Timeless

CHAPTER 26

“Y ou’ve written this already ?” Quinn asked as she looked up from Abby’s phone to the woman herself. “Just now? We haven’t been apart that long.”

“I’ve been typing faster these days. My hands kind of hurt, actually.” Abby looked around the house for the first time since they’d walked in and sat down on the couch. “And it’s not much. Just a few chapters.”

“A few chapters? In a day?”

“Normally, I’m not like this.”

“Did you have that moment?” she asked and held out Abby’s phone, which Abby had handed to her prior to that, asking Quinn to read what she’d written of a story between Cheryl and Diana.

Having read a few chapters, to her, it felt like a different story from Harriet and Deb’s. While they still faced some of the same obstacles, Cheryl and Diana’s relationship felt sweeter somehow. Maybe it was because, in these few chapters, Quinn had gotten a better glimpse into how those two actually met and began to discover things from their joined past, which felt very similar to what she and Abby were going through right now.

“What moment?” Abby asked, taking her phone back.

“The one they had. Diana saw Harriet, didn’t she?”

“It’s hard to tell what I’m making up, what’s true, or if I’m making nothing up at all and it all actually happened, but yes, I think so. I don’t know how it works, exactly, because, in my mind, they didn’t know about Deb and Harriet prior to the day this happened. I obviously can’t know when Harriet and Deb met with Cheryl and Diana how they did, but it feels like floating to me.”

“Floating?” Quinn stood. “I’ll get us something to drink and a piece of pie. Beer, maybe? I don’t have wine.”

“Well, you wouldn’t. You don’t like it. ”

Quinn looked at her, lifting an eyebrow, and replied, “I do , actually.” When Abby looked up at her in confusion, Quinn added, “I’m guessing whatever version of me you’re thinking about right now didn’t like wine, though.”

“Oh. I guess it’s hard to tell what I know about you and what I know about you .”

“I don’t drink it a lot, which is why I don’t have it, but I do like it. I’m a red fan. The dryer, the better,” she shared. “White wine is fine, and I’ll drink it, but just a glass, if that, even. With my ex, who liked white, if that was the only option wherever we were – and this would’ve been years ago now – I would always take a glass to be polite, have a few sips, and then give her mine when I was done. So, there’s something new you didn’t know about me.” Quinn walked into her kitchen. “And what did you mean when you said floating?”

“Oh,” Abby said as she stood up. “It just felt to me like maybe their spirits or souls – or whatever other thing I’ve given zero thought to in my life until now – float out there, searching for each other. Maybe sometimes, they’re moving into new people right away, and other times, they are floating, waiting for the right ones to come along so that they can be together again.”

“That’s kind of depressing to think about,” Quinn said as she pulled open the door to the refrigerator.

“Can I help?” Abby asked, suddenly appearing next to her.

“Sure. Plates are in there.” She pointed to the cabinet above the stove. “And there’s a knife in the drawer below it.”

“It is a little depressing, yeah. But then, they somehow find the right people at the right times, and they, I don’t know, join them or something.” Abby went about getting plates and a knife for the pie.

“But were Diana and Cheryl not meant to be until then? What if they were both meant for someone else, and Harriet and Deb hijacked their lives?”

“It didn’t feel that way to me. Does it feel like that to you when you think about it now? ”

While Abby sliced the pie, Quinn twisted the cap off the first beer and set it on the counter, thinking about how best to answer that very complicated question.

“I don’t know. When I was reading what you wrote, it felt good. It felt like they’d finally found each other. Still, what if that’s just the Harriet in me who’s searching for Deb more than the feelings of Diana falling for Cheryl? What if they were both meant for other women, but then Harriet and Deb’s spirits floated right on in, making that connection feel like it was the only thing that mattered and causing them to end up together instead of who they were supposed to be with initially?”

“God, this is all so confusing,” Abby said as she plated two pieces of pie. “That makes it sound kind of bad, right? But it doesn’t feel bad. It feels like Cheryl and Diana were meant to be. And it… doesn’t feel bad with you. Very, very confusing and overwhelming? Yes. But not bad.”

Quinn opened the other beer bottle and smiled inside because Abby had just told her that it didn’t feel bad for her to be with Quinn or, at least, to think about being with her. She nodded for them to go back to the living room and carried the beers while Abby carried the plates. Sitting back down, she passed Abby a bottle once the plates were on the table.

“A toast?” she suggested.

“To what?” Abby laughed.

“I don’t know.” Quinn chuckled a little. “Figuring this out together? You came here, Abby. You said you needed time, but then you showed up. We’re talking. I told you something about me and the wine from a while ago, and we’re getting to know each other, I think.”

“Why were you crying before I got here?”

Quinn decided it was foolish to wait for Abby to clank her bottle against her own, so she pulled her beer bottle back and took a drink.

“You needed time,” she said. “I can’t explain any of this in a way you seem to want me to. You want to investigate it as if this is some science and there’s something explainable about it, but there’s not. Most likely, at some point in history, two women met and fell in love, and that love was so strong that they keep finding each other over and over again, and you and I are just the next iteration in a long line of those women meeting. Two women will be after us, and then after them, until maybe the end of time, or maybe only until they can’t find each other for some reason.”

“Like what?” Abby asked and took a drink of her beer.

“I don’t know. What if they’re reborn literally into babies, but those babies end up not meeting? What if Harriet, or whoever started this whole thing off, hops into someone, and that someone takes their… flying car to go meet their version of you and all the other women before you, but there’s an accident and she dies or something?”

“Flying car?” Abby laughed.

“In the future, there will be flying cars.”

“Oh, God,” Abby said, still laughing.

“What?” Quinn let out a little laugh, too.

“You believe in reincarnation and flying cars?”

“Abby, flying cars already exist. They’re a thing. They’re just expensive, so ordinary people can’t get them yet, but eventually, and probably in our lifetime, I’ll fly home from work, and you’ll be there writing from your brain because you no longer have to type with your hands.” Quinn realized what she’d just said, but only a second too late.

“Quinn…”

“Look.” Quinn set her bottle down. “I get it, okay? I get that we feel things from previous versions of us and that it’s not actually us. You even thought I didn’t like wine because of something in your mind telling you that, but I do. I’m Quinn Jordan, and as much as I might also be those women, I’m also me .”

“But where do they stop and you begin?”

“I don’t know that there’s an answer to that. All I know is that five years ago, when I visited this place, it was like there was glue trying to hold me down. Then, about a year ago, I felt something else, but when you walked into the shop, that was it, Abby. That rush hit me. And I know it hit you, too.”

“I didn’t see anyone, though. No Deb or Cheryl or anyone who came before or after her, I guess.”

“Maybe it doesn’t always work like that. Maybe you and I were born this way.”

Abby laughed and said, “Lady Gaga would agree with you.”

“I’m serious,” Quinn replied but chuckled all the same. “I don’t understand all of it, but maybe sometimes, they float around, and maybe other times, when they die, they end up going right into someone else, like you and me, when they are born. Maybe we saw Deb and Harriet first because of the picture, but maybe it was also because we were like them, born into this thing or something. I have no idea. All I know is that I wasn’t happy.”

“What do you mean?”

“My whole life, Abby, I’ve never been happy. I have a wonderful family. They love me. My mom’s a little annoying sometimes, but I think that’s just a mom’s way. I had friends. I had girlfriends, even. But I’ve never been in love before. I’ve never really been happy. I only chose nursing school because a few other girls in my class were doing the same thing, and I didn’t actually know what I wanted to do. I’d never felt that pull toward a career like other people seem to. I had a small apartment that was falling apart, with a landlord who didn’t care, and my friends all pulled away as their lives in school got busier and they found boyfriends and girlfriends to love. All I wanted to do was leave it all behind. I’m not complaining. I don’t want you to think that I’m an ungrateful person. But I got into my car one day, and I felt a little bit better for a reason I didn’t understand. Then, I drove, and when I landed here, I felt it: this was meant to be my home.” She paused to try to gauge Abby’s unreadable expression. “I had no idea why, but all I wanted to do was go to that damn antique shop every day, even though I knew I’d have no one walking in and that I could pack and ship antiques from home and save a lot of money. The day I met you, I opened a few minutes early. Did I tell you that?”

“No. Why?”

“I have no idea.” Quinn shook her head. “I can guess now, though. And usually, I’m just wrapping something up in the back, so I don’t even bother to change the sign. I’m often late unlocking the door, too, but that day, something told me to open early, and that realtor guy walked right in, telling me about this box of stuff he had and that he’d had it for a minute and was about to throw it out if I wasn’t open or interested in taking it.”

“He did?”

Quinn nodded in confirmation and said, “And if he’d done that, I don’t know what might have happened. Maybe the photos were meant to make things happen sooner for us, but you still would’ve walked into the shop, and I would’ve gotten that feeling that there was something about you that I needed to pay attention to. I know that when I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I hated that the phone rang and that I told you I needed to answer it, because I never wanted you to leave. I never want you to leave, Abby. That’s why I was crying. I’m sure part of it had to do with me feeling Deb and Harriet’s death earlier and thinking about Paul, who feels like my son, even though he’s not and I’ve never really wanted kids, but I worried that you’d go. You have options. You can leave this town today and go back to LA or find some other place to move to and leave me here, and maybe we’d be the end of the line. Maybe not, but I’d… I’d be heartbroken.”

“Quinn, I’m not leaving town. I just don’t do well with stuff like this.”

“Who does ?”

Abby took a drink and said, “No, I… I don’t do well with most things. There’s a reason I moved back to this small town. Had I grown up in LA, I still would’ve left for someplace smaller, calmer, not as busy or filled with people and pressure. I have some intense anxiety. I go to therapy remotely once a week, and I’ve been able to avoid meds so far. There’s no thing wrong with them, but I don’t want anything to interfere with my writing. My doctor said they shouldn’t, but I don’t know. Something about me wants to work through the issues I’ve got without being medicated. Nothing wrong with it. Just not my thing, if I can help it.”

“How long?”

“How long what?”

“Have you been experiencing the anxiety?” Quinn asked.

“I would say all my life, and that’s true to an extent – it’s always been there – but I don’t remember it hitting me this hard until–” Abby stopped.

“Keep going,” Quinn told her, knowing what Abby was about to say.

“About five years ago, it got worse.”

“Yeah… Thought so,” Quinn replied and took a long pull from her beer. “So, my whole life, I was unhappy, with no real reason for it. Moving here calmed the feeling down a bit, and then it dissipated entirely when I met you. You were anxious, and it was more manageable until about five years ago, when I moved here. Did it get better when you moved back?”

Abby nodded and said, “I thought that was because I was here, where it’s not as hectic.”

“I’m sure part of it was. But I’m starting to understand this a little, and I think we’re like opposite poles of two magnets, Abby. We’re drawn together. And whenever we’re not together, it’s like something is missing or wrong until we find each other again.”

“So, we’re just supposed to, what, get married tomorrow and settle down in my house or yours?”

“No, I don’t think we have to get married at all, if we don’t want to. And I’m not asking you to move in just yet.”

“What if we don’t like each other this time?”

“Do you not like me?” Quinn asked.

“No, I just don’t know you.”

“You know that I like red wine and that I’ll drink white if I have to. That’s a start, isn’t it? ”

“So, what? You’re suggesting we date?”

“That day at the shop, before you knew anything about Harriet and Deb, before you picked up that photo, did you like me?”

“Yes. But how much of that is because some dead woman inhabited my body or changed her spirit out with mine when I was born or something, and how much of that is me?”

“I don’t think it matters, Abigail,” Quinn said. “We’re here now, and we do have feelings for each other. They’re complicated feelings, so I’m not suggesting that any of this will be easy, but I do think it’ll get easier in time. When we first started picturing things, those images were unclear and brief. Now, we’re seeing a lot more. Maybe the further along we go, we’ll be able to better separate out what Cheryl felt for Diana, Harriet felt for Deb, Bess felt for Elizabeth, and all the rest from what we feel for each other.”

She watched Abby swallow.

“Which is what , exactly?”

“Interest,” Quinn replied. “I feel a deep interest in you. I don’t feel love yet. It’s there, but that belongs to them. I know I like you. I like your humor, your intelligence, your writing, and I’d like to get to know you more; who you are now and not who you might have been then.”

“I haven’t looked them up yet,” Abby said.

“Who?”

“Cheryl and Diana. I didn’t look them up before I came here. I don’t know what happened to them yet. I didn’t want to know until after I talked to you.”

“Will you look them up now?”

“I don’t think so. Not today, anyway. I think I’d rather keep writing to see if I can find out for myself.”

“Do you have to go now, or can you stay and finish your pie?”

Abby smiled at her and replied, “Pie, for sure.”