date on your envelope when I was collecting my own. I just . . . needed to talk to someone about it and Eddie doesn’t seem to be available.”
“Eddie,” he said. “What do you think he is?”
“An angel.”
“So you believe in God?”
“I . . . I’m not sure. But I believe in good and evil. I guess I just naturally think of somebody working on the side of good as being an angel.”
He nodded. “It’s as good a description as any.”
“So let’s give this a shot,” she said. “Only this time—”
“Concentrate on a point in time where I can made the decision not to drink before it’s too late.”
She nodded.
She gave him a moment, turning her attention back to the bandstand. Looks like tonight they had a keyboard player, a guitarist, a bass player, a drummer, and a guy on saxophones. They were still tuning, adjusting the drum kit, soaking the reeds for the saxes.
She turned back to Jonathan.
“Have you got it?” she asked.
“Yeah. I think I do.”
“I’m not going to try to tell you how to live your life, but I think it helps to have something bigger than yourself to believe in.”
“Like God?”
She shrugged.
“Or like a cause?” he added.
She smiled. “Like a whatever. Are you ready?”
“Do it,” he said. “And thanks.”
She leaned over the table, put her hands on his temples and kissed him where Eddie had kissed her, on—what had he called it? Her third eye. She kept her lips pressed against his forehead for a couple of moments, then sat back in her seat.
“Don’t forget to come back here on the same day,” she said.
But Jonathan only gave her a puzzled look. Without speaking, he got up and left the booth. Sarah tracked him as he made his way through the growing crowd, but he never once looked back.
Weird. How was she even supposed to know if it had worked? But she guessed that in this world, she wouldn’t.
Her gaze went to Jonathan’s half-drunk ginger ale and she noticed that he’d left his letter behind. There was another puzzle. How did they go from world to world, future to future?
Maybe it had something to do with the Rhatigan itself. Maybe there was something about the bar that made it a crossroads for all these futures.
She thought of asking Alphonse, but got the sense that he didn’t know. Or if he knew, he wouldn’t be telling. But maybe if she could track down Eddie . . .
He appeared beside her table as though her thoughts had summoned him.
“Never thought about third chances,” he said.
He slid a trumpet case onto the booth seat, then sat down beside it, smiling at her from the other side of the table.
“Is—was that against the rules?” she asked.
He shrugged. “What rules? The only thing that’s important is for you to come back and get the message to pass it on.”
“But what is it that we’re passing on? Where did this thing come from?”
“Sometimes it’s better to just accept that something is, instead of trying to take it apart.”
“But—”
“Because when you take it apart, it might not work any more. You wouldn’t want that, would you, Sarah?”
“No. Of course not. But I’ve got so many questions . . . ”
He made a motion with his hands like he was breaking something, then he held out his palms looking down at them with a sad expression.
“Okay, I get the point already,” she said. “But you’ve got to understand my curiosity.”
“Sure, I do. And all I’m doing is asking you to let it go.”
“But . . . can you at least tell me who you are?”
“Eddie Ramone.”
“And he’s . . . ?”
“Just a guy who’s learned how to give a few people the tools to fix a mistake they might have made. Doesn’t work on everybody, and not everybody gets it right when they do go back. But I give them another shot. Think of me as a messenger of hope.”
Sarah felt as though she were going to burst with the questions that were swelling inside her.
“So’d you bring a guitar?” Eddie asked.
She blinked, then shook her head. “No. But I don’t play jazz.”
“Take a cue from Norah Jones. Anything can swing, even a song by Hank Williams . . . or Sarah Blue.”
She shook her head. “These people didn’t come to hear me.”
“No, they came to hear music. They don’t give a rat’s ass who’s playing it, just so long as it’s real.”
“Okay. Maybe.” But then she had a thought. “Just answer this one