Jaclyn the Ripper (19 page)

When they were alone, Sara had mentioned lunch and asked Amy what kind of food she liked, thoroughly stumping her. The first dish that came to mind was what she'd served her guests the night she left: roasted rack and shoulder of lamb, cooked extremely slowly, Savoy cabbage and creamed potatoes with a rosemary gravy, plenty of French wines and her famous bread pudding for dessert. Wisely, she deferred to Sara, and they had gone to the Garden on Glendon in Westwood Village, where Amy's education had begun.

 

“So what d'you think of them after all this time?” asked Sara.

“I've always loved Mum—I mean, our mother.”

“She's perpetually sweet, isn't she?”

Amy nodded, ate another forkful of French fries—unmindful that everyone here still used their fingers. “Now, Daddy . . . Daddy and I were always quarreling.”

Sara's eyes lingered briefly on her sister's brand-new yet woefully out-of-style blouse and skirt and patent-leather half-boots. She said, “I didn't get along with Daddy very well, either.”

“Really . . . ? I would've thought the opposite.”

Sara chuckled ironically, sipped her wine, sighed and took in her sister again. “He was always telling me how great you were and how you used to do things and what a sweet little girl you were.”

“No!”

“Oh, yeah.” She glanced off, a brittle smile in place, her eyes half-closed as she remembered. “Ohh, yeah. . . . It could've been something
as dumb as making my bed the wrong way or not keeping my room picked up or not helping Mom in the kitchen or even how I drove the damned car.” She looked down self-consciously. “He'd always say . . . Amy wouldn't have done it that way.”

“I, I don't believe you,” said Amy, astonished.

Yet Sara kept on as if she hadn't heard. “Now I realize that's why I worked so hard in school and why I stayed away from them and got my own place and borrowed my own way through grad school so I couldn't be criticized for running up a tab on Daddy for another worthless degree. . . . When he was saying all along how smart you were for getting such a great job at the Bank of England right out of high school!”

“My God,” Amy uttered.

They gazed at each other. Sara's words hung in the air, and then Amy smiled, added softly, “He . . . he always told me I was throwing my life away by not going to UC Berkeley.”

Sara laughed raucously. “He used to tell me I should find somebody, settle down and start a family. . . . I mean, didn't you see how happy he was when you announced that you had kids . . . ?”

“No,” said Amy, “I must've missed that.”

Sara leaned across the table, touched Amy's hand again, tears welling in her eyes. “Forgive me for saying this, but I got tired of being compared to a sister I didn't know. . . . I still am. I'm tired of . . . of being compared to someone we all thought was dead.”

Amy stared wide-eyed at her sister, flooded with bad memories long buried in her psyche, memories that were becoming revelations. Her father had treated her exactly the same way as he had Sara, both their childhoods suffocated by the belief that they didn't measure up. Amy—held up to an imaginary person she could never be. Sara—held up to an image of a perfect sister long gone. In the eyes of their father, no matter how hard they both tried, they'd never be good enough.

A silence.

“That's why I became a therapist,” Sara said in a low voice. “I wanted to understand if it was me . . . or him.”

“And . . . ?”

“After meeting you, my dear sister, I think it's him.”

Amy closed her eyes, let her breath, her pent-up emotions whoosh out. She imagined that whoosh becoming a fresh breeze across the centuries that would keep her head crystal clear like the sea air at Sandgate and, briefly, she was there on the cliffs beside her flowers, Bertie smiling from afar, the boys running across the lawn. Then, back in the restaurant, in 2010, she saw that most of the patrons had finished their lunch and left, yet here she was blissfully full with a barely touched hamburger gone cold. Finally, she was completely relaxed and had no desire to leave this space, for her sister had just excised a time-crossed inadequacy from her soul. Her hand shaking, she finished her wine, then drank some water, too.

“I must tell you,” Amy said, attempting levity, “I think we were both hoodwinked.”

Sara wiped her eyes. “Here I was prepared to meet my sister, the golden girl, and now it turns out . . .” She took a breath. “It turns out we were both living a lie.”

Amy chuckled ironically. “Yes, but I'm so relieved.”

“Me, too. . . . We both escaped.”

“Indeed.”

“Except there's just one thing. . . .”

“Yes?” said Amy.

“What in the world
happened
to you . . . ?”

 

Should I tell her . . . ?

Amy was already comfortable with Sara and close enough not to analyze why. Since their childhoods had been so agonizingly similar, she felt as if they had grown up together like normal sisters, and wondered abstractly if that mysterious yet profound bond of sisterhood could transcend universes. She sensed that it could, though that was a question more for H.G. and other geniuses. The fact that she and Sara were acting like sisters was enough.

No, don't tell her
.

At least not straightaway
. Amy already had too much to worry about, especially if she was stuck in this alien time. She didn't want to risk
Sara thinking that she was insane, for that would forever skew their relationship. So—answering Sara—she took a breath and plunged in.

She painted an idyllic picture of life with H.G. after getting off the time machine in 1893—their love, their work, running away to get married, their successes, their lovely children, their lovely house by the sea—except she replaced the time-traveling with an impulsive plane ride to London, she left out the dates, the specifics—names, titles and the like—and she used noms de plume for friends and others. Alas, the entire scenario seemed lifted from a romance roman à clef. She wasn't aware of Sara's puzzlement at the vague dates and pseudonyms, for she had become enraptured with her own words, her memories of Bertie. She paused frequently to dab at her eyes with her napkin, realizing horribly that she truly did miss him and—if there was a way—that she should go home and apologize and not give up till they were lovers again, only more so because their children were living proof of their time-crossed love.

The afternoon shadows had lengthened outside, and the waiters were lowering the shades. The table jockeys were cleaning up and setting places for the dinner hour, and as they went back and forth, snippets of Spanish floated out from the kitchen with the aromas of exotic dishes from faraway places. Amy and Sara were an island in a sea of empty tables, the spell of Amy's words having insulated them from the bustle of activity until finally she couldn't go on any longer and began crying, utterly heartbroken.

Confused, Sara squeezed her hand again. “Hey, come on, girl, it's not like you're never going to see him again.”

Amy gave her a blank, soulful look.

“Ohh, I get it.” Sara nodded and sat back in her chair. “Now I get it. . . . You're
separated
.”

Flustered, Amy turned red, then managed, “Not really. . . . I mean, yes and no, I mean . . .”

“Well, that's my forte, big sister. I'm not supposed to counsel relatives, but, hey, you want to talk about it . . . ?”

Amy gulped, stared at Sara, realized that she'd already said too much, but her sister had picked up the thread and gone on with it.

“Okay, you met Bertie when he was on vacation and came in the bank to change some currency. Then you ran off to the UK with him. So when exactly did you get married . . . ?”

Amy looked off and avoided her sister, gripped the chair hard as she frantically tried to come up with a date that seemed normal, yet how could she explain away thirty-one years when in real time it had only been eleven? When her boys were only two and four? “You know, I really don't want to talk about it. . . . I'm sorry.”

If Sara was surprised, she didn't show it. She shrugged, then said sympathetically, “You're going to have to someday.”

“I think we should go,” Amy said nervously.

“Okay.” Sara waved to get the waiter's attention, handed him her credit card, continued staring off thoughtfully, tapping her fingers on the table as if something was strange, out-of-kilter.

Amy sensed it, looked at the floor, praying that she could escape the situation.

“How long are you staying?” asked Sara, swinging back to her.

“Unh, I'm not quite sure.”

“Anything special you'd like to do while you're here?”

“Why, yes,” said Amy, brightening, seizing the moment. “I'd like to see the Getty Museum.”

“Cool,” said Sara, nodding, “very cool. I'll check my schedule, and we'll do it.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you so much.”

Sara fished through her purse, took out her razor-thin iPhone and turned it on. She touched the small screen, then frowned. “Wow. I'm gonna be late.”

Intimidated, Amy shrank farther down in the chair and wished she were invisible, wished she were in fact made of “transparent, colorless tissue” like the character Griffin in Bertie's
The Invisible Man
.

“Give me your cell, and I'll let you know when we're on for the Getty.”

“Cell . . . ?”

Sara sat back again, stared at her sister, cocked her head, then
proceeded slowly, professionally. “Okay, if you're going to be at the parents' house, I'll just call you there.”

Amy nodded.

The waiter brought the bill back. Sara scribbled in tip and total, signed hurriedly. “I'll take you back to the hotel so you can check out, and then I'll drop you at the parents'.”

Amy smiled weakly. “I'm already checked out.”

Sara frowned quizzically. “Where's your luggage?”

Amy lifted the shopping bag under the chair, set it back down again, her eyes pleading for understanding when she had no idea what that would be or where it would lead.

Sara tensed, took in her sister again—her new but arcane outfit, the social holes in her character, the dreamlike quality of her so-called history, the complete absence of normal small talk, and yes, no purse, no cell, no luggage. She released a ragged sigh.

“Did you have a breakdown, Amy?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Have . . . have you been in an institution for the last thirty years?”

Amy recoiled, started to object, then realized that such a revelation would actually bring her closer to her sister—and she desperately needed someone in this world—and that having been locked away was a perfect excuse for her odd behavior. She smiled radiantly.

“Yes, I have.”

Jaclyn nibbled on the olive from her second martini, dipped it back in the drink, then sucked down the pimento from its center, quite buzzed and thoroughly enjoying herself. She wasn't sure what was in the concoction, but didn't care. If nothing else, it certainly tasted better than the claret Wells had served on that nasty night in 1893 when—necessity being the mother of invention—Jack had stolen Wells's virgin time machine to escape the men of Scotland Yard.
Eons have passed since then. I have been to hell and back. And now, in memory of my dear, sweet, unfaithful Penny, I am playing artiste with the blood of others. Why, then, am I not enjoying it?

Alongside her in the booth, Lieutenant Casey Holland nursed a beer, his beefy hands clutching the bottle as if it would keep him honest. They were at Nathaniel's Place, a run-down lounge between Wilshire and Santa Monica that with its red Naugahyde decor and Frank Sinatra soundtracks was a watering hole for middle-aged homosexuals. Jaclyn guessed he'd met her here because it was the last bar in town where a copper would go for a drink, the last place in this city where he might be recognized.

So, how much longer will he tell me he that loves his wife and kids
and how wonderful the bitch is—as he steals looks down the front of this skimpy floral-print dress I found in Heather's closet? How much longer must I smile and say I don't care, then lean forward so he can get a better view? He wears his self-denial like a religious flag—now he's apologizing because he won't tell me what he knows of Amy Catherine Robbins—and I'm actually being patient and understanding
. She giggled.
Alas, the tedium. Jaclyn wants to play the artiste with ecstasy, not blood, this afternoon
.

The martinis had made mush of her rage—so that right now she didn't care so much about being Jack as she did being next to Casey Holland. Her mouth hurt from smiling. She laughed at everything he said. He'd already told her no, but that only made her want him more. She had been drawn to him when they had first met, and she'd asked herself:
When we are finished, what will I do with his corpse?
Make him Michelangelo's David sans penis? Now the questions burning inside were:
Oh, God, what will it be like? And, oh, God
, when? She crossed and uncrossed her legs—they whisked electric with her black pantyhose. A flush spread from her groin; she was becoming weak and warm and liquid.
Is this how those harlots felt before we took them out in the alley and Jack shoved it in? Is this how Penny felt when she cuckolded us and then laughed in Jack's face? Alas, there must be incalculable bliss in a woman's betrayal
.

“I'm really sorry,” he repeated, “I'm just not cool with it.”

“With Amy Catherine Robbins . . . ? Or with me?”

He blushed. “I mean, if she was related to you, it'd be a different story, you know?”

“Don't fret, love, it's all right,” she murmured, unlike herself. “The sky's not falling.”
Why doesn't he shut up about it? It's not as if I'm a brainless housewife—I'll find another way to the Robbins girl and Wells
.