Page 71 of In What World

Wide-open blue sky. A dusty road. Trees blowing in the breeze. A red farmhouse.

And a field of wheat.

This is not some immersive set created for the WRHS stage. If only. But no. This is a real-life, amber-waves-of-grain field of wheat, just like the kind they sing about in “America the Beautiful.”

In the distance, maybe a hundred feet away, a horse trots along the road with a buggy hitched to it. Inside the buggy are two women who appear to be dressed in bonnets.

“We fucked up,” Marlowe says through tight lips.

“Yeah, I’m getting that from the general Oregon Trail vibe around here,” I say.

“Every other time we’ve gotten in and out of the machine, we’ve been at Wilbur Reed.” Her eyes flit in every direction.“But we’re in the middle of a field. Where did we go wrong? We set the intention to go to the beginning of the drama program…”

She trails off, her sentence hanging in the air. I look into her eyes, willing her to use that big, beautiful brain of hers to solve this, because I don’t know a single thing about horses and buggies, much less what they have to do with WRHS drama.

Suddenly, she grabs my shoulders tight enough to bruise. She’s about to kiss me, which isn’t necessarily agoodsolution, but who am I to object? We can make out in a field of wheat. Why not?

My lips are puckered, waiting, as she says, “Wilbur Reed High School was built in 1895.”

I open one eye. “Okay…”

“If the machine always opens to the school, then we must be standing on the land it’s built on! This is sometime before the school was constructed! The beginning of the drama program!”

I open both eyes. There are no ridiculous statements anymore. Accepting her hypothesis is as easy as accepting an improvisation from a scene partner. Yes, this is a time before 1895. Yes, we’re standing on the land where our high school was built. Of course we are!

“Great!” I say, prepared to roll with it.

Though as I inventory her, a dozen red flags go up. Her shaggy haircut. The small tattoos on her forearms. They’re tiny, fine-line pieces—so gay of her—but they’re not passable as something you’d have in…whenever the hell we are. A time before 1895. And that plain white tank given to her by Psychic Marlowe. The breeze that blows now has the slightest chill to it, and her shirt is sheer enough to display how her nipples have poked up through her bra.

“Is there any particular reason you’re staring at my chest?” she asks.

“Quite a few,” I say, still staring. “But ultimately, it’s because nipples don’t give 1800s, in my humble opinion.”

She looks down, seeing what I’m seeing and folding her arms to cover herself. I’m remembering last night, how I held her as we fell asleep, my nose pressed into her hair, and it doesn’t matter where we are in space and time—that memory is going to be too strong to ignore.

I look down at my own flowy dress from Psychic Priscilla. “Not that I’m any better,” I offer.

Marlowe takes this as an invitation to regard my chest, where no nipples are visible. Wish they were. Would love to be in a visible-nipples situation with her right now. It would be much better than being in the 1800s.

“We might be our queer ancestors’ wildest dreams, but that doesn’t mean the people here won’t want to hang us as witches on sight,” I say.

“That’s more of a 1600s thing,” Marlowe says.

“And how do you know thisisn’tthe 1600s?”

“The women in the buggy were wearing Victorian-era dresses.”

“The women in the buggy were wearing Victorian-era dresses,” I repeat. “Sorry. I needed to experience that sentence for myself.”

She smirks.

“I may not be able to recognize a time period in thirty seconds by looking at someone’s outfit, but I’ve seen enough movies to know that wanting to kill a time-traveling weirdo is evergreen,” I say. “Let’s get back inside the machine and keep moving. Maybe find somewhere to, you know, inventory each other’s clothing more thoroughly? And then come up with a better intention, of course.”

“Hello there!” says a man in a top hat, who seems to have emerged from within the stalks of wheat like this isField of Dreams.

“ThinkHedda Gabler,” Marlowe whispers.

We did that play our senior year. She played Hedda, and I was Mrs. Thea Elvsted. When the cast list went up, I felt truly envious of Marlowe. That wasn’t new, but it was the first time we’d both wanted the same part. Before that, Dallas always picked shows in which we knew exactly who we were supposed to play, and those parts didn’t overlap.