Time to Love Again (35 page)

“Exactly where were you?” Hank grabbed the
notebook India had left next to the computer. Flipping the cover
back, he picked up a pencil, then gave India an expectant look.
When she did not answer him, he followed his first question with
several more. “Do you know how long you were there by local time?
Who did you meet? Did you have trouble digesting the food? What
about the language? Could you understand it? Were you ever sick? I
want every detail you can remember.”

“Okay,” Willi said, taking the notebook and
pencil out of his hands. “That’s enough. We both have to let up on
the questions.”

“If I don’t debrief her immediately,” Hank
protested, “she might begin to forget what happened to her. Then
how would I get the information I need to try again? After all, I
can’t stop now. Given all the possibilities of the space-time
continuum—”

“Adelbert,” India interrupted him, “you have
no idea what you are saying. I never want to hear another word
about your space-time continuum.”

Adelbert
? Hank mouthed to Willi.
Aloud, he asked, “Did you tell her my middle name?”

“Never mind that.” Willi was growing
impatient. Pointing to the computer, she ordered, “Shut that thing
down. Do it now, and do it permanently.”

“I can’t do that,” Hank sputtered.

“If you don’t,” Willi told him, “I will
report you for taking material from the storeroom without a
requisition. I will back up the complaint Professor Moore is going
to make to Campus Security. I’ll tell everything I know about the
keys you have that you shouldn’t have on that key ring of yours.
And I will talk, loud and clear to anyone who will listen, about
what happened here today.”

“You’re talking about taking away my chance
at a Nobel Prize for Science,” Hank declared with great
indignation.

“No.” Willi was so angry her voice cracked.
“I am talking about getting you fired, which will mean you no
longer have access to this room.”

“But my experiments – my theories – you can’t
mean this!”

“I am talking,” Willi said, speaking right
over Hank’s words, “about my best friend’s life, for which you seem
to have no concern. You self-absorbed lunatic, India could have
died because of you and your experiments.”

“But she didn’t die!” Hank yelled. “Don’t you
realize how important my work is?”

“Indeed, I do.” A bit calmer after having
vented some of her rage, Willi gave him a cold, assessing look.
“You care more for your work than for India’s life, or for me. In
fact, your work is all you really do care about.”

This accusation was followed by a long moment
of silence. Hank drew in a deep breath and let it out again.

“You’re right, Willi,” he said. “It’s a
relief to admit it. It’s true. I love my computer and my theories
too much ever to have enough free time to make any woman
happy.”

“You do understand, what happened here today
means you and I are through,” Willi said.

“Yeah,” Hank replied. “I guess it does.”

India had been watching and listening to this
bickering in a bemused state, while her thoughts and all her
sensibilities gradually became reoriented to the twentieth century.
She would never have expected Willi to give up Hank so easily, but
Willi seemed almost indifferent to the end of their
relationship.

In Hank’s remarks, India heard an echo of
Adelbert’s voice from long ago, saying something similar. She was
not at all surprised. If it had been wrong for Adelbert and
Bertille to be lovers in the eighth century, then it was equally
wrong for Willi and Hank to have a romantic relationship in the
twentieth century. Souls not meant for each other could never be
happy together; souls intended to be together would always find
each other.

That idea jolted India, but at the moment,
she was still too confused and queasy to give it the consideration
it deserved. She sat rubbing at her forehead and wishing her
stomach would settle down, when suddenly the office door opened.
When she saw the slender, curly-haired man who entered, the world
tilted crazily on its axis once more.

“Marcion?” India stood up a little
unsteadily.

“No, Mark Brant,” the man said, holding out a
hand. “Are you the lost friend, come home at last?”

“Something like that,” she replied weakly.
While shaking his hand, she became aware of the differences as well
as the similarities between this man and Marcion. His eyes were
blue and his nose not quite so high-bridged as Marcion’s had been.
His chin was wider, too. But Marcion’s laughter and warm heart were
in him, and it was those qualities she had recognized at once.

“What are you doing here so late?” Willi
asked Mark.

“I couldn’t get you out of my mind,” he told
her, “or your friend, either. I was worried about both of you, so I
came back. Are you sure you’re all right?” He asked the question of
India, but at once returned his gaze to Willi. The way Willi looked
back at him had a wonderfully steadying effect on India’s
nerves.

“Of course,” India murmured. “Marcion and
Bertille. Willi and Mark. That’s the way it was always meant to
be.” Again the earth shifted a little beneath her feet, before it
began to spin once more in its preordained motion.

“Hank,” India said, “if you won’t listen to
Willi, then listen to me. You have to shut down this machine and
destroy your program. You cannot imagine how much harm that program
has caused. I believe everything is back in place now, but only
because you were lucky. Only because I am here and not there.”

“What is she talking about?” asked Mark
Brant. An instant later, he caught India when she put one hand to
her head and went limp. “Careful, there. Are you dizzy?”

“It’s getting better.” India leaned against
him as if he were a dear and familiar friend. Which he was, though
he did not know it.

“Kid, you look awful,” Willi said. “You’ve
had enough excitement for one day. Come on, I’m going to drive you
home.”

“No, you are not,” declared Mark Brant. Willi
had picked up India’s pocketbook and was searching for her car
keys. As soon as she found them, Mark took them out of her hand. “I
am driving. It’s too late for you to be out alone. If your friend
here faints, how are you going to carry her from the car to her
house?”

“Do as he says,” India advised. “Just for
tonight, let him take care of us.”

“Sensible woman. I think I’m going to like
you.” Mark gave her an approving look. “Can you walk, or shall I
carry you?”

“I’ll walk. But before we leave, there are a
couple of things I have to do. Hank, give me my floppy disks.”

“Here.” He handed her the disk that was lying
on the table beside the keyboard.

“I want the other one, too.”

“Aw, India.” Hank’s protest was cut off when
India brushed aside Mark’s supporting arm to stand alone. She took
a menacing step toward Hank, frowning at him.

“
Give me the disk
.” Never had she been
so determined. Behind her, she heard Mark emit a soft whistle of
surprise. Reluctantly, Hank slowly removed the second floppy disk
from the computer. “The notebook, too,” India said.

“I’m keeping the notes I just made. They’re
mine.” Hank tore the last two pages out of the notebook. “These
were blank when I used them.”

“Just one more thing.” India took back the
second floppy disk and the notebook, putting them into her purse.
“Don’t bother asking me any more questions, Hank, because I won’t
answer them. I will not tell you what happened to me, or help you
to confirm your theories in any way. Just believe me when I say you
must never use that program again.”

“I can’t use that particular one,” he
replied. “You stopped me from doing that when you took the disk.
Without it, there is no way I can ever replicate what happened
here.”

“I hope that’s true. Good-bye, Hank.” It was
India who closed the office door. Out in the hall, Mark Brant
winked at her, and Willi looked amazed.

“Wow,” Willi said, “good for you, kid. I
never heard you talk tough like that before.”

“My brother is going to love you,” said
Mark.

“I beg your pardon?” India stared at him.

“He’s your new boss, as of the first of the
year. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Theodore Brant,
chairman of the Department of History and Political Science. Sounds
impressive, doesn’t it?”

“Theodore? Oh, yes, I remember now.” India
could not take her eyes off Mark’s expressive face.

“An old family name, traditional to the
eldest son since time began,” he said, laughing. “Most people call
him Ted, but I’ve always had my own nickname for him. It’s more
poetic. Theo. Hey, watch out! It’s all right, I’ve got you. Willi,
pick up the stuff she dropped, will you please? I told you she’d
faint and someone would have to carry her…”

“Hello again.”

“Mr. Brant.” Willi pulled her old flannel
bathrobe closer about her throat. “What are you doing here? What
time is it?”

“Six-thirty. I wanted to see you before you
left for work.”

“Oh. Sure.” Willi wasn’t fully awake yet. She
was finding it hard to think, especially with an indescribably
handsome man leaning against her door frame and smiling at her. In
his navy blue pea coat over a cream wool cable-knit sweater and
tight jeans, Mark Brant looked like a British sailor out of an old
World War II movie – and just about as rakish, too. Willi had never
seen a smile quite so devastating, or so mischievous.

“Are you going to let me in?” he asked. “Or
would you rather I wait out here until you get dressed?”

For a moment she wished he would leave. She
knew she looked awful. She had been sound asleep when the doorbell
rang. She hadn’t taken time to splash water on her face, hadn’t
combed her hair or brushed her teeth, and she wasn’t wearing any
makeup.

“I woke you up, didn’t I?” Mark Brant
straightened from his relaxed position. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t
have come so early, but I need to talk to you.”

“It’s all right.” Suddenly she was afraid he
would
leave and she would never see him again. She pulled
the door wider. “Come in, Mr. Brant.”

“Mark,” he said. “I told you last night to
call me Mark.”

“Would you like some coffee?” Willi headed
toward the stove.

“Why don’t I take you out to breakfast? It’s
the least I can do after waking you so early, and we have plenty of
time before you have to be at work.”

Willi did not ask him how he knew what time
she started work. She just watched while he picked up the afghan
from the couch and folded it, laying it across the back of the
couch. He did not appear to be at all disdainful of the place where
she lived. In fact, he looked right at home there, but Willi was
embarrassed.

It was all she could afford, a one-room
apartment with a couch that opened into a bed, a miniature kitchen
built into one wall and hidden by a folding door, and a bathroom
Willi could barely turn around in. Usually she was proud of the way
she kept it neat and cheerful with lots of plants in the window,
but now she thought it looked shabby. At least she hadn’t opened
the couch, so her unexpected guest wasn’t confronted by rumpled
bedding. She had been so tired the night before that she had just
pulled off her clothes, wrapped up in her bathrobe, and dropped
onto the couch with the afghan for a blanket.

“After everything you did for India, I should
make breakfast for you,” she said to Mark.

“Not a chance. I want a big meal, and I don’t
want you so preoccupied with cooking that you can’t talk to me.
What about the Blue Ridge Coffee House?” Willi was standing next to
the kitchen wall, and Mark was at the far side of the room, but
when his brilliant blue eyes met hers, she felt as if he was
caressing her.

“You look softer today than you did last
night,” he murmured. “What a remarkably pretty woman you are. If it
weren’t such a tired line, I’d ask you if we’ve ever met
before.”

She was startled by his words because she
felt the same sense of familiarity. But she knew they had never met
before yesterday. There was no way she would ever have forgotten a
man like Mark Brant.

“I’ll get dressed.” Willi broke the
disturbing eye contact and took a step toward the bathroom. She
paused. “Just so you know, I’ve sworn off men for a while. After
what happened with Hank, I need a breather, to get my head
together.”

“It’s only breakfast,” he said, smiling. As
she began to close the bathroom door, Willi heard him add,
“Breakfast and a few dozen questions.”

Willi didn’t go to the Blue Ridge Coffee Shop
very often and had never been there in early morning. Among all the
tweedy academic types and the conservative businessmen in dark
suits and neckties who were apparently holding serious meetings
over breakfast, Willi felt unusually conspicuous in her black
leather outfit and maroon turtleneck. She also felt slightly naked
without her usual heavy mask of makeup. Mark’s comment that she was
pretty, coming when her face was completely bare, had led her to
apply only a dusting of powder, a smudge of dark eye shadow, and a
single coat of mascara. Her blood red lipstick she had blotted
until it was no more than a rosy tint on her lips. The look Mark
had given her as they left her apartment convinced her she had done
the right thing in toning down the makeup, but she wasn’t used to
going out that way. Heavy makeup and black leather were her armor
against the snubs of an uncaring world. Now part of her armor was
missing, and she was beginning to think she needed it because,
while plying her with a huge breakfast, Mark was grilling her like
the sausages on his plate.

“I think you have just learned everything
there is to know about me,” she protested. “All these questions
make me uneasy. I don’t usually talk about myself or my life,
except to India.”