by Bess McBride
“Sounds perilous, Pauline,” Annie said, studying him with more interest than usual, if that were possible. She hadn’t previously imagined him facing off with a grizzly bear, but now that she thought about it, he seemed just the sort of man to put himself in danger for the perfect shot. Annie herself avoided situations and pursuits that frightened her—heights, the gaping jaws of wild animals, bungee jumping, whitewater rafting, but Marie enjoyed a good scare…as often as possible.
“Now, that’s my kind of photography,” Marie said with interest. “I always wanted to take up wildlife photography, but my job at school keeps me pretty busy taming the female wildlife on the court.”
“On the court?” Rory asked. He turned to Annie. “Pauline?”
Annie chuckled to see him trying to keep up with their obscure comments.
“Court. Volleyball. I coach girls’ volleyball,” Marie responded. “You guys have volleyball, don’t you?”
“Guys as in men? Yes, men do play volleyball. I believe young ladies do as well, though only informally.”
“Oh, really?” Marie said as the waiter arrived with the tea to take their order. “Well, that has to change.”
They busied themselves with placing their orders, and pouring tea.
“And how might that change?” Rory asked with interest.
Annie watched the exchange between the Rory and her sister, thinking how much they had in common in addition to their tall, elegant and athletic frames.
Marie sipped her tea and quirked an eyebrow. “Well, if I had to stay here, I’d certainly organize a professional girls’ volleyball league.”
Rory matched the lift of her eyebrow. “Indeed? That is most progressive of you, Miss Marie. The ladies of our time do participate in some organized athletic endeavors, of course—tennis, lawn bowling, but not volleyball, I think.”
“They will, though,” she said with a smirk.
“Ah, the future,” Rory said. “Yes.” He pressed his lips together and didn’t elaborate, and Annie knew he continued to have doubts.
“At any rate,” Marie continued, “I don’t plan on staying too much longer, so unfortunately, I won’t have time to educate Seattle on organized volleyball for women.”
Rory shot a quick look toward Annie, but she couldn’t interpret his expression. She remained silent.
“You do not like it here,” he stated flatly.
Had Marie not answered, Annie would have because she couldn’t bear to hear the disappointment in his voice.
“No, no, I’m sure it’s fine,” Marie said. “It’s just different, that’s all. I’ll be frank. I do like my own time better.”
“And you, Miss St. John?”
“Me?” Annie said, stalling. “It’s…um…interesting.” She could have bopped herself for such an uninspired answer. It did little to return the smile to Rory’s face.
“But do you prefer your own time, as your sister calls it?”
Annie opened her mouth to mutter something unintelligible, but fortunately, the waiter arrived with the food and she pretended she had forgotten the question. Coincidentally, she thought she was rapidly forgetting that she’d ever had a life before meeting Rory O’Rourke. How could she know if she preferred her own time…if Rory wasn’t in it?
He didn’t press for an answer, and Annie suspected he’d already forgotten the question. Marie engaged Rory in a discussion on the value of the various athletic disciplines open to females in 1906, and Annie was content to listen. Having never been a sportster but more into art, she really had no opinion on the matter other than knowing that it would soon change.
They were sipping their last cup of tea following breakfast when Rory’s father entered the dining room. He stopped short when he saw Rory but made his way over to the table. Annie felt rather than saw Rory tense.
“We meet again, Miss St. John,” Mr. O’Rourke said with a gallant, if exaggerated bow. “And who might this lovely young lady be?” He seemed to avoid Rory’s eyes as he smiled at Marie.
“This is Miss Marie St. John, Miss St. John’s sister. Miss Marie, this is my father, Harold O’Rourke Senior.”
Marie sent Annie a dubious look as Mr. O’Rourke bent over her hand.
Rory rose abruptly. “Are you ready, ladies?”
Startled, Annie downed her cup of tea and jumped up. Marie nodded and stood.
“My apologies, Father,” Rory said. “We were just about to set out.”
Mr. O’Rourke seemed to ignore Rory’s haste. “So lovely to meet you, Miss Marie. And I hope you have recovered from your mishap this morning, Miss St. John?” he asked Annie.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Good day, Father.” Rory held out his arms in a peremptory fashion, and Annie and Marie attached themselves to him as if commanded. Annie looked back as they left the room to see Rory’s father watching them, a look of curiosity on his face mingled with something else…pain? He smiled, and she gave him a quick smile in return.
“So, that was your father,” Marie murmured. “He seems nice.”
“Yes,” Rory said shortly. “Joseph will be waiting with the carriage below.”
They stepped outside to the hustle and bustle of the three streets converging in front of the hotel given its flatiron shape; much busier and more congested than when Annie had emerged from the hotel earlier. A mass of pedestrians virtually covered the sidewalks as they went about their business. The now familiar ringing of the streetcar bells seemed almost deafening as numerous cars butted up to one another in the congested square.
Marie maneuvered the stairs with more ease than the previous night, and Annie’s morning practice paid off in growing comfort with the steep steps.
“Marie, look at all the streetcars!” Annie said. “I’ve never been on one,” she confided to Rory.
“Would you like to take the streetcar to the park?” Rory said with enthusiasm. “Joseph can follow us in the carriage.”
Annie saw the carriage waiting at curbside, the patient driver having jumped down to hold the door open for them.
“Really?” Annie almost squeaked.
“Don’t encourage her, Rory,” Marie said dryly. “Annie loves all things involving travel. Trains, planes, ships, and now apparently streetcars.”
“A girl after my own heart,” Rory responded with a grin.
Annie caught her breath at his words but scolded herself almost immediately. It was just an expression.
“Let me speak to Joseph and then we shall hop aboard.” Rory stopped and addressed a few words to Joseph, who nodded and climbed back onto the carriage.
“Shall we?” Rory said. He held out a hand, and one of the slow-moving cars stopped. Rory helped them aboard, and Annie and Marie took the last remaining seats facing outward while he stood on the running board and hung onto a rail. Marie watched the commotion of the downtown streets with interest while Annie, self-conscious that Rory faced them, touched her hat to reassure herself it still sat straight on her head.
“That is a lovely hat, Miss St. John,” Rory said with a nod of approval. “And yes, it is still on top of your head where it should be.” Annie thought she saw a teasing light in his eyes, and she returned his smile. Given the close proximity necessitated by him standing on the platform, she didn’t think they had more than a foot between them, and her heart jumped around irregularly.
“Thank you, Mr. O’Rourke. It’s hard to tell. I don’t usually wear hats, certainly not any that require a hatpin, so I’d never know if I was wearing it or not. That’s a mighty sporty hat you have on today.” She nodded toward his straw hat, a dark blue ribbon wrapped around the crown.
He tapped the edge of his hat and nodded his appreciation. “Ah! My boater! It is summer, and we are embarking on a picnic. It is only fitting.”
Annie noted quite a few men on the streetcar and along the road wore the “boaters,” though none so well as Rory, in her opinion. Something about his black hair set the jaunty hat off to perfection.
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��Where do you get your dark hair, Mr. O’Rourke?”
Rory looked taken aback for a moment. “Well, I suppose my mother,” he said. “My father’s hair was more red before it silvered, but my mother’s hair is still black, even now. I believe her grandmother’s hair was black as well.”
“Black Irish,” Annie mused, still staring at the handsome lines of his clean-cut face and well-trimmed sideburns.
“As you say, Black Irish.”
“So, why don’t you wear a mustache?” Annie, having surveyed several other men on the streetcar, noted they all had facial hair. “They look fairly common in your era.”
Rory’s raised a hand to his mouth to clear his throat. “A mustache?” He shook his head. “I do not like them. I prefer to be smooth shaven, though my toilette might take less time if I did grow facial hair.”
“So, it’s not mandatory or anything? Growing a mustache or a beard?”
“No, it is the fashion, and although you may think me a slave to fashion given my boater, I am not.” He grinned and tapped his hat again as he spoke.
The streetcar jerked just then, and Rory seemed to lose his footing. Annie cried out and half rose to grab at him, pulling him down onto her. He braced his arms on either side of her, and his face came perilously close to hers. She could have kissed him if she’d had the courage. Blue eyes stared into hers for a moment.
“Annie!” Marie laughed. “Good gravy! Let the poor man go!”
Annie colored, and let Rory go. He grinned and brushed his lips against her cheek before pushing himself up to a standing position.
“I’m sorry! I thought you were going to fall off.” She turned to Marie. “He was falling!”
“I was, Miss St. John. Had it not been for you, I would have landed on the street below, no doubt to be run down by a grocer’s wagon.” Rory’s eyes twinkled.
“Been there,” Annie mumbled with a bemused smile. Had he really kissed her cheek or had she imagined it?
“Ah, yes, you were…only this morning. I had better pay attention and grip the pole more tightly if I wish to make it to the park in one piece.”
Annie avoided his sparkling eyes and turned to watch the activity in the streets as the streetcar picked up speed once free of the downtown area. The car began to ascend a hill, and Annie kept a veiled eye on Rory to see that he didn’t lose his footing again. For the next hour, Rory pointed out various points of interest, and Annie listened intently, loving the nuances of his voice and his obvious pride in the city of his birth.
“If you turn your heads, you can see the pavilion, which is the terminus for the streetcar at Leschi Park—a beautiful building, to be sure.”
Annie looked to her right and saw the building, an immense brick building, about three stories high, topped with caps and turrets.
“They hold dances here in the summer. The pavilion is situated next to a delightful boathouse where visitors can rent canoes and drift about on Lake Washington.”
“Canoes?” Annie asked.
“I told you, Rory,” Marie interjected, “any form of transportation, and Annie is in!”
“Then we shall hire a canoe and satisfy her hunger for travel,” Rory said with a chuckle.
“Oh, no, we don’t have to,” Annie said half-heartedly. Of course, she wanted to. A canoe? Oh, yes, please!
They descended from the streetcar and wandered around the pavilion for a while. Annie, mesmerized by the grandeur of the primarily open-air building, paused on the second floor wraparound balcony to survey the park. Lush trees and shrubs provided an emerald border for concrete walkways that meandered through the well-maintained gardens of the park. A rainbow of flowers bloomed, providing a colorful backdrop for the park goers who strolled the paths or rested on the benches dotted throughout—the women and children in their summer finery, many of the men sporting lighter-colored suits than she had seen downtown. Apparently, light colors were the order of the day for the park.
“This is Lake Washington,” Rory said. Annie turned to the right to see a stunning lake of immense proportions. No small pond, she would not have wanted to attempt to swim to the heavily treed shores on the other side of the lake. The boathouse, a wonderfully Victorian-style single-story building crowned by a cupola, floated at the edge of the dock to the pavilion. Canoes and small boats were tied up alongside in a picturesque sight. As Rory had said, boaters drifted on the lake, seemingly in no hurry to row in any given direction. The occasional brightly colored parasol could be seen shading ladies in some of the boats.
“Would you like to go out on the lake first or are you hungry?” Rory asked.
“Lake,” Annie chimed in.
“Lake,” Marie echoed. “I’ll row.”
Rory laughed. “No, no, Miss Marie, rowing is a man’s job—at least, it will be today.”
Annie chuckled as he intercepted Marie’s likely retort, which had appeared likely from the breath she sucked in at his words.
They made their way down to the boathouse, and Annie and Marie watched the boaters on the lake while Rory rented a canoe.
“This looks like fun, but how are we going to get into a canoe in these skirts?” Annie muttered.
“What I want to know is where’s my umbrella?” Marie snickered.
“Parasol.”
“Umbrella to me,” Marie maintained. “What a chauvinist,” she said in a dry voice with an eye on Rory.
“I know. Isn’t he adorable? So turn of the century!” Annie said, turning to study his tall, trim form in light brown suit and boater. She would never be able to return to her own time and think a straw hat on a man was only suitable for a barbershop quartet. In fact, she wasn’t quite sure how she would be able to return at all. There was something so special about this era, so relaxed, so peaceful. It wasn’t that Seattle, or even the park, weren’t crowded and didn’t exhibit the usual hustle and bustle of a large city, but that people seemed to walk slower, drive slower, travel slower, eat slower. She sighed.
Marie clicked her fingers in Annie’s face. “Snap out of it! You can’t stay here. Don’t go falling for him, Annie. That’s just a pipe dream. We don’t belong here. This fun little living history vacation is all well and good, but we’re not staying. Besides, I thought you said he was engaged.”
Annie averted her gaze from Rory to look at Marie. She shrugged helplessly.
“I know! He might be, I don’t know. I hope not.” She hurried on when Marie started to protest. “I know we can’t stay, not if we can get back. I shouldn’t be so lucky,” she finished darkly.
“Lucky? To stay here? Have you forgotten how awful most of these historical periods were for women compared to our lives now? No vote? No rights? Lower-paying jobs? Not to mention how awful it was for minorities.”
Annie nodded. “I know, I know. I’m not forgetting how difficult it was for lots of people in the past, but there’s something about this particular era that makes me feel more comfortable than present-day Chicago ever did. Except for the corset, of course. That’s still not comfortable.”
Marie chuckled. “Well, lose a few pounds then.”
“Marie!” Annie laughed. Marie’s lifelong quips at Annie’s fuller figure hadn’t bothered her in years, not since her similarly framed mother had sat her down as a young teenager and told her that she wasn’t fat, just curvy, and that rounded corners were softer and less painful than sharp edges. Her father had nodded in agreement, and the tender look in his eyes when he regarded her mother opened Annie’s eyes to the notion that curvy girls were as desirable to some as lean girls were to others—eye of the beholder and all that.
“We are all set,” Rory said behind them. They rounded the dock and followed a man toward a dark red-painted canoe tied up alongside the dock. The dockworker held the canoe steady while Rory helped Marie in and then Annie. Annie grabbed her skirts, heedless of propriety, and stepped in gingerly. With the canoe wobbling, she seated herself quickly in the remaining seat facing the rear of the canoe. Rory stepped in and
took the paddle from the dockworker, who cast off the rope and pushed the canoe away from the dock. Annie hadn’t quite thought about the seating position when she boarded, and now found herself facing Rory as he paddled. He seemed proficient at it, if a little incongruous rowing in a suit and tie. But then, so were all the other men on the lake. The day was pleasant, the lake calm, and the sun gentle and warm. A gentle breeze played on the back of Annie’s neck, and she relaxed.
“Have you done this before?” she asked.
“Rented a canoe at the park? No, I don’t think so. My friends and I rented canoes from the local Indians when we were young boys. And I’ve rowed on rivers and lakes in Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, California and several other places I have probably forgotten—all with a view to getting the best photograph.”
“Lots of traveling,” Annie said wistfully. His life sounded wonderfully adventurous, filled with travels, memories and stories. She had access to every modern form of travel—even a space shuttle if she were wealthy enough—but it seemed like she hadn’t really gone anywhere. It had taken her a year of coaxing to get her sister on the Alaskan cruise—the one they hadn’t quite made yet.
“You sound envious, my dear Miss St. John, and yet to hear you speak, you and your sister have traveled through time. Surely, a great journey.”
“There is that,” she smiled. “I’d forgotten.”
“I hope that is a sign of your growing ease with Seattle?”
“Maybe,” she said, “or just maybe with the turn of the century.” Annie chuckled.
A sudden, unexpected breeze whipped over the lake and caught under the brim of Annie’s hat, whisking it away.
“Catch it!” she called to Marie. Annie jumped up to try to catch it, and the boat teetered.
“Annie! Sit down!” Rory and Marie commanded in unison, but it was too late. Annie stepped on the edge of her skirt, lost her balance and tipped over the edge into the water.
Chapter Eight
Rory’s heart stopped when he saw Annie fall into the water. Fortunately, she came up sputtering right away, and treading water. He ripped off his jacket and vest, tossed his hat into the boat and kicked off his shoes. The canoe rocked precariously as Marie, holding Annie’s hat, leaned far over the edge to reach for her sister.