Flutter (6 page)

“Hey” was all he said to me, raising his plastic beer glass in a greeting.

“Hey,” I answered, but when car headlights poured through the front window, for a second, I saw his face in the bright light, and I thought maybe … maybe … I could see some eyeliner around his eyes. Emo-boy. I would tease Gia later.

Gia was chitchatting as usual, but it was hard to hear. I thought I heard emo-boy ask if I was
the one
. Then Gia shot him a look of the “shut up already” variety.

I caught a glimpse of Chaney’s wrist as he took a swig of beer. Did emo-boy have a matching tattoo? I blinked and
looked again. But his sleeve had slipped down and covered his wrist.

I was nervous. My palms began to sweat, and I had the overwhelming urge to leave. The party, packed with boys and girls my age, didn’t seem so cool anymore. The girls with their too-tight T-shirts, their flatironed side parts, the boys with their combed-forward shags. Everyone was trying so hard.

This was not my crowd, would never be my crowd. Too much noise, too much motion, too many pairs of eyes peering at me, the lab rat.

I knew I could trust Gia.
Right?
She wouldn’t sell my secrets out to some guy, even if he did have perfectly placed shaggy forehead hair, right?

I excused myself from the couch and went to the bathroom. I locked the door then, and I could still feel the
bang-thud
of the bass music in my fillings as I splashed some water on my face and my flyaway hair.

These were not my peers. Who was I trying to kid?

I was starting to feel … heightened. I knew. I was going to loop right in the middle of this party if I didn’t leave.

I found Gia and dragged her out on the front lawn. “I gotta go,” I told her.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “No, I’m not. I’m going to loop right—”

“Emery, you’re not. Just relax.”

“I have to go, Gia. Take me home.”

“Emery, it’s good for you to get out. You said so yourself. You need—”

“To go home. Now.”

“Emery, you need to—”

The thrum began behind my eyes then. “Gia, I’m going to seize and time-travel right on this fucking lawn if you don’t get me out of here.” I started for the car.

Gia muttered under her breath, “Your dad thinks that is an utter impossibility, you know.”

I stopped and turned back, walking toward Gia. “What?” I said. I was sure I hadn’t heard her correctly.

“Emery, please, you don’t
really
think you are time-traveling.”

I stopped dead in my tracks then. There it was.

She didn’t really believe me.

I slowly turned around and walked toward her bug, my legs shuddering with adrenaline, anger. I grabbed the door handle and let myself in. I couldn’t believe it. I shook my head against the tears. I couldn’t believe Gia. But, of course, I could.

Gia followed to her side of the car. The drive back to the hospital was silent, the small space of the car feeling cramped and taut with what had now unraveled between us. “I’m sorry” was all she said as I got out of the car. I slammed the door without replying.

How could I have thought anyone cared enough to believe something so ludicrous? But the worst thing was that
she had pretended. She had acted like … like I wasn’t crazy. Like she had believed me.

And, really, as mad as I was at Gia, I was more mad at myself, at the world, at my loops. Why couldn’t I just be normal?

As I rode alone in the elevator back up to my hospital room, I silently counted my blessings that I hadn’t told Gia about Esperanza, that I hadn’t ruined my getaway. I told myself to focus on that. To think of the adventure I was about to begin. It hit me that this might have been what the boy was talking about in my loop. Maybe I had to leave for Esperanza
now
.

Just as the elevator settled at my floor, I became conscious of the music playing over the speaker. I could hear the song clearly. I would have known it anywhere, although this was the first time I had ever heard it in my home loop, here, in this time.

I steadied myself, grabbing the door of the elevator as it opened to my floor. I held my hand against the door to keep it from closing, and stood there, staring up at the ceiling, up at the everyday, gray-metal elevator speaker, transfixed. I listened for a good thirty seconds or so as the song came to a close. The same lilting, graceful chords of an acoustic guitar, playing those same four notes as the song ended, the sad—yet somehow hopeful—voice of a male country singer finishing with the words I knew so well. “You’re my home.”

“My song,” I said to myself.

In a few hurried moments, I was back in my room, clicking on iTunes, looking up my song.

Deep down, I think I had known somehow.

Even though I had been humming it, whistling it, and singing it since probably 2008, James Eugene Sawyer wrote it in 2012, recorded it in 2012, copyrighted it in 2012, and it was brand-new to iTunes this month.

I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand.

“How’s that for time travel?” I said aloud to myself. My voice rang against the hospital room walls, a hollow, lonely sound.

I left unceremoniously early in the morning, the first Wednesday in December. I called a cab from the hospital, and I simply slipped into our apartment, with my dad gone to work, and packed my duffel bag and backpack with the necessities— some warm clothes, my painting supplies, my new purple notebook—and I left.

I was completely alone on this new adventure, probably my last, and you know what?

It didn’t feel that different than usual.

The hum of the Greyhound bus lulled me toward sleep, but I fought it so as to hopefully keep from looping. We drove along Route 31 north, up to the Upper Peninsula, up toward my impending freedom. I pulled out my new notebook and turned to the first page. I dated it and wrote two
words:
Esperanza
and
freedom
. Then I wrote it all down. I listed everything I knew about Esperanza, all the facts, and then I listed everything that seemed to be pointing me here from my loops, anything that might be construed as a clue, everything that had happened since my future version of Dad had told me that things were going to scare me, things were going to happen.

“Nine,” I said out loud. “Nine what?”

I thought of the heron then for some reason, and I watched the scenery pass outside the bus window. Every now and then the bells in the Christmas wreath that the driver had fastened onto his steering wheel would jingle and jerk me from my thoughts, and I would catch a snippet of conversation here and there from the passengers around me. I tried not to eye everyone suspiciously, but I felt so close to being free. And I kept picturing a neatly dressed and blank-faced orderly suddenly appearing and toting me back to Dad.

I knew I was being overly dramatic. I shook my head and stared out the window, leaning my forehead on the cold, icy glass. I sensed the dip in the temperature, not only by the feel on my skin but by the way the wind whipped around us as we drove, making whistling and groaning noises, passing through various crevices and slats in the bus.

We drove over the Mackinac Bridge, and I figured we were getting close. The Lake Michigan waters were gray
and unfriendly beneath us. Excitement swirled in my belly as we crossed that bridge, like I was entering a new world. I kind of was.

It took us about eight hours total to reach Esperanza, with all the other passengers having gotten off at their stops, save for myself and a little, blue-haired old lady. She offered to give me a ride to where I was going when we both got off at the small bus station. I politely declined, feeling like I wanted to do it all on my own. Plus, it was hard to find the words for what exactly I was doing here.

Yes, I was running. But it was more than that. I was being beckoned, called here. Of this I was absolutely sure. The boy wanted me to come here. So, yes, Little Old Lady, I’m running away from my mad scientist father, and I was told by a small boy in another time to hop aboard a bus and find this town. Want to help me out?

In the end, I asked the lady if she could give me directions to the town square I had read about. She happily complied, and I dutifully followed Savoya Avenue through a small residential neighborhood. It was only a quick two-minute walk, lined with modest homes—brick bungalows, larger trilevels. Lawns were clutter-free, the shrubs trimmed even in this cold season. And there were no paint-chipped houses, no screen doors with holes. This was a place that people took pride in. I liked it.

I found a stone bench on the edge of the town square,
and I dropped my duffel and my backpack. I took a deep breath. It was cold. But not scary, ridiculous cold like I had read about on the Internet. And there wasn’t even much snow, just enough to make that homey crunching sound underfoot. But it was only December. If I was here in January, in February, I might then know what the term
cold
really meant in the Upper Peninsula. Would I still be here in January or February? Would I even still be alive?

I bit my lip hard and made myself think about the here, the now, what I was doing in Esperanza.

I looked around. The town square was picturesque, and, not for the first time in my life, I was reminded of the film
Back to the Future
. There was even a clock tower across the square from the bus station, atop what looked to be the post office.

A woman walked by in a yellow beret and yellow scarf, pushing a stroller. Two young children, boys, followed her, holding each other’s mittened hands.

“Hello,” the lady said as they passed.

“Hi,” I answered.

I laughed to myself quietly as I realized that I was searching out the faces of each of the children, hoping that one might be my boy, that he might just skip up to me here in the square and tell me exactly what I should be doing.

A bakery sat across from the clock tower.
HEAVEN AT BETSY’S
, the sign read.
FRESH EVERY MORNING
.

My hand went to my mouth. I gasped. Blinked a few times to make sure I was reading it correctly.

“Holy crow,” I said out loud, another one of my boy’s sayings. I could not take this in. I mean, was this how it was going to be now? My home loop and my other loops crossing, intersecting, freaking me out? This would take some getting used to.

I stared at the bakery sign for a long time in disbelief. Finally, my stomach rolled over and got me moving, made me snap out of it. I started toward the bakery, deciding on a cup of hot chocolate and a donut, and I would ask there about a nearby motel, or maybe a bed-and-breakfast. Esperanza really did seem like bed-and-breakfast material.

Betsy’s was warm and softly lit, the smells every bit as welcoming as I had hoped they would be. The bakery was small, mostly taken up by a large glass display counter, showing off cookies, éclairs, donuts, scones, cakes, and pastries of all kinds. I sat down at a little bistro table in the corner, next to a small Christmas tree complete with a pink satin ribbon garland. I smiled as I realized that each ornament on the tree was a miniature cake, cup of coffee, or something to do with the bakery. Elvis’s Christmas album played over the speakers.

My pink frosted donut tasted light and sugary, melting in my mouth with each sip of hot chocolate. Two college girls sat at the table nearest to mine, their heads leaning toward
each other, deep in discussion. I sighed then, trying to resist the feeling of betrayal that was washing over me.

Gia.

The woman behind the counter came over and asked if I needed anything else. “You should try a pasty,” she told me. “We yoopers are famous for them, potatoes and vegetables, all wrapped up in a yummy crust,” she said with a smile.

“Yoopers?”

“That’s what we call ourselves,” she said. “We live in the UP—so we are yoopers.”

“Oh,” I said, getting it finally. Duh. “Um, no thanks,” I said, feeling her eyes upon me, feeling that sudden raising of my hackles, as if everyone was in on things with Dad and I had a tattoo across my forehead that read
RUNAWAY
.

“You’re not from around here, eh?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” I answered, my eyes stealing a glance at the woman. She was tiny and round, with shiny, dark hair cut at her chin.
JEANNETTE
, her name tag said.

I felt my ears burn scarlet. Did I look like I was running away? I frantically searched my mind for some clue that I could have possibly overlooked, some sliver of information that might lead Dad to Esperanza Beach.

My hand shook as I reached for my hot chocolate, and the cup clanked against the saucer. The waitress gave me a concerned look, and then she patted my shoulder and let me be.

Get ahold of yourself, Emery
, I told myself.
No one knows you. Dad’s reach is not so long. There is no GPS chip surgically implanted in your hip
. The thought actually made me stop for a moment, but I pushed it away.

No one knew where I was. I was here on a mission, with a mystery to solve. And I was here to figure out what to do with myself, with my time … with my life, no matter how little might be left.

Jeannette looked like a mom, a charming, cherubic, smiley-faced mom. She wore a pink Christmas sweater, one with a large embroidered Christmas tree bedazzled with sequins and beads, as well as a white partridge perched at the top.

I steeled my nerves and lifted my face to the counter. “Ma’am?” I asked.

“Yes?” she replied, coming around to my table again.

“I’m new around here, and I really could use some help finding a place to stay. Something out of the way, or …”

“We don’t have any motels, but over the Mackinac Bridge there’s—” She tapped her chin. “Let me just give you the address of the Realtor down the street. He’ll be able to get you something, I’m sure. How long are you staying?”

She was already writing down directions on her waitress pad as she bent her head over the counter.

“I don’t know for how long. Maybe a month or two,” I answered.

“I heard Roy Genk at the diner saying just yesterday how
no one’s stayed at Dala Cabin in winter for months. Can’t rent that thing—”