Extraordinary Lies

by Jennifer Alsever

  We remained quiet for the rest of the ride, passing lush trees, vast manicured lawns, immaculate brick Tudor houses, and then, industrial complexes and skyscrapers.

  Robbie carried my luggage inside the grand entrance of the Chicago Union Station, where our footsteps echoed off the marble floor. He took us to the train platform, then nodded goodbye and turned to leave me and my cousin alone, me with my ticket in hand.

  A train whistle blew, the sound deep and rushing. I straightened.

  “I guess…” she said, hesitating.

  “See you in August.” My voice cracked on the last word and my throat cinched shut.

  “No…” Victoria whined. She blinked back tears and tugged on my arm. “Let’s … just … run away.”

  Was she serious? How? Victoria was fine. She’d have a whole summer of white tennis skirts and ice-cream sodas, of blowing kisses to boys by the country-club pool. But no one would distract her parents when she bought LSD by the pool or snuck out the window to go to dance clubs.

  “I’ll be back,” I said finally.

  The train brakes squealed, metal on metal. The conductor called out. I couldn’t move. My feet were nailed into the wooden platform. Could I really do this?

  I embraced Victoria, and her hair tickled my cheek. She smelled of cigarettes.

  She squeezed me back tight, grunting, her chin jabbing into my shoulder.

  The conductor yelled something again. We separated slowly as passengers flooded past us. I picked up my leather suitcase.

  “I’ll write you,” I said before turning and plodding to the metal steps up to the passenger car.

  I waved as I stepped onto the train. My grandfather’s prized treasure. Metal plaques adorned the front wall of the dining car. Victor Cavanaugh. Union Street Railroad. (1947).

  I stepped into the car, my nose flooded by perfume. Options swirled in my head. When I arrived at the train station in San Francisco, I could call my parents and tell them that no one came to pick me up, so the only option for them was for me to come home. Or I could be like Victoria, fearless, and tell everyone I wasn’t going to participate.

  I knew, though, that I wouldn’t run off and lie, and that I wouldn’t be a Victoria badass. I would be Julia, the girl who did what she was told and kept her mouth shut. My ribs caved in on my chest with the next thought.

  What if they find out I really do move and see things, that I’m not at all normal, what then?

  5

  Charley

  Dr. Carrillo had told me to call when I got off the plane from Indiana, but I wasn’t gonna do that. She also told me she’d have a car come pick me up and take me to the university, where we’d get started on testing right away. But I wasn’t going to drive all the way to Palo Alto to settle into some institution without checking things out first.

  I jumped into a cab at the Oakland airport with what was left from Dr. Carrillo’s wad of cash, and soon the Golden Gate Bridge came into view. Partially obscured by morning fog, the bridge seemed to lunge past me into the ocean.

  The bright red and orange steel beams and wires, the blue sky and silver water. It just looked like my own personal yellow brick road. Then, across the bridge, off the shore, sat white, pink, and silver buildings huddled together like some sort of fairytale. It was as if this bridge led to the happiest, richest city in the world.

  I cranked the handle to open the window and stuck my head out like a dog, letting the cool, salty air rush over me. It smelled like a city: a mix of exhaust, fish, toilet water, and maybe hamburgers. It felt like breathing for the first time.

  “I wanna check out this city,” I said.

  The cab driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror, his dark eyebrows dipping down.

  “Where in city?” He sounded foreign.

  I pulled out the guidebook I’d bought at the airport gift shop. Fisherman's Wharf rests on land created from the rubble of buildings destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906.

  “Can you take me to … uh … Fisherman’s Wharf?”

  I probably overpaid the driver, fumbling over how much to give him—I’d never been in a cab before—and then I stepped out of the car. On the sidewalk, I felt like electricity was pumping through me. I’d run away to the coolest city in the world. Turning like the hands on a clock, I took it all in. The yellow and turquoise buildings. Colorful sailboats cluttering the bay. A passing streetcar’s ringing bell. A couple eating ice cream cones beneath a sign for A&W Root Beer. Two business executives with pork-chop sideburns and fat brown ties pushing through the door of a restaurant. I looked at my guidebook. This was the site of the 1915 World’s Fair.

  For the next few hours, I walked around the city, hiking up steep hills, past Queen Anne houses to various neighborhoods. The Mission District. Pacific Heights. Sharon Field in Golden Gate Park, where young kids with bandanas and long tie-dye dresses sprawled on the grass and played flutes.

  When I finally took a cab to Stanford, the sun hung low in the sky and my arms were filled with shopping bags: trinkets, new scarves, and a cool poster of The Doors. And, courtesy of two hippies, a baggie of newly purchased weed was stuffed in my pocket.

  I climbed out of the car and squinted up at the blocky gray building with the concrete sign out front: The Stanford Research Institute. The lady who met me at my house, Dr. Carrillo, limped down the stairs to greet me, shaking my hand with two of hers. She kind of smelled sour.

  “You’re late.”

  I shrugged. “I explored.”

  The side of her mouth twitched. Her head bobbed like a floating fishing lure. “Let’s get started.”

  6

  Charley

  It turned out, it was too late for experiments—something about paperwork needing to be completed earlier in the morning—so Dr. Carrillo took me to a two-story building in the quad of Stanford’s campus. We climbed the stairs. Me heaving my bag full of clothes, and Dr. Carrillo hobbling like a toy truck without a wheel.

  In the hallway, we came up to some guy about my age, with shiny, stick-straight hair and a broad face.

  “This is Samuel Tanaka.” Dr. Carrillo stopped and threw a fat palm up to him. He nodded quick.

  I pointed at my chest. “Charley.”

  “That’s a boy’s name,” he said.

  “It’s my name.” Already, I didn’t like this guy. “What’re you in for?”

  “That question sounds like we’re in prison.” Samuel smirked.

  “You’re not.” Dr. Carrillo said, trying to wave me away from Samuel and move me down the hall. But I stayed put. I wanted an answer.

  His arms and legs went stiff when he spoke. “I’m capable of electromagnetism. Subpower of electricity manipulation. Variation of elemental telekinesis.”

  I sneered. Well, that sounded like bullshit. “Electro-what?”

  “It’s the ability to disrupt electronics with your mind,” Dr. Carrillo said urgently. She tossed her head toward the corridor.

  “So, what, you’re like an electrical outlet?”

  He looked at me blankly. “No.”

  Dr. Carrillo spoke up. “Charley is here for supposed dermo-optical perception. Or perhaps psychometry.”

  Is that what it’s called? Touching people’s hands and seeing their shit? Samuel didn’t appear to care. He walked away, head down, legs moving swiftly like stiff scissors. God, he was just the kind of stiff-as-a-board kid you’d expect to find at a place that studied clairvoyant monsters like me.

  Dr. Carrillo limped forward down the hallway. “Your room is the next one here.”

  She unlocked the door and swung it open so the scent of bleach wafted up into my face.

  It was way smaller than my room at home, decorated more like a classroom than a bedroom, with its linoleum floors and white concrete walls. The twin beds were basic, nailed to the walls. The rest of the room was just as plain and boring. A built-in wooden desk in the corner with a tiny writing surface and a few shelves above. A closet and attached bathroom. At least
it had a window.

  “Who’s my roommate?”

  She shook her head. “Just you.”

  That pumped up something in my chest. I was away from my parents’ drama, away from the diner. Away from death. That’s what home was. Like smelling yourself die.

  I looked out the window, at the big leafy tree that waved back at me.

  This was what it would have been like to go to college. To be on my own. A dormitory room, and not even having to share it with anyone. I had it all to myself.

  I remembered the day I brought home some brochures for a couple local universities and left them on the kitchen table. Maybe it was an accident, but maybe it wasn’t. At fifteen, I wanted a sly way to pose the question of whether they’d pay for me to go to school. If they thought I was capable.

  The next morning, I caught Dad looking down his nose at those brochures as he sipped black coffee. He glanced up at me, scooted his chair back with a loud honking sound, and tossed those brochures in the trash can.

  Well, I’d ended up at Stanford after all. Except instead of studying, I’d be studied.

  I glanced at the black rotary telephone on the wall, wondering if I should call them. I didn’t want Cindy to think I’d abandoned her. She’d just get more messed up.

  Dr. Carrillo was talking about our schedule, but I hadn’t really heard her. There was a pause.

  “Can I use that phone? To call home?”

  She nodded, clearly irritated by the interruption, and continued to drone on about laboratory time, free time, meal time, bed time, and more. Maybe this was a prison.

  “When do we get paid?” I asked.

  “What?” Dr. Carrillo asked, stopping short. She had been listing off names of scientists, holding out fingers to count. She put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. “This is a three-month commitment, Charley.”

  It was so weird hearing her call me Charley. She’d always called me Charlotte, and hearing my comfortable nickname felt like another dose of freedom. Three months? This sounded like a pretty good deal after all.

  7

  Julia

  The man stood as if he had pebbles in his shoes. The Stanford Research Institute loomed behind him at the edge of a park on the southernmost tip of the university campus. An American flag whipped in the wind.

  “I’m Dr. Strong.” Dressed in a brown suit, he stuck out a hand, which I shook, albeit hesitantly. “I’ll be one of the scientists leading this project.”

  I nodded.

  He gestured to the building. “This is where a lot of government-funded programs are housed.”

  Two boys approached us: an older kid wearing bell-bottoms and a smirk, whom the scientist introduced as Henry, and a Chicano boy whose name was Cordellius or something, but went by the name Cord. He had a serious infatuation with the Cadillac that picked us up and drove by the water and city.

  “I can’t believe your car had air conditioning!”

  “It’s great, right—” Dr. Strong said.

  “We don’t got that in my house.” Cord pointed over his shoulder. His soft voice was sweetened by a Chicano accent. “And sheesh, them palm trees?”

  I looked but didn’t see much beyond big brick buildings. He nodded, grinned, and laughed silently.

  “Nothing but the best for you kids.” Dr. Strong’s face looked somewhat like a wolf’s.

  Dr. Strong took a couple steps down the concrete walk. “Later this month, we plan on taking you to the premiere of the new movie, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”

  “No way,” Cord said.

  I crush my boyfriend and his stupid new girlfriend in her car, and then a few days later, I’m in California being waited on by scientists offering to take me to movie premieres? It didn’t make sense.

  I gazed up at the staid gray building. When I packed my bags, I had pictured a gray castle with dark clouds and lightning bolts. But of course, this was an esteemed academic university. Not some place from a horror movie or Transylvania. But I was a walking horror movie.

  Henry turned and nudged me. “Nice hair,” he said under his breath and then chuckled.

  I touched my full hair, stiff from hair spray and flipped up on the edges. Just like Mother liked.

  “So what can you do, babe?” he asked.

  I kept my wide eyes trained on the sidewalk. What could I do? I could crush wicked girls in cars. I could cause virtual earthquakes with my rage. I could make rocks fly through the air and break windows. When I was nine, I killed this angry grouse we used to call Taco. He’d follow us around on the compound, aggressively chasing us, jumping up and tearing at our pant legs with his sharp beak. He was mean. And one day, while watching him chase a wailing Victoria, I did something about it. I made that bird flip into the air and slam into the side of Grandfather’s 1961 Jaguar.

  I said none of this. “I’m not…” My voice was barely audible.

  Henry chuckled and cracked his knuckles.

  As we followed Dr. Strong into the building, Henry placed his hand on my shoulder, and an electric jolt shot through my gut. Not the juicy kind of electricity you feel when you’re attracted to a boy. This was totally different. More like an electric eel wrapping around your throat. I shivered and shook off his hand.

  Inside, Dr. Strong’s voice echoed over our footsteps on the metal stairs leading to the basement. He explained the people at the institute, shortened to be called “SRI,” were mostly physicists studying what he called unusual phenomena.

  “Our goal is to establish scientific proof of telepathic communications and to identify the nature of the brain energy behind it.”

  We nodded.

  “If we’re successful, then the discovery of this energy could be huge. As big of a deal, perhaps, as the discovery of atomic energy.”

  In the basement, we followed him down a long gray corridor with pipes, vents, and conduits that snaked across the ceiling. Dr. Strong stopped at a window that opened up to a small room. It looked like an interrogation room at a police station—the kind I’d seen in movies. A girl with large ears and braces sat at a table.

  “Who’s she?” Cord placed his nose close to the glass.

  “Can she see us?” Henry asked.

  Dr. Strong nodded. “That’s Carol. She’s being tested for OBEs.”

  “OB-whats?” Cord asked, looking back at Dr. Strong.

  “Out-of-body experiences.”

  Thin blue and red wires extended from tape on the girl’s temple and attached to a machine the size of a refrigerator. Dr. Strong tapped the glass.

  “That’s called a Beckman dynograph. It records her physiological signals on magnetic tape,” he explained.

  Across the room, a tray hung suspended from the ceiling. A woman in a white lab coat entered the room, walking unevenly and carrying a wooden box. Peeking out from beneath the yellow plaid bell-bottom pants were uneven shoes—one had a platform sole at least two inches taller than the other.

  “That lady right there. That’s Dr. Carrillo,” Cord rolled the Rs in her name properly. “She came all the way to Colorado to pick me.”

  The scientist carefully climbed a ladder and placed the box on the tray. Carol turned and faced the opposite wall.

  “What’s she doing with the box?” Henry asked, his voice a deep sandpaper.

  “She puts things inside, and then Carol will float up and out of her body to spy down on what’s inside the box.”

  I moved closer to the glass, my interest piqued. Henry stood closer to me, clearly trying to catch my eye. I scooted away, crossing my arms over my chest.

  Dr. Carrillo twirled her hand in the air, indicating that the experiment had started and Carol was to turn around.

  Dr. Strong pressed a small button on the side of the window that allowed us to hear the conversation inside the room.

  “Take your time,” Dr. Carrillo said. Her voice was scratchy through the intercom. “If you get nervous, your blood pressure will climb. It will ruin it and distort the brain-wave fe
eds.”

  I watched Carol carefully. Her dark brows furrowed, and after a moment, the skin on her cheeks sagged, her shoulders slumped, and her eyes took on a distant look, as if she were gazing through the walls. A chill trickled down my neck.

  “Can you see it?” Dr. Carrillo asked gazing intently at the girl.

  “Yeah,” Carol said in a monotone.

  “Well, what do you see?”

  “Um, I can’t really explain. It’s round…,” Carol said. The volume of her voice dropped.

  My fingers twitched; I felt nervous for her. I glanced at Cord, who was rapt.

  “What else?” Dr. Carrillo’s voice sounded clipped.

  “I ca … ca … can’t…,” Carol stuttered.

  “Unacceptable.” Dr. Carrillo breezed through the room to the Beckman dynograph and switched off the machine. “You said you could do this, Carol. You told me.”

  Carol’s gaze flitted across the surface of the table. “I … c-c-c-can … I j-j-just can’t explain what I s-s-saw.”

  “Ridiculous,” she said. “Tell me, then.”

  Carol’s lip quivered. “M-m-may I please ha-a-have something to wr-wr-write with?”

  Dr. Carrillo left the room and returned with a pen and piece of paper. She set them down in front of Carol and stood over her, watching, with hands hitched on her hips.

  I glanced at the others. Henry studied Carol like a lion sizing up his prey, and Cord was so in awe his eyes looked like giant gumballs.

  Carol sketched something and then held it up for Dr. Carrillo to see. On the paper, she had drawn a long, thin object with a tip. Next to it, she drew a circle with ragged edges. She shaded parts of it.

  The scientist trotted over to the ladder and climbed the rungs to reach the tray. Ceremoniously, she pulled a pen and a rock out of the box.

  “Sheesh!” Cord said, grinning and glancing at me. We made eye contact briefly before I turned away. Had she really seen what was inside the box?