“You can only change what affects you,” Arrieta said. They waited for her to go on, but she didn’t.
“But I want to go back to three weeks before 9/11,” Olivia said. “I want to warn people. Or before Pearl Harbor. Or—”
“No.” Arrieta sat down behind the desk. “We’ve had people try that. One man spent his whole three weeks in jail. When he tried to warn people, he was arrested for disturbing the peace. People thought he was going to set off bombs. Another man went back so he could get a second chance at being a good father. But you know what he did?”
No one answered.
“He plagiarized songs. He had a good memory for lyrics, so he wrote them down and put his name on them. Made his kids memorize them.”
“So when he came back to the present he’d be rich and famous,” Kathy said.
“Exactly,” Arrieta answered.
“But I take it that it didn’t work,” Olivia said.
“When he got back he was exactly where he was when he left. All memory of the songs he’d stolen was gone. His ex-wife still hated him and his children had no use for him. It was a very sad case.” She took a breath. “And writers are the worst. My aunt says she’ll never send another writer back. They love to steal plots. One man rewrote Guardians of the Galaxy from memory and sent it to his agent.”
The women waited to hear the results. Arrieta raised one shoulder. “The agent loved it but later, he thought the author was crazy for saying that he wrote the book before it was put on the screen. The agent dropped him.”
“So we need to keep our noses to our own business,” Olivia said. “Is there a way to know when we step over the line?”
Arrieta shrugged. “Only what is supposed to happen will.” She stood up. “I’ll let you think about when you want to go back to.” With that, she nearly ran from the room.
Kathy stood up. “This is a joke.” Olivia and Elise stayed seated. “You two don’t actually believe this, do you?”
“I would like to go back to the morning of my wedding,” Elise said softly. “Before that day I could stand it all. I had an absolute belief that after I married Kent everything would change. I thought our parents would start being pleased by me. Kent and I would have babies and talk about where we wanted to go on vacation. Ordinary, normal things. But they didn’t happen.” Her voice was growing louder. “After I got married, everything got worse. People were even less pleased with me than before. And Kent had no interest in me at all. He—”
Olivia put her hand on Elise’s arm.
“Sorry.” Elise looked at Kathy, her eyes pleading. “I don’t care if all I do is fall asleep and dream. I’d rather have hope than just wait for them to come and get me.”
Olivia got up and went to the few books that were in the many feet of empty shelves. There were some on growing herbs and a dozen about serving tea. How to run a tearoom, what to serve, recipe books. She turned to the two women. “I’m going to find out more about this.” She went into the big foyer and looked at the closed doors. The lady or the tiger? she thought. Which door should she choose?
The clatter of silverware being dropped made her go to the door on the right. It opened into a beautiful kitchen. “Hello.” As soft as Olivia’s voice was, Arrieta was still so startled that she nearly dropped a teacup. “Here, let me do that. You sit down.” She nodded at the table in the adjoining breakfast nook.
“I think I’m supposed to serve you,” Arrieta said, but she sat down anyway.
“How many times have you done this?” Olivia asked.
Arrieta’s expression answered her.
“Oh, I see. Your first time.” Olivia put loose tea in the flowered pot. “Tell me about yourself.”
“I’m also supposed to ask the questions.”
“I’m sure that’s right, but there are extenuating circumstances, aren’t there?”
“I guess.” Arrieta still looked like she wanted to run away.
“Did your aunt dump this job on you?”
“Yes!” Arrieta said. “I hate destiny! It sounds romantic, but it’s not. It means I have no free choice but that I have to do something. But that’s not fair, is it? A person could have a great singing voice, but she doesn’t have to sing, does she?”
“And you don’t want to charge people for hope, then give them nothing,” Olivia said.
“Oh no, that’s not it at all. I can sing. I mean I can send people back in time, but I’m not very good with people socially.”
“Then why do you want to open a tea shop?” Olivia said quickly.
For a second Arrieta’s eyes widened, then she laughed. “Aunt Primrose told me you were good at figuring out people. I have to earn a living and I like to bake and garden. With a couple of good employees, I think I can make it work.”
“And meeting people will help with your destiny,” Olivia said. “I can’t imagine that what you say you can do is possible.”
“It is. We just have to be careful who we tell about it. Dr. Hightower has referred a lot of people to my aunts—and now me.”
“I’m curious. Was Ray or Kathy the original target for this...opportunity?”
“Kathy,” Arrieta said. “It was never Ray. Dr. Hightower thought you should hear him tell how he treats his wife because Kathy might not say anything. She’s good at keeping things to herself. But Ray is fine—thanks to his wife taking such good care of him. She’s the one who has the problems.”
“How did you get her here?”
Arrieta shrugged. “My aunts know lots of people so some calls were made and voilà! Ray leaves the country and Kathy goes to Dr. Hightower’s house. It all worked out.” Olivia didn’t have to ask about Elise.
“Dr. Hightower wants to retire.” Arrieta said this with an intense look at Olivia. “Rescuing Elise was Jeanne’s final straw. She can’t take any more and we need someone to fill her role—someone who will send the right people our way.”
“I think you’ll need a very special person who believes in... What do you call this? Time travel?” Olivia’s tone told how ridiculous she thought it all was.
Arrieta looked at her nails. “If you returned to 1970, you could go back to school while Mr. Montgomery was in the Middle East. By now you’d be a qualified therapist.”
Olivia was too stunned by that statement to speak.
“I told Aunt Primrose that you’d never agree to this.”
“You’re making it sound like you planned for me to come into the kitchen so I could hear about this.”
“Cale said you would.”
“Cale? Kit’s cousin? The writer? I hardly know her.”
“She’s friends with Ellie Abbot, who my aunt sent back. Cale said you were insatiably curious and the most capable woman she’s ever met.”
“Oh,” Olivia said. “I had no idea. That’s a wonderful compliment.”
“Of course none of it would start until now.”
“What does that mean?”
“You can go back to 1970, marry Mr. Montgomery, and begin to study to be a psychologist. When he comes back from his secret mission, you and your family can live all over the world, then—zap!—you return here and use your certification to help us. The aunts and me, that is. You’ll help find people who need us.”
It was all too fanciful for Olivia to comprehend. She just sat there blinking.
“I guess I should tell you about the memory. When you get back here, after your, uh, journey, you can choose to remember or not. My guess is that Elise won’t want to remember what her family did to her. Kathy will need to remember that big, lusty Ray is a no-no. And you’ll want to know everything about both your marriages because you like a full mind. Actually, you need to remember all about your late husband and your dreadful daughter-in-law—I met her—so you can help other people.”
Olivia was trying to digest this. “Will Elise remember us?”
“Only the hate will be removed from her memory. Not the love.”
“Can I tell Kit?”
“If you wish. Your life is your own.”