Plot: This story continues from "Roll Over Beethoven"
Synopsis: With the repairs on the DeLorean finished,
it is time for Calpurnia to return to 44 B.C. Doc wants Clara to do it. Also, he
figures that it would be a good idea for the now recovered Jennifer to go along
with them and spend a week there. Jennifer, knowing that she was told not to haunt the hospital because
of the still comatose Marty is still there, agrees. That night, they go back to
the past to the precise moment that Calpurnia left with Marty, Jules and Verne.
In a risky maneuver, Calpurnia is dropped into the Adriatic to make it looked
like she got off the ship as it was being attacked and had been swimming to
shore. Clara lands the DeLorean nearby. Getting out with Jennifer, they cry out
for help. With luck, Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar happens to come by.
The two time travelers say that they are shepherdesses and that they were just
leaving the field after a day of tending sheep when they spied a woman being
washed ashore. Both Octavius and Antony go over to where they said they found
the woman and finds Calpurnia there. She is taken aboard Octavius's barge.
At the request of Calpurnia, Octavius allows Clara and Jennifer to come along.
On board, Jennifer sees Julius Caesar's servant McFlius who is Marty's ancestor
and bears the same resemblance as Marty and Jennifer falls in love with him.
When they arrive in Rome, the two time travelers accompany Calpurnia and her
rescuers to Caesar's house where they are to spend the week.
During the night, Clara wakes up and discovers Jennifer gone. Fearing that she might have a bulimic relapse, Clara goes to the kitchen and finds her there. To her relief, she hasn't start pigging out again. However, she is talking to McFlius and noticing the resemblance between him and Marty, Clara fears that Jennifer has fallen in love with him which would screw up Marty's existence if this went any further.
At breakfast, Calpurnia also notices Jennifer's affection for McFlius and after the meal, she calls her into Caesar's study to talk to her. She tells Jennifer that McFlius is engaged and that she should forget about him. Meanwhile, McFlius's fiancé Priscilla tells her beloved to stay away from Jennifer or else.
In order for Jennifer to get her mind off of McFlius, she tries to teach Calpurnia how to drive a car by using the DeLorean. She takes the car to a deserted road outside Rome and starts instructing her how to drive. However, Calpurnia's absence makes the servants all panic and realize that the conspirators had come back to pull off another kidnapping. Clara goes out to the back to the shed where the DeLorean had been stored in and discover it gone. Jennifer is also gone too. Using the remote as a homing beacon, Clara tracks the car down and sees that Jennifer had been teaching Calpurnia how to drive. Outraged, Clara puts a stop to the lesson and tells Jennifer that Calpurnia had learned enough about the 20th century and shouldn't be taught a skill that she won't be needing in her own time.
Upon their return to Rome, the search for Calpurnia is underway and when Calpurnia appears in the back yard, the servants are overjoyed. But McFlius wonders where Jennifer is and she gets out of the DeLorean which has been cloaked. He is overjoyed but Priscilla isn't. She breaks off the engagement and leaves putting a stop to any chance of Marty ever being born.
Background: This story brings an end to the three consecutive appearances by
Calpurnia. But don't worry, she'll make more appearances in the future (or
past).
In the year 42 B.C., the armies of Octavius Caesar and Mark Antony battled the armies of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi. The battle ended on October 22 of that year with the suicides of Brutus and Cassius. According to some, Brutus's head was brought to the statue of Julius Caesar as an insult to the conspirators for what they did to Caesar. Afterwards, Philippi became a Roman colony being renamed Colonia Julia Philippensis in honor of Julius Caesar. Philippi was also known for it's letter from St. Paul in the Bible (New Testament to be exact).
There's a passage in the story where Calpurnia is learning how to drive. That was inspired by a dream I had one night way back in the '70's. I had it after thumbing through some old Life magazines. I came across an article from the '30's about Orson Wells' version of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. He had the play take place durning the 1930's in which Caesar is patterned after Benito Mussolini. There was a caption where his wife Calpurnia is telling him about her dream. That night I had a dream where she was desperately trying to stop her husband from going by driving a car:-D. In my story, I had Jennifer teach her to parallel park which I am trying to practice now I have a car. (And that the streets of San Carlos are suddenly deserted perhaps out of fear that I'm driving now.)
