23 Minutes by Vivian Vande Velde Page A

around the corner to Congress, then around the corner to Fairview, and you smacked right into the Greenbergs’ car.’ And she said, ‘It’s Saturday—the Greenbergs aren’t allowed to leave their house,’ and I said, ‘Greenbergs don’t keep Sabbath if Mrs. Greenberg wants to go out to dinner,’ and Jessie still didn’t believe me, so we got on our bikes, but we’d spent so much time arguing that we were just going around the first corner when we saw the Greenbergs drive by.”
    Zoe can tell she’s given Daniel way too much background information, but this is the first time in so long that she’s talked about that day, the words come spilling out of her as inexorably as Jessie going over the back of the Greenbergs’ car.
    â€œOK,” Daniel says, trying to process it all. “So …”
    â€œSo, Jessie kind of believed me, on account of she saw the Greenbergs’ car. Her mother didn’t. Her mother eventually said maybe we shouldn’t hang around together so much.”
    Zoe suspects that right about now Daniel might be identifying with Jessie’s mom.
    Zoe says, “Did I not warn you that you would find this hard to believe?”
    â€œFair warning indeed.” Daniel starts again, “So … you’ve told other people?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd you’ve done this reliving of an incident other times, too? Besides with Jessie and the Greenbergs?”
    â€œYou’re missing the point.”
    He looks relieved to hear this, as though still hoping the conversation might turn rational.
    Zoe doubts her further explanation will keep him relieved for long. She checks out the window facing the bank and sees—so far—no sign of commotion. She says, “Let’s say that at exactly twenty-three minutes after the hour, something bad happens.”
    Daniel has seen her eyes flick toward the window, and he, too, glances outside. “Any particular hour?” he asks.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAny particular bad thing?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAm I one of the Greenbergs?”
    â€œWhat? No.” She puts her hands on her hips and stares him down. “Why would you even ask that?”
    â€œDon’t know,” he admits. “People not remembering things. All those Greenbergs unaccounted for … I thought you were going to tell me I have amnesia.”
    Zoe suspects he is trying to break the tension. Either that, or his mind has begun to wander. She says, “You’re supposed to be taking this seriously.”
    â€œI am,” he protests, though he clearly is not. “Sorry,” he says, though he clearly is not that, either. “Just checking.”
    â€œNo amnesia,” Zoe says. “No stray Greenbergs. Twenty-threeminutes after an hour—the time chosen purely for illustrative purposes and for the sake of saving me from having to do math—something happens that I feel needs changing. I say, ‘Playback,’ which plays back time, which goes back twenty-three minutes—in this example, just to make a point, to the hour. I try to improve things by doing something differently. But I don’t like the way it’s going. So, maybe twenty-after, I call it quits. I say, ‘Playback’ again. Suddenly it’s exactly on the hour again—even though I only used part of the twenty-three minutes. I can keep on going back and keep on going back—always to the exact same starting point—until I’m happy. Or, more likely, till I’m willing to settle. Or, up to ten tries. And the other limitation is, once the time goes past twenty-three minutes, then that’s it. Once minute number twenty-four starts, that whole previous twenty-three-minute block of time is closed, and I can’t go back any more than anybody else can. Oh, yeah, and the last limitation is: I can’t take anybody or anything with me. Which means nobody else