She was scared, alone, and strangely, also hopeful.
*
After making the list, Adeline wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. Her mother didn’t have a class that day. She had no job, but she did need a new place to stay.
A half-hour spent on Craigslist turned up several good prospects. A few calls narrowed it down to a one-bedroom apartment sublet. It was located right off Sand Hill Road, close enough to walk to campus.
Adeline’s best guess was that the guy on the other end of the line had partied too hard and flunked out of school and now needed cash.
When she met him at the apartment, his bloodshot eyes lent credence to her suspicion.
“Look,” he said, holding his hands out, “I’m totally violating my lease here, so keep it on the down-low, okay?”
Adeline wanted to say, “No worries—I’m a time traveler from nineteen years in the future. I won’t tell a soul.”
Instead, she simply said, “Sure.”
“If anyone asks, just tell them…” His red, watery eyes drifted to the ceiling. He wasn’t a good liar. “Tell them… you’re my cousin. From out of town. House-sitting.”
“Totally.”
“Hey, just so I know, what happened to your place?”
Adeline stared at the floor. “I’m getting out of a bad relationship.”
It turned out she was a good liar. Or becoming one. She was becoming Daniele Danneros.
*
She spent the afternoon buying things for the apartment. The guy’s bedroom featured a mattress and box spring—on the floor, of course—and a lamp box that served as a side table (the lamp sat on top of the box).
The living room wasn’t much better: just a futon and two beanbags. At least the guy had cleaned up the place. Sort of.
When she finished buying the essentials for the apartment, Adeline splurged and bought a bike. Every dollar she spent was one less she had to invest, but the bike would cut down on her travel time around town (and save cab fares).
*
That night, she sat in the bedroom, scowling at the Netflix website. The user interface was atrocious. The selection was even worse. The vast majority of titles were only available via the mail. Who would want to wait for DVDs to come in the mail? And how could they even make a profit mailing stuff to your house—especially if you had to mail it back? It didn’t make any sense.
She wondered how they had ever made it.
She biked to Blockbuster and rented the first season of a TV show that was a staff pick. It was called 24, and Adeline figured if they had the guts to name the show just one number, it had to be pretty good. And it was. In fact, it was about a guy racing against the clock to save his life and the country. Adeline definitely identified with that. She kept popping the DVDs into her laptop until it was late into the night. It was 8 a.m. for Jack Bauer, but it was bedtime for her.
*
Adeline arrived at the lecture hall early the next morning and waited at the front. When her mother arrived, she looked sick and haggard.
“What’s wrong?” Adeline asked.
“Morning sickness.” Her mother closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if waiting for a wave of nausea to pass. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Don’t be.” Adeline reached out and put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. The feeling was indescribable. A moment she had imagined a million times since her mother had passed away.
Her mother seemed to read Adeline’s reaction. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Adeline said. She took her mother’s bag. “Here, I’ll get you set up for class.”
Her mother exhaled, took a seat on the stool, and focused on her breathing. Adeline opened the laptop, plugged in the VGA cord, and began placing the handouts on the desks.
When she returned to the front of the room, she reached into the bag and brought out the last remaining item: a Hershey’s chocolate bar.
Her mother held her hands out. “And I’m craving sweets. Busted. You know what that means?”
Adeline didn’t. Her mother smiled again. She seemed to be feeling better.
“It’s probably a girl. It’s an old wives’ tale: morning sickness and sweets means that you’re having a daughter.”
Her mother smiled then, gaze unfocused, as if thinking. Adeline wondered if she was imagining seeing her daughter go to prom. Or moving into her first college dorm. Or walking down the aisle on her wedding day.
That thought filled Adeline with sadness. She knew the future. Knew that her mother would never do any of those things.
But her mother didn’t.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Adeline looked up. Her mother had read the emotion on her face. She had always been good at that.
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
“Well, be careful of your thoughts. They’re more powerful than you think.”
Her mother flipped open a notebook. “By the way, someone dropped the class yesterday. Probably a good thing—he was failing. I don’t know for sure, but I might be able to add you.”
“That’s okay. Really.”
Her mother studied her. “Are you a student here, Adeline?”
“I am. Just not right now.”
“That’s all right. But are you all right?”
“I’m just trying to get back on my feet. Life has sort of thrown me for a loop.”
Her mother formed that kind smile that had been the hallmark of her youth. “It happens. Life is about getting up. Not avoiding falling down.”
FORTY-EIGHT
A week later, Adeline returned to Shen Photo in East Palo Alto.
Her new identity was waiting for her. As far as she could tell, everything checked out. It was a big piece in the puzzle that was the next nineteen years—until the moment she would place herself in that Absolom machine to travel back here to 2008.
*
Adeline set up an investment account at E*Trade. She remembered the broad strokes of the global financial crisis that was just starting to unfold—and even recalled some of the key dates.
She took bearish positions on firms she knew would collapse. She felt a bit guilty about betting against the companies, but she found absolution in the idea that this had already happened, and that the money she would make would ensure the future was possible. The profits from the E*Trade account would fund San Andreas Capital, which would fund various start-ups and eventually Absolom (and her trip to the past).
With her E*Trade account, she could short stocks and buy puts, but she wanted to go further. She needed more leveraged investments to increase her returns.
She found a small brokerage firm in San Francisco that was willing to allow her to buy credit default swaps for mortgage-backed securities issued by companies she knew were on the verge of collapse.
While she was buying up the troubled assets, she watched as officials from those companies appeared on TV, insisting that their portfolios of subprime mortgages were simply facing a stress test and were fine.
They were not fine.
And the credit default swaps backing their securities might not have been fine either if not for the Federal Reserve, which stepped in and essentially guaranteed them in order to restore confidence in the financial system.
Over the course of a year, Adeline turned a few thousand dollars into tens of millions. Not enough to draw too much attention, but enough to do what she needed to do. It was a nice nest egg to grow, and it would grow to be all the money she needed to create the future.
As the year progressed, it wasn’t the growth in her brokerage account that interested her. It was a thing she hadn’t expected: how close she became with her mother.
Three times a week, she joined her in class. She also began coming to her mother’s office after class to help prepare for future lectures and grade papers.
In a sense, it was the thing Adeline had most wanted in life: a second chance to be with her mother, as a young adult, almost as peers, sharing an experience that was special to both of them.