The Time-Traveling Fashionista by Bianca Turetsky

can’t explain now, but you need to trust me. We are going to crash. I’m sure of it,” Louise
     pleaded.
    “Believe me, Miss Baxter, as your captain, I am telling you that we are safe. We are
not
going to collide with an iceberg. The
Titanic
is unsinkable,” he replied confidently. “Now if you don’t sit down, you are going to alarm the other passengers.”
    “Yes, please, have a seat,” Mrs. Smith parroted. “It’s probably just nerves. You’re still recovering from this afternoon.”
     She spoke without losing her plastered-on smile, while the rest of her face remained frozen and expressionless.
Did they already have Botox in 1912?
Louise couldn’t help wondering at that moment.
    Then she got back into focus. “I’m fine!” she exploded, feeling her ears getting hot in anger. Why wouldn’t they listen to
     her? Why were they dismissing her like this? “We need to change direction. We need to stop, or thousands of people will die.
     I know it’s going to happen. It’s history.”
    “We are staying the course,” Captain Smith said as he rose to his feet.
    “If you want to go down in history as the captain of a sinking ship…” Louise threatened, not able to control her temper anymore.
    By this point, they were attracting quite a bit of attention from nearby tables. The orchestra conductor was doing his best
     to drown out the commotion with crescendos of music. The first officer, a ruddy older man with an intense gaze, had also risen
     to his feet. He was stealthily making his way around the table toward Louise.
    “Why don’t we get Dr. Hastings? He’ll be able to give you something to calm your nerves,” First Officer Murdoch said in a
     firm tone. “It’s normal for a woman to become frightened on a ship.”
    “I sometimes get scared, too,” Mrs. Smith added. “We delicate females simply can’t help it.”
    “But what I can’t have,” the captain continued, interrupting his wife, “is you scaring the other passengers with this nonsense.
     Do you know how quickly this irrational fear can spread?”
    While he said this, the burly first officer had almost reached Louise, who was slowly starting to back away from the table
     as she realized the trouble she was in. He reached out to grab her by the arm, and Louise took off running, in her bare feet,
     through the dining room.
    As she ran, she saw Dr. Hastings unfolding himself from his chair. His two dinner companions jumped to their feet.
    “Alice! Where are you running to?” a befuddled Mr. Baxter called out across the room.
    She didn’t stop to answer, nor did she turn around to see if First Officer Murdoch and Dr. Hastings were chasing her. She
     just ran as fast as was possible for a lady in a rock-hard corset.
    Louise exited the dining room, flew back up the Grand Staircase, elbowed her way past several stunned passengers, turned down
     a long, maroon-carpeted hallway, up a short flight of stairs, and finally burst out into the open air on the upper deck.
    Shaking, she took in huge gulps of the fresh sea air. She turned around slowly, half expecting to see that she had been followed,
     but no one was there. The wind was biting, and she hugged her bare arms around her body.
    Louise stood at the railing and looked out at the expansive sea. For the first time in her life, the sight of water didn’t
     fill her with a feeling of freedom and excitement. She felt quite the opposite: trapped. She was stuck on a sinking ship in
     a life and body that weren’t hers.
    Looking up at the infinite, starry night, Louise couldn’t help but wonder if her mother was looking up at that same sky, worried
     that she hadn’t come home for supper. Were there really a hundred years separating them? She bit her lip so that she wouldn’t
     cry. She needed to keep a clear head.
    She began twirling her hair and pacing the deck to keep warm. Perhaps she had been naïve in believing that the captain would listen to her. But she could not give up. There