The Art of the Swap

by Kristine Asselin

  Except maybe it doesn’t have to be.

  Yesterday Tara said if women hadn’t protested over the years, the world wouldn’t have been ready for a woman to run for president. Generations of women must have taken lots of baby steps to earn these freedoms. Generations that include me. Maybe there’s something I can do to help things along. I’ve heard Mrs. Belmont whispering to Aunt Herminie about trying to involve society ladies in a movement to help women get the vote; maybe I can join them! From there, anything’s possible!

  It’s so very obvious to me why Hannah went back in time—she needed to prevent the heist. But I’ve been pondering my purpose for traveling forward. I thought it was only to clear the way for Hannah. But now I wonder. Maybe I needed to see things here to have a vision for what could be for me. My time here has been so short, but it has opened my eyes to something much longer in duration—a purpose for my whole life. My life doesn’t have to be a whirlwind of meaningless balls and dinner parties; I can contribute something important. Something that will have a lasting effect.

  I think I finally understand why all this is happening. I need to stop bemoaning the things I’m not “supposed” to do, according to my aunt and my father (and society at large), and start doing the things that make me happy, like running and reading as much as I want. Maybe even playing lawn tennis until I perspire and sliding down a banister once in a while. I bet there are a lot of girls my age and older who would love to get a chance to do something outside the so-called rules.

  I’m suddenly beyond eager to get home and begin planning right away! I’ll find out from Mrs. Belmont how to get involved. It’s not going to be easy. Many people—including women—won’t think that these changes are appropriate.

  And no matter how outraged Aunt Herminie might be, I’m going to find a way to continue running! I will never tire of the wind in my hair and the feeling of freedom I get when I run.

  My brain is whirring with the possibilities. “Did you ever play a sport when you were younger?” I blurt as Florence eases the car between the white lines painted on the surface of the driveway. It’s suddenly important to me to find out more about her before I leave.

  Florence looks at me in surprise, startled for a moment out of her hurt feelings. “I confess that’s the last thing I expected you to want to discuss right now.” She chuckles. “I’m more of an artist than an athlete. But my grandmother was a long-distance runner before it was acceptable for women to really be active in sports. She has always been an inspiration to me.” There’s a wistful tone to her voice, and I wonder if she’s missing her family in the same way I’m missing mine.

  We get out of the car and start up the path toward The Elms’ front entrance, and I try to think of something to say. “Thank you for all your help.”

  “Oh, Hannah. You’re welcome. I’m sorry about the way I acted when we got into the car. I respect that you would want to do your best to confirm a rumor before sharing it. I know you’ll tell me more after the key comes from Mrs. Jones tomorrow.” She squeezes my shoulder. “I need to confess something to you,” she says. “I arrived the other day as a result of a complaint from Trent. About you.”

  I gasped. “What?”

  “Now, don’t worry.” She waves her arms like she’s swatting a fly. “The Antiquities Society knows that he is inclined to exaggerate. Actually . . .” She pauses. “He’s a bit of a blowhard, if you ask me. But we still needed to investigate the . . . how did he put it? ‘The bratty, know-it-all girl who interrupts my tours.’ ” She laughs. “My confession is that I never expected you to be a kindred soul with such a passion for history.” She pulls me into a tight hug. “Promise me you’ll never lose that passion.”

  I relax into her embrace; even though I can’t tell her who I really am, I feel like she understands. As I pull away, I notice for the first time the edge of something silver peeking out from under her jacket.

  “My lucky locket,” she says, noticing my gaze and pulling it out for me to see. “It’s an heirloom.” She opens it to reveal a small picture of a child. “And this is my granddaughter.”

  My heart pounds for no obvious reason as I look at the locket. For a moment I wonder if it IS my locket, but then I remember I’ve left it at home. “I have one that looks very much like that, but the chain is shorter.”

  “The ones at the gift shop are best sellers.” She tucks the necklace back into her blouse.

  “Mine used to be for luck as well,” I say, “but I don’t need it for that anymore. Good friends are a better talisman.”

  Florence nods. “Good friends are a gift. That is for sure.”

  Suddenly I can’t wait to tell Hannah everything.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Hannah

  MY DAD WOULD BIRTH KITTENS if he knew I had a boy in my bedroom closet.

  Don’t worry, Dad. This one refuses to open the door.

  As soon as the coast was clear, I tried to get in to talk to Jonah, but he must have been holding the doorknob, because it refused to budge. And when I attempted to speak to him through it, he cut me off at “Jonah—”

  “Please, Hannah. I can’t talk right now.” It sounded like he was speaking through tears.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I did . . . nothing.

  Only, now it has been at least an hour, maybe more, and I’ve done my own share of crying, waiting for him to open the door. It doesn’t seem like that’s ever going to happen. It’s perfectly quiet in there; in fact, there’s been no noise on the floor at all since Mrs. Berwind poked her head in right after my big “confession.” She started to fuss over me, but then Mr. Berwind showed up and hustled her out. I overheard him say she should leave me alone to rest because my “delicate female constitution can’t handle all this drama, poor thing.”

  If I hadn’t been so upset about Jonah, that would have made me scream.

  Um, hello. Delicate females, my foot. Let me start a list for you of women who handle(d) the drama just fine, thank you very much:

  Abby Wambach

  Rey from Star Wars (fictional, but still)

  Rosa Parks

  Marie Curie

  Susan B. Anthony

  Malala Yousafzai

  Wonder Woman (also fictional, but STILL)

  I could go on for about ten years, but . . .

  It’s not what’s important right now.

  I slide off the bed and crawl over to the closet door again. I tap lightly. “Jonah?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  I take a breath like I’m about to swim the entire Olympic hundred-meter dash underwater. Is that a thing? Well, whatever. I’d rather be doing that anyway. I’d rather be doing just about anything else in the world.

  “Jonah, please?” It’s all I can get out.

  Nothing. But just when I’m about to give up and crawl back to my bed, the doorknob turns.

  Jonah peers at me from the darkness of my closet, like a trapped animal. Which he kind of is. His eyes are the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, and he doesn’t do anything more than stare at me, but the Why? is written all over his face.

  I slide my earring from my lobe and drop it, so that I have a ready excuse for what I’m doing on the floor if anyone should barge in. Breathe, Hannah. “I know you don’t understand—or maybe you do—but I know it sucks, and I just . . . Do you understand?”

  He doesn’t answer, just stares off into some nothingness over my shoulder.

  “Okay,” I say, taking another deep inhale. “The thing is, well . . .”

  “I’m in the history books, aren’t I? As the one blamed for the crime?” Jonah asks when I literally can’t make myself say the next words. “You can’t change it because it’s already written.” His voice is flat and dull, like he has already accepted his fate.

  I nod because my throat closes up too much for me to speak. He really is so smart.

  “You used me this whole time.” He doesn’t even sound angry, just sad. Betrayed.

  “NO!” I nearly
scream it, and I have to clamp a hand over my mouth. I don’t want anyone coming in to check on me. “No,” I repeat, more quietly but just as urgently. “I mean, I knew that history blamed you, but I always had my doubts and lots of people vouched for how nice you were and how you would never have done something like that. To be perfectly honest, when I first approached you in the tunnel, it was partly to rule you out as a suspect but also . . . well, partly to keep an eye on you in case you were the thief.” I hang my head.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, before adding, “but you have to believe me. I swear I thought that Maggie and I could switch back whenever we wanted. We didn’t know any of that stuff about the alternate time line until after you and I had stopped the heist. You know that! You were there!”

  He raises his eyes to mine finally, and something glimmers in there. Like maybe he remembers. Like maybe he believes me.

  “But then you didn’t say anything once you did realize,” he says. “All last night. This morning in the tunnel. You were perfectly fine letting me continue to help you.”

  I take this with only a small wince. He’s not wrong. “Things didn’t click into place for me until the ball. What it would mean for you, I mean. And this morning I—I was trying to work up the courage to tell you when . . . when . . . well, you know. When we were interrupted.”

  He nods but doesn’t say anything. I’m desperate to ask him if he understands how I never wanted any of this to happen, how all I wanted was to spend some time in the Gilded Age and then everything with the art heist stuff just started snowballing and . . .

  I wish I’d never come here. I wish I were safe in my own room, curled up in my bed with my stuffed bear, Windy. I’m so homesick, it hurts.

  But it’s not about making me feel better. It’s about Jonah.

  He’s quiet for a long time, and then he says, “What do the history books say? Do I go to jail for life?” He sounds totally resigned. I shake my head so hard and fast, it practically swivels off my neck. “NO! No, you don’t! I promise. You—you escape Newport. You’re never caught! It’s like this huge century-old mystery or whatever. But I swear, you don’t go to jail for it. At least, not in my time line.”

  Now it’s his turn to exhale. About a hundred times. When he can speak again, he asks, “Never caught, huh? I’m a notorious fugitive?” There’s a hint of something in his voice that kind of matches that adventure-y eye twinkle tell of his, and my heart leaps with hope.

  “Um . . . I guess so?” I mean, the history books don’t make him out to be Billy the Kid or anything. Mostly they just say he was never heard from again, and neither was any news of the painting, but if he wants to think of himself that way, I’m sure not gonna be the one to stop him.

  “How?” he asks.

  “Huh?”

  “How can I possibly escape? Between my mother’s and my jobs, we barely put food on the table. How would we ever afford to run away? Where would we go? How will we get new jobs without papers and a letter of recommendation from the Berwinds? I can’t—I can’t picture it.”

  “I know. We’ll figure it out, I promise. This is all my fault, and I swear I’m not going to abandon you. We’ll figure it out!”

  “You said that twice,” he murmurs, sounding doubtful again.

  “I know. I really mean it, that’s why.”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t believe me?” I ask.

  “I believe that you believe it. But you’re from a different time. Everything is different for someone like you.”

  “Someone like me? What? It’s not like I’m rich, like Maggie is,” I say. “I work at The Elms in the future, just like you do here.”

  Only, that’s not really true. Yes, I work at The Elms, or at least my dad does. But it’s a hundred kinds of different. I have . . . options. I have education. And we’re not rich, true, but we can afford things like vacations and new school clothes and soccer registration fees, and my dad is forever telling me I can be anything I can dream of, and I believe him.

  Has anyone ever told Jonah that? Would he have any reason to believe them? Jonah definitely has serious street smarts, based on all his ideas for hiding the painting, but it’s not the same. He’s not a slave or anything, but he might as well be, for all the chances he has of changing things for himself in any real way. Without money and school, he’s basically looking at an entire life doing exactly what he’s doing at this age.

  Jonah slumps farther into the closet, and my heart drops into my gut.

  “I’ll, um—I’ll give you some privacy while I think of ways to do this escape. You probably want to, like, digest all this, I’m guessing,” I say.

  I leave the door cracked a bit, so at least he has a sliver of light, but he’ll be safely hidden from anyone coming in. Then I cross the room and plop onto the lounging chaise. I wish these were still a thing in my time; it’s like an extra-fancy version of a reclining beach chair. It’s also the perfect place for a sulk.

  My head hurts and my stomach cramps. It feels like every body part is encased in armor and like moving would be the hardest thing ever. Maybe I really am getting sick. Not from the drama but from how overwhelming everything feels.

  I have no idea how to get to the painting. I have no idea how to help Jonah while still keeping everything okay in the future. I have no idea about any of it. And I miss home. I miss my dad and Tara and my phone and Windy and my whole entire life. I would give anything—anything—to be back there now, with no worries bigger than how to get Ethan to ask me to hang out, which I couldn’t really care less about right now.

  I wish, I wish, I wish.

  I have to wake Jonah after my lunch is delivered by one of the maids on a silver platter. I give him all of it. I don’t think I could eat anyway.

  I just want to go home.

  “I’m really sorry about this whole entire mess,” I tell him.

  “Don’t be. It isn’t your fault.”

  “Um, actually, yeah, it’s exactly my fault.”

  He smiles slightly. “I was trying to make you feel better. But truthfully, I didn’t have to help you when you asked.”

  “Wrong again. What were you going to do? Say no to the niece of your boss?” I ask.

  “You’re very hard to cheer up, you know.”

  And that just makes my stomach twist even harder. Why should Jonah be trying to cheer me up when it should be the other way around?

  “I really am super-sorry,” I say again.

  “I know.”

  But that’s not good enough. I didn’t give up last season when we were down by four goals in the second half of the division finals, did I? NO WAY! I’m not a give-up kind of girl. I’ve been mopey all morning, but what I should have been doing was figuring out a plan. The Louis XV armchair is gone, so there’s no way Maggie can get the key in the future. It’s up to me.

  I begin pacing the room. I whisper, so no one (cough, Colette, cough) who might stick their ear to the door will hear talking inside, but I’m loud enough that Jonah can hear me.

  “Okay, we need a plan of action to get you out of here and maybe get me home. Enough hiding and waiting. Here’s what I’m thinking: I can’t get to New York without attracting all kinds of attention, and you need to escape Newport, so it’s only logical that we need to sneak you on a train to the city. Once you’re there, you find the shop that has the chair and pretend to be Mrs. Berwind’s errand boy, sent to check on their progress.”

  The more I get going, the more the plan just falls into place in my head. Like my brain was working behind the scenes the whole time I was sulking.

  I race on. “I can disconnect the phone and intercept any telegrams, so there’s no way the chair cleaners can contact the house to confirm. They’ll definitely let you see the chair. Then you just have to pretend to inspect it and get close enough to sneak the key out. Okay, so maybe that’s not as easy as it sounds, but I have total faith in you. I’ve seen how fast you think on your feet, Einstein.”

&n
bsp; Jonah blushes at that. But then his eyes drop. “My mother? I can’t just—”

  “I’ll take care of that. Once everyone’s in bed tonight, we’ll sneak you out so you can get word to your mom. Can you reach her without anyone noticing?”

  Jonah nods.

  “Do you think . . . um, do you think she’ll flip out?”

  “If that means what I imagine it does, then yes, probably. But the alternative is her son in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. I think given that choice, she’ll go along with whatever plan we come up with. I’ll make it up to her, I swear it.”

  I duck my head. “I know you will. You’re a really good guy. And I’m really, really sorry. Again.”

  Jonah nods quietly.

  I blow out a breath. “Okay, so then you’ll sneak back here and I’ll let you in. You can sleep in the closet tonight.”

  Even in the shadows, I can see Jonah’s cheeks turn red. “I—I believe I would be more comfortable in the tunnel.”

  I shrug. “Whatever. If you really don’t think anyone will go down there.”

  I resume my pacing, but this time I’m grabbing little items here and there and tossing them onto my bed. A silver brush. A hand mirror with a mother-of-pearl handle. I take off the locket Maggie had on when I swapped into her body and add it to the pile, but then I reconsider and instead add a hairpin that looks like it might have a real jewel in the center. If she was wearing the necklace, it might mean something to her. I’m hoping she won’t mind sacrificing these other things to the cause.

  “I’m guessing that selling off even one of these will bring in enough money to get you around New York and back here, once you have the key. Then it’s just a matter of planning how to meet up so you don’t have to risk coming back to the house, and then figuring out a plan for you and your mom to skip town permanently, but that will come to me.”

  I pause to finally take a breath. “I really think this could work!”