TURN BACK THE TIME, BABE. BOOK 8. CHALLENGING THE DOORS OF TIME

MY SMILE STILL STAYS ON

WISHFUL-THINKER 10'S POV

Elideth had just gone away in her travel into the future. With her risky pregnancy, with her disease that was my disease too. The picture she had left behind at the end of 1984 was a gloomy one and besides, I'd been forced to stay with "my best friend". Amandine Soler. Both as masters of Turn back the Time mission. It looked like pretty much a task, with capital letters. Oyyyy!!

Well, there were things far more important than our mutual quarrells that were useless now. The common sense was called for and though working together was never our strong point, we owed to Eli and her big sacrifice. I was willing and able to give in, as long as she could do the same, of course. I got the feeling it would be not easy to get. We were two damn cannonballs.

Unsuccessfully, I typed again the nineteenth whatsapp to her but then I thought if she had made a surprise visit to her sweetie and had told Joe she would come back the next day, most likely she wouldn't take her phone.

I used to keep one and thousand rooms in my body to disguise it successfully but it was clear that Amandine used to get it into her bag and it was risky that her Austrian boyfriend could discover it.

- Joe, are you okay?

I had stormed into the kitchen looking for the American cook because he could give me some faithful information about Amandine. I found him leaning over the worktop, hiding his face.

- Just one of my tension drops. Lately it happens to me every now and then -he told me without lifting up his head.

- Shall we go to bed? Come on, you are not right. Actually we should go to the doctor. I will call him to come over and see you.

- Arlene, take it easy. I'm fine. It's just I'm kinda tired.

- You should check yourself up. How long since your last visit to the doctor?

- There's nothing a damn doctor can do for me.

His words shocked me but I was all tied up to delve into that. I couldn't talk about the antirretrovirals because it was supposed to be a secret between Amandine and him. That web of secrets tangled one into another would finally made us stumble and fall but so far I still was a good spy back in time.

- Do you want a glass of water? -I offered him watching his pale and cold sweated face, lying on bed.

- I think I would puke right now. I feel better. Thanks.

Joe was not surely better. I wonder how many times before he had that. He used to keep silence about his sufferings and the frenzy schedule he had been into being part of Freddie's household, didn't help at all. Being not only his cook but also his second assistant was a pretty demanding job for a clearly seriously sick person.

There was no way to know if he was still taking his medication regularly though honestly, I though whether he took it or not, the course of the illness wouldn't stop. I recalled my load of antirretrovirals for Joe, Freddie and me. Farrokh found himself in London with his grandparents, Amandine had been a few days without a word. I couldn't take charge of everything.

- Joe, I need to meet Amandine. You gotta know where she is.

- Eli knows it so you have to know it too. What are you asking me?

- Eli just knows that she took a train to Vienna and she was going to return the next day. She doesn't know anything else.

- Well, maybe things got a little trickier.

- Amandine could only go to Vienna for a reason and that reason calls Rudi.

- You cook it, you eat it, lieutenant.