Back To The Viper (11 page)

“Smart men don’t get into relationships with despotic bitches.”

Smiles had appeared on his friends’ faces.

“Now relax and feel how your whole body grows heavier. Your arms are heavy, your back, your torso, your legs, your feet – your whole body is heavy, heavy, heavy…” Harry was giving his instructions. He prepared the solution and injected each of the participants in the experiment with a dose. He looked at the clock on the wall – it was five fifteen sharp. He wondered how long the trip would take this time.

***

“All right, all of us are here in the club, right?” Ashley asked in The Viper Room.

“Yup. We are all here,” Wayne answered.

“Okay, let’s head closer to the stage and wait to be called,” Ashley instructed.

“So how are we going to perform our songs now?” Chad asked.

“The same way we did ten years ago.”

“Oh, no! Do you mean we have to make fools of ourselves again?”

“Wayne, it won’t be a bad idea for you to swallow your huge ego just for a moment!” Ashley scolded and turned her back to him.

“Man, you’re lucky you don’t have to deal with women,” Wayne whispered to Chad. “I’m seriously considering switching teams so that women stop commanding me all the time”

“No, no, don’t think this happens automatically,” Chad replied.

Soon the club manager called them up and they got on the stage. Ashley greeted the visitors, introduced her band The Jackal and started singing. The producer was listening to them closely during the whole time. At first, his sharp eyes were fixed on them, but during the second song, Ashley noticed how he was just smoking his cigar nervously and looking around. Their third song didn’t trigger particular excitement among the audience, either. When they finished, Ashley winked at the boys happily – everything was going according to the plan. They got off the stage and went to the producer. Mark Harris began to speak immediately:

“You performance wasn’t bad, guys but…” He put out his cigar in the ashtray and threw a ten dollar bill on the table. “It’s not what I’m looking for. Anyway, I wish you luck and all the best!” He rose and hurriedly made his way through the crowd. Soon after that, he was on the ground floor, exiting the club. In his hastiness, he didn’t even notice the obvious joy in the musicians’ eyes. Harris regretted having wasted several hours of his time listening to the performance of a band that didn’t seem to have any chance of becoming the next hit.

“Well, for a failure I think it was pretty successful, don’t you think?” Ashley cried joyfully and hugged her three friends.

“I suggest we celebrate it!” Wayne said eagerly, and soon after that, the members of the band found themselves at the bar.

“Not to rain on your parade, but when are we going to return to real life?” Craig asked.

“Good question, buddy. Well, I suggest we do that now. We have no other business here, do we?”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“Let’s dance something in order to send a signal to Harry!” Ashley offered. She started dancing and the rest followed her. This attracted the attention of a few of the visitors and they could hear their approving exclamations and whistling. Ashley and her friends didn’t have time to react because the space in front of them began to fade out. In the next moment, they found themselves lying in Harry’s lab.

“A great achievement; that was a record time! The trip lasted only two minutes!” he exclaimed joyfully.

“That sounds impressive, but have our lives changed?”

“I don’t know, I need to check that.” He opened the browser in his smartphone and typed their names. Ashley, of course, was first.

“Good news, Ash! You’re not on Wikipedia!” Harry cried. After a while he added, “None of you are on Wikipedia; neither is your band. It looks like you’re completely unknown.”

“Is that good news?” Wayne asked sarcastically, but everyone ignored him.

“Should I take it, then, that we’re back to our old life?” Ashley rose and went closer to the scientist.

“Yes, I guess everything is already the way it used to be. The best way to check it, however, is to go to your homes and see if it’s all right.”

“Great idea! I’m planning to take advantage of it.” Craig rose, too. “Thank you Harry, from the bottom of my heart, and you, too, Ashley, Chad, Wayne.” He hugged them all one by one and then went outside. The warm summer wind caressed his face. He saw his old car – the Ford Mustang – in the parking lot, which was a good sign. It seemed like everything was falling back into place. He hesitated for a moment, then pressed the pedal and started. He couldn’t wait to see his family.

Craig found his wife cooking dinner. Compared to the luxurious Beverley Hills villa, his home looked modest and small, but it didn’t matter when the people whom he loved were in it.

“How is my darling?” He hugged her around the waist and began dancing with her happily.

“What’s the matter with you, sweetheart?” She laughed, but kept on dancing with him.

“We are celebrating,” he replied.

She didn’t bother asking further. She assumed it was connected with his job as an executive manager.

***

When Ashley returned to her small apartment in Redwood City, she instantly went to her daughter’s room.

“Look who’s here!” her mother said aloud, and Briana turned in surprise.

“Mommy!” the little one cried.

“That’s right, Mommy’s here with her little girl and she’s not going anywhere.” Ashley hugged her tightly, as though she were afraid somebody would take her from her.

“What’s up, Mommy? Why are you crying?”

“It’s all right, baby. Mommy’s crying because she’s happy.” Ashley wiped her eyes and looked at her mother with gratitude.

“You react too sentimentally, as usual.” Ashley’s mother gave her a critical look.

***

Chad threw the car keys onto the table in the living room. The place was quiet, so he guessed Martin wasn’t back from the theater yet. He had just sat down and was relaxing on the couch, his eyes half-closed for a nap, when his boyfriend’s voice startled him.

“Wake up, sleepy! I have a great surprise for you.” Martin sat on the couch next to him.

“Humph… what is it?” Chad didn’t move.

“My parents are coming to San Francisco for the weekend and I want you to meet them.” He smiled widely. “Isn’t that awesome?”

Chad smiled in return and hugged him. It was so nice to be at home and be himself.

***

Wayne had expected that his girlfriend Cassidy would make a scene because of his absences and the lack of attention he’d been demonstrating for her recently, but instead, she gave him a warm welcome.

“You’re really not mad at me?” he asked her, surprised.

“What for? It’s just the way you are, and I’ve accepted that.” She looked him in the eyes. “But it hurts me when you cheat on me.”

“I swear I never slept with your friend…” he began, but she interrupted him, placing her finger on his lips.

“How about we take a walk?”

The two of them went out and the cool summer wind made them feel fresh. They had the whole evening ahead of them.

Epilogue

A year later

“Can I take your order, ma’am?” The waiter was standing, waiting to write down the orders of the newly arrived customers – three men and a woman.

A year had passed since Ashley, Craig, Chad, and Wayne’s group trip, and they had gathered now at Gordon Biersch where they traditionally met.

“A glass of mineral water with some lemon in it, please,” Ashley answered, still looking at the menu. She didn’t feel like drinking alcohol that night.

The waiter turned to the men. All three of them ordered different types of alcoholic cocktails.

“So, Ash, how is your business going?” Craig asked when the waiter left them.

“Very well, actually; I’ve made over five thousand dollars in profit for the past month. Almost four times the amount I earned back at Starbucks.”

“Can you remind me what it is you do?” Wayne asked.

“I import clothes from Mexico,” Ashley grinned.

“Maybe I should join you. Ever since I quit Cisco Systems and began working for Network INC, I’ve been earning half as much,” Craig inserted.

“But I guess your working hours are a lot less too, right?” Chad said.

“Well, yeah, that’s why I left Cisco – to spend more time with my family. But if there was a way I could manage my business without having to work thirteen hours a day, I would be up for it.”

“I’ll think about your offer, Craig.” Ashley took a sip of water from the glass the waiter had just served.

“It’s interesting that you decided to have your own business, Ash. I don’t remember you showing any interest in entrepreneurship before,” Wayne said with curiosity.

She smiled.

“I guess our time travel trip takes the credit for that.” She stared into Wayne’s eyes. “I feel I am not the only one here whose life has been radically changed by our experience.”

“Absolutely,” Craig confirmed. “The changes haven’t even bypassed Wayne, who’s getting married…”

“What?” Ashley and Chad instantly turned to Wayne. “You and marriage?” They turned their eyes back to Craig. “You must be kidding!”

“No, he’s not,” Wayne said before Craig had the chance to answer. “Cassidy and I are getting married next spring.”

“Jesus, what’s happened to you?” Chad asked, stunned.

Wayne chuckled.

“After spending some time with that witch Olivia Hamilton, I really began to value Cass. She won’t make a problem out of the smallest thing, and I will try to be as discreet as possible.”

“You and marriage! That’s absurd!” Ashley kept on thinking about it. She couldn’t imagine her old buddy getting married.

“And you, Chad, what good news are you going to tell us?”

“Well, I was wondering when to tell you…” He paused and then a smile stretched his lips. “This fall, I’m beginning to teach History of Art at San Francisco University.”

“Kudos!” The other men slapped him on the back and he assumed a very proud expression.

“How did that happen?” Ashley asked.

“Well, I wasn’t satisfied with my job as a freelance photographer and, besides, I had a university degree. After last year’s experience, I made the decision not to waste any more time and…” Chad chuckled. “And I applied for the position of junior assistant. They accepted me.”

Ashley nodded approvingly.

“And there’s one more thing.” Chad paused before he fired, “I finally came out to my parents.”

All of them knew Chad was afraid of his religious parents’ reaction. His father was a priest at a Baptist Church and his mother a social worker at The Red Cross.

“What you’ve done takes balls, buddy!” Craig nodded at him understandingly. “If any of my daughters told me she was gay, I would support her completely.”

“Oh, I’ve always liked lesbians…” Wayne began but Ashley interrupted him:

“What are you talking about, Wayne?” His comment had made her think. She had never considered the possibility that her child might be gay. She assumed, as if by default, that Briana would be straight. But if one day she told her she was gay, she would accept that fact.

“So what was your parents’ reaction?” she asked Chad.

“Well…it turned out they had known I was gay for a long time,” he laughed. “My father said he realized it the first time he saw the
Wicked
and
Dreamgirls
posters on my wall.”

“Yes, parents sometimes know us better than we think.” Ashley had hardly said this when her cell phone started ringing. Peggy’s name was on the screen. Ashley wondered what Peggy wanted. She hadn’t heard from her friend since leaving Starbucks.

“Hello? Ashley, I hope I’m not bothering you…” Peggy began a bit uncertainly and for good reason – it was past nine in the evening.

“No, it’s okay, go ahead.”

“Well, there was a friend of yours looking for you a while ago; he said he was called Harry Neil. Do you know him?”

“Oh, Harry? Yes.” Ashley remembered he didn’t know she had quit her job. That was why he’d been looking for her at her old workplace.

“I told him you’d left and that he could try calling you on your cell phone.” Peggy paused and asked in a subdued voice, “Is it true that he’s invented a way for the consciousness to travel back and forth in time?”

“Oh no!” Ashley almost cried, attracting the attention of the men around her. “Why the hell did he tell you about his discovery? What else did he say?”

“So it’s true?”

“Peggy, listen to me carefully: I advise you not to ask about that discovery anymore! You’ll avoid quite a lot of headaches.”

There was silence for a while and Ashley was wondering if Peggy was still on the phone.

“Ash, he offered me to test his invention and told me he’d updated it and…”

Ashley took a deep breath.

“Peggy, why don’t you come to Gordon Biersch, we’re all here – you know, my band mates from The Jackal, my former music band? We would like to discuss that issue with you.”