Utterly Charming (19 page)

“I don’t think she believes in white knights.”

Sancho’s eyes twinkled. “Not now, maybe.”

Blackstone shook his head. “I don’t want to manipulate her.”

“Interesting,” Sancho said. “Why not?”

Because he liked her too much for that. But he couldn’t admit it to Sancho. Some things had to remain personal. “I don’t think the Fates would approve.”

“When has that stopped you?” Sancho asked.

“If I leave Emma and Nora alone, they’ll be in so much danger.”

“Then keep an eye on them. A discreet eye.”

“And what happens if I get caught?”

Sancho shrugged. “Nora’ll yell at you again.”

“She doesn’t like me much, does she?”

Sancho raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I think she likes you more than she wants to admit.”

Blackstone sighed. “This hasn’t gone the way I planned, Sancho.”

Sancho stared at him for a moment, then nodded sagely. “Love never does.”

Nora spent the next two days catching up on work—it was amazing how far behind she got when she skipped a single day—going to court, answering calls, taking care of cases. She bent her own rules because she couldn’t think of a way around them and used the identification that Sancho brought to create an identity for Emma. Her mother spent days with Emma and Nora spent evenings, and the questions were slowly getting less intense.

Nora was even beginning to tolerate her mother’s presence at dinner.

Darnell, on the other hand, didn’t even acknowledge Nora’s existence anymore. Squidgy liked this turn of events; she was acting as if she were the only cat in the house. Darnell was acting as if Emma were the only person; Nora felt it only fair.

Emma was slowly beginning to accept some of the bits of daily life in this world: the noise, the plumbing, and the food. She didn’t like the way that everything seemed to be too difficult to be made at home. She wanted to make her own soap (even though she loved the lavender-scented specialty soaps that Nora had bought to soothe herself after her divorce), her own clothes (Amanda suggested buying fabric but Emma wanted to weave her own) and her own shoes (Nora drew the line at running a tanning operation out of her own home). They found a spinning wheel at an antique store and placed it in Emma’s room, and somewhere Nora’s mother managed to get unspun wool (which Nora thought looked like a pile of Squidgy’s hair balls). When Emma got too overwhelmed, she went and spun. She was asking for a loom next, and Nora’s mother promised to look for one on one of her evenings off.

Nora didn’t know what she would have done without her mother. It was Amanda who realized that going to the nearest park, even armed with a cell phone, was a bad idea. There were too many strange people about. So Amanda decided to drive Emma to greenery, thinking it would get Emma used to the car, and reward her by letting her be in nature. Nora’s mother also made sure that they didn’t follow any set routine, and often she used different cars. She and Nora traded vehicles more than once, and Nora’s mother had taken to going to car dealerships and test-driving new models, taking Emma and the poor salesman to some park for a picnic as part of the ruse.

In addition to all her catch-up, Nora spent the last two days interviewing professors. Most came in because they were curious—law firms rarely hired medieval history professors for deep research—and most were completely unsuited to what she needed. She didn’t know what she was looking for exactly, but she would know it when she saw it.

The last interview on Friday proved to be the one she was waiting for. The man who walked into the room looked like he had been transplanted from a previous era. His salt-and-pepper hair (which was more pepper than salt) had been combed once, but on the way to the office it had obviously been tossed by the wind, and he hadn’t noticed. His salt-and-pepper beard (which was more salt than pepper) had been trimmed, but still looked as if it were waiting to explode into an unruly thicket. He wore a woolen suit coat despite the heat, and a wrinkled cotton shirt with matching cotton pants. Unlike all the other professors, he didn’t wear Birkenstocks. He wore normal sandals. His toes were long and hairy, and Nora found herself thinking of hobbits as she looked at his feet.

“Ms. Barr?” he asked, extending a hand as compact as his feet. “I’m Jeffrey Chawsir.”

She had seen the name written down, of course, but it wasn’t until he said it that she realized how it was pronounced—and what it sounded like.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said before she stopped herself.

He shrugged. “It’s spelled different.”

“But you’re a professor of medieval studies. Don’t you think that’s a bit of coincidence to be named after Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the most famous piece of fiction from that period?”

“Actually,” he said, “
Canterbury Tales
postdates my period. I specialize in the twelfth century, not the fourteenth.” Then he grinned. It was the grin that sold her. It was crooked and warm and made his face like that of a Disney grandfather about to dispense wisdom. “Besides, a man has to start somewhere.”

“Meaning?”

“After a while, a boy gets tired of hearing ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ after he introduces himself to adults.”

“I went to school with a Tom Sawyer,” Nora said. “No one said ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ to him.”

He shrugged. “With him, they probably thought it was a mistake on his parents’ part. After all, Tom is a common name, and so is Sawyer. But Chawsir isn’t, and Jeffrey, well, men my age are usually named John or David or Michael. People think my parents did it on purpose.”

“Did they?”

“Yes and no,” he said. “My mother’s father was named Jeffrey. They thought it would work. I’m the first person in my family to finish college, let alone high school.”

“So it wasn’t intentional.”

“Not in the way you’re thinking.”

She held out her hand and indicated the chair. “Please, have a seat.”

He did, and as he sat, he adjusted the line of his trousers. She hadn’t seen a man do that in years. She leaned on the desk, something she often did when she was interviewing people. It didn’t seem to upset him.

“I must say,” he said in a professorial tone, “I’ve been very curious about this. This is my first time in a law firm.”

“Really?” she said. That was unusual in this litigious age. “Not divorced?”

“Never married.”

“And obviously never sued.”

“Or accused of a crime.” He grinned that crooked grin again. “A boring life.”

“Only if your requirements for an interesting one force you to go to a lawyer’s office.”

He laughed.

She leaned back. “I can’t tell you what this is for, at least not yet. So please, bear with me.”

He nodded.

“I need honest answers from you. I’ve already received assessments from your dean and from some students and colleagues. Now I need to find out how comfortable you are with certain things.”

“All right,” he said that with a measure of caution, like he was humoring a difficult child.

“Do you mind tutoring someone?”

“Not at all.”

“Would you be willing to spend eight hours a day tutoring someone?”

“For the right fee. And if the job could be completed before the semester begins at the end of September.”

She ignored that part. She would deal with that when it happened. She doubted Emma would be ready for anything by the end of September. That was a very short two and a half months away.

“Do you feel strong in world history from the Dark Ages to the present?”

“Strong? My specialty is the Middle Ages.”

“For example,” she said. “If I were to ask you to name the presidents of the United States, could you?”

“Of course. I’m a history buff.”

“Could you outline the history of Japan for me?”

“Now?”

She waited.

“Do you want me to start with the myth about the Emperor and his family descending from the sun, or with the formation of the Shogunate?”

She smiled. “That’s plenty. Could you name the kings of England before William the Conqueror?”

“Not if I want to be accurate. There’s some debate as to whether they were kings of England or simply strong leaders of particular regions.”

Her smile grew. “Can you cook over a fire?”

“This involves camping?”

“No. A hearth fire.”

“I’ve never done it. I know the principles.”

“How about the principles of magic.”

“What kind?” he asked. “I’m familiar with all the European varieties. I get the Persian ones confused.”

She placed her hands on the side of her desk, holding onto its carved top. “If I told you I was a witch, you would say—?”

“Are you a member of Wicca or do you follow some of the darker arts?” He spoke with no judgment at all.

“And if I told you I knew actual magic, you would say—?”

“I would love to see some sometime.”

She let out a large sigh of relief, stood up, and extended her hand. “Wonderful. You’re hired.”

“I don’t even know what the job is.”

“Purposely.” She reached for the intercom and buzzed Ruthie. “Here’s what I can tell you. This job requires strict confidentiality. You can’t tell anyone—girlfriend, boyfriend, best friend, mother, father, anyone—what you’re doing or where you go to do it. You must have an open mind, and you must work eight hours a day, at least five days a week. For that you will be paid the starting salary of my associates, which is”—she picked up a piece of paper and glanced at it—“exactly double what you earn at the university for the same amount of time.”

He blinked at her, looking a bit confused. “I’d like to know what the job is.”

“In order for me to tell you any more—”

Ruthie opened the door, brought papers in, and set them on the desk. As she did so, she glanced at the professor as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. And then she left, closing the door behind her.

“—you’ll have to sign these confidentiality documents and not tell anyone what you have seen.”

“Is this some sort of case?”

“It’s a bit stranger than that,” Nora said. She handed him one of the documents. He scanned it.

“Ah, hell,” he said. “I guess I can sign this. What’s a few hours out of my life?”

“You might be surprised,” she said.

***

Nora had had all of her interviewees checked out by her favorite private detective firm, but even so, she wasn’t one to trust easily. Instead of taking Jeffrey Chawsir to her home, she had Amanda rent a hotel room in one of Portland’s more exclusive hotels, not far from Nora’s office. She called her mother and asked her to bring Emma to the hotel. Nora would bring Chawsir.

He signed the preliminary confidentiality documents and then they walked to the hotel. When they entered the gold-trimmed double glass doors of the hotel and stepped into the mahogany and gold lobby, he got visibly nervous.

Nora suppressed a smile. Did he think this was an elaborate seduction?

“You can relax, Professor,” she said. “I’m holding the meeting here so that you know as little as possible, should you decide to back out of this.”

He nodded, a tight nervous movement that meant he wanted to believe her but didn’t really. They entered the elevator and went to the eighth floor.

As they stepped off the elevator, she could hear her mother’s voice, muffled, but filled with an unmistakable exasperation. “Bidet!” Amanda was saying. “It’s a bidet!”

“Oh, shit,” Nora whispered. She had taken care of all the bathroom explanations, and Emma hadn’t liked a one of them. Nora sprinted for the room door, which wasn’t too far from the elevator, and unlocked it. The professor still stood near the elevator.

“I do not understand ‘bidet.’ It makes no sense, if there is this toilet already.” Emma. And she was raising her voice.

“Come on,” Nora said to the professor, and then pushed the hotel room door open. “We’re here!”

“Thank heavens!” Nora’s mother said from the bathroom. “Will you explain to this child—”

“Mother,” Nora said. “Both of us are here.”

“Oh,” Amanda said.

“The professor would like to meet his pupil,” Nora said as the professor came in the room. She closed the door behind him. They were in a suite, with a small living room complete with couch, two easy chairs, a desk, and a large television set.

The professor frowned at Nora as if he couldn’t quite imagine what he had walked into.

Emma came out of the bathroom. She was wearing her own pair of jeans (she had decided she liked jeans) and a loose-weave top that Nora’s mother had found at some outdoor clothing stand. She looked angry, as she often did when confronted with cleanliness rituals. Bodily functions were not her strong suit. At that moment, Nora promised herself that it was up to Amanda to explain tampons and gynecologists to Emma. It was about time Amanda explained those items to somebody; heaven knew she hadn’t explained either to Nora.

Emma said, “I still do not comprehend all these items for such simple functions. It would seem to me that one sink and one hole in the ground would be sufficient—”

“Emma,” Nora said, loudly, hoping to drown out the rest of Emma’s words, “this is Professor Jeffrey Chawsir. He wants to meet you. He is considering helping you with your education.”

Emma peered at him. He peered back, apparently not impressed by her beauty. Nora stared at him. He was the first man who hadn’t looked at Emma as if she were a supermodel come to life.

“What sort of help do you need with your education?”

“Ah, everything,” Nora’s mother said from the bathroom. “The girl is a blank slate.”

“That is not true,” Emma said. “I am very well educated for my time.”

“Your time was a long time ago, sweetie,” Amanda said as she came out of the bathroom. She stopped when she saw the professor. Their eyes met, and Amanda actually blushed. Nora had never seen Amanda blush, not in thirty-five years, not through four husbands, and certainly not when anyone else would have blushed. “Jeffrey.”

“Amanda.” He held out his hands, took hers, and brought her in for a kiss that lasted a moment too long to be formal. Emma looked at Nora and raised her eyebrows. Nora shrugged in return.

The professor stepped back. He was blushing, just like Amanda was. “I never thought I would see you again.”

“Never is a long time when you get as old as we are.”

“You haven’t aged a day since I saw you last.”

Nora’s mother laughed. “You still have that wicked way with a lie.”

He took her hand and led her to the couch. “I didn’t realize you were in Portland.”

“I have been for decades,” Amanda said, making the word sound like “days.” “I didn’t realize you were either.”

“I’m not. I’m in Eugene, teaching medieval studies.”

“Medieval studies. You’ve always enjoyed the past.”

“Still enamored with the future?”

Nora’s mother sighed. “Not like I was.”

“Mother?” Nora asked.

Amanda glanced at the professor. “Jeffrey and I went to school together. High school.”

“And part of college,” he said.

Amanda looked down. “I don’t like to think of that.”