Spring Forward, Fall Back

One of Jocelyn’s problems was that she tended to ignore the time altogether; she blotted it completely out of her mind. She wasn’t late deliberately, like some people, just to get attention, or to make everyone wait for her, or because she needed to be late to have enough adrenaline even to show up; it was more that she forgot about it altogether. She was just as likely to be early as to be late, but she was mostly likely to not even be thinking about it at all. She’d try to aim for the appointed time, and then she’d simply forget about it, in the process of arriving where she was supposed to be.

This was especially painful when her date, Devin, got angry at her for being at least twenty five minutes late at Starbucks; they were going to a musical that night, and he’d had maybe two or three coffees already, waiting for her. He assumed she did it deliberately, he said, since twenty minutes was about the line where a person doesn’t even have to keep waiting anymore. You couldn’t call or text? You didn’t know you were late? When you’re stood up fifteen, he said, you still wait a few more, but you’re already mad. When you’re stood up twenty, then you’re steaming mad and you might as well leave.

Well go ahead and leave, she finally suggested, flustered; she was embarassed at ber own irresponsibility, and admitted to him that she’d been doing this for years, couldn’t help it, and it was all her father’s fault. She was a flawed person, she realized, a good fashion designer, but a bad time manager, but she hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings or make him angry. She ordered a double latte as she told him this, because she figured if they were late for the musical, they might as well be a little more late, but somehow they should settle this before they walked in. She was genuinely apologetic. It all seemed kind of random to her. Fifteen minutes – was this some kind of cultural agreement? Was he mad because that’s what people do? She liked Devin; he was smart, good-looking, not worried about money, able to drive, not gay – all of those were good in Jocelyn’s book, judging men the way she did, being single in Manhattan. She knew him through a friend of hers, Laura, at work, and she’d said he was a nice guy. But, whatever his strengths, he couldn’t make her care about time. Time wasn’t even real. Fashion was real. Migraines were real. A double latte, that was real, or the mink on that woman’s shoulder, those were real. Time wasn’t real.

Devin, it seems, already had had at least three coffees, and he was agitated, though he tried not to show it. This fifteen-minute thing, it was what he’d learned, what he expected, it was the way he read it. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her when she said she didn’t care about time. Well, maybe he didn’t believe her. How could anyone not know they were fifteen minutes late? Or twenty or twenty five? And not text or call? In a world where everyone was pressed for time, where time was money, where making somebody wait was robbing them of precious minutes, especially here in New York, even if you didn’t care about money, it seems you’d at least notice that other people cared a lot. He, in fact, cared more than most people, and he was especially irritated that tonight was the end of Daylight Savings Time, when everyone, by misguided social agreement, set their clocks back one hour, for no good reason whatsoever, as far as he could figure. It was more than a pet peeve to him. He had researched Daylight Savings Time; he had written an article for a national magazine, and the essence of that article was that DST, as he called it, and the conversion to it, cost Americans millions a year in lost productivity. He became angry whenever he thought about it, and he was well aware that at midnight, well after the musical, wherever he ended up with Jocelyn, he’d be thinking about it. They’d get a free hour tonight, and give it back later in the spring; to him, it was an hour to complain about, even though no one was complaining in the fall, when it seemed like you could sleep in.

Jocelyn got her latte and turned to walk to the seat at the small table Devin had picked out and sat at. It was a delicate balancing act, bringing this latte to this table without spilling it, still all the while smiling at Devin and hoping his feelings weren’t too hurt, being forced to watch her with her latte, when he’d already had three coffees, and they were already late. At that moment, to Jocelyn, there was nobody else in that Starbucks, only Devin, nobody else counted, and she badly wanted Devin to forgive her and go on with the evening like it was not such a big deal to go along with your date’s random time schedule. She thought about her father, who had worked at the atomic clock in Boulder; he was a specialist in establishing the perfect conditions for that clock to be exactly precise, and when she’d asked him about it, he’d always give a scientific lecture on those conditions, what made clocks precise, and why atomic clocks were so much more precise than other clocks. It was his own special lecture, and much as she’d loved him – in most ways he was a great dad – in this respect, his scientific lecture would trigger a response in her, a response which made her deliberately ignore time, whenever she could.

Now Devin was involved in a conversation that had started well before Jocelyn arrived, with a guy named Stan – tall, thin, balding, intense, and by himself – and this conversation had to do with Fall Back and Spring Forward, the general name people used for gaining an hour in the Fall, and setting your time ahead again in the Spring. It was socially acceptable to bring it up, to complain about it, to resent changing one’s clocks, so this is what Stan had done, and when you say this to Devin, as he learned, you’re in for an earful. Devin was explaining how America lost billions because people couldn’t function as easily with an altered clock. He was the expert on how this hurt everyone, and could give you many reasons why even gaining an hour was bad. It upset people’s internal clocks. People were an hour late or early for church and other meetings, nationwide. Stan told him he could always move to Arizona, which, as a state, had rejected it, and refused to participate, but to Devin, that was ridiculous, you might as well move to Tahiti. Jocelyn, while walking and balancing her latte, watched them talk in their animated way. Just in the few minutes Jocelyn observed Stan, she observed an edge in him: he was looking for a fight. Or maybe he was looking to irritate someone. He didn’t seem like your average guy, having a coffee to unwind, or coming here for a few minutes to think.

Jocelyn settled her latte on the table and started drinking it, allowing this conversation to continue without interruption. She thought for a minute about the musical, Midnight Hour, which they were about to see, and which was being performed on this evening without any awareness, apparently, that they would be picking up that very hour, as 2:00 would simply turn into 1:00 in the middle of the night, and everyone would relive that hour. Devin was telling how in the history of DST, it was usually done at midnight, but had been changed to 2:00 for reasons of convenience. It was possible that this musical was based on an earlier show or movie by the same name; Devin wasn’t sure, but he was pretty sure it had nothing to do with Fall Back or Spring Forward; that was entirely a coincidence. To her, musicals, On-Broadway or Off-Broadway, were opportunities to watch how people were dressing: what they wore, how they wore it, how it fit on them, etc. Fashion was her world. If they were late, she would see less, as people would not be standing around; she’d have to rely on the intermission to actually watch people. This was more fun for her than the musical itself, and was what she’d looked forward to.

Eventually Devin tried to give Stan hints that their conversation was over, and that his date with Jocelyn was started. Jocelyn was almost done with their latte. The musical was about six blocks away, six blocks of busy Manhattan traffic. They could take a cab, but that was ridiculous; the weather was actually nice, and this was unusual for Manhattan, which was often pretty grim and cold in October. They agreed to walk, and set off.

The six blocks to the theater were along a busy street with signs, shops, businesses, and a large subway stop. Devin admired Jocelyn, proud to walk with her; she was quite beautiful in the night, with a light purple dress, earrings, and a hat. He was still irritated, though, about her explanation about the time. What bothered him most was the idea that it would always be like this, that every time they were to meet at seven, she’d get there at seven twenty-five, or whenever. He tried to enjoy the moment, and think of the things he admired about her. She was fashionable; she was clever. The streetlights gave her a regal bearing.

Jocelyn also enjoyed the evening, and being with Devin; he was well-dressed, handsome, smart, and sensitive to her pace. Unfortunately, it was here, in about the first block, that she first noticed a migraine headache coming on. This was almost always trouble, because there wasn’t much she could do about migraines. She blamed them on stress: stress from her job, stress from trying to look good, stress from just walking Manhattan streets, which was always somewhat of a risk. On this evening, she blamed Stan, who had intruded on her peace with his edge, and his general unhappiness with Daylight Savings Time. Here she actually agreed with him: that people’s universal acceptance of a ridiculous time custom caused all kinds of stress; but, his agitation, intruding on her latte, and on her experience with Devin, that must have triggered something.

Perhaps it was the anxiety generated by the musical itself. They arrived, got their tickets, and entered, still with barely enough time. Jocelyn glanced around and didn’t see anyone she knew. The musical was doing well; the auditorium was almost full.

The migraine really took off when the musical started. It’s not important how well it was performed, or what the plot line was, or how good the music was. It was well done; it was performed as well as could be expected; it set up an intense drama that was to unfold later in the evening. But the musical, with its actors and actresses reaching out emotionally to the audience, began to make Jocelyn feel hopelessly trapped in her seat. She still felt unresolved tension coming from Devin, even as he sat and tried to enjoy the performance. The characters, to her, all struck her as unreal, insincere, and exaggerated. Of course, that’s what actors and actresses do; they are in the business of being someone besides who they are. But on this evening, it bothered her greatly, and her migraine was escalating to the point where she could barely even listen to the words they said.

She calculated at one point that it had to be close to intermission. At intermission, she would simply have to excuse herself and go home. That was the problem with migraines – you couldn’t beat them. You could take medication, you could go home, you could withdraw from the world, but you couldn’t actually function, stay at a musical, understand and enjoy it. You just couldn’t. She’d have to make that clear to Devin.

When the intermission came, she did just that. Devin agreed to come out to the street to discuss it with her, if not call a cab. She urged him to let her go home. Much as she wanted to watch people, see what they were wearing, and analyze whether it worked or not, she couldn’t; her head was pounding. She explained to Devin how serious migraines were and how hopeless it was to try to fight them or to survive the evening. Devin, watching her, knew she was not lying. He was, above all, a gentleman, and would not only call a cab, but also pay for it. What could you do? He hadn’t decided yet whether to go back into the theater, after she was gone, and watch the rest of the performance; to him, the evening was about Jocelyn, not the musical, and he was somewhat adrift without her. He was suspended there, on the curb, in the night, his arm out in the hailing-a-cab position; she waited on the sidewalk. And just at that moment, Stan came walking up the street.

Stan stopped just long enough to find out what they were doing, and Devin, having told him, agreed to go along with Stan to another establishment, after the cab was hailed. He had nothing better to do; he’d decided that the musical was pointless without Jocelyn. He was not much invested in the musical’s idea of “The Midnight Hour.”

In the cab, Jocelyn looked through the hazy barrier between the back seat and the front, and asked the driver what he thought about Fall Back and Spring Forward. The driver had enough English to understand her, but he mumbled his reply so she really didn’t have much to go on. He apparently was going to simply work an extra hour like everyone else. Her migraine was already quite intense; she no longer cared about maintaining a conversation or watching the streets, besides making sure he was going the right route.. She was glad to notice that he knew where he was going, in taking her directly to her apartment.

At home she did what she usually did when she had a migraine: she buried herself in her bed, pillows over her, and tried to sleep. And she did, eventually, fall asleep, in spite of the migraine.

It was only later, through Laura, that she found out what had happened to Devin and Stan; they’d been beaten up in a bar. Devin was hurt a little less than Stan, but both were pretty bruised up, according to Laura. She didn’t really know the details; Stan had taken the hit, and was more seriously injured, while Devin, just standing behind him, had been knocked over and hit his head on the bar, had passed out for a while, or something like that.

Now the astute observer might ask several questions about the time; perhaps they had lost that very hour that by rights everyone else had just received. It was, apparently, around that time when bars close, and everyone gets a little edgy, that time when fights often happen. But remember, Jocelyn didn’t care, didn’t even think to ask about it. It was not even really part of her awareness. So for that reason, we’ll have to accept a lack of information.

She was, however, a little set back by the news. True, she had already given up on Devin. Things hadn’t worked, she had decided; if they did, it might have turned out differently. She tried to rationalize it. He was stupid to go off with Stan. You walk into a bar in Manhattan, you never know what will happen. Maybe he should have stuck with the musical, where at least the musical’s version of the Midnight Hour was inevitable, you had some idea how it would turn out, and it would be over, sometime in the elevens, spilling out onto the streets, with cabs all over the place. Instead he had gone to a bar, gotten in a fight, fallen back, lost an hour. What’s gone is gone, and you can’t relive it, you never get it back.

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