Portal (13 page)

Rupert was and had always been the love of her life, the reason she took her next breath. She had met him over fifteen years ago in a pub in London. She had been there celebrating her best friend’s birthday. She had not noticed him at first, as he strummed his guitar by the bar. The pub was busy and smoke filled. She and her friends had a table in the corner. She was married and pregnant, and should really not have been subjecting her baby to this atmosphere. She had decided to stay for an hour and then head home.

She had offered to get the first round so she could go home after that. It had been almost impossible to get through the crowds around the bar. She looked around for a possible route when a hand nearly grabbed hers but she avoided it. She couldn’t see who it was and hoped it wasn’t a drunk. As she reached the bar, she had turned to stare at the most hypnotic eyes she had ever encountered.

It had been the eyes of her
fairytale
. The eyes that had drawn her into a future that had at first seemed incomprehensible, but one that she had now made real. Her friends had noticed her instant and powerful attraction to the stranger. They had all heard him say, “Ollie, I’m your Rupert,” before he left. “Careful,” her friend, Celia, had warned. “Don’t forget that you are married!” Olivia had looked down at her wedding band and decided that she had to let him go.

There was a sharp knock on the office door, Rupert, Olivia hoped. She checked the computer camera and pressed the welcome buzzer.

Rupert came in smiling, “How about a ‘special’ welcome message just for me?”

“I’ll work on it,” smiled Olivia as she got up and flung herself at her husband. He carried her over to the couch where they sat silently holding each other. She was happiest like this, listening to Rupert’s heartbeat. Had it not been for the computer beeping at her again, she could have stayed in this position forever. She sighed and made her way back to her desk. It had to be a problem, at this hour.

It was a message from the Larry, the Director of the program and her best friend. The message said that he would keep an eye on things, she could head back home.

Olivia smiled and sighed with relief, “Rup, we can go.”

“No hurry,” said Rupert beckoning her back to the couch. “This is a comfortable place to catch up.”

She smiled as she sauntered back to the couch and made herself comfortable on Rupert’s lap. She rested her head against his chest so she could enjoy his heartbeat again.

“How did Ella’s audition go today? She seemed really excited when I spoke to her. Too bad I’ll miss New York. I’m really disappointed.”

Rupert stroked her hair comfortingly and kissed the back of her neck.

“She did good! We may have ourselves a little star in the making. I do hope we are not tiring her out too much though.”

Olivia recalled her conversation with Glenda earlier and asked Rupert if he had noticed anything amiss with Arizona. She repeated what Glenda had shared about Ariele and Arizona.

“I am so scared. It’s all so perfect now. I can’t bear the thought of anything going wrong. Arizona has been acting strangely though, don’t you think?” She looked at Rupert with tears suddenly streaming down her cheeks. He gently brushed them off with his lips and looked deeply into her eyes.

“We are us. We’ll always be. This is the right time, our time. I’m not going to lose you or our family.”

She closed her eyes and remembered how she had worked to move mountains to be with Rupert.

As she left the pub that cold October evening, she had felt a sense of deep desperation. She knew she had just let her lifeline walk out but what choice did she have? The ride from Paddington to Wimbledon on the District Line was monotonous. She had forgotten to pick up an Evening Standard to distract her. So her thoughts kept returning to Rupert and what he had said. She didn’t understand what he meant but she did know that he was her one and only soul mate. She would have to find a way to be with him. She gathered her trusted Kelly bag and her laptop as the train approached the station. She had a ten-minute walk home.

She knew that her husband, Dillard, wouldn’t be home, he would still be out drinking with his mates. She didn’t feel any strong emotions when she thought of Dillard. They had met when they were both undergraduates at Cambridge. They had been married for eight years now. The marriage had more or less run its course before this pregnancy, but she had decided to stick it out for the baby. Dillard came from a very different background to hers. They had nothing in common and no emotional connection. She often wondered why she had stayed with him this long. She had decided that it was out of habit – a habit that seemed so hard to break.

Olivia tried to remember back to when she first met him. It had been Dillard who had come up to her at a university party and asked her to dance. He had seemed very sweet and attentive and she had been attracted to that. The attention was something she had lacked in her childhood and had always yearned for.

They finished Cambridge and got married at the Town Hall in Paddington with no family present. They excitedly moved into their first flat. Both started working on their graduate degrees while they worked part time. There was never a physical or emotional connection between them. She could have lived with the lack of physical connection, however, the emotional disconnect become unbearable. She became more and more aware of Dillard’s arrogance and philandering. His sweetness disappeared all together as he experimented with drugs. She came to find him more and more closed minded over the years with no room to explore new things. Olivia found herself spending more and more time with her friends and at work.

“Hey, Baby, what are you thinking about?” asked Rupert bringing her back to the present.

She looked up at him and pleaded through her tears, “Tell me it’s going to be ok.”

Rupert looked concerned now. “You are really worried aren’t you? I’ll talk to Arizona tomorrow and try to get a feel for what’s going on. Whatever it is, we will work it out. We’ll do whatever we have to, to preserve our family. We already have and we will do it again. After all, who was it who found me
two years ago
?”

She nodded and slowly got up and pulled him to her, “I guess we better go and check in with the kids.”

Rupert loaded his bike into the H2 and they drove back silently.

Olivia’s thoughts drifted to their first meeting
two years ago
. She had returned to the same pub, The Alexander Fleming. It was exactly two years ago from their first meeting. She was standing outside, dressed exactly the same as the first time she met him: black shift dress, Hermès shawl, neutral Manolos and her faithful black Kelly bag. She watched the pub from the outside, too scared to venture in. Her stomach was in knots. What if he wasn’t here? She had spent so long trying to find him, constantly coming back here, but it was like he had disappeared into thin air. She had replayed his words in her head again and again
come
find me
two years ago
. Was there a way to do that? It seemed totally far-fetched.

It was only when she was offered the job at Ames that she started opening her mind to the possibility of using her expertise to explore and manipulate parallel dimensions. She had to do it on her own time; after all it was just a small step away from insanity.

She found a good ally in Morena over at the SETI institute. The SETI institute explores extra terrestrial life and was conveniently located in Mountain View. Morena had provided her with both emotional and technical support. She had been invaluable. Olivia had, with encouragement from Morena and Larry, been able to continue her extracurricular studies in secret.

Olivia had worked for Ames remotely from New Jersey where her family had relocated after the birth of her second daughter. In all aspects to those around her, she was a typical stay-at-home mother. She would take occasional weeklong trips to Ames (her family thought she was off to London to see her friends) to oversee her regular research and her
October Project
.

The October Project soon boasted a mini Hadron collider unit that would have been the envy of CERN. It had taken years, but she finally had a
portal
that would take her to where she wanted to go. It was all for one purpose, to come back for him.

A sudden cold breeze sent a shiver though her. This was insane. She should turn back and head home through the portal. Standing outside a pub in Paddington by herself? Utter madness! As she started to turn she felt a warming breath on the back of her neck and two arms enveloped her. She instinctively felt safe and warm. She didn’t feel any need to turn around. She was exactly where she belonged. They stood there for a long time, enjoying being one.

“Wake up, honey! We’re home,” nudged Rupert as he scooped her into his arms and carried her upstairs. They stopped and peered into Ella’s bedroom. She was fast asleep with Gertrude, both snoring soundly. “The sound of angels,” thought Olivia and shared a smile with Rupert as they went to their room. She sat up in bed as he started undressing, watching his every move.

It was almost twenty years later and he had not changed a bit. Every muscle of his body was imprinted in her mind. He looked over at her and smiled. Then he picked up the guitar that always stood by the bedside and brought it over to her. He climbed in behind her and wrapped his legs around her. Then he put his arms over her, laying the guitar on her lap and strumming it softy, humming along under his breath. She rested her head on his shoulder, leaning her head back so her face nuzzled against his neck. She took in a deep breath of him. His smell was intoxicating. Then she slowly turned around, carefully making sure not to disturb the guitar so he would keep playing. Once she was facing him, she brought her face close to his and brushed her cheeks against his. She could feel the electricity between them. He put the guitar down and grasped the back of her neck with his hand and pulled her head back and kissed her neck and slowly moved to her lips.

It was the same intense passion that she had felt for him that night when she went back
two years ago
. They both had enjoyed the closeness and the warmth of each other’s body as they stood outside the pub. She had finally turned around and looked deeply into his eyes. Those eyes that she felt she had waited an eternity to look into again. Neither of them said a word. They collapsed into one another in a passionate frenzy.

Rupert had gently pulled away and whispered, “It’s so good to see you! I don’t know how you did it, but I’m never letting you go again.” He pulled her close again until she could barely breathe. He eventually took her hand and pulled her over to his Harley.

“Oh, I’ve never ridden a motorbike before,” she said concerned.

Rupert laughed, “You’ll love it! Here’s the helmet I got just for you.”

She put the helmet on and got on the bike. She held on tightly as Rupert roared through the twisted London streets. He pulled up at a house in Camden.

“This is it, Ollie! I bought it for us. Do you like it?”

She loved it. It was quaint and she couldn’t wait to get inside. The inside was just as cute. Stairs everywhere, even a few between the hallway and the bathroom. There were two bedrooms; the smaller one was so tiny that a normal bed wouldn’t fit in it.

“Are you hungry, thirsty?” Rupert asked, putting his arms around her.

“I would love a glass of water. Time travel can be so dehydrating!”

Rupert laughed as he went to the kitchen to get the water. She followed him in. She could wait no longer. She felt like she was going to explode.

That was the night Harry was conceived.

She had to go back. The very thought of leaving Rupert devastated her. As they sat up in bed the next morning, picking at the breakfast that Rupert had prepared, he said, “You are going back, aren’t you? I can feel it.”

“Rupert, I have two girls, Arizona and Ella. I have to find a way to bring them back with me. I can’t just leave them there. Ella is expecting me back in a couple of days. One thing is for sure. I am not
ever
letting you go again.”

It was Thursday. Hockey tryouts. I looked at my bedside clock; there was still ten minutes before the alarm was due to go off. Ten minutes of trying to psych myself up for this day. I had done all this before, so there really was no need for all this trepidation. I was totally confident in my abilities. After all, I had played hockey for years. I was also totally sure in my ability to take on the boys and deal with whatever macho nonsense they felt they needed to throw my way. Been there, done that. The boys were going to resist, that was inevitable. They could be so babyish! After all, their egos wouldn’t let them just accept a girl – especially one with no track record. And a cheerleader to boot. What a hoot this was! I had never had the
cheerleader
label to contend with before. That added some extra juice.