Grantville Gazette, Volume 40 (7 page)

Drama teacher Shackerley Marmion shook his head. "I do 'get it' not. Yon Dissenters"—Pilgrims—"in 1620 were not the first royal colony. So wherefore be the
Mayflower
so beloved of you Americans?"

Biology teacher Tony Mastroianni replied, "Because aboard ship they wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact. That’s the great-grandpappy of the USA's Constitution."

Dwight nodded. "The Mayflower Compact was signed by all free adult males, and they pledged to obey laws made by majority rule. Which was good, because the location of the Plymouth colony was technically illegal, and so some colonists had been claiming they were no longer bound by laws of the crown."

Shackerley nodded. "So this doth explain the novel what be in the town library, concerning the wife of the
Mayflower
captain."

Stephanie said, "I don't know what book you mean, darlin'. But then, all sorts of strange books have been donated to the libraries in the last five years."

He replied, "But 'twas a 'bestseller'! It doth so claim upon the front cover.
The Mayflower Madame
. Truly, doth none of you know it?"

Shackerley's words resulted in complete silence. Embarrassed silence. Tony cleared his throat and said, "Um, it's Madam, not Madame. That book was written by a woman who was a member of the Mayflower Society, who also ran a brothel in New York City."

English teacher Leah McDougal gave everyone a secretive smile. "Know what I heard? I believe it, too. Geri Kinney tried to check out that very book,
Mayflower Madam
—"

"Oh please," French teacher Nicole Hawkins said. "Geri Kinney read books? When did this start?"

Leah said, "It's the only book she ever tried to check out from the library, the story goes, and that part I believe a hundred percent! Of course, when she asked to check out the book, Marietta or one of them told her, 'We don't lend out books anymore.'
 
"

Shackerley asked, "Geri Kinney, who be—"

Gilchrist O'Quigley, chemistry lab assistant, replied, "Geri Kinney was the only lady of easy virtue amongst up-timers. She was murdered in Jena, six months afore thou didst leave England."

Stephanie slapped the tabletop. "Can we please change the subject away from that whore? Would y'all please talk about anything else?"

Everyone stared at her. Because Stephanie Turski being less than cheerful was like Cora Ennis refusing to share gossip—theoretically possible, but nobody ever expected to see it.

Elaine Onofrio squeezed Stephanie's hand. She alone understood why Stephanie had blown up like that.

Art Class, Grantville High School

Right after Final Bell, Thursday, May 8, 1636

Stephanie was cleaning brushes at the sink when she heard a knock at her open door. Then she heard—

"Good afternoon, fair Stephanie. Art thou encumbred for the nonce, or hast thou moments free to aim hither thy shell-pink ears and jewel-sparkled eyes?"

"Hm, speaks Elizabethan," Stephanie said to the brushes. "Speaks flowery Elizabethan. Speaks flowery Elizabethan to an almost-fossil who's nine years older than he is. Who at GHS could this possibly be?" Then she called over her shoulder, "Give me thirty seconds, Shack darlin'."

Roughly thirty seconds later, Stephanie nodded at the brushes, then turned toward her classroom door. Standing just inside the classroom was Shackerley Marmion, the GHS drama teacher for over a year now. But he was also in Grantville encyclopedias as a playwright, and Shackerley was writing new plays in Grantville. Standing next to him was a blond teen down-timer girl.

By May 1636, all the "bottle blondes" had run out of bottles. If this girl had blond hair in 1636, it was the real deal.

The other thing that Stephanie noticed about the teen: She was as tall as Stephanie herself was. This made the girl a rarity.

Now Shackerley made a sweeping gesture, using both hands, to refer to the girl towering over him—

"Dear Stephanie, this be Frida Löfström, who will play Barbie Trenchard in
Our American Neighbours
. She be her of whom I spake last week, who will anon require thy most generous loan of thine own long-limbed raiment, for unto seeming her part. For alas, our school stage be as short of coin as any troop of players beyond the sphere-shaped cliffs of Grantville. Alas redux, Frida here is like unto a giantess, e'en amongst daughters of the future."

Which translated to: This down-time Swedish girl is going to play an up-time girl, so she has to look the part, but we can't afford to commission a costume for her, and the dress rehearsal is only days away, so there's only one person on the planet who will have up-time clothing that will fit this tall girl, so PLEASE help us out.

Stephanie smiled at Frida, who replied by starting a curtsy, aborting the curtsy, then sticking out her hand. "I am pleased to meet you, Ms. Turski."

"Oh please, sweetie! 'Ms.' is for Melissa Mailey, not me. If you're going to wear my clothes, call me 'Stephanie' after hours."

Stephanie added, "Hope you don't mind blue." She patted her hair, whose factory-original color had been chestnut. "Blue looked good with my hair, back in the day."

"Oh, not problem!" Frida exclaimed. "Blue clothing go with yellow hair, make Swedish colors. I am Swedish, I look Swedish on stage.
Tusen tack
!"

"Don't thank me yet. Whatever I find for you will probably be really out of fashion—1988 or even earlier. I got rid of a lot of clothes newer than that in 1997."

"Indeed?" said Shackerley. "Mayhap therein doth lurk a tale?"

Shackerley looked like he was trying to connect 1997 and Geri Kinney.

"Not a big deal, darlin'," Stephanie said to him with a smile. "But now I've got two stomachs on legs who are waiting impatiently for me at home. Frida, sweetie, don't you worry. I'll have you looking good on that stage.

"Unless you nick yourself shaving," Stephanie added, smiling mischievously at Frida. "You think everything about being an up-timer is wonderful? Sweetie, you’ll need to shave your legs before every performance—and you and I have more leg to shave."

Frida walked out of the art classroom laughing, and Shack said nothing more about 1997 before he left with Frida. It seemed that he believed Stephanie's downplay of that year.

But Stephanie had lied to Shackerley Marmion. The year 1997 had been an awful time for her.

Grantville, West Virginia

October, 1995

Larry Turski walked in the front door grinning. "Hey, Steph, guess what Kyle announced today?"

Stephanie's husband Larry was the service manager at Wilson Ford in Fairmont. Kyle Hamilton owned the dealership.

"Good news, darlin'?" Stephanie asked.

"Yeah, you could say so. Rob Herndon—he's the sales manager—is going to some Chevy dealership in Morgantown. Which means his slot is open in two weeks. Kyle said today he was gonna promote somebody inside, and I'm sure I'm his man."

"Who else is up for sales manager besides you?"

"Eric, Brad, and"—Larry shrugged dismissively—"somebody named Maria, supposed to be our second-best closer."

Stephanie shook her head. "Remind me—"

"Maria Whatzername, only reason she's a candidate is because Rob Herndon recommended her for promotion, instead of Johnny. But no way is Kyle gonna give the sales manager job to a woman, especially when this means pissing off our number-one closer. Eric Clarke is the finance and insurance manager. Gets a happy tingle whenever he picks up a calculator. No way is Kyle giving the sales manager job to a nerd. Brad Ferris is the body shop manager. He's always clowning around during manager meeting. He's no worry either."

"
 
'Clowning around'?" Stephanie said. "Was he the guy who wore the elf costume, last Christmas party?"

"Yeah, and maybe I should remind Kyle of that. Brad looked ridiculous."

Stephanie didn't reply to that, but she started to worry.

Christmas 1994, a drunk used-car salesman named Herb had been using every sleazy argument he could think of, to talk thirty-one-year-old Stephanie into walking out to the dark back porch with him. Stephanie had been considering unladylike options when Brad the Elf had walked up. Thirty seconds and two well-chosen jokes later, Brad the Elf had rescued Stephanie from her wolf and was escorting her back to her husband—

But Larry, so far as Stephanie could tell, had never noticed anything wrong.

Ten months after that Christmas party, Stephanie caressed Larry's face and said, "I'm sure you'll be the one Kyle picks, Larry darlin'."

Lying is a form of acting. Stephanie had acted in six plays in high school, three plays in college, and one scene in an unreleased movie; so in October 1995, she could convincingly lie to her husband.

December, 1995

Larry had not gotten the promotion. Brad Ferris had been sales manager at Wilson Ford for over a month.

When Larry walked in the front door, Stephanie greeted him with a cheery "How was your day, darlin'?"

"Sucky, totally sucky. Mark was out sick again, the customers were idiots, and Kyle embarrassed me in manager meeting."

"Oh?"

"Fearless Leader has this rule that if a car needs repair or body work over a thousand bucks, we're supposed to notify the sales manager so he can try and sell the customer a new car."

"Gotcha. So . . . ?"

"This morning, Boss Kyle said in front of all the other managers that Joe Bob"—the body shop manager—"was doing his part, but I haven't called Brad once in the past month. Jeez, Kyle even said, 'Remember, Larry, we're all team players here.'
 
"

Stephanie bit her lip. "Is that true? What Kyle said?"

"Jeez, Steph, I got work to do! And if Brad needs me to pass on sales leads to him, he's not much of a sales manager, is he?"

Hearing Larry's words, Stephanie worried.

May, 1996

When Stephanie came home from school, what she saw in the driveway puzzled her.

First of all, seeing anything at all in the driveway was a surprise. Larry wasn't due home till 5:30 at the earliest, and 6:00 was his usual time home.

Secondly, the truck wasn't the shiny blue F-150 demo that Larry usually drove. The truck in the driveway looked like it had been driven to Guatemala and back.

Stephanie found Larry watching cartoons with four-year-old Seth and twenty-month-old Aaron. The boys were enjoying the cartoons, but Larry's face was wooden.

Larry picked up Aaron and moved the boy off Daddy's lap to the floor. "I need to talk to Mommy," Larry told his son. Larry walked into the kitchen, Stephanie following.

"Where's the demo? In for repairs?" Stephanie said. Smiling, she added, "Not to worry, I hear the service manager—"

"Kyle took the demo back. I used part of my severance to pay cash for this 1988 piece of shit."

Stephanie gasped. "What happened?"

That morning, Larry explained, once again he'd belittled Brad Ferris in manager meeting. But this time, Kyle had spoken up—

"Larry, four people went up for that promotion. Brad got it. Eric didn't get it, but he still works fine with Brad. Maria Signorelli didn't get it either, but she works fine with Brad. You? You've been on Brad's case nonstop since November. Trouble is, every time you talk like Brad is an idiot, you're saying I'm an idiot too, because I picked him. I'm tired of manager meeting giving me a bellyache. Larry, you're fired."

Now in the Turskis' kitchen, Larry ranted for several minutes more. The gist was: He himself was totally blameless.

Stephanie thought this was the most awful day of her life.

A few days later, when Larry got a job in Grantville, working for Jay Barlow's Subaru dealership, Stephanie thought that life had gotten a little better.

Grantville, SoTF

Thursday, May 8, 1636

Once Stephanie got home from the high school, she discovered that thirteen-year-old Seth was listening to music in his room, and ten-year-old Aaron was out playing a ball game with friends.

She came into Seth's room and asked, "How was your day, darlin'? Everything okay?" When he nodded, she said, "I want to look for some stuff in the attic, then I'll start dinner." Seth gave her a thumb-up.

Once Stephanie climbed stairs to the attic, finding 1980s-era blue clothing was not the problem. Sorry about the mothball smell, sweetie! Stephanie thought at Frida. Nope, the big, huge, humongous problem in the attic for Stephanie was not to think about the red footlocker.

A red footlocker that had waited patiently in the attic since November, 1997.

Stephanie in 1636 glared at the footlocker, mentally ordering it back to West Virginia. But the footlocker stayed where it was.

Then she thought, You're being childish. It's only a bunch of dumb cloth. It was high time she moved past that part of her life.

Stephanie walked to the footlocker, squatted down, unsnapped the latches, and lifted the lid.

****

What was inside the footlocker in 1636 was the same as what Stephanie had put there in 1997: four sewing patterns, each to make a denim jacket for someone in the Turski family; four more sewing patterns, each to make denim pants for someone in the Turski family; snaps; and zippers.

At the top of the pile was three-year-old Aaron's denim jacket, half-complete: shoulders, back, and one sleeve. This was as far as Stephanie's grand and glorious sewing project had progressed.

At the bottom of the footlocker, neatly folded, were sixteen yards of denim. Stephanie had bought all that back when she'd been a naive fool.

Wait, hold on, stop the train, Stephanie thought. I have sixteen yards of uncut denim? In 1636?

Stephanie slammed the lid shut, latched the latches and, grabbing the footlocker by one of its end handles, dragged it to the attic stairs. With a few bumps and thumps, she got the footlocker downstairs and into the bedroom hallway.

Seth came out of his own bedroom then. "Hey, Mom, what's going on?"

Without waiting for Stephanie's permission, he unsnapped the latches on the footlocker and threw open the lid. "Whoa, there's like a ton of blue-jeans cloth in here!"