I reached for a pencil from the cup by the sink—Diane and I used them to test our cosmetic readiness for the world, a habit we’d picked up from some magazine—and tucked it under my right butt cheek.
It fell to the floor immediately.
I picked it up, grinning now despite myself, and tucked it under my left breast.
It fell again.
I pumped my fist in the air like I’d just won something, which I suppose I had. The pencil test. Twenty-three-year-old me had been so insecure about her body, always thinking she needed to lose ten pounds, always comparing herself to the women in magazines. Fifty-year-old me wanted to reach back through time and shake her—shake myself—and sayyou have no idea what you’ve got, you idiot.
Well. Now I had it again. For the next thirteen days, at least.
I got dressed in the neon green leotard I found in my drawer, dear God, the eighties, and pulled gray sweatpants andan oversized sweatshirt over it. My hair dried into the thick, full waves I’d completely taken for granted at this age, the kind of volume I’d spent hundreds on products trying to recreate in 2014.
The kitchen was tiny with barely room for two people to stand without bumping elbows, but Diane had made it feel like home with mismatched mugs and a cheerful yellow curtain over the window. A rotary phone hung on the wall next to a cat clock with eyes that moved back and forth with each tick of its tail. The radio on the counter was playing something I half-recognized?—
Lips like sugar, sugar kisses...
Echo and the Bunnymen. I’d forgotten this song. I’d forgotten about a lot of music from this year, the way it had formed the soundtrack to everything I was trying not to feel.
Diane stood at the counter pouring coffee, and for a moment I just stared at her. Twenty-four years old, bleached blonde hair teased to impressive heights, wearing a hot pink leotard with leg warmers bunched around her ankles. She smelled exactly as I remembered—Virginia Slims, Aqua Net, and Love’s Baby Soft, a combination that should have been terrible but somehow just smelled likeDiane.
She hadn’t changed. Of course she hadn’t—from her perspective, she’d seen me yesterday. It was only from mine that she’d been gone for all those years.
“You look weird,” Diane said, handing me a mug. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Fine.” I wrapped my hands around the coffee, grounding myself in its warmth. “Just... strange dreams.”
“Tell me about it. I dreamed I was being chased by a giant banana. Very Freudian.”
She grabbed the newspaper from the table, the Boston Globe, I noticed, and my heart did something complicated as she flipped it open. “Oh, did I tell you about Robbie?”
“Robbie?”
“The guy from last night? At that hole in the wall on Comm Ave?” She grinned, settling into the chair across from me. “He’ssocute. Like, Patrick Swayze cute, but with better arms. We’re going out again tonight. You should come! He’s bringing friends.”
The newspaper’s date caught my eye. Saturday, February 2, 1987.
Thirteen days, the voice had said. So really, counting today, I had thirteen days to... what? Win back a man I’d walked away from? Change the course of my entire life?
“Maggie?” Diane was watching me with narrowed eyes. “You’re doing that thing where you stare into space and look existentially haunted. I thought you were over him.”
“Over who?”
She rolled her eyes, standing to clear her coffee cup. “Jack. Come on, it’s been three months.”
Three months. But had been a lifetime for me, years of wondering what would have happened if I’d made different choices. And now here I was, with the chance to find out, and all I felt was terror.
Diane crossed to the door that led to our tiny fire escape, propping it open with her hip as she fished a pack of Virginia Slims from her sweatshirt pocket. Cold air rushed in, carrying the smell of the city, exhaust, snow, and something cooking in the apartment below.
“You always do this, you know.” She lit a cigarette, exhaling a plume of smoke that drifted toward the street.
“Get close to someone, then push them away before they can hurt you. Jack was nice. He wasgood. And you?—”
“I know.” The words came out sharper than I intended. “I know what I did.”
Diane studied me for a moment, cigarette halfway to her lips. “Okay, that was weird. Usually you argue with me for at least ten minutes before you admit anything.”
I almost laughed. All those years of therapy and self-reflection, and it showed.
