Liz Collins-Stoddard stared out over the estate of her ancestors from the window of the drawing room. Every time she saw the white shadow of the Old House sitting abandoned on the property she thought about fixing it up and presenting it as a wedding present to her daughter and Joe Haskell as a wedding present. The only problem behind that was that Carolyn and Joe were constantly in and out of their shaky relationship. Tonight she was going out with someone named Tom Haskell, apparently to make Joe jealous. She sipped her sherry as her mind turned to other business.
"Mrs. Stoddard," Matthew Morgan entered behind her. "I'm about to go, but your brother and his son just arrived with suitcases."
"Suitcases?" Liz turned a curious eyebrow. "Is Laura with him?"
"No, ma'am."
"I'll see him." The matriarch of Collinwood held on to her self-imposed exile hard despite what others thought of her. Matthew turned down the back hallway to the back of the drawing room as Liz opened the big double doors to the foyer. Roger was here and along with David. Matthew was correct about the suitcases as David fidgeted around.
"Hello Aunt Elizabeth." David responded with the restraint of a juvenile delinquent.
"Well, David," His aunt looked down on him. "You grown a lot since I saw you last in Augusta. Why don't you run to the kitchen and help yourself." Liz turned to her younger brother. He was no longer the malcontent young man her parents made her incessantly baby-sit. He was now a dour adult with illusions of grandeur. "Roger."
"Sis," He kissed her on the cheek as he forced a grin. He stroked the top of his receding hairline as they both entered the drawing room.
"Elizabeth," Roger cut straight to the chase. "Laura has left me. I don't know where she is and quite frankly I don't care. Last week, David was thrown out of school for starting a fire. I am interested in coming home."
Liz barely responded. She poured herself another sherry in to her glass crystal chalice and nibbled a bit from one of her cookies. She was obviously a bit unsettled from the news. She and Carolyn had lived alone since David was born and her brother and his wife moved to Augusta. She thought of her privacy and her secrets in this house.
"Liz," Roger started. "I know David and I moving in is sort of a shock, but where am I to go?"
"Roger," Liz sat on the drawing room sofa and poured her brother some sherry of his own as he stood above her awaiting a response. "You are my brother, and Collinwood has always been your home. You needn't ask my permission, but we'll need someone to care for David. He's too much for all three of us if Laura left you."
"Quite frankly," Roger turned about as he thought of moving into his old room and letting David have his Aunt Nora's old room. "I was considering military school for the boy. Havenbrook served our family proud. I believe great grandfather Geoffrey even went there."
"Nonsense," Liz looked at him. "David is a Collins. Collinwood shall be his home. We had a governess; he shall have one too."
"What gives you the idea we need a governess for David?" Roger asked as yelling began filtering through the floor from the upstairs bedrooms. David must have gone up the back stairs and found his cousin Carolyn preparing for her date.
"Carolyn, can I borrow this to shoot softballs out the window!" David's voice came from the top hall.
"David, you little maggot! That's my best bra!" Carolyn screamed back as her Uncle Roger heard the shattering of glass, the short shriek of a bird breathing its last and then the image of it falling past the drawing room window. In the foyer, David charged down the stairs with the underwear held in his hand over his head like some trophy of war as he raced out the door with Carolyn a few steps behind.
"What do you need so much Kleenex for!" David laughed down the steps with his lovely female cousin cursing his existence.
"Mother!" Carolyn paused by the drawing room doors. "What is that monster doing here!" She turned and ran after the brat out on to the front veranda.
"You see," Roger continued unabated. "You won't know we're here." He turned away to avoid his sister's icy stare.
2
Liz had gotten through her first night with Roger and David in the house. David was screaming about his room until up past midnight until Roger promised to replace the canopy bed and feminine decor left behind by Aunt Nora. Carolyn was not happy at all. David may have been her cousin, but now she had new respect for her friends in high school with obnoxious younger brothers. David just barely saw her looking at him and lifted his spoon filled with scrambled eggs.
"You try it you little maggot and they'll never find enough of you to bury." She glared at him.
"Carolyn," Liz sipped her morning coffee. "You'll be late for school. I don't want you this late too close to graduating."
"Yes, mother." Carolyn made once last glance to David. The two of them shared hateful stares as Roger noted the animosity between them and downed the last of his coffee.
"Well," He raised his voice to change the subject. "I'm meeting Mr. Selby at Havenbrook to talk about David. I think the school will be good for him."
"May I be excused, Aunt Elizabeth?" David sounded the role of a model son as he yearned to explore the Collinwood estate.
"Yes, you may." Elizabeth watched the overly exuberant boy push out his chair and then push it back in. He was briefly the act of decorum as he raced off. It was like watching Roger at that age.
"Roger," Liz started as she poured more coffee. "Sending David away is not going to be good for him. He's looking for attention. He wants to be appreciated. He needs a family."
"He needs training… discipline." Roger added as Matthew took away some of the breakfast dishes. He paused till after the manservant had left.
"I agree that public school may not be the place for him." Liz continued her argument from last night. "But David needs to know we are there for him. I'm going to put in a look for a governess..."
"A governess..." Roger scoffed at the idea. "No governess worth her salt will want anything to do with him."
"I remember father saying the same thing about you." Liz looked to father's portrait on the dining room wall. "And Adelaide Bascomb did wonders with you. Need I remind you of when you nearly burnt down the Old House?"
"A campfire too close to the trees." Roger rolled his eyes indifferently. "It was a different time. Laura knew how to control David. He was always more her son than mine."
"You have to make him yours." Liz commented as Matthew came in dragging David by the arm. David scowled as if he hated grown-ups.
"Mrs. Stoddard," Morgan sounded as if he gargled with sandpaper. "The boy here was trying to break into the west wing. When I stopped him, he kicked me in the leg."
Roger grinned smugly as he allowed Liz to handle it. Liz rolled her eyes to her brother and stuck to her word.
"David," She began. "Would you like to explore the West Wing? I can show you around."
"I'd rather do it by myself."
"Well, then," Liz turned toward him. "You can show me around. In fact, I'd bet no one's been back there since our Aunt Judith closed it off at the end of the Nineteenth Century."
3
Joe Haskell had never met Carolyn's uncle before, but Roger was obviously fully ensconced in Collinwood as he stood guard on her virtue as if he were her father. He came back down the steps to the foyer a bit irritated as he re-laid messages between the two quarreling teenagers.
"I'm a bit sorry, young man." Roger began with the pomposity of a male peacock. "But she insists she does know a Joe Haskell."
"She does know me," Joe insisted. "She's just mad at me. If I could just talk to her…"
"I'm sorry, I can't allow you to go traipsing through Collinwood." Roger folded his arms. "You will just have to meet her elsewhere."
"Yes, sir." Joe turned in a huff to the door that Roger opened for him. He stepped out on the front veranda and took the path past the garage to the old greenhouse on the way through the woods to his uncle's farm. Along the way, he always noted the sight of the odd forgotten shacks and barns left over when the Collins had horses and horse-drawn carriages. The caretaker's cottage was on the far south end of the property, but the large Old House was always on his route. Whenever he wasn't in a hurry to get home, he took the time to explore it, but Matthew Morgan was always chasing him off. On his route today, he looked up and noticed others waiting for him on the dilapidated front of the forgotten house.
"So, Haskell," Tom Jennings sat on the steps drinking from a glass Pepsi bottle. "Can I start dating Carolyn now?"
"In your dreams." Joe stomped up to the columns of the once great mansion.
"She's still pretty mad at me and trying to make me jealous. It won't work. I'll get her back."
"She told my sister she wouldn't have anything to do with you again." Jason Pryde finished a cigarette and tossed the butt down to squeeze out under his sneaker.
"She always says that." Joe leaned against the column. "She just wants to worry me, well, I can do the same thing. Is Tricia seeing anyone?"
"No." Jason started as Tom started pushing on the front doors of the Old House until they opened.
"Hey, Joe," Tom looked over to him. "You ever been in here?"
"Sure," Joe confessed. "Carolyn and I used to slip inside to make out." The scant sunlight filtering through the clearing revealed the bottom of a staircase neglected over time and the remains of a room still filled with deteriorating furniture. The dark back hall looked like the huge open mawl of a great beast ready to swallow them alive. Jason stood staring up at the portrait of a beautiful woman over the fireplace. Dressed in white, she had the brown eyes of Maggie Evans and the figure of Lisa Welch from school. The young man thought she was looking down on him in particular as he lusted after the woman she must have been.
"Ohhhhh, baby!" He admired her. "Come down here and take me!"
"That's Josette," Joe reported. "I think she's Carolyn's ancestor or something like that. Uncle Tim says he's seen her ghost lurking around this house at night."
"That would be so cool." Tom couldn't help but admire Josette himself. "Maybe we ought to camp out and look for her."
"Yeah," Jason turned around. "I can get my dad's camera and..." He stopped as something sounded over their heads. They all stood quiet as they heard the noise of someone upstairs. They weren't sure what it was, but it sounded as if something dropped and hit the floor. Maybe their vibrations through the house knocked something loose, or they weren't alone.
"Someone up there?" Joe turned to the stairs and called up. It became quiet except for the breeze outside rustling leaves across the front veranda. The ears of the three boys turned sensitive to the noises in the house as they waited for what was to come next.
A door opened somewhere as they heard steps lightly treading the top hall. Someone breathing softly accompanied it while Joe saw Thomas and Jason run out ahead of him. The house had finally got to him as they ran out and jump off the front deck of the house. Ten feet out, they turned back and glanced up to the house's windows. Something seemed to peek out from the top floor window above the stairs.
"Hey!" Bill Malloy scared the shorts off Jason as he grabbed his arm. He had seen the boys tearing out of the place as he walked the estate. "That's private property! You boys shouldn't have been in there."
"We saw a ghost!" Joe screamed.
"Likely all you had was let your imaginations get away from you." Malloy's Celtic accent danced over his words. "Now go on. I'd better be sure you didn't vandalize the place."
"Yes, sir!" Tom was first to run to his father's farm. His brother, Chris, was possibly tending the sheep and looking for him as they ran the distance. Malloy meanwhile just turned his head back to the Old House as he passed his eyes over the door hanging open and the deserted room.
"Hello, Josette." He acknowledged the portrait. "Just inspecting the place." He passed a look for anything recently broken and then trudged up the steps to the second floor.
"Anyone up here?" He called ahead. The first room at the top of the stairs was still boarded shut, and the window directly ahead looking over the front doors was vacant. He thought he'd seen a face too up here as well, but then this old ancestral house invoked a lot of separate illusions. He looked left to the old sewing room at the end of the hall and then right to the servant's stairs. He started down his way to the kitchen before hesitating before one of the open bedrooms. The door had been forced open. He could see its tread in the disturbed dirt in the floor illuminated by sunlight from outside.
"Hello?" He poked his head in. It looked as if someone had tried cleaning the room up. He smelled furniture polish and laundry detergent on the bed sheets. A candle by the bed had been burned a little bit. Maybe the place was getting to him, but he felt he wasn't alone. Something in the empty room was watching him as he stared to the portrait above the fireplace. Amadeus Collins in the old forgotten painting did not look happy, but then family rumor said he was a tight-fisted lawyer who made a career by testifying and trying persons suspected of witchcraft.
"I'll be back." Malloy continued his way down to the kitchen and out the front door. As he pulled the front doors shut, he felt a sigh of relief as a bead of sweat ran down his back. Turning back for the main house, he didn't dare look back at the windows until he was at the top of the hill. For some reason, he thought someone was still watching him.
4
Maggie Evans slammed the door shut on her locker and turned for her next class with Mrs. Scott. Everyone knew her as the daughter of the artist or the motherless one. Maggie never let it bother her. She greeted and grinned at everyone as if they were all her friends. Honor Society matron and member of the drama club, she was going to be an actress or either a teacher, but she had secret dreams of being the first woman in the Oval Office.
"Hi, Tricia," She beamed to one of her friends. The cheerleader grinned to her. "How's things?"
"Peaches and cream." The blonde one slammed her locker shut as her David Cassidy pictures said good-bye to light and teenage beauty queens staring upon him. "Gotta practice, see you!"
"Hey, Joe." Maggie continued going as she passed Joe Haskell and his buddies.
"Maggie." Joe barely noticed the brunette beauty as Lisa Welch hung off his arm. "Oh wait, I heard you got a job after school at the diner. Can Lisa and I get free sundaes?"
"You know I can't do that..." She giggled and waved goodbye. As she did, Jason Pryde purposely watched her butt wiggling in her jeans as it yearned to bust free. He made a gurgling growl to her and leaned back on his locker.
"Hey, if you like her, go after her!" Joe sometimes considering going after her himself.
"Naw," Jason moved out of the way of the busy corridor as mulling friends stalled for the bell or rushed to beat it. "She wouldn't want a guy like me."
"Joe," Tom Jennings looked up and saw blonde hair. "Rich bitch alert." They looked over and saw Carolyn with Brittany Shears, one of her equally stuck up friends. The two of them hadn't noticed him as they talked on clothing and fashion.
"I can make her jealous." Joe pinned Lisa to the locker and began kissing her. The sound of Tom and Jason laughing got to Carolyn's ears as her eyes flared with angry animosity. She stamped her foot eager to cross him as well and grabbed the first guy who crossed her path to play his game back. Pinning the hapless guy to the door of Mrs. Barrett's literature class door, she smooched the her unknown male peer hard and seriously and then dropped him to the floor drained of life as if she had just soaked up his soul. Looking back to Joe, she snubbed his presence and continued unabated with Brittany at her side.
"She thinks that bothers me." Joe mumbled as the bell rang. Jason bolted first for art class and Lisa caressed Joe for one last squeeze. He grinned to her presence for one last second and one last kiss between them. Lisa then realized they had to part and continued on her way. Behind her, Joe and his cousin Tom realized they had to go as well, but first they noticed Carolyn's brief kissing partner still on the floor and overwhelmed by her presence.
"Hey, you okay?" Tom helped him up.
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yeah."
"I don't think I've seen you before here." Joe looked the guy over. The strange fellow classman was in a black t-shirt and jeans with boots and a leather jacket. "New student?"
"Yeah," The guy responded as if he recognized Joe and then clammed shut
nervously before continuing. "I'm William Col... Coleman, yeah. I'm looking for Mr. Talbot's class."
"He's down that way." Thomas directed.
"Hey," Joe wasn't worried about being late for gym. "You like football? We need more members!"
"I'm not a football guy." William grinned nervously and turned on his way. Passing on Joe's offer, he acted as if he knew the school already and spotted the windows on the physics room and thought they shouldn't be there. He rapped on the glass door.
"Mr. Talbot?"
"This is my planning." The white-haired teacher graded papers. "I'll see you after school and not before."
"Excuse me, sir," William entered the room. "What can you tell me about time travel?"
"Read this." Talbot tossed a reprint from the 1840s. It was entitled "The Fundamentals of Time Travel" and written by Quentin Collins I, a member of the local Collins Family from a separate branch of the family. "Do your paper on it and come back later."
"I'm sorry, sir," William refused to be turned away. "But I'm not a student, well not yet, but you are doing research into the subject?"
"How'd you hear about that?" Talbot looked up shocked.
"Well," William gasped a bit as he tried not to sound like a kook. "Let's just say someday you're going to create a time machine, but you're so afraid of it that you accidentally let an over-anxious youth use it to travel back to 1963, but the re-entry rattles the mechanism so bad that only you can fix it." William flashed his driver's license. The holography images of the state flag on it stunned Talbot to the core of his being. It also told him that the young man before him was named William Collins and he was born on September 9, 1971! Almost eight years into the future!
"It works?" He asked both scared to death of the possible truth and as well at this proof before him that his theories were true and sound!
"It's stashed in the old stables at Collinwood." William admitted. "Want to go see it?"
5
Matthew Morgan locked up the Old House as he left it and returned to the Caretaker's Shack on the other side of the Estate. It was almost thirty-minute walk from the old mansion to the small cottage, but it was made longer as the sky grew dark and both moon and stars popped out. Several of the old trees on the estate overshadowed him as he felt he was in some spooky fairy tale forest out of Grimm's Fairy Tales. He tried to ignore the sounds of the reputedly haunted estate as he made his way on ward.
William Collins watched him vanish at a distance as he made his way back over hiding places he had discovered in his youth. The younger version of Professor Talbot was right behind him as they made their way to the old barn. William looked up to the canoe waiting for him to return to water as he did in 1978 then turned to open one of the old horse stalls and to pull the cover off time-displaced black trans am.
"Thank god I know all the hiding places on the estate." He mumbled small talk as Professor Talbot helped him. "I've been sleeping in my room in the Old House and nearly got caught the other day by a guy in a beard. If I hadn't known about the secret passages..."
"I can't believe it..." Talbot looked as the car's console lit up. He thought he was looking at the helm of the Enterprise on TV as all sorts of images popped up on miniscule screens like animated dots and dashes on fields of bluish-gray. It wasn't very aesthetically pleasing, but then he never was much of a designer. One date before him read "March 18, 1985" as another read "February 22, 1961." That was three days ago he realized as Collins popped the hood.
"Like I said," William continued as he lifted his lantern to hang overhead. "Your do-hickey rattled apart on re-entry. I was too scared to touch it much less try to screw it back together."
"It's much smaller than I thought!" Talbot was also scared to touch it as he flipped open his first note book to an original schematic. "I built this?"
"I guess." Collins looked over his shoulder. "I wasn't exactly hovering over you when you did. Can you...fix it?"
"This is..." Talbot looked down. His device had been equipped to charge molecules and thrust them beyond the fourth dimension where he believed time was non-existent. The control devices allowed the car to rematerialize in different parts of the time string he envisioned.
"More than I ever dreamed. Wish I could do this in the daylight." He stopped and looked up.
"I'd really prefer not to live in the Sixties any longer than I have to." William's shadow replied. "No offense, but I've read a lot of science fiction stories about idiotic time travelers."
"Wait," Talbot looked at William and as he looked over incredible devices made real from his hands out of his modern schematics. "Have you interacted with anyone here?"
"Well," Collins looked like a phantom as he stood in the shadows. "I met the father of my sister's boyfriend, and got kissed by my aunt Carolyn."
"How about your parents?"
"I'm not sure where they are." William thought a second. "I guess my dad is still living in England and my mother is still married to her first husband."
"Good," Talbot turned. "Because if you change anything, you might not have a future to return to."
"Why not?"
"Look," Talbot picked up an old fraying rope from the dirt floor. "You're born on one end, your future is the frayed end: each one a different reality to each other. Your past is always unaltered, but if you change one detail..."
"It sets off a chain of altered events." William knew science fiction too. "I could go forward and meet another William Collins rather than rejoin a future I departed."
"Exactly." Talbot demonstrated again with the rope. "Each of these frayed tips at the future end represents several possible alternate futures and the other end known as the past has several alternate futures which have now become alternate timelines because we've passed them. The future is always changing because of the decisions we create today, but," He turned the rope around. "When we alter the past, we proceed into another possible future rather than the one we departed because we altered a past that was once unchangeable." He looked back over his future handiwork and wondered if he had cheated on his notes and work by studying his own future designs ahead of time. The possibility of stealing his own idea from a possible future version of himself was becoming very real. "Joe never married your aunt then..."
"No," Collins leaned the light again over the engine block. "I think he broke up after..."
"He broke it up!" Talbot looked back. "I thought she broke it up! When was this?"
"I don't know." Collins was getting spooked. "It was before I was born. Does it matter?"
"Yes, it does." Talbot gasped and wiped his hands clean on a tissue from his pocket. "If he broke it up, they must be supposed to come together again."
"Well, how can I be sure?"
"Deductive reasoning." Talbot continued. "In your time it sounds like a amiable break up if he's still in contact with the Collinses, but right now, the two of them are becoming very hostile. You can't be sure what consequences would occur if their feelings are allowed to fester." He turned back to the engine with all its wires, filaments and attachments.
"I just remembered something." Collins trudged over the dirt floor and back. "My Uncle Roger once said it was a shame they hadn't married. Wouldn't that sound like they were dating while he was at Collinwood?"
"He did just arrive..." Talbot peered back at him. "I'm going to have to take this piece by piece apart to patch together. You are going to reconcile your aunt with her boyfriend."
"Oh god," William turned with his back to the car. "I just know she's going to grab me again." A part of him sort of liked it, but the rest of him still saw her married to his Uncle Willie.
6
William Collins looked around the Collinsport Diner for a minute. It was a bit less family-oriented now that it was in his time when his Uncle David opened his seafood restraunt down the street in direct competition. He gazed the room over and saw Joe Haskell sitting in his football jersey among several of his friends laughing around a table. He immediately recognized his Aunt Maggie waiting tables and thought she looked cuter now than when he was practically humping her leg as she tried to teach him to play the piano. Realizing that some childhood infatuations never went away, he slowly advanced on Haskell as some of the players departed.
"Hey, Joe."
"Coleman." Joe still remembered the name he was given. "How do you like our school so far?"
"I think you guys should get a new high school built now." William was still used to it as an elementary school, but that was a few years away. "Uhhhhh, Joe, do you mind if I date Carolyn?" He made a face based on a feeling of apprehension, but Joe looked back at him as a rival.
"Why should he?" Tom Jennings answered.
"I don't mind." Joe laughed. "We're through."
"Yeah," William smirked a bit as he stole a few of Joe's French fries.
"She's..." He tried to think of something to say. "I'm thinking of getting a job at the cannery after I graduate. Through her uncle, I could get a cushy desk job later on."
"Uh, yeah," Joe listened to him. "You could do that."
"And when we marry..." William grinned with a bit of a con artist in him. "I could only work when I wanted to."
"Yeah." Joe looked to Tom. "But you be good to her. I don't want her hurt."
"But I thought you didn't care for her." William grinned a bit more. "I mean if this is going to bother you?"
"No, course not." Joe began thinking of all the good times. "But she wouldn't want anything to do with me if I did."
"I think I sense a con." Tom answered.
"Shut up." Joe looked to him. "Man, I can't even get near her to talk to me."
"Want me to talk to her for you?" William started to flinch a few more fries as Joe pushed the plate to him. A minute ago, this William Coleman, if this was his real name, was interested in his former girl, but now he was interested in fixing the two of them back up together. He was starting to realize he did want Carolyn back.
"Would you?" Joe realized that Carolyn was still very much on his mind. "Can you get her to the concert at the school? It's for all the students. I just need a few minutes with her."
"And so ends the great Haskell-Stoddard feud." Jennings grinned.
"Shut up." Haskell looked at him.
"Yeah, sure." William answered. He still hated parties despite what year it was.
7
Joe Haskell continued to glance up as he danced with Lisa. Despite the other seniors passing in front of him, William had yet to arrive with Carolyn and he began to think he'd been set up. The night was getting later and later and the band would be picking up soon to quit for the night. If there was any chance of winning Carolyn back, he had to keep waiting.
"Joe," Lisa noticed his wandering attention. "Who are you waiting for?"
"Huh," He looked at her. "Uh, no one." He heard the dance hall doors open up as several other senior students came in from smoking cigarettes. Behind them, William half-hearted wandered in with Carolyn on his arm. Dressed in a suit and tie, he looked around less than interested to hang around. Garbed in a strapless pink dress, Carolyn appeared more attractive than ever and fashionably late as usual. She eyed Joe with a fierce gaze and pretended to nuzzle William to purposely annoy him, but her date seemed more than rattled by her touching.
"Want a drink?" Joe asked Lisa.
"Sure." His date cooed back as Joe passed over to the refreshment table. His brunette beauty moved to talk to her friends as William rendezvoused with Joe at the same table.
"What happened?" Joe looked at William. "Problem with my car?"
"No..." William's hand showed how rattled he was as he tried to pour a drink. "She recognized your car and drove me to Parker Field where she pinned me to the front seat. It took every effort I had to talk her into showing up here."
"Why are you so upset?" Joe looked at his shaking hands and the cup vibrating from William's nerves as he filled it.
"Don't ask." William realized he was definitely over any infatuation for his aunt after his ordeal. The watered down fruit punch calmed him a bit, or it may have been the faint taste of beer, but he was eagerly hoping to finish this.
"I thought I'd break in and dance with her." Joe glanced to his first love as the tiny blonde heiress joined the rest of her in-crowd elite near the stage.
"I gotta dance with her!" William shrieked. "Lord, I never knew she was so obsessed with sex!"
"You got a plan?"
"No." William rolled his eyes and stuck it out. He felt he was stuck inside an old yearbook. All the hairstyles were out of fashion and the clothes appeared to be out of their parent's closets. If Murphy's Law held true, his mother was probably somewhere scoping him out as he walked the floor.
"Dance?" He coughed out the word as he held his arm up to the daughter of Liz Stoddard.
"Pleasure." Carolyn beamed like a flawless princess as she was lead out to the floor. She twirled and waited as William's trembling hands took her by the waist as the band played "Earth Angel." It was one of her favorites.
"I don't know why you're so scared." She spoke to him. "I already said you're cute."
"Yeah, well..." William looked around for Joe. "I've just... Not been with too many girls..."
"I can help you get over that." Carolyn grinned perfectly with a little giggle. Her left hand grabbed his ass and a short shriek came from his lips.
"Oh boy..." William bumped Haskell.
"May I cut in?"
"Of course you can." William let go as Carolyn released a short shriek of disgust. The two of them immediately began whispering insults and comments as William parted and gave them space. He hoped that was it. They were talking if not abrasively and alone if not completely. The band was playing...
"Okay folks!" Matt Springfield, the lead singer of the traveling high school band called Matt and the Streakers stopped his last song. "That's it, we're gone!"
"What!" William turned round, jumped on the stage and ran after them. No band, no music, and no chance of Joe and Carolyn liking each other ever again.
"Hey, guys,...one more song!"
"We're only paid till ten." Matt answered as his little brother watched. The little roadie watched as his big brother left to get the night's pay from Principal Selby. William's jaw dropped from Carolyn's arguing and calling Joe a jerk to the band picking up their instruments.
"How much longer..." He grabbed and pulled out his wallet. "For a fifty dollar bill!" He hoped they didn't see the year it was printed. Last thing he needed to do was get tossed in jail for passing supposed counterfeit bills, but yet, it had been in circulation since 1967.
"All night long!" The drummer put down his drums. He didn't have to do the math to realize ten dollars for one extra song between each of them over then ten for just the five hours they'd already played.
"We better wait for Matt to get back." The back up replied. "He's our singer." William eyed the electric guitar left behind. He forgot where he was, recalled his garage band and picked it up.
"Okay," He lifted the strap over his head. "Follow along, don't get lost and hang on…" He began banging some unfamiliar chords as several of the seniors took notice. It was new, it was different and they hadn't heard it before. One teacher acting as a chaperone turned his head up to the music and watched his students getting into the new style of music.
"Jesse is a friend. Yeah, I know he's been a good friend of mine..." He started picking up his pace as the Streakers listened to the new sound. "But lately something's changed that hard to define, Jesse's got himself a girl and I want to make her mine." William finally felt at home singing the stuff he knew and liked as the students from 1965 Collinsport High School started moving to the weird new beat. A few of them began moving slowly and then creating new steps. Joe Haskell dropped his jaw and Carolyn watched in surprise. She liked this William because he was cute, but now she liked him even more because he could sing. Things changed around her and she noticed Joe grinning with her. They looked at each other and realized they had something else in common. His name was William Coleman.
"You know that I wish I had Jesse's girl!" William was creating new chords and sounds as his so-called forerunners moved to sounds they'd be screaming at their kids to turn down in another ten years. "I wish I had Jesse's girl; where can I find a girl like that..."
"What's going on here?" Matt Springfield returned with his band's pay and saw his little brother in the backstage area air-guitaring and copying William on stage. "Ricky, what are you doing! I promised mom and dad to keep you out of trouble."
"I want to be a rock star!" The boy yelled.
"You know that I wish I had Jesse's girl..." William swung the guitar around as if he was commanding a mob. Unable to see his instrument handled like that, he walked out on stage and grabbed it away.
"What are you doing!"
The band stopped from the beat they learned and started protesting. The seniors likewise responded in kind as William stopped in surprise. No one wanted the real party to end. A mere taste of the new music wave truly had become unstoppable.
"Think you can top it?" William handed the challenge over and pulled at his collar. He hopped off the stage and ran for the gym doors as Joe grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
"Hey, where'd you learn to play like that?"
"My family encouraged me." William looked at Carolyn. "You know, when your son starts playing like that, don't kick him out of the house." He looked to Joe again and saw in him the guy who could be his best friend and the father of his sister's boyfriend. He then turned his gaze to Carolyn and realized why she was his favorite aunt.
"William," Carolyn smiled a bit. "Thanks for settling things between Joe and I. You could have really took advantage of me, but... you did the right thing."
William blushed a faint grin while she gave him a platonic kiss to the cheek. One last look at the two of them, and he started to dash out the door.
"Joe," He looked at the two of them. "I want you to watch my girl here. I could be back for her."
"It's a promise." Joe squeezed Carolyn's hand in his. William turned a bit amused, dashed out before them and out the door to the parking lot. An odd black car with a tinted window roof and a sliding red light in its front grill work picked him up and streaked off to the highway. Collinsport student Glen Larson smoked his cigarette from the balcony outside the science wing and dreamed up a detective story from the spectral black car.
"I've got a sneaky hunch we're not going to see him again for a long time." Joe held Carolyn closer.
8
March 18, 1985...
Quentin Collins picked up his fishing pole as he and Jason Pryde returned to shore. Jason was a recent fishing acquaintance he had met through his wife Maggie and they both appreciated nothing more than getting out on his twenty-foot schooner and fishing in the bay with their other fishing friends. On this outing, a friend of Jason's from the west coast had joined them in the ordeal of man against fish.
"So Bob," Quentin secured his gear and carried his tackle box up the ramp to the parking lot across the street from the arena. "What do you do when you're not catching fish?"
"I'm in the entertainment business." Bob answered back as he hoisted up three trout. "I develop and create movies. Right now, I'm trying to develop a time-travel flick around a teenager, but I don't know yet how I'm going to set it up."
"Really," Quentin hoisted his fish.
"Quentin, believe me." Jason tied off his boat and turned to join them after collecting his gear and catch. "Any movie with the name Bob Zemeckis on it is a great movie. Bob's been telling stories since we were in college!"
The three men were distracted by a burst of light at the end of the street. A black trans am appeared out of nowhere spewing smoke and sounding as if it were about to blow a rod as it charged past them, swerved through the ditch beside the road and spun its wheels as it tried to return to the road. Jason jumped out of the way just short of getting run over. Whoever was driving the car was trying to handle it as if it had other choices about where it was going.
"They drive just as bad here as they do in LA." Zemeckis answered.
"If I didn't know better," Quentin watched the trans-am strip its gears as it roared down the street. "I'd say that was Barnabas and Angelique's son at the wheel." He thanked Jason for the fishing and headed to his van. His three trout went in the cooler as he planned on cooking them himself for dinner and maybe sharing them with Barnabas and Willie. Heading back to Collinwood, he drove out on to the main street and then on to Collins Road. The taillights of the trans-am were still ahead kicking up dust as they vanished through the front gates ahead of him. Quentin didn't even know the boy was driving yet much less had his own car. Inside the gate, William roared down the back road for the Old House and Quentin headed the main drive up to Collinwood. Another road around the back of the estate took him to Rose Cottage where he and Maggie lived, but it didn't have the type of kitchen he was used to cooking with, and Maggie had warned him about returning with dead fish. He strided through the front doors smelling and reeking of dead fish and recognized his blonde cousin and her former paramour.
"Quentin," Joe Haskell scratched his silver beard at the man who took Maggie from him. "Let me guess, you've been fishing." Quentin pretended to suddenly notice them.
"Well, how about that?" He grinned with a wry look as he headed for the kitchen. Joe sounded a bit reflective realizing he had lost Maggie to the old scoundrel and Carolyn to Willie Loomis, but then he had taken Roxanne away from Willie. Sometimes he thought his life would make a great daytime soap opera.
"Thanks for waiting, Joe." Carolyn came down from upstairs. Her once long blonde hair now bobbed above her shoulders while her figure became more of that of a woman who had three kids. The former football player still eyed her a bit entranced by her presence. He hoped his own son had better luck dating Barnabus's daughter.
"I was throwing a lot of stuff away and I found this." Carolyn whipped out a book. "I can't believe I had it all this time."
"Our Collinsport High Cutlass!" Joe grinned with retrospective nostalgia as he leafed through it. "I wondered what I did with it."
"I think I held on to it after one of our many fights and then forgot about it." Carolyn admitted.
"We sure had some beauts," Joe still couldn't believe how much time had gone by. He went straight to Lisa's picture; she was now a photographic specialist at USI in Boston. Tom Jennings was dead, his twin brother Chris was a local contractor and Jason Pryde owned his own boating service...
"Hey," Joe leafed back as he saw a face in one of the candid shots. "Doesn't that guy look like Barnabus's son!"
"Yes, he does." Carolyn nestled closer then that had been in years. "I never noticed that before. Do you recall who he was?"
"I barely remember anyone anymore." Joe admitted as the doors behind him opened and closed. William Collins pushed the doors shut behind him and turned to them. Had he changed time after all? Was Joe his uncle now? Who was his sister now dating?
"Aunt Carolyn," He turned back to her. "Do you have anything to eat up here? Mom hasn't done any shopping." Hedeparted again to takea second look.Carolyn and Joestared at him a bit spooky as if they didn't recognize him. The young man took a deep breath and feared he'd married them off.
"Sure, honey," Carolyn shifted her weight to one leg. "Go help yourself."
"Thanks..." William looked as spooked as they were. He bolted through the drawing room for the back hall to the kitchen as the two adults looked at the photo in their old yearbook, to the direction William had vanished to and then back to the old class yearbook.
"Nawwwwwwww..." They gasped between themselves. Carolyn even giggled a bit and then slowly reached to her chest a bit dismayed as if her mind was recalling rolling around with Angelique's son in the back of a car back about the time her Uncle Roger first came to town.
END