Timeless (33 page)

“Why, it’s you!”

Michele jumped back in surprise. Stella was standing in front of her, wearing a dark evening dress, purse in hand, and looking as though she was just about to leave the house.

“You’re back!” Stella exclaimed, her eyes bugging out.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” Michele said, looking around her. “How are you? Are you okay?”

“Yes. We’re actually just about to leave for the fund-raiser concert Aunt Lily and I organized. Would you like to see it?”

“Of course I would!” Michele followed Stella outside, where Clara and Sam were waiting for her in the Chrysler, the two of them in evening wear. As Sam drove into Times Square, Michele noticed that the thoroughfare’s famously bright, animated signs were all dimmed, making the area seem like a ghost of itself. But the Square was packed, and the Chrysler sat in a traffic jam of cars and cabs.

“This is the most crowded I’ve seen any New York street since the gas ration and dimouts began,” Sam commented. He caught Stella’s eye in the rearview mirror. “They’re all coming for you, sweetie.”

“They’re coming for Lily and to support the war effort,” Stella corrected him, but she looked proud all the same.

As they walked toward the Palace Theater on Broadway, Michele drew in her breath at the scene in front of her. Outside the theater was a long line of people handing bags of precious war materials—rubber, tinfoil, paper, nylon, and silk—to two volunteers standing in front of huge boxes labeled
VICTORY SCRAP DRIVE
. Sam carried their own scrap bag, and Michele followed the family into line. Once they’d handed in their war materials, they moved into the lobby, where two tables were set up with volunteers selling war bonds. After they had bought three bonds, which acted as tickets, they made their way to their reserved seats in the center orchestra.

And what a show it was! Michele stood in the aisle next to Stella’s seat, watching in amazement as Lily emceed the star-studded V for Victory concert. The show began with Lily leading a chorus of soldiers in a rousing rendition of “Over There.” Then the Andrews Sisters, the famous harmonizing trio of the day, performed their hit swing number “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” as the audience stood up and danced in front of their seats. Louis Armstrong came onstage to massive cheers, and he and Lily performed the wistful ballad “The White Cliffs of Dover,” a song symbolizing England’s optimistic hope for a return to peace. Lily, Louis, and the Andrews Sisters performed several other patriotic songs, from “Remember Pearl Harbor” to “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!” As they reached the end of the show, Lily stepped up to the microphone and announced, “This last song is dedicated to my cousin Stella’s brave fiancé, Private Jack Rosen, who died fighting for our country on D-day. He is a hero and he will be greatly missed.”

The audience erupted in applause and cheers for Jack, and when Michele turned to Stella, she saw that she had tears in her eyes. Michele squeezed her hand.

“I have a special guest star on this song,” Lily continued. “Everyone, please welcome Phoenix Warren.”

The audience once again burst into cheers and whistles, and Michele leaned forward, eager to catch a glimpse of the famed man whose composition had inspired her name.

He stepped onstage amid the massive applause, and Michele stared at him. He stood tall and proud in his navy suit adorned with a V for Victory pin, and even with salt-and-pepper hair, he was the type of man who looked handsome and debonair in middle age. As he smiled at the audience, Michele felt a jolt of familiarity. Where had she seen that grin before?

Phoenix strode purposefully to the piano, and that was when Michele saw his deep blue eyes. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Phoenix Warren was really
Philip Walker
!

As Michele was reeling, Lily began to sing to Philip’s accompaniment, their two instruments echoing together beautifully inside the theater.

“I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through
.
In that small café
The park across the way
The children’s carousel
The chestnut tree, the wishing well …”

As Michele stared dizzyingly up at Philip and Lily onstage, she realized how true these lyrics were.
None of these people are alive in my lifetime—but I can still see them, still find them
. If her time travels had shown her anything, it was that 2010 was not the only present time.
Other time periods are all around us, and the spirits of those we’ve loved and lost still surround us. We just have to be able to see them and feel them
.

Michele hurried down the aisle to the edge of the stage, but Philip’s eyes were closed, as they always were when he played.

I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
,
But I’ll be seeing you
.

Philip opened his eyes. She watched as his face registered astonishment at the sight of her, and then those beautiful blue eyes filled with tears.

As Lily and Philip took their bows, Michele hoisted herself up onto the side of the stage and waited for him in the wings. He dashed offstage after a quick bow and seized her hand, pulling her into an empty corridor backstage. They were near each other at last, but as they stood nervously facing each other, it was clear that something was different now. Philip was all grown up.

“So you’re—you’re Phoenix Warren,” Michele stammered. “Would you believe that I was named after your composition?”

“ ‘Michele,’ ” Philip said softly. “I wrote that for you.”

And with that, Michele threw her arms around him and
they shared a long embrace. But something was still different. She had last seen him when they were both teenagers and lovers—but the passage of time for him had waved its wand and now they could only be friends. Friends who had forever, irrevocably changed each other’s lives.

As she pulled away, Michele said, “So you kept your promise to me, then. I had thought—well, I didn’t know what happened to you.…”

“When I read in the paper back in ’27 that Uncle and Mother believed me to be dead, I realized … perhaps it was a divine mistake,” Philip said. “They were so determined that no Walker heir should be a performer, and did everything they could to wreck my career and life, even by proxy when I was in London. So I realized that I had lost everything that mattered to me but my music. And I decided that Philip James Walker would be no more, and be reborn as someone new—just as a phoenix rises from the ashes.”

“Wow …”
Michele clasped his hand. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to know that you’re all right, better than all right—that you’re living your dream.”

Philip smiled. “I had to. I couldn’t break my promise to you. And now … will you make me the same promise? To always move forward with life, pursue your writing, and have a family?”

“I thought you promised you’d come back to me,” Michele couldn’t help saying as tears stung her eyes.

Philip gently wiped away her tear. “I will,” he said. “Somehow. It just might not be in the way you expect.”

Before Michele had a chance to ask what he meant by that, she heard the sound of footsteps backstage. She turned to see a
smartly dressed woman in her forties, with strawberry-blond hair and sandy brown eyes.

“Darling, you were wonderful!” the woman exclaimed, hurrying to Philip’s side and wrapping her arms possessively around his neck. Michele shrank back, feeling as if she had just been punched in the stomach.

Philip turned to give Michele an apologetic look, but Michele shook her head and said through her tears, “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re not alone.”

And with that, she ran onto the stage and down the steps to the audience, and there was Stella, looking for someone.

“There you are,” she said when she saw Michele. “Are you all right? Why are you crying?”

Be brave like Stella
, Michele reminded herself. “I’m okay. Congratulations, Stella, you did a wonderful thing tonight.”

Stella gave her a small smile. “Thanks. I just wish Jack had seen it.”

“I know he did,” Michele assured her.

Stella took her hand. “Come on. We’re going home.”

On the drive back to the Windsor Mansion, Michele somehow instinctively knew that she was going home to her own time—to stay. Sure enough, when she climbed out of the 1940s Chrysler, she found that she was suddenly alone. She turned back to see where Stella and her parents were, but they had vanished, along with the vintage car. She was back in 2010.

T
hat night, Michele dreamt of her mother.…

Michele was heading upstairs, smiling contentedly. She stopped in shock when she saw the vision at the top of the staircase—Marion, surrounded by a hazy white glow
.

“Mom!” Michele cried, running into her mother’s outstretched arms
.

“You did very well, sweetheart,” Marion said, beaming at her daughter
.

“Mom! It’s so good to see you.” She buried her face in Marion’s shoulder, breathing in her mom’s comfortingly familiar scent. She looked up excitedly. “I’ve thought of something—by going back in
time, I was able to change history. I’m going to find a way to go back to that day and save you!”

Marion shook her head slowly. “No, sweetie, you can’t. It was my time to go. When it’s your time, there is nothing any of us can do to change that.”

Michele looked down, her eyes brimming with tears. “But why—why was it your time? How can it be, when you were still so young? And I need you, so much.”

Marion held Michele’s face in her hands
.

“But I’m always here with you, just as Philip is. And I’ve already fulfilled my purpose on this earth.”

“What was it?” Michele asked, wiping her eyes
.

“Bringing you into the world, of course,” Marion answered, smiling. “Because you are a girl with the potential to change the world.”

Marion threw her arms around her daughter, and the two of them shared a tight, tearful embrace
.

“Mom—I found out the truth about him,” Michele blurted out. “My dad.”

Marion smiled tearfully. “I know. It’s such a shock—and yet it makes sense in a way. It explains so much.”

“Have you seen him?” Michele asked breathlessly. “I mean, now that you’re both—”

Marion shook her head, her eyes pained. “No. And I have this feeling that—that he hasn’t left the earth, not really. That he’s still traveling, still looking for … something.”

“I’m going to find him,” Michele declared, her heartbeat quickening with anticipation. “I don’t know when or how—but I know I’m going to find him. For both of us.”

Marion nodded, smoothing her daughter’s hair and giving her a tender smile
.

“It’s time for me to go now, my sweet Michele,” she said softly. “Please know that I will love you always.”

“I love you too, Mom. Forever,” Michele whispered
.

“I’ll be seeing you,” Marion said with a smile, just before vanishing
.

The next morning, Michele walked up the front steps to school, a spring in her step. For the first time since her arrival in New York, she was ready to live
—truly
live—in her own time again. She finally felt ready to surrender to the present.

As she was digging in her bag for her homework assignment, she heard the sound of a late student skidding into the room just as the final bell rang.

“Class, we have another new transfer student,” Mr. Lewis announced. “Everyone, meet Philip Walker.”

Michele’s head snapped up in shock.

Oh—my—God
.

She was too stunned to move a muscle as she locked eyes with the spitting image of a young Philip Walker. Michele realized with a jolt that
this
was who she had seen by the school office that day when she’d thought she had seen her Philip.