Page 21 of Not You Again
“Look, I don’t know what to do here.” Adam finally met her gaze. “This is... It’s significant, for sure.”
“Yes, significant!” she said, because this was the closest thing to enthusiasm she’d get from him. And she’d promised to come up with ideas, so she spit out the first one that popped into her head. “What if we check in with the people still working to break the loop? Like Rick Gaines?”
The mayor had mentioned Rick was in need of a good deed. Rick, who was part of the small contingent still trying to find a way out of Julian. They’d certainly want to know if there were changes with the eclipse.
Adam stopped the chewing. “Rick is... I don’t want to say,strange, because that doesn’t seem fair, but he’s the kind of guy who has a bunker filled with doomsday supplies.”
“Well, we’re the ones stuck in a time loop. Maybe the bunker wasn’t such a bad idea.”
Adam cracked his neck as if winding up. “He once ran for mayor, and his platform was that he’d been abducted by aliens who instructed him to run for public office because, if he didn’t, they’d come back to abduct him again.”
Carly didn’t say anything. She dug the toe of her bootinto the floor. “Again, we are stuck in a time loop. Maybe the aliens are real.”
“They very much are real,” Adam said. “I’m just not wholly convinced of why they’d need Rick to be mayor.”
Carly’s initial instinct was to argue. She wasn’t normally the type, but there was just something about his know-it-all face and his innate ability to put her in a bad mood that made her want to throw verbal punches. But was she really about to argue that maybe Rick—whom she’d never met—had something the aliens wanted? Was that an argument she’d win? A hill she wanted to crawl up and die on?
No, as it turned out, it wasn’t. But Carly had a hunch about Rick, and roughly a bottomless pit of motivation she’d inherited from her dad. Bruce had blind faith in moving his entire life to Julian, and Carly had blind faith in going to see Rick. Maybe this fact about the eclipse shortening, coupled with a theory of Rick’s, could give them a way out.
For the first time in a very long time, Carly saw a light at the end of this infinite tunnel. Her whole body was awake, like when the hot summer weather finally shifted into fall and the cool air pricked her skin back to life. Wouldn’t it be nice to experience a new season? All she had to do was convince Adam that this was a good idea.
“When I’ve stopped the loop, you’ll look back on this moment and thank me.” She gestured for Adam to follow her. “Come on, let’s go see Rick. What could the harm be?”
The harm was that Rick’s “house,” as it turned out, was an airstream parked in the middle of the forest with over a hundred plastic pink flamingos in the makeshift yard.
“Oh,” Carly said, but thought,maybe Adam was right.
Adam leaned across her and pointed out the passenger-side window. “Looks like he got a new bird feeder.”
“Thebirdfeeder?” she asked. “You’re focused on the very ordinary, very small, bird feeder andnotthe flock of pink flamingos?”
“Look at that, a little bluejay.” Adam smiled at the bird feeder and completely, maybe intentionally, ignored Carly’s comment. “Like I said, Rick’s a bit eccentric.”
“Yeah,” she said. “He’s like John Waters on steroids.”
“Who?” Adam asked.
“Just one of the most important filmmakers of all time.” She rubbed a spot on her forehead where a headache now bloomed. “Whatdothey teach you in funeral school, if not the classics?”
Much to her surprise, Adam looked amused. And Carly was rather pleased about that.
Bizarre, she thought, and got out of the car to avoid Adam’s wry expression. Carly started for Rick’s door, but about halfway there, a voice from a loudspeaker blared.
“What do you want?”
Maybe she’d tripped some alarm system. Carly was surprised a net hadn’t swept her off the ground and left her dangling upside down under the flamingos’ watchful eyes.
Carly looked to Adam. What did one do in a situation like this? The only weapon she had was her combat boots—could she throw one at the airstream and run?
Adam stepped out of the car and yelled, “Rick, it’s Adam Rhodes! I’m here with a friend. She just wants to meet you.”
They both waited.
“Adam?” the voice sounded.
“Adam Rhodes, yes.” He shut the car door and came to stand next to Carly, and she was suddenly glad Adam was so very tall.
A series of metal locks erupted near the door and it swung open. There was Rick—a breadbox of a man, with a cropped haircut, trim beard and goggles so thick it was hard to see his eyes behind them. He held on to the frame to show how he absolutely didn’t want them in his space.
