She didn't know whether the shadow belonged to her mother or her father, but she guessed by its movements that it belonged to her mother. Ella Wagner had been a frenetic, busy bee of a woman who rarely sat down unless she had swept every floor and washed every dish.
"Have you spotted Santa yet?" Susan asked.
Elizabeth turned around and saw her daughter and her granddaughter look at her with smiling eyes. They curled up on opposite ends of the sofa and managed cups of tea.
"Have you added comedy to your resume?" Elizabeth asked sharply.
"No," Susan said. "I haven't the time to do stand-up. I'm far too busy helping Admiral Hicks explain Brewster Buffaloes and Grumman Wildcats to duffers and housewives."
"Then perhaps you should return to your hobby and let your mother spy on the neighbors in peace."
Susan laughed.
"I would if I thought you would accomplish something. You really should go over and say hi. Your parents are probably very approachable people."
"They are," Amanda said.
Elizabeth looked at her granddaughter.
"How would you know? You haven't met them."
"That's not quite true," Amanda said, drawing out each word. She blushed as she sat up. "I met them this afternoon when the two of you went for your walk."
"You met them?" Elizabeth asked.
Amanda nodded.
"I met the baby too. You're cute, Grandma."
Susan grinned.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Elizabeth asked.
"I didn't say anything because I didn't want to upset you," Amanda replied. "I knew you wanted to be the first to welcome them to the neighborhood."
"I do. I did. Oh, it doesn't matter. I'm just a cowardly old woman who can't do what she came here to do."
Amanda smiled.
"You're not cowardly at all. You're prudent. You didn't want to blow a hole in the universe before opening your presents this morning."
Susan laughed.
"Don't you join in," Elizabeth said. She wagged a finger at her daughter. "One tart-tongued person in this family is plenty."
"I wouldn't think of it, Mom. That would be piling on."
Amanda laughed.
"We're just having fun, Grandma."
"I don't need fun," Elizabeth said. "I need courage – and information. Tell me about your visit. I want to hear everything."
Elizabeth did too. She wanted to know as much as possible about the newest residents of Princeton, New Jersey, before jumping into their lives. She knew she would only have one chance to make a good first impression and didn't want to blow it.
"There's not a lot to say," Amanda said. "I knocked on their door around two, introduced myself to Mr. Wagner, and asked if I could borrow some butter for the cookies I was making. He gave me the butter and then invited me into the house to meet his wife and daughter."
"What were they like?" Elizabeth asked.
"He was outgoing. She was more reserved. Both were very friendly. As for the baby, she was just blasted cute. I've never seen a baby that cute or held one that calm."
"You held her? You held me?"
Amanda nodded.
"I held you while Mrs. Wagner pulled a pie from the oven," Amanda said. "It's kind of funny when you think about it."
"What do you mean?" Elizabeth asked.
Amanda smiled.
"I mean it's not every day a girl gets to burp her grandma."
Elizabeth laughed heartily and then sighed. She needed to hear an anecdote like that as much as she needed to hear her granddaughter's wit. She was taking this matter far too seriously and really needed to lighten up.
"You're right about that," Elizabeth said.
"Did you tell them about us?" Susan asked.
"I did," Amanda said. "I said I lived across the street with two codependent women who happened to be time travelers and their direct descendants."
Susan smiled.
"I'll bet that broke the ice."
"It didn't," Amanda said. "It only put them off. They didn't believe you were codependent."
Susan laughed.
"You're in a good mood today," Susan said.
"I am," Amanda replied.
"Would your mood have anything to do with a young man?"
"It might."
"Would it have anything to do with a tall, blond lecture assistant?"
Amanda smiled.
"It might."
Elizabeth laughed to herself as she listened to the banter. She didn't know what young man occupied Amanda's thoughts, but she was glad at least one did. She was happy that both Amanda and Susan had apparently developed interests that went beyond dining, shopping, and walking around a college town.
"How come we haven't seen this mystery man?" Susan asked.
"You haven't seen him because he's been in D.C. the past two weeks," Amanda said. "He went home for the holidays and won't be back until January 9."
"Then why are you feeling so good today?"
"I'm feeling good because he sent me a postcard that arrived yesterday. Dot and I each asked him to send us postcards of the Washington Monument."
"That was thoughtful of him," Susan said. "What did he write?"
"He told Dot that he enjoyed meeting her at the last lecture and looked forward to seeing her at the next one."
"What did he write to you?" Susan asked.
"He wrote the same thing, but he added a P.S."
"Oh? What was that?"
Amanda smiled.
"He asked me what restaurant I like."
CHAPTER 31: AMANDA
Saturday, December 31, 1938
Halfway through her third trip down the third aisle in what a sign outside called a liquor store, Amanda stopped, scratched her head, and laughed. In her quest to find a quality domestic whiskey, she had found British gin, Mexican tequila, and Jamaican rum. American distillers had still not fully recovered from the ravages of Prohibition.
Amanda grabbed a fifth of local swill and something better from overseas and joined Dot and Elizabeth near the door. She smiled and held the bottles high.
"Pick your poison, ladies!"
Dot looked at the bottles and laughed.
"I vote for the rotgut."
"Grandma?" Amanda asked.
Elizabeth looked at the bottles and frowned.
"Are those our only choices?"
"They are if you don't want tequila or rum," Amanda said.
"You know I don't like gin, dear. The lighter fluid will have to do."
Amanda laughed.
Five minutes later, Amanda paid for the whiskey, led the others out of the store, and guided them down Nassau Street to Mercer Street. She watched Elizabeth closely as the three women walked across the dark intersection and continued toward the rental.
"How are you feeling, Grams?" Amanda asked.
"I'm feeling well for someone who hadn't planned to walk to a liquor store on a cold winter night," Elizabeth said. "You could have gone without me. I'm sure you would have managed."
Amanda smiled. She was glad to see her grandmother back to her sassy self after watching her slip into a funk of sorts over the past several days.
Elizabeth had crawled into a shell each time she had tried and failed to muster the courage to meet the people who had raised her. She had advanced as far as her front door on Monday and the sidewalk on Wednesday but no farther. When Susan had crossed the street on Friday to say hello to the neighbors for the first time, Elizabeth had remained in her room. She had told her family that she simply wasn't ready to close the deal.
"Thanks for agreeing to play cards with us tonight," Amanda said to Elizabeth. "I know you don't like to stay up late and would rather go to bed."
"What I'd rather do, Amanda, is watch my granddaughter leave the house in the company of a dashing young man and not waste a night like New Year's Eve on a relic like me."
Dot laughed.
"You're not a relic, Mrs. Campbell. You're a treasure."
Dot turned to Amanda.
"Is she always this way?"
"No," Amanda said. She giggled. "She's usually worse."
"I mean it though," Elizabeth said. "You should be out dancing and mingling. Surely you have better things to do than play cards with two widows."
"We don't. Right, Dot?"
Dot forced a smile.
"Right."
Amanda looked at Dot with amusement. She knew for a fact that she had better things to do, including attending a Bryn Mawr alumni party in Philadelphia and seeing her favorite jazz band play at a bar in Trenton, but she had given them up to please a new friend. The girl from Grovers Mill continued to impress.
Amanda gave Dot a knowing smile and then returned to Elizabeth. She could see that her grandmother hadn't bought a word the girls had said.
"See, Grandma. It's unanimous. We really don't have better things to do."
"Then you should look for something," Elizabeth said. "These are the years you should seek fun, push boundaries, and step out of your comfort zone. Take it from someone who married far too young. I know."
Amanda turned to Dot.
"Grandma eloped when she was twenty. She and Grandpa spent their honeymoon on Route 66 on their way to Los Angeles."
Dot gave Amanda a funny look.
"Route 66?"
Amanda realized her mistake the second she saw Dot's puzzled eyes. Route 66 did not exist in 1880, the year this grandma supposedly got married. She quickly backtracked.
"I'm sorry. I meant to say they took their time traveling to California."
"Oh, how fun!" Dot said. "I want to do that on my honeymoon."
"Just don't leave your wedding ring in Oklahoma," Amanda said.
Dot tilted her head.
"What?"
Elizabeth laughed.
"It's a family joke," Amanda said. "I'll tell you later."
"Oh. OK."
"Have you set a wedding date?" Elizabeth asked.
"No," Dot said. "We probably won't set any dates before April, when Roy gets his next assignment, but we're still holding out for a June wedding."
Elizabeth smiled.
"June is a good month."
As the trio approached their destination, Amanda looked again at her grandmother. She appeared happier than when they had left the liquor store. She seemed more engaged and more relaxed. She seemed ready for an evening of cards.
Amanda stopped in front of the rental a minute later and surveyed the street. She saw dark houses in both directions and few signs of life. Even the Wagner residence appeared unoccupied. Amanda saw a car in the driveway but no lights in the windows.
She escorted Elizabeth and Dot to the porch and quickly peeked through a small window that was embedded in the door. She saw what she had hoped to see.
"Grandma?" Amanda asked.
"Yes, dear?"
"Do you remember just a minute ago when you told me how important it is to step out of your comfort zone?"
"Of course," Elizabeth said.
Amanda smiled warmly and sighed.
"Well, keep that in mind when we play cards tonight. I have a feeling you're going to do some stepping."
CHAPTER 32: ELIZABETH
Elizabeth watched warily as the child wiggled in her high chair, smeared frosting on her face, and flashed a million-dollar smile. She didn't think the baby, a cute-as-a-bug blonde who shared her DNA, could turn her into a toad or blow a hole in the universe with a single glance of her pretty blue eyes, but she knew she was capable of charming an old woman to death.
Elizabeth tried to hold herself together as she turned away from the girl and looked again at the people sitting across from her at the card table. Two hours after meeting Erich and Ella Wagner for the first time, at least as a time traveler, she still had difficulty looking them in the eyes. She felt helpless to do anything but sit straight in her chair.
She smiled nervously at the couple, glanced at her worthless poker hand, and decided that she would not be able to think about cards or anything else no matter how hard she tried. It had been that way since Amanda and Dot had led her through the front door and into a meeting that had been put off for far too long.
The first thirty minutes had passed in a blurry daze. Elizabeth had shaken two hands, greeted an infant, and tried to reconcile feelings that ranged from fear and irritation to elation and relief. She had been so taken aback by meeting her original family that she'd had to make two trips to the bathroom simply to throw water on her face.
Elizabeth let her mind drift to a transition that came into sharper focus with each passing minute. She mentally revisited the beautiful, traumatic, unexpected reunion with her parents when the only male in the room brought her back to the here and now.
"Your daughter tells me that you grew up in Princeton," Erich Wagner said with a thick Austrian accent. "Where did you live?"
Elizabeth laughed to herself. She could only imagine her father's reaction if she told him the truth. She instead told him a lie she had long rehearsed in her mind.
"I lived in a large white house on this very street, near the battlefield park," Elizabeth said. "Are you familiar with the area?"
Erich nodded.
"We drove through the neighborhood yesterday. We saw some nice homes there, but I don't recall seeing a large white house."
"That's because it no longer exists. It burned to the ground fifty years ago."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Erich said. "Was anyone harmed in the fire?"
"No. The house was unoccupied at the time."
Elizabeth knew that much was true. She knew from a newspaper article she had read that a home once belonging to a banker named George Pennington had not been occupied when it had gone up in smoke on December 2, 1888.
"That is good," Erich said. "That is something."
Elizabeth relaxed for the first time all night and looked again at the man she had once called Papa. He was as handsome, articulate, and unassuming as she remembered and far more at ease. He looked like a man who had not yet raised a daughter who had renounced her Catholic faith and run off with a Protestant.
"Have you settled into your home?" Elizabeth asked.
"We have," Erich said. "We have found it much to our liking. Our house is much larger than the one we owned in Vienna and far more practical."
Elizabeth turned to Ella.
"How are you adjusting to life in New Jersey?"
"I'm adjusting," Ella said with a laugh that Elizabeth had loved growing up. "I like it here, but I'm still getting used to America."
Susan grinned at Elizabeth as she dealt a new hand.
"Ella bought groceries today," Susan said. "She saw more food on the shelves than she's used to seeing. She discovered peanut butter, yellow mustard, and ketchup, among other things."
Elizabeth smiled as she pondered the comment. To a twenty-first-century time traveler from Illinois, the grocery and department stores of 1938 were veritable wastelands. To a 1930s refugee from Austria, however, they were consumer cornucopias. They were reminders that even Americans of the Depression years had it better – much better – than the rest of the world.
"Does the baby have everything she needs?" Elizabeth asked.
"I think so," Ella replied. "We plan to buy a new crib and perhaps more clothes for her in the coming weeks, but I believe she has everything she needs for now."
Elizabeth used the pause that followed to study her mother. She saw a woman who was at once practical, prudent, caring, and much more beautiful than she remembered.
Like most people, perhaps, Elizabeth thought her mother was the most beautiful woman on the planet. Unlike most people, she had more than one reason to think so.
Ella Wagner was not just a pleasant person with a good heart. She was a strikingly attractive human being. With long curly blond hair, flawless skin, and alpine lakes for eyes, she was a living, breathing thirtie
s cliché, the kind of woman movie producers and magazine editors showered with attention and wealthy men rushed to the altar.
"Do you have a babysitter?" Elizabeth asked.
"A what?" Ella replied.
"Do you have someone to watch Lizzie should you want to run an errand or go out for an evening with your husband?"
"No."
"You do now," Elizabeth said. "I would watch her anytime."
No sooner than Elizabeth the Elder uttered the words, Elizabeth the Younger threw a piece of cake on the hardwood floor. The adults responded with laughter.
Ella smiled.
"Your offer is generous," Ella said. "Are you sure it wouldn't be a bother?"
"I'm sure," Elizabeth replied. "I would consider it a privilege to look after this delightful girl, and I suspect that my daughter and granddaughter feel the same."
Ella glanced at Susan.
"Is that so?"
"It is," Susan said.
Ella turned to Amanda.
"You don't even need to ask," Amanda said. "I would pay you to watch her."
"Me too!" Dot said.
Ella laughed and smiled warmly.
"It seems I have found neighbors and friends," Ella said. "I was told that Americans were a warm and generous people, but now I see it is true."
Elizabeth gathered the cards and took her turn as the dealer.
"It's true enough," Elizabeth said. "It's true with us. I think the more you get to know us, the more you'll like us and find we have much in common."
She shuffled the cards.
"I must say I feel a connection already," Ella said in a lyrical voice. "I know this sounds silly, but I feel I know you. I feel like I have met my American family."
Elizabeth stifled a laugh, glanced at Susan and Amanda, and saw them smile. She didn't know whether they smiled at Ella's more-true-than-you-can-imagine comment or at her reaction to that comment, but she did know that they appreciated the beauty of the moment. They were enjoying the evening as much as anyone.
"It's funny that you say that, Ella. I feel the same way," Elizabeth said. "I feel like I have met my Austrian family."
Susan and Amanda laughed quietly.
Mercer Street (American Journey Book 2) Page 16
