Kayla was completely surrounded by people, some she once knew, some she still knew, but mostly complete strangers. All eyes seemed to be on her, especially those of her former mother-in-law, who was looking at her expectantly with the perfect political smile on her face. The one person she needed to see that appeared to be missing was Steve. He didn’t jump with me. Why didn’t he jump with me?! Kayla thought with a terrible sense of dread, which left the reporter’s question hanging in the air awkwardly.
Angelica went into political smooth-overy mode the second the reporter’s building confusion became apparent. “I’m afraid between the excitement and this hat, Kayla just can’t find the words,” she laughed with just the slightest bit of condescension. “Of course Kayla thinks her husband is going to win, don’t you, Kayla?”
Husband. It’s the night of the election. “I, um …” Angelica’s face was clear: say the right thing right now. “Yes, he’s definitely going to win.”
“Well,” the reporter replied with a bit of relief in her enthusiastic voice, “you sound like there’s never been any doubt in your mind.”
That’s when Kayla’s searching eyes found him standing across the pier. Steve stood on the steps with a desperate look in the eye that was willing her to see him.
“Nope,” Kayla said as a beautiful smile spread across her face as she stared at the man whose own face registered cautious relief. “I can pretty much promise you that he will, actually.”
The eager little reporter jotted furiously in her notebook as Jack came toward her and Angelica beaming with pride, not a shred of evidence on his face that her absence on New Year’s Eve even happened. Kayla glanced up at Steve for only a brief moment, but that’s all it took to catch that he wasn’t right. The look on his face was questioning with a hint of doubt. Just then Kayla’s stomach lurched as a very healthy and smug-looking Darrel Canby walked right up to Jack.
“Mr. Deveraux can I have a word with you?” The Spectator reporter asked.
Before she could react with the alarm that was coursing through her, Angelica shooed the two of them away so her stepson could give the press the time they needed.
“Look, I’ll answer any of your questions tonight down at Blondies,” Jack replied as Kayla looked back at them. Before the political supporters swarmed passed them obscuring her view, Kayla caught a flash of the green envelope containing the photos that sealed her fate all those years ago.
“What … how did—” Kayla said aloud.
“Fine, Kayla, you did fine,” Angelica answered. “You’ve got to be quicker, though, these reporters will jump on anything that signals weakness to them, so you are going to have to work on those ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ right away.”
“Right,” Kayla said absently as she looked back to Steve not knowing what to do about Canby and his fateful green envelope.
She couldn’t help but feel Steve’s eye drilling a hole into her. He mouthed something very subtly, but she caught it: “That you?”
Her heart jumped into her throat as she put her hand to her chest with enormous relief. She nodded slightly with a smile that Angelica took as her response to just having been introduced to one of Jack’s campaign contributors.
With her confirmation that she was his Kayla, Steve blew out the breath he was holding with a grunt. He’d been looking upon her being led about the pier by Angelica with barely restrained angst. When he’d arrived and she wasn’t there, he almost screamed her name. But he immediately heard and saw the throngs of people and realized he’d jumped into the middle of a crowd. At first he couldn’t figure out when this was, but when he heard a shrill voice carry across the cold night air that said “Deveraux,” he looked harder at his surroundings. Campaign signs. The riverfront polling place. Then he saw Jack and that stupid hat Angelica was wearing and knew this was election night. It only took a moment after that to find Kayla next to her. What was she doing all the way over there? They’d never been separated by any kind of distance on their other jumps. He had to get to her.
He had been watching as she’d searched the pier for him; it seemed to take forever before he caught her eye. When he finally did, it was like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. She saw him. She knew him. Which she is it? The thought came to him unbidden. He had no reason to believe that wasn’t his Kayla in there, but he also remembered Election Day Kayla looking at him with that exact same face, just as eager to get to him as this one was. He had to know this was her. He had to know his wife was really with him.
He mouthed the question to her, and he was positive she nodded, but it wasn’t quite enough, he had to make contact with her. Before he could make a move toward her while she was being forced to press the flesh by that red bitch of a mother-in-law of hers he spotted something that made him stop dead in his tracks. Canby was talking to Jack. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but there was no doubt in his mind that he was witnessing in this moment what had happened right under his nose the first time. Canby was giving Jack the pictures of he and Kayla; the pictures that drove Jack to eventually rape her. And Canby was none the worse for wear. He could see him clearly. No split lip, no bruises, no evidence that Steve had threatened him against this very action at all.
“We didn’t change anything,” Steve said to himself. “It’s like it never happened.”
The reporter walked away from Jack looking nothing but full of himself. Again, Steve started down the stairs to stop him from opening the envelope he’d just started to unfasten, but just then his father, the Senator, approached him.
“Jack, what are you doing standing here by yourself?” Harper Deveraux boomed proudly to his son. “The polls are closed now, the verdict is in!”
He wanted to warn Kayla, but there was no good way to get to her, people were all around her. Look at me, baby.
Just then Angelica walked off and Kayla turned her head to find Steve again. The blonde reporter was back saying something to Jack, and it was all Kayla could do to stay where she was “supposed” to be. Not only was she trying to appear like everything was normal as Jack’s wife, but she was doing it as having jumped into this body with her 2009 awareness, making it that much harder. This was 21 years ago, and she was struggling to remember the big things, like if Harper had already killed his first prostitute yet, let alone the little things, like who these people were that were talking to her on the pier. To say nothing of the fact that Harper, the complete psychopath bent on killing her and very nearly doing it, was standing not two feet from her. It was completely unnerving.
The searching look on Kayla’s face was killing Steve. Please come get me, her eyes pleaded to him. Get me out of this, they begged him. But Steve was utterly baffled. He wanted nothing more than to go to her and drag her away whether people were watching or not. But the sight of Darrel Canby looking all arrogant with that self-serving smile on his face, and Jack holding those pictures, made him wonder what the hell had gone on with their bodies in the short weeks they’d last been in them. Canby was out there walking around, even made full-on eye contact with him at one point, and the man didn’t bat an eye. Not a single feather was ruffled. And he had the audacity to give Jack the photos! Steve was positive the photos were in there, of that he had no doubt. But what alarmed him most was the fact that the reporter’s lip was completely intact. Steve knew that he busted that lip so wide open that it was going to take a lot of stitches to put it back together. There’s no way that lip would have looked so perfect in that amount of time, even with 2009 medicine, let alone that of 1988.
Steve tried to send his thoughts into Kayla’s head through sheer force of will, but he didn’t even know what his thoughts were right now. Meanwhile, Kayla was just looking for some way to get off that pier.
“And hopefully all these willful people have voted for me!” Jack bellowed to his cheering supporters, bringing Kayla out of her head.
Then something amazing happened. Jack stepped away and accidentally dropped the green envelope. Kayla’s eyes became as big as saucers. She paused for only a moment to let the joy of her dumb luck sink in before she very calmly and methodically bent down, retrieved the hateful green package, and tucked it inside her coat. When she next turned around, she found Steve’s gaze looking at her like she was the most brilliant woman on the face of the planet.
That’s my girl, Sweetness, Steve beamed at her. You always were the smart one, baby! Kayla crossed her arms in a hug across her chest back at Steve in a furtive reply. The sign for love.
Things were moving so quickly on that pier that she didn’t have time to react any further as a campaign worker announced the news that Jack was the winner. Jack threw his arms around Kayla, and she tensed at his touch. The Jack she knew today was a man she’d grown to forgive (if not forget), care about as her brother-in-law, and be forever indebted to for bringing her husband home. But this Jack was a man who would be attacking her in just a few short hours, and her body couldn’t help but react to it. She was also trying to keep a very good hold of the photos under her arm inside her coat.
Jack felt Kayla tense up, but it’s not like it was anything new for him. She looked so beautiful in the light of the pier’s streetlamps and he just wanted to take her home to the loft and make love to her. “I wanted to be sure to thank my biggest supporter,” he said to her.
Kayla forced herself to look at him and not Steve, who himself was watching their every move. She saw the hungry look in Jack’s eyes and felt sick to her stomach. “You’re going to do great, Jack,” she said with the faintest hint of sadness to her voice, which he chose to ignore in utter denial.
“Especially with you by my side,” he smiled back at her.
“My stepson the assemblyman! Honey, I’m so proud of you!” Angelica practically mowed Kayla down to throw her arms around Jack in exhilaration.
This commotion was registering as very familiar to Steve. He was nearly sure this was the best opportunity he was going to have to spirit Kayla away. He didn’t really need to catch her gaze, as it had been almost entirely on him throughout this absolutely insane jump. He motioned for her to step away and follow him, and Kayla was chomping at the bit to do so.
“Jack, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to Shenanigans and take care of some last-minute things before your victory party,” Kayla said.
“Honey, don’t you mean Blondie’s?”
Kayla blanched realizing that these details were going to betray her. “I, ah … I meant, I left my car at Blondie’s—SHENANIGANS—and I just want to pick it up so I can get to Blondie’s,” she offered feebly.
“That’s a great idea, honey, I’ll see you there!” Jack said. Then he did something that made Steve jump out of his skin. Jack took Kayla in his arms and kissed her. He dipped her and insistently pressed his firm lips against her unwilling ones with an uninvited cold wetness. Kayla froze in his arms keeping a death grip on the pictures hidden under the wing of her arm as he prolonged the kiss she wasn’t responding to. But after a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, Kayla grabbed onto Jack’s shoulder with her free hand to prevent herself from falling out of his grasp, which Jack took as a sign to really go for it. Steve watched with a green eye that flamed even greener as his brother shoved his tongue into Kayla’s mouth insisting she open to him. Jack’s intent was unrelenting, and Kayla involuntarily opened her mouth to him and felt his tongue slather along hers like an invader. It was the last thing she wanted, and what made it worse was the fact that she knew Steve was watching.
Finally, Jack lifted her back up and disengaged his unsolicited mouth from hers, then yelled to the crowd, “You’re an assemblyman’s wife now!” The crowd cheered and cat-called, and the applause rang out from the entire pier.
Kayla couldn’t help the look of revulsion on her face as she wiped her mouth and said, “that didn’t happen last time.”
The meaning of her words sailed right over Jack’s head. “Don’t be mad, Kayla, I promise not to show too much PDA in the future, I just had to kiss you, I’m so happy,” he grinned like a fool. “Plus, it’s going to be a great picture for the papers tomorrow!”
Kayla knew with certainty, now, that her changed actions on the night of New Year’s Even had little or no effect. What’s the point of keeping up this charade? she asked herself. She wanted to just turn around and leave, who cares who sees? It, apparently, doesn’t matter at all. But, on the other hand, she couldn’t help wondering how long this jump was going to last and felt that she was treading on thin ice, here. So, she found it somewhere within herself to give him a small smile.
“Senator Deveraux!” the nasal reporter called, “what will your son’s victory mean to your campaign?”
“See you at Blondie’s, honey,” Jack said to her before focusing his full attention on his father and the press. Kayla smiled a soft, “ok” back to him.
She then looked up to finally follow Steve up the stairs and out of this hell they’d jumped into and saw that he was almost out of his mind. She knew that look in his eye, and the intense jealousy made her thrill to her very core at the same time that it made her fear for the actions he might take. The last thing Kayla heard as she made her way as calmly as possible from the festivities to wherever Steve was leading them was Harper talking to reporters. The sound of his voice made her shudder.
Steve fought the urge to run as he kept an equal eye on Kayla following behind him as he did on the pier’s path in front of him. Anger thrummed through him as every nerve was on fire with jealousy. Twenty-one years ago he would have swallowed that painful pill with the understanding that she was, technically, Jack’s wife. But today that pill was so bitter he could barely stand it. That man was kissing Steve’s wife, and he just couldn’t take it.
Steve finally stopped at the lower end of a dock two piers down, and Kayla nearly jumped into his arms with a cry she could barely contain.
“Steve!” She threw her arms around his neck. “Steve, what’s happening?!”
He pulled her away and looked her in the eye. “Kayla?” he demanded with his piercing green eye.
Kayla had a sudden surge of doubt – that maybe this wasn’t her Steve. But … it had to be, didn’t it? “Steve,” she pleaded desperately, “r-r-remember Stockholm? Do you remember when we were just there?”
A slow and knowing look settled on his face. “What is this, 20 Questions,” he asked as his voice broke with an onslaught of emotion.
“Steve,” she cried into his jacket. “Oh, thank God, I was terrified for a second that maybe it wasn’t you!”
“Sorry I never got you those towels, baby,” he said as a tear rolled down his face.
“I was so scared. What happened? Why weren’t you with me this time?”
“I was, Sweetness, we just jumped into a crowd is all.”
“I couldn’t find you!” Kayla’s head was still buried in his jacket, as her tears fell upon the cold leather.
“Oh, baby,” he sighed as he brought his hand to her head. “Ya know, I panicked,” then he placed a kiss on her temple. “I didn’t know if I had you or the 1988 you.”
“Well, we’re together, now,” she said. Then she looked around and pulled the green folder from under her coat. “And look what I got.”
“I know,” he said, a mixture of pride and terror in his voice. “I saw you pick those up like it was some business report, baby. You did so good.”
“But did you see him, Steve? Canby? Not a mark on him. And he brushed right up against me like New Year’s Eve never happened!”
“Oh, I saw him, baby. And he saw me. He didn’t react to me at all.” Steve inhaled deeply. “New Year’s Eve definitely happened, Kayla, it just happened the way it did the first time, with him snapping those pictures of us with us none the wiser.”
“How’s that possible, I watched you beat him up!”
“I don’t know, Kayla, I don’t have any answers!” he raised his voice.
“Shhhh!”
“I don’t know,” he repeated in a softer voice. “I don’t know why, but we didn’t change the future. It just went back to the regular time. Or something. I don’t know!” he boomed again.
Kayla put a gloved and calming hand to his face. “Well, I’ve got them now, so he won’t get his hands on them on this jump, either.”
“His hands,” Steve hissed. “They sure were all over you. Stuck his goddamn tongue right down your throat.”
Then he grabbed Kayla’s face in his hands and smoothed over her lips with his thumbs. His touch was so gentle, so full of love and dedication to her. Unlike Jack’s touch both 21 years prior and just minutes ago. He brought her face to his and replaced the feeling of Jack’s mouth on hers with his own. He kissed her gently, lovingly, and cried into this kiss, “You’re mine, Kayla. I don’t care when we are.”
“I’m yours,” she said back. “No one else’s.”
Then he pulled back again and grabbed her left hand. Damn thing is back. For the second time, he unscrewed Jack’s wedding ring from her finger and went to toss it into the river.
“Wait!” Kayla grabbed his hand.
“I don’t want you wearing this thing, Kayla,” he said in a warning tone.
“Good, that makes two of us,” she said, as she took the ring from his hand and threw it into the river herself. Steve smiled down at her and placed another kiss on her lips. “What do we do now, go to Blondie’s?”
Steve thought for a moment and tried to be rational. But all he could come up with was to run and hide. “I don’t think it matters what we do, baby, because the whole thing just reset the last time. This is the first time we’ve jumped somewhere that should have been different.”
“Why, Steve,” she said suddenly angry. “Why the hell are we jumping anywhere?!” I want answers, don’t you? What is causing this?!
“Kayla, don’t start that, again, now. We both want answers, but unless you know where to start looking, I think our first priority has to be living in what we’ve got to work with.”
“Well, I’m not going back to that loft with him tonight! Tonight’s the night he … he …”
“He’s not!” Steve said grabbing her by the shoulders. “’Cause he doesn’t have those pictures to set him off anymore. And ‘cause you’re just not going back there, anyway. You’re going to be with me, Sweetness. You got that? You’re with me. No matter what,” he said with a shake.
Kayla reached up and gently felt the fabric at her right shoulder. Then she looked at Steve and blurted, “I hate this dress.”
“I know,” he said meaningfully. “You’ve got a right.” Steve pulled her into a tight embrace and settled on what to do. “We’re running to the loft, packing some things, and then dropping them at my place. Then we’re going to Blondie’s.”
“No! I don’t want to see anyone, there’s too much to remember! Plus, Harper is there, and he’s just giving me the creeps.”
“Baby, this seems like the right way. We did it all wrong the first time, now the election is over, you don’t go home with him. You give it a clean break at the party, and that’s that. Then you come home with me to my apartment,” he kissed her cheek. “My bed,” he kissed her other cheek. “We burn those photos,” he kissed her lips. “And if we wake up here tomorrow, we get in the car and we drive.”
“Where? Where would we go?”
“How about, the uh, cabin, the one in the snow. We said our vows there. We can go there.”
Kayla was quiet.
“What? What is it, baby, you don’t want to go there?”
“I … don’t know what I want. I’m having a hard time getting my head into 1988 with all these people.”
“I know Jack is hard to take—“
“It’s Harper that’s worse.”
“Well, that’s why we need a clean break, Sweetness, tonight. Just get it done and get to my place and be together to wait this thing out.”
“Until the next jump.”
Steve took a deep breath and let it out heavily. “Until the next jump.”
Kayla wasn’t sure what to do, but when she looked up into her husband’s green eye she saw one solid truth there. He was devoted to her. And that’s when she resigned herself to the fact that this was happening to them. It wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a movie, it was happening, and to figure out who and why and how was probably pointless. She decided then and there that however long this jump lasted, they had to just live the lives of the bodies they jumped into in the best way they could. The wrong choices they made they’d right. The right ones they made they’d try to repeat.
“Can I have my ring? I don’t feel right without it.”
Steve smiled at her. “Of course, you can,” he said. He dug into his jacket and pulled out the ring that, once again, hung on the end of the chain around his neck. He kissed the stone that Kayla would wear for the next 21 years (I took off your ring – he shook the confession away), undid the clasp, and placed it perfectly on the finger he’d just relieved of Jack’s ring. “I do,” he said again to her with a smile.
“I do,” she said back and kissed him. It was the second time they’d gone through this, and she had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last. “I really do,” she whispered, flexing her fingers before caressing his cheek.
Steve kissed her gingerly. “I love you so much, Sweetness.”
“I love you more.”
“Oh, I doubt that, Mrs. Johnson,” he said.
“Let’s go get my things. I’m going to be missed at Blondie’s soon.” With that, they headed for Kayla’s car hand in hand, not bothering to hide themselves nor sure how long they were going to be there.