Before her eyes could squint against the bright light blinding her, Kendra felt something large, warm and squishy bump her from the front. The next thing she knew, she’d landed on her butt on a sidewalk.
“Ow!” She stood up, and rubbed her backside, but stopped immediately. Her hand stung. She peered at it, then picked a couple of bits of gravel out of the scrape on her palm. “Shit, that’s going to hurt.”
“Sorry, miss,” said a fat man dressed in a cheap black suit. “You came out of nowhere.”
Kendra recognized him immediately, Reverend Smith, pastor of the Methodist church in north Wichita, near her old high school. She fought an urge to hide before he recognized her, but in the next instant realized that he wouldn’t. How could he? She had seen him when he visited the high school on youth group business, but Kendra and her parents didn’t attend any of the many churches in town. He wouldn't remember her. “Uh, that’s okay,” she stuttered. “I’m all right.”
“You’re sure?” he seemed more flustered than she felt.
“Yes, Reverend. Could you tell me what--” she stopped. She’d been about to ask him what day it was. That would provoke a lot of unwelcome questions. “--where I can buy a newspaper?” She looked to her left, at a newspaper machine. “Oh, never mind. Thanks. Have a nice day.” Idiot, she chastised herself. She must have materialized far earlier than she’d intended.
She fished in her pocket for change, and found only a nickel. She bent forward to squint through the window of the vending machine at the paper, but the plastic had yellowed and been scratched enough that she couldn’t make out the date.
“Here.” Reverend Smith held out a quarter. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Oh,” Kendra said, surprised, “thank you very much.”
The good reverend peered at with such suspicion that Kendra felt compelled to offer some story about why she seemed so out of it, but she knew that would only cause complications. Instead, she smiled in a way that she hoped would seem mysterious--Asian mystique and all that.
It seemed to work. The reverend blinked and straightened. “Yes, well, if you’re sure you’re fine--”
“Yes, Reverend. Thanks again.” She put the quarter in the slot, and bent over the machine again, intending just to open the door enough to check the date, but the good reverend had turned to watch, so she took a paper from the machine, smiled, and waved at him before she walked in the opposite direction. God, what a waste of time and ink. She didn’t even want the paper. She saw from the top of the paper that she’d arrived on the right day, Friday, October 10th. She looked over her shoulder to be sure Reverend Smith was out of sight, then dropped the newspaper into the trash can in front of the bank.
She ducked inside to check the time on the clock high on the wall behind the tellers. It was not as early as she’d feared, only a few minutes before five. She had four hours to find the Little Bitch, and try again to divert disaster. Fortunately, she knew just where to start her search. The trick was to get there without being recognized.
An hour later, Kendra had managed to cross town on foot while evading every teenager that she saw. Fortunately, they seemed either self-absorbed or obsessed with each other, and she wasn’t forced far out of her way. Twits. She sat on a wooden bench in the little park around the corner from her parents’ house.
Her old neighborhood was quiet during the dinner hour. Kendra watched a few late tradesmen drive their vans or pick-ups into neatly trimmed driveways, and let her mind be as blank as the perfect patches of green lawn around her. She had to get rid of her impatience or the Little Bitch would blow her off immediately. She had talked to LB three times in recent weeks, but those conversations had failed to change anything. The stupid kid kept drinking herself sick at the party that night.
Kendra noticed her irritation building, and released it. She blanked her mind again, then calmly reviewed the facts, searching for ways to improve. She’d arrived too late during her most recent attempt to talk with LB, and to be honest, the earlier conversations had really been lectures. She had hated lectures when she was younger. She still hated them.
Kendra checked to be sure that she attracted no attention. She had never arrived this early on October 10th. Maybe she’d actually succeed this time. Her pulse picked up, but where was the Little--all right, better not to insult her. The girl probably sensed that too, she wasn’t stupid after all. Kendra looked at the darkening sky. If not “LB” then perhaps just “L” or even better, “Elle”. Yeah, she liked that. It sounded optimistically sophisticated. Where was Elle, then?
“Crap!” Kendra shot to her feet. Elle had been with her crazy best friend Deb that night, and Deb lived in the opposite direction. From her current position, Kendra wouldn’t see Elle head for Deb’s house, and, she realized in a flash, if she didn’t reach the girl before the two friends were together, then she’d have wasted the whole trip.
Kendra did feel weak and shaky then. Her stomach cramped with hunger. She ignored it, and hurried around the corner, past her old house, and on to Deb’s place. She stopped there, studying the house. How would she know if Elle was already inside? Kendra certainly couldn’t risk being caught peeping in windows. She stomped her foot in frustration. Any minute someone might spot her and call the police, or worse, her parents. She turned, and walked a couple of blocks until she was halfway back to her parents’ house.
Her luck turned at last. She saw Elle swagger up the street toward her, tiny tits, boney elbows, and disproportionately large, curved hips. Kendra frowned. She didn’t remember that part.
“What are you looking at?” Elle sneered as she drew level with Kendra. The Little Bitch didn’t even pause for an answer.
“You,” Kendra said. Forgetting her determination not to lecture, the word whipped out of her mouth, and she felt some satisfaction as she saw LB’s head snap with the virtual impact.
The girl stopped and faced her. “What are you, some kind of lezzy?”
Kendra groaned. “Will you stop with the bullshit? I know you’re scared, so just be scared.”
“Yeah, right.” LB turned toward Deb’s house again.
“I know you and Deb are going to a party out in Grant’s field tonight. I know you’re going to drink enough alcohol to make you puke for hours.”
The girl stopped walking, and glanced back toward Kendra.
“I know Deb will call 9-1-1, but she won’t wait with you. The whole party leaves you there, alone and unconscious at the far side of the cornfield.”
The Little Bitch did look scared then, but that didn’t stop her mouth. “No way.”
“It takes the EMTs, Pete Townsend and Mike Laseur, an hour to find you because you can’t hear them call your name. You’ll be in the hospital a day and a half.”
Kendra walked around the girl, mad. “The doctor will tell you that you killed a lot of brain cells.”
The girl seemed to droop a little. Kendra stopped. She reminded herself that it wasn’t the first time she’d met the girl, but it was the first time the girl had met her. Elle stared at the sidewalk. Kendra tipped the girl’s chin up until their eyes met. They were the same height. The girl noticed it too. The details began to add up. Kendra could see the truth dawn, but the Little Bitch slapped Kendra’s hand away, rejecting the truth, and bristling like some kind of pouty porcupine.
Kendra leaned in close, defying the girl’s “Do Not Approach” attitude, and whispered, “You know who I am. I need those brain cells that you’re planning to kill tonight.”
“You’re crazy! Leave me alone!”
The girl telegraphed her next move, and Kendra just had time. As LB launched into a sprint, she grabbed the skinny fuchsia braid the girl had artfully arranged along one side of her long black hair.
“Ouch! Bitch!” LB came to a comic book, back-pedaling stop.
Kendra burst out laughing. The girl smiled a little. It didn’t last.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me not to drink.” She sulked.
“Actually, no. After you get so sick, you never drink again. That’s a mistake. It fucks up our future. We’re…I’m the only PhD candidate in physics with no grant money and no job lined up. I need to be able to drink at the annual dinners.”
“Physics?” the Little Bitch said as if the subject were something she’d seen floating in a cesspool.
“Yes. Physics. We’re really good at it as you can see.” Kendra spread her arms. “I don’t know anyone else who can travel in space and time. Do you?”
LB cracked her gum, and toyed with her fuchsia braid as she surveyed Kendra. “The boobs aren’t bad. Are you having any fun with them?”
Kendra sighed. “Listen, I’m going to tell you what our parents never would. This is how you drink safely: one ounce of liquor, or one beer, or one glass of wine an hour, not more than three in any one night--two would be safer, given our half-Asian liver, but you’re new at it, and your liver is pristine so you have some leeway.”
The girl looked a little dazed, so Kendra made her repeat the instructions before she went on. “Drink at least eight ounces of water between every serving of alcohol, and NEVER drive, not even after one drink.”
“All right already,” the girl whined. Kendra took that as a sign that she had it all.
“Good. Have fun, I’ll see you later.”
“You..you will?” the girl asked. She sounded pleasantly surprised.
Kendra smiled. “Yeah. I’ve got some tutoring to do if you’re going to figure out time travel when you’re 17.”
“I am? I mean…we did? Yes!” The girl did a quick fist pump, and Kendra felt her heart swell so unexpectedly that she put her hand on her chest.
“What’s wrong?” her younger self asked, concerned. “You don’t--we don’t have grandpa’s heart disease, do we?”
“No,” Kendra waved off the girl’s concern, but made a note to get a full physical while she still had student insurance.
“Good. Okay, bye!” Elle flounced off, just like that.
Kendra felt let down. “Hey,” she called after her awkward girl-woman self.
Elle turned halfway.
“Don’t forget to bring water from Deb’s house, eight ounces an hour, and some toilet paper. You’re going to pee a lot.”
Elle laughed, and waved as she flounced away, frighteningly overconfident, but better informed. Kendra hoped it would be enough.
