Past Perfect (29 page)

A voice came from behind her. “Excuse me! Yoo-hoo! Civil War people!”

The circle around me opened up to reveal a family of moderners. A mom, a dad, and four scowling little blond boys in matching cowboy hats.

“Can we get a photo with all of you?” the mother asked.

“Ya’ll look so fabulous in your costumes!”

“Of course,” we chorused. Even me. If there’s one rule that every reenactor knows, it’s that you always say yes to a photograph, War or no War, heartbreak or no heartbreak.

The modern woman stared down at me. “You okay there, hon?” she asked.

“Yes,” all the Civil Warriors and I said together.

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“I fell,” I explained, wincing as I stood up and tried to brush some dirt off my gown.

“She fell,” the Civil War General agreed.

“Well, hop to. It’s photo time!”

The modern woman proceeded to arrange everyone exactly how she wanted us. “Caleb, honey, you kneel here, in front of this lady. That’s right. Now, you two, pretend like you’re carrying that basket. Ooh, I love that!”

“Do you actually want me in this photo?” I asked the moderner. For one thing, I’d just been beat up, and I looked it.

For another, I came from an entirely different century.

She looked puzzled and said, “Of course. Get on in there!

Say cheese!”

I wound up placed next to Dan. “I assume this is what it’s like to work with Ansel Adams,” I muttered. The corner of his mouth twitched in what might have been a smile.

After the moderner had snapped a dozen photos of us and her ferocious-looking towheaded offspring, they left us alone, the children running ahead of their parents and aiming toy guns at one another. I could hear them screeching “Pow-pow!

Pow-pow!” even after they’d disappeared from my view.

“I’m going to escort Chelsea out,” Dan said. “And she won’t come back. Will you?”

“No way,” I said. “I’m done here.”

We left behind the other Civil Warriors in their field and headed toward the exit. We must have looked so mismatched
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together: him in a Civil War costume, me in a Colonial costume, walking side by side.

“There’s blood on your gown,” he said, staring straight ahead.

I glanced down. He was right. “The summer’s practically over,” I said. “So, unless I do this next year, I won’t even have to wash it off.”

His mouth curved a little again, like he was trying not to laugh.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” I said. “I’m going to tell you a story that is one-hundred-percent true. Do you remember how I mentioned my ex-boyfriend, Ezra?”

“Sure. The one who sucks.”

“He doesn’t suck,” I said automatically. And then I added,

“He’s incredibly misguided and careless with other people’s feelings, and he has the emotional maturity of a toddler, but
sucks
is such a vulgar word. Anyway, he wanted to get back together with me a couple weeks ago.”

Dan shrugged as if to say,
that has nothing to do with me
.

“And I told him no,” I went on.

Dan glanced at me.

“I told him no because he hadn’t changed at all since we broke up, and I hadn’t changed at all, either. Neither of us had changed, either by accident or on purpose, either because we didn’t know how, or because we didn’t want to, or because we didn’t know that we should. So if he and I got back together, then our relationship would have been exactly the same as it was
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before. And, as it turned out, our relationship wasn’t very good.” Dan didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was listening.

I took a deep breath. “I know that the things I did to you are as cruel as the things Ezra did to me. What I did was probably worse. But I want you to give me another chance.

I’m asking you to give me another chance, because I
have
changed. I am trying to change. I want to do it right this time.” We walked past the ticket booths and stopped at the front gate of Reenactmentland. Dan said, “What about the thing where all of time is happening simultaneously, and all of history is actually one moment, so you can’t ever move beyond it? Or did you forget about all of that?”

“No, I still believe that,” I said. “I believe that history is always here, and we can’t ignore it, and we can’t escape it. But people aren’t history. Ezra used to love me, that was true, he meant it when he said it. And then he stopped loving me, and that’s also true—but that doesn’t mean that he
never
loved me.

Just like how I used to love him. And now . . . now I don’t, anymore
.
So that’s how I know that people can change, if they want to. And I want to.”

Dan looked at me for a while, like he was memorizing me.

I cleared my throat. “Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Also, I’m sorry, if I didn’t remember to say that.”

“You might have mentioned it once or twice,” he said.

“Great. I’m going to go back to work, and then I’m going to put ice on these bruises, and then—well, I’m not sure what
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comes next, but, whatever it is, I’m going to do it. I am
all
about
doing whatever comes next.”

“School starts next week,” Dan stated.

“I know.”

“And then you won’t work at Essex anymore.”

“Until next summer, maybe,” I said.

“And I won’t work at Reenactmentland anymore.”

“Until next summer, maybe.”

He shook his head forcefully.
“Ever.”

“Okay, ever. So we’ll never be enemies again.” Dan took my hand. “That’s a lot to look forward to.” He kissed me on the cheek, lingering there for a moment before pulling back. “I’ll see you soon, Chelsea Glaser.” Then he turned to walk back into Reenactmentland, and I turned to walk back to Essex. We kept holding on to each other’s hands for as long as we could.

Labor Day weekend means many things: the last days of freedom before school starts. The last days that my friends and I work at Essex. The last days that Dan and his friends work at Reenactmentland. And the first days of the Virginia Renaissance Faire, which runs from Labor Day through Halloween. This year, for the first time ever, the Ren Faire wasn’t taking place at the fair-grounds in Richmond. Instead, it was going to be set less than a mile down the road from Essex, and from Reenactmentland.

There is nobody farbier than these Ren Faire interpreters. I
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don’t have to know anything about seventeenth-century history to know how badly they’re misrepresenting it. The women there blatantly wear modern makeup. Their costumes are made out of polyester and cotton. There are visible speakers all around the fairegrounds, piping in horrifying chamber music.

My parents took me to the Ren Faire one weekend when I was little, because they thought it would be a fun family outing.

When we saw the stage of half-naked dancers, we immediately turned around and left. Not because my parents thought it was inappropriate for their child to see barely dressed women.

Just because they thought it was inappropriate for their child to see such offensive historical inaccuracies.

And now the Ren Fairies were here, infiltrating Essex.

Practically in our backyards.

So Labor Day also marked the second War Council of the season. Once again, the top Civil Warriors met with the top Colonials at the ice cream shop. But this time, the issue on the table was, How can we combine our powers to take down the Ren Faire?

“A jousting match,” the Civil War General was saying with conviction. “We sneak in one of our people, enter him into the jousting competition, and then,
boom
! He knocks a Ren Fairie off his horse. Maybe even stabs him through the heart with a sword.” Everyone pondered this suggestion.

“I see some issues here,” I began.

“Yeah,” agreed Bryan, our new man in charge. “Like, how
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would we convince them that our man is really a Renaissance jouster?”

“Never mind,” I muttered.

“Well, how did ya’ll sneak in as Confederate soldiers?” the Civil War General asked, making a note on a pad of paper.

“Because if we could just use that technique . . .”

“I’ll
tell
you,” Patience beamed.

“Also, does anyone here know how to fence?” Ezra wondered.

Nearly everyone in the room raised their hands.

Fiona and I left them to their plotting and went up to the counter to order ice cream.

“What was that thing you said once?” I asked her. “Like,

‘My enemy is actually my friend if I have another enemy who is also the enemy of my first enemy’?” Fiona shrugged. “I might have said ‘enemy’ a few more times than that. But yeah, it’s still true.” The ice cream scooper was the same one who had been working during the previous War Council.

“You guys came back,” he noted, dipping my Moose Tracks in sprinkles. “I guess you must really like ice cream, huh?” I glanced at Fiona.

“We do,” she assured him. “We really like ice cream.”

“Too bad it’s almost fall,” he commented as he rang us up.

“This is just about the end of ice cream season.”

“No,” I said. “It’s always ice cream season.”
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We took our cones to the door. Dan stood up. “Can I come with you guys?”

Fiona and I nodded. “Of course.”

I pushed open the door, and the little bells on top of it tinkled. Everyone paused in their strategizing for a moment to stare at Fiona, Dan, and me.

“Aren’t you going to stay and help us plan how to take down those farbs?” Bryan asked, his eyes bulging.

“No,” we answered. We took our ice cream and walked outside together into the fresh air.

And that was the summer. All these moments are in the past now, but they don’t disappear, and I don’t forget. They are still part of me whenever I drive around with Fiona, whenever I jump on my trampoline with Dan, whenever I see Ezra and Maggie together.

Sometimes still I am bowled over by these memories. But then I pick myself up, and I keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, relentlessly into the present.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Anica Rissi, an editor of extraordinary vision and sensitivity, and to the entire team at Simon Pulse, for everything they have done and continue to do for my writing career.

To Stephen Barbara, one of the world’s great agents. I would work on
any
project with you.

To my writing partner, Rebecca Serle. I just want to say that you’re beautiful; you’re looking incredible; girl, you’re making everbody’s day.

To Kendra Levin and Emily Heddleson for their constant friendship and keen editorial guidance. You are
amazing
.

To Katie Hanson, who has been unwavering in her enthu-siasm for my writing, and in her willingness to let me take over the entire living room with my notes.

To Jeremy Glaser, without whom my protagonist would have no arbitrary time constraint, and no last name.

To my history experts: Andrew and Caddie Martin, the Freedom Trail Foundation, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, particularly Patti Vaticano and Kelly McEvoy. Any LEILA SALES

historical facts that I got right are thanks to these sources; any historical inaccuracies are my own inventions.

I’d like to acknowledge the influence of the writings of Benedict Anderson, Erich Auerbach, and Walter Benjamin on Chelsea’s musings on history and the simultaneity of time.

And, as always, thank you to my parents and friends for their love and support.

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