Yesterday Page 20

  “I don’t have a sister, Freya. You’re the one with the sister.” He cocks his head, his face flushed with frustration. “If this psycho explanation of yours makes any sense how come it doesn’t explain who she really is?”

  It does. I just didn’t mention it because everything else was more important. Olivia is President Ortega’s daughter. Her father was killed in a terrorist explosion in Calgary six years ago, when he was secretary of state. I’ve only met Caroline Ortega twice in my life, both times before she was elected president, but she must have needed someone to send Olivia back with, someone who would look after her. I explain this to Garren knowing it’ll sound as mental as everything else.

  “You’re completely delusional,” he says, his right sneaker losing traction slightly on the icy sidewalk. Regaining his balance, he slams his left foot down like he means to kill something underneath it. “We can’t keep going like this. With you thinking you’re someone from the future. I don’t want to hear that from you again, understand? If you have to say it, I can’t be around you.”

  “I can’t stop saying it, Garren. It’s the truth. I’m not going to pretend for you. The past doesn’t disappear just because you don’t want to hear it. Think about it—this is why so many of the facts surrounding our lives are duplicates. The scientists put them into our heads. They must have been in too big a rush with the evacuation to come up with entirely distinct cover stories.” I brush stray snowflakes from my eyes. “Henry’s not our grandfather—he’s no one, a stranger wrapped up in the cover story. You were sent back because of the Toxo outbreak, same as I was. I don’t know why things didn’t come back to you the way they came back to me. Maybe we need to try again with someone else when we get to Vancouver. You have everything locked away in there, just like I did. There has to be something that will make you remember.”

  Once he sees it, the truth will be undeniable. His heart will know it at a glance. How could it not? It’s the difference between breathable sky that stretches out in all directions and a ceiling coated in blue paint from a hardware store.

  “Shit.” Garren stops in his tracks. He hurls one of the bags to the ground, shrugs the other off his shoulders and stares at me, breathing hard. “This is never going to stop, is it?” He folds his hands on top of his head, his thumbs sifting through his dark hair. “I can’t do this, Freya. You’re going to make me crazy. Is that what you want? The two of us losing our fucking minds on the West Coast? It sounds like a good way to get caught to me. If this is the way you want to do it … I’m sorry, I just can’t.” Garren lowers his hands, his left at his side and his right digging into his pocket. He pulls a fifty-dollar bill out and hands it to me.

  “No,” I protest, knowing exactly what the gesture means. “Don’t do that. We’re in this together.”

  “I thought we were.” He bends to loop his fingers around his bags. “And I hope you’re going to be okay, I really do. But I need to give myself half a chance and you’re … you’re out there in your own universe.”

  He’s the one in denial, but saying that won’t change anything. I can’t believe we’re right back where we were last Wednesday when I showed up on his doorstep.

  I slip his fifty into my pocket as he turns and walks away. I don’t know how I’ll do this on my own but I have no choice. After all I’ve been through—all I’ve already lost—I can’t fall to pieces now. I have to keep running. Alone, if that’s the way it has to be. I pull my bag close to me and head in the opposite direction.

  For about thirty feet, I feel brave and resolved, like every last one of those Winston Churchill quotes they used to drill into our brains on the Dailies. I don’t let myself turn back to watch Garren recede into the distance. At first my sadness for Latham is so overpowering that I can barely feel Garren’s absence.

  It hits soon enough.

  I’m seventy-eight years from home with no one to help me. My parents must’ve thought they were saving me. I wasn’t supposed to remember. Something went wrong.

  I need more answers. I need to know what happened to the U.N.A. If time travel is possible after all, can the future be saved by returning to a moment before the outbreak? Is there ongoing communication between the past and the future? Can we leap forward the same way we came back? My head starts to ache like it used to as questions pummel my mind.

  Doctor Byrne was adamant that Garren and I had to get far away and never contact our families. He wouldn’t offer us any answers last time and the odds of him talking now aren’t any better. I’d get caught if I went near him or Henry anyway. There’s just one other person who might know something and even if I’m right about her she probably won’t help. If Garren were with me I wouldn’t risk contacting her, but now I don’t have much to lose and I trudge to the nearest phone booth and dial my mother’s work number. When the receptionist answers I ask to speak to Nancy Bolton.

  “Good afternoon,” Nancy declares seconds later. “How can I help you?”

  “Nancy, it’s Freya.” The pay phone’s cold and grimy in my hand. I try not to imagine who was holding it last and what they did to it. “Don’t get my mother. I don’t have much time. I need to know if you can help me.”

  “Help you how?” she asks, sounding bewildered. “Where are you? Are you all right? The police have been looking everywhere for you.”

  “I don’t have time for this, Nancy. I’ve remembered, okay? And I know you’re not an old friend of my mother’s—that you didn’t meet her until just over a month ago, which means you must be working for them. So if you actually care whether I live or die and you know anything that can help me, I need you to tell me now.”

  “I do care.” Nancy lowers her voice. “But there’s nothing I can do for you, honey. Nothing I can tell you. I’m sorry.”

  My nose is running. I feel so helpless that it makes me want to destroy something. How can she call me honey and still refuse me? Rage burns through my veins.

  “Unless … I do have some money and I’m sure that’s something you need too,” Nancy says.

  I find my voice. “You know this isn’t what my father would want. Them killing me. You know who he is, don’t you?”

  “I do,” she says softly.

  “Then you know he must’ve sent me back to try to save me and there’s …” No one for me to turn to. I’m like any other street kid.

  “This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be,” Nancy interrupts. “I really am sorry. Tell me when and where I can meet you so I can help you out in the only way I can. Are you still in the Toronto area?”

  “Why should I trust you?” I ask.

  “You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t trust anyone now.”

  Except that I need more money to get to Vancouver. I don’t even know where I’ll sleep tonight. Garren’s gone and I have no plan B of my own. My head’s throbbing so hard that I want to throw up. I’m exhausted too. I could curl up in this phone booth right now, pass out cold and not wake up until morning.

  “I’m not … feeling well,” I stammer. “I have to go.” Back to the house on Cranbrooke Avenue, just for a while. Just until I can sleep off this feeling.

  “Freya.” Nancy’s tone is loud and piercing. “You give me a time and a place and I swear I’ll be there. Alone.”

  “The Eaton Centre. Tomorrow at noon.” The Yonge Street shopping center’s the first public place that pops into my mind. If I’m going to meet her anywhere it should be somewhere crawling with people. And if I decide against meeting her it’ll be the easiest thing in the world not to show up.

  “Where in the Eaton Centre?” Nancy asks. “It’s a big place.”

  I’ve never actually been there. My face is drenched with sweat and a wave of nausea grips me and shakes me. I have to get back to the house. Now.

  “Is … is there a bookstore?” I sputter.

  Nancy says there is and she’ll meet me there. I hang up and hobble into the street, feverish and weak. The sickness must have something to do with remembering. Mayb
e the Bio-net (is it still operational inside me?) can’t handle the shock to the system. I’ve never heard of anyone recovering their memory after a wipe, never knew it was possible.

  I’m shivering and I’ve lost track of where I am. I need a bus or streetcar stop. Better still, a subway station. A black woman bundled up against the cold so that only her eyes and nose show between her hat and scarf scrutinizes me as I pass her on the sidewalk.

  I spin to trail after her. “Excuse me. Where’s the subway from here? A bus. Anything. I’m lost.”

  “You’re high,” the woman scolds. “Higher than a kite. No wonder you’re lost, honey.”

  There’s that word again. Honey. Sick as I am, I laugh bitterly.

  “If you keep messing with the drugs you’ll throw your life away,” she continues. “You’re young. You get yourself right back on that straight and narrow path and stay there.”

  I nod soberly, like she’s reaching me, whatever it’ll take for her to give me directions because I don’t know how much longer I can stay on my feet.

  “I know you know what I’m talking about,” she says. “You can laugh about it if you want to but inside you know.” The woman takes a tentative step closer to me and points down the road. “The next left at the lights will get you to the subway. About five minutes down the street. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you.” I’m disproportionately grateful, as though she actually is saving me from a life of drug addiction.

  It’s not long before I’m on the subway, sliding down into a seat near the door and shutting my eyes. The motion of the car heightens my nausea and forces my lashes open again. Next to me a man’s reading the newspaper and listening to a Walkman, the Tears for Fears song “Shout” leaking out of his earphones. One moment I’m concentrating on the lyrics and trying not to throw up and the next I’m jolting awake at Chester Station. Across the aisle a different man is watching me over the top of his paperback, frowning. Maybe he thinks I’m a drug addict too.

  I pull myself up and haul myself off the subway car. I’ve gone too far east and need to work my way back to Bloor so I can transfer to the Yonge line. Thirty-two minutes later I arrive at Lawrence Station. For the first time I take the shorter route to Cranbrooke Avenue, straight up Yonge Street. I’m burning up and tear off my coat to carry it. The Eggo I had before leaving the house hours ago is snaking its way back up my esophagus. I can’t keep it down. I stagger away from the grocery store on my left and throw up next to a fire hydrant.

  My vision’s blurry and my feet are clumsy. I clomp up the street like I’m wearing clown shoes. The only thing keeping me going is Latham. I don’t want his death to be for nothing. I can’t have been sent back in time seventy-eight years only to be captured and killed like he was. I turn onto Cranbrooke Avenue, walking faster now. On the sidewalk I skirt past a woman and little girl who might be the same people Garren and I saw from the Resniks’ window the afternoon we first broke in. The woman offers her own version of the scared/disgusted look everyone’s been aiming at me since I left Lou’s place but her daughter smiles at me.

  I smile back, my teeth sticking on my gums, and the two of them hurry by me. Once they’ve gone the street looks clear. I reel towards the Resniks’ front door and let the house swallow me whole. I’m overjoyed to be back inside it again; the house is the closest thing I have left to an ally. I teeter in the direction of the living room and collapse onto the couch where I sleep like the dead.

  NINETEEN

  Later I wake up in the dark to the sound of scraping. Garren took both flashlights with him and I don’t know what time it is or how long I’ve been out for. As I lie motionless, listening to the noise in the blackness, I realize someone must be shoveling outside. Janette’s brother probably. I climb upstairs to the twins’ room and risk a quick glance outside to confirm my guess. I’ve never seen Janette’s brother but the boy pushing snow to the curb looks about the right age.

  I remain upstairs until the noise has stopped, signaling that he’s finished the job. Then I head back to the ground floor, light a candle and carry it into the kitchen where I drink three glasses of water in record time. The thirst aside, I feel better. Hungry even. I notice that the clock reads two minutes to nine. I must have been asleep for over four hours and I hope I’m going to be okay now that the worst is behind me. But I’m scared to eat much in case I get sick again and limit myself to applesauce from the fridge.

  I have huge doubts about whether I can trust Nancy but I plan to meet her tomorrow anyway. As much as I don’t want to risk being caught, I can’t give up on the idea of finding out how I got here and whether she has news about my father or any of the other people left behind. If I don’t take the chance I’ll never know more than I do right now. Every remnant of my old life will have been washed away without a trace. There’s the money too. I desperately need more. Garren and I have already been over the Resnik house with a fine-tooth comb. If I don’t get extra cash from Nancy it will mean either begging or stealing to get enough money to make it to Vancouver.

  I wonder if Garren’s already on his way there or maybe he’s changed his mind and is heading for some other place. That’s a distinct possibility, considering that he thinks I’m crazy and therefore more likely to be caught and share whatever information I have about him.

  I feel so lonely without him. I don’t know how to think of him anymore—as the person I knew in the past or as the guy I’ve gotten to know in the past few days. I’ve felt alone before but never like this. Me against the world. I need to hear a friendly voice. It’s a risk like everything else but I don’t even try to talk myself out of it, just resolve to wait until ten o’clock to leave the house. Coming and going like I have increases the odds of being noticed by neighbors but there are less people out at night and I’ll be extra careful.

  I pull on Paula’s boots before leaving, shove my long black hair under one of her hats. Henry’s men definitely wouldn’t be able to recognize me at a glance and anyway, they’re probably still looking for a duo. They can’t have any way of tracking us, otherwise we’d have been picked up days ago. Our microchips must have been removed before we were sent back.

  The real danger is that my call might be traced and I promise myself I won’t stay on the line a second over two minutes no matter what. Out on Cranbrooke Avenue, and then Yonge Street, I keep my eyes peeled for anything suspicious. The snow’s stopped and the sidewalk has been partially plowed. A happy young couple are walking their dogs (one small and one large) while chewing on pizza slices. I resist the urge to ask them where the pizza came from. It smells delicious and I feel my stomach growl in protest against my caution in sticking with applesauce. Across the street, I spy a phone booth outside a lighting store and sprint over to it.

  I dial Christine’s number, hoping that she isn’t out or if she’s home, hasn’t gone to sleep yet. I need to know there’s someone out there who cares what happens to me, even if they don’t know what I’ve really been through or who I really am.

  The phone rings four times before Christine’s dad picks up. I apologize for calling so late and give my name as Nicolette, which I know will throw Christine because she and Nicolette have probably never called each other in their lives.

  “Hi,” Christine says suspiciously once she’s picked up the phone.

  “It’s not Nicolette,” I say quickly. “It’s me.”

  “You. Where are you? Do you know you’re officially missing? The cops have been questioning everyone. I told them about the guy you were meeting a couple of days before you went missing. Did he kidnap you? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “Not really. But he didn’t kidnap me. It doesn’t have anything to do with him. I just …” My voice is beginning to crumble like a cracker. “I needed to hear a friendly voice.”

  “Are you coming back? Where are you? I can get my dad to come pick you up right now.”

  “No, no. I can’t come back. I can’t explain why either.”

 
; “Then I can meet you,” Christine says. “Just me.”

  “I wish we could do that but it wouldn’t be safe for you. I can’t even stay on the phone long.” I’m already running low on time.

  “Are you going to be all right?” she asks, sounding scared for me. “Tell me what I can do.”

  “I don’t know.” There’s really nothing. The unsaid words bring tears to my eyes. I fight them off, afraid that if I start crying I won’t be strong enough to cut the conversation short.

  “Promise me you’ll call back and let me know you’re okay.”

  “I’ll try.” I hope I can. Hearing Christine worry for me makes me feel like I matter.

  “Did you call your mom?” she asks. “Can I tell her you called me?”

  “Don’t tell anyone. Promise me you won’t. It could make things worse for me.”

  “I won’t then,” Christine says solemnly. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for being home tonight, Christine.” I hang up without warning. Christine’s someone else I’ll never see again but at least I know she’s still out there. I wish I could’ve spent more time with her and Derrick but I’ll never regret remembering Latham, even though this is where it’s led me.

  As I exit the phone booth I notice someone else in the distance with a pizza slice in one of his hands. He’s just stepped out of a door that I assume is the entrance to the pizza place. I hurry down to it, remembering Garren’s joke about ordering pizza to see how seriously the residents of Cranbrooke Avenue take the concept of neighborhood watch.

  I can’t let myself think about Garren. It’s too hard. I have enough to worry about without wondering whether he’s okay and whether we’ll ever run into each other again.

  I buy a slice of Hawaiian pizza and a Coke and finish them both on the way back to the house. I feel more like a stranger in a strange land now that I know for a fact that I don’t belong in 1985 but the past several weeks and the false memories the scientists must have given me have lent me a familiarity with the era that makes it feel less jarring than it would’ve otherwise.