Page 3 of Timeless

When she touched the door handle, something stopped her in her tracks. It must have been the wind because it felt like she was about to be bowled over, and no one was near her to have had given her one of those New York shoulder shoves. She shook herself out of it, pulled open the door, heard bells clanging, and walked inside.

It was a small shop with two thin tables on either side of an open path from the door straight to the counter. There was carpet by the door, but the tile that had seen better dayslay ahead. On her right, there were two large china display cabinets. Abby didn’t know if that was their official name, but her parents had their wedding china in one like them at home. There were various dishes in them, possibly worth real money, but likely not much. In front of them, there were a few more pieces of furniture with large, khaki-colored tags hanging from them, indicating their price and possibly the details of their origin that she couldn’t make out from that far. Then, on the tops of that furniture, there were random items, like clocks, candle holders – really, all sorts of odds and ends that had once belonged to someone – and she shivered a little at that thought.

It was a good shiver, though. Each item in this place probably had a story to tell, and that had given her an idea. Abby turned to the left to see what might be over there and found it to be in somewhat the same organizational pattern: large furniture items against the wall, some smaller ones acting as an aisle separator, if they could even be called aisles, and random items all over the place.

“Hello.”

“Jesus!” she yelped and looked up, startled.

“Oh, sorry,” the woman said. “I saw you come in.”

Abby pressed her hand to her chest, but not from the startled feeling. The woman in front of her had a wide smile. She also had long blonde hair, which was in a braid over her shoulder, and the brightest blue eyes that Abby had ever seen.

“I’m the owner,” the woman added. “Can I help you find something?”

“Abby.”

“Sorry?” the shop owner said.

Abby wasn’t sure why she’d just blurted her name out like that – it wasn’t something she’d ever done before – but there was something in her that wanted this woman to know her name, and she hadn’t been able to control her word vomit.

“My name,” she explained. “It’s Abby. Abigail, actually. Abigail Brennon.”

“Quinn Jordan. But, sometimes, people call me Liz.”

“Liz? Why?” she asked, curious now.

“It’s my middle name. My parents fought over giving me a more modern or more traditional first name, so I got Quinn Elizabeth. My mom won with Quinn. My dad got Elizabeth for my middle name, which he took from his own mother. I donotknow why I’m telling you all this, though.” She laughed.

Abby wanted to bottle that laugh to be able to pull it out on a day when she needed to hear something sweet so that she could smile at it, put the lid back on, and listen to it again the following day. She actually had to look away from Quinn’s face then because the pull toward her was too strong, which was another thing she hadn’t experienced before, and she couldn’t exactly just walk behind the counter of this shop and kiss this woman named Quinn Elizabeth. She was pretty sure she’d get arrested if she tried that. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about it.

She had no idea what was happening. She’d never been instantly attracted to a woman like this before. She’d never thought about bottling a laugh. Who thought about stuff like that? For a second, she wondered if she could use that phrase in her second book, but then, she realized that she had to refocus because Quinn was still staring at her with that beautiful smile and kind-looking, soft eyes.

“Well, my name is Abigail Foster Brennon, so there’s that.”

“Foster?”

“My mom’s maiden name. They went that route instead of naming me after another relative. I guess I was named afterallof her relatives in a way, though, huh?”

“I guess so,” Quinn replied, still smiling at her. “So, what brings you into my shop today?”

Abby was a little disappointed that Quinn seemed to want to get down to business because she could’ve stood there for a while, just talking about names and what they meant or who they came from, if it meant that they could keep talking, but business would still allow them to talk, so she went with it.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly.

“Oh,” Quinn let out, sounding a little disappointed, or maybe Abby was reading into that, and it was only confusion. “Okay. Well, you can have a look around, or I can show you a few things you might be interested in if you give me some ideas of stuff you might like.”

“I don’t know what I might like.”

“Um… Okay. I guess just look around, if you want. I was packing an order in the back, so I should probably finish that. If you decide to buy anything, just yell or ring the bell, and I’ll come back up.”

“Oh,” Abby said this time.

She didn’t want Quinn to leave just yet. She turned her head to the left and found a box on top of one of the thin tables lining the path to the counter. Inside it, there were photos, and there was one in the very front that caught her eye. It was a picture of a newly married couple. They were in their dress and suit, standing on a front porch. They weren’t exactly smiling. It was more like they were posing seriously for their wedding photo. Next to the woman, though, and not entirely in the camera’s frame but visible enough at the edge of the image, was another woman who was probably the maid of honor or something because she, too, was in a dress and holding a small bouquet of flowers. She wasn’t smiling, either. In fact, she looked pained. Those two people getting married pained her somehow.

Abby had no way of knowing if that was true, but there was something else about that photo. She didn’t know what it was, but there was something familiar about it to her. If she had to guess, it was from the 1930s or 40s, maybe. She’d done a lot of research on that time period for her first book, so she felt like she was probably right. Of course, most of that research hadn’t actually ended up in the book, but it hadn’t been a complete waste of time, either, because right now, she was thinking about using it in her next book, which she’d just finally gotten the idea for.

“Can I buy this?” she asked, holding up the picture.