The Time-Traveling Fashionista (7 page)

“Do you not like the gown, ma’am? Is everything to your taste? I found it in your steamer trunk. I can put another one on
you if you’d prefer.”

“No!” Louise answered quickly, alarmed at the sound of her own voice, a bit strange, but very real. “I mean, ummm… no, thank
you. That’s fine. And, excuse me for asking this, but… who are you?”

“Oh dear, Captain Smith said your memory was a tad foggy. You don’t remember me?” the unfamiliar girl asked, her knitting
needles paused in mid stitch.

“I’m sorry, but no.”

“I am Anna Hard, your maid.”

“My
what
?” Louise asked, shocked.
What is happening?

“Yes, ma’am. Don’t worry; the ship’s doctor said your memory will gradually return. You just need to get your rest. The doctor
will be back to check on you in a bit.”

“Anna, where are we?” Louise asked while looking around the elegantly decorated room in awe.

“Why, we’re on the White Star Line headed toward New York. Isn’t it magnificent?”

“I suppose it is,” Louise said as she nodded slowly. And it was. “This is auh-mazing. I just didn’t expect to be here. What
if my mom starts to worry?”

“Your mother?” Anna repeated, looking confused as she got up from her chair. “Why, she knows you’re here, ma’am. She was on
the dock at Southampton seeing us off.” She placed a cool, wet cloth on Louise’s forehead and handed her a crystal glass filled
with water. “Please, ma’am, stay in bed. You need some rest.”

“Well, maybe a little rest would be okay.” Louise sank back into the comfortable downy pillows. Wherever she was, she was
definitely getting the first-class treatment. And she certainly didn’t mind missing a day of Fairview, where she got anything
but
first-class treatment.

“Please, Miss Baxter, stay put. Mr. Baxter will be here shortly. He’ll know what to do.”

Louise had forgotten there would soon be a Mr. Baxter to contend with! “Mr. Baxter?” she inquired, shocked. “You mean I have
a husband?”

“Goodness no,” Anna replied, laughing. “Mr. Baxter is your uncle. He also happens to be your manager, in case you’ve forgotten
that as well. He’s booked the adjacent suite, as your mother didn’t think it proper for you to travel alone at your age.”

“Thank Gawd,” Louise said with a sigh of relief. She hadn’t
even had a real boyfriend yet. Marriage definitely wasn’t on her to-do list. “But why do I have a manager?”

“You’re an actress,” Anna replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “How could you possibly manage your
career, too? And at only seventeen years old.”

“That is unbelievably awesome!” Louise had a sudden gust of energy, realizing she had apparently been granted everything she’d
been secretly wishing for. “Anna, I’m glad I’m here. I think this is exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.”

Anna shook her head, seemingly amused and a little offset at her, or rather Miss Baxter’s, unusual behavior.

She fluffed the pillows under Louise’s head and left to prepare some chamomile tea and toast, locking the door behind her.

Once she was alone, Louise pushed off the cumbersome bedding, excited to get up and explore the suite.

The bedroom chamber was paneled with dark cherry wood wainscoting and maroon tapestry wallpaper. There was a decorative fireplace
with intricately carved ribbon molding opposite the four-poster bed, and a large still-life oil painting of flowers and fruit
hung above the mantel in a gold frame. An opened antique rolltop writing desk in the corner was neatly stacked with White
Star Line stationery. Louise tested out a plush chaise lounge that looked like something Scarlett O’Hara would be draped on
in
Gone with the Wind
.

The hardwood floor was cold on her bare feet as she tiptoed into a second room off the sleeping cabin. She walked into a parlor
furnished with a couch, a loveseat, and two matching armchairs upholstered in an ornate beige-and-gold pattern. The decor
was all very formal; nothing looked comfortable or
inviting. She thought of a compact little floating palace, elegant, rich, and old-fashioned. Louise noticed there were no
windows or portals in this room, either. The wood panels were starting to make her feel like she was in a coffin. She ran
her hand along the velvety textured wallpaper as she walked around the circumference of the room.

Louise spotted another, smaller area off the parlor. She padded across an intricate reddish purple Oriental carpet into a
separate dressing alcove and closet. A vanity table was covered with bottles of perfume and jars of creams. A powder puff
was poofing out of a lilac blue canister of powder, some of which was scattered like snowflakes on the glass. It smelled like
a department store at the mall.

A sepia-colored photograph was displayed in between the perfumes. Louise carefully picked up the tarnished frame with the
amber-tinted image, so as not to knock over any of the bottles.

She was holding a picture of a beautiful woman wearing a pinkish dress, and clasping a bouquet of pale roses in her hands.
Her flawless complexion, dark hair gently falling in waves to her shoulders, and gray eyes framed by long eyelashes made her
look like a movie star from Old Hollywood.

“This must be Miss Baxter,” Louise whispered to herself, shakily placing the picture frame back on the vanity with trembling
fingers.

She walked deeper into the closet, drawn to Miss Baxter’s steamer trunk, which was opened in the middle of the room. The black
leather trunk had a gold padlock and was more like a wardrobe than any suitcase she had ever seen. It was taller than Louise
and deep enough for her to walk right in. This woman did not pack light. It seemed as though someone had been interrupted
in the middle of unpacking, as the clothes were in disarray.

Whoever Miss Baxter was, she definitely had an unbelievable closet filled with the most fabulous clothes Louise had ever seen.
Dresses of violet chiffon and canary yellow silk with peach ribbons spilled carelessly out onto the floor. A few items had
been hung up on hangers in the closet—a fur coat, a dressing gown, and a pink dress that looked exactly like the one Louise
had tried on with Brooke at Marla and Glenda’s Traveling Fashionista Vintage Sale. It seemed to be the same dress she had
been wearing earlier that afternoon on the ship’s deck!

Louise once again held the dusky pink dress in her hands. It was unmistakably the same dress she had tried on in the store,
except now it was in perfect condition, without a rip or stain anywhere. The downy hairs on her arms stood up as she held
the fabric to her nose, inhaled deeply, and found it smelled like perfume and powder, like the way her mother smelled when
she was getting dressed to go out to dinner.

Louise closed her eyes to smell the fabric again and was overtaken by a wave of homesickness. She had the same aching feeling
once before on the first day of summer camp. She had begged her mom to let her go away to sleepover camp, but then once she
got there and was alone on her top bunk, all she wanted to do was be back home again. It seemed to Louise that she was a long
way from Timber Trails.

Before she could investigate further, Louise was distracted by a glimmer from the back of the closet. Light was being reflected
off what appeared to be a full-length mirror. Slowly, she walked up to the ornately gold-framed mirror on the far side of
the closet.

It didn’t make any sense. How was she being mistaken for this beautiful, older woman? If this woman was actually Miss Baxter,
how could anyone in their right mind mistake Louise for her? Is that who Louise looked like now?

She hesitantly looked up at her reflection and felt a wave of disappointment to see that it was, in fact, herself, twelve-year-old,
brace-face, frizzy-haired Louise, staring back from behind the glass.
Really?

Louise lowered herself carefully to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. It seemed as though on the inside she was
Louise Lambert, but to everyone else she was this Miss Baxter, a gorgeous teenage actress. Definitely rich. Probably even
famous. She smiled and unconsciously began twirling a
strand of her hair between her thumb and index finger. That was how she did her best thinking, and none of this made any sense.
Somehow she had woken up in the body of a woman who was taking a first-class trip on the White Star Line, with her own personal
maid and her uncle/manager, from England to New York City. Like, one hundred years ago. She guessed she needed to figure out
how to get back to Connecticut and to the twenty-first century… but not quite yet. This was going to be way too much fun to
miss.

“Ma chèrie! Have you missed me?” boomed an older singsong male voice from the hallway.
Mr. Baxter?!

“I’ve arrived, my precious niece! Have no fear…”

Louise jumped up, ran out of the closet, through the sitting room, slid across the hardwood floor, and dived for the enormous
bed. She was still wearing nothing besides the flimsy nightgown Anna had dressed her in, and she certainly did not want to
have her first encounter with her manager wearing that. She heard the scratching of a key turning in the lock as she buried
herself under the mound of thick aubergine blankets.

The door swung open and in walked Anna carrying a sterling silver tea service. She was followed by a round, squat, middle-aged
man wearing pressed khaki pants and a navy blue suit jacket and tie. He had no hair on the top of his head,
but overcompensated for it with a bushy handlebar mustache and big caterpillar-like eyebrows.

“I’ve heard all about your adventures on the high seas. I’ve come to rescue you!” Mr. Baxter bellowed.

Louise, who was slowly starting to suffocate under all of that down, timidly peeked her eyes and nose out.

“Oh good, Miss Baxter has awoken from her slumber. I’ve brought Dr. Hastings to check on you.”

Anna quickly wrapped Louise up in a buttercup yellow dressing gown made of thick velvet. She was nearly doubled in size covered
in all that material. It had a satin sash and a hideous frilly lace collar. Before she could object, Anna plopped a floppy
lace hat on her head and tied it under her chin with a yellow ribbon. Louise felt completely ridiculous.

Dr. Hastings, a tall, thin old man, loomed in the doorway, like a vampire waiting to be invited in. He cut a menacing figure
with midnight black hair, sunken eyes, and gaunt, hollow cheeks. Wearing a coal black suit and tie, he looked more like a
mortician than a doctor. He approached the bedside, and leaned over Louise to feel her forehead with the back of his cold,
dry, ghostly pale hand.

“Harrumph,” he mumbled by way of introduction, removing a tongue depressor from his black leather medicine bag.

“Say ahhh,” he instructed.

Louise hesitantly opened her mouth, and he roughly pressed her tongue down with the flat wooden stick.

“Harrumph, very interesting.” Dr. Hastings put the depressor back in his satchel and took out a penlight that he shone directly
in her right eye, then her left eye, then her right ear, and finally her left ear, making a “harrumph” noise each time. With
surprising force, he pressed his hand on Louise’s stomach.