Perfect Timing

  “If you want the jets on,” he said, indicating the button to push, “the control is right there. Same for the lights. One punch gives you one color; two gives you rotating color. To turn something off, just punch it again.”

  Ceara nodded even though she didn’t completely understand. He moved back to the door. “If you need anything, I’ve turned on the intercom system, so just yell, and I’ll be here lickety-split.”

  “’Tis fine I shall be,” she assured him, wondering what an intercom system was. She’d been taking baths her whole life long and doubted she would need help. “Thank ye. I’ll be about me business, then.”

  * * *

  After the door closed, Ceara fiddled with the knob until she figured out how to work the lock. The last thing she wanted was for Quincy to make an unexpected appearance when she was stark naked. Once she felt certain the lock would hold, she sighed, dropped the sheet, and stepped into the lovely warm water. As she sat and slid low, heat enveloped her, and she sighed again. At home, the tub was small, and she could wet only parts of herself at a time, using a dipper. To sink as deeply as she liked into hot water was a luxury she’d never experienced or even imagined.

  After a moment, she began staring at the buttons. What were jets? Her long hair floating all around her, she leaned forward to punch the button Quincy had shown her. At first she heard only a gurgling sound, but it was soon followed by a muted roar, and water suddenly surged around her as if it had come alive. She was so startled she nearly shrieked. Then, as the whirling streams began to pummel her body, she groaned in delight, sank low in the tub, and closed her eyes. How wonderful! She liked a whirlpool bath even more than champagne.

  Something tugged on her hair. Ceara’s eyes snapped open. When she tried to sit erect, the pull on her scalp grew sharper. Following the tautness of the strands with her fingers, she discovered that her hair was being sucked into a hole. She jerked and pulled, to no avail. She imagined being drawn under as the tub slowly gobbled her tresses.

  “Holy Mother of God!” she screamed. “Help! Quincy, help me! ’Tis drowning I am!”

  * * *

  Quincy had his head in the refrigerator, looking for anything he might fix as a prebreakfast snack for Ceara, when her screams came over the intercom. Drowning? His heart felt as if it dropped like a rock to bounce off his bare toes. He tore for the hallway, took the stairs three at a time, ran into the bedroom, and reached the closed bathroom door. Locked?

  “Jesus H. Christ!” He could hear Ceara shrieking and splashing around in the tub. There was terror in those shrieks. He put his shoulder to the wood. It didn’t give. He backed up, wishing he had boots on so he could give the damned thing a solid kick. No such luck. He charged forward to ram the thick panel with his shoulder again. A crack as loud as a rifle shot rang out, and the thick ash portal gave way, rocking off the hinges for a moment before it fell to the stone floor with another explosion of sound.

  Quincy ran to the tub. Ceara was down on one hip and elbow in the whirling water, pulling frantically on her hair, which seemed to be stuck in the outtake valve.

  “What the frigging hell?”

  Regaining his senses, Quincy jabbed the jet control, the water stopped churning, and Ceara, braced against the current, fell back against the opposite wall of porcelain, her face whiter than the glossy surface behind her. She was sobbing, clearly terrified. Quincy grabbed the discarded sheet, threw it over her, and then, despite the odd angle, lifted her, sopping wet, into his arms. No major feat of strength—she weighed little more than a child.

  Shaking uncontrollably, she locked her slender arms around his neck, buried her face against his now soaked shoulder, and jerkily cried, “’Twas . . . eating . . . me hair, pulling me down. I couldna . . . get away.”

  Quincy’s legs felt as if they’d turned to rubber. He dropped onto the toilet, vaguely glad the lid was down, and angled his wife across his spread thighs. Now that it was too late, he recalled having to tug washcloths loose from the outtake valve. He doubted that Ceara’s hair would have been pulled past the grate guard. There was surely a safety feature to prevent that, which he’d check out later. But he knew the experience had frightened her half to death, all the same.

  “It’s okay, honey; it’s okay. It wasn’t eating your hair; truly it wasn’t. I’m pretty sure it only felt that way.”

  She jerked and gulped, trying to regain control, but the violent shudders that racked her body told him she still hadn’t recovered from her fright. Quincy whispered to her, uncertain what he said, and just held her close. When she finally lay still against him, her sobs dwindling to soft twitches of her shoulders, he shifted his gaze to the destroyed door and added another chore to his to-do list for the day. He’d need to call his contractor and schedule repairs.

  When he felt that Ceara had calmed down enough to entertain the thought of another try at bathing, he said, “How about we forget turning on the jets, and I stay to help you get washed up?”

  “’Tis naked I am!” she protested thinly.

  “Yeah, well, you can keep yourself covered with the sheet so I won’t see anything. It won’t be so bad; I promise.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, Quincy felt as if he’d put in a half day of hard work. Drying Ceara’s hair, even with a hair blower, had turned out to be a challenging task, and after getting her all finished up, he’d had to take a shower, wipe up puddles of water, fill the washer with sopping sheets and towels, and then try to think of something to feed his wife before he dragged her off to town. Not much, he decided. Just a bit of nourishment to bolster her strength for the drive, her first visit to a restaurant, and then shopping.

  Now, back in her Renaissance gown, with her impossibly long hair braided, she sat at his round kitchen table dutifully eating whole-wheat cereal with skim milk, neither of which seemed to delight her taste buds, judging by the way she wrinkled her nose every time she took a bite.

  “At home, me mum serves hot bread, fried pork, and fresh eggs to break our fast,” she informed him. “If fer some reason she has no time to cook, we eat cold bread and a hunk of her lovely cheese.”

  Quincy nodded. “I’ll stock up on things more to your liking.” Sitting across from her, he leaned forward to pull the bowl away. “Forget the cereal. I’ll take you out for breakfast. There’s a fairly nice greasy spoon at the north end of town. You can order a platter of artery-clogging delights.”

  Her cheek dimpled. “What is a greasy spoon, and what are artery-clogging delights?”

  Quincy was still trying to explain about coronary artery disease as they drove toward Crystal Falls.

  * * *

  Ceara’s nose was bombarded with the heavenly smells of delicious food when they entered the establishment her husband called a greasy spoon. She well knew what grease was, and spoons as well, but what those words meant in connection with this building, she couldn’t imagine. The first suspicious glance she’d given it revealed no obvious grease, spoon, or disorder. The front eating area, nearly as large as her father’s dining hall, was spotted with small tables covered by red-and-white squares of cloth. People stared at Ceara as Quincy led her to an empty table and drew out a chair for her.

  Instead of sitting, Ceara leaned toward him and said, “I’ve great need of a toilet. Do ye think they have one here?”

  He whispered back, “In public places, the toilets are in what we call restrooms.” He pointed to an overhead sign not far from them. “They’re off that short hall. By each door, you’ll see stick figures. Go into the one with a stick figure in a short skirt.”

  That seemed simple enough, so Ceara ventured across the dining hall into a shorter corridor, chose what she hoped was the correct door, and entered. A line of bowls like those in Quincy’s bathroom lined one side of the room, below a shiny flank of mirrors. Across from them were a series of cubicles with doors that came only partway down to the floor. They were half-open and each contained a toilet. Ceara went inside one cubicle and pee
red into the bowl, which was filled with yellowish water and had a large amount of soggy paper floating in it. She backed out and tried the next cubicle. This one contained only clear water. She shut the door and quickly did her business, marveling over the things she discovered. There was a metal container on the wall filled with squares of see-through stuff that resembled onionskin, and a white can sat beside the toilet with a sign above it that read, DISCARD TAMPONS HERE. She had no idea what a tampon was and decided to ask Quincy later.

  When she stood up, she got one of the greatest frights of her life. Unlike the toilets she’d previously used, this one flushed all on its own, without her pressing a handle, gulping down one’s offerings with a loud, sucking whoosh that made her fear she might go down the hole, too. Gown still hiked high, she fell against the stall door, nearly screamed, and then slowly collected her wits. She wasn’t about to be sucked into a pipe. This was only yet another frightening oddity of her husband’s time.

  Exiting the stall, she crossed to the row of sinks and looked in bewilderment for what he called faucet handles. There were none, just the faucet itself jutting out over the bowl. Perhaps there was no well here to provide water, but if that was the case, then why have faucets at all? Ceara tentatively tapped the faucet. No water appeared. She curled her fingers into a fist and banged it lightly on the end of the faucet. Still no water.

  There had to be a way to get water out of the faucet, she reasoned. She ran her fingers across the faucet, brushing them beneath the open end. A swift gurgle made her jerk her fingers away just before water squirted out. She had no idea how she’d done it, but Ceara quickly washed her hands without soap. There were no towels available to dry them, even though she carefully examined the big metal containers hanging on the walls by the bowls. Wiping her fingers on her skirt, she exited the restroom, eager to experience her first meal at a greasy spoon.

  Ceara returned to their table to find Quincy with a platter of food at his elbow. When she sat across from him, he pushed the plate and a large but thin book toward her. “I ordered a sampler and some fruit I thought you might enjoy. While you’re nibbling, you can look over the menu. Choose anything you like, and don’t worry about price. Whatever it costs, I can afford it.”

  Ceara’s gaze went to a bowl of fruit at the center of the table containing peeled and sectioned oranges, a rare treat in Ireland. She couldn’t resist snitching a segment of orange, which was so delicious she closed her eyes to savor it.

  “You like fruit?” he asked.

  “Oranges, yes,” she replied, helping herself to another bite. “What are the other bits?”

  “Cantaloupe slices.”

  Ceara tried some of the melon as well and found the taste equally delightful. When she finally opened the menu, her eyes were immediately assaulted by so many choices with strange names that she had no idea what to choose. The prices were also listed in a form of currency she’d never seen. Quincy didn’t seem interested in the sampler, which had somehow appeared on their table as if by magic. She looked around, searching for a kitchen, but though she could see the heads of people moving back and forth through an opening in the far wall, she saw no smoke or chimneys and heard no crackling fire to indicate food preparation.

  Hungry to the point of starving, she grabbed one of the flat things on the platter. It was cut in a wedge, and when she bit into it, sheer heaven burst to life in her mouth. She tasted cheese, real cheese, perhaps not quite as good as Mum’s, but almost. “Mmm,” she murmured appreciatively. “What is this?”

  “Cholesterol City,” he said, frowning as if she were eating dog dung.

  Just then a woman in a scandalously tight léine and blue trews came to their table. She had something in her mouth that she chewed, much like a cow did its cud, only whatever it was snapped and popped. She held a tablet in one hand, a writing utensil in the other. “What can I get you, ma’am?” She glanced up. “Wow, cool dress. Is there a Renaissance fair somewhere nearby?”

  “In Bend,” Quincy interrupted. “They wrapped it up this morning. We were on our way home and got starved out, so we stopped to eat before my wife got a chance to change.”

  “Awesome reproduction. My mom is into it, but the gowns she has don’t look as real.” She snapped her cud again. “Special this morning is eggs Benedict smothered in our house Hollandaise with a side of cottage fries and country gravy.”

  Ceara had no idea what eggs Benedict was. “Your Cholesterol City is delicious. I’ll have that.”

  The woman gave her a bewildered look. Quincy broke in again to explain, “She’s having you on. She means she’d like her own order of the breakfast quesadillas. Throw in a side of sausage links, a bowl of orange sections, and biscuits with country gravy.”

  “And you, sir?” the woman asked. “You don’t seem to be eating the quesadillas, and I’m sure they’re cold by now.”

  “I ordered them for my wife while she was in the powder room, and they came from the kitchen faster than I expected.”

  “I’ll be happy to comp them for you then.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Quincy smiled. “I’ll have two basted eggs on dry whole-wheat toast. Unless you happen to have a Swiss chard stir-fry with eggs, light on the sesame oil, with a dash of lemon.”

  The woman shook her head, moved her jaws, and her mouth began emitting popping sounds again. “We got a spinach omelet with sausage and a special cheese sauce.”

  Quincy shook his head. “I’ll stick with the eggs on dry toast, thanks.”

  As the woman walked away, Ceara jabbed a finger at his abandoned platter. “If this is called . . . what was it? Something about breaking the fast, then why, pray, did ye tell me ’tis called Cholesterol City?”

  He flashed her a wry grin. “It was a joke, Ceara. I’ll try not to do it again, but in the meanwhile, you shouldn’t take everything I say so literally. What if I’d said it was a pile of shit?”

  Ceara recalled the delicious taste of the cooling cheese, so unlike the flavorless stuff Quincy had served her last night. “Is that, then, another name for this lovely stuff? Then I would have said I wanted a pile of shit. ’Tis verra good. Now what is the matter?” she asked, as Quincy’s face suddenly creased in a deep frown. Shrugging, Ceara leaned back in her chair. “So this is a restaurant? I canna see any smoke from the cooking fires.”

  He chuckled. Then he winced. “Damn. I should have ordered you some whole milk.”

  * * *

  Quincy had no idea where to take a woman shopping for decent clothes. No secondhand or discount stores for his wife. He drove up Main and took a U-turn to park in front of a stylish-looking ladies’ boutique. He figured there’d have to be a fashion-conscious saleslady on duty, and Ceara was going to need clothing from the skin out. Ever since college, he’d prided himself on being able to guess a woman’s bra size with a passing glance, but beyond that, he was at a complete loss. What kind of bra did Ceara need? He liked thongs—oh, yeah, he really liked thongs—but somehow he didn’t think Ceara would be parading around in one anytime soon. In short, he was going to need help dressing her. A classy shop seemed just the thing.

  Thirty minutes later, Quincy had a bitch of a headache. Ceara refused to wear tight knit tops, whispering to him in a thin, scandalized voice that she might as well wear naught at all. Quincy wouldn’t have minded seeing her in the nude twenty-four/seven. The girl had a gorgeous body. But he sure as hell didn’t want her leaving the house in her altogether.

  Just thinking about it, he got an uncomfortable, hot feeling that surged up his throat. If one of his hired hands so much as laid a finger on her, Quincy would kill him. The thought jerked him up short. God, was he jealous? He’d never had a possessive streak. Now here he was having murderous thoughts over something that hadn’t even happened yet and probably never would.

  Ceara walked from the dressing area in another outfit just then, shoulders hunched, arms covering her breasts. She fixed a fiery gaze on him. “I canna wear the likes of this! ’
Tis shameful.”

  Quincy thought the pink knit top and boot-cut jeans looked fabulous on her, but when he took a mental step back, he could see the problem. The ensemble revealed every line of Ceara’s figure, and in her time was undoubtedly something only a whore would wear. Scotch that. In the sixteenth century, even prostitutes had probably worn less revealing clothing.

  Quincy detested lying, but as he took the bewildered clerk aside for a private talk, he decided a huge load of bullshit was in order. The slender blonde looked up at him with unnaturally bright green eyes, compliments, he felt sure, of tinted contacts. “I’m out of ideas,” she whispered. “She’s tried almost everything.”

  Quincy geared up, swallowing hard and straightening his shoulders. “Here’s the thing. I rescued her from one of those weird cults. You know, where they live in communes on remote ranches and the women have to wear long dresses that have collars up to the chin, long sleeves, and . . .” He glimpsed Ceara in a red top that brought saliva rushing to his mouth. “She even had to wear one of those all-over caps that shaded her face and fell down her back. You get what I’m saying? Now she wants to dress like women on the outside, but the tight knit tops and pants are too immodest.”

  “Oh, the poor thing,” the clerk whispered. “Was she held prisoner there?”

  Quincy nodded. “And that’s all she’s known her whole life. Do you have any trousers with a much looser fit, and maybe some . . . hell, I don’t know what you call them . . . shirts, I guess, to wear over the knit tops, maybe something she can button halfway up or tie at the waist? Think supermodest.”