by Cathy Lamb
I couldn’t talk. My lips quivered, and my chin wiggled. He saw it and said, “Ah, Charlotte, I did not mean to make you cry.”
“You didn’t.” He pulled me into his shoulder. “Okay, you did.”
The next blue-gray silk wave rushed up to us. I knew we would get wet. I didn’t move. I liked being in Toran’s arms. When we were wet, his jeans, my skirt, we still didn’t move.
The sun shone above us, the clouds white and squishy.
I was glad that Toran’s father was dead. He was a blockheaded, raving lunatic.
I felt sorry for his mother . . . but I had a hard time feeling too much pity for her. Her job as a mother was to protect her kids, and she didn’t. She should have taken Toran and Bridget to her own parents, who would have welcomed them in. Carney had forbidden her from visiting them, according to Toran, but she had an answer. She said no to it.
I know there are many reasons why she didn’t, things that Toran had already said, but does that excuse it? Does that excuse that her children were raised in fear, spent hours on their knees while their fanatical father screamed Bible verses, hit them, and was intimidating and scary?
Does it?
Look what it did to them.
Look what it did to Bridget.
Look what they did, to Bridget and to Toran.
And then they died. Up there, nearby.
What happened?
“She’s got a mark on her,” my grandma said to me as Bridget and Toran ran back through the fields to their house. “It’s dark. It will stain her whole life.” She teared up. “Trouble comes to her.”
“Mum,” my dad said, his face creased in worry. “Don’t say that to Charlotte.”
“It’s true, though. She is old enough to hear it. You must be Bridget’s friend always. Never let go. I see cities for her. I see a wanderer in the dark. I see pain in her veins and smoke surrounding her life. I see . . . confusion. Lost. She’s lost. Oh!” She covered her mouth.
“What, Grandma, what?”
“I see that they take her away.”
“Take who away? Take who?” I watched Bridget in the distance, her red ribbon flowing between strands of her white-blond hair, Toran running alongside her.
“Both of them.”
“What? Who?”
“Both of them. Her and . . .” Her eyes filled with tears, and I knew that this time the vision was clear. “Mackintoshes are loyal to their friends. You must always be loyal to Bridget. It is not her fault.”
My father went to stand at the window and watched them go. My mother linked an arm around his waist, then laid her head on his shoulder. They sighed, as if on cue, together.
Since I had no close friends in high school, I had a lot of time to study for the SAT, which I nailed. It is not something I am overly proud of. Rather, it’s a mark of how much time I had to spend alone and how lonely I was.
I went to college and majored in physics and biology. I was glad to go to college. Physics and time traveling actually go hand in hand. In fact, my love of physics helped propel the original plot of my first book, which launched my career. For fun, at night, I would study time travel.
I knew it wasn’t possible.
Logically speaking.
I knew it was a ridiculous notion.
Scientifically, that is.
I knew it was only a fantasy.
For magical dreamers only.
But, I asked myself, over numerous cups of coffee: What if it were possible?
I pet my beloved cats, Pillow Z and Tasmania, long dead now. I listened to symphonies composed by Dvorak and Rachmaninoff, and had more coffee. I was, as usual, alone, so I had a lot of time to think.
What if?
Were time periods simply parallel to each other? Could you cross that parallel? How would you do it? Are we living multiple lives at once and don’t know it? Could certain people time travel who had special perceptions or inexplicable universal powers? Are we new people in those lives? What about reincarnation?
What if?
I thought about my lack of romance as I analyzed time travel, scouring books, journals, and articles in prestigious magazines. I thought of my stash of romances under my bed, some contemporary romances, some historical, others so graphic and titillating that I would read in my flannel floor length pajamas and have to fan my face or get Dan, the first vibrator.
I had no romance. I had cats, coffee, and romance novels. After graduating from college, I decided to get a master’s in biology. Along with school, I had a job at the university research laboratory which I loved, except for one prick named Dr. Xavier.
What if?
In between school and work I asked myself, Could I write a time travel romance?
I started scribbling some thoughts down, late at night. McKenzie Rae catapulted to life as if she were a living person. The plot came. The history. The time travel elements. How she had to save someone in every book.
I was the happiest I’d been in a long time.
Then the book was derailed.
By a man, no surprise there.
And I let it happen. That’s what galls me the most. I let a man alter my destiny.
Preposterous and shameful on my part, and on my feminist belief system.
My mother almost choked on her own tongue.
Toran and I drove over to my house several evenings later, the sun beginning its descent, slow and easy, lazy, as if it were waiting for us to tap it down those final inches. The colors blurred, like melting popsicles, with a dark streak of purple.
I liked the new roof. The white kitchen cabinets were halfway up. Because they were premade, it was quicker. It was a mess, but an organized, tarp-covered mess. The Stanleys had a large crew.
“When this is all finished, I’m going to buy curtains and put them up to help sell it,” I said to Toran. I adjusted my glasses, then refastened my clip to keep my hair out of my face, as it had popped open again. I touched the button of my blue blouse to make sure it was still fastened. Over my blouse I was wearing my favorite green poncho, with a horse embroidered on the front, and my light brown ruffled skirt.
“I’ll use my drill and put the rods up for you, but not so you can sell it.” Toran crossed his arms over that wide chest of his. I bet it was hairy. I like chest hair. “So you can have the curtains you want.”
“I’ll bet you’ve got some talent with a drill, don’t you?” I was thinking of all his farm work.
“Yes. I can drill a hole in anything.”
My cheeks flushed as my imagination exploded and took off. I almost tittered.
“I meant,” he said, noting my reaction and getting it, both palms up, “I can drill anything with holes.”
I slammed my teeth together. Tried, again, not to titter, or laugh out loud.
He slapped a hand to his forehead. “I meant that I can drill anything that needs to be drilled to make something, do something.”
I tittered. Couldn’t help it. I laughed. My shoulders shook.
He shook his head, sighed. “I don’t mean this how it’s sounding. Okay, let me start over. When do you need it drilled, Charlotte?”
Right now, baby, I wanted to shout. I laughed.
Whew! Sexual tension whipped into that conversation faster than I could say “quantum physics.”
“Hmmm, Toran . . . lemme think . . .”
He ran a hand over his face, laughed, and turned away. I saw his cheeks get a tad red.
I had flirted with Scottish Warrior Toran! Behind his back I did a quick dance. I had never had fun flirting with any man. Flirting would have made me too uncomfortable. How do you flirt without seeming desperate and ridiculous? What if the man doesn’t want you to flirt with him? What if you make him feel disgusted? What if you do it wrong? Ugh. No.
Toran turned back around, and I immediately stopped dancing. He seemed a bit puzzled by my movements. I cleared my throat.
“I will hang the curtains for you, Charlotte, and I will also help the Stanleys with
this work this weekend.”
“Oh no. You’re busy with the farm.” I clasped my hands together in front of me and my embroidered horse.
“Not too busy to help my favorite lady.”
Now he was flirting. Wasn’t he?
“You already work six days a week. You need a day off, and I know your idea of taking a day off is different from mine. When I take a day off, I make sure I spend part of it walking, part of it in bed, and part of it eating my favorite nutritional foods, like chocolate. I don’t even try to write.” Not that I could write now with my brain burned out and sizzling. “You workaholic.”
“Write-aholic.”
“Farmer.”
“Time traveler.” He put his hand out and I shook it, then we twisted our palms, clapped them together three times, touched fingertips, and linked fingers. “Clan TorBridgePherLotte, forever we fight, forever we win,” we both said.
“We chose the same one,” I said.
“We always do.”
I smiled, then studied my sturdy, solid, black shoes and tried to breathe. I could feel Toran so close to me, but I couldn’t look up.
“You have pretty hair, Charlotte.” He reached out and lifted a strand. “Shiny chocolate.”
“I eat a lot of vegetables.” My head whipped up. Why did I say that? “I also eat fruits and . . . but not peanut butter, because I’m afraid I’ll choke. And not sausages because of . . . uh . . . their shape.” I did not say that McKenzie Rae thought the same thing. It would be exceedingly bizarre.
“Their shape?”
“Yes. Phallic.” And why did I say that inane thing, too?
“No phallic-shaped food then?”
“No.”
“Corn?”
“Yes, but off the cob.”
“Zucchini.”
I coughed. “No. Don’t even grow it.”
“Carrots.”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “But only when they’re chopped in circles, not when they’re in their natural form.”
He laughed. “Aw, Charlotte. You are the most unique woman I’ve ever known. There is no one like you. Come along, I’m taking you out to dinner.”
“I’m always up for eating.”
“Me too. And you’re a skinny thing, so let’s go feed you, but not carrots, unless they’re cut up in circles.”
“Let’s go feed me,” I echoed. More inane words! “Yes, let’s.” He held out a hand and I took it, quick as could be. “But we won’t order sausages.”
Before we left, I glanced up at the Scottish hills, green and smooth, as if they’d been molded by a gentle hand. My father, Quinn Mackintosh, told me once, “Our bones are part of Scottish soil, our souls part of Scottish air, our stories part of Scottish legend.” His relatives had died at Culloden and most other battles Scotland had ever fought. “We were warriors back to the time when Scotland was not even Scotland.”
Through him I heard of Blayne “The Brave” Mackintosh, who defeated an invading English army with only ten men, and Monroe “The Conqueror” Mackintosh, who kept his village safe for fifty years with Scottish magic. The last story he told Bridget and me, the night before he died, was of a father who left his daughter to fight a battle he knew he would not win but had to fight for the Scottish people; their clan; and, most important, her.
The father, Blackburn “The Protector” Mackintosh, mounted a white horse and rose against an evil sorcerer who was taking away Scotland’s moon, which meant the oceans, their tides now in chaos, would drown the country and the people in it. He threw a spear, laced with a mountain of white fire, at the sorcerer. The sorcerer burned up as it shot through him, but the spear, bright white, kept going, and landed in the middle of the moon, which is why, in Scotland, the moon is whiter than on any other place on Earth.
Blackburn Mackintosh died as the evil sorcerer’s last curse stopped his heart, as he knew it would.
My father left his stories in my memory. And on the moon.
I found peace in that.
The restaurant Toran took me to was elegant. We had not gone home to change, so I think I may have been underdressed, except I was wearing a skirt, which was appropriate. My clip broke open on the way over, so I had to leave my hair down. I retaped my glasses on the way. I always keep tape in my bag.
Toran asked more questions about my life on the island as we ate sliced bread that came with oils and a side of butter that had been scooped into small circles. “I’m not social. I don’t do social chitchat without getting a headache. Remember, I’m cat woman. Not in a cat suit, masked sort of way, but a woman who likes her cats and makes sure they have sweaters when it’s cold.”
His eyes widened, surprised. “You talk extremely well with people, Charlotte.”
“Thank you, but I will have to respectfully disagree. I don’t. I’m reserved. Private. I often don’t like people. Certainly not groups. Gangs of women make me nervous, too. Can’t predict them. They speak of topics I know nothing about, like fashion or men or makeup or kids.” I waved a hand. “I’m amazed I actually went to Gabbing Garden group.”
He tilted his head at me. “Charlotte, I don’t think you see yourself correctly.”
“You don’t?”
“You may know yourself, Charlotte, but I don’t think you understand how others see you.”
“How do they see me?”
“Interesting!” He leaned forward. “Easy to talk to. Easy to be with. Funny, sarcastically so sometimes. A true friend, and most of us have few of them. Someone to trust. Someone who will be there for you no matter what. Fun. Excellent at listening, knowing exactly what to say and when to say nothing. Always willing to be a part of Clan TorBridgePherLotte and to have adventures.”
“Did you drink before we came?”
“No, sweet Charlotte.” He laughed. “I didn’t. I knew you when we were kids, and you are the same as you were then, my friend.”
His friend.
Would that be all I would ever be to him?
I was leaving, yes, I was, back to my lonely island. But, if on the smallest chance I wanted to stay, could I stay if Toran wanted to be only friends but I constantly wanted to pull off his red and black kilt?
I didn’t think I could.
It would hurt too much. It was a sobering thought. I finished my glass of wine, and Toran and I launched into a conversation about cold fusion and nuclear reactions. I was pleased that his love of science had continued.
But sometimes we paused and stared at each other and I could not help smiling. I’m sure I resembled a goofy, lusty, confused nerd. Which is exactly what I am.
“Good night, Charlotte,” Toran said to me outside my bedroom door.
“Good night, Toran.” You have a devilishly enticing body, Toran, but I can’t imagine you would ever be interested in me. The impossibility of that is enormous. I think you only want friendship. Or a brother-and-sister relationship, who were born of different mothers and fathers.
“I’m glad you’re here, Char.”
“Me too. But I’ll move out of your home soon. Are you sure you don’t want me to go to a bed-and-breakfast in town? You said no earlier, but—”
“I absolutely do not. I have lived alone for a long time, and I don’t like it.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I like living with you.”
He smiled. I smiled back, tried to read that Scotsman, felt myself getting red and hot in the face and lower. I shrugged my shoulders inward, then out, my odd social anxiety reflex, then told myself to quit that immediately and turned toward my door.
I opened it, stepped inside, shut it, and desperately hoped he would knock and I would let him in and fling my clothes off with abandon, my black sturdy shoes flying into the corner; my underwear, not too holey, hitting the desk; my bra ripped from my body. I would wrap it around his neck, then those fine buttocks, to raise the sexual tension while gyrating my hips like a belly dancer.
It didn’t happen. No knock on the door, no knock-kn
ock on me.
I was up for a long time staring out at the moon. My father was right. The moon is different in Scotland. Glowing white. You can almost climb up and touch it. Tonight, though, it wanted some action in the bedroom.
Silver Cat appeared from under the bed and sat on my lap. She meowed and I meowed a sad meow back.
My father and Toran’s father did not like each other.
My granddad and Toran’s granddad didn’t like each other so well, either.
The great-grandfathers hated each other, too. The feud goes back for generations.
Why?
What you would expect: Land. Water rights.
And, two generations ago, my grandma. She married my paternal grandfather, Brodie Mackintosh.
Brodie Mackintosh, it was rumored, won the Caber Toss and Open Stone at the Scottish Games one year. Toran’s granddad, Rodric Ramsay, lost to Brodie. Both men saw my grandma. Rodric asked her to dinner, but she declined. My granddad asked a minute later, although family lore has it that he didn’t ask, he simple whisked her away.
Rodric was furious. Brodie and Grandma’s love was soon sealed, and the romance began.
Toran’s granddad’s anger lasted for a lifetime, too. He always believed that Brodie took Grandma away from him. That was nonsense, as my grandma told me. “I was in love with your granddad when I first saw him. Handsome devil. A smile that undid me.”
But my grandma’s smile undid Rodric, too, and he never forgot his lost love.
So Brodie and Rodric didn’t like each other.
My father and Carney didn’t like each other, either, because my father thought that Carney was an “overzealous, fanatical Catholic who was too strict with his children, a poor husband, and obsessed with the church.”
Yet from the start my family liked Toran and Bridget.
My father said one time, “I can hardly believe that Toran is Carney’s child. Same with Bridget.” He shook his head. “They’re nothing like Carney. Toran is a hardworking young man. He’ll protect you, Charlotte, if need be.”