The Time-Traveling Fashionista (15 page)

“Go on,” Louise urged, propping herself up on her elbows as Anna sat down at the foot of the bed.

“I don’t know, maybe I didn’t see anything,” Anna stuttered. “I feel like I’m losing my mind. Please, forget I said anything.”
Her gaze was darting around the room, as though she expected something or someone to jump out of the shadows.

“No,” Louise blurted. “You have to tell me. I’ll believe you!”

“Well, ma’am,” her friend began slowly. “Last night when I returned from dinner… I was sleeping right over here on the sofa
to keep an eye on you,” Anna said as she gestured to a nearby Victorian couch made up with pillows and blankets. “Oh, Miss
Baxter, we were all worried sick. I hear you caused quite a stir in the dining room last evening, that you told Captain Smith
the
Titanic
was going to sink—”

“It is,” Louise interrupted, “but what happened?”

“That’s impossible. There has never been a more magnificent or sturdy boat to cross the ocean.”

“What happened next?” Louise asked, trying to get back to the story, hoping it would give her some clue as to how to get off
the boat.

“Well, I was asleep right here on this sofa,” she began again hesitantly.

“I know, I know,” Louise said as she nodded vigorously.

“And in the middle of the night, I heard strange voices, so I woke up out of a deep sleep. And then I saw them.” Anna got
up and started pacing the room nervously.

“Saw who?” Louise asked.

“There were two women hovering over your bed, whispering things to you. When I called out in fright, they disappeared—vanished
into thin air. Oh, it’s impossible. Hail Mary.” Anna made the sign of the cross over her body.

“No, Anna, I believe you! What did they say?” Louise asked urgently, now sitting fully upright in the bed.

“I couldn’t make out the words they were saying. They were leaning over you, speaking softly into your ear,” Anna recounted.

“What did they look like?”

“One of them was very tall with wild red hair. The other was much shorter with brown hair, and she had her hands placed over
your stomach.”

“Marla and Glenda!” Louise said with a gasp. “It must be.” Instinctively, she placed her hands on her belly, still somewhat
experiencing the gnawing pain in her stomach that she had felt in her dream. How did the women know that? Were they the cause
of it?

“They were right here, and then they literally vanished.” Anna was clearly shaken. But Louise felt vindicated: She wasn’t
crazy.

“Anna, we need to find those women,” Louise whispered loudly, eyes flashing.

“The witches?” Anna asked, scared. She began furiously making up the sofa bed where she had slept the night before. It reminded
Louise of her mother, who would also tidy up when she got nervous.

“Yes, it’s the only way for me to get back to my normal life in Connecticut. And they can save you, too. This boat is doomed!”

“Connecticut?” Anna repeated, confused. “And what do you mean this boat is doomed?”

“The
Titanic
is going to sink,” Louise replied bluntly, her eyes getting hot with held-back tears.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Anna questioned. “Everyone says it’s unsinkable….”

“I guess nothing is indestructible,” Louise concluded. “Ships, planes, nations, presidents. You would never believe
me if I told you what was going to happen in the next one hundred years.”

“How would
you
know what the future holds, Miss Baxter?” Anna asked hysterically, refolding the wool blanket she had in her hands.

“Anna, I didn’t say anything before, because it sounds crazy, but I’m not Miss Baxter. And I’m not an actress. The truth is
my name is Louise, and I’m from Connecticut. It’s a state in America. One of the last things I remember is that it was 2011,
and I was learning about the
Titanic
disaster in my history class.” Suddenly Louise wished she had paid a little more attention to Miss Morris’s lecture.

Anna stopped fluffing the pillows and made the sign of the cross over her body again. Apparently she had reconnected with
her religion sometime over the course of the night.

“You’re not the real Miss Baxter?” she asked incredulously. “But you look exactly like Miss Baxter. How could you possibly
be anyone else?” Anna walked over to the bed and gave her a thorough once-over.

“I don’t know,” Louise replied, frustrated, throwing her hands in the air in a helpless shrug. “It seems impossible, but I
swear, I’m not her.”

Anna still didn’t look convinced.

“Would Miss Baxter do this?” Louise asked, crossing her eyes, sticking out her tongue.

Anna giggled, despite her extreme state of fear. “Certainly not. Perhaps Dr. Hastings gave you too strong a dose of that sleeping
medicine.”

“Wait, come over here,” Louise commanded in a loud whisper, as she walked toward a gilded mirror hanging on the opposite wall.
Anna needed to see her as Louise, and words would never convince her otherwise. Anna gave her a quizzical look but followed
anyway. With great trepidation, Louise stepped in front of it, her head lowered—afraid of whom she would see.

She had spent her entire life wishing that something in her appearance would be different—that her hair would grow in like
fifties starlet Elizabeth Taylor’s perfectly smooth brunette waves or that the mosquito bites on her chest would develop into
real breasts so she could finally wear a bra like every other girl in the seventh grade. It took her by surprise that now
all she wanted was to look exactly as she was. She needed to recognize herself.

Looking directly into the mirror, Louise once again saw herself for who she truly was—a skinny, twelve-year-old girl with
braces. For the first time since this whole adventure began, she burst into tears—hot tears of exhaustion and happiness at
seeing the first familiar face she had recognized all day.

Stunned, Anna gasped, crossed herself, and stared silently
into the gilded mirror. Finally she said in absolute horror, “What do you have on your teeth?”

Louise laughed and wiped her tear-streaked cheeks and running nose with the back of her arm. “Be grateful you were born when
you were. You’re lucky they hadn’t invented these orthodontic torture devices yet.”

Anna sat down shakily on the edge of the sofa. It was too much for her to handle. “
Who are you?
”

“My name is Louise Lambert. I’m from Fairview, Connecticut. I was born in 1999, and I’m twelve years old.” As she spoke, she
felt her voice grow stronger, more confident.
Wow, that felt really good,
she thought with a smile. It was an overwhelming moment. She knew she was finally ready to be Louise again. But time was
running out, and she needed to find an answer quickly.

Louise climbed up and sat on the edge of the puffy featherbed; her feet didn’t even touch the floor. She wanted to tell Anna
everything she remembered from Miss Morris about the
Titanic.
Unfortunately, thanks to her teacher’s monotonous lecturing style, it wasn’t all that much.

“If I had to end up on the
Titanic,
I wish a young Leo was on board,” she said jokingly, thinking about the romantic epic movie that was made a few years before
she was born. She had seen it recently, when she was home sick with a cold.

“Who?” Anna asked, understandably, considering Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t exactly alive in 1912.

“Never mind, I guess you had to be there,” Louise said, snapping back into focus. “The basic story is that one night this
very fancy boat named
Titanic
collides with an iceberg and sinks. I know this is incredibly frightening to hear, but it really happened. Do you believe
me?”

“I wish I didn’t.” Anna put her hand to her mouth, pausing to take it all in. “But after seeing your image in the mirror,
I suppose I have to believe anything at this point. How did you manage to make yourself look like Miss Baxter to everyone
else and do such a convincing job of impersonating her?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Louise confessed. “It’s totally crazy that everyone thinks I look like her. But I guess I’ve been
preparing for this role all my life.”

“Incredible,” Anna said as she shook her head, dumbfounded. “I could swear I was talking to the real Miss Baxter. This is
too bizarre. So… so… if you are Louise Lambert… where is Miss Baxter?”

“I have no idea.” Louise hadn’t even begun to ponder this angle of the story when suddenly they were startled by a loud snoring
noise coming from the adjacent suite.

“Mr. Baxter!” she exclaimed in a loud whisper, having forgotten about him for a moment. “I’ll explain everything I can later,
but we need to get out of here before he wakes up. Or else we’ll both have a lot of explaining to do, and we must escape.”

“Don’t worry, he could sleep through a shipwreck. Oops,” Anna said with a gasp, blushing a deep crimson, embarrassed by her
ominous choice of words.

“Quickly. Let’s get out of here,” Louise urged, jumping down from the bed.

“First, you should put on some dry clothes,” Anna advised
in a motherly tone. Louise looked down. She was still wearing the navy blue beaded evening dress. It was now damp and clinging
from her panicky sweat.

“Does Miss Baxter own any jeans?” Louise asked hopefully.

“Jeans?” Anna responded in disbelief. “You mean the denim overalls that the railroad workers wear?”

“Oh, never mind.” Louise dreaded putting on another dress. She missed her own limited wardrobe back home. Trying to escape
from this ship would be much easier in pants.

“Where are you going, ladies?”

The girls jumped. Mr. Baxter was standing in the doorway of the sitting room wearing a pair of pink silk pajamas with red
piping and a sleeping mask dangling around his neck. His handlebar mustache was a little askew.

“Uncle Baxter,” Louise cooed, instantly switching back to her Miss Baxter character. She hoped she could still pull off this
façade, even though all she could think about was getting off the boat as quickly as possible.

Mr. Baxter removed a gold tassel earplug from his left ear.

“Uncle Baxter,” she repeated, this time fluttering her eyelashes like an overcaffeinated butterfly. “I couldn’t sleep, so
Anna is going to fetch me some warm milk and honey.” That was her mother’s cure for insomnia. Louise hoped it was a really
old recipe.

Mr. Baxter looked at both girls sleepily.

“Uncle Baxter,” she piped up for the third time. “Go back to bed. You need your beauty sleep.”

Too confused and tired to argue, Mr. Baxter padded back into his sleeping quarters.

“Good morning and good night, ladies,” he mumbled drowsily, shutting the antique oak French doors behind him.

The girls exchanged a relieved look. Very quietly but quickly, Anna snuck around the suite, gathering some fresh clothes for
Louise. Louise quickly changed into the simple wool dress and brown button-up leather boots that Anna had lent her.

Together, they tiptoed out of the room and gently shut the door behind them before running as fast as they could down the
hall.

“We have to be careful. We need to stay away from Captain Smith and Dr. Hastings at all costs,” Louise whispered as they ran
as quietly as possible along the deserted and dimly lit hallway.