by C. M. Murphy
"Every day just about," Alma said.
Haniel did not like the idea of her spending every day with that guy. He tried to act cool. "So what's the deal? Are you guys a couple? Exes? Have an open thing or what?" His tone was a lot less laid back than he'd planned.
Alma laughed and tapped his arm while she did it. "I'm not Doug's type."
Haniel enjoyed the brief bit of contact, but not the answer. It implied that the guy would be able to be with Alma if he'd liked her. "If you're not his type, he's an idiot."
"No, he's gay."
Haniel laughed. "Aha! Now it makes sense."
"You were jealous," Alma giggled and gave him a playful shove. Then she took another big sip of her margarita, which she realized tasted much better now. She enjoyed not being nervous anymore.
"Maybe a little," he smiled back. Her giggles hadn't gone unnoticed. Haniel was sure sweet Alma had caught a little margarita buzz. He scooted closer to her as he refilled her glass.
"Nice watch," Alma said, looking down at his left hand resting on his table.
"Thanks," he said, not realizing he'd made a mistake in wearing it.
"It's an antique Rolex, isn't it?" she said, putting her hand on his arm.
He liked the way her hand felt and noticed she'd scooted closer to him for the first time. Her leg leaned into his.
"Can I see it?" she asked.
He and his dad had already decided on the test object, an antique necklace. "That's right, you like antiques," he said, reaching into his pocket for the necklace. "I wanted to get your thoughts on this necklace."
Alma giggled. "I'm not as good with jewelry as I am with music boxes and watches. Let me look at the watch. I promise I won't break it."
She already had her hands on his wrist and was unbuckling the band. What difference did it really make? He could test her twice this way, and he loved the sensation of her taking off his watch. An image of her with that same excited look on her face unbuckling something else flashed in his mind. Damn. He had it bad for this girl.
He needed to be cool and stay in control. He made it a point to slow his drinking.
Alma examined the watch. Its quality surpassed all the watches she'd purchased from Valley Classified ads. It wasn't too old, but judging from the hum it had to be from around World War II.
"This must be almost fifty years old," Alma said.
"It is," Haniel said snapping out of the haze of his infatuation. "What made you guess that?"
"Just a hunch," she said.
He needed more than that to go on. "I've been meaning to ask what you thought about Professor Cassidy's talk last night. I was excited to hear her speak about Leo Upton."
Alma had been so absorbed in her own bewilderment yesterday that she hadn't even wondered why Haniel had been at the bookstore. "Did you call the professor about the music box? Is that why she was at the shop when I got there?"
"No! I wouldn't have done that to you. You were the only buyer for that music box. She came into get her boots fixed. It was just a weird coincidence."
"And another coincidence that you were going to see her at the bookstore?" Alma asked.
"No," he lied. "I talked to her after you left and told her I was a fan. She told me about the bookstore thing. The crazy coincidence was you being there. I thought I was going to have to keep calling Valley Classified over and over hoping to get you again."
His explanation made sense to Alma. Her attention floated back to the watch. It buzzed with energy, and it wasn't just the body of the watch. The buckle and band had to be the original, which was unusual.
"Are you getting anything off the watch?" Haniel asked, but he could tell she didn't hear him.
Alma looked almost hypnotized by his Rolex as she slipped the band around her wrist and fastened the buckle. She blinked a few times and then kept her eyes closed.
"Are you okay?" he asked, worried she would get sick.
Alma's eyes opened. "Is this from World War II?"
"Yeah, you asked me that already," he said, relieved that her blinking was probably from being a little drunk. If she'd gone back in time like his father predicted she could do, Haniel was sure he'd be able to tell.
He was wrong.
Chapter Eleven
The falling sensation didn't frighten Alma as much as it had before. It surprised her how aware she was of what was happening. She blinked, and she was Alma on a date with Haniel. A blink later, she was Irene Polk sitting in her family's den writing a birthday card to her father.
Irene remembered with excitement winning the bid at auction all those years ago. It looked exactly like the one she'd possessed during the war. She reached for the watch one last time before she packed it away. It hummed in her hands.
The humming surprised Alma, as did the ability to perceive this moment—the evening of May 13, 1985—as both Irene and Alma surprised her. Incredible!
Irene put on the watch. The buzzing sensation increased, but didn't trigger any stories or daydreams like antiques did when Alma touched them as herself. Instead, the watch reminded Irene of a man named Hank she'd known in the war.
Before Alma could even question how someone as young as Irene could have also been a fifty-year-old nurse back then, she realized Irene was recalling a memory from a past life. Hank was a nice, young man who'd given her a valentine even though she was older than the other nurses.
A knock at the door interrupted Alma's and Irene's thoughts. Irene hadn't expected anyone at this hour. Leaving the watch on, she exited her den and walked to the front door as quick as she could.
She answered the door and was surprised to see her old friend and lawyer outside. "James."
"Sorry to come here so late," he said.
"It's not a problem, come in. We just need to be quiet so we don't wake up my daughter and her family. They came in for the funeral. Did you have more papers?" she asked. Irene's grief over the recent loss of her husband resonated with Alma. Except Irene's grief, as did everything in Irene's being, possessed a serene and loving distance.
"Yes, I just need to send it out tomorrow," James said as he entered.
"Let's go into the den," Irene said, turning her back on him and leading him into the other room.
"I'll shut this so they won't hear us," he said, closing the door behind him.
Irene thought signing papers wouldn't make much noise, but she appreciated the considerate gesture. Irene took a seat as the lawyer opened his briefcase. He came over to her side of the desk and set the papers on the desk in front of her.
"Where do I sign?" she asked, scanning the page. It didn't look like insurance forms at all. It looked like a lease of some kind. "I think you have the wrong papers here."
He leaned down closer to the paper, his head close to hers. "I think you're right," he said, turning to her. Irene noticed that his eyes seemed more violet up close than at a distance. They mesmerized her.
He lunged at her throat. It took her by surprise, but she didn't scream. A sharp pain seared in her neck. Terror overwhelmed Alma's thoughts, but Irene observed the attack at a serene distance.
Irene's body numbed to the pain. Thoughts flashed in her mind, memories from lifetimes past drained from her brain. A wooziness fell upon her, while pricks of white light clouded her vision. A fleeting thought of being tricked flared in Irene's consciousness, but it was met with a flurry of examples from life when she hadn't been tricked. So this is true death. Irene knew she would not be coming back this time. She sensed a visitor at the edge of her consciousness. The corners of her mouth turned upward with happiness, the proof that she'd long since given up finding had come.
Exaltation and a white light consumed Irene's mind.
The bathroom tile dug through her jeans and into Alma's knees. Irene's state of enlightened bliss morphed into Alma's drunken buzz. Memories from the last half hour of her date dominated Alma's thoughts.
She and Haniel had flirted throughout dinner, and before they'd finished eating he'd kiss
ed her. Alma blushed remembering the kiss. They continued to drink and kiss until Alma excused herself from the table to head to the bathroom and pee. An urge to vomit overtook her, and she crouched down on the floor to purge. The smell threatened to make her sick again. Alma flushed and wiped her mouth with bathroom tissue. The watch. She was still wearing the watch.
Memories from Irene Polk's life lurked in the shadows of Alma's consciousness, drowned out by Alma's share of two pitchers of margaritas. What remained were the woman's serenity and joy. But there was something that had alarmed Alma about what had happened to Irene.
"Are you okay in there?" a woman's voice called out from the doorway.
"I'm fine," Alma yelled back from her stall, realizing that she'd been in the bathroom a long time.
"Your date wanted me to check on you," the woman said. Alma recognized the voice as their waitress.
"I'll be right out," Alma said. She peed, washed her hands, rinsed her mouth, and returned to the table as fast as she could. Upon seeing Haniel, more of her date came into her memory.
Haniel stood up. "Are you okay?"
Embarrassment heated Alma's face. Fifteen minutes in the bathroom did not make a good impression on a first date. She remembered the pay phone by the bathroom. "I called my aunt on the pay phone. I hadn't told her I was going out tonight. She had a lot of questions."
He smiled and nodded.
"Do you have time to grab some coffee? We can walk to Lulu's Beehive."
Not ready to call it a night and go home alone, Alma agreed.
Doug watched as Haniel and Alma walked hand in hand down Ventura to the coffee shop. Alma's smiling, laughing face was intermittently made visible as they passed under the street lights. She stumbled a little, but her date caught her before she fell. Doug watched the way she looked up at him, and he knew what he would do in her date's shoes. And Haniel proved not to be a fool; he swooped down and kissed her. Doug wanted to turn away—not just to give them privacy, but to save himself the agony of seeing her in the arms of another man.
But he couldn't.
He told himself things were as they should be. His job precluded a relationship with Alma, and now his temptation would be rendered moot by her budding relationship. Except he didn't trust Haniel. But without the professional distance, he didn't know if it was his instincts guiding him or his jealousy.
It struck Haniel as he drove Alma home that she made him laugh, and he liked it. He enjoyed the relief from the seriousness of his father, and the man's alleged grand, noble plan. Haniel pulled into the driveway of Alma's house, sad the date was over.
"Are you okay?" Alma asked, noticing he'd gone quiet.
He turned to see her sweet face and brown eyes peering up at him from under her furrowed forehead. The usual upturn of her plump lips pulled downward with concern. She looked adorable.
"Real life intruding?" she asked.
"Huh?" he asked, regretting sounding stupid and also realizing he'd been staring.
"You got distracted by all the things you've got to do in real life, right?"
"How'd you guess?" he said, turning toward her.
"I think I did a little of that myself," Alma said.
"Want to tell me about it?"
"Nope!" she said with a grin. "Why ruin a great night when it's time to say goodnight?"
Haniel shot her a smoldering look. It hadn't occurred to Alma that she'd said something forward. She looked down, noticed her empty latte cup, and reached for it so she could put it in the trash.
"Leave it. I'll throw it out," he said, feeling both eager and awkward about the kiss goodnight.
"Thanks," she said.
"I'll walk you to your door." He hopped out of the car, hoping to get to open her door for her. He smiled when he saw she'd waited.
She looked up at him as he helped her out of the car. His chest swelled with pride. The way she looked at him made him feel like a hero.
"Here is fine," she said when they reached the bottom of the stairs leading up to her mother-in-law apartment. "There's barely any room at the top."
He knew he wouldn't be invited inside tonight, and he didn't mind. He enjoyed taking his time with her. Except, if his father had his way—
Haniel pushed that thought out of his mind before he could finish it.
"Can I take you out again?" he asked, pulling her close to him.
"I'd like that," she said.
"Tomorrow?"
She paused and frowned. "I'm not sure," she said, not knowing how long her meeting with Cassidy, Leo, and Doug would take tomorrow. She looked up to see Haniel's disappointed face. "Call me?" she asked. "I'll try to finish early."
"I can do that," he said, and leaned down to her kiss her. The warmth of her body against his and her long, black hair brushing against his arm made the kiss even better.
He drove home grinning like a moron. She liked him, and he liked her. He thought about where he might take her on their second date and tried not to make too much out of her not being sure if she could see him tomorrow. It was short notice. Maybe he would take her someplace super nice like Yamashiro in Hollywood, or maybe something silly like miniature golf. He passed the on-ramp of the 101 freeway in favor of taking surface streets home. He wanted to take his time. His father would be waiting up for him.
Haniel's mood darkened as he pulled into the alleyway behind their shop and parked in the driveway. He didn't want Alma to be "acquired." Ever since he was a small boy, he dreamed of helping his father attain enlightenment. "Sure, you can be like a monk and meditate for lifetimes and attain a hint of that glorious greater consciousness, or you can acquire the consciousness of the monk," his father had told him. "It doesn't matter. We're all one, anyway."
It had made so much sense when his father had explained it. Haniel had liked the idea that he and his father lived on a plane above everyone else. They didn't need to be concerned with petty, human morality.
But as he locked his car and headed inside, he no longer admired his father's plan. If the true nature of reality was that all of life existed as one and all of this was an illusion, what did it matter if the illusion of his father acquired anything? Why not just enjoy the illusion of being human?
Haniel stopped and took a breath before going inside. He focused his thoughts on the good parts of the date. He didn't want his father to pick up on his feelings.
Haniel entered the back door. A light shined from down the hallway. His father was awake in the kitchen and called out to him. "How did it go?"
"It went great. I think she trusts me," he answered as he walked down the hall and entered the kitchen to find his father beaming at him from the table.
"I'm so proud of you, son. You're a chip off the ol' block," his dad said. "Grab a beer and tell me all about your date."
His father's friendliness and obvious approval surprised Haniel. The man had always been so critical. Doubt crept into Haniel's mind. Could he betray his father for a girl he just met?
Chapter Twelve
Alma decided to have a glass of water before going to bed. It was after two in the morning, and she'd brushed her teeth and changed into a T-shirt. She grabbed a cup out of her cupboard and filled it with water from the tap.
Alma smiled to herself thinking about her night with Haniel. She'd gone on a bona fide grown-up date complete with cocktails, staying out late, and a kiss goodnight. She looked around her apartment and promised herself that she'd clean up tomorrow. If she did invite him up after their next date, she didn't want him to think she was a slob.
Her phone rang. Alma rushed to pick it up, hoping it was Haniel.
"I take it you're okay then," Doug said, his voice coming out harsher than he'd planned. He'd gone home after watching her kiss goodnight and had waited for her to telephone to no avail.
"I'm sorry. I thought you'd be asleep," Alma said, hiding the fact that she'd completely forgotten about calling her best friend.
"How'd it go?"
"Oh my God!
It went so great. We went to Casa Vega and had margaritas—"
"You're not old enough to drink," Doug butted in, angry that her date had plied Alma with alcohol.
"Who are you, Tita Win?"
"I just wanted to make sure he wasn't trying to get you drunk. Men are dogs, Alma."
Doug's judgmental tone smacked straight into Alma's insecurity, and it made her angry. "You're right. He's got to be a dog just trying to liquor me up. Why else would he ask me out?"
"Alma, I didn't mean it like that."
"Yeah, okay," Alma said, wanting to wrap up the conversation and go to bed.
"Please, Alma. I'm sorry, okay?"
"Okay," Alma said, but she didn't mean it.
"I'll make it up to you and buy you lunch before we go to meet Leo and Professor Cassidy tomorrow," he said.
In the excitement of her date, Alma had forgotten about meeting with Leo and the professor tomorrow. A wave of exhaustion swept over her. "I have a lot of cleaning to do. I'll call you."
"I'm sorry, Alma."
"It's fine," she said, but they both knew she didn't mean it.
Alma put the phone on the cradle and sighed, her happy mood dashed.
Something niggled at the edge of her brain. Something important, but she didn't want to remember it. She didn't want to think about her mother's murder or her weird time jumps into other people's brains.
Her mother's murder.
The thought punched her in the gut. Her mother wasn't even that much older than Alma was now.
Alma crossed the room to sit on her bed. She glanced around her apartment filled with her father's things.
What was that saying? The way you do one thing is how you do everything.
Alma sat and thought about the way she'd been acting. When she'd first learned of her mother's murder, she'd jumped in the car with Doug to not think about it. She'd rushed away from Cassidy at the shoe repair shop. Heck, she hadn't even dealt with the angry ostrich guy or Doug on the phone just now.
