Once Was a Time (14 page)

Chapter 27

Five days later, I was on a plane at O'Hare Airport. My suitcase with miniature toothpaste and new sneakers and ten days' worth of clothes was stowed overhead, my backpack with way too many books was underneath the seat, my seat belt was buckled, and I was ready to fly.

Jake sat next to me, flipping channels on the little TV screen in front of him. His brother, Noah, home from college, was on his other side, engrossed in his cell phone even though the flight attendant had twice told us to stop using them. Their mother sat across the aisle from Noah, reading the newspaper.

I fidgeted with my seat belt and my hair and my cardi­gan. I tried finding something to watch on the TV, and then I looked through all my books, but nothing seemed interesting. Eventually I just pulled out the postcard from Kitty and held it.

“Are you okay?” Jake asked when my fidgeting accidentally resulted in an elbow jab to his ribs.

I clutched the postcard more tightly. “Is it scary?” I asked.

“What?”

I lowered my voice. “Flying.”

“Oh! No, not really. Sometimes it gets a little bumpy and your stomach might hurt for a few minutes, but usually once you're up in the air you don't even notice that you're not sitting on land.” He grinned at me quizzically. “You've never been on a plane before?”

I made a face at him. “The only people I knew of who flew planes were in the RAF.”

“The what?”

“The Royal Air Force. They dropped bombs on Germany.”

“Oh.” The grin faded from his face. “This isn't that sort of plane.”

“I can tell.”

“I thought you said your foster parents had a daughter who lived far away,” Jake said. “You've never flown to visit
her?”

“Nope. Melanie and Keith don't like to travel. I've met Penelope a few times, but only when she comes back to Sutton.”

“Well,” Jake said, “compared to being kidnapped, held at gunpoint, and time traveling, this plane ride is going to be one of the least scary things you've ever done.”

That relaxed me a little. I gave him a weak smile.

“Is that Kitty's postcard?” he asked, looking down at it with reverence. I nodded and held it out so he could see. “‘
Know that you are not forgotten
,'” he read aloud. “Wow. That is so beautiful. I wish someone felt that way about me.” He blushed. “I mean, my mom does. But you know what I mean. A friend like that would be cool.”

I nodded. “There aren't many of them in the world.”

Jake gave a sharp laugh. “Yeah, that doesn't really seem like Dakota's style.”

I didn't reply. I hadn't heard from those girls since leaving them at the nail salon. I was so focused on getting to Kitty that I barely even missed them. Still, I didn't want Jake to know that they weren't my friends anymore. If I couldn't help him with Dakota,
then what was I even good for?

Instead of saying anything, I just looked at Kitty's words for the millionth time and thought about how her hands had touched this same piece of paper that my hands were now on. If I couldn't find her, this would be the closest our hands ever came to touching each other again. And how could that be enough?

“I owe your mum so much for convincing Melanie and Keith to let me go with you,” I said to Jake after a moment. “That was amazing of her.”

The plane slowly started to move forward. We were still on the ground, but I could see out the window that we were in motion. My stomach roiled, even though I knew it was silly: What we were doing right now was no scarier than sitting in a car.

“My mom really did it for me,” Jake explained. He glanced past Noah to make sure that his mother wasn't listening and went on in a low voice, “This is the first time I invited a friend to do something with me in, like . . . a while. She was just so excited that there was someone who wanted to spend time with me that she would have done anything to make it happen.”

I felt horrible. I liked Jake, and the more I got to know him, the more I found to like about him. But we both knew that wasn't why I'd asked to be invited.

“I'm sorry,” I told him.

He shrugged. “It is what it is. Noah was so mad, though.” He gave a high-pitched giggle. “He was like, ‘Why don't
I
get to bring a friend to Italy with me?' And I was like, ‘Yes! Years of unpopularity finally pay off !'” Jake did a fist pump, and I had to laugh.

Then I felt my seat tilt back slightly, and I twisted to look out the window and see the ground recede beneath us. Within minutes, the skyscrapers of Chicago had faded to mere specks, dolls' houses, before they disappeared entirely into the distance, and we ascended into the clouds.

Chapter 28

Twelve hours later, after flying through the night and switching planes at the airport in Paris, we touched down in
Rome. By the time we'd collected suitcases, made it through passport control, and got a taxi to the hotel, it was nearly five p.m. Italian time, which meant that my body thought it was ten a.m. Wisconsin time, and my brain had no idea what was going on. I must have fallen asleep for a bit on the plane, but it didn't feel like I'd gotten any rest to speak of, and when we made it up to our hotel rooms, I was entirely discombobulated, as if I was seeing the world through a thick fog. Everything felt like too much effort, even taking a nap.

Still, I reminded myself, this was less disorienting than time travel, since I'd skipped over only seven hours instead of seven decades.

Our hotel was an old building with lots of paintings on the walls and no elevator. We dragged our suitcases up the dimly lit staircase, and then Jake's mom, Rachel, instructed us to get freshened up and rest a little before dinner.

“I don't even want dinner,” Jake said as he fumbled with the big key to his room. “I could just go to bed right now and sleep for a million years.”

“We have to get on Italian time as soon as we can,” his mother told him. “If you went to bed for the night now, trust me, you'd wake up at three in the morning, and you'd never get on a normal schedule.”

“Not me,” Noah volunteered with a yawn. “I could go to bed now and sleep until a normal time tomorrow.”

“Yes, well, my darling, you are a teenager. You come equipped with superhuman sleep powers.”

Jake and his brother would be sharing a room, and I'd be sleeping on a cot in their mother's room. I felt weird about this because I barely knew Rachel and she seemed intense, sharp-eyed and fast-talking, but she'd been very clear that there was one room for boys and one room for girls and that was that.

I used Rachel's laptop to send a quick e-mail to
Melanie
and Keith, to let them know I'd arrived safely, and then I lay down on my cot, trying to figure out if it was worth unpacking or not. We'd be in Rome for the first four days before taking a train up to Florence—which was, of course, the part of the trip that interested me. If I could have fast-forwarded through the next few days, I would have.

The next thing I knew, Rachel was saying, “Wake up, Charlotte, it's dinnertime.”

I rubbed my eyes and looked around. My suitcase still sat unopened next to me. So much for unpacking.

In the cramped little bathroom, I brushed my hair and my teeth and splashed water on my face. Then we collected Jake and Noah from their room next to ours, and we headed out into the streets of Rome.

It was dark by now, but the sidewalks were bustling with people, many conversing in loud Italian, but I also heard English and Japanese and languages that I didn't recognize. We walked down skinny streets with buildings pressing in on both sides, colorful laundry hanging out on clotheslines above—and then these alleyways would open into plazas (or
piazzas
, as the street signs called them) filled with shops and restaurants. Men in business suits bicycled past us, jabbering back and forth, and I saw smartly dressed women and elderly couples walking around licking ice cream cones. I noticed surprisingly few cars—and those that I did see were more compact than the cars in Sutton—but there were a lot more motorbikes here, in all different bright colors.

It was so odd, because of course I had never been here before in my whole life, but I felt immediately comfortable. As if I was home. Rome felt nothing at all like Sutton. And it didn't really feel like Bristol, either. But this city reminded me in some ways of the place where I'd been born. Things here felt
old
, in a way that Wisconsin never did.

Time. The more I thought about it, the harder it was to fathom. The way it just kept going, and how no two times and places were the same, yet they all had certain things in common, how people have always had homes, food, families, communities, friends.

“Let's eat here,” Rachel said. “This piazza is charming.”

There was a big stone fountain in the middle of the square, with pigeons flocking around it. A grand old church dominated the view, and the rest of the buildings were restaurants with tables set outside. Jake picked a place with a big sign saying
PIZZA
, and we sat under an umbrella.

The waiter brought us menus in English, which Noah griped about. “I feel super-condescended to right now. How does
he
know we don't speak his language?”

“Oh, what, do you know Italian now?” Jake asked. “Is that what you're studying at college? 'Cause I thought you were studying frat parties.”

Noah shrugged. “I mean, I
might
be bilingual.”

The waiter came back a moment later. “What can I get you to drink?” he asked in accented English.

“Acqua liscia, per favore
,” replied Jake.

“
Prego
,”
said the waiter.

Noah stared at his little brother.

“What?” Jake said, opening his eyes wide. “I
might
be bilingual.”

I giggled. Jake around his family was so different from Jake at school. I hadn't seen him blush or mumble or stare at the ground once. I wondered if everyone had that: a school-self and a home-self. Like how Sydney was so shy and giggly when teachers called on her in class, but so in-charge when she was with her little sisters.

I didn't quite remember who my home-self was anymore. Sometimes I felt her stirring inside of me, especially when I was at the library. If you close up your home-self for long enough, and you never let her out where other people can see her, does she eventually just cease to exist, so that only your school-self is left—and that just becomes who you are, forever?

We ordered pizzas and salads, and when they came out, I realized that Melanie and Keith had been so, so wrong: Yes, that Italian restaurant at the mall was good, but no, it was
nothing
like this. Everything—the cheese, the tomatoes, the basil—tasted fresher and richer than any pizza I'd ever experienced. There should be some different word for this food. It seemed an insult to call it the same thing we called the prepackaged grocery-store discs in the freezer at home.

As we ate, Rachel talked about plans for the following day. “We'll start at the Colosseum,” she said. “Lunch near there, then hit up the Pantheon. We have tickets for the opera tomorrow night—”

“Ugh,” Noah interjected.

“I know, going on vacation where your mother pays for everything is miserable, isn't it,” Rachel said.

“Operas are boring,” Noah said. “Do I have to go?”

“Have you ever even
been
to the opera?” asked Jake.

“Have
you
?” Noah countered.

Jake turned to his mother. “I thought we were going to get to see art that I can study. Is there any art at those places?”

“Look around you,” Rachel said, sweeping her arm at the piazza. “Italy
is
art. You want to know why so many great painters and sculptors and architects come from this country, why Florence is literally the birthplace of the Renaissance? Because it is a beautiful place. Open yourself up to it, and it will inspire you.”

After dinner, we took a long, meandering route back to the hotel, walking along the river. Across it I could see a brilliantly illuminated domed building, and I thought that Rachel was right: I didn't need to go to a museum when walking through Rome itself felt like walking through a living, breathing painting.

“So what's the plan?” Jake asked me in a quiet voice when his mom and brother had walked a little ways
ahead of us.

I was silent.

“There
is
a plan, right?”

“Of course,” I snapped. “I just don't think we're going to find anything in Rome. Kitty's postcard was from Florence, remember, and we won't be there until later this week.”

“What's the plan once we get to Florence, then?”

“We go to that hotel,” I said. “The one from the postcard. Even if Kitty isn't there, maybe someone will know when she was, or where she went. Or maybe she left the next clue there.”

It wasn't perfect. But it was better than nothing. And I was glad that, for the first time in three years, I wasn't on this quest alone anymore. I had Jake to strategize with now.

Still, I was desperately aware of how little time we had. Four days in Rome, where I had no reason to believe Kitty would be. Six days in Florence. And then back to Sutton, back to school, back to normal.

This was my one chance. I couldn't waste it.

Chapter 29

The next few days were a tireless march from ancient ruins to art museums to Catholic churches, landmark to landmark to landmark. Jake took a sketchbook with him everywhere and was able to lose himself in the sights, passing half an hour just by sitting in front of a lemon tree outside of our hotel and drawing it in as much detail as he could.

I, on the other hand, found myself unable to be still, continually picking up books and turning the pages, only to realize that I hadn't processed a single word in them. I didn't want to be sitting and taking in the scenery. I wanted to be
doing
.

After four days in Rome, we packed up and traveled to Florence. The train was spacious and fast, zooming through lush green fields and olive groves, with hills rising far off in the distance. Jake and I sat next to each other, munching on panini that we'd bought near the train station.

“I'm so excited to see Florence,” he said. “Are you excited?”

“I guess.” This tight feeling in my stomach—was that excitement?

“What are you going to say to her when you find her?” he asked. “You haven't seen her since you were, what, ten?”

“I always thought I would ask her to forgive me,” I answered quietly.

“For what?” he asked. “
You
didn't kidnap her and try to kill her. You definitely didn't call up any Nazi spies and say, ‘Psst, Kitty's here, come get her!'”

I couldn't even laugh at that. “They weren't trying to take her,” I said. “They were just trying to get to my dad. I told them she was my
sister
! How stupid am I? If I hadn't done that, they would have left her alone. And when I saw that portal, I should have brought her with me. I shouldn't have just left her there.

“But you know what, Jake? If she hadn't been friends with me at all—if she'd taken the Film Stars up on their invitation—she wouldn't even have been at my house in the first place. Bad things happen when people get close to me. Kitty should have gone with Betsy that night. That's the truth of it.”

“Whoa,” Jake said. “What are the Film Stars? Who's Betsy?”

“It doesn't matter,” I told him. “It's so far in the past.”

“Okay,” he said. “But none of that really makes sense. You know that, right? Kitty was friends with you because she wanted to be friends with you. You didn't force her into it. And sure, it would have been great if you could have brought her through the portal. But from what you've told me, there probably wouldn't have been time for that, and trying might have gotten you both killed.”

I nodded reluctantly. “I've just always felt like I did something wrong by making it out alive when she didn't. That wasn't fair.”

“It wasn't your fault,” Jake said.

“Who cares whose fault it was? It still
wasn't fair
. But since she lived . . . since we both lived . . .” I trailed off.

“That means you don't need to feel guilty anymore,” Jake supplied.

“Right,” I said. “And that changes
everything
.” I looked out the window for a moment, at the countryside unfurling before us, then turned back to him. “I'll have these moments of absolute certainty, where I expect her to be right behind me in line, or sitting next to me at a café. And then I'll have moments where I think—the world is too big, and we have too little to go on. It's silly of me to think this could work. I need to grow up and get real.”

Jake chewed slowly and swallowed. “So, okay, what happens if you never find her?”

“I don't want to think about it.”

“No, seriously, what happens?”

I leaned my head against the train window, feeling it rattle slightly against my temple. “Nothing happens. I go home. I go back to school. I find some new extracurricular now that the library is closed.”
I find some new friends
, I added to myself. “I keep living.”

“So, the same stuff you would have done if you'd never found that postcard,” Jake said.

“I suppose. Except that there will be this little bit of time when I had hope. And it's easier not to get something when you'd never even hoped for it in the first place.”

“I know,” Jake said. His fingers started making little tears in his now-empty sandwich wrapper. “It's like the last time I had a birthday party. It was a few months before you showed up. The theme was Star Wars. My mom and I spent ages planning it. She got a piñata shaped like the Death Star and these cool glowing light sabers for party favors.” He fell silent.

After a moment, I prompted him. “So what happened?”

“Oh.” He shrugged elaborately. “Nobody came.”

“Oh, Jake.”

“Well, okay, Tyler came. But he was really embarrassed to be there when he realized that no one else was going to show up. And then I was embarrassed, too. It was just like one big embarrassment party. Or one small embarrassment party? Whatever.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, no, it was years ago. I don't even care. I'm just saying, that's the last time I tried to have a party, because you're right: It's easier not to get something when you'd never even hoped for it in the first place.”

Then he pulled out his sketch pad and leaned over it, painstakingly drawing from a photo that he'd taken earlier of our hotel's façade. I watched him for a moment, but he didn't look up at all.

I turned to look back out the window, at the lush green fields, the blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds, the low scrub trees, and the occasional village with its red-tile-roofed clusters of buildings. I listened to the scraping of Jake's pencil and the beeping of Noah's cell phone game and the rustling of Rachel's book pages and the clatter of wheels on train tracks, and I tried not to think about how each repetition of those noises brought me a little bit closer to Kitty—or to nothing at all.