If Only in My Dreams (27 page)

“I didn’t, either. And it wasn’t easy for me to get back here, but… I had to find a way.”

“What do you mean? Why was it so hard for you to get here?”

She hesitates. Shrugs.

Then she breaks eye contact, lowering her gaze.

In that moment, for Jed, the real world begins to intrude.

He hears a car door slam in the distance, tires crunching along the snowy pavement, faint swing music on a far-off radio, the gleeful shouts of children sledding on the hill behind the redbrick elementary school down the block.

Though he doesn’t dare to turn his head, he can feel the stares of curious bystanders scorching him like hot rays on a July beach.

He and Clara can’t just stand indefinitely on the street, talking… kissing.

“Can you come back to the store with me?” he asks, belatedly remembering that he dashed out the door without a moment’s hesitation, thus recklessly abandoning his business for the second time this week.

He braces himself for her to say no.

Or that she’ll come just to pick up her things before catching the next train back to the city.

But when she looks up at him again, she’s smiling.

In a voice that rings almost serene to his ears, she replies, “Of course.”

Jed is silent as they walk toward the five-and-dime.

Clara is grateful for the chance to collect her thoughts.

She’s actually done it!

She’s successfully transported herself back to 1941, propelled by a force more powerful than many times the magnitude of the sun’s cumulative energy.…

An energy that could only have come from within.

And in the end, is that really so surprising? Can science ever possibly begin to interpret the potency of pure human emotion?

Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation.

I needed to be here, for him,
she thinks, glancing over at Jed Landry.
And so I am
.

This time, knowing that she’s really traveled back in time, she pays more attention to the details. This is what the world was really like sixty-five years ago.

No, this
is
the world, sixty-five years ago.

Eyes wide with exhilarated wonder, she takes in the oversized cars tooling along the avenue, the quaint stores with their deco-lettered signage, the passersby who look as though they just stepped out of a Frank Capra movie.…

And who, she can’t help but acknowledge, are looking at her as though she just stepped out of a spaceship.

They can’t possibly suspect anything
, she assures herself.

After all, even Jed doesn’t seem suspicious.

Yet she keeps catching people staring at her, far more politely and surreptitiously than they do in Clara’s century—but still staring.

I have to do something about these clothes
.

And she will. First chance she gets. Jed said he has her bag; there must be something in it that she can wear.

They’ve reached the five-and-dime.

Jed closes the door firmly behind them, shutting out the outside world at last.

If he took her in his arms again right here and now, Clara wouldn’t stop him.

But he just clears his throat and says, “Here we are.”

Yes, here they are. Clara looks around at the tin ceiling, the worn wooden floor, the vintage merchandise, drinking it all in like a welcoming cup of steaming cocoa.

On a nearby table, she spots a snow globe with a smiling, dark-haired angel inside. Picking it up, she shakes it and a blizzard erupts beyond the glass, momentarily obscuring the angel.

“Why is this marked
as is?”
she asks Jed, wishing she could add it to her own collection of brunette angels.

“Because her wing is broken and the glass is cracked. See?”

She peers at the globe and spots the angel’s wounded wing tip. “Yes, but you can barely see it. I would buy this in a heartbeat.”

Yes, because she’s scarred, just like me. And
…

“She’s all alone in there,” Clara notices. “All the other snow globes have more than one angel.” And, of course, they all have golden hair.

“That’s because she’s special. And this globe is musical… see?” Jed takes it from her and winds a key in the bottom.

Clara smiles, recognizing the delicate melody: “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

Too bad she doesn’t have 1940s’ currency in her pocket. If she did, she’d buy the snow globe to display with her angels on the mantel back home.

Carefully setting it back on the table, Jed returns his attention to Clara, eyeing her ski parka with renewed ambivalence.

“Can I take your… uh, coat?” Clearly, he uses the term loosely.

Hmm
. What is she wearing underneath it?

It takes her a moment to remember: It’s her old hooded Yankees sweatshirt—emblazoned with the Red Sox and Yankees insignias and the words
AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES 2004
. She clears her throat. “I’ll keep my coat on for now, thanks.”

He looks surprised. “Are you sure?”

Oh, trust me, I’m positive
.

She simply nods, wondering how long she can get away with this.

Not just keeping her coat on.

This whole… charade. How long before he figures out that she’s not just a regular 1940s’ gal dropping by for a visit?

Should she break the truth to him?

How would she even begin?

If she’s going to save him—and she still has no clue whether that is even possible—she may at some point need to tell him, in a calm, straightforward way, what she knows and how she knows it.

Right. And then he will very calmly place a straightforward call to the local psychiatric hospital
.

But right now, he isn’t looking at her as though he thinks she’s crazy. He’s taken a step closer, looking at her as though he’s thinking pretty much the same thing she was a moment ago: that he wouldn’t be opposed to taking her into his arms again and—

“Hello, Jed,” trills a voice.

A woman’s head, wearing a brimmed hat, pops out from behind a shelf at the back of the store.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Shelton. I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”

“I came in a few minutes ago. I thought you must be back in the stockroom,” the customer informs him, flicking a curious gaze over Clara. Her eyebrows rise visibly as she takes in the outfit and hairstyle—
or rather
, Clara realizes,
the lack of both
.

“Can I help you find something?” Jed asks politely.

“I was just looking for a chenille bed jacket for my sister Gertrude as a Christmas gift.” Her eyes remain fastened disapprovingly on Clara. “But I don’t see any here.”

“We have quite a few bed jackets in stock.” Jed crosses the floor to help her, shooting an apologetic glance over his shoulder.

Clara shrugs to show him that it’s all right.

Of course, it isn’t. Why did that woman have to pop up just as Jed was going to kiss her again?

Why? Because this is a dime store, not a bedroom. And you’re not here to lust after Jed Landry, you’re here to figure out if you can save his life, remember?

Mr. Kershaw might not believe that’s possible, but there are plenty of physicists who probably wouldn’t believe any of this is possible.

But what if…

No. It’s real. You know it’s real
.

Still, as soon as Jed disappears behind a clothing rack with Mrs. Shelton, Clara strides over to the display of newspapers on the counter. She wants to check the date, just to be absolutely sure.

And…

There it is.

Wednesday, December 3, 1941.

A little thrill shoots through her at this latest validation that she really is here…
not
, she reminds herself again,
that there was any lingering doubt
.

Nineteen forty-one is real, and Jed is real, and, for that matter, so is the attraction she thought she sensed from the moment they first met.

But what good is that going to do either of us?

On that dark thought, a group of chattering schoolboys enter the store from the street, obviously fresh from the last bell. They’re wearing caps and wool coats, carrying lunch pails and their books bound by straps slung over their shoulders.

“Say, ma’am, do you have any pop gums?” the tallest and boldest of the boys asks, and to Clara’s relief, he appears completely oblivious to her attire.

Okay, then, what’s a pop gum? Some kind of candy? Bubble gum?

She quickly surveys the row of labeled glass canisters on the counter. Peppermint sticks, lollipops, bubble gum, licorice…

Clara glances over her shoulder.

“What are you doing?” the ringleader kid asks in a tone that makes Clara fairly certain that she shouldn’t be looking for pop gums amid the penny-candy jars.

“What was it that you asked for again?”

“Popguns.”

“Pop
guns?”
she echoes, just to be sure.

Nodding, the boys exchange glances.

Then she catches one of them looking down at her right sneaker as though he’s never seen such a thing before… and is about to ask what it is.

“Hang on a second, um… fellas,” she inserts strategically, lest anyone dare suspect that she’s not completely at home here in 1941, where children are apparently free to roam the streets in search of weapons. “I’ll go check.”

Clara slips to the back of the store, where she finds Jed holding up a pale-pink chenille bed jacket for Mrs. Shelton’s perusal.

“Excuse me… sorry to interrupt, but there’s a group of boys up there who want to buy popguns.”

“Can you do me a favor and show them where they are?” Jed asks.

“I can… if you tell
me
where they are.” Not to mention
what
they are.

“Oh—past the dolls, in the bin next to the spinning tops, on the shelf below the board games on the side wall.”

Clara nods. All right, so they’re talking
toy
guns, here. You learn something new every…
second
.

“Does she work here?” Mrs. Shelton asks in surprise.

Without missing a beat, Jed says firmly, “Of course she works here. What did you think?”

Mrs. Shelton sputters some kind of reply meant to indicate that she knew all along that Clara was an employee.…

When in reality
, Clara thinks, amused,
she took one look at me and figured I was either a charity case or a refugee from the house of ill repute
.

“Would you like me to finish straightening the Christmas-card display after I help the boys, Mr. Landry?” she asks Jed for good measure.

After all, she’s a trained actress. She can certainly play this store-clerk role without much effort.

“That would be swell, thanks, Miss McCallum.”

As she turns on her heel, Jed sneaks a wink at her.

Her stomach does a series of Olympics-caliber acrobatics at the unexpected intimacy of it.

What a shame that nobody winks anymore
, she finds herself lamenting as she returns to the front of the store.

Then again, it might not be quite so sexy back where she comes from. She tries to envision a modern guy—a city
guy—say, Jason—winking at her. She promptly concludes that the gesture would have a considerable cheese factor.

But here in the small-town past, winking is sexy.

Especially when Jed Landry’s doing it.

Yes, his wink is sexy… and his kiss was even sexier.

She still can’t quite believe he actually kissed her. Then again…

You’re the one who started it
, she reminds herself.
You kissed him first. What did you expect?

She didn’t expect anything because she didn’t exactly plan it. It just happened.

Besides, that was a happy-to-see-you-again peck. Never in her wildest dreams did she expect to find herself in Jed’s arms, being passionately devoured.

All right… maybe in her
wildest
dreams.

But for all she knew when she first heard him calling her name, Jed was running toward her to chew her out for abandoning him at the depot with her luggage the other day. Yes, he could very well have been angry—or at the very least, seriously annoyed.

So what did she do? She threw herself at him and kissed him.

She couldn’t help herself. It felt right.

At the time, anyway.

What about now? What about him?

Does he think it was presumptuous of her?

Probably. It’s unlikely that women go around passionately throwing themselves at men they barely know here in 1941.

She was just so overwhelmed by joyous relief to see him again, after all that’s gone on since she left here.

ANOTHER LOCAL MAN CONFIRMED LOST IN EUROPE

She pushes the horrifying newspaper headline out of her mind, replacing it with another memory of kissing Jed.

Not the chaste kiss she gave him—no, the one that came after.

That’s the one that counts, because it confirms that the emotion she felt when she first saw him again was—
is
—mutual.

Nobody has ever kissed her that way—not even in her soap opera era, when unbridled passion was the order of many days on the set.

But then, her leading men were just acting.

Jed wasn’t. Somehow, she’s sure of that.

What if nobody ever kisses her that way again?

After all, she’ll be mutilated after her surgery.…

Oh, come on, Clara, how can you be so superficial? Do you really believe no worthwhile man will ever want you again just because of an imperfect breast?

Not intellectually.

Yet when she looks into her future, she can’t fathom intimacy: baring herself, ravaged body and shaken soul, to anyone.

Somehow she knows that it’s going to take her a long, long time to find her way back into a relationship… if she ever does.

So it was worth coming all the way back just for one amazing kiss from Jed Landry—
not that it’s the main reason you’re here,
Clara reminds herself as she returns to the schoolboy posse.

“All right, follow me, fellas.”

She leads the way over to the toy section, where she checks out the stack of board games on the nearby shelf while the boys rummage through the bin.