The Future of Us (2 page)

Kellan says I’m delusional about him, but she’s one to talk. When she got together with Tyson last summer, you’d think the girl invented love. She’s got a genius IQ and writes intense editorials for the school paper, but all she could talk about was Tyson this and Tyson that. When he broke up with her after winter break, she crashed so hard she missed two weeks of school.

While I may pine for Cody, I still have to live my life. For the past two months I’ve been going out with Graham Wilde. We’re in band together. He plays drums and I play saxophone. He’s sexy, with shoulder-length blond hair, but his clinginess at prom was annoying. I’ll definitely end it with him soon. Or maybe I’ll just let things dissolve over the summer.

THE STATUS BAR is still chugging along.

I take a shower and then settle into my papasan chair to read over my notes for the biology final. I’ve been getting A’s in biology this year, definitely my strongest subject. Kellan has been trying to convince me to sign up with her for a biology course at the college next fall, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I want a low-key senior year.

When the download is complete, I close my textbook and then restart the computer. As I dial in to AOL, the modem crackles and beeps. Once I’m on, I check to see if
[email protected]
is available, but that email address is already taken. So is
EmmaMarieNelson
. Finally I settle on
EmmaNelson4Ever
. For my password, I consider a few options before typing “Millicent.” Last summer, when Kellan and Tyson were all over each other, Josh and I made fun of them by pretending we were a lovesick middle-aged couple named Millicent and Clarence who devoured Hamburger Helper and drove around town in a beat-up ice-cream truck. Kellan and Tyson never thought it was funny, but it sent Josh and me into hysterics.

I click Enter and the same AOL screen I’ve seen on Kellan’s computer now appears on mine.

“
Welcome!
” chimes an electronic voice.

I’m about to write my first email to Kellan when a bright light flashes across the screen. A small white box with a blue border pops up, asking me to re-enter my email and password.

“[email protected],” I type. “Millicent
.
”

For about twenty seconds, my monitor freezes. Then the white box snaps into a tiny blue dot and a new webpage fades in. It has a blue banner running across the top that says “Facebook.” A column down the center of the screen is labeled “News Feed” and under that are tiny photos of people I don’t recognize. Each photo is followed by a brief statement.

I circle the mouse around the screen, confused by the jumble of pictures and words. I have no idea what any of this means, “Status” and “Friend Request” and “Poke.”

Then, just under the blue banner, something makes me shiver. Next to a small picture of a woman sitting on a beach, it says “Emma Nelson Jones.” The woman is in her thirties with curly brown hair and brown eyes. My stomach tingles because this woman looks familiar.

Too
familiar.

When I move the mouse over her name, the white arrow turns into a hand. I click and another page slowly loads. This time, her picture is larger and there’s so much information I don’t know where to begin reading. In the center column, next to a smaller version of the same picture, I see:

It says Emma Nelson Jones went to Lake Forest High School. She’s married to someone named Jordan Jones Jr. and was born on July 24. She doesn’t list the year, but July 24 is
my
birthday.

I sink my forehead into my hands and attempt to take a deep breath. Through my open window, I hear Josh skating toward his house, his wheels bumping over the lines in the sidewalk. I run down the stairs and burst out the front door, squinting my eyes in the bright sun.

“Josh?” I call out.

He rides up his driveway and kicks the skateboard into his hand.

I clutch the railing on my front porch to steady myself. “Something happened after I downloaded AOL.”

Josh stares at me, the wind chimes ringing through the silence.

“Can you come upstairs for a second?” I ask.

He looks down at the grass, but doesn’t say a word.

“Please,” I say.

With his skateboard in his hand, Josh follows me into the house.

I FOLLOW EMMA up her stairs and count on my fingers from November to May. It’s been six months since I’ve been in her house. Before that, this was like my second home. But after we all went to the opening night of
Toy Story
, I misread things and thought she wanted to be more than friends.

She didn’t.

When we get to her room, Emma waves a hand at the computer. “Here it is.”

The monitor plays a screensaver that makes it look like you’re moving through a maze of brick walls.

“It’s nice,” I say, leaning my skateboard against her dresser. “You can barely hear it run.”

Her room looks the same as before, other than a vase of wilting white roses on her dresser. Several red paper lanterns dangle from the ceiling. Two corkboards near her bed are packed with photos and ticket stubs from movies and school dances.

Emma shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says, laughing to herself. “This is stupid.”

“What’s stupid?” I push my sweaty hair out of my eyes. After picking up my new wheels, I met Tyson in the First Baptist parking lot to skate. Between the morning and evening services, the lot is empty, and they have some killer banks in the asphalt.

Emma stands beside her desk chair and turns it toward me. “Okay, I need you to humor me for a second.”

I sit down and Emma swivels me back around until I’m facing the monitor.

“Jiggle the mouse,” she says, “and tell me what you see.”

I’m not sure if it’s being back in her room or the strange way she’s acting, but this whole situation is making me uncomfortable.

“Please,” she says, and then she walks to her window.

I give her mouse a shake. The brick wall freezes and then disappears. A website appears with words and tiny pictures thrown everywhere, like a kaleidoscope. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be looking at.

“This woman looks like you,” I say. “That’s cool!” I glance over at Emma but she’s staring outside. Her window faces the front lawn, as well as my upstairs bathroom window. “She doesn’t look
exactly
like you. But if you were older she would.”

“What else do you see?” Emma asks.

“She has your name, just with Jones at the end.”

The website says “Facebook” at the top. It’s disorganized, with graphics and writing all over the place.

“You didn’t make this, did you?” I ask. I’m taking Word Processing I this year, which is all about creating, altering, and saving files on the computer. Emma’s a year ahead, in Word Processing II.

She turns toward me, her eyebrows raised.

“Not that you
couldn’t
do it,” I say.

It looks like Emma made this website as a class assignment, creating a fantasy future for herself. She says that Emma Nelson Jones went to our high school, now lives in Florida, and married a guy named Jordan Jones Jr. Her husband’s name sounds fake, but at least she didn’t call herself Emma Nelson Grainger, after that track guy. Or Emma Nelson Wilde after her current boy toy. Speaking of Graham, didn’t she say she was going to break up with him by now?

Emma sits on the edge of her bed, her hands pressed between her thighs. “What do you think?”

“I’m not entirely sure what you were going for,” I say.

“What are you talking about?”

“When’s it due?” I ask.

“When’s
what
due?”

Emma walks up beside me and stares at the screen, tapping two fingers against her lips. With her hair dripping onto her shirt, tiny rainbow-colored stars on her bra begin to appear. I try not to look.

“Josh, be honest,” she says. “How did you do this?”

“
Me
?”

“You’re the one who told me to download that CD-ROM,” Emma says. She reaches down and presses Eject on the computer’s disc drive. “You said it was from AOL.”

“It was!” I point at the screen. “You think
I
know how to do this?”

“You have plenty of pictures of me. Maybe you scanned one at school and—”

“And changed it to make you look older? How could I do that?”

My hands start sweating. If Emma didn’t do this, then...

I rub my palms across my knees. One side of my brain whispers that this could be a website from the future. The other side of my brain screams at the first side for being an idiot.

On the screen, Emma Nelson Jones, with slight creases at the corners of her eyes, is smiling.

Emma flicks her hand at the monitor. “Do you think this is a virus?”

“Or a joke,” I say. I take the CD-ROM out of her computer and study it. Maybe someone at school knew Emma was getting a new computer, so they created this realistic looking disc and . . . put it in
my
mailbox?

On the screen, there is a series of short sentences running down the center of the page. They’re written by Emma Nelson Jones, with other people responding.

“If it’s a joke, I don’t get it,” Emma says. “What’s it supposed to mean?”

“Obviously it’s supposed to be from the future.” I laugh. “Maybe this webpage means you’re famous.”

Emma cracks up. “Right. How would I become famous? The saxophone? Track? Or do you think I’m a world famous rollerblader?”

I play along. “Maybe rollerblading is an Olympic sport in the future.”

Emma squeals and claps her hands together. “Maybe Cody qualifies in track and we’ll go to the Olympics
together
!”

I hate the way she can bring Cody Grainger into any conversation.

She points toward something at the bottom of the page. “What’s that?”

Below that text, mostly hidden by the bottom of the screen, there’s a photo. The top of the picture looks like ocean water. I roll the mouse over it.

“Should I click to see if—?”

“No!” Emma says. “What if this is a virus and the more we open, the worse it gets? I don’t want to screw up my new computer.”

She grabs the CD-ROM from me and drops it in her top desk drawer.

I turn in the chair to look directly at her. “Come on, even if it’s a prank, don’t you want to see who they say you end up marrying?”

Emma thinks about it for a second. “Fine,” she says.

I click on the photo and a new screen appears. We watch the large square in the center slowly fill from top to bottom. First, choppy ocean waves. Then a man’s face. He’s wearing black sunglasses. Then his fingers, gripped around the sword-like nose of a fish. When the picture has fully loaded, we see that the man is standing at the bow of a fishing boat.

“That fish is huge!” I say. “I wonder where he is? I guess it’s supposed to be Florida.”

“He’s hot!” Emma says. “For an older guy. I wonder where they got this picture.”

We’re startled by a rapid knock on Emma’s door, followed by her mom entering the room.

“Do you like your new computer?” she asks. “Are you two surfing the World Wide Web with all those free hours?”

Emma moves slightly in front of the monitor. “We’re researching swordfish.”

“And future husbands,” I say, which gets the back of my arm a sharp pinch.

“Can you work on it later?” her mom asks. “Marty has to call a client before dinner and he can’t do it while you’re on that Internet.”

“But I’m not done,” Emma says. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get back to this website again.”

She’s right. What if we can’t get back here? Even if it is a joke, there’s so much more to check out. Emma needs to say something convincing to keep us online.

“There’s
one
phone line,” her mom says. “Write down the website name on a piece of paper and go back to it later. If this Internet thing is going to be a problem—”

“It won’t,” Emma says. She grabs the mouse, exhales slowly, and signs out of AOL.