by Leila Sales
A band of British soldiers nearly crashed into us. They’re great at marching in formation, but they seem not to handle obstacles so well. “Long live King George!” they hollered at me and Anne.
“Long live King George!” we shouted back, and scurried around them.
“Are you a Loyalist, then?” Anne asked me. “Wow, I didn’t know that about you! Are your parents Loyalists, too?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just a Loyalist when there are drunk Redcoats around. It’s easier that way.”
“Don’t you want to get arrested, though?”
“Nah. I just got kidnapped like a week and a half ago,” I reminded her. “I’m kind of sick of getting held captive these days.”
“Hey!” A hand clamped down on my shoulder.
“Long live King George, okay?” I sighed as I turned around. But it was just Nat. “Oh, hi,” I said. “Never mind.”
He looked confused. “Where’s Fiona?”
“God, why does everyone think I know where everyone is today?”
Nat shrugged and twirled his ponytail. “No idea. But you do know where she is, right?”
“Yes, of course.” I didn’t elaborate.
“So . . . ?”
Way to put me on the spot. “Um, I think she’s, like, by York House or whatever.”
“She’s with a Redcoat!” Anne piped up. “He’s cute. Actually”—she peered at Nat thoughtfully—“he kind of looks like you!”
“Oh, right.” Nat’s shoulders slumped. “Thanks. I guess I’ll look for her later, or tomorrow, or something.”
Independence Day must be rough for the Essex guys. All these hot strangers show up and make off with the Essex women, but they don’t bring along any British girls. That is gender inequality in action.
Nat walked away. “Nat!” I yelled after him. “Do you know where Bryan is?”
“No,” Nat called back, that one syllable somehow wavering with heartbreak and loneliness.
Goddamn theater kids.
Anne and I kept walking. We passed by the courthouse. Outside of it was the pillory, and lo and behold, who had his hands and head trapped in there but Bryan Denton. You’re welcome, Dad.
Moderners surrounded Bryan, snapping photos. “Can it decapitate you?” worried one woman.
“No,” Bryan answered, sounding unusually depressed about sharing his historical knowledge. “It’s for public shaming. You get put in the pillory when you commit a petty crime, and then you’re trapped in here for a few hours, usually.”
“What petty crime did you commit?” a man asked, smiling broadly.
“Disrespecting the King,” Bryan answered, sounding like he was going to cry. “No taxation without representation!” But his voice was thin.
“Good day, sir,” I said. Anne and I both curtsied.
“Miss Connelly! Miss Whitcomb!” Bryan struggled to raise his head.
“Mr. Denton, sir, your presence is required by the silversmith,” I said.
Bryan’s eyes bulged, and he twisted his neck from side to side like a beached eel. “Miss Connelly . . .” he said.
“What, Bryan?”
“The Redcoats put me in the pillory, and now I’m stuck,” he hissed. “Help me.”
“Oh my God, oh my God!” Anne flew to his side and tried, uselessly, to lift the wood panel off of him. “How did this happen? Are you okay?”
“I am suffering,” Bryan moaned, his head and hands hanging limp.
“Elizabeth, help us!” Anne cried, scraping at the wood with her fingernails.
I cracked up. I laughed and laughed. I had to sit down on a rock, I was laughing so hard.
“It’s not funny,” Bryan sniffed.
It’s true, I’m usually not a Loyalist. But today? Those British troops were on fire. I just wished we could use them to our advantage.
And that gave me an idea.
Leaving Bryan writhing in the pillory and Anne fawning over him, I continued down the road. I bumped into the same British unit from half an hour ago. Apparently they were just pacing up and down the main street on a loop.
“Long live King George!” they yelled, like we hadn’t just had this conversation.
“Ditto!” I cried. “Hey, guys, come here. Huddle up.”
The troops broke formation and clustered around me. “Look,” I said. “I know you’re strangers to Essex. But as fellow members of the eighteenth century, we need your help with something. So I’m just going to ask you one question: How do you feel about the Civil War?”
Essex stayed open late that night, for the holiday. Our patriotism cannot be constrained by an eight-hour workday. After the sun set, I sat out on the Palace Green with Fiona and her Redcoat fling and watched the fireworks explode overhead.
Tawny found me there. “Did you hear the news?” she asked, squatting next to me. “Today a unit of Redcoats marched out of Essex, across the street, and straight into Civil War Reenactmentland.”
“Well, that sounds historically inaccurate.” I shook my head in mock horror.
“Extremely. Apparently they told the moderners there that the Civil War began at a cricket match between England and South Carolina in 1861. It took the Civil Warriors close to an hour to run all the Redcoats out of there.”
I snorted. “What enterprising young chaps they are,” I said. “Tally-ho, and all that. I wonder how they got such a good idea?”
Tawny gave me a high five so powerful that it nearly knocked me over. “Whoever’s idea this was, she’s the greatest Lieutenant I could ever hope for.” A firework boomed, as if in agreement.
“Hey, you’re the Essex Lieutenant?” asked Fiona’s Redcoat, leaning over to address me.
“Depends who’s asking,” I replied.
“Well, if you are, I have something for you.” Using his hand that wasn’t wrapped around Fiona’s waist, the Redcoat pulled a folded piece of paper out of his breeches pocket and handed it to me. FOR ESSEX’S LIEUTENANT (CHELSEA), it read.
“What is this?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I didn’t open it. Some Civil War guy gave it to us when we were across the street.”
I unfolded the paper and read the words inside. YOU STOLE MY HOODIE. WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET IT BACK?
“What’s it say?” asked Tawny.
I quickly folded it back up. “Nothing.”
“Who’s it from?” Fiona was studying my face.
“It’s not signed.” That much was true. “It’s just some trash talk from the Civil War. ‘The Fourth of July sucks.’ Typical stuff.”
“If that’s the best they can do, they might as well surrender today.” Tawny spat on the ground.
“Why are you smiling?” Fiona asked me.
“Am I?”
“Yup,” Fiona said. “You’re definitely smiling.”
You stole my hoodie. What do I have to do to get it back?
“I’m just really excited now. About . . . fireworks.”
“Fireworks,” repeated Fiona.
“Yes, fireworks. I love the Fourth of July.” And I shouted, “Long live the King!” as a shower of red, white, and blue rained down above us.
Chapter 9
THE ENCOUNTER
“So what happened to your Redcoat boy?” I asked Fiona over ice cream the following evening. She had driven us two towns over, to Plainville, so we could go to Abbott’s. Abbott’s is an old-fashioned soda shop that puts Essex’s ice cream options to shame. Abbott’s handcrafts its own ice creams and then serves them in massive sundaes with names like “Dentist’s Nightmare” and “Diabetics, Beware.”
“What do you mean, ‘what happened to my Redcoat boy’?” Fiona asked, swirling her spoon around her dish.
“I mean, where did he go?”
“He went . . .” Fiona gazed off into the distance and shook her head slightly. “He went the way of all things.”
“You mean he died?”
Her focus snapped back to me. “No.”
“Well, you made it sound like he die
d.”
“I just meant that he went wherever it is that boys go when they go.” She waved a hand. “Into the ether. Into the great beyond.”
“It’s still sounding like he died. Did you at least get his number?”
Fiona paused with a spoon full of nuts, caramel, and salted-caramel ice cream halfway between the bowl and her mouth. “Why would I want his number?”
“Hmm, let me think . . . Oh, I’ve got it: so you could call him.”
“And talk about what?”
“Whatever it is that you two talk about,” I said. “For example, what did you talk about yesterday?”
“Me, mostly.”
“Fine. So if you’d exchanged numbers, you could have phone conversations where you talk more about you. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“Or,” Fiona suggested, “you and I could go out to ice cream, and we could talk about me, and that would spare me the trouble of having to interact with that guy ever again.”
“That dumb, huh?”
She tossed her hair. “The beautiful ones always are.”
“He wasn’t that beautiful,” I pointed out.
She sucked on her spoon, considering. “In that case, he was disproportionately dumb,” she determined. “Let me tell you what he said when I told him about the Essex Cheerleaders. . . .”
I leaned back in the booth, half listening to Fiona, half trying to digest the quart of cake batter ice cream I had just devoured. I noticed a guy and a girl ordering at the counter. I have never understood people who go to Abbott’s for takeout. The walls are overflowing with colorful knickknacks; every table and plate is unique; and all the waiters wear 1950s-style soda jerk uniforms. Abbott’s is not a take-out place; it’s an experience.
I overheard the girl at the counter say, as if she were reading my mind, “But why can’t we stay and eat here?”
“Because I told Mom we’d be home by nine.”
And I recognized that voice, that gentle Southern drawl. I stared at the guy to make sure, but there was no real question. It was Dan. It was Dan, ordering ice cream with the girl from the daguerreotype.
“Mom wouldn’t notice if we were a few minutes late,” the girl wheedled.
“Are you kidding? Are we talking about the same mother? If we were a few minutes late, she’d become convinced that we’d abandoned her too. No question. Do you have her Rocky Road?”
The girl halfheartedly lifted a container of ice cream.
“Great. Let’s roll.”
They started to walk toward the door, which meant that they started to walk toward me. Toward the table where I sat with Fiona, who was still talking, maybe about cheerleaders, maybe about genocide now, I didn’t know, I wasn’t listening. I was panicking.
Time felt like it slowed down and sped up all at once. Dan was coming closer and closer to where I sat, while I kept staring at him, my eyes searching for his eyes.
When he was only a few feet away, Dan noticed me. He smiled directly at me and opened his mouth as if to say hi. So I responded as any reasonable girl would: I ignored him.
I dropped my gaze to my bowl, scooped up an overflowing spoonful of ice cream, and shoved it so far back into my mouth that I gagged on its watery sweetness. Some of it dribbled out of the corners of my mouth, so I had to snatch up a big wad of napkins and swipe at my chin. When I was done with all of that, I looked up again, and Dan was gone.
Fiona was laughing at me.
“What?” I demanded.
“What, you just attacked that ice cream like a slobby snake who’s been starving itself for weeks. Do you know that guy?”
“Which guy?”
“The one who almost made it necessary for me to give you the Heimlich maneuver.”
“You don’t know the Heimlich maneuver,” I pointed out.
“Chelsea! Do you know him?”
“No.”
Fiona narrowed her eyes at me. She required a better lie.
“I just thought he was cute, that’s all.” He was looking cute, too, all disheveled hair and pale skin. He was as cute here as he had been in my mind.
Not that it mattered, since I had just blanked him in the middle of Abbott’s.
“I guess he was cute,” Fiona granted, “but he was with that girl. You need someone who’s actually available.”
“She’s his sister.”
“I thought you didn’t know him?”
“I don’t. I just heard them talking at the counter. They’re brother and sister.”
“You were listening to some strangers when you could have been listening to me talk about myself? Chelsea, how could you?”
I rolled my eyes at her.
“I give this sundae a nine and a half,” Fiona continued peacefully. “It’s perfect, but I just want to hold on to that ten in case something more perfect ever shows up, you know?”
And that was it for Fiona. I had seen a hot guy, I had almost killed myself on a spoon of ice cream, that was all. Only I knew the truth: I had completely blown it.
Chapter 10
THE MILLINER GIRLS
Wednesday was hot. Even by Virginia-in-July standards it was hot. By lunchtime, the “How can you stand to wear that dress in this weather?” tally had reached double digits, and I had lost the will to lie.
I knew I had to blame somebody, so I decided on Fiona. I marched over to the milliner’s, where I found Fiona and Maggie putting away scrap fabric, while Patience and Anne crowded around a moderner trying on a dress, telling her how awesome she looked in it.
“Good day, Elizabeth,” Fiona said.
“We could be at The Limited right now!” I leaned across the counter to whisper-scream at her. “At this very moment, we could be in an air-conditioned mall. We could be taking a break from our air-conditioned jobs to eat ice cream in the air-conditioned food court. In some parallel universe, luckier, smarter versions of Chelsea and Fiona are doing exactly that, while we are stuck here.”
“It’s really hot,” Fiona agreed.
“Damn straight it’s really hot!”
The moderner paid Maggie for the gown. “I look just like you all now!” she exclaimed, which I guessed was true, if the five of us looked like middle-aged preschool teachers.
After she had pranced out the door in her new Colonial outfit, I asked, “Since I’m here, can I see the Civil War costumes?”
Patience narrowed her eyes, as if trying to figure out whether she could trust me.
“I’m the Lieutenant,” I reminded her.
She shrugged, still suspicious, then dug around in the back of the armoire before producing two snazzy Confederate soldiers’ uniforms.
“Perfect!” I reached for one, but Patience whipped it away from me.
“They’re not done yet.”
“Really?”
“Of course not. See, they need another row of buttons here. And you might think it wouldn’t matter if the shirt isn’t hemmed, since it’s going to be tucked in, but honestly . . .”
The other milliner girls all nodded seriously, even Fiona. I had no clue what they were seeing that I wasn’t. The uniforms looked good enough to me. If we truly lived in the past, I would make some historical man a totally useless wife.
“So when do you think all this will be done?” I asked.
Patience widened her eyes and took a step toward me. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Are we not working fast enough for you? Does this seem easy? Could you just whip up an authentic Confederate uniform in an hour or two?”
“Nope.” I shook my head quickly. “Definitely no.”
“Then have. Some. Patience,” snapped Patience.
I made a mental note to tell Tawny that some of our soldiers seemed overworked and possibly on the verge of an insane meltdown.
“Can we please go to the brickyard now?” Fiona asked as Patience stuffed the costumes back into their hiding spot. “We’re wasting our break.”
This was the first good idea that I’d heard all day.
We h
ustled out the door and down the small dusty lane to the brickyard. Once there, we stripped off our boots and stockings, hitched up our petticoats, and waded into the treading pit. The clay and water felt cool on my calves. This was almost as good as air-conditioning. I completely understood how pigs felt.
“So, about the Lenny and Elissa thing . . .” Anne started, but the rest of the girls all groaned.
“He’s not worth it,” Fiona said, stomping through the clay. “Honestly, you can do so much better.”
“He has that weird thing going on with his chin,” added Patience.
“And not to minimize your suffering or anything,” Maggie said, “because I totally get that you are suffering, but you guys hooked up, what, once? A year ago? It’s not like you have any claim over him. If he wants to bang that skank, that’s his prerogative.”
“I’m not saying I have a claim over him,” Anne protested. “I just want to know what she has that I don’t.”
Maggie answered by holding her hands about six inches in front of her chest, miming Elissa’s D-cup. The rest of the girls cracked up.
“She is such a slitch,” Patience said, thus saving herself the effort of having to use two full syllables to call Elissa both a slut and a bitch. She was also wrong. As far as I knew, Elissa was just a normal history nerd who worked as a waitress at the White Horse Tavern.
Anne said, “I’d almost feel better if Lenny was dating a Civil Warrior.”
“Ewww,” we all cried in unison—even though a picture of Dan flashed through my mind as I squealed.
“Elissa’s bad, but she’s not that,” Fiona said. “Those Civil War girls are such whores. Chelsea told me they left old bras and panties draped all around the shoemaker’s yesterday.”
“True,” I confirmed. “I didn’t even want to pick them up for fear of contracting an STD.”
“We need to fight back harder.” Maggie looked at me pointedly.
I put up my hands. “Hey, if anyone’s got ideas, by all means, bring them on.”
“The thing about Lenny—” Anne tried to return to her favorite topic, but Patience interrupted.
“How’s it going with Nat?” Patience asked Fiona.
Fiona squished the mud between her toes. “It’s not going with Nat.”
