Page 25 of Time After Time

So, we stand there, two figures in the middle of winter’s joy, holding memories in warm paper cups.

CHAPTER 7

Ember

“Where did Ransom go?” Aksel asks, looking around at the village square where I was sitting on a bench, nibbling on roasted chestnuts.

“Shetook him away.” Freja wiggles her eyebrows. “I hope she gives good head because she’s got the personality of a?—”

“Why do women think that all we care about is good head?” Jonathan demands with mock affront.

Freja arches an eyebrow. “Would you rather be with a woman who cooks a nice meal or sucks you off?—”

“La, la, la, la!” Aksel exclaims. “I don’t need my sister to talk about sex.”

“Actually, she’s talking about a blow job,” I interject mischievously.

Aksel iscutewhen he gets flustered about hissisters getting it on with a man. Even now, when I’m thirty and Freja is in her late thirties, Aksel gets all sanctimonious about it.

Freja takes a chestnut from my newspaper cone and peels it. “Regardless, neither of you can tell me that Ransom wantsthat.”

“Mama says he’s going to propose to her.” I hold up the chestnuts to Jonathan, who shakes his head.

“He hasn’t said a thing to me.” Aksel grabs a chestnut. “I think it’s casual. Like,verycasual.”

“Like friends with head benefits?” Freja remarks.

Aksel scowls. “Something like that. He was very fucked up after Olivia and…then there was someone he got serious about. Never told me who. But he ended it, saying she was too young. Since then, there’s just been…you know…casual fucking.”

If my eyes could pop out cartoon style, they would’ve. How manytoo youngwomen had Ransom dated? Me and…who?

“He doesn’t look like someone who has an age hangup.” Freja bites into the chestnut and chews thoughtfully. “Jonathan, would you give me up if I were younger than you?”

My sister’s husband, who is three years her junior, pretends to give it some thought. “Baby, considering how I look, it’s better for me that the women I’m with are older and have poor vision. Otherwise, I’d think they just want me for my good looks.”

We all groan at his lame joke.

Jonathan is a pretty boy, period, full stop. He’s got that whole JFK thing going, including my sister, who’s a blonde Jackie O.

“I’m getting tired! I want to go home.” Freja sits down next to me. “Aksel, can you text Ransom, tell him to come over now or find a way back for himself and his lady?”

“Stop calling her that. It’s insulting to ladies,” Aksel remarks as he pulls his phone out.

Before he can text, a trio strikes up—violin, accordion, tambourine—spilling out a Savoyard folk tune bright and lively.

The violin sings a sharp, joyous lead; the accordion threads in a warm nostalgia; while the tambourine skips briskly.

Since we’re already in the square, we have a perfect vantage point to watch and listen.

A few couples near the front link arms and begin a simple circle dance, stepping in time, their boots crunching against the snow-dusted cobblestones.

People start clapping, drawn in by the rhythm.

Freja grabs my hand. “Come on.”

“Absolutely not,” I protest, even as she’s tugging me forward with that manic glint in her eye.

Aksel appears on my other side, catching my free hand. “It’s got to be done, baby sister. Rousseau tradition.”