Time Travel Omnibus Volume 2 Page 19

  Now that she was on the lake, with the Michigan shoreline lost to her, and with the steady cat-purr of the outboard soothing her mind, she could think about the last year, examine it thread by thread like a dark tapestry.

  Dark.

  That was the word for it.

  Three dark, miserable love affairs in twelve dark, miserable months. First, with Glenn, the self-obsessed painter from the Village who had worshipped her body but refused to consider the fact that a brain went with it. And Tony, the smooth number she’d met at the new disco off Park Avenue, with his carefully tailored Italian suits and his neurotic need to dominate his women. Great dancer. Terrific lover. Lousy human being. And, finally, the wasted months with Rick, God’s gift to architecture, who promised to name a bridge after her if she’d marry him and raise his kids—three of them from his last divorce. She had tried to make him understand that as an independent woman, with a going career in research, she wasn’t ready for instant motherhood at twenty-one. And there was the night, three months into their relationship, when Rick drunkenly admitted he was bisexual and actually preferred males to females. He’d taken a cruel pleasure in explaining this preference to her, and that was the last time they’d seen each other. Which was . . . when? Over two months ago. Early October now, and they’d split in late July.

  She looked ahead, at the wide, flat horizon of the lake as the small boat sliced cleanly through the glittering skin of water.

  Wide.

  Timeless.

  Serene.

  What had Hemingway called it? The last ‘free place’. The sea. She smiled. Lake St Clair wasn’t exactly what he’d been talking about, but for her, at this moment, it would do just fine. She did feel free out here, alone on the water, with the cacophonous roar of New York no longer assaulting her mind and body. The magic peace of the lake surrounded her like a pulsing womb, feeding her hunger for solitude and silence. This assignment in Michigan had been a true blessing, offering her the chance to escape the ceaseless roar of the city . . .

  ‘Dearborn? Where’s that?’

  ‘Where the museum is . . . in Detroit. You can check out everything at the museum. They’ve got the car there.’

  Her boss referred to ‘999’—the cumbersome, flat-bodied, tiller-steered vehicle designed by Henry Ford and first raced here at Grosse Pointe, just east of Detroit, late in 1902. The newspaper she worked for was planning a special feature piece celebrating the anniversary of this historic event. Old 999 was the car that launched the Henry Ford Motor Company, leading to the mass-production American automobile.

  ‘The museum people restored it, right down to the original red paint. It’s supposed to look exactly like it did back in 1902,’ Kathy’s boss had told her. ‘You go check it out, take some shots of it, dig up some fresh info, then spend a few days at Grosse Pointe . . . get the feel of the place.’

  She’d been delighted with the assignment. Autumn in Michigan. Lakes and rivers and hills . . . Trees all crimson and gold . . . Sun and clear blue sky . . . Into Detroit, out to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, a look at Ford’s birthplace, a long talk with the curator, some pictures of ridiculous old 999 (‘. . . and they named her after the New York Central’s record-breaking steam locomotive’) and on out to Grosse Pointe and this lovely, lonely, soothing ride on the lake. Just what she’d been needing. Balm for the soul.

  As a little girl, she’d vacationed with her parents in Missouri and Illinois, in country much like this—and the odours of crushed leaves, of clean water, of hills rioting in autumn colours came back to her sharply here on the lake. It was a reunion, a homecoming. Emotionally, she belonged here, not in the rush and rawness of New York. Maybe, she told herself, when I save enough I can come here to live, meet a man who loves lakes and hills and country air . . .

  Something was wrong. Suddenly, disturbingly wrong.

  The water was gradually darkening around the boat; she looked up to see an ugly, bloated mass of grey-black clouds filling the lake sky. It seemed as if they had instantly materialised there. And, just as suddenly, a cold wind was chopping at her.

  Kathy recalled the warning from the old man at the boathouse: ‘Wouldn’t go too far out if I was you, miss. Storm can build up mighty fast on the lake. You get some mean ones this time of year. Small boat like this is no good in a storm . . . engine can flood out . . . lotsa things can go wrong.’

  The clouds rumbled—an ominous sound—and rain stung her upturned face. A patter at first, then heavier. The cold drops bit into her skin through her skirt and light sweater. Lucky thing she’d taken her raincoat along ‘just in case’. Kathy quickly pulled the coat on, buttoning it against the wind-blown rain.

  Time to head back, before the full storm hit. She swung the boat around towards shore, adjusting the throttle for maximum speed.

  The motor abruptly sputtered and died. Too much gas. Damn! She jerked at the start rope. No luck.

  Again.

  And again.

  Wouldn’t start. Forget it; she was never any good with engines. There were oars and she could row herself in. Shore wasn’t far, and she could use the exercise. Good for her figure.

  So row. Row, row, row your boat . . .

  As a child, she’d loved rowing. Now she found it it was tougher than she’d remembered. The water was heavy and thick; it seemed to resist the oars, and the boat moved sluggishly.

  The storm was increasing in strength. Rain stabbed at her, slashing against her face, and the wind slapped at the boat in ice-chilled gusts. God, but it was cold! Really, really cold. The coat offered no warmth; her whole body felt chilled, clammy.

  Now the lake surface was erupting under the storm’s steadily increasing velocity; the boat rocked and pitched violently. Kathy could still make out the broken shoreline through the curtaining rain as she laboured at the oars, but it grew dimmer with each passing minute. Her efforts were futile: she was rowing against the wind, and whenever she paused for breath the shoreline fell back, with the wind forcing her out into the heart of the lake.

  She felt compelled to raise her head, to scan the lake horizon. Something huge was out there. Absolutely monstrous! Coming for her. Rushing towards the boat.

  A wave.

  How could such a mountain of water exist here? This ravening mammoth belonged in Melville’s wild sea—not here in a Michigan lake. Impossible, she told herself; I’m not really seeing it. An illusion, created by freak storm conditions, unreal as a desert mirage.

  Then she heard the roar. Real. Horribly, undeniably real.

  The wave exploded over her, a foam-flecked beast that tossed her up and over in its watery jaws—flinging her from the boat, taking her down into the churning depths of the lake.

  Into blackness.

  And silence.

  ‘You all right, miss?’

  ‘Wha—what?’

  ‘I asked if you’re all right. Are you hurt? Leg broken or anything? I could call a doctor.’

  She brought the wavering face above her into focus.

  Male. Young. Intense blue eyes. Red hair. A nice, firm, handsome face.

  ‘Well, ma’am, should I?’

  ‘Should you what?’ Her voice sounded alien to her.

  ‘Call a doctor! I mean, you were unconscious when I found you, and I—’

  ‘No. No doctor. I’m all right. Just a little . . . dizzy.’

  With his help, she got to her feet, swayed weakly against him. ‘Oops! I’m not too steady!’

  He gripped her arm, supporting her. ‘I’ve gotcha, miss.’

  Kathy looked around. Beach. Nothing but water and beach. The sky was cloudless again as the sun rode down its western edge, into twilight.

  ‘Guess the storm’s over.’

  ‘Beg your pardon, miss?’

  ‘The wave . . . a really big one . . . must have carried me in.’

  For the first time, she looked at this young man clearly—at his starched shirt with its detachable collar and cuffs, at his striped peg-top trousers and
yellow straw hat.

  ‘Are they doing a film here?’

  ‘I don’t follow you, miss.’

  She brushed sand from her hair. One sleeve of her raincoat was ripped, and her purse was missing. Gone with the boat. ‘Wow, I’m a real mess. Do I look terrible?’

  ‘Oh . . . not at all,’ he stammered. ‘Fact is, you’re as pretty as a Gibson Girl.’

  She giggled. ‘Well, I see that your compliments are in keeping with your attire. What’s your name?’

  ‘McGuire, ma’am,’ he said, removing his hat. ‘William Patrick McGuire. Folks call me Willy.’

  ‘Well, I’m Katherine Louise Benedict—and I give up. If you’re not acting in a film here then what are you doing in that get-up?’

  ‘Get-up?’ He looked down at himself in confusion. ‘I don’t—’

  She snapped her fingers. ‘Ha! Got it! A party at the hotel! You’re in costume! She looked him over very carefully. ‘Lemme try and guess the year. Ummmm . . . turn of the century . . . ah, I’d guess 1902, right?’

  Young McGuire was frowning. ‘I don’t mean to be offensive, Miss Benedict, but what has this year to do with how I’m dressed?’

  ‘This year?’

  ‘You said 1902, and this is 1902.’

  She stared at him for a long moment. Then she spoke slowly and distinctly: ‘We are on the beach at Lake St Clair, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, United States of America, right?’

  ‘We sure as heck are.’

  ‘And what, exactly, is the month and the year?’

  ‘It’s October 1902,’ said Willy McGuire.

  For another long moment Kathy didn’t speak. Then, slowly, she turned her head towards the water, gazing out at the quiet lake. The surface was utterly calm.

  She looked back at Willy. ‘That wave—the one that hit my boat—did you see it?’

  ‘Afraid not, ma’am.’

  ‘What about the storm? Was anyone else caught in it?’

  ‘Lake’s been calm all day,’ said Willy, speaking softly. ‘Last storm we had out here was two weeks back.’

  She blinked at him.

  ‘You positive certain you’re all right, ma’am? I mean, when you fell here on the beach you could have hit your head . . . fall could have made you kinda dizzy and all.’

  She sighed. ‘I do feel a little dizzy. Maybe you’d better walk me back to the hotel.’

  What Kathy Benedict encountered as she reached the lobby of the Grosse Pointe Hotel was emotionally traumatic and impossible to deny. The truth of her situation was here in three-dimensional reality: the clip-clopping of horse-and-carriage traffic; women in wide feathered hats and pinch-waisted floor-length skirts; men in bowlers with canes and high-button shoes; a gaudy board-fence poster announcing the forthcoming Detroit appearance of Miss Lillian Russell—and the turn-of-the-century hotel itself, with its polished brass spittoons, ornate bevelled mirrors, cut-velvet lobby furniture and massive wall portrait of a toothily grinning, walrus-moustached gentleman identified by a flag-draped plaque as ‘Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States’.

  She knew this was no movie set, no costume party.

  There was no longer any doubt in her mind: the wave at Lake St Clair had carried her backwards eighty years, through a sea of time, to the beach at Grosse Pointe, 1902.

  People were staring. Her clothes were alien.

  Had she not been wearing her long raincoat she would have been considered downright indecent. As it was, she was definitely a curiosity standing beside Willy McGuire in the lobby of the hotel.

  She touched Willy’s shoulder. ‘I—need to lie down. I’m really very tired.’

  ‘There’s a doctor in the hotel. Are you sure you don’t want me to—’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said firmly. ‘But you can do something else for me.’

  ‘Just name it, Miss Benedict.’

  ‘In the water . . . I lost my purse. I’ve no money, Mr. McGuire. I’d like to borrow some. Until I can . . . get my bearings.’

  ‘Why, yes, of course. I surely do understand your plight.’ He took out his wallet, hesitated. ‘Uh . . . how much would be required?’

  ‘Whatever you can spare. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.’

  Kathy knew that she’d have to find work—but just where did a 1982 female research specialist find a job in 1902?

  Willy handed her a folded bill. ‘Hope this is enough. I’m a mechanic’s helper, so I don’t make a lot—an’ payday’s near a week off.’

  Kathy checked the amount. Ten dollars! How could she possibly do anything with ten dollars? She had to pay for a hotel room, buy new clothes, food . . . Then she broke into giggles, clapping a hand to her mouth to stop the laughter.

  ‘Did I say something funny?’ Willy looked confused.

  ‘Oh no. No, I was just . . . thinking about the price of things.’

  He shook his head darkly. ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Benedict, but I don’t see how anybody can laugh at today’s prices. Do you know sirloin steak’s shot up to twenty-four cents a pound? And bacon’s up to twelve and a half! The papers are calling’ em’ “Prices That Stagger Humanity!”

  Kathy nodded, stifling another giggle. ‘I know. It’s absolutely frightful.’

  In preparing the Henry Ford story, she’d thoroughly researched this period in America—and now realised that Willy’s ten dollars would actually go a long way in a year when coffee was a nickel a cup, when a turkey dinner cost twenty cents and a good hotel room could be had for under a dollar a night.

  With relief, she thanked him, adding: ‘And I will pay it back very soon, Mr McGuire!’

  ‘Uh, no hurry. But . . . now that I’ve done you a favour, I’d like to ask one.’

  ‘Surely.’

  He twisted the straw hat nervously in his hands. ‘I’d mightily appreciate it—if you’d call me Willy.’

  It took her a long while to fall asleep that night. She kept telling herself: Believe it . . . it’s real . . . it isn’t a dream . . . you’re really here . . . this is 1902 . . . believe it, believe it, believe it . . .

  Until she drifted into an exhausted sleep.

  The next morning Kathy went shopping. At a ‘Come in and Get to Know Us’ sale in a new dry-goods store for ladies she purchased an ostrich-feather hat, full skirt, chemise, shoes, shirtwaist, and a corset—all for a total of six dollars and twenty-one cents.

  Back in her hotel room she felt ridiculous (and more than a little breathless) as a hotel maid laced up her corset. But every decent woman wore one, and there was no way she could eliminate the damnable thing!

  Finally, standing in front of the mirror, fully dressed from heels to hat, Kathy began to appreciate the style and feminine grace of this earlier American period. She had coiled her shining brown hair in a bun, pinning it under the wide-brimmed, plumed hat and now she turned to and fro, in a rustle of full skirts, marvelling at her tiny cinched waist and full bosom.

  ‘Kathy, girl,’ she said, smiling at her mirror image, ‘with all due modesty, you are an elegant young lady!’

  That same afternoon, answering a no-experience-required job ad for office help in down-town Detroit, she found herself in the offices of Dodd, Stitchley, Hanneford and Leach, Attorneys at Law.

  Kathy knew she could not afford to be choosy; right now, any job would do until she could adjust to this new world. Later, given her superior intelligence and natural talents, she could cast about for a suitable profession.

  ‘Are you familiar with our needs, young lady?’ asked the stout, matronly woman at the front desk.

  ‘Not really,’ said Kathy. ‘Your ad specified “Office Help Female”.’

  The woman nodded. ‘We need typewriters.’

  ‘Oh!’ Kathy shrugged. ‘Maybe I copied the wrong address. I don’t sell them.’

  ‘You don’t sell what?’ The woman leaned forward, staring at Kathy through tiny, square glasses.

  ‘Typewriters,’ said Kathy. Suddenly she remembered that in 1902 typist
s were called ‘lady typewriters’. There was so much to remember about this period!

  ‘Frankly, miss, I do not understand what you are talking about.’ The buxom woman frowned behind her glasses. ‘Can you operate a letter-typing machine or can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ nodded Kathy. ‘I really can.’ She smiled warmly. ‘And I want the job!’

  Which is how Kathy Benedict, a 28,000-dollar-a-year research specialist from New York City, became an 8.00-dollars-per-week office worker with the firm of Dodd, Stitchley, Hanneford and Leach in Detroit, Michigan, during October of 1902.

  With her first week’s pay in hand, Kathy marched up the steps of Mrs O’Grady’s rooming house on Elm Street and asked to see Mr William McGuire.

  ‘Why, Miss Benedict!’ Willy seemed shocked to see her there in the hallway outside his room. He stood in the open door, blinking at her. The left half of his face was covered with shaving cream.

  ‘Hello, Willy,’ she said. ‘May I come in?’

  ‘I don’t think that would be proper. Not after dark and all. I mean, you are a single lady and these are bachelor rooms and it just isn’t done!’

  Kathy sighed. Again, she had failed to consider the period’s strict rules of public conduct for unaccompanied females. She didn’t want to cause Willy any embarrassment.

  ‘Then could we meet downstairs . . . in the lobby?’

  ‘Of course.’ He touched at his lathered cheek. ‘Soon as I finish shaving. I do it twice a day. Heavy beard if I don’t.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘See you down there.’

  Waiting for Willy McGuire in the lobby of the Elm Street rooming house, Kathy reviewed the week in her mind. A sense of peace had entered her life; she felt cool and tranquil in this new existence. No television. No rock concerts. No disco. Life had the flavour of vintage wine. The panic and confusion of the first day here had given away to calm acceptance. She was taking this quaint, charming period on its own terms.

  Willy joined her and they sat down on a high-backed red velvet couch. Willy looked fresh-scrubbed and glad to see her.

  ‘Here’s the first half of what I owe you,’ she told him, handing over the money. ‘I’ll have the rest next week.’