Chapter 15
S tephanie seemed like a zombie as Lisa dragged her the few blocks from Broadway down to Riverside Drive to avoid crowds of people. They headed to the dorm Lisa and Emily shared. Lisa worried that Stephanie might be in shock, so she walked as fast as possible to reach their destination. She figured that Stephanie would be able to recover if she were in a quiet room. Then she could listen to Lisa explain what happened. That is, if Lisa were even able to explain it all. She wasn’t sure herself how she had managed to travel back with Stephanie, but here they were. In the back of Lisa’s mind, a stray thought lingered: How was she going to take them both back? The enormity of the entanglement frightened Lisa, but she pushed the thoughts away. She had to focus on this first step, and, hopefully, the rest would sort itself out.
Finally in front of the building, Lisa reached into her jeans pocket and found the key to the entrance door. Without stopping to question how that was even possible, Lisa inserted the key and led Stephanie upstairs to the third floor. The suite door was ajar, but Emily wasn’t there.
Posters of the Pretenders, Billy Idol, and Pat Benatar covered one wall of the room. On the windowsill sat a blue boom box with piles of cassette tapes around it. In one corner empty bottles of vodka were stacked in the shape of a triangle like an art project, precariously defying gravity. Bunk beds were on the left side, and on the right, two small student desks abutted each other. They each had a green banker’s lamp, a typewriter, and piles of books and notebooks. One desk was covered in papers and books in complete disarray as if hurricane winds had blown everything around. An empty bottle with a half-torn label served as a vase for dried baby’s breath. On the other desk, papers were neatly stacked, books sat upright as if at attention, and sharpened pencils stood alongside pens in a neat holder. On that same side of the room were two tall narrow closets. The bulk of the clothes hanging haphazardly in one didn’t let the door close, so they spilled out like so much garbage in an overflowing trash can.
Stephanie spoke first. “Is this your room?”
“Yes, Emily and I were roommates.”
“Were?”
Lisa stammered. “I mean are. We are roommates now.”
While Lisa stood in the middle of the room, staring at her former life, and wondering how she was going to explain all this, Stephanie opened the closed closet door to reveal clothes hung in precise order by length and color. “Is this your closet?”
Lisa’s eyebrows furrowed at the nonsensical question. “No, that was Emily’s.”
Stephanie pressed on. “Was?”
“I mean…is. That is her closet.”
“The disaster one is yours then? Not very neat, are you?”
“I guess not. I’m not like that anymore.”
Stephanie stepped closer to Lisa. “Why do you keep talking in the past tense?”
Lisa wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Well, that’s what I’m trying to explain.”
Stephanie waved her away. “You haven’t explained anything. We were in a diner, talking about your husband, and then we’re here, in a dorm room, and you’re acting weird, we both look different, and I don’t understand anything at all. Is this some kind of revenge drug that you put into my coffee to make me feel like I’m crazy because I confessed that your husband is my lover?”
Lisa walked away and sat on the edge of the bunk bed. She motioned to Stephanie to sit down next to her. Stephanie shook her head. “No, I’m fine standing, thank you. I’d just like some answers, so I can go home. Please.”
Sunlight filtered through the one window revealing dancing dust motes. Lisa gazed at Pat Benatar on the wall, hoping for some inspiration, for a best shot, but nothing came. The silence in the room was deafening, and she wanted to break it with an explanation, but how was she to explain any of this when she didn’t understand it herself? She stared at the zigzag on the area rug beneath her feet, amazed at the awful taste they had in décor in college. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stephanie take a seat at Emily’s desk and run her index finger along the spine of Emily’s books. She paused at the physics book, pulled it out, and thrust it at Lisa.
“Your friend is not just neat; she’s also the smart one, I guess?”
Lisa reached out her hand for the book. “I guess so. Why do you say that?”
“Because she’s the one with the science and economics books, and your desk is full of…I can’t tell what it’s full of. It’s just a hot mess.”
Lisa felt her face get red and retorted, “Yes, fine, my desk is a mess, my closet is a mess. My…my whole life is a mess. Yours isn’t much better from your little confession in the diner.”
Stephanie slammed her hand on the desk and stormed towards Lisa. “I thought I was doing the right thing in talking to you. And you repay me by drugging me or something. I don’t know what you did, but my patience with you is just about done. I’m going to the police to report you. Whatever you did, I’m sure it’s criminal.” As she turned towards the room door, Lisa pulled her back by the arm. “No, Stephanie, wait. Stay. I’ll try to explain.”
Stephanie stopped and turned to Lisa, eyes glaring. Lisa whispered, “Please. Sit down.”
They each took a chair and sat facing each other. Lisa took a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you a story that will sound crazy. Wait until I’m done before you ask questions, please. Give me a chance to explain, and then I’ll answer as best I can. Agreed?”
Stephanie nodded her head, prompting Lisa to continue. “I’m a time traveler.”
Jumping up, Stephanie yelled. “You’re a what?!”
Lisa put up her hand. “Stop. You agreed to wait until I was done.”
Stephanie sat down again, closed her eyes and murmured. “Fine, crazy lady. Go on.”
Lisa started again. “I’m something like a time traveler. As you can see, we’re here in 1982 because that’s when I went to college. So did you, right?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“The so what is that you, and me, and Adam, were all in college, in this very same area, at the same time. And I know Adam from the future. I know you from the future too.”
“Lisa, you’re making no sense at all. Maybe you took the drugs you gave me too?”
“Stephanie, there are no drugs involved. I don’t know how this happened. All I know so far is this: In the future, our lives intersect. I traveled back to 1982 because this is where you and Adam met, fell in love, and later got married. In the real future, the one I came from, I was Adam’s lover. In that future, you are his wife and work as a nurse. You have two daughters. He told me you were a horrible person, that your marriage was awful, and that he loved me. I was married also to a nice guy, but we grew apart, and I didn’t love him anymore. I fell in love with Adam. Hard. I daydreamed that if I could turn back time, I’d meet him in college, and he and I would fall in love and get married, not you and he.”
“Lisa, this story is crazy.”
“Yes, I realize that, but you agreed to let me finish.”
Stephanie waved her hand. “Go on.”
Lisa took a deep breath and continued. “He used to tell you that he had late work meetings, so that he and I could meet. I’d pick him up at the train station sometimes. One night, while I was waiting for him, he didn’t show up. I was listening to the radio, and the song ‘Don’t You Want Me’ started playing, and I…”
Stephanie interrupted again. “That awful song from the Human League?”
“Yes, that one.” Lisa frowned at Stephanie again. “Are you going to let me finish?” Stephanie raised her eyebrows and sighed.
Lisa kept going. “As the song was playing, I got nauseous and blacked out. When I woke up, I was here in 1982, sitting on the Low Library steps, and I met Adam. We started dating, and that was my chance. He hadn’t met you yet. I had the opportunity to change the future, to make sure he didn’t meet you, to get him to fall in love with me now—I mean in college—so that when we graduated, he and I could get married and have the life that I wanted with him, not the one he had with you in the future.”
Lisa paused, concerned that Stephanie had no expression on her face. “Are you OK?”
Stephanie whispered. “Keep going.”
“So, we started dating. It all moved very quickly; we were inseparable. And then one day, we went to the Hungarian Pastry Shop, and you were there.”
Stephanie’s eyes were as large as saucers. She leaned back in the chair. “That’s not possible. I met Adam in a bar a few years ago, and he was married to you.” She sighed and closed her eyes then shook her head. “No, no, no. This is nuts. I remember the bar, but now I can see us in the pastry shop. How can I remember that too? She closed her eyes again and spoke very slowly. “How can I recall meeting him twice? At the pastry shop, he was with a girl.”
Lisa stayed quiet, seeing that Stephanie wanted to continue. “That was you. I could tell he was dating you, but he kept flirting with me with his eyes. You looked at him as if he were your universe. I remember thinking that I wanted a guy like that, a guy that I could look at with such love.”
“Yes, that was me. Then we…”
Stephanie interrupted again. “You met me at a diner another day. You confronted me. It’s all coming back. You told me to stay away from him. That he was your boyfriend. And I agreed to stay away. That was a very long time ago.”
Lisa waited, her knee bobbing up and down. She picked up a pencil and drummed it on the desk while she watched Stephanie gather her thoughts. Lisa absently noticed an ink stain on the rug closest to her desk and wondered if that was from a pen she had dropped carelessly.
“Stephanie, he’s really married to you. In the real world, the real future, he’s married to you, and I’m his lover. I’m the one who’s wrong, the one who cheated. Not you. I changed the future when I traveled back to the past. Don’t you see? I took him away from you by going to the past, and then I made a mess of everything. But for nothing because even when I’m married to him, he’s cheating on me with you.”
Both women were silent for a moment. Lisa’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re the one he’s supposed to be with because no matter what I do, he’s always with you. He’s either married to you, or he’s your lover, but I’m always just on the side.”
Stephanie was quiet. She still held the economics book in her hand and absently fanned the pages over and over again while staring out the window with a faraway gaze. “I don’t understand how I can remember meeting him twice. I don’t understand anything at all.” She paused. “But I am noticing something, Lisa. I don’t think he’s meant to be with me. You’re always in the picture too.” She sat up straighter in her chair and faced Lisa directly. “Whatever this madness is…I think Adam wants it all. I think he’s just a liar, no matter who he’s with. I now remember this too. You had a head trauma, some pineal gland problem. I met you in the hospital when you were admitted. You were my patient. It’s weird, I don’t know how I know that, but I remember feeling like I knew you from somewhere, and I knew that you were messing around with my husband, but then I also remember me being the one messing around with your husband, and it’s all a big mess of memories that seem real and not real at the same time. You know what I mean? And around it all, like mosquito netting on a bed, is this feeling that Adam’s a liar. That he just takes advantage of me, of you, of both of us. That that’s the only thing that’s real. It’s like he’s the common denominator, and he’s the one that’s holding this circus together. I have this feeling that his lies and deceit cover everything like mold on an old piece of bread, and if we could just get away from him, we’d both be happy and not these sad lonely women that we’ve grown up to be.”
Lisa wasn’t sure how to answer all that. “How do you remember all of those things that haven’t happened in this life?”
Stephanie smiled. “I don’t know. I don’t even believe that you time travel, but I don’t know how to explain this young body, with The Pretenders staring at me from a dorm room, yet I remember parts of the story you just told me. I remember being Adam’s girlfriend, his lover, and his wife and all the times are mixed up together, but I also remember a layer of unhappiness over everything. Something must have happened, and it’s completely crazy, but who knows? Maybe your friend Emily can give us answers from this physics book of hers.”
Lisa reached over and grabbed Stephanie’s hand. They sat in silence, sharing a space of understanding that Lisa hadn’t seen before. These worlds she had created by traveling were like a bubbling pot of stew, everything mixed up. Lisa didn’t know whether her strange brain had caused it, or whether there was a reason for it, perhaps so she could finally see the truth. Whatever its purpose, she had to figure out how to undo the chaos she had created before there were any more consequences.