Brontë plopped down on the sofa with enough force to send her purse bouncing and vomiting its contents once more. While she shoved it all back home, she provided her grandmother a brief overview of her two hours of captivity, attempting to inject some humor into the retelling. As the time since then had ticked away though, the grim tale of her love life had grown more appalling even in comparison to the comic missteps of the love story played out on the stage tonight.
At least a happy ending prevailed for Roxane and Cyrano.
Where was hers?
So much for her bold proclamation of ‘why bother at all?’ mere hours before. She wanted to bother, to try. A hundred times again, if that what it took. Modern girl with a feminist bend she might be, she knew she didn’t need a man to be happy.
But she wanted one.
And for all her maudlin despair over her ability to find love, she knew it did exist.
When she and her sisters were little girls, her granny used to read snippets of Brontë’s great-great-grandmother Hazel’s diary to them. Fairy tale bedtime stories of courtship, marriage and pure love to rival those of Disney princesses.
Violet had given the diary to Brontë when she turned sixteen. The reason she’d waited so long became clear when Brontë discovered some steamy entries amid the pages. Hazel hadn’t been shy about committing all of her romantic encounters to paper. Nothing graphic, but they oozed sensuality. She’d a true gift with words. Flowery narrative and prose on the wonders of her beau/fiancé/then husband that rivaled the words written between Robert Frost and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
How did she love him? Hazel expounded on the ways.
The stories had filled Brontë with expectations of märchen-like proportions.
Or as rephrased by her mother: put nonsense into her head.
Alas, her prediction had proven more accurate than Brontë’s dreams in real world applications. Her disillusionment upon experiencing the reality of mediocre and ephemeral “love” had been a bitter pill. Her last promising entry in her personal love life — and the series of disastrous dates she’d had since — notwithstanding, she believed deep down that, as elusive as it was, true love was real.
Violet broke the silence that fell after she completed her recounting of the afternoon. “Sounds like Aila chose you a huffy wee dobber to me.”
“Language, Granny.” As always, her grandmother had a way of sweeping away her ill mood. “You’re right though.”
“The next one will be better.”
“Couldn’t be worse.” Brontë had to smile as well despite the fact that she’d mutiny before jumping back into the dating pool. “The play’s stage manager already offered to set me up again, but I don’t think so.”
Violet nodded sagely. “Need to gird your loins before giving it another go?”
Brontë shook her head, though her granny’s sense of humor hardly shocked her any more. “I’ll have to gird something,” she shot back.
Not anytime soon though. And she might be better off restraining her heart, rather than her loins. One was far too hopeful while the other had become rather lonely this year. It wasn’t without persistent effort that she was on the fast track to becoming alone and bitter though.
Violet reached out and squeezed her hand. “It’ll happen for you, dear. I know it will.”
“I appreciate your optimism, Granny. After Jake though… I really thought he was it.” Brontë sighed. “Hanging the toilet paper on the holder wrong. Hardly grounds for breaking up.”
“No,” Violet agreed. “But it was more than that, wasn’t it?”
A reluctant laugh bubbled up in Brontë’s throat. “Like him refusing to put the roll on the holder at all? Okay, I’ll admit that cheating thing that led to the fight about the toilet paper, may have been the core problem.”
“Could be,” her grandmother conceded.
The true reasons for it had little to do with toilet paper. Their lackluster relationship had left her dissatisfied in many ways and he had sensed it. In her experience, be it on the first date or the tenth, affection always withered while impatience and annoyance…dissatisfaction prospered. On both sides. Whether it was her fault or his, whether it was because a guy cheated like Jake, lied, or gave Peter Pan a run for his money when it came to never growing up, they all ended the same way. Her relationship with Jake had followed the same path. It had simply taken longer to get there.
“You’ll find the right one, dear,” was Granny’s promise. “One that will last.”
“Do they ever though?” Brontë argued with a maudlin sigh. “Let’s face it, the women in our family haven’t seen the greatest success in that arena. Look at Jane and Virginia, for example.”
Both of her sisters, one older and one younger than Brontë’s twenty-six years, had already fallen head over heels, married and divorced. Jane managed it twice and she wasn’t even thirty yet.
Violet pursed her lips. “Like you, they’re young. They both have plenty of time to meet someone.”
“Fine, how about your sisters then?”
Her grandmother’s older sister Rose had been married only a few years before her husband was killed in the Korean War. She’d never remarried. The younger sister Iris never married at all, having been jilted publicly… twice. The last time, she’d been abandoned outside the doors of a Beatles concert at the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen in 1963 while her date escorted his new girlfriend inside instead.
Ouch.
There was a reason Brontë always got along great with her. Sympathy created a tight bond.
“Your mother then,” Violet argued, having no plausible defense of argument when it came to her sisters. “Carolyn was married, quite happily I’ll add, to your father for almost thirty years.”
“Until he traded in her fifty years for two twenty-fives,” Brontë retorted sourly. “One right after the other. Love has a finite life span.”
Violet puckered up at that. “Not true. I love my Peter still.”
Perhaps, but insufficient as far as evidentiary talking points went. Peter Graham had died long ago, rendering the evolution of their relationship speculative at best. At worst, it could prove that love didn’t last for one reason or another.
Looking at the facts, the history of love lost and broken hearts among the females of their family carried back to when Brontë’s great-great-grandmother at just twenty years of age had been left widowed and pregnant when her true love died.
On the Titanic, no less.
Yeah, her great-great-grandmother Hazel’s disastrous heartbreak had truly been one for the history books.
What chance did Brontë truly stand?
Gloom renewed and bitter tears burned behind her eyes.
Faking a cough, she rummaged through her bag once more having spotted a small package of tissue among the contents. She tossed her phone to the side and fished out a smashed candy bar…
She paused with a sniff and ripped open the wrapper. Taking a huge bite of sweet chocolaty balm to the soul, she tossed out a tin of mints, compact phone charger and paused again when she came upon a smooth, white ceramic object similar in shape and size to a small travel mouse one might carry for their laptop.
Chewing slowly on the candy, she held it up with a frown.
“I apologize for the lecture, dear,” her granny said quietly, stroking Willow’s head. “I’m sorry too that your date wasn’t a promising one. I was pulling for you.”
Studying the curious thingamajig, Brontë shrugged. Where had the thing come from? Not that she didn’t have a laptop. She did. However, she was a trackpad devotee and hadn’t used a mouse since the old desktop PC her mom had bought for Brontë and her sisters to use in high school.
“How about some tea?” Violet continued, bending to set the cat on the floor before gripping the rims of her wheelchair.
“I’ll get it, Granny.” Brontë stood and moved toward the kitchen absently; her attention remained on the object in her hand.
She smoothed th
e pad of her thumb across the curved shell on one side of the object and gasped in surprise when a blue circle of light appeared on the white surface. Not a fully solid circle. A thumb-sized dot of white remained at its center, reminding her of the ancient iPod configuration where the outer circle was a dial to select the song and the center a button.
Intrigued, she touched the blue band with her thumb and a series of numbers appeared below. Brontë stumbled on a semi-solid object and the cat’s high-pitched howl made her jump.
“Oh, my poor darling!” Violet cried out as Willow sprang up on the back of the sofa with a wounded hiss.
Brontë staggered to right herself and her hand jerked to the side.
A fleeting white light passed her field of vision then…
“How about some tea?” Violet asked.
“I said I’d —” She looked up to see her grandmother setting Willow on the floor and giving the wheels of her chair a pus…
Her mind froze.
Brontë saw herself rising from the sofa just as she had a few seconds before. As if she were now observing what she’d recently done from another point of view. As if she’d become member of the audience with a nauseating sense of déjà vu, rather than a player in her own life.
The other her didn’t look up from the thingamajig in her hand. Her steps lead her toward the kitchen. Toward Willow.
And, hence, toward Brontë.
With a horrified gasp, she staggered back and stared down at the thing in her hand again. The other her looked up and echoed the shocked breath. She stopped mid-step and avoided tripping over Willow as Brontë had. The object in Brontë’s hand — the first her, not the second one — vibrated.
They both looked at it.
Then the other her disappeared.
The thing in her hand vibrated again. The series of numbers blinked thrice then stayed lit. The series ended with two numbers ticking upward.
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Like a digital clock.
It was the current time. Or more accurately. The date and time. Eighteen March 2019, 10:21 p.m. with the seconds ticking onward.
Bewildered, Brontë looked from the spot where she’d been standing moments before to the doodad in her hand, the blue circle and time continued to shine before it faded away. With another light touch, the circular light reappeared. Running her thumb around the circle counter-clockwise, she blinked at the flash of light and saw the living room was now empty but for Willow curled up on the back of the sofa, fast asleep.
A light feminine voice in the kitchen caught her attention.
“Nah, Jimmie, I cannae be talking to ye like that. Not while the auld lady’s still awake.” Laughter, soft and sensual in nature, then, “None of that. Save it for later.”
First thought? Holy crap, was Broomhilda having a verbal booty call? Never in a million years would Brontë have pegged her as the type for phone sex and sultry laughter. Or laughter of any sort, for that matter.
Second? Not only did the nurse have a boyfriend, she had a sex life. Brontë’s love life really was pitiful.
“I’ll call ye when she’s in bed.” A pause. “After nine. Ye should ken that by now.”
After nine? Brontë stared down at the device in her hand. 8:32 p.m. it said. How was that…? How? Hoy shi —
“What the hell?” She dropped the device like it was hot coal and stared at it as it clattered to the floor.
“What was that?” Broomfield asked from the kitchen. “Hold, Jimmie. I heard something.”
Brontë scrambled to retrieve the curiosity from the floor. The white dot at the center was pulsating invitingly. Unsure of what possessed her, she pushed it.
In a nauseating blink, she was back in the room with Granny.
As if nothing had happened, Willow licked her wounded paw on the back of the sofa while Granny clucked her in sympathy. “I definitely need a cuppa now if I’m to sleep at all tonight. Brontë?”
“What? Oh. Um, uh-huh.” Brontë nodded though her incredulous gaze returned to the mystery object in her hand. Alarm clashed with disbelief, stupefaction…then a peculiar sense of anticipation in her mind.
She couldn’t possibly have seen what she just saw.
Or thought she saw.
Twice.
The lights on the thing faded again so she woke it up and set a finger on the edge of the circle. Numbers reappeared reflecting the proper time. 10:21. The seconds ticked up and rounded the number off to 10:22. Bracing herself, she circled her thumb around once more.
“…wasn’t a promising one, dear.” Violet was back in front of Brontë, Willow content in her lap as her grandmother stroked the cat’s silky head. “I was pulling for you.”
Holy…
“Oh,” Violet gasped looking up at her in surprise. “I didn’t see you stand up, dear. Ah, to be young and able to move so quickly again.”
Brontë gaped at the device nestled in the palm of her hand in shock. Holy, holy shit.
“How about some tea?”
How? The question resounded through her mind like the echo of Violet’s question. A question of the past, yet her present. There was no way this was real. It couldn’t possibly be.
Somehow, unless she was dreaming or delusional, it had happened. And it was real.
Where had this thing come from? To materialize in her purse like magic…?
No. Not magic. Her thoughts flashed back to her bumping into someone at the theater. Coffee all over. Her purse vomiting its contents all over the floor…
And Donell. Donell helping her pick them up and dropping them into her purse.
She needed to talk to him.
Violet’s caring voice cut into the muck of Brontë’s thoughts drawing her back to the moment. “Are you well, dear?”
“I’m fine. Tired,” she added. It was the truth. It’d had been a long, trying day despite this…this…whatever it was. Brontë stuffed the thingamajig in her pocket and plucked Willow out of her grandmother’s lap before any damage could be done. “It’s been a long day. Let me help you get to bed, if you don’t mind?”
Violet reached out and took her free hand. Brontë looked down at their hands. Her granny’s papery skin rippled by the purple veins visible beneath the surface, her fingers bent with arthritis. Old against young. Nevertheless, the cool, smooth grasp of her fingers filled Brontë with warmth, as they always had.
And soothed her frayed nerves.
Drawing a deep calming breath, she bent and kissed her grandmother’s cheek. “I love you, Granny.”
Her grandmother’s fingers convulsed around hers and she looked up with affection in her misty eyes. “Why, I love you, too, dearest. What brought that on?”
“Nothing.” Brontë squeezed Violet’s fragile hand and released it before grasping the handles of the wheelchair and steering the contraption toward the bedroom they’d created for the older woman on the main floor following the fall that had confined her to the wheelchair. “Thank you for always being here for me when I need you.”
“My dear, I’d do anything to see you happy.”
Then the idea sparked in Brontë’s mind.
What if she could do it herself?
Chapter 3
“Gah, ye’re never going to catch a proper man dressed like that.”
Brontë turned to Aila with a grimace as she contorted herself to fasten the dress she’d donned. “Ha ha, but I love the assumption that I might get one through other methods. I’m glad you’re here, though. Help me button up this, will you?”
Aila dropped her purse and coat on a wide table next to one of the many sewing machines in the costume shop at the Lyceum. “I will if ye tell me why ye’re dressed in yer Granny’s old clothes.”
“It’s not Granny’s,” Brontë told her friend as she fastened the series of cloth-covered buttons that ran up the back of the purple cotton dress.
“And ye’re wearing it why?” Aila asked as she reached the ones at Brontë’s shoulder blades. “Och, this is tight. Can ye brea
the?”
Very little, but she hoped it would be worth it.
The night she’d discovered the time travel device in her purse, she’d laid awake in bed for hours pondering it. How was it possible? How did it work? She’d never heard of a scientific breakthrough of such magnitude. Even if such technology did exist, why would it be in the hands of a theater set manager in Scotland?
She’d decided to ask Donell about it.
At that point, her thoughts had skid to a halt.
It might have been an accident…most likely it was an accident, him putting it in her purse. Their collision had sent her things flying, so logically he could’ve dropped the device as well. In gathering up her many tubes, cases and other doodads, Donell may not have noticed his gadget among the disarray. If she mentioned it, he might want it back. He would want it back! Who would give up such a marvel?
No one. And in that instant, she decided not to. Not yet anyway.
A tumult of all the things she could potentially see and do crowded her mind. Beginning with going back and fixing the problems plaguing her love life before they had a chance to fester.
“Can you keep a secret?” she asked when Aila was done with the buttons.
“If it’s that ye’re completely mental, that’s nae secret,” her friend offered with a chuckle. “Ye’ve got to be to dress like that on purpose but do tell. I’m all ears.”
Brontë’s image reflected in the full-length mirror attached to the wall. Old-fashioned as the dress might be, she thought it looked nice on her. The wide white collar spanned from shoulder to shoulder with a notch in the center. Delicate floral embroidery decorated the points. A narrow V of the same fabric was inset down the front of the pleated bodice to the belted waistline. Tiny purple buttons dotted a path along the center. From the waist down along the center seam, rows of more covered button broke the simplicity of the plain purple cotton skirt. Tight three-quarter length sleeves ended with a white cuff turned up at the end. The gown was simple but far more elegant and appropriate than her last choice.
“Brontë?”
“What do you think?” She smoothed her hands down the skirt and shifted her gaze to Aila’s in the mirror.
A Scot to Remember (Something About a Highlander Book 1) Page 2
