Double Time
PART VII: LUCUBRATION
Chapter 74
“I had evolved a year too soon, and it nearly broke me.”
—Carlyle Labuschagne, The Broken Destiny
3 NOVEMBER 2019
My bed seems so vacant when I lie down in it. This morning, Em left for San Diego where she’ll be stationed for the next year and a half. In that time, she’ll get three more one-week vacations and regular government holidays. We might be able to go see her once or twice. Dad said we’d see her this summer and if she can’t come here, we’ll definitely go see her next Christmas. I understand all the reasons the old man inside me was a proponent of National Service but as a teen, it totally sucks.
And she’ll come out of it a truck driver? How is that supposed to prepare her for college? Especially since government trucking contracts with private firms have been cancelled because they can conscript drivers from the Service. Well, not all of them, apparently. The government has drivers but they are still catching up in acquiring trucks. Politicians in this age are just as much dumb fucks as they were in my timeline.
I can still smell her on my pillow, our sex on the sheets. I don’t want to wash them. And I don’t want to keep crying.
I kept training with an addition. Livy was now joining Nanette and me for our training runs. Nanette had us doing interval training every other day. It was convenient to have Livy training with us because Nanette could do a longer run on our non-interval days and Livy could take me home in time to get ready for school.
I thought Mom would drop her teeth when Livy walked out of the bathroom Thursday morning after showering. Except V3 Mom had all her own teeth. V1 was wearing false teeth by the time she was forty. Dental hygiene and treatment weren’t quite the same back then. V1 remembered being so traumatized by the dentist when he was four that he wouldn’t sit in the barber chair because it looked the same.
Not that Livy and I had showered together. I was already in the kitchen fixing breakfast for Pey when Mom and Livy walked in together. They’d been talking in the hall.
“We need to talk,” Mom said.
“Mom, it was just more convenient for Livy to get ready here and then we can head out to school,” I protested. “We weren’t doing anything wrong.” Well, we did have a little near-naked groping when I got out of the shower and she went in, but we were discreet.
“I’m not upset about Olivia getting ready here as long as it doesn’t tie up the bathroom so your little sister has trouble getting ready for school. We managed with Emily. But I understand you are planning a trip that you haven’t mentioned to your parents,” Mom said. Shit. I planned to talk to them about the race in Bloomington but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I’d sort of circumvented the issue with the Noblesville race because Em came down to meet me in Indy.
“I was going to talk to you about that but with Em here last week it sort of slipped my mind,” I whined. Christ! I sound like a teenager!
“Invite your… uh—Nanette?—Invite her to Sunday dinner after your long run. Olivia, your parents, too. I’ll talk to them tomorrow, so please invite them as soon as possible. We need to know about the arrangements.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Livy said. We escaped and went to school.
Thursday after school was my normal Honors English study group but we’d all agreed to forgo a bit of it so we could all have a little birthday party for Rachel. Today was her seventeenth birthday. I shuddered. Next year, she’d receive her induction letter. Conscription was more like it.
Livy wasn’t going to make the party, of course, because basketball practice had started with the first game this Saturday. Most girls’ games were weeknights or Saturday afternoon. The boys got the prime time on Friday night and often a second game either mid-week or Saturday night.
We had a good time. It was low-key, but since we were at Brittany’s house, that meant we danced a little. Rachel had to be home for dinner to celebrate with her family. She and I would celebrate Friday night.
Nanette was a little shocked that our families wanted to meet to talk about the race but she accepted the invitation.
It looked like some of our group date time would be spent watching Livy play basketball this winter. Of course, we were at her first game against Carmel at home Saturday afternoon. The game was over by two-thirty and we collected our girlfriend after her shower so we could go to Joan’s to continue Rachel’s abbreviated birthday party from Thursday night.
I smiled at my redhead girlfriend. Friday night, we’d gone out to dinner and I’d driven. It was a first for me to drive a date and believe me I was careful. During Em’s visit, I’d discovered the traffic laws were far more rigidly enforced in this timeline than they had been in V1. And violations were paid in days of community service. I was not going to run afoul of that mess. Statistically 80% of high school aged drivers in our area spent at least one day of community service before graduation. Crap! I guess it’s all part of getting us ready for National Service.
We went to a nice restaurant called Montezuma’s that wasn’t nearly as expensive as I remembered restaurants being in V1. But… My past fifty or so years of memories included having wine or cocktails with the meal. Our house special taco platters were fifteen dollars each. Thirty bucks plus five for Cokes and a nice seven-dollar tip. Forty-two dollars. I scanned down the menu and saw that a pitcher of margaritas cost fifty bucks. No wonder the meals V1 remembered were so expensive!
We went out into the country to the cemetery Livy had shown me and got in the back seat of Mom’s roomy Impala. I’d carefully equipped the car with blankets before our date. We giggled a lot and got naked. Once I was holding my love in my arms, though, it was evident that we just wanted the closeness and not a raucous round of sex. It was just holding our naked bodies together and whispering as we kissed that was important.
Yeah. We made love. How could I hold that beautiful naked girl next to me and not get a little carried away? I was focused on her, though, and just wanted to give her the pleasure she deserved. Her wanting me to come in her was a bonus.
I didn’t get as much opportunity to baby her Saturday afternoon after the game. We had five other girlfriends who wanted to play with her and love her. It seemed that Sharon Long had become a bit more domesticated in the past couple of months. She adopted the role of hostess-mother and even baked a nice cake for Rachel. When the seven of us were settled, she disappeared.
“Mom has a new boyfriend,” Joan whispered. “I haven’t met him yet but it’s pretty unusual for her to be content with a guy for long. He must have a ten-inch dong!”
“Well, it’s nice of her to disappear. I wanted to spend some time kissing and loving you,” I said. And we did. At one point during the party when it seemed the girls were all intent on smothering Rachel with kisses, Joan and I slipped off to her room and made love quickly. I like to take my time with my girlfriends, but Joan ramps up quickly when I start sucking on her nipples and sliding into her was no problem. We got a couple of raised eyebrows when we returned to the party but aside from Beca’s smirk, there was no comment.
“So, what is your relationship with Jacob?” Dad asked when we’d gathered for Sunday lunch. Mom had put a pot roast in the slow cooker. Olivia’s family of five and mine of four had to be a little intimidating to her. Her eyes went wide and I thought for a moment she’d bolt. Dad went on. “Are you a coach? A mentor? A therapist? A girlfriend?”
“I… uh… No… I mean, I think Jacob has real potential as a distance runner. Maybe not marathons but at least 10k and maybe half-marathon,” she got out. “I was one of the physical therapists when Jacob was in the hospital. I thought he’d have difficulty ever walking again when I first met him. When I ran into Jacob and his sister running, I was impressed and wanted to help further in his recovery. But I’m not here in any official capacity other than as a running partner. I’m… You can tell I’m a little old for the position of girlfriend.”
Dad and Mr. Dayton both laughed. We all wondered what the joke was.
“Times have changed,” Mr. Dayton, Randall, said. “And I’m old fashioned enough that if it was a male your age taking an interest in Olivia’s running, I’d throw a fit. But we see much stranger things these days.”
“I suppose that’s one reason I’m not too concerned. Ten years ago, it would have been different,” Dad said.
“We’ve noticed a lot of changes in you since the accident, Jacob,” Mom said. “We haven’t objected to any of your relationships and don’t plan to. We just want to know about them. Nanette, the changes you’ve seen in Jacob aren’t just physical. He’s become a man in the few short months since the accident. And he is over the age of consent now. He’s still a minor and has restrictions, but as long as he shows the maturity of an adult, we’ll treat him as one.”
“I… um… Well…” she turned to look at me and went on. “Jacob, you’re an attractive man. I can’t imagine that you see anything in a forty-year-old woman, but I enjoy your company. I really don’t imagine anything else, though.”
“Nanette, we all—I mean Jacob and our other girlfriends—think you are very special. All we’re doing at the moment is making sure that you aren’t at risk from dealing with the girls who are under sixteen,” Livy said.
“Now, back to this event Thanksgiving weekend,” Dad said. “Tell us the plan.”
Nanette was back on comfortable ground and told a little about the history of the run in Bloomington and why she wanted Livy and me to run in it. She thought it would be a good experience and it was the last real race of the season. And, she admitted, she thought it would be nice to have company.
“We started getting together this summer,” Eva, Livy’s mother, said. “I mean the parents of what was obviously becoming a pod. Don’t panic, kids. We aren’t making plans for contracts and progeny. Yet. We know these things take time to shake out. And National Service is going to be a great stressor of your relationships. We aren’t all of one accord on this, but we’re all talking about the effects of Service on society as we knew it when we grew up. We just want to be sure that you all know that we’re still here for you. You don’t have to start out on your own immediately.”
“We can’t exactly talk to your parents, Nanette,” Mom said. “So, we wanted to talk to you and find out what kind of person you are. If you are just a mentor doing a good deed for Olivia and Jakey, that’s fine. If sometime you become more than that, all we’re concerned with it that you aren’t disrupting the other relationships.”
Well, hell! For the first time since my arrival, I feel like I’m living in an alien world!
“So, is anyone opposed to Jake and me getting it on with that beautiful runner, Nanette?” Livy asked at our lunch table.
“Jealous!” Desi said. “I want to be next!”
“Honey, I don’t think anything serious is going to happen in Bloomington. Livy and I have less invested in this race, but Nanette has been training for it all year. We are not going to do anything to jeopardize her performance. Right, Livy?” I glared at my tall blonde girlfriend.
“Right,” she sighed. “I was just making fun of what our parents were saying.”
“They made a good point, though. Adding a member to our pod requires serious consideration,” Beca said. “Just fooling around with a cute girl doesn’t mean she’s part of the pod, though. I’ve uh… got a list of cute girls I’d like to have a fling with who aren’t part of our group. I mean, I get turned on but I don’t love them like I love the people at this table.” Joan leaned over and kissed Beca in a way that wasn’t strictly approved as school behavior. But we’d all done it.
“Still,” she whispered, “we might be too busy over Thanksgiving weekend to notice whether Jacob and Livy get up to something with Nanette.” Beca blushed and cuddled her face into the crook of Joan’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Way too busy.”
“Excuse me, Jacob,” said a voice so tiny I almost missed the whisper. I turned from packing my guitar up to see Cindy standing nervously clutching her flute case in hand. Cindy was just a little taller than Beca—maybe five-two. Her straight, jaw-length brown hair was held out of her left eye by dark-rimmed glasses that made her eyes look huge and added to the perpetually startled look she always had. The right side of her hairdo was swept back behind her ear so she had no interference in where she held her flute. She dressed nicely but not flashy—a scoop-neck gray blouse showing just her collarbone before it was covered by a long black cardigan. For a young teen, she looked almost fashionable.
“Hi, Cindy,” I said. “I loved that section for the first entrance of the Beast. The percussion was too heavy by itself. Your flute really gives an insight into the Beast’s hidden nature.”
“Oh. Wow. Thank you,” she said. A scarlet blush rushed from her forehead down until it disappeared beneath her blouse. “I… um… was wondering… I’m supposed to play a recital in February and there’s a piece I’ve always wanted to do but never knew anyone who could play the guitar like you do and I was wondering if you would possibly be interested in doing a duet with me only we’d have to practice like two or three times a week and I know you are really busy and I suppose it would be too much so never mind because I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place.” She turned to flee and when I put my hand out to stop her looked like a frightened bird.
“Wait, please,” I said. “It sounds cool. I’ve never played in a recital. At least let’s talk about it before you decide you don’t want me.”
“I do want you!” she almost shouted. “I mean, like, you’re popular and everything and I didn’t want to impose on you but… when are you going to record with your new guitar? All the YouTube videos are with an acoustic but this guitar is so much better. And your playing has even improved over what it was before the accident.”
“What? Um… Wait. You saw me on YouTube?”
“Yeah. I searched you and found your channel. I even subscribed.”
What the fuck? I have a YouTube channel where I play guitar? My heart started pounding. Where in my V2 memories was that tidbit of information hidden? I don’t know why, but I flashed on the artwork at the head of my bed—I’d kind of gotten used to it. I wondered if I had a website of artwork, too!
“Um… I’d love to look at the music. I… uh… have a ride waiting. What’s your number?” I did the typical teen thing of handing her my phone and having her enter her phone number and call herself. She did it automatically and handed the phone back to me as hers buzzed in her other hand. “Text me the name of the music and I’ll text you tonight. If I think I can play it, we’ll get something going. It sounds exciting. Okay?”
God! I sound almost as flustered a motormouth as she did!
“Okay. Thank you, Jacob. And if you can’t or don’t want to, you know…”
“Don’t even think that,” I laughed as I finished closing my case. “It just came as a surprise. Let me look at what you’ve got in mind and see if I think I can keep up with you.”
“K-k. See you tomorrow.”
I was a little dazed at our English study group. Desi’s mom provided transportation right after play rehearsal and Mrs. Adams fed us all, which was really sweet of her. I was amazed at how easy it was for me to adapt to the idea that parents fed us and provided for us. Yes, V1 had earned money any way I could back in the fifties, which included collecting bottles, mowing yards, and washing cars. But I only had one extracurricular activity during all of high school and that only lasted two months. And no girlfriend. I couldn’t imagine trying to get a job that would pay me with all the stuff I had going on and six girlfriends who all wanted to spend time. Not to mention the fact that high school seemed harder these days. Some of the things we were getting in math and English were things I learned in college last time around. Damn! V1 was a petrified fart.
I didn’t respond to Cindy’s text until I was home and in my room. I looked up the music she sent me and it looked pretty cool. It was more like a flute piece with guitar accompaniment than a duet. But there were some really cool places in it, too. ‘Cantos desiertos for Flute and Guitar’ composed by Terry Riley in 1993. If I could play this with her it would be great. Funny how the thought of playing on stage during the play had terrified me at first and now I wasn’t all that nervous about playing a duet in a recital.
I searched for my YouTube site. Holy fuck! My channel started in the spring of 2018 and went suddenly blank at the end of August when V2 decided he couldn’t live any longer. I’d put up a little guitar recital every week. And people subscribed for a dollar per episode. Fifteen episodes of me playing the guitar in front of that monstrous bit of art on my wall. I listened and watched my V2 self play his last recital the morning he decided he couldn’t take it and walked in front of a bus. He was crying through the entire half hour and I cried with him. I could feel his agony.
It was the first time in this life that I’d connected—really connected—with my V2. I looked at that kid, playing his heart out—and better at it than I was now—and I just wanted to reach out and hug him, to tell him that he could make it. Life wasn’t as bad as he thought. He had a wonderful sister—sisters—a great family. He had friends and girlfriends just waiting for him to discover them. The world was filled with possibilities.
Then I remembered the nightmares, the constant forbidden love for my older sister, my feelings of being alone and outcast, and I cried harder. I wept as one who mourned the loss of a precious family member. A little brother. Me.
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