A Tale of Two Centuries msssc-2 Read online

  “You can wear this dress around the house,” my cousin continues, “when we’re the only ones here. Unfortunately, although Jenna, my stepmama-to-be, is in New York until tomorrow, my dad should be home from the set any minute now. But either way, trust me when I say that unless you want everyone thinking you’re a crazy person, it’s best just to go with the flow. If I had to wear five pounds of scratchy clothing and a freaking corset when I lived in your time, you can put up with a little skin showing here.”

  I gulp at the revolting image those words conjure, and Cat shakes her head. With an exaggerated sigh and teasing roll of her eyes, she hands me the next best choice, the gown she deemed a frumpy frock, and I eagerly snatch it from her fingers. The fabric is smooth and silky. I hold it up, judging the size and length, and declare it perfection.

  “Now unlike you, we don’t have fancy lady servants to help get us dressed, though as modest as you are, I’m shocked you even let them, anyway. But this is the bathroom.” She opens a door to reveal a second room attached to her bedchamber, this one containing a wall of mirrors. “Feel free to get changed in here.”

  I tiptoe inside, awed by the abundance of light and variety of basins. A box of glass and a huge white tub take up most of the space. It smells like the satchel of future items Cat brought with her during her stay with my family, and I close my eyes and inhale.

  Behind me, the door closes, but Cat continues to talk, her voice easily distinguishable through the thin wood. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” she says as I set the gown on the smooth counter. I grab the hem of my tunic and lift, still in awe myself, and she adds, “But why do you look so much older? It’s only been, like, what? Two months since I left Florence?”

  Arms in the air, tunic over my head, I freeze. I catch sight of my reflection, turn five shades of crimson, and spin away. “Dear cousin, either my English translation skills are defective, or your mathematics are. I believe you mean two years.”

  Silence on the other end for a moment, then, “Uh, no. I mean two months.”

  Holding the top against my chest and cracking the door open just enough to see one of her eyes, I ask, “But that cannot be possible. I assure you, when I entered Reyna’s mysterious green tent this morning, it was the year 1507.”

  Her head snaps up from the row of books she is perusing on her shelf. “Did you say 1507?” she asks, emphasizing the last number. When I nod, she tightens her mouth and tilts her head to the side. “Have there been any interesting developments or, err, any changes in the last two years?”

  As her sharpened gaze flitters about me, oddly focusing on my face and hands, I reply, “Other than that I was once fourteen and am now sixteen, no.” Cat nods distractedly. Obviously something is consuming her thoughts. “And last I saw you, you had just turned sixteen. How old are you now?”

  “Still sixteen.” Cat nods slowly. “We’re the same age.”

  The fact that I am now an equal with my older, wiser, daring cousin is not lost on me. My spine straightens with pride.

  She blinks her eyes as if to clear away her thoughts, then grabs a thick tome and begins pacing the length of her room. “Since Reyna’s all about the cryptic, I’m assuming she didn’t give you an idea of how long you’ll be here?”

  “In a way,” I answer with a shrug and wry grin. “It was Reyna, after all. She said that three signs would mark my journey—an angel speaking, a soft-rose songstress captivating, and life imitating art. When the third sign is revealed, she will return at sundown.” Then my grin turns into a frown. Now that I am here, with my beloved cousin I have missed so much, I know that however many days fate has granted me, they will be over in the blink of an eye.

  The matching frown on Cat’s beautiful face tells me she is thinking the same. She forces a smile and says, “Okay, definitely in keeping with the cryptic, but I’d expect nothing less. By any chance, did she include a riddle-like message to go along with your gypsy adventure?”

  Choosing to focus on the time that I will have with her instead of the heartache of leaving again, I nod, and then close my eyes to concentrate, wanting to ensure I repeat it verbatim. “She said, ‘The adventure that you seek is full of possibilities, but always remember where your real strength lies.’” I open my eyes and grin again. “As cryptic messages go, I do believe that is a good one.”

  Undeterred by my wit, Cat chews her lip, deep in thought. “Well, the strength part at least is easy,” she says with a wave of her hand. “That’s acting. You rock at it, and there’s no better place—except maybe New York—to explore it than Hollywood.” She plops down on her bed, bouncing as the temptingly supple mattress springs up underneath. “But possibilities…what could that mean?”

  I lift my shoulder in response. Knowing she has more experience with gypsy riddles than I, I close the door and focus again on getting dressed. I toss my tunic on the ground and tug on my trousers. After a moment, I call out, “Cousin? I appear to have a bit of a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” she asks, her voice muffled and distracted.

  “A trouser problem. It seems they do not want to be removed. I yank and yank, yet they refuse to budge.”

  Seriously, how maidens manage to get dressed alone with clothing such as this is beyond my comprehension. I shove my thumbs beneath the rough band at my waist and wrench.

  A lengthy pause from my cousin, then, “Did you try unzipping them?”

  “Unzipping?” I ask, not at all familiar with the word or the action.

  “Yeah, with the zipper. The metal thingy with teeth?”

  Wrinkling my nose, I take a look and indeed see a track of metal trailing down the front of my trousers. At the top is a little latch. As I grab it, I feel it sink lower. The pressure around my hips eases. I tug it back up and then down again. “A zipper, you say? Cat, I must tell you, the future is filled with interesting things.”

  She laughs.

  After my zipper fun, I peel the trousers down my legs and step out of them, seizing the gown before I can catch another glimpse of my bare flesh in the mirrors. I slide my arms through the soft fabric and instantly feel at home.

  When I open the door, Cat is where I left her, sitting tall on her mammoth bed. “I think I got it.” With a victorious grin, she holds up a leather tome, the words Roosevelt Academy written on the cover. “Reyna said an adventure full of possibilities, right? That means options, choices, potential. Things you can’t experience in the sixteenth century. And at our age, in the twenty-first, there’s no better way for you to get all that than by enrolling in school.”

  I jerk my head back. “School? Do you mean to send me to a convent?”

  Cat scrunches her nose and blinks in succession. “No, not a convent, you beautiful weirdo. High school! With me. And it just so happens that the spring semester starts tomorrow, so it’s perfect timing.” She laughs. “Actually, that’s probably not a coincidence, huh?”

  My cousin appears positively giddy with her discovery, but apprehension begins to squirm and knot in my stomach. If today’s jaunt to the theater was any indication, crowds from this time and I do not mix well. So I clear my throat and ask, “What precisely does one do at a high school? You should know that I have already learned my letters, music, and art, as well as how to dance and be festive. Truly, what else is there?”

  “You mean besides boys?” She gifts me with a cheeky grin, and my jaw drops. It is not possible that boys and girls attend to their schooling together. Cat’s grin grows wider as if she can read my thoughts. “Oh, my time-traveling chica, I have so much to teach you. And your first lesson, darling ancestor of mine, starts now. We need to work on how you talk.”

  Chapter Five

  My jaw hangs agape. If she had suggested I prance around naked, I think I would be less shocked.

  “The way I talk?” I ask. My cousin certainly never conformed the way she spoke when she was in my time. “Cat, are you implying it is I who needs to learn to speak properly? You—you who speak
with half words and improper grammar? I will have you know—”

  “Whoa.” Cat throws up her hands to halt my outburst. “Chill, chica. I come in peace, I promise.” The strange phrase diverts me, as was probably her intention. She smiles softly. “You’re right, you do speak correctly. And personally, I love the way you talk—you’re like my very own BBC special come to life. But see, that’s my point. If you go to school tomorrow and talk like that, you’re gonna be the only one…well, except for a couple stuffy English teachers. Those half words you say I use? They’re called contractions, and that’s the biggest thing you have to learn.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Contractions?”

  Sometimes it is as if Cat speaks her own language—beyond the English I can now somewhat comprehend. Listening to her talk has always been a touch unsettling, but back in my own time, I could brush off her nonsensical comments as mere rubbish. Here, in the future, where everyone I have encountered seems to utter the same words and phrases, it is a mindboggling struggle to feign understanding. It is as if there is English…and then another unique dialect, reserved solely for locals.

  “It’s a way to take two words and combine them so it’s quicker and easier to get out.” She shrugs. “What can I say? We’re Americans; we’re lazy. But no one goes around saying things like cannot, or it is I, or even going to anymore. We say can’t and I’m and gonna.”

  While the concept of shortening words is nothing new, the general practice has never been encouraged, much less the expected norm. I roll my tongue around the word gonna and cringe.

  Cat nods in approval, apparently having missed my distaste. “I’m jotting down a quick list of the most important stuff before my dad comes home. You can begin trying some of these out tomorrow, and then you’ll have an entire weekend to learn them before Monday.”

  My gaze shifts to the writing on her lap where a thick line divides the writing on the page into two neat columns. At the sheer amount of blue ink on the page, my eyes grow wide.

  Can language truly have changed that much?

  My cousin glances up and, misunderstanding my shock, rushes to reassure. “Less, I swear it’s not that I want you to change or even think you need to. I think you’re a bag of awesome just the way you are…but if you really want to fit in here, I’m just saying, you might wanna work on the speech a little.”

  I concede with a nod and plop onto the springy bed beside her. Tucking my legs under my gown, I eye the growing list in her hand. “I shall endeavor to learn these contractions before nightfall. Is there anything else?”

  Cat chews on the tip of her pen and narrows her eyes in thought. “Well, we do need to work on getting you an acting gig. When Dad gets home, I’ll see if he has any hookups with auditions. Judging by how long my time travel adventure was, I’m thinking something smaller. Maybe a commercial or walk-on part, at least to start with.”

  I circle my head in a nod, pretending to follow the jargon. “Will your father be angry that I am staying with you?” I pause and squint at the page, attempting to read upside down. “I mean, that I’m staying with you.” Cat flashes me a grin in approval. “Will he not find it strange that a foreign exchange student is unexpectedly living in your home without prior warning?”

  “Are you kidding?” She gives an exaggerated shake of her head and laughs. “Jenna’s got him so twisted up with wedding plans he’ll assume he just forgot. Honestly, the timing couldn’t be better.”

  Cat turns again to her list, and I lean back onto my elbows. Despite her kind assurances, my stomach of butterflies remains in full flight. According to her, Mr. Crawford will arrive any minute expecting to pick up his daughter for a nice, quiet dinner, and instead will discover me—an extra mouth to feed and another woman he has to shelter and protect.

  Could it really be as simple as my cousin believes? Will he just welcome a total stranger into his home and family?

  To distract myself from thoughts of being turned away, or worse, becoming an inconvenience, I scan the expanse of Cat’s walls and catch sight of a painting tucked to the side of her bed. I gasp as a feeling of home envelops me, and I lean closer, sure that my eyes are playing tricks.

  The rushing waterfall. A woman wearing a crown of daises and white linen. The folds of the fabric draped around her slender body, gathered and dipped in such a way as to expose a mysterious pear tattoo on her hip.

  “Lorenzo’s painting,” I whisper in awe.

  Beside me, Cat stiffens. She swallows visibly and focuses on the faded masterpiece before us. “I found it…the day Reyna sent me back.” A small smile plays upon her lips. “You don’t even want to know how much buying this set my dad back—or the creative linguistic gymnastics I had to pull off to explain why the girl looks so much like me…” Her voice trails off then, and her gaze turns wistful.

  Not wanting to open what I hope is a healing would, I temper my voice and say, “I remember when he completed it last year. A year after you left,” I add, a gentle reminder of how long it has been. For her it has been but a mere handful of weeks, but for those of us she left behind, it has been considerably longer. “Lorenzo poured his entire heart and soul into that painting, Cat. He has never forgotten you.”

  Pain washes over her face, and her eyes close. After a moment she whispers, “Me neither.”

  For someone who seldom enjoys sharing her emotions, Cat’s are written all over her face. I turn away, disconcerted at the rare display, allowing my cousin her privacy.

  The door to Cat’s room vibrates, followed by a hollowed thump down the hall. A loud male voice calls out, “Peanut?”

  Cat starts, as if coming out of a daze. “In here, Dad!” My hands fly to my hair, smoothing and flipping the loose strands, and she plasters a grin upon her face. Winking at my sudden wide-eyed panic, she shoves the tablet under her pillows. “Just showing my roomie her new digs!” Quieter, she says to me, “That should get his attention.”

  Sure enough, a tall man with dark blond hair and kind, quizzical brown eyes materializes at the bedroom door. “‘Roomie’?”

  Forcing my feet not to bolt in fear, I swallow down the lump of guilt for my part in the upcoming deception, for Cat does have a point. The truth is hard to believe. Plus, I have never been very good at denying my cousin anything.

  “Yeah, you remember, don’t you, Dad?” she asks, confusion wrinkling her brow. And she says I am the actress? “The semester foreign exchange program we signed up for? You said it’d be okay. I did forget to mention Alessandra was arriving today, though. I hope you don’t mind.”

  To be honest, watching the deceit roll off her tongue so effortlessly is both awe-inspiring and a tad worrisome.

  But Cat’s father should be commended for his agreeable nature. His look of puzzlement deepens for a brief moment before smoothing out into a welcoming smile. “No, of course I don’t mind. Alessandra, is it?” I nod, and his smile broadens. “Glad to have you here. Where is it that you’re from again?”

  Oh, about five hundred years into the past. “Florence, Italy, sir.”

  His mouth opens in surprise. “Is that right? Did Cat tell you we recently returned home from a visit to Florence? Beautiful city. What an amazing coincidence.”

  Coincidence indeed.

  I nod in response, biting my lip, not wanting to ruin the ruse for my cousin. I have never been proficient at maintaining falsehoods. Cipriano stopped telling me about his illicit exploits long ago in well-deserved fear I would let something slip to our parents.

  Mr. Crawford claps his hands and rubs them together. “Well, I planned to take my daughter for a dinner date with her dear old dad, but I’d love to have you join us. I take it Italian’s okay?”

  …

  My cousin’s gentle snores keep me company as I again pore over the notepad she gave me after dinner. What started as a series of contractions became a growing list of unique words and phrases, some I have—I’ve—heard her use, and others completely original. For instance, the phrase oh em gee.
Or the words dude, douche bag, peeps, duh, and legit. Under “technology,” she has iPad, iPhone, texting, and YouTube.

  And then there are entries like tool and sick and hot, which all seem clear enough, but their inclusion implies they must have a double meaning I don’t grasp.

  In truth, Cat should have included definitions.

  As if this daunting list were not enough, my mind is still reeling from dinner. After the nice man delivered a free basket of bread to our table, Cat snatched one and then went straight to asking her father about upcoming auditions. My hand froze mid-reach.

  Mr. Crawford put down his menu and pursed his lips in thought. “Marilyn Kent recently took over leadership for this year’s weekend winter workshop at The Playhouse. Lending her name added a lot of buzz, and a lot of bigger names are expressing interest,” he told us, dunking his bread stick in the delicious marinara.

  Again, I had to feign complete understanding, this time over what a buzzing bee had to do with anything. I wiped my hands on a napkin and took a sip of safe, clean, non-contaminated water. Amazing.

  Mr. Crawford swallowed and continued. “From what I hear, a ton of on-the-cusp actors and B-list stars are flocking to be attached, and auditions already started, but I’ll make a call in the morning and see what I can do.” He grinned and tweaked Cat’s ear. “If I can’t use nepotism on my own kid, I may as well use it on my temporary one.”

  The easy affection between them and his willingness to include me made my heart hurt a little, but in a good way. I may be away from my parents and brother, but I am with family.

  Then he looked at me and lowered his eyes, wincing. “It’d probably be a minor role at best, though. The workshop is a series of snippets from Shakespeare’s plays, so there won’t be an obvious breakout role or anything.”

  I wrinkled my nose, wondering if I should know who Shakespeare is, and Cat jumped in. “Hmm, a late sixteenth-century playwright who loved flowery words and old-world formalese. I think my girl Less can handle that.”