Аннали Ньюиц - The Future of Another Timeline

Sweeping into the café in designer loungewear, a brightly printed shirt, and Nike slip-ons, Delilah had far more Hollywood lesbian chic than your typical insurance agent. We hugged and sipped our gibraltars for a while before I told her about Berenice. My gut wrenched with longing for a woman I’d never known. And I had no idea how to bring her back.

Delilah hit her Juul and surreptitiously blew vapor down one sleeve. “So she was killed outside a gay bar? I’ve done a few hate crime reversions—they’re easy to prevent because they’re usually random. Bigger problem if it’s premeditated. Then you might prevent the death at one time only to have it crop up earlier or later.”

“We think it was premeditated. Someone wanted to edit her out of the timeline.”

“This is getting more interesting.” Delilah raised one delicate eyebrow and started taking notes on her phone. “Why was she a target?”

I knew I could trust Delilah, but I still didn’t want to tell her about the Daughters. “Cone of silence, okay?”

She nodded, intrigued.

“I’m part of a… working group. We’re trying to edit the timeline, to get more rights for women and nonbinary people. Unfortunately, we’ve caught the attention of some men who are reverting our edits. We think one of their goals is to edit trans women out of history.”

“They killed her because she’s trans?”

“Not just that. She is trans, but she was also documenting trans history and…”

“No, Enid. You had me at killing trans people. I’ll take this one pro bono. Let’s make those fuckers pay.” Her eyes had a nasty gleam as she packed up her purse. “Well? Are you coming?”

“What are we doing?”

Delilah typed into her phone with her gel nails and talked at the same time. “I booked us at Flin Flon. Guy who does travel for Pacific Life totally loves me. I told him it was urgent. Are you burned out of the week leading up to the murder? That’s all we need.”

I checked my online calendar against the date of Berenice’s death according to the AP article we’d found. I’d burned through most of 1992 on research trips already. “I could do the two days leading up to it, which means realistically I’d arrive day of, if you factor in the flight time from Flin Flon.”

“I’ll go ahead of you then. I can make contact with the client… I mean, the victim.” Delilah sounded embarrassed. “It’s good for me to do this kind of thing once in a while, you know? Otherwise I forget why I went into this business in the first place.”

We hugged again, and agreed to meet at Flex Nightclub in Raleigh, North Carolina, approximately thirty years ago.

I had never seen Berenice before, or at least this version of me hadn’t. I wondered how we met before the edit, and what it was like when we fell in love. All I had to go on when I arrived for Karaoke Night was her blurry picture from the AP. Flashing my ID, I walked into a large, dimly lit bar painted black with the occasional scarlet highlight. At one end of the long room was a stage flanked by the KJ booth and a screen flashing lyrics. A man with a perfectly coiffed beard and flannel shirt was belting out a show tune with the cute-butchy fervor of a deeply dedicated bear. The place was already packed with every permutation of queer, from high femme to gym queen, plus all the party kids who defied categorization.

It was the night of Berenice’s murder. And there, at the center of everything, was Delilah. I smiled with relief. Her ability to slide into any social situation with panache was practically a superpower. I joined the small circle of women around her and said hi.

“This is Enid, my friend from L.A.”

Everybody introduced themselves, and I promptly forgot all their names except Berenice’s. She called herself Flame. Either she wasn’t going by Berenice yet, or she had a preferred nickname at this time in her life. Her curly hair was bright red, like her lipstick. There was a glow about her that I recognized from other friends who had recently transitioned. Berenice was happy in her own skin—maybe for the first time—and it was infectious. When somebody started singing a Madonna song, she shimmied along with it, bouncing against us and twirling. “Do you think it’s weird to dance to karaoke?” she asked me with a flirty smirk. “I’m bad at listening without moving.”

My heart ached. She was so beautiful. I couldn’t believe that one day she would be planning to move in with me.

Delilah’s voice snapped me out of it. “Honey, you should always dance. You look amazing.” Delilah moved her hips to the beat, then caught my eye. “Come with me for a smoke, Enid?”

Outside, she wasted no time getting to the point. “I think I’ve got our man. He’s a straight guy named Fred who comes here to pick up trans ladies, and a few people have already warned me about him. I guess his dates sometimes disappear.” She frowned. “You know what I mean?”

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. “Have you seen him?”

“Not yet. But I’m sticking close to Berenice. The problem, like I said, is that this sounds premeditated. I might need to render him.”

“Render? What? You mean…”

Delilah flicked her hair back and winked at a woman in a Boy Scouts shirt. “You said he was part of some conspiracy to edit trans women out of the timeline. What the hell do you care if he’s deleted? I’m helping you out here.”

I swallowed hard. My research trips involved going to public hearings and lobbying policymakers. Assassination was never an option. But Delilah was right: the Comstockers had already killed Berenice. If we left Fred to his own devices, he might slaughter more. It wasn’t like the cops were bending over backward to catch the dude responsible for killing so-called “men in dresses.” I scowled at the memory of those words.

“Sweetie, this isn’t my first rodeo,” Delilah continued. “Sometimes it’s cheaper to render someone. Especially when there’s a multimillion-dollar policy on the line. I can handle it.”

We went back inside. Berenice was deep in conversation with a young guy at the bar whose blond hair brushed the collar of his polo shirt. Edging closer to them, I noticed his skin was preternaturally clear, as if he’d never had a pimple in his life. He smelled like baby powder.

“Who’s your friend?” Delilah asked, gesturing for the bartender at the same time.

Berenice opened her mouth to speak, but the man talked over her. “I’m Fred. And who are you?”

“I’m Delilah. Can I get you a drink, Fred?”

He held up a glass with brown liquor in it. “I’m good.”

“Oh good. Come here often, Fred?”

Berenice was getting restless. Our eyes met and it was almost too much. I tried to imagine what she’d look like in thirty years, when we would be figuring out how to consolidate our couches and what colors to paint the walls. Then she smiled and I threw off all the weight of a future I’d lost. It was time to make a new future.

“Hey, Flame… let’s dance! I love this song!”

Two women onstage were singing the hell out of En Vogue. Berenice jumped up with me instantly, and we wiggled around the floor with a few other people, singing along:

I kept Delilah and Fred in my line of sight. She’d lured him in completely; he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. The lights strobed, and Delilah snuck something into his drink. I needed to keep Berenice away from the bar. “Why don’t you sing something? I bet you have a favorite karaoke song.”