A Knight in Central Park (33 page)

He looked about at the sensible bookshelves, neatly stacked CDs in the shelves across from him. “Everything so organized,” he said. “Order. It used to give me a sense of peace.” He used a folded newspaper to scratch his leg. “Now I look at it and wonder what good is any of it if you have nobody to enjoy it with?”

Shelly kept her gaze locked on him, waiting for an answer to her question.

He leaned forward and said in a serious tone, “It happened, Shelly. For one blessed, wonderful month I lived in another century.”

Her jaw dropped. “What was it like?”

“Beautiful chaos.”

“What about that guy? That man who was after Alexandra’s sister? Did you find him?”

He nodded, took another swallow of his warm drink.

Shelly did a little hop, startling him. She seemed to be seriously angry with his glass because she took it from him and growled as she took his cup to the kitchen. He heard the cupboards banging open and closed. A moment later she was back with a plastic bag, throwing empty cans and bottles and trash into it.

She tried to grab the doll from his lap, but he stopped her in the nick of time. “Touch my baby and you die.”

She stepped back, her eyes wide. “This is not like you, Professor. This mess,” she said throwing her arms wide. “My boyfriend’s place looks better than this!” She slid a finger across his coffee table and held it up for him to see. “You have dust motes, Professor. Doesn’t that bother you anymore?”

He shrugged.

“Look at your hair. You’ve practically got a beard. I can’t believe this. Oh, my God.”

He wagged an admonishing finger at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God, does not constitute using God’s name in vain. So give it a rest. It’s her, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Professor McFarland, king of bachelorhood and one night stands has fallen for a woman. And when the stubborn fall, they fall hard, don’t they, Professor?”

“Yeah, sure, they fall hard.” He looked at the doll. Rebecca probably wouldn’t be pleased with the arms he’d sewn on her baby doll. He’d stopped at Target to buy a Barbie doll. It had taken him over an hour just to drill holes into the plastic arms and then another hour to sew them to the rag doll’s tunic. Rebecca’s baby looked like an alien.

But at least it had arms.

Shelly winced. “That doll is scaring me.” She scooted his legs off of the coffee table. Then she took a seat beside him. “That bad, huh?”

“I can’t stop thinking about her,” he admitted. “I was holding the last stone when I realized I didn’t want to leave her, couldn’t leave her. But it happened anyhow.”

He sat up and laid his face in his open palms. “I took the rock, Shelly. I drew back my arm, ready to throw it toward the horizon, then zap! I was back in Central Park.”

He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.” He shook his head. “Central Park is safer than people think. I wanted to be mugged. I didn’t want to be here. It was cold, but it felt good to be cold because at the very least I wanted to feel numb. But then some guy gave me his coat. Can you believe that? A complete stranger; a homeless guy with nothing gave me his coat. All those years I walked through that park and not once did I ever think to give a stranger my coat.” He pointed to a stack of coats and blankets and sweatshirts at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m going to give those away.”

Shelly nodded, but she didn’t say anything, just listened.

“It’s my own fault I’m here. Stubborn, close-minded. That’s me,” he said jabbing a finger into his chest. “I was so stuck on love being something you could see and hold, something concrete, something I didn’t deserve, that I didn’t figure it out until it was too late.”

He looked intensely at Shelly, and fiercely hoped her boyfriend deserved her and loved her.

“I’ve given up the one woman I’ve ever loved.” He closed his eyes. The aching in his gut felt like a dozen knots pulled tight. He needed to hear Alexandra’s voice, see her face, touch her, feel her hand in his.

“Professor. Was it true what she said about the stones? Were there two stones missing when you and Alexandra arrived in her century?”

His eyes remained closed, but he managed a slight nod.

“Listen to me carefully. Do you remember when the three of us...you, Alexandra and I, were in the kitchen? Your kitchen?”

He nodded again, opened his eyes. “What about it?”

“Alexandra had been upset that day,” Shelly said. “She was troubled that morning because she had lost one stone in Central Park and one stone while she was here.”

Shelly peered wildly about the room. “Maybe, just maybe the second missing stone is here somewhere.” Shelly jumped to her feet and ran into the kitchen at about the same time her words sunk into his thick skull.

By the time Joe managed to get to his feet and to the kitchen, Shelly was on the computer, her fingers clicking away on the keyboard. Each second felt like hours as he waited, not quite sure what he was waiting for. Hope was thick and tangible, and definitely in the air.

“Yes!” Shelly shouted, jumping to her feet, giving him a heart attack. “Tonight is the night! We don’t have much time. Oh, crap, look at you. Oh, forget it, we don’t have time to fix your hair, or your...” She plugged her nose. “Professor, what is that smell? When was the last time you took a bath? Never mind. We’ll spray you with a hose if we have to. What are you doing just standing there? Start looking for that stone!”

The tiny ray of hope expanded, its power soaring through his body, renewing his energy like nothing else could. Shelly was already in the living room, flipping cushions from chairs and turning end tables upside down.

Tonight. Shelly had just said. “Tonight was the night.”

He caught up to Shelly in the bathroom where she was dumping garbage to the floor, searching through old tissues and magazines.

“What did you mean when you said tonight is the night?”

Shelly stood tall. Between her high-heeled boots and his bare feet, they stood eye to eye. “Do you love Alexandra?” she asked him.

“More than life itself.”

“Do you want to be with her forever?”

“More than anything.”

“Then why are you just standing there?” She glanced at her watch. “We have less than three hours to find that stone and get you to Central Park. There’s a full moon tonight. You need to hurry!

“How would you know?”

“Let's just say that ever since meeting Alexandra, I've learned more about the moon than I care to know,” she said with a smile.

Two hours later, Joe emptied the last of the kitchen drawers, letting its contents spill across the table and onto the floor. They had searched the entire house. “It’s no use,” he said. “Maybe there never was another stone.”

Shelly’s shoulder’s sagged. But that didn’t stop her from waving at Mrs. Peacock through the kitchen window. “What’s she doing out there at this hour?” Shelly asked him.

Joe winced. “Why did you have to go and wave? Look. Now she’s coming this way.”

Shelly ignored him and went and opened the door that led from the kitchen to the tiny yard he shared with Mrs. Peacock. It was less than fifty degrees outside, but the old lady had pink-flowered gloves on her hands. She was holding a trowel, looking ready to bop Joe in the head with it.

“Hello Mrs. Peacock,” Joe said. “A little cold to be outdoors, don’t you think?”

Mrs. Peacock glared at him, waved her trowel at him. “I’ve been looking for you. You owe me one hundred and fifteen dollars and twenty-nine cents for the flowers your girlfriend ruined.”

Joe was not in the mood to be chewed out, especially by a cantankerous old woman. He stepped past Shelly. “How could a handful of flowers possibly cost that much money?”

“They were rare blooms, Mr. McFarland. They bloom once every two years.” Mrs. Peacock tried to look past him, into his kitchen. “I have a good mind to call the police and have your friend arrested for trespassing.”

Joe stepped outside and peeked through the greenhouse window suddenly curious to see what the old lady did in there day after day. Myriad colors were in full bloom. He could see where the rich soil had been turned over and loosened. He followed the panels until he came to the small door leading into the greenhouse.

“Don’t go in there. My flowers are extremely sensitive!”

Joe was already inside. Gingerly, he sifted through the soil where Mrs. Peacock’s flowers had been plucked to their deaths. And that’s when he saw it. The stone. The very last stone. Alexandra had unknowingly left him a stone so that he could return to her. His heart pounded. He stepped out of the greenhouse, his blood racing through his veins. “Alexandra, I’m coming!” he cried out, scaring poor Mrs. Peacock half to death.

Shelly ran to his side, grinning when she saw what he had in his hand.

Joe picked the old woman up, trowel and all, twirling her about in his arms. He set her down, still grinning, couldn’t stop smiling if he wanted to. “Your flowers are the most beautiful, wonderful flowers I’ve ever seen.”

He looked to the sky, the last of the clouds drifting off before nightfall shadowed them completely. His eyes lit up. “Look at that, would you?”

Shelly and Mrs. Peacock followed his upward gaze.

“That cloud,” Joe said. “It’s a dog! A Labrador retriever. See? Its tongue is hanging out and it’s wagging its tail!”

Mrs. Peacock gave Shelly a worried look. Shelly led the old woman into the kitchen. “I’ll get the checkbook,” Shelly said, disappearing into the main part of the house. By the time she returned, Joe had finished watching the clouds gather and had returned to the kitchen. He took the checkbook and the pen from Shelly and turned to Mrs. Peacock. “How about five hundred dollars? No, let’s make it an even thousand.” Happily, he wrote the check, tore it loose, and handed it to the woman. Mrs. Peacock looked suspicious, but she took the check and shoved it in her pocket.

“I’m going to miss your sweet face,” he told Mrs. Peacock before heading for the living room.

Shelly thanked Mrs. Peacock and sent her home.

Shelly came up behind him. “I’m going to miss you, Professor. What should I tell the faculty and your students?”

Joe turned to her. “Tell them all to open their eyes. Tell them not to let the wonders of life pass them by. Clouds, for example, tell them to never ever take the clouds for granted.” He shook a finger at her. “I mean it.”

Shelly raised a skeptical brow. “Uh, yeah, great advice, Professor...clouds. I’ll tell them about the clouds.”

T
raveling through time felt like waking up from a deep sleep. And yet when Joe looked at his watch he saw that exactly three minutes had passed.

This time he landed on his feet and now stood on the outskirts of the fields of wheat surrounding Alexandra’s manor. With his duffel bag on his right and a suitcase on his left, Joe started the uphill climb. Although he couldn’t yet see the burnt pile of rubble that was once Alexandra’s house, he saw the tree where Garrett had shot him down with a rock, and the tall heads of wheat swaying in the breeze. He also swore he heard music.

A stab of anxiety stopped him cold. What if Alexandra wasn’t happy to see him? Maybe he had assumed too much. If she thought he left her on purpose she would be furious, wouldn’t she? At the very least, hurt, angry. He hadn’t thought this through...he wasn’t prepared.

He straightened, puffed out his chest as he decided that it didn’t matter how angry she was with him. He would make her see the truth. If he had to spend the rest of his life telling her, showing her, convincing her of his love for her, then that’s what he would do. He started off again.

Alexandra’s home was no longer a pile of rubble. New construction had begun. Sir Richard, it appeared, had kept his word, sending more than a few men to help rebuild. Horses and wagons were tied to trees and wooden posts. Joe heard a spirited chorus of flutes and a string of laughter coming from the barn.

He set his things down and headed that way.

Precious whinnied upon seeing him approach. He gave the horse a pat on the neck before stopping just outside the open doors of the barn. His gaze fell on Alexandra.

He stood paralyzed. Her hair, just as he remembered, long and luxurious, hung down her back; no braid constricted her hair today. Instead, the red mass hung loose and carefree, the way it had looked when he first found her in his home after she struck him down with a plunger. At the moment she looked like a fairy princess.

“Dearly beloved,” the priest began, “we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony, which is an honorable estate, instituted...”

Alexandra didn’t turn around. She hadn’t seen him yet. She was dressed all in white with delicate lace slippers covering her feet. And she was standing at the altar...with another man.

He’d known all along she’d make a spectacular looking bride. His jaw twitched. His hands curled into fists at his side. A day late and a dollar short.

“Therefore if any man can show any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”

Joe cleared his throat and stepped forward. “I refuse to hold my peace.”

That got their attention. Everybody in the barn turned their gaze on him. Joe straightened, ignoring the angry glares that fell upon him. He didn’t look Alexandra’s way again, afraid of what her reaction might be. He wasn’t ready to look into her eyes. Not yet.

“Go on,” the priest said, letting Joe have his say.

Joe saw Garrett up front and center. The kid crossed his arms and waited with the rest of the crowd, except Garrett had a smirk on his face. The boy hadn’t changed a bit. Just wait until Garrett found out he was staying for good. The thought put a smile on Joe’s face.

“We are waiting,” the priest said with less patience.

Joe cleared his throat. “I have a big problem with this wedding taking place.”

“So we see,” the priest agreed.

Joe shoved his hands deep inside his pockets, jangled his change. “And I’m pretty sure I have ample just cause.”