Time After Time (5 page)

Rome, she thought, a small smile tugging at her lips. She had never been to Rome. If she went there now, would she find the countryside anything like what she had seen in that silly dream?

Shifting casually in her seat, she surreptitiously studied the man next to her. Was the man in her dreams really so much like Mr. Gregory? she wondered. Their features were very similar—but, no, the eyes weren't the same. These were set deeper, and the

green was darker, without a hint of sparkle. Now that she looked more closely, the rest of his features were also different. Surely the man in her dream hadn't had this harsh, gaunt look. Yes, Mr. Gregory was definitely older than the man she had conjured in the middle of the night, she told herself in satisfaction.

"Is something wrong, Miss French?"

Leah blinked, then felt color rise in her cheeks. She was no longer being surreptitious. She was staring openly. It was no wonder he was giving her the Frown.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice husky with embarrassment. "I—I had something on my mind."

"Are you sure? You were staring at me as though I were a piece of mold in a petri dish."

"No, no, really—"

"Is this trip an inconvenience for you?" One dark eyebrow was raised, as though daring her to make such a confession. "You had something more important on your schedule?"

Only a ham-salad sandwich, she thought, swallowing a nervous laugh. "I had nothing more important." To her surprise, she sounded perfectly composed. "I was simply distracted by my thoughts. If I seemed rude, I apologize."

Once again silence fell between them. Then, out of the blue, he said, "We had to leave right away in order to catch Jacobs before he left for an appointment. I want him to see the first section of the proposal today, because we need to start work on it tomorrow."

Leah listened to him with a blank expression on her normally vital face. He was actually offering her an explanation of his actions, she thought in astonishment. That was like God making a special trip down just to explain why He had created snails.

"Yes, of course," she said weakly.

They were halfway through the meeting with Carl Jacobs before Leah finally lost the stunned feeling her superior's unusual behavior had caused. After stunned, she switched to just plain awed.

One of the highlights of her job was watching Mr. Gregory work. On more occasions than she could count she had seen people openmouthed at his intelligence and immediate grasp of any problem connected with business. Today was no exception. This was the man she knew.

But it was more than that, she decided. As strange as it seemed, this was the man with whom she felt comfortable. She knew exactly where she stood with him. Feeling a relief that was completely out of proportion to the problem, Leah carefully placed her boss back in the neat little psychological pigeonhole she had built for him. Her mental pond could do without any more ripples on it.

After the meeting, as they approaehed the escalator that would take them from the mezzanine to the lobby, a small boy shoved his way eagerly in front of them. Leah smiled, but she didn't pay the child any particular attention because her mind was still on several points Carl had brought up.

Suddenly the boy seemed to lose his footing and pitched forward. For a terrible instant Leah froze. Then, before she could even begin to react, Mr. Gregory scooped the boy up and held him securely in his arms.

Leah let out a long breath of relief, suppressing a shudder. A plunge down the steep steps would have been painful, at the very least.

"I always have trouble with them, too," her boss said to the boy. "Moving steps. Moving sidewalks. Little boxes that float up and down in buildings. Do you suppose someday they'll invent newspapers that automatically move to our doorsteps so we won't have to hunt in the bushes for them?"

His voice wasn't so very different from what she was used to, but when Leah heard the boy giggle, she glanced at the man standing one step below her. His green eyes were sparkling with humor. She couldn't look away from them. When she saw him smile at the boy in his arms, she felt dizzy. She was glad they were at the bottom of the escalator, or she might have pitched downhill herself.

Almost immediately she realized that this wasn't the first time she had felt this way. It was the same kicked-in-the-stomach sensation she had had the first time she'd seen Paul Gregory—which meant Leah hadn't done quite as good a job as she had thought of burying the attraction she felt for him.

Leah's first reaction to this revelation was panic. Her second reaction was surprise at her first reaction.

Wariness or chagrin she could have understood, but panic?

The little boy's mother met them at the bottom and helped to dispel Leah's mood as she began to scold him for running away from her. Immediately Mr. Gregory was his normal self again, his face expressionless and somewhat forbidding. The smile and her reaction to it had both been so fleeting that Leah began to wonder if she had only imagined them.

By the time she returned to her apartment that night, she had managed to convince herself that her mind had indeed played tricks on her. Earlier, on the way to the meeting, she had studied Mr. Gregory intensely, searching for a resemblance to the man in her dreams. And eventually her mind had let her see exactly what she had been looking for.

When a group of faithful observers stood around waiting for a statue to cry, eventually they saw it happen. What had happened to her was obviously based on the same principle.

Did that mean she wanted to see a softer, more human side of her boss? she asked herself, then immediately shook her head in a vigorous motion.

"No way," she muttered aloud. The attraction she felt was totally illogical, some kind of crazy physical thing that was best ignored.

"Just watch out, Leah," she told herself wryly. "If you aren't careful you'll be the leading candidate for associate vice president of public relations in a funny farm."

She dawdled as she prepared for bed, glancing over her shoulder occasionally at the bed. For half an hour she sat in the chair across the room from her bed and thumbed through several
National Geographies.
Finally, mentally girding her loins, she crawled under the covers, clutching the edges as she pulled them up around her neck. For a while she merely lay there with her eyes wide open. Then, tentatively, she closed them and waited to see what would happen. ,

Nothing. No dreams, no drunken Romans, no chariot races. Relaxing with a sigh, she snuggled down comfortably.

The next morning the only dream Leah could remember from the night before had had to do with her promotion. The job had been given to one of the giant pandas in the Washington zoo. Vaguely she remembered protesting the action, stating in court that it was a clear case of sexual discrimination because the position of associate VP had been given to Hsing-Hsing instead of Ling-Ling. Although the dream had been crazy, it was a normal kind of craziness. The kind of craziness Leah could handle.

Gradually, over the next two weeks, Leah stopped thinking about the Roman dream. Although she could pull up any detail with perfect clarity, she definitely didn't wish to recall it. She put in her ten hours a day at work, went out on a couple of dates and stubbornly avoided thinking about Mr. Gregory.

Preparations for the campaign continued to run smoothly, even when Mr. Gregory went out of town for several days on company business. As could be

expected, while the cat was away, the other mice in the building played. But in the midst of the
en fete
atmosphere, Leah worked even harder. She was too close to her promotion to slack off now. And she was determined that no dumb male panda would get
her
job.

One morning when she walked into the building she knew instantly that her boss had returned. Solid, sober industriousness reigned as far as the eye could see. Once again Captain Bligh was at the helm of his ship.

Predictably he had brought work with him. Early on the day of his return, he sent down two huge files with a curt note asking for a reorganization of the original proposal to allow for new data he had obtained on his trip.

Leah stayed at the office until seven-thirty that evening, then scooped up the rest of her work to take home.

At the apartment her routine was the same as always, except that tonight she substituted clam chowder for the salad and forgot to turn on her answering machine. She was only momentarily interrupted when David Yarrow, a man she dated occasionally, called to chat. A fellow workaholic, he knew by her distracted tone that she was buried in business and didn't keep her.

It was fifteen minutes past midnight when Leah glanced up at the buzzing television and began to massage with both hands the aching muscles in her neck.

Only a half hour's work to go, she thought wearily. Only half an hour, and then she could go to bed. That

was the good news. The bad news was that she wasn't sure she could hold up for another thirty minutes. Her back was stiff from bending over the coffee table, and her eyes burned from staring so long at the reports.

She leaned back against the soft cushions of the couch. Maybe she would rest her eyes for just a second, she thought. For just one second...

Chapter Three

How now, spirit! whither wander you?
A Midsummer Night's Dream
—Act II, Scene 1

As Leah strolled along the crowded street, she pulled the raccoon collar of her wool coat closer around her face. For a while, as she walked, she simply stared at the people passing her on the sidewalk. On the corner, under a streetlamp that cast inadequate light in the early evening hours, a newsboy hawked papers from a bundle on the sidewalk. His worn coat was open to show the suspenders that held up patched brown knickers.

"Dempsey to face Tunney in rematch!" he shouted, holding a newspaper high in the air. "Extra! Extra! Dempsey to face Tunney in rematch!"

"Not again," Leah murmured, rolling her eyes in resigned exasperation. Then she turned her head sharply, almost swallowing her gum in the process, to watch a car as it passed on the street.

"Rumble seats, knickers, spats—what a kick," she said, shaking her head.

At least this time she wasn't wearing her nightgown, she thought in relief. And that wasn't the only difference. Even though the sights and sounds were slightly confusing, Leah knew where she was going.

When she caught sight of a gray stone building a block ahead, her steps quickened. As she reached the building, she passed the steps leading up to the insurance company that rented all three floors and took the steps that led down to the basement.

Seconds after she knocked on the heavy metal-clad wooden door, a small hatch swung inward. From her angle all Leah could see was a bulbous red nose that leaned determinedly sideways. She stood, vigorously chewing the peppermint-flavored gum as she waited. A moment later the peephole closed and the door opened.

"Hi, Leah," the large gray-haired man said, his words slow and slightly slurred from too many years of illegal, bare-knuckle boxing.

"Hiya, Pops," she said pertly, swinging past him. Then her steps faltered.

Hiya, Pops?

Heaven help me, she thought, choking on a dismayed laugh. She sent silent notice to whoever or whatever was orchestrating this dream that she re-

fused to say twenty-three skiddoo. That was above and beyond the call of duty.

"Well, hell-o, kiddo."

Turning her head, she smiled at the two men coming up behind her. They both carried instrument cases and wore turtleneck sweaters with their knickers.

"Hello, Artie.. .Bert." She batted her eyelashes, then continued walking, squealing in laughing protest when one of them slapped her on the rear.

After opening the third door on the left, she entered a small dressing room containing a chaise longue that had probably once been white, a wooden coat-rack that leaned drunkenly to one side, a mirrored vanity and a scarred, doorless wardrobe that held a variety of glittering costumes.

She stripped off her coat and hung it on the coat-rack, then walked to the mirrored vanity. Slowly, carefully, she studied her face. Giving a low, breathless laugh, she pulled off the brown cloche and shook her hair free. A smooth fringe of blond bangs fell straight across her forehead, and the back was neat and boyishly short. On her lips bright red lipstick gleamed. Her eyelids were heavily made up, and her raise eyelashes were outrageously long.

"Good Lord," she murmured, taking the gum out of her mouth to hold it gingerly between two fingers. "I look... I look—" She cocked her head to one side and grinned. "I look kind of cute. Not exactly Zelda Fitzgerald, but cute." With that she popped the gum back in her mouth.

There was a sharp knock on the door. "Thirty minutes, Miss French."

"Thanks, Johnny," she called out, and began to strip off her clothes.

She was braless beneath the straight lilac dress. Instead, she wore what looked like a sleeveless undershirt and cotton bloomers. When she had removed the underwear, she slipped into a long white satin robe and sat down to redo her makeup for the harsh glare of spotlights, her movements practiced and efficient.

Twenty minutes later she stood in satin bloomers, garter belt and silk stockings. Reaching into the wardrobe, she pulled out a swirl of sapphire-blue chiffon. The beaded bodice of the dress was cut low and straight across, leaving her shoulders bare except for three silver straps on each side. The dress had no shape of its own until it reached just below her hips, then it flared out, ending in a handkerchief hemline that occasionally showed a glimpse of silk-clad knee when she moved. The matching beaded headdress fitted close to her head, covering her hair completely, and had a delicate fringe that framed her face like silver rain.