Time Lifts the Light

"We haven't got much time... D.B. is getting better and better at coming back right away."
"What?" I asked, always seeming to trail a bit behind in these sort of conversations - almost like a badly dubbed movie.
"When he comes back into his own time," Kim clarified unnecessarily. "He's getting better at traveling back just a few moments after he - "
"No, no," I interrupted. "I know what you mean."
"Oh."

There was a small pause before she flicked her bangs out of her eyes and sighed, a pained expression plastered to her face.

"Okay," she breathed. "Here goes." She let out a huff of air and looked me straight in the eye, that same look of pity and warning etched around her mouth. "Don't get too attached to D.B."
I experienced a small moment of shock. I hadn't known what was coming - but I surely wasn't expecting this. "Attached...? What, is he going to die soon?"
"No!" she snapped. "Be serious." I nodded guiltily and she continued as if I had never said anything in the first place. "D.B. is - well, look at him. He's got girls crawling all over him. He may not be popular, but he's something of a rebel... And the girls at our school think he's mysterious. They like that. They like him."
"But - "
"I know he doesn't have a girlfriend right now. It's strange, really. It's been something like two months since he's been out with anyone. I assure you, this rarely ever happens."
"But - "
"And I know he's taking you to Homecoming, but you should - "
"Kim!"

She stopped short of running completely out of breath. Panting slightly from the force of her rant, she glowered at me somewhat hesitantly. I could tell she had had a lot more to say and that her speech was rehearsed. She wasn't taking kindly to my interruptions.

"Calm down!" I laughed weakly. "I'm not in love with D.B."
Her lips pursed suspiciously.
"I know you don't believe me but it's true," I reassured her. "He's taking me to Homecoming because... It's convenient. You and Mikey are going together and we'd be the only two in the group without dates. He's a single boy, I'm a single girl, we're friends... It only makes sense."
"Indy - "
"No," I soothed. "Seriously. I could care less if he..." I paused here to clear my throat, something I think that Kim took as a sign of deceit, as her eyes narrowed into impossible slits. "If he... got a girlfriend. Honestly, I wouldn't even care if he broke our date! I'd just find someone else to go to the dance with. No big deal."
"I don't believe you," she said quietly after a small moment.
"You don't have to," I said, attempting a laugh. "But it's the truth. Now come on, the boys will be back soon and I want to find out where they went."

Turns out, D.B. wasn't as punctual as Kim thought he was. The two boys did not return promptly, leaving Kim and I in an almost unbearable pit of awkward silence. She kept opening her mouth and turning her head to me, as if she wanted to continue our conversation, but always thought better of it and returned to picking her nails.

Suddenly, a luminescent tear appeared in the air in front of us. It shone white and pearly as two forms, clutching each other tightly, were shoved through it and into the bright sunshine. With great effort, I pushed my stab of jealousy down. I would deal with those mixed feelings later. Mikey and D.B. were spat out onto the pavement, a gentle light glowing from under their skin as the warp quickly closed itself. Knocked off balance, the two boys fell to the ground and let go of each other in order to throw their arms out in front of them. Mikey's hands smacked the concrete and D.B.'s elbows slid across the ground. I screamed, and Kim looked alert.

"Are you okay?" she asked tensely, rushing to hover over them.

Groaning, the boys picked themselves up. Not only were they soaking wet, they both looked as if they'd been trampled, their clothes rumpled and dirty, and their sneakers covered in mud. Sucking in his breath, D.B. tenderly brushed himself off, feeling his chest for bruises. Mikey winced as he picked out the rocks that had embedded themselves into the palms of his hands when he'd hit the ground.

"Sorry," D.B. apologized weakly. "Rough landing."
Wordlessly, Mikey bear-hugged D.B. with a kind of determined ferocity. "You are the best. The best."
"Ouch, Mike - get off," D.B. complained gently, attempting to remove his friends hands from his middle.
"God?" Mikey asked, ignoring the squirming D.B. and turning his eyes toward the sky. "Please overturn Prop. Eight so that I can marry this sweet, caring, beautiful - "
"Too much," D.B. said sternly. "Off." He smacked Mikey upside the head.
"Ow!" Mikey whined, but backed off all the same.

"I take it the trip went well?" Kim asked, rolling her eyes. "What happened?"
Mikey looked as if he was about to explode. "It was amazing!" he blurted, just as D.B. opened his mouth to explain.

Mikey proceeded to recount his and D.B.'s experience at a 1968 Rolling Stones concert in which Mick Jagger, despite the violent rain, refused to turn off the electrical equipment. During the proceeding concert, the dancing crowd churned up so much mud that they were slipping and sliding in it up to their ankles.

We headed off toward Madam Malkin's, the boutique where Kim was dying to shop, still enduring Mikey's babble. It had departed from talk of the concert and somehow descended into random Mick Jaggar trivia.

"Cool," Kim, D.B. and I chorused half-heartedly as Mikey told us for the third time that Mick Jaggar and Keith Richards - the lead-vocalist and guitarist for The Rolling Stones, respectively - had been childhood friends.
"I mean, think about it!" he gushed. "From the time when they were kids, they knew each other. That's crazy. That's like.... destiny."

We walked back up into the main square of the shopping center. Mikey and D.B. garnered strange looks, as it was neither wet nor muddy out. D.B. was shivering, the fall air blowing straight through his thin, wet shirt. Madam Malkin's was visible just up ahead, the black and silver sign pleasantly catching the sun.

"And guess what Mick's real name is?" Mikey continued eagerly, swinging his and Kim's intertwined hands.
"What?" Kim sighed.
"Michael Philip Jagger!"
"Wow."
"That's my name!"
"That's neat, baby," Kim said distractedly.
"Well, not the Jagger part, obviously. But... Michael Philip Douglas. Do you think Mick was named Philip after his dad, too?"

"We're here!" I said, a little too loudly, eager for Mikey to stop rambling.
D.B. and Kim were feeling the same way. "Great!" D.B. said quickly. "Quick, let's go inside!"

I had a feeling that he'd had to restrain himself from adding, "Before Mikey starts again!"

The interior of the shop was cabin-themed. The walls were boarded with rough, unpolished wood and the smell of pine permeated the heavily-perfumed air. The dresses were organized by color, with one rack running around the perimeter of the entire store - red fading to orange to yellow to green...

D.B. and I stood near the entrance, slightly overwhelmed. Kim, on the other hand, pulled Mikey by the sleeve over toward the yellow section where she began enthusiastically plucking every dress in her size from the rack.

"Were you serious about that plaid tux?" I asked D.B., holding up a red dress with a plaid pattern.
"No," D.B. sighed, almost wishfully. "I have plaid socks, though. Either way, that was a bit of an exaggeration... Don't wear that, anyways. It's too informal."

I replaced the dress.

"I don't really know..." I mumbled, running my fingers delicately over the dresses as I walked past, not really looking at them. "Have you picked out a tie or something? Do we have to match?"
"I don't know. Does it matter?"
I shrugged.
"You pick out whatever dress you want, then I'll match to you. M'kay?"
"Oh," I teased. "What a gentleman!"

D.B. laughed and shoved his hands into his pockets, only to quickly remove them a second later, a disgusted look on his face. "See, this is why I have good reason to believe that the universe hates me," he commented, pulling out two handfuls of mud and attempting to wipe his hands of the seat of his already wet pants. "I'm soaking... Check it out, that lady over there is giving me a dirty look. Am I dripping? Oh, shit! I'm leaving behind a puddle."

"It's your fault," I chuckled, squinting at a green dress and trying to decide if it would make me look like a mermaid. "You just had to go see Mick Jagger in a thunderstorm, didn't you?"
"Oi!" he reprimanded playfully. "Don't be a smart ass!"

Kim rushed by me on her way to the dressing rooms, her arms loaded with dresses. Mikey slumped along behind her, already looking bored. (And - what with his wet, bedraggled appearance - he positively exuded "kicked puppy.")

"What are you doing, Indy?" she hissed as she passed. "Pink? With your skin tone? Do you want to look like you're naked?"
"N-No..." I replied hastily as D.B. snickered behind me.
"For Chrissake! Bold colors, dark colors! It's Autumn, goddamn it!"

And, with that, she bustled off into the dressing rooms.

"Kim takes shopping very seriously," Mikey whispered forlornly.
"Mikey!"
"Coming..."

After a half-hearted sweep of the store (all the while ignoring D.B.'s high-pitched rendition of "Do you want to look like you're naked?") I gave up and instead went to check on Kim's progress.

"Gross," she said, tugging at the hem of a short number with red roses patterned into the skirt.
"I like it!"
"Mikey, you'd have to get a floral tie!" she scoffed. "And it's way too short."

As she stalked back into the dressing room, I could distinctly hear Mikey muttering something that sounded like "anything to get out of here."

It was clear to see, every time that Kim emerged from the dressing room to scrutinize herself in the full-length mirror, that each dress she had picked out was undeniably her. Each was unique, girly, with just a bit of tomboy-ish sex appeal. I would have no problem going around and picking out clothes that Kim would wear, just as I could easily choose a song that would bring out Mikey's crooked grin, or a joke that would make D.B. throw back his head in laughter.

As I looked around the store, I realized with a growing sense of dread... That I didn't have a style. Nothing suited me! There was nothing in Madam Malkin's, nothing in this shopping center, nothing in the entire world that someone would pick up and say -

"Hey, Indigo, this looks like you."

I snapped my head around so fast that, for a second, I wondered if I'd given myself whiplash. D.B. was standing in the corner, holding a wooden hanger with his thumb and forefinger as if he were afraid that the dress hanging off it would attack him.

I collected myself and calmly walked over to where he was standing. I held back the flood of opinions that burst into my mind upon looking at the dress. Wordlessly, I took it from his hands and walked toward the dressing room. I kept my mind a blank slate while slipping it over my head, trying not to jinx it with it's perfect, it fits perfectly or another equally damning thought.

I walked out, keeping my eyes shut tight and refusing to look in the mirror until the last second. When I finally allowed my eyelids to flutter open, I could see both D.B. and Mikey reflected behind me, staring openmouthed.

Black, strapless, high-waisted. So very simple and yet, as D.B. had said, it was me.

"Buy it," D.B. snapped. "Buy it Indy Hutchinson or I'm going to dump you and take Mikey to Homecoming."
"Yeah... Yeah, buy it," Mikey murmured, not really paying attention to what he was saying. "Cool... Good, great. Yeah..."

"Okay," I laughed. "I'll get it. It's perfect."