5

I took the Globe, which sold for eight cents, and walked toward a marble-topped soda fountain that did not exist in my time. Standing behind it was Frank Anicetti. It was him all right, right down to the distinguished wings of gray above his ears. Only this version — call him Frank 1.0—was thin instead of plump, and wearing rimless bifocals. He was also taller. Feeling like a stranger in my own body, I slid onto one of the stools.

He nodded at the paper. “That going to do you, or can I get you something from the fountain?”

“Anything cold that’s not Moxie,” I heard myself say.

Frank 1.0 smiled at that. “Don’t carry it, son. How about a root beer instead?”

“Sounds good.” And it did. My throat was dry and my head was hot. I felt like I was running a fever.

“Five or ten?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Five-or ten-cent beer?” He said it the Maine way: beeyah.

“Oh. Ten, I guess.”

“Well, I guess you guess right.” He opened an ice cream freezer and removed a frosty mug roughly the size of a lemonade pitcher. He filled it from a tap and I could smell the root beer, rich and strong. He scraped the foam off the top with the handle of a wooden spoon, then filled it all the way to the top and set it down on the counter. “There you go. That and the paper’s eighteen cents. Plus a penny for the governor.”

I handed over one of Al’s vintage dollars, and Frank 1.0 made change.

I sipped through the foam on top, and was amazed. It was. . full. Tasty all the way through. I don’t know how to express it any better than that. This fifty-years-gone world smelled worse than I ever would have expected, but it tasted a whole hell of a lot better.

“This is wonderful,” I said.