Everard's Apartment III

See here.

Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991).

Manson Everard of the Time Patrol:

has a date with Wanda Tamberly in 1988;
then has two missions for the Patrol;
could have returned to 1988 after the first mission;
however, instead, sublet his apartment to another Patrol agent who needed such a base from 1988 to 1990;
returned to New York in 1990 after the second mission;
therefore, was in his apartment shortly after Wanda had phoned in 1990 but had not experienced as much duration as her since 1988.

It is meaningless to say that Everard sublet his apartment while he was on the two missions. Probably, the missions were in different historical periods and therefore were completed long before his birth. If not for the sublet, he would have returned to 1988 after the first mission and maybe to that same year after the second. In that case, an older Everard would have responded to Wanda's recorded telephone message in 1990.

When I say that their date was in 1988, I mean that she returned to her parents' home after the date in that year but they had had dinner in Paris in 1925.

"...the Rive Gauche..." (p. 180) is the Left Bank;
"...the Deux Magots..." (ibid.) is a famous cafe formerly frequented by many artists and intellectuals, more recently a tourist destination;
Everard mentions Wanda's and his "...Alphonse-Gastonette act..." (p. 181). I took this to be a reference to a couple in French literature. However, Alphonse and Gaston were two male cartoon characters in the New York Journal.