Return to Christmas

by Anne Stuart

  Madison blinked, then remembered the topic she’d been trying to avoid. “Oh, it was some classic German movie,” she said airily. “Sci-fi.”

  “What’s sci-fi?”

  Crap and a half! How long would it be before Star Wars came out? With sudden shock, she realized it would be a mere thirty years before it would hit the screens. Thirty years before this weird capsule of time there were flappers and speakeasies, thirty years from now there’d be Han Solo and light sabers.

  She shook her head with an apologetic smile. “I’m late.”

  “And I don’t think you should go,” Rosa returned immediately. “Irene Davis never wanted to do anything for anyone, particularly another female, and she hates you almost as much as she hates me. I can’t believe she’s doing you any favors by setting up this beauty salon appointment.”

  Madison shrugged. “Probably not, but neither of us have figured out a way around it. It’s Christmas Eve, and I can’t go out looking like Little Orphan Annie. You know I’d much rather have you do my hair and find me a dress, if we had the choice.”

  Rosa was still looking concerned. “Maybe I’m worried over nothing. You’re so pretty that you’d look good in anything.”

  Madison laughed again, surprised at herself. She’d been so damned tense since those moments with Johnny in Santa Land that she hadn’t slept a wink, hadn’t smiled, hadn’t done anything but worry. “I don’t think so,” she said, “but thanks anyway. In the end it doesn’t really matter—if I look like a troll, it will serve Johnny right.”

  Rosa rightfully overlooked the term troll. “Johnny doesn’t mean half the things he says, you know. He just had a really bad time in the war, and he’s taking longer to get over it.”

  “So did a lot of people.”

  “I think Johnny did worse things,” Rosa said in a low voice.

  “On that cheerful note, I have to haul my ass down to the salon—I don’t really trust them, and if they’re pissed at me for being late it could make things worse. I’ll come back and show you the glorious finished product when they’re done with me. Don’t worry about me—it’s going to be fine.”

  “You sure do talk funny, Mollie,” Rosa said with a sigh. “Maybe you’re right.”

  And maybe pigs would fly, Madison thought as she made her way through the back corridors, heading for the service stairs.

  It took her a while to find the beauty salon. In the past...in the future...there were a number of salons scattered through the building, but in 1947, there only seemed to be one, located on the eleventh floor. The crowds were thinner up there, even on Christmas Eve, and the cavernous entrance to the salon was dark and slightly ominous. She glanced at the thin watch on her wrist with its delicate gold band, forced on her by Rosa. It was after five, the place was already closing down, and Madison breathed a sigh of relief, about to turn back and let Rosa work her magic, when a sturdy figure emerged from the shadows. “Are you Mollie?”

  The voice wasn’t sepulchral, and the woman who emerged into the light was young and nervous-looking, with a frizzled haircut, a stocky build and the reddest lipstick Madison had ever seen. There was nothing even remotely eerie about her, and but Madison couldn’t get past her feelings of unease. She’d been a fool to come here, but neither could she present herself for her compulsory date looking like a washed-out wreck. Just once, she wanted to show Johnny what he was missing.

  She shook herself and came up with a smile. “Yep,” she said, and the young woman blinked, so she quickly corrected herself. “Yes, I am. Am I too late? Miss Davis told me five-thirty, but I wouldn’t want to put you out. I’m perfectly capable of fixing myself up for tonight.”

  The girl—yes, this time it really was a girl, probably twenty at the most—looked at her doubtfully. “I think you need my help,” she said frankly. “Your hair is a mess, you’re not wearing lipstick, your eyebrows are a disaster, and you might even have freckles.” She made it sound like AIDS. “I won’t be able to do any treatments for that—our most popular one takes three hours—but with enough pancake makeup, I can cover them.”

  “I’m not sure...” Madison started backing away, but the girl was advancing, a determined glint in her eye.

  “And I can’t do one of our new permanent waves on you either. But I know exactly what you need, and I’ve got instructions from Miss Davis.”

  “You do? Could I see them?” She wasn’t going to run, she told herself. The young woman outweighed her, but Madison could be ruthless when threatened.

  The girl looked shifty. “I memorized ’em.” She already had her butcher’s hands on Madison’s narrow wrist and was pulling her into the shadowy salon, past the empty chairs covered with black capes. “I’m Nancy, by the way.” They’d reached a back room, smaller and more private than the main rows of chairs, and Nancy shoved her into a seat. “We usually save these rooms for our special clients. You’re lucky Miss Davis made sure we had one for you. In fact, I’ve been told we usually have a few afterhours clients, but everyone wanted to get home early, so for tonight, it’s just you and me.”

  “Great,” said Madison glumly. “What do you mean, you’ve been told? How long have you worked here?”

  “Three weeks. I just graduated from beauty school.”

  “Beauty School Dropout” immediately started playing in her head, of course, and she shut it down quickly. “I’m sure you’ll do a lovely job.”

  A cape of heavy black cloth settled down over her shoulders, making her more claustrophobic than the narrow North Pole box had been, without Johnny to distract her, and she emerged to look at her reflection in the wide mirror. Nancy had her back turned, fiddling with tools of some sort, and Madison started thinking of Sweeney Todd.

  Enough with the Broadway musicals! Her imagination was going overboard. “What did you have in mind, Nancy?”

  Nancy turned, an odd-looking electrical contraption in her hand. “Let me surprise you,” she said with a nervous smile. “I can do miracles.”

  “I’m sure you can.” She couldn’t keep the wryness from her voice. Rosa had been right. She had a bad feeling about this as well.

  “Once we’re done, there’s an entire outfit waiting for you on the eighth floor. She said that was the best place to send it.” Nancy seemed doubtful.

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “There’s even a fur coat,” Nancy said, envy thick in her voice. “It’s dreamy.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Madison murmured, she who refused to even wear leather shoes or carry a leather purse, even if she hadn’t gotten around to giving up a rare steak. “Okay, then.” She leaned back in the chair. “Do your worst.”

  It was hardly encouraging when Nancy jumped, looking guilty. “No, no, I’m going to...”

  “That was just an expression, Nancy,” Madison said gently. Damn, it was going to be bad. Would it last to her return to the twenty-first century? Assuming, that was, that she was ever going to return.

  There was no syrupy music, no idle chatter from clients around her, nothing but the deep, tense breathing of her hairdresser as she fussed, and Madison simply closed her eyes and let her work.

  She came close to falling asleep, even though Nancy’s hands weren’t as gentle as they might have been. The nights had been disjointed—she’d kept half-expecting that Johnny would finally show up again. Having someone fuss over her was surprisingly soothing, even if Nancy had clumsy hands, and she drifted along with it, the application of makeup, the fussing with her scalp. It was the smell of burning hair that alerted her, and she jumped out of the chair with a sudden screech, knocking Nancy back against the wall.

  In her hand was an object that was presumably an old version of a curling iron and dangling off it was a long sheaf of her thick hair.

  “What the hell?” Madison yelled, yanking off the cape and bending down to peer at herself in the mirror.

  Lord, it was bad. Her unfamiliar dark mane had been mangled, with burned pieces, frizzled ends, and weird patches of blo
nd throughout. She looked like a dog with mange. Her face wasn’t much better—at least Nancy hadn’t removed her eyebrows, but her cheeks were covered with some white paste that was itching and burning and her lips were painted with a bright tangerine color at garish odds with the disaster everything else was.

  Nancy had stepped back nervously. “Miss Davis thought the Coty’s Orange Glow would be the perfect color for you...”

  Madison turned on her, and the girl cowered, raising a hand as if she expected to be hit. Madison halted, took a deep breath and spoke calmly. “It’s not the lipstick that’s the problem, Nancy. Is it?”

  The girl dropped her protective arms, and there were tears streaming down her plump cheeks. “I didn’t want to do it,” she wailed. “But Miss Davis said the only way I could stay on here was if I proved my loyalty. I know I’m not very good, but I really need this job!”

  “Beauty School Dropout”’ started again, and Madison shut it down. “It’s all right, Nancy,” she said. “You didn’t have a choice.” She glanced back at her reflection and sighed. Cinderella wasn’t going to make it to the ball after all.

  “What’s going on here?” a fierce voice demanded, and both women turned to see Rosa advancing on them like a tiny, warrior goddess. “What did you do to my friend?”

  “It’s not her fault, Rosa,” Madison said quickly.

  “Of course it’s not. It’s that bitch, Bette.”

  “Bette?” Nancy echoed, looking confused and rightfully wary. Outraged Rosa really might clobber her.

  “Miss Davis,” Madison clarified.

  “I thought her name was Irene.” Nancy was starting to cry again, and Madison grimaced, took two steps and put her arms around the girl.

  “It’s all right, Nancy,” she said. “We’ll fix this.” She glanced at Rosa over her shoulder with a hopeful expression. “Won’t we?”

  Rosa wasn’t looking nearly as forgiving, but she nodded. “Where are your scissors?”

  It was fast and rough, and Madison said absolutely nothing as she sat in the chair, letting the two of them work on her. Rosa’s righteous indignation had faded, and it wasn’t long before she’d stopped snapping and started pointing out details to the hapless Nancy, giving her tips and advice as they rewashed Madison’s mangled hair and set to work. If it had been up to Madison, she would have had her back turned to the mirror, but she wasn’t given a choice and she watched the process in fascination as Rosa balanced out the streaks with peroxide and dye so that she no longer had white patches all over her head. Once the color was fixed, the uneven length and burnt strands were deal with, the paste washed off her face and replaced with something cool and soothing, and then they let her lie still, real cucumbers placed over her eyelids while Rosa continued to explain some arcane details of 1940s hairdressing to her newly-adoring pupil.

  The results were nothing short of impressive. They’d pulled her hair up into an almost ponytail type arrangement, with layers of soft curls framing it, and it looked damned good, even if her two handmaidens didn’t seem quite as thrilled.

  “Nothing we can do about it, Nan,” Rosa said to the younger girl, having gotten on chummy terms with her. “We’ve done miracles as it is—she looks a lot better than she did before you even touched her.”

  “Hey,” Madison protested. “I thought you said I was always beautiful.”

  “I didn’t say there wasn’t room for improvement,” Rosa shot back. She looked at Nancy. “You want to try the makeup? I can give you some pointers.”

  Madison felt a nervous twitch in her stomach, but Nancy looked so hopeful that she couldn’t object. They primped and powdered her, using mascara on a tiny little toothbrush that they rubbed on a wet cake of something, and Madison simply prayed to the God that had currently been annoying her that they hadn’t used spit to wet it. The lipstick was the biggest surprise—it was a bright, vibrant red, and they painted her mouth with what Rosa had announced was an Archer’s Bow. The effect was stunning, almost sensual in this watered-down, conservative world she’d landed in, and she stared at her reflection in surprised wonder. This was a far cry from Madison Simcoe, woman of the new millennium.

  “Johnny’s not gonna be able to keep his eyes off you,” Rosa said triumphantly. “Much less his hands.”

  Madison groaned. “That’s never going to happen.”

  Rosa just smirked. “I’ve got your dress upstairs.”

  Madison’s pleasure vanished. “Irene picked it, didn’t she?”

  “It’s as awful as you’d imagine,” Rosa said. “All tacky flowers and ruffles—you aren’t the flowers and ruffles type. But haven’t we just proved we can do miracles? Nan, do you sew?”

  “Of course,” was her automatic response. “But I also know how to get into the castoff room.”

  “Nancy, you’re a goddess,” Madison said, as Rosa threw enthusiastic arms around her new best friend.

  Nancy’s broad forehead wrinkled. “A what?”

  “Just a turn of phrase,” Madison said instantly. “Let’s go shopping.”

  Madison moved down the frozen escalator very carefully in her silver evening sandals, ready to meet her so-called date by one of the side doors. Rosa and Nancy had sent her off like two proud mama hens, watching their baby chick leave the nest, or the henhouse or whatever. They were both such romantics, and Madison had given up fighting their ridiculous fantasies about her and Johnny. In the end, it didn’t matter. She’d either get out of the building or not—everything else was not worth thinking about.

  She looked gorgeous. She’d never been particularly vain—cool and stylish had been her attitude, and it had worked from the top of her razored and fringed haircut to her wardrobe of black pants and shirts. She’d always looked horrible in ruffles, which Irene Davis must have known, and she’d assumed anything au courant in 1947 would be dowdy and unattractive.

  The gown they’d unearthed might not be the very latest style, but it was beautiful, made of a silk lamé cut on the bias that clung to her body like a glove. There was no bra that would fit under the slouchy, low-cut neckline and thin straps that ostensibly held the dress up, so she’d simply grabbed a silk scarf and wrapped it around her boobs for a little warmth and modesty. She didn’t need her nipples on display for Johnny to misinterpret as a sign of interest.

  The stockings on her legs were stolen—there was no other word from it—from the high-end hosiery department. They were pure silk as well, without the reinforced toes and heels that made nylons more thrifty, and she didn’t hesitate. She didn’t bother to look at the fur coat Irene had left for her, instead choosing a cashmere throw that should keep at least some of the winter cold out. Not that she had any idea what kind of winter New York was having...had had...in 1947. It could be relatively comfortable, or there’d be slush up to her ankles, but since neither of the women suggested rubber galoshes or whatever people wore, she assumed it would be manageable.

  Her heart was hammering. She had a clutch purse, which was ridiculous, since it held nothing more than her lipstick and a compact. It wasn’t as if she had a penny, or any sign of identification, but she’d promised her fairy godmothers she’d retouch their hard work, and she never broke promises.

  Maybe he wouldn’t be there waiting for her. Maybe he’d take one look and laugh at her naivete in thinking he was serious. Maybe...

  What was she fussing about? He didn’t matter, nothing mattered but whether she’d be able to get through that goddamned door, and tonight was the night she’d find out. If the malicious universe was playing one more trick on her, then she’d give up, then and there. What giving up entailed was a mystery, and she wasn’t going to think about it. She was going to concentrate on walking through that door back into her own life and not think about Johnny Larsen at all.

  Her body paid no attention to her resolution when she reached the bottom of the escalators and moved into the empty, cavernous space of the great hall. He was standing by the door, a tall, dark silhouette in impeccable even
ing clothes, and she paused a moment, knowing that with any luck, this would soon all be the vague memory of an intense nightmare. She looked at him, and for one, indulgent moment she let herself feel, the ache between her breasts, the knot of longing lower down, the need to have him pull her into his arms. It was purely sexual, it was gut-wrenching emotion, it was Johnny...

  “You ready?” He’d caught sight of her, and this was his unpromising reaction. All that for nothing. She should laugh at her own ridiculousness, but she couldn’t. She simply moved toward him, slowly, and tried not to think about the impossible longing that filled her.

  She halted directly in front of him, standing still as he let his eyes move up her body in a long, assessing gaze, and then he sighed. “You couldn’t make this easy on me, could you?”

  She blinked. “I beg your pardon?” It was too dark to see his face, hidden in the shadows, but there was something in his voice that she recognized, even if she didn’t want to. Maybe it hadn’t been a waste of time after all.

  He didn’t reply, taking her arm and leading her toward the door. She could see out into the city night, the car lights sending crazy shadows into the massive hall, and when he put his hand on the door, she pulled back for just a moment.

  He glanced at her, and his newly-illuminated expression was inscrutable. “Change your mind, princess?”

  He opened the door, and she felt her first taste of fresh air in...in...she had no idea how long it had been. It smelled like exhaust, and it was the best thing she’d ever breathed.

  Johnny stood in the open doorway, waiting, and when she walked through, if fate let her walk through, he was going to disappear, and for a brief moment she considered going to him, not the door, and kissing him with all the ridiculous intensity that filled her body, before she said goodbye.

  But she wasn’t going to do that. She wasn’t going to say a word. She was going to walk through that door, back into the real world, and never think about Johnny Larsen again.