Past Perfect (2 page)

PAST PERFECT

meant some corners had to be cut. And theater camp was corner number one.

“How about we work at The Limited?” I suggested. “If you want, we could pretend to be characters who work at The Limited. And strangers will watch us fold shirts and stuff.” Over her bowl of mint chocolate chip, Fiona argued, “But if we work at Essex, I can have some romantic historical name, like Prudence or Chastity.”

“You’re name is already
Fiona
,” I said.

“Chastity Adams,” she continued dreamily.

“Your name is already
Fiona Warren
.” Fiona’s ancestors legitimately moved from England to the Colonies back in the days when there were Colonies. She doesn’t have to
pretend
that’s her story—it
is
her story. Plus, she is not particularly prudent or chaste.

“It’ll be like living in
Pride and Prejudice
!” she said.

“Wrong century.”

“Really? When’s
Pride and Prejudice
?”

“Eighteen hundreds.”

“Isn’t that when Essex is set?”

“No. Really, Fi? I’ve worked there for the entire time you’ve known me—
you
want to work there—and you don’t even know when it takes place?”

“Just tell me?” Fiona widened her eyes and pouted a little.

“I’ll give you a hint:
Colonial
Essex Village.” She hazarded a guess. “Seventeen hundreds?”
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“1774. Two years before the Declaration of Independence.

Immediately before the First Continental Congress.”

“You sound like a history nerd! Anyway, what does it matter? The past is the past. It’s all kind of the same.” Fiona is not dumb, by the way. She’s just an
actress
. Stories, emotions, people: that stuff interests her. Dates and facts leave her cold.

“Look, Chelsea,” she said. “I promise this year won’t be like every other summer. It will be two months of you and me running around together in beautiful old-fashioned dresses.

You won’t have to spend the whole time locked in the silversmith’s studio with your parents. We can ask for a station together! Like at the stables or something! Nat says all the cool kids work at the stables.”

It was obvious that Fiona had never been gainfully employed before, since she seemed to envision it as a constant
Gone with
the Wind
experience, minus the death and destruction.

“We’re not allowed to work at the stables,” I explained.

“We’re girls. Girls didn’t muck out horse stalls in 1774. Also, is this really just about Nat Dillon? Is that why you’re so into this Essex job?”

Nat Dillon always plays Romeo to Fiona’s Juliet, Hamlet to Fiona’s Opehlia, the Beast to Fiona’s Beauty. Occasionally they hook up in real life. The rest of the time they only stage-kiss. My theory is that Fiona wants to take things to the next level—like, the level where Nat is her boyfriend—but she’s
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in denial about that. She shook her head and said, “I want to work at Essex because it will be good for my
acting career
, and because we can do it together. And, fine, the presence of cute boys doesn’t hurt.”

“There are no cute boys at Essex,” I said. “With the possible exception of Nat Dillon, and that’s only if you’re into long hair.” Nat wears his hair in a ponytail. He’s always lovingly combing his fingers through it. Don’t ask. “Everyone else there is ineligible. Trust me. I’ve grown up with most of them.”

“Your problem is that you hate true love,” Fiona said, clearing our bowls. “And I give this mint chocolate chip a six. The chocolate chips are strong, but the mint part should be mintier. Dying ice cream green does not actually make it taste any more like mint.”

“Five point five,” I said. “The mint part is the important part, and any ice cream manufacturer who doesn’t understand that is a sociopath.” As ice cream connoisseurs, we are extremely discerning. “And it’s not that I
hate
true love. It’s just that I don’t believe it exists. Especially not at Essex. I can’t see hating something that isn’t even real. That’s like hating centaurs or natural blondes.”

“How many times do we have to go over this?” Fiona heaved a sigh. “Just because Ezra Gorman turned out not to be the love of your life doesn’t mean there
is
no love of your life.

It just means it wasn’t
him
.”

Fiona has been coaching me through my breakup with
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Ezra for weeks. She was really good at it for about three days.

Then she got bored and now mostly just says things like, “Are you still not over that?”

“If you work with me at Essex this summer, I promise you that I will find you true love.” Fiona took my hands in hers and stared earnestly into my eyes.

I snorted.

“You will learn to love again,” Fiona continued, sounding like a movie trailer voice-over.

And at that, I totally lost it. “Okay, fine, Crazy Girl,” I said through giggles. “Let’s do it.”

But I want it to go on record that I didn’t say yes because of the true love thing. I said yes because there was no point to working at The Limited if Fiona wouldn’t be there with me.

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T
o help her adjust to life at Colonial Essex Village, I made Fiona a list of the questions that visitors were most likely to ask her. I am, after all, an expert.

This was my list:

1. “Where’s the bathroom?”

This is far and away the most common question. You don’t actually need any sort of historical knowledge to work at Essex. You just have to know where the nearest toilet is.

What you are
supposed
to do, when moderners ask for the bathroom, is feign confusion. “A room for a bath?” you’re supposed to say. “We don’t have one of those! Why, we take LEILA SALES

only a couple baths each year! We have a wash basin, if you would like to use that.”

Eventually, if they look like they’re going to pee their pants, you can say, “Oh, do you by any chance mean the privy?” And they, crossing their legs, are like, “Yes! Oh my God, the privy, please!”

And then you say, “It’s in the visitors’ center in Merchants Square.” And then they run off as fast as possible.

I go through that whole charade when I’m in a bad mood, or when my parents are listening. The rest of the time I just give them directions right off the bat. It’s not their fault that they’re moderners.

2. “Don’t you get hot in those clothes?” True answer: yes. Of course you get freaking hot. It’s the middle of a sunshiny day in summertime in Virginia, and you are decked out in lace-up boots, floor-length petticoats, a skirt over the petticoats, a long-sleeved gown over the skirt, and a mob cap. You can’t go swimming or eat ice cream or even carry around a modern water bottle.
Of course you are hot.

But what you have to say is, “No! This is just how we dress.

There is no way to be any cooler in the summertime without exposing your legs, which a lady would
never
do.” You have to say that, because that is historically accurate.

3. “What’s your name? Are you Abigail Adams?” No. There is only one Abigail Adams at Essex, and she’s been Abigail Adams for the past twenty years, and she takes her role
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very
seriously. She got special speech coaching so she even talks like they did in Colonial times—or what we think they talked like, since they did not (surprise!) have tape recorders then. If you ever told a moderner that you were, indeed, John Adams’s wife, then you can be sure that the real Abigail Adams would get you fired, possibly after first breaking both your kneecaps.

My real name is Chelsea Glaser, but no one was named Chelsea Glaser in the Colonies. My Colonial name is Elizabeth Connelly, and, since I’ve gone by that every summer for most of my life, I respond to it just as if it were real. I chose

‘Elizabeth Connelly’ because it’s Irish sounding, and, with my dark hair and blue eyes and freckles, I could pass for Black Irish. It’s all a lie, though. My actual ancestors were Ukrainian Jews, and I have never been to Ireland at all. I don’t even like St. Patrick’s Day.

4. “Is that real?” (Asked while pointing at any thing at all.) Of course, everything in Essex is
real
, but what the moderners are actually asking is, “Is that really preserved from Colonial times?”

A handy guide:

Things that are real: all the buildings, the furniture inside the buildings, the gravestones, the weapons, the portraits in the Governor’s Palace.

Things that aren’t real but look like they are: our clothes, the items sold in the gift shop, the materials that my dad or the blacksmith or the basketmaker uses, all of us employees.

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Things that aren’t real and don’t look it: the parking lot.

If a moderner asks you whether something is “real” and you’re not sure, err on the safe side and say yes. Even if the item in question isn’t from 1774, it’s still probably from 1997

or something, which means that it was still made in the past.

5. Most people just want to know your name, whether you’re overheated, and where they can find the nearest toilet. But some people also want you to know that they are really, really good at Colonial history. They blindside you with questions like, “I’m looking for the grave of Jebediah Winthrop. What?

You don’t know who Jebediah Winthrop is? The man who modified quill pens so they could write at a forty-five-degree angle? He’s buried here, in Essex! How do you not know where his grave it?”

You’re never going to be able to answer these people’s questions, and that is okay, since they don’t actually want answers. They just want to impress you with how unbelievably smart they are. And they want a fresh audience for their stories, since everyone they know is, for some reason, sick of hearing them babble on about Jebediah Winthrop.

Those are pretty much the only questions people ask Colonials.

If they want you to tell them anything else, just make it up.

They will believe you, because you are wearing a costume.

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E
ssex does not waste a goddamn minute. The last day of school was Friday, June 25th, and then I had all of three hours to rejoice in my newfound freedom before it was time for Fiona to pick me up for Summer Staff Orientation.

“We’re seniors now!” Fiona shouted over the blaring loud-speakers in her car. “Helloooo, world!” She took both her hands off the steering wheel and waved them in the air.

Like I said, when Ms. Warren lost her job, some corners had to be cut. But those corners did not include the cherry-red convertible that was Fiona’s sixteenth birthday present.

“I already feel different,” Fiona said as we cruised down the wide, tree-lined drive toward Essex. “More capable, more LEILA SALES

mature. I have a
job
, for example. I am a wage earner.”

“I’m just glad this year’s over,” I said, sticking my arm out the window, letting my fingers drag through the wind as it rushed past. “I couldn’t be readier for summer.” Junior year had been hard. Well, not all of it. During the winter, I had been dating Ezra, and that was easy. Dating Ezra was so easy. But he broke up with me on April 17th, and everything since then had been hard. Choosing what to wear every day, knowing he might see me, was hard. Taking notes in Latin class, knowing he was sitting three rows behind me, was hard. Walking into the cafeteria, knowing I wasn’t going to sit with him, was hard. I went to this school before dating Ezra, and I stayed in this school after dating Ezra, but somehow, in those five months that we were together, everything in that place became infused with a little bit of Ezra-ness.

There was nothing I could do there, nowhere I could go without being reminded of him, and of us.

Ezra had nothing to do with Colonial Essex Village, and for that I was glad. It’s hard to get over someone when you still have to see him every day.

Fiona parked in the lot just as my parents were walking to their car. It was six o’clock, so they had finished work for the day. They had only partially changed out of their Colonial costumes, so my dad was wearing buckle shoes, breeches, and a Washington Nationals T-shirt.

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Glaser!” Fiona chirped.

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“Hi, girls!” Mom gave me a big hug. “How was the last day of school?”

I shrugged. Fiona and I go to a charter school, which maybe sounds fancy, but it’s just school, like any other place. All it takes to get in are halfway-involved parents and halfway-decent grades. It just has a higher college acceptance rate than my town’s public high school, that’s all.

“Well,
I
had an excellent day,” Dad informed us. “I had a long conversation with a professor from Stanford who’s writing a comparative paper on the gravesites of all the signers of the Declaration. Fascinating!”

Dad loves talking to professors because he used to want to be one himself. He grew up in Wisconsin, a state wholly unconnected to the American Revolution, before moving east to get his degree in history. There he discovered the irresistible appeal of Colonial reenactment, and boom, that was the end of his career in academia.

“Are you excited for orientation?” Mom asked Fiona and me.

Fiona nodded, but I just shrugged again. Orientation is always a long-winded speech by Mr. Zelinsky, Essex’s director, and then a whole brunch of dos and don’ts. Like,
do
greet moderners with a smile.
Don’t
tell them that, in Colonial times, parents used to whip their children, and so now all young visitors to Essex are whipped in a historically accurate fashion. That’s what the apothecary a couple years ago used to tell kids, before he got fired for drinking on the job, and
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for keeping actual laudanum in his fake laudanum bottles.

“Well,
I’m
excited to have our junior interpreters back,” Mom said. “It’s been lonely without all of you. Just a bunch of us old fogies.”