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Tampa, Florida, about
three months from now. We are standing in front of Bushman, the legendary
silverback gorilla, whose stuffed magnificence glowers at us from his little
marble stand in a first floor hallway, when Henry cries out, and staggers
forward, reaching urgently for me, and I grab him, and he's gone. The T-shirt
is warm empty cloth in my hands. I sigh, and walk upstairs to ponder the
mummies for a while by myself. My young self will be home now, climbing into
bed. I remember, I remember. I woke up in the morning and it was all a
wonderful dream. Mom laughed and said that time travel sounded fun, and she
wanted to try it, too. That was the first time.
     

 
     
     
    FIRST DATE, TWO
     
    Friday, September 23, 1977 (Henry is 36, Clare
is 6)
     
    Henry: I'm in the Meadow, waiting. I wait
slightly outside the clearing, naked, because the clothes Clare keeps for me in
a box under a stone are not there; the box isn't there either, so I am thankful
that the afternoon is fine, early September, perhaps, in some unidentified
year. I hunker down in the tall grass. I consider. The fact that there is no
box full of clothes means that I have arrived in a time before Clare and I have
met. Perhaps Clare isn't even born yet. This has happened before, and it's a
pain; I miss Clare and I spend the time hiding naked in the Meadow, not daring
to show myself in the neighborhood of Clare's family. I think longingly of the
apple trees at the western edge of the Meadow. At this time of year there ought
to be apples, small and sour and munched by deer, but edible. I hear the screen
door slam and I peer above the grass. A child is running, pell mell, and as it
comes down the path through the waving grass my heart twists and Clare bursts
into the clearing. She is very young. She is oblivious; she is alone. She is
still wearing her school uniform, a hunter green jumper with a white blouse and
knee socks with penny loafers, and she is carrying a Marshall Field's shopping
bag and a beach towel. Clare spreads the towel on the ground and dumps out the
contents of the bag: every imaginable kind of writing implement. Old ballpoint
pens, little stubby pencils from the library, crayons, smelly Magic Markers, a
fountain pen. She also has a bunch of her dad's office stationery. She arranges
the implements and gives the stack of paper a smart shake, and then proceeds to
try each pen and pencil in turn, making careful lines and swirls, humming to
herself. After listening carefully for a while I identify her humming as the
theme song of "The Dick Van Dyke Show."
    I hesitate. Clare is content, absorbed. She
must be about six; if it's September she has probably just entered first grade.
She's obviously not waiting for me, I'm a stranger, and I'm sure that the first
thing you learn in first grade is not to have any truck with strangers who show
up naked in your favorite secret spot and know your name and tell you not to
tell your mom and dad. I wonder if today is the day we are supposed to meet for
the first time or if it's some other day. Maybe I should be very silent and
either Clare will go away and I can go munch up those apples and steal some
laundry or I will revert to my regularly scheduled programming, I snap from my
reverie to find Clare staring straight at me. I realize, too late, that I have
been humming along with her.
    "Who's there?" Clare hisses. She
looks like a really pissed off goose, all neck and legs. I am thinking fast,
    "Greetings, Earthling," I intone,
kindly.
    "Mark! You nimrod!" Clare is casting
around for something to throw, and decides on her shoes, which have heavy,
sharp heels. She whips them off and does throw them. I don't think she can see
me very well, but she lucks out and one of them catches me in the mouth. My lip
starts to bleed.
    "Please don't do that." I don't have
anything to staunch the blood, so I press my hand to my mouth and my voice
comes out muffled. My jaw