Fantasy The Time War

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Marion​

Three years earlier....

Her name was Marion.

Even before John Calle knew her name, he knew there was something special about her.

He was sitting in the expansive dining hall of the Mohonk Mountain House. Mohonk was a grand lodge located on the outskirts of New Paltz, New York, just ninety minutes north of New York City. But what a difference ninety minutes made! New Paltz was a small, college town, flanked by the awesome Shawangunk Mountains. And on top of the ridgeline was the Mohonk Mountain House, a grand hotel built in the late 19th century on the edge of an alpine lake surrounded by sheer cliffs.

Calle had flown all the way from San Diego for a "team building conference" sponsored by the American Association of Aeronautical Engineers. His employer had required him and his fellow engineers to attend. Calle had made a face to his supervisor. "Charlie, you're asking me to fly across the country to attend a series of 'how to be a good employee' lectures. Do you know how much work I could get done in the three days that I'll be forced to listen to pedantic psychobabble?"

But Charlie had only grinned and clapped him on the back. "John, it's not all about productivity. It's all about being a happy and cooperative part of the team building community at Astrodyne."

Calle had wanted to throw up, but he merely smiled and followed orders. The conference was as bad as he feared. The lecturers seemed to be paid by the buzzword, filling sentences with phrases like "team building", "community", "togetherness", and "workplace oneness" to justify the sky-high consulting fees they were being paid.

Calle endured two days of this and was glad he was leaving that very evening. He couldn't endure much more. He was sitting in Mohonk's dining hall on that very morning, ruminating over the menu, when he saw her.

She was attending to another table. A tall, dark haired woman. From a distance, she looked totally unremarkable. But then Calle saw her smile. It was a brilliant, wide, warm smile which seemed to light up the entire room.

The diners she was smiling at didn't seem to notice. But Calle did. He stared at her, dumbfounded.

Somehow, she seemed to notice. She turned and looked at him. Their eyes met, for a moment. Calle found himself smiling, weakly, it seemed, at her. She directed her brilliant smile at him. He felt a surge of electricity go through his body.

And then she turned away.

A moment later, Calle saw a waitress look purposefully at his table and start to walk over. But then Calle saw the waitress, the one who had smiled at him, touch the waitress who was about to come over to his table, and whisper something to her. Then the other waitress raised her eyebrows and nodded, turning away to another table.

And then the woman who had smiled at Calle came over to his table. "Good morning," she said, smiling at him.

Calle felt a second jolt of electricity going through his body. "Good morning," he said, trying to smile back. He stammered through his lunch order. He snuck a glance at her face a few times.

She had rich, lush, thick shoulder length dark hair. She had a narrow, oval shaped face, green eyes, plush lips, and simply gorgeous high cheekbones. She was wearing a bulky sweater that hid her figure, but Calle got the sense that she was not insubstantial in that department. She wore a long, dark skirt that went down to her knees. It was as if she were trying to hide her body.

She smiled as she finished taking his order, and he shivered again.

Calle thought about her nonstop during his meal. He wanted to strike up a conversation with her but realized she was working and had other tables to cover. When he had finished lunch, she said, "How was it?"

"Good," said Calle. "Wonderful," he added hastily.

"Wonderful," she repeated, smiling at him as if they had just shared something. Had they?

"I liked it a lot," said Calle. "The food, I mean."

"Of course," she said, smiling again, and that only made him more uncomfortable. And even more excited.

He left her a generous tip.
​

********​

Calle was supposed to be attending a lecture on "Racism, Sexism, and Assophobia in the Workplace", but his heart just wasn't in it. Instead he was sitting in a gazebo by the lake. Mohonk had dozens of gazebos littering the countryside, one at every scenic spot on the grounds. And there were lots of them. Calle explored off the right side of the lakeside porch and walked down a series of stone steps which led to a gazebo which was right on the lake. It was mere feet from the Mountain House, and yet, by virtue of its lower location, was totally isolated from everything around him.

He sat watching the ripples in Lake Mohonk as he thought about her. Calle was 28 years of age and was not exactly lucky in love. He had had a few short term relationships but never found a woman he really clicked with. He knew nothing about the waitress from this morning, nothing at all about her... except her smile. She was so, so....

"Beautiful."

Calle looked up and saw her. His jaw dropped.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" she said, standing there, with her hands outstretched, touching either side of the gazebo. With her arms spread out like that in front of her like that, leaning forwards towards him, she looked-

"The view? Yes, very pretty" said Calle. His mind raced. What was she doing here?

"I come here often, to think," she said. "It's one of my favorite gazebos on my tour."

"Your tour?"

"I give a tour of some of the more interesting gazebos at the Mohonk Mountain House."

"I'd, I'd love to go on it," said Calle.

She smiled at him. "I give the tour every Tuesday at 2 o'clock."

Today was Sunday. "I'm... I'm leaving tonight," said Calle.

"Oh," she said, lowering her head slightly.

No one said a word for a moment. And then, they both spoke at the same time.

"I was wondering if-"

"If you like I could-"

They both laughed and smiled at each other. Then she said, "I'd be happy to give you a tour."

"Are you sure?" Calle asked anxiously.

She shrugged. "Lunch is over. Why not?" And then she extended her hand. "Marion."

"John," said Calle, feeling a shoot of electricity go up his arm as he took her proffered hand. "John Calle."
​

********​

Marion left to change into "more appropriate clothing". Calle wondered what that meant. When she returned, she was wearing a gorgeous old fashioned dress that looked like something straight out of the 19th century. It was a lady's dress patterned with small blue flowers. Marion was also wearing an old fashioned straw lady's hat from the time. She saw Calle's reaction and twirled around. "Do you like it? I thought it would be more appropriate to wear my costume for the tour."

"Costume?"

"I am performing in the HMS Pinafore play tonight." She stared at him with dark eyes.

"You're a waitress, a tour guide, and an actress? You're incredibly versatile, Marion," said Calle.

And she actually blushed! She hurriedly ran her hands along her skirts and furiously batted her eyelashes. "Actually, this is just a part time job for me," she said. "I'm just doing this to pay the bills. I'm a grad student at SUNY New Paltz."

"I can tell there's a lot more to you than it seems," said Calle.

Marion smiled nervously. "Shall we begin?"

She didn't begin the tour at a gazebo, which Calle expected, but in the Mohonk Mountain House itself. She showed Calle a photo of a family dressed in old-style clothing. "This is the Smiley family. Quakers all. They started building Mohonk in the late 1800's. They wanted a place of peaceful reflection."

"This seems like the perfect place for it. It's so beautiful here," said Calle.

"Yes," said Marion, giving him a wide smile, as if they had established a connection. "I think so too."

She took him on a walk around the lake on the Undercliff Path. There were gazebos all along the lake. One of them was a bench made of wooden branches at the water's edge right underneath a rock ledge of a giant boulder. Others were built on boulders which were jutting out onto the water. On the way back, they stopped and sat at one facing the hotel.

"The hotel is all different colors," said Calle. "Some sections are green, some are tan, and some are brown."

"The Mountain House was built in sections over time," said Marion. "The Smileys didn't feel bound by any single style."

"It's all so charming, to have a 19th century resort, here in the 25th century," said Calle.

"I think so too," said Marion, smoothing the skirt of her dress. "This is my favorite place." She paused. "What brings you here, John Calle?"

Calle explained about the conference. Marion seemed a bit disappointed when she learned he was from California. But she brightened when he described his work. "You design spaceships! You must be a genius."

"No, not spaceships. Just the engines."

"Just the engines? Those are the most complicated parts," said Marion. "Do you really know how to build a Varonkov drive?"

Calle really did. In fact, he was an exceptional engineer. He seemed to have a skill of knowing which parts of a design were most vulnerable to failure. Even before they would test each model in the simulator, he could almost always guess which components would take the most stress or fail.

Marion told him that she was from Westchester County, and was studying agronomy at SUNY New Paltz. "In two years I'll be a full fledged agronomist. I want to grow blueberries which never taste bitter."

"Is that really possible?" Calle asked.

Marion nodded. "With the right genetic manipulation, yes."

"And where are you going to grow your genetically altered blue berries?" Calle asked.

"Here, of course," said Marion. "There's no more beautiful place on the Earth."

Calle, looking around, had to agree. The 19th century style manor house was framed beautifully by the blue alpine lake, the sheer cliffs on two sides, and the equally blue sky above. Marion, in her straw hat and elegant blue flower print dress, looked like something out of an elegant painting. Her body was still covered from neck to toe, but he began to get a better sense that there was something beautiful under that dress.

"I like the Mountain House," said Calle. "Both of them."

"Both of them?" Marion asked.

"Look," said Calle. He pointed to the water. The hotel cast a very dreamy reflection on Lake Mohonk. "It looks just like an impressionist painting."

Marion look startled. Her eyes widened.

"What?" said Calle.

"It's just... I've been bringing tourists here for six months, and no one has ever noticed that before," said Marion. She rapidly licked her lips, and rubbed her hands over her thighs self-consciously.
​

********​

They sat and chatted for a while, and then Marion said she had to get back to the hotel to help prepare for four o'clock tea.

Four o'clock tea?

They had somehow been together for over two hours. Where had the time gone?

As they walked back to the Mountain House, Calle looked at the gazebos on the ridge line he hadn't seen. He pointed them out.

"There are gazebos all over the property. I only had time to show you the lakeside ones," said Marion.

Calle looked pained. "We're not going to see the others?"

"Save it for the next tour," said Marion, giving a bitter sweet smile.

Except there would be no next tour. Calle was jumping on a plane back to California in a few hours.
​

********​

There was tea and cookies in the main lounge. It was all delightfully charming. The tea cups were delicate blue patterned china. And the cookies were in the shape of gazebos! There seemed to be six or seven different shapes. Calle bit into one. It was delightful.

After bringing him tea and cookies, Marion looked apologetically at him. "I have to get back to work."

"Wait! You mentioned you're in a play... this evening?" Calle said.

"Yes, the Pinafore. It's at 8. Are you still going to be here?"

Calle shook his head.

Marion looked even sadder. "It... it was very nice showing you around, John Calle."

Calle looked into her green eyes. "Marion, I had a really nice time too."

She met his gaze, and smiled, still looking a bit sad. Then she nodded and turned to go.

As Calle sipped his coffee, he pretended not to look at Marion as she poured tea into cups, and she pretended not to notice his gaze.
​

********​

It was a musical adaptation of the HMS Pinafore play. In this version, the Pinafore was a merchant marine ship, featuring a young woman who fell in love with a lowly sailor.

And Marion was the young woman.

Still wearing the same dress and hat she wore this afternoon, she sang, alternating with the actor who played the sailor.

"Could you ever fall in love with someone like me?" The sailor sang.

"I could never fall in love with someone like you," Marion sang back. She had the most beautiful singing voice.

Calle sat in the audience, spellbound. He had rescheduled his flight until tomorrow. It was worth missing a day of work and being chewed out by Charlie for this.

As the play progressed, the sailor made headway in pursuing Marion.

"I think I am falling in love with you," he sang.

"And I think I am falling in love with you," she said, tilting her head and hands up in an elegant pose.

From time to time Marion looked out at the audience. For a moment, she seemed to stare directly at Calle.

The moment passed. By the end of the play, the two were hugging, and then, at the very end, they kissed each other on the lips, and the audience clapped hysterically as the leads took their bows.

Calle clapped too. He desperately tried to make eye contact with Marion. She seemed to stare at him for a moment, but quickly looked away.

Calle wanted to go to her, but everyone got up from their seats and it was impossible to move. By the time Calle had made his way to the stage, she was gone.​