Anna doesn’t say anything, but she’s tracing tiny circles in my palms again, just like she did in Emma’s backyard last night. I think that means I’m supposed to keep talking.
“During, I didn’t think about anything else. I just hoped it would work.” I’m hit with a vision of the school pictures that lined the hallway of apartment 3C.
“And after…” I stop. I don’t know what to say about the after. After I installed the smoke detector and came home, I waited to see the news, and discovered that the do-over had worked. My dad looked proud and shocked at the same time, like I’d hit that inexplicable home run in a tied game, bottom of the ninth.
“After,” I repeat. “It was like being in one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books and I chose a different ending. Those two kids were alive and safe, and I knew they shouldn’t have been. And that was…strange…to know that they died.”
Anna brings my hand to her lips and kisses it. “And what about the side effects?”
“Nothing,” I whisper. “No migraine. No dehydration. No side effects at all. I felt like I could have run around the block.” Another tour boat goes by and we stop to listen to the guide rattle off the interesting facts about this bridge that we’ve heard twice now.
“Do you think—” Anna begins. She stops, waiting for a group of kids in matching soccer uniforms to walk past us. “Do you think it’s possible that do-overs aren’t such a bad thing?”
I shake my head. “What do you mean? That I’m supposed to change things? No way. I did it once for you. I guess I did it this second time for my dad. But those were isolated incidents that I chose to do. It’s not like I’m now on a mission to stop the world’s tragedies. Besides, I still don’t know if there are ramifications or not.” I can’t even say it aloud, but part of me is still wondering if the people whose lives I’ve altered are affected by their changed pasts. Does Emma know at some unconscious level that she was in a massive car accident? Will those two kids…I can’t think about it. “Look, nothing’s changed. I’m purely an observer. I’m not supposed to alter the future.”
“I’m not saying you’re supposed to, just that it felt good when you did. I mean, Emma and Justin are fine, right? Nothing horrible happened to them, they just…got a second chance. And because of you, so did those kids.”
I look past her, staring out over the water. A second chance. I sort of like the idea of that. Not that it matters, since I’m not doing it again.
“Hey,” I say, as I lean back and reach into my front pocket. “I almost forgot why I brought you here in the first place.”
She looks at me with a curious grin. I open her hand and rest the brass padlock in her palm. She takes her eyes off me to look down at it. “Why am I holding a padlock?” The sunlight bounces off the surface as she twists it around, examining it from all sides as if that will enlighten her.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this—it involves a few future details—but I heard this story and thought it was cool.” I shift in place and take a deep breath. “No one really knows when it started exactly, but by the end of two thousand nine, all of the railings on this bridge will be covered with padlocks. Couples who came to Paris from all over the world started writing their names on them, clipping them to this railing, and tossing the key into the river as a symbol…” Anna’s wearing an expression I can’t read, and I suddenly realize how lame I sound. “…of, like, their… Oh, never mind.” I reach for the padlock, but she snaps her hand closed.
“Stop it. You’re not taking our lock.”
“Yes, I am.” I reach for it again but she laughs and pulls her hand behind her back.
She looks me in the eyes. “Go on.”
“No. I heard that story and thought it was kind of romantic, but now that I say it out loud it sounds so cheesy.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I lean back against the post. Once she can tell I’m not going to try to take it away again, she brings her hand back to her lap and opens her palm. “I love it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She turns the padlock over in her palm again, this time as if she’s admiring it. “We don’t have anything to write with.”
I lean back and pull a black Sharpie from my jeans pocket. When I hand it to her, she laughs. “Typical. Here,” she says, handing me the lock. “You should write it. It was your idea.”
I shake my head. We’re in 1995, in her world, and it seems like something she’s supposed to do. When I tell her this, she uncaps the pen and brings the felt tip to the metal.
“What should I say?”
“Whatever you want to say.”
She thinks about it for a moment and writes ANNA ♥ BENNETT across the surface. “That’s not very inspired, is it?” She stops and looks out over the water like she’s trying to decide how to finish what she started. She brings the pen back to the lock and writes ’95/’12. She stares at it.
“I like it,” I say. “Now it’s both cheesy and mysterious.”
“Aww. Just like us.”
“Nah, nothing like us,” I say. “We’re not at all mysterious.”
I hand her the key and she slips it inside. The latch opens with a tiny click, and she threads the lock through the chain-link fence and snaps it closed. She runs her fingertip across the surface and lets out a little laugh. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we’re the ones that start the whole lock thing?”
“Maybe we do.”
“I like that,” she says.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that in 2010, all the locks will be removed. Or that, in 2011, they’ll start reappearing, and by 2012, there will be very few spaces left on the railing again. They can cut our lock off. We’ll just come back here together—in 1998 and 2008 and 2018—and replace it every time it gets removed. I stare at the key in Anna’s hand, wondering if it’s realistic to think that we will still be together years from now, living this way.
I never even wished for her, but right now, all I want is for this person who gets me so completely to be part of my present and my future. As long as I don’t think about the logistics, it seems possible.
Anna kisses me. Then we both kiss the key and she tosses it into the river.
17
Anna and I spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around. We don’t have a destination in mind, so we turn when we feel like turning and stop when we feel like stopping and poke our heads into shops that look interesting. We pop into record stores so we can buy CD imports that would cost a fortune back in the States. We pick out postcards.
We stop at a bakery for a baguette, and then, without even discussing it, we head through a set of wrought iron gates and into a park. It’s alive with activity, and as we meander down the path, people jog past us and in-line skaters roll by. Anna surprises me when she pulls me off the walkway and behind a dense cluster of trees to kiss me.
We spot a soccer game and sit on the grass to watch. The whole thing is nonstop action, but we both find it difficult to take our eyes off this one guy in a bright green shirt. He’s the shortest one out there, and he’s so quick, but it’s more than that—he’s just fun to watch. His face is completely serious until he takes a shot, but then he throws his hands up in the air in victory and lets out a yell, even when he misses.
A half hour later, we’re still glued to the game, and it’s now tied, two-two. Green-shirt Guy kicks the ball and takes off running toward the goal. Then he’s open, waving his arms in the air, and the ball comes sailing back in his direction. But just as he’s about to kick it, another player comes running at him from the opposite direction. The two of them collide hard, and Green-shirt Guy falls to the ground, clutching his leg. Everyone gathers around him, so it’s impossible to see what’s going on.