For weeks, for every other minute, Bert thought of the woman in the green dress—of the way she talked with her hands and of her bobbing hair. He wanted to learn her name, to know her, if only for an extra hour or so of 1939. When Cindee announced she was joining Kick Adler-Johnson on a horseback ride through Cuba, he booked another exam with the Chronometric Adventures Medical Team.
He was on the bench by the Lagoon of Nations at 4:45, and yes, right on the tick of the singularity clockwork, the woman in the green dress and her young friend sat down and began their conversation. Bert guessed she was probably in her mid-thirties, though the fashions of the times made everyone look older by today’s judgments. She was heavier than Cindee, than most modern-day women, as the 1939 diet was not very calorie conscious and exercise, then, was the stuff of athletes and laborers. The woman had an actual figure; the curves did her service.
He’d planned on what to say in this first conversation with a woman he had wanted to meet for over eight decades. “Excuse me,” Bert said. “Do you ladies know if the Futurama is running today?”
“It is, but the line is very long,” said the woman in the green dress. “We spent all afternoon in the Amusements Area. What a time we had!”
“Have you rode the Parachute, mister?” The girl could not have been more delightfully enthusiastic.
“I haven’t,” Bert confessed. “Should I?”
“It’s not for the weakhearted,” the woman said.
“You go up and up and up,” the girl said, waving her hands. “You think you are going to come floating down slow and soft. But you don’t. You land ka-joink!”
“It’s true.” The woman and the girl traded laughs.
“Have you seen the Futurama?” Bert asked.
“We didn’t want to wait through that long line,” the woman said.
“Well,” Bert said, reaching into the pocket of his double-breasted suit. “I have a couple of special passes I’m not going to use.”
Bert handed over the same two heavy cards Chronometric Adventures had supplied for his first trip with Cindee, the tickets embossed with the Trylon and Perisphere and the letters VIP. “If you show these to the attendants at the bottom of the ramp—I mean, the Helicline—they take you in via a secret passage.”
“Oh, that’s so nice of you,” the woman said. “But we are definitely not VIPs.”
“Believe me, neither am I,” Bert said. “I have to get back to the city. Please use them.”
“Can we, Aunt Carmen?” the girl asked, begged actually.
Carmen. Carmen was the name of the woman in the green dress. Carmen. The name fit her perfectly.
“I feel like a sneaky pete,” Carmen said, pausing. “But let’s! Thank you so much.”
“Yes, thanks!” her niece said. “My name is Virginia and this is my aunt Carmen. Who are you?”
“Bert Allenberry.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Allenberry,” Virginia said. “We owe our Future to you!” Arm in arm, the women headed down Constitution Mall toward the GM Building, home of the Futurama. Bert watched them go, feeling grand, happy he had returned to 1939.
For months, he daydreamed of the lovely Carmen, the sneaky pete. Though his body was in the office in Salina, the board meeting in Tokyo, on the boat off Mykonos—his mind was in Flushing Meadows, on a bench under the Four Freedoms on a day in early June of 1939. When a shareholders’ meeting demanded his presence in Noo Yawk, he made time for another $6 million visit to room 1114.
The events played out as before. He offered Carmen and Virginia the VIP passes, and off they went, owing their future to him. Bert, though, wanted just a bit more time with Carmen—not long, just another half hour or so—so he stationed himself at the exit of Futurama. He waved to them as they came out.
“How was it?” he called to them.
“Mr. Allenberry!” Carmen said. “I thought you had to leave.”
“Oh, I’m the boss, so I decided to change the rules.”
“You’re the boss?” Virginia asked. “Of what?”
“Of all the people I get to boss around.”
“Since you are now in the presence of a couple of VIPs,” Carmen said with a laugh, “may I treat you to some pie?”
“I happen to love pie.”
“Let’s go to Borden’s!” Virginia piped. “We can see Elsie the Cow.”
The three of them sat together with ten-cents-a-slice pie, cut into perfectly measured wedges. Carmen and Bert had nickel-a-cup coffees. Virginia had a glass of milk and talked about what marvels the year 1960 would bring, according to Futurama’s predictions.
“I hope I don’t still live in the Bronx in 1960,” she said. Virginia’s family lived in an apartment on the Parkway with her mother (Carmen’s sister) and father, who was a butcher. She was in the fifth grade, belonged to the Radio Club, and wanted to be a teacher when she grew up, if she could afford college. Carmen shared a fourth-floor walk-up on East Thirty-Eighth Street with two roommates who worked as secretaries at an insurance company. She was the bookkeeper in a handbag factory downtown. All of them agreed that the World’s Fair of 1939 was even better in real life than in the newsreels.
“Is your wife in New York, Mr. Allenberry?” Bert wondered how Carmen knew he was married, then realized he was wearing the wedding ring provided by Chronometric Adventures. He’d put it on by habit.
“Ah, no,” he said. “Cindee is with friends. In Cuba.”
“That’s where Mom and Dad went on their honeymoon,” Virginia said. “I came along not long after!”
“Virginia!” Carmen could not believe her niece. “Be proper!”
“It’s true!” Virginia said. She had eaten all her pie filling, saving the crust for last.
“Are you married, Carmen?” Bert asked. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know your last name.”
“Perry,” she said. “Carmen Perry. So rude of me. And, no. I’m not married.”
Bert knew that already, as no ring rode her left hand.
“Mama says if you don’t find a man soon, there’ll be none left for you!” Virginia said. “You’re almost twenty-seven!”
“You hush,” Carmen hissed, reaching over with her fork to stab the best piece of crust, then popping it into her mouth.
“You dirty rat!” Virginia laughed.
Dabbing her lips with a napkin, Carmen smiled at Bert. “It’s true. I’m the last hen in the barnyard.”
Carmen was only twenty-six? Bert could have sworn she was older.
After the pie, they looked at Elsie the Cow, then toured the Academy of Sports. After watching films of trick water-skiers, Bert looked at his vintage wristwatch. It was almost 6:00 p.m.
“I really do have to leave now.”
“It’s a shame you can’t stay to see the fountains in the light show,” Carmen said. “It’s so lovely, they say.”
“And there’s fireworks every single night,” Virginia piped up. “Like it’s the Fourth of July all summer long.”
“Virginia and I have a spot picked out to watch.” Carmen’s eyes were on Bert. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”
“I wish I could.” Bert truly wished he could. Carmen was as lovely a woman as he had ever seen. Her lips were not too thin, her smile was firm and mischievous, and her eyes were hazel, emerald green, and tinted brown.
“Thank you for a great time!” Virginia said. “We were VIPs!”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Allenberry.” Carmen offered her hand. “You’ve been very kind and a lot of fun.”