ARC: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

by M. G. Buehrlen

  I tried not to look at it when I kissed her goodbye.

  “I don’t want to talk about Audrey,” I tell Dr Farrow. I look away and try to swallow the sudden lump in my throat.

  She nods and puts pencil to paper. Then, “Tell me how it felt to tell your parents about your suspension.”

  Oh. That.

  DAD

  The day of the Mr Lipscomb Incident, Mrs Gafferty called Dad in from work to tell him face-to-face. He sent me out to wait in the car while they talked, and I sank into the cool vinyl in the back of the Mustang. Waiting. Breathing in autumn air.

  Even though the backseat was cramped, and I always preferred sitting beside Dad in the front, the back seemed fitting for that day. I was a criminal after all – captured and corralled – headed to the precinct.

  There were no words on the way home. Tension weighed heavy on my shoulders in the silence. I pressed my temple to the rear window glass and watched the blur of curb and grass, the swirl of crisp leaves in the breeze, the rise and fall of power lines. They reminded me of the time Audrey and I climbed the old power line poles at the edge of Pops’ farm to steal those glass insulators the power companies never use anymore. They were the most exquisite shade of blue-green, like the Chesapeake Bay on a clear day.

  Once Audrey caught a glimpse of that color, winking from the top of the power lines, she couldn’t rest until we had climbed all the way up and liberated each one. We carried them home, heavy and sagging in our stretched-out T-shirts. I spent a week fastening small lightbulbs inside each one, while Audrey coiled copper wire in intricate and lovely patterns around the outside. It was always that way with us. Whenever we found forgotten or broken objects, I would repair them and bring them back to life, and Audrey would make them beautiful. I was the stoic one with Coke-bottle eyeglasses. Audrey was the beauty, with a laugh that gave color to our world.

  Mom called our hobby upcycling, a term that helped us sell several of our hanging lamps at one of the local boutiques in Annapolis’ historic district. The rest were strung up in my workshop in the attic, a constant reminder of those blue-green days when Audrey could climb and run and leave beautiful things trailing after her.

  We arrived home sooner than I hoped. Dad pulled into our driveway, shaded by century-old sycamore trees ablaze with fire and gold, and cut the engine. Our house, a small brick Colonial, sat back from the road, nestled comfortably in those trees. It beckoned me inside, but I didn’t reach for my seatbelt.

  Dad pulled his keys from the ignition. He turned around and rested an arm on the back of the passenger seat. His eyes were kind and gray, like always, but his lips were curved in a frown. His dusky blond hair looked like he’d raked his hands through it a dozen times. Probably during his talk with Mrs Gafferty.

  “Do you want to tell your mom, or should I?” he said.

  My gut tightened. I could already see the disappointment on Mom’s face. Hear it in her voice – a shadow behind her ever calm, ever even words.

  Dad let go of his frown and a faint sympathetic smile showed itself. He knew all about my struggles with Mr Lipscomb. And Tabitha, for that matter. He was on my side when it came to both of them, though that didn’t mean he was OK with what I did. It just meant he understood. Which, honestly, pretty much made him the best dad in the world.

  He was the peace-keeper of our household, always trying to shield Mom from school-related problems and take care of them himself. Not that she wouldn’t want to know about them, but Dad figured they would distract her from her work. This time, however, he needed to “inform her of the escalated situation.” That faint smile meant he was sorry, but it had to be done.

  He dropped his arm and jostled his keys in his palm. “What are we going to do with you, Allie Bean?” He clamped the keys in his fist and heaved open the driver-side door.

  Time to face the judge.

  Inside, I smelled nutmeg and cinnamon, which meant there was one of Gran’s pumpkin pies cooling on the butcher block island in the kitchen. The tinny sound of Pops’ radio floated in on a cool breeze from the back porch, and I knew he was out there, sitting in his rocker, listening to his favorite sports program. Any other day I would’ve gone out to join him. Gran would’ve brought us hot cider, and we would’ve nagged her every five minutes, asking when the pie would be ready. Pops might have gotten a swat on the shoulder with a wooden spoon. I would’ve laughed. And Gran would’ve broken down and given us a slice. Still warm. With fresh whipped cream melting on top.

  Then I would’ve helped Dad with dinner, helped my youngest sister, Claire, with her homework, then read some of TS Eliot to Audrey until she fell asleep. For the past two months, she’d been falling asleep before dark. Every part of her body was tired. Even her fingernails, she said.

  But this time I went straight upstairs to my bedroom to await my trial. I had a good hour before Mom got home to work my stomach into several twisted knots of guilt.

  I hated letting her down. Even more than I hated Mr Lipscomb. And I’d been letting her down an awful lot lately.

  I hefted myself up each squeaky step to the attic, my feet feeling heavier than usual. The staircase on the second floor led right up into the middle of my room, which spanned the entire top floor of the house. It was more of a workshop than a bedroom really, though I did have a small twin bed in the far corner, a dresser, and a wardrobe. The ceiling was A-framed, sloping down almost to the floor, but each side had a bank of windows extending out from the slanted roof so you didn’t have to crouch like you did in other attics. The ceiling and walls were covered in old architectural drawings and machining schematics, as well as a few watercolors Audrey painted for me, and a poster of a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray.

  Silver, with a red v-stripe on the hood.

  I totally planned to own one someday.

  Three drafting tables Dad salvaged from an old factory stood strategically placed around the room, each covered in a heap of random parts, wire spools, and trays of tools. If I had it my way, my room would be in a constant state of organized chaos, but Gran insisted on tidying while I was at school. I could tell she’d been there that day because a path was paved through my boxes of spare electronics, and the faint scent of her lemon verbena perfume still hung in the air. Dancing with dust motes.

  I dropped my backpack on my oval rope rug and crossed the room to my workbench. I flipped the switch to one of Audrey’s glass insulator lamps and stared at a project I’d been working on for Craig, a kid in my Biology class. For a hundred bucks, I was supposed to modify his DVD player into a smartphone dock and wire it to stream internet movies to his TV.

  I didn’t ask which kinds of movies he’d be streaming. A hundred bucks was a hundred bucks.

  I cranked open the casement window next to my bench and got to work. The scent of burning leaves curled in and wrapped around my shoulders. The whir of distant leaf blowers and the rhythmic whoosh of cars passing by lulled me into a sort of hazy stupor while I worked. Every now and then leaves scuttled across the pavement in a gust of wind.

  I heard the front door open and close when Mom got home, but I kept my nose down. I didn’t even stop when the smell of lasagna baking in the oven made my stomach tumble and growl.

  I simply worked.

  And waited for the gavel.

  MOM

  It was dark outside and the crickets were chirruping by the time Mom climbed the steps to the attic. She carried a plate of lasagna and salad with both hands. Her long, pencil-straight chestnut hair was tied back at the base of her neck, but a few sleek strands had fallen out. They brushed her cheeks. Her glasses hung from a chain around her neck. The great shadow of disappointment stood behind her, hands in his pockets, head hung low, a little to the right.

  She slid the dinner plate in front of me, sort of like a peace offering, then sat on my bed and folded her bare feet under her long legs. The mattress coils squeaked. She frowned down at the quilt Gran made for me and traced the stitching with her slender fingers. The shadow trac
ed it too.

  We sat in silence for a long while, the light from Audrey’s lamp casting a blue prism across Mom’s hair. We sat until steam no longer rose from my dinner.

  Finally Mom spoke. Her voice was thin. Tired. “I can’t help but wonder if you’re trying to punish me, Bean.”

  Her words were so unlike anything I expected that I swiveled around to face her full on. “What do you mean? Why would I want to punish you?” I sounded more like a child than I meant to.

  Her eyes remained fixed on the quilt. “For working so much. For not being here.” She swallowed. “For not finding a cure.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and in an instant I was at her side. I folded her in my arms. Her shoulders shuddered. I felt her warm tears slip down my neck.

  Is that what she thought? That I got in trouble to get her attention? That I resented her for slaving away day and night, searching for Audrey’s cure? How could she think I was that selfish? If I was the best cancer researcher at the AIDA Institute, I’d slave away too. Gran said it was Mom’s destiny, and I believed it. If anyone could find a cure for Audrey, it was Mom. And I would support her every step of the way. Even if that meant giving her up to her research.

  I thought she knew that.

  She pulled away to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. The blue prism swam in her eyes. “It’s just, you’ve been acting out so much lately. And getting suspended? That goes on your record.” She shook her head and sniffed. “It makes me wonder if I had been here for you – if you could’ve talked to me – you wouldn’t have taken your frustration out on your teacher.”

  I looked down at my feet. They were so heavy the floorboards groaned beneath them.

  It killed me that she thought it was her fault.

  The thing was, I had wanted to tell her about my visions for years, tell her they weren’t just daydreams, but I didn’t want her to think I was crazy.

  I didn’t want her to feel she had to find a cure for me too.

  THE DIAGNOSIS

  After I’ve told Dr Farrow everything, after I’ve drained myself until I’m nothing but a collapsed vessel on her couch, she removes her glasses. She sets her notepad and pencil aside.

  “So. Alex. Here’s what I see.” She leans forward with folded hands. Her nails are glossy and cream-colored. They match her pumps. “I don’t believe your visions are a product of an attention seeking disorder, like I originally thought when I looked at your file. Your ongoing attempts to isolate yourself from social situations rule that out. A social phobia of some sort crossed my mind, because those can trigger psychotic episodes in extreme cases. But you’re perfectly capable of going out in public, going to school, talking to strangers like me without a drop of sweat or anxiety. The only time you demonstrated anxiety during this session was right before you told me about your visions. Your palms became sweaty. You were fidgety. You held your breath. But that’s a typical reaction when one is about to divulge a secret they’ve been holding onto for so long.”

  She sits up and straightens her back. I wait for answers. She remains silent, watching me.

  “So?” I say. “What’s wrong with me?” I push my glasses up my nose with my knuckle. AIDA’s founder continues to stare down at me from his portrait, a condescending look in his two-dimensional eyes. Something about his expression makes me feel uneasy, crazy even, and I look away from him, pulling my sleeves down over my wrists tighter than before.

  Dr Farrow’s coral lips form a straight line. Her brow creases. She opens her mouth to reply, but closes it again.

  Heat spreads across my skin. “You think I have schizophrenia, don’t you?”

  She lifts her hands. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Good, because I don’t. I read all about it. Not all the symptoms match. I’m not emotionally distant. I joke. I laugh. I can express ideas in a coherent, organized manner. I don’t think the government is out to kill me.”

  “That’s true. And yet you’re experiencing extremely vivid hallucinations. You are unable to differentiate whether they are real or unreal.”

  I start to shake. I fist my hands at my sides. There is a film of sickly, sweaty heat coating me beneath my sweater and cords. It clings to me like plastic wrap. Epilepsy was bad enough. I can’t have the kids at school thinking I have schizophrenia. Not to mention Mom.

  I cock the pistol and fire all my burning questions at Dr Farrow. “If they aren’t real, then why do I have a scar on my chin? Why did I get seasick just by sitting in a Sunday School classroom? Why did I feel like I was starving after Jamestown? How can my visions show me things that really happened in history, before I even learn about them?”

  She shrugs one bony shoulder. “You probably retained the knowledge subconsciously. You saw an advertisement, heard a song, saw a heading in a newspaper. Things like that can stick in our subconscious minds without us being aware of it. Seems like I remember something about the Starving Time in Jamestown, though I can’t place where I heard about it. So even though I never officially learned about it, it’s there, in my subconscious.” She leans forward again, her elbows on her knees. “Alex, I’m not saying you have schizophrenia. I’m not saying you have anything. All I’m saying is that I’d like to continue meeting with you. I want to know more about your visions. I’d like to dig deeper. And then, later, if I think it necessary, I might run a few tests.”

  “What kinds of tests?”

  “Mental acuity. Possibly a few brain scans.”

  I shake my head. How long will all that take? “Isn’t there some kind of pill you can give me? Something that will stop the visions? Just so I can get through a normal day at school?”

  The possibility of never having another vision, of being normal, tugs at my sleeve. It taps on the window. I look out through the glass and see myself sitting in the school cafeteria, talking casually to Jensen Peters, flipping my hair over my shoulder and flirting with him like I actually know what I’m doing. I see myself standing in front of Mom’s full length mirror, wearing a dress for the first time in my life, ready to go on my first date. I’m hanging out with Claire, laughing and talking about her latest Hollywood crush, whom I’ve never heard of, and I don’t feel the urge to make fun of her mercilessly. I’m reading one of the countless novels Audrey has recommended to me. I’m strolling through a college campus, I’m tall and grown up, and I haven’t had a sleepless night in years.

  I look happy.

  A pill could do that for me, couldn’t it?

  “Why don’t we meet a few more times,” Dr Farrow says, “before we talk about medication?”

  All my hopes deflate and fizzle. They drop to the floor at my feet with a thud, one by one, like dead birds.

  I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

  Normal is never easy.

  MOVIE NIGHT

  It’s an hour’s car ride back to Annapolis from DC, and I’m silent the whole way home. I feel empty and hollow, like Dr Farrow sucked everything out of me, leaving behind a cold, hardened-steel shell. My eyes glaze over as I stare out the window in the back of Mom’s Civic. The sun set long ago. Glittering lights fade to black as we leave the city, and then, one by one, they multiply again as we near the Bay. It’s the same route Mom takes every day to and from work. She knows it like she knows the freckles on my shoulders. If she’s tired of the same old boring drive, she’s never said. I know she’d drive all day, every day, if it brought her one step closer to Audrey’s cure. Still, I feel bad she has to make the extra trip just for me.

  For me and my issues.

  It isn’t until I’m back home in the kitchen and smell Gran’s lemon poppyseed muffins that I finally let my guard down. The hardened-steel shell begins to melt. I’m exhausted, like I ran an emotional marathon. All I want to do is trudge up the stairs and collapse face-first into my pillow, but a hug from Gran and a mouthful of muffin soon sets me to rights.

  Thankfully, tonight is our family movie night – a time-honored tradition in the Wayfare house – which means homem
ade pizza, soda, popcorn, and no chance for serious discussion over the dinner table. I have no desire to fill the whole family in on my talk with Dr Farrow.

  While Dad and Gran put the finishing touches on the pizzas, Mom enlists Claire and I for Mega Couch duty in the den. Ever since I can remember, we’ve always pushed our two couches and three ottomans together to make one massive lounging zone. Dad calls Mega Couch “the ultimate movie viewing experience,” and I totally agree. I can’t wait to sink down into the cushions, get lost in a film I know is “safe,” and worry about everything else in the morning.

  “So what’s on the playbill tonight?” Mom asks me as she nudges the last ottoman into place with her knee.

  I pull one of my favorite films out of the DVD cabinet: Charade, with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. It’s a delicious murder mystery, full of the best kinds of twists and turns. No one is who they say they are, and it keeps you guessing all the way until the end. I hold it up and Mom grins. It’s one of her favorites too.

  She showed it to me for the first time when I was nine and laid up with chicken pox. It was the only thing that kept me captivated long enough to keep my mind off all the itching. I remember lying stretched out on Mega Couch, oven mitts on my hands, sipping chocolate milk through a purple curly straw. I remember falling in love with Cary Grant. I remember hating him when I thought he might not be a good guy after all. And most importantly, I remember not having déjà vu. No bad dreams. No visions. No escape from the chicken pox, not even for one second.