Time of Departure

by Douglas Schofield

  He flushed. He started the engine. As the police car reversed through a one-point turn, I had one last, lingering view of my childhood home. Then we drove away.

  As we rolled back through Archer, I recalled my conversation with Old Marc, when he’d promised to find the missing pages from that Ostergaard binder—the pages that should have explained the subheading: PUTNAM COUNTY REPORT—WOMAN IN RIVER.

  Pages he must have deliberately removed.

  Pages about me.

  “What will you tell him?” I asked as we pulled back onto the highway and headed east.

  “Tell who?”

  “Your boss. About me.”

  He kept his eyes on the road. “False lead. County cop got his facts wrong. I drove the lady home.”

  “And my hospital bill?”

  “We’ll work something out.”

  Yes, Claire, today is definitely when it all began. At least … for him.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I have a fishing camp on Lake Lochloosa.”

  I nodded to myself, remembering the night I’d followed Marc’s taxi to Cross Creek. “I should have guessed.”

  “It’s not a shack,” he said quickly, and a bit defensively. “It’s got power, running water … It’s a nice little place.”

  “Is that where you live?”

  “When I’m off shift. I have an apartment in town.”

  It was all coming together, whether I wanted it or not.

  Let it happen. It’s not like you have any choice.

  I settled back in my seat.

  38

  “Letting it happen” was a more dramatic transition than my reeling imagination could have conceived. On the long return journey east through Gainesville, and then south to Cross Creek, I said as little as possible. I resolved to watch, listen, and stay alert for clues remembered from the future that might serve as cues I would need here in the past.

  Here in the past?

  It was unnerving to realize how little time it had taken for me to adapt to the insane concept that I was living in 1978.

  Maybe I really was a mental case, locked away in a psychiatric ward somewhere.

  I shoved the thought aside, which only made room for another—one that had been lurking in the wings for hours: the mounting sense of inevitability with Marc. In many ways, this was hardly a surprise. I hadn’t missed his younger version’s perplexed but clearly intrigued smile; I knew already that I was destined to end up in his bed three decades from now; and I remembered how his older version had made love to me with such uncanny familiarity. I realized—with an acute spasm of remorse over my conduct when we parted—that when Marc Hastings stepped into my courtroom on that first day, he was already in love with me. He had waited for that moment for over thirty years.

  He had waited for me to grow up.

  Watched over me … and waited.

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

  I had actually allowed myself to suspect that Marc was the killer.

  I swallowed, barely controlling the wave of nausea that almost overcame me. I released my seat belt and moved close to him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just hold me. Please.”

  Without a word, he slid his arm around me. The bond between us was already there, even though he didn’t understand it.

  I laid my head against his shoulder and tried to empty my mind.

  * * *

  “Fishing camp” was not just a misnomer—it was completely misleading. A half mile south of Cross Creek, Marc turned into a narrow unmarked driveway. After a few hundred yards, the graveled surface decayed into a rutted track lined by ancient live oaks thick with Spanish moss, interspersed with sweet gum and hickory. Twisting limbs met overhead, creating a tunnel of foliage. Marc slowed the car to a crawl. A few minutes later, we debouched into a small clearing occupied by a rustic shake-roofed cottage nestled on the shore of a verdant cove.

  Marc parked next to the front steps. He led me across the veranda and unlocked the door. A tour of the interior revealed a two-bedroom, one-bathroom affair, with beamed ceilings and tongue-and-groove pinewood floors. It had a galley kitchen with a banquette, a cozy lounge area complete with a native stone fireplace, and—as Marc proudly highlighted, swinging the bathroom door wide to prove this important point—full indoor plumbing.

  When I admitted to being impressed, he reacted with almost boyish pleasure.

  Eventually, I settled into the cushions of an old rocker on the veranda while Marc drove off to grab us a takeout supper from The Yearling. It was one of the few structures I’d noticed as we passed through Cross Creek that looked pretty much the same—at least on the outside—as it would thirty years from now.

  Sitting in the rocker, gazing out over the cove and the lake beyond, I felt like I’d been catapulted back an extra forty years into a Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings novel.

  The sun was sinking when Marc reappeared with containers of pub food and a six-pack of beer. The label on the cans read BILLY.

  “‘Billy’?”

  “President Carter’s brother.” Marc paused, and then added, “He’s a bit of an embarrassment.”

  “You mean, to the president?”

  “Yeah.”

  I had a vague memory of reading somewhere that Jimmy Carter’s brother had been a problem for him, but I’d never heard of “Billy” beer. In an odd way, that was at once comforting and disturbing. If I was crazy, how could my febrile brain dream up a brand of beer that I had never known existed?

  It was evidence that I wasn’t hallucinating.

  But it was also evidence that I had, in fact, been catapulted into the past.

  My lawyer’s brain, always the heckler, butted in: How is that evidence of anything? You dreamed up this cottage, didn’t you?

  Ignoring the contentious voices in my head, I surrendered to the impossible proposition that I was breathing the air of 1978 and gratefully accepted a cold beer. There was nothing imaginary about its taste in my mouth.

  We ate at a small table on the veranda. Marc deliberately steered away from asking the many disturbing questions that must have been tumbling through his mind. No doubt he sensed my emotional fragility. How could he not, after the bizarre day he had just spent with me? Somehow he managed to confine the conversation to birds, fish, and stories about some of the unique local characters he had come across since buying the property five years earlier.

  In our quieter moments, he sat looking at me with an expression of bewitched wonder, as if I were some marvelous, unexpected present that had dropped into his life from the sky.

  In a very real sense, I was.

  After we finished eating, he told me he had to drive back to Gainesville to return the police car. “I’ve got three more shifts in this rotation, but I’ll come back every night.” He hesitated, then added, “That is, if you’re planning to stay.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Just like that? You’ll stay?”

  “Yes. You once told me I would understand. Now I do.”

  His brow knitted. From his point of view, I was talking in riddles. But it was obvious that he was afraid to delve too deeply, in case I changed my mind. So he let it go with a doubting nod. “Okay. I’ll bring some fresh groceries. Meanwhile, you won’t starve. You’ll find sandwich fixings in the fridge, and there’s lots of canned stuff in the cupboard.”

  He led me to the bathroom and found a new toothbrush that was still in its package.

  “The guest room is yours. There’s a bathrobe in the closet. What about a change of clothes?”

  “Would be nice.”

  He rooted through the drawers in his bedroom and found me a couple of shirts and some sweatpants. “Best I can do right now, sorry.”

  “No apology needed. Thank you.”

  “Okay. See you tomorrow night.” He gave me an awkward hug, and left.

  I spent a dreamless night in a deliciously comfortable bed.

  Thre
e days later, my love affair with Marc Hastings began.

  Again.

  39

  I heard Marc coming before I saw him. I was sitting on the veranda rocker, idly twirling a strand of my hair and watching a great blue heron stalking minnows in the shallows of the cove. I had showered late and slipped into one of the summer dresses Marc had bought for me. After seeing my hand-washed bra and panties dripping in the bathroom, he’d shown up the following evening with three shopping bags filled with new clothes.

  I was frankly astonished. I started checking labels. “How did you get my size?”

  “Looked for a salesgirl with your figure.” He smiled and added, “Took a while.”

  I wasn’t thrilled with some of the color choices, but everything fit perfectly.

  Even the underwear.

  Marc’s Dodge pickup rumbled into view and parked in the usual spot. The first time I saw the truck, I’d been ready to laugh. I didn’t have to. True to the understated personality I would come to know thirty years hence, Young Marc had spurned the usual Southern cracker yee-haw kit—oversized winch, vinyl seats, and obligatory gun rack. His canyon red pickup was factory standard, and surprisingly comfortable.

  He stepped out of the truck and saw me. His eyes lit up.

  He bounded up the steps and then stopped in his tracks when he noticed that I was staring at him, aghast.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What is that?” I demanded.

  “What?

  “That … thing you’re wearing!”

  He looked down at himself, puzzled. He plucked at the cloth of the dreadful shirt-jacket. “You mean this? It’s a leisure suit! I thought I’d take you out for—”

  “Wearing that?” I laughed. “Anyway, supper’s made.”

  “No kidding?”

  “I can cook! It’s not all fast food where I come from. And I mixed a couple of martinis. If you value my company,” I added with a sternness that was only partly simulated, “you’ll get out of that getup! I mean … bell-bottoms? Are you kidding me?”

  By now he was smiling. Apparently, my nagging-vixen routine amused him. “Okaaay! I’ll change!” He ducked into the cabin.

  The entire act was just a way of trying to bury my inner torment. I knew it wouldn’t work for long. Over the past three days, I’d had plenty of time alone and plenty of time to think. It hadn’t required much close analysis to calculate my extreme peril. I’d spent most of those days trying to work out an escape.

  There wasn’t one.

  I was doomed, and I knew it.

  Ten minutes later, Marc and I were sitting side by side on the veranda. He was infinitely more acceptable to my twenty-first-century eyes wearing jeans and polo shirt. We were sipping martinis from smoked-glass tumblers because, not surprisingly, it had never occurred to Marc to stock his “fishing camp” with stemware. Behind us, through the screen door, the kitchen radio was playing Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street.” I’d always liked that song, although where I came from, it was played on the oldies stations.

  Marc swirled his martini, watching the olives bounce around the bottom of the glass. I hadn’t been able to find any toothpicks.

  “Gin,” he commented.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I’m not big on vodka martinis.”

  “I don’t keep gin out here. Don’t remember buying olives, either.”

  “The olives were jammed in the back of your fridge. The sell-by date is two years old, but they’re fine.”

  “And the gin?”

  “The Yearling.”

  “You walked all that way to buy gin?”

  “I had that twenty you left me. I had a nice talk with the lady there … the bar manager.”

  “Nonie.”

  “Yeah. I like her.”

  “What did you tell her?” He sounded alarmed.

  “I didn’t mention your name. I just said I was staying at a friend’s cabin on Lochloosa.” I paused. “She offered me a job.”

  He looked unnerved.

  “It’s just three nights a week to start. Marc, I’m grateful that you’ve taken me in even though you think I’m a bit crazy, but I need to do something to contribute.”

  “Okay, but what about ID? You don’t have any.”

  “I said I’d work for tips.”

  “You told her you have no ID?”

  “No. I just said I wanted to stay off the grid.”

  “Which means?”

  “Below the radar. Invisible.”

  “Do you know how that sounds? I’m a cop, remember?”

  “Are you planning to turn me in?”

  “No. It’s not a crime to have no ID. I’m just wondering why you don’t apply for replacements.”

  “Marc, I’d need to start with a birth certificate, and I can’t get one!”

  “Because you aren’t born yet. Claire, really…” He sipped from his drink and stared out over the lake.

  Then, unaccountably, he switched subjects.

  “What do you know about Cross Creek?”

  “I’ve been here a few times.”

  The last time I was here, I was following you.

  “Have you noticed that white house with the screened porch across from where we turn in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Know who lives there?

  “Lived. Marjorie Rawlings died in 1953.”

  “Read any of her books?”

  “The Yearling. A long time ago. I think, in high school.”

  “Did you go to college?”

  “Boston U, then Harvard Law.” I gave him a laser look. He was trying to steer the conversation, and I could see where it was going, so I laid a marker down. “What’s with the twenty questions, Marc? Yes, my past is bigger than a bread box, and no, you won’t find any record of me at either of those schools.”

  He drew a long breath. “I know I won’t. That young couple in Archer … Gregory and Margaret Talbot?”

  “Yes.”

  “They have no children.”

  “Not yet.”

  “C’mon, Claire! Who are you, really? Is Claire even your name?”

  “Claire Alexandra Talbot. That’s my name, Marc. It’s not some secret identity.”

  “I’ve been doing some checking.”

  “You’re not ready for this, Marc.”

  “The labels in your clothes—the ones you were wearing when I picked you up. I made some calls. No one’s heard of those brand names.”

  “That would be right.”

  He reached into a pocket and brought out my watch. He handed it to me. “I took that to be fixed.”

  “Thanks!” I was surprised. But then I saw the watch face. The hands were frozen in the same place.

  “I took it to a guy I know. Really good … trained at a special school in Switzerland. He didn’t know how to fix it. He’d never seen one like it.”

  “Okay,” I mused, “for one thing, it isn’t a Swiss watch. It’s Japanese.” Then it dawned on me. “And it’s an Eco-Drive. It runs off solar power.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “I don’t get any of this, Claire! Should I be talking to the feds about you? I’m working with a few of them, you know!”

  “The feds? Why?”

  Abruptly, he switched to a foreign language. The intonations sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t identify the specific language until he said, “Brezhnev.”

  “‘Brezhnev’?” He flushed when I started laughing. “So now I’m … what? A Russian spy?”

  “You’re living ‘off the grid,’ as you call it. You’ve got some kind of high-tech watch. You’re too young and too smart to be a seasoned criminal, so what does that leave? You’re either working for the Russians … or you’re one of ours. Which is it? KGB or CIA?”

  “Neither. And if you really believed that, you’d never have trusted me enough to leave me alone out here. You wouldn’t have bought me new clothes.”

  “You talk li
ke a lawyer.”

  “I am a lawyer.” I changed the subject. “I didn’t know you spoke Russian.”

  “Picked up a bit in the navy.”

  “You never told me.”

  “That’s another thing! Why do you keep saying you know me?”

  “Because I do.”

  He shook his head in frustration.

  “As I said, you’re not ready for this.” I drained my drink, stood up, and set the empty glass on the porch railing. “But rest assured, Marc Hastings, I know you much better than you think.”

  He remained seated. I could see the conflict on his face. He’d been thinking and brooding while he was away from me, and his brain and his heart were pulling in different directions. At least I had the advantage of knowing which one would win in the end. I glided toward the door. “For example,” I tossed back at him, “I know you’re hiding me out here so your bosses won’t find out.”

  “There’d be a hell of a lot of questions if they did!”

  “I suppose. I also know that you paid my hospital bill.” I had seen the receipt on his dresser when I was hunting for an extra towel.

  “I had to! Otherwise, there’d have been more questions!”

  I opened the screen door and dropped the bomb I’d been planning all day. “I also know you’re aching to make love to me, but you’re too scared to try.”

  I heard him twist in his chair a second before the door banged shut behind me. “Scared?” I watched through the screen as he jumped to his feet. He crossed the veranda in three strides. “Cat! Listen to me, girl! I’m not scared!” I stepped closer to the door. He saw me.

  “‘Cat,’” I said evenly. “Only my mother calls me that.”

  “Your initials…” He tugged the screen door open. “It just came into my head.” We were inches apart. I stood perfectly still, looking into his fathomless blue eyes. He bent toward me. “You’re right,” he whispered. “You scare the hell out of me.” He tried to say something else, but his voice caught. I slid my arms around him, and suddenly he was kissing me … my lips, my cheeks, my neck.

  All my studied restraint evaporated and something deep inside me let go. Tears burned my eyes. “All those years! Oh, Marc, I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!”

  He lifted me into his arms and carried me to his bedroom. He laid me on the bed. I saw the swirling confusion on his face as he lay down beside me. I pressed my fingers to his lips.