GROUNDHOG DAY mixed with SIXTEEN CANDLES and a splash of DOCTOR WHO. A boy forever reincarnated as himself meets his soulmate for the 200th time, but can she solve the puzzle and break the curse to make herself his last?
*****
Martha Beckett's life...
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January 27, 1995
"For those of you sitting like a cat on hot bricks, go ahead and breathe," Mr. Conners said with as stern an expression as he could form. "I'm not turning you in. Though I am exceedingly disappointed in you." As part of a homework assignment, the students of his chemistry class were to spell out their names with symbols from the periodic table of elements. It was an academically straightforward and trivial exercise, but a consistently effective trap for cheating students. And sure enough, two thirds of the class handed in Sulfur, Uranium, Nitrogen, Gallium damning not only themselves, but the unfortunate boy coerced into the scam as the source. Mr. Conners finished the sermon, "That includes you, Sung."
Sung Kim sat at a table diagonal to Martha and James. The Korean American boy with the broken accent and not a friend in school as far as Martha could tell hung his head as his face burned crimson.
Martha and James were part of the honorable third because the assignment took thirty seconds to complete and for another, obvious reason. The bell rang and the clash of bags, paper, pencils, and books thundered. The class hastened to leave save for Sung, who remained in penitent inertia. Martha in hand, James stopped at his table. James kept his eyes down and said, "Kim Sung, neoui salm-eun joh-ajilgeoya." Sung's eyes darted up to James then back to his table. Martha and James continued up the aisle and out the door.
Students fed into the halls and flowed left and right, running to friends, stopping at their lockers, or flailing like idiots in celebration of the end of another week of school. "Sung's a good kid – very bright," James said to Martha. Every few steps, someone called out for Jimmy Quinn's attention, a ritual she had come to expect. "Electrical Engineering from UIUC, six figures, nice place on the north side, beautiful wife, beautiful kid."
"What did you say to him?"
"'Your life will improve.' I think. I'm not sure. My Korean's not the strongest."
"Get it together, Jimmy Quinn."
"You're so mean to me, Martha Beckett." His voice trembled with anguish. She laughed.
They turned onto her locker's hallway. It was still basketball season, but this week's game was on Saturday. Nevertheless, James had practice so their time together was closing. They reached her locker. He started spinning the combination lock's dial and said, "So how would you like to go to a party tonight?"
The question surprised Martha. Outside of football or basketball games, she and James had not been to a social event together. "A party?"
He lifted the locker handle and opened the door. "Yeah, Scott DiMonte's parents are out of town and he's having people over. Nothing too crazy – twenty or thirty people."
Martha had been to one high school party in California. She went with a friend and they stood in the corner, awkward and anxious. She found the courage to drink one can of disgusting light beer which gave her a decent buzz. It wasn't an experience she wished to repeat. She didn't have anything against underage drinking from a moral perspective, but years of afterschool specials and very special episodes had indoctrinated in her a fear of drugs, alcohol, or anything else that might occur at sinister high school parties. "I don't... really..."
