What does this mean? Anthony wondered. Why send the girl?
The little girl’s color slowly returned. She even started getting up and wandering around the conference room, looking at the pictures on the wall. She used Reuben as a reference point, every so often checking in with him for a quick question or two before wandering off again.
Reuben had come to stand next to Anthony in the group.
“Reuben,” Anthony said. “You are wonderful with her.”
“Kayla’s about that age. Despite them trying to be ‘big,’ they really want a calm authority there with them.”
“Reuben, what does all this mean? Why the girl?”
“I don’t know.” He turned to fully regard Anthony. “But we can’t put her into the foster system. I know that much.”
Anthony rubbed his eyes. This was a whole new level of complication he would have to deal with. He couldn’t stop thinking: Why the girl? What does this mean?
***
“Kayla, Stephanie stop playing around and get to bed,” Reuben said one month later. “Have you brushed your teeth?” Reuben’s wife, Linda, usually put the girls to bed, but she had traveled out of town this week to a conference.
The girls, in matching pink and purple pajamas, ran to single beds crammed at opposite sides of the room. They had insisted on sleeping in the same room since the very beginning. They were five months apart, closer than he could have ever hoped for. The thought always filled him with warmth. His wife knew nothing of Stephanie’s origin, but he would joke with the Project Itho team that they were twins separated by a few decades.
“Good night you two,” Reuben said.
Stephanie sat up. “Uh... Mr. Ruther... Da... You’re supposed to sing us a lullaby.” She still stumbled over calling them mom or dad, but it had only been a few weeks. It would come.
“Well, of course. But you’ll have to teach it to me.” Reuben came and sat down near the bed.
Stephanie started singing:
Sleep tight, little one;
May your dre-e-ams be heaven.
...
As she sang, Reuben eye’s grew wider, more alert. By the end he regarded her intensely. “Could you repeat that please?” He grabbed a paper and pencil from their white faux wood desk.
Stephanie sang it three more times, before Reuben had it transcribed exactly. He hastily sang it back, turned off the light and ran to find his smart phone.
“Anthony, Hi. Yes, I know what time it is. I know what it means. Well I don’t know exactly, but I got a message from him. It’s in here somewhere.” Reuben waved the paper as if Anthony could see it. “What? No, I’m afraid not. I can’t come in tonight. Why?” Reuben looked back up the stairs. “Because my girls are sleeping.”
***
Seventeen-year-old Stephanie weaved her way around the tombstones in Chicago’s Rosehill cemetery, following her usual pattern. The snow crunched under her feet. The cemetery was empty, another bleak and gray winter day. But she always came to the cemetery on her second-birthday, always.
She came upon the tombstone for “Ace Smith, born ? Died 1998.” It was a simple tombstone, a piece of hay in a field of haystacks. It came up to her thigh with one side polished—like most every other one that she could see in this part of the cemetery.
When she learned of the trust fund he had left her, she had wanted to dig it up and move it. Get him a proper tombstone. But her dad wouldn’t let her. He said Charlie would have disapproved. Her father did agree to letting her modify the tombstone. Under “Ace Smith” scratched in a later date was “Charlie Pearson.”
But the epitaph is why she came back year after year. Why she would subconsciously wander here in her most difficult of times. It read:
Stephanie,
You were the highlight of my life.
Introduction to “A Beautiful Friendship”
Mike Resnick has written 72 novels, more than 250 short stories, and three screenplays. In addition to being the leading award winner in science fiction short fiction, Mike Resnick is an all-around good guy. In the 1990s, he introduced all sorts of new writers into the field through his anthologies (and received Best Editor Hugo nominations for it), and now he collaborates with some of the best and brightest newcomers in the field. Lou J. Berger is the most recent.
When he’s not writing, Lou J. Berger runs a recruiting firm in Colorado. He seems to favor the number three when it comes to children and dogs—three kids, and three Shelties—but the number one when it comes to cats. (Which I’m sure his kink-tailed cat appreciates.) This story marks his first collaboration with Mike Resnick and he reports that he is “eternally grateful” for Mike’s generosity.
The story itself came from a meme on Facebook—“If Wednesday follows Tuesday and Germany lost World War II, then my formula worked.”—and, Mike says, “decided to do a riff on it.” “A Beautiful Friendship” is more than a riff. It’s filled with surprises and is a heck of a lot of fun.
A Beautiful Friendship
Mike Resnick and Lou J. Berger
When Kelly Nicholas was a schoolboy, he was thrilled to be the last one chosen for teams at recess, because the fact of the matter is that he was rarely chosen at all.
Which figured. He was one of those guys whose name you forget while you’re talking to him. Even if you’ve known him for ten years. His own dog would sniff the back of his hand and give him a “Who the hell are you?” look.
He grew up to be average height, average weight, average looks, and he dressed mostly in browns and grays that he bought off an average rack. Mister Cellophane, our Kelly. Or perhaps the Invisible Man.
So why am I telling you about him?
Simple.
It’s because he had one special talent, one skill that every man and woman in the civilized world would have traded their fortune, their loved ones, and their sacred honor for—but it was unique to him.
And, strangely enough, he often wished it wasn’t.
I’ll get back to the talent in a minute, because as you’ll find out it’s pretty important. But right now I think it’s time to introduce Mildred Clark. She was far more accomplished than Kelly. A psychologist, and sharp as a tack, with an almost pretty face and a decent figure. Despite all that, she was Kelly’s mirror image. Oh, not that she looked like him, but rather that people didn’t so much look at her as through her.
As this story starts, Dr. Mildred Clark was sitting at her desk, and on the other side of her office door, Kelly was staring intently at a tank of tropical fish. Five raced around in languid circles, rising and falling near the tank’s bubble stream, but Kelly was concentrating on the sixth one, the one floating belly-up at the surface.
He felt an immediate kinship with the fish. I’ll bet the other five didn’t notice you when you were alive, either.
“Excuse me, Miss,” he finally said to the receptionist. “There seems to be a dead fish in your tank.”
She popped her gum and squinted in the tank’s direction. “Damned fish are more work than they’re worth,” she complained. “I’ll take care of it in a bit.” Suddenly she stared at him. “Are you here for Dr. Clark?”
He nodded. “I filled out my name on that clipboard,” he said, indicating the clipboard on her desk. “I gave it to you half an hour ago.”
She frowned. “Half an hour?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know where my mind was,” she said, which was as close to an apology as Kelly had received in months. “The doctor should be right with you.”
She lifted her telephone and tapped out three numbers. Kelly could hear a phone ring behind the closed door.
“It’s”—she had to look at the clipboard—“a Kelly Nicholas to see you.” A pause. “Oh, a couple of minutes, maybe, not long.” She put the phone down. “Go right in.”
Kelly stood and forced a grateful smile in her direction, but she’d already dismissed his existence from her mind and was reading a magazine about which celebrities were or were not
wildly happy with their current or soon-to-be spouses.
Mildred Clark’s office was spacious, with an enormous window looking out over the grounds of the facility. A long, low couch rested against one wall, and an Oriental carpet stretched from the couch to her desk, which was crafted of dark wood and glass.
“Hello, Mr. Nicholas,” she said. “Please sit down,”
“Thank you.”
“So why are you here today?” she asked. “All I know from the notes is that you’re homeless.”
He nodded. “Yes—but it isn’t my fault. I mailed my checks every month, just as I was supposed to. Right up until the time I was laid off. They said, at work, that they didn’t have me on the payroll. When I went to discuss it with the Human Resources people, they ignored me.”
She frowned. “They ignored you? Tell me about that.”
“It’s nothing new,” he said wryly. “People have been ignoring me my entire life. It is as if they see me but don’t quite see me, you know?”
She nodded as if to encourage him. She hadn’t let her gaze drift away once, not even to fiddle with a pen. She seemed to actually be listening to him. This was unusual.
“When I couldn’t get anywhere with them, I finally gave up. The payroll checks stopped coming and I went to the bank to see if I could get a loan. Somebody would meet me at the reception desk and then listen to me for a couple of minutes. Then their attention would drift away, and they’d start working on their computer or doing paperwork.” He sighed. “This happens to me all the time. They might notice me again an hour later, or they might not.”
She turned to make a note and his heart sank. But she turned immediately back. “Your whole life?” She gave him a reassuring smile. “You don’t seem that forgettable to me.”
He gave her a whipped-puppy-dog smile of gratitude and continued.
“Anyway, the bank just never got around to helping me, and I eventually lost the house. The sheriff made me leave last week.”
She nodded her head. “That fits. I got a call about you this morning. The police say that you’re a vagrant without a permanent address, and they wanted me to evaluate you.”
“Evaluate me? For what?”
“To make sure you’re not a danger to yourself or others,” she replied. “It’s absolutely standard.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me!” he insisted, and then amended: “Well, nothing clinical. I just can’t get people to pay attention.”
“I’m paying attention,” she said.
“Yes, you are,” he acknowledged. “And I’m grateful.”
“There are worse things than being ignored, you know,” she continued.
“Name one,”
“Being un-ignored for the wrong reason,” said Mildred.
Kelly frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Look at me, Kelly.”
“I’m looking.”
“I have many things to offer a man,” she said. “I’m bright. I have empathy. They tell me I have a sense of humor. I’m well-read. I’m a good listener.”
“I can see that.”
“Well, not one of those things has ever interested any man I know. Lord knows I’m not what they call a sexpot. I don’t dress or act suggestively, I don’t speak in vulgarisms, I never behave improperly. But if a man—any man—wants to do anything but go to bed with me, he’s never said, shown or indicated it.” A bitter smile crossed her face. “That’s what I mean when I say there are worse things than being ignored.”
“What kind of things are you interested in?” asked Kelly.
“You name it.”
“The movies?” he said tentatively.
“I love old John Huston movies, I think Sergio Leone saved the Western, and I think Martin Scorsese is overrated.”
“I love old black-and-white Warner Brothers movies,” he said enthusiastically. “Bogart’s my favorite.”
“He’s very good,” she agreed. “But nothing at Warner’s was as good as Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. They were the Mutt and Jeff of crime.”
“How about John Garfield?” he asked.
She answered, and they spoke enthusiastically for the next ten minutes.
“As long as you like all these old crime movies, you must read some of the books,” he said.
“I love Chandler and Ross MacDonald,” she said.
“Me, too!” he said happily. “Who else?”
“Well, Dashiell Hammett, of course.”
Kelly shook his head. “You wouldn’t have liked him in person,” he said. “He was a mean drunk, and he cheated on Lillian Hellman all the time.”
“Really?” she said.
“Really.”
“That goes against my understanding of him,” she said. “Where did you read that?”
“I didn’t read it,” answered Kelly. “I saw him misbehaving, hitting guys who were too little or too scared to hit back, grabbing girls who’d lose their jobs if they said no to the famous Dashiell Hammett.””
“Kelly, how old are you?” she said, suddenly serious.
“Thirty-two.”
“Dashiell Hammett has been dead for more than half a century.”
“I know,” said Kelly calmly.
“Then would you care to explain what seems, on the face of it, to be either a fantasy or an out-and-out lie?”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I might as well tell you,” he said at last. “You’re the only person who pays attention to what I say. I owe you something for that.”
“Tell me what?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Promise you won’t laugh,” he said, suddenly defensive.
“I promise, even if I think it’s funny.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
“Well?” she said.
“I’m a time traveler.” He slumped in his chair. “It’s my one and only talent.”
Mildred stared at him as if he might start gibbering, or throwing things at her, but he simply sat and tried to shrink within himself.
“All right, Kelly,” she said, picking up her pen and preparing to write in her notebook. “How long have you been a time traveler?”
“Just the last year,” he said. “Since I got caught up in a lightning storm at a bus stop. I’d been standing there waiting for almost ten minutes. I was just about to climb aboard when the driver closed the door in my face. It’s as if he didn’t know I was there.”
She nodded. “Like you’re Mr. Cellophane.”
“Precisely!” he said so suddenly that she flinched. “Just like the character in Chicago. Ever since I saw that movie, I knew the name was mine, and he’d borrowed it.”
“What do you do when you…ah…time travel?” she asked.
“Mostly, I just watch,” said Kelly. “No one notices me, so it’s not all that different from watching movies in the here and now. Just different people going about their business and ignoring me.”
“How do you do it?” she asked. “I’m sure science would like to know.”
“I don’t think science has much to do with it,” he replied. “I just think of a time and a place and—POOF!—I’m there. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane, though I know it sounds insane.
“Why aren’t you rich?” said Mildred. “Or Emperor of the United States, or something? Surely a guy like you could take advantage of the timeline by going back with future knowledge to change the past.”
“You don’t believe me, do you?” asked Kelly.
“I’d like to,” she answered. “But no, I don’t.”
“Don’t feel bad about it,” he said. “No one else does either.” He paused. “I was hoping you’d be different.”
“I wish I could be, Kelly,” she said sincerely.
“I could prove it to you,” he offered without much hope.
“I wish you could.”
“Then I will!” he said decisively. “Notice what I’m wearing, please.” He looked down at his slacks, a gunmetal gray, worn at t
he knees, the cuffs slightly frayed. He also wore an old polo shirt, faded blue. He looked at her again, needing her to believe.
“Okay, I’ve noticed,” said Mildred. “Now what?”
“Now just wait. I’ll be back so fast you won’t know I’m gone.”
He checked the exact time on her desk clock, closed his eyes, thought about the Sears store near his old house and thought of a date six weeks earlier. He experienced that slight dizziness that he always felt and opened his eyes.
He was standing in an aisle, with people milling around him. To his left were signs pointing him to the men’s department. He browsed through the racks and pulled out a gaudy yellow button-down shirt and a pair of jeans. He carried them to the cashier and waited until she was finished with a customer. She ignored him, of course.
“Excuse me, miss?” he said. She jumped, startled, then smiled.
“Yes, sir. May I help you?”
He held up the clothes. “I’d like to try these on, if I may?”
“Certainly,” she pointed behind her. “The changing rooms are behind me. Take this.” She handed him a red square with the number “2” printed on it. “Just hang that on the outside of your door.”
He took the square, thanked her and went into the changing room. He held on to the square, closed the door behind him and locked it. He stripped down to his underwear. Then, using his teeth, he cut off the plastic price tags and put the clothing on. He wadded up his old clothes, left them on the wooden bench, laid the square on top of them. Then he spread his arms, closed his eyes, and imagined her office, recalling the exact time he left. The dizziness struck and the world became utterly silent—until he heard her gasp. He opened his eyes.
“How did you do that?” she said, staring intently at him, “I blinked and you were wearing different clothes. It feels like some kind of magic trick.”
He shook his head, sadly. “No, I went back in time to a Sears store and shoplifted these clothes. I put them on in a dressing room, then closed my eyes, thought of your office—and here I am.”
Time Streams - Fiction River Smashwords Edition Page 14