past overhead.
And the people! Where were they? I’d ventured in a slow stroll down this endless pavement and hardly passed anyone. College students, people my age, came and went, heading wherever. But…where was everyone? The crowds? The masses of people hurrying?
As I strolled around Val’s neighborhood, I didn’t encounter anyone I might recognize. A few girls stared at my pants—the standard poly-blend everyone wore, or well, would wear. Now or then, I’d never been much of a people’s person, but when I’d head out on campus, the odds were high I’d cross paths with at least someone I’d know from classes. Plus, I’d just recently warmed to the idea of dating Freddy, and he was as popular as they came. If no one knew me, they could at least be aware of me through association.
I was alone. Solitude was nothing new to me. Aunt Helen never encouraged travel or group activities. I’d never felt comfortable making friends other than a couple of profiles with virtual gamers I’d compete against, playing Frisbee in my aunt’s basement. She was a homebody and forced it on me, her only relative. Alone suited me all right.
Here, though, I was so out of my comfort zone.
My feet ached as I walked, searching for something that didn’t shock me into confusion.
All I had was my curiosity—with a growing smidgen of fear, and my feet, which apparently couldn’t handle pavement. And no tab. I was completely adrift without the device that was the smartphone equivalent.
No point wandering. I could take a break, maybe think some sense into what happened between last night and now.
Spotting a sign high up on a post, this gigantic plastic-looking thing—again, what was with all this plastic?—shaped in the icon of a coffee cup, I headed toward the building. That was as good of a place to sit for a moment. At the door, I blinked at the oddity of having to twist the doorknob to enter.
So bizarre.
Inside, I felt the first trace of familiarity. A tiny semblance of normalcy, of reality, regardless of the year. Aromas of freshly brewed coffee welcomed me, and I sucked in a deep breath. It was so strong. Potent. Richer than anything I’d ever smelled in “my” time. Exhaling on a contented sigh, I scanned the space behind a long counter.
My jaw dropped. Were those…coffee beans? In jars? Actual beans of the holy goodness?
“Wow…”
No wonder it smelled so earthy and downright heavenly in here. This was something I did know. Aunt Helen had often lamented the loss of “real” coffee. Sometime in the thirties, I thought. Climate change and habitat destruction were big factors in the downfall of the world’s most important crop. But it was the loss of diversity, something about ants, of all things, that fell the mighty coffee industry globally.
Excited for a real cup of coffee, not chemically created, I approached the counter. I watched as an old black man accepted two cardboard cups of steaming brew.
Tilting my head, I stared as the man reached his hand out, offering green slips of paper to someone behind the counter.
Money? Cash? Wow…
I’d never seen it before.
Payment!
I had nothing on me.
Shaking my head, more alert at the smells surrounding me, I fell back to my problem. How was I supposed to pay for this cup of coffee? I didn’t have my tab. I didn’t have the ability to make any transactions. How…
Dammit. Now that I’d smelled it, I really wanted at least a sip of this coffee.
The older guy turned, raising his brow at me, likely unnerved at me staring at him putting his wallet away.
“Uh…” I blinked and blushed. Crap. He probably thought I was going to steal from him, eyeing his money—cash—like that. Hell, he was asking for it. If all of these people toted physical money around on them, why wouldn’t they expect to be robbed? Then again, stealing credits wasn’t hard either. Still. Cash…in hand.
The man grinned then, chuckling, seemingly bemused at the gawking confusion that had to show on my face. “Rough night?”
I blinked faster, loathing how out of it I must look. How out of it I felt. “Something like that.”
He nodded at me as he passed. “Kids,” he muttered to himself, still laughing.
I tore my attention from him, hooked on the fact I’d spoken to someone now. A small exchange with another human. It was the nail in the coffin. This couldn’t be a dream if I could talk with others. I was real. I was in 2020.
Someone cleared their throat. The sound jerked me back to the present. The past? Well, right now, whenever it was.
Facing the counter again, I tried to think of an excuse. That I didn’t have money and I’d need to leave the line.
“Um…” Shit. What could I say? I licked my lips.
His almost-smile charmed me. He raised a brow and tipped his chin up as he studied me, tossing his blond hair off his forehead. “You want your usual?”
Swallowing hard at the hint of teasing in his voice, I tried to speak. To even think of something to say—
Wait. What?
“My usual?”
He recognizes me?
Chapter Three
“My usual?” I repeated.
“Ye—ah?” The guy shook his head the other way, shifting his hair to flop toward his left eye instead of concealing his right one. “Dark roast with hazelnut and extra cream.”
I blinked fast. Ooh. That did sound good. Hazelnut? It was so rare, a delicacy, but I always splurged on it when I had the credits available.
“You…know I want that?” I pointed to myself as if he needed the clarification. My usual. He thought I’d been here before.
He chuckled, a forced sound as he kind of smirked. “I mean, you’re not as…” Gesturing at me, he scanned my attire. “Not as made up as you usually are, but yeah. I’m guessing you got out of class early to be here now, but every day you get the same thing.”
Instead of waiting for me to confirm his words, he grabbed a cup and a black marker. In fast swipes, he spelled out letters. V-a-l—
He thought I was Val? A student who came here for coffee?
“Right.” I nodded, trying to think faster. Who was this Val chick? What— God, I couldn’t think. Not fast enough, anyway. Too many questions fought for space.
“I, uh…” I ran my hand through my hair and gripped it in the back.
“Love the hair, too.” Jerking his chin at me, his almost flirty smile returned.
“My hair?”
“Guessing you did that after yesterday afternoon. Sexy.”
So Val didn’t—usually—have short hair. The detail didn’t help. “Uh-huh.”
“Hey, what’s the hold-up?” someone muttered behind me.
I whipped around at the voice, alarmed at how many people were lined up after me.
“I’ll have someone bring it out to you,” the coffee man said. Already, without my reply, he’d sidestepped to speak to the person next in line.
“Wait!”
Hell, I wasn’t done with him. I needed to know more, whatever this stranger had to share. Any clues for why he’d think I was Val.
No one listened, though, because another caffeine-needy customer pushed toward the counter, edging me to the side even more. Scrambling backward, I caught a glimpse of the sign hanging overhead that showed I was nearing the check-out spot in line.
Hazelnut anything would have to wait because I still didn’t have a way to pay.
Dismissed, or shoved aside, really, I walked from the counter, lingering to the side of the counter. Watching customers pull out money or their smartphones, I studied their transactions.
A worker behind the counter called out Val�
��s name, and I eyed the cup that should be mine—or hers? It sat on the countertop, unclaimed, waiting…
Forget the drink. I needed a plan.
Maybe I could hang out here until that coffee guy took a break or was off his shift. I could snag him and somehow ask questions without causing alarm that I was crazy for not knowing it was a different year.
Because that was my only strategy, I took a seat at a table. No one paid me any attention, all these correctly timed strangers minding their own business. Drinking coffee and scrolling on smartphones.
Damn, they really were addicted to the screens.
Eating pastries, chatting in groups, several studying. Everyone preoccupied and not even realizing a person from the future sat among them.
I set Val’s smartphone on the table, miffed that it needed some kind of code to unlock it. Without access to it, I was clueless and deprived of using it as a prop to fit in. Still, I made sure to keep the worry from my face so if anyone were to notice my creepy stalker surveillance of the coffee shop, they’d think I was just…daydreaming or something.
“What did you say?” a guy in line asked someone, his tone firm and demanding. He stood with a girl, their arms clutching them chest-to-chest in a hug.
Blinking, I scanned the others in the café, amazed no one even noticed them.
He had his hand on her ass—in her pants! Such a public, erotic display like that was unheard of in my time.
“I’m kidding. You’re the best I’ve ever had,” his companion said around giggles.
“I think you need to be punished for that joke, you feisty diva.” He fisted her hair and pulled her close for a hard kiss.
I closed my mouth when I realized I was gawking.
He just… She was okay with him calling her a diva? No, not okay with it. By her moans and the way she hooked her leg around his thigh, she liked it.
Damn. No guy would risk such behavior in 2071. Misogyny was a crime any sane man would avoid. Threatening to punish a girl—even jokingly—and initiating a kiss outside of the privacy of a home? Blasphemy.
Yet, here, people could grope each other in broad daylight. Men could take charge.
In the Wrong Year (Double-Check Your Destination Book 1) Page 2
