“I don’t know if I can,” Bradley said.
“But the important thing is whether you will if you can.”
His grandfather was right. That was an important distinction.
“And,” Jonathan continued, pushing his plate aside. “Whether or not you plan to stay.” Jonathan put a hand beneath his glasses, wiping at his eyes. “You’ve got to decide if Camille is the one you want to be with. And if so, is she worth giving up your life as you know it.”
Jonathan opened his eyes and glued his gaze to Bradley’s. Bradley swallowed the lump in his throat. He had a feeling Jonathan wasn’t talking just about him anymore. He wasn’t sure what to say. The indecision must have been reflected in his face.
“The first couple of times are probably accidental,” Jonathan said. “Or least they seem to be. But then you get to make a choice. You get to decide whether or not to go back to the place where it happens. Then all bets are off. Then the door closes when you least expect it and you’re locked into the past.”
Bradley stared at his grandfather. “How do you know this? Erika?”
Jonathan nodded. “Erika, yes, but even before that, Vaughn.”
His grandfather’s words sent shock waves through his system. His grandmother – who had died in a boating accident… “What do you mean Vaughn?”
“You know what,” Jonathan said signaling for the check. “Let’s go by the house. Do you have time? I want to give you something anyway.”
“Sure.” Bradley glanced at his phone. “I have time.” He’d cleared his calendar until he could figure out what he was going to do next. His grandfather was right. The next decision was up to him.
Did he stay away and go on with his life as he knew it? Or did he risk giving it all up by seeking out the girl who tugged at his heart?
Jonathan drove to the plantation house where Bradley had spent his summers and many holidays. Bradley knew that his mother drove down at least a couple of times a month to check on Jonathan and help out with things around the house.
Since it was a pretty day outside, Bradley grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and sat on the back porch while Jonathan went upstairs to retrieve something.
He sat in a chair and watched as two squirrels chased each other down a tree limb. His mother had planted spring flowers all over the backyard, so there was a splash of color spilling from the porch into the backyard.
Jonathan sat in the chair next to him. “Want a cigar?” he asked.
Bradley shook his head. Jonathan lit a cigar and inhaled deeply. “Nothing better,” he said.
“You’re getting used to living here alone?” Bradley asked.
“Sure,” Jonathan said. “You live and adapt.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Bradley shifted in his chair. Waited.
“It’s time someone besides me knows what happened,” Jonathan said. “I’m tired of carrying it all by myself.”
“What is it Grandpa?”
“Vaughn. Vaughn wasn’t from this time.”
Bradley felt his heart rate quicken. “What do you mean?”
Jonathan blew out his breath and gazed toward the window as though looking into his memory. “I don’t know everything, mind you. But Vaughn was born in France.”
Bradley nodded. He knew that about his grandmother. Jonathan, however, no longer saw him. He was deep in his memories.
“She was born in the 1700s. She had just gotten to America when she was attacked by Indians. Somehow someone saved her life and she ended up in the 1800s.”
“But she lived here.”
“She was here for a time.”
Bradley hesitated, then blurted out the question that he had to know. “Did she really die?”
“I’m not sure,” Jonathan said. “She was very mysterious about it. But she made it clear that she wouldn’t be back. Somehow, I think she thought her ability to… travel was running out.”
“Vaughn was a time traveler.”
Jonathan looked back at him then. Focused. “Yes. Your grandmother was a time-traveler.”
“She could still be alive.”
He shook his head. “Not to me. I’ll never see her again.”
A little kindling of hope shot through Bradley. “But she could be alive,” he insisted.
Jonathan didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into his pocket, and pulled out his silver pocket watch. “I want to give you this,” he said. “Vaughn had it made for me. In the 1800s.” He held it out to Bradley.
Bradley took the pocket watch from his grandfather. He’d seen it before, but he was only now learning of its significance.
The watch was just under about three inches around and had an open face.
“It was made in Paris by LeRoy,” Jonathan said, pride evident in his voice.
“How did she have it made?” Bradley asked.
Jonathan shook his head. “Your grandmother was a resourceful woman. I don’t know how she did the things she did.”
“I can’t take this from you,” Bradley said.
“You aren’t taking it. I’m giving it to you. You’re the only person left who can appreciate it. Anyone else would just see it as junk to be thrown out. But that watch was made for me…in 1837.”
Bradley smiled at his grandfather. “That’s…” he stopped in mid-thought, his throat suddenly thick with emotion.
“Take it,” Jonathan said. “Perhaps you can pass it along to your own son.”
“I will,” Bradley said, turning away so his grandfather couldn’t see the tears welling in his eyes. If he did this thing – if he went back in time – and stayed, his grandfather would never meet any children he might have.
“Come with me,” Bradley blurted.
“Oh no. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. Even with Vaughn, we tried to figure out a way, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. Besides, I’m old. I need medical care.”
Bradley considered his grandfather. Other than a brief illness due to poisoning, Jonathan had always been in good health. “Is there something you haven’t told me?” he asked.
Jonathan waved him off. “I’m healthy as a horse. Right now. But I’m not getting any younger.”
Bradley sipped his soda and gazed through the window into the sitting area – the television, the electric lights. The air conditioning. It was selfish, he decided, to ask someone else to give up their life for him. He was thankful his sister hadn’t asked him to go back in time with her. It wasn’t a decision he would have wanted to make. Besides, like his grandfather said, it didn’t work like that. Whatever it was that gave him the ability to go back in time appeared to be tailored only toward him. “You’re right,” he conceded.
Jonathan nodded. “Like I said, it doesn’t work like that.”
“It may not work for me again, anyway.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Jonathan said.
Chapter Six
Bradley pressed his palms against the rail that overlooked the Mississippi River. This was day four of what he’d come to think of as his New Orleans trek. For one who didn’t like the Crescent City, he was spending an awful lot of time here lately.
He’d come back a week after meeting with his grandfather. The first night he had walked around and around like a mad wolf until midnight, then gone up to his room and collapsed in exhaustion.
The second night he had loitered around the front of the hotel, pacing back and forth.
The third night he had decided the spell or whatever it was had worn off and he wasn’t going back in time again. He resigned himself to thinking it was somehow connected to Mardi Gras. So he would have to wait until next year before trying again. Nonetheless, he’d walked around for awhile trying to recreate the circumstances that had been in place when it had happened before.
In the meantime, he’d cashed in a significant amount of his savings on 1830s currency and coins. Even now, the coins felt heavy in his jacket pocket. He’d wiped out three different collectors. Though he�
�d gotten some odd looks, none of them had questioned him too much. Apparently coin and currency collectors were an obsessive group of individuals, accustomed to quirkiness.
Glancing over his shoulder, he noted that the storm was moving in a little quicker than forecasted. A raindrop splashed on the back of his hand. Much quicker than forecasted. As he hurried down the boardwalk, the sky opened up and Bradley was drenched within minutes.
He got to the street and took off running. He wasn’t worried so much about getting wet, himself, but he wanted to protect the paper money in his pocket.
As was habit, he glanced toward the brick wall before entering the hotel. No door.
He hurried up to his room and after quickly drying off with a towel, took the paper money from his pocket.
He groaned. The precious bills were soaked, their ink smeared and staining his clothes. He took the money and, dabbing each one with a dry cloth, spread the money out on the dresser. It would have to dry before he would know if it would be salvageable. He dried the coins and tucked them into his suitcase.
He shrugged out of the rest of his clothes and jumped into the hot shower. He heard thunder from the storm even over the running water. It was decision time. He couldn’t keep just hanging around here. Only a madman would do that. He was teetering on the edge of sanity as it were.
It was time to pull the plug on this whole endeavor. Perhaps he would come back next year at Mardi Gras and try again.
The hot water helped him clear his head. It was time to get back to work and to his life.
After toweling off, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. As had become his new habit, he put his grandfather’s pocket watch in his pocket. He never checked it. He just carried it around. The habit of checking his phone or his iPad for the time was too entrenched.
His mind made up, he pulled out his iPad and scheduled a flight out of here for the morning. And scheduled a flight for a client for the next day.
As he took care of reclaiming his life, the storm raged overhead. The electricity blinked twice and went off. He waited for the generator, but apparently, the old hotel didn’t have one.
He walked down three flights of stairs and joined the crowd in the lobby. The manager had brought out several bottles of wine and was in the process of pouring wine for the disgruntled guests.
Bradley took a glass of red wine from the manager he recognized from his first day here. The day he had so desperately searched for the Le Bon Temps Roule
“Hey,” the man said. “Did you um… find what you were looking for.”
Bradley shook his head. “Turns out you were right. One glass too many and I got all turned around.”
The manager nodded. “Happens all the time. No worries.”
Bradley took his glass of wine and wandered to the front door of the hotel. The rain fell in torrents and lightening grazed the building.
Someone had left a red umbrella by the door. Bradley picked it and glanced behind at the crowd in the lobby. No one seemed to be paying any attention to the storm, must less to him.
He opened the door, popped open the umbrella, and stepped out into the storm. A gust of wind whipped at the umbrella, threatening to tear it from his hands, and subsequently leaving him little protection from the rain.
Like metal to a magnet, he was drawn to the right, toward the doorway that wasn’t. With the rain, and the wind, and the umbrella whipping about, he could barely see, but he knew approximately the distance to the door to the Le Bon Temps Roule.
As a crash of thunder shook the air, he opened the door, and all but fell inside to the quietness of the bar.
Unlike his previous entrances, this time all eyes were on him. He heard their murmurs.
“Didn’t know it was raining outside.”
“Must be mad to be out in this.”
“Is he wearing his undergarments?”
Bradley closed his umbrella and stood it on the floor next to him. Standing there, drenched, wearing his jeans and a T-shirt, the only coherent thought in his head was I didn’t bring the money.
How many hours had he spent acquiring authentic 1830s money? Making sure he was dressed appropriately?
And here he stood, in nothing more than jeans and white T-shirt without a dime to his name. With a bubble of panic, he realized he’d even left his cell phone in the hotel room.
I can’t use it here anyway.
He swallowed a laugh of what could only be desperation.
After all his preparation, he stood here with nothing more than a stolen red umbrella and a glass of wine to his name.
It had been a week. Not that she was counting, mind you, but a week nonetheless. After the odd conversation with Bradley about her betrothal status and his honorable intentions, he had slipped away without her seeing him again. Whether by design or accident, she didn’t know.
She only knew that she had watched for him over the next few days. The day after Mardis Gras ended, her father had not allowed her to work in the tavern. She’d moped around that evening and all of the next day until he had begrudgingly permitted her to work two hours at sunset. He refused to allow her to work after darkness settled over the city. “It’s just not fitting,” he’d said.
Nonetheless, she found that if she sat quietly in a corner and read her book, he didn’t say anything.
Although they didn’t speak of it, she was certain he knew she waited for him. The handsome man who may very well be from the future. Of course, she didn’t dare tell him that. Nor did she tell him about her little visit with Madame Laveau. He would have locked her in her room for sure. Or worse, he would have banished her to the plantation to spend the summer with her mother.
So, she kept her head down and avoided her father’s attention as much as possible.
She had worked her two hours, glad to be free of the mask worn during the Mardi Gras period, and settled at the back of the tavern. Her father wasn’t home tonight. He’d told her he had business across town. He didn’t elaborate and she didn’t ask. Sometimes she wondered if her father kept a mistress. It wasn’t uncommon in their wealthy circle. That was certainly something she could never ask her father.
Staring at the letters on the page, more than actually reading, her attention was drawn to a commotion at the front of the tavern, near the door.
She stood up, the book falling from her hands. Through the haziness from the cigar smoke, she saw him. Standing there, dripping wet, one hand resting on the handle of a red umbrella and the other holding a glass of wine. But it was his clothing that stood out. He wore britches and an…. Undershirt?
She moved toward him, and now she could see his expression. His eyes wide, he stared into space. Grabbing up her skirts in two fists, she dashed toward him – a protective instinct involuntarily taking over any coherent thoughts.
Reaching him, she took him by the arm and led him toward the back of the tavern toward their private area. He went compliantly. Neither of them speaking.
They reached the back office and she pulled a chair out for him, and nudged him into it. After taking the wine and umbrella from his hands, she knelt next to him and gazed into his face. He blinked and smiled. “Are you real?” He asked.
She nodded, feeling the corners of her lips lifting. “Are you?”
“You have to forgive me,” he said.
Her frown returned. “Forgive you? For what?”
“I didn’t bring the money.”
He must be daft. “Money?” Perhaps he was still concerned with the membership fee. “You already paid your fee. There’s no need for money.”
He scoffed. “That’s a good thing,” he said.
Camille had never seen a man, other than her brothers in an undershirt. He had no sign of blood. Nonetheless… “Are you wounded?” She asked.
He was staring at her now. Smiling again. He inhaled deeply. “No.”
She got up and dragged a chair next to him. Sitting, she faced him. “You came back.”
His grin widened.
“I did.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
He kept his eyes on hers. “You have no idea how difficult it was.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
Marcus came to the door. “Miss?” He asked. “Is everything well?”
“Everything is good, Marcus. Thank you,” Camille said, without breaking her gaze with Bradley.
Marcus turned away.
“Wait,” Camille said. “Marcus, bring me a towel and one of Father’s shirts.”
“You aren’t wearing your mask,” Bradley said after Marcus had left them.
“You aren’t wearing your… clothes.”
Perplexed, Bradley glanced down. “This is a casual outfit.”
“From the future,” she added.
He nodded.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I believe you.”
“How could you possibly?”
“I can’t really tell you. But I consulted.”
“Hmm.”
“No need to worry,” she said. “No one knows.”
“I hope you’re right. I’d be burned at the stake.”
“Oh no. That doesn’t happen anymore.”
Marcus returned and handed Bradley a towel, then a shirt. He held it out at arm’s length and watched Bradley warily. After Marcus had left again, Bradley said, “he knows.”
“Who? Marcus?”
Bradley dried off, then shrugged into the shirt and began buttoning the buttons. “He suspects something.”
“Marcus suspects everyone. It’s his job. He’s supposed to look out for me.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not dangerous then.”
She studied him. “You? You don’t look like the dangerous sort to me.” In fact, he looked rather vulnerable. Her father’s shirt was little too small in the shoulders for Bradley.
Things had not gone as planned. Bradley had planned everything. He had enough money to present himself as a man of some means and he had procured appropriate clothing.
Instead he had given up on ever returning to 1838 and had stumbled back in time when he least expected it. When he had been most unprepared. In fact, he felt less prepared, somehow, than the first time he had time-traveled.
When the Stars Align Page 6