TIme After Time

Dad shouldn’t be home from work yet and Mom had a planning meeting for one of her fund-raisers tonight. I turn around and head for the kitchen, and that’s where I find my sister, Brooke. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she’s standing at the island, surrounded by vegetables.

She’s now humming under her breath as she brings her knife down hard and slides it through a bundle of asparagus.

“What on earth are you doing?” I ask, and she looks up wearing a smile and gives me a little wave with the knife. She goes back to chopping as I walk around the kitchen, staring at the mountain of fresh produce, assessing the situation.

“I thought I’d make stir fry for dinner,” she says proudly.

I stand next to her, leaning back against the counter. “Since when do you know how to make stir fry?”

She shrugs and continues chopping. “I don’t. I’m practicing for my new dorm-food-free life. Caroline texted me earlier and right this minute, as we speak, she is lugging boxes from her Prius into our new apartment. Shona will be there tomorrow.” She looks over at me. “One of us is going to need to know how to cook.”

Brooke sets the knife on the cutting board, then gathers up the asparagus and drops it into a bowl. Then she brushes her hands together. “In a few more days I’ll be back in Boulder, done with the dorms forever and settling into my new room.” She looks right into my eyes. “And I’ll be living with people I actually like again. Cool roommates. Like I had in Chicago.”

Brooke and I have spent most of our summer talking about the three months I spent in 1995 Evanston while she was stuck in 1994 Chicago. She told me about the two roommates she found through the Sun- Times and the loft they shared in Wrigleyville. How she spent her days waiting tables at a local restaurant and her evenings watching live music at the local clubs. Her roommates liked everything, from jazz to punk, and they saw it all. Even folk night every Tuesday, where a heavyset woman sat on a wooden stool with her acoustic guitar, playing old songs like “American Pie” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane” to a packed house that sang along. As I suspected she would, Brooke settled in just fine. And like me, she would have been happy to stay where she was a lot longer.

But one Sunday afternoon, she and her roommates were hanging out on the rooftop deck, enjoying the sun and reading the paper, when one of them spotted a story about the city’s plans to demolish the Chicago Stadium. Brooke’s ears perked up. She hadn’t been back in over two months—not since the night the two of us lost each other.

That afternoon she took an El train and two buses to the stadium. It was closed, but she walked around, peeking through the windows, trying to get a better view, and remembering how she watched me disappear before her eyes while Pearl Jam played on stage.

She made it all the way to the back entrance before she felt the stabbing pain in her stomach, and less than a minute later she was doubled over, screaming and squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she was crouched down in the same position, but the Chicago Stadium was gone, her Chicago roommates were gone, and she was alone in my room in San Francisco in the exact spot we originally left from.

“So…” Brooke reaches for the broccoli and goes back to chopping. “Are you still going to see Anna?”

There’s no one else home, but I still take a paranoid glance around the kitchen before I answer. “Yeah. She gets back from her exchange on Saturday. I thought I’d go on Wednesday. Give her a few days to see her friends and get settled post-Mexico.”

“And what are you going to tell Mom?”

I shrug. “I already told her: I’m going on a climbing trip with Sam.”

Now it’s Brooke’s turn to scan the room and verify that we’re still alone. “You know,” she says quietly, “you’d make things a lot easier on yourself if you’d just go to Evanston and return back here as if you never left.”

I stare at her but she doesn’t look up. “And do three whole days over again? If I do those days over, I’m pretty sure that means you do, too. You really want to do over three entire days of your life?”

“That depends,” she says. “If I got another speeding ticket, that’d be a plus. But if I met some amazing guy and you wiped him out, I’d never forgive you.” Brooke glances up and shoots me a grin. “Not that I’d remember any of this.”

“Well, I have no idea what I’d wipe out the second time around. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to stick with the climbing thing.”

Brooke clears her throat. “Of course, you could also make it easier on yourself by just telling Mom and Dad where you’re going.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

Brooke knows everything, but I’ve said very little to my parents about my time in Evanston. Surprisingly, they barely asked any questions, not even about my grandmother, Maggie. They just sat me down in the living room and told me that the traveling needed to stop immediately. That it’s far too dangerous, and I don’t have control over it. And that it’s time I started “living in the present,” as Mom put it. “Like a normal person.” I don’t think Dad agreed completely, but he sat by her side and nodded anyway.

* * *

That was three months ago. I don’t even want to think about how furious Mom would be if she found out about all the concerts Brooke and I have traveled to this summer. Or that I went to 1995 La Paz last week. Or that, say, Anna Greene exists.

“I have an idea.” Brooke elbows me and says, “Take me with you,” like it’s no big deal.

I laugh.

“No way, Brooke.” She gives me a pleading look, as if that will have an impact on my decision.

“No,” I repeat, this time with a little more weight in my voice. “Besides, you’d blow my cover. Climbing trips require camping.” I raise my eyebrows and stare at her. “Mom and Dad would never believe you’d go camping.”

“I can camp!” She crosses her arms, tapping her manicured fingernails against her skin. “I can camp,” she repeats. I look at her sideways.

Then she brings her hands to her hips and looks me straight on. “Look, I’m your sister,” she says, her tone serious, “and she’s your girlfriend, and it’s not like you can bring her here, you know… ever. And you’re definitely not going to bring Mom and Dad there. So you might as well have the whole ‘meet the parents’ moment with me.”

“No. Way.”

“Please…” She presses her palms together in front of her. “You know she wants to meet me.” She looks at me out of the corner of her eye and shoots me the look she reserves for moments when she knows she’s right. And she is. When I brought Anna to present-day San Francisco, she got knocked back right away. She would love to know the people in my world the same way I know the ones in hers, but she never will.

I take off for the refrigerator but I can feel Brooke’s eyes boring into my back. Eventually she gives up and heads for the stove, and the room fills with the sound of sizzling oil. “Brooke?” I say, and she takes a quick look over her shoulder at me. She doesn’t say anything, but I know she’s listening. “If anything comes up, will you cover for me?”

“Again?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say. “Again.”

I see her nod. “Of course.” Things get quiet for a while, and then she adds, “What are you going to do with the Jeep?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t leave it in the garage if they think you’re going camping. They know Sam doesn’t have a car.”

“Hmm. Good point.” If I park the Jeep on a random street or in a parking lot somewhere, it will definitely get towed. I can’t leave it at Sam’s house without coming up with some complicated excuse. I can’t believe that the Jeep didn’t even occur to me.

“You know my friend Kathryn?” Brooke asks.

“Yeah.”