Maybe This Time (A Second Chance Romance)

by Susan B. James

  Kat shook her head. “I can’t explain it to you because you don’t understand physics. Or even nested-for-loops. But I can take you there.”

  What on earth was a nested fourloop? Sounded more like bird watching than physics. But then, she didn’t understand any of the scientific gibberish the two of them were so fond of. Kat had inherited Jeremy’s impossibly high IQ. Whenever they got involved in one of their father/daughter conversations involving maths, Jen dove into a book. Preferably something frothy.

  Kat spun her chair around, looking at her with hopeful eyes. “Don’t you want to see the future?”

  Why would anyone want to see the future? It crept up fast enough without any help from some kind of computer program. “No, I’m good. Let’s go shopping.”

  “All right. Shopping.” Kat’s fingers flew over the keys; she muttered to herself under her breath, “That should do it.” Two white plastic cards spat out of the machine. They had raised letters and numbers like credit cards. “Come on.”

  Kat led Jen to the door next to the corkboard. Didn’t that used to be the china closet?

  A memory of playing ‘Narnia’ with her niece in the huge, carved wardrobe in the spare room made her smile. “Where does this lead?” Jen asked.

  “You’ll see.” Kat inserted her card into the door’s key slot. The slot blinked green. The door opened into a narrow-walled room with a single overhead light and a second door at the far end.

  Jen regarded Kat’s expectant face. “What are we doing, Miss Kitty-Kat?”

  “It’s okay. I promise you. I’ve done it with Dad.”

  What was she nervous about? Kat’s aberration aside, it was just a room, after all. “All right, then. Lead on.”

  The door swung closed. A noise, a cross between a buzz and a hum filled Jen’s ears. Blue waves of light traveled down their bodies, flickering on and off like a bad science fiction movie. Jen felt a stomach-churning sensation, like an elevator dropping too fast. What on earth? She grabbed the handle of the door they’d come through. It wouldn’t budge. “I don’t like this game, Kitty-Kat. Get us out of here.”

  The overhead light blinked on and the second door swung open onto an ordinary street. Fresh air! Jen stepped through the door and felt a blip of disorientation. Women with big hair and shoulder pads strode by. Her eyes fixed on a man with a mullet haircut, sporting a jean jacket and Doc Martens with bottle tops on the laces. “If this is the future, kill me now.”

  She turned to Kat and froze. Her niece had shrunk. Her jeans puddled at her feet. Her silky blouse hung on her like a child’s dress-up game. Her nut-brown hair was a mass of curls, tumbling down over her shoulders. She looked about eight years old.

  Not good. Impossible, in fact. And yet . . . “Kathryn, what have you done?”

  Huge tears welled up and rolled down Kathryn’s cheeks. “I did something wrong. We were supposed to go ahead in time. This is backward. I feel different.” Her thumb arced toward her mouth and stopped. “I’m not me anymore. I don’t like this one bit. I want to go home.”

  Jen’s heart pounded. “Excellent. Let’s turn around and go back through the door.” Jen tugged at the door they’d come through. The handle refused to turn. “Where’s the card thingy?”

  Kathryn pulled up her jeans searching for the card. “I must have dropped it.” The wind whipped around them, sending leaves and papers swirling. Jen caught a glimpse of a white plastic card as it rolled under a bus.

  “No!” She waited for a break in traffic and ran into the street. Gone. It must have stuck to the wheels of the bus. Jen locked her knees to keep her legs from shaking.

  A wolf whistle turned her back toward Kathryn. A boy with purple spiked hair and a lip ring smirked at her. “Hey, pretty woman. Want to have a drink with me?”

  Jen treated him to her favorite rude Shakespearean gesture, flicking her thumb against her teeth. She took Kathryn by the hand, shepherding her across the street. “First things first. We have to find you some clothes that fit. And then we’ll take you home.”

  Her brother had been working on time travel? What had he been thinking, letting his daughter know about it? And how on earth were they going to get back?

  The shop they entered was a poorly-lit thrift store. An indifferent sales clerk watched Coronation Street on a small TV, ignoring them entirely, too involved in her soap opera to care.

  “I can’t wait to see your father.” Jen felt like her heart was exploding. This could not be happening and yet . . . The child beside her was Kathryn. Jen found an extra small blue T-shirt and tugged it over Kathryn’s head.

  She turned her around to face the mirror and froze, staring at her own reflection. Kat wasn’t the only one who was younger. Her hair swirled around her shoulders in a style she hadn’t worn in years. And a fringe? An unfortunate choice she’d made in the . . . eighties? Who could remember back that far? How old am I?

  “No!” Kathryn wailed, tugging at the T-shirt. “I want my silky.”

  Jen handed her back the peacock-patterned blouse. “Fine. Wear it as a jacket.” Kat’s obsession with anything silk started after her mother left. She had to have her silky blanket with her everywhere.

  At around eight, she’d announced she was too old for it. She graduated to silky nightgowns and shiny jackets. What year had they come to?

  Jen found a pair of Capri pants and hustled Kathryn into them. Fortunately, there were some bedroom slippers with bunny ears in a child’s size.

  The clerk managed to take her eyes off Coronation Street long enough to take Jen’s money.

  Kathryn tugged at her hand. “Can we go home now?”

  Jen knelt down to Kathryn’s eye level. “Sweetheart, is there any way we can get back through the door?”

  Tears spilled out of Kathryn’s eyes. “I don’t remember. My head feels funny.”

  Jen folded up Kat’s crumpled jeans. “Come on, then. We’ll go home another way.”

  She waved down a passing taxi and shepherded Kathryn inside. The taxi dropped them off in front of Jeremy’s house. Whatever year it was, the exterior of the house was the same. Maybe the two white pillars flanking the door appeared more freshly painted. And there were no flowers in the window boxes below the wide-paned windows.

  Kathryn shrank back in her seat. “Why do we have to come here? Dad might be mad at me. Couldn’t we have ice cream first?”

  “Later. After we fix this.” Jen pounded on the door. No answer. Curse it. She pulled out her mobile phone and keyed in Jeremy’s number. Nothing. Not even a searching for service message. She banged on the door again.

  It creaked open. Jen looked into the surprised eyes of Jeremy’s longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Flannery. “Hello, what are you doing back here, Kitty-Kat? I thought you went to Sussex with your Dad.”

  Sussex? The nightmare feeling receded a bit. Help was at hand. Jeremy must have taken Kathryn to visit her grandparents. She could phone him as soon as she got rid of Mrs. Flannery.

  “Change of plans, Mrs. Flannery. Jen raised her eyes upward and did her best mysterious impression. “Jeremy had a call from . . .” Curse it! What was the name of the physics lab Jeremy used to work for? “Um . . . His old employers. I’m going to be staying here with Kathryn.”

  “Ah.” Mrs. Flannery smoothed her dress over her ample hips. “The thing is he gave me the week off while he and Kathryn were going to be gone. I thought you were my son knocking at the door. We’re going to visit my mum in Dublin.”

  “You go right ahead, Mrs. Flannery. I’ll be here with Kathryn. If you wouldn’t mind leaving me your keys? I seemed to have lost mine.”

  A horn honked behind them. Mrs. Flannery smiled. “There he is, now. Here are my keys.” She hugged Kathryn. “You be a good girl for your Aunty Jen.” Suitcase in hand, she bustled down the steps. “There’s not much fo
od,” she called back. “But there are a few Ginger Gems in the biscuit tin. Oh, and Mr. Lance is coming by for some papers your brother left for him. They’re in a packet in the living room. He’ll be by at—” She stepped into her son’s car, her words cut off by the engine’s rumble.

  No!! Jen stood statue still, staring after the disappearing car. She hadn’t seen Lance since the day she’d stormed out of their flat to go on the Australian tour, leaving behind her temper-driven note telling him to stay out of her life.

  Nor had she allowed his name to be spoken in her presence since their divorce. She’d trained Jeremy to speak of his best friend as He Who Must Not Be Named. The rest of the family followed suit.

  “I’m hungry,” Kathryn whined. “I thought you said we would get ice cream.”

  Jen turned to Kathryn. “Yes. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll put those papers in the mail slot and go get ice cream.”

  “Can I change clothes first? These are icky.” Kat’s grownup blouse hung below Kathryn’s knees. The bunny slippers’ ears flopped at half-mast.

  “Of course you can.” She gave her a love pat on the shoulder. “Hurry. We don’t want the ice cream to run away.”

  Jen ran to the living room to retrieve the papers Mrs. Flannery was talking about. No way was she going to hang around waiting for He Who Must Not Be Named. The last person she ever wanted to see again was . . .

  “Hello, Guinevere.”

  Chapter 3

  Jen froze at the sound of that well-loved, well-hated, husky voice. “It’s Jen. And don’t you forget it.” The words sounded far away in her head. “You didn’t knock.”

  “I have a key. I’m helping Jeremy with a project he’s working on. He left me some papers. You’re supposed to be swanning it in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in New York. I wouldn’t have stopped by otherwise.”

  Jen swayed. Her brain was on overload. Strong hands caught her and turned her around.

  “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  Jen looked into the face of the man she’d adored since she was nine, and actively avoided for the last twenty years. Lance looked almost the same as the day they’d parted. A few more lines framed his hazel eyes, now sea-dark with concern. His brown hair showed no trace of gray. It was still too long, with the same stupid lock falling over his forehead. She automatically reached to brush it back. Stopped herself. Her throat was so dry. Where was a cough drop when you needed one? “You’ve aged well.” Jen’s knees buckled.

  Lance kicked out a chair and sat, pulling her into his lap. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, we can fix it.”

  His warm, strong hands sent shock waves shivering through her body. She shook her head mutely.

  Lance’s voice sharpened. “Is it Jeremy? Kathryn? Has something happened to them?”

  “Uncle Lance!” Kathryn stopped in the living room archway, eyes child-solemn. “Why are you hugging Aunty Jen?”

  Jen slipped out of Lance’s arms and landed on the floor. Could this get any worse?

  “Aunty Jen says you are a stupid head with a big brain and no feelings.”

  Jen rose with all the dignity she could muster. “You shouldn’t repeat things grownups say, Kitty-Kat. It’s not polite.” She reached for the packet Mrs. Flannery left behind, willing her hands not to tremble. “Here are the papers, you came for. Nice to see you. Goodbye.”

  Lance glanced from Kathryn to Jen. “Where’s Jeremy? I know he and Kitty-Kat went to Sussex. Why is she back without him, and what are you doing here?”

  “We couldn’t get home, Uncle Lance. So we came here.” Kathryn scuffed her foot, now shod in a plastic Jelly shoe, against the wood floor. “I thought Jen would like the machine, but I don’t like being young again. My brain is too small. I want to go home.”

  Lance’s hand tightened on the papers he held. “Kathryn,” he said carefully. “How old are you?”

  “I’m nineteen and I want to go home.”

  Lance catapulted out of the chair. “It worked. By all that’s good and beautiful, it worked. I didn’t think he could do it.”

  “You knew? You knew what he was working on?”

  Lance’s grin changed to the expressionless mask she used to hate so much. “Of course, I knew. I divorced you. Not your brother. I was helping him with the theory. He probably would have told you about it, had you been interested in anyone but yourself and your career.”

  Jen resisted the urge to punch him. One of them reverting to childhood was enough. Too bad. Her boxing trainer said she had a fantastic right hook. She kept her tone smooth and even. “I don’t know when we are, but I turned forty-nine yesterday, Lancelot, and you don’t know half as much about me as you think you do. I am very interested in my niece, and she’s standing there listening to every word we say.”

  Lance turned to Kathryn. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Your aunty and I won’t fight anymore.” He crooked his little finger at Jen the way they used to do when they were children. “Pax?”

  Resisting the temptation to break it, Jen hooked her little finger in his. “Pax,”

  Kathryn curved her little finger around theirs. “Pax. Now can we get ice cream?”

  Lance drove them to Holby’s 1950’s Diner. Kitty-Kat had declared it her favorite place after Jeremy had taken her to see Back to the Future. They ordered Kathryn a hot fudge sundae and sent her off to play Holby’s vast selection of Arcade games.

  Lance wrapped his hands around the mug of coffee he’d ordered. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  Jen wished she didn’t know Lance so well. He was obviously torn between despising her and the attraction which sparked between them every time they were together. Until the last time.

  “Kat said she had a birthday present for me and she took me to Jeremy’s lab, which, by the way, Jeremy never invited me to even though I asked what he was working on. I was quite prepared to show an intelligent interest.”

  Lance’s expression said it all.

  “Look, I know I’m not a genius, but I’m not stupid. I would have tried if either of you could have ever gotten past your incredibly superior attitudes.”

  Lance ignored her perfectly justifiable complaint. “Tell me what happened.”

  Deep breaths. That was the key. No use losing her temper. She reached for her inner Zen and held onto it during her factual recounting, right up to the moment she and Kat stepped through the door.

  “The street was full of people dressed as though they were going to a costume party. Big hair. Shoulder pads. Men wearing mullets. Possibly the worst haircut ever invented. I turned to make a joke about it to Kat, and child Kathryn was standing next to me.” Jen fought to keep her voice from shaking. “I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know what year it is right now, and I have absolutely no idea how to fix this.”

  “Calm down.” Lance put his hand over hers and for once he didn’t sound superior. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “I don’t see how.” Jen sniffled.

  He handed her a handkerchief. “Tell me about the cards. What happened to them?”

  “Kathryn’s body shrank, but her clothes didn’t. She pulled up her jeans to look through the pockets, and the card blew into the street under a bus. I tried to get it, but it must have stuck to the bus’s tire.”

  Lance’s voice sharpened. “You said there were two cards? What happened to the second one?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she left it in the door when we came through.”

  “Here you go, love.” The server wearing a soda jerk’s paper cap set Kathryn’s sundae in front of Jen. Jen automatically dipped her spoon into the fudge sauce.

  Lance’s lips curved into a wry smile. “Some things are immutable. I see you love chocolate as much as ever, Guinevere.” He turned to the server. “Bring us another sundae, please.”
>
  “Stop calling me that.” Jen could feel her face growing warm. He shouldn’t have smiled at her. It did funny things to her insides. “Did we really travel back to the 1980s?”

  “1988. Thursday, the thirty-first of March, to be precise.”

  “By all means. Let us be precise.” Stop looking at him. Concentrate on the chocolate. “April Fool’s Day would have been more appropriate. I wish this were a joke.”

  “This year April first is also Good Friday. That’s why Jeremy and Kathryn are in Sussex with your parents. You are in New York.”

  Jen shuddered. “This is worse than those horror films you used to drag me to. 1988 of all times. Why would she bring me here?”

  “I have no idea. The better question is why would you come?”

  “I didn’t know what she was doing!”

  People at the next table turned to look at them.

  Jen modulated her voice. “She took me into a closet. I thought I was humoring her.”

  Kathryn rejoined them when the waiter brought the second sundae. “You were yelling. I could hear you.”

  “Your aunt was telling me about your adventure. Can you tell me what you remember?”

  “No. My brain feels wrong. Fuzzy.” Kathryn spooned up ice cream with one hand, tapped her head rhythmically with the other.

  “Sweetheart,” Lance said. “Do you remember programming where you wanted to go?”

  “Yes. Dad showed me how it worked. He took me five years into the future. It was wicked fun being older. I met someone. That’s where I wanted to take Jen. To meet Daniel.” Kathryn hiccoughed back a sob. “The time machine never went backward before. I don’t know what I did wrong.”

  “Tell me about the cards.”

  “You program where you want to go and the machine gives you cards.”

  “What did you do with the second card?”

  Kathryn sat up straight. “There were two cards. I remember.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Maybe I dropped one in the little room.”