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then when I’d mention your name, Tom, she’d get weird . She kept sayin’ stuff about time —time passing, time taking me away, we’re all prisoners of time... I tried to keep her talking. I was afraid maybe she was calling to say she was gonna kill herself.
    "And then came the power drive. She said she was going to get married! She said she’d met some guy somewhere, I dunno, she didn’t go into it. But she didn’t know if she wanted to, it was all messed up, she couldn’t stop thinking of me...
    "I congratulated her, but then she started crying—you know, hysterically. Maybe I shouldn’t have congratulated her. But hey, she was getting married...
    "So here’s the upshot, Tom—guys. After I drop off this little video, I’m gettin’ in my poor TSE TSE to go meet her where she’s staying, in—oh man —Niagara Falls. She says we’ll meet out in the open, she’ll stay calm, she just needs to see me once more and talk face to face...
    "I dunno, pal. If I don’t do it, maybe all this won’t stop. But it’s got to stop. Maybe it’s my fault. I was stupid. I have more feelings than people—
    "I mean, I should have known what was happening to her. Now, I would. Then, jetz!— I was just a kid . I hadn’t even been to the moon.
    "So off I go. Sorry I couldn’t tell you, Tom. You’re my pal, my best pal. But you’re a guy, so you know how it is. It’s my prob. For this once, I have to solve it on my own. No science, genius boy. That’s a please .
    "No big deal. I outweigh her. But if she does get crazy, if something happens—
    "No, nothing’s gonna happen. I’ll just be out of touch for a night, maybe another, and now you know why. The story. Even before my Mom and Dad.
    " Well Tom . There it is.
    "See you, all of you, in a day or two."
    A day or two passed.
    Another.
    Another.
    No Bud.
     

CHAPTER 5
SKATER’S WALTZ
    THE TRIP to Niagara Falls from little Shopton was an easy one for TSE TSE, even with its humiliated windshield. Bud took a motel room in a little tourist hamlet with a view of the silvered cataract a couple miles distant. He waited until, as arranged, his cellphone brought Rose Reb to his ear.
    "You said a public place, Reb," Bud reminded her. "My room isn’t a public place, not even if I leave the door open."
    "I know what I said." Her tone was neither angry nor sad, but oddly distended in an other-worldly manner. Jetz , Bud thought, she’s phoning in from the capital of Lower Schizophrenia!
    He went on, "So what’s your pleasure, Reb? Dinner somewhere? Casual dress this time, hunh? No tapioca."
    She ignored the gibe. "I’ve found a good place for us to meet, just a little place, like a patio. We can walk to a restaurant." She gave him directions to an open-air plaza next to some shops.
    "Got it," Bud said.
    Before he could go on, Rose Reb interrupted in a sudden rush of obscure emotion. "Bud, I’m—I’m so sorry about—about everything. I broke into your apartment... the windshield... My meds make me kind of obsessive, really out of control—"
    "Those are great meds, Reb."
    " I don’t need that! " she snapped, her mood flipping on an instant. Then it switched channels to maudlin dripping. "Oh, it’s... sad but wonderful. I’m getting married..."
    "You told me."
    "I haven’t known him long. He can handle me. He’s not like you , Bud. He can... understand. He helps me make sense of things."
    The San Franciscan had an intuition. "He’s the one who pushed you to see me again. Right?"
    "He thought it would be good for me. I need to put all this away. I want my life with him to be unencumbered. See? No more past. Cut time off with a knife."
    A knife. Knew I shoulda come packing a repelatron , Bud thought wryly. He wondered how hard it would be to tune Tom’s selective force-ray to "girl."
    "Reb... not to be rude. But you’re not going to make a scene or anything. Are you? We’ll both live through this? Al body parts still attached?"
    She giggled—another flip of channel.