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I can't wait to see Watson.
Stretching out my cramped tail, I walk through the glass door of Arrivals and step into balmy sunshine. I take a deep breath. Gently humid air fills my lungs as my eyes adjust to the bright afternoon light. My blue suitcase rolls loudly behind me. A seagull pecks at a French fry on the ground.
She said she'd be here at five, and that was ten minutes ago, so she must be around here somewhere. I comb for a blonde head somewhere amidst the bustling cars.
It's been too long since I last saw her in person. There's something special about being in the same room as her. Talking to her over the internet is fun, but nothing can compare to the real thing. As much as I've thought about it, I've almost forgotten what it feels like.
"Guraaa!!"
I turn, and my heart leaps. Amelia Watson is standing by an open car door, waving me down with a radiant smile on her face. She's wearing a baggy white t-shirt with pictures of squids on it and a colorful pair of floral-printed shorts.
"Watson!"
Before I know it, she's pulling me into a tight hug.
She laughs. "Your tail's wagging!"
"I know," I say, face pressed into her warm chest. For a moment, I am quite pleased with my height.
"How was the flight?"
"Soo cramped..."
She laughs and takes her arms off my back, patting my head as I cling to her.
"Well, there's plenty of leg room in the car. Come on, I'll take your suitcase."
Amelia's car is old- it looks like it's from the 90s at least, but she takes good care of it. The inside is clean and smells of the grey leather that covers the seats. There's a doggy bobblehead on the dashboard.
She makes a funny little mouth noise as she pulls out of the Arrivals line, like, pthfff. She does that when she's focusing.
"So," she says. "We've got some time to kill."
"When can we check in at the hotel?" I ask. I'm still in my regular plane ensemble: slippers, pajama pants, and a loose t-shirt underneath my comfiest hoodie. I even have one of those little neck pillows. I don't know where I bought it. It's like it just showed up in my house one day. "I'd like to get changed if we're gonna do anything."
"That's the thing," says Watson. "We gotta kill some time because we're not getting a hotel room until late tonight."
"Why not?"
"They said they had a big system crash earlier today, so everyone's rooms got scrambled and stuff. They need some time to sort it out. And it was a really busy day for them already, 'cause of the event tomorrow. I just barely booked a room in time."
"Aw, man."
"Yeah," Amelia says, munching on a handful of road snacks. "And I don't even know what kind of room we're gonna get! I wanted one with two double beds, but they might only have a room with one queen bed."
My little shark heart stops in its tracks. She just implied what I think she implied, right? That we might only have one bed? That we might have to-
"So I can just drive us back to my place," she says. "If there's only the one bed. I'm okay sleeping on the couch."
"What? No! No- I mean, isn't it a long drive back? I don't wanna make you do that..."
Ame shrugs. "It's only an hour away. The event doesn't start until ten, we can-"
"I don't mind sharing a bed!"
"Oh!"
Play it cool, Gura. "Yeah, it's fine. We're- we're cool, right? We're cool."
"Nice," she says. "That's good. I actually really didn't wanna drive all the way back." She laughs to herself.
Crisis averted.
"They said they're gonna give me a text later when we get our room. Probably around ten or eleven."
"Sheesh, that is late."
"Yeah. But on the bright side, I'm gonna get a big ol' discount. Hey look, the ocean!"
I look out the window. We've merged onto the highway, and now we're driving along the coast. Sunshine glints off of dark choppy waves beneath a clear blue sky. I roll down my window and take in the sea breeze.
I really hope we get the queen bed.
Amelia puts on her ska playlist.
"You wanted to get changed?" she asks. "Crawl in the back."
I blush. Ame doesn't see it. Her eyes are fixed on the road. She's going tsh-tsh-cha to the music.
"Go on," she says. "I won't look." I trust her.
It's about forty-five minutes to our destination, a little seaside town. We drive along flat roads, past rows of vacation homes. Gulls chatter and squawk. The sun gets lower.
"You wanna hit the beach?" she asks.
"We don't have a shower yet. I’d rather not spend the rest of the night with a sandy butt."
"But you’re-"
"Even sea critters hate sandy butts."
Amelia considers. "Good point. I guess that leaves the boardwalk."
There isn't much at the boardwalk. The biggest attraction is the convention center, which has nothing going on tonight. There are some pizza places, some ice cream stands, and a couple fine-dining seafood restaurants. There's a minigolf course that looks fun, but it closes at 6.
We spend some time at an arcade. It's not a very good arcade; most of the machines are just thinly-veiled gambling. But at least there's skee ball.
"I'm not sure why," says Watson, "but there's always skee ball. All the other old machines, they tear them out 'cause they don't make enough money, but I've never seen an arcade without skee ball."
She tosses a ball. 20 points. "I mean, some of them have been there since, like, the 80s."
"Maybe it's 'cause they're too heavy," I offer. "You can't move 'em, so once you get one you're cursed forever."
"That makes sense."
"Yeah! If you drop that thing on your toes, it’s over for you."
She scores a 100.
"Woah! You're pretty good at this."
"It's 'cause I always play the skee ball. It's the only fun arcade game these days."
"Not true! The shooter ones are still good."
"Not the recent stuff. Nowadays there's no real challenge, they just kill you when they wanna suck up more coins. Now, something like Time Crisis-"
"Time Crisis!"
"Good old Time Crisis. That was a good one." She scores a 50.
"That's the one with the guns that actually go tk tk tk tk-"
"tk tk tk tk tk! Right!"
"Man, I haven't played that in ages. I forgot it existed."
I sit there for a while, listening to ball after ball roll along the smooth polished track of the arcade machine. Watson hones in on the game.
"Ame?"
"Yeah."
"What time is it?"
"...'sabout... 6:30."
"It's only 6:30?!" I let out an exasperated sigh. "What are we gonna do until 10?"
Ame tosses her last ball, nonchalantly scoring a 100. The machine starts bleeding tickets. She turns to me.
"Have you eaten yet?"
"No. I haven't had much of an appetite since stepping off the plane." My stomach grumbles.
"Wanna get pizza?"
"...Sure."
Ame gives all the tickets to some lucky kid before we leave.
I'm sitting in a plastic chair, at a plastic table, under a tacky yellow umbrella, eating one of the most deliciously greasy slices of pizza I've ever eaten, as the sky begins to turn orange over the sea.
"So, I guess we're just rock kickin' now," says Ame.
"What kickin'?"
"Y'know, rock kickin'. Like, when you were a teen and you had nothing to do, so you just drove around town all night kickin' rocks."
I stare into her eyes. "Watson. I haven't been a teenager in nine thousand years."
She laughs.
"And back then I couldn’t even talk. I was just a weird little fish with legs."
"Okay, so not when you were actually a teen, but weren’t you like a teen at some point? Adolescent?"
"Yeah, you could say that. Back in Atlantis they had different names for people who were at certain levels of maturity, regardless of age. That must have been, oh, 3,500 years ago."
Amelia chews thoughtfully. "Did you have to go to a school?"
"Not the same kind of school you went to. We had academies, but they weren’t really-"
"A school a’ fish!" She gives me a big goofy grin. I should’ve seen that coming.
"Very funny, Watson." I let her chuckle at her own joke.
I look out at the sea. "I don't like to remember who I was back in Atlantis. It wasn’t a good time for me."
"Neither is high school." She giggles. "I don't think adolescence is a good time for anybody. But that's part of what makes it fun, y'know? Everybody's goin' through it together."
"Yeah, well, I didn’t have anyone to go through it with."
The salty wind blows through her blonde hair. A strand gets caught in her lip, and she pulls it out. She’s the only person I know who can make that look graceful.
"I’m sorry about that. If you were in my school, I would’ve been your friend."
"Oh, I like that. What if we went to high school together?" I ask. "Hypothetically." I smile. "What if we were both teens, and we were best friends- ooh, would you take me to prom? If I asked you to prom would you say yes?"
Amelia laughs. She looks me up and down. "Hmm..."
"Come on!"
"I'm thinking about it!"
"Omigod, I can't believe you're hesitati-"
"I'd take you to prom." She shoots me a mischievous look. "If you were cool enough."
I gasp. "Only if I was cool enough?!"
"Yeah! Idunno what kind of kid you’d be in high school! Maybe you’d be a total nerd." I can tell she's enjoying this too much. "I can't be ruining my reputation going out with some-" she does a smug, snooty sigh- "some dweeb."
"Oh yeah? Not if I'm persistent enough. I'd bully you about it- I'd just keep asking you over and over and over and..." I trail off.
Watson is looking right at me, chin in her hand, elbow on the table. The evening sun glistens in her blue eyes. She's smiling so warmly.
I've never seen her look at me this way before.
"Well..." she says, "then I might say yes."
I turn away almost instantly. Eye contact is too much.
Ahem. "So..." I stare at the pavement. "Rock kickin', huh?" "Why don't you, uhh... Why don't you show me what that's all about?"
I look back up at her. She's back to normal, as if nothing just happened. "Sure thing! This is gonna be fun. It'll be just like we're teens!"
We both stand up. I stretch out my legs and breathe. This girl is gonna be the end of me.
"To the car!"
"To the car."
"Our first stop," Amelia begins in a tour-guide-like cadence, "is the convenience store. A classic loitering spot for any young ragamuffin with time to kill and little in the way of adult supervision." She eases the car off the bustling roadway, pulling up to a 7-Eleven.
"You know, I've never set foot in a 7-Eleven in my life."
"So you've never had a Big Gulp?"
"No. Do I need to?"
She considers for a moment as the car doors click shut behind us.
"Nah."
Turns out I really wasn't missing much. 7-Eleven is basically the same as any other convenience store chain. Some branding is unfamiliar, but it's the same fare: cold sandwiches, road trip snacks, and dubious hot dogs on little rollers. And of course, the magnificent Slurpee. Which is actually the same as any other slushie, except it has "pee" in the name.
"Hey, Gura, look at this." Ame beckons me to a display of various deserts in little plastic cages. "They'll really put Doritos in anything these days."
She's pointing at a "Doritos Nacho Cheese Pound Cake". It's a small, bricklike cake, covered in red-orange spice and proudly decorated with a single Dorito shoved into its top side like a feather in a fancy gentleman's cap.
We lean in to inspect it, as if examining a strange artifact in a tiny museum display case. "Spicy and sweet!" exclaims the packaging. Together at last.
"What a time to be alive," I say.
"Indeed," Watson concurs. A tiny river of cheesy red frosting dribbles all over the cake. "God, that's gross."
"The sad thing is I'd totally eat it," I say.
"Oh, me too. I'd fuck that thing up."
We laugh.
I'm still full from the pizza, so I don't buy much. I grab a Nerds rope and some blue Gatorade. Ame picks out something from the alcohol cabinet, a colorful can with a logo in a font I can't decipher.
"Watch this," she says, bringing it to the counter.
"ID?" asks the cashier, a hunched-over young man with overgrown hair.
Ame shoots me a sly glance before presenting to the cashier a white index card. On its face she's written "REAL ID" in large letters with a Sharpie.
The cashier inspects it, picking it up with two fingers.
"Where's the picture?" he asks.
"Check the back," Ame says, stifling a smile.
The man turns the card over. There's a little smiley face next to the words "I AM 21 YEARS OLD." Also in Sharpie.
The cashier looks down and shakes his head.
"Man, the DMV just doesn't make these things as quality as they used to. Here's your receipt. Have a nice day, ma'am."
"But you're like, 30!"
"It's for the love of the sport, Gura. You wouldn't understand. And I'm 28!"
"That seriously worked every time?"
"Every time. It's genius." She looks very pleased with herself. "It's psychological. People don't like being tricked, so if you come at 'em with a real fake ID they'll get mad at you. But this isn't trying to trick anyone, it's just, like, 'hey, are you cool?', and everybody wants to be cool."
I laugh. "That actually makes sense."
"And if they're not cool, what are they even gonna do? I can just say it was a joke."
"Man, you used to be a cool kid."
"I'm still cool! I'm a cool adult." She's giddy from the thrill, even though she didn't actually do anything illegal. "I shouldn't have drank underage, though. That was bad." She sighs, taking in the night.
Dusk has turned to twilight. The air has started to get this electricity to it, that thing you can't quite put your finger on that makes night air feel so special.
"So you were a bad girl, huh?"
"Mm? You mean like, mean? Nah, just a bit of a troublemaker." She tilts her head to the sky, leaning back against the hood of the car. "Snuck out. Got in fights, twice. Drank. Tried smoking. Luckily didn't get too into that one. Basically just did what my parents said not to."
"Teenage rebellion. I get it."
Ame furrows her brow. "I just wanted attention, more than anything. I wanted to be different and cool... for people to see me as more than just the family name. Yet another Watson. Y’feel?"
I give her a nod.
She lowers her head now, staring blankly at the parking lot. "Of course, then I got the watch, and I stopped worrying about all that stuff pretty quickly. The rest is history."
"And now you're here," I say. I smile at her. "I think you turned out alright."
"I'm here! At 7-Eleven. Hey, where do you wanna go now?"
"Ameee~" I swoon. "Come lay on the grass with meee."
"You're gonna get ticks!"
I'm sprawled out on the side of a hill at a local park. I spread my arms around me, grabbing handfuls of soft, spongey grass. Crickets are chirping.
Stargazing was my idea. The universe seems to have caught on, because clouds are starting to roll in.
"Come on, what are a few lousy ticks to a genius time-travelling detective?"
"Flattery won't get you anywhere, Miss. I don't want to have to check for ticks when we get to the room at God-knows-what-hour."
I grin. "Don't worry, I can check for you."
Checking for ticks is about the least sexy thing you can do while naked, but flirting is all about grasping at straws. I think.
Ame sighs at me. "Only if we're both naked, and there's no ticks."
I press my hands into my face and let out a defeated whimper. I brought that on myself.
She laughs. "You can dish it out, but you can't take it." She sits down beside me and places a hand on my head. "Ya little flirt!"
I look up at her. Her smile is contagious.
"Speaking of that, I should check..." she trails off as she pulls out her phone.
Oh, the room! I almost forgot about that. Now’s the moment of truth, whether we are to cuddle or not to cuddle. Well, I shouldn’t assume we’re going to cuddle just because we have to share a bed. Maybe it’ll be super awkward. Maybe she’ll build a big wall of pillows, so we don’t touch the whole night.
"Two beds!" says Ame.
Oh.
"That’s nice, we don’t have to squeeze in one bed. Unless you were... looking forward to that." She wiggles her eyebrows at me teasingly.
"Hey," I say, defeated. "What can I say? Snuggling is nice."
"You know," she says. "I don't mean anything by it. The flirting. It's just for fun. You're just doing it for fun too, right?"
"I- uhh- umm, yeah. Yeah. Just for fun."
I don't think she's convinced.
"Good, good. Ahem. Just wanted to... make sure we're on the same page."
I'm not sure I'm convinced by her, either.
I feel like I should believe her, but I don’t want to, and I can’t help but fantasize. What if she really does like me, in the way I like her? What if we actually end up together? My mind races, as it so often does. I imagine our love story again. Dates, late nights, staring into her eyes, hugs, kisses. I wonder what kissing her feels like. I wonder how warm she feels cuddled up in bed. Maybe I'll get to know someday.
A thought crosses my mind.
"Ame?"
"Yeah?"
"Have you ever gone into the future to see yourself?"
She pauses a moment. "Yes. But if you ever see my folks, don't tell 'em I said that. You're not supposed to, but that's kinda the thrill of it."
"So, you know where you'll be in, say, five years? What your life will be like?"
"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. But basically yes."
Now, I’m not the smartest fish in the school, but I can think when I have to. And I can infer that if Ame knows her own future, and if I'm going to be her girlfriend in the future, then she must already know that. Which means-
Amelia takes my hand. I blush. I realize she’s been staring at me.
"Listen, Gura-" she plops herself down next to me on the grass. "The past is the past, and the future is the future. Never forget the now. Grandma Watson told me that. It's the most important thing for a time traveler to remember. Even if you know the future, you have to live in the moment and don't rush anything. Else you forget to be human."
"But I'm not a human-"
She giggles. "You know what I mean. If you always rushed ahead to your destiny as fast as possible, you’d never get to enjoy all the little moments along the way. The stuff that makes life worth living. Like spending tonight with you."
"Yeah..." I smile at her. She’s still holding my hand, and I’m turning to goo. "Your hands are really soft."
"Oh, psshhhftt- I said no rushing!"
She laughs, and I laugh, and we spend a moment just looking up at the sky, as the last stars of the night go to sleep behind the clouds. Waiting for destiny to arrive.
If this is waiting, I don’t think I mind. I can wait for as long as it takes. As long as she’s here.