Traveler by L.E. DeLano (book suggestions .txt) 📕

He gestures at the board again. “They were a little better at business in this reality.”

“So why here? What’s the job?”

“Another easy one,” he says, “piece of cake. You see that woman with the two young boys over there?” He gestures toward their table. “I need you to spill your drink on the youngest boy.”

“Just … walk over there and dump a drink on him?” I clarify.

“Not like that.” He looks annoyed. “Make it believable. Trip or something. But make sure it hits the kid full-on in the chest.”

I feel kind of bad about this one. The poor kid’s going to get soaked, and his mother is going to have to deal with it. I watch them and my face must show my reluctance, because Mario makes a tsk-ing sound and shakes a finger at me.

“Remember the greater good,” he says. “I wouldn’t have you do it just to do it.”

“I would hope not.”

“Now let me show you the bathroom, so you know what to look for in the mirror.”

“When do I go?”

“Tomorrow after school. Go straight home, make the transfer.”

“No surprises this time,” I warn him. “Is everybody alive and well over there?”

He thinks a moment. “Yes. But I meant what I said earlier, Jessa. You have to learn to roll with whatever you get handed.”

“Whether I like it or not?”

He gives me a noncommittal shrug as I walk over to the red door.

“Keep it simple,” he reminds me.

I step through the door, and when I wake, I wonder how he can ever think that a life like this is simple.

25

Dirty Job

I stare at myself in the mirror and watch as my face changes slightly—the makeup gets heavy and turns very goth-looking, with a lot of black eyeliner. I have an eyebrow piercing. And bangs—ugh! I step through into the bathroom at the pizza parlor.

I give myself one more glance in the mirror, shaking my head, especially when I remember the entire notebook full of sad, death-related emo poetry that’s in my bag. I wrinkle my nose and step out of the bathroom.

I’m early, so I kill some time by ordering a slice of pizza to go with my soda. I toy with the idea of getting a beer or a glass of wine since I can, but I decide I’d better keep my wits about me.

It’s been at least three-quarters of an hour, and I’m about to call it quits when they finally walk in. The mom looks nice enough, and the boys look about ten and six. The younger one is sitting on the outside, making my job easier.

“Right. I can do this,” I tell myself.

I stand up, grab my soda, and walk like I’m heading for the bathrooms, with a slight detour by their table. I do a pretty credible job tripping—mainly because I really do start to trip once I try to fake it—and I end up throwing not only my soda at the kid, but my whole self as well, knocking him over in his chair as I go staggering.

He starts shrieking almost immediately, and it’s a horrible sound, like I’ve seriously injured him, and I am terrified. I run back to him immediately and his mother is right next to me, pulling him up and into her arms.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay…” She’s rocking him back and forth as she repeats it over and over again, and I see him desperately pulling at his shirt, trying to get the wetness of it away from his body as he continues to shriek.

Something in the way she’s soothing him, the dirty look his brother is giving me, and the child’s overblown response clicks, and I crouch down next to him, completely horrified. I look at the mother.

“I’m so sorry. Listen, I have a tank top on under this.” I lift up my shirt to show her. “Can I give him my shirt? It’s dry. He won’t notice the wetness that way.”

She looks at me gratefully. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I feel terrible about this.” I yank off my T-shirt and hand it to her.

“It’s okay,” she reassures me, as her eyes dart around to all the people staring her down. I watch one woman in the booth next to us mouth the word brat, and I am suddenly on my feet.

“He’s a little boy!” I say to the woman in the booth. “I just startled him badly and his shirt is soaked through, making his skin cold and wet. He’s having a hard time processing all of it at once, okay?”

The booth woman looks at me like I’m crazy, but she’s smart enough to mumble “sorry” to the mother, who is wriggling her son into my shirt. He begins to calm and I squat down, getting on eye level with him.

“I’m sorry I knocked you over. It was an accident. I’m sorry.” I smile at him, and he’s still clinging to his mother, but he’s not crying or shrieking anymore.

“He doesn’t talk much yet,” his mother says to me. Her eyes shift to the woman in the booth. “Thanks for sticking up for him.”

“I have a brother who’s a lot like him,” I say.

This is how we talk, when we meet someone who has a kid or a brother or a sister like ours. We won’t say the word for fear that we use the wrong one, or we’ve found an undiagnosed kid, or a parent who just plain hates to hear the word. But we all know. We can recognize it from across a room.

“I need an address, so I can mail your shirt back,” she says to me.

“No, keep it. I don’t like the band anymore, anyway.”

She gives me another grateful smile as she guides her son to his feet. He stands, tracing the words and designs on the oversized shirt with his finger while she wipes off his chair. One of the workers helps her, asking her if she needs anything else or if her son was hurt. She thanks him and