The Time Traveler's Boyfriend (8 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I vividly remember my first date with Adam.
My Adam, that is.

He called the day
after the party where we first met. I recognized his voice right away when he called me. “Adam, right?” I said. I was glad he’d called the next day and hadn’t waited the obligatory three days in order to pretend he couldn’t care less about me.

“Right!” He sounded really pleased I remembered him. “Okay, how’s this? You, me, Indian food, Friday night.”

“Sounds great.”

We were all set
to have dinner that Friday, but there was a meeting at school that ran late and I ended up having to cancel. The second time we were supposed to go out, there was a blizzard, believe it or not. When we talked on the phone to reschedule, I joked, “Maybe it’s just not meant to be.”

“
No,” Adam said firmly. “It is meant to be. Let’s try again.”

Third time was a charm.
Adam met me at my building carrying a single rose on his lap. It probably cost a few dollars only, but the gesture really touched me. I also loved that he wore a navy blue tie over his crisp white shirt. It showed that he was making an effort on my behalf. Plus I know how damn uncomfortable ties are, so I felt extra flattered. That said, his shirt was kind of wrinkled, although he at least managed to button it correctly that day.

“
So how did Nancy convince you to agree to go out with me?” Adam asked when we were seated in the Indian restaurant. There was a live musician playing some sort of flute in the corner of the room, and Adam had to raise his voice slightly to make himself heard over the music.

I laughed
at his question. “You suspect treachery?”

“
A little, yes.” He smiled and the creases around his eyes deepened.

“
She told me you were nice,” I said.

“
Nice?” He raised his eyebrows. “That’s it? That’s all it took?”

“
She also said you were smart and funny and …” I hesitated, deciding if I should be honest. “Rich.”

I was worried I
’d said the wrong thing, but Adam just looked amused. “How rich? Am I, like, a millionaire? Or a billionaire?”

“
I don’t think you’re a billionaire,” I said.

“
Really? What gave me away?”

“
If you were a billionaire,” I said, “I think you’d probably be able to get someone to iron your shirts for you.”

Adam looked down at his wrinkled shirt and I instinctively reached out and straightened out his collar for him.
His cheeks reddened slightly as I did it, but he didn’t look upset. He actually looked sort of pleased that I had initiated physical contact. And then after I pulled away, there was this long silence.

“
So,” I said finally, “what did Nancy say to convince you to go out with me?”

“
She told me you were nice,” Adam said, grinning at me.

“
Oh, please.”

“She didn’t have to say much,” he said. “
I mean, she would have had to physically restrain me to keep me from asking you out.” He winked at me. “And I’m stronger than I look.”

His statement prompted me to check out his biceps. Of course, they weren’t easy to see under his shirt, but I later got to see them up close and personal and decided that they were pretty
impressive. Like I said, even though he’s slim, the muscles in his arms are tight and firm from all his years of wheeling. Adam was right—he’s really strong.

I ha
ve to admit, the wheelchair thing made me a little uncomfortable at first, which was the reason I’d been so willing to cancel our impending date. I don’t know why exactly. I guess it was the fact that I was aware he couldn’t stand up and walk, like every other person. He was
disabled
. Like those kids I used to see on the PBS specials when I was younger. I’d never known anyone who was disabled before.

But the truth is, the more we talked, the more I forgot all about it. It was just a chair, after all—it wasn’t him. And Adam was really easy to talk to and he had a great sense of humor—and he was incredibly cute. We lost track of time and finally the manager of the restaurant tapped Adam on the shoulder and told us that they were closing for the night.

“Wow,” Adam said, looking at his watch. “I didn’t realize how late it was.”

“I guess we should go,” I said, wondering if he’d ask me back to his place, uncertain if I should go. I didn’t want the night to end, but I also didn’t want him to think I was the kind of girl who went back to a guy’s place on a first date.

“Hey, wait,” Adam said. Then he grabbed my shoulders, pulled me close to him, and kissed me gently on the lips. It took me by surprise, but not in a bad way. The stubble on his chin grazed my chin, but his lips were soft, his breath sweet from the wine we’d drunk. “Sorry, I had to do that now. It was going to be much trickier when you stood up.”

“No problem,” I said, a little breathlessly.

He took me back to my apartment building, but he was a gentleman and didn’t ask to come up. And he didn’t try to kiss me again, at least not that night.

***

Now that I’ve got Adam on board with the date, I just have to convince Claudia. And therein lies the real challenge.

A few facts I know about twenty-two-year-old Claudia Williams:

1.
She is an only child whose parents dote on her way too much. That is, she’s a spoiled brat.

2.
She is a size two and I hate her.

3.
She was born and raised in Manhattan, attended private schools as well as an expensive private college, all paid for by Mom and Dad. She believes if she lived anywhere but Manhattan, she’d literally die of cultural shock. Or at least, she pretends to believe that.

4.
She is absolutely infatuated with Jed and not because of his sparkling personality.

5.
She’s not going to shape up and realize she’s been wasting her life for at least two more years.

6.
In all likelihood, she doesn’t deserve a happy ending, but I’m going to try to give it to her anyway.

Claudia is going to be a tough cookie to crack. I can be really stubborn when I want something, and back in 1999, I wanted Jed Morton. Plus I’m pretty sure I thought nobody over the age of thirty was right about anything. And according to Claudia, I’m now like a hundred years old, which is way older than thirty.

The only thing I can think of is that I’ve got to convince her that there’s something terribly wrong with Jed, something that she can’t possibly overlook. And I know she’s probably willing to overlook a whole lot for a hot body like Jed’s, but I’m sure she has
some
standards. (Please, God, let her have some standards.)

Of course, every time she shows up in the apartment, she’s with Jed. I’ve got to catch her when she’s alone. And I know exactly where to find her.

***

Plucky’s
looks just as cheap and awful as I remember it. The owner (and my boss) Devin wanted the place to look classy, but he just didn’t achieve it with the big yellow sign with PLUCKY’S written in cartoon red lettering. He also misses the mark with the alternative music station blasting at an ear-shattering volume. The tables are metallic and incredibly tacky, and the whole place smells like grease. Burnt grease.

Plucky’s
official motto was: “All our dishes have chicken in them!” I really, really hated that motto. Because that pretty much guaranteed, like, twenty comments a day from people who thought they were really clever asking, “Does the bread have much chicken in it?”

No! The bread does not have chicken in it! The water does not have chicken in it! The apple pie does not have chicken in it! (Or if it does, it’s just accidental.)

As you can imagine, I don’t have great memories of that place.

When I walk into
Plucky’s, I see Claudia right away. She’s wearing her Britney Spears messy pigtail braids, her usual amount of black eye make-up, and the bright yellow T-shirt with Plucky’s printed on it. No bra, of course, because that might keep her nipples from being visible and reduce her tips.

Plucky’s
is self-seating because Devin is too cheap to hire a hostess, so I slip into the seat of a two-person table and try to catch Claudia’s eye. Eventually, she sees me and drags herself over. She has really mastered the bored waitress look. “Hey, Beth,” she says. “What can I get for you?”

I reach the menu, but then I remember how I used to intentionally not wash my hands once during my entire shift. “I, uh … I’m not really hungry.”

Claudia rolls her eyes. “I can’t let you sit here if you don’t order something.”

“Fine,” I say. I glance at the menu and my stomach churns. “I’ll have a Diet Coke.”

Claudia smirks. “Good choice.”

It takes her about twenty minutes to bring me a can of Diet Coke. I knew I was a shitty waitress, but I don’t think I ever appreciated how awful I was until this very moment. Oh, well.

After Claudia smacks the drink down on the table in front of me, she starts to walk away. I quickly say, “Wait, Claudia. I need to talk to you.”

Really, she should tell me that she’s working and doesn’t have time to talk, but naturally, she doesn’t say that. She leans against the empty chair across from me and smiles.  “What’s up?”

“It’s about Jed,” I say. I close my eyes and think of the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in a relationship. “You should know that I heard from a very reputable source that Jed … has crabs.”

To my surprise, Claudia laughs. “Don’t I know
it! Don’t worry—we both got treated.”

Oh, right,
Jed
was the guy who gave me crabs. Asshole.

“Look,” I say. “I just think that Jed is wrong for you. I mean, he’s such a loser. He’s in that dreadful band, which is never going to be successful.”

Claudia frowns at me. “What are you talking about? Snugglepuss is awesome. No offense, but you’re just too old to get their music.”

“No, they’re awful,” I insist.

“They’re great,” Claudia insists harder. “And I’ll prove it to you.” She spots a waitress at the other end of the restaurant and yells out, “Amy! Come here!”

The waitress, Amy, leaves her customer mid-order to come over to us. The customer was literally right in the middle of a sentence when Amy walks away. She’s making Claudia seem like Waitress of the Year.

“Amy,” Claudia says, “we need an impartial opinion. Is Snugglepuss the shit, or what?”

Amy pushes her black hair away from her face and I gasp. Behind the pierced nose and eyebrow and black lipstick is the pale face of the girl who OD’d and died at a party about six months from now. I heard about it from my old friend Janie. Amy Richards, her name is. She only worked at
Plucky’s for about a month before she got fired, so I didn’t know her super well, but I remember we shared a few smoke breaks together. And then she died. At twenty-three years old.

“Yeah,” Amy says to me. “
Snugglepuss is the bomb, lady. And have you seen their lead singer? Majorly hot.”

“And their drummer,” Claudia adds.

“Absolutely,” Amy says.

I want to cry. For a moment, I don’t even care about getting Claudia to break up with Jed or this stupid date anymore. I want to be able to do
something
to keep this sweet young girl from dying. Can I warn her to beware of Ecstasy laced with other drugs? Will she listen? Probably not. I mean, the girl thinks Snugglepuss, which sounds like pots and pans being clanged together, is “the bomb.” She’s not going to listen to a word I say.

“Okay,” I finally say. “Maybe you guys are right.”

Amy rolls her eyes. “Of course we’re right. Duh. What do you listen to anyway? The Beach Boys?”

Okay, maybe Amy isn’t sweet. But it’s still really sad this happens to her. I mean, she’s kind of a bitch now, but maybe if she’d lived, she’d have gotten her act together, gone back to school,
met a nice guy. I’m just sad that she’s never going to have that chance, like I did.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Despite the fact that both Claudia and Jed have their own apartments, when I get back to my parents’ after having dinner at a restaurant that was
not
shut down by the health inspector, I find the two of them practically having sex on the living room couch. I’m a little irritated, but I can’t entirely blame them. My roommate when I was twenty-two was this Russian girl who spoke no English and had horrible BO, and Jed lived above
and
below crack dealers. At the time, I remember being pissed off that my parents wouldn’t give me money for a swanky place in Manhattan, but I realize now that having to pay my own way was part of what motivated me to go back to school.

“Hi, Beth,” Claudia says as she disentangles herself from Jed’s tentacles. I assume she’s on her dinner break, or else she just randomly left her shift midway through, which is also entirely possible.

“Hey,” I mumble.

I have to admit, watching them makes me miss Adam. My Adam, that is, not twenty-four-year-old Adam, who hates my guts. I’ve had a stressful day and it would be nice to lie in his arms. A backrub … that would be amazing right now. The thought of it almost makes me want to burst into tears.

Because I have nothing better to do, I go into the guest bedroom and I take a nap. My sleeping schedule is still all out of whack. It’s like some crazy form of jet lag. Time-travel lag.

When I wake up, I can hear the TV going in the living room. I wander out there, hoping to find Claudia so we can have a little heart-to-heart about why she needs to dump her no-good, (future) cheating boyfriend. But instead, sitting on the couch is her no-good, cheating boyfriend himself. All alone, eating popcorn from a large bowl.

“Why are you here?” I ask him, trying to keep the hostility out of my voice. It’s hard because I really hate him.

“It’s a good TV,” Jed says through bites of popcorn. On the TV screen, Jerry Seinfeld makes a comment about shrinkage and the studio audience laughs. (FYI, women definitely know about shrinkage.)

“Where’s Claudia?”

“Went back to work. We’re meeting when her shift ends tonight at eleven.”

I groan inwardly. It’s only eight o’clock now. I want this guy out of my house. He has no right to be hanging out here, spilling popcorn all over the couch and the floor. He’s such a selfish asshole. Why can’t Claudia see that? It’s so obvious. He’s an awful boyfriend, yet I can’t get her to break up with him.

Jed scratches his balls and I look away. He’s really disgusting.

And shallow. He never would have dated me if I weren’t so hot back then.

This, of course, gives me an idea. Claudia won’t break up with
Jed, that much is becoming obvious. But maybe I can talk Jed into ending the relationship. It seems like he could be convinced, if I say the right things.

“I’m kind of hungry,” I say. “You feel like going to grab a slice of pizza?”

“Nah, I already kind of ate,” Jed says. “Plus I’m comfortable here.” To illustrate his point, he scratches his balls again.

All right, obviously I’m not using the right tactic here. How can I lure Jed out of the house? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious. “I thought we could go to Lace,” I say.

Jed starts choking on a kernel of popcorn. He looks up at me with watery eyes. “You mean the strip club?”

I force a smile. “You can’t visit New York without seeing a strip club, right? You interested?”

He is. Very interested.

***

The whole taxi ride to Lace, Jed can’t stop talking about how cool I am. He’s been to strip clubs before (of course), but he never met a woman before who was willing to go to one. Claudia
definitely
wouldn’t go to a strip club. Did he mention how cool I was?

I’m beginning to get the sense that Jed likes strip clubs. Surprise, surprise.

I have, unfortunately, been to strip clubs before, but I’ve never been to Lace. It’s small and has this intimate feel, which seems like a perfect place to have a talk with Jed about his relationship and why it isn’t working. Maybe I can even get him to let Claudia down easy.

We get a table in the back, and I order some chicken wings with a vodka and tonic. I figure if there’s a big plate of greasy chicken on our table, no strippers will bother us. Jed immediately becomes mesmerized by the girl dancing on the pole, and I wonder if maybe I didn’t make a mistake by bringing him here. He’s a little too distracted to have a serious conversation. But at the same time, he’s thinking about other women, which is a good thing.

“So how are things going with you and Claudia?” I ask him.

“Oh, you know,” he mumbles, not taking his eyes off the stripper.

“That good, huh?” I say.

Jed glances over at me. “Claudia’s great,” he says. He actually sounds like he means it. “I like her a lot.”

Then why did you cheat on me, you dickhead?

“She’s got a lot of issues though,” I say.

“I thought you just met her yesterday?”

He’s slightly smarter than he looks. “Right. And already, I can tell.”

Jed frowns at me. I’ve finally got his attention. “Like what?”

You don’t get to be thirty-six years old without learning what sorts of things scare off a guy. “Like, she’s obsessed with getting married,” I say.

Jed’s eyes widen. “She is? She never said anything about that to me.”

“Well, of course she wouldn’t say it to you,” I say, shrugging. “But she’s hoping to get married before she turns twenty-three. And have babies, of course. She’s really into babies.”

Jed nearly spits his beer in my face. “Babies?”

“You don’t think babies are cute?” I ask, blinking innocently. “Well, in that case, if I were you, I’d check all your condoms. For holes she poked in them.”

Jed is gaping at me now. I can just see the wheels turning in his little brain. “That … I mean, I don’t think Claudia would do that …”

“Sophia, John, and Rebecca,” I say.

Jed shakes his head. “What? Who are they?”

“Your children,” I say, like he’s stupid not to know. “Those are the names she picked out for them.”

How did I come up with those names so fast? Because those are the names I’ve fantasized about giving to my children someday. But that’s not going to happen if I can’t get rid of Jed. Luckily, I can tell my idea is working.

“Holy shit …” Jed leans forward and rubs his temples with his fingers. Poor Claudia. I know for a fact that at age twenty-two, marriage and kids were the last thing on her mind. I just assumed those things would fall into place for me. How wrong I was. Who could have known that I’d have to freaking time travel in order to get my boyfriend to marry me?

Jed is now staring forward, looking a little dazed. I feel kind of bad. I mean, the guy really liked me and now I talked him out of it. But this had to happen.

A black-haired stripper who looks vaguely familiar walks over to our table and runs her hand along Jed’s broad shoulder. He gives her a half-hearted smile as I struggle to place her. “Hi, handsome,” she says. “Would you like a lap dance?”

“I don’t know if I’m in the mood,” Jed mumbles. When a man refuses a lap dance, you know he’s really upset. Hard to believe.

“Go for it,” I say, hoping to seal the deal and get him to break up with Claudia for good. “My treat.”

I hand the stripper a bunch of bills and she sits down on an unenthusiastic Jed’s lap. “What’s your name, handsome?” she asks him.

“I’m Jed,” he says.

“Nice to meet you, Jed,” she says. “I’m Crystal-Joy.”

Now it’s my turn to nearly spit out my drink. Crystal-Joy. The stripper that Jed cheated on me with. I still remember her name and how I caught him in bed with her in his apartment, but I forgot when it happened. But now I remember clear as day: it was the end of December, a few days before New Year’s Eve. I was so depressed about having no one to kiss when the ball dropped.

Jed just met the stripper he’s going to cheat on me with. And I brought him here. And paid for the freaking lap dance.

I watch the whole thing with some degree of horror. Jed getting more and more into the lap dance. The second lap dance. The third. Lots of alcohol. Crystal-Joy telling him how her shift is over and maybe they could get the hell out of here together. Jed nodding, telling me I should make up an excuse for Claudia.

I could make up all the excuses I want. I could go over to Plucky’s and forcibly pin Claudia to the wall and not let her leave. But I’ve got this terrible feeling that no matter what I do, Claudia is going to walk in on Jed and Crystal-Joy. And all the while, Adam’s voice echoes in my ears:

Maybe you can’t change the outcome. Maybe the future is unchangeable.

God, I hope not.