Connie Willis - Time Out

“The pit from pole to pole,” the girl said.

He knocked over the chair. “I know you,” he said. “You’re Carolyn Hendricks.”

She shook her head. “I’m Carolyn Rutherford.”

“That’s your maiden name. Your married name is Hendricks.”

“I’m not married,” she said, starting to look scared again.

“Not yet you’re not. But you will be. You’ll have two daughters.”

“You’re Dr. Andrew Simons,” she said suddenly. “You spent the last five years in Tibet studying déjà vu.”

“I spent the last five years in high school and going to Stanford. And why would I study déjà vu? I’m an English major.”

“Were an English major. I think after tonight you’ll probably switch your major to psychology.” She sat back on her heels. “Hendricks, huh? I think there’s a guy named Hendricks in my psych class.”

“But you haven’t met him yet,” he said, no longer bewildered, no longer uneasy. “And I haven’t met you yet. But I will. In about twenty years.”

“Yes,” she said, “and I’ll be married and have two daughters, and you’ll be in Tibet.”

“And there won’t be any possible way for us to get together because the timing will be all wrong,” he said.

“All things are possible,” she said. “It’s three-thirty.” She smiled a little, leaning toward him on her hands. “They never check the rooms after midnight.”

“What about your roommate?” he said, and her sudden look of surprised joy almost staggered him.

“Oh,” she said happily, “this is the quarter Allison’s in Europe.”

“I couldn’t find you,” Don said. He was standing over her with a mug.

“Susy was in our bed,” she said sleepily. “How was the meet?” She sat up and pulled the afghan over her knees.

“We took second.” He got down on the bed and handed her the mug. “Jennifer Whipple got sick and couldn’t do her bar routine, and Linda quit. How are you doing?”

“Fine,” she said, taking a sip. “What is this?”

“A suicide,” he said. “I remembered you were crazy about them in college, so I stopped at the 7-Eleven and bought some ginger ale and—”

“Ginger ale!” Carolyn said. “That was what I couldn’t remember.” She took another sip. “It tastes just like the ones Allison used to make. Oh, and speaking of Allison, I finally remembered when I had the chicken pox. It was the quarter Allison was in Europe. It was the strangest thing. I … Linda quit?”

“Halfway through the vaulting. She didn’t even come home on the bus with us. I tried to call you.”

“To tell me she quit?” she said.

“No. To tell you you’d had the chicken pox. Jennifer got sick, and all of a sudden I remembered you’d had it in college. It beats me how I could have forgotten, since that’s how we met. I came to see you in the infirmary.”

“I know,” Carolyn said. “The doctor made me make a list of who I might have exposed, and I put your name down because you sat next to me in my psych class.”

“You looked terrible when I came to see you in the infirmary,” he said, grinning at her. “You were all covered with scabs. And sitting there looking at you, I had this funny kind of vision of the two of us married with two kids and both of them with the chicken pox. I don’t think Linda understood that part.”

“You told Linda?”

“Yeah. She was talking about how touchy you were on the phone. She said nobody could be that crabby unless they were coming down with something, and all of a sudden I remembered how I’d met you, and so I told her.”

“No wonder she quit,” Carolyn said.

“Yeah, I guess it was probably boring for a kid like her to have to listen to an old geezer like me talking about things that happened a long time ago. The funny thing is, it doesn’t feel like a long time ago, though, you know. It feels like it just happened yesterday.”

“I know,” Carolyn said. “That isn’t the only funny thing. I—”

“Listen, honey, I’ve got to go back to school,” Don said. He patted her knee. “I’ve got to unload the equipment. I just thought I’d better come check on you since you didn’t answer the phone.”

She draped the afghan over her shoulders and followed him into the living room. “I didn’t hear it ring,” she said. “And that’s not the only funny thing. I—”

“I decided on a college,” Liz said. She was sitting up on the couch dabbing calamine lotion on her arms. “NSC.”

“NSC?” Carolyn said. “I thought you’d narrowed it down to Vassar, Carleton, and Tufts.”

“Well, I had, but I couldn’t sleep because I was itching, and I got to thinking about how you and Dad are always saying how great NSC was, so I decided to go there instead.”

“It was great,” Don said. “That’s where I met your mother. She had the chicken pox and—”

“I know ,” Liz said. “You’ve told that story about a million times.”

“The old geezer strikes again,” Don said. He kissed Carolyn. “I’ll be back in an hour if I don’t suddenly go senile while I’m unloading the bus.” He kissed Carolyn again.

“I don’t see how having the chicken pox could have been all that romantic,” Liz said after he’d left.

“It was,” Carolyn said.

Dr. Lejeune went to see Andrew in the university infirmary. “Sherri Paprocki said to say hello,” she said. “She wants to know how you managed to get the chicken pox. The incubation period is only two weeks, and you didn’t catch it till five weeks after you’d left.”

“On the plane to L.A. I sat next to a little girl who must have been contagious,” he said. “It’s a good thing I decided not to go to Tibet.”

“Excuse me,” Bev Frantz said. She came in with a thermometer. “I need to take your temp.”

“Great,” Andrew said. “I was hoping I’d see you agai—”

She stuck the thermometer in his mouth and looked at the box. He smiled up at her. She concentrated fiercely on the LED readout.

He didn’t look sick except for the calamine-covered scabs all over his face and arms. In fact, he looked better than Dr. Lejeune had ever seen him look. Happier.

The box beeped. Bev took the sensor out of his mouth and shoved it back in its carrier. She turned to Dr. Lejeune. “Dr. Young’s been asking for you.”

“You really should go see him,” Andrew said. “I think he wants to apologize.”

“You’re the one he should apologize to,” she said, and then looked closely at him. “Or should he? Are you sure you got the chicken pox from that little girl?”

“Max really cares about you, you know,” Andrew said. “He told me the reason he started the project in the first place was to impress you.”

“Hmm,” Dr. Lejeune said. She told Andrew good-bye and went out in the hall.

“I wondered if I could talk to you about Dr. Simons for a minute,” Bev said. “I really like him, but when he was in here before for his cholera booster, I got the idea he was in love with somebody else.”

“He was,” Dr. Lejeune said. “A girl he knew in college. But that was a long time ago. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

She started out the door and then turned around and went into Max’s room. He looked terrible. He had chicken pox on the top of his bald head, and he was wearing a pair of mittens that were taped at the wrist. “Well?” he said. “Has he asked her out yet?”

“Who?” Dr. Lejeune said.

“Andrew. Has he asked Bev out? I told him he’d better latch on to her while he still has the chance. I’ve been trying to get them together ever since I got in here. It’s the least I can do.”

“I thought you said matchmaking was a substitute for sex.”