Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330)

by Mitchell, Laura Remson

  Al smiled and reached for Vickie’s hand. Old feelings were beginning to overtake the shock of seeing her again. “I don’t need Roland’s to remind me of you or what we had together, but I guess it’s as good as anywhere else unless you want to go to my place....”

  In the dim light of the Press Club’s bar, he sensed rather than saw her face pale at his suggestion, and he felt a slight tug as she tried to pull her hand away.

  “What’s the matter, Vickie?”

  “Al,” she said slowly, “this isn’t going to be easy. I have a lot to tell you. A lot’s happened in the past 15 years, and....” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to go to your place, Al. I’m married.”

  Her words hit him like a bucket of ice water.

  “Married?”

  “Yes, Al,” she said almost apologetically. Then, with a forced smile, she urged, “Come on. Let’s go find a booth at Roland’s.”

  Al made his way to the old Valley Star hangout trying desperately not to think. He didn’t need to concentrate on the route, and he didn’t want to think about Vickie, not until she’d had her say. Still, he couldn’t banish the rekindled pain. Married! It was like being rejected all over again! He was glad they’d decided to take their own cars from the Press Club. The ride alone gave him a chance to pull himself together.

  But by the time Al reached Roland’s small parking lot, he was feeling not only hurt but also angry. The anger triggered the old fears. There is no danger! he repeated to himself as he counted the rapid beats of his pounding heart.

  Vickie’s ‘84 Cutlass rolled up next to Al’s aging blue Dodge. She looked at him through the window and smiled half heartedly, then shut off the engine. It wasn’t until she slammed her car door that Al finally forced himself to get out of his own car.

  The appetizing scent of charcoal-broiled steak filled the air as they walked slowly toward the restaurant’s well lit entrance. Neither of them spoke. A ghostly strangler had Al by the throat. He could only gesture tensely to Vickie as he pulled back one of the heavy wooden double doors.

  “Hmmmm. It’s changed,” Vickie murmured. “No more red flocked wallpaper.”

  “Must be quite awhile since you were here,” the woman at the front desk injected with a smile. “We got rid of that God-awful wallpaper about eight years ago.” She leaned toward Vickie conspiratorially. “Frankly, the wallpaper always used to make me feel like I was working in a whorehouse.”

  “How about a nice secluded table for two, Margo,” said Al.

  “Sure. Right this way.”

  Margo led them past several occupied tables to one that was close enough to the others for adequate service, yet far enough away to assure privacy.

  “Seem familiar?” Al asked as they sat down.

  Vickie looked around her, then grunted in amusement.

  “Yes and no. I see they reupholstered the booths. And the chairs look different. Better quality, I think. But it’s as tough as ever to read a menu in here!”

  Al was still considering a response when a waitress approached them. They ordered cocktails and concentrated on their menus, making small talk until the waitress returned to deliver their drinks and take their dinner orders.

  “Why, Vickie?” Al finally asked. “Why did you leave me?”

  Vickie sipped her Brandy Alexander and stared past Al’s right ear for a moment before answering.

  “I don’t think you realize how you were after the Roberts shooting,” she said finally. “I didn’t know what to do. You were obsessed with the idea that you had somehow changed reality and saved Roberts’ life. It got even worse when you started working with Alec Zorne. You were never the kind of man who could cut himself off from the world’s tragedies, Al, but once you got into this psychic power thing, you couldn’t seem to think about anything else.”

  Al squirmed in his seat and fought the temptation to defend himself.

  “You withdrew more and more from me and everyone else around you,” Vickie continued. “It was scary. One minute you’d tell me about how you were going to save the world, and the next minute you would worry about whether you were losing your mind. Nothing else seemed to matter. And I couldn’t talk to you. If I tried getting you to deal with other things like where we were going to live after we got married why, you just about took my head off.

  “So, you see, I didn’t exactly leave you. It was more like you pushed me away.”

  Al shook his head, a bitter smile on his lips. “That’s why you went to New York in the first place, isn’t it, Vickie? It was never the fellowship.”

  Vickie gazed into her glass and nodded. “There’s more, though, Al. I’m not quite sure how to say this. It wasn’t fair, I know, but I did what I thought was best at the time. I kept hoping things would get better between us—that maybe a short separation would settle things down....”

  “Go on,” he heard himself say, though he wasn’t at all sure he really wanted to hear more.

  “I could see from your letters and our phone conversations that I was wishing for the impossible. Our relationship was on pretty rocky ground, and it just didn’t seem right to bring a child into such an unstable environment.”

  Al froze with his glass halfway to his lips. The strangler dropped from his throat to his chest and squeezed—hard. He stared, uncomprehending, into Vickie’s eyes, almost forgetting to breathe.

  “Are you telling me you were pregnant?”

  “Yes, Al.” Unable to hold his gaze, she blinked, glanced away, and focused on her drink. “I was planning to tell you the day Roberts was shot,” she finally said, “but you started acting so strange that....” She took a sip of her drink. “It was a girl.”

  Al battled mightily to keep his emotions in check.

  “So you married another man and let him raise my daughter. Is that it?”

  “No, I didn’t meet Ted until a couple of years later. But I wanted our baby to have a good home. I didn’t think I could do that on my own. So I gave her up for adoption.”

  Al’s shoulders sagged, and he squeezed his eyes shut as an unintentional groan escaped his lips.

  “Vickie, how could you do that?” he said after a painful silence. “How could you give away your own child? Our child.”

  Vickie reached for his hand, but he avoided her touch.

  “I never even saw her, Al. It was all arranged before she was born.” The dim, flickering light from the candle on the table glinted off the tears brimming in Vickie’s eyes. “Ted doesn’t know anything about this. We never had any children of our own, and I don’t think he could handle the idea that I had another man’s baby.”

  Al ran his right middle finger around the rim of his now empty glass. He was still lost in a haze of half formed thoughts when the waitress placed their salads before them.

  “Another Manhattan,” he said unceremoniously.

  The waitress nodded. “Right away, sir. And you ma’am? A refill?”

  Vickie took a deep breath and shook her head. She gazed at Al sadly as the waitress turned and headed for the bar. He could feel himself trembling with tension, though he hoped it didn’t show. He avoided Vickie’s eyes, looking up, down and all about at nothing in particular. Then he began picking absently at the lettuce on his plate. He needed that drink!

  Vickie took several bites of salad and dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a green cloth napkin. The muted buzz of remote dinner conversation and the soft clinking of china and glassware only served to emphasize the quiet void between them.

  “Tell me about you,” Vickie said slowly, her eyes focused on her plate. “What have you been doing for the last 15 years?”

  Al felt his teeth clamp together in fury. That’s a hell of a question, he thought. First she tells me she’s married, then she tells me I’m the father of a daughter I’ll probably never see, and now she talks as if we’re just old friends at a class reunion! He forced his jaw muscles to relax. When he finally spoke, he had no
idea what would come out.

  “You know,” he said in a tone much more phlegmatic than his state of mind, “it’s a good thing I went to that shrink Carruthers back in ′71. After I’d been working with Azey for awhile, I went back to see him. Needed some help controlling my anger. And I’ve gotta tell you, right now, I’m trying to remember every technique he ever taught me.”

  Talk came to an abrupt halt as the waitress delivered Al’s Manhattan. Sensing that she had interrupted something, she dispensed with her usual friendly repartee and left as quickly as possible.

  “What did the psychiatrist tell you, Al?” Vickie asked as soon as the waitress was out of hearing range.

  “What’s more important is what he didn’t tell me. He didn’t tell me I was crazy.” Al tasted his Manhattan. “Whether you believe it or not, I did change reality when Roberts was shot. And I’ve done it again—more than once—over the past 15 years.”

  Vickie looked at him sadly, but she didn’t try to argue.

  “I don’t know whether Carruthers believed me about Roberts, but at least he took it seriously when I told him how worried I was about my temper. Worried, hell! I was scared shitless!”

  “Why’s that?”

  He took a long slow breath before answering. “I used to have these nightmares where buildings fell on people I was mad at, or their houses caught fire, or they were beaten up by muggers. Even though Azey told me it couldn’t happen, I was afraid my psychic powers might make those nightmares come true.” He paused and looked steadily at Vickie. “I was especially worried that I might make something horrible happen to you. I was pretty damned angry.”

  Vickie leaned forward, her eyes moist. “Al, I’m so sorry about—”

  “You asked what I’ve been doing. Now you’re going to hear it!” At the sudden steel in his voice, Vickie’s head jerked back as if struck by a physical blow.

  “I worked with Azey for a little over a year,” Al continued a few seconds later. “Went up to his lab one weekend a month and during my vacations. He was teaching me how to control my psychic energy how to direct it, and that sort of thing. He also wanted to see if I was unconsciously making any other changes like the one that saved Roberts. He had me keep a journal. Had me keep my own log of our experiments, too. He wanted to compare my journal with current events—see if there might be any correlation between the things that were on my mind and the way those things worked out.”

  He took another swallow of his drink. After a long, uncomfortable silence, Vickie asked, “And was there a correlation?”

  Al gestured uncertainly. “Never really had a chance to find out for sure. It may not be as simple as all that anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “History doesn’t just move in a straight line. One thing has a strange way of affecting other things. Take the 1972 Democratic convention, for example. Where would Ed Muskie’s candidacy have been if Roberts hadn’t made that sensational nominating speech? Roberts just made mincemeat of all those nasty little stories that, it later turned out, were part of the whole Watergate dirty tricks thing.”

  Vickie nodded. “Roberts worked for Muskie during the presidential campaign, too. But what’s your point?”

  Al shrugged. “Think about it. If John Martin Roberts had died, would Muskie have won the nomination? What if that guy oh, what’s his name, from South Dakota? Oh, yeah. McGovern. What if he’d gotten the nomination? Can you imagine what Nixon would have done to him? He was practically unknown to most of the country, and he didn’t exactly have the knack of reaching most Americans with his message. He was no John Martin Roberts, that’s for sure.”

  Vickie arched her eyebrows and nodded noncommittally. “I guess you’re right about that, but....”

  “Look, Roberts was the one who finally convinced the public that the break in at Democratic party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel wasn’t just an accepted part of the political game. He got people to listen early enough to make a difference in the election.”

  Vickie responded slowly and carefully. “And you think you were responsible for that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the story would have come out in time even if Roberts had died. We’ll never know. Azey was the only guy who could come close to answering questions like that. He was working on a specialized computer program to analyze the relationship between my journal entries and current events, but he was killed before he had a chance to finish it. They never did get the electrical system in his lab fixed, and the wiring just shorted out and caught fire one day.”

  “Yes, I remember reading the story off the AP wire when I was working for the Journal in New York. Just a short piece. We didn’t run it. But when I saw Zorne’s name, I....”

  She broke off and looked deeply into his eyes. It didn’t take words to tell Al she had been looking for his name among the casualties.

  He gulped his Manhattan, then glanced away as Vickie worried a tomato wedge with her fork.

  “What are you doing these days?” she asked. “Did you ever get married?”

  “No, Vickie, I never did. After you, no one else seemed to....” He stopped abruptly and prodded his thoughts along safer paths.

  “What am I doing these days?” he repeated. “You mean besides the usual garbage at the Star? Nothing much has changed there, of course. We’re using computers now, instead of just typewriters and pencils, but mostly it’s all still the same old crap. Oh, wait a minute. There is one thing. I’ve become a sort of businessman. How about that?”

  Vickie looked at him expectantly. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. A while back we ran a little science blurb about some new kind of energy source that a bunch of scientists and engineers have been playing around with. Got me interested enough to do some research over at the university library in my spare time and then invest some money in one of the companies working to develop the field.”

  “You’re kidding!” Vickie said. “You? The guy who once described the stock market as a high class bookie joint?”

  Al grinned. “How ’bout that? Surprised me, too. But I couldn’t resist. This stuff is really amazing. It’s an alloy of nickel and titanium called Nitinol. When it’s cold, you can mold it any way you like, but if you heat it up again, it’ll snap back to its original shape. And when it snaps back, it releases energy. Clean energy. There are all kinds of possibilities.”

  Vickie’s affectionate laugh sent an unexpected thrill through Al’s nervous system. “Sounds like just the kind of thing that would strike your fancy,” she said.

  Al looked at her and wondered what to say next. He longed to tell her how the sound of her voice made his heart leap, how the touch of her hand made him ache for what they once had together, but he couldn’t say what he most wanted her to hear, and so he said nothing. He was grateful when a soft rustle of clothing and the mingled aroma of New York steak and fillet of sole announced the arrival of their dinners.

  “Steak for the gentleman and fish for the lady,” the waitress proclaimed, moving the salad plates to make room for the main course. “Did you want to finish your salads, or should I just take the plates?”

  Al waved his right hand at the salad plate: “Take it,” he said. Vickie nodded her agreement. The waitress piled the half filled salad dishes onto her tray and departed.

  While Vickie fluffed her rice pilaf, Al cut open his baked potato and added a scoop of sour cream from the green and white china server on the table. Despite their exclamations of gustatory pleasure, both knew they were only delaying unfinished business.

  “Vickie,” he said at last, “nothing’s changed for me. I still love you. Can’t we—”

  “Oh, Al, don’t” she pleaded. “You’ll always be very special to me. I guess I’ll always love you, too. But it’s too late for us. Ted Manners has been very good to me. I can’t just turn my back on 10 years of marriage.”

  “Even if it’s to the wrong man?”

  Vickie bent her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Al shook his head
sadly.

  “And our daughter what about her?” he asked. “Do you know anything about her? How old is she?”

  Vickie took a deep breath before answering. “She was born Oct. 15, 1971, at Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn. That would make her 15 next month. I always remember her birthday. I go off by myself, light a birthday candle and pray that she’s well. But that’s all I know about her. I don’t even know what her adopted family named her. At the time, I didn’t want to know.” Her voice broke, and she took a sip of water. “That was a very hard time for me, Al. Giving up that baby was one of the toughest things I ever did. After the decision was made, I just wanted to pretend it never happened. But sometimes, I....”

  She stifled a small sob and lifted her water glass to her lips once more.

  Al’s mouth stretched into a forced, unhappy smile that was almost a grimace.

  “I’m going to find her, Vickie. I’ll never tell her who I really am, but I have to see her. I have to be sure she’s all right.”

  Chapter 12: Dinner at Eduardo’s

  From its undistinguished exterior, Eduardo’s looked like just another of those old-fashioned restaurants that were so popular during the nostalgia craze about 10 years ago. But once inside the ornate entry doors, patrons were struck immediately by the unique character of the place. Instead of dim, romantic lighting and cozy tables or booths, there were bare, white, fluorescent-lighted hallways leading straight ahead, to the left and to the right. Along each hallway, the walls were broken by closed doors painted in various hues of red or blue or green or yellow. No two doors were precisely the same color.

  “We’re looking for the Sanger party,” Rayna said to the young, round-faced man behind the white desk that sat unobtrusively in a corner just to the left of the entrance.

  “One moment,” the young man said, turning to press a number of the keys mounted on the wall at his back. As he did so, a portion of the wall just above the keyboard slid open to reveal a terminal screen.