Timeless (15 page)

Philip sat on the edge of his seat, looking befuddled but listening in awe. Michele realized that what she took for granted as the simple necessities of life, he saw as a story beyond imagination.

“Do you have movies in your time?” she asked him.

“Yes, they’re the newest fad. Though the picture is always flickering and the stories are too brief, not even five minutes long. I much prefer stage plays,” Philip remarked.

“Well, in my time movies are as long as plays, and they look perfect, with full color. And they have sound and special effects,” Michele said. “And then there’s this thing called TV, which everyone has in their home. It’s a big box with a screen that shows a bunch of different channels, and each channel has a different show at every hour. Wherever you turn in my time, there’s constant entertainment and new technology.”

“It sounds incredible,” Philip marveled. “You must find our world so dull in comparison.”

“No, actually. It’s just different. I like what I’m seeing of old New York,” Michele replied.

“What is it that you like?” Philip asked.

“I love the colors … the open spaces and unpolluted skies,” Michele said thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I guess I like that it seems more … innocent, somehow.”

Philip smiled at her. “You see our old New York quite well.”

“Tell me more about 1910. What’s it like for you?” Michele asked.

Philip stretched his arms behind him, thinking. “It’s like … living between the old and the new. The city has one foot in its Victorian past, and one foot in your future. New skyscrapers are being constructed every day, aiming to break height records, and in just the past years, we’ve been introduced to the telephone, the automobile, phonograph records, Kodak cameras, and so on. But at the same time, we continue to obey the rules and customs of the 1890s.”

“Living between the old and the new,” Michele echoed. “That’s just what I’m doing now.”

“I suppose we’re not so different after all,” Philip said with a grin.

“I don’t feel like we are,” Michele said, suddenly serious. “I mean, I know we’re a hundred years apart, but … I don’t know why, I just feel like I know you so well.”

Philip nodded slowly. “I know just what you mean.”

She gestured to the piano. “Will you play something for me?”

“Of course.” Philip smiled and went to the piano. Michele knew instinctively what he was going to play before he began. Sure enough, the moment Philip’s fingers touched the keys, Schubert’s
Serenade
filled the room.

“Our song,” he said to her with a wink as he played.

Michele closed her eyes, soaking in the beautiful music, as goose bumps rose on her arms. When he finished the song, she asked him to play another one of his ragtime compositions. As he played a soulful melody with a swinging rhythm, Michele had the incredible feeling that she was listening to a legend in the making.

“Writing music is what you were born to do,” she said passionately when he’d finished playing. “I’m serious.” Michele thought for a moment of her own songwriting aspirations as a lyricist, wondering if she would say the same about herself.
But my abilities are nothing next to his. Especially now that I haven’t written a word in a month
, she thought wryly.

“I believe you are the one and only person who enjoys my compositions,” Philip confided. “I do love classical, of course,
but my real passion is this new music coming from the South.” He set his jaw in determination. “No one believes I can do it, but more than anything, I want to make a name for myself as a composer, and I want our society to be rid of the hateful term ‘race music.’ I’ve always believed in music bringing people together, not setting us further apart.”

“You’re right,” Michele agreed firmly, sitting next to him on the piano bench. “You’re just ahead of your time. You’ll see. People will finally start to get it. And if anyone can make it in music, it should be you. I haven’t heard anyone in my time play like that.”

He gazed at her. “It’s a wonderful feeling—you believing in me.”

The way he looked at her was so intimate it made Michele feel exhilarated and shy all at once. She glanced down at the piano keys, trying to calm her racing heart. And then she felt Philip’s hand gently lift her chin, and she looked, mesmerized, into those sapphire eyes. Their faces slowly drew toward each other, and he softly brushed his lips against hers. Michele felt her knees weakening, her stomach swirling, all from the simple touch of his lips to hers. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him closer to her, and they began kissing passionately, the searing kiss of two people who had waited a lifetime for each other.
Oh, my God
, Michele thought, as she felt his lips against her neck and her hair.
So
this
is what everyone writes and sings and dreams about—this feeling
.

When they finally managed to pull away, Michele leaned against him and he nestled her in his arms, wrapping his black coat around her shoulders to keep her warm. She closed her
eyes, and for the first time since losing her mother, she recognized the emotion inside her as happiness.

She wondered what this meant for them, what it meant for Philip’s engagement to Violet. As much as she disliked Violet, she felt a sinking guilt in her stomach at the notion of breaking up an engagement, especially when she was just a traveler in Philip’s time, not able to fully be with him. But she also felt that she and Philip belonged together, that her dreams all these years and the key from her father were like a road map, leading her to him.

After a while, Michele realized that she must have been with Philip for hours. “I should get back to my time,” she said reluctantly. “If I miss my curfew, my grandparents might put me under house arrest.”

“Wait—what if I come back to your time with you?” Philip’s eyes lit up at the thought. “I would give anything to see it.”

Bring Philip home with her? Michele smiled. It sounded too good to be true. Could she do it?

“Let’s try,” Michele agreed. She took Philip’s hand, and with her other hand, she held her key tight, willing Time to send them to 2010—together.

“What the—”

At the horrified shriek, Michele looked up, disoriented. She was lying on a cold kitchen floor. The hum of a refrigerator and the laugh track from a nearby TV let her know that she must be back in her own time. But she was alone.
It didn’t work
, Michele thought, a wave of grief overcoming her as she realized that
Philip wasn’t there, that he didn’t exist anymore in 2010.
When will I see him again?
she wondered anxiously.

Michele blinked and a face hovering over her came into focus. It belonged to Caissie Hart, who looked stunned and terrified.
Caissie? Where did she come from?
Michele thought, bewildered. That was when she remembered that Caissie’s apartment building used to be the Walker Mansion.
This kitchen must be where the music room was one hundred years ago
, she thought.

“You’d better explain what’s going on before I call the cops,” Caissie warned. “Did you just
break in
?”

“No, please, let me explain,” Michele pleaded, slowly getting up off the floor.

Just then, a man’s voice called from across the hall, “Caissie? What in the world are you yelling about?”

Caissie’s eyes darted from Michele to the door as she no doubt planned to turn Michele over to her dad.

“No, please don’t!” Michele whispered frantically. “I have a seriously good explanation for this. It has to do with—with what I talked to you about at school today.”

Luckily, Caissie’s curiosity won out. “I just—I just saw a spider,” she called back to her dad. “I killed it, so all’s okay now.”

Michele exhaled in relief. “Thanks. Can we talk somewhere in private?”

“Fine. Follow me.” Caissie marched through the narrow corridors of the apartment unit until they reached her bedroom. It was a cozy room, cluttered with clothes and books. Radiohead and Coldplay posters covered the walls.

“All right. Explain,” Caissie demanded, closing the door
behind her. “And while you’re at it, why are you dressed in formal menswear?”

Michele glanced down and realized she was still wearing Philip’s jacket. She stuck her hands in the pockets, and to her surprise, she felt a small card. She quickly pulled out the card and looked at it. Her heart constricted as she saw Philip’s name written in bold calligraphy on the card, his address underneath.

The presence of his belongings made the whole thing seem a lot less crazy, and she felt a rush of courage to tell someone. And who else could she tell? Amanda and Kristen didn’t believe in magic in the slightest, so if anything, Michele’s story would further convince them that she belonged at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. While Michele barely knew her, Caissie was the one person who had seen Michele appear out of thin air, so that made her the one person who might have reason to believe her. Plus Michele owed her an explanation now. She took a deep breath, gathering her nerve and steeling herself for Caissie’s reaction, and handed her Philip’s card.

“This jacket and this card belonged to Philip Walker in 1910,” Michele said. “My dad—who I never knew—had this old key that I got from my mom’s safe after she died. Long story short, the key led me to my ancestor Clara Windsor’s diary from 1910, and the key and the diary together sent me back in time. And I know this sounds crazy, but I met them all, Caissie! I danced at the Windsors’ Halloween ball, and I was just with Philip, in his music room, and I was trying to bring him back to our time with me. That’s how I ended up in your kitchen. That must be where the music room used to be. And that’s who I was with last night, when I needed you to be my alibi.”

Caissie stared at her incredulously. “Either this is a ridiculously over-the-top prank, or you’ve completely lost your mind.”

Michele bit her lip anxiously. This was the reaction she had been afraid of.

“Please try to believe me. This is real,” she insisted. “How else do you explain how I got into your apartment? How else do you explain all this?” Michele pulled off Philip’s coat to show to Caissie.

“This is just some vintage jacket you bought and that card could easily be a fake. They did
not
belong to some old Walker,” Caissie argued. She was giving the coat to Michele when something caught her eye. She yanked the coat back and stared at the inside collar.

“What is it?” Michele asked.

Her face suddenly pale, Caissie approached the wall by her dresser, where the corner edge of the wallpaper was peeling. Caissie pulled back the piece of wallpaper, and underneath was the old wall panel—designed with the Walker family coat of arms. The very same coat of arms was sewn into the jacket collar.

“The outside of the mansion was demolished when they decided to turn the place into an apartment complex, but they saved parts of the interiors. So this is the original old wall paneling,” Caissie said, her voice sounding odd as she looked up at the Walker coat of arms.

“Don’t you see?” Michele breathed. “It’s the same. I was really with him a hundred years ago!”

“You still could have found this at a vintage store,” Caissie
replied, but her hands shook as she passed the jacket back to Michele.

“You know I didn’t.” Michele gave Caissie a serious look. “Please, you’re the only person here I can tell.”

Caissie sank onto a chair. “Honestly, Michele? You’ve got to be the weirdest person I know. First you barely give me the time of day when I come to your house, you don’t talk to me at school, and now all of a sudden you’ve gone off the deep end and
I’m
the one you want involved in your insanity? No thanks.”

Michele’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“I
didn’t give you the time of day? I’m the one who’s the new student at your school and I had thought maybe, just maybe, you’d talk to
me
or sit with me at lunch and make me feel welcome, but you’re the one who acted like we’d never even met!”

“That’s because you rushed me out of your house so fast that day, it was obvious you weren’t interested in being friends with the secretary’s daughter,” Caissie retorted. “And then I saw you with the elitist Four Hundred club, and everyone knows how they look down their noses at scholarship kids like me and Aaron.”

“I’m
so
not part of that club!” Michele argued. “I didn’t know anything about them that first day. I was just grateful for someone to sit with at lunch. Did you not notice I haven’t sat with them since? That I’ve actually been spending my lunches in the library? And that day when you came over, I was a total mess over my mom, and I’d gotten in an argument with my
grandparents the night before. I was trying not to cry the whole time you were over—that’s why I rushed you out.”

Caissie was silent for a few moments. Then she gave Michele a sheepish look.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I was being an idiot. I just—I hate how that crowd treats me and Aaron. We’re the only students at Berkshire with after-school jobs, subway cards, and no allowance. I wouldn’t even live in this building if it weren’t rent-controlled. You should see the size of my mom’s place; there’s barely room for my own bedroom. But I would be more than cool with my situation if it weren’t for the fact that it seems to give the school snobs the license to treat me like a second-class citizen. And you and your grandparents know my mom as the
help
. So that made me take everything personally, I guess.”