“Sure,” I said mildly. “Just like ghosts aren’t real. Just like people who can see ghosts aren’t real. Just like all those people who found King Tut’s tomb didn’t die of random mosquito bites and suicides and murders a year later—”
“Listen, Suze, I know. But what did you want me to say to him? I couldn’t exactly go, ‘Look, I know curses aren’t real—except that my stepsister communicates with the dead, has proven that multiple universe principle is, in fact, a reality, and occasionally travels to a parallel dimension somewhere between life and death that no one else has proven exists.’ I didn’t want him to think I’m nuts.”
I rolled my eyes. It was way too early in the morning to be talking to a sensitive genius.
“Okay, David,” I said. “Thanks for trying, anyway. Look, I gotta go; like I said, I’m driving—”
He wasn’t giving up that easily, though. “Listen, Suze, I thought of another way you can handle this thing. Something a lot easier than breaking some mummy’s curse.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“Just go back through time and buy the house yourself.”
I was so startled I almost missed the turn to the school. I had to stomp on the brakes and swerve at the last minute, which caused the girls to sway dangerously in the back, even though they had their seat belts on.
Fortunately they weren’t prone to motion sickness, and also enjoyed carnival rides, so they cheered instead of vomited.
David, unaware of the traffic drama, went on excitedly. “Look, you already created this alternate universe in which we’re all living, the one in which Jesse never died—which makes no sense to me, since according to the Novikov self-consistency principle, that means we shouldn’t be able to remember that time Dad and Brad found his skeleton in the backyard. But we all do. So it makes sense that you should be able to do it again. Only this time, make it so you’re the one who buys the house from Mom and Dad, not Paul. Then everything will be fine. At least I think it should. Right?”
I’d managed to recover control of the car and, despite some irate honks from a few other motorists, get into my correct lane.
“David,” I said when I found my voice again. “That’s a great plan. Honestly. But it isn’t going to fly. Mediators can’t go popping back and forth through time without having to pay the consequences in the form of major loss of brain cells and cosmic tears in the universe.” Quoting Paul left a bad taste in my mouth. “That’s how this whole mess got started in the first place.”
“Oh.” David sounded let down. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“Yeah. And really, if time travel were that easy, don’t you think I’d be doing it all the time, trying to prevent plane crashes and Hitler and stuff?”
Now he sounded shocked. “Of course not. That would be a complete violation of the grandfather paradox—”
“And even if I wanted to, I couldn’t have bought our old house. My dad didn’t leave me that much money. And Jesse would never in a million years want to live there.”
David’s voice went up several octaves. “Why not?”
“Because our old house is where Jesse got M-U-R-D-E-R-E-D, remember?”
The girls immediately began murmuring the letters of the word I’d just spelled, but fortunately got nowhere as it was too advanced for the kindergarten set. Plus reading at the academy was being taught by sight or “whole language” rather than phonetically, which meant most students were reading well below their grade level (an opinion I’d been told by Father Dom to please keep to myself).
“Well, where are you two going to live, then, after you get married?” David demanded testily. “Some gated community, like Brad and Debbie? Oh, yeah, I can really see that working out. Hey, maybe Jesse could start playing golf with all the other doctors, while you shop with their wives.”
I really did not want to continue this conversation, not only because we’d reached the school parking lot, but because all of a sudden I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, suggesting that Jesse and I move to Los Angeles. It would be so much easier for me to visit my future grandbabies if they were right here in town . . .
“Look, David,” I said. “I appreciate the help with Shahbaz, and also your advice, but honestly, the best thing you can do right now is stay exactly where you are and not mention a word of this to anyone. Especially Jesse. Okay?”
“Um, okay.” He didn’t sound convincing. “Tell everyone hi from me, and that I love them. I’ll see you soon.”
“David. Are you listening to me? Please don’t—”
But he’d hung up.
“Aunt Suze,” Mopsy asked from the backseat. “What’s a mediator?”
veinte
The first thing I did when I got to my desk was to throw Paul’s flowers into the trash, vase and all. The second thing I did was look up Becca Walters’s class schedule. She had geometry first period. Excellent.
Now all I had to do was hope she showed up to school.
“That’s a waste,” Sister Ernestine remarked as she bustled past my trash can on the way into her office.