Past Perfect (11 page)

“Extremely. Apparently they told the moderners there that the Civil War began at a cricket match between England and South Carolina in 1861. It took the Civil Warriors close to an hour to run all the Redcoats out of there.” I snorted. “What enterprising young chaps they are,” I said. “Tally-ho, and all that. I wonder
how
they got such a good idea?”

Tawny gave me a high five so powerful that it nearly knocked me over. “Whoever’s idea this was, she’s the greatest Lieutenant I could ever hope for.” A firework boomed, as if in agreement.

“Hey, you’re the Essex Lieutenant?” asked Fiona’s Redcoat, leaning over to address me.

“Depends who’s asking,” I replied.

“Well, if you are, I have something for you.” Using his hand that wasn’t wrapped around Fiona’s waist, the Redcoat pulled a folded piece of paper out of his breeches pocket and handed it to me. for essex’s Lieutenant (chelsea), it read.

“What is this?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I didn’t open it. Some Civil War guy gave it to us when we were across the street.” I unfolded the paper and read the words inside. you stole my hoodie. what do i have to do to get it back?

“What’s it say?” asked Tawny.

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I quickly folded it back up. “Nothing.”

“Who’s it from?” Fiona was studying my face.

“It’s not signed.” That much was true. “It’s just some trash talk from the Civil War. ‘The Fourth of July sucks.’ Typical stuff.”

“If that’s the best they can do, they might as well surrender today.” Tawny spat on the ground.

“Why are you smiling?” Fiona asked me.

“Am I?”

“Yup,” Fiona said. “You’re definitely smiling.”
You stole my hoodie. What do I have to do to get it back?

“I’m just really excited now. About . . . fireworks.”

“Fireworks,” repeated Fiona.

“Yes, fireworks. I love the Fourth of July.” And I shouted,

“Long live the King!” as a shower of red, white, and blue rained down above us.

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S
o what happened to your Redcoat boy?” I asked Fiona over ice cream the following evening. She had driven us two towns over, to Plainville, so we could go to Abbott’s.

Abbott’s is an old-fashioned soda shop that puts Essex’s ice cream options to shame. Abbott’s handcrafts its own ice creams and then serves them in massive sundaes with names like “Dentist’s Nightmare” and “Diabetics, Beware.”

“What do you mean, ‘what happened to my Redcoat boy’?” Fiona asked, swirling her spoon around her dish.

“I mean, where did he go?”

“He went . . .” Fiona gazed off into the distance and shook her head slightly. “He went the way of all things.” PAST PERFECT

“You mean he
died
?”

Her focus snapped back to me.
“No.”

“Well, you made it sound like he died.”

“I just meant that he went wherever it is that boys go when they go.” She waved a hand. “Into the ether. Into the great beyond.”

“It’s still sounding like he died. Did you at least get his number?”

Fiona paused with a spoon full of nuts, caramel, and salted-caramel ice cream halfway between the bowl and her mouth.

“Why would I want his
number
?”

“Hmm, let me think . . . Oh, I’ve got it: so you could call him.”

“And talk about what?”

“Whatever it is that you two talk about,” I said. “For example, what did you talk about yesterday?”

“Me, mostly.”

“Fine. So if you’d exchanged numbers, you could have phone conversations where you talk more about you. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“Or,” Fiona suggested, “you and I could go out to ice cream, and
we
could talk about me, and that would spare me the trouble of having to interact with that guy ever again.”

“That dumb, huh?”

She tossed her hair. “The beautiful ones always are.”

“He wasn’t
that
beautiful,” I pointed out.

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LEILA SALES

She sucked on her spoon, considering. “In that case, he was disproportionately dumb,” she determined. “Let me tell you what he said when I told him about the Essex cheerleaders . . . .”

I leaned back in the booth, half-listening to Fiona, half-trying to digest the quart of cake batter ice cream I had just devoured. I noticed a guy and a girl ordering at the counter. I have never understood people who go to Abbott’s for takeout.

The walls are overflowing with colorful knickknacks; every table and plate is unique; and all the waiters wear 1950s-style soda jerk uniforms. Abbott’s is not a take-out place; it’s an
experience
.

I overheard the girl at the counter say, as if she were reading my mind, “But why can’t we stay and eat here?”

“Because I told Mom we’d be home by nine.” And I recognized that voice, that gentle Southern drawl.

I stared at the guy to make sure, but there was no real question. It was Dan. It was Dan, ordering ice cream with the girl from the daguerreotype.

“Mom wouldn’t notice if we were a few minutes late,” the girl wheedled.

“Are you kidding? Are we talking about the same mother?

If we were a few minutes late, she’d become convinced that we’d abandoned her, too. No question. Do you have her Rocky Road?”

The girl halfheartedly lifted a container of ice cream.

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“Great. Let’s roll.”

They started to walk toward the door, which meant that they started to walk toward
me
. Toward the table where I sat with Fiona, who was still talking, maybe about cheerleaders, maybe about genocide now, I didn’t know, I wasn’t listening.

I was panicking.

Time felt like it slowed down and sped up all at once. Dan was coming closer and closer to where I sat, while I kept staring at him, my eyes searching for his eyes.

When he was only a few feet away, Dan noticed me. He smiled directly at me and opened his mouth as if to say hi.

So I responded as any reasonable girl would:
I ignored him
.

I dropped my gaze to my bowl, scooped up an overflowing spoonful of ice cream, and shoved it so far back into my mouth that I gagged on its watery sweetness. Some of it dribbled out of the corners of my mouth, so I had to snatch up a big wad of napkins and swipe at my chin. When I was done with all of that, I looked up again, and Dan was gone.

Fiona was laughing at me.

“What?”
I demanded.

“
What
, you just attacked that ice cream like a slobby snake who’s been starving itself for weeks. Do you know that guy?”

“Which guy?”

“The one who almost made it necessary for me to give you the Heimlich maneuver.”

“You don’t know the Heimlich maneuver,” I pointed out.

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LEILA SALES

“Chelsea! Do you
know
him?”

“No.”

Fiona narrowed her eyes at me. She required a better lie.

“I just thought he was cute, that’s all.” He
was
looking cute, too, all disheveled hair and pale skin. He was as cute here as he had been in my mind.

Not that it mattered, since I had just blanked him in the middle of Abbott’s.

“I guess he was cute,” Fiona granted, “but he was with that girl. You need someone who’s actually available.”

“She’s his sister.”

“I thought you didn’t know him?”

“I
don’t
. I just heard them talking at the counter. They’re brother and sister.”

“You were listening to some strangers when you could have been listening to me talk about myself? Chelsea, how could you?”

I rolled my eyes at her.

“I give this sundae a nine and a half,” Fiona continued peacefully. “It’s perfect, but I just want to hold on to that ten in case something more perfect ever shows up, you know?” And that was it for Fiona. I had seen a hot guy, I had almost killed myself on a spoon of ice cream, that was all.

Only I knew the truth: I had
completely
blown it.

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W
ednesday was hot. Even by Virginia-in-July standards it was hot. By lunchtime, the “How can you stand to wear that dress in this weather?” tally had reached double digits, and I had lost the will to lie.

I knew I had to blame somebody, so I decided on Fiona.

I marched over to the milliner’s, where I found Fiona and Maggie putting away scrap fabric, while Patience and Anne crowded around a moderner trying on a dress, telling her how awesome she looked in it.

“Good day, Elizabeth,” Fiona said.

“We could be at The Limited right now!” I leaned across the counter to whisper-scream at her. “At this
very moment
, LEILA SALES

we could be in an air-conditioned mall. We could be taking a break from our air-conditioned jobs to eat ice cream in the air-conditioned food court. In some parallel universe, luckier, smarter versions of Chelsea and Fiona are doing exactly that, while
we are stuck here
.”

“It’s really hot,” Fiona agreed.

“Damn straight it’s really hot!”

The moderner paid Maggie for the gown. “I look just like you all now!” she exclaimed, which I guessed was true, if the five of us looked like middle-aged preschool teachers.

After she had pranced out the door in her new Colonial outfit, I asked, “Since I’m here, can I see the Civil War costumes?” Patience narrowed her eyes, as if trying to figure out whether she could trust me.

“I’m the
Lieutenant
,” I reminded her.

She shrugged, still suspicious, then dug around in the back of the armoire before producing two snazzy Confederate soldiers’ uniforms.

“Perfect!” I reached for one, but Patience whipped it away from me.

“They’re not done yet.”

“Really?”

“Of
course
not. See, they need another row of buttons here. And you might think it wouldn’t
matter
if the shirt isn’t hemmed, since it’s going to be tucked in, but honestly . . .” The other milliner girls all nodded seriously, even Fiona. I
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had no clue what they were seeing that I wasn’t. The uniforms looked good enough to me. If we truly lived in the past, I would make some historical man a totally useless wife.

“So when do you think all this will be done?” I asked.

Patience widened her eyes and took a step toward me. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Are we not working
fast
enough for you?

Does this seem
easy
? Could you just whip up an authentic Confederate uniform in an
hour
or two
?”

“Nope.” I shook my head quickly. “Definitely no.”

“Then have. Some. Patience,” snapped Patience.

I made a mental note to tell Tawny that some of our soldiers seemed overworked and possibly on the verge of an insane meltdown.

“Can we
please
go to the brickyard now?” Fiona asked as Patience stuffed the costumes back into their hiding spot.

“We’re wasting our break.”

This was the first good idea that I’d heard all day.

We hustled out the door and down the small dusty lane to the brickyard. Once there, we stripped off our boots and stockings, hitched up our petticoats, and waded into the treading pit.

The clay and water felt cool on my calves. This was almost as good as air-conditioning. I completely understood how pigs felt.

“So, about the Lenny and Elissa thing . . .” Anne started, but the rest of the girls all groaned.

“He’s not worth it,” Fiona said, stomping through the clay.

“Honestly, you can do so much better.”
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LEILA SALES

“He has that weird thing going on with his chin,” added Patience.

“And not to minimize your suffering or anything,” Maggie said, “because I totally get that you are suffering, but you guys hooked up, what, once? A year ago? It’s not like you have any claim
over him. If he wants to bang that skank, that’s his prerogative.”

“I’m not saying I have a
claim
over him,” Anne protested.

“I just want to know what she has that I don’t.” Maggie answered by holding her hands about six inches in front of her chest, miming Elissa’s D-cup. The rest of the girls cracked up.

“She is such a slitch,” Patience said, thus saving herself the effort of having to use two full syllables to call Elissa both a slut and a bitch. She was also wrong. As far as I knew, Elissa was just a normal history nerd who worked as a waitress at the White Horse Tavern.

Anne said, “I’d almost feel better if Lenny was dating a Civil Warrior.”

“Ewww,” we all cried in unison—even though a picture of Dan flashed through my mind as I squealed.

“Elissa’s bad, but she’s not
that
,” Fiona said. “Those Civil War girls are such whores. Chelsea told me they left old bras and panties draped all around the shoemaker’s yesterday.”

“True,” I confirmed. “I didn’t even want to pick them up for fear of contracting an STD.”

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“We need to fight back harder.” Maggie looked at me pointedly.

I put up my hands. “Hey, if anyone’s got ideas, by all means, bring them on.”

“The thing about Lenny—” Anne tried to return to her favorite topic, but Patience interrupted.

“How’s it going with Nat?” Patience asked Fiona.

Fiona squished the mud between her toes. “It’s
not
going with Nat.”

“Maybe he’s scared,” I offered.

“Oh, please,” Fiona scoffed. “I’m not scary.”

“Sure,” I said. “You’re just gorgeous—”

“Only if you’re into brunettes,” she argued.

“and rich—”

“Not anymore.”

“and charismatic—”

“Eh, it comes and goes.”

“oh, and you’ve made out with practically every worthwhile guy at school.”

“At least twenty percent of them were drunk at the time.” She fluttered her long lashes.

“Right, so I can’t imagine why Nat would be scared of you.

Plus, Fi, you
just
hooked up with a British soldier. Like two days ago. So maybe Nat has some reason to believe you’re not that into him.”