And she was his wife, after all. So he responded.
He seemed to have retained some habits from his other past lifetime. Of course, it never hurt when his partner was as enthusiastic as this. He was beginning to get thoroughly involved when she whispered in his ear, “Tina’s coming by in a few minutes ....”
Tina?
“Tina, uh, Martinez-O’Farrell?”
Janna drew back and looked him in the eyes. “Of course Tina Martinez-O’Farrell, who else? She had some extension
plans she wanted to run past you. Al, what’s wrong? Something’s bothering you, I can tell.”
“Well, you were doing a pretty good job of bothering me a minute ago,” he said hoarsely. Tina? Here? He used to have nightmares about two or more girlfriends cornering him at the same time.
Well, okay, sometimes they weren’t nightmares. But this time wasn’t likely to be one of those. He didn’t have girlfriends now, he was almost certain.
“Not that, silly.” She slapped him lightly on his bare chest, revealed through the disarray of an unbuttoned shirt. “Come on, what is it? You don’t usually give me the tiger treatment after a long day at the office.”
“I must be slipping.”
“Albert.” Unlike certain of his previous wives—Al wondered suddenly how many previous wives he’d had in this particular timeline—her use of his name indicated great patience and a certain amount of humor, along with the more standard “time to quit the fancy footwork, Calavicci.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s nothing, really.” The mood was completely ruined; he started rebuttoning, as much to give himself something to do as anything else. How was he supposed to explain to her that he almost/not quite/sort of remembered who she was? She wasn’t even one of the crowd of willing stand-ins Sam had charged him with only hours earlier. Except for those almost-memories, she was as much a stranger to him as Rita Marie Hoffman was to Sam, and whether he liked it or not he understood Sam’s position all too well.
If he were Sam Beckett, pernicious honesty would demand that he try explaining, just as Sam would’ve to Rita Marie if the “rules” of quantum leaping had allowed him to. He wasn’t Sam Beckett, and he had learned the first rule of the military about the time this woman was born. Never volunteer. Never, never, never volunteer.
It occurred to him, of a sudden, that he could probably resolve this mess simply by taking the handlink and going back into the Imaging Chamber and encouraging Sam to do something. Anything. Lord only knew what small things would change the future. A dead butterfly in the Cretaceous could lead to a new world government; doubtless Sam Beckett’s choice of breakfast beverage could get Al Calavicci out of an unexpected marriage ....
Janna smiled at him.
Well. He didn’t have to change things right away, did he? It could always wait until morning. Couldn’t it?
SATURDAY
June 7, 1975
Poor intricated soul! Riddling, perplexed, labyrinthical soul!
—John Donne, Sermon XLVIII
CHAPTER SIX
People who believed in reincarnation, Sam had noticed, always thought their past lives were special, that they’d been kings or queens or famous in some way. It really wasn’t fair. All his lives seemed to come down to pushing a broom.
He shoved a chair back out of the way to scrape crumbled corn chips from under the table. The bar area was spotless, speaking well for whoever had covered for Wickie the night before, but the tables were a mess. He thought you were supposed to reverse the chairs and put them up on the table when you closed a bar for the night; evidently that piece of folk wisdom wasn’t universal.
He straightened up and counted. Thirty tables, plus the booths against the back wall, and the benches by the fireplace. It was a nice fireplace—fieldstone, with a wide mantel. Wouldn’t hold more than a couple oxen. Or maybe three or four of those elk whose heads decorated the wall, or a half dozen of the buck. But the stone was clean, shades of pale yellow and gray and pink. He doubted it had ever been used for anything at all. The stone hearth was spotless, and the broom and shovel and brass fire iron looked as if they’d been purchased only yesterday. It was a shame, really. He liked a nice fire in a fireplace.
Then there was the Bar. Or B’ar. The polar bear that
gave the bar its name towered eight feet tall on its hind legs, mouth agape, front legs pawing at the air with claws like curved black knives, was actually more yellow than strictly white, but it had certainly been alive once upon a time. Unlike the fireplace, it was far from pristine; a little motheaten, in fact, when one inspected it closely.
On the other side of the fireplace stood a baby grand piano, probably the one he’d heard pounded on the night before, and he couldn’t resist running a few scales; it was even in tune. He hoped he’d get the chance to really play before he Leaped out. He missed music.
No one else was up at this hour. He’d awakened at sunrise, gotten up and dressed, and looked around for something to eat. Wickie leaned to cereal with skim milk and cinnamon-raisin bagels with cream cheese and orange juice, which was fine with Sam.
After breakfast he had retrieved the keys and checked out the truck. The damage didn’t seem too bad in the harsh light of day; he thought he could probably replace the burned-out headlamp himself if Wickie had the right tools. From there he’d wandered over to the bar. One of the keys fit the back door, so he’d gone in. The place was enough of a mess that he’d grabbed a broom to keep himself busy until he had
