Both women had half-empty glasses on the table in front of them, and Dexter was surprised to detect the faint, sour smell of alcohol in the air. That wasn’t like them; while Aunt Paula was known to partake of a six-pack now and then, Dexter’s mother rarely drank at all. She considered alcohol an expensive luxury to be reserved for special occasions such as weddings and funerals.
“Dexy, honey, there you are!” His mother was all smiles as she turned to greet him. Her normally sallow cheeks were flushed and there was an uncharacteristic twinkle in her pale gray eyes.
Dexter blinked in surprise. “What’s going on?” he mumbled, already feeling left out of the joke.
“Guess what, Dexy?” Aunt Paula cooed. “Great news. MonoMart settled out of court!”
“Huh?”
“MonoMart,” Aunt Paula repeated impatiently. “My accident. You were there, remember?”
Dexter remembered all right. His face flushed slightly as he flashed back to that day, the embarrassment of watching the EMTs struggle to hoist his aunt’s bulky figure onto the stretcher while Zach and the others giggled in the background.…
“They gave her almost as much as she was asking for,” his mother put in eagerly, her thin voice shaking with excitement. “Can you believe that? I guess for a big company like them, it ain’t worth going to court over that much.”
“Yeah.” Aunt Paula chortled. “Can you believe it? Enough money to live on for years, and they don’t even want to fight me for it!”
A shudder of revulsion, bitter and scalding, made its way through Dexter’s body. This wasn’t the first time his aunt had scammed her way to good fortune. There had been the time she’d sued the builder of her house for the flooring she’d ruined, and the time she’d planted a cockroach in her salad at a local fast-food place, and, perhaps the most egregious, when she’d sued her wedding planner and each of the various other merchants and services she’d used when her husband left her a month after the big day.
But this sounded like her biggest payoff yet. He wanted to ask the amount, but he held back. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of his curiosity. It would only reinforce her feelings of success.
And she’s probably proud of herself for it, too, he thought in disgust. She probably thinks this is the best thing she ever did, and will spend the next ten years bragging about it to anyone who’ll listen.
He hated the thought of hearing it, of witnessing her coy little smirks as she lorded it over her friends and neighbors while his mother giggled along, hoping for a few scraps of generosity in return. He hated everything that said about their family. Even more, he hated the twinge of envy he felt at the thought of all that money. It was easy to stand there and condemn her for this, but was he really any better than she was? Or was he just too much of a coward to go for it like she did?
No. I’m not like that. I’ll never be like that.
Dexter’s whole body was tense with the force of his loathing. He wanted to speak up, to say or do something to express what he thought of the whole situation. To let Aunt Paula and his mother know that he was onto them and that he would never, ever let himself be like them; not if he had to eat out of garbage cans and sleep on the street.
“Dexy,” his aunt said, interrupting his angry thoughts. “I figured I ought to share my good fortune with the most important people in the world—my family. So I’m buying your mother a new car.…”
“A Cadillac!” Dexter’s mother broke in, clasping her thin hands in front of her face. “Can you believe it? Me, driving a brand-new Cadillac? It’s just too good to be true!”
“Nothing’s too good for my favorite sister.” Aunt Paula beamed at her, her eyes almost disappearing in folds of fat. “Anyway, Dexy, I was trying to think of what you’d want. I was going to buy you a fancy new car, too.…”
The image of zooming into the school parking lot in a shiny, low-slung foreign sports car or tricked-out SUV popped into Dexter’s mind. What would those rich boys think of him then? What would Kristin Vandevere think? It was a tantalizing thought, one that made him feel warm all over as he lingered over it.
No. I don’t want it. Not that way, he told himself firmly. I can live without a car. What good will a car do me, anyway? I can walk to work, and to school when I need to. A fancy car would just be another expense, and when Aunt Paula runs through her money in a few months or a year, I’ll be stuck paying for it all myself on minimum wage.
He realized Aunt Paula was still speaking. “But then I says to myself, Dexter don’t really want a car all that much. But I know what he does want.”
How could she possibly know that? Dexter wondered, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. She doesn’t know me at—
Her next words blew away all of his sarcastic thoughts. “He wants to go off to college,” Aunt Paula announced with obvious satisfaction. “So I figure, what the hell. If that’s really his thing, I s’pose I can make that dream come true. That’s what family’s for, right?”
Dexter’s jaw dropped. He was so stunned he couldn’t speak for a moment.
“Surprised, ain’t you, boy?” Aunt Paula grinned at him, still looking enormously pleased with herself. “You know I ain’t much for all that school stuff. But you seem to be into it, so why not? I’ll loan you the money for your expenses at any college you can get into, and you can pay me back later when you’re some rich, educated doctor or lawyer or whatever. Deal?”
Dexter stared at her, still mute with shock. His first instinct was to refuse. He didn’t want to profit from her swindled money. More than that, he didn’t want her to assume that he endorsed her way of life or approved of anything he did.
But once the initial jolt of surprise passed, he immediately recognized that what she was offering him, whether she knew it or not, was a ticket out—a road to a whole new life, one that didn’t revolve around punching a clock for a pittance and stretching every penny to the breaking point. Dexter felt a flare of hope as he pictured himself wandering the campus of some misty, mythical university, meeting kind, thoughtful people who wanted to hear what he had to say. It would be a new kind of existence, interesting and easy and satisfying, far from the grim reality of his life so far. He could start over from scratch, be whoever he wanted…maybe even a real-life SuperDexter.
Realizing that his aunt was still gazing at him, waiting for an answer, he swallowed hard and forced a smile.
“Deal,” he said.
5
“THANKS, JOANNA.” DEXTER TURNED to face the woman who had just sprayed insect repellent on the back of his neck. “I really appreciate it. I tried to go into the jungle to look for Daisy but the bugs were eating me alive.”
“You’re welcome. Good luck finding her.” The woman smiled sympathetically and tucked the bug spray back in her pocket.
Joanna wandered off. Dexter rolled up his pant legs and splashed into the surf to rinse the repellent off his hands. The water felt chilly; the temperature on the beach seemed to have dropped about twenty degrees as the sun sank toward the horizon. Up and down the beach, people were adjusting their makeshift shelters and stoking the signal fires. It would be dark soon and there was still no sign of a rescue party, which meant they would all almost certainly be spending a second night on the island.
As Dexter dried off his hands on his jeans, he saw Michael struggling along the beach under the weight of a large piece of metal. “Need some help?” Dexter offered, hurrying over and grabbing one end of the metal shard.
The man looked up gratefully. “Thanks, man,” he said breathlessly. “Thought I’d try using this to rig up a better shelter for me and Walt.”
“Sounds good.”
Dexter hadn’t spoken with Michael since their first meeting earlier that day. However, during his search for Daisy, he had gotten to know a number of his other fellow castaways. There was Arzt, of course, the short-tempered but smart science teacher who had looked after him while he was unconscious. Joanna, the outgoing surfer chick. Hurley, a big, fri
endly walrus of a guy. George, the loud-mouthed, likeable know-it-all. John Locke, who seemed to talk only in riddles. And Scott and Steve and Janelle and Faith and Larry and many more. And of course Jack had been around all day tending to the wounded and doing whatever else needed doing.
But there was still no sign of Daisy. Nobody had seen her, nobody knew where she might be. Dexter had been half-afraid to look at the dead bodies that still lay here and there on the beach, but when he’d finally gathered his courage to do so he’d been relieved not to find her among them.
After they set down the chunk of metal, Michael brushed off his hands and nodded gratefully at Dexter. “Thanks again, man,” he said. “Hey, weren’t you looking for someone earlier? You find her?”
“My girlfriend, Daisy,” Dexter said. “And no, I haven’t found her yet. I was just going to ask if you’d seen any pretty, blond college-age girls around here. Oh, but not that one who left earlier today with the group testing the transceiver or whatever—I already saw her.…”
“There’s another one coming right this way.” Michael nodded toward someone behind Dexter.
Dexter spun around, an eager, relieved smile already forming on his face. But instead of Daisy, he saw an enormously pregnant young blonde heading toward him. “Oh,” he said, deflated. “That’s not her.”
He’d noticed the young woman several times—it was hard not to notice her, with her giant protruding belly—but he hadn’t met her yet. To his surprise, though, the pregnant girl seemed to recognize him immediately. She hurried toward him, a surprised expression on her pretty face.
“How did you get back here so fast?” she demanded in an Australian accent. “I just saw you out in the jungle!”
Startled, Dexter flashed back to Arzt’s similar accusation earlier. Did he have a look-alike on the island? If so, he hadn’t seen him yet.
“Nope, wasn’t me,” he told the pregnant girl. “I’m Dexter, by the way.”
She stuck out her hand and smiled. “Hi. I’m Claire.” They shook hands, but even after they finished she couldn’t seem to stop staring at him. “Are you sure that wasn’t you I saw out there?” she asked after a moment, resting one hand on the swell of her belly. “I would’ve sworn…”
“Wasn’t me,” he assured her. “I’ve been right here on the beach for the past couple of hours. You can ask anyone.”
“Yep. I can vouch for the last ten minutes myself,” Michael put in with a grin.
She laughed. “That’s all right, I believe you,” she said. “Both of you. Sorry if it sounded like I didn’t. It’s just so weird.…”
“Yeah,” Dexter said slowly. “It is. You’re not the only person to say that kind of thing to me today.” He described the earlier encounter with Arzt.
“That teacher guy?” Michael rolled his eyes and chuckled. “He seems a little, you know, tightly wound.”
“Still, he seemed really convinced that it was me,” Dexter said. “Maybe I really do have a twin here.”
“Yeah. And apparently he’s spending all his time in the jungle,” Michael said.
Remembering how disoriented he’d felt at first, Dexter wondered if there might still be survivors wandering around out in the woods who hadn’t even found their way to the beach yet. People like his look-alike…or maybe Daisy.
“You know, maybe I’ll go take a look in the jungle for this guy,” he said. “If he’s my twin I should really meet him, right?”
“You’re going out there now? Be careful.” Claire looked worried. “It’ll be dark soon. And you never know…”
She let her voice trail off. Dexter guessed she was thinking of the mysterious noise-maker the others had witnessed the previous night while he was still passed out. They all got that look on their face when they talked about it, and he couldn’t help wondering just what could spook them all so much.
Shrugging off such thoughts, he said good-bye to Michael and Claire and headed for the tree line. Entering at the same spot where he’d seen Claire emerge, he wandered along a faint trail enjoying the shade and quiet and relative absence of flies. It was like an entirely different world from the hot, sandy, itchy, buzzing, wreckage-laden atmosphere of the beach.
At least it was mostly different. He rounded a patch of shrubs and spotted a battered suitcase stuck in the thick, twisted branches of a tree just ahead. Its latch had broken and it was half open, spilling socks and T-shirts and women’s underwear down the trunk and onto the forest floor.
Dexter stared at it for a moment, wondering uneasily if it belonged to Claire or Joanna or one of the other women on the beach. Or had it been packed by someone else, a woman who hadn’t made it through the crash?
With a slight shudder, he turned away. It was getting darker by the second, especially there in the shadows of the thick jungle canopy, and he knew he would have to turn back soon. First, though, he wanted to take a few more minutes to look around for signs of his mysterious double, not to mention searching for Daisy. He still couldn’t shake the guilty feeling that he hadn’t been doing enough to find her. Sure, he’d asked around on the beach. But what good had that done? He’d already been pretty sure he wouldn’t find her there. If she’d been there, she would have been sitting at his side when he woke up, holding a water bottle to his lips and making him feel better with her smile.
The thought of her beautiful smiling face gave him the familiar feelings of happiness, desire, and awe that he’d always felt in Daisy’s presence. But it also brought on a twinge of uneasiness, as if there was something about the face in his memory, some flaw or pimple, that he couldn’t quite bring into focus. Knitting his brow as he walked on through a grove of ancient-looking trees, he worried over the problem like a dog with a bone. What was wrong with him? Was this just some lingering effect of dehydration? Had he hit his head in the crash and suffered a concussion that Jack hadn’t noticed?
A large, buzzing insect zipped busily across the trail right in front of his nose, startling him into a halt. Following its loopy flight pattern as it continued off through the trees, he noticed with a start that he wasn’t alone in this part of the forest. A young man was standing in front of a large, double-trunked tree a few yards away, his back to Dexter as he bent over something on the ground. He was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt almost the same shade of blue as the one Dexter was wearing.
Aha! Dexter thought with a mixture of triumph, amusement, and relief. That explains it. Same build, same clothes…no wonder everyone keeps mixing us up.
“Hey!” he called out, curious to see the other guy’s face. “Excuse me. You there.”
The young man turned…and Dexter suddenly had the brief, dizzy sensation of falling into a deep, dark pit as he saw his own face looking back at him.
He let out a startled yelp. His doppelganger didn’t react except to stare at him curiously for a long, breathless moment.
Unable to think or even breathe, Dexter stared back. The young man’s features were identical to his in every way, though on closer examination his clothes looked a bit shabbier and he might have been just a touch thinner. His face was shadowed by the trees overhead, his expression impossible to read.
Then the other Dexter turned away without a word. One step, two, and he disappeared into the leafy, dappled shadows. A second later Dexter wasn’t quite sure he’d been there at all.
He was still staring at the empty spot in front of the double-trunked tree a moment or two later when he heard running footsteps behind him. He turned just in time to see Michael and his son, Walt, burst out of the trees.
“Dexter!” Michael cried. “You okay, man? I heard you yell.”
For a second Dexter couldn’t answer. His mouth and throat felt as dry and lifeless as the sand on the beach. Finally he swallowed hard, forcing his reluctant throat into action.
“Did you see that?” he croaked out.
“See what?” Michael’s eyes darted here and there around the area, his expression nervous. “Did something attack you
? Was it…What was it?”
“Was it Vincent?” Walt put in excitedly. He jumped forward, his whole body aquiver. “My dog? Did you see him? He’s a yellow Lab.”
“No.” Dexter shook his head, which was still spinning. “Sorry. No dog. No attack, either. It was that guy…”
He paused, turning to stare at the spot where the other Dexter had stood. Michael gazed at him quizzically.
“What guy?” he asked. “There’s no one here but us.”
“It was a guy,” Dexter explained, turning to face him. “Remember what Claire said about seeing someone who looked like me out here? Well, I just saw him, too. And he doesn’t just look like me—he looks exactly like me! I mean, down to the last detail. Like looking in a mirror. It was freaky!”
“Really? Cool!” Walt looked fascinated.
“Yeah.” Michael’s face registered concern as he glanced from his son to Dexter and back again. “Cool. Freaky. Whatever. Listen, are you sure you’re feeling okay? It’s still hot out, and wandering around too much is a good way to get dehydrated again.…”
“No, I’m not hallucinating, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Dexter insisted. “I really saw this guy—I mean it. He was standing right over there, just as real as one of these trees.” He smacked the trunk of the closest tree for extra emphasis.
“All right, okay, I believe you,” Michael said, though his expression indicated that he was still skeptical. “But it’s almost dark, and we should get back. You can look for your—your twin or whatever in the morning.”
“I guess you’re right.” After one last glance, Dexter turned away, back toward the beach. “Let’s go.”
Lost: The Novels Page 17