We’re both quiet for a few minutes and I see my opening. I take a deep breath, preparing to tell her about the fire, but before I can, she squeezes my hand and says, “I have something to tell you.”
I smile at her. “I have something to tell you, too.”
“You first,” she says.
“Yeah? You sure?” I ask, but I’m secretly glad I don’t have to wait any longer. I was nervous at first, but now that we’re all warmed up, I can’t wait to see the look on her face when I tell her what I did.
Anna nods.
I shake my head, looking for the right words to kick off my bizarre story. It’s still kind of hard to believe, let alone say out loud. “I did something really crazy. Or stupid. Or awesome.… I don’t know. It’s sort of hard to categorize.”
She looks at me quizzically.
“My dad and I were watching the news one morning, and there was this story about two kids who were killed in an apartment fire. For the next few days, I—I—” I start stammering, and rake my fingers through my hair as I search for the right words. “I just couldn’t get the image out of my mind.”
I’m careful about what I say next, purposely withholding the future-specific things I can’t tell her about, like the online news article and Google Maps. “It started as pure curiosity. I sat there, scratching equations and time conversions into my notebook, trying to figure out if it would even be possible, but before I knew it, I was combing the house for a fire extinguisher and a smoke detector.”
“No way.…” Her eyes light up and a smile spreads across her face. “You stopped it?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t stop it. I just…readjusted a few things.”
“You…readjusted a few things?”
I tell her how I crept through the dark apartment. I describe the wall of school photos, and I explain how I worked quickly to mount the smoke detector without waking the kids.
“I went back and did nearly three days over again. Until Emma, I’d never gone back more than five or ten minutes, you know? I didn’t even know it was possible. But it worked. When I went into the kitchen that morning, the news story on TV was about a fire that took out an apartment complex, not a fire that killed two kids. And when I told my dad what I did…” My words hang in the air. I look down at a cluster of plants and Anna rests her hands on my hips.
“You changed it.”
I nod slowly. And then I can’t help it. I break into a huge smile. “I don’t know if it was right or not. It doesn’t matter now, it was a one-time thing. Or, I guess, counting Emma, a two-time thing. I just wanted to see if I could do it again.”
“And you did.”
“Yeah.”
Anna brings her hands to my face and kisses me. She pulls away and stares at me for what feels like a really long time, and I assume that she’s trying to think of something to say. Finally I remember that she had something to tell me too.
“Hey, you said you had news too? What did you want to tell me?”
She checks her watch.
“Nothing. It can wait.” She stands up and holds out her hand. “We’ve been gone a long time. Emma is probably starting to look for me.”
I realize that tonight’s supposed to be about Emma, but I’m not ready to go back out there and share Anna with the rest of her friends yet. I wish I knew when we’d get to be alone again.
Before I can say anything, she shrugs and says, “Really. It’s no big deal. I’ll tell you later.”
We wind back up the path and reemerge from the trees. I spot Emma right away, but that’s not saying much. She’s pretty hard to miss, dancing with a big group of girls in her short skirt, tight half-shirt, and a huge fabric hat in the shape of a birthday cake.
When Emma sees us, she bounces over and gives me a big hug. I wish her a happy birthday and she grabs each of us by the arm and leads us back out to the patch of grass that’s become a dance floor. I try not to think about the fact that I’m the only guy out here.
We’ve been dancing for about five minutes, and I’m thinking that’s more than sufficient. I’m just about to leave when Emma throws her arm over my shoulder and pulls me in close to her. “I’ve missed you, Shaggy.” She musses my hair and I can’t help smiling. No one’s called me that in months.
“I’ve missed you too, Em.”
Then she stands up on her tiptoes and gets right in my face. “I hear you’ve turned my sweet little Anna into a big fat liar,” she says, shaking her head.
That’s the last thing I’d want to do. I look at her, genuinely confused. “How so?”
She stares at me like I should know what she’s talking about. “Tonight?” she says, raising her eyebrows, waiting for it to sink in.
I’m starting to feel a little dense because I’m still not sure where she’s going with this. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She pulls away and studies my expression, and I guess she comes to the conclusion that I’m telling the truth. “She didn’t tell you?” she asks, and I shake my head no. Resting a hand on my shoulder, she whispers in my ear, “Her parents don’t know you’re in town.”
When she pulls away, I just look at her. I’m still not getting it.
“She told them she’s spending the night here, at my house. She brought an overnight bag and everything.” She winks.
I turn and look over my shoulder at Anna. She’s dancing with a big group, but she keeps looking over at Emma and me.
“Really?” I say without taking my eyes off Anna.
“Yes, really.” Emma musses my hair again. “I believe somebody owes me one,” she sings.
We have a whole night together. We’ve never had a whole planned night together, and I know exactly what I’m going to do with it. But right now, I just need to get off this dance floor. I spot Justin over by the tree, talking with a couple of guys I don’t know. “What if I go chat with your ex and see what I can do about getting you two back together again?”
She huffs. “What makes you think I want to get back together with him?”
“The way you’ve been looking over there the entire time I’ve been talking to you.” The corners of her mouth twitch, like she’s fighting back a smile.
She pokes me in the chest four times as she spits out each word: “We. Are. Just. Friends.”
But you’re not supposed to be, I want to say. You’re supposed to be together. You might still be if I hadn’t wiped out the first four hours of your first date. I flash back to the Saturday that Anna and I went back and changed. How we basically created two versions of the same day, one that ended with a horrible accident that left Emma in the ICU and another that ended with Anna, Emma, Justin, and me at the movies together. The first one ended with Justin telling Anna how he and Emma had this incredible morning hanging out at her house, bonding over a conversation that left him surprised and unquestionably interested in her. The second one ended with them breaking up a few months later.
It would be nice not to feel so responsible for the second version, but I am. “So, you don’t want me to talk to him?” I ask.
She looks over at Justin and back at me. I wait her out. “Okay,” she finally says with a heavy sigh. “If you want to.”
I give Anna a small wave, thrilled to be honorably discharged from the dance floor, and squeeze through the crowd toward Justin. On my way, I grab a Coke from a bucket of ice and pop the top.
He introduces me to his friends, two guys he works with at the radio station, and we spend the next ten minutes talking about music. Eventually they take off to find the hidden beer, and I’m standing alone with Justin.
“So,” I say. I take a sip of my drink. “Can I ask you a question?”
Justin nods.
“What happened with you and Emma over the summer?”
He looks in her direction. Emma and Anna are buried somewhere in the crowd of people jumping up and down because the song is telling them to.
“I don’t know,” he says without looking away fro
m the dance floor. He stares into his red Solo cup, like he might find the answer he’s looking for somewhere at the bottom. “At first, I thought we were a good match, you know? But after a while, it seemed like we were both trying too hard or something. Or…maybe I just was.”
We both look back at the dance floor again. The song ends and we see Emma emerge, one arm hooked through Danielle’s and the other around Anna’s shoulders. She’s leading both of them away from the dance floor toward the big bucket of drinks in the corner. She grabs three sodas, passes them around, and pops the top of her own.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Justin says. “She’s funny and gorgeous and I’m sure everyone here thinks I’m crazy for breaking up with her. But honestly, I don’t think I ever really got used to the idea of the two of us together.”
“Maybe you didn’t give her enough of a chance.”
He laughs. “Now you sound like Anna.” He looks away when he says her name, and there’s something in his expression I can’t read.
I think about how many times I sat in San Francisco, remembering the months I spent in this town, and not only missing Anna, but Justin and Emma too. “I know you broke up, but would it be too much to ask for the four of us to go out while I’m in town this weekend?”
“Sure. We still hang out. We’re good friends.”
“But that’s it?” I ask. When I look over at Anna, I see the three of them heading our way.
Justin sees them too, and when he does, he looks down at the grass, suddenly bashful. “Yeah, that’s it. But I like her. A lot,” he says. “I always have.”
I watch as his gaze travels toward them, and for a second I wonder if he’s still talking about Emma.
Emma’s mom sidles up next to Anna and asks her if she’ll come inside and help with the cake, and I finally see my chance to get away from the party. Tracing the route Anna showed me earlier, I sneak past the food table and out toward the edge of the garden, under the fruit trees, through the wrought-iron gate, and deep into the backyard.
I follow the winding path that leads to the cement bench at the bottom and make my way over to the tiny gardening shed I noticed earlier. It’s angled into the corner and, while the squeeze is tighter than I expected, it works well enough. I close my eyes. When I open them, I’m back in my room at Maggie’s.
I work quickly. My red backpack is leaning up against my desk, and I fill it with a couple of shirts, a sweater, and a huge stack of cash from the cabinet. I check to be sure that my Illinois ID is in my wallet, and I add a few more bills in there for backup. I find the cardboard box I stuffed deep into the closet and remove the rest of the things Anna and I need: four plastic bottles of water, two bottles of Starbucks Frappuccino, and an unopened sleeve of saltines.
In the bathroom, I find that Maggie has now filled the drawers with me in mind. There’s a new tube of toothpaste, still in its box. Three toothbrushes in sealed plastic packages. A six-pack of disposable razors.
I head downstairs and call out to Maggie a few times, but there’s no reply, so I go to the desk, quickly scratch out new notes, and replace the ones I left earlier. I’m standing in the hallway, about to return to the party, when I have an idea. It’s a huge risk but I’m assuming that by now, everyone’s busy singing “Happy Birthday,” so I close my eyes and open them in a quiet corner of Emma’s bedroom. Right away, I spot Anna’s overnight bag on the floor by the bed. There’s plenty of room in my backpack, so I stuff the whole thing inside.
I close my eyes again picturing the tiny spot behind the shed in Emma’s backyard, and when I open them, I’m standing there. I drop my backpack, peek around the corner, and sneak back to the party.
“Cake?” Anna asks when I return to her side. My face still feels hot and my hands are shaking with nervous energy as I take the plate from her hand, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She sees a group of her cross-country friends and pulls me in their direction, saying that she wants me to get to know them better.
When the temperature begins to drop and the balloon arch has started sagging, the DJ announces his last song. I watch Emma leave the lawn, find Justin, and pull him out to the makeshift dance floor with her. He says something and she throws her head back as she laughs. She stands on her tiptoes, kisses his cheek, and puts her birthday cake hat on his head. He tries to give it back, but she keeps pulling it down over his eyes.
I nudge Anna with my elbow and subtly gesture toward the two of them. “That’s interesting.”
Anna follows my gaze and then looks back at me wearing a huge smile. “Yes it is.”
Now Justin is dancing. Like, actually dancing. He’s jumping up and down and grabbing Emma around the waist, and she’s smiling like this is the best birthday she’s ever had.
When I look over at Anna, she’s still watching her two best friends, and I wonder if she’s thinking about what we did that day. I wonder if she looks at them the same way I do, knowing that they should be together and feeling responsible for the fact that they aren’t. But suddenly, Emma and Justin disappear from my thoughts, and now I’m looking at her and all I can think about is the backpack stuffed behind the gardening shed at the bottom of the hill. Without meaning to, I let a small laugh slip out under my breath.
That gets her attention. “What?” she asks. There’s this lilt in her voice, like she wants to know but at the same time she’s a little bit afraid to.
“You had something to tell me,” I say, fighting a grin.
She presses her lips together and takes a sharp inhale. “I did, yeah, I—” She starts to finish her sentence but I cut her off.
I push her hair back from her face and plant a kiss on her forehead. “Go say good-bye to Emma and meet me in the garden in ten minutes…where we were earlier. Don’t let anyone see you.”
Anna looks puzzled at first, but as she watches me, her mouth turns up at the corners and she nods without asking any questions. I turn and walk away from her, and for the third time tonight I follow the path until I reach the bottom of the garden. I wrestle my backpack out from behind the shed.
I pace the ground. I sit on the bench and stand up again. I examine the Buddha statue. Finally I see Anna’s face peek out from behind the trees. The latch on the wrought-iron gate clicks and I hear it squeak open and closed.
Her feet crunch on the gravel as she winds down the path, and she stops when she finds me in the shadows, leaning up against the shed.
“Why are we down here?” she asks, and without saying a word, I step forward, wrap my fingers around the back of her neck, and kiss her. I can feel her smiling as she lets go of all her questions, parts her lips, and kisses me back. She tastes like cake.
Her hands settle on my hips and as she kisses me harder; her fingers creep under my shirt and up my back. I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever be able to get out of here, when she whispers, “Why are you wearing your backpack?”
I kiss her again. “Give me your hands.”
She’s breathing hard. “Why?” she asks, but doesn’t hesitate for even a second. I can already feel her fingers sliding back down to my waist, feeling for my arms, following the bend in my elbow until they find their home in my hands.
Hers are shaking with anticipation or nerves or a combination of the two, and I take them, the whole time never letting her lips leave mine. All I can think about right now is that I’m so grateful for this crazy gift I possess; that I can take her away with me, just for a little while, disappearing completely into a faraway place where there’s no people or voices in the background, and no one looks even vaguely familiar to either one of us.
Her eyes are already closed. I pull her hands behind my back, our fingers still locked, still connecting us, and I keep her body pressed into mine as I picture our destination.
I close my eyes.
And we disappear.
I open my eyes in a secluded area I found a few years ago when Brooke and I came here for a U2 concert in ’97. Anna’s hands are still locked behind my back and she??
?s smiling, lids tightly shut, waiting for me to speak.
“We’re here,” I say. “Open your eyes.” As soon as I say the words, my heart starts pumping hard.
I take a look around, but there’s not much to see yet. Until we get out from behind this shrub, we could be anywhere. I follow Anna’s gaze as she takes in the chain-link fences and the back windows along a line of similar-looking houses. She runs her toe across the gravel underneath our feet, like she’s trying hard to piece it all together. There’s hardly any light back here, but I can still make out the baffled expression she’s wearing as she turns slowly in place. And then she looks up, beyond the shrubs, and sees the tower, its iron beams lit up with so many lights it looks like it’s made of gold. She covers her mouth with her hand and laughs.
“No way…”
“I told you. You needed to see Paris next.”
She takes a few steps backward, stops when she hits my chest, and without turning around, feels for my hands and wraps them around her waist. She twists her neck so she can see me, and even though we’re nowhere near Emma’s backyard anymore, we pick up right where we left off two minutes ago.
We hop over the short fence that leads to the park. Once we’re out in the open we can see the entire Eiffel Tower, base to top, gleaming in front of us. It’s only nine o’clock and, surprisingly, there aren’t many people back here. Anna and I walk toward the base with our fingers knit together. She keeps looking over at me, smiling and shaking her head.
She suddenly drops my hand. “Race you,” she says, and she takes off. Her speed keeps her well in front of me at first, but she has to keep adjusting her skirt, and that slows her down. I pass her just before we turn the corner that leads under the structure, and that’s where we find everyone. The crowd is thick and the lines are long.
“Come on,” I say as I start walking toward the end of the shortest one, but Anna grabs me by the arm. She tips her head back and looks straight up. Then she looks back at me. “We’re waiting in line?”