

Disclaimer: Although some of the characters in this book are based on actual people, these accounts are purely fictitious and for entertainment purposes only. The depictions of historical people should not be taken as an accurate account of any person's life.
"Saving Marilyn" by Christy Cauley

28,179 words  
ISBN-13: 978-1-4524-4687-5

© 2011 Christy J. Cauley www.ChristyCauley.com

As always, I owe this book to the most amazing husband a woman could ever ask for, Joseph Cauley. He designed the cover, provided hours upon hours of technical support (yes, he knows how to build a time machine – theoretically anyway) and has always been my number one editor. This book would never have been possible without you. My life would not have been possible without you. I love you dearly.

**Special thanks to my friends and family for their support and encouragement. Thank you as always our nephews, Jeremy, Jason and Justin for making our house a home!  
**

Dedicated in loving memory to our children,  
Gwendolyn and Gabriel Cauley (www.GwenAndGabe.com).
Chapter 1 – Loki

Claire Callahan and her husband, Auggie, were at their usual positions, both in front of their respective computers. The twenty-first century had sprung nearly a decade earlier and they were the poster children for new technology. Every technical gadget that a middle class family could afford graced their living quarters. In the 90s, they were the first family on the block to have a computer, the first with internet access, and so on. Now their house looks more like the headquarters for Microsoft than anything else. Most of these high-tech decorations can be attributed to Auggie's testosterone-driven need to have the latest and greatest everything, but Claire enjoys all of the amenities just the same.

Claire is average height and built solid like a brick wall. At thirty-something, she has friendly, emerald green eyes with the beginnings of tiny lines on the sides that crinkle every time she smiles. Her hair is short, brunette, and perfectly sculpted into a wedge like the one Dorothy Hamill sported when she won a Gold medal in figure skating during the 1976 Olympics. Claire was six then and she dreamed of gliding on the ice at 70-miles-per-hour while the breeze sent ripples through her hair. Unfortunately, her butt was always too big for those little figure skating outfits, so she settled for softball instead. She wasn't the best player, but the friendships she forged meant more to her than winning or losing. Boys weren't falling all over themselves to date girls on the softball team, but it kept her butt from getting any larger, so it was win/win.

Claire is a claims investigator for Brentwood Insurance. She longs for big cases, like investigating the death of a client to see if the claim of "death of natural causes" was actually a murder-for-hire plot hatched by the client's spouse, but in reality she was buried in case after case of minor auto and house insurance fraud investigations. During her last case, she spent 12 hours staked out in her car taking pictures of a man through the bay window in his living room. He was playing games on a PS3 that he claimed was stolen during a burglary. Claire often found herself bored by the tediousness of her job.

Auggie is tall and fair with a sweet, dimpled smile and crystal blue eyes like the shallow part of the ocean drifting onto a Hawaiian beach. He dons a perfectly trimmed beard and moustache that bear a striking resemblance to Commander Riker on "Star Trek, the Next Generation." He has the hands of an artist, small and soft, but his feet are like an NBA player's, at size fourteen-and-a-half. He wears the same pair of shoes with almost every outfit. They're plain black sneakers with no laces and no brand name. He even wears them to work. Auggie is a materials engineer for the government. He hates shopping for shoes. In fact, he hates shopping for anything except gadgets and gismos. His love of technology began in high school. He came to school early to set up equipment that would be used for the day and stayed late to put it away. Auggie was an absolute AV geek.

Auggie is from Encino, Claire from Sherman Oaks. They met in college at UCLA. She was a criminal justice major, while he was an engineering student. They married soon after graduation and neither wanted children. When Claire's parents told them they were moving, Claire jumped at the chance to buy her grand parents' home. It was one of the oldest houses in Brentwood. Anyone else would have torn it down and built a cookie-cutter mini-mansion on the property. Claire refused to allow that to happen.

Together, she and Auggie were the ultimate geek couple. From the "Star Trek" decor in the living room to the collection of sci-fi movies in the family room, and shelves upon shelves of books in the den, they are nerds through and through. Auggie spends hours online playing multi-player games while Claire chats away on the Internet or updates her blog on MySpace. Even when they are offline, they're usually still in front of their computers.

On this day, Auggie was playing a first-person shooter while Claire was chatting in "MM Fans" on Yahoo. They donned headphones to shield one another from their musical choices. Auggie was bouncing his head up and down to Frank Sinatra while Claire was listening to her favorite Marilyn Monroe CD for the ten millionth time. "Diamonds are a girl's best friend," she mouthed, while typing away in cyber oblivion.

Marilyn Monroe was an idol to Claire, but more than that, she was a way of life. To Claire, Marilyn Monroe represented all that was beautiful in the world and everything that Claire wished she could be. Claire always thought about her own athletic build, her tough exterior, and her tomboyish personality as a detriment. She considered her looks to be Plain Jane at best. Anything and everything that made her who she was, she either didn't like, thought could be better, or just plain hated. She believed that all of those failings could be demolished if she could just be more like Marilyn.

"What do I like best about MM?" Claire read to herself. "Her way with people," she typed in the chat room. Most of the regulars responded, "LOL," because they thought she was joking. "Come on, Claire, surely you jest," offered Wonky4U. "I'm totally serious," began her reply, "Men wanted her and women wanted to be her. It wasn't just because of her looks. She had both genders eating out of the palm of her hand." Confident in her explanation, she sat back and watched the debate continue while continuing to lip-sync "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend," in harmony with her CD.

"I agree with Claire," began SluttyGirl4U2nite.

"Claire," she thought to herself, "Why did I tell these people my real name?" Claire was named after her great-aunt who had passed away very young while giving birth to a son. Claire always resented being named for her. It seemed more like a curse than a compliment. "So you're saying I'm doomed to die young?" she asked her mother about her choice of names. Her mother, being the old fashioned, carry-on-the-family-name type was insulted by the suggestion. It's possible that being her aunt's namesake inspired her determination not to have a family, the very thing her mother wanted most for her. The topic of children was always the main source of most of their arguments.

Claire hated how ordinary her name was. "CL-AIRE!" her fifth-grade homeroom teacher would yell in the worst nasal voice you can possibly imagine. The sound of it always sent shivers up her spine. Claire always wanted something different, like Rain, Cassidy or Christyanna; something original that no one else had. Even Clarisse would have been an improvement. That's the name she gave on the phone when she was pretending to be something she wasn't. "Yes, this is Clarisse," just sounded so much more mature, and less athletic. The ultimate would have been Marilyn, of course, after her idol, but alas, she was just Claire.

As she scanned the letters of her name on the screen, the demons in her head brought her back to her high school days. She was a pretty girl, but also one of the chubbiest girls in her class all through school. If she only had a quarter for every time she heard, "but you have such a pretty face," she would have been set for life. Well intending people can be the cruelest without even realizing it.

In 1985, her whole world came crumbling down with 6 little words. She was a 15-year-old high school sophomore and went to the opening night of the John Hughes' film, "The Breakfast Club," with some friends. That's where she heard those six words for the first time, but definitely not the last:

"Claire?" Judd Nelson's character, John, asked sarcastically.

"Claire, it's a family name," was Molly Ringwald's innocent reply.

Then came the six toxic words of his bellowing blow, "No, it's a fat girl's name!"

There was uproarious laughter from the crowd and nervous giggling from Claire's friends, who didn't want to laugh too loudly for fear of hurting her feelings. She dreaded what was in store for her on Monday at school. From that day on, she had to endure years of amateur impersonators spouting those same words to her, over and over again until she thought her head would explode. "Claire is a fat girl's name!" Bill Malber, one of her worst tormentors, would yet in the hallway. Despite his best efforts, Claire's head managed to stay intact, it was only her self-esteem that withered and died.

Claire had always been a Marilyn Monroe fan and the "Breakfast Club" incident only made her fascination with Marilyn even more intense. Marilyn's birth name was Norma Jeane Mortensen; you can't get much plainer than that. Surely Marilyn, too, anguished over her boring name, which was changed to Norma Jeane Baker soon after her birth.

Despite her auspicious name, Marilyn was the perfect woman, in Claire's opinion. She had the perfect figure, she was beautiful and she had charisma that made men swoon and women scowl. When Claire was growing up, she wanted to be just like her, but she felt trapped in her own body. She thought her life would have meaning if only people would look at her the way they looked at Marilyn. She often dreamed of being born in another time and place and meeting the blonde goddess in the flesh. She thought they would be fast friends, because they were both soft spoken, cared about people and loved sensitive men.

"Claire...Claire...Claire!" Auggie broke her tortured romp through the past as Claire pulled the headphones away from her head and abruptly stopped lip-syncing.

"What?" she sounded annoyed.

"What are you listening to?" he asked.

"Marilyn Monroe," She said as she pulled the headphones down off her ears.

After a hearty laugh, he replied, "Why do I even ask?"

"Shut up, smart ass," was her affectionate reply.

"Do you wanna go out and see a movie or something?"

Claire thought for a moment, then replied, "Nah, let's just order in." She paused then continued, "Do you have the blue prints yet?"

"Yep, I just printed them out."

Auggie got up from his computer and went upstairs. He was a graphic artist, so he took over one of the extra bedrooms and made it into a design studio complete with a huge drafting table. He kept all of his personal treasures in there including an industrial printer big enough to print blue prints. His paints, colored pencils, sketch pads and art books cluttered up the decor. Claire shut down her computer as Auggie came down the steps with two big rolls of paper. They sat on the couch and stretched the first set of blue prints on the coffee table.

"Is this it?" Claire asked.

"This is it." Auggie smiled his reply.

"Well, it doesn't look like a time machine."

"It's not a time machine, it's a temporal displacement system," Auggie replied, sounding exasperated, as though he had explained this many times before. Claire gave him one of those in English please looks, complete with one raised eyebrow. This was a pose Auggie hated because he was not able to achieve it himself. He always wanted to be able to lift one eyebrow like Mr. Spock on "Star Trek," but no matter how hard he tried the other eyebrow would pop right up with it. Truth be told, Claire trained herself to do it for the exact same reason. She accomplished this by holding down one eyebrow and raising them both. After repeating this process for several weeks, she was eventually able to achieve the one eyebrow raise which she thought looked very intelligent.

"It's a time traveling device," he conceded, "but there is no machine that travels back in time; it's just the person wearing the device who makes the journey."

"ME!" Claire exclaimed.

"MAYBE YOU," Auggie warned. "You have to promise you won't interfere with the timeline and I'm not convinced yet. You have a devious nature, Mrs. Callahan."

"Whatsa matter, don't you trust me mi amore?!" she protested with her best Marlon Brando "Godfather" impression.

What Auggie didn't know was that Claire, indeed, protested too much as she was absolutely planning on interfering with the timeline. She had finally found her chance to correct what she believed was one of the world's greatest evils. She was going to put a stop to the death of Marilyn Monroe.

She knew she could never be Marilyn, she couldn't even be like her, but she could be the person who saved Marilyn. Auggie would be an American hero for creating a time machine, but Claire would be Marilyn's friend for life. It was a lofty goal to be sure, and quite possibly a dangerous one as well. It still wasn't clear if Marilyn killed herself on purpose, accidentally, or if there was a murder conspiracy, as some have speculated, and Claire whole-heartedly believed. And then there's the theory that when it's someone's time to go, it's his or her time to go, no matter what. Claire could do everything in her power to save Marilyn just to see her walk right in front of a bus instead.

"It's not a matter of trust, Claire," Auggie continued, with no reaction from the daydreamer. "Hello, are you listening to me, Claire?" Auggie waved his hand in front of Claire's face.

"Of course," she lied. She was completely caught up in reciting her master plan in her head. Claire and Auggie had always been an unconventional couple but when Auggie brought up the idea of time travel, they stepped way over the line.

"You really have to understand this stuff if you want me to even consider letting you near LOKI," Auggie said in the voice that Claire called yelling, but was really just emphasizing an important point.

"LOKI?" Claire questioned. She knew that Auggie loved science fiction. She had been forced to watch more bad "B" movies, with rubber aliens and big-breasted women, than she could remember, but this was a new one on her. "What the hell is LOKI?" Claire regretted asking as soon as it came out of her mouth. Auggie sat up a little straighter and took a deep breath that could only mean, LECTURE MODE: ACTIVATED.

"Cool name huh? It's an acronym for Localized Osmium Kinetic Initiator." Claire braced for the five millionth explanation of how the time machine -- it was a time machine no matter what Auggie said -- worked. She usually tuned Auggie out when he ranted on about his invention, but this time she did her best to take it all in. After all, this thing was her ticket to her destiny.

"Y'see what happens is that by applying a combination of electromagnetic energy and slow neutrons inside a magnetic field to the Osmium lining of the physical displacement chamber, and subjecting the entire assembly to good old acceleration, one produces negative acceleration to minus superluminal speeds, and that is what creates the bubble. Of course, the magnetic field has to duplicate the shape of the matter displacement chamber to within 1/10,000th of an inch."

"Of course," Claire echoed. She needed time to digest the previous run-on sentence, so she stalled; "Yeah...LOKI was a god of some kind, wasn't he?"

"Ah, your training progresses well, young Padowan," Auggie said in his best Obiwan Kenobi voice; "LOKI was the Norse god of mischief, deception and evil. Very tricky guy. Basically the devil for the Vikings."

"G-r-e-e-e-e-a-a-a--t-t," Claire said, Auggie's previous speech still sinking in, "Our time machine is named after the devil."

Auggie got a worried look on his face. "Let me explain," he said.

"Oh God, I asked for this." Claire groaned.

Ignoring the remark, Auggie continued, "See, the Vikings were all about fighting, like with spears and hammers, real manly men kind of stuff. Loki, however, was a wimp, even as gods go. So, he had to rely on his brain and use trickery and magic to try to take over Asgard, the Viking heaven. Deception or trickery of any kind was the worst thing you could do to a Viking, so that's how he became the devil." Auggie used the quote sign with his hands and continued. "Every religion has a devil figure that represents the worst traits in a society..." he trailed off.

Claire was sorry she asked, but had to push this to the end. "So how does this relate to the machine?"

"Oh yeah!" Auggie remembered, "Check it out." His face became red with excitement to the point that Claire thought he just might orgasm right there on the spot. "When all of the energy and magnetics are applied at the precise amplitudes and frequencies, and particle injection rates for the neutrons..."

"Aug!" Claire interrupted, suddenly pushed beyond the normal wife-of-a-geek limit for techno babble.

"O.k., o.k..." Auggie had always hoped he could force his love of science onto his devoted wife, but she would have none of it. "The walls of the chamber are spun up, and a Bubble, or pocket of space is essentially isolated from the rest of the universe. In essence, we fool the universe into believing that the chamber is one massless particle that can be manipulated at negative relativistic speeds. So, like LOKI, we fool the unbeatable power of physics in order to conquer heaven! Sweet huh?" Auggie sat there like a ten-year-old with a straight "A" report card. He clasped his hands together in victory and placed them behind his head smugly. His grin was the size of the Grand Canyon.

Claire sat there, expressionless. Auggie's words were revolving around her mind. She felt like a cartoon character that had just been hit over the head with a mallet with a bunch of little stars and birds swirling around her head. She was Tom and Auggie was Jerry, the clever mouse who had just rigged an anvil to fall on Tom's head when he opened the door. She was speechless.

"Claire?" Auggie jolted her back to reality.

Claire knew she had to say something. "O.k., well I guess LOKI is easier to say than temporal displacement system."

Auggie laughed so loudly that the room rumbled. He was easily amused and Claire loved him for it. She, on the other hand, was completely serious. She kept going over the plan in her head.

"So when can we go ahead?" she asked.

"Well, first I have to build it," he said, matter-of-factly.

"Well, duh."

"Oh, is that how it is, now?" Auggie asked with a slight crackle in his voice. "TICKLE FIGHT!" he yelled and lunged forward, with tickle fingers aimed straight for Claire's abdomen. It didn't matter where he aimed, really; Clare was ticklish everywhere and she's never won a tickle fight.

Exhausted from laughing uncontrollably, Claire turned serious again. "STOP, come on, seriously, when do you think it will be ready?"

"What's the hurry?"

"No hurry, I just want to be ready."

"I guess three months sounds about right." With that, Claire was satisfied to finally have an ETA. She didn't know what she was going to do with herself for three months; the anticipation was already getting to her and they hadn't even started yet.
Chapter 2 - Anticipation

The next three months were intense. Auggie had to come up with creative ways of purchasing things. He was worried that big brother was watching and if they were keeping track of his purchases, they might figure out what he was doing. First, there were general machine tools for building the gantry, the stands, the control room, and the power system. He could just go to various sources for those. It was the special tools that had to be purchased in order to handle radioactive material that made it harder. Auggie had to go to hospital supply companies and hazardous material handling supply companies on the Internet for those items. He would use aliases and a post office box to help cover his tracks. Claire was convinced he was just being paranoid, but Auggie had a secret clearance when he was in the military and was convinced "they" were still watching him.

When Auggie and Claire met, Auggie was a senior enlisted nuclear technician in the Air Force. He was responsible for the assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons. His experience working with nuclear material gave Claire a little piece of mind. Auggie was a super-careful kind of guy, he never even drove above the speed limit, so she knew he wouldn't put either of their lives in danger. As a matter of fact, he wanted to make the trip back in time himself to be sure it was safe, but he was the only one who knew enough about the machine to work the controls safely, so in the end he thought manning the controls would make for a safer trip.

Scrap metal was collected from various junkyards. Of course he wouldn't go to the same junkyard twice because "they" might get suspicious. It was like a wet dream for Auggie because he had gismos and gadgets galore. There were also all kinds of alterations that had to be made to his computer. The den was beginning to look like a war zone. Scrap metal littered the ground like scattered corpses on a battlefield.

There also was the equivalent of a small substation dedicated completely to their den. It was so large that Auggie was tapping into a local factory during off hours just to draw enough current to run the equipment. Aluminum tubing blocked the bathroom entrance and metal grating was stacked up against the back wall.

Auggie collected several Industrial magnets that he had to bring into the house under the cover of night; "so as not to provoke suspicion," he whispered to Claire. His computer was beginning to look like an enormous octopus. It was sprouting sub-computers on a daily basis; there were over 200 processors in all. Auggie said they were "running in parallel, using Linux, a free, but solid version of UNIX, in a Beowulf cluster configuration," but Claire had no idea what he was talking about. She enjoyed using computers but she wasn't interested in what made them work.

One tricky buy was a liquid nitrogen cooling system to run through all elements of the system. It was available commercially, but it was dangerous to handle. Claire played her part by modifying a set of oven mitts with extra layers of fabric that were hyper cold resistant. Auggie told her that if the liquid nitrogen spilled his feet would be frozen to the floor, so she bought him Navy Surplus LOX boots that could be slipped on and off easily. Luckily, they weren't needed as the liquid nitrogen purchase went off without a hitch.

After a few months, things really started coming together. Soon enough, it was time for the final and most difficult-to-find ingredient, Osmium. Several pounds of Osmium would need to be milled into hemispheres to focus the mag fields. Osmium is radioactive, not terribly so, but enough to need special containment. Auggie soon had that covered too. While he was stationed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, disassembling aging nuclear weapons, he developed friendships that he still maintained. One of his best friends, Dirk, was now using his GI Bill money to fund his tuition at UCLA. He was a graduate student in Physics and often performed experiments using nuclear materials. When Auggie started planning LOKI, he put the word out to Dirk and a few other good friends that he needed Osmium for various experiments. No one asked any questions because Auggie was always performing some kind of experiment and they knew all about Mr. Safety. So, when Dirk began particle acceleration experiments, he told Auggie he may be able to hook him up. Two weeks later, Auggie received the call.

"Hey man, I've got some of that stuff you wanted." Dirk said, knowing full well Auggie's paranoia over the phone service.

"You're kidding...that's great. When can we get it?"

"Just stop up here tomorrow afternoon, we're finishing up the paperwork on these trials today and we'll be ready for disposal tomorrow."

"At, at, at!" Auggie's paranoia took hold; Dirk had offered too much information. "I'll be there...same bat time, same bat channel!"

"Gotcha." Dirk hung-up, knowing full well that Auggie would call back later to give him a time so as to throw off big brother. Auggie later used his cell phone to call Dirk at home to tell him he would be there right after work.

Auggie had already outfitted their vehicle's trunk with special casing for nuclear materials. It looked like something Superman concocted to hold kryptonite. It was overkill since the Osmium would already be in a protective case, but Auggie wanted to make doubly sure they were protected. When he arrived at the lab, Dirk had already gathered the Osmium in an airtight, lead-lined container. For the purpose of his experiment, aged Osmium was useless to Dirk, but it was perfect for Auggie's purposes.

"Be careful with this shit, Auggie," Dirk warned.

"My middle name is careful," Auggie said, grinning. The handoff was made and Auggie was soon back home with the final component of his life's work.

Claire was breathless with anticipation when Auggie returned home. She couldn't wait for her journey to begin. Auggie told her to have patience and locked himself in the den to make his final preparations. Finally, their ambitious dream was about to take flight. Claire paced around the living room for what seemed like an eternity before she heard the creaking of the den door.

Auggie peeked out of the door and told Claire to come in. Claire practically leaped from her chair to join him in the den. The den was the perfect place for the time machine because their house had belonged to Claire's mother before them and her grandparents before that, so they knew it had been standing, much the same as it is now for over 60 years. The only addition to the house in all that time was the den they were now standing in. This worked right into Auggie's plans, as he predicted if someone left from the den to go back in time, they would land exactly where the den stands now, which would be in Claire's grandparent's side yard. Obscured by bushes and trees, it would be the perfect landing site.

Claire looked around the den at the behemoth that had formed over the last three months. It looked like a giant silver squid on crack. There was piping everywhere, running from one end of the den to the other. You couldn't even see the ugly lime green wallpaper with the frog pattern that had been hanging since her parents moved away nearly 15 years before. Auggie's computer had parts everywhere. It looked like something you'd see at Mission Control in Houston. There were all kinds of switches and lights. Claire didn't know what any of them controlled, but they were beautiful nonetheless. In that moment, her excitement got the best of her.

"Let's do it!" Claire yelped.

"Hold your horses, Princess, we have to run tests," Auggie said, always the cooler head. He meant the word Princess sincerely, without the slightest hint of condescension.

"Tests? Shit Auggie, either it's going to work or it's not, let's just do it."

"Not on your life. And I mean that literally, Claire," Auggie raised his eyebrows, making it clear that he was very serious. "We have no idea what the power and scope of this device is. We don't even know if it will work. It could just explode the atoms that make up your very being; I'm not going to risk it."

"O.K., o.k.," Claire knew it would be pointless to argue with Mr. Safety, "So what are we going to do?"

"First, we're going to transport a solid object. Hand me the transport device," he said, motioning toward a small box on top of the cpu.

"This?" Claire questioned, reaching for the device.

"Yep," Auggie answered, eyeing the room for something to transport. Claire held the device in her hand. It looked nothing like the rest of Auggie's equipment. The unit was smooth, silver metal with no lights or buttons except for the small digital time display window. Claire clasped it in her hands. There was a black elastic strap about two inches thick coming out of either side. They were connected with Velcro. Claire raised the device to her cheek and felt its coldness permeate her skin. She smiled as she thought about her master plan.

"What are you doing?" Auggie asked.

"Nothing," Claire replied. "Here you go." Auggie gave her a look of suspicion, and took the devise from her hand. Then he picked up a porcelain nick knack from a bookshelf and strapped the transport device to it. He set the timer on the device and proceeded to the control panel. "Stand back here." He commanded.

"YES, SIR!" Claire saluted.

"This is serious, Claire." She could see by his face that he meant business, so she complied with his wishes.

"O.k., I'm here," she said as she stood by his side. Auggie began to power up the machine. A thunderous roar came from the cooling system as a loud buzzing made music in the air. Claire was nervous in spite of herself.

"Shit, I hope the neighbors can't hear this," Mr. Paranoia said.

"Even if they hear it, they're not going to have any idea what it is, so don't worry about it," Claire encouraged him.

"O.k., this is it, we're ready to go."

"Oh my God, we're going to do it; we're actually going to do it. This is it, babe," Claire said as she crossed fingers on both of her hands.

"The timer on the control panel is corresponding with the arm unit. Everything looks good. O.k. what date should we set it for?"

"Let me, let me!" Claire exclaimed.

"O.K." Auggie moved aside. Claire pretended to hide her eyes while carefully selecting the date August 4, 1962. "Alright, looks good. We're ready," Auggie confirmed.

Auggie took a deep breath, pulled up the plastic safety covering on the activation key, closed his eyes and pushed a big red button. Claire's eyes grew even wider in anticipation. The machine creaked and banged and then, in a flash of light, the porcelain statue disappeared.

Three seconds later, it reappeared.

"Shit, what happened?" Claire asked, confused.

"What do you mean? It worked! It really worked!" Auggie started dancing around. "It worked, it worked, it worked."

"But it only disappeared for a second?" Claire questioned.

"Three seconds to be exact," Auggie replied, grinning from ear to ear. "It was three seconds to us, but it was actually in the past for five minutes. Since the past has already happened, we could send something back for years and the item would still reappear almost instantly to us. That's time displacement."

"O-K." Claire said hesitantly. "Does that mean it's my turn?"

"No way, now we have to try something living."

"Like what?"

"Well, it should be small and slow."

"A snail?"

"When was the last time you saw a snail hanging around?" Auggie asked sarcastically.

"Fine, a worm then, smartass?" Claire rebutted. Auggie grabbed Claire's face and kissed her, then pushed away and turned toward the door.

"A worm, that's perfect, we'll get a worm!" Auggie ran out of the den at warp speed. Then he ran out of the front door and into the yard. "I know you're here somewhere you little sucker, come out, come out wherever you are." Claire followed Auggie into the yard to watch the seasoned hunter stalk his prey. It had recently rained and the sidewalk was still wet. Auggie was searching a little corner of the yard by the front porch, digging little holes, scouring for the elusive earthworm.

"Uh, Aug?" Claire grinned.

"Yeah, honey." Auggie sounded annoyed.

"What do you complain about every time it rains around here?" She asked smugly.

"What?"

"What do you bitch about every single time it rains?" She repeated.

"Oh shit, the worms on the sidewalk!" Auggie exclaimed. As he ran over to the sidewalk, he could see that it was lined with little helpless worms that were washed up onto the sidewalk in the recent rainstorm.

"There's a ton of them," he said.

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"I wanted to watch the mighty warrior stalk his prey," was her smartass reply.

"Very funny, you're a regular comedienne, you are." Auggie replied snidely. "Here's a good one, let's go," he said as he scooped up a worm from the sidewalk.

They returned to the den, which Auggie now called his laboratory. He laid the wiggling worm down on the launch pad and put the arm devise next to it. "Shouldn't you strap it to it somehow?" Claire asked.

"Nope, this little sucker won't move fast enough in five minutes to escape the return zone."

"Are you sure?" Claire asked.

"Positive." Auggie reassured her. Again the buzzing and the banging and the bright flash, and the worm disappeared. Three seconds later, another flash but no worm, only the arm device returned.

"I told you so." Claire smirked.

Auggie went back to the sidewalk for another worm. This time, he tied the arm device to it with a piece of thread, the only thing small enough to wrap around the worm. They went through the same process again, and this time the worm returned.

This same process was repeated ten or twelve times. First five minutes, then ten, then twenty and so on. Each time, the worm returned safely until Auggie was convinced it was safe for living transportation.

"So, does the worm have to stay in this vicinity to return here?" Claire asked.

"No, when we transport, the object will always land in the same spot but it can transport back from anywhere within a 100 mile radius of the house as long as it has the arm device on or very close to it."

"Can I go now?" Claire asked.

"Not yet, Claire, I wanna try it on something bigger."

"Like what?" Claire asked.

Just then, Auggie looked down toward the floor. Sitting by Claire's foot was their dog, Mr. Chekov. "Oh no you don't, you're not touching my dog, Auggie."

"Why not?"

"Because he's my baby!"

"No, he's not your baby, he's a house pet. Are you saying you're willing to risk your own life on something that you're afraid to put your dog in? That's it then, it's over. If you don't trust this device with your dog, then there's no way I'm letting YOU in it. This event is cancelled," Auggie stamped his foot on the floor in a rare show of anger.

"Hold up, hold up, don't cancel anything just yet. Do YOU trust this device enough to put Mr. Chekov in it?"

"I trust it enough to put YOU in it and you're the most precious thing in the world to me, of course I trust it for the dog." Auggie replied.

Claire hesitated for a moment, and looked down at the dog that was wagging his tail eagerly.

"O.K., let's do it," she said, decisively.

"Are you sure, Mrs. Callahan?" Auggie hesitated.

"Yes, I'm sure. Of course I'm sure, like you said, if I'm going to get in that thing, I'd damn well better trust it."

"Exactly," Auggie responded as he picked up the little dog and patted him on the head.

"Wait!" Claire stopped him. She walked over and stroked him lovingly. Auggie thought for a moment that he saw fear in her eyes, but seemingly aware of his gaze, Claire forced a smile and kissed her dog on the head. "O.K.," she said.

"Last chance to back out." Auggie offered.

"No, it's fine, he'll be just fine. No problem." Claire still looked worried but Auggie was certain. Again with the banging and the buzzing and bright light. Claire shuttered when it flashed and Mr. Chekov disappeared. Those three seconds seemed like years as she eagerly awaited the return of her dog. She could hear her heart beating loudly in her chest. Her breath seemed labored as her bronchial tubes tightened with fear. Another flash and it was over.

Mr. Chekov must have been in mid-run when he transported because he almost ran right into the wall upon his glorious return. "Come here, Boo, are you o.k., are you alright, sweetie? Let mommy see you, is everything where it's supposed to be? O.k., you're a good boy, Chekov, you're a good boy, yes you are." Claire made kissy sounds to the dog as he licked her face. Auggie was standing in a daze, as reality suddenly hit home.

"My invention works, it really works," he said quietly.

"You bet your sweet buppie, now let's get crackin'!" Claire couldn't contain her anticipation any longer.

"Hold up cowgirl, it's not that simple. We're going to bed; we'll start first thing in the morning."

"What? All this and I'm not going anywhere tonight?"

"No. I want you to sleep on it to be sure you really want to do this. Besides, I'm tired now and I want to be sure that I'm completely alert when MY baby goes through that corridor." He put his arm around Claire and led her out of the den and toward the stairs.

Just as they were walking up the stairs, the phone rang. It was Claire's mother. "Hi mom, what's up?"

"I need our photos from our vacation in Mexico. I want to take the one of us all together on the beach and blow it up for Matthew for his 40th birthday. I'm pretty sure I left them in your attic when we moved out, can you check for me?"

"Sure." Claire replied, happy to do anything for her older brother, whom she adored.

"I think I stuck them in the box with your grandmother's collection of baby shoes. It should have shoes written on the top, and it's over by your old hobby horse."

"O.k. I'll look for it this weekend."

"Great, thanks, Hun."

"Sure," Claire hesitated, "I love you, mom. Tell Matthew I love him too."

"I love you too, dear, and you can tell Mathew yourself. We're having a birthday party for him next month. Good night, dear." Claire hit the off button.

"I love you, mom," Auggie mocked, tapping Claire on the shoulder. "What's that for?" he asked.

"Tell Matthew I love him too?" he continued in a mocking tone. "You're acting like you're never going to see them again. If you have any doubts about this time travel, you shouldn't go. I'll scrap the whole damn thing, Claire." Auggie said, growing more concerned. Claire was startled by his coarse language.

"Um, relax cowboy, my mother IS 70 years old, remember? Every time I talk to her may be the last, unfortunately. I'm just now realizing the possibility that my mother isn't going to be around forever, that's all," Claire said, hoping to end the conversation. After seeing the continued look of concern on Auggie's face, she knew she needed more.

"I didn't realize my mom was throwing Matthew a birthday party, you know I hardly ever see him," she protested. "Now, can we go to sleep? We've got a huge day tomorrow." Auggie nodded his head in agreement. "Oh, and with all the excitement going on around here, try to remind me to look for a box of pictures, my mom needs it for Matthew's birthday," she finished with a grin.

"Get up those stairs, woman," Auggie said, satisfied with her explanation. Claire breathed a sigh of relief as the two of them retired to the bedroom.

"Tomorrow is another day," Auggie said as he closed the door.

Chapter 3 - Another Day

Claire couldn't sleep at all that night. She tossed and turned and made trip after trip to the bathroom, just to stare at herself in the mirror. She was nervous and scared, but also excited and invigorated. She was ready to "right what once went wrong." That was something they used to say in an old TV show, Quantum Leap. The show took place in the future where Sam, a time traveler, wanted to travel back into his own lifetime to right wrongs. Something went wrong and he kept leaping into other people's bodies and was unable to get back home. He just kept leaping from person to person. "To right what once went wrong," they used to say in the introduction. That's exactly what Claire wanted to do. She just hoped she didn't get lost in the past while saving Marilyn.

"Auggie's machine is different," Claire told herself. She wasn't going to leap into people; she would still be herself. She tried to reassure herself, but her nerves were frazzled. The trip was a risk no matter how you looked at it.

Claire did everything she could but just couldn't sleep. She finally decided it was too late to try to go back to sleep so she took a shower, got dressed, grabbed a large black purse and headed downstairs to make some coffee. She was hoping the aroma would wake Auggie. She already had her 60s outfit picked out, a pair of white pedal pushers and a plain blue t-shirt with loafers. She figured that would blend in pretty well in 1962.

Claire grabbed the newspaper from outside and sat at the kitchen table for a while, sipping her coffee and contemplating the day to come. When she finished her coffee, she went to the den to stare at her future. She sat the purse down next to the machine.

LOKI was huge, ominous in fact. It looked like the den had been taken over by some alien life form, a huge silver octopus with countless tentacles. She giggled at the thought.

"What's so funny?"

"Shit!" Claire shrieked. "Don't sneak up on me like that." She was so caught up in her plan that she didn't hear Auggie come down the stairs. She was glad to see he was already dressed and ready to go, though.

"Claire, there's no way a guy my size can 'sneak' downstairs. You must have been really caught up in whatever is so funny to not hear me." Auggie laughed.

"I was just thinking that the den looked like it was taken over by an alien," Claire admitted. Auggie let out a huge laugh.

"You are definitely my wife," He said, and continued laughing. Claire looked annoyed.

"Now that you've had a good laugh, are we ready to start?" pleaded Claire.

"No, we're both going to have a good breakfast."

"Yes, Mrs. Stanfield."

"Who is Mrs. Stanfield?"

"She was the crazy book mobile lady that used to come into our class and teach us little life lessons, like the four food groups and how important it was that each food group was represented in every meal."

"Well, o.k., class, how about eggs with cheese, toast, hash browns and orange juice? That sounds pretty rounded, don't ya think?" Auggie said, smugly.

"I've had my coffee, thank you Mrs. Stanfield."

"Oh no you don't, young lady, you're going to have a complete and balanced meal before you set off on any journeys," Auggie said in the highest voice possible.

"Alright, but I'm not cooking," Claire said, looking more annoyed.

"Like I couldn't have guessed that," Auggie replied with a chuckle as he walked to the refrigerator to gather his ingredients. Claire picked up the paper and started reading. She came across an article about a double lung transplant patient who needed money to pay for the operation.

"Oh my God, TAKE THAT BILL MALBER!"

"What?" Auggie asked, laughing again.

"When I was in the seventh grade, Mr. Aulton would have these current events quizzes every Friday in History class. It was usually a battle between this annoying kid, Bill Malber and myself. We weren't any smarter than the other kids, we were just the only ones arrogant enough to keep raising our hands. Anyway, one Friday Mr. Aulton asked what organ transplant operation had been performed that week. I knew it was lung or liver, but I couldn't remember which. I raised my hand anyway. It was between me and Bill and Mr. Aulton picked me. I answered lung," Claire said, pausing.

"Of course, Bill thought that was hilarious. He laughed at me in front of everyone and said, 'you can't transplant a lung, stupid.' Well, now you can transplant two, so in your face, Bill Malber!" Claire declared.

"Oh my God, how do you remember this stuff? Talk about holding a grudge," Auggie laughed.

"Well, he made fun of me in front of the whole class and tried to make me look like an idiot. Lung, liver, they're very similar sounding. It was an easy mistake to make, and that jerk made fun of me, the little creep. It's unfortunate that someone needs the operation, but I'm glad the technology exists now." Claire said matter-of-factly.

"Actually, they've been transplanting lungs for a long time," Auggie said, matter-of-factly. Claire gave him the evil eye.

"Not two, they haven't!" Claire replied.

"Acually," Auggie began, but stopped abruptly when he saw the glimmer in Claire's eyes. "O.K. honey," he conceded. "Remind me never to make fun of you." Auggie said, laughing again. Claire gave him another disapproving stare.

"Is breakfast ready yet?"

"I'm putting it on the plates now, sheesh, woman."

"Good," she mumbled under her breath, "you can't transplant a lung, HUH!" Auggie was laughing again as he laid the plates down on the table.

"Would you forget about that, we've got bigger fish to fry," he said. Claire scarfed her food down like there was no tomorrow and Auggie did the same, albeit unwittingly. They were soon ready for the adventure ahead.

When breakfast was over, Claire and Auggie headed off to the den, both shaking with anticipation. Auggie fired up the machine, and once again it roared and buzzed to life.

"Strap this on tight," Auggie said as he strapped the device onto her arm under her sleeve.

"Ow, tight is fine, but don't cut off my circulation," Claire pleaded.

"There, how's that?"

"Good," Claire said, rubbing the outside of the devise.

"O.K. Let's take this baby for a test run."

"Test run? Didn't we cover that yesterday?" Claire asked, frustrated.

"With animals, yes we did, but now we need to do a human test."

"Can't we just get on with it, man?"

"No" was Auggie's simple reply. "Stand on the pad." Auggie was very serious at that point, so Claire knew there was no need to argue anymore. She had to endure any tests Auggie's little heart desired. "O.K., you know I love you and I know you love me, so nothing else needs to be said because nothing is going to go wrong." Auggie's declaration gave Claire pause. She knew he was just being overly cautious, so she just smiled as he retreated to the control panel. "You will only be there for five minutes, just long enough to check out the scenery and be sure it worked. Try to look at the design of the house and cars on the street. That should give you a good idea of the timeline."

"House, cars, got it."

"O.K., are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be." Claire said hesitantly.

"That's not the answer I was looking for, Claire. I want you to be sure that you want to do this. There are plenty of other people I could find if you are the least bit hesitant about it."

"I know, I know, I'm fine, really. I'm ready. I want to do this. Besides, you wouldn't trust anyone else enough to keep this a secret and you know it."

"You're right about that, but I need you to be certain."

"O.k., I'm certain, let's do this." Claire sounded surer this time.

"Alright, but if there is any trouble, whatsoever, you can hit the button in the center to take you back early, otherwise, the timer will automatically bring you back in five minutes."

"Got it."

"May the force be with you," Auggie smiled slyly.

"You are so weird, Augiwan Kenobe," Claire laughed.

"Here we go" he said with a grin. The machine was activated and the now familiar banging and buzzing serenaded Claire. She caught a glimpse of Auggie biting his nails before everything disappeared in a bright flash. Her stomach dropped as if she were plunging down the first hill of an enormous roller coaster. She saw flashes of light and then blackness for just a split second before being blinded by sunlight. Her knees went out from under her and she landed on the ground.

"Oh my God, that was weird," Claire said as she stood up in the side yard where the den used to be.

She began to look around. The house was a different color and of course there was no den just as they had calculated. "It worked. Oh my God." Claire stood dumbstruck for a moment before realizing that her five minutes were counting down. She found her footing and immediately struck out to the front yard to look around.

The yard looked much the same, but with a better garden and shrubbery. "The trees, oh the trees," Claire thought. The beech and the old elm in the front yard were a lot shorter than they were only a minute before. But, it was when Claire directed her glance to the street that she began to realize the scope of what had just happened. The cars on the street were definitely not from the twenty-first century.

Claire spotted her grandfather's 1959 Chevy Impala. He loved that car. He drove it until the day he died. She would recognize it anywhere. She turned over her arm and pulled up her sleeve to check out the timer and realized she only had four minutes left, so she headed down the stairs toward the street.

Claire stopped dead in her tracks as she heard a female voice yell, "Hey!"

Claire turned to see her grandmother, on her knees in the side garden staring at her. She was wearing a big straw hat with a white sash, red pedal pushers and a white tank top that revealed a little too much arm flab. She must have been about 40, Claire thought.

"What are you doing there, girl?" The lively octogenarian inquired.

"Umm." Claire had to think fast. "I'm sorry; I wanted to go to the store, so I cut through your yard as a short cut."

"Short cut?" Her grandmother asked. "This isn't Grand Central Station, you know."

"I know, ma'am, I'm sorry, it won't happen again," Claire turned toward the steps, prepared to run.

"Be sure that it doesn't. Who are you anyway? I don't think I've seen you around these parts before." Claire didn't know what to say but she knew she had to end this now.

"I'm visiting my aunt Edna down the street."

"Edna Shergren?"

"Yes." Claire knew her grandmother didn't socialize with Edna Shergren, no one did, in fact, because, as Claire's mother had told her time and again, she was a mean old lady who did nothing but yell at anyone who tried to knock on her door. Her mother had told her a story about her grandmother once agreeing to be the campaign manager for a local councilman simply because Edna was trying to block his appointment. They had quite the rivalry. It had something to do with old boyfriends, lies, and a stain on a dress, Claire thought. She wasn't clear on the details, but she also remembered stories of her own mother pulling up 'old lady' Shergren's flowers just to spite her. Her mother said it was because Edna would take every opportunity to yell at any kid in the neighborhood.

"I really have to go now, Aunt Edna will be angry with me if I'm late," Claire tried to break away from the conversation.

"In that case, you'd better run girl, you don't want to make old Edna angry."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you ma'am." She hesitated for a moment to take in the lively woman before her who was her grandmother as she had never known her. She saw her mother's eyes and Claire's own nose staring back at her. "Good-bye." That word meant more to her than she could show at the time, because she never got the chance to say good-bye to her grandmother who died suddenly when Claire was a teenager. Knowing she was almost out of time, Claire dashed down to the road and started walking toward the old hardware store.

Everything was different. The library was an empty lot filled with weeds and the block across the street was entirely empty except for the bank that had been standing since the thirties. She stopped to marvel at how little the bank had changed over the years considering how much everything around it had changed, but time was running out, and she knew she had to get out of sight before the timer ran out. She ducked behind the bank just in time to disappear unnoticed.

She was brought back to the lab with a flash of light and another jolt. "Whoa," she said and quietly breathed a sigh of relief when she laid eyes on Auggie standing by the control panel smiling.

"Oh, Thank God." Auggie was relieved as well. "Thank God, thank God, thank God," he repeated as he ran to give Claire a hug.

"Hey, you sound like you didn't have faith," Claire faked being cross.

"No, no, I knew the machine would work." Auggie grinned slyly. "I'm just glad you didn't get yourself in any trouble," he said, patting her on the head.

"Smartass." Claire gave Auggie a crooked smile.

"Alright, Claire, I'm dying to hear, what was it like, what happened, what did you see, who did you talk to?" Auggie was jumping up and down.

"First of all, you told me not to talk to anyone," she said matter-of-factly.

Claire proceeded to tell Auggie the entire story, but conveniently left out the part where she spoke to her grandmother. She knew if she told Auggie that she had contact with her grandmother he would pull the plug immediately. He had that whole space-time continuum thing from Star Trek on the brain. No contact!

With Claire's careful omissions, Auggie was thrilled with the results of the test. "How long was I gone?" Claire inquired.

"Only a few seconds," Auggie said, grinning ear to ear.

"Really? How does that work?" As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Claire knew she was in for another long explanation.

"When you're working with space/time..." Auggie began, but Claire zoned out, concentrating on what she was going to do when she went back. "...and that's why it was only a few seconds to me."

Finally Claire could ask the burning question: "When can I go back?"

"We can do it right now if you want to, now that we're certain it works!" Auggie was still excited that his invention was a success.

"O.K., how long can I stay? A day?"

"No way, not an entire day."

"What? Why not; we know it's safe?"

"Yeah IT'S safe, but what about YOU?"

"HEY!"

"Seriously Claire, do you think you could go through an entire day without speaking to someone?"

"So I can never speak to anyone?"

"No way, you could change time, that's nothing to play with."

"Then what would I be doing there?"

"Observing, what did you think?"

"Observing," Claire paused to think for a moment. "I can do that," she declared, then quickly changed the subject. "A few hours at least, then?"

"A few hours will be alright. Let's try a half-day. Eight hours should do it. I want you to check out as much as you can, especially the civics of the situation."

"Civics? 1962 is hardly a study of ancient civilizations."

"I know, maybe we should try a different date."

"NO." Claire said a little too emphatically. Realizing her mistake, she tried to justify it. "I was just kidding; the '60s were a turbulent time in U.S. history. It's a perfect place to start. It's got to be safer than the wild, wild west, right?" She grinned in an odd sort of way, wondering if she had pulled that out of her ass.

"O.K., you're right, let's do it. What date should we use?"

"Let's stick with the one we've been using, why mess with success?" Claire asked anticipating the okay from Auggie.

"What time?"

"Why not start in the afternoon, then I can check out day and nighttime scenes."

"Claire I don't want you out alone at night."

"It's the early sixties, Auggie, I'll be fine, I go out alone at night now for Pete's sake."

Auggie stared at Claire suspiciously. "Alright," he conceded, "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," she said, spinning around. "Wait, my purse."

"Purse?"

"Yeah, if I'm going to be walking around I should look normal...women have purses."

"Works for me, where's your purse?"

"I've got it." Claire said swooping the purse up off the floor. "Ready."

Chapter 4 - Back in Time

"Alright, sweetie, remember what I said, don't talk to ANYONE." Auggie paused for a moment. "And be careful."

"I'll be careful, don't worry, I'll be back in two seconds."

"O.K., here we go, I love you, Angel."

"Love you too, Fuzzy Bear." LOKI banged and creaked and Auggie hit the big red button, then came the flash of light and Claire disappeared. "Whoa. I don't think I'll ever get used to that," she whispered to herself. Claire took a quick look at the timer which read 7:59 and counting. Everything seemed good, so she headed off to her destiny.

As she walked down the front hill she noticed, once again, her Grandfather's old car and the lack of life on the streets. Just as she turned the corner to descend the front steps she heard a familiar voice say, "Hey! You again? What's the matter with you, girl?" Claire's grandmother still looked lively and beautiful, but also very annoyed.

"Umm." Claire again had to think fast.

"I'm sorry, I started to go to the store but I forgot my money so I had to go back to get it and I forgot that you said not to cut through your yard anymore."

"Forgot your money, eh?" Her grandmother asked. "Did Edna give you that money?"

"No ma'am, this is my money," Claire said, confused by the question.

"Well, that figures, Edna Shergren wouldn't shell out a quarter for milk for her own niece."

"No ma'am, I guess not."

"Don't be fresh with your elders, girlie."

"No ma'am, I'm sorry ma'am. May I go, ma'am?" Claire was very eager to end this conversation.

"Well, I figure since you insist on using my front yard as Grand Central Station, that you might as well run an errand for me as well. What do you think about that, girlie?"

"I really can't, ma'am..." Claire was abruptly interrupted by a male voice.

"What do ya mean ya can't, lassie?" That Irish brogue could be only one person, Claire's grandfather. "From what I've been hear', girlie, you owe me wife the favor, cuttin' through her beautiful garden then disrespectin' her like that."

"I mean no disrespect, Sir; I just need to hurry back or..." Claire had to think of something good so she could get out of there fast. "Or...Aunt Edna will hide me." Hide me? She thought to herself, not certain that it meant spanking.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, child, you're saying Ms. Shergren would hide ya just for being a few minutes late from the grocery?"

Claire didn't want to paint this already ill regarded person any worse, but she had no choice. "Sure as I'm standing here, Sir."

"Well then, lassie, this is your lucky day, I was just about to run to the hardware store for some fixtures. I can give you a ride, then you'll surely be back before hidin' time."

"Oh, thank you, sir, but that's really not necessary."

"I'll have none of this refusal, girl, you're coming with me." He turned to his wife.

"What will you be needin', mother?" He always called his wife mother and she always called him dad. That was a precious memory from Claire's childhood and the nostalgia almost overwhelmed her. "What are you staring at, girl? Let's be off with ya." The old man grabbed Claire's hand before she could protest. "Kathy, girl, are you comin'?" He yelled into thin air. Claire's heart sank; Kathy was her mother's name.

"Comin' Dad."

Down the front stairs came a fifteen-year-old version of Claire's mother. She was wearing a white skirt with red polka dots and a white button-up blouse with plain white sneakers. Seeing her was strange and magical and it left Claire awestruck. "Get in the car, girl." Claire's grandfather was getting impatient.

"Who's this, Daddy?"

"Don't ya be worryin' 'bout who this is, just get in the car like you're told, girl," he said. The three of them got into the front seat of the old forest green 1959 Chevy Impala. It was shiny, near new, not the way Claire remembered it at all. Kathy crawled into the middle while Claire took the window seat. As Claire's grandfather drove away, he and Kathy waived at Claire's grandmother.

"I don't think I caught your name, girl."

"It's Claire." She said before she even thought about it.

"That's a nice name." Replied her mother. "That was Kathleen's favorite auntie's name" her father chimed in.

"Thank you." Claire tried not to stare. She was amazed at the shining youth who sat beside her, but she knew this was dangerous territory. She tried not to speak unless spoken to. Kathy and her father rattled back and forth about the day's events and what they were going to pick up at the store, but Claire stayed silent. After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the grocery store, which stood right next to the hardware store.

"You girls get what you need at the grocery while I get some fixtures at the hardware store."

"O.K., Daddy." Kathy quickly replied. Kathy and Claire shuffled into the grocery store.

"I like those pedal pushers." Kathy said.

"Thanks." Claire was still trying to keep the conversation to a minimum.

"My Daddy won't let me wear pants."

"Really?" Claire sounded astounded at the cultural differences between her and her mother's generation.

"He doesn't think it's proper for a young lady to wear pants."

"That's too bad."

"Why?"

"Well...because you're missing out on comfort."

"Are they really more comfortable?" Kathy asked with girlish excitement. "Maybe I should sneak some, ya think?"

"NO!" Claire realized that even this simple conversation was having an impact on her mother and decided that running away was the only solution. "Don't do that, Kathy, you should listen to your grandfather...I mean father, you should listen to your father....or not if you don't want to...Oh, God, I don't know." Flustered, Claire knew she had to get out of there. "Gotta run!"

"What do you mean?" Kathy stood confused, but it was too late, Claire was already half way out the backdoor. Just as she reached the light of day, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going, girl?" It was her grandfather.

"Umm..." Claire was in shock. "Could this get any worse?" she thought.

"I declare, you are the strangest lass I've ever met. Have you finished you're shopping already?"

"Uh, no Sir, I just felt a little ill and thought I should get some air." Now that was thinking fast.

"Well, it's been gotten, now get back in there, lassie." He paused and looked toward the back parking lot. "Oh, Lordy, help us all, you're too late, here comes your auntie." Claire froze, her blood ran cold and her face fell white as a ghost. She grabbed her grandfather's arm and drug him into the store with her. In the distance you could hear Edna calling his name.

"Colm? Colm Dugan is that you?" Her voice trailed off as they entered the store.

"You didn't see me Mr. Dugan, please don't say you saw me, I'll get hided. I lied, Mr. Dugan, I'm not going to the store for my auntie, I snuck out while she was napping, if she sees me, she'll hide me for sure."

"Ah, lassie, what are ya doing to me?" he asked, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Dugan, but I gotta get out of here. Please don't mention me, please?" Claire delivered an Oscar caliber performance in begging for her life and her grandfather and her mother both nodded their heads. As she ran out the front door this time she yelled back "You and Kathy take care, Sir!" Just as she turned out of sight, Edna Shergren entered through the back door. Kathy followed Claire to the door and waved good-bye through the front window, but Claire's back was to the wind.

"Colm Dugan, I thought that was you, why didn't you answer me?"

"Was that you, Edna? I thought it twas the wind," he said out loud. Then he mumbled under his breath, "a big, fat, hot wind." Claire's grandfather kept his word not to say anything to Edna about her niece, but Claire had left him and Kathy in utter confusion. He sure had a heck of a story to tell his wife when he got home, though. All three Dugans agreed Claire was a strange and unusual girl.

# 

# Chapter 5 - 12305 Fifth Helena Drive

Claire found a taxi at the stand on San Vincente Boulevard and told the cabby to take her to the corner of Fifth Helena Drive and South Carmelina Avenue. "Hey, isn't that near where Marilyn Monroe lives?" he asked her.

"It's where my aunt lives; I don't know anything about any Madeleine Monroe."

"It's Marilyn, ain't you never heard o' her? She's one of the most famous actresses on the planet, lady." He looked quizzically at her.

"Sir, could you just take me to my aunt's house, please, I'm in a hurry?" She tried to cut off the conversation.

"Yeah, whatever lady, I was just makin' conversation." Her job was done. Claire was sitting on the edge of her seat by the time they reached Tenth Helena Drive. She knew there were only a few blocks to go. As they drove down S Carmelina Avenue, Claire's heart beat fast in anticipation of the destiny that soon waited. The timer had already lost a crucial thirty minutes and she wasn't about to waste a second more. Finally, they rounded the corner on Fifth Helena Drive. She stepped out of the cab and gave the cabby his money, plus a five-dollar tip. She paid in silver dollars, the only money she could get her hands on that was used back then.

"Five bucks, wow, would you like me to wait for you, lady?"

"That won't be necessary; I'm staying, thank you." She forgot she was tipping based on current inflation, not 1962's.

"Do you need me to come back for you tomorrow?"

"No, thank you sir, I'm staying indefinitely." She held her ground, hoping he would go away.

"O.K. but I'm going to drive up there and see if I can get a glimpse of Marilyn Monroe."

Claire started to panic, "You'll do no such thing, sir. If you drive one foot in that direction I shall have to phone the police about a Peeping Tom."

"What?"

"You heard what I said, good day, Sir!"

The cabby mumbled, "Crazy dame," as he turned his vehicle around. Claire stood on the corner watching him drive out of sight. When she was sure he was gone, she headed for the 12300 block and figured it would be all downhill from there. She finally arrived at the third house on the left, 12305 Fifth Helena Drive.

It was a beautiful, just like the pictures. Claire remembered reading once that Marilyn's mother, Gladys, had promised her, "I'm, going to build a house for you and me to live in. It's going to be painted white and have a back yard." That's what this hacienda was for Marilyn, she finally had a home.

As Claire approached the gate she could see the figure of a woman in the garden. She was bending over some flowers with a spade. "Is that the housekeeper?" Claire whispered to herself. Just then she heard a car approaching quickly. She ducked into some bushes at the far end of the wall. A car horn beeped several times and the car came to a stop right in front of the fence. Just then the woman in the garden stood up and turned around. Claire could see clearly now this was not the housekeeper, Eunice Murray, but indeed Marilyn herself. "Marilyn did her own gardening?" Claire giggled to herself, astounded. Marilyn started to walk toward her and Claire ducked between the bush and the wall to hide. Her heart was pounding like she had never heard it before. Thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump. The sound resonated in her ears like a bass drum in a marching band. Her entire body seemed to jerk to the beat.

Marilyn went to open the gate so the car could enter the driveway. Once the car was in, Claire was able to peek around the corner. A man stepped out of the backseat. He was average height and weight, and wearing a nicely pressed brown suit. Claire heard their conversation. Marilyn greeted him, "Larry, it's so nice to see you," in a very sweet sounding voice.

"Larry? Who the hell is Larry?" Claire was thinking out loud.

"Marilyn, you're looking beautiful as ever." Marilyn smiled and hooked her arm around Larry to guide him into the house.

Claire could barely hear Marilyn ask, "Did you see me on the cover of Life Magazine?" just as they entered the house. Claire looked around and followed after them to the front stoop. It was a warm day and all of the windows were open. To the right of the front door was a message written in tile. It said "Cursum Perficio."

"Cursum Perficio," Claire paused, reading the tile. Her voice seemed to echo off the stucco walls of Marilyn's hacienda. She was so startled that she whipped around to be sure no one else was there. Turning back around, Claire lowered her voice, "My Journey Ends Here," she whispered, in translation. "Well, you got that right," she said, looking around.

Claire decided it was probably not a good idea to be seen in front of the building, so she snaked around to the side. As she passed Marilyn's bedroom, she couldn't help but sneak a peek inside. All of the windows were open, so she could hear mumbles of a conversation coming from the next room. The bedroom was smaller than Claire expected, and scantily furnished. There was a bed, a dress rack and an ashtray shaped like a swan. "Ew, a fireplace in the bedroom . . . that suits her," Claire said in awe. She realized anyone driving by could still see her, so she went around to the back, pausing every now and then to peep in a window. Now who's the peeping Tom, she thought to herself. She went past Marilyn's dressing room, then the guest room, where someone was sleeping. It appeared to be a woman with dark hair, but Claire could make out nothing else.

Soon Claire was in the backyard by the pool. The screen doors connecting the back rooms to the patio were all open as well and the living room was once again in sight. She walked up to the window and slowly peered inside. Marilyn and Larry were sitting on a bench at the right wall, cattycorner from the fireplace. They were discussing pictures. "I don't know, Larry, if I do Playboy again, I'll be promoted as a sex object. I've grown beyond that, you know?" She had a much more serious tone.

"Marilyn, you've been on the cover before and it only helped your career." Larry glanced in Claire's direction. She ducked as quickly as she could, her heart pounding once again. She decided it was too dangerous to stay, so she went off to see what else she could do until Larry left. Beside the living room was a sun room complete with a liquor cart and a Mayan tapestry. Claire kept going. The house cornered again; the next stop was the dining room. Claire saw the most beautiful china cabinet she's ever seen. It was a dark cherry cabinet with glass all around, but it was sparsely populated. The kitchen was the last room on the main house, before the guest house. Claire could hear voices from inside. She stood on her tip toes to look in the window over the sink. She saw a man and a woman talking. The woman she recognized as Eunice Murray, Marilyn's housekeeper.

"Are you sure you're doing that right, son?"

"Yes mother, I know what I'm doing. It's floor tile, not brain surgery." The man was on his knees replacing tiles it appeared. Claire, not being completely convinced of Murray's innocence in Marilyn's death, decided to stick around. Murray sat at the table and lit a cigarette while staring over her son's shoulder. Every now and then there were injections of "That one's not straight," or, "Those two are crooked, Norman," and the reciprocal, "I know what I'm doing, Mom," from the tile lair.

Claire finally heard the front door open and went around the side to investigate. She ran around the back of the guest house and garage and peeked around the corner. Larry was getting into his car. He said, "We'll talk more on Monday, o.k.?" Marilyn nodded her head as she waved good-bye. He pulled away from the driveway and Claire ducked under the protection of the front wall. Marilyn left the driveway gate open and went back inside.

Claire once again went around to the back of the house to observe. Marilyn was in the living room sitting on the bench and looking at some white folders that appeared to be scripts. Claire saw her opportunity and bolted to the front door, but just as she started to round the side of the house around the dressing room, another car pulled into the driveway. Frustrated, Claire went back around the corner to observe.

A woman in her sixties stepped out of a Buick land tank and walked up to the front porch, then rang the door bell. She was carrying two large black cases. Claire could hear Marilyn shout "I've got it, Eunice" as she headed to the front door. When Marilyn opened it she smiled and said, "Oh, hello, Agnes, how are you?"

"Good afternoon, Miss Monroe" was the polite response from the woman Claire now recognized as Marilyn's hairdresser. The two headed straight for Marilyn's bedroom and Claire was once again off to the races. Peering in from a side window, Claire could see Marilyn and Agnes sitting on her bed. Marilyn had her back to Agnes while she set up some styling tools on a dinner tray.

"I'm going to a dinner party tonight" Marilyn offered.

"Oh, how wonderful, will anyone interesting be there?" Agnes said, with an accent on the word "interesting." She had a playful tone in her voice and the two giggled like a couple of school girls.

Just as Claire was moving in close, yet another vehicle pulled into the driveway and Claire had to retreat to the backyard once again. Peering into the living room from behind the house, Claire could see Eunice accept a package from a delivery boy. It was a stuffed tiger with bright orange stripes with a note wrapped around its neck. Eunice tipped the boy and shuffled off to Marilyn's bedroom. Claire could not go around to the side of the house because the delivery boy hadn't left yet. A few moments later, Eunice returned to the kitchen.

There was no movement in the living room for a while so Claire turned around and sat down on the pool patio. She looked around at the beautiful backyard and the elegant pool, everything was so well kept, she thought. She couldn't help but reflect on her situation. She floated away in daydream land for a few minutes, but was startled back to reality by voices in the sunroom. Fearing she would be discovered, she headed to the back end of the guest room to hide.

Marilyn was exchanging pleasantries with Agnes who was apparently getting ready to leave. As Agnes departed, Marilyn stepped out onto the patio by the pool. She seemed depressed and was clutching the toy tiger. She walked behind the living room to a lounge chair and lay out in the sun. She was wearing a plain white one-piece swimsuit and Claire thought it made her look like a goddess. Claire waited anxiously, hoping no one would disturb her. After a while, it appeared no one was going to join Marilyn and Claire decided to make her move.

Just as she stood up to walk over to her idol, the guest bedroom door to the patio opened. Claire recognized Pat Newcomb, Marilyn's publicist. She had been the woman Claire saw earlier sleeping in the bed. Frustrated, once again, Claire stayed hidden.

"Pat, it's about time you woke up," Marilyn said curtly. And for the first time, her Marilyn Monroe persona was gone and her voice sounded normal.

"Wow, it's a beautiful day, isn't it?" Pat asked.

"If I had the convenience to sleep as late as you did, I guess I'd think that too," Marilyn spat, seemingly angry with Pat.

"I'm sorry, there's no alarm clock in there, you know," Pat said shaking her head.

"You would think the sunlight would have been a clue."

"O.K. Marilyn, you win, I'm sorry I overslept," Pat said, putting her hands over her head in surrender.

"Don't apologize to me. Just because I invite you to spend time with me and you spend it sleeping away, you shouldn't feel bad at all," Marilyn said, sarcastically.

"Alright, if that's how it is, I'm going to go get some breakfast," Pat said, exasperated. Then she turned toward the sunroom door.

"Wouldn't that be a late lunch at this hour, dear?"

"Whatever, I'm hungry," Pat said, not bothering to look over her shoulder at her tormentor.

"I would be too if I slept that late," Marilyn hissed. Pat ignored that final comment, apparently resigned to the fact that Marilyn must have the last word or it would never be over, and she went into the house through the sunroom door.

Marilyn was mumbling and slanted her eyebrows crossly, apparently very upset by Pat's actions. Claire began to think maybe this wasn't the right time. She was too late anyway, because Marilyn quickly followed Pat into the sunroom. Claire decided to stay where she was until she could figure out if either woman was near the back windows. A minute later, Marilyn returned to the patio with some of those white folders in her hand. She reclined in her lounge chair and placed all but one script on the table beside her. She seemed calmer than before and was moving her lips while she read.

"That's good, read your script, now no one bother her!" Claire declared to herself. She squatted by the bushes for a few more minutes waiting for someone else to show up, but no one did. Claire decided the time had finally come for her to make her move.

Chapter 6 - Claire & Marilyn

Claire stood up, straightened her clothes and clutched her purse. She slowly walked up to the patio, trying not to scare Marilyn. Marilyn noticed her figure approaching and jumped up in her chair.

"Please, don't be alarmed, Miss Monroe, I'm not a nut or anything, I won't hurt you."

"Well that's good to know, sweetie, but what exactly are you doing here?" The Marilyn Monroe persona was back.

"I'm so sorry to bother you, Miss Monroe, but I have to tell you something, it's really important."

"Well, if you can't tell me from there, sweetie, I'm going to scream and there are about five people in that house who will rush to my aid," Marilyn said as sweetly as she could.

"No, please don't do that, I'll stay right here, please, it's important."

"Well, alright, shoot, sweetie." Marilyn looked weary.

Claire was flustered by this point and didn't know how to say what she had come to say. "There's no easy way to put this, Miss Monroe, and it's going to sound crazy to you, but I have to tell you that there are a lot of people who love you, your family, friends and your fans, everyone loves you and I'm just asking you please, please, please," Claire hesitated, "Don't kill yourself tonight."

"Kill myself?" Marilyn looked alarmed. "Are you a nut or something? I have no intension of killing myself tonight or any other night, now if you don't leave right now, sweetie, I'm going to have to call for help," Marilyn said, slamming the script down on top of the others.

"No, please Miss Monroe; I can prove it to you if you just give me a chance. I know everything about you. Your favorite flowers are delphiniums and roses. Your favorite drink is Dom Perignon, 1953. Your favorite perfume is Chanel No. 5. Your favorite restaurant is Romanoff's. Your favorite colors are beige, black, white, and red, in that order."

"OK, I get the idea, sweetie, you're a fan, but most fans don't come wandering onto my property and..."

Claire cut her off. "I know this sounds completely nuts but if you'll just let me show you what I have in my purse, it will prove what I've been saying."

"HELP! Someone come quick, there's a nut back here!" Marilyn screamed, fearing for her life when she saw Claire reach into her purse. The moment Claire had been waiting for all this time was ruined. The Marilyn Monroe persona was gone once again and fear took over as Marilyn jumped out of her seat, screaming louder and louder.

"No, wait, it's just a magazine, I just wanted to show you a magazine!" Claire yelled, pulling a Life Magazine out of her purse. "See, it's just a magazine, I would never hurt you." Claire's face went white; she knew she had made a horrible mistake that could have affected the timeline in a negative way. She decided to take off before anyone else saw her. "Please listen to what I said; please don't hurt yourself, please!" Claire desperately screamed as she was running away. She could see the sunroom door opening as she ran around the side of the house. She could also see that Marilyn was watching her in confusion. She took off down the driveway and out onto the sidewalk of Fifth Helena Drive. There was a wooded area at the end of the street and Claire ducked into it, breathing heavily. "Oh, my God, what did I do?" she thought.

"Marilyn, are you alright?" Pat exclaimed as she came flying out of the sunroom with Eunice and Norman on her tail.

"Yes, I'm fine, sorry to frighten you. There was a fan back here and I thought she was a nut, but it just turned out she wanted an autograph, I guess." Marilyn looked confused and was staring off in the direction Claire left in.

"Do you want me to call the police, Miss Monroe?" Eunice asked.

"No, that won't be necessary, Eunice. I think she was harmless."

"Just the same, I will go out and make sure all of the gates are locked." Eunice and Norman went back into the sunroom and out the front door to secure the gates.

"So what was that really about?" Pat asked skeptically.

"It was just a fan, Pat. It was nothing really, I over-reacted."

All was quiet for the next hour as Claire sat under a tree and snacked on a granola bar, berating herself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, you're supposed to convince her NOT to kill herself, not make yourself a suspect in her death, you moron." She kept watching the road waiting to see police cars. None ever showed up. She figured if a big star like Marilyn Monroe called the police they would surely show up quickly, but she was going to wait a while longer just to be safe. She could hear the seconds of her arm timer ticking away, wasting precious minutes. After another precious half-hour went by, Claire saw a car coming down the road. It stopped in front of Marilyn's house and honked twice. Eunice came running out of the house to open the driveway gate.

"Fine, if she doesn't want to listen to me, I'll just keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn't hurt herself," Claire said to herself.

# 

# Chapter 7 - Marilyn & Bobby

Claire snuck through Marilyn's neighbor's backyard and around the side up to Marilyn's gate once again. She used the neighbor's patio chair to help her climb Marilyn's wall. "I'm too fat to play 007," she whispered to herself. She dropped from the wall with a thud and snuck off to eavesdrop once again. She stayed as far to the side as she could, ducking behind the parked car and dashing into the side yard and around to the back. She was more cautious this time, pausing at every window making sure no one saw her. She finally reached the back window where she could see what was happening in the living room.

Two very dapper looking men were sitting on the living room couch and Marilyn was sitting on a chair. Claire could see a beautiful white Maltese lying on the floor next to Marilyn. Claire figured this must be Maf Honey, the dog Frank Sinatra had given Marilyn years before. Marilyn looked very intense, but Claire could not see the men's faces because they had their backs to her. Eunice walked in with a tray of what looked like tea and snacks.

"Forget it, Eunice, they don't deserve our hospitality, just take it away," Marilyn had her movie star persona again, but this time it had an edge as if she were very angry.

"It doesn't have to be this way, Marilyn," the taller of the two men said as he stood up and waved for the other man to do the same. "You've been through this."

"Oh, I've been through it" Marilyn interrupted. "I've been through it with his brother," she said, pointing to the shorter of the two men. "And now I've been through it with him." Marilyn turned to address the shorter man. "I am not something you can just use, pass around, and discard at your convenience, Mr. Attorney General," Marilyn said, waving her index finger around. "Oh my god," Claire thought, "this is Bobby Kennedy."

"Marilyn, there's not need to raise your voice," the man replied in an unmistakable voice that could only be described as a Kennedy dialect. "Just calm down and be quiet, sweetheart."

"I will not be quiet!" Marilyn shouted. "In fact, I'm going to do just the opposite, Bobby"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bobby turned to intercept Marilyn as she moved toward a table in the corner of the room. Claire could see his profile now. It was indeed Bobby Kennedy. "What are you doing?" Bobby asked her.

"What I should have done a long time ago," was her short, sharp reply. "You see this?" Marilyn asked, holding up a small book that she took out of the drawer in the table. It was a red checked diary with a small padlock attached. "This is my diary," Marilyn said, holding the fiery book in the air. Both men were now at her side, along with Maf who was now poised to strike at them if they came one step closer to his owner.

Claire thought the other man must be Peter Lawford, Bobby's brother-in-law, who reportedly often arranged liaisons between the Kennedy brothers and their paramours. Both men had shocked expressions on their faces. "Guess what I'm going to do with it?" Marilyn smirked as she waved the apple red book in their faces. "I'm going to tell all. That's right, everything I know. It's all here. I've been keeping a record and I'm going to share it with the world." A tear streamed down Marilyn's cheek and she quickly wiped it away, still clutching the book.

"Like hell you are." Bobby said as he lurched toward her, grabbing her by the arm. The two struggled for what seemed like quite a few minutes to Claire. Maf was barking and biting at Bobby's pant cuff. In the end, Bobby came out with the book and a slight smirk on his face.

"There's no need to be angry, my dear, these things just happen sometimes," Bobby said, taking a step back and smoothing his hair. Marilyn was furious. Claire wondered why she didn't call for help from Eunice, Pat or the handyman in the kitchen. Both men started heading for the door as Bobby shooed Maf off his leg. The dog ran to his mistress' side, still barking.

"Go ahead and leave," Marilyn said with a scoff. "Do you think I'm stupid or something? That's not my only diary. And besides, it's all here in my head. I don't need a journal to tell all that I know. I've got it all right here," she said, pointing to her head. Even angry and disheveled she was beautiful, Claire thought.

Another tear streamed down Marilyn's face while Bobby's expression turned to one of sympathy and he crossed back to Marilyn's side. He wiped the tear gently from her cheek and said, "Come on, Marilyn, let's be civil about this. Come to the dinner party tonight for old times' sake. We'll have a good time just like we used to, you'll see." Bobby rubbed her arm, warmly.

The other man jumped in, "Besides, it's not wise not make threats on the Attorney General of the United States," Peter warned.

"Christ, Pete," Bobby rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Upon hearing Peter's warning, Marilyn jerked her arm out of Bobby's hand. "What's he going to do about, huh?" she said to Peter, and then turned to Bobby who was crossing back over toward his brother-in-law. "What are you going to do, Bobby? Send me to my room? You just wait, you'll be sorry. You and your brother will both be sorry." Marilyn managed a smirk of her own. "Now, GET OUT!" She reached for a vase on the table next to her in a violent motion, but the two men were already halfway out the door. She placed the vase back to its normal position on the table and looked down at Maf.

"Did those bad men scare you, Honey, did they? Don't you worry, you'll never have to see them again, baby. Never." The men slammed the door and Marilyn pulled Maf up to her mouth and made kissing noises as he licked her face, just as Claire had done with Chekov. Marilyn then put the dog on the floor and pat him on the head.

Marilyn walked over to the couch and took a seat next to the telephone. She picked it up and dialed. "Hello Sarah, may I speak to Dr. Greenson, please?" The sweetness had returned to her voice and there was a pause before she said, "thank you." Another brief pause preambled her plea: "Dr. Greenson, something dreadful has happened; can you please come over?" Her final words before she hung up were once again, "thank you."

Chapter 8 - Marilyn's Last Day

Marilyn paced and fidgeted for the next half hour. She would occasionally whisper something to herself. Claire caught things like, "He has some nerve," and, "I'll show him." Still visibly angry, she would cross her arms, pet her dog and pace continuously. At one point, Eunice entered the room asking Marilyn if she would like help getting ready for the dinner party.

"There won't be any dinner party this evening, Eunice. Mr. Lawford has UN-invited me. Tell Pat she has to go alone." She began saying things under her breath again. Eunice must have sensed that her presence was no longer required and began to head back to the kitchen. Marilyn stopped ranting and said, "Dr. Greenson is coming for a session; please see to it that we're not disturbed." Eunice nodded in agreement and went back into the dining room, which led to the kitchen.

Finally, another vehicle pulled up. Bobby and Peter must have left the gate open because the car came to a stop right outside the door. Marilyn went to greet her guest. It was almost five thirty and Claire was worried that time was running out. Still distraught, Marilyn and Dr. Greenson sat on the couch side by side. Marilyn proceeded to tell him the whole story of Bobby's visit. Marilyn was angry with Bobby and Peter both. She didn't go into any detail about why the men had been there, but it appeared Dr. Greenson already knew.

The session went on for almost an hour and a half. In the middle of the session, the phone rang and Dr. Greenson picked it up before Marilyn had a chance to tell him Eunice would take care of it. It was a man named Ralph Roberts. The doctor told him Marilyn was busy and took a message. Then, Dr. Greenson gave her a shot. He said it would help her relax and then he ordered her to get some sleep. "Later, if you're feeling better, Eunice can take you for a nice drive to the beach, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" he asked, rather condescendingly as he put the syringe back in his bag.

"That sounds nice," Marilyn replied in a sleepy voice.

"Alright, let's get you off to bed then." The doctor had to help her off the couch and into the bedroom. Claire rushed around the back and over to the side so she could look into Marilyn's bedroom window. The doctor laid Marilyn on the bed; she was very groggy and didn't speak. He went back out into the living room. Claire could hear him talking to Eunice, but she could not understand what they were saying. She figured Eunice must have been listening at the door in order to have known that the session was over.

At 7:30, the phone rang. It was Joe DiMaggio Jr. He and Marilyn became close when she was married to his father and they spoke often. Marilyn seemed in good spirits. At one point she got wide eyed and said, "You mean you're not going to marry Pam?" There were long pauses and things like, "Really?" and, "Oh, that's wonderful," were said. From what Claire could make out, Marilyn was happy Joe Jr. broke off his engagement with a girl she was obviously not fond of. More phone calls were made that night. The first was to Dr. Greenson telling him how she felt better, but could not find her Nembutal pills. Another was made to Mrs. Lawford telling her she would not be able to attend the dinner party. She also phoned her friend Jeanne Carmen. Marilyn was asking Jeanne if she had any sleeping pills because she said she was all out. Jeane apparently did not have any to give her.

Around 8 p.m., Marilyn yelled for Eunice and told her she decided not to take that drive to the beach after all, she just wanted to go to bed. Pat then walked in to tell Marilyn good-night. "Are you sure you don't want to go?" Pat asked. Marilyn nodded and Pat was on her way to the Lawford's.

An hour later, Marilyn phoned Henry Rosenfeld. They were apparently planning a theater party in September and they discussed some of the details. This made Claire happy, after all someone who is considering suicide isn't going to get on the phone and discuss future plans.

At 9:30 the phone was buzzing again. Claire thought Marilyn must have been the busiest person on the party line. This time someone named Jose was on the other end. Marilyn was talking in a hushed voice and Claire couldn't make out much that was said.

When their conversation had ended, Marilyn clicked the receiver button with her finger, and dialed Ralph Roberts, returning his call from earlier that day. She must have been told he was out because she left a message. That was the last call of the night. Marilyn laid on her bed and read a book for about another hour, then drifted off to sleep. Claire studied the scene.

Marilyn was clothed; there was no glass of water by her bed and only a few pill bottles. Claire took this as a good sign. Nothing was like it was in Claire's timeline when Marilyn died. Coroner's photos showed many bottles of pills next to a glass of water. And, of course, Marilyn was found in the nude.

It was approaching midnight and Claire's timer was running down. She felt good about what she'd done. She was smiling to herself thinking how she single handedly saved one of the greatest legends of our time. Then her thoughts turned to Auggie. "Boy he's going to be mad," she thought. "But wait a minute, if the timeline was changed then Auggie would be none the wiser, right? She began to think she wouldn't have to tell Auggie at all. Her thoughts were suddenly preempted by a rustling sound in the bushes a few feet away. Claire kept very still. She felt victorious and she didn't want to screw it up.

When she heard another noise, Claire started to panic and stood up to face whatever was out there. She started walking toward, but when it got louder, she began to run toward it. She suddenly ran right into a man. Claire shrieked quietly as did the man. He was staring wildly at her. She noticed he was wearing all black and carrying some sort of black bag. Then her eyes focused on his black gloves. The two fumbled a little, but when Claire saw the look of surprise on the man's face she knew she had stumbled into trouble. Before she could say a word, the guy got spooked and ran off toward the road. Realizing he must be a hitman, Claire ran in the opposite direction to check on Marilyn.

The man turned to look for Claire, not noticing the car headed right toward him. The car slammed into him, throwing him to the pavement. Claire peered through Marilyn's window; she was still sleeping on the bed. What she didn't notice was that her timer had run out. Suddenly she was back in the den.

Auggie was standing there with a huge smile on his face. His smile quickly turned into a frown when he saw the look on Claire's face. "What's wrong, Claire?" he said, almost with a shout. Claire was thrust back into her old world with a start. She tried to calm down. Back in the past, Marilyn and Eunice were out on their front porch talking to police about the car accident. Finally noticing Auggie's concern, Claire put his mind at ease.

"I'm sorry, nothing's wrong. The trip back just startled me, that's all. I didn't realize my time was up. I didn't mean to frighten you." Auggie let out a sign of relief at Claire's lie.

"So what was it like?" Auggie asked, excitedly. "I want to hear all about it!" The excitement had returned to his face as he cracked open a bottle of champagne. Claire proceeded to spin a yarn as big as Texas. She skimmed past her near miss with her grandparents like it was no big deal. Everything past that point was complete bunk. Auggie listened in fascination and Claire felt guilty every time she looked into his wide eyes. She wanted badly to ask him about Marilyn Monroe, but she knew it would make him suspicious. Eventually both grew tired and headed up to bed.

Chapter 9 - Present Tense

While Auggie was sleeping, Claire went downstairs to check out the Internet. She snuck down the steps and tried to muffle the sounds of her computer booting up. She went to Google and typed in 'MARILYN MONROE.' As usual, that topic brought up thousands of hits. She noticed sites like, Marilyn Monroe: Home Wrecker, From Glamour to Scandal, and Marilyn: The Lady is a Tramp. They seemed a bit harsh, but Claire passed them over for, The Rise and Fall of Marilyn Monroe. "Fall?" she thought to herself. "What do they mean by fall?"

Claire clicked on the site and several photos popped up. She read about Marilyn's history from her first film to her last. That's when Claire noticed that Marilyn's last film was "The Misfits," just as it had been in the previous timeline. Her face suddenly ran red as she feared she wasn't successful after all. She scanned the page for a death date but found none. She was utterly confused at this point and decided to read on. She clicked on Web site after Web site, searching for as much information as she could find.

She found a site called The Life and Times of Marilyn Monroe and began reading about a car accident...a hitman...shock and dismay....the mafia...the Kennedy's....the scandal. Claire couldn't believe her eyes. The man she ran into that night in the past was a hitman named Tony Piccelli. He named the Kennedy brothers as his bosses. The Kennedy's denied the accusation, saying it must have been a ploy by the mob to soil the Kennedy name and get the Attorney General off of their backs. Regardless of who did it, Marilyn, obviously feeling betrayed, spilled the beans about both sorted affairs with the Kennedy brothers. She gave a tell-all interview to Life Magazine and the press went wild.

Jack Kennedy resigned the presidency. Resigned? Claire thought, suddenly feeling a cold chill down her spine. She didn't expect her actions to have such far reaching consequences. "But wait, if he resigned, does that mean he wasn't assassinated?" Claire thought. She continued reading.

Bobby was disgraced and stepped down at the same time. "Does this mean he never ran for president"? Claire thought. Because if he never ran for president then he was probably never assassinated either. Claire's mood took a 180 turn. She was suddenly beginning to feel like she fixed the world. Eunice and Jackie Kennedy got divorces and took the men for half of their fortunes. "Serves them right," Claire thought.

But then Claire found her way to the dark side of the story. Her precious Marilyn was disgraced. People shunned her as a whore and she never worked in show business again. Claire paused at that, just staring at the screen. "My God, what did I do?" she thought. "Well, Marilyn didn't work again, but she lived, that's something, right? She kept going. Jack Kennedy died in 1963, a month after his November divorce and resignation. He was found on his bed with a single gunshot wound to the head. "How can that be?!" Claire accidentally said out loud. She whipped her hand over her mouth and looked around the room. She sat as still as a statue for the next few minutes to make sure that she hadn't woken up Auggie. When she was confident that he hadn't heard her exclamation, she read on.

Investigators believed Jack's wound was self-inflicted, but the crime scene had been tampered with, so the investigation remained opened even now. Claire was saddened by this revelation. She tried to convince herself that a month longer on this earth outweighed the tragic way in which he died. "His life was tragic the first time around," Claire rationalized in her mind.

She continued her quest for information. It turned out that Bobby Kennedy was killed in 1970 in a mysterious shooting involving alleged mafia members. Claire rationalized in her mind once again, "Well, he got to live two more years, though, that's something, right?" She was growing more and more skeptical that she had done the right thing.

Claire went over these events and justifications in her mind, but she kept coming back to the same conclusion. Marilyn, Jack and Bobby Kennedy all lived longer than they had originally in Claire's timeline, "so what was the harm?" she thought. Claire continued scouring the Net for more information. She read the same accounts over and over again. Marilyn's fall from grace, and the Kennedy brothers' deaths. Finally she came across a site that said that Marilyn Monroe was still alive and living in reclusion in Los Angeles. "Oh my God, she's still alive," Claire said again accidentally out loud. This time she didn't care if Auggie heard her or not.

Marilyn was still alive which means that Claire still had hope that perhaps she did the right thing by going back in time. She decided right there and then that she had to speak to Marilyn again. Claire needed some assurance that someone appreciated what she did. She wasn't sure what she was going to tell Auggie, but she would worry about that tomorrow. For now, Claire shut down her computer and back to bed with conflicting emotions swirling inside, and making her sick to her stomach.

The next day, Auggie had a million more questions. "Did it hurt?" "Was there a jerking motion?" "Who did you see?" "Where did you go?" Claire made up more stories to keep her eager husband happy. He was pleased with himself and his invention and Claire didn't want to do anything to spoil his celebration.

Auggie walked around all day trying to pick the proper name for the device. Auggie's Time Machine, Time Warps by Auggie, and The Augginator, were all sillier than the first. Auggie was like a child who had just rode his first bicycle by himself without the training wheels. "When can I train you to use the controls so I can go back?" was his next question.

"I--I don't know. I don't know if I would be comfortable having your life in my hands, Auggie," was Claire's honest reply. After seeing how she had changed the timeline so much when all she intended to do was save one life, Claire was hesitant for anyone to go back again. Auggie seemed suspicious of her inhibitions, but nothing further was said about it.

Over the next week, every chance Claire got, she researched Marilyn on the web, in libraries and bookstores. She wanted to know all she could before she paid Marilyn a visit. Claire read one scathing account after the other. The Marilyn Monroe she knew and loved was covered up by the horrible scandal. A scandal that Claire helped create. "No, no I didn't make it," she would convince herself. "Marilyn did that all on her own. It's not my fault she chose to name names," Claire rationalized. But it was getting harder and harder to reassure herself.

Claire was at the bookstore looking through a book titled, Marilyn Monroe and Other Scandalous Women of Our Time, when a curious onlooker started up a conversation. "Awful, isn't it?" said the woman.

Taken aback, Claire replied, "oh, yes."

The woman was older than Claire, perhaps in her fifties. She had salt and pepper hair and was carrying a huge straw purse. The dress she was wearing had the most awful flower pattern Claire had every seen. The woman looked at Claire over small reading glasses.

"That woman took down the entire Kennedy family in one fail swoop," she said.

"I guess so. She's kind of the Monica Lewinsky of the sixties I suppose," Claire chimed in.

"The who?" the woman looked confused.

"Monica Lewinsky," Claire repeated. Seeing that the woman still looked confused, Claire added, "You know . . . President Clinton's mistress?"

This time the woman looked at her like she had two heads. She began laughing. Claire furrowed her brow and asked, "What's so funny?"

"I'm quite sure we've never had a president named Clinton, Sweetie." With that, the lady turned around and decided to move on to more sane people to converse with.

Claire was frozen. "We never had a President Clinton? How can that be? How could saving Marilyn have changed so much?" she thought to herself, feeling desperate. "Impossible," Claire said out loud, trying to reassure herself.

Still bewildered, she decided to look for American History books. She browsed isle after isle of books like The Kennedys: America's Disgrace, and Kennedy, Portrait of a Broken Man. She finally decided on a book called The 1960s. She purchased the book and brought it home to study.

Auggie showed slight concern for Claire's new interest in history, but he was too busy coming up with marketing schemes and public relations operations to really take an active interest. He thought it was just curiosity after having seen part of the decade that Claire never lived in up close. Most nights, he locked himself in the lab.

Claire had never been a veracious reader, but she swept through The 1960s like a tornado. Her face fell stark white as she read through the chapter on 1962. Lyndon Johnson didn't handle the Cuban Missile Crisis with the same cool, collected patience that Kennedy had in Claire's timeline. On the contrary, he panicked. On October 20, 1962 the United States launched massive air strikes against missile instillations in Cuba. Khrushchev responded by attacking Florida. After seeing the destruction in Havana and Miami, the entire world was calling on the two leaders to bring the conflict to an end or risk launching World War III. The U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of La Paz on October 29, 1962 and war was averted, but not before hundreds of thousands of civilian lives were lost.

In the mid 1960s we got out of Vietnam almost as quickly as we got in it. "This has to be a good thing," Claire thought, because so many lives were saved. President Nixon defeated Johnson in 1964 and under the leadership of General Westmoreland, the Vietnam conflict ended before the outset of the 1960s. The only problem was that, in this timeline, tactical nukes were used. The President wanted to see what the USSR and Chinese reaction would be. It wasn't good. A little town in West Germany was wiped off the map in retaliation. The Cold War was bigger and stronger than it ever had been in the old timeline.

The turmoil didn't end there. Without help from the Kennedys, the civil rights movement stymied. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, there were no others to take up where he left off. The civil rights movement would take an additional decade to come to fruition. Without Bobby Kennedy to take on the mob, their territories increased and opposition decreased. Ted Kennedy never became a senator and Mary Jo Kopechne never went to Chappaquiddick because she was never a member of the Bobby Kennedy for President Campaign staff. "Well," Claire thought, "there are two definite pluses."

Then she saw 1969. "Russia lands on the moon," a subtitle read. "We never landed on the moon?" Claire was astounded. "Of course, that was Jack Kennedy's dream." Our nation wasn't in a hurry to follow through on the dream of a disgraced man. The result? The Soviets beat us to it. The Soviets beat us to a lot. "Everything changed," Claire thought. Even music was different. Without an extended conflict in Vietnam, folk music never dominated the music scene. The Beatles wrote sappy love songs and The Who never broke a thing on stage. The once turbulent 60s from Claire's timeline were a relatively tame decade in this timeline. In fact, the most notable event besides nuclear weapons was the fall of the Kennedy family.

The final chapter of The 1960s had a brief synopsis on how the events of the 1960s affected the proceeding decades. Claire found out that although thousands of lives were saved in Vietnam, tens of thousands were lost in the 1980s in the Saudi-Iraqi War. OPEC tried to strong arm President Reagan into increasing petroleum prices to an all time high. Rather than roll over, Reagan went to war. The Saudi-Iraqi War was now more like Vietnam than Vietnam was. Thousands flocked to Canada to avoid the draft. Claire kept going over the facts in her mind, especially about the Saudi-Iraqi War. How could her actions have led to an entire war? She was grief-stricken. She felt sick to her stomach and thought she might pass out.

But even with that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and all of the knowledge Claire was gaining, she was still convinced she did the right thing. She saved a life. Was it her fault that saving a life turned out to have such huge consequences? Who's to say all of these changes weren't for the better? Who's to say the current timeline wasn't how it was supposed to be all along? "Perhaps Marilyn should have a say herself," Claire thought. She was ready to meet her idol face to face.

Chapter 10 - Claire & Marilyn Meet Again

Claire decided the only way to put her mind at ease was to visit the woman whose life she saved. Claire discovered Marilyn was living in a trailer park in Los Angeles. "A trailer park?" Claire thought as she retrieved a map from the internet and hid it under the printer. She knew what she had to do.

After telling Auggie she had some errands to run, Claire grabbed the map and the purse that she had brought with her on her time traveling trip and set out on her journey. She also brought a tape recorder, a pen and a notebook. Her hands were cold and clammy and she was shaking as she headed to her car.

Claire drove around in circles looking for the address on Nadeau Street near Roosevelt Park. By the time she arrived at Gulliver's Trailer Park, she had barely remembered how she even got there. Palm trees and houses with rocks for a front yard spun by her quickly, like blurred lines. When she entered the park, she saw row after row of mobile homes, not the nice modular kind either. This place was a dump. Filthy children were running through the streets while their parents sat on their front porches smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap beer. Each one stared at Claire as if they knew she didn't belong there.

Claire finally found Peach Grove Lane. Now all she had to do was find #225. Turning the corner, she noticed one trailer that was particularly run down. It was white with light blue trim that had obviously not been cared for in many years. The paint was peeling off the siding and one of the shutters was hanging off of its hinges. Claire noticed someone had spray-painted the word slut on the side of the trailer in bright red letters. Just above the moniker, Claire saw the number 225.

Claire was in disbelief. "How can this be the place?" she said out loud. "Marilyn Monroe couldn't possibly live in squalor like this," she thought. "Maybe she hasn't worked in Hollywood since the 60s but surely she managed to save some money. Any money." This wasn't what Claire pictured for her idol at all.

She pulled into the parking area next to a worn old Ford pick-up truck. It looked like it may have been a nice truck in its day, but now it was just a rusted pile of metal with chipping paint, a rusted out bed and missing hubcaps. As Claire passed by, she could see the interior was just as sad.

Claire slowly walked up to the trailer door. There was no porch or patio, just a set of rickety aluminum steps. Claire stepped up to the first step and knocked, quietly at first, then louder. She could hear a television on in the background, but no one seemed to stir inside.

Claire knocked a second and third time, hoping beyond hope that Marilyn was just napping inside. Still there was no answer. Just as she turned to leave, she heard a voice shouting at her. "What do you want?!" The voice was female, but it was old and burly, not at all like Claire's idol.

"Miss Monroe?" Claire managed to say sheepishly.

"My name is Ms. Norma Mortensen and I'll thank you to take your leave of these premises before I call the police, young lady" was snapped in return.

"No, wait, please Ms. Mo-uh-Mortensen. Please wait. I just want to talk to you."

"NO REPORTERS!" Came billowing from the nearest wind-out window. "Get the hell off my property before I get my gun!"

Claire was taken aback by Marilyn's hostility toward her. She thought if she could just come inside and talk to her that Marilyn would understand that Claire meant no harm. If she could just tell her what happened, Marilyn would understand and thank her for her heroic deed. "Tell her"? Claire thought, "Wait, I could never tell her." Marilyn would think she was a nut.

Claire's thoughts were interrupted by the very distinct sound of a gun being cocked. "Ms. Mortensen!" Claire screamed, sounding a little more anxious than she intended. Surely Marilyn wouldn't shoot her for no good reason, Claire tried to reassure herself. "Ms. Mortensen, I'm not a reporter, I'm a fan. I just want to talk to you. Please?"

"A fan?" Marilyn began laughing, but that led to tremendous coughing, the kind that normally ends with the sucking out of a thick hocker. When the coughing stopped, Marilyn continued. "Nice try, hotshot. I have no fans. Now you've got ten seconds before I..."

"NO! Wait! Please, I've come a long way," Claire thought for a moment. "Farther than you'll ever know. Really, I'm a fan." Claire was beginning to get desperate; she knew she had to prove her loyalty. She found herself remembering the past trip. "No, please Miss Mortensen, I can prove it to you if you just give me a chance. I know everything about you."

"Sure you do kid."

"No, really" Claire began to speak more quickly to avoid interruption. "Your favorite flowers are delphiniums and roses. Your favorite drink is Dom Perignon 1953. Your favorite perfume is Chanel No. 5. Your favorite restaurant is Romanoff's. Your favorite colors are beige, black, white, and red in that order."

Claire heard a rustling in the curtains. She could see the silhouette of a woman looking out at her before she was interrupted. "Kid I don't like flowers, I haven't been able to afford Dom Perignon, Chanel Number 5 or Romanoff's in over thirty years, and the only color I see anymore is gray. Everything is gray from the sky to my hair, so don't go talking to me about color."

"Miss Mo-uh-Mortensen...Mortensen, sorry, Ms. Mortensen, I swear I'm telling the truth. You were born on June 1st, 1926. Your first movie was Dangerous Years, in 1947, you played Evie. Your next five films were bit parts in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!, Ladies of the Chorus, Love Happy, and A Ticket to Tomahawk. Your first big break came in 1950 when you played Angela in The Asphalt Jungle and Claudia in All About Eve. You were in eleven more movies after that, but it wasn't until you played Rose in Niagra in 1953 that your career really took off."

"Now listen kid," Marilyn said. Her voice sounded softer somehow.

Claire cut off Marilyn in the hopes of convincing Marilyn of her sincerity. "Then you starred in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire, River of No Return, There's No Business Like Show Business, The Seven Year Itch, Bus Stop, The Prince and the Showgirl, and then my favorite, Some Like it Hot," Claire said, counting the films off on her fingers. Then she took a big breath and continued, "And there was Let's Make Love, Something's Got to Give and The Misfits." Claire stopped as the front door started to open.

Some Like It Hot was your favorite, eh?" came from behind the screen door.

"Yes, ma'am, that's my all time favorite. You were simply divine." Claire was hoping flattery would get her everywhere.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, kid," Marilyn snapped.

"But it's true, Ms. Mortensen. All of it. I only want to talk to you for a few minutes. If you want me to go after you've heard what I have to say, I will. Please just give me a minute of your time." Marilyn stood and stared at Claire from behind the screen door. Claire was saddened by the silhouette of the aging beauty.

"Hell, all I got is time, Sugar," Marilyn conceded, "come on in." Marilyn opened the screen door for Claire. "But if I see a tape recorder, I'm shooting first and asking questions later," she warned. Claire made sure her tape recorder was tucked safely in her purse and proceeded toward the door as she heard the sound of several locks being unlocked.

Then she heard a man's voice shouting, "Don't go in there! The devil lives behind those walls!" Claire could tell the shouting was coming from across the street.

"Shut the hell up, you old psycho!" Marilyn shouted back as she stepped out to hold the door for Claire. "Mind your own Goddamned business you limp-peckered old jackass!" Claire stole a glance at the old man sitting on his porch across the way. He looked to be in his seventies, with snow white hair and short white stubble on his face. He was wearing a blue-checked bathrobe and by the crazed look on his face, Claire guessed he had nothing on underneath. She quickly turned and entered the decrepit trailer home.

It was like stepping back into the 70s. The carpet was a light shade of lime green shag. It was littered with stains and what looked like burn marks. The air was thick with the smell of booze and cigarettes. The couch was brown-checked and it had a matching chair that was just as grotesque. The end tables were tacky, plywood construction and the coffee table had at least a dozen cigarette burns in it. Claire took her eyes off the decor long enough to catch a glimpse of her idol.

Standing before her was an old woman wearing blue polyester pants and a white cotton pull over blouse. Her shoes were plain white sneakers that looked like they hadn't been washed in decades. Marilyn's hair was completely gray and unkempt. It was the same length it had been in the last photos Claire saw of Marilyn. She had on no make up and the lovely beauty mark that had once graced Marilyn's face was now a huge mole with hair growing out of it.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer." Marilyn snapped.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"To what? STARE? Of course you did. They all do. I know I'm not the looker I used to be. I'm a pathetic excuse for a woman anymore, kid. I know I'm hideous."

"Not hideous, just different than I remember you." Claire tried to defend herself.

"Whatever kid, you want something to drink? I got Vodka or Vodka or tap water or Vodka, what'll it be?"

"I'm fine, thank you," Claire tried to be polite. Marilyn started walking toward the kitchen. A painful-looking limp replaced the seductive shimmy Marilyn used to perfect by sawing off half an inch of the heel on just one shoe. Just then Claire noticed the dining area. It was an old torn up table with mismatched chairs, all from different sets, it appeared. The table was covered with old take out packages, three ashtrays and several empty Vodka bottles.

"Let me clear you a spot, kid," Marilyn said as she swept the take-out packages onto the floor. She also accidentally knocked one of the ashtrays to the floor, spilling its entire contents all over the carpet. She didn't seem to notice, or if she did, she just didn't care because she went on with what she was saying. "Well I'm going to have something to drink if you don't mind, and you better not, or this conversation is over."

"I don't mind" was Claire's obvious reply.

"That's what I thought." Marilyn knew she had the upper hand and she liked it. She knew she probably could have made Claire bark like a dog if she wanted. "So what brings you to my humble abode, kid?" she continued as she poured a glass of Vodka.

"Well, Ms. Mortensen, it's hard to explain." Claire knew her yarn would be hard to swallow. "Uh, do you believe in time travel?" Claire asked hesitantly.

"Do I what?" Marilyn looked annoyed as she took another swig of Vodka. "You came knocking on my door, interrupting my busy day to talk to me about science fiction? You a screenwriter or something? Want me to act in some terrible B-movie, do ya? Well you can just forget it, Missy! Norma Mortensen ain't no Marilyn Monroe, kid. Hollywood is over and so is this conversation."

"Wait, Ms. Mortensen, that's not what I meant at all." Claire could tell Marilyn was seconds away from shooing her out of the door. "Look, this is going to sound crazy but I can travel through time and I have proof to back it up."

"Stop right there, sister, are you off your rocker or something?" Marilyn stopped in mid-sip to stare at this increasingly odd stranger that had shown up on her doorstep. "Listen, I was 80-years-old when I stopped counting, so I've been around the block a few times, sweetie. I'm not going to sit here and listen to some sci-fi bullshit from some snot-nosed psychopath. Did I mention I've got a gun?"

"Ms. Mortensen, please just give me a minute to prove what I'm saying."

"Prove what? That you're psychotic?" Marilyn had obviously passed the point of understanding and began to stand up. Claire was losing her battle.

"No, please Ms. Mortensen, I can show you proof, I swear, I just need to prepare for it, and it may be a shock to your system."

"Wait a minute, sister, are you some kind of nut job looking for a lock of my hair or a pint of blood or something, because believe me I ain't no timid flower. I can take..."

"No, please Ms. Mortensen, please..." Claire had to pull out the big guns. "Don't I look at all familiar to you, Ms. Mortensen?"

"Yeah didn't I see you on the FBI's Most Wanted list at the Post Office?" Marilyn laughed rather alarmingly, still standing at the ready.

"Please Ms. Mortensen, take a good look at me. We've met before," Claire hesitated, "in 1962."

"1962? Now I know you're crazy, kid, you weren't even born in 1962, were ya now?"

"Not in this timeline, no." Claire was flustered but determined. "I mean, oh Ms. Mortensen, I know it sounds crazy but my husband made a time machine and I went back in time to 1962 to warn you." Marilyn spit a mouthful of vodka in Claire's face.

"Your husband built a time machine, did he?" She asked patronizingly as Claire wiped her face. "Traveled back in time, did ya? Yeah right, sweetie, o.k." She began to back away and moved her right hand behind her back.

"I know it sounds nuts, Ms. Mortensen, but it's all true." Claire was still fighting to be taken seriously. "I've idolized you all my life and I just had to go back and warn you..."

"Warn me, you keep saying that, warn me of what exactly?" Marilyn had reached her kitchen drawers. She began to open one behind her back and rifle through it, all the while not taking her eyes off of Claire.

Seeing what her idol was doing, Claire suspected she was reaching for a gun. "Please, Ms. Mortensen, take a good look at me." Claire stood up and held the chandelier light up to her face. "Please, look at me, we've met before, I swear it." Just then, Marilyn dropped something out of her right hand. A revolver hit the kitchen floor with a thud.

"Oh my God, you do remind me of someone," Marilyn said, suddenly shocked. She glanced down at the gun and then back up at Claire, who did the same. Marilyn reached for the gun and Claire threw her arms up and closed her eyes, letting go of the light, which swung back toward the kitchen, eventually slowing to an even circle.

"Please Ms. Mortensen, don't shoot me!" Claire was desperate.

"Relax, kid." Marilyn said as she picked the gun up and put it back into the drawer. She exchanged it for a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and a lighter. She then turned back around, sat back at the table and lit a cigarette. Claire slowly opened her eyes and put her hands down. She stared Marilyn directly in the eye.

"You do recognize me, don't you?"

"You look like someone who came to my house the night of the accident. She was a nut or something." Marilyn's eyes were widening. "You win, kid, I'm listening," she said, exhaling.

"Thank you, Ms. Mortensen." Claire's heart returned to a normal beat and she sat down across from her idol. "That was me at your house in 1962."

"But how, kid?" Marilyn was stunned.

"Just like I said before, I went back in time."

"You haven't aged a day." Marilyn was still in awe.

"Actually it was a week ago, my time." Claire was more relaxed now, but she knew she had to prepare Marilyn for the entire story. "Ms. Mortensen, I grew up a huge fan of yours, that is, of Marilyn Monroe." Marilyn sat and stared in silence as Claire continued. "This isn't easy to say."

"It ain't easy to hear, either, kid, believe me. Just spit it out. If it gets any wilder, I can just blame it on the Vodka later."

"In my timeline, Ms. Mortensen, Marilyn Monroe was a huge star. She was the woman that every woman wanted to be."

"Well I was that in my own time, sweetie, it just didn't last long." She took another long draw on her cigarette.

"I know, but in my time you were the absolute queen of sexy. You were idolized, not only by the women of your time in the 50s and 60s, but by every decade that followed. Marilyn was a Hollywood legend."

"Well that's nice of you to say, kid, but legends are generally dead." Marilyn managed an awkward laugh. Claire's eyes got big. They stared at each other in silence for what seemed like five minutes. "What are you trying to tell me, kid? What? That I died?"

"Maybe this isn't a good idea." Claire feared she was doing the wrong thing.

"Oh, no you don't, kid. You started this yarn, you're gonna finish it. Continue."

Claire hesitated and then continued. "In my timeline, you died on that night in 1962. That's why I was there, to warn you about it."

"Tony Piccelli."

"Exactly." Noticing the shock on Marilyn's face, Claire asked; "Are you sure you want to hear this, Ms. Mortensen?"

"Keep going, kid." She said without breaking her stunned stare.

"Well, it was a big scandal. The authorities ruled it a suicide."

"Suicide? That bastard was going to kill me!" Marilyn was more at ease with the situation. She hung on Claire's every word.

"Tony Piccelli didn't exist in my timeline. At least, he wasn't discovered. They ruled it a suicide, but there were countless rumors about the Kennedys and the mob. Some said it was an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. They were still debating the issue over forty years later...Anyway, I just thought if I warned you, I could save you." Claire stopped and waited for a reply.

"You asked me not to kill myself." Marilyn's eyes widened. "I remember. You started pulling something out of your purse." Marilyn's eyes went down to the purse Claire had sat on the table. "That purse." She put her cigarette out in one of the remaining ashtrays, dabbing it hard several times.

"Yes."

"I thought you were a nut case." Marilyn's eyes grew concerned as she released the cigarette butt in her hand. "So what is it, kid? What were you going to show me forty years ago?"

"It's not going to be easy to see Ms. Mortensen."

"Just chuck it out, kid, after this incredible story, what could possibly shock me more?" Marilyn tried to smile, but it was weary.

"O.K." Claire reached into her purse to pull out the Life Magazine she had tried to show Marilyn that night in 1962. She slowly handed it across the table to Marilyn. The corners were worn but Marilyn's picture was still in good condition.

"Would you look at that? I was quite the looker back then, wasn't I, kid?"

"Yes, Ms. Mortensen." Claire didn't want to say what she had to say next. "Read...Read the caption." Marilyn's eyes moved over the words.

She read them out loud; "Memories of Marilyn, August 17, 1962 20¢." She began to look teary eyed. "I remember this photograph. I was doing my last picture, Something's Got to Give. The bastards shut down production after I gave the Kennedy interview!" She looked back at the picture, "The photographer told me to look surprised. Too bad he doesn't have a camera here now."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Mortensen." Claire looked sympathetically at her.

"You really had me going kid. What's the catch? Where's the joke?" Claire had just lost all of the ground she gained. "This magazine is a nice touch, you almost had me, but the August 17, 1962 issue of Life Magazine was the one where I spilled the beans on the brothers, Kennedy."

"But Ms. Mortensen, I'm telling you the truth. Look at me, you said yourself I haven't aged, how would I pull that off?"

"Plastic surgery? Maybe you just look an awful lot like your mother who also just happens to be a nut job!" Marilyn's eyes were about to burst.

"Please, Ms. Mortensen, I'm sorry I upset you, but it's all true. I was there the night of your death...I mean the accident. In my timeline you died, but I went back and ran into Tony Piccelli, changing all that."

"O.K. toots if I died in 1962 in your timeline then what happened after that?"

Claire looked at Marilyn and crossed her eyebrows in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean? What happened next? Where is Jack Kennedy in your timeline?"

"Oh." Claire swallowed, ready to take another sad leap. "President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas."

"My God. You know, Jack and Bobby were rat-faced, two timers, but I never wanted them to die. Not even the night of the accident. Bobby and I had a terrible argument but...wait, what happened to Bobby?"

"Oh, uh, Bobby ran for President in 1968, but he was assassinated before the election." Claire looked increasingly uncomfortable.

"Bobby too? There really is a Kennedy family curse, isn't there? If you went back in time like you say, you still couldn't stop their deaths." Marilyn paused in reflection. "So in your timeline, I didn't get a chance to spill the beans, then, kid?"

"No."

"Then it really was the Kennedy's who tried to kill me? All these years they've been accused but I didn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it."

"Well, I haven't been in this timeline long, but it's my understanding that they don't know who exactly hired Tony Piccelli." Claire tried to reassure Marilyn, but she wasn't quite sure why.

"Little bastard took that information to his grave. They all did." Marilyn snapped out the daze she was in and continued. "So, kid, you said I was still famous in your timeline...because I died, right?"

"Famous and respected and..."

"Respected?"

"Oh, yes, absolutely."

"Honey, I've never been respected."

"No, seriously, you were one of the most respected Hollywood bombshells."

"Bombshell? They called me a bombshell?"

"Oh, yes, Ms. Mortensen, you were the most famous sex symbol of all time."

"Ever?"

"Absolutely, no question. At the time I left my timeline, your posters were still the highest selling of anyone in history."

"Get out. You pulling my leg, kid?"

"No. I'm being completely honest here, Ms. Mortensen. Marilyn Monroe is, hands down, the most famous actress of my time, of any time for that matter. You were truly a legend."

"A legend, huh?" Marilyn seemed to repeat that thought over and over in her mind. "Ain't that a kick? Respected, too, you say?" Marilyn started to look at Claire sideways. She took another cigarette out of the pack and lit up. She took a big drag. "O.K. kid, if I was so famous and loved and all that you say, why the hell did you come back to change that?"

"That wasn't my intention at all, Ms. Mortensen. I just wanted to save you. You shouldn't have died."

"Who were you to decide whether or not I should have died, kid? You God now?" Marilyn was now visibly annoyed at Claire.

"Ms. Mortensen, I'm sorry you've had some hardships, but you've been alive for more than forty years longer, isn't that worth something?"

"Look at me, kid. I'm a washed up has-been who hasn't worked in over forty years. Can you see the dump you're standing in? Did you see the writing on the wall outside? That's my life, kid. Some life! This whole legend thing you're talking about sure sounds good to me." Marilyn took another long drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke directly in Claire's face. Claire didn't know what to say. She just waved the smoke out of her face. "Alright, kid. You want me to believe this whale of a story? You really want me to believe?"

"Of course." Claire said indignantly, knowing an unreasonable request was to follow.

"Fine. Fix it." Marilyn said decisively, putting her half smoked cigarette out in the ashtray, forcibly.

"Fix it?" Claire was lost.

"You heard me kid, go back and fix it!" Marilyn was growing angrier by the moment. "You got me into this mess and you're gonna get me out of it. Now just go back to your little time thingy, go back to 1962 again and fix this."

"You mean...?"

"Yes, don't act meek, sweetie, you came bursting in here just dying to tell me how you saved my life and how grateful I should be to you..."

"That's not my intention..."

"If you want my gratitude, fix this. I want to be a legend in my own time, not a washed up, childless loser without a friend in the world. If you really care about me, you'll do what I want. Fix it."

"Ms. Mortensen, I can't..."

"Can't or won't kid? No one gave you to the right to play God in the past, sweetie. It's your duty to go back and make it right. Save my reputation, save Jack's reputation, save Bobby's reputation. Let their silly, naive wives stay with them and inherit all of their fortunes after they die. I don't care anymore. They can have the lowlifes. The biggest mistake I ever made was blowing the whistle on those bastards. They ruined my life in my timeline; they might as well take my life in yours. At least then I'll be respected. I won't be a joke anymore." Marilyn was completely agitated by this point. "What's your name, kid?"

"What?" Claire was reeling.

"Your name."

"Oh, Claire."

"Well, Claire, you know what you have to do. If you came here looking for my approval or my gratitude, you don't have either. But you still have a chance for redemption. Go back, Claire. Go back and fix it." Marilyn got up out of her chair and picked up the magazine off the table. She walked over to Claire and put the magazine back in her purse. She put the strap of the purse on Claire's shoulder and grabbed her arm to help her to her feet. She led Claire to the door and opened it. Claire was too stunned to speak. "Time to go, Claire. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to drink myself into a stupor and pretend that you were just a bad dream, which you probably are." She then gave Claire a little push out the door.

Claire stood at the bottom of Marilyn's steps, still stunned by what had just transpired. Her idol leaned out the door and offered one final word of advice. "If you're really a fan, you'll do what I ask. Don't let me be a joke, Claire. Fix it." With that, the door slammed shut. Claire could hear the clicking of several locks on the door.

Claire had met her biggest idol for the second time in her life and this meeting was even worse than the first. Claire couldn't believe it. She had saved Marilyn's life and now Marilyn wanted her to take it all back. On the way home, Claire convinced herself it was the Vodka talking. Surely she didn't go back in time for nothing.

*******maybe mention old man across street again*********

Chapter 11 - The Straw the Broke the Camel's Back

Although she was moved by what Marilyn had said to her, Claire still believed she should not go back and change things. She went back home to continue her research. Auggie was doing some marketing research of his own on the computer. "Sorry, baby, my hard drive is defragging, so I had to use your computer. I'll be off in about an hour, I expect. Hey, why don't you look for that photo album for your mother?"

"What?" Claire was still shaken.

"Remember, you were supposed to look for those photos for your mom?"

"Oh, right, I forgot."

"I know, she called this afternoon to remind you."

"O.K., I'll be in the attic." With that, Claire put down her purse and headed to the attic. She tried to put the last few hours out of her mind by searching through old boxes. After a few minutes, she found the box her mom wanted. It said "SHOES" on top just as her mother had said. Claire sat down on the attic floor and opened it. There were several baby shoes tied together on the top. Claire chuckled as she pulled out a string of shoes, held them up and put them on the floor.

Underneath was a photo album that was labeled "Mexico, 1986." "Ah, this is it. The Mexico trip. Jeez, I was only sixteen. Let's see what we have here," Claire whispered to herself. She opened up the book and proceeded to check out part of her family's history. Claire giggled at photos of her sixteen-year-old counterpart posing for photos by sticking her tongue out or pulling a hat over her eyes. Claire laughed out loud. "Oh no, mom and her family portraits. This must be the one she's talking about." She laughed again, but then took a double take. "Wait a second, where's Matthew?"

Claire took another scan of the photo, but didn't find her oldest brother anywhere. "That's weird." Claire proceeded to flip the pages of the photo album. Her eyes grew more worrisome with every passing page. "He's not in any of these photos." She sped up her scan, going through the entire photo album twice more. She finally sat it on her lap and closed the cover with a concerned look on her face. "Maybe he was just camera shy," she reassured herself.

Claire grabbed the photo album and put the shoes back in the box. She took one last look at the attic, smiled and headed back downstairs. Finding Auggie still hard at work on the computer, he asked; "Did you find it?"

"Yeah, I did, but Matthew isn't in the family portrait that she wanted."

"Ah, that's too bad," Auggie said in a melancholy tone. "You'd better let her know."

Claire picked up the phone and called her mother. "Hello?"

"Hi mom."

"Oh, hi Claire, did you find the pictures?"

"Yeah I found them. Are you sure you were looking for the Mexico trip group photo?"

"Yeah, that's the one. What's wrong, it didn't get wet did it?" The roof sometimes leaked into the attic.

"No, it's fine, but it doesn't have Matthew in it."

"What?"

Thinking her mother didn't hear her, Claire spoke up, "I said it's fine, but Matthew isn't in any of the pictures."

"Well, of course he wasn't, dear."

"What do you mean? Was he camera shy on that trip or something?" Claire asked, even though she distinctly remembered Matthew posing for several pictures on that trip.

"No, Claire, think about it."

"Well I've thought about it mom and I don't get it, so why don't you tell me."

"We took that trip in 1986, Claire."

"Yes...and...so?"

"Are you going to make me say it, Claire?"

"Say what? I don't understand mom. What is the big deal, if Matt didn't want to pose for some pictures, so what? I was just curious."

"Claire, we went to Mexico in 1986!" Claire's mom raised her voice.

"Yes...and..." Claire was getting annoyed herself.

"For God's sake, Claire, your brother died in 1984, that's why he didn't go to Mexico in 1986. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you just trying to upset me?" Claire dropped the phone. At the sound of the thud, Auggie turned around to see his wife as white as a ghost.

"What's wrong, Claire?"

"Oh, my God. What did I do?" Realizing she was scaring her husband and probably just made her mother mad as a hatter, Claire quickly picked the phone back up. "Mom, sorry, I dropped the phone. I'm sorry. I have to go. I'll give you the picture. I'm sorry I upset you. I have to go. Sorry. Bye. Love you." Claire slammed the phone down, not waiting for a reply. She starred at Auggie in stunned silence.

"Claire, what's wrong?" Auggie's concern was growing.

"Auggie, I need to ask you some questions. I need you to answer them without asking why I'm asking. O.K.? Can you just humor me for a minute?"

"Uh, I suppose so." Auggie was visibly shaken, not knowing what his wife was talking about.

"My brother...Matthew...what happened to him? How did he die?"

"Claire?"

"Auggie you said you'd answer without questioning me, just please tell me how he died."

"He died in the Saudi-Iraqi War when you were fourteen," Auggie answered matter-of-factly. Claire gasped. "Claire you're starting to freak me out here, what the hell is going on?" Claire remained silent, her eyes filling with tears.

"Oh my God, does this have anything to do with your trip? Oh, no, I knew it! I knew it! Your run in with your grandparents had broader effects than you thought, didn't it? Didn't it, Claire?!" Auggie was now shouting. "God, what is it? Did Matthew go to Mexico with you in 1986? That's it, isn't it? That's why you're freaking out, am I right? Oh God, did your chat with your grandfather cause him to encourage his grandson to enlist in the Army or something? That's it, isn't it? Claire? Claire?! Dammit, answer me!" Auggie knelt next to Claire and grabbed her hand. "Claire you have to tell me, it's not too late to fix it."

"Fix it" Claire said dreamily, remembering what Marilyn had told her. She was beginning to shake.

"Yes, we can still fix it. You just have to tell me what it is. Am I right, Claire? Did Matt not join the Army in the previous timeline?"

"It's worse than that," Claire started to come out of her funk.

"Oh, God, what? What, Claire?! Tell me!"

Claire looked up at Auggie. His eyes were angry and confused, but still loving. She couldn't believe she could still see the love in them despite his anger. She was trying to shake off her shock. "There was no Saudi-Iraqi War in the previous timeline." Auggie fell from his knees to his buttocks, starring in disbelief.

"No. No. This can't be. I don't understand. How can one conversation with your grandfather have led to a new war? That's not possible. I know you think a lot of your grandfather, Claire, but come on." Claire tried to look away, so Auggie couldn't see the guilt in her eyes. "Oh, my God, what else did you do back there? You have to tell me, Claire."

"O.K. I'm going to tell you. I'll tell you everything." As Auggie sat on the floor in front of her, Claire spilled the beans about everything. She told Auggie how she had deceived him, how saving Marilyn was her plan all along. She told him about every aspect of her trip and it's after effects on the new timeline. Then she told him about her conversation with Marilyn a few hours before. Auggie was speechless.

Chapter 12 - The Aftermath

Auggie was furious with Claire. More furious than she had ever seen him. As he prepared LOKI for a return trip, he was angrily talking to himself. "I ran into my grandfather," he mockingly said with a snarl. "I just forgot to mention how I single handedly changed the world while I was out saving Marilyn," he continued. Despite Auggie's fury, Claire couldn't help but admire how he was handling the situation. He never once yelled at her, never even raised his voice. He faced this dilemma like everything else in life, analytically. He stared the problem in the face, analyzed it, discussed it endlessly and came up with a plan to take it on.

Claire would have to go back and right her wrong. And it was a wrong, Claire knew now. Auggie knew it before it even happened, but even Claire could no longer deny it. All of her aspirations were turned upside down. She thought she could save one single life and not cause too much trouble. Meeting her idol was a dream she had her entire life, but she never dreamed it would be like this. Marilyn was a sad, angry shell of what she once was. Could it be that dying young was the best thing that could have happened to her? Claire's thoughts were interrupted by Auggie's cold instructions.

"Claire, if all goes well, this will put the timeline back where it's supposed to be. That means I won't remember anything about this time. I want you to promise me right here, right now that you will tell me the entire story." Reading her trepidation, Auggie reinforced, "Claire if our marriage means anything to you, you'll do this for me. I mean it. I want to know every detail." Claire could only nod her head. She could barely look Auggie in the eye. How could he be helping her when she lied so badly? Her heart now ached to make things right, not just for Auggie and Matthew, but for Marilyn. Marilyn, who just couldn't seem to get it right in either timeline, needed Claire. Claire wondered if there was a timeline out there where she did get it right. Just once.

Claire changed back into her 1962 clothes and strapped on the arm unit. As she climbed up on the launch pad, she silently cried. Not just for Auggie, Matthew and Marilyn, but for the mess she made out of her own life. She was concentrating so much on someone who had passed long ago that she let a lot of her life get away from her. She wished she could just go back to her own timeline, before she had left for the past, and just destroy Loki. Auggie was right, timelines are fragile and no human should tamper with them. He took his place behind the control panel and asked if she was ready. "Claire? . . . Claire?" She was being pushed back into a reality she was trying to forget. "I'm ready."

"Do you know what you're going to do?" Auggie asked needing assurance.

"We've gone over it a hundred times, I know what I have to do" she said with the much needed assurance.

The shaking sensation once again crept up on her as Auggie started LOKI up. The launch pad started to shake with the force of a large earthquake and Claire could see flashes of light, white, blue and gold flashed before her eyes. She felt as if she were being levitated for an instant and was suddenly thrust upon the hard earth in her grandparent's side yard. She was back to August 4, 1962.

Chapter 13 - Sudden Death

"Hey!" Claire was startled by a soft shout. She froze for a moment, not sure which direction to run. Auggie had to set the timer a few minutes ahead when he set LOKI back so Claire would have more time to correct her mistakes. "Aren't you that Claire girl?" she could hear her fifteen-year-old mother ask innocently. Claire turned to see her mother, holding a paper grocery bag on the side walkway.

She knew she must have just left her mother and grandfather dumbfounded at the grocery store.

"Well?" Her mother's eyes were wide and round, completely lacking the creases and wrinkles Claire remembered so vividly. She longed for this teenager to morph into her sixty-year-old mother, if only for a minute, just so she could tell her what to do or at least that what she was about to do was the right thing.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you were talking to me," was the only thing Claire could come up with. "Well your name is Claire, isn't it?" was her mother's curt reply.

"Actually, it's Clarisse. Only my aunt calls me Claire, I hate it." Claire couldn't figure out why she was telling her mother yet another lie. She always wished her name was Clarisse because she thought Claire was such a plain name. All Claire could think about was Marilyn and how she wanted to be anywhere but right there at that moment, so she started to sidle toward the backyard. Every step was one step closer to Marilyn. Claire's thoughts were interrupted by her mother's next question. "Why do you hate it?" she asked, still looking wide eyed. Not able to think straight, Claire's simple reply was "Claire is a fat girl's name." Her mother starred at her future daughter mysteriously as if she were thinking "o.k., it's a fat girl's name and you're fat, so isn't it fitting?"

Claire didn't know what to say, she just knew she had to get out of there so she just ran.

Disaster avoided, she bolted up the back hill as her timer counted down to destiny. Panicking, Claire accosted the nearest cab and headed straight back to 12305 Fifth Helena Drive. ***** As she stood once again in front of the last destination of her idol, Claire announced, "Cursum Perficio." Her voice was louder than it should have been as Claire realized the echo she had heard earlier was actually her own voiced doubled. As Claire stood in shock, unable to move, she could see her alter ego from the previous timeline swirl around, Claire ducked just in time. She could see herself standing on the front stoop. Then Claire from the first timeline ducked into the front bushes. Marilyn and what must have been Larry's backside could be seen entering the house.

Claire then carefully watched herself retreat to the backyard. Auggie had warned her this could happen, but she never imagined what it would be like. To be on the outside looking at yourself is a rare and frightening opportunity. Claire followed herself around back. She knew she couldn't risk any contact with herself, but she didn't know what else to do, but wait and watch.

Claire watched herself confront Marilyn, begging her not to commit suicide while Marilyn stared at her like she was a nut. Being on the outside, she could see just how crazy she must have seemed to Marilyn. She watched herself run off to the woods after Marilyn called for help.

She saw Bobby Kennedy and Peter Lawson come and go. Dr. Greenson also showed up and departed. She saw Eunice, Pat and Maf Honey walk past the patio windows several times each. It was approaching midnight and Claire's timer was once again running down. It was the moment of truth. She carefully snuck around the back of the house and across the street to hide in the neighbor's bushes, waiting for herself to make the biggest mistake she's ever made in her life...again.

A street light flickered as Claire saw the dark figure darting around the side of Marilyn's house followed closely by her own chubby, dark figure. She could have sworn she looked right into her own eyes for just a moment before the 'other' Claire turned around and darted in the opposite direction to check on Marilyn. A car was fast approaching on Claire's right as a cold blooded killer was sprinting directly toward her. In that moment, Claire's fate was sealed. "Fix it," she repeated to herself. Before the words were completely out of her mouth she could feel her feet moving underneath her. Her eyes were now locked with Tony Piccelli's as the two were barreling toward each other on a collision course.

Tony stopped in his tracks, startled by the twin of his pursuer. He swung around to look behind him but saw nothing. As he turned back around he saw the flash of headlights and felt a hard jolt in his chest like he had just slammed into a brick wall, or rather a brick wall slammed into him. Claire flew through the air as she pushed her idol's killer out of the way of the speeding car. She just saved the life of a man she despised. A man who, in five minutes, would kill her idol. Dazed, as the car sped by, Tony pushed an equally dazed Claire off of him and stumbled to his feet. Cringing in pain, Claire looked up in time to see Tony sprint off once again, in the wrong direction. "Wait" she whispered then gasped. "Wait!" she managed a shout. The killer ignored her.

Claire managed to get to her feet and started limping in the direction of the killer. "Wait!" she shouted again. Realizing it was going to take something mightier, she screamed "Tony Piccelli! Stop right there you stupid mother fucker!" She slowed to a stop as she saw the hitman do the same.

As she bent over to catch her breath, she heard, "Who the fuck are you?" His voice was squeaky and frightened, thick with a New York accent. Catching her breath, Claire approached the lackey. Staring wildly at the doppelganger that just slammed into him for a second time, Tony shouted "Stay back you crazy broad!" Claire knew she had to take control.

"Shut up, keep your stupid fucking voice down," she said authoritatively in her best New York imitation accent as she grabbed him by the shoulder of his shirt and pushed him into a thicket of trees and bushes. "Do you want to get caught you stupid mother fucker?" If I say fucker one more time, she thought. Her stomach churned as she searched for the right words.

"Who the fuck are you?" he asked a second time.

"Who am I?" Claire echoed. Who am I, she thought. "I work for the same people you work for, you stupid shit."

"Oh yeah, a broad working for..." his voice trailed off as he turned his head in the other direction. He was too late, though. Claire saw her earlier self disappear out of the corner of her eye. Tony blinked and turned his attention back to the only Claire left. "O.K. who's your boss then, toots?"

"What kind of a moron do you think I am," she was thinking on her feet, "I say the boss' name and I sleep with the fishes." Sleep with the fishes, what a ridiculous term, she thought as Tony stared at her in agreement. "And so will you, if you mention this conversation to anyone" that had a nice ring to it, she thought. "Listen, the only one supposed to be sleeping with the fishes is the blonde," Claire said as her heart secretly sank. "You have a job to do."

She thought pushing Tony out of the way of the car would be enough to set things back on their previous path. She wasn't counting on him being spooked by double vision. "What the hell are you doing here then," Tony persisted.

"I'm here to make sure you do your job ya moron, what do you think I'm doing here? The boss bought a little insurance policy on this job," she continued, "and it looks like I got here just in time; get a little case of scaredy cat, Anthony?" Scaredy cat? Oh God, he'll know she's lying for sure she thought.

"Hey, who you callin' scared?" Tony asked as he puffed up his chest in protest. You, you moron, she thought. "I ain't never let the boss down and I ain't gonna start now. Stay out of my way, bitch. Tony Piccelli is a professionalist." With this new found case of high and mighty, Tony headed back toward Marilyn's house.

Claire watched her destiny walk away into the night. She knew she should follow Tony, and make sure he did what she told him, but it wasn't in her. She just helped the man that was going to murder the beautiful Marilyn Monroe and she didn't know how she was going to live with herself. Fix it, she thought, right what once went wrong.

She worked up her courage and reluctantly headed toward Marilyn's bedroom window. When she arrived, Tony was already gone. She could see the beautiful Marilyn lying on her bed, naked, partially covered by a white sheet. Her majesty was still awe-inspiring. As Claire stood and stared at the corpse of her idol she thought about her conversation with the old Marilyn. "Who were you to decide whether or not I should have died, kid? You God now?" Marilyn's angry voice echoed in Claire's ears. "You still have a chance for redemption. Go back, Claire. Go back and fix it." Redemption, Claire thought.

"Is this redempt...?" she said out loud. Before she could finish the question, her very being was shaken with the force of hurricane winds. 1962 was disappearing forever as Claire was transported back to her own time.

Auggie was standing in the den with a huge smile on his face. His smile quickly turned into a frown when he saw the look on Claire's face. "What's wrong, Claire?" he almost shouted. "Everything, Auggie, everything." Auggie looked horrified. "I have a lot to tell you and you're not going to like it," Claire said with concern. "But first, I have do something," she said urgently as she ran to the attic.

She threw old boxes aside with a little too much aggression. After about a minute, she found the box she was looking for. It was old and dusty with the word "SHOES" written on top. Claire sat down on the attic floor and opened it like a kid would rip through wrapping paper on Christmas morning. She threw out several pairs of baby shoes and dozens of pictures until she got to the photo album labeled "Mexico, 1986."

Claire opened it with the most trepidation anyone could ever muster. This time there was no giggling at old pictures. She breezed past pages and pages of her sixteen year old counterpart posing at various Mexican landmarks until she came up to the page she was so desperately searching for. "This is it," she said hopefully as she turned the final page, wishing, almost praying for what she needed to see. "Please, please, please," she begged.

There, against the black background, was the family photo, and right in the middle between a smiling Kathy and a smug Claire with her tongue hanging out, was her brother, Matthew. He was looking at Claire, smiling with his arms crossing his chest just as Claire remembered. A sigh of relief passed her lips. "What's going on, Claire?" came Auggie's voice from behind her. She swung around.

"What do you know about Marilyn Monroe?" she asked, relieved.

"The Marilyn Monroe expert is asking me about Marilyn Monroe?" he replied.

"I promise I'll tell you everything, just please answer a few questions for me, Auggie, it's important." Seeing the seriousness of her request, Auggie obliged.

He told her how Marilyn died in a probable suicide in the sixties. When she asked about the Kennedys, his concern mounted but he explained how the president was assassinated in 1963 and how his brother's assassination followed in 1968. Claire asked about war in the Middle East. The Gulf War and the war in Iraq were the only ones that came to Auggie's mind, but they were in their proper time frame, much to Claire's relief. He told her about her life, her mother, her brother. Auggie patiently shared details that he thought Claire should have already known. His brow never un-furrowed as he awaited Claire's explanation.

Auggie stood in the attic doorway with a great look of concern on his face. "Come, sit," she invited. There, on the attic floor, as Auggie listened attentively, Claire fulfilled her promise. She told Auggie every last detail, some for the second time. Same Auggie, different time. He listened attentively, frowning at various points, but mostly just listening, completely silent. Claire told her story, carefully gauging Auggie's facial expressions. Listening for every sigh, watching for a slight shaking of the head or shifting of weight. When she was through, they sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Claire was still clutching the picture.

"Well, you know what we have to do then, Claire," was Auggie's subtle response.

She had just told him that she lied to him, disobeyed his wishes and risked changing the entire world and all he could say was, "you know what we have to do." Auggie didn't yell, he didn't get angry and he didn't blame Claire. They turned and headed toward the attic door on their way to the den to destroy LOKI and the terrible power that went with it.

As Auggie led the way, Claire trailed behind, talking one last look at the picture she was still clutching. "Fix it" she said and smiled, just a little because she knew she had.

As she turned out the light to the disheveled attic she heard Auggie exclaim "Hurry up, CLARISSE!" Claire stopped in her tracks.

