He shoved the phone at me. “There. That’s the app.”
I struggled to get my own gloves off. I would delete the sucker. Right fucking now.
Aran gripped my wrist. “Don’t, Jesse.”
“You’re following me! I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?” His tone was calm. “Don’t you get it? For over a year, since Armistice Day, you’ve been watched and monitored and guarded…and not just by me. You’re part of the life, now. Things happen to those of us caught in it. So we watch out for each other.”
My finger shook too much to let me swipe the delete setting properly. I shoved my phone in my pocket. I would do it later. “I can look after myself!”
“Says the woman who has been walking around Portland in a blizzard for four hours,” Aran replied. His tone was calm, which made me madder still. Even now, looking back on that moment, I get wriggly and squirmy about how unreasonable I was.
“You’re just a fucking kid! I’m the Marine! I’m ten years older than you! You don’t even know how to load a handgun! It’s insulting!”
Aran’s jaw flexed again. His eyes grew flinty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them change color the way they seemed to, then. The black was almost translucent. Hard as diamonds. “I don’t need to know guns,” he said softly. “They get the wrong people killed.”
“The wrong people?” It was like the air had been vacuumed out of my lungs. My throat ached. I had no strength in my voice.
So I fell back to natural instincts. My natural instincts, that is. I grew up being told to think before I act but went through most of my childhood being busted for acting first, and maybe thinking. Usually later, long after the action and the inevitable reactions were over.
I socked Casey Haigh in the jaw in eighth grade, when he sawed off the end of my braid with his new pocket knife. It earned me my first suspension, although the warning signs that I was heading for it had been rumbling for a while.
In junior high, there was the boy—damn, what was his name?—actually, I think it was Dan. Anyway, he wasn’t willing to hear my “no”, in the broom closet at the school dance. His parents billed my parents for the dry-cleaning, because Dan woofed all over his shoes and shirt when I kneed him in the crotch.
There were various other moments when my tendency to act first got me in a whale of trouble. The Marine Corps, with its history of discipline, seemed like a good option, when the recruiters came to the high school in my sophomore year. The recruiter told me they could fix my sloppy impulse control.
And they did. It took ten years, and some tough-as-leather sergeants, but I finally learned how to slow down, take a breath and think. That’s when the promotions started happening.
Only now I was faced with a kid who thought he was smarter than me. I didn’t give a damn how pretty he looked…no one got away with protecting me without my permission.
I reached for the little Beretta 3032 Tomcat I kept in the side pocket of my backpack. Another advantage of getting to jump anywhere on the planet was that I didn’t have to pass through scanners and metal detectors to do it. The automatic hadn’t shifted from the pocket since I had slid it in there. I hadn’t forgotten it was there, though.
I didn’t even get the gun up to shoulder level. Aran snatched it from me.
Impossible. My brain froze. No one was that fast.
Aran pointed the gun at me and my heart stopped. I’ve faced guns before, but never without an M16 against my hip. It made me feel extraordinarily vulnerable. I didn’t like the sensation very much.
“See?” Aran said. He still spoke as if he was discussing his lecture schedule. “That’s how the wrong people get killed.”
Then he pulled the gun apart.
Had he seen a Tomcat before? I don’t know. I have never asked him. We’ve never spoken about it since. While my jaw waved around, unhinged, Aran disassembled the gun in quick, sure movements. Then he completed the mind-fuck by throwing the pieces into the river.
I could have happily murdered him with my teeth. Never mind that the river was at least sixty yards away, and he casually threw the pieces like he was tossing a baseball in the park on a sunny Sunday. They soared in a high arc, moving fast, and plopped into the river. I couldn’t hear the splash because it was too far away and the snow was hissing down again.
Then, while I was still speechless because my brain had short circuited, Aran turned, scooped me up in his arms and jumped.
And all I could think of was that he was toasty warm and I felt like a popsicle.
The bright sun dazzled me. I could smell wisteria, faded and old, and there was stone under my feet.
A sliding door pushed aside. “Aran, what happened?”
“Possible frostbite,” Aran said, as he turned me around like a doll.
Alex stood in the doorway, in shirt sleeves, which he hastily rolled down and rebuttoned. His gaze flickered over me. “Bring her to the surgery,” he said.
“I can walk!” I protested. Only, the cold was finally getting to me. I was shuddering. I made myself walk over to the door and step inside. This was the house in Spain where Alex, Sydney and Rafe lived. I had never been to Spain, but I’ve been to Morocco and the old colonial branding there was the same feeling as here. With Alex stepping out of the door, it was a lock this was their house in Granada.
It was three rooms and fifty yards to Alex’s surgery. I made it there by myself. Aran’s hand under my elbow doesn’t count.
I stayed at the big house in Granada until the next house-sitting job came up. It wasn’t my idea, only I couldn’t get my shit together enough to argue. I slept a lot and ate a lot and thought a lot. Talking to anyone seemed like too much effort.
“Mild malnutrition and exhaustion,” Alex told me. “They pull the pith out of anyone, Jesse. The Navy used to feed you and balance your work-life for you. Now you have to do it yourself.”
It was mortifying that Alex had seen me in that state. Such a stupid thing—I was a consenting, legal adult and I couldn’t figure out how to feed myself properly? I couldn’t figure out a decent sleep schedule?
I couldn’t stand the thought that Aran knew. I stayed away from Sydney and Rafe. I didn’t go out of my borrowed room. I wouldn’t let anyone but Alex in, and I only tolerated him, because he was the doctor.
Rafael knocked on the door a few days before my next house-sitting assignment. “I’m stepping through the door in thirty seconds, Jesse, whether you want me to or not,” he said through the door.
I sat up. Only now, after two weeks, did I remember that Rafael was the life coach for the extended family. He helped people “transition”. That covered a lot of ground and now I realized it also covered my situation.
I was about to be coached.
My cheeks were already burning when Rafe stepped through and shut the door. He leaned against it, his arms crossed and considered me. “Feeling stupid?” he asked.
Some life coach. I plucked at a button on the quilt.
“Good,” Rafe said.
I scowled.
He sat on the other end of the bed. “I think you’ve realized now that discipline is a matter of balance. You’ve got discipline by the bucket load, but you’ve been using it the wrong way. You can’t just floor the gas pedal. It’s not a long-term solution.”
“I didn’t have to think long-term, in the Marines,” I pointed out. I didn’t like the defensive note in my voice. “Everything was in and out. Move it, soldier.”
“And now you do have to pace yourself. You’re smart, Jesse. I don’t have to tell you to eat properly and get some sleep. You know all that stuff, or you know how to research it for yourself. Promise me you’ll do it.”
“I already promised Alex,” I said stiffly. That was true. He had been more forceful about the need for nutrients and the nasty side effects of long-term malnutrition, which included mental decline. That revelation sealed the deal.
“Good enough,” Rafe said. “Then let’s shove the humiliating stuff ou
t the window and talk about something else.”
I managed to look him in the eye for nearly a full heartbeat. “Talk about what?”
“About us. About travelers,” Rafael said shortly. He had no trouble looking me in the eye. The expression in his was kind enough. He wasn’t laughing at me, or impatient. Or pissed. “You’re part of this world, Jesse. You never had a choice in the matter. Time itself wrapped you into our world, over a hundred years ago, when your great grandfather was tapped on the shoulder by the Weimar and told to put on a uniform or else. You just didn’t know until a year ago.” He paused. “There is no getting away from it.”
My gut clenched. “Aran told you what I said.”
“Because he was concerned,” Rafael replied. “All of us would react the same way. Aran grew up surrounded by this world. He learned at a young age how dangerous the life can be, and the only way we survive is if we lean on each other.”
He sounded like a lecturer on the benefits of fraternity and trusting your fellow Marines.
“I’m not a traveler,” I pointed out.
“Neither am I,” Rafael replied. “Yet we still get caught up in time complications and need help to escape.” He paused. “Aran says you want to delete the tracking app on your cellphone.” Another pause. “You know we can track you without it, don’t you?”
I’d heard enough idle chatter by then to be able to answer that one. “Across the timescape?”
Rafael nodded. “Those of us able to bridge the timescape will always be able to find you on it. If you leave the app on your phone, then we don’t have to take that extraordinary step to keep you safe.”
“And if I keep it on my phone, it means I’m volunteering to be tracked, right?”
Rafael tilted his head from one side to the other. “That’s one way to consider it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to be part of this world. I wasn’t asked!”
Rafe tried to hide his smile. “None of us did, Jesse. Yet here we are. For some reason—and none of us knows enough about how time works to guess why—but for some reason, your life and your actions have a profound effect on history and the future…on time itself. There have been key people like you throughout history, although usually their impact on history is recorded and clear. Grand Duke Ferdinand of Austria was one. In every alternative world we’ve ever mapped, his assassination starts a global war. You stopped a global war, instead of starting one. Because something didn’t happen as a result of your actions, no one will ever notice. So in one respect, you are lucky. You get to move through life unnoticed by history.”
I shuddered. “I don’t like the limelight.” Every time anyone ever paid me attention as a kid, punishment usually followed. As an adult, attention meant I’d been noticed—not a good thing for a soldier trying to blend into the countryside.
“Don’t delete the app, Jesse.”
I sighed. “I’m a former US Marine. You know how it feels to be coddled?”
Rafael actually laughed. “That’s the last thing anyone would dare do to you.” He shook his head. “Keep the app, because one day you will need to cry out for help. Trouble comes with the territory. Keep the app, and promise me that when the day comes, you will turn to us for help. Until then, you can be as independent as you want to be.”
I considered it. “So, the app is a backup weapon?”
He shook his head. “It’s peace of mind.”
And it hadn’t cost me a three hundred dollar tip. “Tell Aran he owes me a handgun. Pocket sized.”
“Tell him yourself. Or learn to live without the gun. Having it makes you weak.”
My face must have given away the horror I felt at that idea.
“Aran took it from you and threw it in the river. How did that make you feel?” Rafael asked.
“Pissed. That was a five hundred dollar gun.”
He looked at me with a knowing expression.
I studied the buttons on the quilt once more. “I didn’t like it,” I admitted.
Rafael sighed. “You’ve been too long in the military. It made you afraid, didn’t it—to be confronted by someone with a gun and not have one yourself?”
“You’re a really bad life coach. I’m not feeling motivated at all.”
“I’m not here to motivate you. I’m here to make sure you stay alive.”
I don’t remember looking up, but I found myself caught in his steady gaze.
“Keep the app, Jesse,” he repeated.
I kept the app.
Sydney jumped me to Toronto, my next job. It was a good city to spend the rest of February and most of March in, because it’s set up for cold weather. I spent the first day in the penthouse apartment I was sitting figuring out basic, dumb shit like how many calories I needed in an average day, and how much food and what kinds would give me sufficient energy. It was the first time in my life I’d ever had to figure out what was protein and what were carbs, and how much fat I got. I’d simply never had to worry about it before.
I walked each afternoon—through the tunnels and walkways which riddled the downtown core and allowed shoppers to move from city block to mall to shopping areas without going outside. And I stopped writing each night at six and made myself eat dinner.
I went to bed at ten, after reading for a while.
It felt artificial and awkward…until it didn’t. A couple of weeks after I started the routine, I realized I had moved through the day, doing all the things I “should”, all while focusing on the novel. It was like my days had been on base—the routine had been mindless and almost invisible, while I focused on strategies, tactics, weapons and fitness.
My next job was New York city. I was looking forward to that…only I had to get through the process of getting there. I had my military passport, so I could take a commercial flight, only they might ask me how and when I entered Canada, which would be awkward.
And was I such a coward I couldn’t look Aran in the eye when he arrived to take me on to the next assignment? I would risk being arrested as an illegal alien, just to avoid him?
That put it into perspective. So I texted him the address and tried to settle into reading until he got here. He couldn’t jump directly to the apartment because he had never been here before. There was likely some spot in the city he did know, and he could find the apartment from there. He was well traveled—much more than me.
I jumped when the door alarm buzzed. Shelley, the apartment owner, fresh back from filming a movie in British Columbia, answered the door. “Oh, you must be Jesse’s friend. She said she was being picked up. Come in!”
Aran murmured something polite in his low voice and Shelley giggled.
Giggled. This was a movie director with multiple awards and a string of movies and TV shows to her credit.
Shelley offered coffee, then dinner, then urged us to stay the night. I politely refused. Aran smoothed it over, and got her back to giggling again. We left, with Shelley’s assurances that she would tell everyone she knew about my service and that she would definitely have me back next time.
We stepped into the elevator and the doors shut.
Aran looked at me. “Where to, now?”
“You want to jump from in here? A moving car?”
He rolled his eyes. “You shoot from the hip, sometimes, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but I’ve been doing it for a long—” I pressed my lips together and held the rest in. “Okay,” I said, instead and moved over to him. “Manhattan.”
“Mid-town, downtown, where?”
“SoHo.”
“Of course. Only the best.” He flexed his knees and the world shifted and shimmered.
We arrived in a narrow alley just off Mercer Street and Aran insisted on walking with me to my new assignment. He was polite the entire time.
I was just as polite and couldn’t wait for him to be gone. Only, when he was, I felt even worse.
I love New York. New York in early spring is a great place. Late spring is even better, but I
wasn’t here for that long, alas. I soaked the place up, walked everywhere, and absorbed the energy.
I was feeling more like my old self. A few weeks of exercise and food and decent sleep made a huge difference. I felt like a fool all over again when I realized (in hindsight, of course) how ignorant and stupid I had been. Even more surprising was how many more pages I got written than I thought was possible with my shortened schedule.
Maybe that’s why I let down my guard.
Everyone knows New York is a high crime city—even after the big clean up in the eighties. Any big city is. Toronto has a higher murder rate than New York, but in New York, there are a shit ton of petty crimes most people don’t even bother reporting. Petty, and not so petty. Purse snatches, all the way up to gang rape and violent robbery.
The five of them came up behind me one evening, just after the sun had gone down, which made it slightly after seven. Just as I realized they had surrounded me, they shepherded me into an alley.
I recognized the alley. It was the one Aran used as an arrival chamber.
The herding turned into pushing. Tugging at my coat.
“Where’s your purse, bitch?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Wallet. Give us your money. Don’t make me say it again.” The heavy-set asshole in front of me might have been black. Or Hispanic. Or even Jewish. He wasn’t white—that was all I could say for sure.
“Okay. Okay.” I reached into my coat, which prompted a metallic ratcheting sound that made my blood go cold, for I knew what it was. The man to my right, at the corner of my vision, had just cocked a semi-automatic.
“Relax. I’m just getting my wallet out.”
“Drop your hand! Drop it!”
I lowered my hand.
Asshole in front of me pushed his hand roughly inside my coat. His fingers slid over my breast and I shuddered. As his fingers closed over my wallet, I grabbed his wrist and yanked him forward and head butted him.
He staggered and went down, and I turned to take the automatic out of action.
Too slow. Way too slow. I had forgotten a dozen factors which were no longer a given, which I had learned so thoroughly I no longer gave them thought. I didn’t have a weapon of my own. Not even a knife. I didn’t have team mates standing beside me, sniper cover from a nearby nest or backup within radio distance. I had calculated the odds of coming out of this as good based on those criteria…which weren’t there.
More Time Kissed Moments Page 13
