by Jina Bacarr
‘I understand you don’t want to accept the fact you’re betrayed by someone you trust,’ I argue, feeling uneasy with his admission that he doubts my story, ‘but it can’t hurt to be on the lookout for a traitor.’
‘Why are you doing this, Kate?’ He holds me by the shoulders. ‘I want to believe you, but I can’t.’
‘Because I love you with all my heart, darling. If there’s the slightest chance I can save you, I have to try.’
I grab his hand, while keeping my eyes fixed on his face, his mouth drawn tight and his eyes filled with so much anguish, his pupils shrink to pinpoints. I can’t look away. His hand is cold and we’re both trembling. Oh, God, the train is vibrating. I stand up then stumble, the shift in the car signaling a change in the time and space I occupy. Not anyone else, just me. I don’t know what other way to describe it, that every moment counts.
Is my time here done? Give me a sign… please.
I glance out the window at the woods with their trees in winter undress, gray and white and thick with frost. A heavy fog lies over everything. The engine whistle blows again, startling me. I pull down the window and stick my head out. I ignore the cold air blast stinging my cheeks. A tunnel lies ahead, waiting to devour the mighty train entering its depths, the thunder of the metal beast loud in my ears. I swear the tunnel opens its deep jaws wider, waiting to swallow me up.
A chilling fear sucks the breath out of me.
I feel my body going completely still, the blood draining from my face, as if I’m standing at the precipice of a hole so deep and black, one wrong step and I’ll never stop falling. Hot then cold, and a kind of unholy premonition sweeps through my body. Somehow in my bones, I know these are my last moments with Jeff. That when the train comes out of the tunnel on the other side, I won’t be here. I’ll be back in my own time.
How? Why?
The answer is clear. When I got on that train in 1955, I wanted to see him again so badly, the will of my mind opened up a door for me to jump through into my old self. Like going to sleep and experiencing the most fantastic dream. This dream is real. I set the stage by wearing my red coat and then reading the letter. It caught me at a moment when my mind was open to anything. Especially during the holiday season. It’s as if the portals of time open all at once, allowing us to slip back to a certain moment and relive special Christmas memories as real to us today as they were then.
I went one step further. I embraced the magic of Christmas to change the past.
My heart races, my arms ache as I look at my love. I want to press my mouth against his and never let him go, surrender to him when he blows his hot breath into me, but I have to sacrifice his warm lips and deep kisses to make him believe the truth.
On this frosty December morning, nervous and hopeful, I make my plea, leaving my fate in the hands of whatever supernatural crack in the universe allowed me to slip through and make my peace with the past. I tell him things that make his heart pound. Blood rushing through him, his face hot and perspiring as he tries to control himself when I speak of the horrors to come on the beaches of Normandy and the bombing of Dresden. He’s trembling inside. So much so the tiny jagged scar above his right brow looks like a streak of lightning slashed white across his forehead. Then he exhales, his heart slowing, as if he arrives at a safe place when I tell him about France being liberated and Japan surrendering and…
‘What else, Kate, for God’s sake?’ he wants to know, his mind absorbing too much at once.
I’m faced with a moral obligation about how much information I can – or should, tell him. I can make things worse with my meddling, something I’ve thought about many times. Yes, I nudged history a bit by helping folks back here at home. Somehow this is different. This means telling Jeff about events that involve so many soldiers I can’t conceive of the effect it could have. Like changing the course of one life may domino to losing others.
Does that make me selfish because I want to save him?
Guilt weighs upon my shoulders for saying it. I have to believe that saving him is the reason I’m here. That I’m doing the right thing, not only for myself – who knows if he’ll marry me after the war? – but for his family and our town. For Posey Creek. Jeff could pull the mill out of its problems after his brother Timothy let it go and so many men, including Pop, wouldn’t lose their jobs.
A minute, maybe two left before we race through the tunnel.
‘Listen, Jeff, please. You don’t believe I come from the future. What if I prove it to you? Will you believe me then? That there’s a traitor among you on your mission in France?’
‘I’m worried about you, Kate.’ He frowns. ‘I’ll call the conductor. Make sure you get on a train back to Posey Creek.’
‘Jeff, listen to me, please! When we go through that tunnel, I don’t know why or how, but when the train comes out on the other side, I won’t be here. I’ll be back in my own time. Will you believe me then, will you?’
He stares at me, his eyes clear and sharp, his breathing calm. ‘Yes, Kate, I’ll believe you.’
Does he mean it?
‘Take the drawing with you, Jeff.’ I fold it into his hand, my heart beating so fast a lightheadedness comes over me. ‘That way I’ll be with you when you lay your head down at night wherever you are until you come back to me.’
Without a word, he puts the drawing into his pocket and takes my hands in his. His eyes are serious and I swear he believes me. Then he says a strange thing. ‘It’s best if you never speak of this to anyone nor will I. My mission is of utmost secrecy. Many lives depend on it. Promise?’
‘I promise.’
He smiles at me and looks at me with such love in his eyes. ‘I love you, Jelly Girl, and when I get back we’ll be married right away—’
His words fade in my ears. I feel a rumbling beneath my feet. Sharp, constant. It’s time. I stand up. Waiting.
There it is. The tunnel.
I wince at the idea of leaving him, begging for one last moment with him. I turn to look at him, his eyes searching mine, a burning to know the truth when—
Whoosh.
The train races through the black tunnel and I brace myself for the moment I know is coming. The wild sensation of being whirled around like a dervish, my bones pulling apart, teeth clenched, my heart pumping so hard to keep up with the wild ride. The erratic shaking hits me first. I’m not frightened this time. Because when I see light again, I’ll know whether or not my coming back here changed the future.
Do I save Jeff? Or is it a dream?
What if I can’t get back to my own time?
The thought hits me so quickly, if Jeff is alive I’ll never see him. I’ll be trapped here between two worlds. Forever. I wanted so desperately to save him, I never entertained the idea I’m putting myself in danger. I assumed… assumed what?
There’s no price to pay for my folly?
Yes, I went back in time. Maybe, just maybe I saved Jeff’s life. At what cost?
That terrifying thought crushes me. I’m alone in my pain, but I wouldn’t change anything. I’ve known the love of this man as a woman, not a girl, and that’s worth everything. I push aside the anger pulsing through me, making my head ache, my bones crunch like I’m disintegrating. I refuse to regret a moment over the past week because I love him that much.
How can I ever replace those moments with Jeff? With my family?
Sitting around the kitchen table with Ma fretting over her ration book with red and blue stamps. How she’ll get what she needs to make spice cake for the boys. Pop enjoying his pipe and never saying a word, but looking pleased at having us all safe under his roof. Lucy arguing with Frank Junior over him telling her latest admirer she’s in high school and not to kiss her again or he’ll let him have it. I smile. They’re a trying, crazy family, but they’re my family and I’m grateful I had this time with them.
Most of all, I relive over and over that night with Jeff in the house on the river that would have been our home. We held each o
ther and I fell asleep with my head against his broad shoulder, his hand holding mine. When I woke up, I was alone. His scent still on me. When I found him standing by the riverbank, he told me the story of his boyhood and the woman who forged his interest in art. Aline. She’d be so proud of him.
A bright light in the distance calms me, telling me I’m not lost forever.
I have a chance.
I land with a thump, hard and painful. I don’t know where, it could be on a rock on the shore because I hear whooshing in my ears like the sound of crashing surf, or a street… or God help me, the floor of a railway car. The wheels of a speeding train vibrate in my ears. I press my hand to my cheeks but I don’t open my eyes. Not yet. My face is hot, perspiring. I check my hands, arms. Legs. Nothing broken.
Am I back?
A low, husky whisper tickles my ear with soft words, then it gets louder as my hearing becomes more acute. A man’s voice. Comforting me as I come to. I lie on the floor of the railcar where I fell. I can’t understand what he’s saying.
Then a streak of light falls across my face, tapping on my eyelids with a healing warmth and after what seems like a long, long journey, I open my eyes.
Then I see him.
A tall, broad shouldered man leans over me, holding my hand, patting my forehead with a damp handkerchief. My vision is blurry and I can’t see his face. He wears his hat at a low angle hiding his eyes, but I’m aware of his strong jaw, big hands, and pure masculinity as he raises me up into a sitting position.
It’s Jeff; it has to be.
25
‘You’re alive, you did believe me!’ I mutter, gliding back into this time and into his arms, my heart in my throat, my emotions cascading through one crazy feeling to another. I’m so sure of myself, I don’t hold back. He couldn’t be more shocked when I pull him close and plant a hot, wet kiss on his lips. I lean into him, passion surging within me. I want to go on kissing him forever, but he doesn’t kiss me back. I’m hurt. Why? Doesn’t he want to? I sense a quickening of his breath, an impulse to press his lips against mine, but he stops. The Jeff I know wouldn’t do that. He’d capture my lips with a burning touch I’d never forget. Is it him?
No, something is different. He seems distant, puzzled. Jeff is warm, combustive, bursting with love and affection. Not this man. Instead, he scoops me up in his arms and says something to the conductor behind him I can’t hear. I know it’s Jeff, but he isn’t the man I expect to find back in my own time. I admit, his nonchalant kiss shakes me up. I swear my mouth melted into his in the most familiar manner. Now I have my doubts. He’s a big man like Jeff, but he isn’t clean-shaven and he has several days’ stubble that enhance his square jaw, fitting somehow to this irresistibly sexy man. He wears a black Fedora pulled down low over his eyes and his clothes look like something you see in a black and white foreign film.
Why do I say that? Because I’m looking for excuses as to why he doesn’t know me, like he’s not from here. Besides, I detect an aloofness about him that makes me wonder if I’m wrong and it’s not Jeff.
I saw what I wanted to see. Even though my heart is breaking, I have to accept the truth. This man acts like he doesn’t know me.
I let my body go limp in his arms as he carries me back to my empty seat and gently lays me down. I turn my head away, embarrassed at my outrageous behavior. I made a fool out of myself. I wished so long for Jeff to be alive, dreaming of this moment, I did what my heart yearned for so I make myself believe it happened.
I kissed a man who wants nothing to do with me.
‘You had a bad fall, ma’am,’ he says, his voice deep and husky and somewhat amused by my amorous embrace. As are the other passengers, the men snickering, the ladies swooning. He called me ma’am?
My head clears, my vision coming into focus. That doesn’t change anything. I swear it’s Jeff. I can’t convince myself otherwise. I don’t understand why I feel this way, but I can’t shake it. He’s big and strong, his expensive suit fitting snugly over his muscular body. He doesn’t go back to his seat. Hovering over me, looking me up and down from head to toe. Not in an off-putting way. More like he’s assessing the situation.
‘Yes… I made it. I’m back,’ I mumble to myself because I don’t want to face the truth. Nothing changed the way I expected. Jeff doesn’t know me.
‘Allow me to be of assistance,’ he says, flashing me a curious look. ‘Though I’m intrigued why a beautiful woman is traveling alone without a man to protect her.’
‘I’m going home for the holidays. To Posey Creek.’ I peek over my shoulder and see him watching me as I gather up my handbag and my hatbox, sitting where I left them, and smooth down my red coat. He loved that coat on me. Will that jog his memory?
‘Alone?’
‘I could ask you the same thing. A debonair man like yourself without a woman on your arm?’ I say, smiling. Brazen, but I’m desperate to know why he’s traveling alone. No wife, family. ‘How bourgeois.’
He throws his head back and laughs. Again, that eerie sensation tickles my spine.
‘I’m also going to Posey Creek… on business.’ He makes no attempt to return to his seat, though he keeps a respectable distance between us. My heart thunders in my ears. This conversation is going nowhere with the two of us volleying back and forth with small talk. What choice do we have? We’re an item, with the interested passengers leaning forward in their seats, eager to see what happens next. I never dreamed our reunion would be so public. There must be another way.
First, I have to think this out. If I did traverse the tracks of time and hopped aboard the train going back to 1943 and changed the future – like one train passing another in the thick of night – I’d be snug and warm with Jeff at home in Posey Creek in the house on the river. Children playing. A dog nipping at their heels. A lovely dream that makes me feel warm all over.
Why didn’t things turn out like that? my brain screams. I have no answer. Nothing changed. I smell the pine, see the festive, twinkling lights framing the passenger windows, the soft red velvet seats. The late afternoon sun glows distinctly bright on a clear December day, but there is no warmth shining through. It’s cold outside, in the twenties and windy from the trees blowing as the train speeds along the tracks.
I’m the same woman I was when I got on the train. The Mistletoe Flyer. A lonely, thirty-one year old food editor who traveled through time and still loves the man she lost. I’m wearing my red coat and I’m certain if I put my gloved hand into my pocket, I’ll find the letter nestled there. I hear the crackle of the paper between my fingers as I fumble for it, certain it isn’t the drawing Jeff did of me.
You gave it to him before you came back, remember?
What’s more disturbing, I’m aware I’ve returned to a very different world than the one I left in 1943. I haven’t been gone so long to forget that here women no longer wear the awful foxtails Mrs Rushbrooke favored. People look for flying saucers in the sky instead of enemy planes, and coming-out parties for young debs are all the rage instead of girls taking war jobs. And me? I’m on my way home for the Christmas holidays with a heavy heart.
No. I take that back. My heart may be heavy, but I tasted the sweetest honey, sucked it dry, and then I found myself back where I started, wanting more. Wanting Jeff. I can’t have him. Dry-mouthed, exhausted, I keep telling myself it was all a dream. I never left this train, but I don’t believe it.
As I hold my throbbing head, I still feel the warmth of Jeff’s arms around me during those last moments back in time, holding me, kissing me.
Now he’s here. Close to me. I’m sure of it, but I don’t know what to do about it.
First, I have to get myself together so Lucy doesn’t panic when she sees me disheveled and disoriented. I’m not hurt. No bruise on my forehead, no bleeding. I never felt better. You don’t really get pulled apart when you time travel, I tell myself with expert authority since I’ve done it. It just feels like it. God knows I experienced an electrifying sensation w
hen the man I want so much to be Jeff scooped me up in his arms and carried me back to my seat. The one across from me is empty, giving me a chance to gather my wits. It’s important I throw myself into the holiday spirit, make sure Lucy gets back on the marriage track.
I open my handbag – everything is there, wallet, train ticket, the usual – and then slide on a fresh coat of lipstick. Not the dark red we wore during the war. Brighter, reflecting the times. I smack my lips and I peek at the man I swear is Jeff in my compact mirror. I pretend to check for lipstick on my teeth, but I’m staring at him. He takes a seat across the aisle from me and looks out the train window. I can’t get a clear view of his face, frustrating me. I begin to sweat, my pageboy drooping, and in that moment I see myself in the mirror. A woman. Not the nineteen year old girl I was for the past week.
No wonder he doesn’t recognize me, but I have an idea what he’ll look like in this time, a tall, sexy man in his mid-thirties. His body still muscular but filled out in broad strokes, his walk that defines his masculinity like a mature lion ruling over his pride. Like the man in the Fedora.
Calm down, don’t say anything. It has to be Jeff. Why won’t he say something? What’s wrong?
My heart breaks when he keeps his distance and doesn’t make a move to check on me, even if I’m merely a curiosity to him. I see now how fragile time is, like a kaleidoscope – the reflection of what we think is true can change in an instant when seen from a different angle. I can’t stop the memories of him flooding into my head. Remembering the anticipation of seeing him… then the smell of ripe tart cherries carried on a night breeze, that moment of skin against skin… whispered words, his hot, burning kisses that go on and on.
He turns and stares at me, as if he wants to say something but doesn’t. Instead he does his duty. Keep the damsel in distress under your wing till the castle is in sight. Or in this case, the train station. Which isn’t far according to the conductor’s hearty call, ‘Ten minutes from Posey Creek, next stop Posey Creek.’