Page 8 of Life Out of Order

“Has what?” I say, my heart beating fast.

“Chrono-Displacement Disorder.”

“Yeah.” I remember discovering a rabbit under a bush in our garden once, when I was a child. It sat frozen for a minute or so, then lost its nerve and bolted. Be still, be still.

“That’s so cool,” Zach says. “I wish I had it.”

“You do? Why?” I can’t keep the edge out of my voice. “A few minutes ago you were wishing you played the violin.”

He sees that I’m annoyed. “Maybe that’s why I write. I’m curious, I want to try everything, especially crazy things like time travel. I get tired of being myself, stuck in my own head. Maybe if I pay attention, I’ll understand what it’s like to be someone else.” Zach is looking at me intently, and I realize that he is genuinely interested in me—plain old me, not the exotic time traveler or the violin prodigy. “Time travel would be a way of expanding the possibilities. Wouldn’t you want to try it, if you could?”

“Ugh. No.” I shudder, and imagine a world in which time travel is optional.

“Would you rather go forward or backward?” he asks.

“They’re equally horrible,” I say.

“Are they?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” We stare at each other. I look down first.

Poor rabbit, I think. You’ve lost your wits and shown your little white tail.

Zach says, “Wow. I have a million questions.”

I say, “Wouldn’t you rather dance?”

“Aw, c’mon. It’s not a secret, is it?”

“No. But I barely know you.”

“True. Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

I feel bad for making him feel bad. “It’s just kind of personal. I mean, people give me a hard time, sometimes.”

“A hard time?”

“Journalists. Crazy people. People get a little obsessed—we’ve had to get restraining orders. One guy tried to get my mother to sell me to him.”

Zach looks appalled. “Why? No, don’t tell me.”

“Are you sure you won’t dance?”

“It’s pretty ferocious down there,” Zach says. He’s right; it sounds as though a hundred sugar-fueled chimps are rampaging downstairs. “Tell you what,” he says, “I’d like to see the rest of the house. Do you think they’d mind?”

“Nah, Nick and C-lora won’t care,” I say, relieved. “I’ll show you.” I get up, then remember that I’ve taken Nadia’s shoes off. “Just let me get my boots.”

I walk downstairs in my stocking feet and delve through the boots that are sitting in neat pairs and tumbled piles all over the floor of the front hall. I find my Docs and feel more like myself when I put them on. People are still crowded together in the hall; I can hear deep male voices in the kitchen, Nadia’s maniacal laughter in the living room, C-lora and Nick worrying about the toilet paper supply in the powder room under the stairs. The band finishes and everyone claps. The singer says, “We’re going to take a short break, don’t you go far now.” I can hear a helicopter hovering nearby—I pity anyone who’s out after curfew tonight—the snow will make them very conspicuous. I look up and see Zach leaning on the banister, his face softly lit from below by the downstairs hall light.

“Are you coming down?” I ask him.

“Why don’t you come up?” he replies. People look at me curiously as I clomp back upstairs in my boots. As I draw even with him on the landing he seems to have grown four inches, now that I’m wearing normal footwear. “Hi, shorty,” he says, and I laugh. It sounds like something he might say to his sisters.

“I thought you wanted to see the house?”

“Yes, but let’s see the quiet parts, we can wander around downstairs later, when everyone’s asleep.”