If Only in My Dreams (30 page)

“Thanks. I don’t think he liked me.”

If she only knew.

Aloud, Jed says, “Well, he can be a little bit of a…”

“Pain in the—er, neck?”

“Exactly.”

“So it had nothing to do with me?”

He shakes his head.

She obviously doesn’t believe him.

“I don’t believe you,” she says, in case he missed the skyward roll of her pupils.

“I know you don’t.” He shrugs helplessly. “And you know what? I’m having a hard time figuring out what to believe myself.”

“What do you mean?”

Here goes nothing
, he thinks, taking a deep breath.

Whatever Clara is expecting Jed to say, it isn’t “I checked out your address this morning. On West Eleventh Street in Manhattan.”

Her stomach churns.

Her address? How could he possibly know her address?

“Somebody else was living there,” he goes on. “And they never heard of you.”

She searches her mind wildly, miraculously managing to pluck pertinent information from a maelstrom of panicky thoughts.

“Mr. and Mrs. Sloan,” she blurts, grateful that she never entirely tuned out her chatterbox building super—and hoping she got the year right. She’s pretty sure Mr. Kobayashi said the Sloans were there at least until after the war.

If Jed’s raised eyebrows are any indication, she’s correct about that.

“Yes,” he says, with a slow nod. “The Sloans. That’s the name.”

“You talked to them?”

“No, not to them. To a little boy… and his mother. But she didn’t speak any English.”

A little boy
…

Comprehension swoops over Clara like a bracing sea breeze on an August afternoon.

“They were Japanese!” she shouts like an exuberant game show contestant determined to ace the final round. “Right?”

Jed nods, but he still looks unsettled. “Right.”

“What was the little boy’s name? Wait, I’ll tell you. It was Isamu. Right?”

“Right,” Jed says again, and she realizes that she probably shouldn’t be quite so jubilant about discussing her supposed neighbors. “He spoke English. And he liked to talk.”

If you only knew
, she thinks, trying to picture Mr. Kobayashi as a child.…

And as a child, of course, he would never have heard of Clara McCallum.

“How is it that you found my address in the first place?” she asks Jed.

Wordlessly, he reaches into his pocket, pulls something out, and hands it to her.

Oh
. Her card. With the name and telephone number of Jesus’s life coach written on the front.

She should have remembered it was in her purse.

What now?

“Oh, that Isamu,” she says with a grin and a wave of her hand. “He’s such a mischievous little imp. He’s always pretending he doesn’t know me.”

All right, that was lame.

Clearly, Jed is in agreement. “Why would he do that?”

“He thinks it’s funny,” she says with a
kids!-what-are-you-going-to-do?
shrug.

“His mother didn’t know you, either.”

“I thought… she didn’t speak English.”

“I showed her your picture. Isamu translated for me that she didn’t recognize it, either… or so she claimed.”

Oh, that Mrs. Kobayashi… she’s such a mischievous little imp
isn’t going to cut it this time.

Clara just looks at Jed, wondering what she can possibly say that will make any sense.

But before she can speak, Jed does.

“Clara,” he says with a forthright lift of his chin, “are you working for the Japs?”

In that first moment of confusion, all she can think of are her cousins Rebecca and Rachel.

Then she realizes he doesn’t mean JAPs; he means Japs—as in
Japanese
.

Her jaw drops.

Working for the Japs? In wartime?

No wonder the police were here.

She shakes her head, dumbfounded at the paranoid conclusion Jed seems to have drawn based on…

What? The fact that she has Asian neighbors?

How can he be so small-minded? So prejudiced? So…

Politically incorrect?

This
is
a different era. In Germany, at this very moment, her grandmother’s uncles and aunts are imprisoned in Auschwitz, never to be seen again.

In this century, African Americans are relegated to the back of the bus. Martin Luther King Jr.’s fiery “I have a dream” speech is still decades away.

So much for the Good Old Days
, Clara thinks grimly.

It’s understandable that to Jed, the so-called Japs are the enemy. In fact…

December 7 is mere days away.

The Japanese are plotting their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor at this very moment.

What if I’m supposed to stop it?

What if she’s here in December 1941 not to save one man’s life, but hundreds of lives? What if she’s destined to change the course of history?

“You haven’t answered my question.” Jed pins her with a level look. “Are you working for the Japs?”

“You really think I’m some kind of… traitor?” she asks, incredulous despite her newfound grasp of where he’s coming from. “Just because my neighbors are Japanese?”

“And because of the… the…” He takes a deep breath. “I have to admit something, Clara. I’m not the least bit proud of it, but I did it because I was trying to find your identification so that I could return your belongings, and…”

“What? What did you do?”

“I looked inside your pocketbook. And I found… this.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out.

She looks into his outstretched palm—and laughs out loud.

She can’t help herself. It’s amusing to see him holding out her iPod as though it’s some sort of…

Oh
.

He has no idea what it is, but she can just imagine what he’s thinking.

As the ludicrous picture falls into place, complete with the nosy cop, Clara recognizes the seriousness of the allegation. Her laugh fades, along with the slightest hint of humor in the situation.

She’s going to owe him an explanation… and she’d better come up with a plausible one, fast.

“What is this, Clara?”

Stall him
.

“What do you think it is?”

“Some kind of… device.”

She nods. So far so good.

“It looks like a transmitter,” Jed goes on. “And I thought… I mean, I couldn’t help it. I figured…”

He figured that she was—she
is
—a wartime spy transmitting secret messages to the Japanese.

“This isn’t a transmitter, Jed,” she says quickly. “At least, not in the way you’re thinking.”

“So you didn’t hear me calling you?”

She shakes her head, even as she remembers his odd comment a little while ago, on the street. He said he was calling her to come back.

He wanted me here
.

The realization strikes a spark of euphoria. For a giddy instant, she’s fifteen again, just finding out that her crush on the cute soccer goalie is mutual.

Then she glimpses the lingering misgiving in Jed’s eyes and the spark is gone. Reality crashes over her: she’s all grown up, and he isn’t Adam Dumont, and they don’t have a chance in hell of any kind of relationship.

“Let me show you what this is, Jed.”

Abruptly, she takes the iPod from his hand, earbuds dangling, and presses the center button to turn it on, illuminating the screen.

Scrolling down the inventory of downloaded playlists, she almost wishes she had downloaded Jesus’s
Super Seventies
CD. Gladys Knight and the Pips would be a good alternative to Green Day and the Black Eyed Peas.

She needs something more classic, something that was around back in the forties. Too bad she’s never been much of a fan of swing music, or vintage crooners, or…

Wait a minute. There
.

Perfect
.

“Here… put these on.” She hands him the cord.

He stares at the earphones as if he has no clue what—

Oh. Right. He probably doesn’t know what they are
.

Of course he doesn’t
.

“Here, I’ll help you.” She steps closer, stands on her tiptoes, and rests one hand on his shoulder poised to insert the first tiny speaker into his ear.

Enveloped all at once in that familiar soap-tobacco-skin scent, she experiences another giddy fifteen-year-old-girl moment. Caught up in a seductive fantasy, she can’t seem to move on, entranced by the sensual images infiltrating her head.

She can see the muscles in Jed’s neck working as he swallows audibly, and she wonders if he’s feeling the same provocative tension.

All he would have to do is turn his head and they would be face-to-face…

And I could kiss him again
.

“What is that sound?” he asks, and for a second she’s convinced he must hear her heart pounding.

Then she realizes he’s talking about the faint buzz of music coming from the iPod, the song she selected from her Christmas playlist.

Swiftly getting hold of her recalcitrant emotions, she gently puts the earphone into his right ear.

He jumps. “What the—?”

“Shh, hang on…” She places its twin into his left ear, then takes a step back and watches his face.

His blue eyes are wide with shock.

“Is this music coming from that little thing?” he shouts at the top of his lungs.

She grins. “Yup.”

“Well, I’ll be…”

She watches him listen, as mesmerized by his rapt expression of wonder as he is by the music.

“What song is this?” he bellows at her.

Amused by his deafening decibel, she motions for him to remove the earphones.

He obliges with obvious reluctance. “This is incredible. What is it?”

“The song? That’s ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas.’… You’ve heard it before, right?”

“Never.”

Uh-oh
. She could have sworn it was a huge hit in the forties.

The question is…
when
in the forties?

“Who is it?” Jed asks.

“Frank Sinatra.” Surely he’s heard of…

“Who?”

“Frank Sinatra. The singer.”

“You mean the kid from Jersey who sings with Tommy Dorsey?”

Well, do you?

“Uh… yes?”

“I didn’t even know he had a record. Is it new?”

Is it?

Or is it a year or more into the future?

She nods; what else can she do?

“It’s going to be huge, I’ll tell you that,” Jed says enthusiastically. “I should have this one in stock. What did you say it was called?”

“‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas,’ but I… I don’t think it’s out on record yet,” Clara says feebly.

“How can it not be on a record?” He peers at the iPod. “What
is
this thing, anyway? And if there’s no record where is it getting the music?”

“It’s… kind of complicated. You know—new technology. I don’t really understand it myself.”

At least
that’s
not a total lie. She comprehends as much about consumer electronics as she does physics.

“So all along, this was just some kind of radio? A oneway radio that plays music?” Jed asks.

“As opposed to a two-way radio a spy might use?” She raises an eyebrow at him. “That’s right.”

He seems to be digesting this information.

Then, with a lingering trace of suspicion, he asks, “What about your neighbors? Why didn’t they know who you were?”

Yes, why is that, Clara? Are you going to explain that it’s because you aren’t born yet, and won’t be for another four decades?

“The thing is, Jed… I’ve had some trouble with a stalker lately.”

Again, not a total lie, she thinks, remembering the elderly autograph seeker who assailed her the other night in front of her building.

And what about the secret Santa? Not that unexpected holiday gifts qualify as harassment, exactly… but it’s still unnerving.

“You’ve had trouble with a
what?”

Can it be that stalkers, like iPods and Frank Sinatra, are a wave of the future?

“Somebody has been harassing me, and… Isamu and his mother were trying to protect me. They didn’t know who you were so they didn’t want to give out personal information to a total stranger on the street.”

A very logical explanation if she does say so herself.

Although… maybe she should have toned it down a little, because Jed now seems dangerously provoked.

“Is this fella who’s harassing you the one who gave you that bruise?” he asks, his blue eyes dark with ire.

“Oh, this?” She touches her head gingerly.

“Yes, this.”

In an instant, he goes from wrathful to tender, as he gently brushes her hair back from the sore spot.

“I got this when I walked into a door.”

“You said you got hurt on the train.”

Oops
.

“I did,” she says quickly. “I walked into a door on the train.”

There’s a long pause.

Then he says, “I think you’re making that up to protect whomever did this.”

Well, you’re half right
.

“Clara… I have to ask you… is he your husband?”

“Is who my husband?”

“The brute who—”

“I’m not married, Jed… and really, there is no brute. I’m just clumsy.”

He studies her doubtfully. “You don’t have to be afraid, you know. I’d protect you. If he followed you here and dared to even look at you cross-eyed, I’d—I swear he’d be eating a knuckle sandwich.”

She smiles, warmed by the notion of big, strong Jed protecting her—even if it is from a nonexistent adversary.

If only he could protect me from the real threat
.…

Her smile fades as she remembers her illness.

“You’re safe here with me, Clara. I want you to know that.”

She nods, wishing it were true.…

Wishing she could, in turn, keep him safe.

Maybe I can, though. Maybe there’s a way
.

“Where are you staying while you’re in Glenhaven Park?”

Startled by the question, she stammers, “I—I’m not sure.”

“You don’t have anyplace to go?”

“No, I guess I… didn’t think that far ahead.”

“Then you’re coming home with me. Nothing improper, I swear,” he adds hastily, even as she is engulfed by an image of Jed’s bed.…