Never Enough Time, page 25
“He taught you well.”
“Everything’s connected,” Delaney says as she plows through her stack of pancakes. “Funny how that works out.”
“It is,” I say.
“I mean, my dad could’ve been Delaney’s son. At least that’s what Mum told me.”
“How’s that?” I say as casually as I can. The new me seems better at this sort of thing. Delaney Archer would’ve sounded like a bloody fool, at least to herself, and quite the forced fool, at the very best, to anyone else.
“My grandfather and she were an item for a while. So goes the legend.”
“Who’s your grandfather?” I say, sounding more and more forced. More like Delaney Archer herself would sound. I’ve slowed down my pancake consumption.
“Raj—Sharma, of course. Just like me. Delaney Sharma.”
She puts more pancake on her fork than any sumo wrestler could deal with and shoves it into her mouth.
“Oh, he’s such a bore,” she says between chews. “I cannot imagine that the exciting, exotic Delaney Archer would’ve given him the time of day, much less have been his girlfriend for like two seconds.”
“Or seven seconds,” I say.
“That’s so funny you should say that!” Delaney says, laughing and chewing and smiling. “Mum and Gran argue all the time about some seven thing that’s part of the Delaney Archer legend.”
“You don’t say,” I say. I’d love to listen in on one of those arguments.
“I do say,” she says. “Want more pancakes?” She’s finished hers and I’m still working on mine.
“Give me a few more bites, and I’ll let you know,” I say. She’s Raj’s granddaughter, I say to myself. And Raj’s nice arranged wife is her grandmother.
She gets up and goes back to the stove to make more pancakes before I have a chance to have even one more bite.
“That’s the reason Mum rented you the house, you know,” she says as she piles the finished pancakes onto a platter.
“What reason is that?” I say.
“Gran and Mum had a fantastic argument about it, but Mum insisted. Something about how, even though this is totally impossible, Delaney Archer herself read your book to Mum when she was visiting here in Westchester. When Mum was a kid. You know, like a zillion years ago. Even though that can’t be true, which is what the argument was about.”
“Because I hadn’t even been born yet,” I say.
“Exactly,” says Delaney. “As Gran kept saying, but Mum kept arguing. You know, the original Delaney was Gran’s best friend—and she was going to be a philosopher, but then something happened and she became a tycoon instead.”
“A tycoon?” I start laughing and have to beg myself to stop. “Can I have some more pancakes, please?”
“Yeah. After her grad school boyfriend ditched her for some kind of stupid arranged marriage, she went nuts, dropped out of the philosophy program—the story goes that she was so disillusioned by the breakup that she rejected philosophy altogether—and got an MBA. Even though my grandparents begged her not to.”
“That’s interesting,” I say, wondering what the truth is, or if it matters. Wondering if I should tell Delaney that it was her paternal grandfather who’s the one with the stupid arranged marriage. To her paternal grandmother.
“It is interesting,” she says as she brings the second helpings to the table. We both refill our plates from the platter.
“It’s all part of the legend of Delaney Archer,” she says. “It’s so amazing that I’m named after her! I hope I can have half so interesting a life.”
“Everyone’s life is interesting,” I say. “It’s what comes between.”
“Comes between? You are so obtuse!”
“Between us and the void,” I say. “Although even the void is beautiful.”
Delaney and I are eating our second helpings as though they’re the firsts and were preceded by a month of fasting.
“Oh . . . but . . . Claire—you don’t mind if you I call you by your first name, do you?” Delaney says. Although I nod, she’s not even looking at me, and she goes ahead. “Claire—don’t tell Mum this. She doesn’t know and she’ll go crazy if she finds out. You know how doctors are, and she’s second generation.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” I say. “I’m a master secret keeper.” Especially when I’m helped along by seven-year absences. I try to picture Chloe as a physician, but the image won’t form.
“Because, you know, if it’s not a medical profession, then it’s no good. Although Dad’s a chef, and she doesn’t seem to mind about that. You know, but that’s Dad. He could do anything and Mum would approve of it. I’m going to be an architect.”
“That sounds like fun,” I say.
“I’m terrible at math but I don’t care. I’ll figure it out.”
“Of course you will.”
“I’m full. Finally,” Delaney says, sighing and leaning back. There’s nothing left on either of our plates and the platter’s empty.
“Me too,” I say. “Thanks for making breakfast.”
“Well, really, I wanted to meet you. And also make sure you got settled in okay.”
“That was great,” I say. “I have to go into the city.”
Chapter 88
“Hang on and I’ll walk with you to the station,” says Delaney.
She puts the dishes in the sink, reassures me that she’ll wash them before I return, grabs a sweatshirt, and we leave the house.
Not that I expected any, but there’re no keys, no locks, and nothing resembling a home-security system in this even-more-distant future than the ones I’ve already lived in.
The house itself, I see from the outside, is as unremarkable as a house can be, although it’s far bigger inside than it seems from out here.
I try to picture myself purchasing this, but that was another me. A me I never really knew much about and had little time to discover. A tycoon me.
“I know,” Delaney says when she catches me staring at the place. “You probably didn’t see it that well when you got in last night. And after a long flight like that, you must’ve been beat.”
“I feel fine now,” I say.
“My houses will be much better to look at,” she says. “And live in.”
“Of course they will,” I say.
“Isn’t India amazing?” Delaney says as we start down the street.
I’m glad I was in India. Finally. I hope I saw everything I wanted to see. Even without Raj.
“It’s got great trains,” I say, throwing out some fact that may no longer be true.
“The magrail,” Delaney says. “I know. It’s the best. Amazing.”
“Yeah,” I say. Everything is amazing, I don’t say. What is the magrail? I also don’t say.
“This neighborhood, these houses”—Delaney gestures around at everything we’re walking past—“it’s all so ordinary. When I build houses, they’re going to be beautiful. Everyone should have beauty.”
“They do,” I say, “only they don’t realize it.”
“You really are philo-soph-i-cal,” Delaney says, laughing. “I guess that’s how you ended up writing The Path of the Mystic. I love that scene when Amy’s seven and the crow shows up.”
“I love that scene too,” I say.
But I don’t say that I remember reading the book to her mum, Chloe, when she was a little girl. When I was Delaney Archer. When the sevens terrified me. When I would dread every approaching night, always thinking that I wasn’t ready for tomorrow. Because I wasn’t.
“Are you planning to stay in New York long?”
I look at Delaney, not knowing what to say.
Delaney waves her hands in front of her. “Oh no! Don’t worry. Mum doesn’t mind. It doesn’t matter. You can stay as long as you want. Or you can leave tomorrow. She told me that anything you wanted was tickety-boo.”
“It’s just that I’m not sure yet.”
“That’s fine,” Delaney says.
We’re at the train station now. Despite the modern magrail that India has, per Delaney, Metro-North hasn’t changed one fucking bit. The station is, as Delaney would say, boring, and I suspect the train will be as well.
“Have a beautiful day,” Delaney says. “Train should be here in seven minutes.”
I stifle a laugh. “Thanks for breakfast, Del,” I say.
She laughs. “Only Mum calls me that! Wait’ll I tell her. And wait’ll I tell her that I met you in person!”
Delaney turns to leave, walks a few steps, then runs back and hugs me.
“I hope we get to spend more time together, Claire,” she says. “I really like you.”
“Same here,” I say. “Maybe I can help you with the math.” Assuming I remember any of it, which perhaps I do.
“That’d be great!”
Delaney gives me another hug, then skips off, and I’m left on the platform, alone.
Just as I guessed, the train is nothing special, fitting in perfectly with Metro-North’s expected dull, it-could-be-1980-and-time’s-been-suspended modus operandi. In a way, it’s comforting.
I get on the train, sit by myself in a seat meant for three people, and watch the scenery, as dull and magnificent as it is, go by. As quickly as life goes by.
New plain, lackluster construction has crowded out the fascinating, detailed old, but the train rolls past an astounding, vibrant mural spanning the sides of four contiguous buildings, and I see each of the seasons in their colors, moods, characters, and ecstasies, as they arise and fade in swift succession.
Farther into the Bronx, the roofs and facades of a series of nondescript structures are adorned with gorgeous multicolored patterned flags, banners, and streamers that furl, unfurl, snap, and billow in the breeze, intensifying as the train passes by.
When we get to the tunnel at 97th Street and all’s dark, I hold my breath against the fluttering in my abdomen, but the sparks break through anyway.
I exhale short, rapid puffs of anticipation.
This is what I’ve chosen.
Whatever past I have in this life is unseen by me.
And my other life, the one where I was Delaney Archer, the adventurer on the path of the sevens, is a memory whose traces are scattered throughout the cosmos.
Chapter 89
The train pulls into Grand Central Terminal, and I’m startled by the new look of the underground tunnel, which used to be forbidding, dark, dreary, and damp. You’d get off the train and rush to get out of here, sure that if you didn’t you’d be spending the rest of your days trapped in the stifling, hellish railroad catacombs.
But now the tunnel’s bright, lit up, painted and mosaicked with scenes of the outdoors, with glimpses of what lies just outside and what lies inside the imaginations of the passengers.
You could stay down here forever admiring it all, and the other departing passengers, some as mesmerized as I am, can’t help but stop to look at whatever catches their fancy, point it out to their companions or even to a stranger, and, unlike in the past, when these tunnels were silent except for the humming of machinery and fans, there’s lively conversation all around me.
“That’s the New York side of Niagara,” a woman ahead of me says, pointing to a mosaic of the falls that spills down from the ceiling, and her toddler son stares up, his mouth hanging open.
“Is that a heron?” a teenage boy asks his friend, who nods and says, “Look over there! That’s what Forty-second Street used to look like!”
“Mom!” says a little girl who’s yanking on her mother’s hand. They stop in the middle of the platform as the girl points to a spot across from her on the wall. “A salamander! It’s striped!”
I follow the little girl’s hand to see the sparkling mosaic of a striped salamander and wonder if Senusret were the model, since it looks quite like him. And even though it’s just a mosaic and not the real Senusret, salamander and sometime pharaoh, I salute him and wave.
The main room of the terminal is as busy as it ever was, maybe more so. And still so beautiful, with the constellations high, high overhead, the fabulous clock at the huge room’s center, and the grand staircases at either end. Although there’s no one in the now-closed ticket booths and information kiosk.
I walk slowly through it all, marveling at it, watching everyone, and also looking for someone. But the waiting area where I sat a few days ago—many many years ago—although it has many wonderful, engrossing, fascinating faces, there’s none that’s familiar.
And I expected to see him here.
Instead, I go out into the street, where the activity is dizzying. Strangers smile at me and I smile back. It’s warmer here in the city than it was in Westchester—the heat of the sun as it climbs, of the pulsing crowds, of the city itself.
“I love your dress,” says a woman who rushes by so quickly I don’t have time to respond.
I walk over to Fifth Avenue. The city’s so different-looking, yet it’s got the same expectant energy, the same gushing flow as it’s always had since I first saw it when I was the five-year-old Delaney Archer.
On Fifth, I’m thrilled to see the library’s still here. I’m not sure why anyone needs a library anymore—isn’t everything contained inside oneself somehow in this age where no one carries around anything?—but the Beaux Arts beauty, along with its two guarding lions, is open, so I go up the grand stairs and inside.
I’m drawn to the exhibit space, where there’s a display of old-time computers, telephones, and televisions, and no informational labels to explain anything.
“Can you believe anyone ever used this junk?” says a teenage girl to her boyfriend. The two of them, smiling and laughing and poking each other, are just ahead of me in the next gallery, where there’re sleek tablets, thin laptops, huge flat-to-the-wall TV screens, and snazzy smartphones displayed. If I were still the teenage Delaney Archer I was a few days ago, I’d think I’d wandered into a store, not a museum.
But to these teenagers, the objects that’re cracking them up must look like the antiques in the first room looked to me.
I wander through the rest of the exhibit, which if I had to give it a title, I’d call it Stuff No One Needs Anymore, then wander back outside. It’s my first day in this lifetime, and I don’t want to be inside for one more second.
Behind the library, Bryant Park is busy with the early lunch crowd, with tourists—New York City is ever the popular tourist destination, I see—and with trees, flowers, and the wonder of springtime.
Chapter 90
Over on Sixth Avenue, I watch myself as I descend the stairs into the subway. I don’t want to be inside a gorgeous library but I do want to be underground, in the subway?
Yet as I get on the D train—this, unlike Metro-North, is fabulously sleek and new and exciting and future-ish—I feel the pull even stronger.
I love the ocean and I must see it. And what better place to see it than at Coney Island?
Even if it’s not summer yet. Even if the crowds aren’t there yet. Even if I can’t go swimming.
But I love the ocean, the salt air, the sand, the rise and fall of the waves, the smells and sensations and the way everything tastes and sounds there. Like Senusret, I know that much about love.
The subway is fast. I feel like I’m being catapulted to my destination, rocketed there by forces so strong they could send me to Mars in less time than it used to take to get to Coney from 42nd Street. In less time than it took me to get from one life to the next.
When we get to the last stop, there’re only two other people on the train with me, a woman and her young daughter. The three of us disembark, walk down the stairs, and emerge into the bright sunlight and cool, salty air.
The daughter holds up her hands, and her mother hoists her easily, resting her on her hip, then crosses the street, walking toward the boardwalk and the ocean.
Although Coney’s changed over my lifetimes, the ocean, the atmosphere, the feel of the place are all just like themselves—unstoppable.
I walk up the boardwalk a little, get a straw hat from a little shop that specializes in such things, wonder how the fuck I’ve paid for it using the same walk-out-with-it method I’ve been using for the last week, kick off my shoes, and run onto the beach and out toward the sea.
The ocean’s cold. But it feels perfect as it washes over my feet and ankles.
I squat down to pick up a shell, its smooth pink interior begging to be touched, and a pair of bare feet with fraying jeans rolled up over their ankles come into view.
“I heard that people once used shells as currency,” says a beautiful male voice.
“I think they still do,” I say as I pick up the shell and stand.
“I used to know someone, back when I was a ghost,” the man says. He’s blond, sunburnt, and wearing a black T-shirt, also somewhat frayed. Both of us are squinting in the sunlight flashing off the sea.
“I had a spirit guide once,” I say.
“Unrequited love’s a hard thing,” says the former ghost. The two of us start walking up the shoreline, kicking at the water, his hand brushing against mine.
“Sometimes when your lover leaves you for his arranged bride, it takes a lifetime to fully understand everything,” I say.
“I had duties as well,” Bennet says, “although I admit that I neglected many of them.”
“I was on the path of the sevens,” I say. “It seemed inexorable. I didn’t know how to stop it. I resented it. I didn’t recognize myself. And I was afraid.”
“Yet I would never have met you otherwise.”
We walk in silence for a while, then he steps playfully on my foot and we stop.
“I’ve resigned my commission,” Bennet says. “It’s hard to get out of, this spirit guide business. But Senusret helped me.”
“He understands things I may never get to,” I say.
“He’s much older than us,” says Bennet, “and he’s naturally more insightful.”
I breathe in the salt air, tasting it, and turn to look at Bennet. The ocean breeze ruffles his hair. His gray-blue eyes sparkle, reflecting the reflected sun.
