What If?

When I walked into the physics classroom that first day, I could see things were gonna be different. The same dork art hung on the walls, a Periodic Table, family portraits of your favorite atoms and molecules, pictures of bridges, skyscrapers and rocket ships. The same portrait of Einstein with a silly grin, looking more like someone’s half-wit Uncle Albert than the father of modern physics. The same long lab table bolted to a raised platform at the front of the class held something unexpected, unprecedented, un-freaken-believable.

                  Half-leaning, half-sitting, this cool, young but old-enough-to-be-dangerous dude watched us with penetrating eyes as we entered. Tall enough that he didn’t need the pedestal, he looked like one of those Adonis museum statues, dressed.  A GQ suit over a black jersey.  His dark, curly hair was perfectly messed up and he sported a day’s growth on his face.

                  The girls ahead of me lingered when they passed by him and caught the gaze of his azure blue eyes.

                  “Hello Mr. Gilbert, I’m Molly Owens.”

                  “I’m Alice Campbell, Mr. Gilbert.”

                  “That’s ‘Jil-bare’ girls, ‘Jil-bare.’ It’s French.”

                  Tall, good looking and French. Shit, I wasn’t going to have a chance of scoring a chick in this class. I tussled my hair and ran my hand over my face like I was checking a beard I knew wouldn’t be there.         

                  Following Molly Owens’ pheromone trail, I passed under his x-ray gaze. I imagined he nodded, a slight smile playing on his face, as he watched me stake out territory within good viewing distance of Molly O. She was wearing a white T-shirt with E=mc² on the front. It was loose around her neck and waist, but the equation was stretched to its limit.  As I slithered Mr. Cool-style into my seat, Alice said, “Hi Robbie.”

                  I responded, “Hi Alice,” all the while staring at Molly’s solution to Einstein’s equation.  When I scanned upward, I caught Molly’s glare. “Hey Molly, you’re taking this class too?”

                  “No,” she said, “I’m at lunch.”

                  I stuck my nose into my backpack, rummaged around and pulled out a composition book on which I scribbled “Modern Physics” mercifully ending the conversation. I faked my dedication to learning with a note on the first page, “YAA, YAA, YAA.” You’re an ass. You’re an ass. You’re an ass.”

                  When the bell rang, Mr. Jil-bare stepped off the platform as if he was going to say something. We looked up. He looked us over. When he finally spoke, it was with that suave French accent, “Hello, my name is Mr. Gilbert. I have been teaching in the international school in Abu Dhabi, but am here on exchange for one year. You people are the beneficiaries or victims of this arrangement, as we will discover together during the year. Today is simply an orientation.”

                  I wondered, Where the hell is Aboo Darbi?

                  “I will run the class as a seminar. That means I will assign reading, ask questions, stimulate conversation, but the bulk of the responsibility is yours. We will discuss some of the key tenets of modern physics with emphasis on how it affects our lives and the world around us. Your grade will be as much influenced by your participation as by your test scores. Are there any questions so far?”

                  No one raised a hand. I had already forgotten “Aboo whatever.” I saw Molly scribble, “Are you married?”and slide it in front of Alice. They giggled.

                  “The course is called Modern Physics,” he continued. “Classical physics focuses on bodies in free space.”

                  I thought of Molly’s body in free space.

                  “Modern physics focuses on the interconnectedness of things. We live in a complex world. Everything affects everything else.”

                  I thought of how different my effect might have been on Molly if Jil-bare had been a fat old professor instead of Adonis Freakin’ French.

                  “We’ll ask a lot of ‘What if—’ questions during the year. For example, what if time moved not like an arrow inexorably forward, —

                  I scribbled in my notebook “What’s in x or b mean?”

                  “— but like a pendulum that could be swung backward as well as forward?”

                  Molly raised her hand.

                  “Molly?” he said.

                  I could hear Molly silently screaming, He remembered my name; he remembered my name. “Then we could travel back in time and live in a more,” she hesitated, rocked her head side to side, clasped her equal sign and whispered “romantic age,” as if she had just been kissed on the side of her neck, below her ear, in the little space between her collar and her dangling earring.

                  “Yes, Molly, wouldn’t that be lovely?”

                  She swooned.

                  He looked out at the class. “Let me ask you this. How might it affect our lives today? Imagine if you will, that you have a remote control, like for your TV, that allows you to go forward or backward in time. You drop an egg. It breaks. You hit reverse, and voilà, it’s whole again. What would that do for you?

                  I hope he’s not going to use that French wa-la crap all year. But it would be kind-a nice to have a remote control to rewind and try things again.

                  I’d hit rewind right now and go back to my Molly greeting, “Hi Molly, you’re looking good today.” If that didn’t go well, I’d hit rewind again. Maybe I’d say, “Hey Molly, I’m really looking forward to this class. I hear Jil-bare is really good.”  Eventually, I’d get it right. I might throw in a “Hey Molly. Nice tits.” What the heck, I’d just hit rewind. Wa-la!

                  I must have been showing my satisfaction with myself, because Mr. Jil-bare looked at me and said, “Do you have an idea? What’s your name?”

                  “Robbie, ah Robert Bigelow, sir.”

                  “You don’t have to call me sir. How would life change if we could move time in the other direction, Robbie?”

                  All my blood moved in the direction of my head. My face beat like my heart. I needed an answer quick. What was the question? Time. Move time backwards. When? Where?  Certainly, after I fell into that putrid well at five years old. And when we got the bad news about Mom’s cancer? The day Dad left. The images flashed by like I was channel surfing.

                  Mr. Gilbert asked again, “Robbie?”  

                  The TV in my head went black, and all I saw was the well-worn hardwood floor. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. The suave Mr. Jil-bare, the ample Molly O, the eager Alice Campbell. What could I say? If I had a chance to do things over, I’d be hitting rewind all the time. My God. I’d change everything.

                  I raised my chin just enough to untangle my knotted throat. “No sir, I can’t think of anything.”  The words fell from my mouth like a dropped egg. Broken. Messy.

                  Rewind.