Forever Layla: A Time Travel Romance (7 page)

Chapter 7

I SHOT UP AND GLANCED
around. I was alone in Layla’s bed. I stood and made my way to the bathroom, but she wasn’t there. Only a little sunlight made it through the heavy curtains. I ran my fingers through my hair, over and over, before grabbing my glasses from the night stand, trying to think of where she’d gone. I slipped on my shoes and grabbed the room key and walked out the door.

It was early afternoon
, and the breakfast table had already been taken up.

I tapped on the door to the guys’ room. I got no reply
, so I beat harder. “Michael, Joey, Travis, open up!” Joey opened it, his eyes half shut and smelling of alcohol. “What?” he whispered.

“Have you seen Layla?”

Joey rubbed his eyes and slurred, “Yep, she’s in here with the four of us. Got tired of nothing happening in your room. It was a blast. Wanna see the pictures?”

I shoved him with both hands. “I’m serious.”

“Dude, we just got in around six this morning. I haven’t seen anything but the inside of my eyelids, and I want to see more of ’em. Go look on the beach. Maybe she went for a walk.”

“Good idea. Thanks.”

He shut the door, and I turned for the beach behind me. I was stepping onto the sand next to the other end of the white stucco motel when a door opened above me. I glanced up to find Layla coming out the door with a bundle of towels in her arms. She lugged them to the laundry cart and dumped them into it. She was in a blue housekeeping uniform with her hair pulled back in a bun.

“Hey, what are you doing up there…dressed like a maid?” I use
d my hand to block out the sun so I could see better to make sure it was really her.

Layla rubbed her forehead with the front of her hand and smiled at me. “I’m working. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Since when do you work here?”

“Since this morning. Come up here and talk to me while I work. I just got the job. I don’t want to lose it just as fast.” She grabbed a stack of towels and walked back into the room she had just come out from.

I jogged to the stairs and took them two at a time until I made it to the landing. I got to the room just as she was putting the towels down on the bed and propping the door open with a chair.

She smiled at me as she picked the towels back up and headed toward the bathroom. “I don’t want the boss
to think we are up here doing something else while I’m on the clock. This way if he walks by, he sees I’m doing my job as you talk to me.”

“So why are you working here?” I follow her to the bathroom where she start
ed hanging towels on the racks.

“I was thinking that if I’m stuck here for good, I need to find a way to make a living for myself. I can’t keep Michael out of his room forever. So I went to the office this morning and asked the manager if I could work for a room this week. He agreed. There is a room behind the office designed for the night clerk, but they don’t have a night clerk since the owner lives on site
.  I can use that in exchange for doing a few hours of housekeeping each day I’m here.”

She made her way back to the cart covered in cleaning bottles, mops
, and brooms out on the landing, and I followed her. “But why? I don’t mind sharing a room with you, and Michael can go hang for all I care.”

“That’s nice
, but you planned on this trip with your friend.”

I followed closely behind her. “But I like sharing a room with you better. You don’t snore like Michael. And I bet you’d never fart over me while I sleep and shout, ‘Ah, that felt good.’”

She laughed as she grabbed up a can of air freshener and sprayed it just inside the door of the room before returning it to the cart. “Probably not, but you never know. We haven’t had Mexican while here.”

“If you leave, he comes back to the room.”

She grabbed shampoo bottles and soaps off the cart and headed back into the room as I continue to follow her and talk. “You really don’t need to do this.”

She stopped and turned to face me. She pursed her lips and glanced away for a moment before looking back at me. Her brown eyes were big chocolate circles. “Yes, I do need to do this. I’m not good at being a charity case. Been there, done that
, and burned the t-shirt. Secondly, I just needed to get my own room after last night.” Her expression turned grim on the last part as she turned away from me again.

“What do you mean? You said you weren’t mad.” I stop following her and stood still
, thinking about what had happened, trying to figure out what I’d done to offend her. “I thought you were into the kissing and all. If you feel like I forced myself on you, I’m sorry.”

She was busy placing soaps and shampoo bottles out. “I
was
into it. That’s the problem. Until last night you were a harmless kid to me. A cute kid, but just a kid. I started seeing you as more and…” She exited the bathroom and placed her hands on her hips. “Look, I made promises to my grandma on her deathbed. She wanted me to wait for the right guy. Do you understand? And it’s important that I keep all my promises. If I stay in your room now, I won’t be able to wait.”

I stepped closer to her. “But…I am the guy. I thought you sort of accepted that last night.”

“But you’re still in high school. We just met.” She looked around the room and stepped over to a trash can and straightened it by the nightstand before training her eyes on me again. “My grandma and my mom were both young single mothers. Nanna got religion in her later years, and she raised me with her new set of values. She wanted me to turn out different. She made me promise her that I’d…” She glanced around and whispered. “Stay a virgin until I got married. You have no idea how out of fashion that is where I’m from, but I promised her, and I…have to keep all my promises. I have to do what I was told or it will all fall apart. If I stay with you, feeling the way I feel for you, I’m going to fail. It’s all on me to get it right, and I have to obey all the instructions. That’s what I was told.” She got a distant look on her face like she was remembering something as she whispered, “It’s all on me.”

I stepped out of her way as she walked back out to the l
anding and then followed her.

“If you’re sure,
” I said and tried not to pout, reminding myself that pouting was not manly.

She moved the chair back to the table and let the door close. “I am. Besides, I only work until two each day so we can still hang out on the beach and all after.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“I stuck some breakfast in the mini-fridge in the room for you.”

“Thanks. Want me to save you something?”

“No
, thanks. I ate this morning before I started. I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, sure,
” I said, trying to hide my disappointment.

She pushed the cart down to the next door
, and I made my way to the stairs.

I must have dozed off watching TV because the next thing I knew, Michael was in the room, yelling.

“This has to be a hoax. Did you set this up? Some kind of fake broadcast coming to my motel room?”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Michael grabbed the remote from me and switched the channel. “Kurt Cobain is dead. He shot himself. First your crazy chick said it, and then it happened. You kept acting like I had planted her in your life as a hoax, now I’m wondering if you didn’t set this up.”

“What do you think I did?”

“You hired some blonde girl to be all into you, make me live with my own rule about staying out of our room and sleeping with the guys, and get me to freak out about some fake news story you got the motel to play.”

“That would be a whole l
ot of work to set up. How did I know you’d be watching at the right time?” I looked at the television and tried to focus before reaching for my glasses.

“This can’t be true. He can’t be dead. Nirvana is the greatest band since the Beatles and the Stones. This is bull, man. Your Layla is either a psychic or this is total bull you’ve been pulling on me.”

I stared at the television and took the remote back from Michael. I switched to one of the local channels, and they were running the same story.

“I think he’s rea
lly dead.” I changed the channel again and found Geraldo standing in front of a hotel giving a live broadcast.

“Then how did Layla know before it happened?”

I flopped back onto my pillow and covered my eyes with my arms as he picked a pillow off the other bed and slammed me with it.

“How did she know before it happened?”

“I can’t say how she knew.” That was true.

Michael turned and headed for the door.

“She’s gotten her own room so I guess you can move back in here.”

“Crap like that doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore.” He pulled open the door and stormed out, letting
it slam behind him.

I got up and made my way to the motel office to look for Layla, but didn’t make it that far when I saw her lying out by the pool. I
marched to her and stood beside her. Her eyes were closed so she didn’t know I was there.

“Hey, can we talk?”

She opened her eyes and shaded them with one hand. “Hey, sure. Pull up a seat.”

“No, this needs to be in private.”

“What’s wrong?” She sat up to get a better look at me. Concern etched in the lines of her forehead.

“Kurt Cobain died
, and Michael is flipping out about it and…” I looked around to make sure no one was close by. “He wants to know how you knew it was going to happen.”

She leaned back and relaxed. “That’s easy. Just tell him I got him confused with some other dead rocker. Don’t most of them end up dying of overdoses?”

“Wasn’t an overdose. He shot himself.”

“There you go. I didn’t even know the details.”

“But it means it’s true. It means it’s all true.”

“I thought we had already established that.”

“Yeah, but now I know it’s true. I don’t think it’s true. I don’t believe it’s true. I know it is.”

I started pacing, not caring how strange I looked to the others out by the pool. “We have to figure things out. Make plans. This means you definitely will be riding home with me to Chesnee. Where will you stay there? I can’t sneak you into the house in a suitcase.”

The babbling got her attention. She got up and wrapped a towel around her. “Maybe we should talk about this someplace else. You’re looking like a scary person who talks to himself. People are staring.”

I glanced up to see that what she spoke was the truth. She dragged me back to my room where I let us in.

I held the door open for her, and then let it close behind me. Layla spun around to face me.

“I’ve thought of that. What I’m going to have to do is get paperwork for here and now. Assume someone’s identity. Use their social security number and all that so I can get a job.”

“Do we need to go to the library to scan obituaries?”

Sh
e shook her head. “Maybe. When we get to Chesnee, I’m going to have to start all over. Get my insurance license again, find a job. But I’m sure I can do it. I started with nothing. I can do it again.”

“What do I need to do?” I asked, sitting down with my pen and notebook
, ready to take notes.

She sat down on the bed across from me, leaned in
, and got a sympathetic look on her face. “Grow up. Finish high school and college. I’m an adult, and this week playing the kid I never got to be has been fun, but I can’t live the life of a kid’s girlfriend. I can’t get involved with you while you are a high school kid. I just can’t.”

Ouch.
I felt my face droop as I swallowed the lump in my throat. “But… we’re supposed to end up together.”

“And if I’m Layla, we will. But I have standards
, and I’m pretty rigid with them.”

“Like?” I needed to know what was keeping us apart still, now that she had accepted our future.

Layla crossed her arms over her chest and looked me square in the eye. “I don’t date guys who still live with their parents.”

Ouch again.
I tried not to flinch at the reminder that I was just a kid to her. “I have plans about that already.” They involved living in a dorm, but I was pretty sure that didn’t count. “Is that all?” I felt a new distance between us. “But you’re not trying to ditch this?”

She shook her head.
“No…well, not really. Whenever I’ve felt attracted to a guy who didn’t meet my standard, I’ve always backed off.”

“Like you’re doing now?”

She stood and sighed. “I guess so. But you have to understand, I’ve always known it was all on me to get it right the first time. There’s no one to pick up the pieces for me.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself.”

“It’s how it’s always been. I think it might be even more true now.”

“Then I’ll do it. I’ll grow up. I’ll become the man you’ve been dreaming of.”