Stuck in the 70's (6 page)

She is so damn nice, I almost c an’t lie to her. Almost. “I live in Reseda. I d on’t need anything, thanks.” Except a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food, a place to sleep, and a time machine.

As soon as we get to the house, I race upstairs and fling open Tyler’s bedroom door.

He jumps a little. He’s at his desk chair with his back to me, craning his neck my way. “You caught me,” he says.

Holy crap. I know what teenage boys do in their rooms. “I’m so sorry. It’s perfectly normal. I should have knocked.”

“Not that normal, actually. There are only four other people in my school with computers.”

“Huh?”

“You caught me showing nerd tendencies.” He points to his cluttered desk. “I like to take apart my computer, see if I can make it run more efficiently.”

“Ohh. I caught you playing with
computer
parts.”

His giant monstrosity of a computer barely resembles my laptop. It’s about the size of the fridge in my bedroom at home, and looks like a desktop computer got messed up on steroids. The thing is turned backward. Bright wires surround clunky metal. Some of the parts lie scattered on Tyler’s desk next to a diagram neatly h and-d rawn in various pencil colors.

I c an’t believe I’m stuck with this guy. Although he probably has a rich future in Silicon Valley. “Your mom wants to drive me home,” I say. “And unless her station wagon doubles as a time machine, I d on’t know what to tell her.”

“Hmm.” He looks at the Einstein poster over his bed. “What would Albert do?”

“I have no clue, but your mother’s waiting downstairs for me.”

“Aha! I’ll pretend to take you to Reseda, and then you can sneak back in the house later. Let’s go talk to my mom.”

When Tyler offers to drive me home, Mrs. Gray lifts her eyebrows half an inch, but she says okay.

I can’t sleep, and
it’s not just because Shay is lying in my bed again. I’m trying to process the fact that she’s actually from the future. The pope proved it. I have no idea how Shay actually got to 1978 from 2006, and why she ended up
here.
Was it something I did on the computer? The pipes under our bathtub? Is Shay the answer to my prayers?

Ridiculous. There has to be science involved.

I think.

Einstein said science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind. I have no idea what that means. And I have no idea what Shay is doing here.

I’ll probably lie awake half the night trying to figure things out.

I’ve been lying awake
half the night trying to figure things out.

“ Can’t sleep?” Tyler says at the same time I say, “I c an’t sleep.” It’s like we have a karmic connection.

“Want to go outside?” I ask him.

“Now? In the middle of the night?”

“Why not? It could be fun.”

“Fun. That’s my goal this year.” He says it like he’s talking about getting A’s or learning Latin. “Senior year of high school is supposed to be fun. Wild and crazy fun, not backgammon and computers fun. Yes, Shay, let’s sneak out of the house in the middle of the night and have fun.”

“Whatever. I just wanted some fresh air.”

We head downstairs. Tyler opens the sliding glass door to the backyard, then points in the faint moonlight to a wooden glider. We sit so close w e’re touching. “How did you wind up in my bathtub?” he asks me. “I c an’t believe y ou’re from the future. I mean, I can believe it. When my dad said the pope died, I—”

“You d idn’t believe me before.”

He d oesn’t answer.

“Your father is really up on the news,” I say to change the subject.

“He’s w ell-i nformed about everything. Politics, the stock market. Everything except his family.”

I c an’t see Tyler’s face well, but I hear the hurt in his voice.

“I s houldn’t complain,” he says. “He works hard to support our family. And it’s not as if I come from a broken home. You’ve never even seen your father. Is it hard?”

I d on’t answer. No one’s ever asked me before. If I tell the truth—that I wonder about my father a lot, what he looks like, if he has other kids, if he ever thinks about me beyond the child support checks—if I tell Tyler that, I might start crying right here, and Tyler would be sorry he ever asked.

But maybe h e’d hold me and wipe my tears and say he understood. Or maybe h e’d think I was just a stupid, dramatic girl.

“Shay, why did you come here?”

His voice is so gentle. I think he would have understood about my dad.

“I d on’t know what I’m doing here.” Gawd, I sound as soft as Tyler. That’s not me. I’m no wimp. I cross my arms. “I need to get home. I’m having this big blowout eighteenth birthday party in a few weeks. Plus t wenty-e ight years.”

“We can throw you a party here. My mom bakes the best birthday cakes.”

“That’s not the kind of party I meant. It was going to be a kegger.”

“Oh,” he says.

“So I have to go home and invite people before they make other plans.”

“And I bet a lot of people from home miss you.”

“Yeah.” Who misses me? Mariel, maybe. Jake’s probably weirded out about where I went. Mom might miss me once she notices I’m gone.

Tyler stretches his arm across the glider. It’s not around me exactly, but it’s behind my back. He clears his throat. “If y ou’re lonely here . . .”

“What?”

He moves his head in close to mine.

“Oh, gawd. You’re not making a pass at me, are you?”

“No!” he squeaks, jerking his arm back to his side and leaning away from me. “But did you have to sound so disgusted?”

“I just want to get back to 2006, okay?”

“Maybe we could help you,” he says.

“We?”

“My best friend Evie and I. We’re taking AP Physics, and Evie scored a perfect 800 on the math SAT.”

“La di freakin’ da.”

“At least have lunch with us.”

“ I’ll eat with you if y ou’ll help me.”

“Okay. You ready to go to bed?”

What a horndog.

“You know, back to my room. I ’ll take the floor again.”

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

10

People are gawking. Even
Evie. Especially Evie. She’s sitting on the school bus a row behind Shay and me, but I feel her eyes burning into us through her glasses. Practically everyone on the bus is at least stealing glances. I bet they’re looking at Shay, thinking
Wow!
and then looking at me, thinking
Why?

I return their stares and add a grin. I have replaced the title of Tyler Gray, Unpopular Nerd with Tyler Gray, Foxy Chick Magnet.

“I’m glad you decided to accompany me to school, Shay.” I talk loudly to ensure that everyone on the bus can hear me.

“You better honor your end of the deal and get your friend to help me,” she says.

I stare out the
window. The Valley looks different. We pass orange groves, barren hills, big front yards, and packs of children. There’s a dingy diner called Krasno’s where my Starbucks is now.

Inside the bus, I’m surrounded by bright eye shadow, white boys with Afros, and huge collars sharp as weapons. Other styles are more familiar—wrap skirts, platform shoes, and dyed blond hair.

“You sure you d on’t want to go to classes with me?” Tyler asks when the bus stops.

“Totally. I ’ll see you at lunch.” I rush off the bus to check out my school. It’s since been renamed for Jerry Brown, who was a mayor or governor or something. The campus itself seems like it’s barely changed over the last t wenty-e ight years, though. The buildings are laid out the same. It’s only the students w ho’ve changed. D on’t they know how awful they look with their big hair and unbuttoned shirts?

Gawd, I sound like an old lady, like my English teacher who’s always ranting about hipster jeans. Maybe in t wenty-e ight years my friends and I will seem ridiculous. Make that fifty- six years, I guess.

After wandering through school, I stand outside my homeroom watching strangers go in. I have no clue what to do next. The bell rings, a kid slams the classroom door, and I bite my lip.

I head toward the 2006 stoner hangout. It beats hanging around talking to air.

I spot a small group of slouching kids. They’re in the same spot as the 2006 stoners—in the far left corner of campus, against the back gate. I wonder if there’s always a stoner hangout behind every school, throughout time.

A pretty girl can make friends quickly. I approach the group with a smile and an uplifted chest, which unfortunately is locked in the thick cage of a bra Mrs. Gray bought for me. “Hey,” I call out to them.

“Hey yourself,” a girl mutters before turning her back on me.

Check that—a pretty girl can make
male
friends quickly.

A boy with s houlder- length feathered hair walks over. “What’s shakin’?”

“I’m Shay.”

“Louis,” he says, “but everyone calls me Buzz.”

“Let me guess why.”

“ ’Cause I like catching a buzz.” He laughs, a slow chuckle like he’s imitating Jeff Spicoli in
Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
I w ouldn’t be surprised if he got a pizza delivered to his next class. If he shows up to class.

“ You’re not going to narc on us, are you?” the girl asks.

“I’m no narc. I’m a new student.”

“Right on,” says a boy with a giant, curly brown Afro. He pulls out a thermos from his lunch box. “You want some?”

“What is it?” I smirk. “Milk?”

“What’s the traditional Thanksgiving drink?”

“Yeah, I could use some Wild Turkey.”

Smiles all around, at least from the guys.

I take a long swig.

Evie and I are
sitting in the corner of the lunch area by ourselves, per usual. But today is different. I’m picking at my food, looking around, checking my watch, hoping that Shay will appear.

Evie keeps asking me questions. “That girl sitting with you on the bus actually slept in your bed the last two nights? She really just showed up in your bathtub? You think she’s a runaway? What if she’s an escaped prisoner?”

I haven’t mentioned the small detail about Shay being from the future. Knowing Evie, with her curious and scientific mind, she’d pepper her with questions until Shay got fed up and found someone else’s bed to sleep in.

“Listen.” I lean across the table and lower my voice. “I need a big favor.”

“Sure. You want help with calculus? Don’t be ashamed.”

“I need you to pretend you’re Shay’s mother over the phone.”

“What?”

“I have to convince my folks to let Shay live with me.”

“You’re nuts.”

“My mom thinks Shay has terrible parents. If she talks to them, she might let her stay.”

“And if your mother finds out it’s really me on the phone, I’ll get in big trouble. I’m a genius, not an actress.”

“Please, Evie.”

“No.”

“There she is.” I nod my head in her direction. “Isn’t she pretty? She’s going to eat lunch with us. I’m the luckiest guy on this entire planet. The entire solar system. The entire universe of solar systems.”

“Exaggerate much, Tyler?”

“I’ll pay you. Ten dollars. Think of the
Star Wars
collectibles you can buy with that.” I’m talking to Evie but staring at Shay.

“No.”

I watch her approach, my neck craned, my face frozen. She’s smiling. She has big white teeth, straight as a model orthodontia patient’s.

I wave to her, a small acknowledging bobble of my hand. Not in a show-offy way. I hope not, anyway. “Please, Evie. I’d be forever grateful to you. Ten bucks if you’ll pretend to be Shay’s mother.”

She sighs. “Twenty.”

“Great! I owe you.”

Evie puts out her hand to shake.

“Not now,” I whisper. “Shay will see us.”

Shay stands right beside me, so close I can smell her. She’s got a nasty cigarette odor on her.

“Where have you been?” I ask.

“Killing time.”

“Hi,” Evie says.

“This is Shay,” I say as if Evie doesn’t already know all about her. “And this is Evie.” I jerk my head in her direction, but keep watching Shay and her smile.

“Nice to meet you, Shay. I’m Evie Justus, Tyler’s best and oldest friend. Well, not oldest, but most long lasting.”

“So how do I get back?” Shay wobbles forward, then sets her hand on my shoulder to break her fall.

Oh, no. She’s drunk again. I can smell the alcohol on her breath.

“Or, like, forward? Twenty-eight years or whatever.”

She leans her body into mine. “I need help getting to 2006.”

“She’s doing a report,” I lie. “For school. What if someone visited from the future and wanted to go home again? How would she do it?”

“Now I get it. She just wants the geeks to do her home-work,” Evie says.

Shay plops down next to me on the bench. “That’s, like, not it at all.”

“Time travel isn’t covered in AP Physics. I can’t help you,” Evie says.

“You promised, Tyler.” Shay’s midnight eyes plead with mine. “At’s the whole reason I’m at school today. You told me your friend was smart.”

“You promised her I’d help her with her report?” Evie asks. “You just assumed I’d do it?”

I’d like to respond, but can’t because Shay’s knee is now touching my thigh and freezing my brain.

To make matters worse, or better, actually, she puts her hand on my thigh. “Please, please, peas. I mean
please
,” she says. “Someone, like, just get me out of here.”

Cool as Antarctica, Evie says, “Just go over to that table where you belong and you’ll be fine.” She points to the popular table. Rick The Dick is pinching Loose Lori’s ass, and a trio of skinny blondes are sharing a brownie.

Man, I wish I were sitting there. “Evie, she just wants to know about time travel.”

“She’s bad news. I think she may have been drinking, possibly. Ten seconds after we help with her report, she’ll ditch us for the popular kids and laugh when they trip us in the hall.”