Past Perfect

  ALSO BY LEILA SALES

  Mostly Good Girls

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition October 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Leila Sales

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Designed by Mike Rosamilia

  The text of this book was set in ITC Baskerville.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Full CIP data is available from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-0682-7 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-0684-1 (eBook)

  Dedicated to my parents,

  with all my love

  And I’ve been standing on the same spot now since it’s been over.

  —Shout Out Louds

  A dreaded sunny day, so I meet you at the cemetery gates.

  —The Smiths

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: The Summer

  Chapter 2: The Moderners

  Chapter 3: The Ex-Boyfriend

  Chapter 4: The Enemy

  Chapter 5: The Kidnapping

  Chapter 6: The Burying Ground

  Chapter 7: The Telephone Wars

  Chapter 8: The Fourth of July

  Chapter 9: The Encounter

  Chapter 10: The Milliner Girls

  Chapter 11: The Traitor

  Chapter 12: The Undercover Operation

  Chapter 13: The Top Five

  Chapter 14: The Rendezvous

  Chapter 15: The War Council

  Chapter 16: The Vandals

  Chapter 17: The Secret

  Chapter 18: The Best Friend

  Chapter 19: The Truth

  Chapter 20: The Party

  Chapter 21: The Beginning

  Chapter 1

  THE SUMMER

  There are only three types of kids who get summer jobs at Colonial Essex Village instead of just working at the mall, like the normal people do.

  Type one: history nerds. People who memorized all the battles of the Revolutionary War by age ten; who can, and will, tell you how many casualties were sustained at Bunker Hill; who hotly debate the virtues of bayonets over pistols. They are mostly pale-skinned, reedy, acne-scarred boys in glasses (unless they can’t find a pair of historically accurate glasses and are forced to get contacts). I don’t know if they were born so unappealing, and turned to history for companionship because they realized they were too grotesque to attract real-life friends, or if their love of history came first, and maybe they could have turned out hot, but instead they invested all their energy in watching twelve-hour documentaries about battleships. It’s a chicken-or-the-egg type of question.

  The second type are the drama kids. The drama kids are not so interested in authentic battle techniques, but they are super interested in dressing up like minutemen. And they are interested in staging chilling scenes in which they get fake-shot and fall to the ground, bellowing, “Hark! I’m wounded! Oh, what cruelty is this?” even when the history nerds grouch because that is not how it happened at all, and, in fact, no soldiers were wounded during the Battle of Blah Blah Blah.

  The third reason for a teenager to work at Essex would be if her parents work there. Which is why I do it. Because my dad is the Essex Village silversmith, and my mom is the silversmith’s wife, and I am the silversmith’s daughter.

  The silversmith is the guy who makes silverware and jewelry, and also sometimes he does dental work like fillings. Paul Revere was a silversmith, too, as my dad likes to remind me, when he’s trying to make me value his profession. Silversmiths play an important role in society, or at least they did in the 1700s.

  Thanks to my dad’s career, I’ve worked at Essex since I was six years old. Well, I wasn’t technically employed for the first few years, since I did it for free. It was more like Take Your Child to Work Day every day, except that I had to wear a historically accurate costume of tiny boots, petticoats, a pinafore, and a bonnet.

  When I turned twelve, I started getting paid—not a whole lot, but nothing to turn up my nose at either, especially since the only other jobs available to twelve-year-olds in my town are being a mother’s helper or trying to sell baked goods on street corners. And the baked goods market is really saturated. So historical reenactment was a solid gig for a while, and I had more independent income than anyone else in my middle school. I used it to buy a trampoline.

  But now that it’s nearly the end of junior year, I’m sixteen years old, which means I’m legally employable. I can finally get a real job at a real place. A place where my coworkers won’t spend their lunch breaks debating who would have won the Revolutionary War if the French never got involved; where I can wear shorts instead of floor-length skirts; where there might even be air conditioning. Also and most importantly: a place where my parents don’t work.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents and all. But my father and I have the sort of loving relationship in which, whenever he says more than one sentence in a row to me, I want to stab myself in the heart with a recently formed silver knife.

  “So obviously what we want to do this summer,” I said to my best friend, Fiona, “is work at the mall.”

  “Yeah . . .” Fiona said in a tone that meant No. We were having this conversation over ice cream in her kitchen, a few weeks before school let out for the year. Fiona and I had recently decided to devote the summer to becoming ice cream connoisseurs. Which essentially meant that we were going to eat as much ice cream as possible, and then discuss it intelligently and rate it on qualities such as “flavor” and “texture.”

  “We could work at the mall,” Fiona said. “Or, instead of that, here’s another idea: We could work at Essex.”

  I sighed. “Fi—”

  “Think about it,” she said.

  “Trust me, I’ve thought about it for the past ten years. Working at Essex is not really that fun,” I tried to explain to her. “It’s like going to family camp, only you have to be in character all the time, and strangers watch you and ask questions.”

  “I actually love being in character,” Fiona reminded me. “And I love having strangers watch me.”

  Fiona is a drama kid, and she’s good. She can belt out songs, and she emanates this confidence that just commands attention when she’s onstage. You can’t help but watch her. To top it off, she’s tall and willowy with waist-length chestnut-brown hair and catlike green eyes. I will be surprised if Fiona doesn’t grow up to be a famous actress.

  Fiona and I have never spent a summer together because she’s gone to the Catskills for theater camp every year since we were little. But this past fall Ms. Warren lost her job, which 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 bo
wl of mint chocolate chip, Fiona argued, “But if we work at Essex, I can have some romantic historical name, like Prudence or Chastity.”

  “Your 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?”

  “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 Ophelia, 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 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. Dyeing 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 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.

  Chapter 2

  THE MODERNERS

  To 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 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 mobcap. 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 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 anything 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.

  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 is?”

  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.

  Chapter 3

  THE EX-BOYFRIEND

  Essex 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 loudspeakers 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.