The Time-Traveling Fashionista

by Bianca Turetsky

  She hoped Anna was okay.

  Louise waded out into the hallway, which was now overflowing with passengers trying to push their way to the exit.

  “What’s happening?” “Have we really hit an iceberg?” “Are we sinking?” Frantic questions were hurling through the air.

  “Everyone stay calm! We need to get up to the lifeboats!” Louise shouted, trying to calm everyone down, feeling like a flight attendant on a crashing airplane. Her voice was drowned out by the cacophony. When she reached the stairwell, a cascade of bitterly cold seawater rushed toward her.

  “Grab on to the railing,” Louise directed some terrified passengers. “We need to make it upstairs! We can’t turn back!” She held on tightly to the dress as she climbed up the staircase, grasping the slick wooden railing with all of her remaining strength.

  Louise needed to make one more stop before she reached the upper deck. She wanted to make sure Mr. Baxter had not stayed in the room. She exited the stairs at the top floor, which was just starting to flood.

  She once again started banging on the stateroom doors on her way to the Baxters’ stateroom.

  “What’s happening? Is the Titanic going to sink?” Some of the passengers were still in their rooms, but clearly at this point they knew something was wrong.

  “Yes, look!” Louise yelled, pointing down at the puddle of water soaking her feet. And then chaos broke out.

  “We’re going to sink! Help! Get to the lifeboats!” Within minutes, the hallway was filled with frantic first-class passengers wearing white life jackets over their furs and topcoats. There was a rush of people heading toward the exit stairwell at the end of the corridor, pushing to get to the upper deck. Louise continued to run down the halls, pounding on closed doors and making as much noise as she could to alert as many people as possible.

  She ran against the sea of people, back to her stateroom. She tried the door handle. It wouldn’t budge. She braced herself against the door and pushed her weight into it. The water created a strong resistance, as the level in the room had already reached her knees. The door slowly opened. Her calves numb with cold, Louise waded through the bedroom and sitting room. The framed photograph of Miss Baxter floated by her. Water had already seeped under the silver frame, and the image was blurry.

  “Mr. Baxter?” Louise called into the adjoining room. She was relieved to find that the room was deserted. He must have listened to her and gone up to the deck by now! She left the room and pushed her way through the now panicking throngs to the stairs to get back upstairs. Now she needed to save herself.

  Louise passed by the gymnasium that for once was completely filled with people. Hundreds of passengers were crowded inside trying to keep warm while they waited for a lifeboat. Some children were playing around on the camels and rowing machines. It made her sad that all T. W., the instructor, wanted was for people to come use his gym, and it took a collision with an iceberg to get them to finally show up.

  The upper deck was complete pandemonium, set to music. Louise was surprised and touched to see that, just like in the movie, the band from the first-class dining room had set up their instruments and were playing lively ragtime tunes as frantic passengers ran around trying to find their loved ones and get on lifeboats. The songs were strangely comforting.

  “Anna!” Louise called out into the bitter cold, searching desperately for her friend among the swarms of people.

  “Women and children only! Women and children, please load the lifeboats!”

  Louise spun around to see First Officer Murdoch yelling directions to the panicked mob of people swarming the upper deck. She caught his eye for a moment. He shook his head in disbelief, perhaps realizing that she had been right all along, and then snapped back to reality and continued helping as many people as possible. “Women and children first, please! Stand back!”

  Louise saw that Lucile and Cosmo were seated in the first boat that was being lowered down, three-quarters empty! Watching their jerky descent into the sea from across the deck, she felt a surge of anger and desperation course through her. She couldn’t help but think of all the people who could be safe in that lifeboat. They must not have realized how precious every spot was.

  “Anna!” Louise called again, the words coming out in cloudy puffs of frozen air.

  Suddenly Mr. Baxter rushed by, with one crying child hoisted on each arm, and a sobbing woman following close behind. “Have no fear! I shall get you to a lifeboat!” he bellowed to the lady in his distinct baritone. Louise was going to wave to him but changed her mind, not wanting to distract him from helping this family. She called out for her friend instead.

  “Anna!” Louise screamed.

  She frantically searched the deck for her missing friend and instead spotted Mr. and Mrs. Straus, who were holding each other by the side of the boat. Crew members were pleading with Mrs. Straus to get into the lifeboat that was being lowered right next to them. T. W. McCawley was standing by the railing, handing off babies into the boat like an assembly line worker. His athletic prowess was certainly coming in handy.

  “I will not leave my husband,” Louise heard Mrs. Straus say firmly.

  “Please, ma’am, get in the boat,” one of the crew pleaded.

  “Ida, get in. I will be fine,” Mr. Straus begged, as at this point, only women and children were allowed in.

  “We lived together, so we shall die together,” Ida said in a tone that showed there was no changing her mind.

  “Well, there is room for both of you. Please get in now. We need to lower this boat immediately.”

  “As long as there are women on this sinking ship, I will not save myself,” Mr. Straus announced with fervor.

  And with that statement, they walked together to a pair of deck chairs in the middle of all of the craziness and sat down quietly, holding hands beneath the star-speckled, moonless sky. Louise had never seen anything more courageous and beautiful.

  Finally, she spotted Anna and Christopher across the deck. They were working together to try and fill up another boat. She watched Anna pick up a crying child and hand him off to his mother. Mrs. Astor was sitting in the same lifeboat, arms wrapped protectively across her pregnant belly, tears silently streaming down her face. Mr. Astor was nowhere to be seen.

  Louise, wet and shivering, waved the pink dress above her head like a flag. Anna saw her and ran over.

  “You found it!” Anna said as she hugged her soaking wet friend. “This is worse than I imagined.” The ship pitched dangerously in one direction, and the girls grabbed on to each other for support as wooden deck chairs slid past them as if on roller skates.

  “Look!” Anna pointed to a frantic Dr. Hastings clinging to the ropes of a lifeboat that was being hoisted up by the crew.

  “Get me off this ship! I am a doctor!” he yelled as he grasped on for his life, feet kicking in the air, while the crew tried to grab his flailing limbs. A distress rocket shot up into the air with a bang and cascaded down like a shower of shooting stars.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t leave Christopher. You’re not supposed to be here, but I am. This is my time. I need to help,” her friend cried as Louise lifted the dress above their heads.

  “Anna, I’m not leaving! We’re in this together.” Louise shouted when the boat suddenly jackknifed and a collective scream pierced the night sky. Anna lost her balance and tumbled in the opposite direction with only a piece of the hem ripped off in her fingers.

  Louise made a desperate cry for her friend before she herself fell backward onto the hard, splintered deck, as the dress came down on top of her, turning the starry night sky into a strawberry pink flash of color before everything went black once again.

  “Open your eyes.”

  A woman’s voice was calling to her from far away. Louise could not believe that she was having the same dream again. She didn’t want to open her eyes this time. She decided to keep sleeping forever.

  “Open your eyes,” the melodic voice insisted.

&n
bsp; There was something different about the voice this time, something warmly familiar. “Louise, please, open your eyes.”

  At the sound of her own name, Louise’s eyes instinctively popped wide open.

  “Mommy?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Lambert were leaning over Louise, their foreheads creased with worry. Mrs. Lambert was stroking her face with her smooth hand. Her dad’s blue-gray eyes were filled with concern.

  “Sweetie? Oh, thank goodness. How are you feeling, my love?”

  “Mommy?” Louise repeated in disbelief, so relieved and shocked to see her parents’ faces. “Daddy? What… what happened?”

  “I think your fever has finally broken,” Mr. Lambert said warmly with a smile, dabbing a cool, damp washcloth on Louise’s forehead. He was wearing his weekend casual outfit of khaki pants and a chambray blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up.

  “Awesome!” a girl’s voice called out from the other side of Louise’s bedroom. Brooke jumped up from the rocking chair and walked over to Louise’s bed.

  “Brooke has been keeping you company,” Mrs. Lambert explained.

  Louise smiled at Brooke and felt a sudden wave of déjà vu. It was like she was looking at a younger version of Anna. “Thank you” was the only thing she could think to say.

  “Whatever,” Brooke said with a shrug. “We were really worried about you. I’m just glad you’re finally awake. Besides, it wasn’t like it was boring. Your mom was telling us the coolest stories about your great-aunt Alice.”

  “What about Aunt Alice?” Louise asked, sitting up in her bed.

  “Like she was a gorgeous actress, and a first-class passenger on the Titanic! I mean, it’s like a movie. I can’t believe you’ve never told me about her.”

  “She was?” Louise asked, trying to put all the pieces together. She was beginning to feel like Dorothy waking up in Kansas after her trip to the Land of Oz.

  “Yes, dahling. I told you and Brooke the story of Alice’s adventures on the high seas when you were drifting in and out of this fever,” she explained.

  “Why hadn’t you told me before?” Louise asked, confused, thinking back to that oil portrait hanging in their dining room of her elderly great-aunt.

  “I heard the whole story for the first time last week when I was in London. Alice’s daughter didn’t start talking about it until she was on her deathbed. Her mother was a very private person. I’ll be sure to tell you the story again one day.”

  “What happened to me?” Louise asked.

  “You fainted at that vintage sale, which you insisted on going to,” Mrs. Lambert said, making a tsk noise, not quite able to mask the I-told-you-so tone of her voice. “Brooke and these two nice ladies brought you home.”

  “Marla and Glenda?” Louise asked.

  “Yes, it was us.”

  Louise let out a startled gasp. Marla was perched up at the edge of Louise’s oak wooden dresser like a cat. She hadn’t noticed her before.

  “Wow.” Louise shook her head in disbelief. “You are real.”

  “Of course they are real,” her mom said, glancing at Louise with concern.

  Glenda was leaning against the wall next to Marla, her imposing height seeming even more dramatic from Louise’s bed. Had she been there a moment ago?

  “Well now, my dear Mrs. Lambert, we told you she’d pull through,” Glenda cooed, giving Louise a pat on the head.

  “But why did I faint?” Louise asked, as none of this was making any sense.

  “Dr. Jacobs thinks it may have been food poisoning. Such a high fever, sudden upset stomach… Do you remember eating anything unusual before you got sick?” her dad asked.

  Louise thought back to the mysterious, crusty crab dip she sampled at the vintage sale and felt her stomach turn over.

  “Yes…” She felt nauseous again at the thought of it. “It must have been the crab dip.”

  “Well, let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Marla interjected, jumping off the dresser with surprising agility.

  Mrs. Lambert shook her head disapprovingly. “Bad mayonnaise. That would never happen with vinegar. I’ve never trusted mayonnaise. And that gelatinous texture…”

  “Can we not talk about this now?” Louise asked, clutching her stomach.

  “Gross,” Brooke said. “Let’s start a club against mayonnaise. You can be the president, Louise.” They all laughed. Well, with two notable exceptions.

  “Did I miss the dance?” Louise asked, suddenly remembering the semiformal with disappointment.

  “Don’t worry, dear, the dance isn’t for a few days. You’ve only been with this fever for a couple of hours now. Although the semiformal may have to be postponed,” Mrs. Lambert added, adjusting the washcloth.

  “Yeah, it was so crazy. There was a water main break in the school gymnasium. The whole place is flooded,” Brooke explained.

  Louise heard Marla—or was it Glenda?—chuckle under her breath.

  “I think we did manage to find you just the right ensemble,” Marla said, satisfied.

  Louise gasped. The carnation pink Lucile dress that she had tried on in the store, the same one she had dreamed she was wearing on the Titanic, was hanging on the front of her closet door, now a little wrinkled but dry, and with that same noticeable rip in the hem.

  “Ummm, I think I might wear something else,” she stammered.

  “Nonsense,” Glenda chimed in. “Trust yourself in our capable hands. You’ll make it to the Fairview Junior High School dance. That is, if that’s where your heart truly wants to take you.”

  “Oh, it is, I swear,” Louise said with a smile. For once, there was no place she would rather be.

  “That’s what we thought.” Glenda winked at her.

  “Do you know if Todd is going with anyone?” Louise asked Brooke, trying to sound nonchalant. “I mean, not that he’d even want to talk to me at this point.”

  “Well, you’d think that after you ran away from him the other day in front of the whole seventh grade, he would have asked someone else,” Brooke said, suppressing a smile. “But apparently you’re the only one on his list. I’m pretty sure he’s going by himself.”

  Louise grinned with relief. “I think I made a mistake about something.”

  Brooke raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “By the way, you were right. Kip finally asked me.”

  Louise laughed. The universe was back to normal.

  “Well, we must be off. I hope you have a wonderful time at the dance, my dear. You’ve most certainly earned it. Come see us again sometime soon,” Glenda said. And with these words, Marla and Glenda were out of the room in a flash.

  “Very peculiar ladies, I must say,” Mrs. Lambert said, shaking her head. “Well, Brooke, I’m sure your parents would love to have you home. And Louise should get some sleep. I’ll be right back with some tea and buttery toast with raspberry jam. In the meantime, there’s water and juice on the bedside table.”

  “Glad to see you’re feeling better, chicken,” her dad said as he ruffled her hair. She smiled, happy to be called anything but Miss Baxter, even “chicken.” “I have a deposition I need to prepare for, but I’ll go into the office a little late and see you in the morning. Get some rest.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Lambert both gave their daughter a kiss on the cheek, and they all left the room together, leaving Louise alone, snuggled under her grandmother’s patchwork quilt, exhausted, and for the moment, perfectly and utterly content.

  She glanced over at the dress hanging on the door and smiled. What an amazingly fun and terrifying and sad dream she’d had. She wondered if all of her vintage clothes had such profound histories attached to them.

  As Louise reached over to her nightstand to get a sip of water, she saw a pale teal envelope propped up against her clock radio.

  With a nervous curiosity, she picked up the envelope that had her name written on it in the now familiar script.

  To: Ms. Louise Lambert

  She turned it over shakily and saw the iconic
bloodred wax seal.

  Mrs. Lambert knocked twice on the bedroom door and, without waiting for Louise to answer, entered carrying a silver tray with a steaming hot teacup and a pile of toast. Quickly, Louise placed the envelope in her night table under her diary. She shut the drawer and gave her mom a reassuring smile as she leaned back on her pillow.

  Every time she shut her eyes, Louise could feel the waves rocking her bed like a lifeboat tossed in a choppy sea. It was almost 2:30 AM, and she was afraid to fall asleep and find herself back on the Titanic. Finally she accepted the fact that she would not be able to sleep and switched on her bedside lamp. Shivering, she sat up in bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. She couldn’t ignore the feeling in her gut that it was real. That it hadn’t all been just a dream, a hallucination brought on by food poisoning. The experience was too vivid.

  The house was dark and quiet as Louise wrapped herself up in her grandmother’s quilt and walked over to her computer. She needed to find out the real story of the Titanic. The computer woke up with a soft hum, and Louise signed on, typed in “Titanic Disaster,” and began her clandestine research.

  THE RMS TITANIC WAS AN OLYMPIC-CLASS PASSENGER LINER THAT BECAME INFAMOUS FOR HER COLLISION WITH AN ICEBERG AND DRAMATIC SINKING ON APRIL 15, 1912. THE TITANIC WAS THE LARGEST PASSENGER STEAMSHIP IN THE WORLD AT THE TIME OF HER SINKING. CAPTAIN EDWARD JOHN SMITH, 62, WAS THE CAPTAIN OF THE IMPRESSIVE VESSEL. SHE WAS CONSIDERED A PINNACLE OF NAVAL ARCHITECTURE AND TECHNOLOGICAL ACHIEVEMENT, AND WAS THOUGHT BY MANY TO BE “PRACTICALLY UNSINKABLE.” DURING THE TITANIC’S MAIDEN VOYAGE (FROM SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND; TO CHERBOURG, FRANCE; QUEENSTOWN, IRELAND; THEN NEW YORK) SHE STRUCK AN ICEBERG AND SANK MERELY A FEW HOURS LATER, HAVING BROKEN INTO TWO PIECES AT THE AFT EXPANSION JOINT.

  FOR HER TIME, THE TITANIC WAS SECOND TO NONE IN HER LAVISH COMFORT AND EXTRAVAGANCE. SHE WAS THE FIRST SHIP TO OFFER A HEATED SALTWATER SWIMMING POOL, STATE-OF-THE-ART GYMNASIUM, LIBRARIES FOR EACH PASSENGER CLASS, AND AN ELEGANT FIRST-CLASS DINING ROOM THAT OFFERED SUPERB FOUR-STAR CUISINE. THE CROWN JEWEL OF THE SHIP’S INTERIOR WAS UNDOUBTEDLY THE GRAND STAIRCASE. EXTENDING DOWN TO E DECK AND DECORATED WITH OAK PANELING AND GILDED BALUSTRADES, IT WAS TOPPED BY AN ORNATE WROUGHT-IRON-AND-GLASS DOME, WHICH BROUGHT IN NATURAL LIGHT.