Ariella narrows her eyes, but she smiles as she responds, “Yes, actually. I figure one of us ought to make the finish line for a change.”
Horacio snorts in derision. “You think you’re going to beat me?”
“I think your previous record suggests a pretty good window of opportunity for that, yeah.”
“You’re fooling yourself, woman.”
“We’ll just have to see.”
“I’ve been training every day.” He rises from his chair and plants his right foot on the seat. He yanks back the length of his already meager athletic shorts, almost to his groin, and slaps his thigh. “Have you seen these legs? Have you?”
Ariella averts her face from the view of his crotch, and shakes her head. She looks at me and rolls her eyes. Horacio is flexing the muscles in his thigh and strokes his calf with his hand. “You think you can handle this?”
God, this guy’s a tool.
“You know what? Maybe I will enter after all.” I smile at Don Bartholomew. “Your son is pretty inspiring.”
Horacio glares at me, noting the sarcasm in my voice. Don Bartholomew is oblivious to it however, and slaps me on the back. “He is inspiring! I knew you two would hit it off!”
Horacio spins his chair around and shoves it back under the table. He glares at me and I hold his gaze until he tosses his hair out of his eyes and walks away. I note Ariella watching me, and as my eyes meet hers, she gives me a nod and the hint of a smile.
Geo gets distracted by another passing relative, so I return my attention to Don Bartholomew, who is eager to regale me with more stories of his youth. I nod in the appropriate places and mumble occasional polite admiration between mouthfuls of pasta. My response does not seem especially required to maintain the large man’s momentum. I cast occasional glances at Ariella, but she’s involved in conversation with a young woman behind her. After a few minutes, she rises, and the pair disappears into the foyer.
Don Bartholomew is describing the play by play of a fight between himself and what was apparently the strongest, largest boxer in the history of New York, when I finally concede defeat and push my plate away. The old man with the shaggy mustache has nodded off and is beginning to snore. Most of the other diners have departed, and other than Don Bartholomew laughing at his own clever stories, the noisy chaos has died down to a murmur. I find what could conceivably be considered an ending to one of the boxing feats and slide my chair back.
“That is really fascinating. Do you happen to know where the restroom is?”
Geo suddenly appears behind me. “I can point the way for you.”
“Oh, hey. There you are. I was thinking I should probably be heading back …”
“We’re leaving now. I had Tonio pull the car up. What did you think of the family?”
“They’re all really nice.”
“Headed out so soon, Geo?” Don Bartholomew rises from his chair with all the speed of a hippopotamus in mud. He steadies himself with the back of the chair and puts his other hand on Geo’s shoulder.
Geo pats him on the back. “Places to be, cousin. The clock never stops.”
Don Bartholomew shakes my hand again. “You’re going to do great things, Benjamin. I can tell.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind.”
His sudden slap on my back helps propel me forward as I make for the door.
Out in the hallway, Geo points to a flight of stairs. “You’ll find a bathroom just upstairs to the right. I’ll be out in the car when you’re ready.”
“Okay, thanks.” I climb the stairs, turn a corner, and find myself face to face with Ariella. “Oh, hey,” I manage.
“Hello.”
I’m suddenly stupefied by her proximity and beauty, and stumble for something else to say. “Um, I was just headed for the, uh . . .”
She pushes the door open behind her, revealing the white-tiled floor and marble-topped sink of the bathroom.
“Yeah, that’d be the one.” I move toward the door, but she doesn’t step aside, forcing me into even closer proximity to try to make it around her.
“I’m glad you’ll be in the race.” Her voice is soft and almost vulnerable.
“What? Oh, yeah. It sounds like fun.”
“Horacio is . . .”
“A jerk?” I offer.
“Worse than that. It will be nice having someone worthwhile to compete with.”
She smells like vanilla.
“Well, I’m sure it will be a good time. When is it actually? I was kind of fuzzy on the specifics.”
She takes ahold of my hand. I’m startled by her sudden touch and almost retract it involuntarily. She turns my palm upward and strokes the lines on it with her thumb. I get a tingling chill up my neck. “Here.” She pulls something from her pocket with her other hand, and lays it across my fingertips. A thin translucent boomerang in shape, it makes my fingertips look purple when looking through it. She gently moves my thumb to the top surface and sandwiches my hand and the device between hers. Her hands are warm and firm. Her body is even closer to mine now and I can’t help staring at her lips as she lifts her face to me. “You sure you want to do this?”
“I love an adventure,” I reply.
“So that’s a yes?” She tilts her head coyly to the side and smiles.
“That’s a yes.”
“Good.”
I feel a tingling from the device against my fingertips and it beeps. It’s back in her pocket in an instant, and she slips past me into the center of the hall. “I guess I’ll be seeing you soon.” She stares into my eyes and backs toward the stairs.
I falter for words again and just watch her go.
“Someone will be in touch about the details. Don’t let me hold you up. Looks like you have some business to attend to.” She smiles playfully and nods toward the bathroom door.
“Oh, uh yeah. So I guess I’ll see you later.” I push open the door a little farther and when I look back, she’s descending the stairs, her raven hair wafting behind her.
Damn. Way to be smooth, Ben.
When I reemerge from the bathroom and make it downstairs, the house has gone quiet. I poke my head into the dining room, thinking I may catch another glimpse of Ariella, but the room is vacant. Even the clattering sound of dishes from the kitchen has ceased. I walk onto the front porch and find the Cadillac idling in the driveway. The back door is open, so I climb in.
Geo is looking out the window on the opposite side and doesn’t speak, so I simply shut my door and the car starts rolling. After a few blocks of awkward silence I can’t take it anymore. “You’ll have to thank your mother for me. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”
Geo returns to me as if from a daydream, and smiles, though the smile seems slow in coming. “I’m very happy you were able to visit. I know all my relatives enjoyed your company. Most especially Don Bartholomew. I haven’t seen him take to someone like that in quite some time.”
“They were all really nice.”
“I spoke to someone about the glitch in your chronometer. He gave me a few common things to look for. Let me take a look.” He holds out his hand.
I reluctantly slide my chronometer off my wrist and drop it into his hand. He pulls what looks like a miniature stethoscope out of his pocket and installs the earpieces. He then puts the cupped end to the back of my chronometer and listens as he moves a few of the dials and concentric rings. I can’t quite make out what he’s doing, but after a moment he hands the chronometer back.
“There you go. Just a quick reset was all it needed. He said it’s not at all uncommon on those models.”
I examine my chronometer cautiously, but seeing no discrepancies, slip it back onto my wrist. “Thanks.”
Geo lapses into silence again and I resign myself to staring out the window as we make our way back to Manhattan. When we arrive, Tonio pulls up to the same boutique where I had my collision with the homeless man. Geo gets out of the car with me and guides me to the sidewalk.
�
��Let me help you out with those calculations.” He reaches for my arm and takes it firmly in his. He takes longer than I would to find the right settings, but makes the movements with confidence.
“What time are you sending me back to?”
“Just a moment after you left.”
“How do you know when that was?”
“I know because Mym knows. You’ll want to use that bit of pavement right there.” Geo points to a spot on the sidewalk.
“Thank you for your help. I’m not sure how I can repay you.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Ben.” Geo’s face is serious and sterile. “And you’ve already repaid me.”
“Will I be seeing you again?”
This time Geo smiles. “Of that you can be certain.” He turns on his heel and climbs into the car. Just before he shuts the door, he pauses mid-motion. “Be sure to give the Quicklys my regards.” The car door slams and the Cadillac eases back into traffic.
After I watch the car disappear into the congestion, I dodge a couple of pedestrians and locate the specified spot on the sidewalk for my jump. I look down at my chronometer settings and double-check what Geo has selected.
Seems logical.
I wait till the immediate area is clear, and squat, pretending to tie my shoe. I slip my chronometer hand to the concrete and reach for the pin. I’ve never made a jump before where I didn’t get my data from my own research or from one of the Quicklys. The thought gives me a moment’s pause. I guess I just need to be trusting.
I push the pin and blink.
“You can’t just think about jump locations as physical spaces. They are also windows of time. Successful time traveling means aligning both—ideally when there is nothing there to impale you.”–Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2102
Chapter 3
The expressions on the faces around me are all various stages of surprise or fear. One of the women from the group in the boutique is gaping at me with eyes and mouth both open wide. Murmurs emanate from the other pedestrians.
“Did you see what he just did?”
“What happened to the old man?”
“He just made that guy vanish!”
The couple nearest me retreats against the wall as I get to my feet. The young man steps in front of the woman defensively. Suddenly, Mym is at my elbow. Her face is serious and her eyes questioning. “What are you doing, Ben? Come on!” She yanks on my arm and drags me into the street. The crowd on the sidewalk watches me get towed between the cluttered cars to the far side. Mym releases my arm at the sidewalk but doesn’t stop moving until we are another half a block down. Finally she steps into the corner of a shop selling tourist souvenirs and spins to face me. “What was that, Ben? What were you thinking?”
I’m not used to the anger in her voice. “I don’t know. It wasn’t me.”
“What do you mean, it wasn’t you?” Her eyes search my face.
“I got knocked down. I thought you knew. I think it was something wrong with my chronometer.”
“You thought I knew? How would I know?”
“You sent Geo. You sent him to pick me up!”
“Geo? What Geo?” Her forehead is wrinkled in confusion.
“Geo Amadeus. He picked me up in his car . . .”
“Gioachino Amadeus? You were just with Gioachino Amadeus?” Her hand goes to her head in alarm.
I’m taken aback by her response. “You didn’t send him?”
“No! Why would I send a gangster to get you?”
“Gangster?”
“That’s putting it lightly, Ben. Gioachino Amadeus is about the last possible person you want to meet, and if he knows we’re here, we need to go.” She sets her skates down, removes her messenger bag, and begins rooting through it.
My mind races through my encounter with the Italian. “He seemed pretty nice to me. . . .”
Mym stops moving and looks back up at me. “Nice?” She considers my face as if checking to see if I’ve lost my mind. “What exactly did he want from you, Ben?”
“Nothing. He said he was just bringing me back. He helped me fix my chronometer.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know. When that homeless guy knocked me down, we jumped forward to tomorrow night, but the settings never changed.”
“How? How would you go anywhere?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I thought. Geo said it just needed to be reset.”
Mym looks at my chronometer skeptically, then continues rummaging around in her bag until she pulls out a brass compass and an accompanying photo. She degravitizes the compass, then hands it to me. “Here. You’re going to put your finger on south and hold on to me.”
“We’re not using my chronometer?”
“No. I don’t trust that thing right now. We’ll go with mine.”
I pause as an Asian woman with an armful of “I love New York” T-shirts and a miniature Statue of Liberty squeezes between us. Mym pulls at the chain around her neck and removes her ball-shaped chronometer from under her shirt. She dials in the settings from the back of the photo and then takes the compass from my hand and sets it on a low shelf next to us.
“We’ll have to drop a couple feet on the other end, but there’s not much we can do about it.”
“Okay.” I grab onto her arm just above her elbow. Mym uses the arm I’m holding for her chronometer and extends her other hand to the compass.
“Here we go.” She pushes the pin and we blink.
<><><>
Rough dirt crunches under my sneakers when I land. We’ve appeared outdoors at the end of a rough-hewn wooden table. A steady breeze is rustling a pair of maps that are weighed down by the compass at our fingertips. Mym yanks on my arm and pulls me behind a canvas tent held up with wooden poles. Crouching behind the tent, I take in the lush greenery around the clearing.
“Are we in the jungle?”
“Shhh! Be quiet! I’ll hear us.” She gestures beyond the tent to a blonde little girl holding a camera, walking away toward the grassy bank of a stream.
“Holy crap. That’s you? How old are you there?”
“Eight,” she whispers.
“Where are we?”
“Ecuador.”
The little Mym scuttles down the bank of the stream and disappears from view.
“Come on.” Mym turns and heads the other direction. I follow her as she plunges into the jungle.
The dense foliage resonates with the hum of insects and a continual chorus of bird calls. I duck beneath an enormous fern frond and push through a mess of flowering vines. As we clamber up a mossy embankment onto a thin animal trail, Mym follows it uphill, moving onward without hesitation. I follow as fast as I can, attempting to find sure footing among the loose stones.
The dense air conspires with the vegetation to slow my progress. The damp heat gives me the impression of swimming as much as hiking, pushing onward through the wall of humidity. “Where are we going?” I’m scrambling to keep up with Mym’s pace.
“I’m taking you to see my dad. He’ll know what to do.”
We jump a gully with a trickling stream and then climb the roots of a banyan tree to mount the opposite bank. When we finally arrive at the top of the hill, we enter a clearing populated with high grasses and, at the far side, a trio of fluttering canvas tents. Before we reach the tents, the sound of laughter turns Mym to the right. The tall grasses shield the owners of the laughing voices until we’re almost upon them. Mym parts the grass at the edge of another small stream to reveal two middle-aged men seated on buckets, ankle deep in the water. The legs of their cargo pants are rolled up to their knees and both are holding wood-framed sifting screens.
I recognize Dr. Quickly, though he’s younger than I’m used to. His hair is only streaked with gray and his movements are vigorous as he sloshes water and sand about in the screen. The man next to Dr. Quickly is the first to notice us. His deep black skin is contrasted by the radiant smile that spreads across his face upon
seeing Mym. He leans back on his bucket and tosses his screen to the muddy embankment.
“All your ruckus has attracted visitors, Harry.” His voice is deep, with a hint of an accent.
Dr. Quickly turns our direction and smiles. “This is a nice surprise. I just got through telling Abe how I was looking forward to the days when you’d stop filling the cooking pots with your frog collections every trip to the rainforest. I didn’t expect you to grow up quite this fast though. . . .”
“You leave a girl alone in a jungle, she’s bound to make herself some friends, Dad.”
“It seems you have moved on from frogs.” The man named Abe is looking at me now. “Or have you taken to kissing them, and this is your new prince?”
“Frogs are less trouble,” Mym says, looking at me. “This is Ben.”
Abe rises from his bucket and wades through the stream to shake my hand.
“Abraham.” His grip is firm, though still soggy.
“It’s nice to meet you.”
“I was wondering when I would see you again.” Dr. Quickly rises also and gives me a nod.
“I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.” The only time I had previously encountered the younger version of Dr. Quickly was mere minutes before his laboratory burned down in 1986. With no chronological order to our meetings, and the constantly diverging streams of time, it was nearly impossible for me to predict if this was the same man. “It’s good to see you again,” I add.
“So, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Dr. Quickly asks. “I know you probably didn’t come for the amphibians this trip.”
Mym shakes her head. “I need your advice, Dad. Abraham’s, too, since he’s here.”
“We’re all ears. I’d offer you a bucket to sit on but we seem to be fresh out. Should we take this conversation over to the dry site?”
“That’s probably better,” Mym replies.
We file through the grass to the area where we spotted the tents, and rearrange some of the tool crates and the two collapsible wooden chairs for seating. “Is it something serious?” Dr. Quickly is watching Mym’s face. It occurs to me what an odd sensation he must feel, viewing the older version of the child he is raising now.
In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 46
