If Only in My Dreams

by Wendy Markham

  “What’s going on, Arnold?”

  “Crazy Maisie?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You told the entire town that I call my wife Crazy Maisie!”

  “Not the entire town. Just Pete Kavinski,” Jed concedes.

  “Just Pete Kavinski, who then told the entire town.”

  Jed shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry, Arnold, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Jed, do you know what kind of hell I’ve lived through these past few days since this got back to her? She won’t let me leave her, even for a few minutes.”

  “Is she still constantly thinking she’s in labor?”

  “Not only that, but now she’s got it in her head that if I go anywhere, I’ll never come back to her.”

  Jed briefly considers telling Arnold he wouldn’t blame him if he did just that.

  Thinking better of it, he simply points out, “Well, you’re gone now.”

  “Only because Maisie finally fell asleep. I figured she would sooner or later.… No human can go days and days, ranting and raving, pacing and complaining, without sleep. I’m telling you, Jed, she’s—”

  “Crazy?” Jed asks mildly when Arnold breaks off.

  “You said it. Not me. And you’ve got to tell her that, Jed. Tell her you’re the one who made up that nickname. She doesn’t believe me.”

  “I will, Arnold. I promise, the next time I see—”

  “No, now. You’ve got to come with me right now and tell her. And we don’t have much time. She won’t stay asleep for very long.” Arnold looks around furtively, as though he half expects his wife to bluster into the store at any moment.

  “I can’t leave right now, Arnold. I’m alone here.”

  “Yeah? What happened to your new clerk?”

  “She’s… out. How did you know I have a new clerk?”

  “In this town? Do you really have to ask?” Arnold leans closer and says in a low voice, “It’s her, isn’t it. The spy.”

  “She isn’t a spy.”

  “Then who is she? And why was she carrying that transmitter?”

  “It was a regular radio… sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “It plays records, only they aren’t records, and—say, have you heard that new song by Frank Sinatra yet?”

  “Who’s he?”

  Jed shrugs. “Some kid from Jersey who sings with Tommy Dorsey. He has this song, ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas,’ that I can’t get out of my head. Clara played it on her music machine, and—”

  “Clara? So you really think that’s her name?”

  “I know it is.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she told me.”

  Jed hates the skeptical gleam in Arnold’s eyes—hates even more that it’s suddenly reflected somewhere deep inside of him.

  That’s just because she isn’t here.

  When she’s with him, he trusts her implicitly. All he has to do is look at her and he knows she’s telling the truth.…

  Except she really hasn’t told him much of anything at all.

  Not about her life, anyway.

  But what does that matter?

  “Jed, just watch yourself, okay?” Arnold says, clapping a heavy hand on Jed’s upper arm. “Don’t let some bit of fluff do you in.”

  “For crying out loud, Arnold… she isn’t a bit of fluff.”

  “Right. And Maisie isn’t crazy.”

  With that, Arnold strides toward the door, calling, “Don’t forget to come on over to my place to talk to her later, Jed. I’m counting on you.”

  Jed gives him a two-fingered salute. Then he crosses to the plate-glass window to watch Arnold climb into his blue Packard and drive away.

  Scanning the street, hoping to catch sight of Clara on her way back here, he almost thinks he glimpses her disappearing into Ferguson’s Grocery down the block. But he probably just imagined that.

  After all, when you want something badly enough, Jed thinks, turning away from the window, you can talk yourself into seeing just about anything.

  “Will that be all, ma’am?” asks the aproned grocer as Clara sets her purchases on the counter.

  Despite having all but memorized the list, she peruses Minnie Bouvier’s spidery handwriting one more time, to be sure she hasn’t forgotten anything. In addition to eggs, baking powder, and molasses are the spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, allspice.

  “Mice got into my spice cabinet and I had to throw away every last spice I keep on hand,” Minnie confided as she handed Clara her shopping list. “I just hope I’m not forgetting anything. I have the feeling that I am, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

  “Why don’t you check the recipe?” Clara suggested uneasily.

  “Oh, I keep my recipes in here.” Minnie tapped her white head. “But I suppose that doesn’t seem like the safest place these days. My memory isn’t what it used to be—unless, of course, I’m thinking about my dear Homer. There’s nothing about him that isn’t as fresh in my mind as if it happened just today.”

  “Homer is your husband?”

  Minnie nodded. “We were married almost seventy years.”

  “Seventy years?”

  “I wasn’t even fifteen yet when we wed back in sixty-nine.…”

  Sixty-nine… she means 1869. Clara was incredulous.

  “My papa told me that I was too young to know what I wanted. But I did. I wanted Homer. And I had him for all those years.… Someday soon, we’ll be together again.”

  Minnie’s faded gray eyes twinkled in her weathered face as she carefully counted and recounted two precious dollar bills and two quarters into Clara’s hand, saying, “I’m giving you a little extra, to keep for yourself.”

  “No, I can’t do that, Mrs. Bouvier. This is my pleasure.”

  “You’re an angel, my dear,” the woman responded. “A beautiful dark-haired Christmas angel.”

  Now, as the grocer rings up Minnie’s purchases, Clara recalls what she said about being with Homer again.

  It was exactly the same with her own grandfather, talking about his beloved Irene.

  What if…?

  No! Don’t go there, Clara, she warns herself.

  But she can’t seem to keep the dark thought from breaking through.

  What if you aren’t meant to save Jed… or survive your cancer?

  Are they meant to be together in some other world.…

  Or perhaps, in some other lifetime?

  But that won’t be enough. Not for me. I’m not an old woman. I want to live my life, the one I have. I want to be Clara. I want to get married, and have children.…

  No, she isn’t ready to die.

  Not even to be with Jed.

  “That will be two dollars and twenty-three cents, young lady.” The grocer’s chipper tone cuts into her thoughts.

  As Clara counts out Minnie’s money, she wishes she could use her own cash instead. But it’s as useless here in 1941 as counterfeit bills would be. Yes, the quarters at least look almost the same at a glance, but the last thing she needs is to arouse suspicion with dated currency from the future.

  “You must be doing some Christmas baking,” the store owner comments, packing Clara’s groceries into a paper sack.

  “I am,” Clara agrees, because it’s the simplest explanation.

  A female customer steps in from the street with a gust of frigid air. She’s stylish in a sweeping fur coat and a wide-brimmed hat cocked at an angle. Her lipstick is deep crimson, and Clara can smell her floral perfume from several yards away.

  “Hello, Mr. Ferguson,” she calls from behind a curtain of wavy blond hair that curiously shrouds one half of her face.

  “Hi there, Betty. Cold out there?”

  “It is, but this new fur coat is keeping me toasty warm. Do you like it? It’s Manchurian wolf!”

  “Very nice. Is it snowing out there yet?”

  “Not yet, and I don’t think it’s going to.”

  Oh, but you’re
wrong about that, Clara tells the newcomer silently as the storekeeper hands over the sack containing Minnie’s groceries. It’s going to snow.

  Oh, and by the way, tomorrow at this time, America will be at war, and nothing in your world is ever going to be the same.

  Clara trudges to the door, her steps heavy with the weight of her own useless precognition.

  Useless…

  Unless it turns out she can alter the past after all.

  And I’ll know very soon.…

  She quickens her pace, opening the door as the store owner asks the other woman, “What can I help you find today, Betty?”

  Betty?

  Clara suddenly remembers the giggling woman she heard Drew Becker talking to in his apartment the other night. Oddly—at least in the twenty-first century—her name was Betty, too.

  “Just some nice sweet apples. I’m going to bake one of my famous pies for a very lucky fella.”

  “That lucky fella wouldn’t happen to be Jed Landry, would it?”

  Clara stops cold, one foot out the door, her hand frozen on the knob behind her.

  The blonde giggles. “How did you guess?”

  “This is a small town, Betty. Don’t you think I don’t know who’s keeping company with whom.”

  Another giggle, followed by a pointed, pouty, “Brrr.”

  “Say, miss,” Mr. Ferguson calls in Clara’s direction, “could you please close the door? You’re letting in the chill.”

  Yes, and she’s taking it with her, too. Numb to the bone, she walks dejectedly toward Minnie Bouvier’s house.

  It never occurred to her until this very second that Jed might fall in love with somebody else after she leaves Glenhaven Park.…

  Or that he might very well have been—keeping company—with other girls before she got here. Of course he was. He’s a red-blooded man.

  Clara is desperately jealous of the fur-clad, pie-baking blonde—even as she reminds herself that her feeling is utterly irrational.

  Jed’s life will go on when she’s gone.… Isn’t that the point?

  Doesn’t she want him to live happily ever after—the key word being live—even if it can’t be with her?

  Of course she does.

  It just hurts, knowing that she can’t have him.

  Knowing that she’s saving his life to be shared with some other girl, perhaps old one-eyed Betty.…

  If I can save him at all.

  She quickens her pace toward Minnie Bouvier’s house, anxious to deliver the groceries… and, in doing so, avert the tragic accident that was to occur at dusk on the corner of Oak and Main.

  Because if the past can be altered and Minnie Bouvier survives…

  Then she’ll know Jed Landry can, too.

  CHAPTER 16

  Peering out into the street as he turns over the CLOSED sign in the front window, Jed sees a swirl of snowflakes in the overhead streetlight’s yellow glow.

  He sings softly about having snow and mistletoe and presents under the tree.

  “On the tree,” Clara amends.

  He turns to see her standing behind him, wearing her coat and hat and offering his.

  “On the tree?” Jed echoes, taking them from her. “That doesn’t make any sense. How can presents be on the tree?”

  She shrugs, smiling as she pulls on her red mittens. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t write the lyrics.”

  “No, I know. The thing is…”

  “What?” she asks reluctantly, as though she senses a sticky question coming her way.

  “Why hasn’t that song been on the radio yet? It’s Christmastime. And it’s a swell song. I don’t understand why I haven’t heard it anywhere but on your music machine… and nobody else has ever heard of it, either.”

  “Nobody else?” A shadow crosses her face. “As in… who?”

  “Never mind. It’s not important. Say, I had that flat fixed on the DeSoto yesterday, remember?” He settles his fedora on his head and buttons his coat. “How about if I take you out for dinner tonight instead of eating with the family? And afterward, we can go dancing at a nightclub. I bet you can do a mean Lindy Hop.”

  “I don’t know, Jed… I’m not really in the mood for dancing. I think I’d rather spend a quiet evening alone with you.”

  “Being alone with you always sounds good, but I feel bad, never taking you out on the town.” He opens the door for her and they step out into the falling snow.

  “I don’t need to go out on the town, Jed,” she says, her breath puffing frosty white in the air between them.

  “I know you don’t need to,” he says, reaching into his pocket for the list of things his mother asked him to pick up at the store when she called earlier, “but I thought you might want to.”

  “No. I just want to be with you.”

  About to lock the door, he looks up at her, uneasy at the note of desolation in her voice.

  “What’s wrong, Clara?”

  “Nothing. What’s that in your hand?”

  He hands her the shopping list and sticks the key into the lock. “I guess Doris got to my mother, because she called and said she’s going to make fruitcakes after all. These are the ingredients she needs. We can stop at Ferguson’s; they’re still open.”

  Clara holds the paper up in the glow from the streetlight, reading it. “Cinnamon, mace, allspice.… Is she using Minnie Bouvier’s recipe?”

  “Yes… how did you know?”

  “I just remembered. Nutmeg, ground cloves—” Clara stops short. Then she fumbles in her coat pocket, pulling out a wrinkled piece of paper.

  “What’s wrong?” Jed asks, watching her hurriedly comparing his mother’s list to what appears to be another list.

  “Ground cloves,” she murmurs, almost in… dread?

  But that doesn’t make sense.

  “Clara, what—”

  “That’s what Minnie forgot! Ground cloves.”

  Before he can ask her what she’s talking about, he hears the roar of a car engine, rapidly approaching from a distance.

  Both he and Clara turn to see headlights coming down Main Street.

  “Say, that’s Arnold Wilkens’s Packard,” Jed notices as the car passes, wondering why his friend doesn’t slow down or wave. Maybe he’s still sore at Jed for not coming over yet to clear things up with Maisie.

  “Packard?” Clara echoes.

  “Say, he’s got Maisie with him.… I wonder if she could really be in labor this time!”

  “Oh, no,” Clara murmurs. “No!”

  Startled, he looks at her and sees that she’s gaping at the car in horror.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, wondering if she’s somehow, somewhere, had a brush with the notorious Crazy Maisie.

  “Stop!” Clara screeches at the top of her lungs. “No, stop!”

  In disbelief, Jed watches her running away, frantically chasing Arnold’s car down Main Street.

  Jed quickly turns the key in the lock and takes off after Clara, bewildered.

  In the distance, he sees the Packard’s red taillights disappearing around the corner of Oak Street.

  Then, a sickening squeal of brakes.

  “I brought you some hot tea.”

  Huddled on the bed, knees to chest, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Clara looks up dully.

  Jed steps into the apartment with a tray and sets it on the table.

  “At least, it was hot when I left the kitchen a minute ago. Doris insisted on making you some toast, too. With marmalade.”

  Minnie Bouvier’s marmalade, no doubt.

  “She wanted to come up and see you, but I told her you weren’t feeling well. I promised her she can come up later. She’s worried you won’t be able to go with us in the morning to chop down the Christmas tree.”

  Clara is silent, brooding.

  “Come on, Clara. This will help.”

  She shakes her head bleakly.

  Nothing will help.

  A few hours ago, Minnie Bouvier, on her way to the
store to pick up the ground cloves she forgot, was struck by Arnold Wilkens’s Packard as he rushed his laboring wife, Maisie, to the hospital.

  “I’m sure Minnie is going to be just fine,” Jed says, sitting on the bed beside her. “We can even go over to the hospital in the morning to visit her.”

  Clara closes her eyes to shut out the image of the sweet little old lady lying crumpled and bleeding in the snowy road.

  It was Jed who heroically covered her in his own coat and knelt beside Minnie, holding her hand.

  “I’ll get to the hospital and send help,” Arnold Wilkens said helplessly, as his wife wailed and writhed in the Packard’s front seat.

  “Hurry, Arnold,” Jed replied, focused on the injured woman. “Hang on, Minnie. Just don’t go to sleep.”

  Minnie’s eyes rolled, and her gaze seemed to settle on Clara, standing a few feet away.

  “Angel,” she whispered, smiling faintly, and her eyelids fluttered closed.

  “You’re seeing an angel? Minnie, come on, hang in there. Open your eyes.” Somehow, Jed managed to keep her conscious until the ambulance arrived.

  It probably didn’t take long—the hospital was a stone’s throw from the accident scene.

  But to Clara, standing by helplessly in the blowing snow, the wait was interminable.

  She wanted to do something, but she was too numb with horror to move or speak.

  Several neighbors ventured out of their houses to survey the horrific scene, including a woman named Lorraine. Clara overheard her telling someone that Minnie had just minutes ago asked to borrow cloves from her and, when Lorraine said she didn’t have any, decided she’d have to go buy them.

  “I told her not to go,” Lorraine said desolately, “but she wanted to get those fruitcakes made tonight.”

  Even after Minnie had been borne away on a stretcher, Clara was rooted to the spot, staring at the crimson stain in the snow.

  And it wasn’t Minnie’s blood she was seeing.

  It was Jed’s.

  “Clara…” Back in the garage apartment, he slips his arms around her. “Look at me.”

  She opens her eyes. “Don’t, Jed.”

  “Don’t what?”

  Don’t stare into my eyes that way.…

  Don’t make me love you.…