Connie Willis - Time Out

“I want you to come with me to the airport, Dr. Lejeune,” Dr. Young said. “I’ve got to pick up Andrew Simons.”

It was the first time he’d spoken to Dr. Lejeune since she’d told him his project proposal was idiotic, and during the intervening three weeks she’d thought quite a bit about what she would say to him when he did speak to her, but now he sounded so much like the old sensible, sane Max Young that she picked up her purse and said, “Who’s Andrew Simons?”

“He’s coming from Tibet,” Dr. Young said, leading the way out of the physics building and over to the parking lot. “He’s with Duke University. Been studying the cultural aspects of time perception in a lamasery in the Himalayas. He’s perfect, I read a monograph of his on déjà vu three months ago and got in touch with Duke.” He stopped next to a red Porsche.

“When did you get a Porsche?” Dr. Lejeune said, looking at the license plates. They spelled WITHIT1, which was a bad sign. So was the Porsche. “And why exactly is this Simons person coming here?”

“He’s going to work on the time displacement project,” Dr. Young said as if it were obvious, and squeezed himself into the Porsche. “Come on. Get in. His plane gets in at four-nineteen.”

She attempted to get into the Porsche. She had hoped he’d given up on the time-displacement project. She had attempted to argue him out of it, with the result that he hadn’t spoken to her in three weeks, and she had hoped he had come to his senses, but apparently he hadn’t.

The project was idiotic. He had decided that time was a quantum object like space and leaped from there to the idea that it could be separated into pieces called hodiechrons, shaken up, and moved around. Quantum time travel. Only he was calling it hodiechron displacement and the silly gadget that was supposed to do all this a temporal oscillator instead of a time machine.

She had decided he was having some kind of midlife crisis, and now the Porsche confirmed it. “I am too old for sports cars,” she said, slamming the door shut on the tail of her lab coat. “And so are you.”

Dr. Young reached across her to the glove compartment and pulled out a tweed cap and a pair of leather driving gloves.

“Simons is extremely enthusiastic about the project. He accepted the job before I even had a chance to fully explain it to him.”

Which, considering what the project involves, is probably a good thing, Dr. Lejeune thought, clutching the dashboard as the Porsche shot out of the parking lot, down College Avenue, and onto the highway.

“How old is he?” she shouted over the roar of the wind.

“Forty-two,” Dr. Young shouted back.

“Is he married?”

“Of course not. He’s been in a lamasery in Tibet for five years.”

“No wonder he accepted,” Dr. Lejeune said. “I should fix him up with Bev Frantz. She’s forty. You know her, she’s teaching Intro to Nursing this semester. She’d be perfect for him.”

“Absolutely not,” Dr. Young shouted. “I will not have you endangering this project.” He swooped into the airport parking lot. He took off his cap and gloves, shoved them into the glove compartment, and got out. “Are you aware that matchmaking is a substitute for sex? It’s one of the classic symptoms of a midlife crisis.”

Which is a clear case of the pot psychoanalyzing the kettle, Dr. Lejeune thought, struggling up out of the car. “What do you call buying a Porsche?” she said, following him into the airport. “How about suddenly abandoning your work on subatomic particles and trying to build a time machine? Wouldn’t you call those classic symptoms?”

“It’s a temporal oscillator, not a time machine,” Dr. Young said. He walked through the security gate. It buzzed. The guard motioned him back through and held out a plastic bowl for him to empty his pockets into. “The university has complete faith in the project. Dr. Gillis has promised me full university support. And complete freedom in choosing my staff.”

“Obviously,” Dr. Lejeune said. “If you’re hiring Tibetan lamas.”

“Dr. Simons is a research psychologist,” he said stiffly, putting his keys in the dish and trying again. This time it buzzed before he was even halfway through. Some of the guards from other security gates came over to watch. “Are you aware that resistance to new ideas is a classic symptom in postmenopausal women?” He took off his belt. “The federal government doesn’t share your opinion of my project either. If they did, I’d hardly have gotten my funding, would I?”

“You got your funding?” Dr. Lejeune said, astonished. “The new administration must be as senile as the old one.”

He walked through the gate. It buzzed. “It is that kind of negative attitude that has already put this project a month behind schedule!” he said.

“You’re sure it isn’t displaced hodiechrons?” she said, and swept through the gate. “It’s his neck chains,” she told the guard. “He’s postmenopausal. Classic symptom.”

“Mom, when’s supper?” Liz asked, opening the refrigerator. “Lisa and I are going to start filling out college applications tonight.”

“As soon as your father gets home,” Carolyn said. She squeezed past Liz and got the radishes and a tomato out of the crisper drawer. “He had to stay for gymnastics.”

“But, Mom, I have to be at volleyball practice at six,” Wendy said.

“I thought the eighth-grade practices were at four,” Carolyn said, rummaging through the utensils drawer for a paring knife.

“On Mondays, Tuesdays, and every other Friday,” Wendy said. “This is Wednesday, Mom.”

The only knife in the entire drawer was a serrated bread knife. Carolyn tried slicing the tomato with it. It wouldn’t even cut through the skin.

“How come Dad’s having gymnastics practice?” Liz asked. “I thought the season didn’t start till next week.”

“It doesn’t,” Carolyn said. “Shut the refrigerator. He’s interviewing assistant coaches.”

“I have to have new hightops,” Wendy said.

“You had new hightops when school started.”

“These are for volleyball. Coach Nicotero says we need ones with bank and turn heels and spike insteps.”

The phone rang. Liz dived for it. “It’s for you,” she said disgustedly, and handed Carolyn the phone.

“Hi, this is Sherri at the elementary school,” the voice on the phone said. “I tried to catch you when you were doing your volunteer stuff, but you would not believe what our beloved principal Old Paperwork decided his secretary should do now! He’s having me call every parent and check to make sure the information is correct. Just in case, he says. Are you aware that you are the ‘person to be contacted if parents cannot be reached’ on fourteen separate emergency cards?”

“Yes,” Carolyn said. “It’s because I’m at home during the day. I may well be the last woman in America at home during the day.”

“No, Heidi Dreismeier’s mother doesn’t work either. Anyway, Old Paperwork decided I should call every single ‘person to be contacted if parents cannot be reached’ just to make sure they really can be contacted and their phones are in working order. The man’s a menace.”

“Mom, it’s five o’clock ,” Wendy said.

“Anyway,” Sherri said, “I need to read you the names of all these kids. Heidi Dreismeier, Monica Morales, Ricky Morales—”

“Mom, I’m not going to have time to eat,” Wendy said.

“Troy Yoder,” Sherri said, “Brendan James. Speaking of which, did you know Brendan’s parents are getting a divorce?”

“You’re kidding,” Carolyn said. “She’s PTA vice president.”