Kayla cocked her head and stared at Steve like he’d grown a second head.
“Whoa, baby,” Steve laughed without humor as he laid his hand on his chest, turning away from her slightly. “I haven’t seen you do it like that in years.”
“Do what?”
“Get that stubborn look on your face.”
“On my—Oh, I see.”
“Yeah, on that particular face, Sweetness.”
Kayla put a hand on her blushing cheek. “I haven’t exactly gotten used to it yet, myself.”
He put his hands tentatively on her shoulders and rubbed her arms up and down. “I know you’re thinkin’ it’s nuts, Sweetness, but I don’t think we’re in 2009. I think we’re back in the ‘80’s. I remember that sweater you’re wearing. I think.”
Kayla kept wanting to say, but how, but that seemed pointless at the moment. She felt real, Steve definitely felt real, and with their surroundings matching their bodies, she didn’t have an explanation that sounded any less out there. “Ok, so how do we figure out when we are – what year it is?”
“We need something with a date on it,” Steve said looking around. He’d wished this time she hadn’t been so picked up and tidy. They headed back down the stairs, then a thought struck him. “Baby, we can just look at the paper. Did you get the newspaper back then?”
“Well, I … don’t know when we are, so I don’t know!”
Steve sighed. “I guess we could turn on the TV, maybe the news is on.”
Just then a knock came at the loft door. Steve and Kayla looked at each other with the same question in their eyes. What do they do? The last thing they expected was to see another person, but then again, they hadn’t thought much about anything beyond the confines of the actual apartment. The first thing that came to Steve’s mind was distrust. He looked up toward the ceiling, again as if he might catch something up there. Kayla held her breath, afraid to be heard. After a moment, they knocked again.
“Answer it?” Kayla mouthed to Steve.
He shrugged then whispered, “maybe they know what year it is.”
Kayla gave him a small grin and left a still disheveled Steve at the bottom of the stairs to head for the door. She put her first tentative grip in 20 years on the loft door handle and looked back at her husband, then slid the door open with a familiar swish. The sight before her was a shock to say the least.
“Oh, hi honey,” Caroline greeted her daughter.
The sight of her mother with blonde hair and a face so much younger made Kayla want to weep. “Mama?” Kayla answered? Caroline saw immediately that something was wrong with Kayla. Why did she look at her that way, like she’d seen a ghost? “Mom … how–how are you?”
“Holding up,” Caroline answered with a worried look in her eye. “Listen, I thought you’d be at the house by now, so I thought I’d better come by and make sure you were alright.” When she brushed by her daughter into the loft, Kayla could smell the same hairspray on her hair that she, herself, had also used at that time and made a side note somewhere in her head that Steve was right about the decade.
“I was, ah – I was supposed to come by?” The sight of her mother was so comforting in this confusion, she just wanted to crawl into her arms and be held.
“Well, yes, that’s what we all agreed last night, but you never came, it’s getting late.
Kayla looked at her wrist, but no watch. “What time is it?”
“Almost noon. Your father and I were worried, so I came here, instead.”
“Well, you didn’t have to come all the way over here, Mom, why didn’t you just call my cell?”
“Your what, dear?”
“My cell … phone … ?” Kayla realized her mistake, but Caroline was too busy being surprised at the sight of Steve loitering by the staircase to wonder what on earth Kayla was talking about.
“Patch? What is he doing here?”
Hearing her mother call the man she’d grown to not only accept but love as a son-in-law by that unkind name brought Kayla disappointingly out of her enjoyment of the moment with her younger mother.
“His name is Steve, Mom, and I can explain.”
“You can?” Steve and Caroline said in unison.
“How could you do this,” Caroline continued, “how could you spend the night with Pa—
“Mom, please don’t do this.”
“—him at a time like this? I hate to say this, but I’m very disappointed in you, Kayla!”
“Mrs. Brady, Steve interjected, and boy did it sound weird calling her that, “nothing happened here. I’m sorry if we upset you.”
“No, don’t apologize, Steve, I am old enough to have a man spend the night in my own apartment if that’s what I want. I am a grown woman, mother.” Déjà vu hit Kayla with a wave that she could swear tore her stomach from her body.
“Then why don’t you act like it instead of picking a man like this at a time like this? That’s not maturity!”
“Kayla,” Steve said, ignoring Caroline’s tirade, “I know when this is! This is right before Christmas. Marlena just ‘died.’” Steve made air quotes with his fingers around the word “died.” “It’s 1987.”
“1986,” Caroline corrected, wondering if he’d been drinking the night before. She looked at him now like he was a real creep, wondering why he’d make light of Marlena having died with that gesture he’d just made; because, of course, Caroline had no idea that she wasn’t really dead. Steve ignored her, focusing only on Kayla and sussing out when they were.
“So, 1986. Remember, baby? I didn’t want you to be alone because I was worried that Orpheus was still out there. You were upset, and I comforted you. I stayed with you that night, then we woke up on the couch in these clothes, overslept.”
“Is that what you call it, young man? Comforting?”
“Mom—”
“Why don’t you come to your family for that, that’s where you belong, not with—,” Caroline forced herself to stop before she said something God would not approve of. “We shouldn’t be discussing this right now, we have much more important things to do.”
“Right,” Kayla said struggling to remember what came next.
Caroline glared at Steve, hoping he’d get the hint and go, but he just stood there, his shirt half opened. Seeing as how he was unlikely to leave, she soldiered on. “I wondered,” Caroline said, trying to keep her temper in check, “if you were going into work today.”
“Work?” Kayla asked. She looked at Steve, who shrugged and gave her the same uncertain look right back. “I, ah – I hadn’t really decided?” It was a question. Did I get it right? Kayla asked herself.
“Well, Roman and Shawn and I have to make arrangements for the memorial service, and I was wondering if I could leave Max in the Emergency Center with you after he finishes school.
At the mention of his brother-in-law’s name, Steve smiled; the thought of seeing the cute little boy he helped save from the streets with his brother, Frankie, all those years ago was tempting. Is it possible he might actually get to see that little dude?
Kayla hadn’t thought of the Emergency Center in quite some time. She didn’t know what the answer was, but she had a vague recollection of what was happening and that she and Steve sniped because he took Max to the The Cheatin’ Heart, a bar his sister now owned. “Yeah, ok. That should be ok,” she told her mother, not at all sure if that was really ok or not.
“Well, thank you. Alice is taking care of the twins, and Carrie isn’t really feeling up to looking after Max, besides, he’s close to you.”
“It’s really no problem. Is it, Steve?”
Steve wasn’t sure what she was getting herself into by promising to watch Max, but he knew as much as she did and was guessing just the same. Plus, he kind of wanted to see what was outside the loft, if it was just as in the past out there as the rest of them were. “Yeah, sounds good, Sweetn—uh, Kayla.”
“It’s fine, Mom.”
“Well, thank you.” Caroline said, still feeling awkward and angry. “I’d better go. Roman and Shawn are waiting.”
Caroline slid open the loft door and turned around one more time to say goodbye.
“Mom?” Kayla reached out.
“Yes.”
“Come here,” Kayla said gathering her into an embrace. She remembered this day now, and it was strong in her mind. She really didn’t want her mother to leave angry. “I’m sorry,” she said into her hair, “closing her eyes and feeling her mother’s arms around her.
Caroline pulled away and looked Kayla in the eye. “See you later,” she said, then turned on her heel and left. Kayla closed the door after her and shed a little tear.
“You alright? Steve asked, putting a hand on her shoulder as she was turned away from him.
“Yeah, I just … I can’t believe that was actually my mom. Did you see her, it was just like us. She was so much younger, I got emotional.”
“I know.”
“She said some awful things about you.”
“Yeah, she didn’t like me back then, did she?”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s ok, I grew on her, didn’t I, Sweetness?”
Kayla chuckled. “Yes, you did.” She wanted to walk into his arms and kiss him right then, but there was a wall of uncertainty between them that made them both wary. They didn’t know why, but they each silently questioned if they should really be touching each other.
“Ya know we forgot to ask what the date was.”
“It’s got to be the first or second week of December if it’s when Marlena died that first time. When she disappeared, I mean, in 1986.”
“Well, I guess I’m expected at the Emergency Center. Do … do I go? I should probably shower.”
“Baby, that’s what got us into trouble with your mama the first time around, remember?”
She did remember, and despite herself, she bit her lower lip and smiled at the memory of Steve half naked in her apartment for the first time. He saw the sexy look on her face and started to feel the need to touch her.
Then Kayla suddenly remembered something else. “Oh my gosh! Hold on a minute!” Kayla ran into the guest room, leaving Steve to wonder what she was up to.”
“I think you need to get to work, baby? Maybe?” Then he added, “I dunno what the hell we’re supposed to be doin’, here,” just to himself as he rubbed at the back of his neck.
“Just hold on, you’re going to love this!” she called out to him. “I hope it’s here!”
Kayla sorted through the mess that Steve had left while searching for Joe and got a stab of worry realizing what the mess was from. Finding her treasure under the overturned bedspread, Kayla grabbed it, very happy that it was where she remembered it.
“What’s all this, baby?” Steve asked when she returned to him in the living room and held it out to him with a grin.
“Don’t you remember? What does it look like?” The long box was wrapped with flecked yellow paper and a thick green ribbon. Steve smiled like a schoolboy, but for the moment, he didn’t remember what was in the package. “Open it,” Kayla said, her knowing smile so big and full of happiness in the giving. “I’d had this awhile before I gave it to you, and I remembered it was there just now and … I just had to give it to you again.”
As soon as Steve undid the ribbon and opened the box, he knew what he was looking at, and the rush of emotions boiled up to the surface. Steve looked at her with a damp eye that he wouldn’t hide from her this time around.
“Sweetness,” his voice cracked. “My beautiful pool cue.”
“And it wasn’t even Christmas,” she said with a kind of accomplishment, remembering his reaction the first time.
He stared down at it through tears. “No one had ever given me a present ‘just because’ before. No one had ever shown me their heart like that.”
Kayla watched him cry with joy and wanted so badly to hold him. “Watching you unwrap it made me so happy.”
Steve opened the fasteners on the box, revealing the magnificent pool cue’s two pieces. He took them out and enjoyed their solid weight while he connected them. “You know, I’d already fallen in love with you by then, Sweetness. You know that don’t you?”
“I loved you too. You didn’t actually tell me for a long time, but I knew in my heart that you loved me. Especially when you left that night.”
“When I left?”
Yeah, you … you wouldn’t stay the night.”
“Well, that was stupid of me.”
Kayla laughed while Steve grinned. “Well, I sure thought so at the time,” she teased suggestively. “But somewhere deep down,” her voice softened, “I understood that you loved me, but you were just afraid. Other women were ok, but not me. You were afraid.”
“There weren’t other women, Kayla,” he said with a serious tone.
“No, I know. I mean, you said other women you could love and leave, but if you loved me, you might not be able to leave. And then … then you looked at me. You were out in the hallway, and I wanted to reach out and pull you back in. And you looked at me with this … fear of falling over the edge. I was disappointed that you wouldn’t stay the night with me, but I felt happiness underneath. Like I was winning the war. There was so much meaning to your words.”
“I remember that. It was a beautiful gesture, this gift. And I had to get out of there before I was overcome.” He wanted to touch her so much.
The love they felt for each other in that moment reliving the giving of the pool cue threatened to burst open their hearts. Without another word, Steve covered the short distance to Kayla. His pool cue in one hand, he grabbed her around the waist and covered her gorgeous lips with his in a relief and love-filled kiss. The sparks he felt fly must have been real, because this kiss was like no other in recent memory. “God, Kayla,” he choked out over his emotions. She tasted like a sunburst.
The feel of Steve holding her so tightly with an intensity that electrified their kisses made her dizzy. “Baby,” she said through lips she never wanted to stop kissing him with.
Then Steve felt a strange sensation in his belly. It was different than the usual feeling being physical with her gave him. But he was too caught up in the joyous moment of kissing his 25-year-old wife with his 30-year-old lips to notice that something was a bit off in his body. He allowed the sensation to pass without acknowledgement caught up in the feel of her, the smell of her hair, and the feeling in his heart.
It was only the shrill cry of a baby that brought him out of his reverie. Steve felt Kayla smile through their kisses, and she sighed with relief at the sound of the tiny wail. He didn’t want to leave her embrace, but the sound of his baby calling to them was too strong to ignore.
When he opened his eye, his heart sank.
Kayla’s eyes were still closed as Steve’s kisses stilled, and the sound through the monitor filled her with such relief that she tore herself away with elation. The sight that greeted her, however, was incongruous with where she just was. Seconds ago they were standing upright in each other’s embrace; now they were lying in bed. The sudden change in physical orientation caused a surge of dizzy nausea that made her bury her head in Steve’s chest with a sick moan.
Kayla’s eyes were closed to the wave she was hoping would pass as Steve stared down at her. Her white nightgown was stark against the dark cherry headboard, and her hair was considerably longer with bigger, sleepier curls than she’d had just moments before. “Kayla?” Steve whispered to her.
The queasy moment passed, and now Kayla lifted her head to look at the still much younger face of her husband, only now he had the overgrown stubble that was the beginning of a beard. Newfound confusion and bitter disappointment passed across Kayla’s face as Steve just tried to stay very calm. “This isn’t our apartment,” Kayla said. “Or the loft.”
“No,” he replied, “but it is our bed. The one from when he lived in our house.”
Kayla knew he was right, but she just didn’t know what to do with this. The baby’s cries continued, however, and that gave Kayla some comfort. Itching to run to her son, she said, “at least we found Joe.”
But Steve knew better. “Kayla. Baby,” he said gently, still holding her in the arms he’d arrived to holding her in. “I don’t think that’s Joe.”
“What?” she said with worry.
“Sweetness. I think that’s Stephanie.”