"I had hoped that would be the case," Grace said. "I was so afraid that you would turn me down. I was sick with worry all day. I knew all I had to offer you were memories and my love."
Joel stopped when he heard the innocent admission, leaned on the concrete railing that separated the Prom from the beach, and pulled Grace in. What a fool he had been to abandon this amazing woman, now dressed in blue jeans and a pink sweatshirt she had picked up in Portland. He smiled as he ran his hands through her long, thick hair.
"I'm so sorry, Grace. I can't imagine the pain I put you through."
"You did what you felt you had to do, and I did what I knew I had to do," she said. "What matters now is that we are together."
Joel dropped his hands to her waist as he pondered the statement. They were together. In fact, they hadn't been apart since they had left the Oceanfront Inn for the Sea Mist Motel and an evening of intense love that had cemented a union that even time and distance could not deny.
"There is one thing I don't understand, though," he said. "Why would you think that I would turn you down? I know I lied about my past, Grace. I lied about a lot of things. But my love for you was always real. You have to believe that."
"I do. I would have never followed you if I didn't. But I knew that what we had was in the past, a past you had left. I also knew that you had a life here. You had a family. You had friends. You had a girlfriend."
Joel sighed and closed his eyes. No wonder she'd been a wreck.
"Katie told me that you had been dating a smart, beautiful girl, one bound for law school, for a couple of years. I didn't know anything more, but I knew I couldn't compete with that."
"Her name's Jana. We've dated for two years. She is smart. She is beautiful. She's one of the most amazing people I've ever known. But she's no longer my girlfriend. I broke up with her last week. I couldn't continue dating her with you constantly on my mind."
"Did you say her name is Jana?"
"I did. Why?"
Grace smiled sadly.
"I met her."
"You did what?"
"I met her. I met her at the Mad Dog Monday night. I went on a walk around the neighborhood and decided to stop at a place that reminded me of you. I sat at a table, ordered a glass of wine, and saw a woman in tears."
"So you just walked up and introduced yourself?"
"I did. She looked like she needed a friend. She'd been crying. She told me that her boyfriend had just left her. Imagine that," Grace said. She looked at Joel with serious eyes, eyes that conveyed a clear message. Don't you ever do this again. "Her boyfriend had apparently just left the bar. I must have missed you by minutes."
Joel looked at Grace and then the ground. He wondered how long it would take to inventory the messes he had created in only six months. He would make it his life's mission to do better in the future. He would honor his new commitment to Grace Vandenberg; he would give her the love and respect she deserved; and he would make damn sure that she never ran into the green-eyed history major he knew as Jana Lamoreaux.
"Well, you found me – and I'm not running away."
Grace leaned forward and gave him a tender kiss. It was shorter and softer than the one she had given him in August 1941, when they had come here with Tom and Ginny on a weekend escape that changed their lives, but it was no less meaningful.
Joel vowed to bring her back to Seaside every year, if necessary, to remind himself of what they had once had, what they had now, and what they must never lose. He would learn from his mistakes and make a better life for both of them.
"We should probably head back to the Inn," he said. "I promised Katie and Walter that I would buy them brunch."
Joel moved away from the railing, grabbed Grace's hand, and began to lead her back toward town, where their friends and a meal awaited. But she didn't budge and gently pulled him back.
"What is it?" he asked.
Grace again looked at him with earnest eyes.
"I know that we still have a lot to discuss and that we will eventually work things out, but there is one thing that has been nagging at me all morning," she said.
"What's that?"
Grace grabbed both of his hands. She clearly wanted his undivided attention.
"Your family knows nothing about me. What will we tell them? It won't be enough to tell them that you picked me up in a different time zone."
Joel laughed at her play on words. He could not imagine loving anyone more than the beautiful, kind, incredible woman standing in front of him.
"I've thought about that too. We're going back to Seattle tomorrow and we'll definitely have to have a decent story. My father, in particular, is going to be a challenge. Fortunately for us, Miss Vandenberg, I have it all worked out."
"You do?"
"I do. I'm going to do something I've wanted to do for a long time."
"What's that?"
"I'm going to tell my folks the only story that makes sense," Joel said. He smiled broadly and put a hand to her face. "I'm going to tell them the truth."
CHAPTER 21: JOEL
Seattle, Washington – Monday, June 19, 2000
The Navy officer walked restlessly around his living room as he digested news as apparently distressing and unbelievable as a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. He finally stopped, looked at his son, and shook his head.
"You're a time traveler?" Frank Smith asked.
"That's right," Joel said. "I'm a time traveler – and so is Grace."
"I think I've heard enough."
"Hear him out, Frank," Cynthia Smith said. Sitting on a sofa next to Grace, she moved her head back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match, dividing her attention between her no-nonsense husband and her all-nonsense son. "It's a dreary day. I could use a good story."
"It's not a story, Mom," Joel insisted. "It's the truth."
Joel looked at his parents and immediately questioned his decision to tell them the truth, or at least the whole truth. He should have simply introduced Grace as someone he had met in a Seaside hotel, someone who had rocked his world, someone he could not live without.
On second thought, I'd better stick with time travel.
"You don't need to lie to us, son," Frank said. "We like your new friend. If you've been dating her for a while, behind Jana's back, that's your business. But don't insult us by telling us a whopper to cover your tracks."
"It's not a whopper," Katherine Saito interrupted. "Joel is telling the truth. I will vouch for everything he has told you."
Commander Francis H. Smith, U.S. Navy, retired, looked at the octogenarian sitting next to his son on the couch. He chuckled.
"You will, huh?"
"I will."
Joel watched Katie reach over the arm of the couch, lift a large purse from the floor, and retrieve a manila envelope he called Exhibit A. His admiration for his elderly friend and current defense attorney continued to grow.
Katie pulled five photographs from the envelope and spread them across the coffee table. She picked up one of the photos and handed it to Frank.
"Take a good look at that picture," Katie said. "Tell me what you see."
Frank glanced at the image.
"I see two women," he said. "One looks like a young version of my mother-in-law."
"Who does the other resemble?"
Frank looked at Katie, furrowed his brows, and turned toward the sofa.
"She resembles the young lady in this room. But that doesn't mean she's the young lady in this room. She could be anyone."
Katie gathered the other photos.
"Maybe these will convince you," Katie said. She handed Frank the pictures. They showed Grace with Katie, Linda, Aunt Edith, and Paul McEwan, respectively. Paul wore his Navy blues. "What do you see?"
"I see four people standing next to a blonde," Frank replied. "That doesn't necessarily mean a thing. All it proves is that you and Virginia knew someone who looked a lot like Grace."
"Look at the young man's uniform, Commander
. Would you agree that his uniform is consistent with Navy attire in 1941?" Katie asked.
Frank examined the fifth snapshot more closely.
"I would."
"Good," Katie said. "So are you convinced that these photographs are authentic and that they were probably taken around 1941?"
"I have no reason to believe otherwise."
Joel laughed to himself. He wasn't sure where Katie was going, but he didn't really care. He loved her style. If she managed to win over his skeptical father, he would recommend her for a guest spot on Law & Order.
Katie did not squander her momentum. Before Frank could utter another word, she reached into the envelope and retrieved three more snapshots. She handed them to Frank one by one.
"I took these photographs in the summer of 1941. Ginny is in the first picture. Linda McEwan, our housemate, is in the second. Grace is in the third. I trust you recognize the man standing next to each of them."
Frank studied the photos, glanced at Joel, and then looked away. He wore the face of a man who had seen a ghost.
"What is it?" Cindy asked. "Let me see the pictures."
Frank handed the snapshots to his wife. When Cindy saw the first, she gasped and brought a hand to her mouth. She let the other photos fall to the floor.
"It can't be," Cindy said.
"It is, Mom," Joel replied. "It's me in all three."
"I'm still not buying it," Frank said. "These pictures could have been manipulated. I've seen it done. I'm sorry, but I guess I'm a little old-fashioned. I believe we go through time just once, one way, and always forward. This makes no sense."
Joel looked to his mother for a more sympathetic response. He didn't find one.
Cindy Smith seemed lost. She stared across the room at a massive grandfather clock, as if seeking answers from a device that had measured time, in one direction, for five generations of Smiths. When she finally looked at Joel, she did so with eyes that revealed confusion.
"It does look like you, honey," Cindy said, "but I have to agree with your father. This is too much. You're asking us to believe in something that just isn't possible."
Joel sighed. He knew his folks would be tough sells, but he thought they would eventually come around. If he could believe in time travel, why couldn't they? He turned to Grace in hopes that she had something better to offer. As it turned out, she did.
Grace reached into her purse and pulled out a folded letter-size photocopy that amounted to Exhibit B. She opened and flattened the high-quality reproduction and placed it on the table, where each of Joel's parents could see it clearly.
"Perhaps this will persuade you," Grace said.
"What is it?" Cindy asked.
"It's a feature story, published in the Seattle Sun on May 21, 1938. I made a copy of the article two weeks ago when I visited the university library."
"It's you!" Cindy exclaimed as she pointed to a young woman in a photo above the story.
Grace put a hand on Cindy's shoulder.
"I received a scholarship to the university shortly after my parents died."
"Let me see that," Frank said.
He lifted the article from the table and gave it a serious inspection.
"I assure you that the person in the photo is me," Grace said to Frank in a confident voice. "If necessary, I can also show you a birth certificate, a baptismal certificate, and footprints of a girl born on June 2, 1920, in Mankato, Minnesota. The footprints are on a very old piece of paper. It wouldn't be difficult to prove they are mine."
Frank stared at Grace for several seconds, as if waiting for her to burst out laughing and say she was a prop in a prank, but he couldn't maintain the stare. After a moment of awkward silence, he looked away, shook his head, and chuckled. He placed the article back on the table, turned to Miss Minnesota, and stuck out a hand.
"Welcome to the twenty-first century, Grace. Welcome to our family."
CHAPTER 22: JOEL
Saturday, July 1, 2000
Joel paused for a waiter to pass with a tray of entrees as he slowly worked his way through a narrow aisle to his table for four. When he arrived, he saw his best friend Adam, Adam's girlfriend Rachel, and Grace stare out a window at the Cascade Range.
"Enjoying the view?" Joel asked.
"I am," Grace said. "It's beautiful."
"It gets better. In twenty minutes we'll see the Olympics."
"I don't understand."
"The Space Needle spins," Rachel Jakubowski said. "The whole restaurant rotates 360 degrees every forty-seven minutes. Mount Rainier is coming up."
"Then I should go to the restroom now. I don't want to miss anything."
Grace smiled at Rachel, put her napkin on the table, and got up from her seat. She glanced at Adam and then slowly stepped around the man she had followed into the future.
"Say hi to the ladies in the ladies' room for me," Joel said.
Grace returned a stern glance.
"I'll give them your regards."
Joel laughed. He allowed the feisty time traveler to make her way to the restroom without further irritation and then rejoined the others.
"She's adorable, Joel. Where'd you find her?" Rachel asked.
"I met her in Portland. She manned the registration desk at the 10K I ran in April."
Joel spun the lie seamlessly. He had practiced it all week and knew that Rachel would buy just about anything that came out of his mouth, so long as it sounded plausible. Rachel was a trust-first-verify-later kind of person. Adam, on the other hand, was nothing of the sort.
"So let me get this straight. You've been seeing this girl since April but didn't tell anyone? You didn't tell your parents? You didn't tell your friends? You didn't tell me? I can't believe you didn't tell me. Does Jana know about this?"
"She does now. We split up, officially, on Sunday."
Rachel flipped her raven hair over her shoulders and took a sip of wine. She stared at Joel with the kind of scolding eyes he had seen all his life.
"She's pretty shattered, you know," Rachel said, referring to her one-time roommate. "She didn't see any of this coming. She really thought you were going to at least make an effort to keep things going. The next time you break someone's heart, Joel, be sure to talk to me first. There is a right way to do it."
Joel frowned and nodded.
"I know."
He stared out the window, which now offered a view of the city's downtown core, and pondered a more substantive reply to Rachel's observation but decided to remain silent. She was right. He had not handled the breakup with much sensitivity. He had simply told Jana that he had found someone else and insisted that they would both be better off dating others. Jana, not surprisingly, begged to differ.
"So tell me more about our mystery girl," Rachel said. "Does she go to school? Does she have a job? She didn't answer me when I asked her earlier."
Joel looked at Rachel and then at Adam. Each returned his stare with raised eyebrows. Joel knew that both had curious minds, but he also knew that only Adam's would have to be fed with something more than generalities and evasive references.
He had known Adam Levy since the seventh grade. They had graduated from the same high school and college, shared an apartment, and palled around on a daily basis for the better part of the past ten years. They knew everything there was to know about each other, at least until now.
Joel knew it wouldn't be long before Adam demanded answers about the platinum blonde he had seemingly produced out of thin air. Fortunately, he had a few to give. He considered offering one or two when he saw Grace approach the table.
"There you are," Joel said. "I was about to send out a search party."
Joel got up from his chair and helped Grace into hers. He sat down and looked at the object of his affection.
"Was there a line in the ladies' room?" Joel asked.
"No," Grace said. "I just couldn't find any paper towels to dry my hands."
Rachel laughed.
"Didn't you see th
e hand dryer?"
"What's a hand dryer?"
Rachel looked at Grace with puzzled eyes.
"It's that box on the wall that dries your hands."
"Oh. Perhaps I'll use it next time," Grace said cheerfully. "Have you ordered?"
"Not yet," Joel said. "We were waiting for you."
Joel offered Grace a menu and looked across the table, where Adam and Rachel shot him pointed glances. He smiled at both and tried to change the subject.
"You guys order what you want," Joel said. "It's my treat."
"Anything?" Rachel asked.
"Anything."
"Great. I'm getting salmon."
"What about you?" Joel asked Adam.
"I'm thinking about the New York strip."
Joel smiled as he remembered Memorial Day, the last time Adam had ordered a steak. He had bravely and naively tackled a 24-ounce porterhouse at a diner in Helena, Montana, and nearly busted a gut putting it down. It had been the first highlight of a day that had later included a detour to an abandoned mine, the discovery of a glowing room, and a trip through time to 1941.
"Get what you want. I mean it," Joel said. "I'm a working man now."
"Congratulations on your new job, Joel," Rachel said. "When do you start?"
"I start training on Monday, but I won't get to do any field work for at least a few weeks."
Joel was eager to get into the field. It was why he had studied geology. He loved rocks. He loved the dirt under his feet. He loved everything about the composition of the planet he called home and looked forward to making a living doing what he loved under the watchful eye of the U.S. Geological Survey.
"How about you guys?" Joel asked his fellow graduates. "How is your job search going?"
"I'm still sending out resumes," Adam said.
"Rachel?"
"I start a part-time job in two weeks at an agency in Bellevue. It's not much, but it's still public relations. I have my foot in the door, and that's all that matters."
"What about you, Grace?" Adam asked. "Moneybags here hasn't told us much. What are you doing this summer?"
The Show (Northwest Passage Book 3) Page 9