Past Perfect

by Leila Sales

Bryan ran up to me once the meeting was adjourned. “I just wanted you to know,” he said, “that when I said you were really and forever not in my Top Five . . . well, I didn’t mean forever.”

  “Good to know,” I said.

  “So if you ever want to pretend to be betrothed to me, well, I would be okay with that.”

  “Thank you, Bryan,” I replied. “Thanks.”

  As my friends and I left, we spotted some Civil Warriors trying to steal one of the street signs pointing to Colonial Essex. They bolted as soon as they noticed us.

  “Should we go get them?” Lenny asked, already lunging after them.

  But Tawny just waved her hand dismissively. “Let them go,” she said, so over their petty thievery. “We have bigger fish to fry.”

  And fry them, we did. Tawny proceeded to call the director of the National Register of Historic Places; the local ABC, CNN, CBS, and Fox affiliates; and the editors of The Washington Post and The Essex Courier-Journal. She went on to every travel website and left comments panning Reenactmentland. “If they lied to win the Barnes Prize, who knows what else they’re lying about????” read her review on historicalholidays.com. “How can you trust anything these so-called historians say now???”

  My parents were scandalized by this news. Scandalized and I think a little thrilled, or at least my father was. On Tuesday we sat glued to the TV as the eight o’clock news reported, after its usual rapes and murders, that the director of Reenactmentland had resigned under allegations of corrupt business practices.

  “The Barnes Prize for Historical Interpretation moves tourism dollars,” explained the bobbed blond anchor-woman, for the benefit of those viewers who don’t spend nine-tenths of their waking lives on reenactment. “When Civil War Reenactmentland falsified documents to prove the existence of a ship that could have altered the outcome of the Civil War’s most important naval battle, they secured this award for themselves. The director, Lindy Steussel, claims she did not know that her living history museum had applied for—and been awarded—this prize under false pretenses. However, she did let go employee Robert Malkin last August, after he spearheaded the Barnes Prize application committee. This act indicates to many that Steussel was, in fact, aware of what was going on.”

  The TV screen flashed a color photo captioned “Former Reenactmentland employee Robert Malkin.” The photo must have been taken a few years ago. It depicted a gangly young man in full Civil War regalia, toting a rifle. His wife stood next to him in a plain muslin dress, her hair hidden under a starched white bonnet. Two girls in similar outfits flanked their parents. And off to the side stood a dark-haired boy, maybe twelve years old, his shoes untied, staring straight at the camera.

  I recognized that look.

  The camera cut back to the anchorwoman. “The truth will always out,” she said solemnly, before moving on to a story about a holdup at the Plainville Toys “R” Us.

  I sat on the couch between my parents and thought that I don’t know if that’s true, that the truth will always out. I think a lot of truths are lost to time. In this case, the truth was outed because Dan told me, because he liked me. And I told Ezra, because I missed him. And Ezra told Tawny, because he wanted to, And Tawny launched a media blitz that told everyone, because she is a warrior, and that’s what warriors do to win.

  “They had it coming to them,” Dad announced, turning off the TV and putting his feet up on his ottoman. “I said this last year—how could an organization that is so filled with anachronisms win the Barnes? Even we haven’t won the Barnes. It didn’t make sense. Didn’t I say that it didn’t make sense?”

  “I feel bad for them.” Mom took a sip of tea. “Most of the people at Reenactmentland are innocent bystanders in all of this, just trying to do their jobs. And now they’re the laughingstock of the historical interpretation community. And their director is gone? Can you imagine what we’d do without Myron Zelinsky?”

  “I think they deserve it,” I said, even though I didn’t think they deserved it. I kept seeing Dan’s family in my mind, that photo of him staring directly at me. “If you cheat, you shouldn’t be allowed to just get away with it. Right?”

  “Right,” my father agreed. To my mother, “Your daughter is right.”

  But instead of feeling right, I felt nauseous. “I’m going to go lie down,” I said, but on my way out of the living room, the doorbell rang.

  “Go see who that is,” my father called.

  It was Dan. From my TV screen to my front porch, from five years ago to right now. I stared at him through the keyhole for a moment, taking in his clenched fists, his hollow eyes, his gray hoodie that had once, briefly, been mine.

  What was sad was that, despite everything standing between us—the hills that had grown into Kilimanjaro-size mountains—I saw him and my heart still jumped, and I still wanted this to work. I wanted to fling open my door and have him sweep me into his arms and kiss me. I would kiss him back.

  Instead, I opened my door, and he took a deep breath and said, “You are a bitch, Chelsea. You’re a bad person with an ugly heart.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “This is my father, Chelsea. And maybe you can’t get that, because you have your perfect little family all together in your perfect little house, and you carpool in your perfect little car over to your perfect little Colonial tea party.

  “But here’s what I have: a sister with a busted face. A mother who can’t deal with the real world at all. A lying, cheating father who doesn’t give a shit what happens to us. A dream that is never going to get off the ground. A girl who I really liked, who turned out to be just another goddamn actress. That’s it.

  “And you? You could have anything. So you used me. You just used me, because you could have me so easily.”

  I could hardly breathe. I hadn’t thought it was going to be like this. I hadn’t thought at all. I hadn’t told anyone Dan’s secret, really. I just told Ezra. I had been mad. It had spiraled out of my control.

  “I don’t know if you noticed,” Dan went on, “but I have a lot of people in my life who I can’t trust. And for some stupid reason, I thought you could be . . . Whatever, I wanted you to be someone I could trust.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Why did you do this?” He was shaking. “Just tell me why.”

  I tried to muster up some of the righteous indignation that I’d felt on Friday night as I said, “You knocked over my gravestone!” But even to my ears, the words sounded tinny and pathetic.

  Dan’s face was pale. “It was a gravestone, Chelsea. And it was a mistake. I told you that already, and I meant it. I’ve never lied to you. My God, can’t you tell the difference between a gravestone and a person you love? Can’t you tell which one matters?”

  But if I had to point to the real problem in my life, it’s that I’ve never known the difference between a gravestone and a person I love. I have never known which is which until it’s too late.

  “All’s fair in love and war,” I reminded him, aiming for Tawny’s tone. But my voice came out sounding just like me.

  “Oh, yeah? And which is this?” he asked. “Love or war?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but he was already turning away in disgust, walking down the stairs, down the driveway, leaving me.

  “Who was that?”

  I turned to see my mother standing in the doorway behind me. Her expression was calm; she hadn’t heard anything.

  “Just my . . . nobody.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to press back tears.

  “Just your nobody?” Mom teased.

  I leaned against the front door frame. “He was my friend. He’s nobody now.”

  “You could have invited him in for tea,” Mom said gently. “I made a whole pot of it.”

  “Thanks, but . . .” My whole body felt weary. My eyes. My heart. Even my hair. “He doesn’t like tea,” I told her.

  “Hey, Chelsea, we’re going to Belmont’s! Want to come with us?”


  I looked up from Bridget Burroughs’s headstone (“A true Christian, a dutiful and loving Wife”) to see all four milliner girls in my graveyard. Three out of the four were smiling at me like we were the best friends in the world. But the one who actually was my best friend in the world was gazing pointedly into the distance.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I have some work to take care of around here . . .”

  “What work?” Anne asked, which was a fair question, since we were clearly alone in the graveyard.

  “Come on.” Patience tugged at my arm. “Have a little fun, Chels.”

  I wanted to ask Patience why she assumed that going anywhere with her would be fun, but instead I kept quiet and went along. You can’t beat Belmont’s saltwater taffy.

  From the way the milliner girls were falling all over themselves to be seen with me, you would have never known that they weren’t speaking to me four days ago. Now that I was a War hero instead of a traitor, it was like the traitor part had never happened.

  Fiona, though, was a different story. Why couldn’t my closest friend forgive me when everyone else at Essex had?

  As we walked up to Belmont’s, Maggie linked arms with me and asked, “Chelsea, will you come to my party on Saturday?”

  Maggie and I had worked together at Essex for three summers now, and this was the first time she’d shown any interest in seeing me outside of the Colonial times. I guess she preferred me as the Lieutenant who would stop at nothing to take down the Civil War than as Ezra’s ex-girlfriend.

  “Um,” I replied, “maybe? I think I can come?”

  Of course I could come. It wasn’t like I had any hot dates this weekend.

  “I probably can’t make it,” Fiona said—to Maggie, not to me. “It turns out I have plans that night.”

  I’d had enough. I stopped on the bottom stair to Belmont’s. “What is going on here, Fiona?”

  She widened her eyes. “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit. This is not ‘nothing.’ You’re volunteering to skip a party just because I might show up. Okay, yes, I kissed a Civil Warrior. I did, it’s true. But then I completely destroyed him. I humiliated him and his family and I reduced Reenactmentland to a total mess that no one respects anymore. Last night he told me that I am a bad person with an ugly heart. Is that good enough for you? What else do you want me to do to atone for kissing him? What do you need me to do to make this up to you, Fiona?”

  Patience, Maggie, and Anne stood on Belmont’s porch, watching with wide eyes. I could almost feel them holding their breaths as they filed away my every word for inclusion in later text messages, e-mails, and other recountings of this moment.

  Fiona shook her head. “I don’t want you to do anything to atone for kissing him,” she said, her voice sad.

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  She glanced up at the milliner girls. But they had front-row seats to the best show in town; they weren’t going to budge.

  Fiona sighed. “We’ll catch up to you guys later.” And, to what I’m sure was their great disappointment, she took my arm and led me away from Belmont’s and toward the Palace Green, where we could talk in private.

  “I’m not mad at you for kissing a Civil Warrior,” she said straight off, as soon as we’d sat down in the grass. “You idiot. You think I give a shit whether the guy you’re with wears a white wig or not? I barely even know the difference between the Civil War and the Revolutionary War. Hello, do you know me at all?”

  “But,” I said, “you joined the Essex Cheerleaders and everything—”

  “Because I like choreographed dances. The War itself is so . . .” She twirled her hands around, searching for the right word to express how vastly unimportant she found the War. “Whatever,” she concluded.

  “So if you’re not mad at me for sleeping with the enemy, then why are you mad at me?” I asked.

  “Chelsea!” Fiona shrieked. “You slept with him? You said that you only kissed him!”

  I sighed. “I did only kiss him. ‘Sleeping with the enemy’ is an expression. I didn’t literally sleep with the enemy.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s reassuring, I guess. But I’m still mad at you.”

  I threw back my head and squinted up at the bright midday sun. I was so sick of living in this topsy-turvy world where the milliner girls couldn’t wait to hang out with me, while Fiona and Dan—the people I actually liked—hated me. “Why?” I asked.

  “Because. You’re supposed to be my best friend, yet somehow you couldn’t even trust me enough to tell me that you were dating someone. How do you think I felt hearing this news from Anne, of all people?”

  Now that Fiona pointed it out, I remembered that she’d started acting distant before the milliner girls saw Dan and me together outside of Reenactmentland. Fiona had been sharp with me ever since I showed up to the War Council with an inexplicable bruise on my neck. But—

  “You didn’t want me to date him. Remember, I told you about him on the night I was kidnapped. I said that I had met a cute boy, and you said that it didn’t matter, because he was a Civil Warrior, so it would make me a traitor. You said it would never work out.”

  “To be fair,” Fiona replied, tucking her legs under her, “I turned out to be right. He’s a Civil Warrior, and it didn’t work out.”

  I didn’t even crack a smile.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter whether I wanted you to date him or not. The point is that I want to know. It’s a big deal in your life, so I want to be included.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “I told you, he didn’t matter to me. He’s cute, we hooked up a couple times, but really I was just using him. He means nothing more to me than any one of your random guys meant to you.” I stared down at the patch of clover next to me.

  “See, this is what I’m talking about. I’m not going to forgive you until you start telling me the truth once in a while.”

  “What makes you think this isn’t the truth?” I asked.

  “Because I know you better than that, and that is not your style.” Fiona looked straight at me. “You have turned down every single guy for the past three and a half months, all because they’re not Ezra Gorman. So if you wanted this guy—who’s definitely not Ezra Gorman—then there must be something special about him. What’s his name, by the way? No one seems to care what his name was.”

  “Dan,” I answered.

  “Do you even listen to yourself?” Fiona asked. “Do you even hear the way you just said his name? And you expect me to believe that you don’t care about him?”

  She waited, her eyebrows raised.

  “Okay,” I said finally. “Okay, yes. I liked him.” I closed my eyes briefly.

  “Tell me why,” she pressed on.

  I paused. “Because he’s smart and funny and really cute. And caring and ambitious and a good listener. The more I found out about him, the more I liked. And . . . I felt like he understood me. I felt like I understood him. Just spending time with him made me feel . . . happy.”

  “Wow.” Fiona shook her head. “That sounds serious.”

  I busied myself picking clovers. “I don’t know. Maybe it could have been.”

  “So why couldn’t you tell me any of that in the first place? Did you actually think that I was going to run off and tell Tawny? Were you honestly scared that I was going to be mad at you?”

  “Yes! I knew I wasn’t allowed. And I thought that if I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing, then it would be . . . as if I wasn’t doing it.”

  “Firstly,” Fiona said, “I never would have ratted you out to Tawny. I care about you more than I care about the War, or about pretty much anything else. Okay? Can you get that, Chelsea? Can you remember that?”

  “Yes.” I looked down at the clover collection on my skirt.

  “Secondly, let’s get real: You weren’t actually scared that I was going to tell everyone about you dating a Civil Warrior. What actually scared you was getting over Ezra.”

  “That’
s ridiculous,” I said. “All I have wanted for months is to get over Ezra. You know that.”

  “No. All you have wanted for months is for Ezra to come back to you. That’s a completely different thing. You don’t want the pain of missing him, sure. But you want to get rid of that pain by getting him back, not by moving on. You’ve been keeping yourself as this perfect little museum of what you were, so that it will be easy for him to come back to exactly what he left behind. And you’re scared to admit that you’re into this new guy because then you’d really have to deal with life after Ezra.”

  I felt short of breath, like I’d been punched in the chest. Fiona had never been this harsh with me. But, then, Fiona had never been this mad at me. “I know it seems so silly to you,” I said, my voice small and dull, “how much trouble I’ve had getting past Ezra. I know it’s silly. But I loved him. It just destroyed me that he used to love me back, until all of a sudden he didn’t.

  “And I know this doesn’t make sense to you, because you’ve never felt that way about someone. For you it’s never been about one boy like this, because for you there has always been some other boy. But for me, there was no one other than Ezra. Except I felt like maybe . . . there could be Dan. Until I completely killed that one.” I focused on weaving together the clovers into a chain.

  “You’re wrong,” Fiona said. “For starters, I have felt that way about someone.”

  My fingernail slipped, ruining a clover stem. “Seriously? Who? And how am I getting blamed for keeping secrets from you, when you’ve never told me that you’re apparently in love with someone?”

  Fiona made a face. “I wouldn’t say in love.”

  “Who is it, Fi?”

  She blushed. I had never seen Fiona blush when telling me about any boy before. “Nat,” she said.

  “Well, of course Nat. That’s old news. That news is literally years old.”

  Fiona tossed her hair, still blushing. “I just didn’t think I actually, you know, cared about him.”

  “You could have asked me. I would have told you that you actually cared about him.” In my excitement, I sat up onto my knees, knocking a bunch of my clovers to the ground. “And he obviously loves you too, so this is perfect. God, I have been waiting for this all summer. I have been waiting for this since freshman year.”