Read From Time to Time for Free Online Page A
Authors: Jack Finney
said, "But what I do like to think about is Rube Prien. And Esterhazy. Living entirely different lives now, far ahead in the future. Never knowing about a-a what?-a different sequence of time in which there had been a Project. But I liked Dr. D, Julia. And he trusted me. What I did was like murder. So I don't want to visit my own time, because you know the first thing I'd do? I'd pick up a New York phone book and look up E. E. Danziger. Knowing it wouldn't be there. Couldn't be. Because I came back to the past . . . and changed the future.
One of the pleasures of nineteenth-century life had been giving up some of the relentless self-examination of the twentieth. And now-enough! I smiled at Julia lying wide-eyed beside me, and said, "So I'm staying right here. With the girl who led the intruder from the twentieth century up the back stairs of her Aunt Ada's boarding house. While I followed, watching her marvelous legs in those truly lovely, thick, blue-and-white-striped wool stockings.
You should have looked elsewhere.
"I did. Here.
"Now, now.
"And here.
"Si, we are talking seriously. And it's very late. This is not the time for that. But it was.
CHAPTER 2
The YOUNG WOMAN looked up from her computer keyboard, smiling pleasantly, and gestured the next patient into the doctor's office. He appeared to be in his late thirties, was bald, with red- blond hair at the back and sides, and-crossing the small room purposefully, very nearly belligerently-looked to be just under average height. Heavy shoulders, though, and thick through the chest.
Waiting at his desk, the doctor said pleasantly, "Sit down, please, nodding at a small couch that faced his desk. "Be with you in a sec. Just looking over your sheet. The doctor looked thirty-five, wore a faded green tennis shirt, and his hair was yellow brown and thick. But not air-blown, the patient decided, approving. No goddamn alligator on the shirt either.
He sat down to wait, his back barely touching the cushion behind him, sitting almost bolt upright, not accepting the offered softness and comfort. His hands lay unmoving on his thighs, and he kept his pink-skinned face placid as he looked around. More like a living room than an office, he thought: overlapping miniature rugs; the entire wall behind the desk bookshelves; a wide window ledge at the side scattered with publications; framed photographs of sailboats; wooden shutters darkening the room, secluding it from the world. lie didn't like it. Then he made him self sit back, and forced his shoulders to release their tension. Hostility at the self-imposed necessity of being here was unproductive.
The man at the desk tilted head and paper simultaneously to read along a margin. "My secretary has noted that you prefer not to give your name.
"Well, we'll see. Tell me something first. Are you a regular doctor?
"I'm not an M.D. I have a doctorate in psychology.
"I've always understood that what a man tells a doctor is confidential. That apply to you?
Absolutely.
He considered that, nodded thoughtfully, then unexpectedly smiled, so warmly and genuinely that the man at the desk felt an immediate response, a surge of wanting to help; but aware, too, that the patient was taking charge. "We can add my name later if need be, the patient said. "The thing is, I'm an officer in the Army.
"I thought so.
"Oh? he said in a prove-it tone.
"Well, I don't want to come off as Sherlock Holmes, but there are no cuffs on your pants. A solid-color knit tie. White shirt. And you haven't unbuttoned your coat. There's a neatness about you that says Army to me. If your suit were khaki instead of blue, I'd salute.
"Well, you're pretty good. A brother officer claims my pajamas have epaulets. I like the Army. Only reason I'm out of uniform is the work I'm doing these days. And the only reason I'm here instead of an army shrink-sorry.
"That's okay. I say it too.
"I don't want it in my jacket, my army file, that I consulted a, uh-
"Psychologist: I'm
One of the pleasures of nineteenth-century life had been giving up some of the relentless self-examination of the twentieth. And now-enough! I smiled at Julia lying wide-eyed beside me, and said, "So I'm staying right here. With the girl who led the intruder from the twentieth century up the back stairs of her Aunt Ada's boarding house. While I followed, watching her marvelous legs in those truly lovely, thick, blue-and-white-striped wool stockings.
You should have looked elsewhere.
"I did. Here.
"Now, now.
"And here.
"Si, we are talking seriously. And it's very late. This is not the time for that. But it was.
CHAPTER 2
The YOUNG WOMAN looked up from her computer keyboard, smiling pleasantly, and gestured the next patient into the doctor's office. He appeared to be in his late thirties, was bald, with red- blond hair at the back and sides, and-crossing the small room purposefully, very nearly belligerently-looked to be just under average height. Heavy shoulders, though, and thick through the chest.
Waiting at his desk, the doctor said pleasantly, "Sit down, please, nodding at a small couch that faced his desk. "Be with you in a sec. Just looking over your sheet. The doctor looked thirty-five, wore a faded green tennis shirt, and his hair was yellow brown and thick. But not air-blown, the patient decided, approving. No goddamn alligator on the shirt either.
He sat down to wait, his back barely touching the cushion behind him, sitting almost bolt upright, not accepting the offered softness and comfort. His hands lay unmoving on his thighs, and he kept his pink-skinned face placid as he looked around. More like a living room than an office, he thought: overlapping miniature rugs; the entire wall behind the desk bookshelves; a wide window ledge at the side scattered with publications; framed photographs of sailboats; wooden shutters darkening the room, secluding it from the world. lie didn't like it. Then he made him self sit back, and forced his shoulders to release their tension. Hostility at the self-imposed necessity of being here was unproductive.
The man at the desk tilted head and paper simultaneously to read along a margin. "My secretary has noted that you prefer not to give your name.
"Well, we'll see. Tell me something first. Are you a regular doctor?
"I'm not an M.D. I have a doctorate in psychology.
"I've always understood that what a man tells a doctor is confidential. That apply to you?
Absolutely.
He considered that, nodded thoughtfully, then unexpectedly smiled, so warmly and genuinely that the man at the desk felt an immediate response, a surge of wanting to help; but aware, too, that the patient was taking charge. "We can add my name later if need be, the patient said. "The thing is, I'm an officer in the Army.
"I thought so.
"Oh? he said in a prove-it tone.
"Well, I don't want to come off as Sherlock Holmes, but there are no cuffs on your pants. A solid-color knit tie. White shirt. And you haven't unbuttoned your coat. There's a neatness about you that says Army to me. If your suit were khaki instead of blue, I'd salute.
"Well, you're pretty good. A brother officer claims my pajamas have epaulets. I like the Army. Only reason I'm out of uniform is the work I'm doing these days. And the only reason I'm here instead of an army shrink-sorry.
"That's okay. I say it too.
"I don't want it in my jacket, my army file, that I consulted a, uh-
"Psychologist: I'm
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