Then I stop and shake my head. Why am I even considering his opinion? I can’t make my decision based on a relative stranger, even if he did save my life yesterday. I need to do this for me and for my family.
“Okay.” I smile at them both. “I’ll stay.”
CHAPTER 7
Afew hours later, Mary and I are pressed together in the backseat of Dr. Bentley’s car. It’s straight out of an old gangster movie: rounded body, pointed hood, gleaming black finish. I run my hand over the soft leather seat. “What kind of car is this?” The motor is louder than I’m used to, causing the seat to vibrate.
“Nineteen-forty Plymouth,” Dr. Bentley says as he pulls away from the hospital. “One of the last models you could buy before they stopped making them.”
“They stopped making this car?”
“They stopped making all cars,” Mary says. “You must know that.” She giggles at my confused expression. “They needed the factories for the war effort? You do remember there’s a war happening, right, Lydia?”
“Of course I remember.” I turn to look out the window, running my hands nervously over my jean-covered legs. I’m wearing my own clothes again, a black-and-white checked button-down shirt that I tucked into cuffed jeans. Dr. Bentley found me a pair of castoff black leather shoes to wear. They’re too tight and they pinch my toes.
I pay close attention as we drive out of Camp Hero. There are two checkpoints. The first one is at a small gate that leads into the clearing where the barracks and hospital are. The one soldier at the gate waves us through as he recognizes Dr. Bentley. The second checkpoint is at a large gate near the camp’s entrance. Two soldiers step out of a small gatehouse, guns slung over their shoulders. They speak quietly with Dr. Bentley before letting us pass.
We drive out onto a bigger road and I turn to look back at Camp Hero. There’s a tall fence around the outside of the camp, and I can see a huge stone lookout tower near the lighthouse. It’s all so different from the welcoming state park I’m used to.
“Is it always this heavily guarded?” I ask.
“Usually. They patrol the perimeter, too,” Dr. Bentley answers. “We’re all a little puzzled as to how you managed to get in here without being noticed.”
“I think I walked through the woods a lot.” I hedge.
“You must have come up through the forest on the west side. The main base is in the eastern area. There are only a few bunkers with long-range guns, and storage facilities farther west. It’s much more heavily wooded.”
Except, of course, for a secret underground compound.
We turn onto the main highway, and I’m surprised to see that it looks like it does in my time—uneven pavement framed by the forest and the sand dunes. I see the beach out the window on Mary’s side, a constant stretch of blue.
Mary chatters next to me about a USO dance and soldiers stationed in town. I nod along, but I’m glued to the window as we start to approach the center of town. Even in my time, Montauk is considered small, with just one main drag of restaurants and shops. Now, it’s even smaller—a general store with a wide porch, a taller brick building that appears to serve as a post office and a town hall, a feed store, a few blue-gray shingled fishing huts.
“The town is so tiny.” I interrupt something Mary’s saying about a dance.
“We’re simple folk,” Dr. Bentley replies. “A lot different from your city slicker life. You might find it a bit dull out here.”
“You’d be surprised,” I say drily. “Still, I guess I was expecting something else.”
Dr. Bentley turns right at the fork in front of the pond and starts to drive around it. The late afternoon sun reflects on the water. There are almost no houses, just a small wooden cabin tucked here and there.
“There are more buildings on the north side of town,” Mary explains. “Though the navy is stationed up there now. They even test torpedoes on Lake Montauk!”
“And then I fix the soldiers up afterward.” Dr. Bentley chuckles.
“I thought you were a doctor in the army?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not an army man. I just volunteer where I’m needed. Sometimes it’s for the army, sometimes the navy.”
“Are you a volunteer too?” I ask Mary.
“With the Red Cross. I’ve had nurse’s training and everything. As soon as I graduate, I’m going to enlist into the Army Nurse Corps.”
“Oh.” I try to follow the conversation, but I grow more distracted as I turn to watch the town recede through the back window. This is my hometown. I can see the structure of it in the way the land dips and curves, but it has become something new entirely. Gone are the neatly paved roads, the tourist restaurants, the bars, and the knickknack shops. There isn’t even a town green.
Mary follows my gaze. “The town was bigger before the Depression. This man Fisher came in and built a bunch of fancy buildings—the Yacht Club, the Tennis Auditorium. He wanted to make it a high-class resort town. But he lost all his money when the stock market crashed and everyone stopped coming. We don’t even have a soda fountain anymore.”
I nod. The story, about how the industrialist Carl Fisher bought up land in the late 1920s to try to turn the town into the “Miami Beach of the North,” is a local legend. He had to abandon everything when he lost his fortune.
I see Montauk Manor rising over Signal Hill. It looks mostly the same as it does in my time—a grand Tudor-style castle, with its massive white stone body and brown wooden framework edged against the large gables. It has been a resort for as long as I can remember, but my dad likes to tell stories about how he
