Past Perfect

by Leila Sales

  The Ezra file includes printouts of our first e-mails back and forth, from September; a Diamond Café napkin on which he’d written, “Meet me after work? xoxo Ezra P.S. Writing on a napkin is hard!”; a strip of photobooth photos showing us looking mad, sad, surprised, and, finally, happy; a twenty-year-old Coney Island postcard that he’d bought for me at a junk shop; ticket stubs from a midnight movie we once went to; a picture of us bundled up and sitting on a sled, his arms wrapped around me, both of us squinting our eyes and smiling up at the camera. That’s the Ezra file.

  “I shouldn’t let you keep all this,” Fiona said back in April, after she had already gone through and deleted every sweet text from him, every one of his e-mails. “You should really throw this whole thing away.”

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “It would make you feel better.”

  I shook my head and held on to it. The few, flimsy items in this file were my only proof that Ezra had ever been mine, that we had ever happened. That he had ever once missed me, that we had ever gone sledding together, that he had ever thought about me for long enough to write my name. These were our historical artifacts.

  “Fine, I’ll let you keep it,” Fiona relented, “but only if you never look through it.”

  I told her I wouldn’t, and usually I kept to that promise, but it was harder in the nighttime, especially tonight, when I was too tired even to make myself go to bed. I opened the Ezra file more nights than I should have, though I can’t say what I ever hoped to find in there. I guess I just wanted reassurance that it had been real; we had been happy together. That I hadn’t made up the whole thing.

  Two days later, I was showing Elisabeth Connelly’s grave to a group of day-camp kids in matching neon green T-shirts when a cell phone started to ring.

  “I want to sex you up,” the ringtone blared. “All night, I want to sex you up.”

  The summer campers, startled out of their it’s hot/I’m hungry/Jeremy stole my friendship bracelet stupor, started giggling. “Sex!” shrieked one of the boys.

  Their counselor looked both embarrassed and downtrodden. “Whose phone is that?” she demanded as it kept ringing.

  “We don’t have phones,” answered one of the girls, who looked to be maybe six years old.

  “We aren’t allowed to bring our phones,” said another girl. “We’re at camp.”

  “I want to sex you up!” sang someone else in time with the ringtone.

  Linda marched over to me, her gown swishing around her ankles. “Miss Connelly,” she said, “will you please turn off that sound?”

  “I don’t know where it’s coming from! Some moderner must have dropped it.” I hated that she assumed this was my fault. If there’s one rule every Essex employee follows, even Tawny, it’s that you don’t carry your cell around with you, because you never want something like this to happen.

  The ringing stopped for a minute, then started up again. The kids were in hysterics.

  “Listen up,” I said. “Treasure hunt! Whoever can find the cell phone wins!”

  The kids scattered amongst the graves, screaming randomly.

  “I found it, I found it!” One of the little boys ran up to me, holding a cheap-looking flip phone. “It was behind that grave!”

  The phone was still ringing when I grabbed it out of his hand. “Hello?” I said.

  “I heard you Colonials like phones,” said a girl’s voice on the other end. “So, here you go.” Then the line went dead.

  Okay, Civil War. You are asking for it.

  “Miss Connelly, please put away that modern device,” Linda snapped.

  “It’s not mine!” I said “I swear. Can I bring it down to Lost and Found? I’m sure someone’s looking for it.”

  Lies, lies, lies.

  Linda let me go, and I took off practically running down the road.

  “Can you tell us where the bathroom—” An elderly couple tried to flag me down.

  “Later!” I shouted, dropping them a curtsy without slowing my pace at all. The phone in my hand started to ring again, so I turned it off.

  I ran into the Bristol House, where Tawny was in the middle of re-creating a typical middle-class family experience for a handful of onlookers. “This is a sampler,” she explained as I thundered into the room. “Young ladies practice their embroidery stitches . . . Oh, welcome, Miss Connelly.”

  “Miss Nelson,” I replied, curtsying. “We have a bit of a problem.”

  The moderners crowded around. Real slick, Chelsea. They probably thought our problem was like “The King is taxing our tea!” and now they wanted to hear all about it.

  I thought fast. “The fife and drum parade is about to start on Governor’s Row,” I announced. “It’s an excellent performance. Very authentic!”

  The moderners scrambled for the door.

  “Nice,” Tawny said once they’d gone. “You know the fife and drum show isn’t until one.”

  I shrugged. “They should get there early to claim their spots. That parade route gets crazy-crowded.”

  “It’s nine thirty.”

  “Crazy-crowded.”

  “Look, we won’t have much time before more moderners come in,” Tawny said. “What’s going on?”

  “There was a cell phone in the graveyard. Someone from the Civil War hid it there. And then they called while I had, like, a full-on troop of Cub Scouts.”

  “Shit. Do we think it’s just a one-off, or is this a far-reaching sabotage plan?”

  As if to answer Tawny’s question, tinny strains of a ringtone pierced the air. “Let’s talk about sex, baby! Let’s talk about you and me!”

  “Classy.” Tawny rolled her eyes and moved purposefully toward the sound.

  “God, this is an old song,” I commented.

  “Unfortunately, it’s not two hundred fifty years old, so it is still an anachronism.” Tawny found the phone on the mantelpiece, tucked away in a silver sugar bowl, which had most likely been handcrafted by my dad. She flipped the phone open and barked into it, “Tony’s Pizza! Pickup or delivery?” She paused. “I said, pickup or delivery?” Pause. “Listen, lady, I don’t know what you mean by ‘Colonials,’ but next time you call this number, you better have your pizza order ready. Capiche?”

  “You know, I’ve heard of prank phone calls,” I said once she’d hung up, “but I’ve never before witnessed a prank phone answer.”

  Tawny was barely listening. “We’re going to need a really good retaliation, but for now let’s focus on damage control. Let’s both spread the word, and hopefully everyone will be able to find the phones and turn them off before they ring.”

  “I’m on it.” I headed out, nearly bumping into a kid on his way into Bristol House who was explaining to his dad, “See how the door is so short? That’s because they were really short back then! Except for George Washington. George Washington was nine feet tall. And all the doors in his house were enormous.”

  I made a break for the silversmith’s. I could hear a phone ringing as I walked inside, but fortunately both my parents were out of the room.

  “Where is that coming from?” I snapped at Bryan.

  “I don’t know. It keeps ringing, though.”

  “So why haven’t you found it and turned it off?”

  Bryan looked thoughtful and toadlike. Technically, Bryan is much smarter than I am. But in any category that counts—like the category of “what to do when a phone is ringing ‘Let’s Get It On’ in the middle of your living history village”—Bryan is not the brightest candle in the abra.

  I found the phone in the box of silver shavings that my dad keeps. Every year or so, Essex sends them to Richmond and cashes them in for actual money. A year is about how long it takes to collect any significant amount of silver shavings.

  I answered the phone, drawing inspiration from Tawny. “Thank God you called, Maurice,” I said. “What did the test results say?”

  There was a moment of silence. Bryan squinted his eyes at me. “Uh, Chel
sea?” said the voice on the other end of the line. “Is that you? Who’s Maurice?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Wait, who’s this?”

  “It’s Dan. You know, we met when I kidnapped you?”

  “Right, of course.”

  “I’ve been calling you all morning, but no one answered.”

  “Oh, I don’t work at the silversmith’s anymore, so I wasn’t here. I’m working the graveyard shift now.”

  “What’s the graveyard shift?”

  “In the graveyard.”

  “Elizabeth!” I looked up to see my dad standing over me, looking furious. “Mayhaps you could take this call somewhere else?” He gestured with his chin to the onlooking moderners.

  I gathered up my skirts and edged out of the studio and upstairs to the break room.

  “Sorry,” Dan said as I climbed the stairs. “Did I get you in trouble?”

  “Yeah. Just with my dad, though, so it’s fine. Anyway, it’s War. Getting your opponents in trouble is pretty much the point.”

  “Then I guess we’re winning this War.”

  “You are not.”

  “Uh, pretty sure we are. Come on, ringing cell phones? Genius.”

  “Pshh. Clichéd. And ‘Let’s Get It On’? You’ve got a dirty mind, Dan.”

  He laughed. “That ringtone is purely coincidental. Maybe you have a dirty mind?”

  I blushed.

  “Listen,” Dan went on. “Do you want to—Oh, shit. Tourists. Later.” And the call ended.

  I held on to the cheap, cracked phone for a minute, staring out the window in the break room. Do you want to . . . what? “Do you want to stop sneaking into my tent and going through my personal belongings?” “Do you want to take your lame Colonial friends and your poor excuses for pranks and get the hell out of town?” “Do you want to, in the immortal words of Marvin Gaye and this cell phone, get it on?”

  I turned off that phone and threw it in the trash can. It didn’t matter what Dan had been about to ask me; my answer was no. No, I don’t want to. What I want to do is be the best Lieutenant Essex has ever seen. What I want to do is win. And that meant no chatty phone calls with Civil Warriors. So I smoothed my skirts, adjusted my mobcap, and headed back out to battle.

  Chapter 8

  THE FOURTH OF JULY

  Essex flirts with anarchy every day of the year, but on the Fourth of July, any illusion of control disappears, and the village disintegrates into a totally lawless land of petticoated women and uniformed men running wild.

  First the British troops show up and set up camp on the Palace Green. I don’t know who the British troops are. They’re not employed by Essex. I don’t know where they come from or where they go after the Fourth of July, and I definitely don’t know why they choose to portray a losing team. I feel this way about Civil War Reenactmentland, too. Like—guys, guess what! The Confederate Army lost the War! That is why we’re still part of the United States!

  Anyway, these regiments of freelance historical interpreters descend upon Essex, and they march around in uniform and party in the taverns. There are skirmishes in the street, and we taunt them in a historically accurate fashion in the hopes of getting them to arrest us.

  If you can swing it, getting arrested is the high point of the Fourth of July. Also, the reading of the Declaration of Independence is exciting. (Yes, the Declaration was written two years after Essex is officially set. No, this doesn’t stop us.) Thomas Jefferson, aka my dad’s friend Mike, stands in the Governor’s Palace, overlooking mobs of tourists, and reads in a booming voice, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these Rights are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. . . .” It sends shivers down my spine every year. It makes me want to get out there and do something American. So the Declaration reading is pretty cool. But, all things considered, getting arrested is better.

  “Remember when I got arrested last year?” Patience asked. I was standing with her, Anne, and Fiona, eating ice cream outside of Belmont’s General Store and watching the British troops march down the main road. Independence Day is the only time when we can blatantly eat food in front of moderners without getting in trouble. Like I said: a lawless land.

  “I got arrested too,” Anne piped up.

  Patience ignored her. “I was singing ‘Yankee Doodle’ as loud as I could. I shouted at them, ‘You’ll never catch me, you lobsterbacks!’ Then I ran away. They got me and tied my hands behind my back and marched me around as a prisoner of war. Everyone was taking pictures. It was very exciting.”

  “People also took pictures of me when I got arrested,” Anne offered.

  “The soldiers who arrested me were hot. I don’t know if it was the fake British accents or what, but roawr. One of them even got my number before I escaped from their jail.”

  “But then he never called,” Anne noted.

  “Okay, well, did any of the Redcoats who arrested you even ask for your number?” Patience turned on Anne. Anne said nothing. “Exactly,” Patience concluded.

  Everything about Patience is pointy, from her stick-straight blond hair, to her angular nose and chin, to her jutting-out hip bones. I know her too well to find her pretty, but I guess she is, in a technical sense. Anne is rounder than Patience, and plain-looking. She highlights her dishwater-brown hair as if that might make her look more exciting, but the roots grow too fast for that to work. Maggie is the real beauty of the milliner girls, with thick, dark hair, pouty lips, and curves in the right places. But Maggie was back at the milliner’s, presumably working, though it was hard to imagine anyone accomplishing anything on the Fourth of July.

  “I want that one,” Fiona said, gesturing at a British soldier with her spoon.

  “How can you even tell?” I asked. “They’re all wearing the same uniform, and marching in the same gait. They all seem equally hot. Which one are you pointing to?”

  “The one with the long hair, see?”

  “Fiona,” I said, “you need to get over this hair thing. It’s creeping me out.”

  “Down with King George!” Patience hollered.

  Three adorable Redcoats descended upon her like flies to honey. Patience giggled and flounced a little until one of them grabbed her and proclaimed, “The King’s name shall not be so blasphemed!” and frog-marched her off.

  “Do any of the rest of you ladies have words to say against our king?” the long-haired soldier asked. He looked as menacing as a teenage guy can when he has a mane of luscious locks tumbling down his shoulders.

  Fiona nodded solemnly and beckoned him closer with her finger. He leaned in, and she cupped a hand to her mouth and whispered into his ear. “Enough of that, miss!” he exclaimed, grinning at her. She twirled a strand of hair around her finger and grinned back. “I shall take you to explain yourself to the magistrate,” he announced, presumably for the benefit of any nearby moderners.

  Fiona poked me and nodded her head toward the unclaimed Redcoat. He blushed. I blushed. Neither of us spoke. Fiona rolled her eyes and thrust her cup of ice cream into my hand. “I give it a four,” she said to me, though her eyes were on her soldier, not the ice cream. “I’ve had better, but it’ll do in a pinch.”

  Then the soldier placed a hand on her lower back and guided her down the little brick path toward the garden behind the York House. She glanced over her shoulder and winked at me before they disappeared from view. I watched her go, the remains of her rum-raisin ice cream melting in front of me. The available Redcoat skittered away.

  Patience and Fiona make it look so easy. To just run off with random cute boys. Unfortunately, the only thing I find easy is lusting after boys who are wholly unavailable.

  I could tell Fiona wanted me to flirt with that Redcoat, as part of her “find Chelsea’s true love this summer” scheme. She probably thought I was being prudish. I did know how to flirt, though. Sort of. Dan and I had been flirting when he called o
n the phone, or at least I thought maybe we had been. I wished that Fiona knew about that conversation. But of course she couldn’t. She could proposition a British soldier in broad daylight, in front of everyone, but I wasn’t even allowed to think about Dan.

  I tasted Fiona’s ice cream. It was only so-so, since I think raisins are gross and desiccated and should stay the hell out of desserts. But I finished it anyway, since mine was all gone, and even the worst ice cream is better than no ice cream. Though apparently the worst ice cream isn’t better than making out with a long-haired Redcoat.

  “I’m going to stop by the silversmith’s to say hi to my parents,” I said to Anne. “You can come along, if you want.” So she did. Anne likes to follow people.

  “Where’s Bryan?” Dad asked me as soon as we stepped into his studio.

  “And hello to you, too, Father.”

  Dad just raised his bushy eyebrows at me.

  “Look, I have no idea where he is. I’m not his keeper, thank God. He’s probably off discussing battleship repair with a British soldier.”

  “That boy has a good head on his shoulders.” Dad nodded.

  “Yeah, I mean, he definitely knows more about eighteenth-century sexual politics than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

  “Find him and bring him back here.” When my dad’s not asking unanswerable questions, he is issuing impossible commands. It’s hard to say which is more annoying.

  “I don’t know where he is,” I protested.

  “I don’t know where he is,” Dad said.

  “But I don’t care where he is!”

  “But I do.”

  “So why don’t you go look for him?”

  “Because I am repairing this sugar bowl!” Dad bellowed at me.

  Anne and I left.

  “Bye, sweetie!” Mom called after me. “Come back any time!”

  “Where are you going to look for Bryan?” Anne asked as we headed down the road toward the milliner’s.

  “I’m not. He’ll find his way back to the silversmith’s on his own. He’s a big boy. Excuse me!”