In Times Like These Read Online Free PDF Page A

wallet in my car.
    “I have my wallet,” Francesca replies, pulling a small fabric bag from her pocket. “Did they have debit cards in 1985? I don’t have that much cash.”
    “A card wouldn’t work even if they did,” I reply. “We wouldn’t have any bank accounts yet. I think I have a few dollars in my pocket.” I pull out the inner pocket of my athletic shorts and look inside.
    We walk south along Ninth S treet, relieved to have a destination, if only briefly. The telephone poles are decorated with holiday banners and the storefronts have occasional Christmas trees in their windows. Carson and Robbie lead the way while Francesca and I hang back to walk with Blake, who is merely trudging along behind. He has the ring box in his hand and is running his thumb across the top of it.
    F rancesca suddenly stops. “Guys . . . what if we’re dead?” We stop to listen to her. “The last thing I remember before this was that power line. What if that power line killed us?” Her face has gone pale.
    “And for an afterlife we got sent to the eighties?” Carson smiles. “Does that make this heaven or hell? Ha!” He turns and keeps walking. “Good one, Francesca.”
    Francesca narrows her eyes. “Yeah, you’re right, Carson. I forgot. This couldn’t be heaven, because you’re here.”
    I smile . I have no idea what’s happened to us, but at least the company is entertaining.
    We make it to the outdoor ice cream stand in a few minutes and it looks essentially the same as it always ha s, but I notice there are no kids with cell phones. Francesca pulls out her money and counts it. “I’ve got thirty dollars. What are we getting?”
    I hand her the wad of ones from my pocket as well.
    “Some burgers?” Carson suggests, as he looks at the menu.
    “Wow, check out the prices!” I run my eyes down the menu board. “At least we get more for our money in the eighties.”
    The price for burgers for all five of us comes to nine dollars , and Francesca hands the teenage cashier a ten-dollar bill. The girl takes it and stands there awkwardly for a moment. “Um, is this real?” she inquires.
    “What?” Francesca asks, caught off guard.
    “I haven’t seen money like this before,” the cashier replies. “I think I have to ask my manger about this.”
    Francesca looks at the bill with its peachy coloring and sees the oversized picture of Alexander Hamilton. “Ah, yeah, those are the new ones,” she stammers back. “You know what, I need change anyway. Why don’t you take it out of this one instead.” She hands her twenty to the girl and retrieves the ten-dollar bill. The girl slides the older style twenty into the cash register and hands Francesca her change. Francesca smiles reassuringly, looks at me with wide eyes and turn s back to the other guys who are congregated around a picnic table on the side of the stand.
    “Well that almost didn’t work,” she says, as she walks up to them. She flashes the new style ten-dollar bill. “How are we going to spend this one?”
    “I forgot about that,” Carson responds. “How old was your other money?”
    “I think it was like 2003 or something,” Francesca replies. “But luckily she didn’t look at the date.”
    “Yeah, last thing we need is to get arrested for counterfeiting while we’re here,” Robbie says.
    The burgers come out and we sit at the picnic table eating them and sharing a couple of root beers. Francesca checks her phone, which is still searching for a signal. “I guess we don’t have to call the cops about our cars. We wouldn’t really have much to tell them. ‘Hello officer, we left our cars parked in 2009. Can you help us?’”
    I laugh. It feels good to laugh, despite our obvious predicament. I notice Blake doesn’t smile.
    “What’re we going to do for a place to stay tonight?” Francesca asks. “I think it’s getting colder.” She shivers a little in the cool breeze that’s wafting through the parking lot. The sun has