What Was I Thinking? (37 page)

When I was decent, she rang the bell, and Bert
led Cathy in. Cathy was carrying a tray with broth, crackers, a glass of milk,
and a full tea service. Bert had his brandy decanter and some glasses.

When Cathy had gone, Augusta insisted that I
eat. She and Bert had tea, and bided their time.

When the broth was gone, so was my reprieve.
Bert handed me a glass of brandy and said, “No more bullshit, Jane Addams. What
happened a week ago and what has gotten into you?”

“A week ago?”
I stared.

“Yes. Seven days,” he said, firmly. “And that’s
more than enough for sulking or whatever you’re about.”

“You’re quite right. I’m sorry.” Tears came
again, but I blinked them back.

“Just tell us what happened, dear,” Augusta
said, gently. “Were you hurt? Were you robbed? Whatever it is, we’ll make it
right.”

I must have reacted when she said, “
robbed
,” because Bert narrowed his eyes at me and barely let
her finish speaking.

“Addie, the newspapers had a piece about a
secretive, rich young lady being robbed of her fur coat on the very day you
came back without your coat. Was that you? You must tell us.”

And so I did. They were silent through the
whole recital, except to remind me to speak up when my voice sank too low for
hearing. I looked at my hands the whole time, and tended to forget to speak
aloud.

When I finished, they were silent. I looked
from one to the other, and looked back down at my intertwined hands. “I was
just so ashamed that I had actually made life worse for those poor people, and
that I had lost the beautiful coat you gave me, and I felt so useless that I just
didn’t know what to do. So I came in here and went to bed.”

“And you haven’t done anything else since?”
Bert’s voice was very gentle.

I shook my head.
“No,
nothing.”

“Why didn’t you answer all the times we
knocked, and called to you? Didn’t you know we were worried?”

“I, um.
I didn’t listen at first, but I
mostly didn’t hear. I stopped noticing anything a while ago. I don’t know how
long.”

“Oh, dear.
Perhaps we really should call
in the doctor. This cannot be good.”

“Please don’t, Augusta. I’m sorry to have
caused so much worry and trouble, but I truly don’t need a doctor. I promise.”

She and Bert looked at each other, and then he
said, “No doctor for now, but no promises either. If we don’t see improvement
in short order, we’ll have to take steps.”

I nodded.

“In that case,” Augusta said firmly, “finish
your brandy and come down to the morning room. You’re long overdue to come
downstairs and do your part of the work. We’ve work piled up and only a week to
stock Sarah’s store for its big opening.”

Chapter Twenty

Departure

I did as I was told, and life more or less went
back to normal, but I couldn’t cheer up. The best I could do was to plod
forward and keep my commitments. I forced myself to exercise every day and to
eat healthily, but it was a strain. I knew I was depressed, but I also knew
there was nothing to be done about it. The cure would be worse than the disease
and I really didn’t care anyway.

Christmas came and went. Augusta tried to make
it nice and I tried to hide my sadness. She had more success than I did, but I
really didn’t care. I worried about my parents missing me, but there was
nothing I could do about it.

Bert tried to get me to help with his research,
but I couldn’t think. As part of my struggle to meet my commitments, I forced
myself to spend every weekend in the research lab with him, but nothing could
make my mind come up with fresh thoughts. So he thought and I made notes for
him, trying to be at least a little useful.

One Saturday afternoon when I’d been especially
useless, he took my pencil away—my ballpoint had long ago dried up and I didn’t
have the patience to develop skill with a fountain pen—and told me we were
going out.

“Going out? What about our schedule?”

“I’m changing the schedule. It’s spring, we’re
not accomplishing anything here, and we’re going to the drugstore. Get your
hat.”

I got my straw hat and we walked to the
drugstore. Without asking me what I wanted, he steered me to the soda fountain
and ordered Coke floats for both of us.

After the soda jerk went to serve another
customer, Bert said, “Addie, we have to talk.”

“Okay.” I took a spoonful of ice cream. It was
wonderful. I smiled a little, and took another.
“What about?”

“You’re depressed.”

“Duh.”
I rolled my eyes at him and
went back to my float.

“Self-absorbed, also.”

I looked up at that, and took my first good
look at his face in months. “Bert, what’s wrong?”

“I’m depressed, too. It’s true that I used to
belong here, but I don’t any more. I can’t live in this society either and I
know we can’t fix anything.”

I looked down, stirring my soda gently with the
straw. “I’m sorry, Bert.” Remembering a little about normal behavior, I made an
effort to look him in the eye.
Beautiful, grey eyes.
“I’m a jerk not to have noticed your feelings. I’m truly sorry. What can I do
to help?”

He smiled at me. His face looked as if he
weren’t used to the expression either. “You can help me solve this last
equation and you can tell me I’d be welcome in the twenty-first century.”

I blinked.
A lot.
“Last equation?
Twenty-first cen…”

He nodded. “You haven’t been much use as a
research assistant lately, but I knew you needed your caffeine when I told you
that we had only a few more variables to solve before we could pack to take you
home and you wrote it down.”

“I did
not
.”

“You did. When we go back to the lab, you can
check.”

“Really?
We can go home? My home—I
mean—” I was suddenly excited.

“Really.
I’ve been discussing it with
Mother.” He kicked my booted foot gently. “You haven’t been much of a
confidante lately either, Jane A.”

I grimaced. “I’m sorry.” I was tired of saying
it, but what else was there?

“It’s okay.” He smiled at me again. “So, I’ve
been discussing it with Mother, and we’ve agreed that both you and I would be
better off in your world. You get a vote, of course, but we’ve been planning
against the day you were ready to take an interest.”

“I see.” I considered, having some more of the
wonderful ice cream soda. “I would feel bad to walk out on your mother, and bad
to just abandon the problems of this world to run away to a happier one. On the
other hand, I’m just as useless here, and—”

He didn’t let me finish. “Addie, that’s just
wrong and I’m not going to listen to it. You’ve never been useless and you
can’t blame yourself for failing to solve an enormous societal wrong the first
day you tried.”

“I can blame myself for making it worse and for
harming the people I tried to help.”

“That’s bad, I know. But you aren’t the first
reformer to do that, and you won’t be the last. You can do more good back home
in the world you understand.”

“I don’t know.” I swiveled a little on my
stool, pushing off with my toes. “Remember, the reason I came here was that I
made a total hash of my life then.”

“Really?
I thought it was because you
loved me.”

I looked up, but he was only teasing, thank
heavens. I had all the guilt I could carry. He smiled at my expression and went
on.

“You were going through a bad patch, it’s true.
But if you had made as much effort to fix your life then as you have in this
time, you would have been fine.”

I thought about that. I swiveled some more,
pursed my lips, and thought hard. “You’re right. I never realized that. I felt
trapped and helpless and just tried to find the easy way for everything. Here,
I knew I was trapped and that I didn’t have an easy way out, so I made the
changes I could, and adjusted my attitude where I couldn’t change
circumstances. And it worked.
Until it didn’t anymore.”

I looked at him again, and nodded. “You’re
right. I could do better now. But I don’t think I can go back to being a marketer
for a big company.” I laughed, silently.
“Even if I did make
myself right back into a marketer for cosmetics.”

He laughed back at me. “You did, but you also
started the company and used your actual knowledge and skills to make a good
product.”

“I did, didn’t I?” I gave another little spin
and hopped down from the stool. “What do we do?”

Once Bert cracked the final equation, it all
went smoothly. We had to wait for August to travel again, but we were able to
predict it and plan. When the vibrations that foretold the time wave arrived,
we were all set.

Titian took off with the warm weather and we
reorganized to put Augusta in charge. Fortunately, Mrs. Horner had found a good
butler at last, and he had hired a full household staff. That left her free to
focus on taking my place as chief acting chemist. She didn’t want to go get a
chemistry degree, though, so I started a search for one we could hire.

I drove everyone crazy with my exhortations to
stay with safe, natural ingredients, to shun animal testing, and to keep an eye
out for titanium dioxide.

Sarah’s shop was booming and she hired five
assistants. She taught one of them enough about the products to sell, and sent
her out to place product in other retailers. We hadn’t figured out how to
preserve our products for more than a couple weeks, so we were limited to
selling within a day’s drive.

Augusta and Mrs. Horner drew up plans to expand
production and hire more staff. Mrs. Horner kept her practice of hiring cook’s
assistants and moving likely ones into the business, but it was slow going.

Bert and I talked a lot about what we would do
when we got back and how we could support ourselves and do something worthwhile
in the world. We finally decided we would work it out when we got there. We
knew it wouldn’t be more time-travel physics, though. The world had enough
moral dilemmas without that one piling on.

We did think we would probably work together in
some way. We weren’t back in love, but we
were
friends. He had remembered that I was smart and capable of actual conversation,
and
I
had remembered that he was
very, very smart and unusually thoughtful.

When August and the time wave rolled around, we
packed up, hugged everyone, and went downstairs. We had said goodbye to most
people over the preceding weeks. The night before, we had the whole Titian
staff, as well as Charles and Greg, over to a fancy goodbye dinner. Our story
was that we were off to Europe to start a new lab. If anyone thought it was
improper that an unmarried couple was heading out of the country together, they
were too polite to say so.

We gave everyone the next day off and Augusta
alone followed us down to the It room and hugged us tightly. I clung to her for
a long time, and wept a little. She was the best friend I’d ever had, and I was
leaving her forever.

“Don’t forget me,” I sniffled.

“Nor you, me,” she sniffled back. She gave me
an extra tight squeeze, and whispered “Take care of my son, okay?”

I nodded, too choked up to say anything, and
squeezed back.

Bert handed me into the Steamer, gave his
mother a last hug, and got in beside me. We buckled up and took off.

Part 4: Modern Life

Chapter Twenty-one

Home Again

We landed without incident and got out in the
empty
It
room. We stretched a bit, confirmed that the doors were locked, and then Bert
opened the safe, pulling out my long-lost jeans and T-shirt first. I changed
into them gratefully, moving the brooch-watch Augusta had given me from the
bodice of my dress into my jeans pocket for safekeeping. I didn’t think the
T-shirt could support it.

After a moment’s thought, I folded my
beautiful, green and white shirtwaist carefully, and set it on the seat of the
Steamer. I put my boots under the seat. “I’ll get it all later,” I told Bert.

He nodded, handed me my sneakers, and went back
to pulling out our modern possessions. I still had my shoulder bag and a few
dollars of modern cash in the wallet. No driver’s license, though. Oops.