The Time Traveler's Almanac (142 page)

She snaked past the lines of standees, and Georgette followed without enthusiasm. It was just as Livvy arrived opposite the young man’s seat that the streetcar lurched heavily as it rounded a curve. Livvy snatched desperately in the direction of the straps. Her fingertips caught and she held on. It was a long moment before she could breathe. For some reason, it had seemed that there were no straps close to be reached. Somehow, she felt that by all the laws of nature she should have fallen.

The young man did not look at her. He was smiling at Georgette and rising from his seat. He had astonishing eyebrows that gave him a rather competent and self-confident appearance. Livvy decided that she definitely liked him. Georgette was saying, “Oh no, don’t bother. We’re getting off in about two stops.”

They did. Livvy said, “I thought we were going to Sachs.”

“We are. There’s just something I remember having to attend to here. It won’t take but a minute.”

“Next stop, Providence!” the loudspeakers were blaring. The train was slowing and the world of the past had shrunk itself into the glass slab once more. The little man was still smiling at them.

Livvy turned to Norman. She felt a little frightened. “Were you through all that, too?”

He said, “What happened to the time? We can’t be reaching Providence yet?” He looked at his watch. “I guess we are.” Then, to Livvy, “You didn’t fall that time.”

“Then you did see it?” She frowned. “Now, that’s like Georgette. I’m sure there was no reason to get off the streetcar except to prevent my meeting you. How long had you known Georgette then, Norman?”

“Not very long. Just enough to be able to recognize her at sight and to feel that I ought to offer her my seat.”

Livvy curled her lip.

Norman grinned, “You can’t be jealous of a might-have-been, kid. Besides, what difference would it have made? I’d have been sufficiently interested in you to work out a way of meeting you.”

“You didn’t even look at me.”

“I hardly had the chance.”

“Then how would you have met me?”

‘’Some way. I don’t know how. But you’ll admit this is a rather foolish argument we’re having.”

They were leaving Providence. Livvy felt a trouble in her mind. The little man had been following their whispered conversation, with only the loss of his smile to show that he understood. She said to him, “Can you show us more?”

Norman interrupted, “Wait now, Livvy. What are you to try to do?”

She said, “I want to see our wedding day. What it would have been if I hadn’t caught the strap.”

Norman was visibly annoyed. “Now, that’s not fair. We might not have been married on the same day, you know.”

But she said, “Can you show it to me, Mr. If?” and the little man nodded.

The slab of glass was coming alive again, glowing a little. Then the light collected and condensed into figures. A tiny sound of organ music was in Livvy’s ears without there actually being sound.

Norman said with relief, “Well, there I am. That’s our wedding. Are you satisfied?”

The train sounds were disappearing again, and the last thing Livvy heard was her own voice saying, “Yes, there you are. But where am I?”

*   *   *

Livvy was well back in the pews. For a while she had not expected to attend at all. In the past months she had drifted further and further away from Georgette, without quite knowing why. She had heard of her engagement only through a mutual friend, and, of course, it was to Norman. She remembered very clearly that day, six months before, when she had first seen him on the streetcar. It was the time Georgette had so quickly snatched her out of sight. She had met him since on several occasions, but each time Georgette was with him, standing between.

Well, she had no cause for resentment; the man was certainly none of hers. Georgette, she thought, looked more beautiful than she really was. And he was very handsome indeed.

She felt sad and rather empty, as though something had gone wrong – something that she could not quite outline in her mind. Georgette had moved up the aisle without seeming to see her, but earlier she had caught his eyes and smiled at him. Livvy thought he had smiled in return.

She heard the words distantly as they drifted back to her, “I now pronounce you—”

The noise of the train was back. A woman swayed down the aisle, herding a little boy back to their seats. There were intermittent bursts of girlish laughter from a set of four teenage girls halfway down the coach. A conductor hurried past on some mysterious errand.

Livvy was frozenly aware of it all.

She sat there, staring straight ahead, while the trees outside blended into a fuzzy, furious green and the telephone poles galloped past.

She said, “It was she you married.”

He stared at her for a moment and then one side of his mouth quirked a little. He said lightly, “I didn’t really, Olivia. You’re still my wife, you know. Just think about it for a few minutes.”

She turned to him. “Yes, you married me – because I fell in your lap. If I hadn’t, you would have married Georgette. If she hadn’t wanted you, you would have married someone else. You would have married anybody. So much for your jigsaw-puzzle pieces.”

Norman said very slowly, “Well-I’ll-be-darned!” He put both hands to his head and smoothed down the straight hair over his ears where it had a tendency to tuft up. For the moment it gave him the appearance of trying to hold his head together. He said, “Now, look here, Livvy, you’re making a silly fuss over a stupid magician’s trick. You can’t blame me for something I haven’t done.”

“You would have done it.”

“How do you know?”

“You’ve seen it.”

“I’ve seen a ridiculous piece of – hypnotism, I suppose.” His voice suddenly raised itself into anger. He turned to the little man opposite. “Off with you, Mr. If, or whatever your name is. Get out of here. We don’t want you. Get out before I throw your little trick out the window and you after it.”

Livvy yanked at his elbow. “Stop it. Stop it! You’re in a crowded train.”

The little man shrank back into the corner of the seat as far as he could go and held his little black box behind him. Norman looked at him, then at Livvy, then at the elderly lady across the way who was regarding him with patent disapproval.

He turned pink and bit back a pungent remark. They rode in frozen silence to and through New London.

Fifteen minutes past New London, Norman said, “Livvy!”

She said nothing. She was looking out the window but saw nothing in the glass.

He said again, “Livvy! Livvy! Answer me!”

She said dully, “What do you want?”

He said, “Look, this is all nonsense. I don’t know how the fellow does it, but even granting it’s legitimate, you’re not being fair. Why stop where you did? Suppose I had married Georgette, do you suppose you would have stayed single? For all I know, you were already married at the time of my supposed wedding. Maybe that’s why I married Georgette.”

“I wasn’t married.”

“How do you know?”

“I would have been able to tell. I knew what my own thoughts were.”

“Then you would have been married within the next year.”

Livvy grew angrier. The fact that a sane remnant within her clamored at the unreason of her anger did not soothe her. It irritated her further, instead. She said, “And if I did, it would be no business of yours, certainly.”

“Of course it wouldn’t. But it would make the point that in the world of reality we can’t be held responsible for the ‘what ifs’.”

Livvy’s nostrils flared. She said nothing.

Norman said, “Look! You remember the big New Year’s celebration at Winnie’s place year before last?”

“I certainly do. You spilled a keg of alcohol all over me.”

“That’s beside the point, and besides, it was only a cocktail shaker’s worth. What I’m trying to say is that Winnie is just about your best friend and had been long before you married me.”

“What of it?”

“Georgette was a good friend of hers too, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then. You and Georgette would have gone to the party regardless of which one of you I had married. I would have had nothing to do with it. Let him show us the party as it would have been if I had married Georgette, and I’ll bet you’d be there with either your fiancée or your husband.”

Livvy hesitated. She felt honestly afraid of that.

He said, “Are you afraid to take the chance?”

And that, of course, decided her. She turned on him furiously, “No, I’m not! And I hope I am married. There’s no reason I should pine for you. What’s more, I’d like to see what happens when you spill the shaker all over Georgette. She’ll fill both your ears for you, and in public, too. I know her. Maybe you’ll see a certain difference in the jigsaw pieces then.” She faced forward and crossed her arms angrily and firmly across her chest.

Norman looked across at the little man, but there was no need to say anything. The glass slab was on his lap already. The sun slanted in from the west, and the white foam of hair that topped his head was edged with pink.

Norman said tensely, “Ready?”

Livvy nodded and let the noise of the train slide away again.

*   *   *

Livvy stood, a little flushed with recent cold, in the doorway. She had just removed her coat, with its sprinkling of snow, and her bare arms were still rebelling at the touch of open air.

She answered the shouts that greeted her with “Happy New Year’s” of her own, raising her voice to make herself heard over the squealing of the radio. Georgette’s shrill tones were almost the first thing she heard upon entering, and now she steered herself toward her. She hadn’t seen Georgette, or Norman, in weeks.

Georgette lifted an eyebrow, a mannerism she had lately cultivated, and said, “Isn’t anyone with you, Olivia?” Her eyes swept the immediate surroundings and then returned to Livvy.

Livvy said indifferently, “I think Dick will be around later. There was something or other he had to do first.” She felt as indifferent as she sounded.

Georgette smiled tightly. “Well, Norman’s here. That ought to keep you from being lonely, dear. At least, it’s turned out that way before.”

As she said so, Norman sauntered in from the kitchen. He had a cocktail shaker in his hand, and the rattling of ice cubes castanetted his words. “Line up, you rioting revelers, and get a mixture that will really revel your riots – Why, Livvy!”

He walked toward her, grinning his welcome, “Where’ve you been keeping yourself? I haven’t seen you in twenty years, seems like. What’s the matter? Doesn’t Dick want anyone else to see you?”

“Fill my glass, Norman,” Georgette said sharply.

“Right away,” he said, not looking at her. “Do you want one too, Livvy? I’ll get you a glass.” He turned, and everything happened at once.

Livvy cried, “Watch out!” She saw it coming, even had a vague feeling that all this had happened before, but it played itself out inexorably. His heel caught the edge of the carpet; he lurched, tried to right himself, and lost the cocktail shaker. It seemed to jump out of his hands, and a pint of ice-cold liquor drenched Livvy from shoulder to hem.

She stood there, gasping. The noises muted about her, and for a few intolerable moments she made futile brushing gestures at her gown, while Norman kept repeating “Damnation!” in rising tones.

Georgette said coolly, “It’s too bad, Livvy. Just one of those things. I imagine the dress can’t be very expensive.”

Livvy turned and ran. She was in the bedroom, which was at least empty and relatively quiet. By the light of the fringe-shaded lamp on the dresser, she poked among the coats on the bed, looking for her own.

Norman had come in behind her. “Look, Livvy, don’t pay any attention to what she said. I’m devilishly sorry. I’ll pay—”

“That’s all right. It wasn’t your fault.” She blinked rapidly and didn’t look at him. “I’ll just go home and change.”

“Are you coming back?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Look, Livvy…” His warm fingers were on her shoulders—

Livvy felt a queer tearing sensation deep inside her, as though she were ripping away, clinging cobwebs and—

*   *   *

—and the train noises were back.

Something did go wrong with the time when she was in there – in the slab. It was deep twilight now. The train lights were on. But it didn’t matter. She seemed to be recovering from the wrench inside her.

Norman was rubbing his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “What happened?”

Livvy said, “It just ended. Suddenly.”

Norman looked uneasily, “You know, we’ll be putting into New Haven soon.” He looked at his watch and shook his head.

Livvy said wonderingly, “You spilled it on me.”

“Well, so I did in real life.”

“But in real life I was your wife. You ought to have spilled it on Georgette this time. Isn’t that queer?” But she was thinking of Norman pursuing her; his hands on her shoulders …

She looked up at him and said with warm satisfaction, “I wasn’t married.”

“No, you weren’t. But was that Dick Reinhardt you were going around with?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t planning to marry him, were you, Livvy?”

“Jealous, Norman?”

Norman looked confused. “Of that? Of a slab of glass? Of course not.”

“I don’t think I would have married him.”

Norman said, “You know, I wish it hadn’t ended when it did. There was something that was about to happen, I think.” He stopped, then added slowly, “It was as though I would rather have done it to anybody else in the room.”

“Even to Georgette.”

“I wasn’t giving two thoughts about Georgette. You don’t believe me, I suppose.”

“Maybe I do.” She looked up at him. “I’ve been silly, Norman. Let’s – let’s live our real life. Let’s not play with all the things that just might have been.”

But he caught her hands. “No, Livvy. One last time. Let’s see what we would have been doing right now, Livvy! This very minute! If I had married Georgette.”

Livvy was a little frightened. “Let’s not, Norman.” She was thinking of his eyes, smiling hungrily at her as he held the shaker, while Georgette stood beside her, and regarded. She didn’t want to know what happened afterward. She just wanted this life now, this good life.