Trisha Telep: The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance

She didn’t want to. She’d had enough bad experiences with men, but he looked so harmlessly earnest, she relented. Nonetheless, she was glad there were still a number of partygoers circulating.

Even after she nodded ‘yes’ though, he didn’t offer his hand. In fact, he appeared to be gripping the tabletop as if any movement on his part might scare her away. So Kate extended her hand. He took it gently, and she immediately felt a light charge, like the one she got touching her tongue to a nine-volt battery, only more pleasant.

“You gonna read my fortune?” she said with a nervous smile.

But however pleasant the current she was feeling, it was clear he was feeling something else. He gazed at her hand, face tight with emotion.

“Patrick?” she said after a beat.

“Sorry, it — do you feel it, too?”

“Yes.”

“It’s OK, though?”

“Yes.”

His hand was cool and dry, and he let her do the gripping.

“Kate,” he said, “I know things about you.”

Kate’s heart seized. He was going to try to get her to join his church or his cult or his drive to eliminate the secret magnesium vapours the government was putting in our food.

She began to pull away. “Ah, Patrick, um —”

He caught her. “You have a dog named Klondike, your sister’s name is Liz and you hate the White Stripes.”

Kate blinked, alarmed. He was right — on all counts. He saw her attempt to cover the surprise. “Anyone could have told you that,” she pointed out carefully. “Besides, doesn’t everyone hate the White Stripes?”

The flecks of green danced in his eyes. He liked her sense of humour, which lowered the creep-out quotient considerably. She’d let this go on a little longer. “So, you’ve been asking questions. This is election year. You’re, like, what? Part of the opposition?”

He relaxed his grip, flashing an apologetic look. “In a sense. But this has nothing to do with politics.”

“My sister and my dog. Not exactly Harry Houdini stuff, OK?”

The corner of his mouth rose, buoyed by her challenge, and his eyes narrowed in a calculating squint. “I’m walking a fine line here between trying to convince you and trying not to scare you,” he said after a long pause.

“Oh, you passed that line a few minutes ago, my friend.” She gazed at the bronze of his skin and the intricate pattern of hairs peeking from his sleeve. His was a fine hand to hold, she noted objectively, strong and generous, and that odd tingle of connection still burned pleasantly across the surface of her palm. That, more than anything, made her curious enough to continue.

He gestured to her clutch. “Are your keys in there?”

She nodded.

“You stuff your purses with Kleenex to make them hold their shape, you always carry some kind of lime-green-coloured lip balm, and your keychain has a Powerpuff Girl on it — Buttercup, I believe — which, for a reason I have never understood, seems to represent both empowerment and revolution to you.”

He picked up her purse. “May I?”

She was too shocked to do anything but nod. He gently shook out the contents of her bag: about a dozen crumpled tissues, Buttercup on the ring that held her keys, Bonne Bell Kiwi Lip Smacker lip balm, a twenty, a Triple A card and her cell phone. He picked up the keys with his free hand. “More?”

“You had access to my purse,” she pointed out. “I left it on the table.”

“Fair enough. You went to Sarah Lawrence and majored in politics,” he said, “though you should’ve probably majored in literature, since you’re a voracious reader, mostly historical fiction and mysteries, though when no one’s looking you pull out one of the romances you keep hidden under your bed. There’s some tiresome character named Jamie in one of them you wish all men would emulate. You drive a shiny new Subaru; you made the down payment on it with your first pay cheque, which is one of the things that first made us friends, because I drive one, too. You love to rollerblade, and you always wear a helmet, but a knee injury from ninth-grade tennis tends to make you look like a penguin on wheels, and you’re about to make the biggest mistake of your life.”

Kate exhaled, her mind racing in every conceivable direction. Was this a trick? These things weren’t impossible to know, and yet, why would anyone bother? “I … I … don’t believe you.”

“About the mistake?”

“About any of it.”

“Kate, your mother had a lump removed from her breast. You feel guilty because it happened while you were doing your finals senior year and you think you should have been there, and your worry for her is something that’s always in the back of your head.”

“What do you want?” He’d gone too far. Her shock had boiled into anger. “This is rude.”

“But she’s going to be OK,” he said quickly. “All right? She’s going to be OK. I promise.”

She froze, the thin layer of defence that keeps our emotions at bay torn away, and against her will a tear striped her cheek.

“It doesn’t come back, Kate. She’s cancer free at five years and, at ten, the cancer is something you hardly think about any more — either of you. She’s there for you, Kate. She’s always there. And I know this because I lived through it with you. Not the college stuff — I didn’t meet you until later — but all the rest.”

Her heart ached, so badly did she yearn to believe what he said. “I haven’t told this stuff to my best friend.”

“But you told it to me. I’m not your best friend, but I’m close.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Her words were hot. She hated feeling exposed.

“I … I …” He stole a glance at her, evidently considering the limits to which he might go. “I come from the future and —”

“Bullshit.” She nearly yanked her hand away, but the temptation to hear more was too strong.

“I understand why you’d not believe, Kate. I do. What I’m doing is something almost no one ever gets to do.”

“So you’re special.”

“Lucky,” he corrected. “I guess.” He gazed at his shoes.

“Lucky” was not the emotion he was radiating.

“So what is this mistake?”

“Are you sure? I mean, do you believe me?” He worked the key ring in his palm like Queeg in The Caine Mutiny.

“‘Believe’ is a strong word. Let’s say I’m willing to prolong the, well, whatever this is. Go on. You have my attention.”

He chewed his lip. At last he leaned forwards. “The man you were just speaking to—”

“Mark?”

He flushed deeply. “After him.”

Kate frowned, thinking. “Mark’s friend? One of the ones you said you came with?”

“What I said was I came for them.”

Then it hit her, and her heart kicked like a rabbit in her chest. “You look like him.” Medium height, medium build, same grey eyes.

“There’s a reason for that,” Patrick said softly. “And what I said was a lie. I came for you.” The keys stopped moving, and he gazed at the place her thumb met his palm.

“What’s your name? Your whole name?”

“Patrick McCann. Patrick John McCann.”

P.J.! He had to be P.J.’s father. There couldn’t be any other explanation, or rather, there could be, but her mind simply wouldn’t process it.

“I don’t have kids,” he said, answering the look in her eye. “I also don’t have brothers or a nephew — well, except one, but he’s half Filipino and lives in Singapore. I come from the future, our future, where I’m the best friend of your husband.”

Kate’s eyes bulged. “I marry Mark?!”

The key ring began to rattle. “Yes.”

She sat up to put her hand on his arm, and he caught it. “You can’t let go, Kate. The things I can tell you, I can only tell you with your hand in mine.”