The Necklace - The Dusky Club, June 1962, Linda S Rice [manga ebook reader .TXT] 📗

“feast” for James. I got in big, awful trouble over the beef roast, but that’s neither here nor there. I just enjoyed being with you so much.

I also want to thank you for your kindness to me, especially for making me feel special and different from the girls James usually hangs out with, and for not judging me as a bad girl when James and I came back from your sister’s cottage. As I told you, I feel what happened there was as much my fault as his. I appreciate your understanding.

I’m sorry if my leaving has hurt James, but I don’t think it will be very long before he is swept away by the fame and fortune he believes is his future. It really will be his future. Never mind how I know that; I just do.

Lastly, please know how much I came to love your son. My heart breaks at having to leave; it’s too painful for me even to describe. Just know that, although I loved him, a life with him would have been full of too much heartbreak. We’re too much alike and would always be at each other. That, and his career would have taken him away from me anyway.

I love you, Mel!

Susan

It was a Sunday night in February 1964, and Susan’s grandparents, mother, and brother were all in the living room in front of the television. The Ted Flannagan show was about to come on. Her grandparents and mother watched it every week.

Susan was twelve-years-old and had recently celebrated her birthday in January. Her grandfather had given her a silver necklace for her birthday with a pair of silver ballerina slippers on the end. Her dream was to become a famous ballerina.

The phone rang in the kitchen and Susan ran to answer it. It was Lynn.

“I’ve been trying to call you for over an hour!” Lynn said. “The stupid people on the party line were hogging it up.”

“Yeah, well, they do that a lot. You could have just walked to my house, you know.”

“Yeah, I know, but I wanted to make sure you’re going to watch the Ted Flannagan show. They’re going to be on! I’m so excited!!!”

“I know, I know. I’m going to watch it, but it just seems like a lot of fuss for four guys from England.”

“You saw their pictures in the magazine I brought over a couple of weeks ago. They’re all so cute. I think I like Ian best.”

“So, who do you think I should like best?”

“Just go watch and pick one, but you can’t pick Ian; he’s mine. They’re about to come on any minute now. Then, I’ll come down to your house, and you can tell me what you think and who you picked to be your favorite.”

“I don’t think I’m going to have a favorite.”

“Just watch, okay? I want to know what you think of Ian. He’s so dreamy...”

“Dreamy? Geez! Okay, okay, I’ll go watch. See you later.”

Susan hung up the phone, went into the living room, and sat on the floor, her elbow on the coffee table and a bored look on her face.

Ted Flannagan was talking about four “young gentlemen” from England. He flung his hand to the side, and the camera focused on the band. They were dressed in matching suits and had long hair that almost touched their collars.

Susan’s grandfather made a “humph” sound.

“Beatniks!” her mother muttered.

Susan ignored them. She watched as three young men slipped guitar straps over their shoulders. Another went to the drums. The girls in the audience were screaming frantically, some of them crying as the camera panned over them.

The one with the guitar pointed to the left stepped up to the microphone.

“One, two, three, four, five!...

Close your eyes while I touch you…

You know how I love you…

Remember me while you’re away…

And then while you are gone…

I will try to go on…

And send all my kisses your way…”

Susan sat up straighter and scooted closer to the t.v. Her mother yelled at her to move back before she ruined her eyes. She reached up to her neck and starting twisting the chain of her new necklace between her fingers that she'd just receive the month before. Something was intriguing about the guy on the left, the one with his guitar pointed in what looked like the wrong direction.

Her eyes became glued to the t.v. Which one was he? As much as she hated to admit it, he was kinda cute. When the camera closed in on his face, she was suddenly captivated by his eyes and long engaging smile as he sang.

She then fingered the ballerina slippers hanging on the end of the silver necklace. Then she thought, “Well since I have to pick one, I think I’ll pick him... I think his name is James...”

 

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The Necklace II

 

Chapter One

The Link Remains

It was November of the same year that Lynn and Susan had taken their girl’s cruise where Susan had traveled back into the past to the year 1962 to the Dusky Club in Brighton, England. Lynn followed her when she realized things were getting out of hand, but it was too late to stop the torrid love affair between Susan and James, the person Susan had gone back to meet, a person she had loved since she was twelve years old. The cruise had been in June, and five months had passed since their adventure.

Although she had come back from her time travel experience with a new outlook on her present life, Susan couldn’t let go of the memories of being with James or forget all that had happened between them. She didn’t understand why she felt so unsettled or anxious or why she kept seeing his face when she closed her eyes at night to go to sleep.

She didn’t want to see his face! It was unnerving.

When she tried to explain her feelings to Lynn, Lynn became annoyed and scolding.

“You’ve just got to stop this, Suz!” she urged. “It’s over. You learned what you needed to learn, and that’s the end of it! James was not for you; you even admitted that you two would never have gotten along. Be happy with what you have! You have the best thing in the world, and you know it!”

While Susan agreed with her very best friend outwardly, knowing she was right, her mind just wouldn’t let go of James. He was like cancer, eating away at her peace. When she started to have more and more flashbacks to the seven days she’d spent in the past, she called her other best friend, John, for advice, who she’d relayed her time travel adventure to shortly after she and Lynn returned the previous June.

John and Susan had been good friends since high school, where they’d eaten lunch together just about every day, and had maintained contact through all the years since. John often came to her house for dinner with her and Susan’s husband. They frequently talked on the phone, and John knew just about as much about her as Lynn did.

“John, something is wrong with me,” she wailed. “I should be over this, but it keeps coming back. I just don’t know why. I know I have everything wonderful. I know James and I would never have suited, but I just can’t stop myself from thinking about him. It’s like I have no control! I feel like I’m trapped in a spider web or something!”

Instinctively, as she’d been doing for the past five months, she reached up to pull on her necklace, but it wasn’t there. She dropped her hand back into her lap and sighed. “What should I do, John? Why do you think I feel this way?”

John contemplated her comments and question for a minute, then said, “Maybe you need to try and find that Mika lady from Haiti who sent you back. Maybe she could tell you. Maybe something went wrong when you came back, or she forgot to do something.”

“She told me I would be just a dim memory to him. But she didn’t say what I would remember. I thought she said he’d be a dim memory to me too, but I just can’t stop thinking about him and everything that happened. The horrible thing is that I don’t remember the bad stuff, just the good stuff. It’s unnerving!”

“Then I think you need to track her down and ask what’s up. If anyone would know, it would be her.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Her granddaughter, Marta, gave me her e-mail address in Haiti. I guess I should e-mail her. Geez! I just hate this! I thought going back would cure me of this ‘James thing,’ but I don’t think it did.”

“Well, e-mail Marta and ask. Let me know what she says. If you need me to help in any way, just let me know.”

“That’s so nice of you, John. Lynn doesn’t understand, and I don’t blame her. I was a basket case at that concert last year when we went to see James, and then she had to come and try to rescue me when I went back into the past in June. I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this. I’ll let you know right away what Mika or Marta says.”

Susan sent the e-mail to Marta as soon as she hung up the phone after talking with John. She was grateful for his advice. She should have thought of contacting Marta on her own, but sometimes it just took someone else for you to see what was right in front of your face.

It was eight days before she got a response from Marta. It said:

“I explained to Grandmere about your problem, and she is concerned for you. You should not be having this reaction! What happened to you in the past should have made you put this James person out of your mind and your life forever. She remembers that you left a necklace back in the past and wants to know where you left it. Did you, by chance, leave it on the person of this James? She thinks you did. If so, that is the problem. In fact, if that is what you did, and he is still wearing it, you will not be a dim memory to him until he removes it. She thinks he has not yet removed, and that’s why the past is vibrating into your present.”

Susan gasped as she read the e-mail for the second time. “He’s still wearing my necklace!” she exclaimed. “I wouldn’t have thought… I mean, I figured I’d become the dim memory like Marta said I would, that he’d forget all about me and the necklace.”

She immediately wrote back to Marta, asking what she should do. It was nice that Marta had responded with a possible explanation, but she’d offered no advice about what to do. If it was five months later back in the past, the boys’ were now becoming well-known and on the brink of being world-famous. They would be recording their second record any time now. The thought sent shivers through her.

Then she started wondering… What was James doing? Did he get back together with Hilary? Were he and the boys still making wagers, or did they just have to nod their head at any girl and instantly have her fall at their feet? A pang of jealousy tore through her, and she had to shake it off. What the hell did she care anyway?

She closed her eyes and took a