scratch on her right hand, and next to it the faintest trace of a chocolaty kiss.
Smiling, Jennifer took out her lipstick and, as she applied it, began to hum.
Somewhere there is a woman,
she thought,
who went to her son’s guitar recital in the middle of a workday without missing a meeting, and who will never have to miss anything, anywhere, ever again.
I am that woman,
she thought.
I am a time traveler. Forget the time traveler’s wife.
J ENNIFER TOOK HER SEAT in the conference room five minutes early, coffee cup placed neatly above the upper-right-hand corner of her legal pad, photocopies of the meeting’sagenda in hand, collated and ready for distribution. All she needed was a couple of freshly sharpened number 2 pencils, and she would have rivaled the overachieving overpreparedness of her sixteen-year-old self, seated in the first row of trigonometry class.
Only a few agenda items into the meeting, however, Jennifer’s time-traveler euphoria was gone, replaced by medium- to low-grade time-travel panic. What had she been thinking, cavalierly ignoring Dr. Sexton’s instruction that she contact her before using the app? Could she safely go home to her children without knowing what she had just put her body through? What if her phone was dangerous somehow? In the sobering light of the conference room, the question she asked herself most was: How could she have been so reckless? The first time was understandable. She hadn’t believed the app was real. But to put herself through it a second time without having any idea how it worked or what it was had been crazy.
Vinita
, Jennifer thought.
I have to talk to Vinita.
Possessed by this new resolve, Jennifer began hurrying the agenda along—so much so that Bill asked her sharply if there was someplace else she needed to be.
“Doctor’s appointment,” she found herself saying. “I made it for the end of the day, but five thirty was the latest I could get.” Bill frowned and Tim raised his eyebrows. It was 5:20. “So if we could wrap this up?” she asked. “I’d be very grateful. I’m already going to be late.”
She felt bad lying to Tim (though not to Bill), but it was only partly a lie. Vinita was a doctor, and she needed to see her badly.
Back in her office, Jennifer opened the Employee Time Clock and logged out. A window popped up.
You’re leaving early
, it read. Six o’clock was her official quitting time, though she knew Bill thought she should stay later.
“And I went out for a whole hour this afternoon,” Jennifer replied, sticking her tongue out. “So there, dummy.”
As she rode down the twenty floors to the lobby, squeezed in between a man whose suit jacket smelled like a dirty sock sautéed in curry sauce and a woman reeking of tobacco, Jennifer felt woozier and woozier. Trapped in the stale air of the subway platform a few minutes later, she leaned against a column and fanned her face. Jennifer had always had a sensitive stomach, and suddenly she knew she had to find the nearest garbage can. She lurched toward one, barely making it before emptying her stomach into its overstuffed insides. A man offered his handkerchief to wipe her mouth with, but the sight of it—yellowing, wrinkled, damp—only made her want to throw up again.
Isn’t nausea a symptom of being exposed to radioactivity?
she worried.
What was that blue light, anyway?
After what seemed like an eternity on the train but was really less than ten minutes, Jennifer emerged from the subway at Christopher Street and called Vinita.
It was 5:35. Jennifer was put on hold. She could hear a small child screaming in the background, most likely a toddler who had just gotten a shot. Vinita took two afternoons off every week to be with her girls, so her workdays were long, with her office hours often extending until 7:00 p.m. Jennifer never ceased to be amazed by her friend’s calm in the presence of other people’s sick children—or, more specifically, her calm in the presence
Smiling, Jennifer took out her lipstick and, as she applied it, began to hum.
Somewhere there is a woman,
she thought,
who went to her son’s guitar recital in the middle of a workday without missing a meeting, and who will never have to miss anything, anywhere, ever again.
I am that woman,
she thought.
I am a time traveler. Forget the time traveler’s wife.
J ENNIFER TOOK HER SEAT in the conference room five minutes early, coffee cup placed neatly above the upper-right-hand corner of her legal pad, photocopies of the meeting’sagenda in hand, collated and ready for distribution. All she needed was a couple of freshly sharpened number 2 pencils, and she would have rivaled the overachieving overpreparedness of her sixteen-year-old self, seated in the first row of trigonometry class.
Only a few agenda items into the meeting, however, Jennifer’s time-traveler euphoria was gone, replaced by medium- to low-grade time-travel panic. What had she been thinking, cavalierly ignoring Dr. Sexton’s instruction that she contact her before using the app? Could she safely go home to her children without knowing what she had just put her body through? What if her phone was dangerous somehow? In the sobering light of the conference room, the question she asked herself most was: How could she have been so reckless? The first time was understandable. She hadn’t believed the app was real. But to put herself through it a second time without having any idea how it worked or what it was had been crazy.
Vinita
, Jennifer thought.
I have to talk to Vinita.
Possessed by this new resolve, Jennifer began hurrying the agenda along—so much so that Bill asked her sharply if there was someplace else she needed to be.
“Doctor’s appointment,” she found herself saying. “I made it for the end of the day, but five thirty was the latest I could get.” Bill frowned and Tim raised his eyebrows. It was 5:20. “So if we could wrap this up?” she asked. “I’d be very grateful. I’m already going to be late.”
She felt bad lying to Tim (though not to Bill), but it was only partly a lie. Vinita was a doctor, and she needed to see her badly.
Back in her office, Jennifer opened the Employee Time Clock and logged out. A window popped up.
You’re leaving early
, it read. Six o’clock was her official quitting time, though she knew Bill thought she should stay later.
“And I went out for a whole hour this afternoon,” Jennifer replied, sticking her tongue out. “So there, dummy.”
As she rode down the twenty floors to the lobby, squeezed in between a man whose suit jacket smelled like a dirty sock sautéed in curry sauce and a woman reeking of tobacco, Jennifer felt woozier and woozier. Trapped in the stale air of the subway platform a few minutes later, she leaned against a column and fanned her face. Jennifer had always had a sensitive stomach, and suddenly she knew she had to find the nearest garbage can. She lurched toward one, barely making it before emptying her stomach into its overstuffed insides. A man offered his handkerchief to wipe her mouth with, but the sight of it—yellowing, wrinkled, damp—only made her want to throw up again.
Isn’t nausea a symptom of being exposed to radioactivity?
she worried.
What was that blue light, anyway?
After what seemed like an eternity on the train but was really less than ten minutes, Jennifer emerged from the subway at Christopher Street and called Vinita.
It was 5:35. Jennifer was put on hold. She could hear a small child screaming in the background, most likely a toddler who had just gotten a shot. Vinita took two afternoons off every week to be with her girls, so her workdays were long, with her office hours often extending until 7:00 p.m. Jennifer never ceased to be amazed by her friend’s calm in the presence of other people’s sick children—or, more specifically, her calm in the presence
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