I gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Why don’t we enjoy the rest of the ride, then?” I said. “Afterward, you and I can find someplace quiet to sit down and figure out our next steps. And maybe we could make it a place where I can take off these bloody shoes?”
The spot that Kiernan found was nicely secluded—a patch of grass just below one of the bridges that led to the Wooded Island, where I could not only remove my shoes but actually soak my feet. The water looked clean enough and felt wonderfully cool on the back of my heel, which sported, just as I had suspected, a very large blister. The only thing that kept me from hurling the stupid shoes into the lagoon was the fact that there was no Finish Line nearby where I could find functional replacement footgear.
I leaned back against the embankment to relax, glad the dress was green so that I didn’t have to stress too much about grass stains. Kiernan had volunteered to go in search of some lunch, and I was happy to take him up on the offer. It wasn’t quite noon yet, but I had forgotten about dinner in my own timeline, after the huge sandwiches from O’Malley’s for lunch, and I was now starving.
Kiernan came back about ten minutes later with hot dogs, fresh fruit, and more lemonade. Having read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in history class, I wasn’t too keen on any hot dog from 1890s Chicago, but I took a few bites, mostly of the bun so that Kiernan wouldn’t think I was too prissy to eat it. He seemed quite happy to trade off the rest of my hot dog for his apple. When we had finished, I pulled one of the energy bars out the brown paper I’d wrapped them in and offered him a piece.
“Not bad,” he said. “Chewy and sweet, too. They sell these in New York?”
I nodded, washing it down with lemonade. That wasn’t where Connor had bought it, but I was pretty sure they sold them in New York and pretty much anywhere else in the country, although definitely not in 1893. I wondered how much Kiernan knew about the CHRONOS key from his time on the Cyrist farm, and what his reaction would be if I told him he was eating something purchased by his great-grandson.
When we finished eating, I reluctantly drew my feet out of the water and propped them against a large stone to let them dry in the sun.
“Miss Kate!” Kiernan exclaimed, pointing. “What happened to your toes?”
“What?” I glanced down, half expecting to see a leech or a cut or some other trauma, but there was nothing odd. “What are you talking about?”
“Your toenails. They’re all red—it looks like blood!”
“Oh,” I laughed. “That’s just nail polish. It’s chipped off in a few places.”
“It looks like paint.” Kiernan sniffed disapprovingly.
I sighed. This was one of the anachronisms that Katherine would probably have caught as I prepared to leave. Did young women paint their nails in the 1890s? Had nail polish even been invented yet? I had no clue.
“Well, it is paint, sort of,” I said.
“Me mom says…” He shook his head and fell silent.
“What does your mom say, Kiernan?” He didn’t answer. “No, really, I won’t be angry. What does she say?”
“She says only whores wear paint,” he said, staring down at the grass. “They usually wear it on their faces, though. I never even heard of painted toes.”
“Well,” I replied, “what your mom says might be true in Ireland and maybe even in Chicago. I don’t know, since it’s my first time here. But in New York, all of the finest ladies polish their nails—toes and fingers. Some of them even glue tiny sparkly stones on the middle of their fingernails.”
“Really?” he asked, sliding a bit down the bank to look more closely at my toes. “It looks like the paint is still wet. C’n I touch it?”
“Sure,” I said with a laugh, holding out one foot toward him. “The polish is completely dry—it’s been dry for days.”
He reached out a tentative finger, touching the nail of my big toe, and I had a sudden vivid memory of Trey tracing the outlines of my toes as we sat on the couch in my room, just after Katherine disappeared. I felt a bit guilty—I’d promised Trey I would stay away from tall, dark strangers at the fair. Kiernan certainly didn’t fit the tall part of the description yet, and there wasn’t anything even remotely romantic about his interest in my toenails, but I was pretty sure that Trey would be jealous if he knew. So after a moment, I tucked my foot demurely back under my skirt.
I didn’t have a watch, but since Kiernan already knew about the CHRONOS key anyway, I looked around to make sure that no one else was watching and then pressed the center to pull up the display. It was a little after noon. The mayor’s group would be leaving the grounds of the Exposition around a quarter to one to take the train into the city, where the large Auxiliary Building was located. I pulled the Expo map from my bag and flipped it over, spreading it out on the grass in front of me.