Mirror, The (20 page)

"That's easy too, Ginny. You girls are the spitting image of your mother. When I first saw you at Greer's, I thought I had run into ghosts. The Grace Vandenberg I knew was a strikingly beautiful woman. I could have picked out you two from Tacoma."

Virginia turned back to Katie. She still seemed upset but not quite as much as before. She looked at her neighbor and landlord with softer eyes.

"Then there were your names, of course," Virginia said. "There are a lot of girls named Ginny and Katie Smith in the world but none I've met who look like your parents."

She looked at Ginny and saw confusion on her face. The girl, it seemed, was still trying to work out the particulars.

"Is there something wrong, dear?"

"Yes. There is," Ginny said. "Why would you think we were time travelers instead of girls who were born in the forties? It seems to me that would be more logical."

"You're right," Virginia said. "Were it not for something your mother had told me long ago, that's the first thing I would have thought. I would have concluded that Joel and Grace had run off, gotten married, and started a family after the war."

"So why didn't you?" Katie asked.

"I didn't because your mother informed me on the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked that Joel Smith was a time traveler from the year 2000. She also told me that your father was my grandson, my own flesh and blood. You can imagine my reaction to that."

Virginia glanced again at Katie and saw her gently nod. Interest and understanding had replaced the anger and distrust in her eyes.

"I admit I was skeptical at first. I no more believed in time travel than I believed in Santa Claus or the Easter bunny. Then the years passed, and I began to wonder. If time travel was possible, then anything was possible. The one thing about which I was absolutely sure was that I would never see your mother again. I was certain I'd see your father again, but not your mother. So when I saw two girls who looked like Grace, I knew I couldn't simply walk away. I had to find out if you and your sister were more than reminders of a friend I dearly missed."

Virginia put a hand on Katie's knee.

"Are my actions starting to make sense?"

Katie nodded again.

"They are," Katie said. "I'm sorry for thinking you were a stalker or a purse snatcher. It's easy to judge when you don't have all the facts."

Virginia laughed to herself. She wondered if it were possible to bottle the wit, wisdom, and charm of these two. If it were, she would become a millionaire overnight.

"That's all right, dear. If anyone should apologize, it should be me. I'm the one who intruded in your life – not the other way around."

Virginia turned to Ginny.

"Would you like to see my college pictures?"

"I would."

"OK then. Let's get started."

For the next forty minutes, Virginia Gillette Jorgenson, friend of Grace, grandmother of Joel, and great-grandmother of time-traveling twins, went through a box of black-and-white photographs and gave her visitors the history lesson of a lifetime. Starting with photos from her freshman year, she worked her way through more than a hundred pictures of friends, classmates, and relatives. She purposely saved the best for last.

Ginny was at once the most interested and least patient of the twins. She marveled at the sight of her great-grandmother standing next to Bing Crosby in one picture and a giant redwood in another, but she became visibly restless when it became clear that the front end of the parade of pictures would not include appearances by Grace and Joel. When Virginia began showing landscape photos she had taken for the
Seattle Sun
, Ginny finally spoke up.

"These are really interesting, Mrs. Jorgenson, but I was hoping you could show us the pictures of my mom and dad."

Virginia turned Katie.

"Are you ready to move on as well?"

Katie nodded.

"Then I guess we should proceed to the main attraction," Virginia said. "The reason I saved the pictures of your mother and father for last is because, frankly, I don't have very many. I have fewer than a dozen of Grace and only one of Joel."

"Can we start with some of Mom?" Ginny asked.

"We can," Virginia said. "They're all in this envelope."

Virginia opened a manila envelope and pulled out a handful of photographs that ranged in size from snapshots to eight-by-tens. She spread the pictures across the coffee table and then picked up one of the largest, a five-by-seven of Grace standing between two men. Neither of the men was Joel Francis Smith.

Ginny leaned forward and looked to her left as Katie leaned forward and looked to her right. Each smiled at the other before returning her attention to the picture in Virginia's hands.

"Did Mom have a lot of boyfriends in college?" Ginny asked.

"No. She did not," Virginia said. "She had very few, in fact. She didn't date anyone seriously until halfway through her junior year. The man on the left, the one in the uniform, is Paul McEwan. Your mother dated him for about five or six months before he graduated from the university and began his full-time service in the Navy. When Paul left Seattle in June of 1941, he and your mother were engaged."

Virginia glanced at the twins and saw that shocked expressions had replaced their smiles. She could see that neither Grace nor Joel had said much, if anything, about Grace's first fiancé.

"Who's the other man?" Katie asked.

"The other man was my fiancé, or at least a man who became my fiancé. Tom Carter was my boyfriend at the time. We became engaged a few months after this picture was taken."

Katie shifted in her seat and looked at Virginia with apologetic eyes.

"Is he the one who died in the war?"

Virginia nodded.

"I'm afraid he was. Tom died in Tunisia saving some of his men from machine-gun fire. He received the Distinguished Service Cross, posthumously, for his valor in the Battle of Kasserine Pass."

"That must have been hard," Katie said.

"It was," Virginia said. "It was very hard, but I managed. Like a lot of women at that time, I redirected my energy into the war effort and, as you can see, went on to marry a wonderful man."

"Dad told me that Tom Carter was his best friend in 1941. He said he wouldn't have made it a week in Seattle had Tom and his family not taken him in."

"That much is true, Katie. Tom had a heart of gold, not to mention a zest for life that your parents and I – and many others – found very appealing. He was quite a man."

Ginny picked up a snapshot from the table, studied it for a moment, and put it down where Virginia could see it. She pointed to a woman in the photograph.

"I've seen her in several pictures. Who is she?" Ginny asked.

Virginia smiled.

"That's Linda McEwan, Paul's younger sister. She was a sorority sister and a housemate of mine. She lived with Grace, Katie, and me in a rental house for a few weeks in the summer of forty-one. She left the house – and our lives – when she learned that your father was seeing your mother. She was quite fond of Joel. The two dated twice, I believe."

"She's pretty," Katie said.

"She
was
pretty," Virginia agreed, "but Grace was prettier. She had your father's eye from the start. For much of that summer, I discouraged them from seeing each other. They seemed like different people heading in different directions. But as I got to know Joel better, I realized that he was the only one who could bring your mother happiness. It warms my heart to know they found the life they sought and had six beautiful children."

Katie stared at Virginia.

"Yes, Katie, I looked at your photos as well. You didn't think I'd pass up an opportunity to see all of my great-grandchildren, did you?"

Katie smiled and shook her head.

"No."

"You said you had a picture of Dad?" Ginny asked.

"I do," Virginia said. "It's right here."

Virginia reached into the box and pulled out another envelope, a small white wrapper that had not been sealed. She stuck her fingers in the envelope and pulled out a snapshot of a young dark-haired man standing next to a platinum blonde on a promenade along a beach. The writing on the back of the photo read: "Grace and Joel at Seaside." She handed the photo to Ginny, who, in turn, passed it along to her sister.

"They look so young," Katie said.

"They
were
young," Virginia said. "We were all young. We were kids really. Then the war came along and turned us into adults."

Ginny smiled at Virginia and put her hand on hers.

"Thanks for showing us these pictures. They mean a lot to me."

"Me too," Katie said.

"It was my pleasure, girls. If I find more photos, I'll show them to you as well."

Ginny withdrew her hand and then stared at Virginia. After a conspicuously long moment, she sighed and frowned.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions for us," Ginny said.

"I do. There are many things I want to ask you, but I don't have to ask them today. I think we've all had enough excitement for one afternoon."

"I agree," Ginny said.

"There is, however, one thing I'd like you to do before you go."

"What's that?"

"I'd like you to identify the missing branch in our family tree," Virginia said.

"I don't understand."

"Let me put it to you this way, Ginny. I have two daughters. I'd like to know which of the two marries a boy named Smith and produces your father."

Ginny started to say something but stopped when Cindy walked into the living room.

"The dishes are done, Mom," she said. "I'm going to Angie's now."

"Have fun. Be back by supper."

"I will."

Virginia watched her daughter acknowledge the guests with a wave as she walked through the living room. When Cindy exited the house and shut the door, Virginia returned to Ginny.

"I believe you were going to tell me which of my offspring produced your father."

Virginia waited for a verbal answer but didn't get one. She didn't need one.

The grin on Ginny's face said it all.

CHAPTER 34: GINNY

Thursday, May 28, 1964

Ginny took her foot off the pedal and tapped the brake as she drove cautiously through the school zone. She was no stranger to driving fast cars on slow streets, but she wanted to be careful nonetheless. With three hundred galloping horses under the hood of Steve Carrington's Corvette Stingray, she didn't want to do something stupid like drive the car through a chain-link fence.

She picked up the pace a few minutes later when she turned onto Northeast Fifty-Eighth Street, the southern boundary of Ravenna Park, but still stayed well below the speed limit of twenty-five miles per hour. Ginny saw no point in drawing a policeman's attention or even reaching her destination too quickly. She wanted to savor every second of a sixties experience.

When Ginny turned left and headed south on Dalton Avenue, she slowed almost to a stop to assess an unusually diverse string of vehicles. On one side of the street, she found a DeSoto Adventurer, a Nash Rambler coupe, and a Studebaker Sky Hawk. On the other, she saw a Buick Limited, an Oldsmobile Rocket 88, and an Edsel Citation with a horse-collar grille. Of all the things she had seen in 1964, none reminded her that she was in another era more than the cars.

As she entered the block with the leafy trees, the Tudor house, and the duplex, she thought about the woman who was – or would be – her great-grandmother. What a trip Sunday had been. When the twins had walked across the street to see Virginia's pictures, Ginny didn't think she'd see snapshots of her college-age parents. Then again, she didn't think she'd ever have a sit-down with a woman who had died six years before she'd been born.

Ginny took a long look at the Jorgenson house, which appeared unoccupied, and then turned into the driveway of the duplex. She knew the residents of Unit B had left for the day, just as she knew the twin sister of Unit A was probably sitting in her lounge chair reading the editorial page of the
Seattle Sun
. She left the engine running and honked the horn.

Ginny waited for a response. When she didn't get one, she honked again. She was about to honk a third time when her sister stepped out of the apartment. She saw Katie's jaw drop when she glanced at the car and its driver.

"Get in before I run out of gas," Ginny said. "This isn't a Prius."

"Hold on."

Katie ran into Unit A. When she came back out a moment later, she threw on a sweater, shut the door, and slowly approached the car. She stopped when she reached the passenger side, smiled, and folded her arms.

"I'm not sure I
want
to get in. You're probably an unauthorized driver."

"Jump in before I honk again and make a scene," Ginny said.

Katie got in.

"When you said you'd be right back, I thought you'd be alone and without the car."

"I did too," Ginny said. She smiled. "But things changed."

"I don't even want to know what you did to get the keys," Katie said.

"I didn't do anything, except tell Joe College how handsome he looked in his cardigan. He's taking tests all day and didn't need his rocket car, so he gave it to little old me."

Ginny backed out of the driveway and started down Dalton Avenue. A moment later, she was on a major arterial heading south toward the university as "Shut Down," a decidedly appropriate song by the Beach Boys, streamed through the speakers.

"Where are we going?" Katie asked.

"I haven't decided. I was thinking about Portland. I don't feel like paying sales tax today."

Katie stared at her sister with wide eyes.

"I'm kidding," Ginny said. "I thought we'd just drive around for a while and then check out the new barbecue restaurant on Roosevelt. I hear the brisket is bitchin'."

"You're talking like the locals again," Katie said.

Ginny smiled at her passenger.

"Like I say . . ."

"I know. I know. When in Rome . . . Watch it!"

Katie put her hands on the dash as Ginny swerved to miss a squirrel. When the crisis passed, she settled back in her seat and gave the driver a not-so-friendly glance.