“What do you want to do? Do you want me to take you home?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure yet. Can we just drive around for a bit? As long as you’re not too tired?”

  “I’m not tired. I’m kind of a night owl. I only told Kelsey I couldn’t stay long because I didn’t want to look like I expected anything from you.”

  “Such a gentleman,” I tease.

  He drives us over to near Main Street and up to a nearby lookout. I jump out of the car and lean against the barrier, quietly taking in the view of the coast and all the surrounding houses. Kurt comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, resting his chin on the top of my head.

  “This town is beautiful,” he says.

  “It is.”

  He repositions himself so he can see my face. “Would it be super corny if I now say ‘but not as beautiful as you?’”

  “A little. But it’s okay. I’ll allow it.”

  He laughs. “Good.”

  “What do you think you’ll be doing in twenty years?” I ask suddenly.

  He seems to take my question seriously. “Um, I don’t know. I hope I’m doing something I love, and spending time with someone I love. I guess that’s all anyone can ask for, really. What about you?”

  “I think I’ll do pretty good career-wise. Maybe be married…” I don’t say that I’ll also have just divorced.

  “What about kids? Do you want kids?”

  “Possibly. I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m into the idea of children. You?”

  “I want a huge family. Maybe six or seven kids.”

  I burst out laughing. “What? Really?”

  He winks. “No. But I do want at least a couple. I love the idea of being a dad.

  My heart almost melts inside my chest. I lean over and kiss him again.

  “Is that your pick-up line?” I ask, smiling.

  “Um, you might not have noticed, but I’ve already picked you up.”

  “Or is it your ‘get the girl into bed’ line?”

  “Hey, I don’t need any lines to get a girl into bed. My natural charisma does that for me.”

  I know he’s being silly, but I have to agree. “There is something about you.”

  “So why don’t you want kids?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. I guess I don’t want to be tied down.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  He’s very perceptive. “I guess it depends on the guy I end up with. He might not want them either.”

  His face falls for a second. “That’s true.”

  “Oh God, sorry. I didn’t mean I was thinking about some other random person right now.”

  Unless you count my experience with my ex-husband.

  “It’s okay. It’s true that the likelihood of us being together in twenty years is small. And I know we’ve only known each other for a few hours, and I don’t want to sound like a stalker…so I’m just going to shut up now.”

  I giggle. “You’re so cute when you’re nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous. Okay, maybe you make me a little nervous.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  He leans over and kisses me again, this time slowly making his way down to the top of my chest. I’m just wondering whether he’s going to push aside the fabric of my dress when a pair of very bright headlights shine on us.

  We both jump back.

  “I think that was a reminder for me to slow things down,” he says, chuckling.

  I pout. I don’t want him to slow things down.

  “You’re too nice for your own good.”

  He grins. “I can be bad when I want to be. Come on, let me take you home. I wouldn’t want your mum to worry about you.”

  “Okay.”

  We hop back in the car.

  “You want to pick an album to listen to?” he asks, pointing to the glovebox.

  I open it and see a bunch of cassettes. I turn the overheard light on and flick through them.

  “You didn’t want to get a record player fitted in here?” I joke. “Because it would sound better?”

  “Uh, I think all the records would get scratched every time I went over a bump,” he shoots back.

  “You might have a point there.”

  I pick out Massive Attack’s Protection album and slot it into the player.

  “Good choice,” he says, hearing the intro.

  I’m just about to close the glovebox again when I see some paperwork folded up in the corner. I pull it out.

  “Oh, that’s just the rego,” he says. “Nothing exciting.”

  I look at the name. “Kurt Hamilton.”

  “That’s me. What’s your surname?”

  “Parnell.”

  “Anna Parnell.” He rolls the words around on his tongue. “I like it.”

  I direct Kurt back to my house, where he stops across the street.

  “Thank you for tonight, Anna.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Can I call you tomorrow?”

  Only if your phone can call through time.

  “Sure.”

  He kisses me one last time, and I savour every moment.

  When I get out of the car, I’m floating on air. I wave to Kurt and walk up my driveway. I have no intention of going inside, so I pretend to fumble with my keys until he leaves.

  Once I’m sure he’s gone, I call a cab.

  I’m going to be finishing this journey to 1997 somewhere else tonight.

  ELEVEN

  In the cab, I get out of my phone and see I have two missed calls, one from Mum and one from Kelsey. I phone into voicemail.

  “Anna, I was just wondering what time you planned on coming home? Your father and I are going to bed soon, and you know we hate not knowing where you are.”

  I skip to the next message.

  “Hey babe, I hope you’re having fun. I spoke to Andy, and by the sounds of it, he was a total dick to you, so I’m sorry, and I understand why you left. If you come back later, just climb up the balcony and knock on the door. But otherwise, enjoy your grunge god!”

  I smile. Kelsey is the best. I quickly text Mum my excuse about staying at Kelsey’s and switch off the phone. I’m not actually outright lying, because I have the driver take me back to her house, but instead of going inside, I borrow a shovel and flashlight from inside the carport and head back into the bush we visited earlier.

  It’s a little creepy here at night. The trees rustle in the breeze, but otherwise it’s quiet, and my footsteps sound really loud crunching over the ground.

  It takes a bit longer than I expected, but I finally spy the mound of rocks and the gum tree we stopped at earlier.

  I find what I hope is the middle and dig my shovel in. The ground is quite sandy, so I’m fortunate that I don’t have to exert too much energy.

  The problem is, I don’t know how deep Kelsey buried the box, or if I’m in the correct place. Knowing her, she wouldn’t have buried it too deep, so I figure my best bet is to cover a large diameter.

  I work for about fifteen minutes, piling the sandy soil beside me. I can’t imagine what a passing spectator might think. I probably look like I’m disposing of a dead body.

  Just when I’m about to give up, my shovel hits something hard and metallic. I reach down and use my fingers to dig it out of the ground.

  It’s an old shortbread tin. I pry it open and smile. Bingo.

  Kelsey has lined the tin with plastic, and inside is a bunch of photos and other bits and pieces. I sit down and position the light so I can look at everything properly.

  Apart from the photos, there’s a rose quartz crystal in the shape of a heart, a troll doll keyring, a bracelet with brightly coloured plastic beads, a cassette with 90s mix tape written on the label and a folded piece of paper. I unfold it and read Kelsey’s messy scrawl.

  Hi Future Kelsey,

  Hopefully by the time you read this, you will be a mega successful fashion designer and married to Aaron.

  You will have an awesome penthouse in Brisbane overlooking the water, and you will be driving a red BMW convertible. You will be thinking of starting a family, but you don’t want kids too early. You need to travel around the world first.

  Also, you will still be best friends with Anna, and the two of you will have awesome adventures.

  Kelsey.

  P.S. If you ever figure out how to time travel, come back and say hi. I promise I won’t tell anyone and I’ll play it totally cool!

  I smile and fold it back up, putting it in the tin with the other items. At least I can vouch for the fact that she did handle the original time-travel revelation in 1996 quite well.

  I’ve left the photos until last.

  The first one is a picture of Aaron, cut from our school yearbook. On the back in hot pink ink are the words my future husband. Well, she got that right.

  The second photo is one of Kelsey with her family. I never met her dad, because he left when she was five. This picture shows a man with thick curly black hair standing beside Kelsey’s mum, and a young, but surly looking Andy beside her. A four-year-old Kelsey is beaming at the camera. It’s such a shame how things turned out for her family.

  The last picture is of her and I. It was taken down at Shell Beach in the middle of summer. We’re both wearing matching pink bikinis and pouting at the camera. I turn over the photo. The words on the back say best friends forever with a heart.

  At least we’re back together now in the present.

  I put the photos on top of everything else and seal up the tin. I put it back in the hole and pile the dirt over it. It’s much faster doing this part.

  I’m quite sweaty when I’m finished, and very, very tired. I lie down on top of my newly flattened patch of ground and close my eyes.

  I don’t think I can stay awake until 3am.

  ***

  I open my eyes, still feeling the echo of the Shell Beach breeze.

  “You look satisfied,” Kelsey’s wry voice says. “I take it your little trip went well?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, you freaked me out, even though I thought I knew what to expect. You basically went into a coma. At one point, I swear your pulse stopped. I was this close to calling an ambulance.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.” I sit up. “So you tried to wake me up?”

  “Yes. I yelled in your face and I pinched your arm. At first I thought you were pranking me, trying to stretch out the act for as long as you could, but then I knew you couldn’t be that good at acting. Thank God you woke up this morning.”

  I stand up and head to the kitchen to heat up some water for tea.

  “Well, I can prove once and for all I’m not lying,” I tell her.

  “What? You actually found my tin?”

  “That’s right. In the bush behind your house at Shell Beach. Between a large gum tree and a pile of rocks. One of them was shaped like a heart. You put your stuff in a shortbread tin…some photos, a letter to yourself, and a few trinkets, like a rose quartz crystal and a troll doll keyring.”

  Her face goes white. “Holy shit.”

  “Do you believe me now?”

  She slowly sits down on the edge of the couch. “Oh my God.”

  I look at her, concerned. “Are you all right?”

  “I…just…I really thought this was all a big joke.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Clearly.”

  “So would you like to try it?”

  She sits there dazed for a moment and then looks at me.

  “Yes. Now. Before I chicken out.”

  “Can you afford to lose a whole day?”

  “Babe, I wouldn’t care if my mother was scheduled to have life-saving surgery. Okay, that’s probably going a bit far, but you know what I mean. This is a chance to go back in time!”

  “You want me to go back too?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’d feel better knowing you were going through the same thing, even if we end up in different realities. You need to explore this shit. For scientific purposes.”

  I laugh. “Well, when you put it that way…actually, I haven’t been very scientific so far. Apart from discovering Ed and Maddie’s mutual obsession, my main priorities have been visiting my grandma and…”

  “Grandma Millie?” Kelsey cuts in. “I know you told me yesterday, but that was before I knew you were telling me the truth. Didn’t your grandma die forever ago?”

  I nod sadly. “It’s been so nice to see her again, but also hard knowing that I can’t visit her here now.”

  “Wow. I can’t get my head around the idea of seeing people who died.”

  “Or people that you never met the first time around,” I add.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I…uh…I kind of keep running into this guy called Kurt…”

  “Go on…”

  “And even though he doesn’t remember me every time I go back, we always seem to reconnect. Last night, you actually saw him first.”

  Kelsey looks a little overwhelmed. “Hang on. Why doesn’t he remember you?”

  “You know how I told you each visit stands alone? That means if you didn’t meet someone in the real 1997, they won’t know who you are the next time you go back.”

  “My head hurts.”

  “It’s best not to worry about the logistics too much.”

  “I’m torn between wanting to know more about this Kurt guy, but also wanting to just take the stuff and see what happens. Hopefully we wake up in the same place and you can keep explaining everything as we go.”

  “Fingers crossed! All right. You ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  I go to the kitchen, get two glasses of water, and measure out two half teaspoons. I hand Kelsey one of the glasses.

  “Why is it purple?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t taste great either.”

  “You go first.”

  “Sure.” I encourage her to follow me with her drink into the bedroom.

  I gulp down mine and wince.

  Kelsey looks at her glass as if contemplating whether to actually follow through and then shrugs. She downs it in one mouthful.

  “I wonder if this is how Alice felt in Wonderland.”

  “It’s a bit of a trip,” I confirm. “Just relax. I’ll see you either way soon.”

  TWELVE

  I wake up, feeling that weird sense of déjà vu again. The old movie posters and CDs are scattered around the room. Kelsey is lying next to me. I gently tap her arm. “Hey. Wake up.”

  She groans. And then opens her eyes.

  She sits bolt upright. “Holy shit.”

  I laugh delightedly. “You’re here!”

  She stares at me, her eyes wide. “Fuck! Anna! Is that you?”

  “You mean the old-lady version of me? Yep.”

  She jumps out of bed and pounces on the mirror, not unlike my reaction when I first arrived last year.

  “This is really happening.”

  “Well, sort of. Whatever really means.”

  “How have you not just been living here non-stop since you discovered this stuff?”

  “I guess I didn’t really know what it was at the beginning. And I only have thirty doses, so I didn’t want to waste them. And after finding out about Ed…”

  “Oh, of course. Wow! I love my body! I wish there was a way I could take it back with me!” She admires her stomach and legs in the mirror.

  “Is there anything in particular you’d like to do?”

  “I don’t know. The possibilities are endless!” She races around, picking up the CDs and laughing. “Oh my God. I love it! And my posters!”

  We hear shuffling in the hall and Kelsey freezes. She tiptoes over and opens the door a crack, peeping through.

  She closes it again and looks at me. “It’s Andy.”

  I frown. “Great.”

  She suddenly looks stricken. “He hasn’t been to jail yet. I have to stop him! Get him into counselling or something.”

  “You know that won’t have any effect on the future,” I say gently.

  Her face falls. “Oh, right.”

  “But if this version does continue, it could make a difference here.”

  “Maybe.”

  After a moment, she shakes herself. “All right. I’ll deal with that later. Let’s get dressed and go out to explore.”

  I open the bag I had apparently brought over for the sleepover at her place. It contains yesterday’s outfit, which is all crumpled up, and what I assume I brought for today—a purple suede skirt and a black top with an open back.

  Kelsey flings open her wardrobe and examines the contents. “I feel like I’m on the set of a flashback movie. Look at this stuff!”

  She holds up a pair of cherry-coloured Doc Martens. “I’m so wearing these today.”

  She pulls out a flowing blue dress with buttons up the middle and puts it on, spinning around. “I think I’m going to have to start wearing stuff like this again in the future.”

  “I know, right? Nineties fashion was fun.”

  “So, what now?”

  “Do you want to talk to your mum or Andy?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then I guess we could go out the usual way?” I look at the balcony.

  “Let’s do it.”

  We grab our bags and climb over the railing, using a nearby tree to assist our descent, and run off up the road, laughing. I have to admit, visiting the nineties with future Kelsey is a lot more fun than visiting on my own. And while I really liked spending time with the younger version of her, it’s much easier with the one my own age.

  “Let’s go down to Main Street. Oh, do you think Jackson would be working?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we can find out.”

  We catch the bus to Beans, with Kelsey squealing every few seconds about how different everything is.

  “Calm down, babe. You’re going to freak out all the other passengers.”

  “I can’t help it. This is so cool. You know, I had this idea once that when you die, you get access to your whole life and can relive any moment whenever you like. This is sort of the same. Only hopefully we’re not dead.”

  “We’re not dead.”

  “And obviously it’s not a dream, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to communicate this way.”

 

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