A Knight in Central Park(102)
As he watched his father turn to walk away, he sighed. No pat on the back, no handshake. Nothing. “Wait,” Joe called out.
His father waved off a young man who had been patiently waiting to talk with him and turned back to face Joe instead.
Joe went to him, took his father in his arms, embraced him fully. He held him for a moment longer than appropriate being that they were in public before his father’s string of elite and prestigious friends. His father’s cheeks pinkened as he gaped at Joe in stunned silence. Probably the most emotion he’d ever seen on the man’s face. Joe smiled. “I’ve got to go. It was good seeing you.”
And then before his father could turn away, he turned away first. And then he just walked away.
“Look in the mirror for God’s sake!” Shelly said. “You look like shit!”
“Doesn’t anyone know how to say hello anymore?” Joe asked before taking another swill of gin or beer or whatever the hell was in his cup. “And don’t use God’s name in vain. It’s not nice.”
Shelly ignored him as she picked up some of the clothes scattered across the floor. “How long have you been back?”
“Let’s see.” Reaching back into the crack of the chair, he grimaced. Then he pulled out a wrinkled calendar. His eyes narrowed and his lips moved as he counted the days. “Twenty-nine days, give or take a few hours.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did. I think.” He pushed his hair out of his face, then leaned his head back against the padded cushions of his Lazy Boy. “Yeah, I did call you. I talked to a Katy.”
“No wonder I didn’t get the message.”
“Hmmm, yes, you can’t trust anyone named Katy.” He took another swallow.
“Professor,” she said, dumping the pile of dirty clothes she’d collected on the couch. “What has happened to you? Did you really go back in time? Did it happen?”
He looked about at the sensible bookshelves, neatly stacked CDs in the shelves across from him. “Everything so organized,” he said. “Order. It used to give me a sense of peace.” He used a folded newspaper to scratch his leg. “Now I look at it and wonder what good is any of it if you have nobody to enjoy it with?”
Shelly kept her gaze locked on him, waiting for an answer to her question.
He leaned forward and said in a serious tone, “It happened, Shelly. For one blessed, wonderful month I lived in another century.”
Her jaw dropped. “What was it like?”
“Beautiful chaos.”
“What about that guy? That man who was after Alexandra’s sister? Did you find him?”
He nodded, took another swallow of his warm drink.
Shelly did a little hop, startling him. She seemed to be seriously angry with his glass because she took it from him and growled as she took his cup to the kitchen. He heard the cupboards banging open and closed. A moment later she was back with a plastic bag, throwing empty cans and bottles and trash into it.
She tried to grab the doll from his lap, but he stopped her in the nick of time. “Touch my baby and you die.”
She stepped back, her eyes wide. “This is not like you, Professor. This mess,” she said throwing her arms wide. “My boyfriend’s place looks better than this!” She slid a finger across his coffee table and held it up for him to see. “You have dust motes, Professor. Doesn’t that bother you anymore?”
He shrugged.
“Look at your hair. You’ve practically got a beard. I can’t believe this. Oh, my God.”
He wagged an admonishing finger at her.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God, does not constitute using God’s name in vain. So give it a rest. It’s her, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Professor McFarland, king of bachelorhood and one night stands has fallen for a woman. And when the stubborn fall, they fall hard, don’t they, Professor?”
“Yeah, sure, they fall hard.” He looked at the doll. Rebecca probably wouldn’t be pleased with the arms he’d sewn on her baby doll. He’d stopped at Target to buy a Barbie doll. It had taken him over an hour just to drill holes into the plastic arms and then another hour to sew them to the rag doll’s tunic. Rebecca’s baby looked like an alien.
But at least it had arms.