Rewinder by Brett Battles

and the Upjohn Institute.
     
    As a personal historian, albeit one who’s still very new to the job, I’ve been trained to look for connections that will help unearth real stories. So I can’t help but make the connection that’s staring me in the face. Walker hires the Upjohn Institute. The Upjohn Institute—via Johnston and me—uncover a shattering truth about Walker’s past. And now Walker is dead, and the institute has come into a “sizeable donation.”
    This is one of those things I desperately want to talk to someone about, someone who can tell me I’m just overthinking. I decide I’ll risk bringing it up with Johnston—very cautiously. After I go back to my room, I lie awake until well after midnight before I come up with an approach I hope will work.
    __________
     
    I ARRIVE IN our prep room early the next morning and place the newspaper on the counter along the back wall.
    Twice I go back and adjust its position. I’m not satisfied that it doesn’t look planted but I finally force myself to leave it alone.
    At my closet, I begin changing into the era-appropriate clothing that’s been left for me. I’m buttoning up my shirt when Johnston enters.
    “Morning,” I say.
    When he glances over and grunts, I think he knows I’m up to something. I turn away so he can’t see my face and I take a deep, silent breath. I listen as my supervisor dons his wardrobe, and when I hear him start tying his shoes, I wander toward the back of the room.
    “What’s this?” I say. God, could that have sounded more fake?
    I pick up the paper and pretend to read. I’m not so stupid as to have left the article about Walker front and center, so I scan the front page and then open it to take a look inside.
    “Where did you get that?” Johnston asks, his tone accusatory.
    I glance over and see him walking angrily toward me.
    “It was, uh, sitting here.” I point at the counter.
    The thumb of my other hand rests right below the headline proclaiming Harlan Walker’s death. As I start to look down so that I can “notice” the article, Johnston snatches the paper out of my hands.
    “This shouldn’t be here,” he says and crumbles it up.
    “It’s just a newspaper.”
    Using the paper to emphasize his words, he says, “Our concern is the then, not the now. The only thing about 2015 that’s important is that it’s where you learn your next assignment. Got it?”
    “Of course,” I say, trying hard not to glance at the paper.
    I’m hoping he’ll toss it on the floor, and I can lag behind, hide it somewhere, and retrieve it later, but it’s still in his hand as we walk out. As we pass one of the institute’s security men, Johnston shoves the paper into the guy’s hand and says, “Dispose of this.”
    The pit of my stomach plummets toward the center of the earth. That did not go anywhere near how I was hoping it would. Not only is the article gone, but I can’t bring up the subject of Walker now without risking Johnston finding out I brought the paper into the prep room in the first place.
    I tell myself I need to forget the whole thing, but throughout our assignment I keep thinking about Walker and the money the institute is receiving.
    When we return the next evening, it’s bothering me so much that I go in search of Marie. Though I haven’t seen her since graduation, I know she’ll at least listen to my questions. But she’s not around. Over the next several days I continue trying to see her, but either my timing’s bad or she’s avoiding me because I’m always told she’s busy elsewhere.
    I decide that if I can’t find her, maybe I can at least find another newspaper. Everywhere I go in the institute, I keep my eye out, but I never see one. This is when it dawns on me that, with the exception of the paper I found in the library, the last one I saw was back in New Cardiff.
    Several weeks after my failed attempt to talk to Johnston, we return early from an assignment and I find myself with my first