The Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare

by MG Buehrlen

  “Susie!” A short girl with a cherub face, blonde and thin, pushed her way through the bushes to find me, clutching a towel around her. “Here’s your dress. Mine’s too small for you.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, giving up on the zipper in the back. “I’ll just leave it unzipped. I’ll get it back to you, don’t worry.”

  She frowned down at the green drapey thing in her hand that must have been my dress. “What’s wrong with you? Why did you hit Jim?”

  I steadied myself against a tree trunk with one hand and pulled the flats on with the other, rivulets of water streaming from my hair down my bare back. I tried to remember what Porter told me about conversation. Be evasive. Don’t pretend you have amnesia like you did in Chicago, just try to end the conversation every chance you get.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I told the blonde, hoping she would drop it. All Porter told me about my life as Susan Summers was that I had two older brothers, Daniel and Bruce; a mom and a dad, Deborah and John; and I came from old money, raised in an affluent circle made up of politicians and land owners. I knew Charles Mitchell’s address, I knew the painting I was looking for, and I knew the address of the bank in Cincinnati where Porter wanted me to secure the Raphael if I found it.

  But I knew nothing about my skinny-dipping companions.

  “Can you take me home?” I asked the blonde.

  “You mean back to Jim’s?” Her brown eyes were wide and round and innocent.

  “No, I mean my home. Where I live. With Deborah and John.”

  She sputtered a laugh. “But you’ve been planning this night for weeks.”

  I struggled with the skirt of my dress, still tangled in a sticker bush. “We’ll do it another time, OK?”

  “But this is the only night we have Jim’s place all to ourselves,” she whined, flopping her arms at her side. “His parents get back tomorrow afternoon.”

  I stopped cold and stared at her. “We’re staying the night at his house? All by ourselves?”

  I peeked through the trees and watched the earlobe nibbler climb out of the water. He was tall and muscular, with broad shoulders and the kind of abs they put on the cover of magazines. His white blond hair was slicked back and dripping wet. His lips were full, his eyes dark and broody. The cocky scowl on his face looked well worn in, like it was his favorite expression. He pressed a collar shirt to his bloody nose, more worried about that than getting dressed it seemed.

  Not that I was looking.

  Magazine abs or not, he was so not my type.

  “I can’t go to his house,” I hissed, ripping the skirt from the persistent sticker bush with one good yank. Ear Nibbler Guy had to be at least nineteen or twenty. There was no way I was going home with him. My dad would kill me. Not that he’d ever find out, but still.

  “Since when did you become such a party pooper?”

  “Just drive me home, OK?”

  “Drive yourself,” she said, heading back to the water. “I’m staying.”

  “Wait,” I said, following after her. “You have to drive me. I don’t know how.” I stumbled over roots and rocks, every bush wanting a piece of my skirt.

  She wheeled around, her nose wrinkled. “You got smog in the noggin or something? That’s your car.”

  She pointed to the one thing that could make my mortifying night bearable – a 1960 Corvette convertible. Bright turquoise. It wasn’t quite a ‘63 Sting Ray, but it was close enough to make my heart flutter. My fingers slid across the glossy chrome as I made my way to the driver’s door. A tiny, hopeful spark ignited within me. If my past self knew how to drive, did that mean I did, too?

  I threw open the door and slid across the smooth leather, envisioning myself cruising off into the night and leaving my skinny-dipping friends behind. I ran my hands over the steering wheel, which was just as bright turquoise as the rest of the interior. My fingers found the keys and turned the engine over, then I gave it a good rev to see what she had.

  Oh, it was glorious. Pure, throaty thunder.

  I didn’t even think about it – I just pressed the clutch and threw her in reverse. I eased it back like a pro, as though I drove a manual every day. I was so impressed with myself that I didn’t notice Ear Nibbler trying to flag me down.

  “Susie! Baby! Wait up! My wallet’s in there!”

  For a second, I thought about taking off and letting my past self deal with the Ear Nibbler situation after I was long gone, back in Base Life, but I worried about the whole impact thing. Porter wanted me to behave as normal as possible, and tearing off like that would probably cause a fair amount of suspicion.

  I hit the brakes and snatched Ear Nibbler’s wallet from the passenger seat. It flopped open, and I scanned the contents as he ran to catch up to me, trying to pull his pants on at the same time. I kept my nose down when he reached my door and zipped his fly right next to my ear.

  “What’s got your cage rattled?” he said. “It was your idea to come down here in the first place.”

  But I wasn’t listening. I was staring at the name on his driver’s license: James Charles Mitchell.

  Porter, you freaking genius. He had said none of my past lives had been coincidences, and I guessed he was right.

  “Get in,” I told Ear Nibbler, plowing the car into first. “You and I are going for a drive.”

  RUNAROUND SUE

  It was like I knew the roads by heart. The Corvette felt like an extension of me, fluid and sublime. We flew across the southern Ohio hills through a flurry of autumn leaves, the wind in our hair. Ear Nibbler had since pulled on a preppy, baby blue sweater and buckled his seat belt, still checking the side mirror every two seconds to see if his beautiful nose was intact.

  “Oh, please,” I said. “I didn’t hit you that hard.”

  “You clocked me like a prize fighter. Where’d you learn to hit like that?”

  1927, I thought to myself. “You scared me. You shouldn’t sneak up on me like that.”

  He propped an elbow on the passenger door and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t get you, Susan. You wanted to go steady a year ago, but I wasn’t ready. Now that I am, you get cold feet?”

  “They’re cold because that water was eighteen below.”

  He sniffed and shook his head. “Real swell. Why don’t you give me my pin back if you’re so indifferent?”

  Crap. Wasn’t giving a girl your pin really serious back then? I bit my lip to stop talking before I screwed something up.

  Magazine abs or not, Jim Mitchell was way too high maintenance for my taste. What had my past self seen in him? And what kind of girl had I been? Skinny-dipping in October? Sneaking around and spending the night at an older boy’s house? Going steady with a preppy rich boy who whined when I didn’t let him snuggle up to my birthday suit?

  I glanced in the rearview mirror at myself for the first time that night. Again, my reflection took me by surprise. It was still me, still my face, but I was a few sizes larger, with all the extra curves. My lips were stained red, and my eyebrows were angled and sharp. My hair was still damp, but I could tell it was chin-length and wavy. And blonde.

  Really blonde.

  I looked like Tabitha when she played Marilyn Monroe in the spring musical last year.

  So far, the only things I liked about the 1961 me were my groovy driving skills.

  Wait. Groovy was a term from the Seventies not the Sixties. Wasn’t it?

  Letting my muscle memory guide me, I turned down a long, white gravel driveway bordered by a row of manicured trees on either side. I hoped it led to the Mitchell estate. When Jim didn’t object (and continued to sulk at himself in the side mirror), I kept going. The driveway opened into a wide circle laid out before an enormous brick mansion – the historic home of one of the first Ohio governors. The colonial facade and meticulous landscaping were lit up by spotlights, but it didn’t look like anyone was home. I slowed to a stop in front, gaping up at all the windows. A fountain gurgled somewhere off to the side.

/>   The Raphael was in there. I could feel it.

  “If this is about Cindy,” Jim said with a frustrated sigh, turning in his seat to face me, “it was only that one time. I told you before, I only have eyes for you.” He moved in to kiss me, but the more he leaned forward, the more I leaned back.

  What was with this guy? He seriously thought I’d kiss him after he just admitted to cheating on me? I wished I could warn my past self about going out with such a loser. I sincerely hoped I didn’t end up married to him.

  I fumbled for the door handle behind me. “Why don’t we go inside and have some time to ourselves before the others get back?”

  He gave me a knowing look and grinned. “Just what I was thinking.”

  Yeah, I bet it was.

  The moment he closed the huge, ornate front door behind us, he pushed me up against the wall of the foyer and crushed his chest against mine. His hands groped at my butt. His mouth slobbered all over my neck. He smelled sour, like booze and cigarettes. He went for my ear again, but froze when I yelled, “Stop.” I shoved him back and pointed a well-aimed finger in his face. I didn’t want to hit him, but if he laid another hand on me, I’d finish the job on his nose.

  He looked so confused, like a spoiled dog used to getting his way.

  My mind raced, scrambling to think of a way out of this ridiculous – and possibly very dangerous – situation I’d gotten myself into. I shouldn’t have gone back to the house with him alone. I should’ve waited until Cherub Face and the others were heading back too.

  “I need to freshen up,” I said.

  He groaned and dropped his arms. “Aw, come on. Not this again.”

  “We’ve got plenty of time,” I said, inching away from him. “Count to a thousand then come and find me.” I darted out of the foyer and into a dark parlor before he could say no. I paused, hidden in the shadows, holding my breath, until I heard him counting.

  “One, two, three…”

  I let out a puff of air. Thank God.

  I padded barefoot, carrying my flats, through more than a dozen rooms before I spotted the Rhine River Castle painting. It was hanging in a boy’s bedroom on the second floor above a neatly made bed. In the dim light from a bedside lamp, I hefted the painting off the wall and onto the bed. It was wide and heavy and covered in several layers of dust.

  Jim’s voice echoed up the foyer stairs. “Four hundred twenty-three…”

  I snagged an antique-looking pocket knife from a bookshelf in the corner and started to pry off the backing with shaking hands. It looked like it had never been done before, which gave me hope.

  When Jim reached seven hundred and eighty-two, the back popped off with ease. I shifted a little to my right to let the lamplight spill over my shoulder. My stomach did a back flip.

  The Portrait of a Young Man peeked out at me with his impish half-smile.

  “Why hello there, gorgeous,” I whispered. “I’ve come to rescue you from your tower.”

  I pulled it out and held it up in the full light. Knowing I was the first person to see it in over sixty years warmed me with a sort of awe. It was worth over a hundred million dollars in Base Life. And I was holding it in my hands.

  I laid it carefully on the bed, then opened the closet and rummaged for a backpack or tote bag, anything I could carry it away in. It wasn’t very large, but it was painted on a thin piece of wood panel, and I was scared to death of scratching or cracking it. The best thing I found was a shallow, rectangular garment box. I dumped out its contents – a few photo albums – and placed the painting inside, wrapped safely in two thick sweaters. I returned the Rhine River Castle painting to its spot on the wall, stuck the photo albums back in the closet, and dusted the bed off as best I could. The pocket knife went back on the shelf, and the closet door was shut.

  “Nine hundred eighty-five…”

  I bolted for the hallway. I couldn’t take the stairs down to the foyer without running into Ear Nibbler, so I raced to the far side of the second floor, hoping to find a second staircase.

  There wasn’t one.

  Or at least, not on that side of the house.

  “One thousand. Ready or not, here I come.”

  Footsteps climbed the stairs.

  I ducked into another bedroom at the end of the hall, this one large and shadowy, with a faint shaft of moonlight stretching across a center rug and four-poster bed. I rushed to the closet and closed the door behind me, then squeezed through a wall of clothes to the back. The corners of the garment box dug into my palms. My heart pounded in my ears.

  “Come out, come out, where ever you are.” Footsteps entered the bedroom. “I know you’re in here.” He went to the window and whisked the drapes to the side. “You’ve always had your eye on my parents’ room, you naughty thing.”

  Ugh, how gross was that? I heard him kneel down and look under the bed. Then I heard him cross the room to the closet. My palms went slick and I almost dropped the garment box.

  If he found me, I made up my mind to ascend back to Limbo. I’d lose the Raphael, change history, and have to go back and do it all over again. But I was OK with that. Anything was better than trying to wriggle out of his grabby hands again.

  His feet stopped just outside the closet door. I drew in a deep breath and pressed myself against the wall, but something hard dug into my back. I reached behind and felt for it. My fingers closed around a tiny metal latch.

  A door.

  With one fluid motion, I flipped the latch, pushed the door open, and slipped through. I closed it behind me just as Jim opened the closet.

  Barefooted, I ran down a narrow stone staircase, getting a face-full of cobwebs, and stumbled out into a dark, musty room in the basement. I fumbled for a light switch and finally, after stubbing my toe twice, found a pull string at the center of the room. A bare bulb flicked on above me.

  It was a servant’s bedroom – the bed and washing bowl were still in the corner – but it had since been turned into a storage room. Mold grew on the damp stone walls. The need for a staircase leading between the master bedroom and the servants’ quarters wasn’t lost on me, but I didn’t stop to ponder how many mistresses the old Ohio governor had employed. I found the exit and shouldered it open.

  A stack of wooden stairs brought me back up to the first floor in the kitchen. I bolted out the back door and ran around the house. There wasn’t enough time to put on my flats. I crashed across the gravel drive, rocks digging into my bare feet, racing toward the Corvette.

  “Susie!” Jim shouted, tearing out around the back of the house after me. I hadn’t realized he was so close.

  I slid on the gravel, slamming into the passenger side door. I pushed the garment box down into the foot well, then climbed over the gearshift and into the driver’s seat.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I forgot something at the river,” I yelled with a wave of my hand. “Be back in a jiff.” The engine roared to life, and the tires spit gravel as I tore down the drive.

  Poor Jim. I couldn’t help but feel a teensy bit sorry for him. After all, his baby ran off with another man. A young man to be exact.

  I guess he should’ve kept away from Runaround Sue.

  CHAPTER 16

  SAYING GOODBYE

  After half an hour without headlights behind me, I pulled off to the side of the road to look for a map. The bad thing about the 1960 Corvette? No glove box. And of course no GPS.

  In the trunk, I found a towel, a black purse, two empty bottles of Tequila, and an overnight bag. The purse contained a pearly pink wallet with a ten dollar bill and Susan Summers’ driver’s license, a half-empty pack of cigarettes, and a tube of lipstick so red it was almost orange. At least the overnight bag proved helpful with extra clothes – a pencil skirt and sweater – but how was I supposed to find my way to Porter’s bank without a map?

  I shimmied into the spare clothes, then started off again, hoping my instincts would guide me to Cincinnati.

  At arou
nd one in the morning, after over a dozen U-turns, I spotted the city lights in the distance. I pulled into a breakfast diner parking lot and wrangled the convertible top into place. Then I slept, rather uncomfortably with the garment box under my feet, until dawn.

  A knock on the driver’s side window jerked me awake. “Hungry, sweetie?”

  I opened my eyes to the oval, cheery face of an older woman with pointed glasses. Her silver hair was teased in a beehive, and she wore an apricot-colored waitress dress. The name tag at her breast said LAMERLE.

  “Come on in, sugar,” she said, waving me toward the door of the diner. “I’ve got grits. I’ve got hash. I’ve got flapjacks.” She kept listing foods as she walked, but I couldn’t hear her anymore.

  After I checked to make sure the Portrait of a Young Man was safe and secure, I opened the passenger door and almost fell out onto the pavement. Every muscle was stiff, and my stomach growled, demanding a living sacrifice. LaMerle unlocked the diner and held the door open for me. I fell into a blue vinyl booth by the front windows so I could keep an eye on my hundred-million-dollar Corvette. A drumline marched and pounded inside my head.

  “You look like you could use some coffee,” LaMerle said. She shuffled behind the counter. The coffee maker was filled, then set to percolate. “You like ice in yours? Folks say I’m crazy, but I like mine with ice. You let me know if you want ice.”

  I sat there, forehead and nose pressed to the laminate tabletop, wondering if I was experiencing a hangover. My mouth certainly felt rank enough, but maybe I was just tired. I didn’t feel drunk last night, but then again, I wasn’t sure if I would’ve noticed anyway. The only time I ever had alcohol was when Uncle Lincoln handed me a frozen peach schnapps at Christmas and told me it was a slushy. I spit it out on his salmon corduroy pants.

  I downed LaMerle’s coffee, without the ice cubes, even though I hated the stuff in Base Life. In this body, though? Coffee was a sweet, dawn-kissed beauty. It was a pure need, like warm blood and fresh air. Like life couldn’t start without it. It was strong and helped shovel the heaviness of sleep off my back.