Opposites Attract

A short story about love

“Are you sure, Stephanie? Because you’ve got to be one hundred percent sure.” Lilly wiped her eyes with a napkin. “There’s no coming home. This is a one-way ticket, and we’ll never see each other again. I want you to be happy, but I don’t know if I can live without you.”

The glow from the backlit bottles behind the bar at McCullough’s pub reflected off Lilly’s teary eyes. The hubbub of a hundred patrons did not mask her sobs.

Stephanie Mintz placed her hand on top of her sister’s. “I am going to be happy. He’s handsome, rugged, smart, independent, kind, generous, caring, and thoughtful.”

“Yeah, but can he please a lady?” Lilly laughed and cried at the same time.

Stephanie took a long drink of her Smithwick’s. “That’s the one bit of information The Dating Service couldn’t find out, but I’ll teach him what he doesn’t know. It’ll be fun.” She winked.

“How are you going to survive? I mean, I know you’ll survive, but you’re used to luxury, sis: flush toilets, Uber Eats, business class airline seats, smartphones, Bulgari Opera Prima perfume. I don’t even think you could live in nineteen-ninety before cell phones, so how will you manage in eighteen-eighteen? Of all the people in the world, you are the least suited to living in the distant past. Then there are the toilets, oh my God, the toilets.”

“Two-hundred-and-six years is hardly the distant past. Some Dating Service customers have traveled as far as ancient Greece to find their true love.”

“That’s not the point. The point is—the point is—I’m going to miss you forever, and I don’t want you to leave.” Her words broke like a window shattering, and her chest heaved. 

“Mark, Eli, Harrison, Ali, Yael—you’ve met them all—”

“I always thought you and Eli were a great match.”

Stephanie swirled her beer glass and stared into the spinning amber liquid for a few seconds as that sight and the sounds of a hundred clinking glasses momentarily replaced her memory with empty space. 

“Yeah, well, so did I until he cheated on me. I’m tired of guys in our century, and after dating enough of them, I’m sure I’ll never find the one in twenty-twenty-four. I want to be half of a loving couple more than anything. Out of billions of people throughout time, The Dating Service found me Mr. Right in eighteen-eighteen, and they peg our compatibility at ninety-nine point eight percent, which is as good as it gets. He’s a real cowboy, Lil. He’s got a horse, a farm, and virtually unlimited land where he lives in Oregon, or what will become the State of Oregon in eighteen-fifty-nine. 

“Westward expansion hasn’t yet reached Oregon, so I’ll beat the rush, and over the next few years, we’ll live on an unbelievable amount of land. It’s an adventure, and God knows I need adventure after working twelve years as an actuary. I need it badly. There’s nobody like Henry Brown in our time. I know enough about myself to realize that only through a total change will I find happiness. Not just a little like moving to California or Ireland, but a move to a time and place that’s as alien as living on Mars would be. Life in twenty-twenty-four is a kaizen sushi conveyor with the same fish going round and round, becoming staler and staler with each rotation.”

“When you put it that way—”

Stephanie tapped her phone and passed it to Lilly. “What do you think?”

“Wow.” Her eyes fixed on the photograph of a tall cowboy with broad shoulders, a trimmed brown beard and mustache, thick hair, piercing blue eyes, and wide smile. “He looks like Chris Hemsworth’s great-great-great-great grandfather. Where do I sign up for The Dating Service?”

“You’re not sad anymore?”

“I’m sad, but seeing a photo of the man you’re going to spend the rest of your life with helps me understand—he’s real and will be your partner. But I have to ask, sis, how do you know he’ll love you, let alone like you? I get that The Dating Service checked him out, but he never got the opportunity to swipe right. What if he swipes left when he meets you? Then you’re stuck in eighteen-eighteen with nobody. It’s a big risk.”

“It’s a risk, but not a big one. He knows about me. He’s been told he’s being set up with a nurse from Rhode Island, so the stage is in place for our long-term relationship.”

“I guess he has no idea how gorgeous my sister is because he’s never seen your picture since photography doesn’t exist yet? You’ll make beautiful children, and I’ll probably be one of their descendants, which is a weird thought, but this whole time-travel dating service is weird.”

“The Dating Service says the future can’t be changed.”

“I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around time travel, so I’m going to shrug and say, ‘Maybe yes, maybe no.’” Lilly raised her empty beer glass toward the waiter to signal for another drink. She then nodded to Stephanie, who nodded back, and Lilly held up two fingers. “What about medicine, health? What about bandits? Those are just two dangers out of probably a hundred I can’t even think of.”

“There are dangers. It’s riskier than living in twenty-twenty-four, but if you survived childhood, you could live a fulfilling life. I attended a five-week course on medicine and first aid geared toward the technology and herbs available at the time, half of the ten-week orientation class. Hence my nurse’s disguise—I likely know more than any medical professional of the era.”

“Will you tell him you’re from the future?”

“No, I can’t. Not ever, no matter what. That’s the most important rule.”

“It does sound exciting, I’ll say that. And you’ll be happy?”

“I’m already happy thinking about my life with Henry. When we’re together in eighteen-eighteen, I’ll be even happier.”

The Next Day

The Dating Service warned Stephanie that traveling back two centuries would be painful, though not as agonizing as journeying to the Middle Ages or a more distant time because the further back, the greater the discomfort. Her skin felt on fire, and she screamed, but the pain was worth it when she saw Henry after arriving in Fort Astoria, a fur-trading town bordered by the Columbia, Lewis and Clark, and Youngs Rivers.

The Dating Service deposited her in a peppermint grove behind Fort Astoria’s General Store. They had explained that this small town offered two landing sites, the store and saloon, but the saloon wasn’t viable because in the eighteen hundreds, proper women did not visit saloons. 

Stephanie entered the store and told the owner, a tall, sturdy-looking woman in her mid-fifties with long blonde and silver hair that made Stephanie think of Christmas tinsel, that she was waiting for Henry Brown. “Oh, Henry! You’re a friend?”

“I am.” Those two words exploded from Stephanie’s lungs. 

“He’s usually in before noon. I’ll grab ya a stool so you can sit while you wait.”

The store was a cacophony of aromas—beef, pork, oranges, lavender, pepper, and sharp cheese, and a menagerie of sounds—pigs, cows, chickens, and dogs from outside and in. Her senses whirled, an extraordinary sensation of experiencing the world for the first time, almost like being born. 

“No thanks. If it’s okay, I’ll stand.” She couldn’t sit and could barely wait. Stephanie glanced at her wrist, but she left her watch in twenty-twenty-four, so she’d have to take it on faith that noon—and her love—were almost here. 

Henry hitched his horse to one of the three brass-knobbed posts outside the store. He paused momentarily at the transom, locked eyes with Stephanie, held his hand over his heart, took three steps, wrapped his arms around her, spun her in the air like they had been square dance partners for years, and then gently lowered her to the ground and kissed her. 

Stephanie instantly knew she’d made the right decision. 

One Year Later

Stephanie rolled over in bed as the sun’s first rays expelled the night. She felt a twinge of disappointment when she found Henry’s side of the bed empty, but that disappointment lasted only until cinnamon and cocoa aromas wafted into their loft bedroom. 

He’s making coffee. Mmm. 

Stephanie had taught Henry a better way to brew than boiling the grounds and water together, which was how he—and everyone in this century—had been making coffee, and would for another ninety years until the paper filter was invented. For the moment, they were the only Americans who made drip coffee. 

She counted to five and, on schedule, heard the first pancake batter sizzle on the griddle. There would be blueberries and raspberries today. She had also taught Henry how to grow them, as well as grow other fruits and vegetables. While she relished the deer, boar, duck, and other meat from Henry’s hunts, she welcomed greens and fruits. 

Henry turned out to be capable of everything. Maybe that was a trait of men in this time—jacks of all trades.

The log cabin’s first floor was a single open room with a fireplace next to a two-person table, a wood stove on the room’s far side near the basin and cooking area, and on the side opposite the door and two windows, stairs to the sleeping loft. A rocking couch sat next to the stairs, and another sofa in the middle of the room faced the fireplace. Occasionally, they swapped the positions of the table and couch, depending on which furniture needed to be closer to the fire. They decorated the room simply, with a clock and knick-knacks atop the fireplace mantle and three paintings by Henry, a forested pre-Revolutionary War Manhattan, a turreted medieval castle, and a realistic moon that appeared three-dimensional. 

So far, Henry accepted and enjoyed the other technologies she introduced him to, including a composting toilet, double insulated windows, a solar sill (coffee and food tasted better with distilled water), and herbal remedies for pain and fever. With Henry’s help, she built a rudimentary refrigerator using the evaporation of water and alcohol—she had hoped that wouldn’t seem too far-fetched. After all, he knew how alcohol cooled the skin. He embraced the refrigerator. 

“What's the plan for today, honey?” Henry asked. 

“How about berry picking? I’m feeling in the mood for cloudberries and huckleberries.”

“I like that plan.” As if on cue, Henry’s belly growled.

“Bring your gun?” Stephanie had a couple of encounters with bears and mountain lions, and while she didn’t fear them, she felt safer with a weapon close by.

“We’ll make a lot of noise, which will scare any critters away, but I’ll bring my gun, just in case.” 

Make noise. 

The last time they’d made noise in the woods was when Henry suggested they make love amidst the hawks and wildflowers, which was as wonderful as she expected it would be. 

Henry took another bite of pancakes. His teeth were perfect, a rarity for the early eighteen hundreds—or even for her time. 

The Dating Service was worth the one-hundred-fifty thousand dollars I paid.

Her instructors at The Dating Service had begun each lesson with the admonition that while using some technology from the future would be okay, too much, depending on where in the past you went, might terrify your partner—or worse, brand you a witch, with horrific consequences. Love conquers all except superstition. Love is the most potent force in the universe, except for fear. Love binds us, except when the unholy tears us apart. 

Time travelers had messed up. Not often, and more in the earlier days—Stephanie respected The Dating Service’s frankness in this matter—but revealing you were from the future or surprising your lover with advanced technology was a roll of the dice, with the dice weighed against you. 

So far, Henry was okay with everything Stephanie had done. 

How far can I push it? Could we bring electricity to our cabin? 

She remembered enough science to build a generator, and their cabin abutted a fast-moving stream that could be used to propel a water wheel to make electricity. 

With electricity, their lives would be even more amazing. 

Besides lights, what else could they do with electricity? Electric heat, an actual refrigerator, fan, electric iron, kettle. She might be able to build a rudimentary hair dryer, which would be the cat’s pajamas. The electrical devices would be just for her and Henry, technology to improve their lives, but not to share and scare others with.

Electricity it is!

But do I tell Henry I want to make electricity before I show him what it does? And, if so, how would I describe it? There’s no way to talk about electricity and not make it seem like something supernatural, even to a man as intelligent and curious as Henry. Electricity, an invisible force, won't make sense without first seeing the appliances and devices it can power. Explaining an airplane would be easier because everyone’s seen birds fly.

One step at a time. First, a water wheel for milling and other low-tech projects, then, when the time is right, I can introduce the idea of electricity. Or maybe accidentally create electricity with the wheel.

“Let’s build a water wheel, babe.” 

“What would we do with a water wheel? What’s it for?” Henry cocked his head. 

“Well, a water wheel is like a wagon axle, only bigger, with paddles like duck feet affixed at multiple intervals in the—”

“I know what a water wheel is. What I want to know is why.” 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

He leaned over the table to kiss her. “I know. You always have great ideas and have made our house and my life miraculous. You’re so smart that sometimes I think you were born a hundred years from now.”

Uh oh. 

“But that’s a silly thought, isn’t it?”

“Of course. So the water wheel: We can mill flour and, if we’re adventurous, even convert wood pulp into paper.”

“Paper, hmm.”

“Yes, we could sell the paper at the General Store, or you can use it for your diary.”

“Sounds like a good idea. Paper, let’s do that. Let’s build a water wheel.” He narrowed his eyes. “And that’s all?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is that all the water wheel is good for? Why not use it for generating electricity? It would be a shame to waste all that energy.”

Stephanie’s face paled, and her skin chilled. She was sure Henry saw the goosebumps sprout all over her arms. “Elec—”

“You’re not from around here, are you, babe? I’ve wondered about that ever since we met because your perfume smelled far more subtle and refined than any I smelled before, and also because of your eyes.” Henry’s smile enchanted her, no matter what his words. 

“My eyes?”

“Yes, I see the refraction. It looks like you’d had myopia corrected, a technology that people in this century can’t imagine.”

“You can see that?” Stephanie stuttered.

“My kind has superior vision.”

“I am—”

“From the future?” 

“How did you—?”

“When you asked about my six toes, I’m sorry I lied and said I didn’t know. The truth is my species all have six toes on each foot. Other than the toes, our exterior is identical to Earthlings.”

“You’re an—”

“I’m an alien, and you’re a time traveler. We make a great pair, don’t we?”

Mouth agape, Stephanie nodded. “We do,” she squeaked. “But what now?”

“Want to take a ride in a spaceship?”

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If you enjoyed Opposites Attract, I think you’ll like my short story, Love Letters, which is one of my favorites.