Window on Tomorrow

by Joan Hohl

  WINDOW ON TOMORROW

  Amii Lorin

  About the Author

  Publishing Information

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  He was the most perfectly beautiful person she had ever seen.

  Andrea Trask had never before set eyes on the man in the flesh. And yet she knew him! Literally stunned by the sight of the man, she stared at him through the wide plate-glass window in utter fascination as he approached the coffee shop.

  He was exceptionally tall and attractively slender. Though wide, his shoulders didn’t have the bunched-muscled look of so many of the young men Andrea had met and observed since arriving in California a few months ago. His hands were broad; his wrists, waist, and hips were narrow. His legs were long and well formed, and he moved with a grace she could only describe as fluid. But it was his face that immediately snared attention, as Andrea noticed from the looks—some furtive, some bold—that he was commanding from everyone, male and female, in the vicinity. His face, the configuration of his classic features, embodied perfection. His wind-tousled, wavy blue-black hair and his bronzed skin gleamed in the bright autumn sunshine. And she knew him.

  He stopped on the sidewalk to speak to another man, who had just exited the café. Watching his sculpted lips move, Andrea gasped when a flashing smile revealed his even white teeth. She recognized the smile and responded to it. Without a close look, Andrea knew his eyes were the same shade of blue as a shadowed mountain lake, and were every bit as deep. The knowing, the familiarity she felt, was more than strange—it was downright eerie.

  How was it possible? Andrea’s rattled mind demanded. It simply wasn’t conceivable to suddenly encounter the walking, breathing image of the shade who had invaded her dreams for over a year... was it?

  Andrea couldn’t think, couldn’t reason; she could only stare in absolute disbelief.

  “Not bad, huh?”

  Andrea transferred her gaze with obvious reluctance to the blond young woman seated opposite her in the booth. “Not bad?” she repeated, compulsively shifting her startled gaze to the man again. “Evaluating him as ‘not bad’ is tantamount to judging the Pacific as a large pond!” Andrea’s hushed voice revealed her awe.

  “Yeah,” the blonde breathed, nodding in agreement. “The sight of him is rather overpowering.” She sighed dramatically. “I don’t know how we’ll ever concentrate on his lectures.”

  The remark snagged Andrea’s attention. Frowning, she returned her puzzled gaze to the young woman who had become her friend shortly after her arrival in California. “Lectures? Melly, I don’t understand. What lectures?”

  Melinda Franklin’s big brown eyes grew even bigger in surprise. “Didn’t you see his photo in the college brochure?” When Andrea shook her head, she explained, “That gorgeous embodiment of every woman’s fantasy is none other than Paul Hellka, professor of earth science studies at Parker.”

  Andrea gaped at her friend, startled as much by her phrasing as by the information she’d imparted. “Fantasy” was exactly what the man was to Andrea. A fantasy, a figment of her imagination, a dream lover—at least, that’s what Andrea had believed he was.

  Seeing him in the flesh gave Andrea a weird, disoriented sensation. It was too unreal, she assured herself, fighting a clawing sense of panic. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. The man was merely similar to her dream lover. That was it. Andrea’s pulse rate increased with each successive, rationalizing thought. Her brow grew moist; her throat went dry.

  “Professor Hellka?” Andrea’s voice cracked.

  Melinda laughed. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s idea of a professor, does he?”

  Afraid to trust her voice, Andrea again shook her head, but only she knew that the action was also a denial of what she’d seen. Telling herself that all she had to do to ease her shocked mind was look at him again, really look at him. Andrea gritted her teeth and slowly shifted her gaze to the window.

  He was gone. The sidewalk in front of the coffee shop was deserted. Had she imagined him? Andrea asked herself. But no, she answered at once. Hadn’t Melly told her who he was? Melly! Andrea whipped around to stare at her friend.

  “Are you all right?” Melly peered at her with concern. “You look kinda green around the gills.”

  “Yes! But... ah, I...” Andrea raked her numbed mind for an excuse to leave. “I have to go!” she blurted out, groping for her canvas carryall. “I’m really sorry to desert you, Melly, but I just remembered an appointment.”

  “But you haven’t even tasted your lunch!” Melly exclaimed, motioning at the untouched salad in front of Andrea.

  Andrea withdrew a couple of bills from her bag while sliding out of the booth. “I’m not really hungry,” she said, slinging the bag’s long strap over her shoulder. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.” She took off like a rocket along the line of booths. Near the entrance door, she came to a breathless, jarring halt. He was there, leaning against the back of the first booth, patiently waiting to be seated.

  From a distance of only a few feet, Andrea could no longer avoid the truth. He was the living, breathing duplicate of the man in her dreams. Quivering with reactive shock, she hovered on the brink of decision. Should she retreat back to the relative safety of the booth and Melly or go forward to escape by rushing past him?

  In the instant Andrea agonized over her choices, he looked directly at her. She had to clamp her lips together to contain a gasp. His eyes were dark, dark blue and were sparked by a perceptive, knowing expression.

  “Hello.”

  The sound of his voice struck Andrea like a physical blow; it was exactly the same as the dream voice she knew so intimately. Reeling from the shock waves washing over her, Andrea mumbled an incoherent greeting, then hurried past him and pushed through the heavy door. She ran to her aunt’s car, which she’d parked on the tree-lined street.

  Twenty minutes later Andrea parked the dented compact in the driveway of her aunt Celia’s home. She had no recollection of the drive along the coast to the house perched on the rock cliffs overlooking the Pacific a few miles south of Carmel. Still clutching the steering wheel, she stared at the house, which was barely visible from the road.

  Andrea had fallen in love with the cliff house the minute she entered it the previous spring. At the invitation of her aunt, she had arrived in California the first week of June, exactly two weeks after graduating from college in her home state of Pennsylvania. Andrea’s original plan had been to spend a few weeks with her aunt before returning home to Lancaster.

  Prying her aching fingers from the wheel, Andrea slumped in the seat. Encountering the walking, talking prototype of her fantasy lover had exhausted her. She felt not quite with-it and a little queasy in her stomach. Getting out of the car and into the house was a physical ordeal.

  “Andrea?” Celia Trask called from the patio off the dining room. “Is that you, honey?”

  “Yes.” Andrea squared her shoulders and worked her lips into a semblance of a smile as she made her way to the patio. A genuine smile eased her stiff mouth at the sight that met her haunted hazel eyes.

  Wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat to protect her flawless complexion, and a skimpy bikini that exposed most of her slender, well-toned body to the sun’s tanning rays, Celia was stretched out on a padded lounge chair, daintily sipping a frosted glass of mint iced tea. Her oiled honey-brown skin gleamed in the sunlight. She looked to be somewhere in her mid- to late-thirties; she was, in fact, fifty-seven years old. The realization of her aunt’s age never failed to amaze Andrea; the fact that she resembled Celia never failed to please her. Thanks to the passage of all the right genes, Andrea possessed the same flawless skin, gentle beauty, and slim, long-limbed suppleness as did her fathe
r’s sister Celia.

  “What’s up, sugar?” Celia’s voice was soft; her shaded, amber-rimmed hazel eyes were sharp. “I thought you were having lunch with Melinda.”

  Andrea’s smile quirked whimsically at the endearment; Celia was the only person to ever call her sugar. “I was, but...” she lifted her shoulders in a small shrug of resignation. She couldn’t force herself to lie outright to her aunt, but she couldn’t tell her the literal truth, either. Andrea had always admired her aunt for her open mind and free-thinking approach to life, but she doubted that even Celia would understand her niece’s present predicament.

  “But... ?” Celia prompted, probing Andrea’s pale face with a laser look.

  Andrea sighed. “But I was feeling a bit off center,” she explained, opting for the truth ... as far as she dared.

  Swinging her long shapely legs off the lounge, Celia rose and crossed the patio to Andrea. Raising a slim hand, she placed her palm on Andrea’s forehead, then slid it to the curve of her throat. “You do feel slightly feverish.” Celia frowned. “Perhaps you’ve contracted a summer virus from one of your customers.”

  Andrea nodded, quickly grasping the excuse for her unusual behavior. Since she had been working for over a month as a part-time sales clerk in a popular Carmel boutique, the possibility of Andrea having contracted a virus from one of the establishment’s many customers was valid. “Perhaps,” she conceded, fully aware that the only contact she’d made was with an impossible reality. The awareness drained her face of the little color that remained. Andrea swayed with a sudden light-headedness.

  “Andrea!” Alarm gave a discordant note to Celia’s musical voice. Grasping Andrea by the arm, she led her inside, out of the glare of sunlight. “I’m putting you to bed,” she said, drawing her unresistant niece toward the bedroom. “And then I’m calling the doctor.”

  “No!” Andrea jarred both herself and her aunt by coming to an abrupt halt. “I’m certain I don’t need a doctor, Aunt Celia,” she went on in a placating tone, recognizing the look of determination on the older woman’s face. “I’ll go to bed, but I don’t think a doctor will be necessary.”

  True to character, Celia refused to budge without gaining concessions. “All right, I won’t call the doctor,” she agreed, but added adamantly, “but I insist you remain in bed until you’re feeling completely well, and I intend to call the manager at the boutique and tell her you won’t be able to work for a few days.” Her expression said clearly that she would brook no argument from Andrea. “Agreed?”

  Though Andrea bristled at the thought of confinement, she knew better than to argue with Celia when she was wearing her stubborn look. And she probably knew better because she herself was immovable when she dug her heels in, Andrea acknowledged in silent amusement.

  “Okay,” she agreed on a sigh. “I promise I’ll stay put until I’m in fighting form again.” She hesitated, then added a qualifying “I’ll stay close to the house, if not actually in it or in my bed.”

  Smart enough to recognize a will as strong as her own, Celia accepted the compromise with a nod and a rueful laugh. “That will suffice, I suppose.” Without indulging in the usual matronly fussing, she stayed with Andrea until she slid between the flower-strewn sheets on her bed. Then she drew the window curtains against the brilliant sunshine and quietly left the room.

  Her trembling body stiff, her eyes wide, Andrea lay staring at the dappled pattern of sunlight and shadow filtering through the curtains onto the flat-white wall. She was afraid to close her eyes, afraid to sleep, afraid of...

  In desperation, Andrea changed the direction of her train of thought. She would not think about him. Her mind darted around in a frantic search of a safe point of focus.

  Home! That was it. She would think about home; she’d recall her college years and the friends she’d lived with, the apartment they’d shared.

  Staring at the wall, but no longer seeing it, Andrea concentrated on conjuring comforting memories. Imagines swirled in a kaleidoscopic blur inside her mind. Bits and pieces of memories flashed brightly, then faded, to be superseded by other bits and pieces.

  Andrea could see herself as a child, laughing as she was swept off her sturdy little legs and into the loving haven of her father’s arms. The image changed, and she viewed herself, sobbing and grief-stricken at her father’s funeral. A whirl of her mind, and Andrea was reliving the pain of parting with her mother as she watched her board a plane for her new husband’s home in South Carolina.

  Andrea blinked against a rush of hot tears. The memory still hurt. She had been in her junior year of high school and too involved with her friends and school activities to notice how serious the relationship was becoming between her mother and her new friend. The announcement of their imminent marriage had come as a complete shock to Andrea.

  In rapid sequence, images of succeeding events in her young life flashed in painful detail through Andrea’s whirling mind.

  There in bright clarity was the tearful scene between her and her mother when Andrea had opted to remain in Lancaster to graduate from high school with her friends and classmates.

  Then there was the day she had moved in with her mother’s sister, Irene, and the homesickness Andrea had suffered, despite her aunt’s kindness and caring.

  A memory swirl, and Andrea was reliving the thrill she’d experienced when a good-looking, upwardly mobile young businessman had shown an obvious interest in her at a country club dance in the spring of her senior year of high school.

  Andrea shook her head in an attempt to dispel the humiliating memory. She didn’t want to remember her naiveté and gullibility, but the memory persisted.

  The young man’s name was Zach, a diminutive of Zaccheus, a biblical name meaning “pure and righteous”—he was neither. Without care or consideration of her age and inexperience, he had swept her off her feet. Before graduation day, Andrea was in love. It was only later, too much later, that she realized Zach was an opportunist. His mode of seduction lacked finesse; Andrea’s initiation into womanhood was demeaning and painful. She had innocently blamed herself; Zach had arrogantly agreed. Playing into his hands, Andrea accepted his scorn without question. She might have continued to play by his rules indefinitely had he not tripped himself up.

  To persuade her to live with him, Zach had told Andrea he’d love and protect her forever; he simply forgot to mention who, exactly, would protect her from him. Andrea had been living with him for nearly a year, working part-time at night and attending college classes during the day when, on returning early from work to their small apartment, she found him in a compromising position with another, younger girl. Zach revealed his true character during the argument that followed the girl’s ejection from what Andrea had considered her home. For the first time in their relationship, Zach became violent, striking Andrea, then forcing himself on her. It was the first and last time he did either; Andrea made sure of that. She ended their relationship without a twinge of remorse, but with a bitterness far beyond her tender age.

  But Zach had the last laugh, and the last blow—at least figuratively. He left Lancaster for greener pastures, and he took Andrea’s inheritance from her father with him. Without the inheritance, which she had planned to use for her college expenses, Andrea was forced to leave school. And, though Celia had offered her financial assistance, Andrea had politely but firmly refused the aid, since she had gone against Celia’s advice when she had decided to live with Zach. From then on, Andrea had been determined to earn her own way.

  She was twenty-four before she managed to save enough money to return to school to complete her education. The intervening years had consisted of working two jobs and doing without not only luxuries but quite often necessities as well.

  Recalling the drudgery and self-imposed loneliness of those years brought a fine film of tears to Andrea’s eyes. The patterns of shadow and light on the bedroom wall merged, separated, then merged again. Afraid to close her eyes, she stared through the tears and
silently prayed for an end to the painful memories.

  Whether by divine intervention or sheer willpower, the swirling memories of those difficult years and the echo of Zach’s superior laughter dissolved and were replaced by the images and voices of the two young women with whom Andrea had shared an apartment throughout her four-year college sojourn. With a long sigh of relief, Andrea smiled mistily and gratefully allowed remembrances of her friends free rein.

  On the surface, they had seemed a mismatched trio. Andrea smiled as the mind-pictures developed into sharper focus.

  There was Alycia Halloran nee Matlock, with her nose in a book—a history book—her gaze focused on yesterday.

  And there was Karla Janowitz, meticulously working out the household accounts, her attention and her feet firmly planted in the earth of today.

  And there she was, Andrea Trask, the misty-eyed dreamer, her sights set on the possibilities of tomorrow.

  A mismatched trio? Perhaps. But it had been circumstances, not common interests, that had drawn them together.

  Her memory unwinding, Andrea forgot her fears. Her eyelids grew heavy, then slowly drifted downward. Defying time, her memory spun back four years.

  * * * *

  “Are you alone?”

  At the sound of the gently voiced question, Andrea glanced up from the rooms-for-rent section of the local newspaper. An attractive young woman gazed down at her, a hopeful light reflecting from her soft eyes.

  “Yes,” Andrea answered. “Would you like to join me?” she asked, glancing around. The Campus Cafe was packed with young people. Laughter and chattering conversation reverberated off the poster-plastered walls. There wasn’t a seat to be had—except in the booth Andrea occupied.

  The woman’s sigh was audible. “If you don’t mind?” she asked, hesitating before sliding onto the bench seat.

  “Be my guest.” Andrea smiled and waved her hand at the opposite seat in invitation.

  Expelling a pent-up breath, the dark-haired girl slid into the booth with obvious gratitude. “Hi” she said, extending her hand across the table. “I’m Alycia Matlock, and I’m dying for a cup of coffee!”