[2013] Life II Page 11

  The gangly clerk, wearing a reddish-brown winter hat, said, “No. Never heard of it. Do you need the Yellow Pages?” He bent down and tossed a mammoth phone book on the counter in front of Max.

  Max chuckled at the large yellow book of information. He shook his head at how people relied on this massive behemoth of a reference guide for even the simplest information. Thank heavens there was Internet in the future!

  Max flipped through the section marked Bookstores. He scanned the listings. And sighed. There was no listing for anything remotely close to “Raymond’s.”

  Silently Max slouched out of the store. He would have to keep an eye out for Raymond’s as long as he lived in this new alternative existence.

  But that might take a very long time.

  Chapter Nineteen

  February 13, 1988 at 7:22 p.m.

  “It’s a bad idea,” Max grumbled over the phone.

  “Max, come on!” Garfield pleaded. “I loaned you money right away when you asked me for it last September.”

  “Dude, that’s different. I knew it was a sure thing when I asked you for the money.”

  “How’s that possible?”

  “Garfield, I told you! I had a very strong hunch.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But I don’t think you know what will happen on the stock market.”

  “Maybe not. But since then, I’ve made three thousand five hundred, and now most of it’s gone. I need your help, man!”

  Max grumbled into the phone. He fidgeted. He figured he could delve back into his memories from Life I, and pull out some other future stock information nugget that could get Garfield back in the black—but Max didn’t want to start something that he wouldn’t be able to stop. Besides, were the things that happened in Life I guaranteed to happen in Life II? What if he gave Garfield a sure thing, a guaranteed tip from Life I, and it only ended with his friend deeper in the red?

  Nope. Don’t want to do that.

  It had been risky enough the first time.

  “Come on, Max,” Garfield begged again. “Something, man. Anything.”

  Max rattled his brain. It was too late to share that the Washington Redskins had defeated the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. But Max could remember some of the gold medal winners from the Olympic Games about to begin in Calgary. Would it hurt to tell his friend that Brian Boitano would win Olympic skating gold so that Garfield could place a wager on it?

  Sure, it would be awesome to share the information—but then Garfield would get too reliant and that would be that.

  “Maaaaaaaaaaaax!” Garfield whined one more time. “Come on, maaaaaaaaaaan!!”

  Suddenly the doorbell sounded downstairs. Max breathed a sigh of relief at the interruption. “Sorry, Garfield. Can’t do it for you this time. It would be like a bad drug you can’t turn away from.”

  “Gimme a break, Max.”

  “Gotta go,” Max said. “Brigitta’s here.”

  “Sure. Fine,” Garfield grumbled. “But don’t forget, Max, I believed in you. We both did really well last time. All I’m asking for is the same treatment.”

  Hastily Max hung up and bounded down the stairs. He whipped open the door and there stood a smiling Brigitta in super-tight pants and a loose glittery top slung off one gleaming shoulder.

  Damn, she looked good. Better than anything that had ever given him the time of day in Life I. Max pulled her to him and kissed her deeply. Then, he took her by the hand and guided her to the sofa in the living room where they made out like the horny teenagers they were, Max reaching around to unhook Brigitta’s bra until Brigitta sighed and rolled over onto the newspaper. Max grunted, but took it as a sign to cool the engines. He felt deeply conflicted—gazing at Brigitta’s bra straps, which she was busy re-adjusting, he imagined himself unhooking them, and Brigitta’s breasts spilling out and into his hands, while she ran her hot fingers up and down his thighs. It reminded Max of his first adventure in teen horniness, when he’d fumbled so badly with Sally Jane Devine’s B-cup bra at the drive-in movies, getting himself so lost and befuddled in the dark car that she’d finally shoved him aside and done the deed herself, like Max was just another clueless virgin guy. Which I was, Max admitted. Suddenly locking eyes with Brigitta, he saw himself as his true age—a middle-aged ordinary guy, pushing 42, with crow’s next wrinkled lines dug into his face and a pot belly, and his conflicted emotions about sex back in Life I exploded into the carnal impulses of Life II. Sure, Brigitta sitting next to him was hot, ready, willing, and able—but Max wasn’t ready to derail his whole new potential future because of raging hormones. Instead, he took the newspaper from her, let out a deep sigh and flipped over to the movie listings.

  “Whaddaya wanna see?” he asked.

  “Let’s see Moonstruck,” Brigitta beamed. “It sounds sooo romantic.”

  Max rolled his eyes and instead pointed to another listing. “Yah. Not a Cher fan. We should go see this,” he said.”

  “Cry Freedom,” Brigitta read out in a monotone. “What’s that?”

  Max remembered wanting to watch the movie with Abby one night, on Netflix. She insisted on Bridges of Madison County. Of course, she won that battle. And he hated seeing Clint Eastwood being a wuss.

  “It’s about the blacks in South Africa fighting for their rights, way back when they were... I mean, now that they’re under apartheid.”

  “What’s apartheid?” Brigitta asked, puzzled.

  “It’s South Africa’s white government treating the black people like inferior people. They weren’t—I mean, aren’t given the same rights as whites.”

  Brigitta frowned. “A white government in Africa? You mean like in America when we had slavery in the Revolutionary War?”

  “Sort of. It was the Civil War that was fought over slavery,” said Max, trying so desperately to find a brain underneath Brigitta’s beautiful facade. “It’s more like the segregation we had here before the revolution in the sixties.”

  Brigitta looked at Max with a blank stare. “I’d rather go see Moonstruck.”

  “Aw. C’mon, Brig. I’ve been wanting to see this movie for so long.” Max urged.

  “Is it an old movie? I mean, we could just rent it later and go see a new one now.”

  Max caught himself. “No, it’s a brand new movie, so we can’t rent it yet.”

  He threw out his last possible argument. “Denzel Washington is in it.”

  “Oooooh,” she cooed. “I love him in ‘St. Elsewhere’! Okay, Max, if it’s so important to you, I’ll go. But you have to promise to go see Moonstruck with me next time. It’s really important to me that we go together.”

  Max turned to face her. “What actually is important to you, Brigitta?”

  He could see her thinking for a moment and it seemed as if it were a strenuous exercise for her. “Gee, Max. I don’t know. Hanging out with my friends, doing things with you.”

  He thought his head was going to explode. He appreciated Brigitta’s beauty, but was this all that concerned her? As a teenage boy, that was pretty much all that mattered, but his adult perspective was sneaking into his mind.

  Brigitta sighed and puckered her lips at him. “Well, Max. There’s one thing I know for certain.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You’re going to be a doctor. And I’m going to be your wife!”

  Max almost fell off the couch. Whoa—was that what she really thought of him? “You do know that it’s going to be at least another ten to twelve years of school for me to become a doctor before I can start making that salary you’re already thinking about spending?”

  Brigitta blinked at Max, hurt. A sound came out of her mouth—a gasp of defeated surprise. Max watched her slide to the other side of the couch, and reach for her purse. “Take me home, please,” she said, her voice gone hoarse and wet.

  They drove to her house in silence. Max felt like the biggest jerk. He watched her wipe the tears from her eyes a couple of times, and wanted to simultaneously t
o reach over and stroke her damp cheekbones, and to crush himself under blocks of solid granite. Sadly he now knew they had no long-term future, but he wanted to end this on a good note. He composed his thoughts. Finally, as they parked in front of her house, he said, “I like you, Brigitta, but…”

  Brigitta stared. “I don’t get you, Max,” she answered, the tears falling silently down her cheeks. Then she took a deep breath, let it out, stepped out of the car and slammed the door.

  Max watched as she stalked up the steps and made sure she got into her house safely. He honked the horn twice, waved, and then he drove off.

  Max steered back home and sighed as he gazed into the darkness, the headlight’s rays bouncing off the road ahead.

  No. He had to stop worrying. He wanted to make his own new life, dammit. It would be futile as hell to live Life II the same as he’d lived in Life I. Then nothing would change, and he’d have just lived another—how many years was it? —twenty-six years all over again for nothing.

  Sheeesh.

  Max nodded to himself, moving his hands up and down on the steering wheel, as if emphasizing a point. He would lead the way. He’d live Life II boldly. But smartly.

  If that meant altering the future—so be it.

  Grab your destiny and take control over the route ahead.

  Chapter Twenty

  May 15, 1988 at 10:45 a.m.

  “Max! Phone!” Jenny cried out.

  Max strolled over and picked it up. He still marveled at how all of the phones were attached to cords. Even rotary dial phones were still common. Max had sometimes walked off to another room with the phone, before the cord rudely reminded him that the range of his movement, while talking on the phone, was still limited.

  “Hello Max. Selwyn here!”

  Max was delighted to hear from his uncle. “Hey there, Uncle Selwyn! It’s been a while.”

  There was a silence on the other end of the phone while he waited for his uncle to speak.

  “Max,” came Selwyn’s subdued and deadly serious voice, “you were right.”

  Max knew exactly hat he was talking about, but played it dumb. “What do you mean?”

  “I have cancer.”

  Max squeezed his eyes shut. He’d hoped this wouldn’t happen again in Life II. What had happened? And was the information shared in time to help?

  “Uncle Selwyn, I’m so sorry!”

  “No, Max. Thank you! Seriously, I had no idea. I still feel fine. My body’s the same as ever. If it wasn’t for your warning, I wouldn’t have had a clue.”

  “Yeah but will you be all right?” Max’s heart pounded rapidly.

  For a moment there was silence on the line.

  “Yes, Max… I will.”

  “Wa-hoooooooo!” Max nearly dropped the phone as he whooped it up in his uncle’s ear. He quickly reverted to his normal tone, “Uh, sorry about that. What happened?”

  Selwyn started to speak, but stopped himself. “Max, please, tell me the truth. How the hell did you know?”

  Max shut his eyes, thinking. Selwyn’s alive and he’s going to stay alive! I helped! And I altered the future! That’s freakin’ awesome!

  “Uh, look Uncle Selwyn, just tell me what happened,” Max said into the phone.

  Selwyn let out a long sigh and explained his visit to the doctor in great detail, fascinating Max.

  “—he took an x-ray of my intestine and found quite a few polyps.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The doctor cut them out and discovered that three of them were cancerous.”

  “Oh my God!” Max cried out, trying to play it cool, recalling what his uncle would have gone through if the cancer had spread as it had in Life I. “What happens now?”

  “The cancer’s gone for now,” Selwyn said. “The doc told me I was a lucky guy, and said I should give my nephew a huge thank you. If left undetected, the cancer would have killed me within a year.’” Selwyn paused. “The funny thing is, I have no history of cancer in my family. I exercise, I eat right, I don’t smoke. None of this made sense.”

  Max heard his uncle choke back an emotional sob. Selwyn sounded overwhelmed. “Max, really, I can’t thank you enough. Just to be on the safe side, if you do really have some sort of ESP, tell me now of any future preventable medical problems that will affect our family.”

  Max laughed softly, relieved at the overall reaction. “No, Uncle Selwyn, I don’t have any other predictions right now.”

  “I’m going to check myself every six months, and that’s an absolute promise, even if I live another forty years. And I told my doctor that you were now planning on becoming a doctor, too. He said that, based on your diagnosis, you have a good career ahead of you.” There was a long silence. Finally his uncle let out a long sigh. “Thank you, Max.”

  There was a click, then a dial tone.

  Max let out another loud whoop, startling Cherokee, who was sleeping on the sofa. Jenny raced into the kitchen to check out the commotion.

  “What was that all about?”

  “It’s Uncle Selwyn. He found out he has cancer, but he’s going to be okay.”

  “Oh my God!” Jenny covered her mouth. “How do we know he’s going to be okay?”

  “Uh,” Max stammered, miscalculating what he’d said again. “Don’t worry. He’s fine.” Max’s eyes sparkled at his sister. “I had this weird hunch and told him he should go in for a checkup. Turns out, I was right.”

  Jenny squinted at Max. “Really? That’s weird. You’re not usually the type to make predictions and stuff.”

  “Uh, I guess I just got lucky,” Max responded, trying to brush it off. The euphoria over Uncle Selwyn’s prospects suddenly reminded Max of more unfinished business. “Hey, got a sec?” he asked his sister. “Come out in the back yard. I need to talk to you.”

  They sat under the large oak tree on a wicker bench. Max took his sister’s hand and started. “Jenny, I know what you’re doing with Len.”

  “You know…? Max, what are you talking about?”

  “You’re planning to move to Kamloops with Len in a few weeks, aren’t you?”

  She withdrew from his grip and sat up, her mouth open wide. Her shock gave way to anger. “I’ll kill Len for telling you!”

  Max had waited for this moment since coming into Life II. In Life I, prior to Jenny’s last days of high school, she’d run off with Len. Len had already accepted an offer to become a mechanic at an auto body repair shop. Max’s parents were devastated—and their relationship with Jenny would never be the same.

  Max’s dad was the only one who reached out to Jenny after she left. Max and his mom felt so betrayed by Jenny’s actions that they remained estranged from her. She’d bear three children—Sarah, Emily, and Alex—within the next few years, but Max and his mom had barely known them—something that Max came to regret, but couldn’t find it in his heart to let go of.

  Plus, Jenny’s family would be rocked by the startling news that Len would be charged—shortly after Alex was born—with embezzling cash from the auto body shop. Len would protest his innocence, but the evidence was overwhelming. He was sentenced to one year in prison, and immediately fired after charges were laid. After his sentence was up, he couldn’t find employment in the closely-knit town for another year. Max’s dad scrambled to send Jenny money month after month, as the welfare checks her family received weren’t enough. Max still seethed at the brutal gossip inflicted upon his only sibling, and wanted to leap upon any chance he could to disparage his unwanted brother-in-law.

  For the moment, though, Jenny had no idea of what lay in her future. “I’ll kill Len for this!” she repeated.

  “That’d be a good idea,” Max agreed, then laughed. He was secretly glad Jenny was furious at her boyfriend.

  Now, it was time to set things straight.

  “Jen,” Max whispered, brushing aside a few strands of hair that had fallen onto Jenny’s face—he remembered doing that for his daughter Angela in another life—“Why do you want to l
eave so soon?”

  Jenny’s bottom lip quivered.

  “I’m n-n-not running away,” Jenny stammered. “Len and I just want to start a new life. I love him, and I want to be with him.”

  “Then why keep it a secret?”

  “Mom would never approve. I’m only eighteen. And I don’t think Dad would approve either. Besides, they’re always fighting. Hearing them argue just makes me sick. I want to get out of here.”

  “Jen…” Max reached out to her again, wanting to hold her hand and let her know how much he cared about her. “Look, I may be younger than you, but deep inside, I know things. And I can tell you that moving to a new town is a big mistake if the only reason is that Len asked you. I mean, you don’t have a job, and you’ll totally depend on him. I don’t trust him, Jen. Think of the consequences.”

  Jenny looked at him, puzzled. “What consequences?”

  “Well, you could face years of hard times with Mom and Dad. You might get so hard up for money that you have to go to Goodwill to buy clothes for your children. And, uh, you also might have to ask Dad for money when Sarah needs braces…”

  “Sarah?” Jenny demanded. “Who’s Sarah?”

  Aw crap, Max thought.

  “Sorry,” Max blushed deeply, “I’m, uh, just making up a name for your future children.”

  Jenny stared at him with wonder. “I’ve always loved the name Sarah.” She sat back, breaking off her gaze, “I don’t know what to say, Max.”

  Both just sat there momentarily staring off in space.

  Groping for words, Max began hesitantly. “Jenny,” he said, “do you really know Len? What if he’s not the man you think he is?” He’s gonna become a goddamn thief, is what he wanted to say—but knew he wouldn’t convince her without any proof.

  “Part of me wants to say no, but I love him, Max. If I don’t go, I may lose him.”

  “So lose him. You’ll find another guy, one who’s even better.”

  “I’m not sure. I still hate it when Mom and Dad fight. I hate being at home anymore. That’s one reason I’m out a lot.” She looked worried. “What do you think? Think Mom and Dad will still be together next year?”