The Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare

by MG Buehrlen

  He lets out a laugh and flops down onto one of the orange plastic chairs at the table. He rolls the sleeves of his light blue collar shirt up to his elbows and kicks his long legs out, making himself comfortable. His sneakers are gleaming white. His shaggy honey blond hair hides his eyes.

  I bite my lip, wondering if this is a good idea. Usually when Jensen is around, so are all the other popular kids. I never knew him to be the loner library type. It’s not that I mind talking to him – in fact, I often daydreamed about meeting him this way a few times before, having him all to myself for a while – but I don’t feel like getting harassed by Tabitha and her flock of phonies. If that’s the price I have to pay for a moment alone with Jensen, I’d rather keep my money.

  And my dignity.

  I take a seat and glance at the paperback in his hand. “Jane Austen?”

  He jumps when I say it and nearly falls over in his chair trying to shove the little paperback book in his back pocket. His ears are so red, they could match my 1961 lipstick. “For my sister,” he says.

  “Riiiight.”

  He looks like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but after a moment he lifts his chin, like he’s summoned the courage to own up to the truth. “I read my sister’s copy of Sense and Sensibility and liked it. I thought I’d give Pride and Prejudice a shot.”

  I give him a look that says, “Good for you,” and open one of the books in front of me, Train Robberies of the Midwest.

  He drapes his arms on the table and looks at me from under his floppy hair. “This is the part where you say guys who read Austen are super sexy.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” I flip through the pages. “I haven’t read anything of hers.”

  “What?” He sits up. “I thought all girls read Austen.”

  “Jensen, that’s sexist.”

  “You know what I mean. You should give her a try. You’d like her.”

  I shrug. “I don’t really read much.”

  He eyes my massive mound of books with a look.

  “OK,” I say, pushing up my glasses. “I don’t read much fiction.”

  “Fair enough.” He drums his fingers on one of the tomes. “Oh, I hear congratulations are in order.”

  “Why? Am I pregnant?”

  “No,” he laughs. “For getting your license.”

  I scan through the index of Train Robberies of the Midwest looking for the Carter Gang. “Oh, yeah. About time, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s cool. I always thought you couldn’t drive because of your seizures.”

  A strand of ice slithers down my back and I freeze. My eyes snap to his, and I lose my place in the book. Did he seriously just say that with a straight face? “Oh, come on, Jensen. You know as well as I do that’s not true.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Of course not. You started that rumor after that day in Sunday School, remember?”

  “When you threw up on me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never told anyone about that.”

  “No, but you told them I had a seizure instead, and that you saved my life with the Heimlich Maneuver.”

  His nose wrinkles. “No, I didn’t.”

  I just stare back at him, not getting the joke. I can’t decide if he’s playing with me or if he’s serious. “If you didn’t start the rumor, then who did?”

  “I don’t know, Wayfare,” he says, his hazel eyes tight around the edges. “Maybe one of the other dozen kids in the class?” He pushes off from the table and stalks away, not carrying himself as tall as usual. The Victorian lady on the cover of the Austen novel in his back pocket peeks out at me. Even she looks disappointed.

  My forehead smacks down onto Train Robberies of the Midwest.

  It must be some sort of record. In less than five minutes, I managed to piss off the first Base Life friend I might have had.

  STARTING OVER

  After half an hour, I decide to take some of the books home with me. I can’t concentrate because I feel bad for accusing Jensen. I feel bad for believing he started the rumor all this time. Just because he was popular and the rumor glorified him didn’t necessarily mean he made it up. He had plenty of admirers to do that for him.

  In a lovely yet guilt-ridden swirl of a moment, I realize even the most popular guy in school isn’t immune to rumors. We both have our fair share.

  Which makes me feel even worse.

  I check the books out and head to the Mustang. Dad let me borrow it since the library was on the other side of town.

  I stack the books on the hood and pull the keys from my pocket, spotting something light blue out of the corner of my eye. I glance over and see Jensen sitting on a bench in front of the library, one leg propped on the other, his arms outstretched on the back of the bench.

  Maybe I can redeem myself.

  “Still here?” I call out.

  “My sister,” he says, disappointment on his face. “I guess she forgot to pick me up.”

  I tip my head at the Mustang. “Hop in.”

  He leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “Is that your car?” When I nod, he jumps up and jogs over to it. “A ‘69 Mach 1? My dad says that’s the best year. I’ve never ridden in one before.”

  “Now’s your chance.” I climb in and lean over to pop the lock on the passenger door.

  He slides in with a goofy grin. “Did your parents buy it for you?”

  “Ha, no. It’s my dad’s, but I helped him restore it, so he lets me drive it.”

  His eyes widen. “Wow. You really are a fix-it whiz.”

  “Fix-it Freak, you mean?” I toss the books in the back seat and buckle my lap belt.

  “Fix-it Freaking Awesome, maybe.”

  I start the engine and put her into gear, smiling to myself. Jensen never did call me names. At least, not to my face.

  We take off, windows down, and cruise through town. One of Jensen’s favorite songs comes on the radio, and I can tell he’s totally in his element. He drums his fingers to the beat. His head bobs. He grins from ear to ear. Especially when I plow the Mustang into third and bury the car behind me in exhaust.

  We pass a group of guys from Jensen’s basketball team on the sidewalk. I totally expect Jensen to sink down in his seat and hide his face. Instead, he waves an arm out the window and calls out to them. They wave and shout back, noticing the Mustang. They’re jealous at first, calling Jensen names, which I guess are meant to be endearing in Guy Speak, but then their mouths drop when they see who’s driving. They gape at us as we drive on, their stares burning into the rearview mirror. Jensen settles back in his seat, happy as a clam, totally oblivious of the social atrocity he just committed. To be seen with Wayspaz? That’ll be the talk of the school on Monday.

  But Jensen doesn’t seem to mind.

  The boy must be oblivious.

  I slam the car into third again, my favorite gear change, and our hearts are pinned to the back of our seats. By the time I pull down his street and into his driveway, he’s in danger of having his face permanently frozen in that silly grin.

  He climbs out somewhat reluctantly, then leans down with one arm draped on the door. “Can we go again sometime?”

  “Sure. As long as you forgive me for that whole rumor thing.” I push my glasses up.

  His smile morphs into something more sincere than silly. “Already forgiven.” He closes the door and drums on the hood as I back down the driveway. He lifts a hand and waves, walking backwards.

  I pause before I back out, waiting for traffic to clear. When I do, I see Tabitha jog across the street to Jensen in running shorts and a jacket. I can’t hear what she’s saying to him, but she’s waving her arms in my direction and doesn’t look happy. Jensen throws his arms in the air like he’s fed up and clasps his hands behind his head. He trudges toward the front door of his huge brick house, his back to her, and Tabitha follows at his heels, still rattling on animatedly.

  If he didn’t know about his social atrocity earlier, he sure
knows about it now.

  CHAPTER 20

  LINEAR

  The next morning, I get a text from Porter telling me he left me something on the front porch. I find it tucked in a corner under the porch swing – a small, unassuming box with a digital watch inside. It’s set to satellite time so we’ll be in sync for our next mission. For some reason, he wants me to leave at an exact time.

  I go about my day as usual, like I’m just a normal kid and not a time-traveling Descender. I finish my homework, rake the yard, put the finishing touches on Craig’s DVD player project, help Dad with dinner, then hang out with the fam for movie night. We all sink into Mega Couch and watch The Maltese Falcon for what seems like the hundredth time. We devour half a dozen bowls of popcorn. Gran swoons over Humphrey Bogart. Claire sticks her cold feet under my legs for warmth. All the while I keep Porter’s watch in the front pocket of my hoodie, where it’s secret and safe.

  Sunday morning is church, where I get a smile and a wave from Jensen both before and after service, which makes me feel pretty damn good. Normal. The whole family has lunch at Audrey’s favorite restaurant in the historic district, an Irish pub called Gallagher’s, and she orders the same thing as always: corned beef and cabbage. Pops orders a pint and tells us stories about his dad, who grew up in Scotland. Claire laughs at the foam clinging to Pops’ mustache.

  Later that afternoon, I climb the stairs to my room, sit cross-legged in the center of my oval rope rug, set my glasses beside me, and close my eyes. I straighten my back and hold the Polygon stone in my lap. I take a deep breath. All is silent except the distant sound of Gran whisking eggs in the kitchen. After a few minutes, the watch goes off at precisely 3.13. I run my fingers over the letters carved into the stone, I see the little boy, déjà vu grips me, and I ascend to meet Porter in my garden.

  “Why do we have to do this at an exact time?” I ask, walking toward him through my soulmarks. “You know it won’t be the same time in Missouri, right? I mean, it’s November, so no Daylight Savings, but I read that the time zones were a bit iffy back then.”

  He’s standing next to one of my soulmarks, his arms crossed. I guess to me, I’ll always perceive him wearing that silly orange Orioles cap, black polo, jeans, and boat shoes. “Yes, smarty pants,” he says. “But you’re not going back to an exact time. You’re going back to an exact age.”

  I crease my brow at him, so he explains.

  “No time passes in Base Life when you ascend to Limbo, remember? For all intents and purposes, we’ll just say time stops. It waits patiently for us to return, then picks up where it left off. Of course, the real reason is much more scientific than that – it has to do with the fact that time doesn’t exist in Limbo because time is a man-made measurement – but I can explain all that to you later. All you need to know now is this: while you can travel to any past life you want, you can’t travel to any time you want like other Descenders can. You can only travel linearly. It’s one of your defects. Whatever age you are when you leave Base Life, that’s the age you travel to in your host body. Not one minute before, not one minute later.”

  I really hate it when he says I have defects. It reminds me of an article I read that said leukemia is caused by a defect in a person’s bone marrow production. Which makes it sound like Audrey is defective. Like she should be sent back to the factory and scrapped for parts.

  My sister is not defective.

  And neither am I.

  But that’s an argument for another day.

  “So,” I ask, trying to piece together the logic of it all in my mind, “is that why I was three years old in my first vision? And seven in my second? Because that was my age when I descended?”

  Porter nods. “And that’s why you could go back and redo your time in 1927. Because you were still in Limbo, you hadn’t aged at all in Base Life. You were still the same age. Theoretically, you could spend decades in Limbo and never age a day in Base Life. You could gain all the knowledge you wanted, all the secrets of the world, then descend back to Base Life having never aged a second.”

  “Freaky.”

  “Quite.”

  “So then in 1927 and 1961, I was seventeen years old?”

  “Correct. And,” he says, “when you were seventeen years, two months, fifteen hours, and sixteen minutes old in 1876, you were on a train bound for Kansas City, Missouri. The very train robbed by the Carter Gang.”

  “Wait,” I say, holding up a hand. “I’m going to be on the train during the robbery?”

  Porter tips his head at the soulmark swaying gently beside him. “Why don’t you go find out?”

  I am. I’m going to be on the train. With a band of gangsters.

  I bite the inside of my lip and slowly reach for my soulmark. I ready myself for the pull, the seizing connection, but hesitate before I grab hold. “Will it be dangerous?”

  The laugh lines around Porter’s eyes deepen. “Nothing your host body can’t handle.”

  I guess that’s all the answer I’m getting.

  “Do you remember all the names?” he asks.

  I nod. “There are four in the gang: Cask, Judd, William, and Yates. All of them Carters except Yates. My name is Cora Delaney, and if anyone asks where I’m headed, I tell them I’m on my way to meet my beau.”

  Porter gives me that proud look again. Like at any moment he might break down and give me a bear hug. As I reach for the soulmark, he says, “Have fun.”

  MISSION NUMBER TWO

  When the black faded to light, I was just where Porter said I would be.

  I sat on an unforgiving wooden bench in a train car full of bobbing hats and bonnets. The rumble of iron wheels on iron tracks numbed the bottom of my feet and reverberated in my legs. Carpet bags and suitcases with leather straps and brass buckles were stacked on luggage racks above the train car windows. A plump, round woman sat beside me on my right, her perfume overpowering and making my nose itch, her dress a blanket of lavender satin and cream lace. Several strings of pearls poured over her enormous chest like rivulets of spilled milk. Two violet feathers from her wide-brimmed hat brushed against my cheek. They stuck to my eyelashes. I swept them aside and scooted away from her. I pressed myself against the window.

  My reflection greeted me in the panes of glass. It hovered like a ghost before a blurred backdrop of cold, naked forest outside. I was surprised to see that, for once, my hair was the same dusky blonde as in Base Life. It was parted down the middle and pulled back in a tight bun. A dainty yellow hat with a red poppy in the center perched at the very top of my head like a cake topper. A yellow ribbon snaked down either side of my face and knotted under my chin. My dress wasn’t as fancy as the woman’s beside me. It was plain fabric, somewhat soft, with a stiff collar that nearly grazed my jawline. It was the color of fresh butter with a pattern of tiny red flowers. There was a long, pale green velvet coat folded on my lap. My hands were snug in creamy white gloves, my feet suffocating within the tight laces of ankle boots.

  My nose was slightly different, more sleek than button-like, and my eyes were a striking shade of jade green rather than blue-gray, but everything else about my appearance was the same. I was even the same size – not tiny, not athletic, but not unhealthy either.

  I hadn’t realized how much I preferred my Base Life looks until that very moment. There were times in the past I thought I needed to look more like Tabitha to get Jensen’s attention, or any boy’s for that matter. Chuck the glasses, do something with my hair besides pulling it back in a ponytail, wear skimpier clothes, lose two sizes, have killer legs. But seeing more of myself in my 1876 body than the others filled me with relief. Thankfulness. Confidence in my own skin. It was a confidence that had always been there, but it was buried deep. Now I recognized it. I smelled its distinct presence beneath loam and moss and leaf mold. It must have been why I was so uncomfortable in my 1961 Marilyn Monroe body. I could never enjoy being a Barbie girl like Tabitha that men gawked at. I liked being me. I liked being invisible. Nerd glass
es and all.

  “Don’t you think so, dear?”

  I jumped at the sound of the round woman’s wooly voice so close to my right ear. She was looking at me expectantly, her thick, gray eyebrows arched. Even the hairs rooted in the mole on her chin stood in suspense of my answer. But I didn’t have the slightest clue what she had been talking about before I descended.

  “What?” I blurted, then immediately wished I hadn’t. I forgot I wasn’t supposed to engage in conversation with the locals.

  “The robberies,” she said, her voice rough and raw, like she was a smoker. I couldn’t smell any smoke on her, though, just her reeking perfume. “I can’t get enough of the stories in the papers. My son was robbed on his way to St Louis. Not by a notable gang, mind you, but he said it was excitin’ nonetheless. Wouldn’t it be excitin’ if our train were robbed by bandits?” She bounced slightly in our seat. It creaked.

  I had no idea what to say to that. Did people really want to be robbed back then? “They’ll take your pearls,” I said, nodding at them.

  Her thick fingers grazed the opalescent strands at her chest. “D’you really think so? That’s why I wore these in particular.” She bounced again, grinning.

  I couldn’t help but make a face. She’d get her wish when the Carter Gang arrived, and her stupid pearls would attract attention our way.

  But… maybe that would be a good thing. So far, my quickly laid plan was to sneak off the train after the robbery and follow the Carters to their hiding spot. How I managed to accomplish that, especially if they were on horseback, was a whole different story. At least if they surrounded the lady and took her pearls, I’d get a good look at them.

  Not that I wouldn’t recognize them. I had stared at their sepia-stained photos for three days. Their faces were burned on the backs of my eyelids.

  I turned back to the smudge of November forest gliding past outside and wondered when the Carters would stop the train. How long would I have to wait? The agony of anticipation pricked me so I couldn’t sit still. My torso became hot and sweaty. The round woman’s perfume nestled in my head and made everything thick and hazy. I shivered and shifted and rubbed my nose.