“What’s it called when someone uses information from the future to influence the past? Like Biff and the almanac?” Alice asked.
“Well, that’s just good thinking,” Simon said, smiling.
“Right, so if I was, like, from the future, and I came back to tell you that at some year in the next ten years, the Red Sox will win the World Series, and then you all made a bazillion dollars by betting on the Red Sox, that’s just good news, because it doesn’t hurt anybody?” Alice asked. Everyone groaned, except Howard, the lone Bostonian. He cheered and pumped both fists in the air.
“Well, definehurt,” Simon said. “I personally bleed Yankee blue, so it would hurt me. But sure, I see what you mean.”
“Is this what you guys do at these things? You sit around and talk about books and movies and just make fun of each other?” Alice asked.
“Sometimes people bring margarita machines,” Chip said. “Or drugs.” Howard elbowed him. “She’s sixteen! Come on! Alice, do you really walk through a crowd of grown-up people in costumes and think to yourself, ‘I bet all these people are dead sober’?”
“No,” Alice said. “I don’t. But so how does a stub work? What’s a stub?”
“Like a parallel timeline, one that doesn’t affect the future that already happened. Sometimes people call it a continuum, or a continuing timeline, which I guess just means it can go on and on and not loop back in.” Howard crossed his arms. “I think I’ve read more books than all of you.”
“Oh, please,” Chip said. “You’re just the one who’s used to lecturing large groups of students, and so you talk the loudest.”
“But what about traveling back? Like, how do people get back? If there’s no time machine or whatever?” John handed Alice an apple, and she ate it, wondering if everything she was eating in 1996 would be rotten inside her body when she got home. If she got home. As ifhomewere a particular point in time as well as a place.
“Wormhole?” Simon said.
“Portal?” John said.
“Ancient ruins? Magic?” Simon said. “In addition to the dinosaur bone, once I used an owl pellet that had been taken apart in the future, and a third-grade teacher got sucked back in time, and he had to find that very same owl in order to get back.”
“I cannot believe how much money you make,” Howard said, shaking his head.
“Do you guys know where my dad is? I actually need to talk to him,” Alice said. She felt her voice start to wobble. It was all too much, and she was wasting time.
Howard sighed and looked toward John, who tucked his chin toward his chest in a tight nod. “Come on, Al. I know where he is.”
34
Howard led Alice down the hallway, past the elevators, and made a left turn. They were standing in front of another hotel room.
“Is this where you murder me?” Alice joked. “Because there are a lot of witnesses.”
Howard rolled his eyes and raised his knuckles to knock. Inside the room, she heard a woman laugh, and then her father pulled open the door. Leonard wasn’t naked—he wasn’t even shirtless—but there was no mistaking the situation. Over his shoulder, Alice could see a woman putting on her earrings. Alice’s first thought was that it was exactly like when Donna Martin had been following Color Me Badd and instead found her mother in the midst of an affair onBeverly Hills, 90210, but that wasn’t exactly like this at all. Her father wasn’t married. Not to her mother, not to anyone.
“Look who I found,” Howard said. “Good to see you, Al.” He offered a small wave and got the hell out of the way, hurrying back down the hall.
“Hi,” Alice said. Leonard was surprised, and ran his hands back and forth over his beard like he did when he was nervous.
“Al-pal, what’s going on?” Leonard said. “Are you okay?”
Alice took a few steps back and leaned against the wall. “Who’s your friend?”
Leonard sighed. “I did not anticipate this situation,” he said.
“That is not an answer.” Alice slid down the wall so that she was sitting cross-legged on the carpet.
“Her name is Laura, she’s a magazine editor. She’s thirty-four. She lives in San Francisco.” Leonard put a hand flat against his forehead. “We’ve known each other for several years, and when we’re in the same city, we—” He stopped. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you.”
“I can hear you, you know,” Laura said, pulling the door open wider. “Hi, Alice. It’s nice to finally meet you.” She was nice-looking, with curly brown hair and glasses, and a necklace with a large plastic octopus that covered the top third of her shirt.
“Um, same?” Alice said. It had genuinely never occurred to her that her father might have actual girlfriends, long-term relationships that he didn’t tell her about. And thirty-four! Younger than she was! It felt gross even though Alice knew it wasn’t.
“Not that you weren’t important, Laura,” Leonard said. The tops of his cheeks were magenta. “Just that it didn’t affect you, Al, and I didn’t want to put something else on you. Did I make it too weird?”
