The Mirror (Northwest Passage Book 5)

by John A. Heldt

  "I think we should do what we know how to do: bag groceries. There are probably five or six grocery stores in this area alone. We can visit them this afternoon, starting with the one we passed on Forty-Fifth. I'm pretty sure I saw a HELP WANTED sign in the window."

  Katie nodded.

  "Let's do it then."

  Ginny smiled reassuringly. She was confident of finding employment soon and wanted to spread that confidence to her pessimistic twin. Then she pondered a more pressing matter and confronted doubts of her own. Within seconds her smile dissolved into a frown.

  "What's wrong?" Katie asked.

  "I just remembered our other problem."

  "What's that?"

  "We can't wait a few weeks for a paycheck. We need cash now," Ginny said. "We have no money – or at least money we can use. I don't think people here will accept multi-colored bills with watermarks."

  "You're right. They won't," Katie said. "Fortunately for us, we have options."

  "Really?"

  "Like I said earlier, I know a way we can get by until we find work."

  "What's that?"

  "It's pretty obvious, Gin."

  "Tell me."

  "OK."

  Katie frowned.

  "Look at your wrist."

  CHAPTER 10: KATIE

  Sunday, May 3, 1964

  Katie sat at a small table in a motel room and stared at four things: a ballpoint pen, two job applications, and a bare wrist. When she got tired of looking at each she gazed at a sister resting on a double bed. Church bells rang in the distance.

  "I'm having seller's remorse," Katie said.

  "I'm not," Ginny said. "We had to sell something."

  "I know. I just wish we'd had another option."

  "Would you rather have sold yourself?"

  "No."

  "Then stop whining. We needed money. Now we have it. Case closed."

  "I still don't like it," Katie said. "Mom and Dad spent two thousand dollars on those bracelets. We got only two hundred back. It doesn't seem right."

  "It's not right," Ginny said. She got up from the bed and joined Katie at the table. "Nothing's right. It's not right we're here."

  Katie scanned the room as Ginny settled into her chair and assessed their temporary home. It wasn't much to look at, but it was functional and safe. With a rotary telephone, a kitchenette, and a black-and-white television that actually worked, Room 17 at the Coed Court on Brooklyn Avenue was much better than a cardboard box in Pioneer Square. The twins had paid to stay two weeks at the discounted rate of ten dollars a week.

  They had found the place around two thirty on Saturday, shortly after selling their diamond tennis bracelets to a pawnshop owner on Roosevelt Way. They spent the rest of the afternoon gathering job applications and buying clothes they could actually wear in a city filled with extras from Mad Men and American Graffiti.

  The clothes were easy to find. Job opportunities were not. By the time the girls had finished pounding the pavement at five, they had managed to secure just one promising lead – at the same supermarket Ginny had spotted on the drive to the bookstore.

  Wade Greer, owner and manager of Greer's Grocery, had told the twins that he needed two clerks to replace the ones that had left on Friday for higher-paying positions elsewhere. He gave each an application and invited them to interview for the openings at 10 a.m. Monday.

  Katie knew they were lucky to have even that, but she didn't feel lucky. She felt miserable. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare and run home to her mother.

  "Do you think God is testing us?" Katie asked. "I could understand if He was. We've led pretty charmed lives, Gin. Maybe we're like Job. Maybe God wants to see if modern girls in denim skirts can hold up as well as bearded guys in the Old Testament."

  "We're not being tested, Katie."

  "Are we being punished then?"

  Ginny paused before answering.

  "That's a good question. I don't know, but I don't think so. I asked myself the same thing last night. I stayed awake until two, but I never came up with an answer. I've done nothing to deserve this, and neither have you."

  Katie stared at her twin.

  "Did you cheat on your taxes again?"

  "No, Katie. I did not cheat on my taxes. I didn't even cheat on Cody, though I wanted to several times and had many opportunities."

  Katie lowered her eyes. She knew she'd asked a silly question. Even if Ginny had cheated on the IRS or a boyfriend who had cheated on her, she didn't deserve a possible one-way trip to the sixties. When she returned her attention to her sister, her eyes began to water.

  "I'm sorry. I'm just still having trouble with all this. I want to be strong, but I don't know if I can. I miss Mom and Dad. I miss them so much. I miss our siblings. I miss my life!"

  Ginny reached across the table and grabbed her sister's hands.

  "I do too. This sucks, Katie. This sucks big time. But we'll get through it. We'll return to that fair and be back home before you know it. I can't promise everything, but I can promise that. We will see our family again."

  Katie looked at her sister with envy and awe. She knew Ginny couldn't promise a trip to the nearest shopping mall – much less a trip to 2020 – but she admired her strength and spirit. She would need a rock to lean on in the coming months and couldn't think of a better rock than the best friend she'd ever had.

  Ginny tilted her head and gave her sister a funny face. She didn't have to wait long for a smile and a laugh. She got both within seconds.

  "Will you stop?" Katie asked. She pulled her hands from Ginny's and wiped her tears. "We have business to tend to."

  "Yes, we do. I'm counting on you to help with that business too," Ginny said. "Do you have any idea what we should put on these applications?"

  Katie grabbed one of the forms and examined each side. A few seconds later, she placed the unmarked sheet next to the other.

  "No. I don't," Katie said. "We have an address now and a phone number, but we don't have work experience or references – or at least any that we can put on these."

  "Think, Katie. You're good at this stuff," Ginny said forcefully. "Think of a way we can overcome the experience thing. You know we can do grocery work. We've done it for two years. There has to be a way we can convince Mr. Greer that we can do the job without lying on our applications. We don't want to do that because he could check out a lie with a single phone call."

  Katie thought about the matter as she looked out a window at a parking lot beyond. A couple that didn't look a day over twenty slipped out of a room about four doors down. She frowned. Some things hadn't changed in fifty-six years.

  She returned to the business at hand and gave her application another look. When she reached the bottom of the back page, a light bulb came on.

  "I know what we can do," Katie said. "We can give Mr. Greer a demonstration of our skills. We may have to wing it on the old cash registers but not on anything else. We can bag groceries and tell him what we know about stocking shelves and tending produce. We can tell him everything we know and say we learned it by observing. He won't care whether or not we've actually worked in a grocery store. He'll care only that we appear to be competent."

  Ginny smiled.

  "I like your thinking. I think that will work."

  "We still have two problems though," Katie said. "The first is that we need a story. Mr. Greer will want to know where we're from and where we went to school. We can't very well tell him that we grew up in Seattle and graduated from Westlake. I'm not even sure we can tell him that we grew up in Washington."

  Ginny nodded.

  "I agree," Ginny said. "He's been in business for thirty years. He knows the state. Even if we said we were from Spokane or Kennewick, he'd ask questions about those places too. We have to come up with another hometown – one that's much farther away."

  Katie smiled.

  "How about Savannah," Katie said in a sassy southern drawl. "I've always wanted to be a Georgia peach."


  Ginny laughed.

  "You wouldn't pass for a peach pit with that accent."

  Katie glared at her sister.

  "Sorry, Katie. We need to think of someplace else."

  "How about California? Didn't you tell Steve that we were from Thousand Oaks?"

  "Yeah. I did," Ginny said. "Do California girls have accents?"

  Katie shook her head.

  "I don't think so, at least not compared to people here. I think that would be a safe choice. Thousand Oaks is somewhere around L.A. It's at least a thousand miles away."

  "OK. Thousand Oaks it is."

  Katie sighed. She liked making progress on problems. She liked seeing her sister confident and focused. They would need her confidence and focus to pull this off.

  "There is one more thing," Katie said.

  "What's that?"

  "We need a reference. Even if we dazzle Mr. Greer with our knowledge and skills, he'll still want to know if we're hard-working and trustworthy."

  Katie stared at the floor for a moment, as if hoping that the stained carpet would provide a useful answer to the problem. When she returned her eyes to Ginny, she saw a smiling sister.

  "What? Do you have a reference in your cell phone?"

  Ginny smiled more widely.

  "As a matter of fact, I do," Ginny said. "His name is Steve Carrington, and I suspect he'll be the best reference we've ever had."

  CHAPTER 11: GINNY

  Monday, May 4, 1964

  "Let me see if I can accurately summarize what you've told me," Wade Greer said. "Each of you has a thorough understanding of the grocery business, which you've obtained by observing others, but neither of you has any actual work experience."

  "Correct," Ginny said.

  "You also have just one reference."

  "Correct again!" Ginny said.

  Ginny watched Greer laugh and shake his head as he settled into his large upholstered chair. She and Katie sat in smaller, harder chairs on the other side of the manager's desk, which occupied the middle of a modest office in the back of Greer's Grocery.

  "I like your enthusiasm, young lady," Greer said. "You remind me a lot of my own daughter when she started working here a few years ago. The difference is that she grew up in the business and knew the ropes before she put on an apron."

  "All we want is a chance, Mr. Greer."

  Greer, a large, balding man racing toward sixty, stared at Ginny for a moment, as if trying to gauge her conviction and sincerity. When he didn't seem to find the expression he was looking for, he turned to Katie.

  "Does your sister always speak for you?"

  "Only in situations like this, sir," Katie said. "We both agree I'm the smarter one, but she's definitely better with people."

  Ginny forced a smile as Greer chuckled. She would deal with Einstein later.

  "Well, I must admit that I'm impressed with your knowledge of produce. I can't remember the last time a person your age could tell me the difference between a yam and a sweet potato."

  Ginny laughed to herself as she recalled the first few minutes of the interview, when Greer, in an apparent attempt to put the girls at ease, had asked each to tell him something most people didn't know.

  Ginny hadn't wasted a moment flaunting her love and knowledge of the 1960s. She had told the manager that 1964 Corvette Stingrays could go from zero to sixty miles per hour in eight seconds and that very short skirts would soon be all the rage.

  Katie, the science whiz, had offered a more job-related answer. She had said that yams and sweet potatoes were similar but not the same. Yams were drier and starchier and related to lilies and grasses. Sweet potatoes had fewer calories and were part of the morning glory family.

  "I'm glad you liked my answer, sir," Katie said. "I can tell you the differences between lettuce types too if you want me to."

  Ginny laughed again. One of the things she loved most about her sister is that she knew when to shut her mouth and when to pour it on.

  "No, no. That's quite all right, Katie. I'm sure there are a lot of things you could tell me."

  Ginny smiled.

  You have no idea.

  "I am curious about one thing though," Greer said. He turned to Ginny. "What brought you girls to Seattle? Most people these days move to California, not from it. Do you have an aversion to sunshine?"

  "We like rain," Ginny said before thinking. "We also like mountains, water, and trees – and the Mariners."

  Greer laughed.

  "I figured as much. You wouldn't be the first young ladies to move to this area in search of a sailor. There's a big naval presence here."

  Ginny jerked her hand away from Katie's when she felt the sting from a pinch. She didn't need to be reminded that she had nearly stepped in it with a reference to a Major League Baseball team that didn't yet exist.

  "That's good to know, Mr. Greer. We'll check out the ships real soon."

  "You ought to. The 'Mighty Mo' is docked in Bremerton. Did you know that the Japanese signed their surrender papers on the deck of that ship?"

  "We do now," Ginny said cheerfully.

  Greer lifted a wrist and glanced at his watch.

  "Well, I think I've kept you long enough. I said I'd let you go at ten thirty, and it's already ten thirty-five. Do you have any questions for me?"

  "I have one," Ginny said. "Since you have no proof of our grocery skills, would you like to see us bag groceries or stack tuna cans or spray the carrots? We work really fast."

  Greer laughed.

  "I'm sure you do. I think I have enough to work with for now," he said. "I'll let you know if I need more. I will, however, need to contact your reference. Would either of you mind if I did that today?"

  "I wouldn't mind at all," Ginny said.

  "Me either."

  "Very well then," Greer said. "I think we're done. I'll show you out."

  All three got up from their chairs. A moment later, Greer led the girls through a storage area and into the public part of the store. He weaved his way through customers evaluating cuts of meat, greeting some along the way, before guiding the twins toward the front end.

  As they walked through the produce aisle, Ginny couldn't help but notice how much prices had changed. Shoppers could buy four cantaloupes – or ten grapefruits – for eighty-nine cents. Squash sold for twelve cents a pound, potatoes for three cents. Better deals could be found on the end caps near the front. A sixteen-ounce jar of peanut butter ran thirty-nine cents, a can of pink salmon forty-nine cents. Six cans of cat food went for a dollar.

  Ginny also couldn't help but notice the friendly stares from four male clerks, including two who stopped putting groceries in bags as she and Katie followed the manager to the store's entrance. She issued a quick wave to one who smiled broadly as she passed by.

  When Greer reached an out-of-the-way space between the front doors and several stacks of discount dog food, he halted, turned around, and waited for the girls to stop. When they did, he extended a hand.

  "It's been a pleasure, ladies," Greer said. He shook two hands. "As I mentioned in my office, we need help immediately. Depending on how two other interviews go and what your reference has to say, you could hear back from me as early as four this afternoon. I take it you can still be reached at the motel."

  "We can," Ginny said. "Just call the office and ask for Room 17."

  "I'll do that," Greer said. "Thank you again for coming in."

  The girls offered thanks of their own and then spilled out of the glass doors to a parking lot that had become far more crowded since ten o'clock. Ginny smiled as she got another eyeful of chrome, fins, and whitewall tires. This was most definitely another time.

  "What do you want to do now?" Ginny asked. "We have the rest of the day."

  "I want to do what we had planned to do in the coming weeks, before that awful mirror sent us here," Katie said. "I want to check out the campus."

  CHAPTER 12: GINNY

  Slurping down a root beer at a picnic tabl
e outside a campus cafeteria, Ginny finally put her finger on something that had bothered her all day. College students in 1964 did not wear denim – or wear it often enough to suit the sensibilities of one fashion-conscious time traveler. Eighteen- to twenty-two-year-olds – on this campus, anyway – still opted for the upscale look.

  Most women wore dresses or at least blouses with skirts that ran to their knees. Most men wore slacks and button-down shirts. Some donned jackets and ties. Few wore jeans. None wore threadbare jeans. If counterculture fashion was on its way, it had not yet arrived.

  "So what did you think of the boss man?" Ginny asked.

  Like Katie, she wore a striped yellow Dacron dress she had picked up on Saturday. It was her first fashion concession to 1964 but probably not her last.

  "I thought he was nice," Katie said. "I could work for him."

  "I could too."

  "Do you think we'll get the jobs?"

  Ginny shook her head.

  "No. Not unless the other candidates are felons. Would you hire two people who have no experience and only one reference and live in a no-tell motel? I wouldn't."

  "I wouldn't either," Katie said.

  Ginny paused to look at three young men who approached her table. None looked like the blond junior who had given her a ride into Seattle, but all showed the same level of interest. Each returned her gaze as they walked through the outdoor dining area and exited for points beyond.

  "There are a lot of cute guys here."

  "I haven't noticed," Katie said.

  "Baloney."

  Katie blushed as she lowered a hamburger to a plate that sat atop a plastic tray.

  "OK. I've seen one or two."

  Ginny rolled her eyes.

  "You saw that many at Greer's," she said. "Don't think I wasn't watching, Katie. You were checking out the guy who dropped the cantaloupe, and he was checking out you."

  Ginny sighed.

  "He should have been looking at me. I'm the one who just got dumped."

  Katie laughed.

  "You can have him. I don't need a boyfriend."

  "Of course you do. Everyone does. If it comes down to it, we'll just divvy them up. You can have Cantaloupe Boy, and I'll take the other three."