The Time Travelers: Volume One Read online

  And if I could go back, she thought, I’m so selfish that I’d keep Strat. Harriett would still have to marry her creep.

  “Annie, this is when people hire firing squads to do away with a person,” explained Kelly. “People who say they were time traveling get executed by their best friends. Sean, get lost. She’ll tell us if you’re not here.”

  They were right. Annie would tell everything. Girls did.

  The problem, however, thought Annie, is that I can tell you everything, but you cannot possibly believe everything.

  “I’ll wait in my car,” said Sean. “I’ll wait fifteen minutes, and then ASL and I are going for a drive.”

  “Don’t make it sound so threatening,” said Annie.

  “I’ll take you to Mickey D’s,” said Sean. “I’ll buy you a hamburger.”

  Annie was not thrilled. Sean’s offer did not compare to the offers made in other centuries.

  “And fries,” Sean said. “And a vanilla milkshake.”

  Annie remained unthrilled.

  “Okay, okay. You can have a Big Mac.”

  Romance in my century, she thought, is pitiful. “Fine. Sit in the car,” said Annie.

  The instant the door shut behind Sean, Kelly said, “I demand to know the boy you were with, and exactly, anatomically, what you were doing all night long.”

  How shocked Harriett and Devonny would have been. The idea that a lady might have “done” something would be unthinkable. Strat, too, would be appalled. Ladies weren’t even supposed to know what “something” was, let alone do it. They’d really be shocked if Kelly hadn’t used careful polite phrasing just in case Annie’s parents were around to overhear.

  I did something, thought Annie, starting to cry. I hurt people on both sides of time.

  Devonny went into the library with Florinda.

  I hate men, she thought. I hate marriage. I hate what happened to Mother and to Florinda and next to Harriett and soon to me. Men ruling.

  Suddenly her silly stepmother seemed very precious, the one that Devonny had always wanted to keep. Mean and harsh as Father was, to be without him would be starvation and social suicide for Florinda. “Florinda, was Bridget really with you?”

  “Of course she was really with me. Why would I lie?”

  “If you aren’t lying, Mr. Rowwells is.”

  “Gentlemen never lie,” said Florinda, with a desperate sarcasm.

  “Father lies to you all the time and you spend half your life having vapors because of it.”

  “You mustn’t speak that way of your father,” said Florinda, with no spirit. No hope.

  “Florinda, we must get Bridget out of jail.”

  “I have been told not to bring up the subject again.”

  “You must call the police and tell them that Bridget was with you and they will release her.”

  “I can’t use the telephone without permission,” said Florinda.

  “I did.”

  “You’re a child, you can get away with things. Your father adores you, but he doesn’t adore me, I haven’t given him a son, in fact his last two wives haven’t given him sons either, and he’s tired of me and I cannot argue anymore. Devonny, I have nowhere else to go.”

  Father had to provide for Mama because Strat and I would not have tolerated anything else, thought Devonny. But he doesn’t have to provide for Florinda because she produced no children.

  Florinda’s small elegant hand tucked around Devonny’s. They were both crying. “Bridget turned Walk down, Devonny, anybody could see that. Bridget’s mistake was not letting him have his way. That’s the rule, Devonny. They must have their way.”

  Why can’t we ever have our way? thought Devonny Stratton. Why must Harriett be Mr. Rowwells’ property? Why must I be Father’s?

  She looked at her stepmother, frail and lovely, like a torn butterfly wing, and thought how Father would love an oil portrait of Florinda as she was now: pale and submissive and trembling.

  CHAPTER 11

  The second week after school ended, fewer teenagers congregated at the beach. Many had started their summer jobs. They were selling ice cream and hamburgers, mowing lawns and repairing gutters, sweating in assembly lines and teaching swimming. They were visiting cousins and going to Disney World and babysitting for neighbors.

  Annie’s job was at Ice Kreem King, a beach concession that sold soft ice cream treats, candy bars and saltwater taffy. It was sticky work. Nobody wanted a plain vanilla cone. They wanted a sundae with strawberries and walnuts and whipped cream, or a double-decker peanut butter parfait. Annie wore white Bermuda shorts, a white shirt with a little green Ice Kreem King logo and a white baseball cap, backwards. Over this she wore a huge white apron now sloshed with dip: lime, strawberry, cherry, chocolate and banana frosted her front.

  It was hard to believe in the lives of Florinda, Devonny and Harriett at a time like this.

  It was all too possible to believe in her own life.

  Her desperate mother was even more torn between reality and dream than Annie. Mom loved work, even loved her commute to New York, because she read her precious newspapers on the train: The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Mom didn’t even buy them now. Her hands shook when she tried to fold the paper the way train readers do to avoid hitting fellow passengers. Her eyes blurred when she tried to read the tiny print of the financial pages. She couldn’t concentrate.

  It was easy to know what Mom wanted. She wanted her marriage back. She wanted her happiness and safety back.

  It was even easier to know what Dad wanted: he wanted it all.

  Miss Bartten had gotten very bold, and even phoned him at home.

  Tod, who loved the telephone, and maintained friendships across the country with people he didn’t care about so he could call long distance at night, would no longer answer the phone. The answering machine was like a crude, loudmouthed servant. Miss Bartten’s bright voice kept getting preserved there, demanding Dad call her back.

  And he did.

  Nobody was taking steps to resolve anything.

  They seemed to be hoping Time would do that for them.

  For Annie Lockwood, Time achieved a power and dimension that made clocks and calendars silly.

  By day, Annie was a servant to the ice cream whims of a vast beachgoing public. Each evening, she and whatever family members were there for dinner ate separately, trying not to touch bodies or thoughts or pain. Annie had no idea how to help her mother and no interest in helping her father. And yet she, too, wanted their marriage back and their love back.

  Since she’d broken up with Sean, girls kept asking who would replace him.

  In her heart, Annie had Strat, who was no replacement for anybody; he was first and only. Beneath her pillow lay a neatly folded white gown with hand-sewn pleats. She wept into it, soaking it with pointless tears, as if those century-old stitches could telegraph to Strat that she was still here, still in love with him.

  She felt at night like a plane flying in the misty clouds: no horizon, no landmarks, no nothing. Oh, Strat, if I had you I would be all right. And what about you? Are you all right? Are there landmarks and horizons for you? Do you remember me?

  Devonny was boosted up into the carriage by servants, while Florinda helped lift the skirt of Devonny’s traveling gown. Strat and Devonny were being shipped back to New York City. Walk was to go along, so Strat would have normal masculine company and not mope around stroking doorknobs and mirrors as if Miss Lockwood might suddenly pop out.

  The first time Father overheard Strat actually calling out loud to a girl he then explained had been missing a hundred years, Father thrashed him. Took his riding boots off and whaled Strat with them. Strat hardly noticed, but returned to the Great Hall, where, he claimed, he had witnessed Anna Sophia’s birth. This time Father chose a whip, the one Robert, the coachman, used on the horses, Strat noticed. He didn’t call Anna Sophia again. But he looked for her. His eyes would travel strangely, as if trying to peer beyond things, or
through them, or into their history.

  Father was fearful that Strat was losing his sanity and had even communicated with Mother on the subject. The final decision was in favor of a change of air. Fresh air was an excellent solution to so many health problems.

  Most houseguests were long gone, but Harriett would of course remain at the Mansion while Father and Mr. Rowwells continued to work on the marriage arrangements.

  Florinda had refused to let go of the topic of Bridget and the parasol. Finally Father had gone down to the police, and Bridget had been set free. How Devonny wanted to see Bridget again! She yearned to apologize for what Bridget had endured, see if Jeb had visited and give Bridget some of her old dresses to make up for it, but of course Father would not have Bridget brought back into the household after her loose behavior with Walk.

  Florinda could not persuade Father that Walk might have lied, or been the one who was in the wrong. When girls like Bridget did not cooperate, they must be dismissed. But she had won Bridget’s freedom, and that success gave Florinda pride.

  Summertime had failed Devonny. It was not the slow warm yellow time she looked forward to. Not the salty soft airy time it had been every other summer. It was full of fear and anger and worry.

  Now they were losing their usual months at the beach, losing the Mansion and tennis and golf and sand. They were losing Harriett; and Strat of course had lost Miss Lockwood. Devonny’s lips rested on Florinda’s cool paper-white skin, skin never ever exposed to sun, and whispered, “Will you be all right?”

  They both knew that if Father got rid of her, she would never be all right, and if Father kept her, he might be so rough and mean that she would never be all right either.

  Visions of her father’s rage kept returning to Devonny. Who else but Father himself could get angry enough to push—

  No. Even inside her head, in the deepest, most distant corners of her mind, Devonny could not have such a traitorous thought.

  “I will be fine,” said Florinda, kissing her back. “Say hello to your dear mother for me, and visit the Statue of Liberty, and send me postcards.”

  Postcards were the rage. Florinda sent dozens every week. They had had their own postcards made up for the Mansion, its views and ornate buildings. “I’ll write,” promised Devonny.

  Trunks, hatboxes and valises were strapped on top and stacked inside the carriage. It was four miles to the railroad station, where their private railroad car would be waiting for them. Devonny knew where Jeb’s family lived. She was hoping that when the carriage went by, she’d see Bridget, leaning on Jeb’s strong arm, or sweeping Jeb’s porch, and she would know that Bridget was all right.

  “Here, sit by me,” said Walker Walkley, smiling wonderfully.

  It certainly went to show that you could not judge a person by his smile. Devonny said, “Thank you, Walk, but I like to ride facing forward. I’ll sit next to Strat.” She kissed Florinda one last time, wondering if it really was the last time.

  Walk made Strat change sides of the carriage so that he was sitting next to Devonny after all.

  Heather and Kelly, part of the not-working group, picked their way past a thousand beach blankets and towels, looking for their own crowd’s space on the sand. Nobody actually went into the ocean and got wet. If you wanted to swim, you went to somebody’s house with a pool. The beach was for tans and company and most of all for showing off one’s physique.

  Sean had a spectacular physique. He was showing off most of it. There was not a girl on the beach who could figure out why Annie Lockwood had dumped him. Was she insane?

  “Annie’s afternoon break is at three,” said Kelly. “I’ll go get her and she can hang out with us for fifteen minutes.”

  Sean shrugged as if he didn’t care, and then said, “I always thought we’d get married or something.” He kicked sand.

  “Married?” Heather laughed. “Sean, you two never even went to the movies together!”

  “I know, but I sort of figured that’s how it would go. ASL can’t break up with me.” Sean shoveled the sand with his big feet. In moments he had a major ditch.

  “What’s the trench for?” asked a boy named Cody. “You starting a war here, Sean?”

  “He’s trying to make peace,” said Kelly, hoping Cody would notice her. Kelly had always wanted to go out with Cody.

  “Annie Lockwood is only a girl, Sean,” Cody said. “She’s nothing. Forget her. The beach is full of girls. Just pick one. They’re all alike and who cares?”

  Cody was not her dream man after all. Kelly crossed the hot sand to get Annie from the concession booth. She wasn’t friends with Annie this summer the way she’d expected to be. Annie felt like two different people. As if she’d left some of herself someplace. It was creepy.

  * * *

  “Do you think Harriett will be all right?” said Devonny.

  “She’ll be fine,” said Strat.

  “Do you think Father will still let her go to college?”

  “I would hope not,” said Walk. “Live by herself in some wicked godless institution? The sooner they wed, the better.”

  “You’re going to college,” Devonny pointed out.

  “We’re men. Young ladies are ruined by such things.”

  Young ladies are ruined by things like you, thought Devonny. She flounced on the seat and moved the draperies away from the window, staring out at the empty dunes and the shrieking terns.

  Strat was overcome with guilt about Harriett. His good friend, and he had abandoned her to a winter marriage. A marriage with no summer in it. No laughter, no warmth, no dancing, no joy. Just money and suitability.

  He had caused this and he knew it, but every time he tried to wish it undone, he thought of Miss Lockwood. It was more than thinking of her: it was drowning in her.

  The carriage moved slowly around the curving lanes, through the golf course, past the ledge where you could see distant islands, and down again where you could see only the lily pond and the back of the Mansion.

  Cherry Lane, he thought. Annie’s house was built in the cherry orchard. If I went there, and called her name … I could tell Robert to halt the carriage by the cherry orchard. I could run through the grass and the trees calling her name, and maybe …

  Walk would report to Father, Father would decide Strat had gone insane, and would choose an asylum on a lake where Strat would be strapped to an iron bed and given cold water and brown bread.

  He tried to school Annie out of his mind. Tried to carve her memory out of his heart.

  But he too moved the draperies aside to stare out the window.

  “What do you want to break up for?” said Sean. That Sean would be shattered was the last thing Annie had expected. She hadn’t thought Sean even liked her very much. She certainly hadn’t thought his eyes could produce tears. Every time the two of them talked, he’d rub the back of his hand hard against his eyes, which grew redder and wetter. Annie felt nothing.

  “You don’t even care, do you?” whispered Sean.

  Why didn’t people take things the way you planned for them to? She wanted to be nice to Sean. She wanted to break up easily. He wasn’t cooperating. “I’m sorry, Sean, but we never did much of anything, and the only time you ever spoke to me was to ask me to get you a wrench or something. You never said—” She didn’t want to use the word love; the timing was impossible; if she said love, it would give a second-rate high school relationship something it had never had. “You never said you cared much, Sean.”

  She was afraid she might actually try to define love for Sean: she might actually tell him about Strat.

  Sean was dragging out a cotton handkerchief now and mopping up his face. The beach crowd thinned out. People like Cody decided that even swimming was better than seeing a boy crack up in public over a girl. “ASL, we have the whole summer in front of us,” said Sean. “I want to spend the summer together.”

  Doing what? Rebuilding the transmission on your car? “Sean, I’m really, really sorry, but I th
ink it’s time for us to break up.”

  “It isn’t time! I love you!”

  Wonderful. Now he had to love her. Now when she—

  When I what? thought Annie. When I have Strat? I don’t have Strat. I don’t even know where Strat is, or if he ever was.

  She rallied. “And stop calling me ASL. It’s dumb and I’m through with it.”

  “The way you’re through with me? You’re going to throw me out like a lousy nickname?” Sean muttered on and on, like a toddler who was sure that if he just whined long enough his mother would break down and buy him the sugar cereal with the purple prize.

  Summer time is actually a different sort of time, thought Annie. It lasts longer and has more repeats, more sun, and more heat. We’ll have these same conversations day after day, stuck in time. Now, when I want to travel in time.

  Time did not stand still. Somehow you could go back and possess time gone by, but your own natural time continued.

  Summer when her parents would decide what to do with their failing marriage. Summer when their daughter would vanish forever, without a trace? How could she do that to them? It would be pure self-indulgence to dip back into the past century. Dad was self-indulgent. He should have stopped himself.

  Annie must stop herself. These were real lives, all around her, both sides of time. Real people were really hurt. If she went back, it would be pure self-indulgence. Exactly the same as Dad going back to Miss Bartten.

  I can’t go back just because I was pampered and coddled and dressed so beautifully. I can’t go back just to find out what happens to them. I can’t go back just to see if Florinda is still arranging flowers and Genevieve is still asking for a donation and Devonny gets to go to college and Gertrude volunteers for the Red Cross.

  I must stop myself and not go back. Look what I did to Harriett’s life by entering it. And Bridget. It’s been ten days for me, so it’s been ten for Bridget.