Free The Time Travelers, Volume 2 by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

and, with the church ladies, launched her forward. The gown followed, the train weighing so much it was like towing furniture.
    The angel stood up.
    It was no angel. It was Tod Lockwood.
    Her father continued to walk, in the slow awkward shift of body they called “the hesitation step.” His great weight pulled her along.
    Tod had come for her, as his sister, Annie, had once come for Strat.
    Flossie yanked the crinoline down, stepped out of it, smashed the enormous stiff undergarment beneath her feet and crammed it behind some old pew, pulled silk and ribbons out of her hair and chucked them into the umbrella stand. Flinging her arms into her old coat, she turned the circular handle of the old wooden door and eased herself out onto the street.
    This was the back of the church; the crowds were massed out front for the best view. If people turned, all they would see was a woman in an ill-fitting coat, tying an old scarf over her messy hair. Flossie walked away. The bridesmaid skirt was a little too long, and she kept catching her slippers on it. Around the corner, on a park bench, she sat down to rip the lowest ruffle right off. There. Now she wouldn’t fall.
    She stuffed the pink satin strip into a pocket of the coat and ran on. The delicate slippers were not designed for pavement, and began to tear apart in only a few blocks.
    The sky was not yet winter gray, but still autumn blue. The sun was thin but friendly, and the city seemed buoyant and happy to Flossie. She jumped puddles and broken sidewalk slates. She circled peddlers and cabbies and shoppers and nannies.
    Laughter bubbled in her throat and smiles danced on her face. She, Florence Elizabeth Ruth Van Stead, was going to become Mrs. Gianni Annello.
    By now, the wedding procession would be finished. Her mother and father, neatly seated in their pew, her father’s top hat on his lap, her mother’s egret feathers towering above anybody else’s, would be proudly turning to see their daughter.
    But between Rose and Eunice there would be no Flossie.
    They must have changed the order, her mother would think. Flossie will be next.
    But instead, the flower girls would come.
    How on earth did I miss her? Mother would wonder, trying to discern the girls already near the altar. Mother would not dream of disfiguring her face with spectacles, and would not be able to see. Father, though he would be confused, would not remark on it, for weddings were the stuff of females, and he would just assume he had misunderstood.
    The ceremony would last over an hour because of all the music and scripture Devonny had added. Bythat time, Flossie and Johnny would have reached City Hall. By the time Devonny and her groom finished with the receiving line, why, Flossie and Johnny might have said their
own
marriage vows!
    She was hugging herself with joy. She could feel the shape of Johnny inside her arms. She could hardly wait to see his beautiful smile, hear his exuberant laugh.
    She reached Washington Square and rushed to the elm under which they had agreed to meet.
    No Johnny was there.
    Benches lined the park. Oak and ash and plane trees were bare now, and the fallen leaves swirled about her ankles. Flossie walked carefully, neatly, not letting herself think about it, past every bench sitter. She smiled at the pretty little dogs on leashes and the sweet children in perambulators.
    No Johnny.
    The magnificent new arch, in honor of George Washington, made a brilliant gateway. She walked calmly to the arch, and around it, and through it, but Johnny was nowhere to be seen.
    She stood beside the statue of Garibaldi, presented by the Italians of New York, but her own personal Italian was not there.
    She found a bench. She sat on the very edge, ready to leap into the air at the first sight of him.
    The minutes passed.
    The sun moved down in the sky.
    Johnny Annello did not come.
    Hiram Stratton liked the idea of a title in the family. England ruled the world, and Parliament was her voice. And what