“That’s fine; this is the best idea I’ll have today.” He began to pace, skillfully avoiding knocking over the dominoes. “We just need a code. Something that I can tell you to tell me that will immediately convince me of your situation. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
He stopped pacing. “I’ve got it.”
“What if I just mention the necklace display?” Amie suggested.
David visibly deflated. “Oh. That would probably work.”
“Would you rather do your idea?”
“A little, yeah.”
Amie gestured for him to proceed.
He sat down next to her on the couch. “When my niece was younger—”
Amie’s eyebrows raised slightly, but she tried not to react otherwise. David didn’t talk much about his family.
“—we had a code,” he continued. “ ‘Tell Genevieve I said hi.’ Just something she knew she could say to her parents or me that would let us know she was in trouble and needed help. Thankfully, the worst time she needed to use it was when she wanted to leave a sleepover early.”
“Who’s Genevieve?” Amie asked.
“No one,” David replied. “We didn’t know a single Genevieve. That was the point.”
“Ah.” Amie had gone to elementary school with a Genevieve. She wondered what she was doing on this day, over and over and over again.
“So tomorrow,” David instructed, “just say, ‘I’m stuck in a time loop. Tell Genevieve I said hi.’ And I’ll understand.”
“I don’t want to bother you any more with this,” Amie said quietly, her eyes starting to sting. She didn’t like asking for help, and sheespeciallydidn’t like asking for help when she didn’t even know what help she needed.
David waggled the golf club at her in a faux-threatening manner. “If you show up tomorrow and don’t tell me about this,” he said, “or, even worse, don’t show up at all, time loop be damned, I’ll find out somehow, and I’ll …”
“Force me to play golf?” Amie asked, blinking back tears as she nodded at the club.
“ ‘Tell Genevieve I said hi,’ ” David repeated, giving her a look that made her miss her parents. “Promise me.”
Amie tapped the golf club with the flamingo, sealing the deal with a plasticthunk. “Promise.”
Chapter ThreeA Disastrous Bagel Run
Day 1 A.L.
Getting dressed hadn’t been difficult. Amie’s outfits had been one of the few things she’d change on a daily basis in the time loop, though there hadn’t been many in the rotation. There was a brief moment of confusion before she remembered that her favorite pair of jeans was still in the hamper and hadn’t been supernaturally returned to their drawer. Grabbing a pair of shorts instead, she dressed before traveling a few doors down to see David.
Knock knock. Knock. Knock knock knock.
No response.
It was unlikely that he was still asleep, but there were a number of places he could have been: laundry room, hardware store, yet another yard sale.
I’ll swing by later.Amie headed downstairs.
In the time loop, leaving her apartment building hadn’t been the same exact experience every morning, although she had gotten into the habit of leaving around 9AMon most days. But after sevenhundred and sixty-ish goes of it, she had pretty much exited the building during every period of the day (and some of the night).
As she pushed open the front door of her building a little after nine o’clock, Amie knew logically that she probably wouldn’t see the matching tracksuit couple, or the guy from 1A returning home with only one shoe, or the person with the mullet struggling to lock their bicycle to the lamppost. And yet she was still startled to be instead greeted by wet pavement and unfamiliar pedestrians.
The rain had stopped, but light gray clouds still hung overhead, diffusing the sunlight that was fighting to break through. September 17 had still felt like summer, but there was a slight chill in the air on September 18 that evoked a feeling of the approaching autumn.
Amie wrapped her arms around herself—because of the weather or a need for comfort, she wasn’t sure—and began making her way down the front steps to the sidewalk.
