Page 25 of Time for You
Henry wrote something down, nodding. “How does the engine work?”
“No idea, but the gas version is very bad for the environment. And that brings me to my next topic: climate change.” She advanced the slide using the clicker Ellie had bought for their New Year’s Eve party, when everyone had been required to make a PowerPoint deck on the topic of their choice. (Vibol’s topic of “My Favorite WWE Wrestlers” had been voted Most Unexpected, although they had all been pretty drunk by then.) “The planet is boiling, and we’re all gonna die,” Brittany continued. The image was of a factory belching smoke and a hazy sky. “We got addicted to oil back sometime around your time, and now we’re fucked.” She explained greenhouse gases and the burgeoning climate crisis while Henry’s eyes got wider and he scribbled furiously. Next were planes (“please don’t ask how they stay in the air—it mostly involves going really fast”) and then phones, which caused Henry not a small amount of confusion.
“But a telephone is to talk to someone at the same time,” Henry said. “You don’t use them for that?”
“I mean, you can if it’s absolutely necessary, but most of us don’t.”
“So you use them to send telegrams.”
Brittany frowned at him, and after a bit of back and forth about what, exactly, a telegram was, she agreed, before diving into the topics of the internet and social media. Henry seemed delighted by the idea of the internet, although he struggled with social media—not because he found it self-absorbed, but because he couldn’t understand why it made everyone so angry all the time. “Because that’s what it’s supposed to do,” Brittany explained for the fifth time, before finally moving on.
Henry understood the idea of computers far better than Daphne would have thought, and he didn’t seem to struggle with Brittany’s slide on women (can vote and own property, don’t have to have babies if they don’t want to), and he was unexpectedly delighted by theidea of drag queens. “We’ll take you to a drag queen brunch, then,” Brittany said.
Henry wrote something down and looked up. “Is the next slide”—he checked his notebook—“brunch?”
Daphne snorted while working on eight down (a walk, of sorts), which she filled in withstroll, and Henry looked over at her. “What’s amusing about that?”
“It’s just funny, is all.”
“Glad my ignorance can entertain you,” he said haughtily, and Daphne looked up, ready to snap, but caught Brittany’s warning glance.He’s really not that bad,everyone kept insisting, and Daphne knew that was what Brittany was trying to tell her telepathically.
“It’s not that,” Daphne mumbled, and dived back into her crossword to avoid revealing the blush that was probably now staining her cheeks. Brittany explained she didn’t have a slide about brunch because she hadn’t expected to have to explain that it was just a combination ofbreakfastandlunch.
“And the drag queens bring you food?”
“Mostly they sing and dance,” Brittany said. “But that’s a good segue into my next topic: Britney Spears.”
Henry grinned crookedly, and Daphne felt an absurd stab of jealousy. “I already know you fairly well, Miss Spiers.”
“No, not me. My namesake.” She advanced to the next slide, and now it was Henry’s turn to blush, averting his eyes quickly from Britney Spears in her iconic schoolgirl outfit.
“She’s, er, rather young?” he said, staring into his notebook like he hoped it would open up and swallow him whole.
“Yeah, she was sixteen or something when this was taken. This was her big break,” Brittany explained.
“And what’s the reason for, ah, her, well, her—”
“Her clothing? To make men want to have sex with her.”
Henry’s ears were bright red at this point, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. “And does that work? On men today?”
“I mean, it doesn’tnotwork. But mostly I included her because that’s how I knew you were telling the truth about being from the past. Even people living under a rock in the twenty-first century know who she is, because you can’t not.”
“And your parents named you after her? Does she have, er, remarkable qualities other than, er, well ...” Henry stammered.
“Being hot? Yes, she’s a good singer and a really great dancer. And I wasn’t actually named after her. My parents just assumed she would be a one-hit wonder.”
“What’s a—”
“She means they thought she would have one song that got really popular, and then that’s it,” Daphne interjected.
“And that isn’t what happened?”
Brittany sighed. “No, she’s now like, one of the most iconic pop culture figures in the whole country.”
“Do you mind being named after her?”
“I did, and I still do when people make a joke immediately after meeting me, like they’re the first ones to ever make the connection between my name and hers. That’s annoying as hell, but it’s not Brit-Brit’s fault, you know? She’s just living her life and I’m living mine. She’s got way more money, but my family is about 4,000 percent less fucked up, so I probably come out ahead in the end, jokes or no.”
