Ken Grimwood (25 page)

He climbed the steps to his second-floor apartment, his mind swimming against the tide of a thousand competing thoughts and unlikely options. If he simply gave up, committed suicide, what then? Would he—

One corner of the yellow envelope protruded into the hallway where it had been slipped beneath his door. He picked up the telegram, ripped it open:

BEEN CALLING ALL DAY. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I'M BACK. I'M BACK.

I'M BACK. GET HERE RIGHT AWAY. I LOVE YOU.

PAMELA

It was after eleven o'clock that night when he pulled up in front of the house in Westport. He'd tried to get a flight from Logan to Bridgeport, but there'd been nothing leaving immediately. It was quicker to drive, he decided, and he made the brief trip in record time.

Pamela's father answered the door, and Jeff could see right away that this wasn't going to be easy.

"I want you to know that I'm allowing this meeting only because my wife insisted that I do so," the man began without preamble. "And even she was persuaded only because of Pam's threats to leave home if we didn't let her talk to you."

"I'm sorry this has become such an issue, Mr. Phillips," Jeff said with all the sincerity he could muster.

"As I told you last year, I never intended to cause any problems in your family; it's all been an unfortunate misunderstanding."

"Whatever it is, it will not be repeated. I've spoken to my lawyer, and he says we can get a restraining order issued before the end of the week. That means you'll be arrested if you come anywhere near my daughter again before she turns eighteen; so whatever you have to say to her, you'd better get it said tonight. Is that understood?"

Jeff sighed, tried to peer through the half-open door. "Could I just see Pamela now, sir? I won't cause any problems, but I've waited a long time to talk to her."

"Come inside. She's in the living room. You have one hour."

Pamela's mother had obviously been crying; her eyes were rimmed with red and haunted with defeat.

Her fifteen-year-old daughter, sitting beside her on the sofa, was by contrast totally composed, though the girl's wide grin told Jeff she was fighting to restrain the jubilant relief she at last felt. The ponytails were gone; she'd brushed her hair into an approximation of the style she'd worn as an adult. She wore a cashmere sweater with a beige wool skirt, stockings, heels, and light, expertly applied makeup. The change in her since the last time he'd seen her went far deeper than her physical appearance, however; in her alert, knowing eyes Jeff could see instantly that this was in fact the woman he had loved and lived with for a decade.

"Hi, there," he said, returning her broad smile. "Want to go soaring?"

She laughed, a rich, throaty laugh full of mature irony and sophistication. "Mother, Father," she said,

"this is my dear friend Jeff Winston. I believe you've met before."

"How is it that you've suddenly decided you know this … man, after all?" Her father had also noted the drastic change in Pamela's voice and demeanor, Jeff could see, and was greatly displeased by her inexplicable overnight growth to adulthood.

"I suppose my memory must have had some gaps in it last year. Now, you promised me we could have an hour alone together. Do you mind if we get started on that, please?"

"Don't try to leave the house." Her father scowled, addressing the two of them. "Don't even leave the living room."

Mrs. Phillips rose reluctantly from her place beside her daughter. "Your father and I will be in the den if you need us, Pam."

"Thanks, Mother. Everything is fine, I promise you."

Her parents left the room, and Jeff took her in his arms, hugging her as tightly as he could without crushing the breath out of her. "My God," he rasped in her ear, "where have you been? What happened?"

"I don't know," she said, pulling back to look at him. "I died in the house on Majorca just when I expected to, on the eighteenth. I only started replaying this morning; I was dumbfounded when I discovered what year it was."

"I showed up late, too," Jeff said, "but only by about three months. I've been waiting for you for over a year."

She touched his face, gave him a look of tender sympathy. "I know," she said. "My mother and father told me what happened that summer."

"You don't remember, then? No, of course you wouldn't."

She shook her head sadly. "My only memories of that time are from my original existence, and the replays since. From my perspective, I last saw you just twelve days ago, on the dock at Puerto de Andraitx."

"The miniature," he said with a warm smile. "It was perfect. I wish I could have kept it."

"I'm sure you have," she said quietly. "Where it counts most."

Jeff nodded, hugged her again. "So … how did you find me in Boston?"

"I called your parents. They seemed to know who I was—vaguely, at least."

"I told them I knew a girl at school who was from Connecticut, when I first came up here."

"God, Jeff, it must have been awful when I didn't recognize you."

"It was. But now that you're back, I'm kind of grateful to have had a glimpse of what you were really like at fourteen."

She grinned. "I bet I thought you were cute, whoever you were. Actually, I'm kind of surprised I didn't lie, and tell my parents I did know you."

"I phoned you last March. You said you thought I was 'weird' … but you did sound kind of interested."

"I'm sure I was."

"Pam?" her father called from the hallway. "Everything all right in there?"

"No problem at all," she answered.

"You've got another forty-five minutes," he reminded her, and went back toward the rear rooms of the house.

"This
is
going to be a problem," Jeff said with a worried frown. "You're legally a minor; your father was talking about seeking a restraining order to prevent me from seeing you."

"I know," she said ruefully. "That's partly my fault. There was a hell of a scene here this afternoon, after I told them I was expecting a call or a visit from you. I had no idea they'd ever heard of you before; my father went through the roof when I brought your name up, and I'm afraid I didn't react too well in return. They never heard language like that out of me at this age, except in my second replay, when I turned rebellious. And of course, they don't remember that."

"Do you think he's serious about keeping us apart? He could really make things difficult if he chooses to."

"Unfortunately, he means what he says. We may have a rough time of it for a while."

"We could … run away together."

Pamela laughed dryly. "No. I tried that route once, remember? It didn't work out then, and it won't now."

"Except that I have money now, and access to as much more as we need. It's not as if we'd be out on the streets."

"But I'm still underage; don't forget that. You'd be in a lot of trouble if they caught us."

Jeff managed a grin. "Jailbait. I kind of like that idea."

"I just bet you do," she taunted. "But it's no joke, particularly not in this era. The 'Summer of Love' is still three years away; in 1964, they took that kind of thing very, very seriously."

"You're right," he agreed dejectedly. "So what the hell are we going to do?"

"We're just going to have to wait for a little while. I'll be sixteen in a few months; maybe by then they'll at least let us date, if I butter them up and play the role of the obedient daughter for now."

"Christ … I've already waited a year and a half to be with you."

"I don't know what else we can do," she said with compassion. "I don't like the prospect any better than you do, but I don't think we have any other choice right now."

"No," he admitted. "We don't."

"What are you going to do in the meantime?" "I guess I'll go back to Boston; it's a nice city, not too far from here, and I'm more or less settled in there. Probably work on building up our nest egg, so we don't have to bother with making money once we're able to be together. Can I at least call you? Write you?"

"Not here, I don't think, not yet. I'll get a post-office box so we can write, and I'll call you as often as I can. From outside the house, after school."

"Jesus. You're really going back to high school again?"

"I have to." She shrugged. "I can put up with it. I've done it so many times before, I think I know every answer to every test."

"I'm going to miss you … You know that." She kissed him, long and passionately. "So will I, love; so will I. But the wait will be more than worth it."

FOURTEEN

Pamela adjusted the tassel on her mortarboard, looked out into the crowded auditorium, and spotted Jeff, sitting alongside her parents. Her mother beamed with happy pride. Pamela caught Jeff's eye, winked, and got a wry smile in return. They were both aware of the comic irony in this ceremony: She, a woman who had been a practicing physician, a successful artist, and a celebrated motion-picture producer, was at last being awarded her high-school diploma. For the third time.

It had required considerable tenacity, and she was glad Jeff had understood how tedious the past three years had been for her. He'd had his own experience of reentering the academic world, at the college level, during his second replay; but going through high school again, this many times, was a unique subcircle of Hell.

Her perseverance had paid off, though, as she'd known it would. Her family had relented somewhat when she turned sixteen, a well-behaved A student who exhibited no interest in going out with the boys in her supposed peer group, and she was allowed to see Jeff two nights a week. He took an apartment in Bridgeport for their weekend use, and was scrupulously punctual about having her back at her parents'

home by midnight every Friday and Saturday night. As far as her mother and father were concerned, the young couple saw a lot of movies; and if there were ever any question of that, they could easily recite the plots of such films as
Morgan!
,
Georgy Girl
, or
A Man for All Seasons,
having seen them all at least twice in the years past.

The arrangement had been kind of fun, in an odd way, once the negative parental pressure had begun to ease. There'd been a delicious erotic tension arising out of the limitations on their time together and the necessary furtiveness of their passion. They'd loved each other with their fresh young bodies as if they had never been intimate before, never given or received such libidinous delight with each other—or indeed with anyone.

If her parents had ever suspected anything about her sexual involvement with Jeff—and they must have, certainly by now—they'd been admirably silent about it. Their initial cautious tolerance of Jeff had soon given way to acceptance, then approval, and eventually an outright fondness. The four-year chasm of age that had loomed so disturbingly in her parents' eyes when he was eighteen and she fourteen had become a thoroughly conventional discrepancy by the time they were twenty-two and eighteen. Besides, in this era of LSD and promiscuous nonconformity, her mother and father were obviously relieved that she had developed a stable relationship with such a clean-cut, well-mannered, and prosperous young man.

The last of the diplomas was handed out, and the fledgling graduates who surrounded her raced from the stage with boisterous cheers. Pamela made her way calmly toward where Jeff waited with her parents.

"Oh, Pam," her mother said, "you looked so lovely up there! You just put all the rest of them to shame."

"Congratulations, honey," her father said, embracing her. "I have to turn in the cap and the gown,"

Pamela told Jeff. "Then we can get going."

"Do you really have to leave so soon?" her mother asked, chagrined. "You could stay for dinner, get an early start in the morning."

"Jeff's family is expecting us Thursday evening, Mom; we really ought to get as far as Washington tonight. Here, hold this," she said to Jeff, handing him the scrolled diploma. "I'll be right back."

In the girls' locker room she took off the black cotton robe, changed into a blue skirt and white blouse. A few of the other girls shyly congratulated her, and she them, but she was subtly excluded from their general camaraderie, the excited talk of boyfriends and summer plans and the various colleges they'd be going to in the fall. These girls had been her friends in her original existence; she'd fully shared in all their shenanigans and banter and tentative first steps to womanhood. But this time, as when she'd repeated her high-school years at the beginning of her first replay, there was a gulf between them that the girls somehow recognized, incapable though they were of understanding what it was. Pamela had kept her distance from them, ignored the social aspects of adolescence, had done what she had to do to fulfill her promise to her parents that she would finish school before leaving home to be with Jeff. Now that day had come, and she hoped the awkwardness of her departure could be kept to a minimum.

She finished changing, went back into the gradually emptying auditorium to rejoin her parents and the man with whom she would share the remainder of this life.

"So," her father was saying to Jeff, "you really do think I ought to hang on to those quarters, do you?"

"Yes, sir," Jeff replied. "As a long-term investment, most definitely. I'd say in ten to twelve years you'll see a very healthy return on it."

Her father's question had been designed to ease the tension, Pamela recognized, and she was grateful.

The exchange reaffirmed that he had come to personally respect Jeff as an astute, creative investor and that he was aware his daughter would be well taken care of. Jeff himself had purchased several thousand dollars' worth of the phased-out ninety-percent-silver dimes and quarters before the coins disappeared, and had recommended that her father do the same. It was a logical, conservative-seeming financial move that would not startle her father by skyrocketing with suspicious swiftness or trouble him by appearing too obscurely risky. It would certainly pay off in its time, however; specifically, in January of 1980, when the Hunt brothers' illegal secret manipulations of the silver market would drive the price of the precious metal up to fifty dollars an ounce. Jeff had told Pamela he would contact her father that month, make sure he unloaded the coins before the precipitous crash that would soon follow.