The Time-Traveling Fashionista (21 page)

“Yeah, it was so crazy. There was a water main break in the school gymnasium. The whole place is flooded,” Brooke explained.

Louise heard Marla—or was it Glenda?—chuckle under her breath.

“I think we did manage to find you just the right ensemble,” Marla said, satisfied.

Louise gasped. The carnation pink Lucile dress that she had tried on in the store, the same one she had dreamed she was wearing
on the
Titanic,
was hanging on the front of her closet door, now a little wrinkled but dry, and with that same noticeable rip in the hem.

“Ummm, I think I might wear something else,” she stammered.

“Nonsense,” Glenda chimed in. “Trust yourself in our
capable hands. You’ll make it to the Fairview Junior High School dance. That is, if that’s where your heart truly wants to
take you.”

“Oh, it is, I swear,” Louise said with a smile. For once, there was no place she would rather be.

“That’s what we thought.” Glenda winked at her.

“Do you know if Todd is going with anyone?” Louise asked Brooke, trying to sound nonchalant. “I mean, not that he’d even want
to talk to me at this point.”

“Well, you’d think that after you ran away from him the other day in front of the whole seventh grade, he would have asked
someone else,” Brooke said, suppressing a smile. “But apparently you’re the only one on his list. I’m pretty sure he’s going
by himself.”

Louise grinned with relief. “I think I made a mistake about something.”

Brooke raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “By the way, you were right. Kip finally asked me.”

Louise laughed. The universe was back to normal.

“Well, we must be off. I hope you have a wonderful time at the dance, my dear. You’ve most certainly earned it. Come see us
again sometime soon,” Glenda said. And with these words, Marla and Glenda were out of the room in a flash.

“Very peculiar ladies, I must say,” Mrs. Lambert said, shaking her head. “Well, Brooke, I’m sure your parents
would love to have you home. And Louise should get some sleep. I’ll be right back with some tea and buttery toast with raspberry
jam. In the meantime, there’s water and juice on the bedside table.”

“Glad to see you’re feeling better, chicken,” her dad said as he ruffled her hair. She smiled, happy to be called anything
but Miss Baxter, even “chicken.” “I have a deposition I need to prepare for, but I’ll go into the office a little late and
see you in the morning. Get some rest.”

Mr. and Mrs. Lambert both gave their daughter a kiss on the cheek, and they all left the room together, leaving Louise alone,
snuggled under her grandmother’s patchwork quilt, exhausted, and for the moment, perfectly and utterly content.

She glanced over at the dress hanging on the door and smiled. What an amazingly fun and terrifying and sad dream she’d had.
She wondered if all of her vintage clothes had such profound histories attached to them.

As Louise reached over to her nightstand to get a sip of water, she saw a pale teal envelope propped up against her clock
radio.

With a nervous curiosity, she picked up the envelope that had her name written on it in the now familiar script.

To: Ms. Louise Lambert

She turned it over shakily and saw the iconic bloodred wax seal.

Mrs. Lambert knocked twice on the bedroom door and, without waiting for Louise to answer, entered carrying a silver tray with
a steaming hot teacup and a pile of toast. Quickly, Louise placed the envelope in her night table under her diary. She shut
the drawer and gave her mom a reassuring smile as she leaned back on her pillow.

Every time she shut her eyes, Louise could feel the waves rocking her bed like a lifeboat tossed in a choppy sea. It was almost
2:30
AM
, and she was afraid to fall asleep and find herself back on the
Titanic
. Finally she accepted the fact that she would not be able to sleep and switched on her bedside lamp. Shivering, she sat up
in bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. She couldn’t ignore the feeling in her gut that it was real. That it hadn’t
all been just a dream, a hallucination brought on by food poisoning. The experience was too vivid.

The house was dark and quiet as Louise wrapped herself up in her grandmother’s quilt and walked over to her computer. She
needed to find out the real story of the
Titanic.
The computer woke up with a soft hum, and Louise signed on, typed in “
Titanic
Disaster,” and began her clandestine research.

T
HE
RMS
T
ITANIC
WAS AN
O
LYMPIC
-
CLASS PASSENGER LINER THAT BECAME INFAMOUS FOR HER COLLISION WITH AN ICEBERG AND DRAMATIC SINKING ON
A
PRIL
15, 1912. T
HE
T
ITANIC
WAS THE LARGEST PASSENGER STEAMSHIP IN THE WORLD AT THE TIME OF HER SINKING
. C
APTAIN
E
DWARD
J
OHN
S
MITH
, 62,
WAS THE CAPTAIN OF THE IMPRESSIVE VESSEL
. S
HE WAS CONSIDERED A PINNACLE OF NAVAL ARCHITECTURE AND TECHNOLOGICAL ACHIEVEMENT
,
AND WAS THOUGHT BY MANY TO BE
“
PRACTICALLY UNSINKABLE
.” D
URING THE
T
ITANIC
’
S MAIDEN VOYAGE
(
FROM
S
OUTHAMPTON
, E
NGLAND
;
TO
C
HERBOURG
, F
RANCE
; Q
UEENSTOWN
, I
RELAND
;
THEN
N
EW
Y
ORK
)
SHE STRUCK AN ICEBERG AND SANK MERELY A FEW HOURS LATER
,
HAVING BROKEN INTO TWO PIECES AT THE AFT EXPANSION JOINT
.

F
OR HER TIME
,
THE
T
ITANIC
WAS SECOND TO NONE IN HER LAVISH COMFORT AND EXTRAVAGANCE
. S
HE WAS THE FIRST SHIP TO OFFER A HEATED SALTWATER SWIMMING POOL
,
STATE-OF-THE-ART GYMNASIUM
,
LIBRARIES FOR EACH PASSENGER CLASS
,
AND AN ELEGANT FIRST-CLASS DINING ROOM THAT OFFERED SUPERB FOUR-STAR CUISINE
. T
HE CROWN JEWEL OF THE SHIP
’
S INTERIOR WAS UNDOUBTEDLY THE
G
RAND
S
TAIRCASE
. E
XTENDING DOWN TO
E D
ECK AND DECO
RATED WITH OAK PANELING AND GILDED BALUSTRADES
,
IT WAS TOPPED BY AN ORNATE WROUGHT-IRON-AND-GLASS DOME
,
WHICH BROUGHT IN NATURAL LIGHT
.

T
HE FIRST-CLASS PASSENGER LIST FOR
T
ITANIC
’
S MAIDEN VOYAGE INCLUDED SOME OF THE RICHEST AND MOST PROMINENT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
. A
MONG THEM WERE MILLIONAIRE
J
OHN
J
ACOB
A
STOR
IV
AND HIS WIFE
, M
ADELEINE
;
INDUSTRIALIST
B
ENJAMIN
G
UGGENHEIM
; M
ACY
’
S DEPARTMENT STORE OWNER
I
SIDOR
S
TRAUS AND HIS WIFE
, I
DA
;
FASHION DESIGNER
L
ADY
L
UCY
D
UFF
-G
ORDON AND HER HUSBAND AND BUSINESS PARTNER
, S
IR
C
OSMO
D
UFF
-G
ORDON
;
FLAMBOYANT MANAGER AND PRODUCER
H
ENRY
B
AXTER AND HIS NIECE AND PROTÉGÉ
, E
NGLISH SILENT FILM STAR
A
LICE
B
AXTER
….

Louise was stunned. “Oh my goodness,” she whispered. “Everything really did happen. And this has to be my great-aunt Alice.
This must have been the story Mom was trying to tell me.”

She
did
exist. The next question that popped into Louise’s head was one she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to, but she
had to. Did Mr. Baxter survive? Did Anna? With a
sweaty palm, Louise gripped the mouse and scrolled slowly down the page.

O
N THE NIGHT OF
A
PRIL
14,
THE
T
ITANIC
STRUCK AN ICEBERG AND SANK THREE HOURS LATER ON
A
PRIL
15, 1912,
WITH GREAT LOSS OF LIFE
. T
HE
U
NITED
S
TATES
S
ENATE INVESTIGATION REPORTED THAT
1,517
PEOPLE PERISHED IN THE ACCIDENT
.

Heart pounding, Louise went back and typed in “
Titanic
: List of Dead.” Within seconds, there it was, in the public archives, a list of everyone who died that night. With each name
that she read, Louise felt a constricting in her chest that tightened as she went down the list: J. J. Astor, Ida and Isidor
Straus, Captain Smith…. She could picture some of them so clearly. This would never be a list of faceless names to her. The
Titanic
was no longer a glamorous, cinematic background—for the first time in her life, history was real to her, because now so were
its people. Louise had almost made it through the whole list when she came across the name she was dreading to find. She hadn’t
been able to save him after all.

She clicked her mouse on Mr. Baxter’s name.

I
T WAS SAID THAT
M
R
. H
ENRY
B
AXTER AND
M
R
. B
ENJAMIN
G
UGGENHEIM PUT ON THEIR BEST SUITS
,
POURED THEMSELVES GLASSES OF THEIR FINEST SCOTCH
,
AND WENT DOWN TO THE SMOKING ROOM TO DIE LIKE GENTLEMEN
. A
CCORDING TO HIS BEREAVED NIECE
, A
LICE
,
HER UNCLE AND
M
R
. G
UGGENHEIM REFUSED TO TAKE A SEAT ON THE LIFEBOATS WHEN THEY KNEW THAT THERE WERE NOT ENOUGH SEATS FOR EVERY WOMAN AND CHILD
. I
N THE ONLY INTERVIEW
A
LICE HAS GIVEN ABOUT THE DISASTER
,
SHE TOLD THE
H
ERALD
T
RIBUNE
, “H
E WAS MY UNCLE
,
MY MANAGER
,
AND MY DEAREST FRIEND
. H
E WAS A TRUE GENTLEMAN
,
AND WE WILL ALL MISS HIM DEEPLY
. I
T IS TOO PAINFUL TO REMEMBER THAT NIGHT
. I
MUST HAVE BLOCKED IT OUT OF MY MEMORY
,
FOR
I
HAVE ONLY A FOGGY RECOLLECTION OF ANYTHING THAT OCCURRED ON BOARD THAT SHIP
,
BUT
I
WILL DO MY BEST TO CARRY ON
.”

Louise opened up a new window and typed in “
Titanic:
Survivor Stories.” She clicked on the first link.