Back To The Viper by Antara Mann Page A

that.” She stared into Wayne’s eyes. “I feel I am not the only one here whose life has been radically changed by our experience.”
    “Absolutely,” Craig confirmed. “The changes haven’t even bypassed Wayne, who’s getting married…”
    “What?” Ashley and Chad instantly turned to Wayne. “You and marriage?” They turned their eyes back to Craig. “You must be kidding!”
    “No, he’s not,” Wayne said before Craig had the chance to answer. “Cassidy and I are getting married next spring.”
    “Jesus, what’s happened to you?” Chad asked, stunned.
    Wayne chuckled.
    “After spending some time with that witch Olivia Hamilton, I really began to value Cass. She won’t make a problem out of the smallest thing, and I will try to be as discreet as possible.”
    “You and marriage! That’s absurd!” Ashley kept on thinking about it. She couldn’t imagine her old buddy getting married.
    “And you, Chad, what good news are you going to tell us?”
    “Well, I was wondering when to tell you…” He paused and then a smile stretched his lips. “This fall, I’m beginning to teach History of Art at San Francisco University.”
    “Kudos!” The other men slapped him on the back and he assumed a very proud expression.
    “How did that happen?” Ashley asked.
    “Well, I wasn’t satisfied with my job as a freelance photographer and, besides, I had a university degree. After last year’s experience, I made the decision not to waste any more time and…” Chad chuckled. “And I applied for the position of junior assistant. They accepted me.”
    Ashley nodded approvingly.
    “And there’s one more thing.” Chad paused before he fired, “I finally came out to my parents.”
    All of them knew Chad was afraid of his religious parents’ reaction. His father was a priest at a Baptist Church and his mother a social worker at The Red Cross.
    “What you’ve done takes balls, buddy!” Craig nodded at him understandingly. “If any of my daughters told me she was gay, I would support her completely.”
    “Oh, I’ve always liked lesbians…” Wayne began but Ashley interrupted him:
    “What are you talking about, Wayne?” His comment had made her think. She had never considered the possibility that her child might be gay. She assumed, as if by default, that Briana would be straight. But if one day she told her she was gay, she would accept that fact.
    “So what was your parents’ reaction?” she asked Chad.
    “Well…it turned out they had known I was gay for a long time,” he laughed. “My father said he realized it the first time he saw the Wicked and Dreamgirls posters on my wall.”
    “Yes, parents sometimes know us better than we think.” Ashley had hardly said this when her cell phone started ringing. Peggy’s name was on the screen. Ashley wondered what Peggy wanted. She hadn’t heard from her friend since leaving Starbucks.
    “Hello? Ashley, I hope I’m not bothering you…” Peggy began a bit uncertainly and for good reason – it was past nine in the evening.
    “No, it’s okay, go ahead.”
    “Well, there was a friend of yours looking for you a while ago; he said he was called Harry Neil. Do you know him?”
    “Oh, Harry? Yes.” Ashley remembered he didn’t know she had quit her job. That was why he’d been looking for her at her old workplace.
    “I told him you’d left and that he could try calling you on your cell phone.” Peggy paused and asked in a subdued voice, “Is it true that he’s invented a way for the consciousness to travel back and forth in time?”
    “Oh no!” Ashley almost cried, attracting the attention of the men around her. “Why the hell did he tell you about his discovery? What else did he say?”
    “So it’s true?”
    “Peggy, listen to me carefully: I advise you not to ask about that discovery anymore! You’ll avoid quite a lot of headaches.”
    There was silence for a while and Ashley was wondering if Peggy was still on the