∞
“Sounds like you didn’t have much confidence,” says Dr. Burgen, his electric motor revving across his face. “I used to be like that with girls, too.”
“Really? You?” I can’t picture him a loser.
“I never knew what to say to them. Still don’t sometimes. Especially the cute ones.”
That makes me feel better. I twirl my basketball.
“Go on,” he says gently. “How’d it get to the missed opportunity?”
∞
We weren’t in any classes together, unfortunately. I would’ve liked to sit next to her, or be in a group together so I could maybe work on a project with her after school. But she keeps going her way and I keep going mine.
We start talking, though. About all kinds of things. Movies. Foods we both hate. Which teachers we hear are hard for next semester. She uses her hair ribbon and shows me how to tie a slipknot – turns out her father is a boat salesman and she knows a lot about water stuff. They move frequently due to his job. I discover they’re American and just moved here from Chicago. I think it’s cool that she lived in Chicago. She doesn’t have an accent, except occasionally when she says words like “dog”, she drags it out extra long so it sounds like “dowg.” She kids me how short and snappy some of my words sound.
One day, early morning, her eyes are all bloodshot and moist, like she’s been crying. Every day for the next week she comes to school upset. I ask if something’s wrong, but she keeps shaking her head. Doesn’t want to talk about it. I want to give her something to cheer her up, so I take a piece of paper and sketch her a slice of chocolate cake. She told me once that she loves cookies and ice cream and anything with sugar, and I’m a pretty decent sketcher and thought it would give her a laugh. I leave it in the locker for her. She never mentions it, but I see her taking it home that night. She opens her sweater and tucks it next to her body.
That weekend, I see her at the Harvest Parade. I wish now that I would’ve talked to her. That I would’ve hung out with her at the dance. The music wasn’t anything special, just a band in an outdoor band shell. It wasn’t even dark yet when they started playing. She was lingering with her friends, like she wanted me to talk to her, maybe ask her to dance, but my friends were heading off in another direction. They were leaving to shoot hoops. I wish I would’ve stayed with her. I wish I would’ve asked her about music and talked to her more.
That was my missed opportunity.
The next Monday, she was gone.
∞
“What do you mean, gone?” says Dr. Burgen.
“Her side of the locker was cleaned out. She moved. No one knew where. None of the other kids knew her very well. I heard later that she moved to Alaska. Or maybe Hawaii.”
“You didn’t try to contact her? Social media? Texting?”
I recall the chaos of the time, and shake my head. “It was a bad day. My mom pulled me out of classes that same afternoon to get a bone marrow biopsy.”
“Oh,” Burgen says with a thud. “You got the news about leukemia the same week she left?”
I shrug.
“So what’s the day you’d like to go back to and change?”
“That Saturday in October,” I say with a hopeful smile, imagining how great it would be if it was really possible. “At the Harvest Parade. I’d like to go back and kiss her.”
Dr. Burgen looks at me in amusement, like he would look at any sixteen-year-old guy, any normal one, who has hopes of making out with a girl. I forget all about my health problems. It’s about me and Jennifer again.
I twirl my basketball on my finger. “Is this where you use that electric razor and wave it back and forth in front of my face? Tell me I’m getting very sleepy? Then make me believe I kissed her?”
“Nope. No hypnosis.”
“Maybe you give me a dream suggestion? Tell me to go home and think carefully about that day as my head hits the pillow? I’ll dream about her and me at the Harvest Parade. Then the next time you see me you’ll try to convince me that it was real?”
“Nah. You’re going to try to make it actually happen. All by yourself.”
I lower the ball to my chest and scratch my hand. “How’s that?”
“If you trust me, if you believe what I’m going to tell you – and I think you will – then leave your basketball here and follow me.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
CHAPTER TWO
I wonder where we’re headed as I walk with Dr. Burgen through the small park across from the hospital. It’s downtown Toronto. We’re surrounded by tall concrete buildings. Cars whiz by. They bleat at each other like frustrated sheep. Loud rap music thumps through a passing window. I like the song.
“Where’re we goin’, Doc?” I’m taller and peer down at him.
“Right here.” He stops beneath a massive oak tree. It shades us from the hot September sun. He holds out his hand. “Put these in your pocket.”
I look down at two red dice. They’re slick and smooth in my fingers and have shiny gold dots. They’re beautiful. Antique or something. “Where’d these come from?”
“They’re my grandfather’s lucky dice from Las Vegas. He won a lot of things with those. He used to call them his Vegas apples.”
“What am I supposed to do with them?”
“Hang onto them for luck. When you get there and when you get back.”
“Get back?” I scoff. As if I’m going anywhere. Who’re we kidding?
“Do you remember where exactly you were that day, when you first spotted Jennifer?”
I shake my head at his expression, like he truly believes this. “Under some trees, in the big park where I live in the ’burbs.”
“Kind of like this?”
I look around at the empty benches and passing pedestrians. A sweet breeze hums through my buzz cut. “Yeah. Except the park was a hundred times bigger.”
“Do you remember who you were talking to when you saw her?”
I rotate the dice between my fingers. “My friends.”
“Who?”
“Guys from the basketball team. Gary, Mike. Vlad was there. Sanjay too.”
“Do you remember what exactly you said, word for word, just before you saw her?”
“Come on, Doc.” This is getting embarrassing, like being seen with your parents at the movie theater.
“If you want to see Jennifer again, you’ve got to say it. The words are a trigger for the time traveling.”
“This is a weird game.” But he looks so serious, I wonder what I have to lose. I scratch my arm and concentrate. “Okay, let’s see...we were talking about Mr. Fissure’s math class...Sanjay said he marks hard and I said...I said something like I got the last question wrong on the test, too. Then he said the next assignment was due Friday and I said I didn’t think so...we disagreed about it but he convinced me.”
“Say it
exactly
how you said it.”
“I said, ‘Okay, I believe you.’”
“Again.”
“Okay, I believe you.”
“Remember that. Now what about smells?”
“Huh?”
“Smells. Do you remember any strong scents in the air, when you said it?”
“Oh, man. You didn’t bring a voodoo doll, too, did you?”
“This won’t work unless you want it to, Luke. You decide if it’s worth it.”
I stare at him, weighing it in my mind.
Maybe he sees the hesitation in me, for he feels the need to explain. “Okay, listen.” He adjusts his shades. “Smells can trigger powerful memories. More vivid and more emotional than sight, sound or touch. Like when you open a new box of crayons and that smell takes you right back to the first day of kindergarten. Or you pass a bakery that’s got shortbread cookies in the oven and you suddenly remember Grandma singing to you in her kitchen. It’s because the nerve responsible for smell – the olfactory nerve – is located close to the part of the brain – the amygdala – that controls emotion and emotional memory.
Good
memories. And close to the hippocampus which controls memory in general–”
“Okay, okay. I believe you.”
We both pause for a second, like we both realize those are the words I said to Sanjay.
Despite the correct words, nothing happens. I’m still here. Burgen’s experiment failed.
“You have to link it to a smell,” he explains. “At least at first.”
I have my doubts about this...but I think back to that moment. “Hot dogs. There was this guy set up with a grill and he was selling hot dogs and sausages and I remember my mouth watering because I was hungry.”
“Say the sentence fast and keep remembering that great smell. Oh, and remember – don’t tell the people there that you’re time traveling. It’s best for them not to know.”
He really believes this is going to happen.
My imagination is really powerful. It’s something I discovered this past year. When I was in some pretty awful treatments, I’d use my imagination to fly out of there and onto the basketball court, in the zone with a killer crossover and high-arching hook. If anyone can imagine this moment like it’s really happening, I can.
“Okay, I believe you.” I fill my lungs with air that seems so thick with barbecue flavor that I can almost taste it. “Okay, I believe you.”
I spin. The ground rumbles as if I’m on a big amusement ride. When I come back to the spot where Burgen was standing, he’s gone. “Doc?”
Whoa. I’m not in the same park. The street’s gone. The river’s here instead, and I’m back in the little town of Holden, past the west end of Toronto. I’m standing in Harvest Park. It’s on a hill with acres of flat grass surrounded by trees and dissected by a river. On the hill there’s an arena, community center, and outdoor courts.
I inhale the scent of fresh-cut grass. It’s really strong. I take a step and smell the leaves above my head and a sour bird’s nest. I cough it out of my throat and press my hand to my nose to stop the overpowering scents.
My heart drums in my chest like it belongs to someone else. Did Burgen really do it? Where is he? I don’t see him. I see the sausage guy, though, and a crowd across the river.
The aroma of charred sausages and grease fills my nostrils. My mouth waters. Why am I so sensitive to smells all of a sudden?
I look down at my sweaty palm. The red dice glisten. Vegas apples. What does this all mean? I tuck the dice into my pocket.
It’s a dream. It’s got to be. Maybe I dreamed the entire day, right from talking to Burgen in his office. And just like in a dream, I go with the flow. I believe it, like you do in dreams. I’m here in the park after the Harvest Parade.
A gust of wind cools my face and my hair moves weird. I reach up and touch it. It’s longer, like it was back then, not the stumpy black bristles that are growing in now. I take a step and my t-shirt and pants feel tighter. I look down at my forearms. I weigh more, like I did back then, too. Except my skin’s really pale. I touch my nose. The left nostril’s sensitive. I recall I had a bloody nose that morning, one of many, the reason my mom finally forced me to see a doctor. That and the fevers.
Is Burgen here?
“Doc?” I ask again.
“Luke, who’re you talkin’ to?” someone says from behind. “Who’s Doc?”
I snap around to see my friends from the basketball team. Vlad, Mike, Gary, and Sanjay.
I go along with it. It’s a dream. A dream.
“Who’re you talkin’ to?” Vlad repeats.
“Hey,” I respond with a smile and shrug. “No one.”
It’s good to see them. We haven’t been together for...well, for a long time. I think they’re dressed in the same clothes they had on during the Harvest Parade. Did I really time travel or did my subconscious remember all these details? The parade always ends here in the parking lot. The space has been transformed into a fair, with amusement rides and booths selling honey and handmade crafts. It’s all very familiar.
“I told you I was right, Luke,” Sanjay says. “Fissure says the assignment’s due Friday.”
“Right. I remember now.” I never did hand in that assignment because it was just after my diagnosis, and I had all
that
on my mind. “Hey guys...” I don’t finish the sentence because I don’t know how.
Hey guys, it’s great to see you? Hey guys, I thought you were my buddies, so why did some of you stop dropping by my house?
In the months to come, one of them would wind up being a truly great friend, but the others…well I guess they couldn’t handle things. Looking at their faces makes me feel like I did when I lost my dog.
“Yeah?” says Mike, waiting for me to finish my sentence. He’s holding that worn-out basketball that goes with him everywhere.
Sanjay tosses peanuts into his mouth, waiting for my response, too. The nuts smell salty. He’s always eating. He’s got the muscles of a boxer and burns a lot of energy.
Gary’s skinnier but moves fast. He’s wearing an overabundance of cologne and I nearly choke on it. I stop breathing for a second and turn my head away from him. Man, I’ve gotta learn how to handle these smells. Is it because I’m time-traveling, and Burgen’s theory of the olfactory nerve being close to the hippocampus and whatever else he was saying? Gary and Vlad are suddenly distracted by something over my shoulder. Vlad has turned rather quiet in the last few months, ever since he got a case of ripping acne across his jaw, although the girls still like him. Gary gives him a friendly punch, points around me and says to Vlad, “Why don’t you go ask one of the girls to help you with your homework?”
Vlad laughs. “I might.”
We turn toward the river. Half a dozen girls we know are skipping through the playground swings, heading for the footbridge to cross the water to the Ferris wheel. Wearing tight clothes beneath hoodies and fall sweaters, they sneak glances our way.
I hear a basketball smack the pavement beside me and look over in time to catch it.
“Let’s toss some hoops,” says Mike. “Up on the hill.” He nods at the sports center.
The other guys mumble in agreement, and this is where I went with them before.
But this time is different. I look around for Jennifer and don’t see her. My stomach tightens in a panic. Has this dream changed some of the events? Maybe she’s no longer here.
Ah, I
do
see her.
Underneath the trees with her friend, Allison, by the rocks at the riverbank.