I was
looking for Reggie when Tim Caswell spotted me in the corridor of Penumbra.
“Hey,”
he said.
I
winced, hoping he’d forgotten our last talk. “Hi.”
He
laughed. “Caught you.”
“I was
actually looking for Reg …”
“Is it
important?” he asked.
“What?”
I said. “Uh, well, no, I guess not. Not really.”
Sometimes
I have to stop to admire how articulate I can be. This was not one of those
times.
“Good,”
Tim said. “Then it can wait.”
He
beckoned and led me into the radio station, where we sat down in some chairs a
few meters away from the microphone.
I
fidgeted a little, wishing I could hear the song that was playing throughout
the ship so I could lose myself in the words or the instruments, but he’d
turned down the volume so it was inaudible. I looked at the blinking lights on
the control panel, the crumpled candy wrapper on the floor next to the
wastebasket, a scuff mark on the floor that looked like a bent cactus.
In
short, I did almost everything but ask him what I wanted to ask.
Tim
might not spend a lot of time around people, but he’s not dumb.
“You
want me to find Reg for you?” he asked.
“No,
thanks,” I said. “I can’t ask him any more than I can ask you.”
“Ask us
what?”
“What’s
going to happen?” I slouched down in my chair. “Don’t answer that.”
“Happen
where?” Tim asked.
“In my
novel. In my life. In the U.S. Everywhere.”
When I
saw the puzzled look on his face, I added, “Sorry. Never mind. It doesn’t
matter.”
“I can’t
tell you anything,” Tim said, “but maybe I could walk out of here and leave the
database unlocked.”
I shook
my head. “I’m trying not to get you
fired.”
“Okay,
so what set this off?”
“A lot
of stuff. Amazingly enough, having the Cubs win the World Series didn’t solve
the world’s problems. Or mine, although it made them a little less obvious for
a while there.”
Tim
started to say something, but then he shut up.
“No,” I
said. “You can’t say whether they did it again. Why am I even having this
conversation?”
“So you
won’t have to tell me about the cubicle?”
I
laughed, which felt good.
“If I
did walk out of here,” Tim asked, “would you look?”
“No,” I
said without hesitation. I’ve always had a fear of knowing the future, because
if it’s not good, I can’t do a thing about it. If I don’t know, I can still hope
for the best. “Would you?”
He
thought about it for a while. “No, I guess not. But I do know this: you’re not
going to tell me about working in a cubicle.”
“Not if
I can help it,” I said. “You’re better off not knowing.”
“It’s
funny,” Tim said. “I’m not a big fan of secrets, but we can both keep ours: don’t
ever tell me and we’ll be even.”
“It’s a deal,”
I said.
I can hope for the best, but will I?
I’ll
try.
