Fast Forward (12 page)

My sister shook her head. “The last time I saw him was before he moved away. The damage had already been done by then. We’d gradually grown distant since he revealed the truth about Mum’s affair.” Kasey’s chin dropped to her chest. “I think it hurt him to see me. To be reminded of Mum’s infidelity. I don’t think he felt paternal about me anymore.”

My chair screeched as I stood up and pushed back tears. “I’m sorry, I have to go,” I said. How could our family have become such a mess?

“Wait, Kelli, talk to me. Why are you so upset after all these years?” Kasey stood too.

“My father died! I haven’t even said goodbye! I wish I could see him, I miss him. It can’t be true, it can’t be! I just want to go home!” The tears flooded my face. Overwhelmed with the desperate need to escape, my eyes darted to the exit.

Kasey grabbed my arm. “I know it’s an emotional day for you and it’s normal to be reminded of the fact that Dad’s not here. Not to mention Mum,” she began. “But you need to be thankful that
you’re
here, that you’re healthy and make the most of your life. Dad wouldn’t want you to be upset.”

With tears burning in my eyes, I looked at my sister, now an elegant yet blurry blob in front of me … and saw Mum’s eyes. We may be half-sisters, but we came from the same womb.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m so upset.” I tried wiping my tears with my hands but the sleek liquid only spread further around my face. Kasey handed me a napkin and I dabbed at them, no doubt messing up Barb’s handiwork. “You’re right, I’m just emotional today and…” I realised the whole cafe was staring at us and felt bad for Kasey who probably knew most of the people, “… and I’m going to make the most of my birthday. I just need some time alone to clear my head and get back to normal.” Whatever that was. “I have to go, but thank you. Thank you for a … beautiful lunch.” I gave her a brief hug but my body was desperate to move, to get away and let off steam.

“Will you be okay?” she asked.

I puffed out my chest. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’ll see you tonight.” I forced a smile and thanked her once again for my birthday lunch, before scurrying out the door with an audience of concerned onlookers. Poor Kasey, I’d left her in the lurch again. Left her alone, to fend for herself.

But I had to, I couldn’t do anything else right now but mourn my father and I needed to be alone to do it … which was extremely hard in a busy city on a Friday afternoon. I ran off towards an exit which led to an overpass; an enclosed pathway connecting the shopping centres with another building. The walls and roof were transparent, and the city crowd and traffic buzzed below. I stopped in the middle of the overpass to catch my breath, leaning on the wall.

“Oh, Dad,” I whispered to myself, tears rolling down my face.

A stranger stopped next to me to ask if I was okay, handing me a tissue and I nodded. I remembered the uncontrollable sadness that had washed over me when my mother died, and this was no different. Except I had seen my mother. I had said goodbye. I didn’t have any closure with Dad.

A tiny bubble of hope surfaced then, when I realised that this life may not be hanging around too much longer. If I could go back, I would call my dad, go and see him, throw my arms around him and tell him to never move away from us. Tell him to sort things out with Kasey before they drifted apart. They may not be related, but they still loved each other. Dad raised her as his own, she was as much his daughter as I was.

What if his cancer was somehow caused by unresolved emotions? If I could make things better between them when I got back, it might—just might be possible—to save his life. Couldn’t it? Those two hardly ever had a proper conversation and now I knew why. Come to think of it, Mum had treated Kasey differently too. Parents say they don’t have a favourite child, but I was definitely Mum’s favourite. I think Kasey was not only a reminder of Mum’s infidelity to Dad, but a reminder to Mum of her betrayal.

My grief at Dad’s death merged with the relief of knowing that in my real life he was still alive and my urgency to get home intensified. But to do that, I had to keep it together. If I kept losing it, someone was sure to schedule an intervention. I had to keep pushing the emotions deep down inside and close the lid on them. I drew in a sharp breath and dabbed at my eyes with the stranger’s tissue. I had to get on with the day as planned and keep my eye on the prize: The birthday cake … my wish.

With resolve I stood tall and my blurry vision cleared. I turned to walk back into the shopping centre when I caught sight of someone down in the street below. A man wearing a stylish grey suit, with balding grey hair and black-rimmed glasses sat at an outdoor cafe with a pretty woman half his age. He had one leg crossed, bouncing his foot up and down. As though he couldn’t sit still. Just like someone I knew …

“Grant!” I screamed, all composure going AWOL as I rapped furiously on the glass wall of the overpass. “Baby, it’s me! I’ve found you!”

The people walking through the overpass gave me strange looks but I didn’t care, I’d found my man! My eyes scanned the layout of the vicinity in which I stood, and then the street below, as though I was a cop on surveillance and had to plan the best available route to catch a criminal.

I peered down into the street. There was an exit just under the overpass, not far from the cafe where Grant was. Pinning his location in my mind, I ran back into the shopping centre and towards the escalator/lift thingy, excusing myself past a slow group of people to get inside the closest compartment. It took me downwards in a smooth, almost instant ride and when the doors opened I pushed through excitedly. “Excuse me … sorry … excuse me,” I kept saying. I hurried to the exit on the left, almost colliding with an automated wheelchair-vehicle of some kind driven by an elderly man.

“Grant!” I called as I launched myself outside, turning towards the cafe. He was gone. Grant was gone!

My eyes practically exploded from their sockets as I searched to find him in the crowd. On trembling legs, I ran swiftly to the cafe table where he’d been sitting. I spun around one way and then the other. Passersby bumped into me from all sides and I had no choice but to move with the crowd. Then I saw him…crossing the road.

“Grant!” I called out, but he didn’t hear me. “Grant!” I yelled louder.

I looked left, right and stepped onto the road. A car narrowly missed me. The driver slammed on brakes and beeped the horn. Waving an apology, I stepped onto the sidewalk on the other side of the road and rushed up behind my boyfriend.

“Grant!”

He turned around, his framed eyes connecting with mine. Only they didn’t completely connect; his held uncertainty for a moment. “Yes?”

“It’s me! I’m so glad I found you!” I clasped my hands around his wrists and leaned close to him. He had a paler look about him and fine creases hung at the corner of his eyes, but he was still my Grant.

He pulled back, releasing my hands and the woman next to him glared at me. “Who …” he began, but just as the words came out of his mouth realisation dawned in his eyes. “Kelli?”

I nodded excessively and stretched a wide smile onto my face. “Yes, it’s me!”

“It’s been a long time. How are you?” he asked in a business-like tone.

I kept trying to wrap my arms around him but with each step forward, he took one step back.

“I’m great now I’ve found you,” I replied. At his curious glance I realised I must look a mess after all the crying. I gestured to my face. “Oh, I just had lunch with my sister and, whoa!” I made a fanning motion with my hands, “the amount of chilli they put in the meal, you wouldn’t believe.”

“So what have you been up to lately?” Grant asked, checking his e-pad briefly and I winced as the woman next to him slid her hand into his.

I looked up at the sky that was trying and failing to compete with the attention of the crowded high-rises. “Wow, where do I start?”

I held up my hands and let them fall back to my thighs with a slap. I wanted to tell him everything and tell him not to worry, that I would be back in the past soon enough and we could be together again.

What would be happening in the past, right now? Would my birthday be happening without me? Maybe Grant had filed a missing persons report. Or maybe some other version of me was there, living out the day as planned but without my awareness. But I couldn’t tell him the truth. I had to choose my words carefully, even though they were all lining up at the door of my mouth, ready to barge through like customers in a Boxing Day sale.

“I woke up this morning, shocked to find that I’m fifty years old and…”

“Oh, it’s your birthday?”

I felt like saying: ‘Of course, you beautiful idiot! You were with me last night,’ but bit my tongue. “Yes.”

“Happy birthday,” Grant said with a nod of his head. His companion shifted on her feet and looked longingly at the direction they’d been travelling in before my intrusion.

“Thanks! Anyway, my son gave me a bungy jump for my birthday, can you believe it? So I actually did it and then I met my daughter for the first time, er … in a week, and after that I had a facial that was better than sex … oops, I mean, not better than you of course, but, well, it’s just a gimmick sort of thing, you know …” Damn. Said too much, and now the woman was carving my eyes out of their sockets with her laser glare.

Her glare shot towards Grant. “You … slept with this woman?”

Grant’s cheeks flushed pink and I could see the veins throbbing in his neck. “No, of course not! I mean, not recently …”

“What?” The woman planted her hands on her hips and stamped a sharp high-heeled foot onto the sidewalk, possibly triggering a catastrophic earthquake or tsunami somewhere in the world.

“What I mean, honey, is that I was with Kelli a long time ago, when she was young.”

When we
both
were young. Why were women seen as young or old and men were just seen as … men?

The woman’s hands relaxed a little. “Before we were together then? And before your … other wives?”

Grant gripped her shoulders. “Yes, as I said, a long, long time ago. It was nothing, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

She nodded and raised her chin as she slid an arm territorially around his back.

It was nothing? Other wives? The gap between Grant and I widened, and I wished there was something nearby to hang onto as my legs became jelly. Well, at least now they matched my belly. How could he say our relationship was nothing? He was …
is
… going to propose!

But in this life—this weird, warped, ridiculous existence that was the life of Kelli McSnelly—Grant had lost his way. He’d become, by the sounds and looks of it, a millionaire photographer with a history of marriage and divorce to rival Ross Geller’s from
Friends
. Only I bet he didn’t marry a lesbian and I bet he didn’t say the wrong name at his wedding, or marry his friend in a drunken haze in Vegas.

Grant wasn’t like that. Couldn’t be like that. He was my generous, affectionate, caring soon-to-be-fiancé and we were soulmates. Now I wanted to get home more than ever, not only to see my dad, but to marry Grant and stop him becoming this, this … imbecile who’d been searching for me in every woman he met and never finding true happiness because the woman he loved was married to William McSnelly. How did the universe get this so wrong?

“Sorry, Kelli, I should have introduced you two. This is Charli, my fiancé.”

Charli Schmarli. She was just a possibility in this future, a hologram projected onto this existence by some giant e-pad controlling the universe. They’d got it wrong. When I got back I’d be able to change the future and Charli would play no part in it. Even her name was close to mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if his other wives had been Kyli, Karli and Karali. In the real future, I’d become Kelli Mills, his one and only wife.

We tentatively shook hands and I turned to Grant with a smug smile. “I know you and I will be together again, Grant. You wait and see. I know you still love me, but don’t worry, when I travel back to the past I’ll make things right. In twenty five years it’ll be you and I standing here arm in arm.”

A shrill laugh escaped Charli’s mouth and if she hadn’t been holding onto Grant, I was sure he would have fainted with embarrassment as she looked at him and said, “You were actually with this loony?”

“Ah, Kelli, I think you ought to go home and lie down, okay?” He held out two hands, palms downward, as if he was trying to calm a wild animal and stop it from coming any closer.

I just smiled and said, “I’ll see you soon … honey.” Then I winked at him and turned away. It was kind of fun teasing him a little and scaring the daylights out of Charli, but I knew Grant wouldn’t remember this when I really did see him again. Because it would be from a future that would never happen.

Liliana! I suddenly remembered that I’d planned to go back and see her. She might be able to shed more light on my relationship with Grant and possibly even pass on a message from Dad. As I crossed the road, back towards the shopping centre, my e-pad rang and I pinched and pulled the virtual cord to my ear. “Hello?”

“Kelli! Where the hell are you?” a young female voice asked in a whispered yell. “It’s 3:35! Will is doing his best to keep Mr Turrow entertained but we need you here right now!”

Oh God. The meeting!
I’m late, I’m late, I’m
…“Arghh!”

In a cruel twist of fate, I tripped on the chair leg at the table Grant and Charli had been sitting at. As I fell forward onto a large middle-aged man with his shirt untucked, I was bombarded by an unsightly bulge of fat and an inch of bottom crack in my face. Unbalanced by my unfortunate momentum, he fell forward, sandwiching a teenage boy between himself and the pavement.

“Get off me, poof!” the boy said.

I struggled about trying to find my feet again and hoped the coral curved hem of my skirt didn’t ride up as much as it felt like it had. “I’m sorry, so sorry!” I said to the man and the innocent bystander who was flailing about underneath the mass of flesh.

I held out a hand and it took all my effort to help the heavier man up. Eventually he made it, his shirt now even more untucked but thankfully hiding the revolting bottom crack. The kid ran off like it was Attack of the Living Dead and I turned my attention to the voice on the phone.