Chapter 7 #2
Quinn seizing my shoulders, insisting in front of the class that she was my mom.
Me asking her how, how it was true. We made a good team, our friendship producing real stage chemistry.
I even forced a tear to slip down my cheek.
I’m really your daughter? Mr. Fuentes applauded us on our emotion, our story.
Quinn turns to me now. “Let’s make you my daughter!” she says. “We’d nail that.”
I smirk. “We sure would.” But it’s too generous to be true, the ultimate opportunity. From anywhere but here?
“I want to be from somewhere else,” I say. “How about I visit you from . . . the future? Somewhere else, with a spin? I’ll be me twenty years from now. Please?”
Quinn huffs. “All right, Meryl Streep. Whatever you want.” She ponders. “Who should I be, then?”
“Easy.” My lips quirk. “My best friend in the world.”
Mr. Fuentes emits a trill. “Barbie and Belle over there. You start!”
We walk to the front of the class. I pop my knuckles, nervous and out of practice.
Breathe, Sutton. You are from the future. Your home-field advantage here is outrageous.
Quinn folds her arms and pretends to smack gum.
“I have to tell you something,” I start. “But you’re not going to believe me.”
“Oh yeah?” Quinn taps a foot. “You gonna tell me why you’ve been acting so weird?”
I nod. “Yes. I am. I’m not . . . who you think I am.”
She gives me an exaggerated scan up and down. “Who are you then? Barbie?”
The room titters. If only they knew. About me. And Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster. “No. I’m . . . from the future. I’m from twenty years ahead.”
Quinn tosses her head back. “Right! And I’m president of the United States.” For a premed student, she isn’t half-awful at this, if a little over-the-top.
I pace the floor. “No, but—you could be, if you wanted to. A woman just ran for president.” More laughter. “For the second time. And Barbie! There was a megablockbuster feminist live-action movie about Barbie and her whole world. It grossed almost 1.5 billion dollars.”
Mr. Fuentes yelps, and I forge on, proudly.
“A reality TV star becomes president. Facebook? Takes over the world. It’s called Meta, as in the metaverse.
” I throw out my hands for effect. “Every single person walks around with a tiny computer in the palm of their hand. Artificial intelligence is threatening every industry. Kobe Bryant is dead. Paris Hilton is a mother of two—and quite classy. Britney Spears . . .” I pretend to check my watch. “How much time do we have?”
I hear claps.
Quinn arches a brow. “All of that, huh? Is that right?”
“That’s right,” I confirm. “I swear.”
She bites a lip, shifting her weight. “And what about me? What am I doing? Are we still friends?”
Approaching Quinn now, I stare into her face.
Time to go for it. “We’re best friends, in fact.
You did it, Quinn. You’re a doctor. Dr. Quinn, medicine woman!
You’re incredible. You have a daughter named Cat.
” I don’t say the thing I should: But you fall in love with the wrong guy.
Don’t marry him, Quinn. Don’t marry him.
Then I swallow. If she doesn’t marry Alan, there won’t be a Cat. What a cruel and unfair conundrum.
Quinn’s green eyes drop. She loves the name Cat, short for Catherine the Great. “What kind of doctor?”
“Emergency room.” My mouth lifts. “You’re a boss.”
Several beats pass in perfect tension.
“So what do you think?” I ask her. “Do you believe me?”
Mr. Fuentes interjects, “I think we all do! That was excellent, ladies!”
Applause reverberates around the yellow-lit room. Quinn and I resume our spots in the circle, our lips curving skyward in tandem.
“You’re so good,” hisses Quinn.
“Not bad yourself,” I quip back.
After the full class hour of dramatic parental revelations and creative travelers, we scoop up our things as Fuentes dismisses us.
“Sutton,” he calls as we head for the door. “Can I see you for a second?”
Gripping my backpack straps, I approach him, thinking that surely I revealed myself. Uh-oh. He knows. He knows I’m old. Why did I take it so far?
“Yeah?”
He reaches into his back pocket. “You’re fantastic.
That was . . . enlightened.” He holds out a business card.
Sam Geoffrey. The name clangs a distant bell.
“I do this rarely, but . . . this is my former agent. Extremely well-connected. Call him. When you’re ready.
Tell him I sent you. I see things in your . . . future.”
He bows.
I beam.
Quinn and I high-five on the elevator ride down.
I’m a theater student walking on clouds.
I’ve missed this feeling so much. Then again, never once in college did I ever receive such praise for my acting talent.
Today unlocked a spark in me. If I had genuine affirmation like this the first time around, a firm nudge or even a slight one, would I have been less likely to give it up?
I wonder, wistfully, relishing the encouragement.
And holy moly, I don’t have to make anyone dinner tonight!
I sense my best friend staring at me, her eyeballs hot sabers searing my cheek. “Can I help you?” I ask her sideways.
“You seem different.”
I shift my weight. “Do I?”
“Where did all of that come from? About the future? It was just—like, right there in your brain.”
I pull at my necklace and shrug. “I’m creative.”
She squints at me. “You’re not that creative.”
“Hey!” I punch her shoulder.
She tilts her head, then seems to consciously drop it. “Well, we’re headed to the past anyway.” We enter the warm spring evening, walk to our bicycles. “Who’s ready for the Roaring Twenties tonight? Party of the semester!”
I swallow the first words that pop to my mind: Can I FaceTime the kids first? I miss them, a tight pang of longing tells me. Just because I don’t miss baking chicken doesn’t mean I don’t miss them. What are they doing right now? I wonder.
That’s right. They’re not alive. A thick grayness threatens to cloak me, but I swat it away and try to recall this party.
Thursday night? Day after my birthday party? Blank space. Hey, I wonder if I can place bets on Taylor Swift’s meteoric rise and make myself an iconic billionaire before thirty-five?
“Let’s party!” I grab my handlebars. “Can’t beat the twenties.”