“Hey, I’m a guy, too,” Kipp burst in. He was definitely having fun as a spoiler of Suzanne’s serious demeanor. “Maybe if you fix me a bow tie, I can go in the smoking lounge and hob knob with the swells.”
Suzanne lifted an arched eyebrow as she pushed on despite Kipp’s irreverence. “For traveling, I think a Norfolk jacket, again of tweed, trousers with creased front and back with cuffs turned up…” Suzanne didn’t get to finish due to my untimely interruption.
“Hey, there seems to be a lot of tweed. Does that make Peter and me Tweedledee and Tweedledum?” I asked. Despite the expression of fake innocence plastered on my face, Suzanne, who had been pushed a little too far, finally lost patience.
“If you can’t settle down, you need to leave,” she said, narrowing her pretty eyes at me, before including Kipp in her warning glance. Crossing her arms, she began to literally tap her foot in annoyance while she waited.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, compressing my lips. In the back of my head, Kipp was giggling as he began composing a mildly ribald limerick that involved all things tweed, which didn’t help matters one bit. I took a large sip of the now cold coffee and refrained from inelegantly spitting it back into the mug.
“Both of you will need hats, since men wore bowlers for day wear; women wore large hats during the day and even into formal evening functions.” Suzanne managed to keep going despite all odds.
“I like hats,” Peter said, nodding his head eagerly, trying to get her to regain her good humor.
“I want a hat, too,” Kipp said privately to me. “A cowboy hat might be nice, with a big brim…or maybe a pirate hat.” As he began to demonstrate a pirate impression in my head, I completely lost it and had to excuse myself.
Free of the confinement of Suzanne’s studio, I began to laugh uncontrollably, followed by Kipp, who was acting innocent, blinking his eyes as if he was confused over what had happened. Suddenly, Technicorps seemed to close in on me, and the two of us made our way through the hallways to the courtyard where an old bench rested beneath the towering tulip poplar which hugged the side of the building. I’d sat there many times over the years, thinking of life, past adventures, and musing about the future.
“Sorry, Petra.” Kipp rested his chin on my knees. “She was just so serious that I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“Me neither,” I replied, leaning over to rub my cheek against the furry warmth of his head.
It was cold in that garden and difficult to imagine the setting in spring when the azaleas were so full of blooms that the stems bowed slightly from the weight. And then, later, the crepe myrtles blossomed; some were quite large, as they had been left unmolested to grow naturally.
“I often think of what it will be like when the collective makes us relocate,” Kipp remarked. “I feel I’ve just gotten settled here and then we’ll be moving on,” he added with a sigh. “But as long as we’re together, it will be okay.”
We sat there, in the chilled air, enjoying the solitude of the garden. Beneath my feet, the grass was brittle and stiff, crunching under the soles of my shoes, the ground hard and unyielding. The freeze from the earth bypassed my shoes and socks, making my feet throb and ache; I moved them, trying to wiggle my stiff toes a little. Due to the unpleasant temperature, the grounds of Technicorps were deserted, since anyone with common sense had taken the comfortable route by choosing the warmth of indoors. But, in my estimation, they were missing a beautiful day. The sky was bright blue, unblemished by clouds; the sun was almost directly overhead, managing to bring some blessed rays of warmth that caught in the strands of my hair, which fell in a mussed braid down my back.
“Can I join you two?” Philo had managed to sneak up on me, which was not easy since we were both telepaths. Obviously, I’d been overly immersed in my own thoughts. I scooted over enough to give him room on the bench. “I saw you from my window, and after looking at the stack of papers on my desk, I thought sitting out here with you was preferable.”
I glanced at him. He looked tired and not exactly older, but drained. Philo noticed my expression of concern and reached over to squeeze my hand.
“I really wish you would tell me what happened in London with Silas,” he said.
I looked away, staring at a wild dogwood tree that had managed to survive the construction of the building and the aggressive landscaping of the grounds. Smiling with satisfaction, I was happy that it was thriving amongst its cultivated neighbors.
“Philo, you really must ask Silas about it. It had to do with ethics and a disagreement we had. It’s not my place to tell you.” My eyes met his. “Please don’t ask me.”
He shrugged. “I love him, but some things have happened lately that make me not able to trust him. He’s been caught in some, uh, fabrications, that are distressing to me. Vashti has been threatening to leave him, too.”
Kipp perked up at news of a fellow lupine. He’d become fond of Vashti and worried her symbiont bond with Silas could be fractured due to a lack of trust. After all, we’d just met Tristan and Meko, who’d suffered for years due to the same.
“You and I will never have that happen to us,” Kipp said, glancing at me.
Philo knew Kipp and I were talking privately and paused to give us time. “I sometimes wonder if I made a poor career choice when I was younger,” he remarked with a sigh. “There was an opportunity for me to form a bond and travel, but I confess the idea was frightening to me.” He looked at me and tried to smile. “I never had your courage…still don’t,” he added somewhat ruefully.
I edged closer on the bench so that my shoulder grazed his. Reaching out, I took his hand in mine. Yes, we’d always be friends, no matter where our journeys might take us.
“I’ve been thinking that if the time comes for a transfer from this area, I might try to finagle something so that Fitzhugh, Juno, you, Kipp and I can all be relocated to the same collective. Maybe I’m getting older and just don’t want to change and lose the ones who are important to me.” He raised an eyebrow, waiting for my reaction.
“And what about Claire?” I asked.
“Claire, too, of course, if she wants to come.”
“She will, Philo. You two love one another. It’s just that your common love for your son is causing a divide. It can be worked out.” I squeezed his hand which felt like a block of ice. “You need some gloves,” I chided him.
The cold finally forced us back inside, and I reluctantly returned to Suzanne’s workshop where Peter and Elani lingered. Peter, having shown deference to Suzanne and an interest in her craft, had been granted an unusual level of accommodation. I found him going through bolts of cloth, trying to decide which fabrics he found most suitable for his Norfolk jacket and traveling attire. Suzanne had typically not given me such leave. She glanced up from a pattern book and glared at me.
“So, have you managed to compose yourself?” she asked, directing the comment towards me.
“Some of it was Kipp’s fault,” I replied, pointing at my companion.
“Was not!” he rejoined.
I knew I had to get control and try to pretend to be professional, so I clamped my mouth shut and sent Kipp the notion he needed to keep his crazy thoughts to himself for a few minutes. We managed to pass the remainder of the afternoon in the workroom, surrounded by the thick atmosphere created by fabric, paper, and old, well-thumbed books. I’d probably have a headache from all the dust inhaled. Suzanne lost her bad humor and brought me a fresh cup of coffee while Kipp made a nest on some discarded woolen fabric that had fallen to the floor. After a while, he began to nod off, our soft voices acting to lull him to sleep.
“I like this one for you, Peter,” I remarked, my fingers running over the soft texture of a light wool fabric swatch. “It isn’t so heavy that you will feel constricted in movement, but the wool will help with warmth. And the color will be good on you.”
Peter’s dark mop of hair, his brown eyes and even complexion pretty much insured that he would look good in anyt
hing, from jeans and t-shirt to formal attire. But the brown fabric with threads of deep navy running throughout would be exceptionally flattering.
“And you can go with a beard and mustache or just a mustache and long sideburns,” Suzanne was saying. “The facial hair makes you look older, and if you are trying to mix with the first class male passengers, you will want to seem as if you fit in.”
“We’re traveling as the niece and nephew of Tristan Taylor, who was a good friend of J.P. Morgan,” Peter said. “The story we created with Tristan is that he was long estranged from his family, which is why he never mentioned having any close ties. But recently, he was informed that his sister died in an accident, leaving us—me and Petra—as his sole family. Feeling angst over the rift, he asked to meet us while we were traveling in Europe.”
“So how do you come by your money to travel?” Suzanne rarely got the details, and she was enjoying being part of the conspiracy.
“Our father recently inherited some money from his family, so our, uh, situation had changed,” Peter said. “Tragically, he and our mother were killed in a boating accident shortly after receiving the inheritance. To recover from the blow, we decided to travel to Europe. Of course, we are accompanied by our faithful canine companions,” he added with a grin, glancing at Elani who was reclining on another pile of wadded fabric. Her tail began to wag. “Tristan then connives to get J.P. Morgan to secure our first class passage on the Titanic, since we are ready to return home.”
“Pretty good story,” Suzanne nodded. She took a sip of her coffee, leaving a soft smudge of lipstick on the side of the mug.
Kipp lazily opened one eye. “If Mark Elliott appears with that color lipstick on his cheek, we’ll know what’s up,” he remarked softly to me alone. He was obviously trying very hard to get us sent to the bench in the garden, once again.
Chapter 13
Peter’s jacket and trousers fit almost perfectly on the first try. My outfit, however, needed some attention.
“Either I measured you wrong, or you’ve gained fifty pounds since that day,” Suzanne opined as she tugged on the front of my jacket, trying to make it meet across my chest. There was a pair of reading glasses perched upon the end of her nose; she squinted slightly as she backed away to give me another appraising glance. “I may have to put in a side gusset,” she remarked, lips pursed.
“I’m not going on this trip with side gussets,” I said, feeling irritated. Since I wasn’t keen on this time shift in the first place, it didn’t require much to further sour my mood. “Maybe you have been distracted and wrote down the wrong figures,” I suggested, staring at her face which flushed immediately.
“Well, maybe so,” she conceded. It was well known that Mark had been courting her, to use an old fashioned term, and it showed in her lack of concentration and silly demeanor.
“You were like that with Harrow, so I don’t want to hear any complaints or criticisms,” Kipp offered from his vantage point in a corner of the dressing room. He’d resigned himself to the fact he’d have to wear the usual money collar, which he detested but tolerated. The collar, which was a clever design, functioned like a man’s money belt and had saved our bacon more than once. While someone might try to steal a reticule I would carry, no one with half a brain would grab for a collar strapped around Kipp’s massive neck.
“I’ll put in a couple of side panels that will work like princess seaming, and I promise you, they won’t look like gussets,” Suzanne promised.
“We’ll see,” I thought darkly.
That evening, Fitzhugh, Juno, Kipp and I settled in the living room after a modest meal of Greek salad that I’d ordered–the lupines stuck to the chicken which came on the side–and waited for TCM to begin its eight o’clock fare. We were in for a rare treat since Casablanca was on the line up. Before the arrival of Kipp, who saw no boundaries to his life, lupines couldn’t enjoy movies since they didn’t comprehend spoken language and depended upon their telepathy to decipher meanings. Given the one dimensional nature of movies and television, there was nothing to comprehend. But since Kipp and Juno had both learned to read and understand spoken language, their appreciation of television had changed.
The movie started after the usual introduction by the host, and I was completely engrossed until I realized that Fitzhugh was distracted. At first it was noticeable by the tapping of his foot against the wooden floor. Then, he began to aimlessly hum some odd tune that seemed vaguely familiar but just out of reach for me. The winter remained unrelentingly brisk and outside of my snug house, the landscape seemed fragile in the crisp air. I was happy that the fireplace was fully engaged, although my stack of firewood was getting low for the season. There was a man in Creedmoor who supplied me from time to time, and it appeared a phone call was in order in the event the low temperatures lingered into spring.
“What’s bothering you?” I finally asked, using the remote to turn the sound down a notch.
“Oh, I’m not sure,” he replied with a wan smile. His hair, always worn long, looked mussed and tangled as it straggled down to graze the collar of the new flannel robe I’d given him for Christmas. The holidays had passed quietly in our little home, and I’d just managed to get the Christmas decorations put away the previous day. Looking down, Fitzhugh stared at the left wrist cuff and carefully turned it back so that it matched the one on the right. “I worry that I gave you bad advice now that it appears you will really attempt this trip to the Titanic.”
“I’m a big girl,” I began before he waved me off.
“Yes, I know you have the world by the tail and nothing can get the better of you, but I’m still concerned.” He angled his position in the chair so that he gathered more heat from the fireplace. With a sigh, he propped his chin against the palm of his hand. For a moment he shifted his attention to Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman before glancing at me, since he knew I wouldn’t give up quite so easily.
“Philo was talking, theoretically of course, about the need for some of us to move to other collectives at some point. It is the discussion we either greatly anticipate or dread, depending upon where we live and what the experience is like.” He laughed softly. “I recall one posting I had in Italy that was so terrible, I finally bribed a leader to let me go. I was sent elsewhere and remained until moving here,” he said with a wave of his thin hands. Fitzhugh dared to peek at me. “And now that I’m here, I’ve been completely happy.” It was clear he meant my home–which had become our home.
“Of course, if Kipp and I are relocated, Fitzhugh, you can stay here. I mean, this house is yours,” I said, leaning forward towards him.
“I told Philo I’d want to go with you, Juno and me,” he said, his face opening in surprising vulnerability. “It feels like family, being here with you and Kipp,” he began. “I never had a daughter or son, for that matter, and it’s nice to occasionally pretend that you belong to me.” His eyes were soft in the shadows of the room, illuminated only by the flickering screen of the television.
I had experienced that moment of total honesty before–which Fitzhugh just expressed—where one feels as if one is hanging on a precipice, terrified that one’s words will be rejected or subjected to scorn and ridicule. Glancing at Juno, I let my eyes roam lovingly over her graying face; she was old but vital and a source of wisdom and strength. Her tail thumped at my visual caress.
“We talked about it, Fitzhugh and I, while you were gone to Atlanta,” Juno said. “This would no longer be a home if you and Kipp were not here.”
Kipp, who was lying close to Juno on her favorite little woolen rug, edged closer and draped his neck across her back, sighing as he closed his eyes. She was as close to a mother figure as he might have.
How did I, a relatively confirmed loner, with the exception of Kipp, end up with an entourage of valued elders who could not do without me? But as I mused, I realized that I felt similarly towards them.
“Well, at the risk of sounding like Scarlett O’Hara, why don’t we wor
ry about this issue at a later date? Philo doesn’t indicate anything on the near horizon.” I was pleased at my practicality and common sense approach, which in truth smacked of careful avoidance. The life of the traveling symbiont was filled with comings and goings, and the well adjusted traveler figured out how to do both effortlessly and with few regrets. Maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought I was at managing such things.
Fitzhugh’s face relaxed but neither of us could generate any interest in the movie. After muting the volume, we began to speak of other matters.
“It will be up to you and Kipp to keep the youngsters in line,” Fitzhugh remarked. “I know Peter can be a bit impulsive, but hopefully he has learned to modify that tendency since his last time shift. This trip will leave no room for error.” He crossed his long legs and tilted his head to rest on the chair back. “You will have to remain aboard until the last possible moment and time shift out at a time when human emotions are at their peak in terms of hysteria. It will be difficult.”
“I’ll probably make Peter and Elani leave a little early, just so I won’t worry. Don’t you think so, Kipp?”
He nodded his head, although his eyes were blinking sleepily. Juno was snoring softly from her warm place in front of the fire, which had died down; only a few glowing embers still winked at us from the darkness of the hearth.
After gently rousing Juno, all of us went to our respective rooms for the night. I climbed in my bed, dreading the embrace of cold sheets after having enjoyed the fireplace all evening. Kipp hopped up and curled next to me, his muzzle across my chest.
“Petra?”
“Hmmm?”
“Thank you.” Kipp pressed closer.
“For what?” I asked, my hand gently kneading the back of his neck, where his fur still held on to the warmth from the fireplace.
“For going on this time shift. I know you have hesitations, but you are doing it, in large part, because I want to go. So, thanks.”
Titanic, 1912 (The Symbiont Time Travel Adventures Series, Book 5): Young Adult Time Travel Adventure Page 14