Girl With a Past

by Sherri Leigh James

  The doctor nodded.

  “Is she aware of me being here?” Steven asked.

  A shrug from the doctor, “We don’t know all we could about comas. But patients recovering from comas have said they heard people speaking to them.”

  “I think she’s dreaming, but once it seemed like she was trying to tell me something.”

  “Often patients wake and don’t know where they are or how they got there.” The doctor continued to examine Alexa, tapping parts of her body, placing his stethoscope on her chest. “It’s almost as though they’ve been some place else.” The doctor listened to her chest. “Perhaps reliving a memory.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  Berkeley, February 1969

  After months of dating, Ted’s blue green eyes, beneath his sun-bleached hair still got me every time. It was important to know more about him by meeting his family. I was in love, truly so for the first time. And with this invitation it seemed, one I had pestered him about for months, perhaps he felt the same way.

  I tried on everything in my closet, and then started in on Carol’s clothes. Nothing was right. Not a thing looked acceptably uptight to wear to meet Ted’s parents. If only I hadn’t thrown away all the things that I had recently adjudicated as too boring, too stuffy, too un-hip to be seen in. My black velvet dress with a white collar, or even one of the dinner suits my mother dictated every college woman should have several of would have been perfect for dinner with the parents.

  I’d read between the lines of our conversations enough to know that Ted’s parent’s Seacliff address in the city was synonymous with old money and a butler at the door. Dinner would not be served family style, and denim would not be seen on anyone. I tossed the jean skirt on the teetering reject pile on the bed.

  “What am I going to do?” I asked Carol.

  “Stop your whining!” Carol pulled a pair of black velvet bellbottoms that had survived the purge from the back of my closet and tossed them at me. “Put these on.”

  She slid open the bottom dresser drawer, lifted a white cloth envelope that I knew contained one of her most precious possessions, a black cashmere sweater. “You’ll wear this.”

  She dug in my jewelry box and pulled out the other thing my mother said every college woman must have is strand of pearls. Everything else I owned were strands of hippie beads.

  I looked at my feet. I no longer owned high-heeled pumps of any kind, those having gone out with the velvet dress and dinner suits.

  “Wear the boots,” Carol sighed. “They won’t show under the bell bottoms––if you remember not to cross your legs.” She gave me that look meant to remind me that ladies do not cross their legs at the knees, only at the ankles, after which a lady tucks her feet back under the chair.

  “Take off the dangling earrings, pearl studs only,” Carol ordered as she hurried off to answer the doorbell.

  I glanced at the clock. “Shit.” That would be Ted.

  I pulled on the clothes, found a black velvet ribbon to tie back my long hair, jammed the studs into my earlobes, and struggled to fasten the pearls with trembling fingers.

  Damn, I hated being so nervous, hated caring so much about what his family thought of me. I should put on makeup, if only I knew how. I swiped Carol’s mascara onto my lashes, swore when I smeared black under my eye. I cleaned it off and applied some lipstick.

  I was right about the butler. In the wood paneled entry hall, Jones took our coats including my very hip sheepskin, which had left deposits all over the black cashmere. Jones discreetly picked wool hairs off my sweater, and ushered us into the living room. Ted’s father, predictably dressed in blazer and khakis, rose to shake my hand. His mother and sister set down their cocktails, nodded and smiled ever so politely. Ted, knowing my inability to handle hard liquor, asked Jones to bring us both a white wine, and joined me on the loveseat near the majestic fireplace.

  Ted’s father sipped and smiled indulgently while his wife and daughter prattled on about a wedding they had attended the afternoon before. I recognized a few names from Carol having read aloud, in her most affected voice, an account in that morning’s society pages. I blushed thinking of the fun we had made of the picture of Ted’s sister and her stick-up-the-ass husband. But how were we to know it was Ted’s sister that looked so much like a horse. Now that I compared the two faces, the same features on Ted made for a handsome man, and his sister looked okay in person. She was perfectly groomed, every hair on her head including her eyebrows in place.

  I wondered when was the last time I’d plucked my eyebrows.

  The stick-up-his-ass husband arrived with his sister and her girl friend in tow. The two girls fell all over themselves fawning over Ted while ignoring my presence. I forced a smile and drank the wine a little too fast.

  Fortunately, Jones announced, “Dinner is served,”

  I was seated next to Ted’s father, the quietest man ever, and Ted sat between the two giggling girls across the table. The girls had attended the same wedding and the pre-dinner conversation about the occasion and attendees of the reception continued at the table.

  “Lexi is a very talented painter,” Ted said in an attempt to bring me into the conversation.

  “Oh. Where would I have seen your work?” the sister asked.

  “Only on campus,” I answered.

  She turned to her mother. “Oh. Mother, what did you think of Bart’s girl?”

  I attempted to converse with Ted’s father who was polite, but, I soon realized, shy. The girls competed in flirting with Ted, who, to my disappointment, flirted right back.

  It was the longest meal of my life. I suppressed a sigh of relief when Ted excused us soon after dessert was served, saying that I had classes early the next morning.

  “I’m sorry. You wanted to meet them,” he said helping me up into his jeep. “I told you, you wouldn’t like them, but I forget how rude they can be.”

  I nodded, refrained from mentioning the flirting. I pulled the sheepskin collar up tight around my neck and pretended to enjoy the scenery on the drive back to Berkeley.

  “Stop for a drink?” Ted asked as he turned onto Alcatraz.

  “Sure.”

  Ted ordered us Irish coffees to take the chill off both the drive in the open vehicle and the evening’s mood.

  “I was actually planning to make an announcement at dinner tonight, but . . . I didn’t know who all would be there, and . . .” Ted said when our drinks arrived, “I’d like to drink a toast.”

  I held my breath. What was this about? We’d been seeing each other for a few months, sleeping together since a week after Carol fell down the cliff. He made it up from Big Sur and his grandfather’s place once a week on days when the restaurant wasn’t busy. Were we going to the next level with this relationship? Would I ever fit in his life?

  “I’ve been accepted at Harvard Law.”

  I tapped my glass mug against the rim of his. “Congrats.”

  Ted knew I would graduate at the end of the term. Would he ask me to go with him?

  “I was hoping you would maybe visit, but it is a long way away. And, well, the more I thought about it, I realized it wouldn’t be fair to you, or to me, to expect either of us to be, well, faithful. Considering the distance, and all.”

  Holy shit. He’s breaking up with me.

  I downed the coffee, burned my mouth and throat, and then struggled back into my coat. “I’d better get home. I do have a class.”

  Goddamnit, shit. Tears sprang to my eyes. Fuck. I refused, refused to cry in front of this prick. I stood up turning around so he couldn’t see my face.

  I ran into my room as soon as I hit the house. I didn’t want to see anyone. Didn’t want to answer, “how it went”. I was relieved that Carol wasn’t in our room, I pulled the pearls over my head, and carefully folded the sweater back into its cloth sleeve. I found my flannel nightie under the pile on my bed and shoved everything onto the floor, planning to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over
my head before anyone knew I was home.

  I hadn’t burrowed all the way in when the sound of violent retching in the bathroom pulled me out of my snit. Who was that? Carol?

  * * *

  I helped a pale, shaking Carol into Jeff’s car and he rushed us back to the student hospital.

  “Food poisoning” was the doctor’s verdict.

  Carol wrapped her arms around her knees holding herself in a fetal ball. Whatever it was that her stomach had reacted to now attacked her intestines.

  “Abdominal cramping,” the doctor said. “A common symptom of food poisoning.”

  “This seems pretty bad. Are you sure that’s all it is?” I asked.

  “Food poisoning can be lethal. I’m going to put her on intravenous fluids to prevent dehydration.” He nodded at the nurse who left to get the IV. “Anybody else eat whatever it was that she ate?”

  I shrugged and shook my head. “Apparently not. No one else in the house is sick.”

  “Hmm.” He walked out of the room and I heard him speaking to the nurse in the hall.

  The nurse returned with a rolling IV stand from which a plastic bag hung. I looked away as she stuck a needle in Carol’s arm and inserted a plastic tube into the back of it. “That’ll handle any chance of dehydration.” She attached two small bags to the larger bag. “Just a little something to handle the pain and settle down your digestive system.”

  I sat down in the chair. Carol’s poisoning had pulled me out of my funk without a word. How could I feel bad for myself when my friend was enduring such pain?

  CHAPTER

  22

  Berkeley, Alta Bates Hospital, March 2008

  The swish of the door to Al’s hospital room swinging shut aroused Steven from his dazed state. He had dozed off after the doctor left only to be awoken by a phone call from his grandfather. It was good to know that his grandfather had hired additional investigators to look for Lauren. Despite his exhaustion, he’d been trying to think through the events of the last couple days, searching for something helpful he could have his grandfather tell the PIs.

  “Aunt Carol,” Steven stood, “I’m glad you’re here. She was asking about you. Like she’s worried about you being okay.”

  Carol waved Steven back into his chair and walked to the opposite side of the bed. She picked up Al’s hand. “My poor child, darling girl.”

  Steven rubbed his forehead. He rose from his chair, walked to the window and stared through the glass not really seeing anything of the view. “I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Who could possibly hate my family enough to do this? How could someone be so evil as to harm someone as good as my mother? Or my sister?”

  Carol pulled a chair to the bedside. “When I was younger I saw the world in black and white. Now it’s clear to me that it’s all shades of gray . . .” Carol stroked Al’s hand. “You see, sometimes I’d realize that thoughts and impulses of mine were bad, even the ones I would try to rationalize. You know, by saying the person deserved me being mean to them.”

  This is how she comes to make me feel better he thought, but Steven waited while Carol hesitated. She sighed then continued. “Because I knew evil lurked in me, I thought I was bad . . . I was much older before I realized that we all have some bad in us, of course not serial killer bad, but it’s a matter of the good outweighing the bad.”

  “Or can the good keep the bad in check?” Steven offered. “So most people aren’t bad enough to be serial killers?”

  “I don’t think it’s the same thing,” Carol said. “Serial killers are a whole different thing. I think other people are not quite real to a serial killer. He doesn’t recognize in others the same capacity for feeling or caring. Or maybe he’s shut off from feelings and doesn’t realize that others do feel. He doesn’t see what he is doing as evil. He’s satisfying a craving, seeking a thrill . . . like a guilty pleasure. He knows others don’t approve, but he’s convinced they are just being some kind of prudes.”

  “You seem to know something about serial killers,” Steven said.

  “My best friend was murdered, supposedly by a serial killer,” Carol frowned, breathed deeply. “Yeah, I was obsessed with the subject.”

  “Was?” Steven asked.

  “It was so long ago.” Carol turned up the corners of her mouth in a weak attempt at a smile.

  “Maybe not long enough,” Steven said.

  “Steven, long enough that it was a different world.” Carol sighed. “Actually the world was just starting to change. Or at least that’s how it seemed to us, the generation of children who roamed free from dawn to dusk riding our bikes through safe California towns. We had no idea how dangerous the world could be. As young adults we did terribly foolish things; picked up hitchhikers, swallowed pills that could have been anything––” Carol was interrupted by Jeff opening the hospital room door and coming into the room.

  CHAPTER

  23

  Berkeley, May 1969

  In my dream, I heard Carol’s voice. Was she talking about serial killers? Or dangerous cars?

  “Are you sure about this?” Carol looked over the rusted nineteen fifty-three Chevy. “This thing doesn’t seem reliable, let alone safe.”

  “It’ll be fine.” I wiped dust off the windshield and threw two sleeping bags in the trunk. “Trust me.”

  “Yeah, cause trusting you has proven to be such a smart thing to do in the past,” Carol said.

  “Are you gonna guilt trip me about Big Sur for the rest of our lives?” I ignored the creak the driver’s side door made. “You recovered without any permanent damage, didn’t ya?”

  “By some miracle.” Carol stood glaring at me making no move to get into the car. “Fat lot you cared. You got to hang out at the Pebble Beach Lodge while I lay there with tubes in every orifice.”

  “I didn’t hang out at the Lodge. I went there to get cleaned up, but I slept on the bench in the waiting room until they decided you were okay and kicked you and us out.” I slid onto the car’s bench seat. “Get in the damn car, will ya?”

  Carol gave me “the” look, but climbed into the car. She flung two duffel bags over the seat to the floor behind us as she said, “I don’t see why we don’t just wait for the mechanic to finish with your car.”

  “I’ll tell you why, cause that guy said it would be ready two days ago, but today there were still parts on the garage floor, and he said maybe by tomorrow. I really want to go to the beach today.” I turned the ignition key listening for the engine to catch. On the third try, the motor started. “I, personally, was thrilled when Tom offered us this car.”

  “Yeah, real generous of 'im.” Carol was not fond of any of my other best friend Jeff’s circle of male friends.

  "C'mon, it was. Just 'cause nobody uses it right now, and his brother happened to leave it in our driveway.”

  “Funny, I was under the impression that it broke down in our driveway.”

  The car was moving along with just an occasional sputter on the way down University Avenue. In the block before the freeway, a row of hitchhikers held out thumbs and signs. I pulled over.

  “What’re you doing?” Carol asked.

  “Didn’t you see that guy’s sign? It said Point Reyes.”

  Carol sighed. A crowd of hikers swarmed her side of the car. “Let me see your signs.” She pointed to the guy with the Point Reyes sign. “You, get in.”

  Carol turned around to watch the shaggy haired guy move the duffel bags out of the way and slide onto the back seat.

  “Thanks chicks. Thanks for stopping.”

  “We are not chicks.” Carol turned back, stared straight ahead.

  I fumbled with the radio dial until I found a station playing local music, Dan Hicks and the Hotlicks sang, “How can I miss you, when you won’t go away?” I put the car in gear, and hit the road.

  We made it over the San Rafael Bridge and to the highway leading to the beach. On the off ramp, I hit the brake pedal.

  Nothing.r />
  I pumped.

  Still nothing.

  A four way stop intersection loomed dead ahead.

  “Hold on.” I leaned down and pulled the emergency brake. I came up with it in my hand, wires dangling free off the end. “Shit.”

  Carol looked at the item in my hand and braced her leg and arm against the dash. Her other hand was on the door handle. “Shit.”

  From the backseat a yelp, and a “Holy shit” preceded a loud wail.

  We whizzed through the intersection.

  But the next intersection was a two way. And we were supposed to stop.

  An eighteen-wheeler barreled down the road to our right, timed perfectly to meet us at the intersection.

  I hit the gas and zoomed through with inches to spare. We sped on down the road that would soon turn into a twisting nightmare.

  I engaged the clutch, down shifted the gears. A horrible grinding screech was heard over the scream of my passengers.

  I tried again. More noise, but no slowing.

  On the left was the steep side of an oak studded hill.

  On our right, a wood fence guarded a pasture.

  “Brace yourselves. We’re goin in.” I twisted the wheel, hit the fence dead on.

  The car flew over a hump. We were airborne, then we landed with a thud that rattled my back teeth, but we didn’t stop.

  We were still moving.

  My passengers were still screaming.

  And I was out of ideas of how to stop the damn car.

  A second fence in a wide ditch loomed ahead.

  The nose of the car flew into the ditch.

  Wham. My head hit something. Maybe the steering wheel.

  Blackness closed in.

  * * *

  “Carol, please stop slapping me,” I came to sitting in the dirt, uncertain how I had gotten out of the car. “I’m okay, I’m awake.”

  Carol looked like she was unharmed, but as pissed off as I’d ever seen her. “Now what, Miss-Trust-Me? My God, when am I gonna learn?”

  Wailing from the other side of the car scared us both onto our feet. Our hitchhiker lay shaking on the ground, screaming, his limbs thrashing.