The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (4 page)

Kate’s eyes bulged. “I marry
Mark?!”

The key ring began to rattle. “Yes.”

She sat up to put her hand on his arm, and he caught it. “You can’t let go, Kate. The things I can tell you, I can only tell you with your hand in mine.”

“Why?” Her head was reeling from what he’d already told her.

“Because,” he said carefully, “telling you about the future is very dangerous, or so I’ve been told. I can tell you what I tell you for one simple reason: so long as our hands are clasped, you’ll remember what I’m saying, but as soon as you let go, it will all be gone.”

“Gone?” She thought of her mother.

“Gone.”

She was dizzy with questions, though the sceptic in her, whose voice was fading fast, kept a low “uh uh,” rumbling in her ear.

“Mark, then? Where do we live? Is he a politician? Am I a strategist? Am I successful? Are we happy?”

He gave her a weak smile. “That’s a lot of questions. Let’s see …” He lowered his gaze to her hand, as if reading her fortune in the topography of knuckles and minute lines. “You live here, in Pittsburgh, in an immense condo overlooking the river, where you host a lot of parties. Mark is a partner at a law firm, though he’s a power broker in politics here and in the state.”

Kate frowned. A power broker was hardly the idealist she’d visualized in that flash of imagining. Nonetheless, they were still in the thick of it. “And me?”

“You run a not-for-profit – disadvantaged kids, that sort of thing. You’ve made a huge impact in the city,” he said with an obvious pride, “and it keeps you very busy.”

This was like going to your high-school guidance counsellor to find out what job the vocation test says you’re suited for and discovering it’s some vaguely improbable position at the top of a corporate food chain. Admirable, maybe, but for someone else.

“Really?”

“You do a great job, Kate.”

“But why not politics?”

The odd distracted reflection washed over him again. “I could speculate, but … but I think I should stick to what I know.”

“You’re supposedly one of my closest friends.” The voice in her head was growing louder. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“What you told me was that politics was a place for the coldblooded.”

“
I
said that?” She’d never been a cynic. Not about politics.

“Yes. And I can see you’re disappointed,” he added quickly, “but I can tell you, you never look back. Your work brings you immense joy. Immense.”

“It sounds like you’re trying to convince me.”

“No,” he said, agitated. “What I’m trying to do is be fair.”

“Fair?”

“Kate, I’m about to ask you to give it all up, and I don’t ever want it to be said that I didn’t present the case fairly.”

It was almost too much, she thought, to have pictures of her life laid out before her and then immediately snatched away. “Give it up? What are you asking me to give up? And why?”

Before he could answer, Mark appeared in her peripheral vision, and instinctually she withdrew her hand.

Patrick felt the cool air on his palm. All for naught, he thought with a philosophical chuckle, looking at that gorgeous, strong profile as she turned her gaze towards Mark. He stood at the centre of the remaining wedding guests, riveting them with a story. But it wasn’t Mark to whom Patrick’s eyes went when he’d finished feasting his gaze on the full, knowing lips he’d never know and the long, pale neck, fringed with dark blonde hairs that fell from her effortless French knot; his eyes went to himself, albeit a much younger version, standing to the side of the circle, eyes fixed on Kate.

Ah, my friend, if only you’d find the courage to approach her now, before that fated foosball game, he thought, and ached with the memory of how that longing felt.

But though the decades had given him the confidence he lacked then, even now, at fifty-six, after years of being there for her whenever she called, of sharing every step of her personal and business life, of being the recipient of all but her most precious secrets, he knew he’d never have the confidence – ever – to believe he could possess her. And yet, here he was, certain that what he was about to do, an act that would not only ensure he didn’t possess her, but almost certainly tear her from him for ever, was the only choice he had.

He’d been given one hour. How it worked, he didn’t know, but the woman in the souk with the coal eyes and the
hookah
pipe did, and in exchange for a thousand Egyptian pounds and his silence on the matter of the stolen
cartouche
, she told him the rules: Yo u may tell the girl what you wish about her future so long as her hand is in yours, though nothing you say will be remembered. After an hour you will awake as if from the worst sort of drunken indulgence. Under no circumstances are you to make contact with your younger self.

When he asked if it was possible to change what would happen – his past, her future – the woman pulled a long drag from the pipe, grinned a horrible, black-toothed grin and said, “Changing the world is an effort of the heart, Yankee Doodle, not the mouth.”

Then she’d mixed him his own
hookah
cocktail and handed him the pipe. That was the last thing he remembered.

He returned Kate’s keys and other items to her purse surreptitiously. An instant after he closed it, Kate turned back to him. He gave her a polite smile. She’d forgotten everything he’d told her.

“Oh, sorry,” she said with a start. “You were saying something about the … White Stripes?”

“The guitar player, I said. He gives it a sort of White Stripes sound.” Of course, at this point, the band had finished with Billy Joel and was a few bars into “In Your Eyes”, so the comparison made considerably less sense than it had before. Nonetheless, she pursed her lips again in that way she had, and he knew she was thinking of Robin, the miserable freshman room-mate he’d heard her mention over the years. He’d always been able to make her laugh with a White Stripes reference. He’d miss that.

He looked at her hand, considering.

“Kate, could I interest you in a dance?”

She felt the touch of his hand on her elbow as he led her to the floor. There was something both intriguing and protective about it. He was like the sexy uncle your girlfriend always wants to chat up at parties.

“In your eyes, the light, the heat. In your eyes, I am complete …”

He took her waist and held out his hand. She placed her palm on his, and a warm rush went through her, like the shower of sizzling sparks after a sky-filling firework.

She made a small mewl of surprise. “You told me things,” she gasped.

“You remember.” He laughed. “I didn’t know.”

Mark, disadvantaged kids and her mother’s cancer, the ideas tumbled through her mind – narrow, concrete glimpses of a future that had until now been vast and ill-defined. “You wanted me to give something up. What?”

“All of it.”

“What?”

“Kate, I don’t have much time.” He glanced at his watch as they moved. “To the end of this song, maybe a few minutes more, so I want you to listen. When that foosball game ends, Mark, my friend, is going to ask you out for a drink. Don’t do it. Tell him you’re tired; tell him you’re dating someone else, whatever you want. Just don’t go with him.”

“You said we were getting married. You said we were happy.”

His face contracted, and she felt her stomach knot.

He hadn’t said they were happy, had he? “What happens?”

He lowered his eyes.

“Patrick, you’re supposed to be my friend.”

A long sigh. “Look, I’m not going to tell you this unless I can be completely fair. He’s a good man. He shares your love of travel. You hold his hand at dinner parties. For years you guys would have won couple of the year.”

“And then?”

“A woman.”

“A slip.”

He met her eyes.

“Does he leave me?” she asked, slightly ill.

“No,” he said sadly. “Though I wish he would.”

“Like my father, then?”

“Kate, I watched you fold in on yourself. I watched the Kate who set the room on fire everywhere she went just go out, like someone shot out a porch light with a twenty-two. It was like an eclipse, Kate. The spark was gone.”

She refused to believe she could let that happen. She refused to believe she’d have invested so much in a man like her father. All her life had been about feeling strong and empowered. “How do we know I can’t change it? How do we know?”

“I have to be honest, Kate. I don’t know. I hope it
is
possible to change things. After all, that’s the reason I’m here.”

She looked at P.J., trading quips with Mark. “I can’t believe the Mark I’ve met would do that, and I
really
can’t believe I’d be attracted to that kind of man.”

“People change, Kate. I told you.”

“Did you?” She wondered what his story was.

“No.”

“Did you marry?

“Yes, once. For six years. But it was mistake.”

“Why?”

He turned his head. “The usual reasons.”

“Why?”

“Kate.”

“Why, Patrick?”

He led her into an unexpected turn. “I was in love with someone else.”

Her eyes came to rest on P.J., who was looking straight at her. When their gazes met, he pivoted and took a long swallow from his beer. She wondered what else she had missed tonight.

“I’m sorry,” she said honestly. “I didn’t know.”

Patrick shrugged good-naturedly.

“Am I nicer to you in the future than I am tonight?”

He laughed. “Yes. Much.”

“I’m glad.” She looked into those grey eyes. “Do I love you then?”

A flash of pain crossed his face. “Er, not that way, no.”

She considered the courage and immense love it took to come so far for someone who didn’t return your feelings. “So why don’t you talk to him?” She indicated his younger self.

“Not allowed. Causes some kind of cosmic run-time error.”

“And you’re not willing to risk it?”

“I was told my time here would end instantly if I did, so, no,” he said with a significant look, “I wasn’t willing to risk it.”

The music soared, and the singer made Peter Gabriel’s lyrics her own.

“If you could,” she asked, “what would you say?”

“Oh, gosh.” He looked into the distance, his face breaking into the first truly unburdened smile of the evening. “Don’t be such an idiot. Don’t use Mark as an excuse to not at least try for what you want. Don’t underestimate your own overpowering potential with women.” The smile turned lopsided, and he dipped her with a flourish. “Oh, and do
not
bet against the Pirates in the ’22 World Series.”

She lifted a sly brow. “That last bit, good to know.”

“Yeah, enjoy it for the next four minutes.”

She laughed, but suddenly four minutes didn’t seem like enough – not nearly enough. “What do I look like then?” She wondered if she were still battling a weight problem. It was a stupid question, but somehow she felt if she knew, some of the rest might be easier.

“You’re asking the wrong person.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“OK, here’s what I see,” he explained. “You walk in a room, fireworks go off. Your hair sends off sparks of gold like a halo. I see your smile, of course – at least when you
were
smiling. And a body that just exudes—”

“Hey!”

“Let me finish. That just exudes this sort of grace and openness to the world. And, well, let’s face it, curves that just won’t stop.”

He squawked as she elbowed him.

“I am a man, all right?”

She let her hand drift to his lapel. He felt so solid, so constant. She’d never felt that before.

“I want that grace and openness for you always, Kate. That’s why I’m here.”

A thickness in her throat made it hard to speak. She didn’t know this man, really. And yet he spoke in a way she’d barely allowed herself to imagine she might be spoken to someday. She must do something right to deserve a man like this in her future.

“What do you become?” she asked.

“Other than a slave to unrequited love?”

She grinned. “Yes.”

“Um, an archaeologist. I think I, er,
he
might have mentioned that.” He gestured toward P.J.

“Geez, am I that self-absorbed?” She chucked her forehead. “Why can’t I remember what you told me?”

“Because you, my friend, have just entered the altered psychological state known as Mark Donovan. It’s like cocaine, only more enthralling. P.J. McCann, on the other hand, makes up in longevity what he lacks in luminosity. Mark’s like the spotlight at a movie premiere. I’m like a glow-in-the-dark rock. Four-point-five billion year half-life.”

She laid her head on his shoulder, feeling the soft weave of his jacket and the softer chest below. Four-point-five billion years. She liked that.