Alex.
Porter’s voice was so loud in my ear, it was like he was right beside me. I jumped, and my bottom slipped on the porcelain, plunging me all the way under the water. I grappled for the sides of the tub and pulled myself up, gasping for breath and swiping water from my eyes.
I looked left and right, my heart in my throat, but Porter wasn’t there.
You need to come back now.
His words resonated inside my skull like the gong of a bell. His voice filled every inch of it and set my teeth on edge, making me wince. I pressed the heels of my palms to my temples and told him to get out of my head. The intrusion, the overwhelming pressure, was unbearable.
I didn’t tell you the rules. You have to come back before you–
I dug my palms into my temples. I felt my grip on the past slipping away from me. Limbo tugged. Beckoned. Was Porter pulling me out of the past? Could he even do that? I struggled to resist the pull, but it was like being underwater and trying to keep my body from floating to the surface. I fought with everything I had, desperate to stay submerged in the past. I clung to 1927. I tried to ignore the tugging at my edges, the net pulling my soul skyward, and simply focused on Blue. I wouldn’t leave just yet. I refused.
Alex.
I fought harder.
I struggled longer.
Until finally the net snapped.
The pressure lifted.
I sat in the tub, breathing hard, heart pounding, water dripping from my ruined curls.
Porter was gone. Equal parts relief and guilt twisted inside me.
I would do as Porter said and return to Limbo, but I’d go when my evening was over. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I wasn’t ready to return to the land of Wayspaz the Fix-it Freak.
THE EEL’S HIPS
Back in her bedroom, Helena combed out the curls she’d kindly tied for me the night before. She giggled when I told her I slipped in the tub.
“That’s all right, kitten,” she said as she fastened my wet hair in a flat bun at the nape of my neck. “You’ll wear a hat and no one’ll be the wiser.”
Apparently, all the women wore their long hair in a bun in those days if they didn’t feel convinced to cut it. I didn’t know why my past self still had long hair, especially since cutting it meant so much to the women of the age. Short hair meant freedom. Independence. Equality. All things I believed in. So why hadn’t I chopped mine off? Was I too conservative? That didn’t seem to fit. What proper conservative lady knew how to fight like a wildcat? And wore beat-up ankle boots? Helena said I probably kept my hair long out of respect for my parents. Blue on the other hand, still believing I was some gangster’s squeeze, suggested I had a backward thinking husband at home, waiting for me to cook his supper.
I elbowed him in the ribs for that one, and prayed to God it wasn’t true. Girls didn’t get married at seventeen back then, did they? The thought made me feel sorta queasy.
When Helena finished my makeup, I looked in her mirror and turned my chin to the left and right. A movie starlet stared back at me. Helena showed me how to blot my red lips on a tissue. Then she showed me the dress. Brand new in her eyes, mint vintage in mine. It was a navy blue slip-on dress with a low waist and tiny white polkadots. The hemline hit just above my knees. Long, flowing sleeves gathered daintily at my wrists. Tan stockings and white heels made me look twice my age. It was like I’d rummaged through Gran’s closet for a costume party. Not quite flapper, but definitely chic. Claire would be so jealous. She was the fashion guru of the household.
Helena let me borrow a silk scarf to go with the green trench and white gloves. When she secured a navy blue cloche hat over my hair, I almost didn’t recognize myself. I felt very much the part, standing next to Blue in his white collar shirt, green sweater vest and tie, caramel-colored suit, and brown flat cap tilted to the side. Helena whistled and said he was the eel’s hips, whatever that meant. When I told him he looked smokin’ hot, he just shook his head and said, “Nah, I’m not hot at all. This suit breathes really well.”
I won’t lie. In that moment, my heart melted a little for Nicholas Piasecki.
“Now, Nicky,” Helena said, shooing us down the front steps of their apartment to the sidewalk. “Show her a good time, will you? Poor girl’s lost her memory. The least you can do is make it a night she’ll never forget.”
CHAPTER 9
BURGERS, FRIES, AND PIANO WIRE
Chicago was alive and bustling. The sky was bright and blue. Possibility nipped my nose, riding on the back of a crisp breeze. I couldn’t believe I’d been let loose in a big city with a boy. I’d never gone anywhere alone with a boy, unless I counted Dad or my six year-old cousin, Harrison.
Which I didn’t.
No boy had ever looked twice at me back home. I was the Fix-it Freak in nerd glasses with epilepsy, for goodness sake. A far cry from suitable dating material. At the rate I was going, I’d have a master’s degree before I had my first kiss.
Not that I was one of those girls who spent their time agonizing over things like kissing and dating. I had better things to do.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t want them.
Being out with Blue made me feel normal. I never felt so comfortable and relaxed with anyone outside my family before. It didn’t feel like I’d just met him. It felt like I’d known him my whole life, like I was remembering him rather than getting to know him, just like I felt about Porter. Blue treated me like an equal. He didn’t laugh or call me freak.
Never mind kissing and dating – Blue showed me what it was like to have a friend.
We boarded a streetcar and headed downtown. Buildings grew taller and wider as we moved east. The traffic got thicker, and police officers manned hand-operated stop lights in booths perched above the cars. The city was exuberant and full of life, but I could sense tension rolling through the streets. It was like a thick fog, slinking in and around everyone, everything. Like pressure pressing up against glass, just enough to make it moan and creak. Enough to make you feel suffocated. Caged.
Eventually, as I learned long ago in history class, the glass would give. The Roaring Twenties would shatter into a million pieces like Sloan’s bakery windows. Two more years of pressure, of expansion. Then…
Crack.
We hopped off the streetcar and ducked into a diner that was one of Blue’s favorite places to eat. It was a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint with really bad lighting. We wove our way through the tables and chairs and slipped into one of the back booths. A layer of grease and smoke coated your skin the moment you walked in, and the smell alone could clog an artery. Cooks in white paper caps and grease-stained aprons flipped burgers and grilled buns, and waitresses bobbed from table to table. At the counter, men sat shoulder-to-shoulder in trousers, caps, and coats, hunched over from a hard day’s work. They laughed. They smoked. They argued over how the Chicago Bears were doing.
I loved every minute of it.
No movie I’d seen had ever come close to replicating what it really felt like to be in the Twenties. They all seemed so clichéd now. I wished I had my cell phone so I could take a photo or video. I wanted to remember this experience forever.
And yet, even amid the hustle and bustle of the after-work dinner crowd, that looming pressure continued to build. Like a storm brewing in the distance.
I had to warn Blue.
“I’ve been thinking about the money,” I said, my voice low. Not that anyone could have heard me over the lively debate going on at the counter and the sizzle of the grill.
Blue leaned closer, his hands clasped between his knees under the table. The cap he wore cast a shadow over his face. “You and me both.”