Page 31 of Fast Forward

“It’s been a long time. How are you?” he asked in a businesslike tone.

I kept trying to wrap my arms around him but with each step forward, he took one step back.

“I’m great now I’ve found you,” I replied. At his curious glance I realised I must look a mess after all the crying. I gestured to my face. “Oh, I just had lunch with my sister and, whoa!” I made a fanning motion with my hands, “the amount of chilli they put in the meal, you wouldn’t believe.”

“So what have you been up to lately?” Grant asked, checking his e-pad briefly and I winced as the woman next to him slid her hand into his.

I looked up at the sky that was trying and failing to compete with the attention of the crowded high-rises. “Wow, where do I start?”

I held up my hands and let them fall back to my thighs with a slap. I wanted to tell him everything and tell him not to worry, that I would be back in the past soon enough and we could be together again.

What would be happening in the past, right now? Would my birthday be happening without me? Maybe Grant had filed a missing persons report. Or maybe some other version of me was there, living out the day as planned but without my awareness. But I couldn’t tell him the truth. I had to choose my words carefully, even though they were all lining up at the door of my mouth, ready to barge through like customers in a Boxing Day sale.

“I woke up this morning, shocked to find that I’m fifty years old and…”

“Oh, it’s your birthday?”

I felt like saying: ‘Of course, you beautiful idiot! You were with me last night,’ but bit my tongue. “Yes.”

“Happy birthday,” Grant said with a nod of his head. His companion shifted on her feet and looked longingly at the direction they’d been travelling in before my intrusion.

“Thanks! Anyway, my son gave me a bungy jump for my birthday, can you believe it? So I actually did it and then I met my daughter for the first time, er… in a week, and after that I had a facial that was better than sex… oops, I mean, not better than you of course, but, well, it’s just a gimmick sort of thing, you know…” Damn. Said too much, and now the woman was carving my eyes out of their sockets with her laser glare.

Her glare shot towards Grant. “You… slept with this woman?”

Grant’s cheeks flushed pink and I could see the veins throbbing in his neck. “No, of course not! I mean, not recently…”

“What?” The woman planted her hands on her hips and stamped a sharp high-heeled foot onto the sidewalk, possibly triggering a catastrophic earthquake or tsunami somewhere in the world.

“What I mean, honey, is that I was with Kelli a long time ago, when she was young.”

When we both were young. Why were women seen as young or old and men were just seen as… men?

The woman’s hands relaxed a little. “Before we were together then? And before your… other wives?”

Grant gripped her shoulders. “Yes, as I said, a long, long time ago. It was nothing, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

She nodded and raised her chin as she slid an arm territorially around his back.

It was nothing? Other wives? The gap between Grant and I widened, and I wished there was something nearby to hang on to as my legs became jelly. Well, at least now they matched my belly. How could he say our relationship was nothing? He was… is… going to propose!

But in this life – this weird, warped, ridiculous existence that was the life of Kelli McSnelly – Grant had lost his way. He’d become, by the sounds and looks of it, a millionaire photographer with a history of marriage and divorce to rival Ross Geller’s from Friends. Only I bet he didn’t marry a lesbian and I bet he didn’t say the wrong name at his wedding, or marry his friend in a drunken haze in Vegas.

Grant wasn’t like that. Couldn’t be like that. He was my generous, affectionate, caring soon-to-be-fiancé and we were soulmates. Now I wanted to get home more than ever, not only to see my dad, but to marry Grant and stop him becoming this, this… imbecile who’d been searching for me in every woman he met and never finding true happiness because the woman he loved was married to William McSnelly. How did the universe get this so wrong?

“Sorry, Kelli, I should have introduced you two. This is Charli, my fiancé.”

Charli Schmarli. She was just a possibility in this future, a hologram projected onto this existence by some giant e-pad controlling the universe. They’d got it wrong. When I got back I’d be able to change the future and Charli would play no part in it. Even her name was close to mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if his other wives had been Kyli, Karli and Karali. In the real future, I’d become Kelli Mills, his one and only wife.

We tentatively shook hands and I turned to Grant with a smug smile. “I know you and I will be together again, Grant. You wait and see. I know you still love me, but don’t worry, when I travel back to the past I’ll make things right. In twenty-five years it’ll be you and I standing here arm in arm.”

A shrill laugh escaped Charli’s mouth and if she hadn’t been holding on to Grant, I was sure he would have fainted with embarrassment as she looked at him and said, “You were actually with this loony?”

“Ah, Kelli, I think you ought to go home and lie down, okay?” He held out two hands, palms downward, as if he was trying to calm a wild animal and stop it from coming any closer.

I just smiled and said, “I’ll see you soon… honey.” Then I winked at him and turned away. It was kind of fun teasing him a little and scaring the daylights out of Charli, but I knew Grant wouldn’t remember this when I really did see him again. Because it would be from a future that would never happen.

Liliana! I suddenly remembered that I’d planned to go back and see her. She might be able to shed more light on my relationship with Grant and possibly even pass on a message from Dad. As I crossed the road, back towards the shopping centre, my e-pad rang and I pinched and pulled the virtual cord to my ear. “Hello?”

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