What Was I Thinking? (20 page)

“And
that’s
a cell phone?”

“No, but we’re getting there. That was the last
major change in phones before cell phones. At least,” I said, realizing I
wasn’t at all sure that I was right, “it was the last major change that the
average person noticed. I’m not sure what was going on with the technology,
exactly. Now, you know what radio waves are, right?”

She looked at me a moment, and then said.
“Right.”
She dimpled, and said, “Did I get that? You say
‘right’ for ‘correct’?”

“Right!”
We both grinned, and I went on.
“So, fairly early—and I couldn’t put a date on it within twenty years, because
it’s before my time, and I never needed to know before today—someone invented a
telephone that worked using radio waves, and very, very rich people had them in
their cars—um, automobiles. But the limitations of radio meant that only a
handful of people in any city could have them.” Whew! This was taking forever,
and it was about an invention I used every day.

“So! Those were called ‘car phones’ and
everyone knew about them, but most people couldn’t imagine having one. That
changed when someone figured out a different method of sending the signal,
dividing up the air into separate sections they called ‘cells.’”

“Dividing up the air?” I had lost her, which
made sense because I had lost myself and I probably hadn’t even gotten it right
anyway.

“I think so. I’ve said it badly, and maybe not
quite right. Bert could probably set us straight. But we’re in the home
stretch, so bear with me.” Okay, I said so much there that probably made no
sense at all to her, but I had the finish line in sight, and I lunged for it.

“The point is, the new technology was called
‘cellular telephone’ and it meant that car phone use suddenly wasn’t limited to
just a few people per city. In the time between the invention of ‘cellular
telephones’ and yesterday—my yesterday—the name got shorted to ‘cell phone’ and
they were inexpensive, and very common. They didn’t need to be plugged in
anymore, and almost everyone, even children had their own, that they carried
with them.”

“Really!
Households did not share?”

“No, and
that
’s
a whole sociology class in itself. We’ll have to talk about it. But no, cell
phones were first used as replacements for the expensive car phones, and
eventually they became so small that people carried them around. I usually kept
mine in my pocket.”

“In your pocket?”
She looked with astonishment at
the skirt of the pretty shirtwaist I was wearing.

I smiled and nodded. “In my pocket, and pockets
were much smaller in my time, too.”

“Oh, my!
We certainly have much to
discuss, but I confess I would rather hear stories of your life and times than
do mundane planning to prevent our being taken to the madhouse.”

My lips twitched. “That sounds important,
though. I hear madhouses aren’t nice places.”

She rang for tea and when we were alone again,
we settled down to plan in earnest. First she explained the ideas she and Bert
had hatched in the night. Bert’s absence had to be explained as well and she
had already told everyone that he had gone to Europe to study, so it made
perfect sense to say he’d met a rich girl and brought her back to meet his
mother.

I’d have to get used to being called a girl
again, I noticed. The reflexive irritation I normally felt at the word would
show, and sooner or later that oddness would be a problem. Besides, I was
supposed to be a rich European, so polished manners would be expected. An odd
turn of phrase here or there was one thing, but sour looks would be a problem.
There was a lot I had to adjust to in my new home. I hoped I was up to it.

So.
I was rich and foreign, Bert
and I were engaged, and he had brought me to meet his mother. At least that
part was true, so I wouldn’t have any trouble remembering it. I would live here
as Augusta’s guest while we planned a wedding, and then she would remove
herself to her own home, downtown.

I was surprised at that. “This isn’t your home?”

“Oh, no, dear.
The family seat is a lovely old
place near the river that Bert’s grandpapa built when the Roland Steamship
Company became a success. I would tell you that the family will never sell it,
but apparently they will. Bert tells me you worked in a very tall building on
the site, and that our whole neighborhood became a business district of tall
spires made of glass and steel. I cannot begin to imagine.”

Huh. TAPI was on the site of Bert’s family
home? I wondered why he hadn’t mentioned it. Still, the notion of two
homes—obviously both mansions—in the same city boggled my mind.

“I guess it’s none of my business, but why did
you build this house, then, so close to the one you already had?”

“My dear, it’s not close at all. It’s over five
miles away!”

Wow, translating was going to be hard. A
hundred years was at least as big a challenge as a different language.

“It was just so fortunate for our plans—for
Bert’s work—that many of our society were building new homes to be close to the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition.” She broke off, and looked at me anxiously. “You
have heard of the Exposition, have you not? I wouldn’t like to think it
forgotten easily.”

“Oh, yes. People mostly call it the 1904
World’s Fair, but St. Louis and Washington University are still very proud of
it. There
are whole web si
…” oh, lord. If I got myself
tied up in explaining web sites and the Internet, we would never finish
planning. “But you were telling me why you have two houses.”

“Ah, quite.
Bert needed a purpose-built
room for his research, and we needed to ensure he had a property that could be
protected into the future, so he would have a place to go when he arrived. The
family seat did not have an appropriate room for him, and, of course, it would
have been wrong to prevent our heirs from using it as they wished. Building a
new home avoided both problems, and allowed us to tie this house to the Roland
Trust while leaving the large home”—

Large compared to Roland House! Dear lord, how
big
was
the main house?

—“and sufficient other holdings to the heirs to
forestall a family quarrel over inheritance. We felt it most important that the
terms of the trust not be challenged after my death and Bert’s disappearance,
so we could be sure that the basement laboratory would be waiting for him. We
couldn’t have him smashing his steamer into some fancy business spire, could
we?”

These two had really put some thought into it.
Bert was right—his mother was a smart cookie. We talked on most of the day,
switching to other topics when there were servants around, but mostly figuring
out how it would all work.

One of the first items of business was
obviously to get me outfitted. The dress I was wearing was one of Augusta’s
“and it looks very fetching on you, dear. I thought the green would look well
with your eyes, and it sets off your golden hair,” but it wasn’t really a good
fit, being a bit loose and a bit short. I needed to be outfitted from the skin
out, and for various occasions. A dressmaker was coming early Wednesday, and a
maid had been sent to The Grand Union downtown, with instructions to purchase
underclothing and nightgowns for me. I would have to travel into town
personally to purchase shoes, but the boots I had brought would do until that
could be arranged.

Bert joined us for supper, coming down the
stairs freshly shaven and brushed, looking crisp and pressed. Augusta and I had
dressed for dinner as well. It was a challenge since I didn’t have a wardrobe
yet, but she recruited her own lady’s maid, who let out the tight bodice of my
costume and, with some clever stitching and a length of pale blue silk, added
some draping to the neckline that made it both elegant and respectable. No one
listened when I said I could get dressed without help. They just ignored what I
said, took away my modern copy of stays, and laced me into the ones I’d found
in my room that morning, and tied a ruffly thing around my hips to make my butt
look bigger—thanks, gals. Then Sarah, the lady’s maid, stitched a waterfall of
ribbon to the top of my undershirty thing, whatever it was that went under the
stays and did a sucky job of replacing a bra. I couldn’t see the point of
ribbon that would be covered by the gown.

I did once the dress was back on, and I was
firmly fastened in. With the ruffles around my behind and the ribbons fluffing
out the bodice, my normally curvy figure looked even bigger at top and bottom,
and my waist looked tiny by contrast. Sarah and Augusta seemed very pleased
with the result and I wasn’t sure what I thought.

Then the upstairs maid, Daisy, was brought in
to restyle my hair with more skill than I possessed, and we all admired the
results.

It was like something out of a romance novel. I
had never dressed for dinner before, or even heard of anyone who did it in real
life. I liked it. I felt elegant, pampered, and relaxed. In my old life, I
hadn’t always had time to sit down to dinner, and now this.

The meal was surprisingly quiet, considering
how chatty Augusta and I had been all day. Bert had greeted us both formally
and held his mother’s chair while a manservant of some sort held mine. Then we
sat and quiet servants came and went with food and drink.

Table conversation was formal and impersonal.
Bert told us tidbits from his day, and then Augusta made remarks about the
weather and the local news, including the deaths of a couple spectators at the
Fairgrounds Race Track the previous Sunday. I barely spoke at all, trying to
watch the others and figure out what was expected.

At least I didn’t have any trouble with the
table settings, though a lot was unfamiliar. The old rule that you use the fork
furthest to the left and work inward as the meal progresses worked just fine.

When dessert was on the table and the servants
had gone back to the kitchen, Bert said something exciting. “The fellows at the
lab tell me the Olympics are on this week, Mother. I was thinking I might take
a gander.”

“The Olympics!”
I gasped. I knew, of course,
that the Olympics had been held in the same year as the fair, but I had never
imagined being present at any Olympics.

Bert looked at me with surprise. “I didn’t
realize you were interested in sport, Addie.”

“I’m not, in general, but the Olympics! That’s
something really special.”

“Perhaps you young people should go as an
outing, Bert. Poor Addie has been trapped in the house all day with just an old
lady for company.”

“Oh, no, Augusta, I didn’t…it wasn’t like that
at all.” I felt dreadful. It never occurred to me that my interest in seeing
the Olympics would hurt her feelings. “It was a wonderful day—”

And then I saw her twinkling at me. “I’m just
teasing you, dear. I had a nice day with you as well, but you haven’t seen your
beau all day, and Bert would spend his whole life in the laboratory if I didn’t
nag him to get out. Now that you are here, we can work together to remind him
that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Bert turned to me. “Would you truly like to go,
Addie? I know you share my interest in science, but I hadn’t dared hope we
would share leisure pastimes as well.”

“I would love to go.
Truly.”
His words startled me. We had been on several dates, but he was right, we
didn’t really know each other’s interests well. We both liked the zoo and we
both thought time travel was fascinating, but beyond that…

I did love him, though. I knew I did. We also
liked the same poems, come to think of it, and we liked him sending me flowers.
And kissing.
We liked kissing. I looked at him
consideringly. It had been a whole day since we’d kissed, and I missed it.

“Very well then, we will go.”

Huh? Oh, yes.
The Olympics.
It was terrible how far away I had drifted just from a momentary thought of
that mouth, those strong hands…oops, he was talking again.

“I say, suppose we make a day of it. Addie, you
and I can watch the marathon and walk about the fair as well, and in the evening,
we can meet up with Mother for supper at one of the restaurants.”

“Wonderful idea,” I said.

Augusta agreed. “Lovely. Which restaurant do
you think? We’ll need to plan carefully, or we’ll never find one another. I
understand the crowds are enormous.”

I leaned a little toward Augusta and said,
“This is where cell phones come in really handy. In my world, we would each
have a phone with us, and when you parked your automobile, you would take your
phone out of your purse and call Bert to tell him you’d arrived. Then he would
take his phone out of his pocket and answer. He would tell you exactly where we
were standing, and we would meet easily.”

She laughed with delight.
“How
wonderful!
What a lot I’m learning from you.”

Bert frowned a little. “Should we really be
talking about things that haven’t happened yet?” he asked me. “Surely that can
only lead to trouble.”