The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (73 page)

She laughed again, already starting to feel comfortable.
I helped small children paint a set for a schoolplay. I think more paint ended up on the floor and on their smocks than on the set.

And what play are they doing?

Three Little Pigs
. It’s a musical.

Of course it is. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

I wrote it.

Seriously? That’s neat. I was always into theatre growing up and when I went off to college, I originally wanted to write plays. Not musicals about pigs necessarily, but I wouldn’t have ruled it out either. Alas, I’ve turned my creative talents to reporting about government woes. I thought it would pay better and I wanted a steady job
.

As long as there are kids, there’s going to be a need for teachers. I love what I do, but the lure of a steady job appealed to me too, I have to admit
, she replied.
That and having summers off.

They still do that?

She blinked. That was the first time he had worded anything that sounded remotely like he believed the future thing. Cautiously she typed,
Well, I know a lot of schoolsystems have gone to year-round school, but ours hasn’t yet. Our buildings are so old, they need a lot of work done, or no one would be able to concentrate in the heat of summer.

Who can? I know I can barely pay attention to my work when it’s a nice day out. I just sit and stare out the window and watch the traffic pass by until my boss asks me what I’m working on. It’s nice to have to go out on assignment just to have an excuse to be outside instead of in an office all day.

I try to make excuses to take the kids outside, too
, she typed.
For nature walks. We’ve been raising tadpoles and then releasing them at the pond near the school
.

Wish I had a coolteacher like you. My teachers were all stuffy old men that didn’t want to be bothered to do anything active
.

They continued to chat back and forth about their respective childhood school memories and best/worst teachers until Ella Ella realized it was almost midnight.

I’ve got to get up in the morning!

Sorry. I forget not everyone is a night owll ike me
.

It’s not your fault. I just lost track of time.

That’s a good thing, right?

She smiled.
I think so
.

Great. Because I was having a good time, too. Want to chat again tomorrow?

She took a deep breath. Did she want to? Yes. Should she? She didn’t know. This was a screwy website, and while he seemed like a normal, sane individual, you never knew who you were really talking to online. He could be some creepy old guy with no teeth for all she really knew.

Screw it. She typed,
Sure
.
Have fun inter viewing councilmen tomorrow
.

Have fun with the play. Be sure to tell me if the pigs escape the big bad wolf and live to sing another day.

As she signed off, Ella noticed something strange about Herman’s messages. All of the messages were time and date-stamped, like a lot of email messages. Hers all had the proper date.

His were all dated the next day.

“Like he’s emailing from the future,” she scoffed out loud. Shaking her head and reminding herself of different time zones, she turned off her computer.

But not the nagging feeling in the back of her mind.

Five

Ella paced back and forth outside of the restaurant nervously. “This is crazy,” she hissed into her cell phone. “What am I doing here? I don’t know this guy.”

“You’ve been online chatting with this guy every night for the past two weeks,” Serena said on the other end. “You’re having dinner, not marrying him. Talking to someone online for two weeks is knowing them enough for dinner.”

“If he is who he says he is.”

“A journalist from the future?”

“Ha, ha. He’s never actually said he was from the future, you know.”

“He probably assumes you know that, since the website advertises it.”

“Be serious! You know what I mean. He could turn out to be a sex predator or something.”

“They do background checks, remember. He’s not a sex predator. And if he turns out to be something other than who he says he is, you can just leave and never talk to him again. But if he is who he says he is and he travelled all the way from . . . where did he say he was from?”

“He didn’t. When he suggested meeting, I suggested meeting somewhere in between our two locations and he just said to pick the time, date, and place and he’d be there.”

“Maybe he’s homeless.”

“Homeless guys have computer access?”

“Everyone has computer access, hon.”

“Arrgh!” Ella growled in frustration. “Why am I standing outside in the cold having this ridiculous conversation with you?”

“I have no idea. Get in there and meet him already! Call me later and let me know how it goes. I want details!”

Ella disconnected, stowed her phone in her purse and took a deep breath, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle in her dress. This was it. She was finally going to meet Herman, who liked coffee but not tea, loved action movies and had never seen an episode of
Grey’s Anatomy,
and who agreed with her that Duke Ellington was not only the greatest jazz musician, but the greatest musician ever, period.

Ella gave her name to the maître d’ at the door, who whisked her to a table towards the back of the restaurant where a very familiar-looking man sat, looking just as nervous as she felt. “Thank God it’s actually him,” she whispered under her breath.

Seeing her approach, he smiled and stood up, revealing a tuxedo shirt, jacket and tie with jeans. Her smile quavered slightly. So he had offbeat fashion sense, so what? At least he didn’t show up for her date with food-stained clothes or cut-off jean shorts, which two of her previous dates had done.

“You’re even lovelier in person,” he said, taking her hand in his for an awkward shake, and then giving her an even more awkward kiss on the cheek. His voice was warm and comfortable, with a hint of familiarity.

“Thank you. It’s so nice to finally meet you in person,” she said, taking the seat he held out for her.

“So I’ve been dying to ask, did you solve the case of the missing lunches?” he asked as they looked over the menu.

She laughed, thinking of the student she had told him about. “Yes. Apparently he didn’t like what his mom was packing for him in the morning, so he kept ‘losing’ them at schoolin order to have hot lunch instead. He’d been throwing away the lunches in the boys’ restroom before schoolor giving them to other kids.”

“You’ve got to admire that kind of ingenuity,” he said with a dazzling smile and the two of them lapsed into easy conversation that lasted throughout the meal.

Ella was enjoying herself, enjoying the ease with which she related to him, as if he was an old friend. It was almost inconceivable that they had never met face to face until today, and even more strange to think they’d met on some kooky website, which was just what she was about to say to him until he interrupted her with a guilty look, saying, “I’ve been avoiding the subject, but I think we need to talk about the future.”

She blinked. “The future of us? We just met.”

“No. I mean, yes, we probably should talk about that too, but no, I meant the future. I need to explain to you about the website.”

“Oh, that.” She waved her hand. “I know it’s silly. My friend and I were just being crazy one night and joined up. Was it a similar thing with you too?”

“I figured as much, which is why I’ve been avoiding the subject. I don’t want to upset you, but we can’t build on a relationship when the whole truth isn’t out there.” He took a deep breath. “This is the thing. It’s true. I am from the future.”

Ella stared at him, her heart dropping into her stomach. Her worst fears were coming true. He was crazy.

“In the decade in which I was born, there was a huge overpopulation problem on Earth. The government finally had to declare a limit on births.”

So crazy. “That’s not possible,” she said gently. “The government couldn’t do that. They couldn’t take away people’s rights like that.”

“They can and they did. They were concerned the planet couldn’t sustain the amount of people being born, so families could only carry one child to term. And when given the choice, many families wanted a boy over a girl. So boys were overwhelmingly carried to term over girls.”

Even though she didn’t believe a word of this, she was horrified at the story. “Any child is a blessing, why would they care?”

He shrugged. “I’m definitely not saying it was right. Because, now, the male population outnumbers the female overwhelmingly. The birth rates have dropped dramatically because there aren’t enough women to, pardon the expression, go around. Now the governments of the world are concerned that there aren’t going to be enough workers in the future to sustain society. They’ve still kept the limit on births, but they’ve stopped all owing any scans for the sex of unborn babies so people have to take what nature gives them.”

Ella shook her head. “That is a crazy story.”

He continued. “We’ve perfected time travel . It was originally a way for the very wealthy to vacation, so long as they foll ow specific rules so as not to upset the time line, and only for a specific amount of time. See?” He showed her his watch, a complicated-looking thing that seemed to combine a cellphone, watch and computer in one and was, indeed, timing something. “It’s a lot easier to manipulate emails to go back in time than it is to send people. It was decided to set up the website as a way for men to find wives in the past.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What, like a mail-order bride?”

He looked sheepish. “I guess you could say that.”

Ella snapped up her bag, on her feet in an instant. “I knew this was a mistake. I knew it. From the moment I saw that website.”

He got up too. “Ella, wait, please!”

“Not only are you crazy enough to believe the site hype, you make up this insane, and might I add
sexist,
story to go along with it! Don’t try to contact me again.” She hurried past the waiters, who were trying to hide the fact that they were watching, out the door and into the parking lot.

“Wait, Ella, I can prove it!”

“Yeah, right.”

“There’s going to be a freak blizzard tonight. You’re going to be snowed in over the next couple of days. School’s going to be cancelled.”

Ella stopped short, keys out and ready to get into the car. “You can’t know that.”

“I read the article last night because I had a feeling you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Whatever. Just don’t contact me again.”

“If you decide you believe me,
you
contact
me
.”

“Don’t be expecting it.” Ella got into her car and drove away, leaving Herman behind in her rear-view mirror.

Six

Ella woke up before her alarm clock went off, something she rarely did. Blinking, she realized it was because the light coming in from her window was extremely bright. Had she slept in? She checked the alarm clock again, but it still read 7 a.m. Feeling as if every nerve in her body was on alert, she walked over to the window and brushed aside the curtain to look out.

There was snow everywhere; catching the sunlight and reflecting it back brightly. Schoolwas definitely cancelled.

Ella was trembling. Before she had gone to bed last night, she had checked the weather report, and there had been no chance of snow whatsoever.

“There’s no way he could have known that when the television meteorologists didn’t,” she whispered. “No way.”

She hurried over to her computer, went immediately to the website and typed.

How did you do that?

As usualshe got an immediate response.
It made headlines. I told you I read the article. Do you believe me now?

I believe something is going on,
she replied.

What’s it going to take for you to believe me?

Take me back to your place.

Pardon me?

I want to see the future.

You can’t. That’s part of the rules. Unless you ’re permanently moving to the future, I can’t bring you here. Too much risk of you finding out what companies to invest in, becoming a multi-mill ionaire and somehow messing up the time stream.

Then I’m not going to believe you. It was some weird coincidence . . .

He didn’t respond for a while, and then came back with –
I could take you into the past.

She stared at the screen. Surely she hadn’t read it right.

As long as we don’t visit the past during your lifetime, where you could alter something about your own life, I could take you. For an hour or so. It’s expensive enough, me travel l ing back to see you. Time travel costs really go up when you take a passenger.