Elmer backed away and straightened his tie. “You’re not going to let him stay here?” His inflection made it sound more like an order than a question.
Tony lay motionless except for the slight rise and fall of his chest. “What else would I do?” Charlotte asked. “Of course he’ll stay here.”
“I can’t stay with you,” Elmer said.
“Of course you can’t. Nor would I expect you to—”
“You can’t just take a strange man into your house.”
“He saved my life! It’s the least I can do for him.”
Elmer let out a humph. “Well, I don’t like it. People will talk—”
“The Paulson’s can’t see my front porch from their house, and Ida’s long in bed by now.” Charlotte didn’t care what the neighbors thought. All that mattered was taking care of Tony. She bent to pull off his shoes.
“What are you doing?” Elmer asked.
“We have to get him out of these wet things.” Mesmerized by Tony’s inert form, she dropped the shoes on the floor with a clunk as she rose. “Could you...?” She backed toward the door.
“You want me to undress him?”
Charlotte put a hand on her hip. “We can hardly leave him to sleep in that sopping wet suit.” Elmer’s expression softened. Charlotte backed out the door. “Just bring his clothes out and I’ll hang them in the bathroom to dry.” She pulled the door shut and waited in the hall.
Rustles and the occasional grunt issued from the room. “Jumpin’ Jiminy!” Elmer said.
Charlotte moved closer to the door. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing... but this fellow has the strangest set of drawers I’ve ever seen, and his socks...”
“What about them?”
Another grunt and more rustles, then Elmer emerged from the room. He thrust a wadded ball of fabric at her. “Elmer?” What was so unusual about Tony’s clothes?
“His socks... all stretchy. Stay up all by themselves. And his drawers...” He cocked his head at the armload of clothing. “Have to be mighty uncomfortable. Tight around the waist...” His eyes met hers and his face reddened. “Nothing a lady need concern herself with. It’s getting late, I must be going. If you’re sure you’ll be all right with him—”
“I’ll be fine.” She moved toward the front door and hoped Elmer would take the hint.
He followed. “I’m not comfortable with the idea... a strange man in your home...”
“Consider him nothing more than another boarder,” Charlotte said. “Which is exactly how I’ll explain—”
“But a man, Charlotte?”
“It’s been two months since Sally left. At this point I can hardly be choosy.” If only Tony could be a boarder. Her butter and egg money was long gone. She still owed Theodore what she’d borrowed last month, when her landlord had threatened eviction. The last thing she wanted was to become further indebted to the Society.
Elmer nodded and paused with his hand on the doorknob. “I had a pleasant time this evening.”
“I did, too,” Charlotte said. Pleasant? Was that what an evening with a gentleman was supposed to be? “Thank you again for the show.” She rested a hand on the doorframe.
Elmer started to lean toward her, then glanced at the still-ajar door to the second bedroom. “Until Tuesday, then.” He walked out the door.
Charlotte pushed it closed behind him, then sagged against it. Why couldn’t Elmer be more... exciting? Or at least interesting? Maybe real life wasn’t like the movies, but Dewey and his wife enjoyed being together. Mr. and Mrs. Paulson next door looked at each other and laughed together like they didn’t find each other’s company merely pleasant, but fun. Magical.
She carried Tony’s wet clothes into the bathroom and draped them over the bathtub. Nothing unusual in the jacket, trousers, shirt or tie. He’d taken care to dress appropriately to the era. Except for the socks...
She held one up. Black, a soft knit fabric, with gold thread woven into the heel. She pulled at it and it stretched four or five inches. She gasped. What wondrous material was it made of? She released the toe, and the sock returned to the same shape it held before. “Mercy!” She would have to ask Tony about his socks when he woke. Ideas spun in her mind. The practical things that could be made with such fabric! Garters would become obsolete. Surely there was money to be made—
She couldn’t. It wouldn’t exactly be violating Society law, but it might cause Tony—
She had to check on him. Elmer wouldn’t approve of her approaching an almost-nude man, but he’d never know.
Drawn like a stray dog to food, she walked to Tony’s side, and gazed down upon the sleeping form. “What am I going to do with you?”
The question was rhetorical. He’d wake once he’d slept off the effects of the jump, then Theodore would serve him a punishment suitable for whatever transgression had earned him a place in the Black Book, and that would be the end of it. Or Theodore would deal Tony a swift and—she hoped—painless death, and let Tony’s contemporaries handle it when he returned, alive, to his own time.
She didn’t want Theodore—or anyone—to handle it. Whatever ill he’d done, Tony had saved her life. At the least, she owed him the opportunity to defend himself.
Her hand went to the hollow between her breasts. Heavens, she’d forgotten he was so handsome. She fingered the quarter. It hadn’t come off her neck since she’d hung it on the chain Theodore had given her years ago.
Twenty years ago, the coin had been magical. Shining, silver proof that time travel was real, and so then, must be Tony’s claim that she could do anything, be anything.
She’d believed him. She’d chased that dream for a while, gotten close enough to touch it when she’d gained a position in the inventions department at Dayton Kitchen Products Research. In a field dominated by men, she’d dared to take her place among them, to prove that she, too, could contribute to the world and make people’s lives better. Then her chance at glory had slipped away like a hot air balloon, its moorings cut by the depression.
All she had left was the quarter.
It was a lifeline, a link through the decades to the man to whom she would always hold a connection, no matter how tenuous. A sign that someday, he’d come back to her, bringing with him her dreams renewed.
Only now, she was a woman harboring a fugitive.
Tony took a deep, shuddering breath, but didn’t wake. Charlotte couldn’t move, couldn’t tear her eyes from him. As she watched the rise and fall of his chest, his criminal past—or future, as it might be—slipped away, and he once again became the man from the future who’d come back to save her. A man whose knowledge Charlotte desperately wanted, no matter how much she knew she shouldn’t.
She had to see those drawers.
She leaned forward, then stopped. Heavens, what was she thinking? Nothing a lady should concern herself with, indeed.
It’s purely scientific, her rational self argued.
In a pig’s eye.
Curiosity warred with propriety. He was in recovery sleep, he’d never know if she took a tiny peek. A chance to learn something of the future, nothing more.
Curiosity won. She leaned over and peeled back the quilt.
A zing shot through her that had nothing to do with Tony’s clothing. A zing she never felt with Elmer. But why?
Scientific reasons. She studied the undergarments. Elmer had left Tony’s ordinary, sleeveless undershirt on. She pressed her palm to his chest, let her hand rest over his heartbeat. Had to assure herself he wasn’t wet to the skin.
While her proper side protested, she pushed the covers back until she revealed the strange drawers.
The soft, white cotton clung to Tony’s hips. Didn’t cover the tops of his legs at all. She drew a finger along the odd, blue-striped waistband. Elastic! Just like suspenders. How clever clothing was in the future! The underpants fit snugly, though she doubted Elmer’s assumption they’d be uncomfortable. They even had a flap over—
; Her face heated, and she yanked the blankets back over him. Good heavens, what was she doing?
From the living room, the dome clock atop the radio cabinet chimed twelve times. She had to get to bed. Had to be at work by six. If she was late again, Irving would fire her.
She’d grown weary by the time she and Elmer reached home, but she couldn’t think about sleeping now, not with Tony lying in her spare room—
The cats! She tore her eyes off Tony and hurried to the kitchen.
She set out scraps from the restaurant for the alley cats every night. The poor dears had to be starved. She set the plate of leftover stew—mostly vegetables—on her back stoop then returned to the spare bedroom. She lingered beside the bed and contemplated Tony, unsure of what to do. Call Theodore.
She couldn’t.
But you should.
Tomorrow would be soon enough. The niggling little voice was annoying, so she forced her mind to blank.
He looked so peaceful lying there, his strange spiky, unkempt hair—not slicked back like most gentlemen’s—the only visible clue that he didn’t belong. What would Theodore do to him? Surely not the Treatment. Lord have mercy, no! Her fingers twisted in her skirt. Many of the Black Book peoples’ crimes were egregious enough they got the Treatment immediately. The lucky ones were killed, though she’d heard in other times and places the death sentence had fallen out of fashion.
Tony had saved her life. She couldn’t call Theodore.
But you must. It was her duty to the Society. When Tony had saved her life, he’d plunged her into a terrifying world where she could disappear any time, to eras full of danger, times when no one knew her. The Society had given Charlotte her life back. Theodore had taught her how to control the frightening tendency to slip in time, and how to stay grounded in the present.
He would have felt the jump; it was a matter of time until he tracked Tony down himself anyway.
Bed, it was time for bed. Her feet dragged as she left the room.
She’d just buttoned her nightgown when the telephone rang. She’d always considered it an extravagance, but Theodore insisted on being able to contact her at any time, so she let the Society pay for it. She hurried to the kitchen to answer it.
“Charlotte?”
She let out her breath. “Hello, Theodore.”
“I apologize for ringing you at this hour but I had to know if it was you who jumped.”
Tell him! She forced a light chuckle. “Well, now you know. You know I hardly ever—”
“I know dear.” A hint of underlying Southern accent crept into his cultured voice. “But we must be ever vigilant for those who would manipulate time to serve their own ends.”
She sighed. “Yes, Theodore.” Sometimes he could be fanatical about chasing down those he called the enemies of time. His personal crusade. She shot a glance toward the hallway, where a known Enemy lay recovering.
“You’ll keep an eye out and let me know?”
“Of course.”
He bid her good night and hung up. She replaced the phone, then leaned against the wall. She should have said something.
She couldn’t. Not when he could very well condemn Tony to the Treatment.
Images of Fred Cheltenham assaulted her, the ones that still haunted her dreams on occasion. She’d returned to the House a few days after she’d run away that night, before the pull claimed Fred and returned him to his own time. She’d never forget his drooling mouth and vacant eyes, void of thought.
She couldn’t let the man to whom she owed her life fall victim to such a fate.
Yet she owed Theodore, too. She would be vigilant. Just not in the way Theodore expected. She would stay with Tony throughout his visit to her time, keep an eye on him, make sure he didn’t do anything to earn him his place in the Black Book.
But if he committed his crime in her time, she’d be the one changing history...
She pushed the thought from her mind and returned to the spare bedroom. She’d forgotten to remove Tony’s glasses.
She slipped them off, folded them and lay them on the dresser. What would his odd, spiky hair feel like? Would it be bristly, like her father’s beard? Tentatively, she reached out and brushed it back with her hand. It was surprisingly soft. She let her hand hover there for a second, then snatched it away as his eyes fluttered open.
They were the same brilliant blue of a summer sky that she remembered. “Tony?”
His mouth slowly slid open. “Violet?”
TONY HESITATED AS HE REACHED FOR the door handle of Irving’s Restaurant. The narrow, old frame structure and its hand-lettered front window reminded him of the tobacco shop where he and Charlotte had found refuge during the flood.
But it was the sign above the door that made the enormity of what he’d done hit him like a sucker punch to the gut: Whites Only.
He’d gone back a century in time by will alone. A time where men still tipped their hats to women—ladies—and offered them their seats on the bus, and no one got offended. A time before civil rights, when it was acceptable to deny someone entrance to a public establishment solely on the basis of race. Even an honest, respectable businessman like his friend Bernie.
An old man brushed past him and walked inside, the door’s squeak jolting Tony out of his daze.
His fingers slipped on the door handle when he grabbed it.
He stared down at his sweat-moistened hands. Man, Solomon, get a grip!
He’d awakened in her home, instead of a hotel like he’d planned, and—who had undressed him? Charlotte? As far as he could tell, she lived alone. The thought turned his stomach to wet noodles. What a turnabout from the day he met her.
She’d left a note on the nightstand, requesting him to come to the restaurant when he woke, and said she looked forward to seeing him.
He wiped his hands across his pants, trying to get rid of the fluttery feeling in his belly.
Like he was in high school again, about to go on a date with a hot girl.
It wasn’t a date. Nothing would happen, never mind what Dewey had implied. Tony was there to learn, nothing more.
He gazed around at the passers-by. No one gave him a second glance. Thanks to Great-aunt Louise’s reluctance to part with anything—even seventy-five-year-old suits—Tony fit in with the other businessmen he’d seen during his walk to the restaurant.
He yanked open the door and strode inside.
The eight, white linen-covered tables were empty, but three men hunkered at the counter and pored over a newspaper, their backs to the door and window. Tony slid onto a stool beside them. They were grumbling about baseball, and what a sorry game the Ducks had played the other night. Some things never changed.
Where was Charlotte? Empty coffee cups sat before two of the men. They were talking about work now. Or rather, the lack of it, and how someone they knew had lost his job the other day when the plant closed.
If someone didn’t take care of them soon, Irving’s Restaurant might not be far behind.
As if provoked by the thought, a man’s face appeared in the pass-through window. His mouth contorted into a snarl beneath the greasy, graying hair combed across his balding head. “Charlotte!” he bellowed, then disappeared.
“Coming!” a woman called. A slam behind the counter drew everyone’s attention, then she dashed into the dining room with a pot of coffee.
Lightness rose in Tony’s chest. It was her. His knees tensed. He studied her as she reached across the counter to refill the men’s cups.
The same face had leaned over him last night, a halo of short, wavy, brown hair framing her concerned expression. Those hands had held a glass of water to his lips when he awakened for a few hazy moments. The same curvy body had led him to the bathroom a couple times during his stupor, one he vaguely remembered thinking reminded him of Violet.
Charlotte filled the second customer’s cup. “Oh dear, Mr. Dawson, you should have hollered for me.” Her voice held a hint of the same throaty quality that characteri
zed Violet’s. When she leaned over to top off the third man’s cup, the v-neck of her dress drooped to offer a view of her ample cleavage, drawing all of the men’s stares. Charlotte appeared not to notice.
Her step carried an energy, and the sincerity of her words and their reflection in her eyes bespoke a life force that elevated her otherwise ordinary appearance to timeless beauty. All this in a woman who read heavy science in her free time. Tony had perused her cluttered bookshelf and found it crammed with volumes by Einstein, Hubble, others he’d never heard of.
He leaned on his hand, elbow on the counter, as she approached. “Oh! I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t hear anyone come— Tony!” Her hand tightened on the handle of the coffee carafe, and her lips parted to reveal the same gap-toothed smile that had charmed him when she was a child. “How are you feeling?”
“Good, now that I’ve rested.” Her face brightened the room like a neon light in a smoky bar. The men stopped talking and peered sidewise at them. Tony lowered his voice. “What day is it?”
“Tuesday, May sixteenth.”
She’d taken care of him for three days. “Thanks for taking me in. Honestly, I didn’t mean to pass out on—”
“Think nothing of it.” She waved him off. “I know what it’s like.”
“You do, don’t you?”
She tipped her head toward the other customers as she lifted a coffee cup and saucer off the shelf. The three men resumed their talk of sports and the weather. “Coffee?” she asked.
At his nod, she filled the cup in front of him. She could’ve been Violet’s twin. All she’d have to do was let her hair grow and color it blond, and put on some weight.
“What else would you like? You must be famished.” She slid a hand-printed, paper menu toward him.
“Now that you mention it...” He skimmed the restaurant’s offerings as he poured some cream—the real stuff—into his coffee. No bagels, of course. “Scrambled eggs and bacon would be great.” In the 1930s, no one worried about cholesterol. A tendril of smoke curled from a cigarette as the man beside him took a puff. Or smoking.
He felt the men’s eyes on him as he watched her depart through the kitchen door. They didn’t bother to look away when he met their stares. “Morning,” he said.
Time's Enemy: A Romantic Time Travel Adventure (Saturn Society Book 1) Page 17