if our provisions went bad (as they’d been known to do) we could always catch crows and gulls for food.
I used all the gimmicks from my days in Penetang to get onlookers involved. I mistook one of my recruits’ fathers for a deserter from my old crew (I said I could spot his gap-toothed grin a mile away) and ordered his wife to hold him in custody. I saluted to a timid young boy hovering off to the side, pretending he was my mentor, Captain William FitzWilliam Owen, come to assess my progress and inspect my new crew. And when my hour was done, I cajoled those assembled, who were by then backed up to the front door of the tiny shop, to join me in a stirring rendition of “God Save the King.”
Will clapped me on the back after I’d said farewell to my last recruit. “Inspired,” he said.
Walter called to Will from the front counter, gesturing with a stern nod for him to take care of the customers who’d lingered to peruse the shelves.
“Who are you planning to do next month?” Will asked.
“I was thinking Galileo,” I said. “Although my astronomy’s a little rusty.”
“Maybe you could get Walter to play the Grand Inquisitor,” he said with a sly grin. He excused himself and began working his charms on some nearby browsers.
Helen was nowhere to be seen. Her red head wouldn’t have been tough to spot, since she would have been among the tallest people in the throng. I made my way through the remnants of the crowd and past the front counter, still hoping to find her. Like any good performer, I was careful to hide my disappointment. I nodded my appreciation to a woman who complimented me on my uniform, and I smiled at a tot who, much to his father’s amusement, saluted me as I passed. As much as I’d tried to convince Will that the aim of my performance was to capture the imagination of a new generation of readers, I had to acknowledge now that I’d failed to realize my true goal. I felt like a charlatan, a haplessly infatuated geek masquerading as a historic man of substance. I couldn’t wait to get home and change out of my costume. After one last futile survey of the shop, I headed out the door.
From the sidewalk, I took one last look at my miserable reflection in the shop window. The uniform had lost its magic. I was simply a milquetoast history teacher dressed in a clown’s outfit. I removed the magnificent, preposterous hat. My hair stood out at riotous angles as if a bully had rubbed his fist over my head. As I continued to lament my pathetic mirror self, another figure—a woman’s—stepped out of the jumbled background of Richmond Street traffic and consolidated itself beside mine in the window. It was Helen.
“Why so glum?” she asked. “That was quite a performance.”
I turned to face her, caught between emotions. I quickly wiped the hang-dog look off my face, but I wasn’t sure what to replace it with. “You saw it, then,” I said.
“From the back of the shop,” she said. “I ducked out the side door just now so I could congratulate you.” She smiled at me like she’d just found a valuable antique at a garage sale. “I hope you know that you’ve done something quite extraordinary: you’ve actually lived up to Will’s hype.”
I felt transformed from a forgery into an icon. “It’s the clothes,” I said, forcing back a bashful grin.
“Oh, I definitely think it’s more than that,” she said.
I was momentarily tongue-tied. I fell back into Bayfield’s persona, hoping to borrow some of his bravado. “Would you care to take a walk with me, my lady?” I asked, boldly offering her my arm. I held my breath as she curled her arm snugly around mine.
We crossed Richmond Street to Victoria Park. My impressive hat helped to offset Helen’s height advantage as we strolled along the paths that criss-crossed among the tall maples and oversized evergreens that the city lit up as Christmas trees in December. Just beyond the bandshell, the spires of St. Peter’s Basilica kept watch over us like a chaperone. The silence between us was electric.
“When I first saw the uniform, I thought you’d come as Franklin,” she said eventually.
“Guess I’m superstitious,” I said. “I didn’t want to play a doomed explorer my first time out.” I took a handkerchief out of my pocket and dusted off a park bench, inviting her with a flourish to take a seat. “Actually, Franklin passed through Penetanguishene around the time Bayfield was using it as a base of operations for surveying the Great Lakes. Perhaps they even met.” I sensed that I was babbling but couldn’t help myself. “Franklin was on his way north, on one of his earlier overland Arctic expeditions. It’s where he heard that his first wife, Eleanor, had died of TB back in England.”
“You can’t stop teaching, can you?” Helen said archly. “Not even for a moment.”
I shrugged apologetically. “It’s what I do.”
“Well,” she said, reaching up and straightening my stock, “you may find that I’m a rather unruly student.”
“Will mentioned something about your being a writer,” I said, taking the opportunity to turn the conversation towards her.
For the first time since I’d met her, I caught a tinge of embarrassment in her cheeks. Her lips drew tight, then re-formed into a stiff smile. “I used to dabble,” she said. “You can’t really call yourself a writer until you’ve published something.”
“You should keep at it,” I told her. “You’re a good storyteller. That day in front of my class, you and Farley were terrific together.”
She looked at me warily, uncomfortable with my praise. “Unfortunately, none of the editors I’ve sent my work to agree with you.”
“James Michener didn’t publish his first book until he was forty,” I said. “It went on to become the musical South Pacific and won two Pulitzer Prizes.”
She leaned back and gave me a sober second look-over. “You just have all sorts of trivia at your fingertips, don’t you?” she said dryly. “I can see why you and Will get along.”
“You known him long?” I asked.
She stared at me oddly. It was as if she’d just caught on to a practical joke I was pulling at her expense, one that was evidently so clever that I’d failed even to let myself in on it.
“What?” I said.
“So that’s what all this is about,” she said, shaking her head, miffed with herself for not figuring out my angle sooner. “He’s already spoken for, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Will,” she said. “He’s already got a boyfriend.”
“Will?”
Finally, she read the desperate confusion on my face. “Ah,” she said, recognizing her mistake. “You didn’t invite me here to talk about Will, then.”
“No,” I said, distressed that my sexuality could be so much in doubt to her.
“You really were making a pass at me.”
“Well,” I said reluctantly, “if that’s what you’d call it.”
“Right,” she said, smiling at me contritely. “Well, continue then.”
I stared at her, completely flummoxed.
“You were actually doing quite well up until that bit about Will,” she said, sucking back a smile.
I sat there slack-jawed, hopelessly thrown off stride.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve spoiled the mood, haven’t I?” She crossed her leg over mine. “There. Does that help?”
“You’re not just having fun with me, are you?”
She patted me on the chest. “Is fun such a bad thing to have?”
There was something very comfortable about the weight of her thigh. With her big frame, she