His attendance at school also improved. Though he whined about it to the point of genuine annoyance on my part, he faithfully showed up to classes each day, only occasionally cutting out for a session with a marijuana pipe or something.
By the end of the first month of our studying together, study sessions in which Nina was a frequent participant, he began to catch on to his work and actually began to complete more of his assignments in school. I felt I'd done well with him and my satisfaction was great.
As the end of the school year drew closer I worried incessantly about Tracy.
This was the point that she was scheduled to die. All of the signs told me I'd steered her away from that path. When Lisa Sanchez, the cheerleader, began making friendship overtures to Tracy, she'd been almost rude in her rejection of them. The friendship that eventually evolved into the foursome that was fated to drop into the river never flourished. As a result, Tracy never went to the party where she would meet the football player that would cause her death. Instead she stayed close friends with Cindy, another deviation from the previous path. When Tracy had begun hanging out with Lisa before, the relationship with Cindy had faded away. But despite all this I was worried. Again, I did not know the rules involved here. Was fate absolute? Would Tracy end up dying one way or another simply because she was scheduled to?
On the other hand I did have some indication that things were not pre-destined. Mike was a shining example. As May began winding down towards June and the end of the school year, he was still enrolled in school, was in fact working his grades upward to the C average. This was something that had not occurred before. Mike gave me hope that I'd succeeded in saving Tracy.
The end of the school year came. Mike got his report card and it showed his year's average to be 2.1. He was qualified to go into ROP the next year. He didn't give me much in the way of thanks but I understood. It wasn't in his nature. I received tremendous satisfaction from his accomplishment anyway.
Tracy graduated. I dressed in my suit and attended the ceremony with my parents. Though my sister and I had never talked about my prediction for her fate on that night since the first time, it was obvious she remembered what I'd said. She was perhaps the only member of her graduating class to go home with her parents after the ceremony. She took off her dress and went to bed early.
When I got up the next morning I staggered downstairs and found her sitting in her pajamas in the living room. The television was on, tuned to the local morning news program. Dad and Mom had already gone off to work so we were alone in the house. I can't begin to tell you how glad I was to see her there. She was alive, still drawing breath a day AFTER she'd died in her previous life. Things could be changed!
My elation was dampened a little as I got a good look at her. I could see immediately that she was upset. Her face was pale and she was trembling.
"What's the matter Trace?" I asked carefully.
"I've been watching the news." She told me slowly, turning a pair of haunted eyes to my face.
"Yeah?"
"There was an accident last night." She said. "Near the falls."
I felt all the spit in my mouth suddenly dry up. My arms broke out in goose bumps. "Was there?"
She nodded. "A Camero with four people in it crashed into the river. Lisa Sanchez was killed. She drowned in the car."
I was speechless as I listened to her, numb with shock.
"There were other people in the car." Tracy went on. "A guy named David Mitchell was driving. He's a football player at the college. Another football player named Rick Manchester was also in the car. Rick was Lisa's boyfriend. And there was one other girl in there. Barbie Langston, she's David's girlfriend."
"What happened to her?" I asked unsteadily.
"She got out. Lisa was the only one killed."
"Wow." I whispered, trying to figure out what that meant. Barbie was a cute redhead who had found her way to my bedroom last summer during my 'male slut' period. She had been installed in Tracy's place when Tracy did not meet and begin dating David Mitchell. She had lived. Why? Was it because she had lived past graduation in the previous life? Was she simply a better swimmer? Was there any meaning to be found with her non-death?
"Billy," Tracy said softly. "All of those names were the ones you gave me that day except for Barbie. You described the car, the driver, the passengers, the accident location, everything. How did you know?"
"I can't tell you Tracy." I said. "I just can't."
"Billy, for Christ's sake! I would have died yesterday if I hadn't listened to you, wouldn't I have?"
"Yes." I nodded.
"You scared me that day when you started talking about all of that. You scared me bad. But I never really, you know believed it could be true. I didn't think it would really happen. Even when little things started to click into place. Lisa Sanchez trying to make friends with me, stuff like that, even then I never really believed it. But Jesus, you were right!"
"I know Tracy." I said. "And you're alive today instead of dead. I'm glad you listened to me."
"Christ." She said, shuddering and trembling. "I could have died."
"But you didn't." I told her. "You didn't."
Summer vacation began. Tracy sent off college applications and was accepted into the University of California at Berkeley on an academic scholarship. She spent a good portion of her vacation preparing for the move to California. My parents, who had no idea how close they'd come to losing a daughter, were preoccupied with helping her at this task. They took out a second mortgage on their house to help pay for some of the expenses until Tracy managed to get a job in the Bay Area. I could tell they were worried about money although they never mentioned it to either one of us.
I was able to increase my work schedule an extra hour a day and an extra day a week now that summer was upon us and there was no school to attend. By the beginning of August I had nearly a thousand dollars in my savings account. It was time to make my first move.
"Dad," I said at the breakfast table one morning. "I need you to do something with my money."
He looked at me over his paper. "Your money?"
"Yeah," I told him. "I want you to pull it out of the savings account and take it to a stock broker."
"A stock broker?"
"Here." I said, handing him a slip of paper upon which I'd written careful instructions.
He looked at it for a moment, his eyes widening. "You want to buy stocks?"
"I do." I affirmed. "As you can see there, I'd like to invest six hundred dollars in Lytech Corporation and three hundred in Smith Manufacturing Corporation."
"Billy," He started slowly, as if he were speaking to a lunatic, or a teenager. "Do you understand what you're doing? Investing in stocks is a risky business. You have no guarantee that you're going to get any return. You could lose all of your money."
"I've studied up on it pretty well Dad." I assured him. "I'm pretty sure that these two corporations are going to go through the roof in the next year."
"What are they?" He asked. "I've never heard of either one of them."
"They make latex products." I told him. "Condoms and surgical gloves mostly."
"Condoms and surgical gloves?" He asked. "You think there's money to be made there?"
"It's a matter of timing Dad." I explained. "You know about AIDS, right?"
"Of course I know about AIDS." He told me. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well," I said. "I've been following the news on AIDS as well as checking the business section. Right now AIDS is mostly confined to homosexual men and IV drug users. But that's slowly changing. As more and more heterosexuals become infected the fear of this disease is going to grow, probably into a paranoia."