“We could make up fake histories like we did last time,” he offers.
“Sara didn’t find that nearly as funny as we did. And anyway,” I say, holding up the diary, “I have a date with my other self. You’ll be back early, right? Trey’s supposed to be here—”
“Yes, I know. At seven thirty.” He laughs. “Don’t worry. The lasagna just needs to go in the oven. The salad is made. I’m bringing back dessert and fresh bread. Everything will be perfect.”
I give him a goodbye hug and head upstairs. Even if everything is perfect, I’ll probably be too nervous to eat. Part of me thinks that having dinner here was a bad idea, because it’s too much pressure on Trey. But this is also where we spent most of our time together in the other timeline, so maybe there’s a vibe here that we’re missing.
Once I’m upstairs, I change out of the less than comfy 1960s clothing and curl up on the sofa. I pick up the diary and stare at it for a moment, still not entirely sure I’m ready for this. For all of Kiernan’s insistence that this Kate is really me, just with a different set of experiences, I can’t help but view her as an imposter—a fake Kate who was off using my identity and my body and apparently having a pretty good time with them before she vanished. It’s not logical, but I resent this Other-Kate thoroughly, and there’s this huge part of me that really doesn’t want to know anything more about her.
But if I don’t watch the videos, Katherine most certainly will. One of us has to—it would be beyond stupid not to learn from the mistakes we made in this alternate past. So I open the diary, flip to the pages at the back where Other-Kate saved her videos, and click on the first link.
My face pops up in the holographic display, so close at first that I can see every eyelash. After a moment Other-Kate moves a little farther away. She seems nervous, and I can’t help but remember the time Charlayne and I made this silly video to post on her Facebook page. But there’s no Charlayne in this video, just someone who looks exactly like me, minus the faint scar on my neck and jawline.
The first entry, entitled simply 1, is really short. Other-Kate says:
Okay, I’m not sure this is working. I’m going to turn it off and check, then I’ll be right back.
The next entry, again with no descriptive title, begins with Other-Kate looking much more relaxed. She’s sitting in a room that seems a bit smaller than this one, and the skyline in the window behind her doesn’t look like DC. Other-Kate folds her legs into a half-lotus position and takes a deep breath:
Okay, this is my first diary entry, and I’m not really comfortable with this thing yet, but Katherine says it’s a good idea to keep a record of everything we’re doing, and this is a lot faster than writing it all down each day. I’d rather do it on my computer, but I guess this will help me get used to the equipment. It has been an insanely crazy month in more ways than one, and, I don’t know, maybe this will do me good. So much change in just a few weeks can really mess with your head. Maybe if I vent here, I can avoid seeing a shrink. Although I still have moments when I think all of this is some sort of psychotic episode and that I should be seeing a shrink. I suspect Mom would agree if she were here.
Where is Mom in this timeline? Is she okay? Unfortunately, I don’t have a psychic link to this Other-Kate, and she barrels onward with her monologue:
Where to start? Okay, this week I’ve been learning about stable points. What they are, how to set them, why they’re important. Katherine has this big book of them, some of which are also in my CHRONOS key. And I can create new ones, too—or at least I’ll be able to create new ones in a few weeks when Katherine thinks I’m ready. Mostly it’s just history right now, an all-day-every-day history class. Either I’m getting a future history lesson on this CHRONOS place or a past history lesson on the areas and times when the historians were stranded. We’ve been at this for nearly a month, and it’s getting really boring.
Although my CHRONOS initiation was the condensed version, I remember well having to stare at the Log of Stable Points for hours on end while trying to figure out exactly when and where Katherine had been killed. I raise my coffee mug in a sympathetic salute. “I hear you, sister. Been there, done that.”
And that’s when it occurs to me that this is how I need to think of this other me on the screen—like a long-lost, identical twin sister. Not me. The same cellular makeup, yes, but a different consciousness. Some shared experiences, but also some different experiences. Not the enemy, but still not me.
I wake up on the couch, unsure why I’m there. Then I notice the diary on the floor. I close my eyes again, still a little sleepy. Other than learning that Mom took some sort of fellowship for the year at a college in Italy, I haven’t picked up much information from the other timeline. My alter-self is bored, Katherine and Connor occasionally get on her nerves, and she’s nervous about starting a new school in the fall. I’m increasingly sure she’s not in Bethesda or anywhere in the DC area—she mentioned going to some mall called Water Tower Place.
Then I remember that Trey will be here in a little over an hour, and that brings a short burst of energy. Unfortunately, it’s the nervous variety. I’m simultaneously really looking forward to seeing him and totally dreading it. I just know I’ll say something stupid and Trey will decide this isn’t going to work out. I never felt like that the first time around, and I doubt he ever worries that he’ll do something to screw things up. When the relationship starts with the girl saying she’s in love within the first five minutes, the guy’s work is pretty much done, right?
I get into the shower, taking deep, calming breaths as I wash my hair. I’ve had dinner with Trey, here in this house, at least a dozen times. Nothing to freak out over.
I’m still kind of freaking, however. And for the first time since I handed him the envelope with the DVD inside, I wonder if I did the right thing. I mean, I promised Trey that I would find him as soon as I got back, but this thing is still far from over. Even if the pieces of our relationship magically fall into place and we become us again, how long will it last? How long before another time shift steals those memories?
I resolutely push those thoughts back into the corner of my mind. The fact that Trey is coming here tonight and I’ll see him in a little less than an hour should be making me happy, not sad.
I rinse away the shampoo, and a small leaf that must have been caught in my hair slides down my leg toward the drain. It’s red, dappled with gold, and I realize that I must have carried it back from Dealey Plaza.
I watch this leaf that was in the air the day that Kennedy died, decades before I was born, as it dances around the bathtub with the shampoo bubbles, rushing toward the drain. I’m suddenly seized by the urge to save it, but before my fingers can latch on, the leaf is sucked away.
“Katherine, can I get something different for you? There’s chicken salad left from last night.”
The rest of us have been finished for several minutes now. Katherine, on the other hand, has only picked around her plate, taking a few bites of the limp noodles in the middle and pushing aside mushrooms and anything even slightly crispy.
“Oh, no,” she says. “I’m just not very hungry, Harry. The lasagna is fine, even with having to be held warm for so long.”
Trey was only twenty minutes late, which really isn’t bad around here, given that traffic can be unpredictable. He called to let us know he was running behind and apologized profusely, so it’s really rude for Katherine to bring it up again, even indirectly.
I’d chalk it up to her unpredictable moods, but I’m pretty sure this is intentional. She thought it was foolish of me to give Trey the DVD, and she wasn’t too happy when I told her I was inviting him for dinner. Any second I’m not spending with my nose in a diary or off tracking down the CHRONOS keys is apparently time wasted. Still, she could at least be polite.