Timeless

CHAPTER 14

“S o, you still need an ending?” she asked before she took a sip of her tea through the straw.

“Strangely, I have not come up with one in the less than twenty-four hours it’s been since I’ve seen you last,” Abby replied sarcastically.

“Hilarious,” Quinn said back, also sarcastically, as she set her drink cup down. “I’m no writer, but maybe I could help.”

“Help me come up with an ending?”

“Why not? I haven’t read it, obviously, but you can fill me in on what you have so far. You’ve got nothing to lose, really. I won’t take offense if you don’t use my idea, assuming I have one. And if it helps you, that would be great, right?”

“So, just describe what I’ve written so far?”

“And maybe why you can’t think of how to end it.” Quinn shrugged a shoulder and picked up a French fry from her container.

“Okay. Well, you know the basics from the photo, right? The woman off to the side?”

“Yeah, I remember,” she replied, still wishing she would have kept the photo for herself.

And it was only then that she remembered that the box was still out there. She needed to bring it back here to see if she wanted to keep anything else from it before someone else tried to buy something. She suddenly felt very protective over that box and the photos she’d added to it a few days ago.

“So, I’m writing a story between the two women.”

Quinn nearly choked on her fry.

“Sorry?” she coughed out.

“Oh, shit. Are you okay?” Abby asked.

“I’m fine,” she managed out before she picked up her tea and took another drink.

“I thought… I don’t know. I thought you’d be okay with th at; two women falling in love,” Abby said, looking a little concerned.

“Yes, I am. I’m totally okay with that. Definitely okay with two women falling in love. Just wasn’t expecting that. I thought you were writing a story about the married couple. Maybe leading up to them getting married or something.”

“No, I felt like the story was more between the two women. The maid of honor – or, at least, that’s who she is in my mind – is in love with the bride. The bride loves her back, but that wasn’t allowed in the 1930s, so their love is a forbidden love.”

“And you don’t know how to end it?” Quinn asked as she watched Abby eat a strip of bacon from her own BLT.

Abby had pulled the sandwich apart and had been eating things bit by bit more than as an actual sandwich. She’d used a fork to cut into her tomato and had topped it with a little lettuce and a small piece of bacon. The bread had been pushed to the side, so Quinn had asked if she wasn’t a fan of carbs or something. Abby had told her that she loved carbs but that they’d put too much mayo on the bread for her. Quinn didn’t have a problem with how Abby had then brought the fork to her mouth to take her bite. The whole thing had been adorable. Then, it had turned sexy as Abby had stared at her while she’d chewed.

“I don’t know how to end it because it’s the 30s, and they can’t actually have a happy ending, can they?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the 1930s, Quinn… I’ve got them in a tiny, rural town, not unlike what this one would’ve looked like in that time period. They’re two women owned by men, with no rights. Well, I guess they can vote, but that’s not important to my story. Parents essentially sold one of them off to the son of a neighboring farmer. That’s the man in the photo.”

“Okay. So, you want a happy ending but can’t find one?”

“I want it to be real,” Abby shared before she pushed the food container away. “This whole experience has felt so real to me, like someone is controlling my hands while I type, putting the idea into my brain, to begin with, telling me what the story is, and making me feel like it actually happened. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, and it’s both amazing and a little scary at the same time. I want the ending to be real because of that. It’s just… The thought of them not ending up together – not getting that happily ever after – is sort of boiling my brain because I love them. I love what I’ve written of them so far, and I want them to have nothing standing between them. I already knew I had to give one of them a child.”

“Why?” Quinn asked.

“Well, because that was real. It also hit me like a ton of bricks that Deb would have a son.”

“Deb?”

“Deborah. She’s the one who had to marry the man. He’s good to her, not a bad guy, and he’s got his own secret to keep, if you catch my drift.” She winked at Quinn.

“Ah… I see what you did there.”

“Weirdly, I didn’t even make that up. Well, I guess I did because I’m writing the story, but it hit me in the moment when I was writing the chapter about their wedding night.”

“Oh,” Quinn let out. “You wrote that ?”

“No. Well, yes, but not that . They didn’t because of his secret. Eventually, though, they do have to have a kid to have someone carry on the family farms because that’s just how it worked back then. So, those are the real things that I have to include to make it feel real to the reader, but everything to me feels like it actually happened. It’s all very confusing.”

“It feels like it actually happened?”

“Yes, like I’m telling the story of these two women who were in the photo.”

“And the main character, her name is Deb?”

“Deborah Mary Wilson, yes.”

“What’s the name of the other character?”

“Harriet Louise Topper.”

Quinn swallowed, but her throat was dry despite her having just taken several drinks of her tea.

“What?” Abby asked when Quinn didn’t say anything .

“My mom’s middle name is Louise. They were going to name me that at one point instead of Elizabeth.”

“Oh, wow!” Abby said, lifting her cup off the desk.

“Yeah,” she replied, trying not to think too hard about the coincidence, even though there was something niggling at the back of her mind about it. “So, you want to keep them together?” she asked, changing the subject back to the book.

“Yes.”

“Well, can you? They live in a small, rural community in the 30s. It’s not like there are social media photos with them all over the internet where someone could figure it out, right?”

“No, but is it realistic for them to grow old together when one of them is married, and eventually, the other one will probably get married off, too? So far, I’ve been able to avoid that because she’s sort of the forgotten child in the family, and no one really cares what she does.”

“It’s your ending, right? If it feels like a real story to you, what is the story itself telling you actually happened?”

“That’s the problem…” Abby grunted, making Quinn wish she could hear that sound in another context entirely. “It hasn’t told me yet. Everything else, yes, but not how it all ends.”

“Maybe you just need to take some more time with it. It’s all come out of you so fast, but maybe the ending will take time.”

“I don’t exactly have a ton of that… I have a publisher expecting an outline and my pages.”

“Right. Well, maybe look at the photos again.”

“Huh?”

“The box out there. I was going to pull it back in here because no one seems to be interested in them anyway. Well, except for you.”

Quinn decided not to reveal that she wanted to pull them back because she was interested in them now.

“Are there more of the two of them?”

“There are a lot of them in there. I’m not sure how many are of the two of them, though. And I kept a few out of the box. They were way too faded. One was almost solid black. No one would buy that anyway.”

“Can we?”

“Can we what?”

“Look at them now,” Abby said.

“Sure. I can–”

“I’ll get it,” Abby offered quickly before she stood and practically jogged to the front of the shop.

Quinn laughed and ate another fry while she waited for her to return.

“Okay. Can I put this on the desk?”

“Sure,” she replied, pushing their food containers and drinks aside.

Abby sat back down in her chair and set the box down on the desk.

“You said someone just came in here and left you this?”

“Yes. He said he was a realtor selling an old farmhouse, and they found this box of stuff. I didn’t throw anything out. I probably should have because I can’t see any of it selling, but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“The same reason he told me that he couldn’t, I guess: it felt wrong. Everything in here has a story. Just like that cow saltshaker that I was telling you about. These are photos of people’s lives. It felt weird, tossing them into the trash.”

Abby looked into the box and began rifling through the photos.

“All of these were dropped off?”

“No, just the ones in the front. The rest, I already had. Any of the ones with twenty-five cents on them are the new ones.”

“Why are they only a quarter, and the others cost more?”

“The box had twenty-five cents on it from some garage sale or something, so I got sentimental and just made them all a quarter.” Quinn shrugged a shoulder.

“That’s cute,” Abby said, meeting her eyes and smiling at her .

“Just look for a picture,” she replied, looking away quickly to hide her blush.

“Oh, it’s them.” Abby pulled a photo out of the box and leaned back in her chair to get a closer look. “Wow!”

“What?” she asked.

“They’re older here.”

“Older?” Quinn got up and walked around the desk. “Oh, wow! A few years, maybe.”

“ At least a few. I’m thinking more like five or something, because look at the little boy. He’s got to be about three or four years old here, right?”

“I think so.”

“So, if they had him in 1938, this would be about 1942, probably.”

“If who had them in 1938?”

“Deb and John David.”

“Who’s John–”

“Them,” Abby explained. “Well, that’s Deb; the one in the dress.” She pointed at the photo. “The little boy is John Paul, but they call him Paul. The other woman in the uniform is Harriet. John David isn’t in this picture, but if I have to guess–” She stopped.

“What?”

“He went off to war.”

“Okay. But, Abby, you know that’s just your version of events, right? That’s your story, but you don’t know what actually happened to these people.”

Abby sighed and said, “Right.”

Quinn looked closer at the image then, seeing that the woman whom Abby was calling Harriet was wearing a military uniform.

“That’s a Marine uniform.”

“Huh?”

“Harriet is wearing a Marine uniform. I know because my grandpa was a Marine, and so were my aunt and uncle. My dad couldn’t get in because of a health thing. It was the biggest disappointment of his life. But she’s a Marine. ”

“She’d have to be something in administration, right? This would’ve been World War II.”

“She could’ve been a nurse,” Quinn suggested. “Marines went to the Pacific, and things were brutal over there. She’s in her dress uniform. Maybe she’s–”

“Leaving for the war?” Abby finished for her.

“Maybe.”

“If I’m right, and this is 42, Pearl Harbor just happened in 41, and it’s possible John David is already gone. Did she volunteer?”

“I don’t know,” Quinn replied. “I guess to find out who these people really were, we’d have to track down the realtor, the house, and the records of who lived there and when. Even then, we still might not find out.”

“Did he tell you anything other than it was a farmhouse? Maybe his name or something?”

“No. He was in a hurry, so he just dropped the box and left. I didn’t think it was important to ask.”

“It’s a small town. There are only so many realtors here. I can probably do a search, and we can pull up their pictures. Where’s your computer?”

“Abby, how does this help with your story?” she asked as she walked back around the desk and sat down. “You’re writing about fictional characters, so you can do whatever you want with the story. You can make her not go into the Marines at all. You can change whatever you want. It doesn’t matter what happened to those actual people.”

“I know,” Abby replied, looking sad all of a sudden. “I guess I just want to know. They all seem real to me. When I think of Deb and Harriet, I see these two women. In fact, when I think of Paul, I see this little boy.” She turned the photo around to Quinn. “How is that possible, Quinn? I’ve been picturing him as a baby, because that’s where I am in the book, but this is him. He would look like this around three or four years old.”

“I’m sure it’s your mind playing tricks on you,” she lied because she didn’t actually believe that .

“Tricks?” Abby shook her head.

“You’re writing a story about your characters based on the people in the picture. It was bound to happen.”

“I guess,” Abby said, not sounding convinced at all.

Then, she turned the photo back around and stared at it some more.

“Hey, can I maybe read what you’ve written so far?” Quinn asked, her heart racing in her chest. “If it’s okay. I’m curious now.”

“Sure,” Abby said without looking up from the photo.

“Would you mind making a copy of the first picture for me, too? I’d like to look at it before I read it.”

“Yeah,” Abby said. “But can I have this one, too? I can make a copy of it and give it back to you, if you want, or just pay for it. I’ll pay you for real, though, not a quarter.”

“Just make a copy of both, and you can keep them if I get to read your story before anyone else.”

Abby looked up at her and smiled.

“I might have my ending now.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“I’m not going to tell you.” Abby chuckled. “You can read it when I finish the draft, which won’t be long because I’m ready to go home and write now.”

“Can you tell me something, at least?”

“Like what?”

“Will it be a happy ending or a sad one?”

“I think that’ll depend on how you look at it when you read it,” Abby replied and stood up then. “I’m going to head home and get to work on this, but DM me later with your email address.”

“Okay.”

She watched Abby walk out the front of the shop and wondered why seeing the woman in the military uniform had had her seeing a vision of another woman making popcorn on the stove before she put it in a bowl, set it at the table, and watched the first woman and a little boy snack on it together.