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He liked that he never quite knew what to expect from her. As he was driving her home and they were getting their stories straight, he’d said, “Would you like to have dinner with me one night soon? I’d really enjoy spending time with you when you weren’t drunk or hung over.”
“Nice invitation,” Eirene had snapped. But then she softened and said, “Oh why not? We are sort of engaged after all. Might as well find out what the fuss is about.”
As he watched Athena’s plane climb into the sky, he had a kind of epiphany, thinking about everything that had happened in the last thirty-six hours. He thought perhaps he could happily spend the rest of his life with Eirene. She’d never give him an inch, never be dull or tiresome. She’d go toe-to-toe with him sometimes, and other times she’d be right at his side. This wasn’t just another conquest, this was something that felt real and permanent, it was something to work toward, not just take and forget.
He planned their dinner date carefully, choosing a place that was intimate and not terribly expensive. Eirene wouldn’t be impressed with money, she’d appreciate good taste. He brought her flowers when he came to pick her up, nothing flashy, just some lovely white gardenias. She seemed surprised, pleased, and the sight of her with her head bowed and her dark hair curtaining the flowers as she took in their warm, sweet scent, touched a chord in Simon that made him feel hopeful.
“They’re beautiful,” she said, pressing them lightly against her cheek. Against her golden skin, the whiter-than-white petals seemed to glow.
“You seem like a gardenia girl,” he told her. He couldn’t read her expression and hoped he hadn’t said anything too sappy.
Over dinner they spoke honestly of their dreams and ambitions. He was impressed by her independence and her desire to see the world, and it was all he could do not to say, “I can show it to you, all of it.” He already knew her well enough to know that displays of his wealth would put her off.
“I haven’t traveled enough,” he admitted. “I mean I have, but not just to travel. There’s always some bit of business, or some family thing. I’ve been places, but I don’t know them, do you see what I mean?”
“I think so. You’ve not taken the time to know them intimately, yes?”
It was an odd moment because he had the sense that what she’d said was more about the women he’d known than the places he’d visited. “Yes, I think you’re right. I’d like to change that. I’d like to go somewhere just to be there, to look at the place with the eyes of someone who wants to drink it all in.”
“Only you can do that for yourself,” she reminded him.
“I know. Where’s the first place you’d visit if you could choose any destination?”
“There are so many. But I think I’d like to start somewhere like Bali, to experience the culture. And I’ve never seen the northern lights. Can you imagine?” Once she began to talk about her chosen destinations, Simon just sat back and listened. Her enthusiasm was contagious and he found himself longing to see the things she was describing, wanting to see them with her.
“What about you? What’s the one thing you’ve never done that you would love to do?”
Simon didn’t think saying “Marrying you,” would go over, so he chose a different dream, one that had been with him since he was a child. “It would involve time travel,” he admitted.
Eirene’s eyebrows shot up. “You don’t have modest dreams, do you?”
He shrugged. “The thing is, I wouldn’t want to change anything. That wouldn’t be fair or right. I want a clear bubble in which I can travel unseen to any time.”
“And when would you go to?”
“I’d spy on a lot of things. But mostly I think I’d like to see the beginning of the universe. I’d want to watch life evolve on this planet. I want to see dinosaurs! When I was a little boy I wanted that more than anything.”
“You’ve got enough money, you could make your own Jurassic Park.”
“That would be terrible. This isn’t their time. They’d be freaks, and you know how humans would treat them. No, I want to see them in their own time, and among their own kind. I want to see them when they owned this planet.”
She was staring at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re a romantic.”
“Guilty, I guess.”
“What else?”
Embarrassed, he mumbled something about great events in history.
“And you wouldn’t try to change even the bad things?”
“No, because everything that happens in the world effects everything that comes after. I could maybe kill Hitler when he was just a boy, but maybe that would mean that you would never be born.”
“Don’t you think that would be a fair trade? I do.”
