When Bethany awoke she was alone in bed and she remembered everything.
Bethany was on line waiting to see Janis Joplin at the Fillmore West. It was nineish and the sun was somewhere in the process of setting on a broiling summer day. She was wearing a tye dyed shirt and a mini-skirt and shades and chewing gum and looking off into space, maybe she was high, she felt high but not from acid and not from weed, she just wanted to be left alone when a tall guy, maybe in college, maybe just out, kneeled down next to her and said. “Yeah, Beth. Sure it happened.”
Beth looked at him uncertainly. Not her type. She didn’t reply though she wondered how he knew her name.
“I know a lotta things about you.” the guy said, Beth just chewed her gum, not in the mood to be picked up. ”Are you in touch with the folks back east.” Now he had attention.
“Fuck off, guy.” She replied. “whatever.”
“Peace and love?”
She shrugged, wish she had a book or something.
“Don’t be worried”. Beth’s eyes flashed in anger. “Just fuck off or…”
“Sorry, sorry.” The man laughed. “I know, you are never worried.
He sat down beside her.
“You’re a brave girl. You’ve handled yourself well. Got yourself a job, scholarship to UCLA. Doing your thing… waiting, waiting.”
“OK,” Beth snapped. “How do you know me?”
“I know more than I’ve said…”
“You’re been following me?”
“No… I am here because… because today is important.”
“Why is today important.”
“Today you’ll meet your first husband.”
“You?”
“Nt me. He is waiting for you inside. A singer famous sing.” The man whispered his name. “You’ll marry him within three months, October 13th, 1969.”
“You are crazy,” Beth replied, but she sat on her heel and looked up to the man.
“Maybe, maybe.”
“Will we have kids?”
“Twin boys,” the man said and Beth though tit was the weirdest pick up line she’d ever heard. “This next part isn’t good. Wanna hear”
Beth nodded yes.
“One of the boys will die of leukemia before he is seven years old. The marriage will have been over by two years.”
“That’s not good,” she said.
“Three years after the boys death, you’ll remarry.”
“So it’s not all bad.”
“A Professor at UCLA. Not such a great idea idea either.”
“Uh oh. I keep falling for the wrong guy,” Beth replied, thinking back on five previous, perfectly disastrous, relationships. And a handful of one night stands.
“This will be worse than everyone else combined And on the day you discover he had been sleeping with half his students at UCLA, he will die in a car accident.”
“Heavy.” Beth sneered. “Guess, I’m fucked.”
“You’ll pack up the family and go back to Long Island.”
“I kinda doubt it.”
“Maybe but you will.”
“And live alone forever working at Big Boys?’
“No. You’ll meet me and we will be very, very happy.”
“I don’t see it.”
“I know you don’t, but my blonde hair will have turned to silver by then.”
“HA” she laughed.
“I am glad I can make you laugh even in the past.”
“You are a very silly man.” Beth said as the door to the Fillmore opened. “A very silly man…” Beth turned to him and kissed him, slipping her hand around his neck before leaving him for 30 years.
And she was awake alone in bed and her husband wasn’t there and she remembered everything. Beth turned on the lights, and went downstairs where he was writing.
“Honey, we never met, right?” She said.
He turned around, “Shhh, Toots, I’m busy.”
“Will you stop? I want to talk right now.”
He sighed, put a hand through his silver hair and turned. he knew it was useless to argue. “Yes, Beth, what?”
“We never met, right?”
“I don’t get it.”
“When I was in Cali, we didn’t meet.”
“No, no, we ran in the same circles but never met.”
“We could have so easily… I just,” she shook the sleep off her. “No. of course not…”
“Though you know what is odd?” He continued, “I’m working on a short story imagining what would have happened if we had met…”