Chapter 11: Asshole Steve

Friday, July 8, 1983 (continued)

The Student Center had a large space in the front, full of comfortable furniture arranged for conversations. I’m sure this space was sometimes crowded during the school year, but tonight I was the only one here. I picked out a group well away from the door, shifted a chair so that Laura could put her leg up, and then settled in.

Whatever happened tonight, I wasn’t going to talk with Angie until tomorrow evening unless it was an emergency. If it was an emergency, I could have the desk girl contact her, but I didn’t want to give Cammie or Paige any more reason to think something strange was going on. The questions could get uncomfortable very quickly.

Laura arrived a few minutes after seven. I stood up and gave what I hoped was a neutral wave. She looked around a bit, then spotted me and came over. She put her crutch down and propped her leg up on a chair. Then she stared at it.

“Thanks for rearranging the furniture.”

“I figured you’d need it. I’ve seen you with it up in the auditorium and cafeteria.”

She sighed. “It sucks, but it’s a lot better than being dead or paralyzed or whatever. Thank you, again.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Now,” she said, looking around, making doubly sure no one was close, “why the fuck did you do it?”

“Um ... because ... I couldn’t just stand there and watch a truck smash into you? I mean, if we’re talking about the same thing?”

“We are. It’s just ... I could out you, and I obviously hate you. It must have crossed your mind that the problem would just go away.”

I shook my head. “Never did. Seriously.”

She cocked her head at an angle and stared at me, then shook her head. “There’s something different about you. I mean ... it’s been, what, almost fifteen years? But I’d never forget. You’re different.”

“I guess I don’t know. Um...”

She shook her head. “Maybe you’re trying to be better this time? That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far. You’ve got your little groupies snowed, anyway, I can see that.”

“Laura ... look. I think saying we got off on the wrong foot is the understatement of the year. I’m starting to think that we’re not really talking to each other at all.”

“What the fuck does that mean? I mean, I’ll give you credit. That first part was vintage Steve. But that second part? I get that this is bizarre, but I’m clearly talking to you and you’re clearly talking to me.”

I shook my head. “You’re talking to a Steve from fifteen years ago, and I’m talking to a Laura from thirty years ago.”

She blinked. “What do you mean, thirty years ago? We last saw each other in 1997.”

“Which is roughly thirty-two years ago for me, if I’m doing some quick math correctly.”

“Wait. I mean... wait ... you ... whatever...?”

“Died.”

“Whatever! Anyway... 20 ... um... 2020?”

“2021, and I came back in 1980.”

“Fuck! How does that work?”

“I have almost no idea. Believe me, I’d love to know.”

She frowned, then said, sounding disgruntled, “2012. And 1979.”

I nodded.

“I was giving the whole Mayan calendar thing some credit. Maybe. I mean, who knows?”

“Not me.”

She shook her head. “How did you find me?”

“I didn’t.”

“Bullshit! Hockaday, then Michigan, and now here? I call total bullshit!”

“Seriously, Laura. You completely startled me at Hockaday. Michigan was just ... odd ... and then here? How in the hell would I know you were going to be here?”

“What were you doing at Michigan?”

“Dad went there for two years and wanted to show us the campus in case we wanted to go there.”

“I get that, maybe, but why drag your cousin along?”

“Why indeed?”

That made her anger flare a little, and I considered fixing it, but getting into the disconnect between our realities right now might just make things worse. Instead, I said, “Dad’s from Chicago, and so’s my step-Grandfather. Both of them loved the idea of going to Northwestern.”

“Again ... and your cousin? I know you can afford it, but that whackadoodle of a mother she has? How the fuck is she managing that? Unless you’re paying, I guess.”

“Dad’s paying, though I’m helping.”

“I’d ask how, but you’re like me. I’m sure you’ve made some money on this.”

“Some.”

“Enough to hire people to figure out where I’m going, I guess.”

“Laura ... repeating myself ... I did not know that you’d be here. If I was hiring someone, I wouldn’t have approached you in public.”

“Damn it, I hate it when you’re reasonable! Seriously ... I’m starting to want to hit you. You know I will.”

“You’ve got a weapon.”

“Yeah, and I can use it,” she said, in a tone that was halfway between playful and ... playful in a Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ sort of way.

“I’m going to ask you something that will probably piss you off.”

“Unusually stupid move right there.”

“Try not to get pissed off and actually answer. Why do you hate me?”

“Why ... why do I ... hate you?” she said, starting to almost laugh. “Why do I hate you? Holy shit! You didn’t lie about possibly pissing me off! Let me list just a few little things, in no particular order: Fucking anything in a skirt while we were dating. And while we were fucking engaged! Leaving me at the altar, after my parents had run up huge bills paying for the wedding. Stealing most of my Ph.D. thesis and commercializing my work, then laughing at me when I insisted you at least pay me something.”

I closed my eyes for a second. Holy fucking shit! No wonder we had a problem.

I opened my eyes and said, softly, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m... sorry! Of all the... fuck ... I’m!...” she said, voice rising quickly.

“Laura!” I said, a little more sharply. “There’s one problem here.”

“Yes! That you’re fucking alive!” she said, starting to cry. “My god-damn last fucking wish was for me to finally get what I deserve, just once, and for you, and your asshole cousin, and your horrible friends, and ... and all of you ... to get what you fucking deserve! And I thought, somehow, by some fucking miracle, that I had! I got to do it again, which is all I ever really wanted. My parents were better. My school was better. People like me where I live, not just because I’m pretty but because I’m smart! People don’t mock me for being a nerd, like at my old school! I found friends, and then... you! And then, a year later ... you! And your asshole cousin! And now ... it’s ... just...”

What she’d just said had rocked me, but I couldn’t take the time to dig into it. Tears were streaming down her face, and I desperately wanted to hug her. Good intentions, terrible idea.

“The problem is ... that wasn’t me.”

“Wasn’t you? What the fuck, Steve? I get it! You’ve turned over a new leaf, you’re a saint now, whatever. You’re still...”

“It wasn’t me. It was some entirely different Steve. I’m not the guy you knew, Laura. I look like him, and I probably know some things he knew, but I promise you, I was never engaged to you. I never fucked any of the people you mentioned. I never stole your research. None of that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that convenient? ‘Hey, I know you, and I can prove I knew you in 1990, and I’m not even trying to hide it, but, nope, not me, I wasn’t there and you can’t prove it.’”

“I have no idea if I can prove that it wasn’t me, but it wasn’t. Will you listen to me for about five minutes? Please?”

“Fine. Bullshit away!”

“Here’s how things went from my perspective. We met in late 1989, when I was a second-year grad student and you were a senior.”

She jumped a bit and started to say something.

“Five minutes!”

“Fine!” she said, glaring at me while wiping the tears out of her eyes.

“We were ... friends. ‘We’ being the Laura I knew and me. I’m going to say ‘you,’ but she’s not you. I just ... words are hard for this, and I’m not going to say ‘the other Laura’ over and over. Anyway ... I’m honestly not sure why we were friends. You were smart and cute and funny and ... god. You were everything I wanted in a girlfriend, if I’d ever had a girlfriend. I was an overweight nerd with questionable social skills who’d never asked a girl out on my own.”

Her face was obviously disbelieving. Oh well. I had to try.

“We watched ‘Twin Peaks’ with a bunch of friends, including your boyfriend, Hamid. He was really a pretty cool guy, when he wasn’t being a jerk. I admit that I really, really, really wished you’d decide you wanted me every time you and Hamid fought, but you didn’t. We went to ‘Into The Woods’ together. That, and some movies and the like. And ... that was it. I thought we were just friends. I’ve told this story to my therapist, and she assures me that you thought we were dating, you being not socially clueless. I ... didn’t. You were my ‘The one that got away.’ I met my future wife two months after I left you, and I ... fuck! I probably pursued her as hard as I did because she at least was clear that we were dating, and because I’d lost you without ever having you.”

“That ... is the most outrageous ... I can’t even...”

“I can’t prove it, but it’s the truth. In my first life I dated one girl in college, then my ex-wife. Period. I didn’t fuck you or your friends, because the only person I fucked was my ex-wife. I considered prostitutes a few times, but never did.”

“Points for inventiveness, anyway! That’s clever. You’re all the way off the hook, and again Laura’s the harpy who’s accusing you of mean things you never did.”

I shrugged. “I can’t prove it. How could I? I obviously look like the guy you knew.”

She rolled her eyes. “Five years younger, but yes. Spitting image. Not as buff, but you’ve got five years. I could draw you, head to toe, from your far too pretty eyes to your cute little appendectomy scars to your cock down to your huge feet.”

Thank you, God! Universe! Whatever! This was going to be a lie in service of a greater truth. I hated it, but I also loved it. I knew Laura ... well, okay, I didn’t. But I knew what another Laura was like, and I knew this one was smart. She’d eventually understand. We just had to get there.

“I don’t have any appendectomy scars.”

“Sure you do. You tried that stuff to clear them up, but it didn’t work.”

I pointed at the wrong place. “Here?”

“No. There, and there,” she said, pointing.

Fortunately they wouldn’t make me ... inappropriate.

I adjusted my clothing. She made a face at first, then gasped.

“I ... what the ... fuck...”

She reached out and touched me, hand trembling.

“Oh ... oh my God ... how...”

“I’m a different Steve, Laura. And you’re a different Laura. Why we’re both here, I don’t know, though you might have given me at least a direction. I didn’t do any of those things.”

She started crying again. This time I tried hugging her. She immediately hugged back, tightly. She was strong, too!

Finally, she stopped, and pushed me away a little. Not hard; more of a playful push. She wiped at her tears again, but this time more gently, and with a bit of a smile instead of glare.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, because you did this and I bought it. Still ... look me in the eye and swear that what you said is true.”

I locked eyes with her. “What I said ... us being different people, me not being your Steve, you not being my Laura ... all of that ... it’s all true. I swear it. We’re two different people from two different universes who’re now in a third universe.”

She frowned. “Um ... third universe?”

“This is one you probably won’t get, but in my first universe, the Milwaukee Brewers won last year’s World Series.”

She rolled her eyes.

“They didn’t in this one.”

“Anything else?”

“Um ... well. In my first universe, Laura was from Indiana and was a senior, graduating in 1990 from Purdue.”

“Pur-fucking-due? I never went to Purdue! We met at Texas! I went there to get out of fucking Indiana!”

“Not in my life. I went to Texas, graduated in 1988, then went to Purdue. I’m sure you were there in 1988, but we didn’t meet until a survey class in 1989.”

“I’ll give it to you. You’re awfully quick with a consistent story, even for you.”

“Something will come up to help prove it, but I don’t know what.”

“The scars help. That, and ... fuck. You don’t act like the Steve I know. I thought you’d just tried to change.”

“I did, but not how you thought.”

“What’s the story with your cousin? Why is she here? Wait ... are you trying to save her?”

I sighed. “That was my first clue that you weren’t my Laura.”

“Huh?”

“Angie and I don’t call each other cousins.”

“What the fuck?” she said. Surprising me, she also blushed a little.

“Laura ... look. In my first life, Angie’s father died in 1982. I know that, because I know it was before this summer. She was already fucked up. She went to live with her mother for a while, but her mother got tossed in the slammer and Angie got tossed in juvie.”

“Sounds close.”

“In this life, Angie’s father died in 1979, her mother went to prison in 1980, and she moved down to Houston. My parents adopted her three years ago. She’s my sister.”

Laura’s mouth dropped open. “What the fuck?”

She started to say something else, then hesitated and blushed, biting her lip. After a few seconds, she said, “You did say ‘sister’ in Michigan! I ... well ... at the time, I was extremely upset, desperately trying to hide that, and thought I misheard you. The last thing I needed was my parents trying to figure out why this boy, who I’d only met for an hour or so, caused me to go nuts. It had to be ‘cousin’, so I convinced myself it was cousin.”

I nodded. “I’m pretty sure I misheard Angie quite a few times, when she goofed. And she did the same to me.”

“I was almost as mad at her as at ... well ... Asshole Steve, I mean, not you. I mean, first ... I think she was, really, the only person he ever loved. Well, that, or ... he loved a lot of people, but she was the only one he loved in the sense of putting them first. She’s the one that got you ... him ... to commercialize my research. She wanted to be rich, and that was a convenient shortcut.”

“On that subject ... I’m not, um ... a problem ... there. My Laura was really bright, probably exactly as smart as you are, but she never did anything that made headlines. I have no idea what your research was.”

“Good! I think I trust you, despite my better judgment, but I am going to do the same thing again, only this time for me!”

“Why not? It’s your work.”

“Because it gave you entry into the billionaire club?”

I shrugged. “I have several things in mind to make money this time, and without ripping off anyone.”

“Um ... ok.” She shook her head, then looked at me. “You seemed really quick to decide I was a different Laura.”

“I figured that out before I was out of the hospital. That was obvious.”

“How in the hell did you manage? It’s a huge leap from ‘Laura’s saying weird shit’ to ‘this is a totally different person?’”

“Well ... first. It was very weird shit.”

“Granted, from your perspective.”

“Second ... and, yes, we’ve discussed my telling you this ... I’m not the only person like the two of us.”

“You found another? Where? Who? I’ve felt so alone! Even when I hated you I wanted to talk, just so I wouldn’t be... alone.”

I nodded. “We found each other by accident when she blurted out a phrase from a movie that’s not out yet. You’d recognize it, probably. It involves a chainsaw.”

She bit her lip, then made a face. “Gently?”

“Got it.”

“Love that movie. Can’t wait for it to be back. Anyway...”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh ... holy fuck! It has to be!”

I nodded.