Out of Time 01 - Out of Time

bippy I am,” she said and hurried over to get in line.
    Simon watched her with veiled amusement and no small amount of alarm. Safety wasn’t exactly of paramount concern during this decade. Did they even have seatbelts? He did his best to swallow his worry and found a shady spot to wait. He watched her chat with a pair of young children behind her in line. She was smiling, laughing, and absolutely lovely.
    The line was atrociously long and snaked in and out of his sight. At each bend he could see her, and she waved to him, bouncing on the balls of her feet in anticipation. Content with the warmth of the sun and the vicarious pleasure of her excitement, he waited patiently. Before too long, he was rewarded with a breathless, wind-blown Elizabeth.
    “I am definitely doing that again.”
    Simon shook his head in defeat. “Go ahead.”
    “Later,” she said with a wave of her hand. “We haven’t even been in the park yet. Come on, time’s a’wastin’.” She started back up Surf Avenue without him.
    They paid the quarter admission price and stepped inside Luna Park. A large, artificial beach and long, rectangular pool rested just inside the gate. He could smell the salty air rolling in from the Atlantic ocean, barely a block away. Bright, white towers topped with intricate spires and lattice work reached for the sky in the distance. Elizabeth turned around in a circle, taking it all in. People swarmed around her, excitedly buzzing about the afternoon’s pleasures. Eclectic architecture ringed the outer perimeter, a series of snapshots of faraway lands, transporting each visitor to places they’d only dreamt of.
    “It’s amazing,” Elizabeth said.
    After the constant browns and grays of the city, the pristine white buildings and red shingled roofs were another world. She wasn’t the only one gawking at the splendor of the park. There was an electricity in the air. People who had never traveled more than a few miles from their homes were suddenly thrust into a replica of an ancient Egyptian tomb or a jungle oasis filled with headhunting natives, anything the imagination could conjure.
    The frantic strains of a ragtime band seemed to catch Elizabeth’s attention, but before she reached the bandstand, another spectacle pulled her away. There in the middle of the park sat a huge lagoon. She ran to the railing and leaned over to look down into the murky, deep, green water.
    Simon, who’d been trailing behind, finally caught up with her. She moved around the park with exhausting, childlike enthusiasm, reminding him how young she really was. As she leaned against the rail, a gentle breeze blew the hem of her skirt, and he caught a glimpse of her legs and the black garters that hugged her thighs. He felt his pulse race and forced himself to look away. Perhaps, not quite so young after all.
    “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Wow. Look at that,” she said, pointing to the far end of the lagoon. A boat, large enough to hold six people, slid down a wide flume more than one hundred feet long before it plunged into the lake. A crowd standing on platforms around the Shoot-the-Chutes applauded as each boat took its turn on the giant slide and splashed down into the lagoon.
    The hairs on the back of Simon’s neck prickled with anxiety. The water, the boats, it was all too eerily reminiscent of his nightmare. It was an unreasonable fear, he knew, but as he watched Elizabeth lean farther over the railing, a cold panic washed over him. He gripped her arm tightly and pulled her away from the edge.
    She looked at him in surprise and he let go. “I... This looks interesting,” he said too casually and gestured to another attraction a safe distance from the water.
    If she noticed the strain in his voice, she chose to ignore it and happily continued her giddy exploration of the park. He grumbled good-naturedly as she dragged him from one end of the park to the other. He pointed out the egregious historical and cultural inaccuracies of each exhibit they visited: the ridiculous errors of confusing the Fourth and Eighteenth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt, the headhunters of Borneo sporting Central African headdresses. It certainly wasn’t the way he’d choose to spend an afternoon. But she met each new discovery with such unremitting wonder, he found himself actually having a good time. She stared wide-eyed from one attraction to the next, and he was content simply to watch her.
    After a rather nauseating spin