Not in Time

by Shawna Seed

  Instead, she created a new email to D and typed a short message:

  J said this morning it was a mistake. Nightmare. Call you tomorrow from DC.

  I’m such an idiot.

  Once that was sent, she emailed Thomas, letting him know she’d failed to find the proof she needed in Julien’s grandfather’s will and asking for an update on Philip’s job situation and their mortgage.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  Julien had his hand on the chair opposite hers, waiting for a response. She hadn’t even seen him come in.

  “Hey,” Genevieve said. She gestured toward the chair. “Go ahead.”

  D always did say she lacked the rudeness gene.

  He’d changed clothes since she’d seen him last, and it looked as though he’d just showered and shaved.

  Julien seemed tired, and maybe a bit wary of her, which she supposed made sense. She had asked him to leave her alone the last time he’d seen her.

  “I found the other wills,” she said. “I was just getting ready to email Henry.”

  “That’s great,” Julien said.

  Before she could click over to the email account she used for work, something popped up in her personal account. The sender was TristanTriedToHide.

  “Oh no,” Genevieve said. Her heart began to pound. She opened the email, gave a little cry of alarm, and slammed her laptop shut.

  “Genevieve, what is it?”

  “Another email,” she said, fighting the tide of panic and nausea rolling over her.

  Julien reached for her laptop, but Genevieve pulled it toward her. “No!”

  Then, aware that people were staring, she lowered her voice. “I don’t want you to read it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s horrible,” Genevieve said quietly. “It’s some kind of sex-slave thing.”

  Julien’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Give me the computer.” He stretched his hand across the table. “I’ll forward the email to Melvin. We need to figure out how this guy got past the filters we’ve set up.”

  Genevieve reluctantly slid the laptop over to Julien. “Is it bad that I hope Melvin catches him instead of the police, because then there aren’t so many rules?”

  Julien shook his head. “I was just thinking the same thing.” He took the laptop and waited, his hand on the closed lid. “Do you want to be here while I look at this?”

  When Genevieve returned from the bathroom, the laptop was back in front of her chair, closed up tight, the menace contained.

  Julien stood and pulled her chair out for her.

  “I had to set up some fairly elaborate filters,” he said. “I put a note on your desktop to explain.”

  “Thank you,” Genevieve said.

  “I don’t think that guy has any idea where you are,” Julien said. “He’s just throwing stuff out there, trying to scare you.”

  The room was chilly; Genevieve ran her hands over her arms trying to warm up. “Anonymous emails are just so chickenshit.”

  Seeing Julien smile, she said, “I know, that’s the Texan in me coming out, but it is. Like the person trying to get Philip fired. I mean, if you really have such a problem with someone’s personal life that you think they should lose their job over it, at least put your name behind it, you know?”

  “You lost me there,” Julien said, frowning. “Is this about your friend Thomas and his partner?”

  Genevieve gave Julien a synopsis of Philip’s situation, how an anonymous email to his boss had put his job in jeopardy.

  “Did you mention this to Melvin?” he asked.

  “No, why?” Then realization slowly dawned on her. “But why would someone... He doesn’t have anything to do with... Oh no.” Genevieve slumped back in her chair. “I got Philip fired by poking around on this, didn’t I?”

  “It may just be a coincidence,” Julien said. “Either way, it’s not your fault.”

  Genevieve often comforted herself with the idea that she had experienced the lowest point of her life early, when her mother died, and that her emotional trajectory had to be – had to be – upward from there. Some days, though, that theory was sorely tested.

  “The worst part is, he’s going to be fired for nothing,” Genevieve said. “I’m just blundering around, causing all this damage, and I can’t prove anything.”

  “Genevieve, please stop,” Julien said. He reached across the table for her hand, then thought better of it and pulled back. “What my grandfather did or didn’t put in his will is not your fault. None of this is a reflection on you.”

  Genevieve hugged her arms tighter across her chest.

  “Are you too cold?” Julien began to shed his jacket, but she waved him off.

  “Let’s go get some dinner,” Julien said, trying a new tack. “You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten.”

  “I had something from the spread here. I think I’ll just go to bed,” Genevieve said. “The flight’s early, and I’m tired.”

  Julien eyed her plate, which held two pieces of cheese, now stiffening around the edges, one clearly untouched, the other missing only a small bite. “That’s not a real dinner. You didn’t have a real lunch, either.”

  Genevieve was about to invent a story about how she’d gone out, but something stopped her.

  “I checked in on you,” Julien said, “around 1:30. You seemed busy, and OK, so I didn’t bother you. But you didn’t have lunch.”

  “I was working,” Genevieve said. It sounded defensive, even to her.

  “Look, I understand...” Julien started, then stopped. He took a deep breath.

  “Would steak frites appeal to the carnivore in you? I know a place, it’s really loud. Great people-watching. You can just sit back and be entertained.”

  He was offering her dinner on her terms. Just food, no conversation.

  When she didn’t answer right away, Julien stood. “You’ve had a bad day. Dinner will make you feel better. I promise. Let’s go up and get our coats.”

  Genevieve stood and followed him up the stairs.

  In her room, she opened up her laptop to power it down and save the battery.

  There were two notes on her desktop. The first, as Julien described, explained the new filters on her email account.

  The second was just below an instant message window from D, who must have messaged while Genevieve was in the bathroom.

  D: He whaaaaa? TOTAL A-HOLE MOVE!!!!!

  Julien’s note below was succinct:

  She’s right. It was.

  Genevieve tried – and failed – to work up righteous indignation that Julien had read her instant message from D. It was right there on her screen, and he saw it only because he was dealing with that horrible email.

  Mostly, she was just too tired to be mad.

  Julien seemed tired, too. As they rode the Metro to dinner, he told her that he’d gone for a long run in the afternoon, “trying to clear my head,” as he put it. He’d also been caught in the rain.

  When they reached the restaurant, Julien looked in the window and then craned his head up to double-check the address. Only three tables inside were occupied.

  “My friends who were here in September said it was packed every night.” He turned to Genevieve. “Do you want to try somewhere else?”

  “Maybe it’s the weather,” Genevieve said, and, as if on cue, light rain began to fall. “This is fine. Let’s just eat.”

  Julien kept the conversation afloat for 10 minutes, asking her about the wills she’d found that afternoon. But there wasn’t much to tell, and they soon lapsed into silence.

  The quiet was punctuated only by cutlery clinking against plates and the low hum of a TV over the bar tuned to a soccer match. Julien turned once or twice to check it out.

  “Who’s playing?”

  “What?”

  “The game,” Genevieve said. “Or match or whatever. Who’s playing?”

  “No idea,” Julien said. “I don’t follow soccer.”

  “I would have figured
you for a fan,” Genevieve said. “Liking soccer is a thing now, isn’t it?”

  Her old boss Malcolm followed soccer and insisted on calling it “football.” Genevieve considered that the height of pretension, unless a person came from a country where the sport was popular.

  Julien seemed bewildered by the conversation’s turn. “I think it’s boring. All that running around, and at the end the score’s still zero-zero half the time. I don’t see the appeal.”

  His phone buzzed. Julien pulled it from his pocket, checked the screen and silenced it.

  With that one gesture, Genevieve suddenly understood everything.

  Their embrace in the attic – which, Genevieve had to admit, seemed headed somewhere far more serious than mere kissing – ended when Julien’s phone buzzed.

  When they stood in the hallway outside their hotel rooms and Genevieve was weighing whether to ask Julien into her room or wait to let him make the move, Julien’s phone buzzed.

  She knew that Julien had been on a date before he came to her apartment the first time, and he’d been out twice during the time she was staying with him. But she’d dismissed the idea that he was involved seriously with someone. What woman wouldn’t notice that her boyfriend had a female houseguest for so long or would tolerate it without wanting to check it out?

  But maybe Julien’s girlfriend had an especially demanding career and was used to not seeing him much. Maybe she traveled for business.

  Maybe she was just trusting.

  Genevieve thought of all the times she’d called Pete when he was supposedly working late or was on the road. All the times he didn’t pick up. All the explanations. Turned the ringer off and forgot to put it back on. The restaurant was loud. Battery ran out of juice.

  “You can step outside and return that,” she told Julien. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not important,” Julien said.

  “Really, go ahead,” Genevieve said. “I’ve been...”

  No. She would not tell him that she’d been the woman on the other end of that call. Don’t tell him things. Why was this so hard for her to remember?

  “You’ve been what?”

  “I don’t know what I was going to say,” Genevieve said. “I’m really tired. Please, just go return your call.”

  “It was an automated thing from the airline,” Julien said. “Probably just a gate change or something.”

  Was he lying? Genevieve couldn’t tell. He would have to be pretty smooth at it, she guessed, to keep a relationship afloat while pursuing other women on the side.

  Another blinding flash of insight. She put down her fork, her appetite gone.

  Had Julien pursued her? Or had she pursued him? He was a flirt, it was true, but hadn’t he essentially told her it was meaningless? Hadn’t she noticed that he engaged every woman between the ages of 16 and 86 pretty much the same way?

  She’d kissed him first.

  He’d been surprised, and his first reaction was to pull back. He’d come down to breakfast the next day determined to deliver a clear message that this couldn’t go any further, because he wasn’t available.

  The trouble with opening up the offense, as D had encouraged her to do, was that sometimes your receiver was covered.

  They headed back to the Metro about the same time a political demonstration broke up, and a noisy crowd hurtled down the stairs behind them into the station.

  As Genevieve was buying her ticket, the train pulled in.

  “Perfect timing,” Julien said.

  Genevieve went through the turnstile and boarded the car. She looked back. Julien wasn’t behind her.

  Fighting traffic, she headed back up the aisle and looked out. Julien had been caught behind a clump of protesters.

  A signal sounded. The doors were about to close.

  “Wait for me on the platform at Chatelet,” Julien called.

  The car was jammed, and Genevieve couldn’t find a seat. She was stuck in the middle of a noisy group, people talking over her head, gesturing.

  Genevieve couldn’t tell whether they were all on the same side, energized by the march, or whether she was trapped between opposing factions. Had any of the protests in France turned violent?

  Taking deep breaths, she tried to calm herself.

  Then she thought about the email. What if the man who sent it followed her to Paris? What if he was right here, on the Metro?

  She could feel a wave of heat building inside her. The car picked up speed, and her stomach lurched. The noise seemed deafening.

  The shaking of the train seemed to intensify, and the voices around her grew louder. How many stops to Chatelet? Wasn’t there a map of the route on the wall?

  She ducked under the arm of a man next to her, hoping to make her way to the map.

  Suddenly the car was plunged into darkness.

  Bare wood floor. Moonlight streaming in.

  A man next to her in the dark, breathing.

  He moves away. Toward the stairs.

  She should stop him, warn him. It isn’t safe.

  She opens her mouth to protest.

  The door to the stairs creaks open, and he turns to her.

  She raises her hand, gestures for him to stop. But she can see, in his face, that there’s no point.

  He already knows. He shakes his head, smiles sadly.

  The door closes, and he is gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  People stirred around Genevieve. The train slowed as it came toward a station.

  The sign came into view: Chatelet.

  Genevieve staggered down the aisle and out to the platform. She took a deep breath, tried to get her bearings. She felt dizzy.

  A familiar face swam into view.

  “There you are,” Julien said, his voice sharp. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been waiting at least 15 minutes. How did you end up on a train behind me?”

  He stopped. “You look awful. Are you OK?”

  Genevieve wobbled and lost her balance. Julien caught her hand to steady her, but it was so slick with sweat that he let go and grabbed her sleeve instead.

  “You’re clammy. Are you sick? Wait, did someone...”

  She shook her head. “No. But I think I’m going to pass out.”

  Julien propelled her to a bench, where Genevieve sagged down. She felt his hand on the back of her head, pushing.

  “Put your head down,” he said, then rested his hand on her back. “Get it lower than your heart.”

  Genevieve complied, knowing that she looked ridiculous but not really caring.

  After a few minutes, her head began to clear. She tried to sit up straight.

  “Go slow,” Julien said. “We’re not in a hurry here.”

  “I’m OK,” she said. “Let’s go back to the hotel. People are staring at me.”

  Julien didn’t move. “You disappear on me, and now you want to go back to the hotel?”

  Genevieve had never felt so utterly defeated. Julien expected an explanation, and she didn’t have one, not one that he would believe.

  She stood. “Can we please just go?”

  “I was on the train right behind you. You should have been waiting for me on the platform. Where were you?”

  “I don’t know,” Genevieve said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Julien rose to his feet.

  A couple carrying a large sign turned to stare, but Julien ignored them.

  “Did you ride a stop too far? That doesn’t make sense – you would have doubled back from the other direction. Did you get off a stop too early? That doesn’t make sense either, because you would have just boarded the next train, which would have been the same one I was on. Where have you been for the last 15 minutes?”

  “I don’t know,” Genevieve said. “I got on the train, and then I... I don’t know.”

  Julien dropped back down onto the bench. “Was this like what happened to you before? Where you blacked out or whatever and thought you were somewhere else?”
>
  Genevieve sat, too. She was too tired to make up a plausible story. “Yes.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” Julien said. “Even blacked out, you would still be on the same train. I mean, the laws of physics are still in effect.”

  He looked at Genevieve. “Aren’t they?”

  She shrugged.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “This is messed up.”

  “Yeah.”

  A train rattled into the station, and a large group got off, carrying banners and chanting. Julien waited for them to pass, their slogans echoing down the tunnel and then out into the night.

  “All the times this has happened to you before, you said there was a room. It was the studio, wasn’t it?”

  Did it really matter now what she told him? Probably not. Genevieve nodded.

  “I went back there today, before I returned the key,” he said.

  She turned to look at him. “Why?”

  “I wanted to see it one more time, in the daylight,” he said. “I wanted to see what it felt like without you there. It wasn’t the same. But it wasn’t normal, either.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I think it means I sort of believe you.” He closed his eyes, rubbed his hands over his face. “And I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that. I’m a guy who doesn’t believe in... I don’t know, pick something most people believe in. I don’t have a lucky number. I think astrology is bullshit. I don’t even exactly believe in God the same way most people do. But I believe this. What sense does that make?”

  “None,” Genevieve said.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Julien said. “None.”

  He turned so that he was facing her fully. “Genevieve, last night, in the attic...”

  She put a hand up to stop him. “I really don’t...”

  “I know you don’t want to talk about it,” Julien said, halting as another train pulled in, disgorging another noisy group.

  “We can’t do this with protesters parading by.” He held out a hand to her. “But we have to talk about it. C’mon. Let me buy you a drink.”

  They found a quiet spot a block or so away. Under different circumstances, Genevieve would have been reveling in the very Frenchness of it all – the tile floor, the small cafe tables, even the world-weary man behind the bar.