Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink (3 page)

Luckily, it really was only five minutes—five awkward, silent minutes, but five minutes nonetheless. We had reached the rambling white farmhouse that served as the administrative headquarters of Camden Harbor: the Museum of Maine and the Sea. Located just outside the gates of the living history museum, it held all the staff offices. I'd been here just this morning to pick up a key to my less-than-luxurious accommodations.

Ashling pushed open the door and marched straight up to the receptionist's desk. “We're the interns,” she announced proudly.

“How nice, dear.” The receptionist, a round, motherly woman smiled. “Head down the hallway and wait in the Oak Room—last door on your left. Maddie will be there in just a minute. We're just dealing with something right now.”

They must have been dealing with something big—I could hear indeterminate yelling noises floating from one of the endless rooms off the hall. The Oak Room was just like the rest—dark wood, burgundy carpet, heavy floral drapes, brimming bookshelves, and stern nineteenth-century New Englanders frowning down from oil paintings. We took seats in three of the Quaker-style chairs around the oval table that dominated the room. The yelling drifted in from the next room over, louder, and now I could make out what they were saying:

“Maddie, I need you on my side on this one,” a man's voice pleaded.

“I don't know,” a woman said, hedging. “It was just some kid. It might be nothing.”

“This isn't the first sighting and you know it,” he argued back heatedly. “There've been enough sightings that it's definitely something. This is happening, Maddie, whether you want it to or not. So we might as well do something about it! Do you have any idea how much business this could bring in?”

“President Harrow doesn't want to capitalize on any of this ghost stuff. He thinks it's cheap—”

“And it's a museum, not a tourist trap, blah, blah, blah. I've heard it all before,” he interrupted. “But we're in serious financial trouble, Maddie. We're at an all-time attendance low, and this place is hemorrhaging money. Wouldn't anything—
anything—
be worth it to get more people in? Especially just a silly little ghost story? What's the harm in that?”

“I'll have to think about it, Roger.” She sighed. “If people see this ‘ghost' again and it starts to really become something, I'll think about it, okay?”

“It already is something, Maddie, four sightings. It—”

“I'll think about it, Roger,” she said, finishing the conversation. “I have to go welcome the interns.”

A door slammed, and a pair of heels clicked down the corridors. Not a moment later, a harried-looking thirty-something in a slim-flitting black pantsuit pushed open the door.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly. “Sorry about that. Thanks for waiting. I'm Maddie. The education director and internship coordinator.” She had the kind of red hair usually considered striking on women and unattractive on men. It suited her. She twisted it into a low bun at the nape of her neck as she took a seat at the head of the table. “Welcome to Camden Harbor, the Museum of Maine and the Sea.” She smiled. “In here, it's always 1791.” We smiled and nodded in return. “Brief introduction, then down to business. So, as I'm sure you guys all know from the brochure we sent you, this area—called Mengunticook, or ‘great swells of the sea,' by the Penobscot Abenaki Indians—was settled just after the conclusion of the French and Indian War. The settlement served as an American encampment during the Revolution and was incorporated as the town of Camden Harbor in 1791. Which is why, when the museum was built in the late 1920s, the founders decided to recreate Camden Harbor as it would have been at the time of its incorporation. Although not a brick-for-brick reproduction, the Camden Harbor buildings give visitors the experience of what life would have been like in a small New England fishing village of the period. I'm sure this isn't new information.” We nodded again. “Great. I'm just gonna give you guys a quick spiel about scheduling, what your days will be like here, that kind of thing . . . Really quick, I promise, and we'll be on our way. We're big into on-the-job learning here.”

Suze and I exchanged nervous glances. Maddie pulled out a folder from the attaché case she'd brought in with her. “All righty, let's see.” She flipped it open. “Ashling.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Ashling pulled a minuscule notebook and pen out of her fanny pack. “Before you begin, I already know what I'm doing. I am extremely experienced in first-person interpretation, and I was planning to proceed with my current character.”

“Okay.” Maddie tried to smile politely. “Well, that's great. So you'll be walking around the harbor, in character, interacting with guests all day, in a freeform environment.”

“That is correct,” Ashling confirmed, like she was the boss.

“Then I guess all we need to do is get you a fitting. Suze?” She moved on. Suze waved. “When we next meet up, for your training session, I'll take you over to the Research Library, where you'll be assisting the head librarian and the curator with whatever they're working on, as well as researching a project of your own choosing.”

“Great.” Suze nodded happily.

“So that makes you Libby.” Maddie turned to me. “Girls of Long Ago Camp starts on Monday. In the mornings, you and the girls will do hearth cooking, and then in the afternoons, different craft projects. You can schedule needlework, knitting, quilting, flower pressing, all of that, at your discretion. They'll go over it in more detail at your domestic arts training this weekend and show you where all the supplies are, so you can make some kind of lesson plan.” She pursed her lips.

“Awesome.” I smiled.

“Great.” Maddie closed the folder. “Glad this is going so well. We'll be off to the costume shack in no time. Ashling and Libby, you'll be in period dress, but whenever you're not, you'll join Suze in wearing the official Camden Harbor uniform: a blue polo with the Camden Harbor logo.” She pulled one seemingly out of thin air and held it up. It wasn't particularly cute—a generic royal blue polo with a white schooner and “Camden Harbor: The Museum of Maine and the Sea” embroidered above the left breast pocket. “And then,” she continued, “your own khaki bottoms. Shorts, pants, what have you.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” I raised my hand. “Nobody mentioned a uniform. We have to wear that all the time?”

“Malibu Barbie is worried she won't be able to show off the wardrobe from the dream house,” Ashling muttered.

“Malibu? Malibu?! I'm from
Minnesota,
” I hissed back.

“Yes, all the time,” Maddie confirmed. “When you're not in costume. And when you are in costume, no makeup.”

“N-no makeup?” I stuttered. “Um, I don't mean to be a pain in the butt about this, but I'm blond—”

“We are well aware,” Ashling deadpanned.

“What I meant,” I continued, “is that I look really weird without eye makeup. Like an alien. Because I have blond eyelashes? It might, um, scare the kids . . .” I trailed off.

“As a redhead, I am familiar with the phenomenon,” Maddie said dryly.

“No, but
seriously,
” I stressed. “You're underestimating the gravity of the situation. Once I left for school without eye makeup and everyone thought I was sick and my friend Dev tried to send me to the nurse for a mono test, but it was just because I overslept and didn't have time to put on any eyeliner—”

“We appreciate the enormity of your sacrifice.” Maddie held up her hand for silence and cut me off. “But no makeup.”

Ashling rolled her eyes and smiled smugly.

“And finally, obviously, whenever you're in costume, no cell phones.”

“NO CELL PHONES?!” I exploded.

“They shatter the illusion of the eighteenth-century village,” Maddie explained calmly.

“But what if we hide them from the tourists? And only check them when no one's around?” I wheedled. What if Dev needed to call me? What if Meryl Streep needed him to get an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript and I was the only one who could help? Not that I'd know how to do that anyway, but that was beside the point.

“Nope.” Maddie stood firm.

“Come on, Suze, back me up here,” I whispered. Sure, Suze seemed a little repressed, maybe, but I was holding out a hope that she was a normal human.

“Sorry, Libby.” She shook her head. “I work in a library. We're not exactly pro-phone.”

“Oh, fine,” I grumbled. I'd find a way. I was resourceful. Like a pioneer woman.

“Now that that's settled”—Maddie picked up her attaché case—“let's get you gals fitted.”

We filed out of the Oak Room, left the administrative farmhouse, and went through the staff entrance to Camden Harbor, which was a swinging gate in a white picket fence behind a butter-yellow house.

“This is the Bromleigh Homestead.” Maddie pointed to the house as we wound our way through the garden. “It's where you'll be, Libby. This is where Girls of Long Ago Camp is.”

It was a beautiful house, older than the one we lived in but perfectly restored. It was right on the main road, a gravel path ringed with clapboard houses surrounding a green and facing the harbor. Three-masted tall ships bobbed gently in the sea. The whole place looked like a postcard; like an idyllic dream of New England. And maybe it wasn't totally real, but it was real enough: I was here.

“The costume shack is that tiny white house on the other side of the town green, down by the quay, next to the cooper's shop.” Maddie indicated a small building in the distance. “Let's cut across the green.”

And, wow, as we got closer, I had never wanted to take a shortcut more in my life. It looked like an entire Harlequin Historical series had escaped the romance shelves at Barnes & Noble. Fifteen of the tannest, hottest guys I'd ever seen in my life were running around the green in open-necked white shirts and tight tan breeches, tossing something leather that looked like an early football and shaking their sun-bleached locks.

Now, here is the dirty little secret of almost every girl who loves history: somewhere along the line, she fell for a fictional historical hottie. Maybe it was Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in that dripping wet shirt. Or Clark Gable imagining Vivien Leigh without her shimmy. Or a rascally Hugh Grant charming a girl
Sense
less. Even Leonardo DiCaprio clinging to the
Titanic
as he slowly turned blue. Believe you me. If a girl loves history, this probably happened. Many of us dream of a time of true love, courtly manners, and real gentlemen. A world away from varsity hockey players chugging PBR post-game in the parking lot and what my mom had once mistakenly referred to as “friends with privileges,” which I privately thought of as the surest sign of the romantic apocalypse.

Dev blamed my perpetual singlehood on this problem. He told me I needed to stop waiting for a poem and accept a proposition, because Mr. Darcy just didn't exist. Boy, was Dev wrong—it was like a Mr. Darcy/sexy pirate hybrid convention out here. Mr. Darcy
was
real. I'd just been looking in the wrong place.

I was staring, slack jawed, at the 1790s
Playgirl
spread in front of me. “Who,” I said, gasping, “are they?”

“Squaddies.” She nodded brusquely. “Stay away.”

“What, er, who are Squaddies?” I noticed Suze next to me. She appeared to have frozen completely and stopped functioning altogether.

“Demo Squad,” she explained. “Schooner Demonstration. They work on the ships.”

“Oh,” I said, drooling, “climbing all that rigging must really define your arms.”

“Yes.” Maddie eyed me warily. “Like I said, stay away from the Squaddies. They're trouble. You especially, Libby. Be careful.”

“Wha—what?” I snapped out of my trance. “Why me especially?”

“Because they send Squaddies to chop wood for open-hearth cooking. For you.”

“Dooooo they.” I smiled slowly. How nice. How nice for me.

The ball went long, and the cutest Squaddie broke away from the pack to chase it. He caught it neatly, skidding to a stop mere feet away. A thick, straight shock of sandy blond hair fell across gray-blue eyes as he smiled right at me, displaying blindingly white teeth. My heart stopped.

“Move along, Squaddie,” Maddie ordered.

He shrugged and jogged off to join the rest of the Hottie Patrol, turning over his shoulder to look at me again and smile. Once Maddie's back was turned, he waved. Ashling be damned. I thanked all my lucky stars that I had gone strapless.

“Heh,” Suze said in a strangled little voice as we continued across the green.

“I know!” I sighed rapturously in return.

“Disgusting,” Ashling muttered. I didn't know what planet she was from. That boy may have been many things, but “disgusting” was not one of them. I floated six inches off the ground the rest of the way to the costume shack.

After reminding us to show up promptly at nine for training the following morning, Maddie hurried off to the education offices to coordinate some last-minute camp details. The costume shack really was a shack. The stout older woman ruling the domain pulled Suze back into an area so crammed with clothes, you could hardly see the door, leaving me and Ashling in a waiting area containing one folding metal chair and a
Camden Crier
from February '02. Ashling took the chair. I picked up what I gathered was the local newspaper.

A few minutes later Suze was done, and the costume lady pulled Ashling back into her lair. I flipped through the
Crier,
skimming an article about the school board fudging standardized testing results. Fifteen minutes of flipping later, Ashling returned and it was my turn.

Within, it was even more stuffed with clothes than I'd thought.

“First things first.” The lady tossed a polo shirt at me. “Here.”