Page 43 of Time Loops & Meet Cutes
“I don’t know. Somehow, it just makes more sense to me that we’d wake up on June twenty-first.”
But Avery brings up a good point. Whatishappening with the rest of the world while we’re stuck? Is everything else frozen?
SeptemberCam
Although I’ve eaten more than enough food, my grandmother deposits an egg tart on my plate. The whole family has gathered for dim sum at a crowded restaurant near my parents’ house, and on the other side of the round table, my father and aunt are having an argument about… something or other.
Unlike my parents, my grandma wasn’t disappointed in me when I decided to quit my stable job to do something related to beer. Or when Justin, Darrell, and I opened the brewery a few years later.
Honestly, I was shocked. I’d expected her to be unhappy, but she even gave me the money she’d been saving for when I got married. I just had to promise that I wouldn’t expect a big wedding gift.
“How is my investment?” she asks me now. She likes to jokingly call it an “investment” even though the money was a gift.
My father, who wasn’t thrilled she gave it to me, makes a face. The two of us have never been particularly close, and his relationship with his mother has always been tense too, for reasons I don’t fully understand.
“It’s going well,” I say.
“You meet any nice girls lately?”
“No, I’ve been busy.” An excuse. I don’t tell her thatsometimes I wonder if it’ll never happen for me, if I’ve missed my chance somehow.
“Ah, don’t worry, you will find someone.” She pats my hand, and I feel like she can read my thoughts.
And then I feel a strange prickle on my skin, and I have the overwhelming conviction that I just told a lie. That I’ve already met someone.
A moment later, it’s gone.
“Mom tried to set me up with the daughter of one of her friends the other week,” I say. “You think I should have agreed to that?”
My grandmother shakes her head. “No, you just wait. It will turn out.”
“If she’s not Taiwanese, is that okay?”
To my surprise, she doesn’t even hesitate before nodding. “You are getting old.”
“I’m not that old,” I say with a chuckle. “Is that the only reason it would be okay now? Because you’re desperate?” I tease.
“No, you are—aiya!” she exclaims as a piece of tripe escapes her chopsticks and falls to the ground. She’s been dropping things more often lately, I’ve noticed.
Before she can bend over, I swipe it off the floor with my napkin.
“I know you are very busy,” she says, “but come over soon, yes?” She lives with my parents now. Although she and my father often don’t get along, he takes his duties as the eldest son seriously. “I will buy the mooncakes you like.”
“Don’t worry, I can bring them.”
“Good boy,” she says, even though I’m thirty-four. She leans closer to me, and I think she’s going to add something more, but she just sips her tea.
16Noelle
June 20, Version 80-ish
“What do you want to do now?” Cam asks, his hand around mine as we leave the market.
“Maybe a movie?” I suggest.
We take the subway to an indie theater. By the time we arrive, there’s only one movie that hasn’t started yet: a low-budget horror film. It’s been ages since I’ve watched a horror movie on the big screen, and I nearly jump out of my seat at one point, spilling the remaining popcorn onto the floor.
When we see it for the second time a few June 20s later, I’m better prepared, but when we step out into the warm night air at eleven thirty, I’m still half-convinced that something is lurking in the shadows. After all, given how strange my life has become, it doesn’t seem that far-fetched.
