Tag: rom com

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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I never got another chance to talk to John for the whole rest of the day. He took off after our bumbling encounter, only stopping by his book scattered room to gather his guitar and leave. Thankfully, he didn’t notice that someone had been in there, touching all his stuff.

I was muddy and humiliated and the last time I showered was one hundred and sixty-some years in the future. I slipped into the bathroom, imagining the hot water down my back and on my face. I needed it after my awkward chance first impression with Lennon. Time to reset.

When I stepped into the bathroom, my hands slapped onto my thighs dejectedly. A single tub sat against the tiled wall. Are you actually kidding? Not even a shower! What do you mean? Showers are invented by 1958, I wasn’t in the 1700s or anything!

I sighed heavily. Fine. At least it was something. It took me a good while to figure out how to twist the little nobs on the top and plug the hole with the stopper on the chain. Once I had the thing finally filling up, I took off my blouse.

Wow. How unattractive was this bra? Like two silky traffic cones. Why were they so pointy? Who would ever have breasts this shape? Absurd.

I could see the little freckle speck where the surgeons had inserted my IND. Was Thorne watching this? Because I’d rather not have this recorded for all time and history.

“System override. Camera off.” I said as quietly as possible.

Great. Now I only had fifteen minutes to wash up before my IND sent a location alert to Thorne. How relaxing. I slipped out of the rest of my stinky and unattractive undies then tumbled into the bath.

I rested my head against the porcelain lip of the tub. It wasn’t a shower. But it still felt nice to be clean. Any kind of clean. I welcomed the water by dipping down and letting it lap against my neck.

Day one and I already found myself floundering. And where to go from here? Man, the council had really screwed me up. If my original timeline had been accepted, I would have been able to enroll as a student. But now that they’ve plopped me here right before summer vacation, I had to keep up an internship lie.

I lifted my leg so I could hear the tinkling sound of the water being disturbed. Plus, I liked the feel and look of the little droplets dewing on my shin. I could get used to this if I had to, I guess.

Splunk. I dropped my foot in and brought my knees to my chest. How was I going to get on the campus and stalk around without suspicion? I could get a part-time job or a real apprenticeship. I wouldn’t want an actual commitment, though. Unless it had something to do with John.

Suddenly, there was a muffled whack from the other side of the bathroom door, loud enough that it jolted me upright.

“Get up.” Mimi’s voice bellowed.

“What?” I heard John’s voice whine. “I dropped somethin’!”

“I know what you were doing,” she said. “You were trying to get an eyeful through the crack of that door.”

John shushed her. “No, I wasn’t. Keep your voice down. You want to rattle the whole house awake?”

My mouth dropped open and I hunkered into the tub, watching the wooden bathroom door, and listening.

“I will not have you conducting such a shameful behavior in this house. I don’t know what kind of a thing you are picking up at your mother’s, or what you do when you’re out, but I will not tolerate it here in the least bit.”

“Mimi…”

“Go on with you.”

No return argument. Things grew quiet as John’s footsteps retreated down the hall.

 “Now you want to wear your specs.” I heard Mimi say from the other side of the door.

I had to cover my mouth, trying not to laugh. This was strangely… perfect? What else could that mean? He must be attracted to me. Even a little bit. And every little bit helps.

I rested my head back on the lid of the tub. Not only was that a confidence boost with the mission, but now he had given me a great idea for how to meet him at art school tomorrow. If he wanted to see me naked, then fine. I would make it happen.

***

I sat across the desk from Lennon’s painting professor, a grubby little man with a thin mustache.

“I’m afraid we’ve already done our human anatomy still life for the year,” Professor Barrell said.

I cleared my throat, anxious to get out of the weird smell of his office. That same smell. What was this chemical smell? I hated it. It lurked in every single corner of 1958 Liverpool and each new cloud was worse than the last.

“Isn’t there some way we can revisit the section?” I asked, with an awkward high voice. “I’m only allowed a work-study here for the summer and I desperately needed to add this to my modeling resume. I was wondering if you couldn’t oblige me in any sort of way?”

Was that even how they talked in the 1950s? It sounded wrong. I was probably wrong. Barrell pinched his mouth with his fingers and stared at me for an uncomfortably long time, his eye muscles tense in concentration.

“Well, I do suppose there is a way you could help me today,” he finally responded, leaning forward. “Our subject this week is ‘woodland wildlife’ and I’ve just had a splendid idea. A former student of mine has brought me a piece that I think could really bring this idea to the canvas.”

I shrugged and smiled. “Great. Wonderful. I would be the happiest glad to help in any way you need.” Or whatever the Galactica you would say to that in the late fifties.
Barrell gave me a curt nod. “Follow me.”

I followed him to the art room, which was about twice as small as I had expected. And three times as colder. I grimaced, thinking about how long I would be standing there with everything hanging out in the freezing classroom.

But my fears were both silenced and changed as Barrell brought out what he had referred to as ‘the prop’. A full deerskin. Only its legs and head taxidermized, staring lifelessly at me with black marbled eyes.

“And… what do you want me to do with this exactly?” I asked, still trying to keep up my fake happy voice, but it was gone. Totally gone.

“You know,” Barrell said bringing the carcass around his shoulders, the deer head resting on his. “I thought you could wear this up top like this. And then maybe we can capture the sense of life better.”

“You want me to… wear a dead deer on my head? And that’s going to… capture the sense of life?” I had to repeat it because I wasn’t even sure what I was hearing myself.

“I think it should be very Avant-Garde,” he said his eyes doing that little squinty hard thing again. “And you can sit here on this log…” Barrell started rolling a full-on tree stump right to the center of the room.

“Oh goody, you have a random log in your classroom. Of course you do.” A thousand regrets raced through my mind and punched me in the face. “Do you want me to… Should I take off my clothes before the students get here? Or is it better to disrobe in front of them?” I realized how deranged of a question that was, but if a striptease was going to get Lennon to give up his band then a striptease it was going to be.

“Oh no, no, no. That’s quite alright,” he said. “You sit here. And you can keep that lovely little dress you have on. That’s fine. You look stunning.” Barrell grabbed me by the shoulders and sat me on the log.

“So just the deer carcass? No naked painting? Are you sure?” I asked, sort of wanting to run away as quickly as possible.

“Hmm. What an anxious little model you are,” Barrell said, with a weird lingering touch on my arm.

“Alright. Yeah. The dead deer. I can do that,” I said, shaking him off and grabbing the prop by it’s tough little hairs.

As Barrell walked away, I positioned the stuffed head over top my Bardot bun. Huh. Which was worse? Meeting John inside of a cupboard and scaring him half to death or having John stare at me for a couple of hours while wearing a dead animal on my head. What kind of imagery would he associate with me?

 I sat on the stump as the art students began to fill in. A few gave me and the deer a weird look, but no one said anything or questioned it. I was going to have to be sitting still on this uneven stump with this weird-smelling deer fur on my head, so I wiggled around a little to get my blood moving before I had to be all frozen.

The classroom was quiet, and no one had even started painting. Just a sniffle or a whispered friendly sentence here and there. Everyone filed in all crisp and clean, like children of the corn.

And then there was John.

“Twenty points for the buck awarded to Her Royal Highness!” his chipper voice boomed through the awkward obedient silence. When he caught my face under the deer’s head, his expression beamed in surprise.

“Auntie Hollywood! Is that you?”

I gave him a pained grin. I really didn’t want him to see me in anything less than sexy circumstances, but now I was realizing that those circumstances were few and far between.

“Love the hat. Where did you get it? Buck & Co. Hatters?”

A couple of girls giggled at his comment and Barrell cleared his throat loudly. “Lennon,” he said in a warning tone.

John gave me a small thumbs up and trotted to an easel in the back of the room. The energy of the whole room had ignited. Everyone had sulked in with somber faces but after John arrived, smiles and happy chatter peppered the room.

Barrell introduced me, his weird idea of a still life representing a deer and gave me the green light to hold as still as possible. As I took my position, I made absolutely sure to look over my shoulder and make eye contact with John. A position that I was determined to hold for the next couple of hours.

When John saw that I was looking right at him, he tilted his head and put on the cheesiest stretching grin I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, it made me snigger and that caught Barrell’s attention.

“Emmeline, if you could,” he said. “Try to face forward.”

“Mmmmmkay,” I said in an annoyed sing-songy breath. Come on, I couldn’t even look at him? What about our hours of staring into each other’s eyes? Well, at least I could hope that he was staring at me the whole time.

Barrell set himself in the corner of the room with a newspaper. I tried to hold my position for as long as I could, but it was impossible knowing my subject was right there one glance away. And he was good at making it impossible. Not even ten minutes in, there was a distinct rhythmic tapping from his easel.

An irritated classmate groaned. He was one of the only ones who hadn’t cheered up at John’s presence.  He was almost twice his size, at least his jutting Adam’s apple was the size of John’s fist.

“Mate. Can you not?” His voice was unbelievably deep and intimidating, it made me tense up.

“What?” John responded with more tone of a statement than a question.

“Tap your foot on the side of your easel like that,” he said.

“Much obliged,” John said, imitating his deep voice perfectly and provoking more chuckles from the other students.

I slightly turned my profile so I could see him. He caught my eye again and pulled a face, sticking his bottom lip out with his tongue and crossing his eyes. That time I snorted.

“Lennon, stop,” Barrell said setting his newspaper on his lap.

“Stop what?”

“Whatever you’re doing to our model,” Barrell looked over the reading glasses on his nose.

“I was just painting her, sir.” Lennon shrugged with his palms by his chin, smiling innocently.

Barrell gave him a hard frown and returned to his paper.

I turned my head forward, this time with a weird scrunchy grin on my face that I couldn’t help. Again, the uncomfortable silence. The shushing of several paintbrushes on canvas. The rattling of a newspaper page and then John’s voice yawning forcefully.

He had no problem telling everyone what he thought about Barrell’s class. For a minute, I fantasized about him attending one of Thorne’s classes. I think I would have really liked that. Thorne would have finally met his match. John would be sure to give him a piece of his mind about the meaningless violence involved in time travel.

There was a loud ticking sound from the clock above the door. I only knew that was the sound of a clock because my grandmother had one as a novelty. She kept it in her front room and taught me what each of the little dashes and hands meant.

Suddenly, the silence was broken again with a short bursting giggle from John. I tried to get the quickest and easiest glance, but all I saw was him with his arms crossed at his easel. Another giggle. This time louder. Upgrading from a short “hee hee” to a little longer of a “ha ha ha”.

Then this uncontrollable loud blasting laugh. Everyone flinched. Adam’s Apple guy jumped so high his brush flipped up his canvas. He growled and slammed the brush into his little glass of water. 

The hysterical laughter kept rolling this time. A couple of other students caught their own laughs as John continued to bust his gut. And I was right there along with them. I didn’t even know why I was laughing, but suddenly he had me laughing wearing a grotesque floppy deer on my head.

“Stop it! Stop that!” Barrell pushed his arm through the air as if he were deflecting the laughter away from him. Then he stood and marched his way to John’s easel. “Lennon!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it.” John said, cutting off mid-screaming laugh. “I think it’s Miss Hollywood in that deer shawl. It makes me feel all giddy and nervous inside. Hoo hoo!”

I beamed and blushed a little, although at this point, I knew John was being full of it.

“Alright,” Barrell said, with his hands on his hips. “Let’s see what you’ve done.”

The professor picked up the loose canvas and turned it around to scrutinize it. I saw it over his shoulder. It was a quick black and white sketch of a busty deer wearing a fur coat and winking. He slammed the canvas back on the easel.

“Pen. This isn’t the right medium,” Barrell said, sounding both annoyed and unsurprised. “You should have consulted me.”

“But sir, I have insulted you every day this term.”

Barrell who was clearly not a fan of wordplay jabbed his finger toward the door. “Right. Get your things and leave.”

Without another snark remark, John slung his guitar over his shoulder and headed for the door. Inside myself I felt the bubbling panic of my plan flushing down the toilet. He was leaving and I was still stuck on a log.

“John!” I called out.

He stopped in his tracks and twisted to look at me. So did all the other students.

“Don’t leave,” I said.

Everyone in class exchanged glances of concern. It was bad enough for one student to be talking back to a teacher, but now this model in front of the class challenging his discipline? I think I had just blown the whole decade’s mind.

John gave me a curious smile. “That’s alright, Miss Hollywood. I’ll gladly leave.”

I squinted an eye. “You were trying to get kicked out, weren’t you?”

“Ta!” he said with a wide grin. He pushed on the door and scurried out. Leaving me stuck under a dead deer.

CHAPTER TEN

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The midday sunlight filtered through the stained glass flowers of my new bedroom window. I was dying to explore the rest of the house. Gather each and every clue to John’s life that would let me into his psyche. Aunt Mimi coughed politely from downstairs. If she caught me snooping through John’s bedroom that would be the end of my stay at Mendips.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the floor-length mirror. Woof. My skirt was limp and muddy, my bangs limply framed the deep dark circles under my eyes. No wonder Mimi had turned me away at first. I straightened my posture, picked lint off my sweater, and swept some life back into my hair.

For months I had been imagining exactly how I was going to meet John. It was going to be perfect. I would wait at the top of the stairs and listen to Mimi and John in the living room talking about their day. And then as soon as Mimi would tell him about the new lodger, I would ascend the staircase like some kind of sex angel. My blonde hair cascading down my red and black lace gown and my fingertips barely grazing the bannister. I would stop in the entranceway of the living room and I would say something confident and unforgettable like, ‘And here I am. You must be the nephew.’

“Hello,” I practiced my best low and sultry voice. “You must be the nephew.”

Being sexy was harder to grasp than I thought. I rolled my shoulders back and tossed a little hair to the side.

“Hello.” I crossed my legs in slow motion, showing off my calves as I swooped them over. “You must be the nephew.”

Hmm. That seemed good. But I didn’t know. I wasn’t attracted to myself or anything so how would I know what was right?

Suddenly, my reflection in the mirror shook as the front door slammed shut. I rushed to my window and ripped open the curtains. There was Aunt Mimi opening the front gate, her hair tucked underneath a pillbox hat, a jacket draped around her shoulders.

Aha! Finally! I had the big old empty house to myself to explore and poke around. John would still be at the college of art until four. I had a few hours to explore before getting ready for my big banister cute meet. Everything had fallen into place.

I tore out of my room, one skip and I was at John’s bedroom. The door was shut. My heart clenched at the sight of it. He was going to be this close to me. In only a few hours. I knocked at the door. I don’t know why. There was no reply.

I twisted the nob and opened the door. The room was empty.

A sweater tossed unto the bed, a crumpled shirt on the floor. There was a distinctive smell. The same weird smell that had filled the double-decker bus on the way into Woolton. Lennon’s room was overpowered by it, whatever it was.

I stepped inside. As soon as my foot hit the floorboard in the doorway it creaked loudly. I jumped and twisted to check behind myself. No one was there.

John’s room was teeny tiny. One bed and one small little wardrobe with clothes bursting and dripping out of it. The bay window took up an entire wall of the room. In 2109 you would not even see an American closet this small. I mean, how did he do anything in here besides stand?

Creased papers and open books littered the carpet. It was as if he would start reading one, then instead of placing a bookmark in it, he would set it randomly on the floor face open, completely forget about it and then start reading another.

I stepped gingerly around the mess like navigating a minefield. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll was tucked halfway under his bed. Its pages were the most worn and fluffy of all the books.

Above his bed, he had hung up a few drawings and I couldn’t help but smirk. Most artists want to display their prettiest work. But this John guy had made an entire collage of grotesque and weird monsters all hastily scribbled like a small child. Dogs with extra legs and a crooked skeleton. One of the drawings he had written on, “A dream you dream alone is only a dream.”

“What a weirdo.” I laughed aloud.

On the far corner of his bed was the guitar. The guitar. The Gallotone Champion acoustic. Again, I looked around as if someone were watching me. I guess I was feeling the freaky stare of Thorne on the other side of the mystery live stream. And he certainly wouldn’t approve, but I had to touch that guitar. Every ounce of my musical history soul was screaming. I had to touch it.

I plucked it from its spot and played the first bar of “Please, Please Me”. The song that would have been written in that very room. I exhaled through a little ‘O’ in my mouth. Too much. I was defiling it with my stupid pig-song non-talent. I set the guitar back, careful to leave it just as I found it.

I stared at it, imagining it slung around John’s shoulders.

“Hello,” I said with the sultry tone. “You must be the nephew.”

After poking around John’s room, I stumbled my way downstairs and into the kitchen.

“Ugh, what is that smell?” I said to myself as I entered the kitchen. On the stove was a big silver pot full of boiled fish heads and fish parts. The entire bottom floor smelled like boiled fish guts and cat urine. This was even worse than John’s room. I pulled my sweater sleeve over my nose and tried to ignore the fishy carnage that was soaking in the pot.

On the far wall was a bright yellow cupboard. The perfect thing to pilfer through. I skipped over and flung open the doors to find all sorts of delightful vintage Liverpool essentials. I shuffled through the containers and cans examining their labels and unique artwork.

Suddenly I gasped and drew my fingers back rapidly. I had almost touched a bottle of cleaner. I knew this old cleaner had PCMX in it. So crazy. I mean, they used to sterilize their surgical instruments with this stuff until the mid-half of the 21st century. Then with all the body-mods and regulators we developed an allergy or intolerance to the stuff, making us pass out quicker than any other anesthesia. That was a close one. One whiff of that stuff, and I would’ve been unconscious until John got home.

I returned a can of beans onto the high shelf, my fingertips barely slid it into place when suddenly footsteps echoed down the drive. Mimi home already? She hadn’t been gone more than twenty minutes. I leaned to look out the kitchen window, but I didn’t see Mimi. Instead I saw a boy walking down the driveway wearing a big brown coat and carrying a paper grocery bag on his shoulder. He was absent-mindedly singing to himself, with a very familiar voice.

I panicked. I wasn’t wearing my slinky red dress or lipstick even. I had been walking since before sunrise and I looked horrible. HORRIBLE. One big muddy, stinky, swampy mess. Nothing at all like how I had imagined or practiced or planned.

All logic and reason left my brain. I gasped, climbed into the cupboard, and shut myself inside.

  The back door of the kitchen squeaked open.

“Yakety Yak!” he belted out and then added a facetiously low, “Don’t talk back.”

The paper bag cracked as it hit the counter, followed by loud and jovial whistling.

What have I done? What have I done? What have I done? Why didn’t I sneak out of the kitchen when I heard him coming? Why did I ever leave my room? Why did I just climb into a freaking cupboard?

I pressed my fingertips on the opening of the cupboard ever so slightly. Trying not to make any slight noise at all, I opened the door a slim crack, wide enough for me to peek through.

The boy stood with his back toward me unloading groceries from the rustling paper sack. His thick wavy hair greased flat on either side, looking somewhat of a mix between a cocker spaniel and a duck’s backside. His tan coat was oversized and overworn.

My heart was pounding so hard I pressed my palm into my chest to get it to stop. Shut up! Shut up! He might hear you!

An orange cat jumped on the counter next to him, pawing at the bag.

“Hey, go on with you! This isn’t for you,” he said, nudging the cat away with his wrist. 

The sound of his voice made me duck down a little. That same old Liverpool accent. All the documentaries and interviews that I had seen while recovering from my body armor mod. And here was that billion-dollar voice standing some odd feet away from me. The low nasally tone and everything, only without the static of an old recorder and the age and exhaustion from fame.

“Alright, alright. You win this time. But we mustn’t let Mimi find out, mustn’t we?”

John leaned on the counter with a bit of chicken in his fingers. The cat tiptoed to his hand, sniffing gingerly, then held his thumb with her paws as she dined. He rubbed behind her ear, his long nose almost touching hers.

Four o’clock, my ass, Thorne. It wasn’t even lunchtime.

I gingerly shut the door. There wasn’t much I could do but hold my breath and wish him away. Please leave. Please leave. How long would I be trapped in here? Maybe I could reach that bottle of PCMX and put myself out of my own misery.

Suddenly, his heavy footsteps trotted across the kitchen floor. I watched in horror as the cupboard door swung open. Game over. I was face to face with a young John Lennon, the orange cat in one arm and a box of Rice Krispies tucked under the other.

He saw me and startled so bad that he jumped at least a foot in the air. The cat screeched and clawed up his chest, leaping from his grasp by roundhouse kicking him right in the face. The cupboard door swung shut on its hinges.

I felt it. Exactly what Greggs had said, like two parts of my chest had become a polarized magnet pulling apart deep inside. The timeline had split. I stared at the yellow door, slowly realizing what had just happened. I cupped my nose with both hands. Well, that was it. We had met.

The cupboard door squeaked as Lennon cautiously pried it open. He stared at me, his eyebrows raised in total shock. His thick eyelashes blinked in confusion.

“Oh. Hello!” I said as cheerfully as ever.

“What?” He let out a breathy laugh. “You almost scared me to death! Not all of us have nine lives you know.”

“I’m so sorry.” I tucked my hair behind my ear. I could have barfed right there in that cupboard.

“Who are you? And what on Earth are you doing in there?” he asked with an amused twisted grin on his face.

“I’m just— I’m a lodger.” I said, my throat constricting on my words.

“Mimi’s renting out the cupboards now? Not very accommodating of her,” he said, putting the Rice Krispy box on the shelf above my head.

“Well, yeah, you know.” I was in awe. Stupid awe. I didn’t even know what I was saying. He wasn’t supposed to be home until four! I was seriously under-prepared for this run-in. Snap out of it, Emmeline! You have a mission! Seduce him, for Galactica sakes!

“Y-you must be my nephew,” I blundered.

He made this open-mouth smile, like a silent laugh. “It’s possible. I have aunts all over the place. Woolton, Edinburg, Birkenhead. We’re quite infested with aunts at the moment.”

My nose wrinkled. I had bungled the mission already. And Thorne was watching every single miserable second from a hotel room down the road. I grabbed the shelf and pulled myself out of the cupboard. As soon as I stood to meet John’s eye, his expression softened. I smoothed my blonde hair over my shoulder.

“Oh,” he said quietly. He quickly broke eye contact and turned away, retreating to the paper sack on the counter.

“What’s ‘oh’?” I asked.

“It’s a letter in the alphabet between ‘N’ and ‘P’,” he said without missing a beat. “Don’t they teach the alphabet in American schools?”

I stammered, trying to come up with a reply.

“That is an American accent, isn’t it?” he asked, emptying the last items from the bag. “Or do you have a tongue injury or something?”

I had read before that he was quick-witted, well no kidding, this guy was dragging me behind in the dust.  “I’m from California,” I finally squeaked out.

“Ah. Hollywood. I’ve always wanted a film star for an auntie.” He gave me a nod over his shoulder. “What are you doing on this side of the ocean?”

“I have a summer apprenticeship,” I said. “They sent me to Liverpool.”

“That’s some miserable luck.” John faced me and leaned against the counter.

I was still stumbling and bumbling through the conversation. My vein-chilling fear of the botched first impression was shifting into irritancy and I heard myself blurt out, “Why aren’t you at school? You should be at school.”

“Aha, so Mimi has spies watching me from the cupboards! Naughty, naughty,” he said, shaking a finger at me.

“I’m not a spy,” I said, pulling my shoulders to my ears. “I just figured you were probably a student because… of your age.”

“I am a student.” He lifted off the counter. “When I feel like it.”

“Right.”

“I never feel like it,” he said as he passed by me toward the door.

“That’s not good.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “Do what you want and make no apologies is what I always say.”

“Yeah, sounds like you,” I said.

“Now how do you know what I sound like if you’re not a spy?” John squinted at me with a playful suspicion. Then he gave me a tight closed-lip smile and picked up the cat. “Nice meeting you Auntie Hollywood.”

He curtsied with a coy, little bounce, then turned on his heels and exited into the day room.  

CHAPTER NINE

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I couldn’t believe how cold 1950s England was. In May even. As we made our way along the river bank the wind chill against my soggy wet skirt was almost too much to bear. How did people live like this? How could they deal with this kind of cold? I wanted to die already.

But as soon as we reached the streets of the city, I forgot about the cold. This was all I had ever dreamed of since I was little. To be back in time and to be walking the streets of a young city that could never be known in my lifetime otherwise. Every little detail I wanted to stop and gawk. The streetlights. The old cars parked on the street. Beautiful vintage signs over doors and shops. I wanted to experience it all, completely and breathlessly immerse myself in 1958.

“Thorne, look at this!” I said, giggling my way to a phone booth. An actual phone booth, bright red with a carving of the crown on the top. I immediately opened the door and leaned inside. I had to. It was compulsory.

Thorne gave me a stiff glare as I examined the artifact. I picked up the ‘receiver’ of the ‘telephone’. I didn’t know which end did what, so I held it to my mouth like an old microphone. “Hellooooooooo.”

There were two buttons, labeled A and B. I pressed A and nothing happened. When I pressed B a bunch of coins noisily spit out and jingled onto the floor.

Thorne rolled his eyes at me. “Stop touching things before you accidentally alter this timeline.”

I balanced the receiver back on its place. “Really glad you’re my partner, Thorne. You’re a real barrel of fun.”

He stormed ahead all business and serious like. But come on!  I wanted to explore! Meander around. I was in the actual 1950s, I couldn’t just run right by everything.

“How far away is Woolton? We’ve been walking for a while,” I said, trying to make light conversation, but also trying to complain about how sore my feet were.

“We still have two hours to get to the outskirts of Birkenhead and then cross the River Mersey,” he said as my eyes grew wide. “Then we can take a bus from there to Woolton, about another forty minutes after that.”

“Another river? Sheesh, we couldn’t have put the portal a little closer to John’s house?” I asked but was met with no reply.

So, we walked and walked and walked. Soon people began to pepper the streets of the town and it made my heart feel all fluttery and jittery. I loved to see the vintage suits and hats! Every single person had a hat. I didn’t know if that was a morning thing or if it were a fifties thing, but anyway I loved it!

The hazy sky faded into a light grey and small shadows appeared at the bases of trees. We still hadn’t made it to the River Mersey.

“Hey, Thorne?” I asked. “The sun is coming up.”

“It’s Dr. Thorne,” he said in short.

“Hey, Sir Dr. Thorne?” I saluted him. “The sun is coming up. Pretty sure we could get on a bus from here.”

“Best to walk to the ferry and stick to the plan.”

Ugh! I slumped so much as I walked that my arms swung and dragged by my shins. But I followed him to the dang ferry and crossed the dang ferry and waited for the dang bus and got on the dang double bus.

I rested my head on the window, pressed my forehead against the glass to get a glimpse of oldtown Liverpool. As the mid-morning sun took its place, the city was a bustle with huge old metal cars and so many skirts. And again, the hats.

The bus left the city and entered the green suburbs. Suddenly, I jumped from my seat and pressed my nose flat against the window. “Thorne! Cows! Look! There’s a whole bunch of cows just walking in the road!”

Thorne tugged roughly at my skirt and hissed at me through clenched teeth, “Get down.” 

I twisted around and half the bus had a side-eye on me while the other half had their heads buried into newspapers. I quietly sat down and smoothed my skirt. 

“What’s the point of traveling, if you can’t be excited and look around at stuff?” I whispered to Thorne.

“Keep your head on straight,” he warned. “None of this is new. You were born in 1939, remember?” 

I huffed and flopped into my seat. 

The bus turned a corner, slowing past a big tree. Two little boys in school uniforms dangled upside down on a stretching branch. Smaller trees lined each side of the narrow street, each one dotted with groups of pink blossoms. 

The bus stopped at Menlove Ave. As the squeaky brakes came to a halt the entire bus jolted forward ejecting me from my seat. How can people ride this contraption? No safety harness or anything, just a scary bumpy ride with a sliding leather seat.

That was the longest journey of my life and I was eager as anything to leap off and be done with it all. But Thorne wouldn’t let me slip from his grasp so easily.

“I’ll be at a nearby hotel,” he said as I stood to leave. “I’ll send you the address tonight. Open it discreetly.”

“Okee dokee.” I gave him a thumbs up and turned toward the open bus door.

“John is scheduled to be at school until four,” Thorne said, stopping me again. “Make sure you’re ready for him when he returns.”

“Don’t worry. I got this,” I said and tried again to exit the bus, but Thorne grabbed my arm and pulled me in close. 

“There’s no going back and burning a new portal, so do not ruin the first impression,” he whispered harshly in my ear.

Gulp.

I slipped away from Thorne and stepped off the bus, the hot exhaust tickling my ankles. A distinct mix of sweet spices wafted from the neighborhood. My stomach growled. Maybe it was the time bending portal, but I felt like I had breakfast an eternity ago.

251… 251…

I had to count the numbers of the houses, which I found so strange. This is how they used to do it? Just counting their way to each other’s addresses. No GPS or device or anything to help them find their way. I would get so lost every day. And that kind of made my heart pound a little harder. Was I lost already?

No. There it was. 251 Menlove Avenue. I recognized it right away. The semi-detached greyish house with the beautiful flowers in stained glass on the box porch. The place they called “Mendips”. I could feel my fingertips shaking as I approached the gate.

I let out a shuddery breath. Okay no need to get nervous yet. At least not in a sex appeal kind of way. He wouldn’t be home until four.

I opened the hitch to the waist-high front gate. The little door flew open and cracked to a stop. I scampered through and shut it behind myself, but that stupid little hitch wouldn’t clasp back down. I finally had to push the gate with one knee before I could secure it into place. Whew. Automatic doors would be sorely missed over the next one hundred days. 

I was about to put into practice every part of my elaborate lie I had cooked up and that was more than a bit scary. John’s aunt, ‘Mimi’ was not only a smart woman, but she was also famously stern. Like a scary librarian, some historians say. I guess I was about to find out.

I wrapped my knuckles lightly on the door, as respectable as I possibly could sound with just a knock. It wasn’t long before the front door creaked and popped open. A small woman stepped into the box porch. Dark hair curled tightly around her sharp cheekbones.

She looked at me with such an eye. Up from the tippy top of my boisterous blonde hair down to my worn vintage loafers. She cracked opened the door of the porch, neither stepping out or inviting me in. “Yes, what is it that you want?”

I gulped so hard I could feel my Adam’s apple wobble. “I was inquiring about a room. I was told you take in lodgers.”

Her eyebrows drew together, and her mouth remained a hard line. “Yes, I do. Who are you inquiring for? Yourself?”

I held my palms out at the bottom of my muddy skirt and gave her sort of a grimaced smile. Her eyes darted back and forth. Some strong hesitation if I’ve ever seen one. I felt stupid for not foreseeing this as a problem.

“Most of my lodgers are students. They’re all moving out now for Holiday,” she said.

Yep. Yup. Exactly what I had said and exactly why I wanted to arrive in January. But did the council listen to me? No, they sure didn’t. Now this is what we get for having only a hundred days of a mission. I repressed my internal scream and took in a deep breath.

“I have an apprenticeship at the College of Art. I’m looking for a room for the summer,” I said as confidently as I could make my shaky voice sound.

Mimi squinted an eye. She opened the door a little wider. “You’re an American, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” After Mimi threw me a stone expression, I changed my answer to a more proper sounding, “Yes.”

“A bit strange to see an American around here,” she said more to herself than to me. She gave me another suspicious eye. “I usually don’t take in…”

“Americans?”

Her eyes flashed. I must have auto-filled her sentence wrong.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m closing my door to lodgers for the summer.”

And with that, she was about to close the door right on me.

“I’m a little desperate,” I said before she could get the door closed. “I can pay you 85 for the room. I was told you usually ask for 78.”

She stopped mid-door shut and reopened, giving me another hard once over. “Just the summer, then?”

I nodded.

“I’ll take 90 for the room and not a penny more,” she said with her arms crossed.

Again, I nodded. I wasn’t there to barter with her, because in truth we were prepared to offer her more than a hundred pounds for the room if it meant I would be staying a few feet away from John.

She smiled. A slight upturn of her thin lips. “Very well. Don’t come through here. Come around to the back, through the kitchen.”

All the muscles in my upper arms released as if I had been wrestling a bear that whole conversation.

Walking around the side of the house proved difficult because there was a dip in the drive where a giant puddle had formed from a previous rain. I tried to jump it, but the back of my shoe splashed right in, soaking into my stockings. Just when I had finally dried from the river.

A thin, green bike leaned next to the back door. I went through and found myself in a teeny orange kitchen. Mimi met me there, huffed at my one wet shoe, and beckoned me to follow her into the house.

I followed her down the hall and up the stairs. A large grey cat sat on the third step from the top, eyeing me just as suspiciously as Mimi and slowly swishing his tail.

 “Strange for you to have asked me for a room today because only since yesterday, I’ve had a vacancy. Quite lucky.”

 Right. ‘Luck’. I stepped over the cat and into the narrow hallway. Mimi stopped me in front of two doors. One was to the little box room that sat above the porch. I knew exactly who slept in that room.

“This is the room,” she said, opening the door that was adjacent to John’s.

I had to stop my jaw from dropping. Seriously? That room was the vacancy? Yeah, I guess that was quite lucky indeed. 

I thanked Mimi and stepped inside.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I stared at myself in the floor-length mirror. Even after all the preparation and training, it was so unreal. There I was at Mendips, one wall away from John Lennon’s childhood bedroom. Hearing Aunt Mimi’s cats mew softly from downstairs. Being an active part in a history that would never happen in this reality.

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