Time Travel for Beginners

1.
Anna

A woman in a red coat was walking up a flight of concrete steps.

It was a Thursday, early June 2025, a crisp Sydney winter's day, and the woman was hurrying. At the top of the stairs, she paused and unbuttoned her coat. She did not wish to remove the coat altogether, only to open it. It was a new coat, and very smart, with large silver buttons.

In addition to being a woman in a red coat, this was a woman in a lemon-yellow shirt, black jeans, and black ankle boots. A navy blue beret sat upon her head. This had been knitted for her by her sister, Monique, who was crafty and practi-

Oh look, I can't keep this up.

All I'm doing is describing the colors of my clothes.

The woman was me. Anna Salone. Pleased to meet you.

My idea had been to write this narrative in close third person, like a clear and tender voice at my own shoulder, following me around through my days. Pausing for moments of quiet reflection-as I ducked my head into the linen closet, say, or scrubbed dried egg from a plate. But I haven't even made it past the opening.

(Also, to clarify: When I say that my sister Monique is "crafty," I don't mean she's wily and cunning. Just good at craft.) (The navy blue beret is beautiful and well made. I feel elegant when I wear it. Also, I feel ridiculous. People stare, their expressions inscrutable. Frank admiration or suppressed hilarity? Could be either.)

The reason I was hurrying up the steps was that I was late for work.

And the reason I was late was that I'd driven my thirteen-year-old daughter, Nicola, to the bus stop, whereas usually she walks there. I'd been applying lipstick in the bathroom, believing Nicola to be packing her lunchbox in the kitchen. I'd even heard the thud of her dropping a yogurt pouch onto the floor. Oh, Nicola, I'd thought fondly. Always dropping things. Then, passing Nicola's bedroom, I'd caught a glimpse of tangled hair and pink pajamas.

What's that child doing in my daughter's bed?! That was my first reaction: indignation.

Quickly, it occurred to me that it was more likely that Nicola was oversleeping-and that the dropped yogurt pouch had been a car door slamming out in the street-than that a strange child in pink pajamas had climbed into my daughter's empty bed.

The oversleeping hypothesis proved true.

I hustled Nicola out of bed and followed her around like a close third-person narrator, only less tender, shouting instructions. "Hurry! You're going to miss the bus!" and "No need to brush your teeth for two whole minutes, no, seriously, don't set the timer, Nicola! Leave it! Yes, I know the dentist said, but the dentist isn't going to miss the bus!"

Then I tossed her a banana for her breakfast and zoomed her up the hill to the bus stop.

After that, I drove back home, parked the car in the garage, and set off to walk to work.

I miscalculated how long it took to walk.

(That's a fancy way of saying I knew perfectly well that it took me twenty minutes to walk to work and yet, that day, I decided I could do it in three.)

Having reached the top of the stairs, I rushed past the tennis club, the playground, and a pair of art deco apartment blocks, my new coat flapping like a malfunctioning burrito. In my head I was rehearsing excuses.

I couldn't blame Nicola for my lateness because Trisha, the manager, holds strong views on "enabling children in habits of carelessness."

Trisha has three sons, two at university and one in high school. All three "learned quick smart" that Trisha was "not at their beck and call." Let's say one of Trisha's sons was at a pool party, realized he'd forgotten his swimsuit, and called her up seeking help? She, Trisha, would not come running with the swimsuit! No, sirree! Her son would have to face the consequences.

"And you know what, Anna?" Trisha liked to say.

"What?"

"They never forget that swimsuit again!"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. You know why? Because they've suffered the . . ."

"Consequences," I would fill in obediently.

I myself have suffered the consequences of my own forgetfulness, or carelessness, plenty of times in my life and yet I carry on forgetting and careless-ing. I mentioned this to Trisha once, and she flashed me the look she used to give me, the one that meant she suspected there was something not quite right about me-a bit off-color even-before turning back to weighing the dry-roasted almonds. (I worked for Trisha at the Nut Bar.)

So I couldn't mention having driven Nicola to the bus stop.

Anyway, the real issue was that I'd then driven home instead of continuing on to work. (I had to. My Fitbit requires the steps. So really this whole thing is the fault of a needy Fitbit.)

I decided to invent an excuse.

I'm sorry I'm late, I rehearsed. I spilled coffee on my shirt at breakfast! I had to change!

How long did it take to change a shirt?

I'm so sorry I'm late. I got halfway to work and realized I'd spilled coffee on my shirt at breakfast!

Why had I not noticed the stain when I spilled the coffee in the first place?

I'm so sorry, I began, crossing Yeo Street, and that's when the car hit me.


It felt very personal, as these things do.



I landed in the gutter with a shriek of outrage.

Next I realized that, of course, it must have been a car, not a hostile stranger rushing up to give me a good shove. The rage dissipated. A car, like a falling tree branch, is inanimate. I must have walked right in front of it. The car had been in its own territory, the road, and I'd strayed into that territory. These were the . . .

"Consequences," I whispered.

I lay in the gutter, embarrassed.

Footsteps ran toward me. They reminded me of the time when my family went to Universal Studios and watched a demonstration of how sound effects were added to a scene. These footsteps had the same self-importance. These are running footsteps, they said. Tap, tap, tap.

The footsteps scuffed up beside me and became heavy breathing. This is heavy breathing. A deep intake of breath and a man's voice asked, "Are you okay?"

Am I okay?! I was affronted.

"I got hit by a car!" I expostulated, sitting up quickly. Was I okay?! Of course I was not okay! Although my head had felt fine when I sat up quickly just now-it often spins when I do that, even when I haven't been hit by a car.

"Yes." The man was standing in direct sunlight so I couldn't see his face. "Yes, it was my car." He crouched, and there was his face.

He had very white skin with pale freckles here and there. Dark hair clipped close to his scalp. Late-thirtiesish. The bones of his face, and the veins in his temples, were prominent. His shirt, a soft lilac color, looked expensive. Its buttons were small and discreet. His trousers were gray wool. Polished shoes.

He sat down beside me in the gutter.

"Are you okay? Shall I call an ambulance?" He was holding a phone. Like his face, the fingers wrapped around the phone were very white, but with sparse threads of black hair.

I considered the phone and the wiry hairs on the man's fingers. I looked up and down the street. No other people were around. Several parked cars, but none in motion. A silver Mercedes sat just along the road, jutting out at an angle, as if hastily parked. That must be the man's car. He'd pulled over his Mercedes and run back to check on me.

The emptiness of the street gave me the odd feeling that I'd "gotten away with it." Nobody but this man had witnessed me being hit and, therefore, it hadn't really happened-at least, not in a particularly relevant way.

"No, no," I said. "I'm fine."

The man exhaled. "Are you sure? You might not be qualified to say. Let me look at you."

I angled my face so he could do this. He studied my eyes. His own were a very bright blue.

"I'm not qualified to say, either," he admitted after a moment. It occurred to me that the man had a Scottish accent, although only at certain junctures in his sentences. "Can you stand up?"

"Yes."

A pause.

"I believe I can," I added.

He suggested I test my theory. "Here, I'll help you." He leaped to his feet and offered his palm.

A long pause. "I don't want to," I decided. "I'm fine, though. Honestly. I'm very sorry I ran in front of your car. I was late for work. It's lucky you were driving slowly. Sedately, even. You can . . ." I gestured at his car. "Don't let me hold you up."

The man studied me anxiously. "I'm quite worried about you," he said.

"Don't be. It's just the shock. Nothing even hurts. Don't let me . . ."

He followed my gaze, back to the silver Mercedes. "That's not my car," he said, and he pointed across the road instead, to where a small red car stood at its own quirky angle. I don't know what kind of car it was. Red. And it had the low, slanted look that cars get when they're expensive. They sink beneath the weight of their own price tags, cars. "Are you sure you're all right?" the man was asking. "Because I do need to be somewhere." He was looking at the red car and frowning, its existence having reminded him of responsibilities, I guess.

"Absolutely," I said.

"Let me give you my name and number in case you realize later that you are injured," he offered. "That can happen."

"No, no. I promise, I'm not going to realize. I'd know by now."

"Well, give me your name and number then. So I can check on you. I'm desperately worried about you."

Desperately worried. I laughed. His accent was gathered in that phrase. "Honestly, I'm fine. I only want to sit here and think."

"If you're sure . . ." And when I nodded again, he checked both ways and then he crossed the road backward, watching me the whole time. He seemed able to walk in reverse with surprising ease and grace.

"I'm really sorry!" I called to him. "I hope I didn't . . . dent your car."

At this he laughed aloud, apparently delighted, and did not even look at his car to check. I found that impressive. Most people would have glanced at least.

"Are you sure I can't get your name and number," he tried again, "so I can check on you?"

"Honestly," I sang back. "I'm fine."

So he opened his car door, climbed in, turned on the engine, checked his mirrors, flicked on his indicator, and drove away. He raised a single hand to me and was gone.


I sat in the gutter. I felt very happy because now I had a good, solid, truthful excuse for being late to work. I’m so sorry. I got hit by a car.



Into the stillness came the sound of traffic on Military Road a block away. Also construction noise somewhere-a jackhammer?-and a leaf blower. Everyone busy getting on with things. In the same way that the silence was filling with sounds, Trisha would currently be filling with righteous fury at my absence. Should I call her or wait until she was so angry that she called me? An excuse like being hit by a car, you want it to have the biggest impact.

"Anna!"

The sound of my own name, spoken into my ear, astounded me. How had I not heard the footsteps that surely preceded that voice? For a moment, I believed it was Trisha-out from behind the Nut Bar counter, prowling the streets of Sydney to hunt me down.

It was Rena Kappas.

"What's happened here?" Rena demanded. "What are you doing in the gutter?"

Rena is a school mum and a friend. I met her at the front office one day when Nicola was in year one. We'd both come to collect our girls for medical appointments-hers to an ear specialist, mine to an orthopedist-and there was a delay on account of the class having gone missing. Rena and I joked about that, not too uneasily. (Turned out, they were doing reading groups under a tree.) Anyway, we liked each other enough to organize playdates for the girls.

The girls grew much closer than Rena and I ever did. We're fond of each other, sure, but we can get by for weeks without talking or texting, whereas they couldn't get through a day. Also, unlike our girls, Rena and I have never once painted each other's fingernails or dyed each other's hair or visited a pharmacy so we both could get two holes pierced in our right ears ("It's kind of, like, our thing?") or choreographed song-and-dance routines for school talent shows and TikTok, or gotten sticky marshmallows all over our sheets during a sleepover and then cried because we thought we'd get in trouble.

Still, we're always happy to see each other.

"Hello!" I said, genuinely happy. "I got hit by a car!"

Rena chuckled, thinking I was joking. I doubled down. Rena switched to outrage: "And they didn't stop?! They must have known they'd done it! You can't hit a person and not notice it! Was it a truck? That's the only thing. If it was a semi, the driver might not have noticed. Was it?"

"No, no!" I protested. "It was a car, and the driver did stop and check on me. He was nice! I told him I was fine."

"And then he left you here? In the gutter?" Rena blinked her long, dark lashes rapidly, which she does when emotional. Her daughter, Elena, does the same thing.

"I made him go," I promised.

It took a while to convince Rena that the man's behavior had been beyond reproach, and also that I wasn't injured. Even then, she remained dubious. There was a lot of talk about shock and neck injuries. I drifted off into my own reverie.

"To be honest, I'm just happy to have an excuse for being late to work," I admitted once Rena had settled down.

"Work?" Rena stared. "You can't go to work today!"

"I can't?"

"You got hit by a car. You need to go home and rest."

It was wonderful how important Rena was making this. On the other hand, I feared I'd misled her.