Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

10. Here Goes Nothing

Sal here.  Before I forget, @QueenBeatleBookworm tagged me earlier, so I'm doing the same for her.  Thanks, dear!  Ta-da.  I sure hope I did that right.  (What is tagging for, anyway?  Sorry for the dumb question, I'm just not very social media-savvy.  I don't even have a Facebook.  Pretty scary, right?)

Danny

I stop for a minute, and turn off the vacuum cleaner.  "Mom, what are we getting ready for?"

"What?" Her voice sounds a little annoyed, a little breathless.  She turns down the Oingo Boingo record playing, and peers out from her bedroom, brushing her messy hair out of her flushed face.  "What, sweetie?  I didn't hear you."

I ask again.  "What are we getting ready for?"

"Someone's coming to stay with us for a while," she replied. 

"Who?  Grandma and Grandpa?"

"No."

"Uncle John and Aunt V-"

"No, dear, nobody like that.  It's just one person anyway."

"Who?"

"You'll see," she mutters.  "God, what was I thinking?  What have I gotten myself into here?  How stupid could I be...?" 

Then she turns "Dead Man's Party" back up and goes back to work.  Weird.  Usually in December  she turns on the Christmas radio station, especially right now when our neighbor Mr. Adams is the DJ. 

Mom's been muttering to herself like that all Saturday, running around, going and going and going like a real-life Energizer Bunny. I don't get it. Whenever people come over to our house, like Lauren and her dad, or the Deacons when they visited us that one time, Mom will obviously straighten things up, but it's never been a whole day's worth of cleaning.

Since she got up this morning at five, she's dusted everything, cleaned the bathroom, straightened up the books on the shelves, even rearranged the furniture in the living room a little. But most of what she's focused on is in her bedroom- stripping the sheets, cleaning the baseboards, dusting the blades of the ceiling fan, dusting off the pop art prints on the walls- Andy Warhol, I think that's the guy, Mom really likes him- stuff like that.

She didn't even stop to tell me how the heck we got home last night. Our car's not in the garage or the driveway; she had to Uber to the grocery store earlier. I thought maybe I had just dreamed the whole thing with the time machine and the creepy dress-up party and the soft-sounding guy with the mustache named Freddie Mercury (never heard of him, but he must be important, considering how big and crazy his party was), but when I started telling her about the trip, she didn't look surprised at all.

When I finished, Mom nodded, and said, "Yes, Danny, it was real."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"Even the part where you, you know, kissed him and called him Mr.-"

"Danny, sweetheart, I love you, but we really don't have time to go over it all again."  

"But it was awesome!"  Now that it's over, I can be glad I was there.  "Time travel, wow!  1985- just like Marty McFly without the car!  Wait till my friends-"

"Danny, you can't tell anyone about Speck, or T-Rod, or anything that happened last night."

"What?" I complain.

"I know, I know, it's a drag, but Speck is a secret.  And you have to help keep it that way, or else they'll Crebinate you or something."

"Not even Lauren?" I had been so ready to tell her about my adventure; the only reason I didn't already run over there this morning is because she was off at synagogue.  I planned to do it when Roxie came to get Mom so they could pick up the Jetta.