R.E.birth Page 8

  We finally reach an area of the road where the density of people has lessened and the bright yellow sign we were looking for lies several hundred yards in front of us, reading just as the man had indicated.

  “All right, let’s see if we can sell some clothes or patterns.” Ami’s excitement is intoxicating.

  When we reach the glass store front she releases my hand to try and open the door, but I beat her to it and hold it open while she gives me a quirky grin. Immediately as we enter, we are greeted by another very tall, slightly husky man. He has longer brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail and a short goatee. He sports a very casual pull-over shirt with short sleeves and long blue pants.

  “Hello! Welcome to my shop! I’m Anselmo and I sell ‘Easy-Wear’, your everyday clothing! Please come here!” The man lunges forward and hugs Ami, and then myself, his friendliness somewhat overwhelming. “How can I help you two?”

  “Hi! So you’re the owner then?”

  “I sure am, young lady!” He steps back and smiles robustly, his teeth partially showing.

  “I have come to negotiate the sale of my patterns and clothing styles!” She matches his enthusiasm.

  “Negotiate?” He asks a little confused.

  “Yes sir! I design clothes and I would like to sell you some of my personal designs!”

  “What makes you think I might buy your clothes?” He crosses his arms over his chest, but shows he is interested by grinning and raising one eyebrow.

  “Sir you are obviously a man of good taste as I can see by the clothes in your shop,” she sweet talks him, lathering him up with slick words, while looking about the many racks of clothing he has. “Why would you not want to expand that a little more and make a hefty profit?”

  “Well how can I argue with that?” His grin turns to a full smirk and he drops his arms. “Let’s go to my office!”

  Quickly he turns around and walks toward the back wall. As we follow him, I take note of many different designs and styles of clothing, but I find the amount of styles in the shop all a bit much to take in. Only able to see a fraction of the different clothes, we reach a door in the back and Anselmo quickly opens it. We enter into a smaller, but still fairly well sized room. There are pictures on the wall and I find some are clearly paintings while others seem to be a finely detailed images, glossed over.

  There is a desk toward the back of the room and it’s cluttered with papers and writing utensils much like Ami’s sewing room. There is a bookshelf to the left only half filled with books, while the other half is filled with more fine detailed pictures of Anselmo with children in wooden frames. I stand there, staring at the confusingly sharp images while Ami takes a seat in a chair in front of the desk. Anselmo moves around behind the desk to sit down in an even more luxurious chair, propping his feet up on top of the mess on the desk.

  “Please miss, tell me more!” He extends his hand as an invitation for her to begin.

  “I’ll get right down to it. I’ve designed a line of clothing that is comfortable any time. It’s made from a light and airy blend of cotton that I’ve noted in my drawings. It’s adaptable for both pull-over or button up styles and as you can see I already have people wearing the line,” she jumps up and pushes me toward Anselmo’s desk and then spins me around. “As you can see the clothing is unrestricting. One might say it’s very ‘Dark Ages’ because of its simplicity.”

  I shoot her a shocked glance and she just winks back.

  “I see,” Anselmo smiles, clearly enjoying the show.

  “I too am wearing some of my latest design,” she removes her shawl to show off a short sleeve, pleated shoulder shirt. “This shirt is made in a similar fashion with the same material. The part around the breast area is a little thicker so that it is not see through – it gives women a little security.”

  Ami shows off her creation and spins for the man.

  “Now, a key signature of my work is that I use this pink rose on the right shoulder to indicate my work on women’s clothing and an orange chrysanthemum on the men’s clothing,” she shows him.

  Looking at my right shoulder, I remember previously seeing the flower in the mirror.

  “The pants are made from a slightly thicker material and I have gone with a button system rather than the traditional zipper for closure,” she lifts up my shirt to show my pants off.

  Shocked again, I slap her hands away and she slaps my hand back, lifting my shirt back up.

  Anselmo leans forward slightly to take a better look and then returns to his relaxed position. Appearing deep in thought, he rubs his chin, drops his feet back to the floor and rests his elbows on the desk, clamping his fists together for his face to rest upon.

  “You make a very good sales pitch and I like the clothing. Now how much is your asking price?”

  “Make an offer. My designs are simple so I’m not looking for an exorbitant amount, but I want enough to have fun in town tonight.”

  “That’s easy enough. If you’ll leave your designs with me and enter into an agreement not to sell to anyone else I think I can make a fair offer,” he says clearly, despite his hands partially blocking his mouth.

  “I’ll do you one better. I brought sample clothing too.” Ami lays out the clothing she’s been holding and then digs into her bag to produce some rolled up paper.

  “Very nice indeed!” Anselmo begins mumbling to himself, biting on his lip while unrolling the paper and looking over the patterns. “I will set a new trend with these simple garments.”

  “So let’s talk payment. What would you offer for these?” Ami inquires.

  “Hmm…One thousand credits.” Anselmo’s face becomes serious as they get down to actual negotiations.

  “One thousand credits? That’s not all that much.” Ami sounds offended. “As I was passing by food stands I noticed that a small bowl of rice, vegetables and meat cost one hundred credits. Twenty-five hundred credits and you have yourself a deal.”

  “Twenty-five hundred?!” He leans back in his chair and I can see the surprise on his face. “You are a shrewd business person!”

  “Twenty-five hundred, or I take my designs to the next shop.” She smiles mischievously.

  “Fine, fine. Take your money and leave the merchandise!” While he speaks like he is upset, he still smiles warmly.

  Anselmo takes a strange-looking rectangular object with rounded sides, swipes it across a gray box on his desk with a black strip on the right hand side and taps a few numbers scribed on it. He hands the card over to Ami and she gladly accepts it, placing it into her bag and curtsies.

  “It was nice doing business with you. I hope those designs bring in some good money for you,” Ami turns, grabs my hand and we are on our way out the front door.

  We exit the building and stop for a moment while Ami pulls out the card to examine it carefully. She flips it one way, then another and I can see its top half is glossy with a gray tint and the bottom half is black as night.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a piece of plastic. Mother said they use electronic currency so there should be twenty-five hundred credits allocated to this,” she says with a shrug.

  “That is currency? But it is only a card. Is plastic a precious item like gold or silver.”

  “There’s a lot to learn about how currency changes. Most times we find that we don’t have to worry about transactions of precious metals or gems. But right now you’re going to learn about other things.” She looks up at me and smiles widely. “The first thing I want here is ice cream. I haven’t had it in over a month and I’m dying to have some.”

  “And what is that, other than the obvious answer?”

  “You’ll find out when you taste it.” She shoves the card back in her bag and grabs my hand.

  Leading us back toward all of the food vendors, I squeeze her hand again when we reach the bigger crowds. Amidst the throng we dart and dodge until she locates what she is looking for and hones in on it, finally coming to stop at an open ve
ndor’s counter. People are gathered in front of the counter that runs adjacent to the two walls, pointing, speaking and then handing similar cards to a person inside. The person moves the card over the same type of device Anselmo had, hands it back and then hands the person a checkered, tan, cone shaped item with two scoops of half circular objects on it that remind me of what might go inside a pastry, a solid cream.

  Inside the counter, behind a glass wall there are rows of different colored and named flavors that I can see. Ami steps up to the person while I stand back and watch. I can see her lips moving, but over the loudness of the surrounding people I cannot make out what she is saying. She points, holds up two fingers and then hands the card she received to the man behind the counter. He swipes it and then hands it back. While she waits, he turns away for a moment, returning moments later with two of the cones topped with the cream. In her hands they are like gold as she cradles them carefully while walking back to me.

  “Here,” she hands me one. “I picked peppermint flavored because it’s my favorite.”

  She begins to devour hers while I take a moment to examine mine. White and pink swirl together and I can tell close up that it is definitely a heavier texture than a pastry filling. I follow her lead and begin biting into the wet part. Chewing the bite of ice cream I am shocked when I find it is much colder than anticipated. I fumble the bite with my tongue around until it warms up but as I do the sweet taste and recognizable peppermint flavor are not lost on me. After I get the first bite down, I proceed to take another bite and then another.

  “Wait! Take it slowly!” She tries to warn me but I just cannot help continuing to eat mine.

  And then it hits me. My head becomes cold and begins to hurt terribly. Instinctively, I throw my free hand up to my temples and put pressure on to try and distract myself from the pain, but it fails.

  “Ow!” I yell out in pain. “My head hurts!”

  Ami begins giggling despite my pain, continuing to eat hers.

  “Make it go away!”

  “You’ll just have to wait it out. It will go away on its own,” she responds.

  I move my left hand to my forehead and begin rapidly moving it back and forth to create heat, hoping to get the pain to subside by warming up my skull. She finishes hers, even going so far as to eat the cone. The pain finally goes away in my head and I stand up straight from my hunch.

  “Sorry, I should have told you what happens if you eat it too fast.” Ami smiles as she puts her arm through mine and begins to lead us off to another area.

  I finish mine slowly so as not to get that headache again and try the cone as well. Its texture is that of a thin cookie, crunchy and sweet. When it is gone I lick my fingers and look over at Ami, who is confidently leading us down a street, but I notice it is neither the direction we came from nor toward Anselmo’s shop. Instead there are more bright lights and more shops beaming from every direction into the street and I liken it to daytime with the amount of light and people about. She appears to be leading us aimlessly, just taking in sights. While we walk, the large snake like thing on the top of the buildings speeds by again, I quickly point it out to Ami.

  “That! What is it?”

  “Wow. That’s amazing! They have a train system on top of the buildings?” She’s dazzled.

  “What is a train?”

  “It’s a vehicle that carries a lot of passengers all at once. It looks like they’ve built one that runs on electricity because I don’t see any smoke coming out of it.”

  I rub my forehead with confusion and remind myself to ask Ami later about sitting down and catching me up on all of the things I should be aware of in this time so that I do not seem silly asking about random and potentially ordinary things. She tugs at my arm and we continue walking the shopping district, just gazing into storefronts at the many varieties of items. We walk arm-in-arm for what seems like hours but she does not buy anything more. When she yawns I realize that she is just as tired as I am.

  “We should go back to the house,” I suggest.

  “Yeah. You’re right,” she promptly does an about face.

  While it seemed like hours had gone by while we walked, she turns us down a street. When we come to the open field in which our house sits in a matter of a few minutes I figure that we took a different but parallel road to the one we came in on.

  Walking through the tree line into the field of grass we find our way home soon enough and I notice that Ami had been walking with her eyes closed while I led us. I am careful to open the door and lead her in. Removing my arm from hers, I close the door carefully behind us and turn back around to notice that she is gone. I enter the living room and find her collapsed, belly down on the couch and sound asleep. Not wanting to risk another outburst from the possessive Evalyn, I sit down on the floor with my back against the couch and stretch my legs out under the table.

  While I relax I think about all of the new memories I am making in place of the lost ones. I revel at all of the things I have seen so far and wonder what else I will see as I travel through time with this family. But questions soon overtake my mind.

  Will I ever see my own time again? Will we ever find a way out and live in one time? Will I ever fully recover?

  Questions bombard my mind but I am too tired to care about the answers now.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  I am abruptly awoken by Agatha’s other half kicking at my foot sticking out from the other side of the table. I slowly open my eyes to see her staring, a frown on her face and her eyebrows curved downward to indicate she is not happy. Her shrill tone pierces my ears as she decides to lecture me first thing in the morning.

  “Hey! Wake up! Since you’ve insisted on disturbing the peace around here by staying permanently you’re going to pull your weight!” She launches into a tirade. “First off, we are not your maids. I know very well that your wound is nearly healed up and that means you’re going to help with the chores. Second, you stink. Get up, take a shower and then report to me for your list.”

  “Shower?” I am confused.

  “Oh that’s right. You’re from the Dark Ages. You have no idea what a shower is!” Evalyn sneers with sarcasm and spite. “Get up and I’ll show you.”

  I stand up and follow Evalyn down the hallway and I find that she has turned a light on so we can see. When I glance backward to the couch I find Ami is gone. Evalyn reaches Ami’s bathroom on the left and opens the door. She enters and pulls the curtain back from the bathtub.

  “This is a showerhead,” she points up to the bulbous, perforated item hanging from the wall and then turns the water on with the two handles near the base of the tub.

  Flipping a lever stops the water from flowing out of the faucet and instead it sprays out of the showerhead like controlled rain and then moves to the counter by the mirror.

  “Down here are clean towels and wash cloths as well as soap. You do know what soap is right?” She mocks me. “Make sure you clean up your mess when you’re done.”

  She leaves, closing the door behind her and I start to get undressed feeling completely insulted so early in the morning. After retrieving a towel, a washcloth and soap I remove my clothes and undo my bandage. Leaving it all in a heap to the side, I step into the shower and it is cold as I get in. Adjusting it with the knobs I turn it up to a lukewarm temperature and begin to lather up with the soap and rag, noting a lavender smell beginning to permeate the room. Quickly I wash and rinse my body, taking care around my healing wound. I turn the heat up a bit and let my muscles relax. Dunking my head in the water I let it stream from the hair hanging into my face, finding this to be a rather enjoyable experience.

  But not wanting Evalyn to get irritated with my taking too long, I turn the water off and step out from the curtain. The cold air hits me all at once and I grab up the towel I had left to the side, drying off quickly to get the cold to subside. Taking the opportunity, I relieve myself and then put my clothes and shoes back on. While looking in the
mirror I find facial hair has begun to take hold and though looks and feels soft now, I am aware that it will get thicker as time goes on. Determining to deal with it at a later time I adjust my clothing and my heart skips a beat when there is a loud knock at the door.

  “Come on!” Evalyn hollers. “You’ve been out of the shower for a while now. You have work to do!”

  I open the door to Evalyn standing there with her arms crossed and tapping her foot. Before I can say anything she jumps back into berating me.

  “Pick up that towel and wipe up any water you might have dripped and then meet me out by the garden,” she huffs and turns to leave.

  What is her problem?

  I do as she says and when I pick up the bandaging, I find my wound does not seem to need to be bandaged again. Taking the dirty laundry with me through the house I make my way to the yard through the kitchen, finding Evalyn has already started washing clothing in the large washbasin over a washboard.

  The sun is out and its beams warm my skin up quickly due to the moisture on it. The smell of soapy water and grass fill the air as Evalyn scrubs a towel over the washboard, wrings it out and then places it into a smaller flimsy looking basket with holes. I look around and notice Ami is hanging the laundry up to dry.

  “Hand them over and start hanging clothing with Ami,” Evalyn snaps, while motioning with her hand that she wants my towels. “And I don’t want to hear a peep out of either of you.”

  I do as she requests and move in alongside Ami to observe what she is doing for a moment. There are rows of clotheslines strung up, each one with its own set of items. Ami has a basket of clothing that she is working from and I begin helping. They’re shirts made for a female. From the size I can guess that they belong to Agatha. Or Evalyn. I hang them up without thought, alternating with Ami. We end up taking care of the whole basket in no time, but Evalyn has finished the towels so we exchange baskets with her and hang those up also. Though it is repetitive work, with the three of us working at it we finish quickly. But Evalyn sees opportunity in me and approaches with haste.