Time After Time (56 page)

And she burst into
tears.

"No, wait, Tori, don't
cry. For goodness' sake, it's not worth that. You'll ruin your
dress. But you have to understand that I can't just up and leave
here. There'll be things for me to do."

"What things?" asked Tori
between sniffles. "Everything's done."

"Tori, I'm manager of the
event," said Liz patiently. "I have to manage."

"Well, Meredith is
honorary chairman. You don't see that stopping her," Victoria said
with a trembling lip.

"They aren't the same
thing. You know that."

"Why are you being so
difficult?"

"Me?
You're
the one who's on the edge
of—"

"You can leave the table
the minute you have to," Victoria said in desperation. "I
promise!"

"Okay, fine!" Liz said,
exasperated. The plain fact was, she'd organized her part of the
fund-raiser so well that she felt a little silly, standing around
with nothing to do. "I'll stay for one course."

"Cool!" Victoria said in a
lightning shift of mood.

Feeling vaguely
manipulated, Liz left word with the others and allowed Victoria to
drag her into East Gate for what amounted to a fifty-dollar bowl of
soup.

They caught the small and
very select tide of humanity flowing from the Great Room to the
ballroom, where the table was set. She could see Jack, head above
the rest, leading the company in. Who was on his arm? She'd soon
find out.

Behind them all was
Meredith Kinney, bringing up the rear. Liz went up to her with
greetings and apologies in advance.

Meredith, a fiftysomething
woman of intimidating poise, smiled a blue-eyed smile and said,
"I'm pleased that you have any time at all for us. You've worked so
hard. And how wonderful you look!"

Liz returned the
compliment, aware that Meredith's gown of pale blue silk was simply
classic, not historic. But the dog-choker she wore of pearls and
diamonds — that was the real thing, something that might've graced
the neck of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont herself.

They were swept into the
once-empty ballroom on the hems of acres of jewel-toned taffetas
(the favored fabric of nineteenth-century socialites) and beaded,
sequined silks, the favored fabric of their descendants. Some of
the men and women wore small masks, while others held more
elaborate versions, feathered and jeweled, attached to ivory wands.
It was a glittering display of wealth and whimsy, made all the more
impressive by everyone's high spirits. Liz found it all
fascinating, if slightly irrelevant to the life she
lived.

She heard the oohs and ahs
over the decorated table before she actually saw it. When she did,
she was stunned: it was a replica of the setting that Victoria St.
Onge had meddled with to such disastrous effect. Liz felt her
cheeks flush with high color as she sought out Tori, obviously the
mastermind behind it. But Tori was busy ooh-ing and ah-ing over the
centerpiece, an exquisite ice sculpture of a mermaid cavorting
among dolphins.

Ice, in August. It added
to the sense of unreality that had been steadily mounting since Liz
stepped inside the doors of East Gate minutes earlier. Fantasy was
one thing — everyone loved a fantasy — but
this.
It was ... simply unreal. She
felt instinctively that neither she nor the mermaid would make it
through the first course.

The guests were left to
seek out their own seats. Liz searched, like everyone else, for the
place card that bore her name and found it several chairs to the
right of Jack's.

Despite what Victoria had
implied, Jack had no idea that Liz was one of the guests; she felt
sure of it. He looked too disengaged, too bored, as he chatted
politely with an elderly distinguished-looking woman. The smile on
his face as he pulled out the woman's chair looked sewn
on.

If he knew Liz was there,
he'd be upset — even annoyed. After all, he'd kept a resolute
distance from her since their final explosive showdown. True,
they'd been forced to communicate several times over preparation
plans. When that happened, he'd been polite, gracious, and remote.
Just like Meredith. It was their way.

Liz was being attended to
by her dinner partner, a party animal who looked as if he weren't
above howling at midnight if the moon were right. But the alcohol
hadn't kicked in yet; for now he was cheerful, mindless, and way
too young to be interesting. Who had placed these cards,
anyway?

She tried again to catch
Victoria's eye, but Tori was chatting away with two or three people
as they all settled in. Where was Dr. Ben? Way, way at the other
end. She managed to catch
his
eye, anyway; smiling limply, she flapped four
fingers up and down at him. Sooner or later, though, Liz was going
to have to acknowledge her host, at least with a glance. To do
anything less would be rude.

With a sense of reluctance
that bordered on dread, she turned deliberately to gain his
attention.

She was wrong. He was
aware of her.

When exactly he'd noticed
her, she wasn't certain. But the look he gave her now was so
scorching that she felt singed around the edges, even though she
was four places away.

She lifted her chin. Her
lips trembled as she formed them into a smile that couldn't begin
to express the welter of emotions she was feeling: pride; hunger;
fear; yearning; jealousy; anger; hurt — and pain. Mostly
pain.

I love you so much,
her look said to him.
I
love you for who you are, not for what you can do for me. Damn you.
I love you more than you love me.

He looked inexpressibly
handsome to her. Who else could wear a perfectly tailored tuxedo
jacket over such an oddly shabby waistcoat? Who else could have
such barely tamed hair — wild hair, really — and yet preside at a
formal dinner with such offhand elegance? Who else could make every
cell in her body respond with such complete, abject
willingness?

She became aware that
everyone at the table was looking at her. She thought they might be
taking their cue from their host, but it wasn't that at all. It was
because Meredith, in a short, pretty speech, was encouraging them
all to attend the second part — Liz's part — of the
fund-raiser.

Meredith added that the
table motif was based on one that an East Gate hostess had come up
with a century ago. "With that in mind," she told them, "take up
your shovels and — dig in!"

Naturally the guests were
wildly curious about the contents of their sand pails. Cautiously
at first, and then more recklessly, they began poking around with
their shovels. Squeals and exclamations filled the air.

"Amber! With dinosaur DNA,
I assume!"

"Ooh, a gold nugget.
Fool's gold?"

"Wait, wait, I had it ...
something blue —uh! Lost it again."

"Pooh — I don't have
anything."

"Dig deeper. Shall I do
it?"

"I'll trade my quartz for
your amethyst."

"Beach glass! I
love
the color!"

"If I'm not mistaken, this
looks like a crystal of copper sulfate."

"Liz?" said the party
animal, handing her her little tin shovel. "Aren't you going to
play?"

Liz, who had been trying
desperately and unsuccessfully not to look at Jack, turned back to
her dinner partner with a blank look. "I'm sorry? Oh — I don't
think so. It's a little messy, isn't it."

"Hey, it's not
our
rug," the party
animal said, grinning.

Liz sighed in distress and
looked away.
This was stupid and
wrong,
she realized,
and now it's too late.

"Elizabeth!" cried
Victoria from half a table away. "Do it!
For God's sake, do it!"

Startled by the hysteria
in her friend's command, Liz accepted the shovel from her neighbor.
Almost without thinking, she plunged it into the pail and came up
with her treasure. Not until she saw the round bit of gold sticking
out of the sand did she understand why Tori was so adamant about
making her join in.

The pin. She's giving the
pin back to me.
Baffled, Liz looked up at
Victoria and said, "Wrong bucket, Tori."

Meanwhile the party animal
had snatched the pin from Liz and held it up over his head. "Hey,
everyone. She's got real jewelry!"

Those who hadn't yet found
their favors searched more frantically, while someone wailed, "No
fair! How come
she
gets something real?"

"Because," said Tori in a
shrill voice of triumph, "life isn't fair! That's the beauty of it!
Anything
can happen to
anyone
."

"Put it on, put it on!"
said someone, and the party animal handed the pin back to
Liz.

Liz didn't know what to
do. She turned to Jack, intending to pass the pin back to
him.

He recognized the pin; she
was sure of it. And yet he seemed to be somewhere else, despite the
fact that he was following the general merriment that surrounded
Liz and her treasure. He was squinting and leaning his head a
little to the side—as if he were listening intently, trying to
recall where he'd heard some song before. Liz watched him, almost
with alarm, as his face became ruddy, then pale, by
turns.

His eyes opened in
recognition, as if he'd remembered the tune at last. And then Liz
caught her breath, as she watched, amazed, while golden light from
the dozen candles in front of Jack coalesced into one shimmering
column, and the column became a form, and the form became
Christopher Eastman.

The shape — still
shimmering and insubstantial — seemed to float to a position
alongside Jack and lean over him, as if Christopher had something
to confide in his great-great-grandson's ear. Liz watched the
scene, not daring, not even thinking to breathe, deeply certain
that it was the last time in her life that she would see her
on-again, off-again phantom.

Her eyes glazed over with
sudden tears. The golden light intensified into a burst of radiance
that seemed to rain down on Jack like drops of sunlight.

And then her tears
overflowed and ran down her cheeks, and it was over.

The whole time, she'd been
surrounded by silence. If the guests had been keeping up their
predinner chatter, Liz never heard them. She'd been somewhere else
in time, someplace where spirits hung out and told jokes about
humans.

And Jack? She knew that
he'd been there with her. Together they'd been allowed a finite
moment of infinite understanding: to know that they
had
loved; that they
still loved; and best of all, that they would love
again.

A dozen conversations took
over the ballroom again. Jack stood up amid the noisy clamor. He
looked at Liz. His smile was wise, his voice warm as he said, "I'd
like to make an announcement."

Instant silence.
"I'd
like
to, but
I can't, until I finish a conversation I started in a restaurant
with a goofy name I can't possibly remember. I remember the
conversation, though, and so I'll pick up where I left off: Will
you marry me?"

Little gasps, up and down
the table.

And one fierce, jubilant,
fist-in-the-air
"yes!"

Jack laughed, dryly now,
and said to Victoria, "Thanks, Tori, but I was asking
Liz."

Nervous laughter, up and
down the table.

Liz stood up, too, or
maybe she just floated into a vertical alignment. "Yes," she said
simply.

Someone pulled her chair
back, and she walked around to the side of the table where Jack,
abandoning his post as party leader, met her. He cradled her face
between his hands. "I don't know what took us so long," he said in
a voice of sheer wonder.

He lowered his mouth to
hers in a kiss that sealed the past and told the future, and then
they walked, hand in hand, out of the ballroom, leaving the
exclusive little group to fend for itself.

*****

The tent was overflowing
with oddly dressed humanity. Liz had told everyone, "Anything
goes," and sure enough, anything went. From the modestly costumed
upstairs maid to the fella who'd wrapped himself up in exactly one
thousand twinkle lights and said he was the millennium, it was an
eclectic group. Gilded Age costumes were as popular as New Age:
ostrich feathers, rhinestones, and miles of fake pearls held their
own against guardian angels, benign witches, and other cosmic
creations.

Meredith Kinney and
virtually all of the dinner guests wandered through the tent on
their way to other Bellevue Avenue parties, adding their glitz and
glamour to the funky scene. Every well-dressed one of them wanted
to know who this Liz was who'd stolen their Jack out from under
their noses.

Liz was introduced by Jack
to all of his socialite friends — some of them catty, some of them
nice. Even the lady who'd stamped her foot had somehow managed to
be there; Liz hadn't noticed her in the ballroom, and she hardly
noticed her now.