John Espie

Chapter 1

The cork shot across the bar and bounced off a neon palm tree hung high on the wall, its green leaves flickering from the impact before returning to their steady, humming glow. The dance floor cheered when the bottle popped, and foam jumped and gushed and fell, and half the bottle was gone before Rubie and Trevor clattered their cups underneath it, and then they drank to his birthday number twenty.

He laughed and wiped a dribble from his chin before pressing the bottle back into Rubie’s breasts— the rest was hers. She lofted the bottle high and spun into the throng, swaying to Ike and Tina sharing the whole of their love. Rubie’s black dress and hair almost disappeared into the darkness of the dance floor while her arms and legs and chest glowed with the swirling lights that throbbed in time to the bass. Her bare feet, now matted with cedar shavings and champagne suds, had lost their heels long ago: two stilettos tossed onto the oak bar, next to her tiny sequined purse, next to Trevor. He watched her dance, sometimes losing her, fading in and out of the crowd, but always staying within his gaze, with him leaning against the bar there, half-sitting on a stool, beer in hand.

Trevor closed his eyes and nostrilled in the thick must of cedarwood, sweat, and beer, and then he searched the crowd for his girl once more. Rubie stared at him from the center of the dance floor, her eyes locked to his eyes, her hips swaying with the music, a sly smile magically stationary above those swaying hips. She took a drink directly from the champagne bottle before laughing and spinning back into the horde, enveloped once again, her wake marked only by the reflection of the now empty bottle, pumping like a glass baton, caught in the flashes of a passing strobe.

“I stole her from that asshole,” he slurred to the bartender who, up to this point, had done his best to ignore Trevor with his fake ID. Getting no reaction, Trevor turned away from the bar just as the tender yelled for the last call, and Trevor felt himself jostled off his stool by the flurry of elbows nudging him aside in the midst of shouting and waving for the barkeep’s attention.

Trevor was barely able to grab Rubie's purse and shoes as more patrons engulfed him with shouts of “last call” echoing through the club, and arms and shoulders swirled like a sardine ball with Trevor caught in the shimmering center. The bodies dissipated as he stumbled forward, and he found himself abandoned on the edge of the dance floor. He then spoke slowly and deliberately through numb lips, his finger wavering to point out Rubie’s bottle above the thinning crowd, as he repeated “I stole her” to no one in particular.

That was the most badass thing I’ve ever done, he mused in the fog of his mind, because his teeth were tingling now, as if disconnected and floating just outside his gums, so he gave up on speaking and just stood there with his purse and shoes.

Eyes closed now—they weighed heavy as lead—Trevor envisioned Rubie on that day at the coffee shop, wearing a shirt that barely exposed her navel, and a denim skirt that wasn’t quite as long as her apron. Trevor’s chest swelled as he thought about that morning. He’d worked at Aiden’s Supermarket since the age of sixteen, and that was the only day he’d ever called in sick, and he and Rubie had been together since.

Yeah, that was the day, Trevor continued in his mind, the day I took a chance on life. Turned it all around!

Tonight… or yesterday… was his birthday, he knew, but tomorrow… or today… was the one-year anniversary of the day they’d met. Me and Rubie! Trevor wasn’t sure if she expected him to remember, but he thought of it continually, and he’d buy a ring for her… someday.

Yeah, he smiled in his mind, that’s my real birthday: the day we met.

✽✽✽

Trevor’s hand hovered before his face, the glow of a cigarette tip tracing circles before his eyes like a spent 4th of July sparkler. Rubie snatched the cigarette from him, pursed it between her lips for one last drag, and revved the 329 so that Trevor’s now barren fingertips smacked his nose. They both laughed. He brushed her knee with his hand, but she knocked him aside and yanked the eight-ball knob back, down-shifting and pressing them into the racing seats with a reverberating roar as the rear end chirped loose and then caught. The car hurled through a yellow light that snapped to red before they crossed halfway through.

She cracked the driver’s window and tossed the cigarette outside, its embers trailing on the asphalt before fading into darkness just before she stood on the brakes and squealed into a neighborhood of old homes.

Any other time, God help anyone who tried to drive Trevor’s Camaro, but this was a special occasion, and she was his girl. My girl. Nobody else could call her that, even if she was ten years older than him.

My girl!

The car leaned hard into a turn, thumped through the gutter with a bounce that made Trevor wince, and then squealed to a stop in Mrs. Hargrove’s driveway. Trevor grimaced at the sound. He avoided leaving tire marks in her drive. She never said anything about it, but all the same, he was careful when pulling in and out.

The elderly woman only charged him a couple hundred a month for the granny flat—he called it The Shack—so he helped make up for it by lending a hand around the place, mowing her lawn and repairs and such. It was just like at the supermarket: he loved helping people find unique items, bagging their stuff, chatting with old ladies, but his favorite was when he chaperoned moms to the parking lot and could joke with their kids on the walk out.

He’d scrub the tire mark in the morning before Mrs. Hargrove saw it.

The passenger door opened, dropping Trevor’s elbow to his side, and before he realized what was happening, Rubie was grunting with her arms in his pits. The sharp pain of her stilettos woke him up as they dug into his spine from her holding them at the same time that she struggled to heft him to his feet. He rolled forward and attempted to lift with his legs, falling into her instead.

In Trevor’s mind, he tried to hold onto her shoulders, but found himself groping for his jeans with one hand while pawing at her back with the other. Lately his stomach jiggled larger than usual and stretched the waist of his jeans to complete uselessness by the end of the day. Now blown out and falling off his hips, he stumbled on the frayed cuffs under his heels as he found his balance on his feet, and the crack of his butt glowed under the moonlight.

He’d make a plan to start a diet tomorrow, he mused, or the day after tomorrow, maybe, because tomorrow might be today which was a special day, too. And, in the meanwhile, he’d buy another pair… tomorrow… and a bigger belt, too. He’d stopped wearing his belt a few months back because he couldn’t punch any more notches in the end— that could be his birthday present to himself.

Trevor groaned and unsteadily stood on his own, listening to his hips and ankles pop with the shift in his weight.

Rubie kissed him a fast peck. “Meet me inside? You won’t need those pants long, birthday boy…”

He watched her sashay down the sidewalk next to Mrs. Hargrove’s detached garage, to his miniscule room nestled behind it, no wider than a single-car garage and less deep. Rubie’s hips shifted perfectly under her dress, bare feet on the cement, shoe straps dangling from her fingertips. She glanced over her shoulder, gave him a wink as she pulled open the screen door, and disappeared inside.

Heck, yeah, he thought. How could it get any better than this?

✽✽✽

Rubie leaned against the wall alongside his bed, a queen-sized that took up most of Trevor’s rental, its foot just far enough back to allow the apartment’s only door to swing open. A red lava lamp glowed its hue onto her body, its bubbling, luminescent balls rising and falling into each other, colliding into masses that spun and undulated in the center of the cone-shaped glass. Trevor realized that she must have clicked it on before they left for the bar, as there hadn’t been enough time for the paraffin to warm by now… she’d set up this moment many hours earlier.

“You know,” she said with a smirk, “it’s not your birthday anymore, so I’m not obliged to do anything for you.”

He took an unsteady step towards her, but she grabbed his collar and forced him onto the edge of the bed. She straddled his legs so that her dress hiked up a bit, and he steadied her, his fingers over her thighs and a little behind.

He felt his breathing labor, a combination of too much alcohol mixed with the anticipation of Rubie’s plot for the remainder of their date.

“What to do about this dilemma?” she asked. “Not your birthday and all…” Rubie motioned to the digital clock next to the lava lamp, glowing on the bed stand. “It’s after 2. Way past a young boy’s bedtime.”

“I’m not a boy anymore,” he slurred.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He leaned forward, resting his forehead to her stomach. The alcohol saturated his body, and he wanted to concentrate on the blackness of his closed eyes, and the rise and fall of her stomach as she breathed. He smelled her through the dress, the baby oil she rubbed on her skin to keep it smooth, and that fragrance, ever present no matter how freshly washed, stirred him. Trevor traced his fingertip along the seam of her dress, half on the cloth, half on the skin. Slowly, he lifted the dress until the callouses of his finger snagged a black garter, and he kept lifting until the edge of the cloth fell across the handle of a fixed-blade knife, tucked under her lace. He let his hand fall, and the dress hooked over the weapon.

“You plan to do something with that?” she asked.

He shook his head, still pressed to her stomach.

“You like it, though?”

He nodded, breath growing heavier.

“My bad boy likes it dangerous, huh?”

He smiled to himself, and he traced his finger along the garter, all the way around.

“After such a hard night with a fake ID, are you still able to be a very bad boy?”

He lifted his eyes to hers, staring down at him. “I’m a man,” he reiterated.

She reached behind herself, and when she pulled her hand back, between her fingers dangled a leather strap with a large watch face on the front and a short spike on its backplate. “C’mon,” she whispered, “do it for me, baby.”

“Ugh!” he groaned, and he fell backwards onto the bed, eyes rolling.

“C’mon, baby,” she pled, “just this once, please.”

“Would you friggin’ stop with this?” he moaned, rubbing his eyes with the meat of his hands.

“I don’t understand why not…”

“Because it’s embarrassing!” He grabbed the strap from her and dangled it above his face. “It’s totally imploss… imp…”

“Implausible,” she sighed, “or impossible— whatever. Then just do it and prove me wrong. It’ll only take a second.” Rubie reached to the bed stand and grabbed a mini-bottle of vodka. She unscrewed the cap, tucked the bottle into her cleavage, and fell on top of him while aiming the mouth between his lips and squirming on him to make him drink. “More fun for the birthday night!” she laughed.

Trevor took a surprised swig of the liquor, but pushed her off himself, coughing and laughing. “No more, jeez— I’m gonna puke if I take another drink!”

He unsuccessfully tried to roll up, like a turtle on its back, and she grabbed him by the collar and yanked his face to hers, giving him a hard kiss and a shove until they were both pressed into the sheets with her atop him. “C’mon, do it this once. For me…” She dangled the strap between their faces as if it were the keys to a new car.

“Ugh,” he groaned again, but this time less forcefully. The little airline bottle lay on the bed between them. He pawed at it, saw it was still a quarter full, and took the last swig. Another deep breath… and he couldn’t understand why his lungs felt so labored. “A time travel machine…” he muttered. “Every friggin’ night, you and this time travel…”

“Please do it this once, and I’ll never bring it up again, I swear.”

He shook his head, but without conviction, as he tinkered with the little glass in his fingers. Curiosity was mixing with the alcohol, though. He tossed the bottle to the floor and examined the leather-strapped device through squinted eyes.

“All you need is to put it on your wrist, push that button, and it’s done,” she explained, hope creeping into her voice. “If it works, we’ll be royalty,” she murmured, a distant glow of victory in her eyes as she admired the device. She then returned her gaze to Trevor and added, “We’ll own the world— the best birthday present ever. If it doesn’t work, then… you can say ‘I told you so’ for the rest of our lives.”

He didn’t hear most of what Rubie had said, though, he was so engrossed with the device in his hand, apprehension covering his face. She’d tried to get him to wear the device every day from the first night they met, or at least that’s how it felt, and he’d said no every time out of self-respect… not to mention incredulity. He still couldn’t believe that she was serious. It’s gotta be a joke, he thought yet again, and he’d be damned if he’d let her fool him with it. Putting it on and pushing the button would surely be followed with a stream of laughter and a “finally got ya” that he’d have to live with for a while.

“Look at that spike…” he said, motioning to the inside of the band.

“It probably won’t even break the skin,” she assured him, jabbing at the point with her fingertip to show that it didn’t hurt. “Look, it has to be attached to you— like really attached. Same thing with the button when you push it. That’s what he said, to make it work.”

“Yeah, which is my point— I'm not in love with the idea of friggin’ stabbing myself.” Trevor prodded a finger at the button, also shaped like the spike on the backplate. His hand wavered in afterthought, though. “I mean, c’mon, you do it then.”

“Baby, I’m not brave enough,” she cooed into his ear, and then nibbled on it. “I need a big strong man for this.”

Laying on his back, staring up at the rafters with Rubie nuzzling his ear, Trevor felt… like… the room was beginning to spin. Jeez, he thought, that last bottle made how many drinks? But then her words registered, and he smiled slightly at what she’d said… “I am a man,” he confirmed to her. “Your man.”

“I’ll do that thing,” she sang into his ear.

Trevor’s eyes snapped open.

“That thing?” he repeated.

She nodded and held her eyes locked to his as she reiterated slowly and deliberately, “That thi-i-ing.” She twirled her finger, pursed her lips, and blew a little whistle.

Trevor’s smile widened across his face. He arched his eyebrows and repeated her motion, twirling his finger and blowing his own whistle.

“Mm-hmm” she said, “That thing for my man… after you prove me wrong.” She took his hand and lightly strapped the device onto his wrist, but not overly tight— just enough to start. “You do one for me, and I do a big one for you.”

He prodded the watch face into his wrist and winched as the spike bit his skin. “I don’t know… I mean… how is it supposed to work? Honestly?”

She pointed at the face of the device. “See, that dial goes to the number of years forward, and that dial says how long you’re there. He set it for two hours, because he figured that was enough time to get some lotto numbers, or stock tips, or whatever. Then that dial goes to this same moment right now, to bring you back nice and safe. Push that button, bam, and it works— time travel! Theoretically.”

Trevor rubbed his face with his hands, hoping that would encourage the room to spin a little less so that he could think straighter. “No, not that,” he gasped around the bile rising into his throat, “I mean, how does it work… work.” Closing his eyes only worsened the vertigo, and it made him nauseous, so Trevor forced them open again.

“Oh, I’m sorry, baby,” she shrugged, “I don’t know that part. I just stole it— I didn’t invent it.”

Trevor sat up slightly with a groan and forced a deep inhale through his nose and an exhale through his mouth in an effort to steady the room. “Bull,” he breathed, staring at her with a new seriousness. “You dated the guy when he built it. You must’ve picked something up.”

Rubie sighed and got out of the bed to pace as much as the tiny room would allow. “He talked, but—whew—totally over my head. Stuff about Einstein and eight dimensions. He said that time is like a string that goes forwards and backwards, curves back on itself, blah blah blah. This gadget allows you to ‘ride the string,’” she said, hooking some air quotes with her fingers. “That’s all I know.”

Watching her pace, Trevor was more engrossed with the curve of her dress than her words. Did she say… That Thing? he reminded himself. Beyond ridiculous, he thought. “So I’m gonna vanish and come back,” he laughed, trying to stand but only rising an inch from the bed before falling back onto its cover. “Poof!” he blurted, throwing his hand in the air, “See ya in a century!”

“No,” she moaned and rolled her eyes. “We’re only putting you ahead one year, okay? I keep telling you that— one year.”

“Why not… twenty years?” he said with widened eyes and a mocking voice. “Go big.”

She sighed again. “I don’t want to get into the details, but… you don’t go… physically. That’s the trick he figured out. You go metaphysically.” She tapped her finger to his forehead and explained, “Your mind… soul… whatever is going to move through time from this body,” she then tapped his heart, “to that body. Your own future body. One year from now is a safe bet that you’ll, you know… still possess a body to go to… See? Twenty years, not so much. A hundred years… that’s a really bad idea.”

Trevor let that sink in for a few seconds. She’d never actually explained anything like this to him before, or at least that he listened to enough to remember. He let the idea swim around in the alcohol that saturated his brain… and then… “Wait, are you saying that I’ll be dead in twenty years?”

Rubie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She then placed herself in front of him as he continued to sit wobblily on the edge of the bed. Sidling closer, she again spanned his legs with hers, “All I’m saying, baby, is we don’t know. It’s the future, okay? And we need to send you to a body that still exists. We don’t know. Let’s put you a year forward, grab some lotto numbers, come back, and…” she bit her lower lip and winked at him, “we’ll do that thing.”

Trevor grinned at her nervously and then shook his head with doubt. But, then… that thing… He reached around her once more and ran his fingers across the bottom of her dress. “So all I do is tighten the strap, push that button, and we’ll…”

“Do that thing, baby!” she cheered and leaned over to give him a long kiss until he fell backwards under her weight. She shoved his shoulders into the bed, crushing him deep into the mattress as she crawled atop him, straddling her hips atop his hips. She pulled her face back and burned her eyes into his as she slid her hand to his wrist. Without breaking her stare, she yanked the strap tight, making him jump under her body as the spike dug in, and she buckled the strap. “Just push that button,” she purred.

The sharp pain in Trevor’s wrist cleared his mind, but that was followed by a realization that it wasn’t too bad… a dull ache under the anesthesia that he’d imbibed himself with for the past few hours.

She ground her hips into his with circular motions. “Just push that button,” she moaned, more emphatically.

Trevor tore his eyes from hers and looked at the funky watch on his wrist. She ground her hips even harder, crushing them as deeply into the mattress as physics allowed, and his mind cleared under the weight of it. All I gotta do is push that button, get this stupid thing behind us, and we can...

He guffawed to himself and brought his hand to the watch face, grasped it, and set his thumb on the button. Friggin’ time machine! Really? He beamed up at her, and her body froze, her eyes widening like a cat about to pounce. “To hell with it,” Trevor said. “Might as well do twenty.”

He twisted the dial and plunged the button as her eyes pivoted from fervor to terror, and she screamed—