by Radclyffe
At first, she too appeared uncertain. “It’s Diana O’Rourke, isn’t it? Are you waiting for a bus?”
I tore my eyes from her, trying to act as if my heart wasn’t trying to burrow through my chest. Ragged, graffiti-covered remains of timetables flapped in the wind. Of course. Why did people normally stand in bus-stops? “Yes. My car has broken down.”
A frown tweaked her eyebrows. “I thought you lived south of here, in Redford. Isn’t this the wrong stop?”
“I’m not going home. I’m on my way to visit my…er…hairdresser.”
“At this time of night?”
“She’s ill. I’m calling by, to see how she’s doing.”
“Either a good friend, or an exceptional hairdresser. I’m not sure I’d come out on a night like this.”
“We went to school together.”
“Aren’t you from California, originally?” Dr Mallory’s frown deepened.
“Yes. So’s she. She’s just moved here. And she’s ill. So I thought I’d…” I had to extricate myself from the hole I was in. The first thing was to stop digging.
“Can I give you a lift?”
“No.” I yelped the word. I couldn’t help it.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Mostly. I think.”
“You think?” The edge to her tone was more worried than confused.
“No. I mean yes. I’m fine.”
“We—” Dr Mallory broke off and looked down. She rubbed her forehead, as if easing a headache.
I waited, biting my lip.
When she looked up, her manner was more uncertain, but a decision had clearly been made. “Look. Would you like to go for a coffee, or something?”
She indicated the bar opposite the hospital entrance. Yellow light flooded from the steamed-up windows and reflected off wet pavement. The doors beckoned with a treacherous promise of warmth on a wet, cold night. I should refuse. The risks were too high. To pass through those doors was to lay my sanity on the line. Yet had they been the icy gates of hell, I could have done nothing else, other than to nod and follow her.
*
I wrapped my hands around the latte. The warmth set my fingers tingling. I must have been colder than I’d realised. My nails held a blue tinge. On the plus side, this provided a convenient excuse for the trembling.
I tried to give a relaxed smile as she settled into the seat opposite. “Thank you, Dr Mallory.”
“Please, Trisha. It’s what my friends call me.”
I swallowed. Would I be able to pronounce the familiar name? Or would I be reduced to stuttering juvenile jelly? A façade of formality might help keep my distance, and composure. A weak hope, but all I had. My reticence must have shown.
“Otherwise, I’ll have to call you Dr O’Rourke.” Her tone was teasing.
“I’m not a medical doctor.”
“I know.”
Of course she’d read my notes, with my profession and other details—height, weight, age. If she cared enough to find out, she was in a position to know vastly more about me than I knew in return. Even though her information was acquired legitimately, unlike my own prying, it eased the knots in my throat and stomach. Her privacy was more intact than mine, thanks to the flu bug.
“Di.” I felt my face thaw into a proper smile. “That’s my name. Not a threat.”
She exhaled in a laugh. Only when I saw her shoulders relax did I realise she’d been holding herself taut. Why? Was she nervous? It would be justifiable if she knew I’d been stalking her, but in that case she’d hardly have invited me to join her for a coffee.
I sipped my drink, watching her. Her face both was and wasn’t the one dominating my dreams. Now I thought about it, the women all looked so different. What was it that made me certain they were her? Yet they were. I knew it as surely as I knew the earth was beneath my feet.
This Patricia Mallory was in her mid-thirties. The etching of laugh lines was showing at the corners of her wide lips. Her face was firm and well balanced, strong rather than beautiful. Elegant, long-fingered hands danced to punctuate her words. She glanced up at me and opened her mouth as if to speak, but instead smiled. A tiny bit of her tongue touched her upper lip.
The world lurched as the sudden revelation knocked me off balance. That was the smile I knew from my dreams. The one that let me identify her, regardless of age, race or any other feature. Had she smiled that same smile at me, as I lay in the hospital bed. Was that where I’d picked up on it? The shock was so hard air solidified in my lungs.
“Is everything okay? Do you feel all right?” She grasped my wrist, back in doctor mode.
“I’m fine. Coffee went down the wrong way.” I pulled my hand away and coughed a little for effect, buying time for my breathing to settle.
“You are completely over the flu, aren’t you? I mean, I know you must be by now, but—”
“Yes. Weeks ago.” I hesitated. “Except…”
Why not say something? She was a doctor, after all—better her than a shrink. Just be a little cagey on the details. Perhaps obsessive dreams were a well-documented side effect of my treatment.
“Except?”
“I’m getting weird dreams.”
“Nightmares?”
“Not exactly. But they’re unsettling. My head isn’t back where it should be.”
“The dreams worry you?”
“Not the dreams themselves, more the effect they have on me. I’m becoming obsessed. They’re taking over my life.”
“What is it about the dreams that makes you feel obsessive? Can you quantify it?”
Easy. You. Not an answer I should give aloud. “They’re vivid and they repeat. I’ve never had that before.” Before I met you.
“Do you ever—” She broke off and took a hasty mouthful of coffee. “The repetitions, are they details or just situations?”
“Both. There’s the volcano that keeps erupting.”
“What else?” Her eyes fixed on me, probing and intense.
I slumped in my chair, in relaxation rather than despair. I was waltzing around a pit of insanity, and yet felt absurdly at peace. For the first time since catching the flu, I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to do. I was home, and everything was going to work out fine.
“Don’t laugh. I dream about being on the Titanic.”
“The Titanic?”
“Yes. Tell me, are dreams cobbled together from overblown B movies a side effect of flu?”
“In that case, I’ve had flu as well.” Trisha continued staring at me.
“You’ve dreamed about it too?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it’s something in the hospital food?”
“A catering assistant mistook the morphine for sugar?” Her smile returned, softer than before.
I matched it. I didn’t know what the book was, but we were on the same page. “Stranger things have happened.”
“Something stranger is happening, right now.” Her voice was, at the same time, both decisive and wistful. She drained her coffee. “Not wanting to sound clichéd, but would you like to come back to my place? There’s something I want to show you.”
*
Give or take an Art Deco poster, Trisha’s apartment was exactly as I’d imagined. The living room was furnished with an emphasis on comfort and practicality rather than style. Underplayed pastels served as a background to a forest of houseplants. She’d always want greenery around—but how did I know that?
The bookshelf was more prominent than the TV, filling the wall opposite the door. I wandered over to check out the titles, wondering if I’d find any surprises. A longhaired white cat, sprawled on the coffee table, ignored me.
“Red or white?” Trisha called from the kitchen.
“Red, if you’ve got it.”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t.” She appeared, holding two full wineglasses.
Trisha had towelled off her wet hair and removed her raincoat and shoes. It w
as the first time I’d seen her without the doctor’s professional veneer. In the hospital, her figure had always been concealed beneath her white doctor’s gown. In the car park she had worn a coat.
Her uncombed hair stuck out in comically endearing spikes. The pattern of wear on her faded denims suggested the legs of a runner. Her hips were as wide as her shoulders. A plain yellow shirt clung to her just tightly enough to reveal full breasts and narrow waist. My heart thudded at the sight, while my stomach performed a familiar somersault. Was that all it was? The attraction was no more than simple desire?
No sooner had the idea snuck into my head than an immediate denial hit me. I’ve been in love often enough before—or thought I was, at the time. There had been a string of clever, witty, sexy women who had caught my attention. The relationships had rarely lasted a month before a hollow sense of wrongness had eaten away at the emotion, leaving a charade, going through the motions of an affair. The shams had ended in recriminations, with accusations of me being frigid, uncaring, or even straight.
This was going to be different. I knew it as assuredly as I knew Trisha and I would become lovers. It was ordained. Neither of us had a say in it—not that I was complaining.
“I thought about pouring two glasses for myself, but it seemed a trifle greedy.” Her voice recalled me from my fantasy.
“Pardon?”
“One of these glasses is for you. Do you want to take it?”
“Oh. Sorry. I was um…”
“I noticed.” Judging by her smile, Trisha was unbothered at my blatant gawping.
We sat on mismatched sofas, facing each other across the coffee table. Her gaze ran over me, an appraisal matching mine in its brazenness. After one more sip of wine, she shunted the cat aside and put the glass down. The cat gave an indignant sigh and twitched one ear, but made no other move.
“I was so frightened you were going to die. You know how close you came, don’t you?”
“I know I’m only here because of you. My family told me all about it. You know they’ve elevated you to the sainthood?”
She pursed her lips. “As a doctor, you try to see all patients as equally important. You can’t, of course. Wouldn’t be human if you could. But I’ve never felt so desperate about anyone before. I’ve spent the last three months telling myself swine flu was the big news story, or you reminded me of someone, or I was having my mid-life crisis early, or whatever.” She shrugged. “I’ve been lying to myself.”
My heart started thudding. “You feel the bond too?”
“Yes.” Trisha looked down at her interlaced fingers. “Yes, I do.”
I started to move, to wrap her in my arms, but now was not yet the time—not quite. Trisha had more to say.
“I knew you lectured at the college, but I was surprised you teach math. I’d assumed you were in the languages faculty.”
“Languages?”
“Latin, to be exact.”
“Why?”
“You spoke it while you were half-conscious.”
“I was? Are you sure?” I shook my head. “My knowledge of languages goes as far as being able to order beer in Spanish. That’s it.”
“Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. You said that a few times, muddled in with all the other stuff. I couldn’t make most of it out, but I was able to write that bit down. It translates as, Times change, and we change with them.”
“I don’t know where I picked that up.”
“I do, now. In fact, I’ve known for a while but I haven’t been listening to myself.”
Trisha stretched toward the bookshelf. The sofa was just close enough for her to reach it without getting up. She slipped a book out with her middle finger. From the brief glimpse of the cover, it was a tourist guide book to somewhere European. Trisha flipped it open and removed a photo she’d been using as a bookmark.
“I went on holiday to Italy, last summer. This is from Pompeii. I spent hours there. They had to evict me at closing time. I just—” She broke off. “Well. What do you make of it?”
I don’t know how long I stared at the photo. Time can be so very relative.
The photo was of an interior courtyard, lined with white marble columns. Most of the ground was dirt, but a few remaining patches of black and white mosaic tiles dotted the floor. The mural on the wall behind held only faded traces of what had been vivid blues and reds, but the picture was still distinct. The line of dancing girls was as clear as they had been on that last morning.
Flickers of déjà vu have jolted me before. This didn’t fit into the same league. The dream fragments marched back into my head and lined themselves up, rank upon rank, linking and interlinking. They wove their stories around me, the warp and weft of a hundred lifetimes.
Trisha’s voice broke through the engulfing wave of memories. “I felt so drawn to this house.”
“It was yours.”
“And you lived around the corner.”
“When I wasn’t in your bed.” I looked up from the photo.
Her eyes met mine, dancing. “Maybe if the dreams hadn’t been so much fun I might have taken them seriously earlier. I’ve been trying to persuade myself I’ve simply been celibate a bit too long, and working too hard. Then I saw you in the bus-stop, and it all dropped into place.”
I had to confess. I knew she wouldn’t mind. “I’ve been stalking you.”
“I’ve got all your hospital notes in triplicate, and some photos of you.”
“I thought I was going mad. I was thinking about seeing a shrink.”
“Me too. I was so relieved when you mentioned the volcano.” She grinned, and picked up her wine. “When you woke me, insisting we leave Pompeii at once—how did you know Vesuvius was about to erupt?”
“You expect me to remember that after two thousand years?” I shrugged. “Probably the same way you knew to get off the boat after the iceberg hit. I wanted to carry on dancing. You were the one who said ignore the captain and get in the nearest lifeboat.”
We sat back and watched each other, remembering and readjusting. Trisha cocked an eyebrow. “How many times do you think we’ve known each other?”
“Not enough.”
I slipped off the sofa and shuffled crablike around the coffee table. She met me halfway, so that we were kneeling, face-to-face.
“So how do you want to play it this time?” She was close enough that I felt her breath on my lips.
“Any way you want.”
“My bedroom is next door, or we could take it slow. We have all the time in the world.”
“Would you like me to court you properly?”
“That might be nice. Just no sonnets, please.”
“You didn’t like my poetry?” I feigned hurt surprise.
“I like poems to rhyme.”
“That is just so seventeenth century of you.”
Trisha grinned, and then became serious. She reached up and gently cupped the side of my face. The touch of her hand ignited a thousand memories and I gasped. I needed her. Through all my lives, through all the centuries, through all eternity, I needed her. Before I knew it, my arms had slipped around her back, pulling us together. Our lips met, as if for the first time.
The kiss was everything I knew it would be. My past, present, and future. By the time it ended my legs were shaking so hard I would have fallen, had I been on my feet. I clung to Trisha for support and rested my head on her shoulder.
I wanted to giggle, run around, shout, and dance. But most of all I wanted to hold her. The world was so utterly, perfectly as it should be.
Trisha’s lips nuzzled against my throat and then found my ear. “Times change. Love endures.”
“Always.”
The Trickster Codex
Jess Faraday
A wise man once said that if a stranger’s calling after you, don’t stop, because he probably ain’t about to hand you a winning lottery ticket. When I heard the whimper in the alley by my building, I knew I should have kept moving. But I’m a s
ucker for a pooch, and the one that was standing there, half in the darkness and half in sun, was the ugliest mutt I’d ever seen: ragged and hungry-looking, with spindly legs, a long, pointy snout, and a bushy tail that looked like the tip had been dipped in ink.
I’d been walking up Spring Street from the new courthouse, minding my own business, my day-old Danish in my hand. It was more doorstop than pastry, but considering how business had been lately, it was probably all I was going to get for the day. And now this scrawny mutt was eyeing it like it was prime rib.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said.
The beast sat on its haunches and turned on the charm. And believe it or not, the fleabag had charm. Just look in the dictionary under “puppy-dog eyes.”
My stomach growled. I’d punched an extra hole in my belt that morning, and it wasn’t so I’d look more like those dolls in Vogue. But the dog looked worse than me, no lie, and in the end I tossed the Danish.
“But you’re on your own for lunch. You hear me?”
The mutt caught my breakfast in its toothy grin, bobbed its skinny head, and then winked at me before turning and disappearing into the shadows of the alley.
*
“How’s the morning treating you, Miss Archer?” asked the doorman as I ducked past him into my building, shaking my head. Funny the building owners could afford to hire a doorman, but not to fix my toilet.
“The morning,” I informed him, “is going to the dogs. You might want to make sure your shots are up to date.”
The infrequently patronized offices of Amelia Archer, Private Investigator—that is, me—sit on top of a squat brown brick building in downtown Los Angeles. It’s a dump. The water is unreliable and the wiring downright dangerous. But between the war and the fact that nobody hires the city’s only female dick with that bastard Philip Marlowe hanging around, I’m lucky to have it. My office is on the eighth floor, and the elevator is always broken. After a year and change, I had a caboose like a marble statue and I could run up the stairs in heels without breaking a sweat.
I like to look on the bright side.
