The Excellent Lombards(24)

Stephen opened his hand, a gray wafer in his palm. “What’s that?” I said.

“A travel alarm clock.”

“You going somewhere?”

“Never know.”

“Because you’re a spy?”

“Everyone really thinks that, don’t they?”

I must have come fully awake then, because I was surprised to find myself in the semi-darkness looking at Stephen’s chiseled handsome face. And more surprising, excitement was blooming in my chest.

“If I was a spy,” he said, holding between his thumb and index finger what looked like a dime, “don’t you think I’d be able to figure out how to put a battery in my clock?”

“That depends.”

“It does?”

“You could maybe truly know how to insert it, but you’re pretending to be clumsy. For your cover.”

“Ah ha,” he said. “You are very clever.”

“Are you afraid, sometimes, in your job?”

I think he was looking at me in his hard, keen way, although I couldn’t be sure. “Yes, very frightened,” he said, “but not for the reasons you imagine.”

“Well,” I said importantly, “maybe a lot of jobs are like apple picking. You could fall and kill yourself but mostly you don’t do that, and instead, you’re working hard all day long and sometimes it is very boring.” I had heard one of the lady apple pickers speaking about the harvest in exactly those terms.

“But guess what?” Stephen said conspiratorially.

“What?”

“When Sherwood shows up, it’s not at all boring because he’s telling you the cell phones of the future will play movies, TV shows, anything you want to see.”

Stephen was speaking about his own brother, Stephen clearly on our side in the future war.

“And,” I said, “Sherwood’s also building a telescope out of aluminum foil, old storm windows, a good pair of binoculars, a rearview mirror, and a cheesecloth.”

Stephen rewarded me with laughter. “Don’t forget,” he said, “it also turns inside out to examine your liver and kidneys.”

“Reversible,” I said.

“Plus,” Stephen said, “it’s a cell phone.”

We both began to laugh and pretty soon we couldn’t stop. What we’d said about Sherwood wasn’t even that far-fetched. We covered our mouths, heads to the table, our laughter coming in snorts through our noses. Were we maybe on Sherwood’s side as well as my father’s? I wasn’t sure. For certain I had never been so happy in the middle of the night, in the moment falling in love with Stephen, although I wouldn’t have called it that. I said, “You should stay here. You shouldn’t ever leave.”

That idea made him sober up. “I shouldn’t?” he asked, as if I were the one to decide.

Supposing he had children with Gloria: I suddenly could see that they wouldn’t necessarily have to be our rivals. Because they’d be so much younger they could stay on as our workers. They wouldn’t be owners or partners, but reliable hired girls and boys. It seemed to me that William and I had just made those future children a generous offer. No Lombard should have to leave the farm for any reason.

Of all the surprising things that Stephen said to me that night, the last question took the prize. He said, “Why do you think May Hill prays to the photograph of her nephew?”

“What?” I said. My face was at once hot.

“Are you going to be a writer?” he asked.

“No.”

“You aren’t?”

“I’m going to be a farmer.”

“A farmer, eh? You should maybe think about writer.”

I shook my head furiously, saying, “William could put that battery in your clock. It would be so easy, nothing to it, do you want me to wake him?”

“It’s a tempting offer, but, between you and me, the CIA is testing me with this problem. I’m sure, pretty sure, I’ll be able to solve it.”

Another wave, such heat, Stephen trusting me with his secret. Plus, it was dawning on me, past my blazing face and into my mind, that he’d somehow read my story about May Hill. Which for one thing was more evidence of his occupation. The interview was information for his files. I felt as if I might faint and in order not to I stared at him. He definitely looked like a Lombard, the long nose and the square chin proof, but he also resembled a Japanese emperor, somewhere along the line an impurity sealing his beauty. He was the most handsome spy in the world.

I said, “Isn’t Gloria worried about you?” I was still thinking, He read my story.

He didn’t hear my question because he was saying, “Even though this clock doesn’t work it’s probably safe to say it’s time for us to go to bed. Don’t you turn into something unattractive and impossible if you fail to get eight hours of sleep?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well then, Francie, good night.”

“But I don’t really want to go to bed.”

“We can have a standing date, every night at—what time is it?” He squinted at the microwave clock. “Two in the morning! Every night at just this minute I’ll meet you right here.”

He probably didn’t mean it. He was living with Gloria and he wasn’t. He stayed in our house although it didn’t belong to him. He was soon going to float off into the world, a man who himself hadn’t been able to be a farmer. He was someone who didn’t always know what time it was. Plus the travel alarm clock was too hard for him to understand. I started to wonder, as I got back into my bunk, as I tried to go to sleep—if a place might make you more than you were. Was that possible? The puzzle was like a dread story problem. And then, without that place, say you lost it, or couldn’t get back to it, or couldn’t stay there for long, it could turn out that you really weren’t much of anyone.