In Times Like These (40 page)

“I’m not waiting a single second longer than I have to,” Blake says.

“I think that’s your cue to drive faster,” I say to the cabby.

“You guys been gone a while?” the cabby replies.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

I catch a glimpse of the softball field light poles as we cruise down
Ninth Avenue. They are already illuminated because of the darkening cloud cover. One of the clouds lights up from a flash of internal lightning.

When we pu
ll up to Mallory’s house on Thirteenth Avenue, the clock on the dash reads 06:52. Blake is out the door before the van even comes to a complete stop. He heads for Mallory’s door without looking back. I give Francesca my hand as she steps out of the van and then lean down to address the cabby. I pull a hundred dollar bill out of my pocket and hand it through the window to him. He looks at it and nods, and then glances at Blake pounding on Mallory’s door.
Maybe he’s wishing I were Blake. He’s still not getting four hundred dollars.

“Here, give
my card to your friend there,” the cabby says. “I’m Roger. You guys ever need another ride, you give me a shout.”

I take the bus
iness card and turn in time to see Mallory’s face as she answers her door.

That’s a good smile.

Blake is frozen for a moment as he looks at her, but then grabs her with both arms and pulls her to his chest. Francesca and I walk closer, stopping near the front of Mallory’s car in the driveway. Blake’s face is buried in Mallory’s hair, but she has her head toward us. She opens her eyes and smiles at Francesca and me.

“I thought you guys had softball,” she says, looking from me back to Blake as he loosens his arms.

“We did,” I say. “Bad weather.”

“Mallory.
I have something to say to you.” Blake locks his eyes on hers.

Francesca leans toward
me and whispers, “Should we be standing here for this?”

“Too late now.” I smile.

Blake drops to one knee and shows her the ring box.

“Oh my God.” Mallory puts her hands to her face.

“Mallory, I’ve loved you since the day I first met you,” Blake begins. “I should have told you a million times a day. There’s not a single place on this earth I would rather be than with you. I’ve been through a lot the last couple of weeks, and the thing it taught me, is that I don’t want to spend a single minute more of my life without you.”

“Aww,” Francesca murmurs next to me.

He opens the box. “Mallory Watson. Will you marry me?”

Mallory’s mouth is hanging open slightly as she takes the ring box from Blake’s fingers. It takes her a couple of seconds to respond.

“Yes . . . Yes, yes, I will. Oh my God. When did you—”

Blake is up and kissing her.
After a few moments, I realize they’re not coming up for air anytime soon.

“M
aybe we should give them a minute,” I say to Francesca. She nods and turns toward the street. We make a left at the sidewalk. Francesca uses the back of her hand to wipe away a tear. “Are you crying?”

“What? I’m a woman. Of course I’m crying.” She sniffs. “That was really sweet.”

When we get a couple of houses down, I glance back to Mallory’s porch. They’re still at it. “Let’s walk around the block.”

“H
ow are we going to get home?” Francesca says.

“M
aybe once all the mushiness has died down, Blake and Mallory can give us a ride,” I say.

“Oh. Wait.” Francesca stops walking. “Aren’t our cars parked over at the softball field?”

“Oh yeah,” I say. “That’s not too far to walk . . .” At that moment we start to get hit with a few large raindrops. I look down the street and see heavier precipitation moving toward us. “Damn. I guess we should have packed an umbrella in this backpack.”

“I don’t really care. I’ll get soaked,” Francesca says.

We turn toward the softball fields and have made it about a block when the rain starts to catch up to us. Squinting against the droplets, I watch a vehicle approaching.

“That looks a lot like Blake’s Jeep,” Francesca says.

“Yeah, it kinda does,” I reply, hoping we don’t get splashed by it.

Not that it’s going to matter. Rain or puddles do the same job.

The Jeep draws closer and I see a dark-haired man behind the wheel and recognize the surf shop sticker on the windshield.

No. This can’t be happening.

“Holy shit!” I blurt out.

“What?” Francesca says.

I don’t have to explain. The Jeep slows down and comes to a stop next to us. Blake has the Bimini top on the Jeep, but the sides are open and the doors are off, so I see he’s starting to get wet too.

“What are you guys doing
, walking in the rain?” Blake asks. He’s wearing his softball clothes and I see he has shoved his bat bag between the seats to shield it from the rain.

Francesca’s mout
h is hanging open. I turn and grab her by the shoulders. She looks at me but her eyes drift back to Blake sitting in the Jeep. Rivulets of rainwater are running down her temples. I touch her face and bring her eyes back to me.

“Get back to the house. Get him out of there. I don’t care what you have to say, just get him out! I’ll be back for you.”

Francesca’s eyes focus on my mouth as I’m talking but she remains speechless. I drop my hands from her shoulders and take a step back. I swing the backpack off my shoulders and push it into her hands.

“We will fix this. I’ll come back for you.” I leave her standing there and dash around the back of the Jeep to cl
imb into the passenger side. Francesca has backed away a couple of steps and is staring vacantly past the back of the Jeep.

“Is everything a
ll right?” Blake asks, looking from me back to Francesca.

“Yeah, keep driving. We have to go.”

Blake shifts into gear and starts rolling, still keeping his eyes on Francesca.

“We need to get away from this street,” I say.

“I was headed for Mallory’s,” Blake says.

“Yeah, you can’t do that right now.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Um, it’s
 . . . supposed to be a surprise.”

“A surprise?” Blake looks over to me and then into the
rearview mirror, where the figure of Francesca is slowly dwindling in his vision. “Why is Francesca acting like someone just shot her puppy?”

“She was just upset the plan isn’t going right.”

That’s not really a lie.

We make it to a stop sign.
“So where am I going?” Blake asks.

“Do you trust me?” I ask.

“Yeah, of course. You’re kind of weirding me out right now, but yeah. I trust you.”

“Let me drive.”

Blake looks at my face for a moment, and then unbuckles his seat belt. “Okay.” He slides out into the rain. I scoot over into the driver’s seat. As soon as he’s in, I start rolling.

I cut out to the
main street and head north.
Why are there two of him? And what am I going to do now?

“Can you at least give me a clue about what the surprise is?” Blake says.

“It’s kind of going to blow your mind,” I say. I turn right and head for Fourth Street. I need something to do with him. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving actually,” Blake says.

“Okay good.”

“This surprise is food-
related?”

T
hat could work.

“Yeah, Mallory has something special in mind, but the rainout sort of messed up the timing. She called me and asked me to divert you. Francesca was freaked out that you got there so fast.”

I pull into a smoothie store parking lot and let the Jeep idle in the handicapped space in front of the door.

“I think you should wait in here for a bit. I’ll come back and get you.”

Blake eyes the building. “You aren’t coming in?”

“No. You should probably get yourself a smoothie to hold you over. I wouldn’t eat too much though.”

“I actually don’t think I brought any cash,” Blake says, feeling his pockets.

“I can spot you.” I rummage in my pocket for my wad of bills.

Shit. All I have is hundreds.

I keep my hand out of sight from Blake as I gingerly extract a single bill from my pocket, trying to keep the rest from falling out.

“Here you go.” I hand him the bill.

“Whoa, high roller.” Blake smiles.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s all I got. Just bring me the change later.”

“Okay, so you’ll be back in a bit?”

I look at the Blake next to me.
He looks so stress-free. No sign of devastating loss on that face. Blake is going to be destroyed. My Blake
.

“Yeah
, man. Maybe a half hour or so. Oh, and don’t call Mallory. She’ll know I botched the job,” I say.

“Okay.”

He glances at my pants as he’s about to get out. “Hey, how’d you change so fast?”

“I’m ridiculously talented,” I say.

He shrugs and hops down. He gives me a quick two-fingered wave and dashes for the cover of the smoothie store awning.

I pull the Jeep back out to the street. As I sit at the stop sign waiting for traffic to clear, the rain slants into the Jeep and soaks my left leg.

I hope this lets up. I’m going to need a change of clothes
.

The implications of what has just happened start to dawn on me.

Shit. There could be another me too . . . I should have told Blake not to call me either. I’m going to need to move fast.

I rev the gas pedal and pull out into traffic. Racing back to Mallory’s house, my tires spray huge arcs as I blast through the rivers of rainwater pooling in the intersections.

Francesca, Blake and Mallory are huddled in the doorway of the front porch, watching for me as I pull up. Francesca tugs on Blake’s arm and sprints out to the Jeep, carrying my pack. Blake takes Mallory around the waist for another long kiss and then dashes out after Francesca. I tilt the passenger seat forward so Francesca can squeeze into the back. Blake is smiling as he climbs into the Jeep.

“If I wasn’t so happy right now, I would seriously question your choice of vehicles. With all of our cars there, you chose mine?”

I shift into gear and pull away from the curb. Mallory waves to us from the porch and Blake blows her a kiss in return. She pretends to grab it and stuff it into her back pocket.

This is going to suck.

I drive a few blocks north and wind my way into the Euclid neighborhood. I find a section of street where the heavy foliage from the trees is blocking most of the rain, and pull over.

“What’s so important that it couldn’t wait?” Blake says.

I switch off the ignition and turn to face him. “Okay, man. This isn’t going to be fun to hear, but I have some really bad news.”

Blake searches my face. “I’m flying pretty high right now. It would take a lot to bring me down. What’s going on? Did something happen to Robbie or Carson?”

I look back to Francesca. She has tears rolling down her face. I face Blake. “We’re not back.”

He
narrows his eyes at me. “What are you talking about?”

“Something is screwed up. We’re not back to our lives. I didn’t get your Jeep from the parking lot at softball. I got it from you. Another you.”

Blake leans away from me. “You’re messing with me, right?” He looks at Francesca’s face and back to mine. “This isn’t funny.”

“Blake, you know I wouldn’t joke about something this serious. I know how badly you wanted to get home.”

“I am home!” Blake says. “We made it.”

I look at the clock on Blake’s dash and point to it. 07:48.
“Something’s different. The power line should’ve zapped us by now. I don’t know why, but that didn’t happen to you this time. We ran into you driving back from softball.”

“How is that possible?” Blake says.

“I don’t know. Maybe you left earlier, maybe we didn’t all hang around when it started raining at the field. Maybe the power line never struck the bench this time. I don’t know.”

“Did you and Franc
esca still go back?”

“I don’t know. I just know you definitely didn’t, because you’re sitting in a Tropical Smoothie right now, waiting for me to come pick you up.”

“Why am I still sitting here then? Why haven’t I disappeared or something?” Blake says.

“It doesn’t work like that, remember?” I say. “Quickly said t
ime is not strictly linear when—”

“I don’t believe you.
This can’t be happening.” Blake raises his hands to his head and grabs his hair. He turns and slides out of the Jeep.

“Blake
—”

“No. This is not ha
ppening.” Blake paces back and forth next to the Jeep, still fidgeting with his head. “You’re sure it was me?”