Not This Time

Jon: March 3, 2004

     I nodded to the guy behind the bar when he set my glass of wine down in front of me. I couldn't even remember why I'd agreed to be there. I had much better things to be doing than hanging around a grown-up party. It was too early in the afternoon for people to be getting drunk enough to have any fun. Everyone was just standing around talking. There were so many other things I could be doing, like working on the album that we were in California to record.
     Richie leaned back on the bar next to me, scanning the room. I smirked at him for a moment. The fact that he was married never seemed to stop him from keeping an eye out for some easy mark. I had barely taken a sip of my wine when he spoke. He'd found one.
     "Hot blonde, six o'clock," he muttered toward me.
     "Your six or mine?" I chuckled, knowing full well that the only person at Richie's six was a dude. He tossed me an unamused look as he glanced over his shoulder before turning back to the room. I just grinned and shook my head. "Blondes don't really do it for me anymore, anyway."
     "Not since her, huh?"
     My smile disappeared at the mention of my ex. We didn't talk about her much. In fact, I tried to think about her as little as possible. It usually worked, except for the times when my wife or one of my bandmates brought her up. Dorothea seemed to ask about her just often enough that I'll never be able to forget, but not often enough that I'd think she's worried. I still don't know how she did it, but I hated it.
     "Do we have to?" I grumbled.
     Richie seemed unconcerned, shaking his head without even looking at me. "Nah," he snickered, still looking across the room, "What I gotta do is find a way into those jeans.."
     I looked over at him, but he was staring across the room. With a defeated sigh, I looked over my shoulder as well. Across the room was a bar identical to the one Richie and I were standing at, except at that bar there was a young black woman with bright yellow top. Richie, though, was staring at the even younger blonde girl next to her in the very flattering jeans.
     I scanned the length of her body. Something about her seemed familiar, but I had no idea where from. I could feel the confusion on my face as I swept over her small frame again. So small. I smirked a little as I turned back to my drink.
     "She's jailbait, man," I warned, bringing my glass up to my lips.
     Richie finally tore his eyes away to gape at me. "What? With curves like that? No way!"
     I picked up my glass and pushed off the bar, turning around to lean on it like he was, all the while giving him the same incredulous look he was giving me. He was crazy. That girl looked like she was fourteen.
     "What are you talking about, curves?" I scoffed, following his gaze back over to her, "She's a twig!"
     Richie shrugged. "Eh, she's pretty skinny, but she's got a nice ass. I mean.." He drifted off and tilted his head a little as he motioned to her. I tried not to look at her ass. Something about her was unsettlingly familiar and it felt very.....wrong.
     I set my glass back down and crossed my arms, shaking my head as if I could shake away the feeling. "I'm telling you, Rich, she's.." I looked back over at the same time that the black woman walked away from the bar. I was just about to call her a baby when she turned toward us and called after the other woman. My shock forced out another word instead, and I gasped, "..Nina!"
     Richie seemed just as surprised as me when I looked back at him. His eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open a little like mine was. There was no way he hadn't seen that too. I looked between him and where she had gone for a second. I almost said something, but before I could Richie was already shaking his head.
     "No, no," Richie insisted with a stubborn frown as he waved his hand in front of him, still shaking his head, "No, it couldn't be. It wasn't her."
     "Yes, it was!" I spat as he motioned for a drink, "Richie, you saw her plain as day, just like I did!"
     Richie looked back at me and shook his head matter-of-factly. "No, I saw someone who looked like her." He paused to thank the bartender for the shot before turning back to me. "And you were right," he said, "Upon closer inspection, that girl was way too young for me."
     With that, he downed his shot. I frowned at him. He was acting just like he had in 1996. He refused to acknowledge the truth. I could feel the deep wrinkle in my forehead as I realized. Confused, I looked back up to where she'd been just a moment ago. 1996. She was older then.
     "Didn't we see her in '96?" I asked him, looking back over. I wasn't looking at him, though. I was thinking. This Ain't a Love Song. "I pulled her up onstage to dance with me. She wasn't a teenager in '96!"
     Richie looked very unamused. "No, Jon," he scoffed, "That was Mystique."
     "Who?"
     "Mystique," Richie repeated, motioning for yet another shot. "She was that stripper in Vancouver in '86, remember? You tried to convince us she was the one at the studio with you when you and Nina recorded that song?"
     I closed my eyes against the memory of that day. Our relationship was still new back then. Nina had gone to such great lengths to hide it. That accent. With a sigh, I opened my eyes and shook my head, remembering her teasing. I didn't remember the stripper, though.
     "I don't remember her," I muttered.
     Richie was just about to tip the glass into his mouth when he stopped, set it back down, and looked over at me. "How?" he spat, "She was fucking hot! And that mask! That was her thing, as a stripper."
     Somewhere in the back of my mind, that sounded familiar, but it wasn't really coming to me. "I'm sorry I don't remember every hot woman I see," I joked, "I do remember Nina pretending to be French, though."
     "But that woman you pulled onstage in '96 actually was French," he reminded me, "And she had the mask! I'm telling you, it was her."
     I looked around the room, but didn't answer him. Richie didn't dance with her. He hadn't loved her like I had. His hands didn't know her curves like mine did. He had no idea. Even though she never gave me her name, the woman I danced with onstage in 1996 was Nina. And the girl walking around this party with her friend was Nina. I just didn't know how. Somehow the woman I'd dated in the 80s was a teenager over a decade later. Was I supposed to talk to her? Would she even know who I was? The only thing that made sense about this was the one thing that had never made sense to me about her disappearance.
     The book.
     She left that book and I'd never seen her writing it. It had details in it that she couldn't have possibly known. Events that she wasn't even there for. And at the end of the book, she went back to the future. For the first time since she left, it actually seemed like there might have been something more to that time travel twist than just a plot device.
     I blinked and realized that I'd been staring at the floor. I felt like I was gonna pass out or something. Even without looking over, I knew Richie was staring at me. He looked concerned, but he didn't say anything. I didn't want to talk about how weird this was. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and pushed away from the bar. I just needed to get out of there and clear my head.
     The bathroom was the only safe place I could think. With a deep breath, I leaned over one of the sinks. I felt sick. She wasn't even that old. I couldn't tell for sure, but she only looked a few years older than my own daughter. Stephanie was only ten. Nina looked like she was, maybe, fifteen? I brought my hands up, ran them through my hair, and rubbed my face. What was happening?
     I looked up at my reflection as I dropped my hands. The face staring back at me was unsure. I hated seeing that. That wasn't me. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I couldn't believe she was there. My eyes fell to the necklace hanging around my neck and my mouth fell open a little.
     I couldn't believe I was wearing it. I'd almost forgotten I was. I absently brought my hand up to touch the little red pick that hung from my neck by its thin leather cord. I hadn't worn that thing in years. My initials had worn off ages ago, so it was just a plain red guitar pick now. Something had possessed me to wear it that morning, and upon seeing her there, I was a little spooked.
     Another guy pushed through the door into the bathroom, bringing me back to the moment. The moment where Nina was a teenager at a party in Hollywood almost an entire decade after I'd seen her in probably her thirties. I shook my head at my reflection, glancing down again at the necklace for a second. Then I reached up and untied it. Screw that.
     When I stepped back into the party, Richie was gone from the bar. I didn't bother looking for him, though. I was too concerned about watching out for Nina. There was a tug to find her, see her again, but I fought that as much as I could. She was a child.
     I looked down at the necklace and shook my head as I stuffed it into my pocket. Then I looked around the party, not really sure what I wanted to do from there. I was still distracted. I was still caught off-guard from seeing her like that.
     As if summoned by just the thought, there she was. Across the room, standing out on the balcony patio next to the woman she'd been with before. The woman in yellow had a bottle of beer in her hand and was chatting with someone I didn't recognize. Nina was next to her, one hand on her hip, the other holding a plastic cup of water.
     It was definitely her. I suddenly felt heavy, like I was nailed to the floor. The whole room was blurry except for this kid with a water cup. Was I supposed to say something to her? What was I supposed to do? I really just wanted to run before she saw me.
     I didn't have an opportunity. As the guy she was talking to walked away, the woman in yellow turned to Nina and said something that set her into motion. Nina simultaneously set her water cup on the balcony wall and grabbed a little green slip of paper out of the other woman's hand. I turned away a little as she came back into the room. She must not have noticed me, because she kept on going, scampering away toward the elevators.
     From where I stood, I watched her disappear behind the elevator doors. Then my eyes drifted over to the woman in yellow still out there on the balcony. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself walking toward her.
     She was leaning on the balcony wall next to Nina's water cup. I don't know what possessed me to approach her, but reason didn't stop me. I leaned on the wall next to her and gave her a quick, casual glance.
     "Hi," I said.
     She finally looked over and smiled. "Hello," she giggled, holding out her hand, "I'm Penny."
     With a small smile, I shook her hand. "Jon."
     Penny nodded and I was about to say something, but then her face changed. She looked like she knew who I was, which honestly only surprised me a little. "Oh!" she gasped, pointing at my face. "Oh hey! It's you! Oh my gosh, my friend is a huge fan!"
     There was my opening. "The one who just walked away?"
     Penny nodded again.
     "She's a baby. What would she know about me?"
     "Oh trust me," she laughed as she tossed her hand downward through the air in a gesture that reminded me of Nina, "She loves the 80s! That's her jam, big time!" I couldn't help but grin at the expression, something else that reminded me of Nina. "That's different," I chuckled, "How old is she?"
     "She's only sixteen, but she's probably more mature than I am," Penny laughed. She continued on about Nina's love of classic rock, but I wasn't really listening. Sixteen made perfect sense.
     Ooh, about eight years ago. I was sixteen.
     This party was where Nina had gotten the necklace that was now burning a hole in my pocket. Was I supposed to give it to her? Crap, I couldn't remember how she'd gotten it, just that it was when she was sixteen.
     Penny was still talking when I tuned back in. "I just got her driving, thank God! Otherwise I'd have to take a cab. In this town, can you imagine?"
     I wasn't sure how she'd gotten there in the conversation, so I really wasn't sure what to say. I let out a little half-laugh. "Yeah," I agreed awkwardly, "Is that why you brought her? To drive you home?"
     "Oh no! I've pretty much adopted her! She's sorta like my assistant. I don't go anywhere without her. It's just a good thing that she can drive now," Penny explained, still laughing a little. I nodded at her. I didn't know if Penny was drunk or just friendly, perhaps some dangerous combination of the two, but she'd just given me the information I needed to confirm my suspicions. Nina had been telling the truth about her past. She was taken in by an actress; she just changed the name.
     "She reminds me of someone I used to know.." I mumbled, not necessarily to her.
     I don't even know why I said it. It just came out. I heard Penny ask, "does she?" in an uninterested tone, but I didn't answer her. I was still lost in my memories. I wondered to myself how much I knew about the woman I'd loved for nearly two years.
     Everything you know about my past is true, Jon, except for maybe a few minor details. I haven't lied to you. There's just more to the story than I've said.
     That seemed to be true enough. I'd never forget the night she said that. The day after the worst fight of our relationship. Worse than the one after New Years. Worse than any of our fights about Matt. We were a breath away from splitting at that point. Maybe we should have.
     There's only one Nina, and that's the one you know.
     I forced myself out of my memories and back into the world in front of me. Penny wasn't really paying much attention to me anymore. She was looking back into the party and hugging the empty bottle to her shoulder. I stuck my hands in my pockets and was about to tell her to have a nice time when my fingers brushed that necklace again.
     Right. I was supposed to get that to Nina somehow. I looked up at Penny one more time as the thought came to me. Nina was going to be driving this woman home. She could give Nina the necklace. Then I wouldn't even have to face Nina myself.
     "Could you do me a favor?" I asked suddenly. Penny looked over, almost as if she'd forgotten I was there, and then grinned a little again.
     "Sure! Whatcha need?"
     I pulled the necklace out of my pocket and held it up. A little piece of my heart didn't want to part with it, but I knew I had to. I wouldn't wear it anymore anyway. I was still staring at it when I spoke again.
     "Someone I loved very much gave me this necklace. But now that I'm married to someone else, there's no point in me having it," I explained. When I looked back up at Penny, she was looking at the necklace too, but she looked like she didn't know why I was telling her that. I smirked a little and held the necklace out to her. "Your friend is still young. Could you give this to her? Tell her to pass it on to whoever she falls in love with."
     Penny slowly took the necklace out of my hand. I watched her hold it up and examine it again. It didn't make me feel better about giving it away, but I knew it would come back to me eventually.
     "My initials used to be engraved on it, but they've worn off now" I told her as she swung the pick back and forth. I wasn't really sure why I'd told her that either. Just unsure what else to say, I guess. She smiled and gathered the necklace into her fist.
     "I'll give it to her," she assured me, "She's gonna love it. It's so her style!"
     I smirked. Those words were familiar. Pretty sure Nina had said something similar to me when she gave me that necklace. Penny pursed her lips and gave me a guilty expression. She looked like she was about to say something else when a tinkling ringtone sounded from her back pocket. She pulled out her cell phone and flipped it up to answer it.
     "Hi hi! Oh, okay." She pointed to her phone and mouthed 'Nina' to me. I smiled a little and nodded. I could have put that one together myself. "I'll be down in just a minute, on my way now!" She started to walk away from me but caught herself before she could get two steps. "Oh! Nice talking to you, Tom!" she said to me.
     "Uh.." I didn't even get a chance to tell her that wasn't my name. She was already walking away from me toward the elevator, chatting away to Nina on her phone. From where I stood on the balcony, I watched her disappear with one of the last ties to Nina I'd had. I knew I should feel good about getting rid of it, but I felt like garbage.
     Richie strolled over to me, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a bottle of beer. He looked disappointed in me. Had he been watching that whole encounter? I frowned at him and he shook his head at me.
     "Just couldn't help yourself, could you?"
     My frown deepened and I glared at him. "Shut up, Rich."
     He just laughed.