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| Scene Title | Dinner Guests, Part I |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | On Thanksgiving Day, wayward travelers in time come together to celebrate what they have to be thankful for, while a growing shadow threatens to take it all away. |
| Date | November 26, 1970 |
There’s a cheerful little apartment in Bushwick on the border of industrial parks just a mile south of the textile mill where Howard Frady lives. The apartment is a split-level and narrow thing, like a brightly colored mail slot of a residence. The walls are canary yellow in the kitchen, and the avocado green appliances pop against that brightness. The smell of cinnamon and cloves lingers in the kitchen, wafting out the window to the noisy street below.
Podaruj mi trochę słońca
Inside the apartment, a lanky man in a frilled apron slides through the kitchen on socked feet, mixing a small bowl of spices together with a creamy icing. He checks the whisk, tasting a fingertip of the icing and smiles delightedly to himself, singing as he dances around the kitchen.
Idą deszczowe dni, idzie mokry czas
It’s a Polish folk song, A Woman Was Baking Bread, something his grandmother used to sing when he was a boy, when she baked and in turn taught him to bake. Times then were simpler, and Thomas Nowak tries his level best not to think about them too much. About how his grandmother would be not much older than he is right now. About how, if he could just get out of the country, maybe he could see her and change things.
A Ty tyle słońca masz…
But that has been the weight of things. When does the past deserve to be changed? How can it be changed without preventing a way back home? The kids seem to believe they know how Time Travel works, because of stories Robyn Quinn told Matthew, because of gut feelings Walter has that always worry his mother when he talks like that. It’s hard for Nowak to rationalize that this is happening, what the implications of it are, so instead, he chooses to ignore it.
I gruby na palec
Here he is, in 1970 New York, married and baking in a lovely kitchen. He has an adopted daughter. He has a life. Everything he wanted for himself when he fled the UK and sought asylum with Richard Ray what feels like an eternity ago. If they never make it home, he’d be fine with that.
Tyle go masz w Twoim głosie
So he sings his mother’s songs, so he bakes andrut with a cinnamon-chocolate icing, so he ignores the future he nearly died in so that he might live in this past.
Myślach Twych i w uśmiechu
For as long as he can.
Tyle go masz…
Thanksgiving Day
Brooklyn, New York
November 26th
1970
11:17 am
“Odette, are you dressed yet?”
Elaine’s voice carries towards where her daughter should be getting ready. Already dressed in a floral printed blue dress, she’s in the process of putting her second earring on as she heads into the kitchen to check on her husband as he bakes. With the back of the earring secured, she pauses in the doorway to watch Nowak for a moment.
It’s been getting easier, day-by-day, to adjust to the new routine. No longer was she waiting for the next crisis to make them collectively jump to wherever the universe was taking them, and instead she’s actually happily settled into domestic life. ‘Playing house’ was much less a term Elaine would use now. She smiles after a moment before she heads into the kitchen proper.
“«Don’t let me interrupt your process,»” Elaine says, the Polish just as much a staple of the household as the English. When it was just them, the Polish became the standard. “«It smells amazing in here.»” Elaine leans in to plant a kiss on Nowak’s cheek, not wanting to get too much underfoot while cooking is underway.
“«‘Process’ is maybe a heavy word for ‘partly-organized mess.’»” Nowak says with a crooked smile. He flushes a little at the kiss on the cheek, still boyish after all this time. “«You are looking radiant as always, by the way. You will be the belle of the… dinner?»”
Checking the oven, Nowak nods thoughtfully and stands up, tugging a handcloth from where it hangs from his back pocket. He cleans up a smudge of chocolate from the counter, only to be interrupted by a knock at the door. “Ah!” He straightens with a smile. “«Go check on our terrible princess, and I will check that.»” Nowak says as he sidles past Elaine, pressing a kiss to her hairline as he hustles toward the front of the apartment.
“One minute!” Nowak calls out, hurrying to the door. He slices the latch and opens the door to the broad-shouldered and big-smiled frame of Howard Frady standing on the front stoop.
“Hey buddy,” Frady rumbles, inviting himself in. Nowak throws an arm around Frady and slaps a hand on his back on their way in.
“It is Howard!” Nowak calls out.
“Hope you don’t mind me popping by a little early.” Frady says, carrying a small aluminum-foil covered dish in his hands. “I uh, put together the green bean casserole but it’s still gotta go in the oven. Figure we can pop it in before we head over to Delilah’s.”
“How’s your old Jeep holding up? We aren’t going to need to take the subway?” Nowak jokes with a lopsided smile, stepping away from Frady to shut the door behind them as he comes in.
“Nah, nah. I wouldn’t bring a lady on the subway. That’s just cruel.” Frady jokes and the two burst out laughing.
As Nowak goes for the door, Elaine retreats in the direction of their daughter's room. When Frady's presence is announced, she replies with a greeting, but she doesn't emerge from Odette's room for a few minutes. When she rejoins her husband and their friend, her expression is one of amusement when she hears their laughter. "You both sound like you're enjoying yourselves. Odette is basically ready," she says. "I was concerned because it was too quiet back there. However, I also may have been distracted by Thomas' singing voice." She grins.
Noticing the casserole dish in Frady's hands, she nods towards the kitchen. "If you need to do anything with that, the oven's warm and you can keep it on the lower rack if you need it to stay warm." Elaine pauses for a moment in thought. "Did Dee say what time she wanted us there? I can't for the life of me remember."
“She was helpfully vague,” Nowak notes.
“Frustratingly.” Frady adds with a smile.
“But I got the impression around lunch time. I would text but,” Nowak spreads his hands, “we are trapped in caveman times.”
“Hey,” Frady says in feigned insult. “I’ll have you know I only look a little like Fred Flintstone.” He says with a barely-repressed smile.
"As long as you aren't powering your jeep with bare feet, Howard, you can look like him all you want," the redhead replies as she stops to stand next to her husband in the hallway. "I do miss texts, though. Idle conversations and little details are so much easier to have when you're not tied to a landline."
Elaine's smile is broad as she looks between the two men. "We can head over as soon as we've got everything we're bringing packed up. I doubt that Delilah will mind too much whenever we show up."
“I’ll go keep the car warm,” Frady says with a fond smile, giving Nowak a pat on the arm as he does. “Head on down when you’re ready,” he adds, showing himself out.
When Frady leaves, Nowak beams a smile over at Elaine and takes a step over to her, slipping a hand around the small of her back. “You go get the Queen of the Gremlins, I’ll carry down the food.” He says with a warmth and gentleness in his voice.
Elaine mirrors the warmth in both smile and tone. She makes a noise of agreement, though she lingers instead of hurrying to her appointed task. "You know, I could get used to holidays being like this," she says after a moment. "I'm looking forward to many more."
“Maybe the past isn’t so bad,” Nowak murmurs, a fond smile creeping across his face.
“Maybe it can be home.”
Meanwhile
The Bronx
The clack of hard-soled shoes report loudly off of a polished concrete floor. Hurrying down the hallway, Robert Bishop cuts a slim silhouette in his mustard-colored suit. He jogs the last few steps, pushing open a thin door into a spacious office with a window-facing desk, at which Charles Deveaux is seated, reading a copy of the day’s newspaper.
“Shouldn’t you be with your family?” Charles queries without looking at Bob.
“Shouldn’t you?” Bob fires back. Both men exchange a knowing, fatigued look, and Charles folds the newspaper closed on his desk. “We’ve got a problem. Angela just called me in a panic, she said someone’s trying to move on us.”
Charles immediately gets up from his desk. “She had a dream?” He looks out the window, then back to Bob. “We haven’t received a call here.”
Bob shakes his head. “I tried calling too, nothing went through.”
Charlex immediately moves to Bob, pressing a hand on his shoulder and urging him out the door. “Move,” he says firmly, “we need to move.”
Meanwhile
The Long Lines Building
Manhattan
Construction noises echo softly through the concrete halls of a towering, brutalist structure. They’re noticeably louder when the door to a wood-paneled office is opened by a tall, blonde man with mirrored aviator glasses.
Rodney Dearing steps into the mostly-unfurnished office, sliding his sunglasses off with a lopsided smile. “Teddy’s got a bead on our Strangers.” Dearing says with cocksure certainty. “We’ve got a team spinning up to get them.”
Standing behind his desk, Marcus Raith is statue-still in the face of this news. He looks down at a framed, black and white photograph of a warship in port. “Where are they?” He asks without urgency or appreciation as he sets down the picture.
“Right under our fucking noses over the river. Teddy’s nailed it down to a single city block. It’s been hard for him to get a bead on them, but he’s been working day and night to—”
“What’s the backtrack?” Marcus interrupts, stepping around his desk.
“Usual shit. The women are posing as housewives, the one we had an ID for—Porter—he’s working at a record store on 21st. We’ve already tossed the place. The Polak was working at a fucking paper company here in Manhattan.” Dearing slides a paper folder from under his arm, passing it over to Marcus, who flips through it, looking at surveillance photos.
“How long have we had this?” Marcus asks, leafing through routines.
Rodney shrugs. “Two days.”
“And you waited to show this to me until now?” Marcus nearly slaps the folder shut, but a photograph catches his eye.
“Hey, look, you busted my balls the last time I got us worked up over a dead-end. I just wanted to—” Rodney notices Marcus’ expression shifting from annoyance to disbelief. He pulls a photo from the folder with a shaky hand, looking from it up to Rodney.
“When did you take this?” Marcus asks. “Who is this?” He flips the photo around, showing Nowak shaking hands with a tall, dark-haired man in a three-piece suit.
“Some business guy. There’s a rival paper company purchasing—”
“You fucking idiot.” Marcus hisses, throwing the file on the desk. “This is Dallas,” he says, wagging the photo around. “He’s a Special who went missing after he got back from Vietnam! He got swept up by the kids that survived Coyote Sands.”
“What?” Rodney glances back at the folder. “No, that—no. Fuck.”
“Call off your dogs,” Marcus says, hurrying over to a phone on his desk. Before Rodney can stumble over his words Marcus barks, “Now!”
Backing up, Rodney turns to leave the office, giving one last glance to the folder on the desk while Marcus dials an extension within the building…
Meanwhile
Nearby
Two stories below the streets of Manhattan a gunshot rings out. A practiced hand discharges the shell casing from the bolt-action receiver of Ruger M-77, so new that the shine on its wood stock looks the same as the day it came off the factory floor. The marksman holding the rifle focuses past the iron sights and downrange to where paper targets hang. She seems satisfied with the shot, but it’s only when she removes her large headphones that she hears the phone on the wall ringing.
Slinging her rifle over her shoulder, the marksman crosses the floor and picks up the phone. Looking back at the target she’d been shooting at. “Prince,” she says clearly into the receiver.
«We found them.»
Kara Prince narrows her eyes, adjusting the strap of the rifle over her shoulder. “Orders?”
«Kill the adults and bring me the boys.»
Kara nods, glancing back at the paper target.
“Where am I going?”
Meanwhile…
There’s a cheerful little apartment in Bushwick on the border of industrial parks just a mile south of the textile mill where Howard Frady lives.
Podaruj mi trochę słońca
The apartment is a split-level and narrow thing, like a brightly colored mail slot of a residence. The walls are canary yellow in the kitchen, and the avocado green appliances pop against that brightness.
Idą deszczowe dni, idzie mokry czas
The smell of cinnamon and cloves lingers in the kitchen, wafting out the window to the noisy street below.
A Ty tyle słońca masz…
It’s a beautiful day.
Tyle go masz w Twoim głosie
Thomas Nowak and Elaine Darrow have so much to be happy about.
Myślach Twych i w uśmiechu
And so much to lose.
Tyle go masz…