Never Enough Time, page 21
“I liked it better when you did,” I say.
I want to be left alone. I need the time of the flight, however long this will be, to decide how best to go about things when I get to London. I picture myself finding Sara, making her tell me where Raj is, and then rushing off to wherever the fuck that is.
Yet I can’t see beyond that. And I need to plan.
That’s one of the main problems with the path of the sevens—no time to plan.
“But I’ve been so helpful to you,” Bennet says, sipping his champagne.
The chic businesswoman across the aisle is staring at the two of us in 7A and 7B, dressed almost identically, sitting here in the high-priced seats with her. But mostly she’s staring at Bennet, sending him that signal that says If you’re not otherwise engaged, I’d be happy to accommodate you.
“You haven’t been fucking helpful at fucking all,” I say. The champagne is really good. Does he consider this helpful?
“Hey. I got you those cookies. Remember?”
“Remember? Remember? I got those cookies. They were mine. And you ate almost all of them.”
“They were quite good,” Bennet says, refilling his empty glass. “As I recall.”
“With your faulty memory?”
“Want some more?” he says, holding up the bottle, and I hold out my glass and savor the sight of the pale golden fluid and the sound of its fizzing and sparks.
“Are you trying to bribe me with this?” I say as I take a sip of the yummy stuff, possibly the best-tasting drink I’ve ever had. So I take more sips, finish the glass, and hold it out for more. Bennet refills both our glasses and holds his out for a clinking toast.
“I wouldn’t toast you if you were the last spirit guide on earth,” I say, pulling back my glass and taking a hefty swig.
“I might be the last spirit guide on earth,” Bennet says as the woman across the aisle crosses, then recrosses, her legs. Bennet ignores her.
“Are you?” I say. “More.” Bennet obliges me and tops off his own glass.
“I have no way of knowing that,” he says.
“What do you have a way of knowing?”
“I know that Lachesis is damned hard to deal with.”
“That’s not knowing. That’s just observation. Anyone who’s ever met her could tell you that,” I say. But my anger at her has subsided. Probably from the champagne.
“Better eat something,” Bennet says, and another cart shows up, this one with a display of sandwiches on it.
“Peanut butter okay?” Bennet says. We’re in the ultraexpensive section of this flight and I get a peanut butter sandwich?
“Organic,” Bennet says. “Fresh.” Well, that explains it.
“Sure,” I say. The sandwich is heavenly.
Bennet takes the champagne flute out of my hand.
“It’s not soda,” he says.
“So what?” I say.
“Have some lemonade instead,” he says as he hands me a glass of lemonade. It’s as though he’s conjuring this stuff out of nothingness.
I reach for the champagne flute, but he’s put it on the cart, which is disappearing down the aisle. The lemonade’s okay, but the champagne was better. Fizzier. More celebratory.
“You’re not going to make it in time,” Bennet says.
Chapter 73
Bennet’s eating a peanut butter sandwich too. The man’s done nothing but eat all morning. I don’t know where he puts it. Or why he puts it. Isn’t he a spirit?
“I’m an expert at the last minute,” I say. “Which should make tomorrow a real success.”
Yet I don’t mean that. I’m scared to fucking death about tomorrow. Perhaps this is the one time in my life that scared to death will mean just that. Or scared and death will at least be neighbors, if not cause and effect.
“Won’t help,” Bennet says. He’s gotten smug. Must be the champagne and organic peanut butter. “What about dessert?”
“Didn’t you eat a half-dozen donuts a couple hours ago?”
“That was ages ago,” Bennet says. “How about chocolate cake?”
The cake, like the champagne and peanut butter sandwiches, arrives on a cart, and Bennet hands me a slice.
“Too rich,” I say as I take a bite. But when Bennet reaches over to take the plate away from me, I pull it back. “I’m going to eat it anyway.” After bite number three, I decide the cake is perfect.
“What am I not going to make in time?” I say, although what I want to do is go to sleep. Between the champagne and the sugar and the droning of the plane’s motor, I’m getting drowsy.
“You’ll see,” Bennet says.
“Just fucking tell me,” I say, waking up a bit.
“What kind of a spirit guide would I be if I told you everything?” Bennet’s eating another slice of the chocolate cake.
“The kind I’d like,” I say, “instead of the kind you are.”
“I can’t predict the future,” he says.
“Not like Lachesis can. Or like Ivan the Terrible.”
“Correct.”
“Does everyone have a voice in their head?” That’s a safe question, and maybe I can warm Bennet up a little and he’ll start answering important questions after this.
“I really wouldn’t know,” he says. “I’m not on Earth that often.”
“Where the fuck are you? That often?”
“Wherever I’m needed,” he says. “But nowhere has as good champagne, peanut butter, chocolate cake, cookies, and donuts as Earth. Absolutely nowhere.”
“That explains a lot,” I say.
“See? I do help you. You just don’t always notice it.”
“Excuse me,” the woman across the aisle says. She’s leaning over and showing off her lace-adorned cleavage to Bennet.
“Miss,” Bennet says, flashing the woman his most radiant, most appealing smile, “I’m a ghost. And besides that, I’m not attracted to you in the least.”
The woman blushes and looks away.
“That was hard,” I say. “I thought you were nicer than that.”
“Aside from the cookie eating, you mean,” he says. “And the fact that I won’t tell you what you want to know. And how I’m sitting next to you while you were hoping to use the flight to make your plans.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Aside from that.”
“Delaney,” he says, “if you and I were together in another time, another place, we’d be married by now, have about fifteen kids, and we’d make love and go for walks every single day.”
“What happened to I’m a ghost and your job as my spirit guide and all?”
“Just saying,” he says. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”
He hands me a plush blanket and drapes a similar one over himself as he curls up in his roomy seat—mine’s also a roomy seat—and goes to sleep.
This is the oddest airplane flight ever. No announcements, no cabin crew, no turbulence, nothing to entertain yourself with except looking out the window.
Bennet’s asleep—spirits sleep?—the woman across the aisle is refusing to look our way, and I’ve got nothing to do but plan my next move.
Perfect.
What is it that I am not going to make in time?
He’s talking about Raj, Hal says. And here I’d been hoping that maybe whatever it is that makes Hal work doesn’t work on a plane. Wrong again.
Fuck me. Hal can read my thoughts.
I have to try anyway. To find Raj. To talk with him. Today might be my only chance before it’s All Over.
You’ll have very little time after we land, Hal says.
I’m learning how to use time wisely.
Time’s using you, Hal says.
Fuck off, you fucking leech.
Bennet’s no help at all. You should’ve consulted with Lachesis.
Shut up or tell me something I can use. Something that will help me. Something that will make the cycle of sevens go away.
You chose this, Hal says right before I drift off to sleep. Or at least I think he says this. Maybe I’m imagining Hal, his voice, his words.
Maybe I’m imagining everything—myself, the cycle of sevens, my friends, Bennet, Raj, this airplane.
Daisy, Daisy, says Hal, and I smile as I descend into the realm of Morpheus.
Chapter 74
I have three hours to find Raj. Four decades, and planes still move as slowly as they did when I was a teenager. Maybe more slowly.
And it’s night. And I don’t know how to find Sara, much less Raj. And Bennet deserted me at the entry gate. What I mean is, he disappeared. Ghosts are good at that. And he might not have a passport. Although, if I have a passport, it’s not an object I can hold on to. Hal’s probably in charge of it.
I guess I’m not a ghost or #16, a visible spirit, since I can’t disappear. Or I haven’t gotten the hang of it just yet. After tomorrow, though, this, like everything, will be up for grabs.
“Sara’s address,” I say very very quietly as I make my way to the high-speed rail that goes into the city. I don’t want to encourage Hal, you know, by just thinking stuff and having him respond.
Or maybe I don’t want to encourage myself. I don’t want to get used to merely thinking things and having Hal respond to them like it’s just what he does. Fuck that. I will find that operation, but only after I find Raj. I have priorities. And not enough time. Never enough.
Get off here, Hal says when we get to Leicester Square, so I do. Turn left, Hal says when we get to the street.
It’s almost tomorrow, Hal says very very extremely horribly calmly.
Third door down.
I ring the bell and a super energetic adorable young redheaded teenage girl answers the door.
“Auntie Del!”
“Chloe!”
We hug enthusiastically, then Chloe stands back from me, looks me over, and says, “Great outfit! So retrovial!”
“Is Sara up?”
“Mom!” Chloe says as she turns her head. “But didn’t you come to see me?”
“I have to talk with Sara,” I say. “I’m sorry, Chloe. I’m running short of time.”
“You always say that, Auntie Del. But, you know, there’s plenty of time.”
“For you, there is,” I say. “Mine’s kind of running low.”
“Don’t be silly. You once told me that time doesn’t really exist anyway. That it’s just an idea.”
“I told you that?”
“Mom! Get down here!” Chloe says. Now she’s standing at the bottom of a curvy staircase and bending her neck around, aiming her voice up in the proper direction.
Sara, Ryan, and Chloe live in a very very luxe town house. But unlike the posh place Ryan and I had way back in the ancient history of a few days ago, this place is homey and lived-in and comforting.
“Sure. Of course you told me that, Auntie Del. Hey, did you just get in? Would you like some tea?” She says this like a proper English girl, and it makes me laugh.
“That’d be nice,” I say, “but I really can’t stay.”
Chloe and I go into the kitchen, which is sleek and shiny and has bright orange and blue tiles on the walls.
“What did I tell you about time?” I say.
“That you have to sort of step outside it in order to see things clearly.”
“I said that?”
“Mom said you used to be a philosopher.” Chloe brings the teapot to the counter where I’m sitting on a stool.
“Let it steep,” she says when I reach for the pot.
“I used to be your age,” I say.
“Well, you would have to have been, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You might be Mom’s age, but it doesn’t feel like that to me,” she says. “Just another minute,” she says, touching the teapot, protecting it from my grasp.
“You told me something once that I still don’t understand,” Chloe says. “That if you can step outside of time, that’s when you’re really experiencing your life. Unbound from time’s constraints.”
“I sound very fucking wise,” I say.
“You are very fucking wise!” Chloe says. “Let’s have some tea and you can explain everything to me.”
“I’d have to explain it to myself first,” I say. “Because apparently I’m also pretty fucking cryptic.”
“When the hell did you get here?” says Ryan, who, along with Sara, has just arrived in the kitchen.
“Oh, Dad. That’s no way to talk to Auntie Del!” Chloe jumps off her bench and puts her arms around me, like I need protection.
“Del, really, what are you doing here?” says Sara. “You’re not supposed to get in until next week.”
“It’s my day of the sevens,” I say.
“Bloody rotting hell,” says Sara, her Britishy accent even more pronounced than it was a few years ago.
“And I have to get in touch with Raj.”
“See, Mom? I told you,” Chloe says.
“Today,” I say. “Before today’s over.”
“That’ll be some neat trick,” Ryan says as he pours himself a cup of tea. Right into the cup Chloe had set out for me.
“You got a time machine?” Sara says. “Because you’re going to need it.”
Chapter 75
Fucking fiery fucked hell. Is Sara trying to tell me that Raj is dead and that the only way I can see him is if I can go back into the past?
“I am a time machine,” I say, “but it only works going forward. And only once every seven years.”
“You really are off your wig,” Sara says.
“If Raj is dead, just tell me,” I say.
“He couldn’t be less dead,” Ryan says, sipping his tea and rummaging through the cabinets until he finds what he’s looking for: a tube of crackers or maybe they’re biscuits.
“Then why do I need a time machine to see him today?”
“Because he’s in India,” Chloe says, “and it takes more than two hours to get there.”
“I thought he was in London.”
“He had to go back for his father’s funeral,” Sara says, and she says it in a way that makes me think that she’s talked to Raj more than once at some lunch seven or eight or ten years ago. A lunch that I wouldn’t know about unless Chloe had told me.
“I need to talk to him, then,” I say. “Surely I can do that today.”
“He can’t be reached,” Sara says, as though that explains it.
“Why not?” I say.
“Haven’t you two hurt each other enough?” Sara says.
“I’ve used up my entire day getting here so I could talk to Raj.”
“You can see him tomorrow,” Chloe says. She pours me tea in the new cup she’s gotten out of the cabinet. This one is rimmed with violets.
“No, I can’t,” I say. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”
“No, she can’t,” Sara says to Chloe. “And by tomorrow, you’ll have calmed down,” Sara says to me. “Did something happen, Delaney? Is that why you sold your share of the building?”
They found out already? Bennet can be so effective when he wants to be.
“It was just time,” I said. “And doesn’t Chloe have to go to university?”
“You didn’t have to buy an entire campus,” Sara says to me under her breath.
“What are you talking about?” Chloe says, perking up at the mention of her name and the whispering that followed.
“I’ll tell you later,” Sara says. “But you haven’t answered my question. Has something happened? Why did you rush over here and now you need to see Raj all of a sudden?”
“Sara, he’s the only man I ever loved,” I say. “And the only one who loved me.”
Ryan scratches the back of his neck and looks mighty uncomfortable. But everyone in the room knows that he and I didn’t love each other, so it’s not like I’ve let out some big deadly secret.
“And today’s all I’ve got.” Speaking of deadly.
“That’s all anyone’s got,” Chloe says. “That’s what you always say, Auntie Del.”
“I’m glad to know I’m occasionally correct.”
“Let go, Del. If it’s time for anything, it’s time for that.” Sara takes a cracker or biscuit or whatever it is out of Ryan’s hand, and he reaches into the package for another.
“I’ll have to let go tomorrow no matter what,” I say.
“Delaney?” Sara gives me her most penetrating look.
“What?”
“You’re not terminal, are you?”
“Everybody is,” I say. “It’s just that my termination is sometime tomorrow.”
“You are so melodramatic,” Ryan says to me. “Do we have any more of these?” he says to Sara as he jiggles the near-empty cracker/biscuit package.
“Upper left,” Sara says, pointing, and Ryan procures a new package from the designated location.
“Tomorrow is it for me,” I say. I hadn’t intended to tell Chloe, but I guess I just have.
“Then you’d better live it up right now,” says Chloe.
“Let me talk to Raj,” I say to Sara.
“I’m sorry, Delaney,” Sara says. “But he and his family went to some remote place. There’re no connections there. He can’t be reached until tomorrow.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I say.
“Auntie Del, Raj was sitting right where you are when he told us that,” Chloe says. “And, besides that, it’s already tomorrow in India.”
Raj comes over to their house?
“Why have you kept him from me?” I say to Sara, and then throw a glare at Ryan while I’m at it.
“Delaney,” Sara says as she munches on the cracker she took from Ryan, “a hundred million years ago when you spent every night sobbing and you couldn’t make any decisions and you weren’t eating anything or taking care of yourself, you made me swear that no matter what, I had to keep you from seeing Raj again.”
“Why would I do that?”
Chapter 76
“Because you were so hurt,” Ryan says, “and you wanted to protect yourself.”
“And because you and Raj are just wrong for each other,” Sara says.
“You mean because he married his arranged bride,” I say.
“His wife is very nice,” Chloe says.
Sara shakes her head at Chloe and then looks at Ryan, who shakes his head. It’s like they’re tag-team lying to me.
