Chapter 6

Camilla washed her hands and dried them on a dish towel draped over the towel rack. Gary had offered his belt, which Bill had punched two additional holes into with his penknife, allowing Camilla to fasten it snuggly. It felt good to have the jeans not feel like they might fall off her hips any moment.

The bathroom door proved not to be locked after all. Grinning sheepishly, Gary had explained, and then demonstrated how it was installed slightly out of square, just enough for the tongue to bind in the strike plate sometimes. It made it difficult, if not just impossible to open the door—if you were a wimpy girl, that is. He’d gotten properly berated by both female companions for that comment.

She’d also had it amply demonstrated to her that she was now in fact, right-handed. How that could happen was not understood by anyone, least of all by her; she gazed at her offending right hand now, turning it back and forth in consternation. What confounded her more, however, was Bill’s continued denial that she had come to Marshall from the future, much less via inter-dimensional travel. Grasping the doorknob with her right hand, she gave it a sharp turn to the right. The tongue complained withdrawing from the strike plate, but the door opened.

“You are so effing hardheaded,” Gary complained angrily. “You need a stamp of approval from the Bureau of Standards before you accept what’s right in front of your nose, Bill? How else would she know about 1958? No one knows about that but us.”

Teeth clenched; Bill banged a fist on his knee. “A secret’s impossible to keep. One of the others talked, that’s all. Whether to Camilla directly, or to somebody else doesn’t matter. It was bound to get out sooner or later, anyway. You know Dennis can’t keep his damned trap shut. I’m just surprised it took this long to come back to us, is all.” He stared defiantly at Camilla. “Christ, she coulda even read my journal, I don’t know. Anything is possible, dammit.”

“Except time travel,” Maggie shot back. “Or is it because she’s a girl, and you don’t want another girl in on our secret, Bill?”

Bill ground his teeth. “Don’t be stupid.”

“She’s not the one being stupid,” Gary growled. “What’s it gonna take to convince you? A demonstration? Foreknowledge of coming events?” He scoffed. “We know one upcoming event, don’t we, Camilla?” Though spoken sarcastically, the taunt resulted in raised eyebrows from Maggie.

“Is that possible, Camilla? Anything else you know that will change our fearless leader’s mind?”

Camilla snorted. “I’m sixteen years old! Everything I know about 1963 I read in 11/22/63. I couldn’t even tell you who the vice-president is now.” She laughed, deprecatingly. “It’s Lyndon Johnson, but I only know that from the book. If it wasn’t in the book, I don’t know it.”

Bill rolled his eyes. “So much for the promise of the future. The bright young youth of tomorrow.”

Grinding her teeth, Camilla gave him the finger. Gary guffawed, and even Maggie let out a laugh. Bill’s expression only grew harder.

“Even if I could remember something,” she said uncertainly. “It would need to occur in the next few days to do any good. I don’t even have proof that Kennedy’s assassination has anything to do with me being here. This could be a freak accident—the remote malfunctioned, or something. It was in the gutter, after all. Who’s to say I mightn’t have jumped to 2063, instead?”

Gary rolled his eyes. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. No offense, Camilla, but it is.”

“What about something from the recent past?” Maggie suggested hesitantly. “Would that help?”

“What? Like the Cuban Missile Crisis?”

Gary and Maggie gazed at her questioningly. “The what?” Gary asked.

“The Cuban Missile Crisis,” she repeated, and then blinked when Gary and Maggie both shook their heads. A shiver ran down her spine as she experienced that acrophobic tightening in her chest that came from standing too close to the edge of a cliff or being on any high surface.

She raised a hand. It took a moment to organize her thoughts sufficiently to address Bill. “In 2019—” She cleared her throat. “We have a concept known as ‘Suspension of Disbelief.’ It’s a late 20th Century thing, so I’m not sure you’ve ever heard it before.”

Bill nodded rigidly, while Gary and Maggie shook their heads.

“Do you know what it means?”

Bill said tightly: “Allowing yourself to believe in something, even though you know it’s untrue. Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term back in 1817, Camilla; it’s nothing new.”

“It is for me,” Gary objected.

“Me too,” Maggie said, looking embarrassed.

Camilla shrugged. “Is it something you could do, maybe, just so we can have a conversation, Bill?”

Bill held her gaze for a troubling five seconds, and then nodded. “You know the term: Law of Expectable Results?”

She nodded slowly back, her blush deepening more.

“So long as you keep that in mind, I’m willing to temporarily suspend my disbelief. What’s this business about a Cuban Missile Crisis?”