“Come on in!” Alek called again. “Or you can keep standing there. I don’t mind the view.”
“That does it,” Clara muttered and, bracing herself for the worst, she ran full steam ahead and dove straight into the lake. Into water that had to be a few degrees below freezing. Up for a gasping breath, she sputtered with shock, no air left in her lungs to scream.
“Splash around,” Alek laughed. “It’ll warm you up.”
“You!” Clara panted. “You said warm!”
“I lied.” He dove under again. She tread water for another moment, then lunged into some vigorous freestyle. It was too cold for indignation.
When she slowed he was there to splash her, but she’d warmed up and gave as good as she got. Laughing, she doused him with a double windmill of her arms, then ducked under to escape. Up for a breath somehow he was, again, right next to her and ready to pounce.
“Safety first!” she declared, giggling and backstroking away. Making her hands into a T, she fell back on the old childhood cry you gave right when you were about to get tagged. “Time Out!”
Sighing, he stretched out into a backstroke alongside her. “You don’t play fair.”
“Never said I did, Vlad.”
The ‘Vlad’ earned her one last splash. Then they swam slowly, floating more than moving, gazing up at the night sky. Stars shone bright and infinite against the dark canvas.
“It’s so beautiful.” Clara floated, weightless, wishing she could stretch out that moment, each second lasting a minute, each minute an hour.
“So beautiful,” Alek agreed, looking at her.
“And I might die of cold,” Clara had to admit.
Alek chuckled. “It is cold.”
“I think I have to get out.” With regret, Clara started toward shore. Alek beat her to it and had the scratchy army surplus wool blanket held out waiting for her. She ran into it, teeth chattering and he wrapped her up. Shivering, she looked at him and realized he still stood, soaked through in nothing but boxer shorts, out in the cold.
“Get in here.” Clara opened up the blanket and in came Alek, somehow warm despite the chill. Quickly, he wrapped her up again, now not just in blanket but in his embrace, his arms secure around her back as he held her close. She rested her head on his chest and heard his heart beating fast. Her breath came even faster and she closed her eyes wanting to simply feel him, breathe him in. She couldn’t tell what caused her shivering now, the cold or his nearness.
Standing together, he began to caress her back. The man was a furnace. How could he be so warm after that ice bath? And how could he smell so good? And feel so amazing.
“Hey! You kids!” The blazing glare of a mega-watt industrial-sized flashlight shined directly in their eyes, catching them just as Clara brought both hands to Alek’s chest, tipping her head back to meet his lips which were just about to come down on hers as he dropped the blanket and wrapped her full in his arms.
They looked up, squinting and blinking.
“You’re not allowed to swim here!” The voice continued and a figure emerged from the darkness of the trees. The silhouette revealed a large, round park ranger hat and a megaphone. “Step away from the lake.”
Acting on instinct, Clara put her hands up. “Sorry!”
“Grab your clothes, ma’am. Come right this way.”
“What’s going on?” Alek had the presence of mind to ask as Clara quickly complied with the order.
“Campus security,” the voice barked. “You’re not allowed to swim here.”
Alek swore under his breath and reached out to help Clara grab her shirt, stuck on a tree root. “Are you OK?” he asked her.
“Get a move on,” the megaphone blasted. Clara suddenly recognized the crisp, authoritative voice: Jeanie, the campus security guard. She bet that flashlight was pink.
“Can you give us a second?” Clara asked, hopping around like a rabbit as she tried unsuccessfully to tug on her leggings. The process went a lot more smoothly when her skin wasn’t wet, not to mention standing on firm ground and not intensely flustered.
“You don’t have a second, Missy,” Jeanie barked.
“What?” Clara exclaimed. How late was it? Close to midnight? Had she screwed everything up?
“This isn’t that big a deal.” Alek began launching their defense, having had more luck pulling on his looser-fitting jeans.
“Oh ho! Big words from a big time offender!” Jeanie was clearly feeling her part as a law enforcement officer.
Clara nearly burst out laughing. She had to end this quick before Jeanie started sounding too insane. “OK, OK, I’m coming.”
“You’re going?” asked Alek.
“Young man, it’s my responsibility to escort this young woman back to her dorm room,” barked Jeanie, enforcer of park rules. And 1950’s modesty.
“What?” Alek asked at the same time as Clara turned to him and said, “It’s OK. I need to get going. I’m sorry.” He looked down and shook his head, rubbing his temple with frustration and disbelief. Clara reached out her hand to his. “Thank you,” she began, leaning in again toward him.
“Now means now, young lady,” Jeanie blasted into her megaphone. She would have made a great chaperone at high school dances back in the day, using a ruler to keep couples a minimum of a foot apart and smacking any miscreants sharp across the hand.
Caught between hysterical laughter and the desperate wish to throw herself into Alek’s arms, pull him into the woods and run away together at a breakneck pace, Clara hesitated another second.
“Don’t go,” Alek said, looking into her eyes.
“Hey, now kids.” This time Jeanie forcibly inserted herself between them and hooked her arm through Clara’s. Clara’s strappy shoes dangled from her other hand. “You come on up this way. I’ve got my cart.” In an undertone, she whispered to Clara, “It can go 35 if I floor it.”
“I’m sorry, Alek!” Clara called behind her as she followed alongside Jeanie up and out to the path. A golf cart sat waiting for them.
“Buckle up!” Jeanie declared as she jumped into the driver’s seat. Clara barely had a second to look behind her once more, her hand up in a wave that got interrupted by their starting jolt. She grabbed onto the cart after a glimpse of Alek’s face in the moonlight. Sometimes no words were needed. Sometimes, you could just look at someone and tell what they were thinking. In Alek’s case, it was, “What the…?”
“OK. I think it’s still going to be OK.” Jeanie put the pedal to the metal. If sparks could fly off of a golf cart, this one would blaze like a chariot of fire. They hurtled out of the park and toward campus. “We have ‘til midnight so you still have about an hour to wrap this up.”
“It’s 11 o’clock? How did that happen?”
“It’s 11 o’clock,” Jeanie confirmed, the closest to flustered Clara had ever seen her. “Hard to keep track of time when you’re lost in Dr. McDreamy’s eyes?”
“Well, I guess we were talking…” Clara felt grateful for the darkness hiding her blush.
“He is quite a dish.”
Clara sighed. “Isn’t he?”
“But get your head in the game!” Maneuvering around a shrub, Jeanie cut a corner and scared the pants off of a guy walking on the sidewalk. Clara held on tight with one hand and put her shoes on with the other. “Do you remember your objective?”
Clara bet this would be the closest she’d ever get to feeling like a real spy on assignment. “Affirmative! Break up with Brad!”
“Operation Break Up with Brad!” Jeanie leaned on the horn. A couple up ahead jumped to the side. “You go into the frat. You head straight for the target. You execute.”
“Yes, sir!” They flew through the town.
“And no more funny business.” Jeanie pointed a French-manicured index finger at Clara for emphasis. “I mean it.”
“I’m sorry.” Clara stifled a smile. She couldn’t feel too intimidated; under the passing light of a lamp she could see a saucy pink scarf
tied at Jeanie’s neck, adding a jaunty note to her campus security attire.
“The first time around it was easy enough to break you two up. Back in the lab when you almost kissed, all I had to do was open the door and you came to your senses.”
Mouth agape, Clara remembered the loud door that had broken their spell during her first visit back. “That was you?”
“This time it nearly took the Jaws of Life to pry you two apart. You really did look happy with Alek,” Jeanie mused, taking a sharp turn into campus.
“I felt happy.”
“Shame I had to break that up.” Jeanie shook her head and inched the speedometer even further to the right. “But what am I saying? You need to focus. Look, that’s the frat house up there.” Over the crest of the next hill Clara could see the gothic-style fraternity house, lights shining from every window.
Jeanie deftly maneuvered the cart into the shadows, stopping about 100 yards from the frat house. “We don’t need you having to explain why you got a security guard escort.” She hopped out of the cart. Clara followed suit.
Jeanie got a good look at her and brought her hands to her mouth. “Holy hot mess.”
“What?” Clara looked down at her rumpled, muddy formerly shimmering gold top. “Is it bad?” She reached a hand up to her hair and pulled out a leaf.
The roundness of Jeanie’s eyes said it all. “It’s…I never thought…” She reached out as if to attempt to smooth down Clara’s hair, then thought better of it and pulled back. “Actually, maybe this is good. He’s less likely to fight you on the break up.”
Clara laughed. She really didn’t care if she looked a fright, she just wanted to get the job done.
“All right then.” Jeanie brought her hands to cup Clara’s shoulders. “You know what to do. Good luck!”
“Wait, what do I do afterwards? After I break up with him?”
“Head straight back to your dorm room and go to sleep. Like you did when you were really back in college.”
“Oh, right.” Clara vaguely remembered ten years ago stumbling back to her dorm drunk, furious and filled with the fiery conviction of the righteous. She took a step toward the frat house, then turned. “Wait! Is this the last time I’ll see you?” She suddenly felt emotion tighten her chest; she’d grown accustomed to seeing that flash of peppy pink.
“Oh, we’ll see.” Jeanie tilted her head and smiled. “Not like this, of course. No more time travel for you. But you never know.”
“Will I remember all this? After I’m back in my regular life?”
“Yup, all of it. But don’t try talking about it with people. No one will believe you. There’ll be no proof. And Facebook will deny it. Nothing good can come of it. It’s best to think of it all like a dream.”
Clara nodded. It all felt like a dream anyway, it shouldn’t be hard to treat it as such. Looking at Jeanie in the shadows, she had to ask. “Are you a real genie? Like, are you magic?”
Jeanie’s tinkling laugh pealed out into the night. “Sometimes technology feels like magic, doesn’t it?” she answered cryptically. “You never know what they’re going to come up with next.” She brought her hand to Clara’s shoulder again. “Now it’s time for you to go.”
“Bye, Jeanie.” Clara found herself giving Jeanie a big hug and feeling choked up over it, too.
Jeanie hugged her back. “It’s been fun. But you don’t need me anymore, kid.”
“Didn’t Robin Williams say that in Disney’s Aladdin?”
“No, I think he put on a Goofy hat and headed off to Disney World.”
Clara smiled at Jeanie, picturing her doing exactly the same thing. “Any last words of wisdom for me before you go?”
“OK, here’s a good one.” Jeanie adopted a grave tone. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it within or we find it not.”
“Ooh. That’s deep.”
“I didn’t think of it.” Jeanie waved her hand dismissively. “It was some guy, Ralph Waldo Emersmith.”
“Emerson?” Clara remembered her father loved him; apparently he was a true American nature lover.
Jeanie shrugged. “Now get going.” This time she gave Clara a little push in the center of her back.
“Thank you, Jeanie!” Clara started on her way.
“Alek always was my favorite.”
“What?” Clara stopped and turned. Had she heard correctly?
“Don’t listen to me. Get in there, kid. Make it a big break up.”
“OK! Thanks!”
Jeanie called after her again. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Clara smiled as she walked, thinking of the small patch of sunlight on her tiny deck back in Oakland. Soon, she’d buy some pots of flowers. She called back, “I think I will.”
Up the steps of the frat house, the undergrad in charge of the door barred her entrance.
“Party’s closed,” he barked in a gruff voice.
“Hi, it’s me, Clara.” The boy stood with his arms crossed against his chest, looking past her. “Brad’s girlfriend.” At that, he bent down and examined her face the way one would an unsavory lab specimen.
“Wow.” He drew back—or, really, recoiled. “Rough night?” he asked as he held open the door for her.
“You could say that.” She walked into the room, now strewn with discarded plastic beer cups and party streamers. A couple of girls looked at her, whispered to each other and giggled. Clara paid them no mind; she was on a mission.
She began making her way over to the bar, but then stopped, realizing Brad wasn’t there anymore. She was behind schedule, after all. Scanning the party scene, she saw some crazy lady in a ripped t-shirt with huge, Medusa hair. She guessed after hours they started letting anyone in.
Then she did a double take. It was a mirror. She was looking at her own reflection. She took a step forward, hand to her hair. How had it gotten so large? And when had she ripped her shirt? It hung from her in muddy scraps. She looked like a low-budget horror movie: Attack of the Swamp Thing, Frat Party edition.
She’d become the monster at the party! Suddenly kind-of liking the idea of being the bad guy, she returned her attention to the room, scanning for Brad like The Terminator searching for Sarah Connor.
Target acquired. She pictured a red circle around him out on the dance floor. So happy dancing with Ashley! Fresh faced and giddy, Ash looked like she was having the night of her life. Brad laughed at something Ashley said and she gazed up at him with worshipping eyes. She positively glowed. They looked really happy. Like she had with Alek. Funny thing, life.
Marshaling her inner resources, Clara parted the crowd, swamp-thing style. Hand on her hip on the dance floor, she struck an angry pose.
“What’s going on here?” she demanded.
“Clara?” Brad asked. She couldn’t help but notice that his instinct was to pull back, not lean in to find out what had caused her obvious state of distress.
“Yes, Brad. It’s me. Your girlfriend.” Drawing upon every soap opera, telenovela and cheesy reality show she’d ever seen, she tossed back that wild mane of hair and raised an accusing finger. “But it doesn’t seem like you’ve been missing me! We’re over, Brad! I’m breaking up with you!” She turned—she hoped, dramatically and convincingly—on her heel.
But she felt a hand on her arm. “Wait, Clara. Don’t go. Ash and I were just dancing. I was worried about you.” Uh oh. Brad brought a sweaty, drunk arm around her waist. Maybe she needed to do more.
“What are you doing after graduation, Brad?” she asked accusatorily.
“Whah?” His eyes didn’t exactly focus and he slurred a bit. Clara felt a knot of panic form in her gut; could it be that he was too drunk to dump?
“Brad, I need to know now.” She twisted away from his arm and placed her hands on her hips. “Are you in or are you out? Are you coming with me to San Francisco?
“Aw, not now.” He rubbed his hand along his chin. His eyes darted to Ashley, who had
retreated to the far side of the room with some girlfriends.
“What’s it going to be, Brad?”
“Nah, I’m goin’ to work for my dad.” He hung his head like a little kid getting in trouble.
“I can’t believe it!” Clara threw her arms into the air like an Italian soprano finishing off a solo. “Why me!” She should win an Oscar.
“Settle down, there.” Brad pawed at her in his drunken haze; it could have been intended as either a comforting or a shushing gesture.
“I’m not settling. Not now, not ever.” Where was a large, red silk cape when you needed one? She really wanted something to whip around after her in her exit, leaving ripples in her wake. Instead, she yelled loud enough for the neighboring frat houses to hear as well. “It’s OVER!”
On the way out, she passed Ashley. Leaning in, she whispered, “He’s all yours.”
Outside in the cool, night air she laughed all the way back to her dorm room. Who knew it felt so good to let loose with some histrionics? And that shocked look on Ashley’s face when she served up her now ex-boyfriend on a platter? She needed more nights like this, swimming in forbidden lakes and causing scenes in ruined gold lamé and three-inch heels.
At the steps of her building, she paused. For a moment, she wondered what Alek was doing. Would he have gone back to the science center? He said he spent all his time there. Had he gone back to his dorm room? His apartment? She knew so little about him, really.
Sighing, she heaved open the front door. No more Alek in her future. But, she promised herself, lots more livin’.
CHAPTER 19
SOMETHING’S DIFFERENT
Soft, hazy light filtered in through the shades of a window. Familiar yet surprisingly so, Clara opened her eyes to see… her own window. In her very own apartment back in Rockridge.
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