Chapter 5: Drawing Back the Curtain

Thursday, June 30, 1983

Today was probably ... routine. Up at seven-thirty or so, breakfast around eight (with the girls and whoever joined us), Assembly, class, lunch, another class, research, and dinner. I could see this being the pattern for a while, more or less.

Jasmine was much better today. She told me that she’d slept for nearly eleven hours, which meant that she’d gone to bed right away after getting back to her dorm. No bad dreams at all, thank goodness!

Laura and I got a mention in Assembly. The grad student running things (I think his name was Carl) said, “We had a reminder this week that Sheridan Road is busy. Look both ways before crossing. Do not run out in the road, do not stop in the road, and be very careful of trucks. We have two students in this room who are very lucky to be in this room and not be in the hospital or dead. Please don’t add to that number!”

There was a scattered round of applause for that. I was pretty sure they’d guess Laura quickly, and enough people had seen our little conversation that I’d get pointed to as the other. On the other hand, I didn’t think anyone had been close enough to clearly hear what Laura had said, other than perhaps a ‘fuck you’ or two.

Plus, Laura was using the same ‘Steve looks like someone who I hate’ story. Great minds think alike.

At dinner, I really couldn’t eat a lot. Paige nudged me a bit about the accident causing me to lose my appetite, but I told her something was on my mind.

Angie, Jas, and Paige filled us in a bit more on what they were doing. The first few days had been — for lack of a better term — auditions. They did one-on-one skills assessments with the graduate assistants. Lots of skills assessments. Jas had worried that she might have blown things by being so distracted, but Angie and Paige had already talked her off the ledge. If anything, she’d probably gotten some sympathy votes.

Once those were over, they were going to do two weeks of classes, covering a range of things but focusing on everyone’s weakest areas.

After that, they’d be performing something. No one knew what, yet, or how they were handling the number of kids versus the number of roles. Most likely, there would likely have to be several productions simultaneously.

After dinner, I pulled Jas aside.

“Honey?” I said.

“Yes, boyfriend?” she said, smiling.

“We have to talk,” I said.

She made a face. “That’s reserved for girls.”

“‘Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.’”

That set her off into giggles. Once she calmed down, she said, “Okay, that was funny. Um ... where?”

“My first thought was Mikayla’s apartment.”

“This is serious, then. Something bad?”

“I don’t think so, but ... well ... look. There’s nothing I can say that makes this less weird and mysterious without telling you. Mikayla’s apartment is probably the right call.”

“Okay, then. I trust you. Mikayla’s it is.”

“Besides, the others will assume we’re up to something else.”

“Which we hopefully will be!”

“Hopefully.”

We walked to Mikayla’s hand-in-hand. Jas tried several times to get hints, but there were no hints. How do you hint at ‘My whole life is nearly unique in known history?’ I had no idea.

We’d left campus a few blocks south of Elder Hall, skirting the tennis courts and out into the neighborhoods. I doubted they had anyone watching here. I certainly didn’t see anyone following us.

It took us about ten minutes to reach Mikayla’s apartment. It was just as I’d remembered it: clean and very un-lived-in. She had a bed (with sheets, fortunately, though we might need more if things went well), a bathroom (with towels and soap), a kitchen (with nothing), and a couch. No TV, no radio, nothing like that.

I sat on the couch, and Jas sat on my lap, holding hands.

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me it straight. I can handle it.”

Perfect time for ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ except that it was a decade or so too soon. After this conversation, I’d at least be able to tell her that.

“I don’t know how to start this, exactly,” I said. “What I need to tell you is going to sound crazy.”

She made a face. “C’mon.”

“I’m serious. Completely serious. It’s going to sound ‘Call the nice young men with their clean white coats and get Steve taken away’ crazy. Believe me on this one.”

“Okay, fine. I get it. That was a good joke, though.”

“I have to joke about it, or I’d go nuts for real.”

I took a deep breath, then said, “The first thing I have to do is ask you to promise, swear, whatever, that this doesn’t go past you and me and one or two people who it’s okay to talk to. Period, end of subject. Again, this will sound nuts, and in a way it is nuts, but ... this could literally be life or death, possibly.”

She made a face. “I don’t even ... that ... okay, fine. I believe you. I just can’t imagine how I believe you, I guess.”

“The second thing I have to do is tell you that I’m dumping something big on you. It’ll be your secret, too. You’ll know, and you can’t share it. And it is big. That means you have to be ready to carry it, willingly. It’s too much to dump on you if you don’t want it.”

“I ... believe you ... again. It’s still sounding really weird. But I can do it.”

“I’ve told this story once before to someone who was in the position you were, but she knew something was up. Something strange, something that didn’t make sense. She actually accused me of being a space alien.”

“I think I’d have noticed.”

“I told her that it wasn’t a bad analogy. Imagine if I was a space alien. I’m not, I promise — that probably would be me just being nuts — but imagine. Human as far as any test could determine, but I came here on a ship from some other planet and know things no human could know. Here I am, biggest secret on the planet, no way to prove it, sounding crazy if I said it, but it would explain why I was just a bit different.”

She started to say something, then cocked her head to the side. “Wait. I mean ... no. Wait! You are different. We all know that. You’re just ... seriously, you are.”

“That’s kind of the point. I am, and there’s a reason.”

“But it’s not that you’re a space alien.”

“Nope. It’s far less likely than that. But go with that. I’d be asking you to keep it a secret that I’m a space alien, and you’d have to live with knowing that, and knowing that telling someone about it might get me dragged off and vivisected and interrogated about my home-world and all of that.”

She made another face. “I ... analogy. Yeah. Okay. That makes it a bit more real. I can still do that. Fine! Tell.”

“Okay. So. Somewhere, sort of out there,” I said, waving my arm vaguely, “there are other universes. I have not the slightest idea of how many, and no way to know.”

“I’ve heard theories, but...”

“No, this is different. Look ... just ... can you wait on questions, please? Because you’re going to have a lot of questions. At least ... I hope you will.”

“I can do that.”

“Anyway ... in one of those universes ... hell, probably in hundreds of them ... a little boy was born on April 21st, 1966. In some of those universes, and probably many more, his mother, whoever she was, put him up for adoption, and he became Steve Marshall. In the universe we care about right now, he grew up as an only child and went to Memorial when he was fourteen. He had a bunch of friends, but very few at Memorial. He decided to take Debate his junior year because he liked language, and arguing, but wasn’t ever really that good, though he and his partners did okay. So did the team. No one was spectacular, but they had fun.”

She shifted, giving me a look.

“He graduated and went to U.T. along with one of his friends from Memorial. After that, he went to Purdue for graduate school, then moved out to California, where he met a wonderful, horrible, messed-up woman. They got married, moved to Austin, adopted kids, and fought constantly. She threatened to leave hundreds of times, but they made it through twenty-five years and got both kids through high school before she actually left in 2020.”

She was really staring at me now, expression unreadable.

“He was very sad, and probably clinically depressed, because even when they fought, he loved her, and it broke his heart that he couldn’t help her. Finally, in 2021, when he couldn’t afford to just sit in the empty house anymore, he got a job in Atlantic City, packed up, and moved. When he got there, he was greeted by a truck which plowed right through his car.”

“I...”

“The end, right? Imagine his surprise when he found himself with an excruciating headache, lying in the dirt at the bottom of a rise near the bayou, bike on top of him. Imagine his further surprise to find out he was fourteen and in 1980. Then just try to imagine his surprise when his mother told him that his sister would be by shortly to visit him while he was in the hospital.”

The look on her face pretty much said I was crazy. Or ... something.

“That’s me, Jas. For better or for worse ... that’s me. I’m not crazy, I’m not hallucinating, though proving it is a pain in the ass and may take me a couple of months if you refuse to believe me, or at least suspend disbelief.”

“You’re ... seriously ... telling me that you’re ... what ... fifty? Fifty! Seriously?!”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m seventeen, period, end of subject. It’s just that I can remember being fifty-five.”

“Some people remember being Napoleon!”

“Yes, but none of those people remembered in February of this year that UH was going to lose the Final Four to NC State in a squeaker.”

“I ... what?”

“Or that Reagan is going to win in a landslide next year.”

“Landslide? More than half the people disapprove!”

“Ah, but that’s today. Next year is a different matter. There are some other things, shorter-term, so I can prove it, but not right away.”

She shook her head. “Okay. We’re off topic. You ... what? Died? And were ... reincarnated? Except ... backward? Or something?”

“That’s pretty much it. I don’t know why. Believe me, I would love to know why. Or how. Or anything. God’s never spoken to me, the Universe hasn’t given me a behind-the-scenes tour, nothing like that.”

“You’re older than my father!”

“I’m still seventeen. I’ve just been older than your father, once upon a time.”

“I’m not sure how to deal with this. How can I even believe this? It’s ... you said it, it’s nuts!”

“I’m the same person I was an hour ago, Jasmine. Or a month ago, or a year ago. This is the only ‘me’ you’ve ever known.”

She shifted and stared at me. “But you’re not the same person. You think you are! And, I mean, fine. Literally, you’re the same person. But this is a big secret! You’re fifty! You’re ... I mean ... there’s too much...”

“Jas,” I said, trying to put my feelings into my voice, “I really am the same person. Just ... hear me out, please.”

“I will, but ... I need to think, first. I need to figure out what I want to ask.”

“Okay. I can wait. When...?”

She cut me off. “I didn’t mean days. I need to take a walk. Give me ... half an hour, maybe.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling relieved.

She let go of my hand as she got up. I hadn’t realized we were still holding them. It felt like that might be a good sign, anyway.

She walked to the door, opened it, and then looked back. “I think ... half an hour. Or so. I’m not running this by my watch. If I’m not back in an hour, I went back to the dorm. I mean ... I think I’d stop and say that, but ... well ... damn it. I’ll be back before I go anywhere.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Also, I know you love me. I love you, too. But ... this is ... this is big. Let me deal with it.”

“I will.”

She left, and I busied myself doing ... well ... nothing. I had my bag, and it had my notes, but concentrating was beyond me.

Forty-three minutes later (yes, I was watching my watch), the door opened, and Jas came in. She closed the door, then stood there. After a few seconds, she sighed.