Rollback

So, why not? It was a harmless enough fiction, and he really hated having to explain his current situation; he certainly didn’t want to go over the whole sorry mess with everyone he met. Besides, he’d probably never see this girl again.

"Nice to meet you!" said Lenore. "I’ve met your grandfather a couple of times. What a charming fellow!"

He was pleased by this assessment, and allowed himself a small smile. "That he is."

"And how is—" Don felt himself holding his breath. If she had finished her sentence with "your grandmother," he doubted he could have gone on with the charade, but she said, "And how is Professor Halifax?"

"She’s fine."

"That’s good," said Lenore, but then she surprised Don by shaking her head. "I sometimes wish I were older." She smiled and got up, tugging at the tied-up part of her T-shirt after she’d done so to get it to sit properly, which had the effect, for a moment, of emphasizing her breasts. "See, I could have had her as my thesis supervisor. Not that Professor Danylak isn’t great, but, you know, it’s frustrating studying where the most famous person in my chosen field actually worked and having almost no interaction with her."

"Your specialty is SETI, too?"

She nodded. "Yup. So, as you can imagine, Professor Halifax is a bit of a hero of mine."

"Ah," he said. He looked briefly around the room, because—

Because, he realized, he’d probably been looking too intently, too long, at the very attractive young woman. There were the usual fabric-covered room dividers, and one wall was lined by filing cabinets. The paperless office and the flying car had been a few years in the future for his entire life, but maybe, finally, he’d actually now live long enough to eventually see one or the other become a reality.

He opened his mouth to go on, but caught himself in time. He’d been about to say "Sarah asked me to…," but who the hell calls his own grandmother by her first name? And yet he couldn’t bring himself to actually say, "My grandmother." After a second, he fell back on the passive voice. "I’ve been asked to pick up some old files."

"Oh, I know," said Lenore. "I’m the low person on the totem pole here; I’m the one who had to dig around for them down in the basement." She was about five-foot-four, although presumably never thought of herself that way; his generation had been the last Canadian one to be taught imperial measures in school. "Let me get them for you."

She walked across the room, and he found his eyes tracking the movement of her rear end through her shorts. Sitting on top of one of the filing cabinets was a stack almost a foot high of papers stuffed into several manila file folders.

Don was worried that his new looks didn’t quite stand up to scrutiny; his own appearance these days was so startling to himself that part of him assumed it should be startling to others, too. But as she handed the great pile of paper to him, she gave no sign if she found anything out of the ordinary about him.

For his part, he found himself noticing the gentle hint of fruit fragrance — how wonderful to have his sense of smell back! It wasn’t perfume. More likely, he thought, it was her shampoo or conditioner, and it was quite pleasant.

"My goodness," he said. "I didn’t expect there to be so much!"

"Do you need a hand getting it all down to your car?" asked Lenore.

"Actually, I took the subway."

"Oh! I can get you a box to put it in."

"Thanks, but…" She lifted her orange eyebrows, and he went on. "It’s just I was going to go to the Art Gallery this afternoon. They’ve got a special exhibition of Robyn Herrington blown glass that I want to see."

"Heck, the Art Galley is only a couple of blocks south of here. Why don’t you leave the papers here, and pick them up when you’re done?"

"I don’t want to be a bother."

"Oh, it’s no bother at all! I’ll be here straight through until 5:00."

"Workaholic, eh? You must really like it here."

She leaned her shapely rump against a nearby desk. "Oh, yes. It’s terrific."

"You’re doing a Ph.D.?"

"Not yet. I’m just finishing my master’s."

"Is this where you did your undergrad?"

"Nah. I went to Simon Fraser."

He nodded. "And is that where home is? Vancouver?"

"Yup. And, no offense, it sure beats this place. I miss the ocean, I miss the mountains, and I can’t stand the climate here."

"But don’t you get tired of all the rain in Vancouver?"

"I don’t even notice it; it’s what I’m used to. But the snow here in winter! And the humidity now. I’d die if it weren’t for air-conditioning."

Don wasn’t much of a fan of Toronto’s climate either. He nodded again. "So, are you going to move back after you finish here?"

"Nah, probably not. I want to go somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Not nearly enough SETI searching has been done of the southern skies."

"Anywhere in particular?" asked Don.

"The University of Canterbury has a great astronomy department."

"Where’s that?"

"New Zealand. Christchurch."

"Ah," said Don. "Mountains and the ocean."

She smiled. "Exactly."

"Have you ever been there?"

"No, no. But someday…"