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“Take off your things, you’re just in time for breakfast,” Mama says. “How was the party? Did you have a good time?”

“Um, I guess so.” I unlace my boots, leave them by the door.

“Who was that good-looking guy with the fabulous ride?” Beck teases. The question makes me feel inadequate and tired.

“His name is Zach. I’m not very hungry, Mama, could you leave a plate for me and I’ll eat later?” I kiss them both, relieved to be back in our normal daytime world, and I head down the hall to my bedroom. They’re never awake this early, so I know they waited up for me, but I’m too tired to talk right now. I get into my unmade bed and stare at the ceiling. Maybe I will never talk again. I hear Beck say, “She sure doesn’t seem too happy about something,” and Mama replies, “She wants to quit school.” With sudden dread I remember that the spring semester begins in two weeks. It seemed impossible last night, but this morning I know I will go back just to have something to do, a place to hide. I pull the blankets over my head and wait for my sadness to turn to sleep.

Random Driveway Winter Day

Saturday, July 28, 2029, and Friday, December 30, 2022 (Alba is 27, Zach is 28 and 22)

Alba: I wake up in bed with Zach. It’s going to be hot today, but we have the air-conditioning cranked up, so my nose and fingers are chilly and it takes me a moment to figure out what season I’m waking to. Zach is still asleep. We were out late last night and I’m a little hungover. I sit up carefully, swing my legs over the side of the bed—my vision blurs, I feel myself falling backward, and I land hard on icy cement.

I lie there for a moment, trying to breathe. The sky is solid with clouds, it’s difficult to tell what time of day it might be. The trees are bare. I’m surrounded by slush, dripping water. I sit up, hugging my knees. I’m sitting in someone’s driveway. Where to hide? I’m on a city side street lined with two-flats and small houses. I hear the unmistakable bumping and churning sounds of a garbage truck in the alley and know I have about a minute to remove myself from plain sight. But there’s a car coming, so I sit still, hoping the driver won’t notice me. As it goes by, I recognize Zach’s old black Nash Ambassador. It reaches the end of the block and stops at the stop sign. I’m feeling very sorry for myself when the car begins to back up alarmingly fast down the narrow one-way street. Zach overshoots, stops and rolls down his window.

“Alba?” He looks pretty surprised to see me sitting naked in a driveway.

“Hey, Zach. Get me out of here?”

Zach hops out. He takes off his coat, pulls me up and wraps the coat around me. I let him bundle me into the car. He jumps in, turns up the heat and takes off just as the garbage truck heaves into view.

“Hi,” I say. “What’s the date?”

“Um, the thirtieth.”

“What month and year?”

“December 2022.” Zach turns right onto Irving Park Road. We’re headed west.

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere, I just felt like driving. Where do you want to go?” Zach seems uncomfortable, as though I’ve caught him naked instead of the other way around.

I’m not sure where I want to go. In 2022 Zach and I barely know each other. Our home is someone else’s house right now. I tell Zach the address of my childhood home. He turns north onto Kimball.

“How many times have you met me before?” I ask him.

He gives me the side-eye. “Just the other night, at the party. But we have plans for tomorrow—New Year’s Eve.”

“Oh, that was a night to remember, you’ll have such a crazy time. I wish I could be there.”

Zach laughs. “This is so damn weird.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“But how does it work? I was driving around randomly, thinking about stuff—thinking about you, actually—and I only decided to turn onto Hermitage about half a minute before I saw you—I wasn’t even sure it was you, but who else would be sitting naked in a driveway in December?—but what are the chances of you just happening to be there and me just happening to come along and rescue you? You didn’t end up here because I was thinking about you?”

“No, definitely not,” I say. “And most times I have to rescue myself.”

He grins. “That’s very self-sufficient of you, but if you need a rest, give me a call. I can be your 911. Though I guess I’m not much use unless you’re traveling to the future, since I only met you on Monday.”

“Well, your future is my past. I don’t travel to the future very often—I prefer it that way,” I say.

“Do you get a vote?” Zach asks.

“My doctor calls it a bias—the past is easier, I have a much clearer idea of what things look like, of who might be there. Time travel is like memory. It’s hard to remember forward, though you might imagine a future that’s pretty close to reality. Sometimes I can use an object or a person as a destination, but other times I just end up in a random time. Like today—this is totally random, I have no connection to that driveway or this day. I was thinking about you, though.”

“You were?” Zach darts a glance at me and then looks back at the road. “When were you thinking about me?”