Page 47 of Flirting with Forever

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“Great,” Cam said. “My hand has two bars’ worth of phone reception, but my mouth is in no-man’s-land.” She pulled the phone in and pushed the window again. It probably hadn’t been opened since the last time Isaac Newton visited.

It creaked and groaned, but at last gave way, enough way for Cam to thread her shoulder out and, with a little more effort, one of her breasts. “Sorry,” she said. “I know I’ve put you through a lot today.”

The window was on the second floor—a tall second floor—and Cam got her first view of the world beyond the studio. Dozens of people in period dress—well, contemporary dress to them, she supposed—filled the street. There were couples laughing, a group of young men shoving and talking, an obviously drunk woman retching, and four or five dogs fighting over a scrap of food—in short, just like a late-night stroll down Craig Street in Pittsburgh.

She held up her phone and with three proud bars showing dialed Jeanne’s cell.

“Holy Christ!” Jeanne screamed. “Where are you?”

“You’re kinda not going to believe this.”

“You freakin’ blew out of here like Dorothy from Kansas. There’s orange Crush everywhere.”

“Calm down. I’m okay. Well, relatively.” Cam thought she heard a noise at the door and looked over her shoulder, but the noise stopped.

“Where are you?” Jeanne repeated.

“Okay, remember how I told you I was looking for a book on Amazon?”

“Omigod! You’re starting this story with book shopping on Amazon!”

“Jeanne, I found a book I needed there. I started to search inside. When I clicked ‘Surprise Me!’—poof! I disappeared.”

“But where are you?”

“In the sixteen hundreds.”

“In the sixteen hundreds where?”

“In the sixteen hundreds of the sixteen hundreds. Sixteen hundred. One-six-oh-oh. The century. You know, Shakespeare, Galileo, the Great London Fire—Oops.” Cam wheeled around to check the candles in the room.

“You’re telling me you’re in a different century.”

“Yes.”

“I ain’t buying it. You’re hiding somewhere. Can you see me on the phone?”

“Jeanne, really. I’m here. It’s London, sometime in the reign of Charles the Second.”

“Send me a picture.”

“I can’t.”

“I know you can. You do it all the time. I even got to share your joy when your Snuggie blanket arrived. Send one.”

“What are you, from Missouri? You could just try to believe me.”

“Two words: pic ture.”

Muttering, Cam clicked on the camera and stretched her arm as far out as she could. “Can you still hear me? I’m taking the picture.”

“Goody,” came the faint reply.

She angled the camera so the armor chest plate and stuffed boar were directly behind her. The sun had dipped below the horizon, but there was still light in the sky.

Click.