Free This Shared Dream by Kathleen Ann Goonan Page A

would return soon. She hoped.
    But where was Sam? Wasn’t he supposed to be here, with her? They had set out together, from …
    She couldn’t recall. It would come back, she was sure, but how long would that take? She examined the flow of travelers moving past her seat toward the door, looking for clues. Aside from a few businessmen, many passengers wore blue jeans, although the train was quite spiffy—even luxurious. During the 1940s, when women wore uniforms such as hers, no one save farmers wore jeans, and certainly not on trains. One man wore a fedora, slanted over his eyes, but he was the only one. A Women’s Army Corp hat lay on the empty seat next to her; she put it on, took it off, then put it on again, reflecting that perhaps, at last, she had gone completely mad. She didn’t even know what year it was. A bad sign.
    Well, it happens to the best of us, she thought, as she searched under her seat. Her uncle Hank, a once-brilliant Harvard professor, ended his days collecting antique pocket handkerchiefs and picking out the embroidery, as if to free every handkerchief in the world from the subjugation of permanent ownership.
    She stood and smoothed her skirt. Everyone had left the car. She saw no suitcase that might be hers.
    But this is a bit worse than Uncle Hank’s situation, thought Bette, clanking down onto the metal conductor’s step with the help of his steadying hand. Uncle Hank’s madness didn’t cause him to careen through the cosmos—at least, not that she knew of. The hot, damp, familiar swelter told her the season, and the sign above the gate ahead of her proclaimed that she was at Union Station, Washington, D.C.
    That was rather a relief, atop her previous relief was that everyone on the train spoke English; she would not have relished being in Russia or in Germany in various years, and this was even better; she was quite familiar with—
    But no, she thought, as she stepped inside, firmly ignoring curious glances from those around her. This Union Station was glorious: glitteringly gold-leafed and beaux arts, yet very up-to-date, she supposed, since many people stood at what looked like Q kiosks, studying and touching screens. During the many years she had passed through the station, in the forties, fifties, and sixties of what she referred to, in her own mind, as World Prime, with other, always slightly differing iterations slotted into different file cabinets in her mind, the polished marble she now trod had been scuffed and dull, toward the end, with ceilings and corridors boarded over with plywood. Now, glittering shops unreeled down corridors. The lobby’s domed gold-leaf ceiling glowed high above. Gargantuan statues overlooked the human ants below.
    Because she was wearing her Army uniform, circa 1945, passersby stared at her curiously, perhaps not even recognizing the provenance. Or maybe she had entered a world where a war was presently taking place, and the U.S. had been taken over by the Soviet Union, or China, and she wore an enemy’s uniform—
    Oh, stop it, Bette , she thought. The people passing purposefully through or window-shopping appeared neither cowed nor deprived. Everything’s fine.
    After reading a plaque commemorating the inauguration of the American Maglev System, AMS for short, and noting that its network spanned the country, she spotted a café in the north corner of the station and headed toward it thankfully.
    She settled into a booth where she could observe the lobby over a mahogany partition, set her WAC hat on the table, unbuttoned her tailored jacket, and straightened the knot of her tan tie.
    She ordered a double espresso and a dozen raw oysters, but did not relinquish the menu to the waitress, as the back of the menu had information about the renovation and the startling, thrilling fact that Dance and Associates had been a part of the architectural team for the renovation. Presumably, they had done the fire protection work.
    Obviously, she was in a