I saw this as an interrogation technique to see if I was lying. She would be looking for any hesitation in my answer.
"Reagan won again this year." I said. "You already know that."
"It didn't take a psychic to figure THAT out." She said cynically.
"True." I said. "He'll serve out his term but the last year of it will be taken up by a scandal in which he gets caught selling arms to Iran in order to get hostages released and to fund rebels in Nicaragua after congress cut off aid to them. George Bush will be elected after Reagan. He'll gain immense popularity because of the way he handles an invasion of Panama early in his term and a war in the Persian Gulf at mid-term."
"A war in the Persian Gulf?" She asked.
"Iraq will invade Kuwait, a small country nobody has even heard of at this point in history but that supplies a good chunk of oil. Eventually American forces will bomb the living shit out of Iraq and then ground forces will go in and occupy the country. We'll lose less than two hundred people in the entire war and the country will love old George for it. For a while. Unfortunately for him he'll fuck up the economy so bad that even the success of the Gulf War won't get him re-elected. In 1992 Bill Clinton will win the presidency."
"Who the hell is Bill Clinton?" She asked, staring at me.
"Right now I believe he is the governor of Arkansas. He'll do a fairly good job of getting the economy back in shape, in fact he'll succeed in balancing the budget, but he'll also be mired down in sexual scandals his entire run. Apparently Bill has a little trouble keeping his dick in his pants and the Republicans will jump all over that. Despite this he'll be elected to a second term. When I was recycled back to 1982 he was still serving it although the Republicans had mangaged to impeach him because he got caught lying about getting a blow-job from an intern in his office."
"They impeached him because he got a blow-job?" She asked in disbelief.
"Well, what the charges actually amounted to was lying under oath. But yeah, it was because he got a blow-job. The house impeached him because there was a Republican majority but the Senate cleared him because, although they had a Republican majority also, it wasn't enough to add up to a two-thirds vote." I shook my head sadly. "I can sympathize with old Bill, let me tell you. You think you're having a casual little encounter with someone but it can sure come back to bite your ass."
"Wow." Tracy whispered. "You're telling the truth. You could not have made up all of those details off the top of your head."
"No." I said. "I couldn't."
She took another drink of beer. "But why did such a thing happen to you Bill?" She asked. "Why were you picked to do this? Are there others?"
"This is how it happened Tracy," I said. "Like I told you, I was a paramedic. On the day before I came back I went to a call at a convalescent facility in North Spokane. My patient was an old Chinese man with cancer. He was dying fast. So I…" I told her the complete story. It took about twenty minutes. She listened with rapt attention throughout it.
"So you think he granted you a wish?" She asked when I was done.
"It would seem so." I told her. "The next morning I found myself back in 1982. Fifteen again, just like I'd asked, all memories intact, just like I'd asked. I don't know how he did it, but he did."
"Wow." She said.
"Do you believe me?" I asked her.
She looked up at me. "I don't want to." She said. "It's scary as hell to think that what you're saying is true. It changes my entire perspective on what's real and what's not, on what's possible and what's not."
"Uh huh." I agreed whole-heartedly.
"But all the same," She continued. "I am forced to believe what you say is true. When you explain it everything adds up. It's the only answer that makes sense."
"Yep." I agreed.
Tracy suddenly glared at me. "So here you are, a thirty-something year old man trapped in a child's body. And what have you been doing? You've been screwing sixteen and seventeen year olds! You're a fuckin' pervert Bill."
"I agree." I told her.
"You do?" She asked.
"I'll be the first to admit that I made some poor decisions when I was given this gift. Yes, I had sex with high school girls, something I probably shouldn't have done. I abused a power that was given to me for my own pleasure, not just once but multiple times. I would like to say, in my own defense, that although my mind is that of a thirty-two year old, my body is a teenager's, through and through. I have testosterone surging through me like mad. I thought I was horny as a thirty-two year old but I hadn't seen anything. We forget what it's like to be in the middle of adolescence, let me tell you. That's not a very good excuse I know, but it's all I have to offer. I never once tried to screw an underage girl when I was an adult. Not a single time. But suddenly I found myself able to do it legally and with my body crying out for it. I didn't put up much of a fight but I couldn't help it."
"Are you saying that you are not doing that anymore?" She asked.
"I'm trying not to." I said. "It's cost me a lot. I told you that Nina and I were no longer talking to each other."
"You did." She nodded. "I figured it had something to do with your extracurricular activities. I tried to tell you once that she loved you. And I was pretty sure that you loved her too. You didn't listen."
"I know. And you were right on both counts." I said. "Unfortunately I waited too long to realize it. I screwed around until Nina had her eyes opened to what I was like. She basically told me to fuck off and stay away from her. She won't even talk to me now."
"I'm sorry." Tracy said honestly. "I like Nina. I thought you two were perfect together. I still think that even though I now know you're actually seventeen years older than she is. Maybe she'll come around."
"Maybe." I said. "Or maybe not. In any case, Nina is part of why I called you at the bookstore with that warning. Nina and Mike and some other things have made me realize that fate has a pattern to it. A pattern that it keeps trying to put things and people into. You are part of what has fallen out of pattern."
"Because I didn't die on graduation night?" She asked slowly.
"Exactly." I nodded. "In a way I'm glad that these other things have happened. They allowed me to see what was going on, that fate was attempting to re-align things. When I saw that, I was able to give you that second warning and you were able to heed it when fate took a second shot at you."
She shuddered. "I still get the creeps when I think about how close I was to getting in that car with Darren that night. Jesus. What other things have you seen as far as these patterns go? Maybe if I know how strong this thing is…"
"Okay." I said. "There's you first of all. As you know, in my previous life you died on graduation night. In this life I prevented that. But I also knew Nina in my previous life, in school of course but also years later, and that Nina was not a pleasant person at all."
"What do you mean?" Tracy asked.
"In my first life Nina was a doctor in one of the emergency rooms. And she was a total bitch. She was the shining example of a big-time inferiority complex. If anybody did anything good in front of her, she would find a way to criticize it. If anyone did anything wrong, she would jump down their throats. She was a miserable person and it was quite plain to me why she was a miserable person."
"Because of the way she was treated in school." Tracy said.
I looked at her, smiling. "You know Tracy, you're pretty smart for a youngster."
She giggled nervously. "This is so weird." She commented. "Trying to adjust myself from thinking about you as my 'little' brother. You've got seventeen years on me now."
I snorted. "Older doesn't necessarily mean wiser Tracy. Believe me. Anyway, when I came back I decided to eat in the cafeteria one day and I saw Nina sitting in there alone. That brought back memories of how bitchy she was as a doctor and led to the speculation as to its cause. So I, thinking I was the great superhero, the fixer of oppressed people everywhere, decided to befriend her and maybe change her personality a little."