The Bellbottom Incident (30 page)

It was maddening and ridiculous. There Sabina was, under the straw hat, close enough for one of us to call out her name to get her attention if only History would let us. We were, to all intents and purposes, invisible to everyone but Udo. I hated the feeling of powerlessness. At least we had finally been able to detach ourselves from the bench.

The students had streamed across McGregor Boulevard, the three of us trailing behind them. Sabina was in front, as if Udo had placed her there so he could keep an eye on her. She made a left at a fountain in the direction of Seminole Lodge, and Missy and Udo followed, with Soren a few steps back. Nathaniel, Gigi, and the others continued past the fountain in the direction of the wooden pier and the river.

Abigail said with a note of hope in her voice as we too made a left at the fountain, “Can Udo even make it to the Sanibel Causeway by one fifteen? It’s a quarter till. Maybe it’s some other Udo Leland who dies on the bridge.”

“He can only make it if he drives like crazy,” I said. It was a good twenty-, twenty-five-minute drive. “But how many Udo Lelands can there be? It’s not a very common name. Plus the newspaper article said that he’s a St. Sunniva student.”

I watched as Soren, who was a few paces ahead of us, blew his nose and put his handkerchief away. He picked up his pace to catch up to Missy as the four of them climbed onto the veranda of the main house. Seemingly annoyed by Soren’s trailing after her, Missy pulled him aside by the elbow. The pair remained on the porch while Sabina and Udo went inside. “What is it now?” we overheard Missy say to Soren.

“Why don’t you stay here, Julia,” Abigail said, “in case Sabina and Udo come out another exit. Marlin and I will go inside.”

She knew how badly I wanted more information about my parents—even now.

They headed into the house and I stayed where I was—just around the corner from where my parents were about to have some kind of showdown on the veranda. Despite the circumstances, my curiosity got the better of me. I had to know what the argument was about.

“Look, I just want to explain,” I heard Soren say. “When I said what I said, I wasn’t talking about
you
—I was talking about
me
. That it would be a farfetched dream for me. Being a novelist, I mean. Do you see what I mean?”

Missy had been keeping her gaze on the river, steadily and unflinchingly. After he had said his piece, she turned to face him. “Don’t you
want to be a novelist?”
 

Soren blew into his handkerchief again. “Not really, no. I can’t imagine sitting at a typewriter all day alone, not talking to a soul. Besides, it seems like a lot of work.”

“I thought you liked being alone.”

“When did I say that? But if you want to be a novelist, that’s great,” Soren added quickly. “I think you’d be fab at it.”

A crack had appeared in Missy’s stern countenance. “You really think so? That I’d be good at it?”

“I’d be honored to read anything you wrote.”

“Gee, thanks.” Though those words were often said sarcastically in present-time, I could tell she meant it. “Want to hear the truth?”

“Always.”

“I don’t want to be a novelist either. I don’t think I could keep up the necessary aloof attitude. I like talking to people and finding out about their actual lives. I’d rather write about that.”

“Yes, I feel the same way. But if that’s the case, why did you join the book club?”

“Because you seemed to think it wasn’t a good idea. Why did
you
join?”

“Because you did.”

“Oh.” Missy appeared flustered by his answer and she quickly changed the subject. “I mailed off a letter before we left—
Thornberg News
ran an ad for a job opening, and I applied. Reporter.”

“I sent in an application, too!”
 

There was a moment of awkwardness as they realized what that meant—that they were in competition with each other.

“I’ll withdraw my application,” Soren offered chivalrously.

“Nonsense. That wouldn’t be fair or right.”
 

“Oh. Then may the best, er, person win.”

“May the best person win. I think we better not mention this to Udo. He’ll say working for a small-town paper is too bourgeois or something.”

“He will, won’t he? Mum’s the word.”

As they went inside to rejoin the others, I thought I heard Missy say, “By the way, I have a bit of good news.”

I didn’t get to hear the rest.

So their argument hadn’t been about me, or even Missy’s interest in Udo and her flirtation with Nathaniel. It had been about non-earth-shattering stuff, though when you’re in your early twenties, most things seem vitally important.

I waited where I was until Abigail and Marlin rejoined me. Udo, Sabina, and my parents exited the lodge after them, talking about what would happen if someone accidentally fell into the river, according to Marlin, who was lip-reading again. How quickly would an alligator show up?

“If you see one, you should make noise and try to poke it in the eye,” Marlin quoted Soren, and then stopped. I saw that Udo was checking his watch. He said something to the others.

“What did he just say, Marlin? Did you see?”

Having a lip-reader as a helper was useful, and I made a mental note to suggest that our time-traveling researchers be trained in the art. Handheld electronic listening devices could be cumbersome to carry and were hardly discreet.
 

But Marlin shook his head. “No, he’s facing the wrong way.”

All at once, things were happening. Udo, Sabina, and my parents were striding in the direction of the parking lot. We followed more slowly than we would have preferred, History’s hand keeping our pace down. We found that our path was temporarily blocked by McGregor Boulevard traffic. I tried to dart across the road, but Marlin caught my arm and stopped me. “You’ll do her no good dead.”

I pushed his hand aside—“I won’t be killed, don’t worry”—and Abigail and I darted across.

We were too late. Udo’s Ford Mustang was pulling out of the parking lot. I scanned the heads by the art bus, which was still parked. My parents. Nate’s parents. The other four students, whose names I didn’t know.
 

Sabina’s dark-haired head was not among them.
 

Marlin’s mouth dropped open as Abigail and I took off after the Mustang on foot, dodging several cars to much honking. We would catch it, I was sure we would—a red light at the nearest intersection halted its progress briefly. I glimpsed Udo’s blond hair above the seat headrest and Sabina’s straw hat in the passenger seat. We were almost there…
 

We didn’t make it in time. There was a break in the traffic, and the car sped off.

I struggled not to sink into the cold seawater weighing down my clothes, battled to blink the sea out of my eyes so I could get my bearings. Abigail was next to me, treading water and holding the Slingshot high above her head. We were within swimming distance of shore, near the narrow sandy beach abutting the middle, sea-level segment of the causeway, just past the elevated portion where the accident would happen shortly. Abigail had sent us here as quickly as possible. We had elected to leave Marlin behind, since he’d told us he didn’t know how to swim, and it turned out the precaution had been warranted—we’d aimed for the causeway shoulder but had missed.

I swam in the direction of shore and my feet found the bottom. I turned to see Abigail do a sort of backwards foot paddle, the Slingshot still held high above her head. An elementary school–age kid who had been playing in the shallow water was staring at us with his mouth open. An inflatable dolphin was bobbing away from him. The adults who were playing cards in the shade of an umbrella while ostensibly keeping an eye on the boy had not seen us.
 

I waded in the direction of shore, hoping we wouldn’t get time-stuck because of the boy. We had minutes, if that.
 

I stumbled ashore, my clothes streaming water. Abigail joined me and spit out a mouthful of the sea. “History must have nudged us a bit—
cough
—hopefully only in location, not in time. We should have a good ten minutes or so.”

Like hers, my eyes were on the bridge. It looked different—a drawbridge rather than the high-span bridge that was there in the present, and lower in the water. But still high enough.

The boy, more driven by curiosity than social norms, as is common with kids, had come out of the water and was giving the Slingshot a frank stare. The card players hadn’t yet registered our presence. I started to get to my feet to walk over to them and confirm the time, worried that History had nudged us in that direction, too, but never got the chance.
 

When the sudden screech of brakes filled the air, the boy lost all interest in us and the strange device Abigail had dropped on the sand. He turned to look.
 

We were too late
.
 

There was nothing we could do—we were too late, too far, too powerless to do anything but watch.
 

I was thankful that our view of the bridge—we were below it and off to the side—was obstructed. I wanted to cover my ears to stop the
sound
—the screech of tires, the heavy
thump
of metal hitting cement, the shattering of glass—but they all melded into one never-ending moment. Time stopped. Abigail and I, still on our knees on the sand, only saw a mercifully brief glimpse of sunlight reflecting off a car-shaped red object streaking into the choppy water. We did not see Sabina and Udo fly out. We did not see their soft bodies hit the cold, unforgiving water.

And then, as quickly as it had happened, it was over.

The adults onshore had dropped their cards and were on their feet, hurrying across the road to see what had happened and if they could help.

Words escaped my mouth, unheeded, unstructured. I didn’t care what the boy would make of it. “Abigail, what if we jumped back home and returned with scuba diving gear? I think Dr. B has some—she’s gone scuba diving in the past. She could give the equipment to Officer Van Underberg, he’s young enough to jump to 1976. He could help Sabina swim out and to—”

Abigail put a hand on my arm. “Julia.”

“Sabina would catch on quickly, I’m sure. She’d let the officer help her.”

Where were the ambulances, the police cars to come to their aid? Did we need to call? I frantically looked around for a public phone booth.
 

Abigail tugged on my arm again. “Julia, it’s over. We need to go,” she said softly.

“Right,” I said.

I was distantly aware of being in a state that can be only described as shock, going through the motions of what needed to be done. Following Abigail’s example, I picked up someone’s beach towel and dabbed at my wet clothes. The sun would finish drying us off soon enough. We needed to head back to the Edison Estate to fetch our backpacks. That was what we needed to do.
 

The boy—practical, as kids tend to be—had gone back into the water to retrieve his dolphin, not wanting to lose it to the ocean current, and was dragging it ashore.
 

Abigail had pre-calculated the estate coordinates. They were written on a piece of paper tucked into the Slingshot where the casing had come slightly loose. She didn’t bother getting out of sight as she propped the Slingshot open and wiped sand off it—everyone on the beach and bridge was gathered on the north-facing side, watching as a passing boat tried to reach the spot where the car had gone down. Of course, we knew it would do no good.

I laid the towel back down where it had been, only a bit wetter. The sun would soon dry that off, too. I had been so sure, up until the very end, that we would be able to save her. But she was gone. History had corrected itself.

And Udo was gone, too.

Bits and pieces of a monologue from the end of
The Sirens of Titan
took over my mind:
I am not dying…In the grand, in the timeless, in the chrono-synclastic infundibulated way of looking at things, I shall always be here.
 

“Ready, Julia?”

In our haste to get to the bridge, we had stuffed the two backpacks into a container holding discarded garden clippings back at the Edison Estate. They were still there. Marlin wasn’t. I was in a downer sort of mood and imagined what would happen if we left the backpacks there, let them decompose into nothing during rainy season after rainy season on a trash dump or a field somewhere. Still, as Abigail pointed out, Dr. B wouldn’t be happy to lose two go-bags on a single time-travel run, so we retrieved them and wiped off the assorted trash stains as best we could. It was a good thing Dr. Little wasn’t around to see it.
 

I pulled myself together and searched my mind for something ordinary and comforting to say. I reached for my usual tool in dealing with problems, which felt so inadequate now. “Want a snack, Abigail? We could get another box of cookies or a Coke from the gift shop.”

“No, thanks.”

“I don’t want you to think we failed her.”

“Except that we did, didn’t we?”

We had, but it hurt too much to face the truth.
 

“Do you mind if we stick around for a bit?” I asked. “I want to gather my thoughts before we break the news to everyone in the lab.” Perhaps Nate, Dr. Little, Dr. B, and the others knew already; maybe by now they had heard from Nate’s parents that the girl they’d known as Julia had not returned. A thought struck me—had I been named after her in some weird circle-of-life thing? Surely not. Wouldn’t my parents have told me the story if that was the case? It must have just been a name they liked, that was all. Anything else was just too much to process.
 

“No,” Abigail said when I brought up the possibility after we had squished over in our wet clothes to the bench we had occupied earlier. We sat down to try to process what had happened and to let the sun dry us before heading back. “Your parents didn’t name you after her. Your name was chosen first, before we ever rescued her in Pompeii, before she went to 1976—then, for whatever reason, Sabina gave it as her own.”