“Man up,” she said with a giggle. “It’ll be worth it. After all, you can sit on a boring chair any old day.”
Before he could reply, a hijab-clad woman bustled to their table with a basin and pitcher. She motioned at Marc, but he had no idea what she wanted him to do. He cocked an inquiring eyebrow at Crystal.
“I’ll go first,” she said, putting her hands over the basin. “Watch and learn.”
Immediately, the woman poured rose-scented water over Crystal’s hands. When Crystal finished washing, Marc took his turn. He was feeling more and more out of place, but seeing Crystal’s glowing face by his side, he realized that he was exactly where he wanted to be.
After the woman left, a second hijab-clad woman approached. She was carrying a large dish of food and a single glass of water. After she placed her offerings on their table, a man came bearing bread. Bowing slightly, he spoke a few words in a foreign tongue.
When the man turned to visit another table, Marc leaned over and whispered to Crystal, “What’d he say?”
“That was our host,” she replied. “He was giving us permission to eat.”
“Do you mind if we pray before we dig in?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she replied.
After Marc said a simple prayer, he looked down at the dish and the single glass of water. “Is this for both of us?”
She nodded. “You do know how to share, don’t you? Sharing is the cornerstone of every American kindergarten—I’m shocked to learn that you haven’t mastered the concept.”
As he chuckled, Crystal raised their glass to her lips and took a sip. Her lipstick left a red smudge. “Now you know which is my side of the glass,” she said. “That way you don’t have to worry about my germs.”
Smiling, he took the glass and turned it deliberately so the lipstick smudge was facing him. After drinking deeply, he said, “Your germs don’t scare me, Cris.”
She gurgled. “Ugh. But your germs happen to scare the life out of me. Now I have to go to the bother of marking a new place on the glass.”
Giving a strangled gasp of laughter, Marc shook his head. “You’re a complete nut.”
“If you have to be something, you might as well be the best at it that you can be. It’d be a crying shame if I was only half a nut—that would make me half-cracked.”
Marc gave another strangled gasp of laughter and reached for his fork. Then he realized that he didn’t have one. Seeing their host smiling at him from across the room, Marc knew the man was waiting for them to eat. Looking at the obvious lack of utensils, and not wanting to appear rude or ignorant, he whispered to Crystal, “How do you eat this stuff?”
“With your fingers,” she whispered back. “You can use some bread to help you scoop.”
Marc picked up a piece of bread in his left hand and reached toward the dish with his right. Crystal shook her head. “Only use your right hand, and only use your thumb and first two fingers—anything more is considered a sign of greed.”
Switching the bread to his right hand, he tried to scoop the food using the bread perched precariously with only three digits. He wasn’t surprised when his bread fell into the dish.
Crystal giggled. “It can be tricky. Watch me.”
Observing her closely, Marc copied her motions. Soon, he was enjoying the novelty of eating Moroccan style. After a while, he wiped his fingers on a napkin. He paused as Crystal shook her head again.
“Don’t tell me,” he groaned. “Is the napkin for something other than wiping your hands?”
“I thought you didn’t want me to tell you?”
“Smarty pants.” He grinned. “Tell me what I need to know.”
“The napkin is for your fingers, but it’s impolite to use it until after your meal is finished. Also, be sure not to lick your fingers yet.”
“I wouldn’t do that anyway.”
Crystal smiled. “At the end of the meal, we’ll all be expected to. Finger-licking good is more than just an expression in Morocco.”
“How do you know Moroccan etiquette?” he asked.
“I did a report on Morocco in the sixth grade.”
“And you still remember the information? I can’t remember the subjects of my term papers in college much less middle school.”
“Photographic memory, remember?” she replied, tapping her forehead. “Besides, Morocco was a blast to research. Our report was only supposed to be three pages. My teacher nearly fainted when I turned in mine. I wrote twenty-six.”
Smiling, he took another bite. “Do you know what we’re eating?” he asked.
“This is Zaalouk,” she said, pointing to one of the salads in the dish. “It’s a mixture of eggplant and tomato. I’m not sure what the other salad is, but it has green peppers, and I know peppers are a main ingredient of Taktouka.”
As soon as they finished their first course, a thick stew made of squash and chickpeas was brought to their table in a tagine earthenware pot. When the domed lid was removed, Marc used a hunk of bread to skillfully absorb the juices and scoop the food.
His lips twitched as he picked up a piece of red potato. “My poor grandmother would be horrified if she saw me eating with my hands. Would yours?”
Crystal shook her head. “Mine would make us scoot over, and she’d join us. She was always up for a little fun, even after she went blind.”
Marc’s heart jolted. Shame rolled over him in a shivering wave. When he was a junior cadet, he’d taunted Crystal about her interest in Braille. He hadn’t realized that her interest stemmed from personal tragedy. More than ever, he wished he could go back and shake some sense into his younger-self.
Scooping some more food, Crystal smiled. “My grandfather would enjoy this, too, but he’d insist on a chair.”
Pushing his disquieting thoughts aside, Marc reached over and started to snag a red potato from her side of the dish. Seeing her shake her head, he asked, “Another social gaffe?”
“A horrible one. I’m positively shocked at you. Keep your hands off my food.”
Laughing, he grabbed another piece of bread. After taking a bite and swallowing, he raised their glass to his lips.
Crystal watched him with eyes full of mischief. At just the right moment to be deliberately obnoxious, she murmured, “Don’t leave any floaties.”
Marc choked, gave a strangled gasp, and set down their glass with a shaking hand. “You wretch. You don’t know how close I came to spraying you with water, and I guarantee that would be more impolite than snagging a red potato.”
Crystal laughed, her eyes sparkling with fun. Looking at her, Marc couldn’t believe that he’d ever thought she was plain.
When they finished the stew, lamb and couscous were set before them. Marc had to admit that the food, although different than what he was used to, was very tasty. He especially enjoyed the small, pickled lemons.
Suddenly, a group of woman in colorful bedlehs surrounded the diners and started belly dancing. A woman in a red bedleh stood next to Marc. She was undulating with masterful precision, but he barely noticed. He was keeping his eyes on Crystal as she swayed to the music. He could almost see the gears turning in her brain. It was obvious that she was trying to figure out the complicated moves of the dance.
After a while, the women began pulling some of the diners to their feet and teaching them how to belly dance. The woman in the red bedleh gave Crystal an impromptu lesson. Crystal was a fast pupil, and soon, she was undulating and shimming almost as well as the woman in red.
Marc watched Crystal with fascination. Just when he thought he had her figured out, she threw him another curveball. He was almost expecting it—but not quite—when Crystal pulled him to his feet and started teaching him the moves.
As he tried to shimmy, Marc laughed. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I look like a fool.”
“Not any bigger fool than the rest of us who are learning.”
“Cris, look around,” he said. “I’m the only man learning this dance.”
“That’s because you’re big, brave, and an awfully good sport.”
“Look who’s using the thesaurus now. You honestly don’t think I look too silly?”
“Hey,” she replied, “it’ll do you good to be silly. Most of the time, you take yourself far too seriously.”
When the dancing ended, they were served mint tea and Zucre Coco, a coconut fudge cake. After dessert, the hijab-clad woman came over with her basin and pitcher. Surreptitiously, Crystal jabbed Marc in his ribs and licked her fingers. He followed suit. The woman beamed at them, obviously accepting their finger-licking as a subtle compliment on the food.
As Marc watched Crystal licking her fingers with gusto, he said with a smile, “Having you for a friend is going to be an adventure. Life certainly isn’t gonna be dull with you around.”
“Life isn’t supposed to be dull.” She laughed. “It’s supposed to be lived.”
~*~
Agent Ruthford scanned the grounds surrounding the vice president’s house. Nothing seemed wrong, but he was practically jumping out of his skin. He tried to shrug the feeling away, blaming it on the aftermath of the elementary school. He couldn’t believe that any human being would intentionally put a child at risk.
Drake isn’t human. He’s a monster.
After studying the tree line, he entered the house. Another wave of uneasiness engulfed him. He narrowed his eyes. He was going to call in more agents. Maybe his gut feeling was wrong, but he couldn’t afford to ignore it, not when the vice president’s safety was on the line. For some reason, he felt sure that Drake was about to strike.
~*~
While everyone was decorating the living room for the wedding, Peter sat on the porch with his future brother-in-law. They were supposed to be shelling peas for the wedding supper—but in reality, the domestic chore was only an excuse for them to pull away and talk.
“How exactly did you two meet?” David asked, shelling a peapod.
“On a bus in college,” Peter replied. “Dan and I were working on our doctorates, and in our spare time, we were building the GAP Staging Platform. I assume Laura’s told you about our work with timewaves?”
Nodding, David tossed the empty pod in the trashcan.
“Well, back in college, Dan and I hit a snag with our work, and we weren’t certain how to proceed. When I was ten years old, I received a book from my future-self called Hinglly’s Formulas Explained. I was told to look to Hinglly when I was stumped. Dan and I had rented a warehouse on the edge of town to use as a lab, and I went there every day after class. I was feeling mighty stumped, so that day on the bus, I was reading Hinglly. I had a notebook open on my knee, and I was trying to plug numbers into Hinglly’s eighth formula. Just then, Laura came and sat beside me.”
David shelled another peapod. “Had you met her before?”
Shaking his head, Peter reached for a handful of pods. “I’d seen her on campus—she was working on her doctorate, too, but I didn’t know her name. That day on the bus, she looked at my notebook, stole the pencil from my hand, erased part of my work, and filled the page with numbers. I was pretty taken aback—and even more so when I realized that I’d made a mistake in my figuring and she’d corrected it. For about fifteen minutes, we worked on my math problem until we had it solved, and we still hadn’t spoken a word. When we were finished, I introduced myself and asked for her help on the timewave project. We’ve been working together ever since.”
“That’s some story,” David said, dropping more shelled peas into the bowl.
Peter nodded. “When I was ten years old and told to look to Hinglly, I thought Hinglly’s formulas would be the answer to my problem, but in reality, looking to Hinglly led me to Laura, and she provided the answer just a few weeks after she joined our team.”
David chuckled. “So you met Laura on a bus, eh?”
“Why do I feel that you know something I don’t?”
“Because I do,” David replied. “I happen to know that Laura had a crush on you before you met on the bus. When Laura was in college, she called and said she’d seen a guy on campus that she liked. She said she kept riding his bus, trying to get up the nerve to talk to him. She said she couldn’t think of anything to say, and she asked my advice.”
“What did you tell her?” Peter asked, throwing away some empty pods.
“I told her to figure out what the guy was interested in. I said she could use his hobby as a conversation starter.”
“Hinglly?”
David nodded. “That must’ve been what she used, and being shy, when she couldn’t talk, she simply wrote.”
“Well, it worked.” Peter smiled. “We’ve been friends ever since.”
“Why didn’t you start dating back then?”
“Stupidity on my part,” he replied. “I never looked at Laura as an eligible woman until recently. I simply thought she was a terrific friend.” Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “But I wonder now if I wasn’t always in love with her. Whenever she’d go to Alaska for the summer, I’d miss her like crazy. I’d even make up excuses to call and hear her voice.”
“Why didn’t you ever come to Alaska with her?” David asked. “Didn’t she ever invite you?”
“Sure she did, but I always spend my summers doing missions work. Laura intends on taking me to Alaska this summer, though. She’s promised to teach me how to kayak and hunt snipes.”
Tossing away an empty pod, David’s lips twitched. “Snipe hunting, eh?”
“I don’t understand it all, but Laura says I can hold the bag while she beats the bushes.” He shrugged. “Truthfully, it sounds pretty strange.”
“Oh, it is.” David laughed. “Snipe hunting is a unique experience.”
“I’ll have to make sure to go then,” Peter said, reaching for the last peapod.
“Believe me, you’ll have lots of people volunteering to take you. Snipe hunting is a time-honored tradition in our neck of the woods. But when you go, I’ll go too so things don’t get too rowdy. Sometimes, my pack of brothers can get out of hand.”
“Sounds good.” Peter smiled, tossing away the final empty pod.
A gale of laughter floated from the house.
David’s face became serious as he picked up the bowl of shelled peas. “Before we go back inside, I want to thank you for protecting my sister from Drake.”
“I just got in the final blow,” Peter replied. “Laura fought Drake herself. Your little sister has some keen fighting skills.”
“Where’d she pick them up?” David asked. His forehead furrowed. “I tried to get her interested in self-defense, but she always blew me off.”
“I taught her in college,” he replied.
“I can’t believe she let you.”
“I didn’t take no for an answer.” Peter’s voice was grim. “The semester before graduation, someone was stalking women on campus. I was worried sick about Laura. I tried to stick close to her, but she was taking classes all hours of the day and working at the warehouse lab all hours of the night. I tried telling her it was unsafe, but she wouldn’t listen, so I became physical.”
David’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Even though she didn’t want to listen, I’d tell her how to break chokeholds, and then I’d put her in a headlock and give her noogies until she broke my grip.”
David laughed. “I’ll bet she appreciated that.”
“Actually, she didn’t,” Peter replied, picking up an empty pod from the floor and throwing it away. “But I didn’t care. I kept teaching her self-defense moves and then sneaking up behind her, making her use them. Laura was important to me, and I couldn’t stand the thought of the campus stalker attacking her.”
Nudging a stray pod with his boot, David asked, “Was the stalker ever caught?”
Peter shook his head. “The attacks escalated until a woman went missing. After that, the attacks just stopped.”
“Was the woman ever found?” David asked.
Sha
king his head, Peter picked up the trashcan.
David shuddered. “Thanks for making sure that Laura wasn’t one of the victims.”
Nodding, Peter motioned toward the house. “We’d probably better go inside. The peas are done, and I don’t want Twinkles coming out after us with fire in her eye.”
“I’ll second that.” David laughed, standing to his feet.
~*~
Andrew unbuttoned his suit jacket and tossed it on the back of his sofa. Yanking off his tie, he threw it onto the coffee table. Sitting down, he leaned back and stared at the ceiling. He was exhausted. Reporters and photographers had mobbed him and Marjorie Vaster all night. He grimaced. Back when he’d been a relatively unknown businessman, he never would have dreamed he’d end up being stalked by the paparazzi.
He squinted at the crystals dangling from the chandelier. Other than the reporters, he supposed the night had gone well. Closing his eyes, he tried to picture Marjorie’s face. He couldn’t do it. He tried to remember what they’d talked about; he couldn’t manage.
He sighed. Even if she wasn’t exactly captivating, Marjorie was sensible, and she’d dealt with the situation with poise. Because of her aplomb, he’d asked her to lunch the following day. She’d accepted eagerly. She wasn’t his dream girl, but she was at least on the same continent.
Sitting up straight, Andrew turned on the TV and surfed the channels. It was unlikely that his violinist was playing tonight, but who knew? As he flipped past sitcoms, cop shows, and ads for denture cream, his heart began to sink. He still didn’t know his dream girl’s name, and now, he’d probably never find out.
Just as he was giving up hope, the soft strains of a violin filled the air. Giving a relieved sigh, he leaned back in his chair.
His violinist was wearing a long, yellow dress and a simple gold necklace. Her hair was loose, just the way he liked it. He wished he’d been able to tune in earlier. It was obvious that her concert was almost over. In fact, it looked like she was preparing to play her final song.
On the screen, his dream girl closed her eyes. When she opened them, she looked directly at the camera. Andrew caught his breath as her blue gaze seemed to reach across the miles and find him. Her mesmerizing eyes captured his and never let go. As she played, he felt as if his heart was being ripped from his chest.
Time Search (The Time Counselor Chronicles Book 3) Page 24