Читать книгу A Portal in Time - James A. Costa Jr. - Страница 9

Chapter 4

At three in the afternoon, a few days later, Gary bounded up the steps to the university library. Once inside, his eyes swept the cavernous room filled with book smells, where neither the librarian nor the handful of people browsing among the shelves seemed to notice him. His eyes lit up when he spotted her at a long table near the ‘mystery’ section, hunched over her texts.

“Hi, Shell,” he whispered, sliding up a chair across from her.

From between a curtain of blond hair that parted when she lifted her head, her face appeared smiling, coyly. Pleasure or displeasure, he couldn’t tell. Her pale eyebrow cocked, she glanced at the clock on the far wall. “Is this two o’clock?”

Displeasure, obviously, but he blustered on, undeterred. “Oh, do I have a story to tell you,” he said, laying his hot hand over hers. “When you hear this you’ll flip.”

“So what has that fertile Walter Mitty imagination cooked up today? Wait, don’t tell me….” She pressed her pencil to her lips, thinking… “You were crossing Bardwell Bridge when you had to stop and talk a would-be suicide from taking the fatal plunge.”

“Shelley, come on--”

“Or was it a heroic effort to capture a bank robber?”

“Shelley--”

“Don’t tell me, you were aiding another poor soul pinned under his car.”

He looked indignant. “That accident really did happen, you know. You saw it written up yourself in the newspaper.”

She smiled at him, indulgently, warmly, forgivingly. “I know,” she said. “I was only teasing. Actually, I’ve been so absorbed working on this dumb term paper I wasn’t paying attention to the time, anyway.” She laid her pencil aside. “So?” she said, flashing a sparkling white smile, “I’m waiting….”

Folding his arms, he sat back with a small pout tightening his lips. “Forget it, it’s okay. You’ll just say I’m making up stories and laugh at me. You’re already starting, I can see it.”

“I won’t laugh, I promise. Go ahead, tell me.”

“You wouldn’t believe it anyway, no.”

“Try me.”

“You’ll say I’m making it all up. No, never mind. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

Sighing, she reached for her pencil. “Well, all right, if--”

He fairly flung himself forward across the table and leaned close to her. “Look at this,” he said, pulling out the harmonica out and laying it in front of her.

She frowned. “You’re taking harmonica lessons?”

“No, for God’s sake, no.”

“You want me to take lessons?”

“Shelley, cut it out, quit joking.”

“Well then, what?”

“I’m trying to tell you,” he said, glancing around and sliding back into his seat. “Listen, you have to believe this.” He raised his right hand and lowered his voice. “I swear it’s the truth and I’m not making it up and I’m not hallucinating and I’m definitely not crazy.” He whispered, “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“Promise,” she said, glancing away and hiding a smirk.

“Okay. This afternoon, just about the time I was on my way over here, a UPS truck pulls up to our house, the driver gets out, comes up to the door and says, ‘Package for Mr. Tyler.’ I sign for it, wondering what it is, and take it inside to my room. I plop on my bed, holding it on my lap, staring at it, and I’m almost afraid to open it because now I remember and have a good idea of what it is, or at least what it’s supposed to be. I must have sat there like that for a good five minutes just looking at it before I worked up the nerve to do it.”

She snickered. “What did you think it was, a bomb?”

“Yeah, right, very funny, sure--although it hit me like one. I said I knew what was in it.”

She glanced at the clock. “I’d like to know, too, someday, and where this story’s going. Are you going to get to the point or is this a new quiz show?”

He tapped the harmonica. “This was it.”

“This?” She pointed a finely manicured finger. “Okay, Gary, what’s going on? What game--”

“Listen, this is what happened….”

Gary proceeded to tell her the whole story, from the discovery of the newspaper in the attic, to the ad he answered, his subsequent order and the delivery. When he had finished, he looked at her, hard, trying to read her thoughts before she expressed them.

“Only a dollar, you said?”

“Right.”

“For this?” she said, poking it, rather insolently, he thought.

“For that, yes.”

She picked it up and turned it in her hand a few times before setting it down and sliding it across to him. “Does it blow?”

He frowned. “Of course it does.”

“And you really believe it materialized from out of the past? Mysteriously?”

“I didn’t exactly say that.”

“You didn’t exactly not say it.”

“Well, how else do you explain it? What other explanation could there be?”

She shook her head sympathetically. “Gary, Gary, that imagination--”

“Wait wait wait. At first I thought like you, that maybe it’s a company still around and somebody there decided to humor me.”

“Isn’t that logical?”

“Until I looked in the phone book. Hohner’s still around but the company I ordered through doesn’t exist anymore. I even asked my grandmother about it and she remembers the place-- a friend of hers used to work there. She said it was shut down at least twenty years ago.”

“Gary, I know how exciting this is to you and I really hate to burst your bubble, but did it ever occur to you that some mail-order company now uses that address-- you did say the building is still there, didn’t you?”

“No, but I did look it up and it is.”

“So? Somebody there just took your order and filled it. Why make a mystery of it?”

“As far as I know, that building’s been empty for years. But if I have to, I can go down and see for myself.”

“That wouldn’t prove anything. The post office could have forwarded your letter to wherever they moved.”

He slipped the ad from his shirt pocket and shoved it in front of her. “Here, look for yourself.”

“Why, it’s just an ordinary ad.”

“Well, it’s not. It’s from a 1939 newspaper.”

“All right, I’m impressed. But what does that prove?”

“It proves I’m telling the truth.”

“I never denied you were.”

“But don’t you see? It’s a Hohner. That’s a famous German harmonica maker, a reputable company. You don’t get those for a dollar, not these days.”

She smiled. “Does it play any music, or only German music?”

“C’mon, Shelley--”

She laid her hand over his. “Oh, Gary, Gary,” she said, stroking his hand, “can’t you see how crazy this all sounds?”

“That’s why I’m not telling anyone except you.” He pulled his hand away. “I thought you of all people would believe me, especially after seeing the ad and the harmonica itself.”

“Gary, the harmonica may say Hohner, but is it a genuine Hohner? What do they call it, bootlegging? when some country duplicates the same product and passes it off as the real thing?”

“And no tax, no sales tax, what about that?”

“I don’t believe it’s required if the business headquarters is out of state.”

Crestfallen, he jammed the harmonica in his pocket, sulked awhile, then straightened up. “Okay, we’ll see. Time will tell who’s right.” A wan smile crossed his lips. “And how’s the term paper going?”

She brightened. “Oh, this?” she said, riffling through a sheaf of notes. “I’m getting there, little at a time, I suppose. ‘The Psychology of Money and Its Effect on Minorities.’ Sound thrilling?”

“Which reminds me,” he said, digging into his pocket, pulling out a handful of coins and laying them on the table in front of her. “Pretty, aren’t they?”

She picked up a coin. “A dime. So?”

“Look close. That’s no ordinary dime that’s been minted after 1964, which is really nothing but a slug. It’s a 1943 Mercury dime, with real silver in it. How ‘bout that?”

“I’ve seen old coins before. Dad had some.” She examined it, set it aside and picked up another. “They’re nice, but I’d expect them to be shinier. How much did you have to pay for them?”

“Not a cent, not an Indian Head cent,” he said, pushing a penny toward her. “That one’s an 1882. I found them all about a week ago while I was scavenging through some old dresser drawers in the attic. I already have a bunch and there could be more. I’m going to keep looking.”

“How much are they worth?”

“I’ve been meaning to find out, I don’t know, I’ll have to check them out…. Look at this silver dollar, 1922. Isn’t that Liberty Head on it beautiful?”

“Do you always carry these around with you?” she said, lightly rubbing her thumb over the surface of the coin.

“I love to hear the jingle. Real silver jingles, not like the counterfeit junk in your purse.”

“Heavy, too,” she said, bouncing it on her palm.

“Because it’s the real stuff,” he said, snatching it away and sweeping it up with the other coins. “I have a few more at home.”

She studied his face. “This sort of thing really gets your heart pumping, doesn’t it, Gary?”

“Not as much as you do,” he said, reaching over and squeezing her hand. “Why, does it show?”

“Is water wet? When doesn’t it show? Your nostalgia, I mean. What I don’t understand is, people usually long for their own past, but you, you seem to be nostalgic for times before you were even born. I always thought nostalgia was for old people.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m a history major. I can’t help it, Shell, I just love anything old-- old movies, old books, old songs, things mostly of this century, though. Not that I’m not interested in the more distant past, but… somehow, it’s almost as if, as if….”

“As if.…?”

“I don’t know, Shell. Let’s just say it’s sort of a hobby. A little more intense than what other people feel about their hobbies, all except maybe golfers.”

“Like my brother Bob.”

“Like him, yeah, and all the other addicts like him. It doesn’t bother you, does it, that I’m hooked on this… this hobby?”

Her smile splashed on him like sunshine. “I guess not, as long as it doesn’t extend to older women.”

They laughed together, a little too loud, and he looked around self-consciously. “How long do you intend to stay here?” he asked, shoving the coins into his pocket.

“Probably until closing time. I really want to get this paper finished by the end of the week.”

“Which translates into I won’t be seeing you at least till Saturday, right?”

Her hair formed a silky scarf around her neck as she cocked her head slightly. “You’re not angry, are you?”

“Just disappointed. I’m going to miss you.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers, kissed the modest engagement ring with the tiny diamond in the center of it.

“In a week or so it will all be over. Then we can go out and celebrate. It’s been a long time since we’ve done it, hasn’t it?”

“Too long,” he said, gazing into the blue wonder of her eyes and wishing he could pull her close to him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Gary,” she said, rising a little and stretching for a peck on the lips.

God she smelled like heaven. “Okay, then, I’ll give you a call in a day or so. Or you can e-mail me right from the school computer here. That all right?” he asked, getting up and pushing the chair under the table.

She smiled a sweet and glowing smile that would carry him all the way home. It bothered him, though, that she had taken his story so lightly. Of course, what could he really expect. What he had suggested would be regarded as completely mad to any rational person-- and Shelley was as rational a person as anyone could ever hope to find. But that was fine with him. He needed her to balance his impulsiveness, his active imagination and maybe his gullibility, too, if that’s all it really turned out to be. But if she loved him as much as she said she did, she could at least bend a little and show a little more indulgence toward him. Humor him, anyway.

Excitement stirred his blood as he wheeled along, threading his way through the building dinner hour traffic. Tonight he would order something else, something that would convince her and maybe himself, too, that he wasn’t going mad. One way or another, if it killed him, he’d solve this mystery.