Mercer Street (American Journey Book 2)

by John A. Heldt

  Amanda shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun and surveyed the sprawling park, which hugged the Neosho River on the south side of town. She maintained her gaze for a moment, dropped her hand, and turned to face Elizabeth.

  "Where did you leave your ring, Grandma?"

  "I left it over there," Elizabeth said. She pointed to a table next to three parked cars. "Cal and I sat where that family is sitting now. Had we picked a different table, one farther from the lot, we might have found the ring where I had left it."

  Susan smiled.

  "It's funny how things work out."

  "What do you mean?" Elizabeth asked.

  "What I mean is had you not left your ring on that picnic table in 1958, Professor Bell would have never been able to convince us to change our vacation plans. We would all be back in Illinois in 2016 doing the same old things. We wouldn't be here, in 1938, having the time of our lives," Susan said. After a few seconds of silence, she tilted her head and looked at her mother. "We are having the time of are lives, aren't we?"

  "We are," Elizabeth replied. "I know I am."

  Elizabeth meant it too. She admitted she could have done without the hot drives through the desert or the stomach bug she had battled between Albuquerque and Tucumcari, but she could not deny she was having a good time. She was having the kind of adventure most people could only dream about or read about in a science fiction novel.

  She laughed to herself as she recalled the things she had done, including teaching hikers how to stretch, drinking whiskey with a sheriff, and singing a duet with a cowboy named Bob. The two had drawn a rousing ovation at a bar in New Mexico.

  Elizabeth never could have been so bold in 2016, where her carousing alone would have prompted tongues to wag. In 1938, however, she could do anything she wanted. She was an anonymous free spirit, a woman accountable to no one except a daughter and a granddaughter who would no doubt push their own envelopes in the coming months.

  She looked forward to driving the rest of Route 66, visiting Chicago, and settling down in New Jersey. She really looked forward to meeting her parents and younger self, even if she still had to work out the where, when, and how.

  Elizabeth did not look forward to other things, such as keeping knowledge of future events to herself. When she had read that morning about British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signing a peace treaty with Adolf Hitler, she had wanted to call the British embassy and tell the ambassador that it was a bad deal.

  She cared about the fate of others, even those in Germany and Japan, but she knew it was not her place to change history or spare any individual from the pain to come. If she honored only one of Geoffrey Bell's Ten Commandments, she would honor that one.

  When the family at the picnic table finished their meal and headed for their car, Elizabeth got up from her bench and walked to the table. She did not tell Susan or Amanda what she was doing or why. She simply left.

  Elizabeth reached the sacred spot a moment later, brushed some crumbs off the bench with her hand, and sat in a place that had been etched in her mind for fifty-eight years. She smiled at Susan and Amanda when they cautiously approached the table.

  "Can't a woman commune with the spirits alone?"

  "Do you want us to wait in the car?" Susan asked.

  "No," Elizabeth said. "I want you to join me."

  She motioned to the others and watched with amusement as they took their places on the opposite bench. Susan and Amanda apparently did not want to disrupt any good vibes by occupying the wrong plank of pine.

  "So this is the table?" Susan asked.

  "This is the table."

  "How do you know?"

  "I know because of these initials," Elizabeth said as she pointed to an "E.C." carved in the tabletop. "I remember them because they reminded me of my new name. When Cal and I stopped here, I was no longer Elizabeth Wagner. I was Elizabeth Campbell."

  "That's so sweet," Amanda said. "I can't believe you remember things like that. I can't remember where I leave my car keys from day to day."

  "You remember a lot of things when you're in love, dear. I know I did."

  Amanda settled into her seat and smiled warmly.

  "You know, Grams, you've never told me the whole story about your elopement. I've just heard bits and pieces over the years. Why don't you tell me now?"

  "Are you sure you want to hear it?"

  "Of course I do."

  "All right then, I'll tell you," Elizabeth said. "You know, of course, that your grandfather and I were not married here. We were married in Chicago."

  "I know," Amanda said.

  "What you probably don't know is that we were married by a justice of the peace, a justice we found on a Tuesday morning. We were not married in a church because no priest would marry us and no Protestant minister would marry us on short notice."

  "I take it that your parents didn't approve."

  "That's putting it mildly," Elizabeth said.

  "They didn't like Grandpa?"

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  "No. That wasn't it at all. They liked him. They liked his intelligence and his kind nature. They liked how he treated me," Elizabeth said. "They did not like the fact he was a Lutheran who did not intend to convert to Roman Catholicism."

  "So you just eloped?"

  "We eloped. When it became clear that my parents would never approve of your grandfather, I made a decision that changed my life. I finished my sophomore year at Northwestern and accepted his proposal."

  "He had already proposed?" Amanda asked.

  Elizabeth nodded.

  "I had what some might call a standing invitation."

  "What did you do then?"

  "I told Cal that I wanted to marry in June and then drive to California," Elizabeth said. "I told him that if I couldn't have a big church wedding, then I wanted one hell of a honeymoon."

  Amanda grinned.

  "So you got your kicks on Route 66?"

  "I got more than that, dear."

  Susan laughed.

  "Why don't you tell her about the hobo, Mom?"

  "What hobo?" Amanda asked.

  Elizabeth smiled.

  "Your mother means the 'gentleman' we picked up outside St. Louis."

  Amanda stared at Elizabeth with incredulous eyes.

  "You picked up a hobo on your honeymoon?"

  Elizabeth laughed.

  "We did. When we pulled out of St. Louis on our third day, we saw a man on the side of the road who looked an awful lot like Roy Rogers – a young Roy Rogers who sported a knapsack and a ten o'clock shadow and smelled like Trigger."

  "You did this on your honeymoon?" Amanda asked.

  "Yes," Elizabeth said. "I did not want to pick up a hitchhiker, but your grandfather talked me into it. You know how he was. He could never say no to anyone in need. So we put Roy Rogers in back, held our noses, and took off."

  "Oh, my," Amanda said. She giggled. "How long did you keep him?"

  "We kept him all day. When we reached Rolla, Missouri, our original destination, Mr. Rogers kindly informed us that he really wanted to travel to Amarillo. We drew the line at Miami and left him at the bus station with a ten-dollar bill."

  "That's a long drive, Grandma."

  "It's three hundred and ten miles, to be exact," Elizabeth said. "We entertained Mr. Rogers for eight hours. I don't remember a longer drive in my life."

  Amanda laughed again.

  "There's a special place in heaven for you. I know it."

  Elizabeth smiled.

  "There had better be."

  Amanda planted her elbows on the tabletop and rested her chin on folded hands. She looked at her grandmother with eyes that revealed love, admiration, and respect.

  "I'm sure the rest of your trip was wonderful."

  "It was," Elizabeth said. "We arrived in Los Angeles eight days later and spent two glorious weeks in Southern California. Whatever doubts I had about your grandfather and rushing into marriage dissolved that summer in the o
cean surf."

  "That's beautiful," Amanda said. "I hope it's that way for me someday."

  "It will be, dear. It will be."

  "Thanks for sharing the story. I see now why you look at those days fondly."

  "It was a happy time," Elizabeth said.

  "It still must have been tough though," Amanda said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean dealing with your parents afterward. I'm sure it was awkward seeing them again after you defied them on something so important."

  "It was," Elizabeth said. "When we visited Princeton later that year, my father refused to recognize our marriage. He made Cal stay in a hotel. My mother wasn't much better. She forced herself to be civil and pleasant. I never again slept in my parents' house."

  "That's sad. That's really sad," Amanda said. "Did things improve?"

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  "My parents effectively disowned me and focused their attention on my brother, whom they considered 'salvageable.' They were right too. You probably know that your great uncle Erwin once trained to be a priest."

  "No," Amanda said. "I didn't know that."

  "Well, he did. He completed a full year at a seminary in Philadelphia," Elizabeth said. "He wanted to do missionary work in Africa and Asia, but when our parents died a few months later, he drifted away from the church. Like me, he never really made his peace with the past."

  Amanda smiled and took Elizabeth's hand.

  "That's going to change on this trip, Grandma. That's going to change real quick."

  Elizabeth turned away for a moment as tears filled her eyes. She gazed at the slow-moving river and the swaying trees before returning to her granddaughter.

  "I hope so, dear," Elizabeth said. "I truly do."

  CHAPTER 15: SUSAN

  Chicago, Illinois – Thursday, October 6, 1938

  Susan smiled as she watched the natives scatter across an open field. She had seen them in the wild many times and even seen them at night, but in forty-eight years on God's Green Earth she had never seen them like this. She had never seen the Chicago Cubs play in the World Series.

  "You can pinch me now, Mother," Susan said with a laugh.

  "No, dear," Elizabeth said. "You can pinch me."

  Susan put her left arm around Elizabeth and her right around Amanda. She admitted that her seat in Section 218 was less than ideal. Susan sat behind two obnoxious drunks and a decidedly obtrusive support column. She had to crane her neck to see second base.

  That was all right. Even obnoxious drunks and obtrusive support columns could not dampen the moment. Susan was doing something no one born after 1945 had ever done. She was witnessing a special kind of history and doing so with the people she loved.

  The three adventurers had come to Chicago after spending four days enjoying the splendors of three more states. Susan had forgotten how beautiful the more rural parts of Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois could be and found towns like Galena, Carthage, and Odell as charming as St. Louis without its signature landmark and Chicago without its glass-and-steel towers.

  Susan had forgotten that St. Louis would not open its Gateway Arch for another twenty-seven years, just as she had forgotten that Chicago would not push its already impressive skyline to the stars for another sixty. She liked those differences almost as much as she liked driving through relatively light traffic on the Mother Road. As far as she was concerned, the interstate freeway system and the traffic it carried could wait for another day.

  Susan also liked the changes she saw in her traveling companions. Elizabeth had become more daring and vocal on the trip, Amanda more candid and relaxed. Each of the women had used the journey to clear emotional cobwebs, rediscover strengths, and find themselves in ways they could not in the faster, more intense, less personal world of 2016.

  Susan was just as pleased to see that other things had not changed, such as her family's love for the national pastime. When she had asked Elizabeth and Amanda if they wanted to drive to Chicago a day early to see a baseball game, they said yes. When she told them the game was the second of the 1938 World Series, they said, "Step on the gas!"

  By the time the women reached their hotel late Wednesday night, the question was not whether they would go to Wrigley Field but rather how much they would pay to step inside. In the end, they gained admission for a song. They found a scalper on Clark Street who sold them tickets for ten dollars each – or just double their face value.

  Susan scanned her surroundings and soaked up the sights. She saw men in wool suits and fedoras, women in long dresses and floppy straw hats, and roving concessionaires in equally snappy uniforms. Even the gentleman manning a hot dog cart a few rows below looked sharp. Wearing spotless white slacks, a crisp white shirt, and a matching soda-jerk hat, he did a brisk business with fans walking to their seats.

  Susan turned from the spectators and vendors to the players on the field. Like the people in the stands, the men in baggy pants looked like extras from a movie – a movie that had been playing for three weeks and would likely play for several more months.

  The time traveler looked at the visitors first and somehow found them lacking. Though the Yankees featured six future Hall of Famers in Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Joe Gordon, and Red Ruffing, they seemed less impressive in their road grays than in their iconic pinstripes.

  Susan thought the Cubs looked spiffier in their home whites with the blue sleeves, socks, and caps, though she freely admitted she was hopelessly biased. She had been hopelessly biased in favor of all things Chicago since 1973, when her father had taken her to her first Major League Baseball game at the tender age of five.

  She thought of Calvin Campbell in the bottom of the first, when the Cubs scored a run, and again in the top of the second, when New York answered with two of its own. She thought of how much he would have loved watching Dizzy Dean pitch against greats like DiMaggio and Gehrig in a game as important as this.

  Susan also thought about her last visit to the Lake Forest cemetery, when Elizabeth had told her about Calvin's infidelity. She had found the revelation shocking because, like many women, she had viewed her father as an infallible authority figure and not as a man susceptible to weakness, temptation, and errors of judgment.

  Susan pondered the fallibility of men and errors of judgment as she watched Dean retire Gomez, his pitching counterpart, to end the second inning. Then she thought of something far more interesting and arguably just as relevant to her life.

  Somewhere beyond this stadium filled with Guys and Dolls extras was a young Chicago couple celebrating the first birthday of a son named Calvin. The couple would raise him in the suburbs, guide him through the church, and send him to Northwestern University, where he would study history, meet a girl from Princeton, New Jersey, and enter the field of law.

  Susan looked at her mother, who seemed transfixed by the Yankees, her childhood team, and wondered if she had made the same connection. She decided that she probably had but concluded that it didn't matter.

  Elizabeth would not pay a visit to the birthday boy – at least not on this day. She would consider meeting her infant husband bad form, even if she considered meeting her infant self the height of good taste. Like Susan and Amanda, she would pick and choose from an array of time-travel options while keeping an eye out for unintended consequences.

  Susan gave the matter another moment and then thought of something else. Though that something was less important than family reunions in the grand scheme of things, it was far more immediate. Susan tried her best to contain a smile.

  "You're smiling, Mom," Amanda said. "Do you have something good to share?"

  Susan laughed.

  "I guess I do."

  "What's that?"

  "I was just thinking it's a good thing we promised Professor Bell that we would behave ourselves on this trip," Susan said.

  "Why do you say that?" Amanda asked.

  Susan looked at nearby fans before answering.

/>   "I say it because I know who wins this series."

  "You do?"

  "I do," Susan said. "The Yankees win in four."

  She grinned.

  "We could have made a bundle."

  CHAPTER 16: SUSAN

  Glencoe, Illinois – Monday, October 24, 1938

  As she walked north with her family on the Street of Dreams that locals still called Sheridan Road, Susan realized that French novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr got it right. The more things changed, the more they really did stay the same. At least they did in a place that was – and would continue to be – one of America's priciest neighborhoods.

  Susan glanced at the Colonial Revival mansion next to her childhood home and saw that it looked a lot like the residence of her future best friend. She had spent many a night in the bedroom overlooking the brick U-shaped driveway and more than a few afternoons in back, where the Mergenthaler family maintained the biggest pool in town.

  Susan didn't think she would find Jenny Mergenthaler sunbathing on the porch, at least not until 1980, but she found the possibility pleasing nonetheless. She liked the idea of revisiting her past, even if that past was technically the future. She pondered that mind-twisting fact for a few seconds and then turned to the woman at her right.

  "Does this street bring back memories?" Susan asked.

  "You know it does," Elizabeth said.

  Susan smiled and put her arm around her mother. She wanted to say more but decided to wait until the time travelers reached the next property, the turnaround point in their half-mile walk. She knew that everyone would have something to say there.

  Susan stopped in front of a cobblestone driveway a moment later and took a long look at the house her father had bought in 1976. Like virtually every other home on the road, it was large, eclectic, and over-the-top extravagant. Unlike most of the other residences, it celebrated the past more than the present. With dormers, bay windows, and an arched doorway, the gray-brick residence was suburban Chicago's answer to a Yorkshire estate.