She kicked off her clogs, bit her lip and wondered. Should she? What did she have to lose? She took her right index finger and gave it a firm, decisive press.
RESET.
And… nothing. The button stopped blinking. It stayed dim, as if she’d somehow put it to sleep.
“Figures.” She sighed deeply.
Heading straight into her bedroom, she flopped, fully clothed, onto her unmade bed. As her eyes closed and she drifted swiftly into sleep, her last thought was, “Nothing ever works for me.”
CHAPTER 5
GETTIN’ JIGGY WIT IT
Will Smith was singing and there was a hurricane. Or a tornado. But that was definitely Will Smith’s voice. What a strange dream she was having; she felt so aware of her surroundings. Sound asleep she usually couldn’t make herself move, but here she was opening her eyes.
A tall, gorgeous model stood close by at a dresser blow-drying her hair. She danced and sang along to “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” as she styled her long, sleek black locks in the mirror.
“Na na na na na na na.” She shook her hips in her low-riding jeans, then turned her blow dryer around to sing into it like a microphone. “Na na na na na na! Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It!”
“Cat?!” Clara sat up quickly, then brought her hand up to her forehead. Her head pounded and her mouth felt like it was lined with thick, fuzzy cotton. And she was clearly going crazy because she’d woken up in a room with a girl who looked exactly like her friend Cat back in college.
“Rise and shine, beautiful,” the girl called out in a voice exactly like Cat’s. She resumed her shimmying and blow-drying. “It’s almost 12.”
Hunching back down into her bed, Clara pulled the covers up to her nose. Who was that girl? Why did she seem to know her? Where the hell were they?
She peered up at the wall next to her bed. Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and George Clooney gazed down at her, dressed and ready for the Vegas strip. Clara remembered that poster; it was from Ocean’s Eleven. She’d had it up on her dorm room wall in college.
Clutching the covers more securely up around her, she nervously peeked at the opposite wall. An angry-eyed, young Paul Walker stared down at her looking buff and tuff and shirtless courtesy of a poster from The Fast and The Furious. As in the first movie. Before the second, third, or even the sixth or seventh sequel.
“What’s…? Where…?” Clara’s voice came out in a croak.
“You look so hung over.” Cat laughed, then flipped her hair over in a giant waterfall. Raking her hands through her mane she then flipped it back up and shook it out, examining her reflection with pursed lips. Just like she’d always done when the two of them had been roommates. Blowing a kiss at her reflection, she said to herself, “And you look gorgeous.”
“Is this our dorm room?” Clara managed.
“Yeah, remember? We ditched the guys and came back here to make ramen noodles at, like, 3am.” Cat laughed again. “You are so hung over!” She turned and grabbed something off of her dresser. “Here.” She threw a cream-colored block at Clara. “Go shower. You can try the new vanilla soap I just bought. Smells soooo yummy. I’m heading out.”
Clutching the soap in one hand, Clara managed to sit upright in bed. She swung her feet over the side. Her toenails were blue. Flaming lips adorned her boxer shorts and her t-shirt was from a Dave Matthews Band concert. Clara exhaled and did her very best to then inhale, then exhale again.
One foot in front of the other seemed the best thing to do. On instinct, Clara woodenly headed out of their bedroom and turned right into the bathroom. Closing the door behind her, she lunged for the spigot on the sink. With shaking hands she started splashing huge palmfuls of cold water onto her face. She gulped down handful after handful, parched like she’d been wandering the desert.
With a click, the bathroom door opened. In walked a striking blonde with her hair pulled back into a high ponytail. Over her forearm she’d draped a folded pink hand towel and a matching folded pink washcloth. She carried a pink-and-white polka dot shower caddy.
“Hi there!” Super perky.
Clara still held her hands to her face, her concert T now sopping wet. She peeked over her fingers and then her mouth dropped open in surprise. “Jeanie?”
Jeanie plonked her toiletries onto the vanity and gave Clara a big smile and a wink. “Hiya!” She squeezed out a dollop of facial cleanser into her palm and began rubbing it in circles over her perfect, pink cheeks. “It’s so beautiful out today! The perfect spring day!”
“Jeanie?” Clara took a step closer, as if she might grab hold of her to prove she was real. Instead of high heels and business attire Jeanie now wore running clothes and sneakers, but it was clearly her, the nutso, hyper-caffeinated volunteer who’d shown up at the office. Jeanie still smiled but took a slight step back.
“Freaking out?” she asked sympathetically. “That happens. I wonder if we shouldn’t give people more warning. You know, like when I install the RESET button I could also be like, ‘so, when you press this, it’ll send you back in time!’” Jeanie resumed massaging small circles of foaming cleanser on her face.
Clara kept staring at her. Finally she managed, “Could you say that again?”
“What? About how we maybe should give people more warning?”
“The part about the…” Clara brought her hand to her forehead, feeling insane for even repeating the phrase. “About going back in time?”
“I know! Isn’t it amazing!” Jeanie gushed as if celebrating being asked to prom by the football captain. “It’s so exciting. I’m so lucky!”
“What?”
“I have the best job in the world,” Jeanie continued, now wetting her washcloth. “The look on people’s faces when they realize they’ve been sent back in time so they can change their past! Do things different and make things right! It’s…” She gave a cute shrug of her shoulders. “It’s magic.”
Watching Jeanie wash her face, Clara considered her options. 1) Climb back into bed, pull the covers up over her head and keep sleeping until she woke up for real. 2) Run screaming out of the bathroom and find a police officer to rescue her. Or 3) Play along a little while longer with what had to be the most vivid hallucination of her life.
For now, she decided to go with #3.
“Um, Jeanie?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s going on?”
Jeanie stopped patting her face dry with her hand towel. “I need to explain more, don’t I? Of course.” She grasped Clara’s hands and looked straight at her, her big, blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “You’ve gone back in time. It’s your last month of college.”
“College?” Clara cocked her head.
“You’re two weeks from graduation!” Jeanie gave a small, delighted hop. Clara sat down on the rim of the tub. Jeanie perched next to her. “OK, here’s the deal. Facebook has this new app that sends you back in time.”
“Time travel,” Clara repeated, dazed.
“Yup! We’re just starting beta-testing. That’s why I couldn’t tell you more when I installed it on your iPhone, it’s still top secret. We can’t have product testers telling everyone about it.” Jeanie noted Clara’s pale face and shaking hands. “But it’s so great that you’ve been picked!” she exclaimed, clearly trying to lift her spirits.
“Why me?” Clara asked weakly.
“They’re hand-picking people who are… well, don’t take offence, but people who seem stuck.”
“Stuck?” Clara echoed.
Jeanie waved her slim hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t even know how it all works. Something about algorithms. They have some sort of equation with the volume of current interaction with Facebook friends, plus the number of times you visit the page of someone from your past. Plus, I think something gets triggered when you make your profile photo a cat.”
“I like cats,” Clara protested weakly.
“Not for your profile photo.” Jeanie gave a quick, disapproving shake of her he
ad, then jumped back in with an upbeat, “Anyway, you were picked! And now you’re here, back in college on the day you broke up with Brad. Who’s a total hottie, by the way.” Jeanie gave her a teasing smile. “You are one lucky girl. Now you get to change everything!”
Clara dropped her head between her knees. Throwing up seemed likely.
“I’m going too fast, aren’t I?” Jeanie began to gently rub Clara’s back in small circles.
“What are you saying? I’ve been in a time machine? Like on Star Trek?” Clara tried to remember how it worked; Gil had watched lots of Star Trek. Didn’t it have something to do with the speed of light and going faster than it? But didn’t everything always go wrong on Star Trek? Wasn’t that the whole point of the show, with monsters and aliens and intergalactic warfare?
“Star Trek did get a lot of things right,” Jeanie replied as if they were having a perfectly normal conversation. “Remember the communicator Captain Kirk carried around? It was basically a cell phone.”
“So, what, I’ve been beamed up? Am I in outer space?”
“OK, just breathe.” Jeanie spoke slowly and gently, continuing with the motherly circles on Clara’s upper back which, interestingly, were calming. “You are back in college. You traveled through time with a Facebook app.”
“But how—?” Panic rose again within Clara.
“Don’t think too hard about it. I’m not insulting you when I say you wouldn’t understand even if I did explain. Just know you’re one of the lucky few who got picked to test it.”
Placing both pretty little pink-nailed hands on her legs with a pat, Jeanie turned toward Clara. Instinctively, Clara looked up at her.
“Clara,” Jeanie said with a lot of determination and a dash glee. “You’ve hit the RESET button. You have a chance to do everything over. To change your life.”
A current of electricity seemed to jolt through Clara. “Wait, I get to—?” She stood up, hands pressed to her heart which she now felt beating rapid-fire.
“Tonight.” Jeanie beamed a huge smile.
“At the frat party?” Clara asked, finally processing what Jeanie was saying. Jeanie kept nodding, letting the hamster in Clara’s brain spin the wheel. Eventually, Clara asked, “Do I get to… NOT break up with Brad?”
“Yup. You get to change everything.” Jeanie stood, too, her palms upturned as if displaying a gift.
“I can’t believe it!” Clara pressed her hands to her hot, flushed cheeks. Did she believe it? Up on the wall another man stared down at her from another poster, hot and angry in a black tank top. Angel, as in from Angel the spin-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, both of which she and Cat had loved to watch back in college.
“Wait.” Clara furrowed her brow. “How does this work? Am I back in time forever?”
“No, silly. You’re just hitting the reset button. You’re here for 24 hours for a do-over. Then you wake up tomorrow back in the present day, but in your new, improved and awesome life!”
“Really?” Clara felt a bubble of excitement rising up inside of her. “So, I’m really back in college?”
“Yup!”
“With the chance to stay with Brad?”
“Yup!”
Clara clapped her hands and laughed. “I have no idea if this is really happening or not—”
“It’s really happening.”
“But this is awesome!” Like a nervous rider on a roller coaster who finally unclasps her white-knuckled grip on the sides and throws her arms up into the air, she plunged herself in along for the ride. “Where’s Brad?” She turned to Jeanie. “Can you tell me where he is right now so I can go surprise him?”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Oh my God!” Clara looked down at her flaming lips boxer shorts. “I need to get dressed! What did I wear back in college?”
“OK, slow down,” Jeanie laughed. “You can’t just rush over to Brad’s.”
“I can’t?”
“No.” Jeanie reached into her shower caddy and produced a pink cardstock 5x7 embossed with black calligraphy. Merrily, she announced, “Here’s your itinerary!”
Clara took it and read:
Clara Allison Taylor
Saturday, May 11th
Senior Year of College
Noon: shower, check email
12:30: lunch on the go
1:00-3:00: Park with Jessica
“Jessica!” Clara exclaimed, looking up. “I haven’t thought about her in ages! I forgot, I used to see her every Saturday.” Sophomore year her sorority had done a fundraiser for the local Big Brothers Big Sisters program and the remaining two years Clara had volunteered with them. She’d been paired with shy eight-year-old Jessica. Whether it was rain, sleet, snow or sun Jessica always wanted to go to the park. And Clara had taken her every Saturday from 1-3.
“Well, it will be nice to see her. But, still…” Turning her attention back to her itinerary, Clara scanned down the list until she saw it:
7:15pm: Casino Night at DKE!
A huge, irresistible smile spread over her entire face. She swallowed, nervous and thrilled and starting to believe it. “7:15 tonight.” The air felt fresh in her lungs, her limbs vibrant with energy. So this was what it felt like to be alive? It had been a while.
“Casino night! Hey now!” Jeanie beamed at her. Together, they broke into the excited squeals of teens at a One Direction concert. Or, to use a more suitable reference for the time period, The Backstreet Boys.
“This is just like Bella and Edward!” Jeanie declared.
“Only Brad’s not a vampire, so it’s even better!”
“This is going to be so easy! You totally love Brad and he totally loves you! And if it all goes wrong you can do it over again!”
“What?” Clara stopped jumping up and down.
“You have three tries to get it right,” Jeanie explained. “But all you’ll need is one. Because—!” Jeanie squealed again. “You guys are perfect together!”
“We are, aren’t we?” Clara’s smile lit up again.
“You totally are. This is going to be a breeze. Other people…” Jeanie hesitated. “I mean, we’re beta testing this app so we’re still figuring everything out. But a few times people have wanted to come back and give it a second try, or even a third. But don’t worry about that.”
“OK.” Clara didn’t feel worried. She felt psyched. And ready to see Brad. Looking at her long itinerary once again, she asked with something of a whine, “You’re sure I can’t go see Brad right now?”
“Nope.” Like the best of nannies, Jeanie remained cheerful and absolutely firm. “Oh, and one more thing. Remember why you’re here. Sometimes people get off course. They get distracted. So just, go through your day, like it all happened in the first place. And then only change what happens with Brad.”
“Got it.” Clara nodded. “Don’t change anything else. Just change things with Brad.”
“Yes.”
She could picture his movie star smile, his golden locks. “That is not going to be a problem.”
Jeanie smiled. “Now scoot! You’re only here for 24 hours. And it’s already after 12!”
“That late?”
“I’ve already been out for a run and popped into the community garden. They have such a gorgeous one downtown. I love Ithaca. Now good luck!” Jeanie waved bub-bye and left the room.
With a skip in her step, Clara didn’t waste another second. Showering in record time—and discovering that, yes, the vanilla soap smelled divine—she bounded out into her bedroom. Cat had left; she had the room to herself.
Closing her eyes, she couldn’t resist flinging her arms out and twirling around in a Julie-Andrews The-Hills-Are-Alive spin. Objectively she knew this was all probably just an incredibly vivid dream or a lucid hallucination. But who was she to ruin it all? She wasn’t going to be the one to pour cold water over herself so she’d wake back up into her former, torpid reality.
Nope. She was going to get decked out and, later t
hat night, head to a party where she would reel in the love of her life, the one who’d, formerly, gotten away.
What to wear? She whooped with joy and bounded over to her dresser. She dropped her towel and looked at herself in the full-length mirror.
Unbelievable. Top Model move over. She was the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen. Had she really ever been this perfect? Turning this way and that, Clara admired her flawless figure from every angle: her flat, perfect tummy, her long, shapely legs. “What is up with this?” she exclaimed, turning around to check out her gravity-defying perky rear end.
She could go run a marathon! And win! She could leap the tallest building in a single bound! Rushing over to the mirror on the dresser, she looked at her face up close. Flawless! With a burst of laughter, she brought her hands to her baby-smooth cheeks. A night of drinking and ramen noodles and here she looked brand new. No bags under her eyes, bright blue eyes sparkling with the fountain of youth. She was a goddamned Barbie doll.
Opening her top dresser drawer, she was confronted by a pile of thong underwear. Choosing a bright red pair, she pulled them on with a laugh. She hadn’t worn a thong since, well—she glanced at herself in the full-length mirror again—since she’d looked so smokin’ hot in one! She grabbed a matching red lacy Wonderbra, then a t-shirt and a pair of, hold the phone, bootcut jeans? She held them up, a curiosity, like stumbling upon a foreign relic. With delight, she realized she’d gone back to a simpler time, kinder, gentler, more Norman Rockwell-esque: a time before skinny jeans.
She wondered, briefly, could she stop the madness? End the trend before it began? She’d be doing the world a favor, saving both women and men from not only the sense that they should be able to look good wearing skin-tight stretchy denim, but from seeing others out and about, clearly in pain as they lost circulation in their lower extremities. But where did one go to stop a fashion disaster? New York? Paris? Milan?
Enough of this. Clara refocused; she was on a mission. She pulled on her comfy jeans and sneakers. Remembering it was Ithaca after all, despite Jeanie’s claim that it was a perfect spring day, she grabbed a Cornell sweatshirt.
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