Roll With It
Despite the best of intentions, like the idea of posting a new message at least once a month, too often things happen and life just gets in the way. So, to quote the old troubadour Steve WInwood, you’ve got to roll with it. I realized today that I hadn’t posted anything since October. So now it’s time to get back on track. I won’t make any attempts at a schedule, but I will try in all earnest to write with more frequency.
I’ve never stopped writing let’s get that straight right now. What I haven’t been doing is posting. I don’t spend much time on Linked In or Facebook, listing updates with any frequency. I do know some people who are on those sites with such frequency that you tend to wonder how they can do anything else. In that regard, I’m a bit of a dinosaur, where the occasional update is more than enough. But that’s me. Everybody should be free to do their own thing, so if you choose to put up pictures of your cat and share with the world what a remarkable creature that is, have at it.
As to the writing, let me start off with this update. After several starts and a number of infrequent stops, I’ve put the finishing touches on “Vanishing Act” the sequel to my first novel. This is a mystery that involves Jamie’s best friend, Linda, who rolls back into Jamie’s life with all of the subtlety of a tornado. The story has been accepted by Agora International, who has previously published my other works. I’m not sure when this will be available, but I’m anticipating that it will be out within the next couple of months. In the meantime, it’s back to the keyboards for me.
I borrowed a move that some of my favorite authors, like Harlan Coben, Greg Iles and Elmore Leonard have done in the past, where a minor character is introduced in “Vanishing Act” and will become the protagonist in my next effort. Truth be told, Jefferson Chene, the character I’m referring to, is someone I created years ago and I’ve been working on variations of novels with him ever since. Chene is a bit of an anomaly, abandoned at birth and raised by Catholic nuns in an orphanage, so he has a bit of an identity crisis that keeps him on edge. He’s a cop, trying to track down a serial killer. I’m about a hundred pages into this one, with the working title of “Why 319?”
In addition to writing, I’m also hoping to spend some time looking for either a literary agent or a traditional publisher who would be interested in taking a chance on me. With four novels completed, I’d like to think I’m a rookie no more. But that’s just my opinion. Time will tell.
My last post mentioned my efforts to work on a screenplay about vampires. That’s still in the hopper as well, so I plan to divide my writing time between Chene and the vampires. It will depend on my mood when I sit down to write as to which project gets my attention.
Last time I also gave you the beginning of a story called “Tick Tock”. Here’s the conclusion of that one.
They were on a stone bench just outside the building. Kellen was having a hard time sitting still. Over to the right, where the athletic buildings should be, was a vacant stretch of land. Across the quad should have been the science building. There was a massive two story barn. Kellen could see horses in their stalls through the open double doors. There were oak trees lining the cobblestone path that wound its way between the buildings. He doubted if there was a parking structure a quarter of a mile to the east, where it was supposed to be. There probably was no need for it.
“Where are we?”
“I believe the question you really want answered is ‘when are we’,” Ballard said softly. His eyes were focused on Kellen, awaiting his student’s expression. He was pleased when the grin split Kellen’s face.
“So it is time travel!”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Kellen began firing questions like a machine gun in a Schwarzenegger movie. “So how does it work? Where have you been? Can you go into the future as well? What about the girl?”
“Steady, Mr. Travis. One thing at a time.”
Kellen slowly drew a deep breath to gather his thoughts. He realized even the air was different. Cleaner. Despite the hint of livestock drifting in from the stables, it was considerably cleaner than in his own time. His own time. That concept would take some getting used to.
“To answer your first question, I’m not really sure how it works. It has something to do with my office. I’ve had the same rooms since the seventies. Prior to my occupancy, it belonged to a physics professor named Beckett. I believe he was the one to unlock the secret of the room.”
“Whatever happened to him?” Kellen asked.
“He never returned from a summer vacation. No one ever heard from him. They don’t know if he met with some type of accident or illness. Once the winter term started, they hired another professor on a permanent basis and offered me the office. Mine was being renovated and they were moving the science classrooms and offices into a new building.”
“So you don’t know how it works.”
“Not exactly. I’ve only been able to go back in time, never forward.”
“How far back?”
Ballard gestured toward the barn. “Just before the turn of the century. 1890’s I think.”
“You’re nothing but an old fake,” Kellen said, leaning back against the bench and crossing his arms over his chest.
“Whatever do you mean!”
“You don’t do hours of meticulous research. You use the machine to come back in time. No wonder you have insight into the different areas of your class. You’ve been there!”
“It’s still research,” Ballard said with a scowl. “Don’t discount it.”
“Does it take you anywhere beside the campus?”
“No. Although I have traveled about a few times into the surrounding villages and cities. But you have to be careful to blend in. You don’t want to raise suspicions or create some form of paradox.”
Kellen had risen from the bench and was pacing back and forth with nervous energy. “So have you changed anything?”
“I only observe.”
“You only observe! You could have saved lives. Ferdinand, Hitler, Hiroshima, the Hindenburg. Earthquakes, hurricanes, disease, accidents. And all you do is observe!”
“I don’t know what the repercussions would be. If I tried to inform the world about Hitler in 1935, who would have taken me seriously? Do you think I could just walk up to Roosevelt and tell him what would happen in the next ten years? How would I get him to believe me?
And even if I did save someone from an earthquake, how would I know who to save? Which one person is worth more than another? That’s not a choice I could make.”
Kellen stopped pacing and stared down at the professor. He could see the bones in his skull through the translucent skin. “What about the girl?”
A smile slowly crossed Ballard’s face. “Tick. Tock. My one true love. She was a graduate student when I began teaching here. My first class. I was only a couple of years older, but she grabbed my heart with both hands and has never let it go.”
“You randy old dog! You had a fling with a student!”
“I never did.”
“Oh, so you waited until she graduated. Or just until she was no longer in your class?”
“I never did,” Ballard repeated.
Kellen’s face went slack. “You never did. You never made it with the girl? Never?”
Ballard slowly shook his head.
“Then why is she here, back in the whenever that we are?”
“Her maternal grandmother was one of the first female professors at the university. Robin Albright was her name.”
“The grandma or your babe?”
A glimmer of disgust rolled across Ballard’s face. “Her name was also Robin. She was named after her grandmother. Her mother also attended the university. I’ve seen her here in the early fifties.”
“Did the mother look like Robin?”
Ballard nodded. “Almost identical. A slight difference in the eyes. Robin’s were a little rounder. A dazzling shade of green. Almost jade.”
“So Robin’s the key.”
Ballard shifted on the bench and Kellen could hear his bones creaking and settling. It reminded him of an old house moving on its foundation. “What key?”
“Professor, you’re a great teacher. You can get your class so geared up about history that they swear you invented it just for their enjoyment. You can weave stories about the times of war and politics and twist them around so they make sense. But when it comes to women, you don’t know shit!”
“I beg your pardon!”
Kellen sat down beside the old man. For a moment, he thought he looked even older than he had minutes before. Perhaps time travel was getting too strenuous for him.
“Look, Professor. No disrespect, but you’ve got to be blind not to see the connection. You can only travel back in time. You always return to the same site, your office inside the university. Every time you return, you catch a glimpse of the same woman. By your own admission, the woman who grabbed your heart with both hands and never let it go. Don’t you realize what this means?”
Ballard merely shook his head again slowly.
“You get another chance. The opportunity to spend time with the woman who stole your heart. That doesn’t happen every day. It hardly ever happens at all.”
“You’re so young. How would you know of these things?”
Behind them the doors to the building swung open and a steady stream of students began making their way toward the bench. Kellen stood and motioned for Ballard to follow. Slowly they began walking toward the stables, away from the throng of students.
“It’s not about age. At least, not mine. You never married. Probably because you never considered another woman after Robin. Is that right?”
“Other women had no appeal for me,” Ballard said quietly.
“Don’t you see? That’s what this whole thing is about. You and Robin are supposed to be together. What happened to her after graduate school?”
“She moved on. Started teaching at another university. A very successful career.” Ballard was speaking as if the conversation bored him.
Kellen leaned close. “Did she marry? Have a bundle of kids? Start driving a minivan? What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Kellen scoffed in disgust. “Let’s go back, Professor. I’ve got work to do.”
- * *
Back in his office, Ballard dropped the pencil on the desk and moved to the more comfortable leather chair behind it. He settled in and closed his eyes to rest. Kellen was using his telephone, chattering away to someone. Ballard was too tired to care. After a few moments, he heard the phone being returned to the cradle. Raising one eyelid, he saw Kellen lift the pencil and slowly began to roll it across his fingers. “It’ll never work,” Ballard muttered. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
He awoke a short time later to find Kellen sitting opposite him, a smug smile on his face. Ballard had the strange sensation that something was different, but he couldn’t determine what. He was reaching across the desk to retrieve his pencil from the blotter when the door opened. One look and the breath seemed to stop in his lungs.
“Darling. Aren’t you ready? I should think you’d be in the car with the motor running by now.”
“I kept him too long,” Kellen said, rising from his chair. “It’s not often someone gets one last chance to meet with such a popular professor on the eve of his retirement.”
“I can’t wait for it to start. We’ve been talking about this trip for years.”
Ballard’s eyes were still frozen on the figure at the door. She moved now around the desk and leaned in to graze his cheek with a kiss. He tilted his head and stared into her jade green eyes as she pulled back, a warm smile spreading across her face. “Hurry along, Darling. I’ll be in the car.”
With that, she turned and left the room. She squeezed Kellen’s hand on the way, and then closed the door silently behind her.
“What have you done?” Ballard asked.
“What you should have done. I merely got the two of you together.”
“How?”
“I checked the alumni office. She had taken a job at a smaller university across the state. Worked there thirty years. Never married. Poured her whole life into her work and her students.”
Ballard swallowed hard. “Just like…”
“Just like you. So I went back to the first time, where she was a grad student. And I talked some sense into you. Tick tock.”
“But the paradox…”
“I wasn’t around in the seventies, Professor. You were. The whole time I met with that version of you, the current you was snoozing right in that chair. Close your eyes and think for a moment. Do you have any memories of Robin that you didn’t have before?”
Ballard did as Kellen suggested. He could visualize snippets of events, like clips from an upcoming movie. She was in every one.
“My god!”
“Nope. Just as it was supposed to be.”
Ballard drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked now at his left hand, still stretched out to retrieve the pencil. A thin gold wedding band adorned it. He raised his eyes to Kellen.
“What’s in it for you?”
Kellen shrugged. “I’m just setting things right. But we did make a deal with the university. I took a little side trip after my meeting with the earlier you. Changed my major to history. As your favorite graduate student, I received your nomination to succeed you next fall.”
“Well done, Mr. Travis.”
Kellen escorted Ballard out of the building to the parking area, where Robin sat waiting patiently. As the professor keyed the engine he looked up at Kellen one last time. “Thanks for everything.”
“No need to thank me. I got what I really wanted.”
“What’s that?”
“Your office.”
END
