ARC: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

by M. G. Buehrlen

  An entire evening with Blue in 1927 Chicago?

  Yes, please.

  SNAPPING THE NET

  While I soaked my aching body in the bath, looking forward to my night out with Blue, I felt a pang of guilt for leaving Porter behind. It all happened so fast. Once the soulmark yanked me in, there was no way I could have pulled away. It would’ve been like trying to swim up a waterfall. All I remembered was Porter shouting for me to stop, then waking up in Helena’s bed. I hoped he wasn’t angry with me. I hadn’t meant to touch it. Then again, if he was angry, did I really care? Chicago was where I wanted to be. Not Limbo. Not Ristorante Cafferelli. Not Mr Draper’s class. Chicago, where no one knew about my “seizures” and no one called me Freak or Wayspaz. It was a clean slate. A chance to be normal.

  I sank lower in the steaming water and let it slip over my shoulders. I closed my eyes and tried to let my muscles fully relax.

  Alex.

  Porter’s voice was so loud in my ear, it was like he was right beside me. I jumped, and my bottom slipped on the porcelain, plunging me all the way under the water. I grappled for the sides of the tub and pulled myself up, gasping for breath and swiping water from my eyes.

  I looked left and right, my heart in my throat, but Porter wasn’t there.

  You need to come back now.

  His words resonated inside my skull like the gong of a bell. His voice filled every inch of it and set my teeth on edge, making me wince. I pressed the heels of my palms to my temples and told him to get out of my head. The intrusion, the overwhelming pressure, was unbearable.

  I didn’t tell you the rules. You have to come back before you–

  I dug my palms into my temples. I felt my grip on the past slipping away from me. Limbo tugged. Beckoned. Was Porter pulling me out of the past? Could he even do that? I struggled to resist the pull, but it was like being underwater and trying to keep my body from floating to the surface. I fought with everything I had, desperate to stay submerged in the past. I clung to 1927. I tried to ignore the tugging at my edges, the net pulling my soul skyward, and simply focused on Blue. I wouldn’t leave just yet. I refused.

  Alex.

  I fought harder.

  I struggled longer.

  Until finally the net snapped.

  The pressure lifted.

  I sat in the tub, breathing hard, heart pounding, water dripping from my ruined curls.

  Porter was gone. Equal parts relief and guilt twisted inside me.

  I would do as Porter said and return to Limbo, but I’d go when my evening was over. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I wasn’t ready to return to the land of Wayspaz the Fix-it Freak.

  THE EEL’S HIPS

  Back in her bedroom, Helena combed out the curls she’d kindly tied for me the night before. She giggled when I told her I slipped in the tub.

  “That’s all right, kitten,” she said as she fastened my wet hair in a flat bun at the nape of my neck. “You’ll wear a hat and no one’ll be the wiser.”

  Apparently, all the women wore their long hair in a bun in those days if they didn’t feel convinced to cut it. I didn’t know why my past self still had long hair, especially since cutting it meant so much to the women of the age. Short hair meant freedom. Independence. Equality. All things I believed in. So why hadn’t I chopped mine off? Was I too conservative? That didn’t seem to fit. What proper conservative lady knew how to fight like a wildcat? And wore beat-up ankle boots? Helena said I probably kept my hair long out of respect for my parents. Blue on the other hand, still believing I was some gangster’s squeeze, suggested I had a backward thinking husband at home, waiting for me to cook his supper.

  I elbowed him in the ribs for that one, and prayed to God it wasn’t true. Girls didn’t get married at seventeen back then, did they? The thought made me feel sorta queasy.

  When Helena finished my makeup, I looked in her mirror and turned my chin to the left and right. A movie starlet stared back at me. Helena showed me how to blot my red lips on a tissue. Then she showed me the dress. Brand new in her eyes, mint vintage in mine. It was a navy blue slip-on dress with a low waist and tiny white polkadots. The hemline hit just above my knees. Long, flowing sleeves gathered daintily at my wrists. Tan stockings and white heels made me look twice my age. It was like I’d rummaged through Gran’s closet for a costume party. Not quite flapper, but definitely chic. Claire would be so jealous. She was the fashion guru of the household.

  Helena let me borrow a silk scarf to go with the green trench and white gloves. When she secured a navy blue cloche hat over my hair, I almost didn’t recognize myself. I felt very much the part, standing next to Blue in his white collar shirt, green sweater vest and tie, caramel-colored suit, and brown flat cap tilted to the side. Helena whistled and said he was the eel’s hips, whatever that meant. When I told him he looked smokin’ hot, he just shook his head and said, “Nah, I’m not hot at all. This suit breathes really well.”

  I won’t lie. In that moment, my heart melted a little for Nicholas Piasecki.

  “Now, Nicky,” Helena said, shooing us down the front steps of their apartment to the sidewalk. “Show her a good time, will you? Poor girl’s lost her memory. The least you can do is make it a night she’ll never forget.”

  CHAPTER 9

  BURGERS, FRIES, AND PIANO WIRE

  Chicago was alive and bustling. The sky was bright and blue. Possibility nipped my nose, riding on the back of a crisp breeze. I couldn’t believe I’d been let loose in a big city with a boy. I’d never gone anywhere alone with a boy, unless I counted Dad or my six year-old cousin, Harrison.

  Which I didn’t.

  No boy had ever looked twice at me back home. I was the Fix-it Freak in nerd glasses with epilepsy, for goodness sake. A far cry from suitable dating material. At the rate I was going, I’d have a master’s degree before I had my first kiss.

  Not that I was one of those girls who spent their time agonizing over things like kissing and dating. I had better things to do.

  But that didn’t mean I didn’t want them.

  Being out with Blue made me feel normal. I never felt so comfortable and relaxed with anyone outside my family before. It didn’t feel like I’d just met him. It felt like I’d known him my whole life, like I was remembering him rather than getting to know him, just like I felt about Porter. Blue treated me like an equal. He didn’t laugh or call me freak.

  Never mind kissing and dating – Blue showed me what it was like to have a friend.

  We boarded a streetcar and headed downtown. Buildings grew taller and wider as we moved east. The traffic got thicker, and police officers manned hand-operated stop lights in booths perched above the cars. The city was exuberant and full of life, but I could sense tension rolling through the streets. It was like a thick fog, slinking in and around everyone, everything. Like pressure pressing up against glass, just enough to make it moan and creak. Enough to make you feel suffocated. Caged.

  Eventually, as I learned long ago in history class, the glass would give. The Roaring Twenties would shatter into a million pieces like Sloan’s bakery windows. Two more years of pressure, of expansion. Then…

  Crack.

  We hopped off the streetcar and ducked into a diner that was one of Blue’s favorite places to eat. It was a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint with really bad lighting. We wove our way through the tables and chairs and slipped into one of the back booths. A layer of grease and smoke coated your skin the moment you walked in, and the smell alone could clog an artery. Cooks in white paper caps and grease-stained aprons flipped burgers and grilled buns, and waitresses bobbed from table to table. At the counter, men sat shoulder-to-shoulder in trousers, caps, and coats, hunched over from a hard day’s work. They laughed. They smoked. They argued over how the Chicago Bears were doing.

  I loved every minute of it.

  No movie I’d seen had ever come close to replicating what it really felt like to be in the Twenties. They all seemed so clichéd now. I wished I had my
cell phone so I could take a photo or video. I wanted to remember this experience forever.

  And yet, even amid the hustle and bustle of the after-work dinner crowd, that looming pressure continued to build. Like a storm brewing in the distance.

  I had to warn Blue.

  “I’ve been thinking about the money,” I said, my voice low. Not that anyone could have heard me over the lively debate going on at the counter and the sizzle of the grill.

  Blue leaned closer, his hands clasped between his knees under the table. The cap he wore cast a shadow over his face. “You and me both.”

  “Do you have any money saved up?”

  He sputtered a laugh. “What for? Frankie’d just find a way to spend it.”

  I pulled my gloves off and crossed my arms on the table. “I wish I could give your brother a good punch in the nose. I can’t believe he parties and gambles and makes you and Helena foot the bill.”

  Blue shrugged. “He doesn’t care.”

  “Well, maybe you should cut him off. You’re just enabling him, you know.”

  “It’s better than finding him in a gutter somewhere with a bullet in his head.”

  We sat back when a frazzled waitress in a blue and white gingham uniform approached our table. Since Blue knew what was good, he ordered for both of us, then she hurried to the next booth. We leaned back in and continued.

  “You’re right,” I said. “But I hate that he uses you like this. Puts you in the middle. Makes you take a job for Sl–”

  Blue put a finger to his lips, and Sloan’s name fell dead on my tongue.

  “I told you, he doesn’t care,” Blue said. “But that doesn’t matter. I care about him. That’s the only thing that counts.”

  I frowned, pursing my lips. I knew then that Blue would’ve never embarrassed Mr Lipscomb in front of the whole school. He would’ve never put Tabitha’s texts on the cafeteria message board. He wanted justice, like me, but not at the expense of someone else.

  “Why do you have to be so good?” I asked.

  He gave me an adorable half-smile. “Good is relative, Sousa. Especially in this town. Don’t you forget it.”

  I returned the smile and let him win the argument, but we both knew the truth. Nick Piasecki was good. Through and through. Relative or not.

  I didn’t know what I’d do if my sisters treated me the way Frank treated Blue. Or if they treated our mother the way he treated Helena. I didn’t think I could be so forgiving. Especially if they were burning through my money like an expensive date when the Depression was right around the corner.

  I leaned in closer and lowered my voice even more. “Will you do something for me?”

  He leaned in too, until he was just a breath away. I could smell his aftershave. His eyes rested on my lips. “What’s that?”

  “Save up. As much as you can in the next year. Hide it from Frank. Don’t let him know about it.”

  Blue’s mouth broke into an easy smile once again. He leaned back and rested an arm on the back of the booth. “And here I thought you were going to ask me to kiss you.”

  My ears burned when he said that, and I was thankful my hat covered them. I tried to act like his remark hadn’t completely knocked me off my axis. “Will you do that for me? Will you promise?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I promise.”

  Only then could I fully relax for the evening. Knowing Blue and Helena would be all right when the Depression came made it easier to leave them behind at the end of the night.

  When I went back to Limbo.

  The waitress appeared again, balancing burgers, fries, and two ice cream sodas in her arms. The burgers were the size of our heads, and when Blue took a bite, juice streamed over his fingers and down his chin. He used about a dozen napkins to sop it all up.

  I popped a fry into my mouth, and my eyes flew wide open. “Oh my gosh, these are incredible. They taste like real potatoes.”

  Blue snorted a laugh. “As opposed to what?”

  I laughed too. “I don’t know. But they don’t taste like potatoes back home in Annapolis. They just taste like… grease and salt and preservatives.”

  Blue perked up. “Hey, are your memories coming back?”

  Whoops.

  “Huh. I guess a little bit.” I sipped my ice cream soda like the return of my memory was no big deal. The bubbles tingled my tongue.

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Remember where your aunt lives?”

  I shook my head, still sipping.

  He hefted his burger back to his mouth and smiled. “Good.”

  I smiled too. Because we both knew that once I “remembered,” it would be time for me to leave.

  I guess he wanted me to stay as much as I did.

  He wiped his mouth and hands after another sloppy bite. “OK, I got it. You’re on the run, see? Your husband, he told you he was a piano salesman, and he always traveled to New York to make deliveries to the big theaters and speakeasies and such. Only he was really a big-time gangster. You’d been suspicious for a while, but you figured it out when he kept coming home flush with cash. Your daddy had been a piano salesman too, and you knew they didn’t make that much money. So you did a bit of digging. You found out the filthy liar had this whole other life. A secret life. Maybe even a secret gal or two. So you raided his stash – he always kept a wad of bills sewn in the hems of the drapes – and you hopped on the first train to Chicago. Maybe you even changed your name. Maybe it isn’t even Alex. Any of this ring a bell?”

  “Um, no.” I stole a fry from his plate because all mine had disappeared. Somehow.

  He didn’t notice. He was too impressed with his own version of my backstory. “Oooooo. And his gangster name? Steinway.”

  “Because he pretends he’s a piano salesman?”

  “Because he strangles his enemies with piano wire.” Blue grinned wide. He was so proud of himself.

  I stole another fry. “Real original, Piasecki.” I’d almost called him Blue out loud, but caught myself.

  “Hey, I just tell it like it is,” he said with a shrug. “Personally, I don’t know what you ever saw in the guy. I always thought you could do better.”

  “It was the piano,” I said wistfully. “Never could resist a man who played the keys.”

  FAST MEMORIES AND MARQUEE LIGHTS

  After dinner – in which I tried my best not to get burger juice all over my dress – Blue said he had a surprise for me. “Bet your mobster husband never took you to see one of these,” he said.

  We stood outside the Chicago Theater, waiting in line under a huge, glittering marquee that read The Jazz Singer. My jaw dropped when I first saw it.

  “We’re going to see The Jazz Singer?” I couldn’t help it. I squealed. I clung to his arm and may have bounced a bit. (I wasn’t usually the squealing or bouncing type.)

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  I nodded, biting my lip to suppress any more squeals. Not only had I heard of it – it just happened to be the first talking movie ever – but I’d seen it dozens of times with Gran and Pops during our movie nights. Audrey, Claire, and I had all the songs memorized. I even went through a phase where I refused to call Mom anything but Mammy.

  She hated it.

  “It just came out last week,” Blue said, beaming up at the marquee, “but Mom and I, we’ve already seen it twice. You just wait. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.” He laid a hand on both of my white gloves still clinging to his elbow. To anyone looking on, we probably looked like a proper Twenties couple.

  Something about that thought sent a flutter through my stomach.

  God it felt good to be on a date with a boy, if that’s what we were on. If not, it was the closest I’d ever come to a real date, so I’d take it. I never thought any other boy could make my stomach flutter the way Jensen did. I never thought Jensen would become a fast memory. But in that moment, standing beneath the marquee lights, sharing a smile with Blue, my whole life back in Annapolis slipped away. Like the sun b
urning away morning mist.

  And I wanted nothing more than to bask in Blue’s rays for a little while longer.

  The Jazz Singer was incredible. My cheeks hurt from grinning so much. It took everything within me to keep from belting out the songs with Al Jolson. I had to pretend like it was the first time I’d ever seen a talking picture, because Blue kept stealing glances at me, wanting to see my reaction. The moment Al spoke his first words on screen, loud and clear, in perfect unison with his lips, people all throughout the theater gasped and looked around.

  “They’re looking for Al,” Blue whispered. “They think he’s gotta be here somewhere, talking into a microphone.”

  Good Lord, it was glorious. To see The Jazz Singer when it was first released? To walk the streets of 1927? To breathe the air, wear the clothes, see it all from a modern perspective? Descending to the past was like a drug. I knew from that moment on I’d never get enough.

  What else would I get to see? Martin Luther King’s famous speech? The Boston Tea Party? Could I walk the Trail of Tears? The Underground Railroad?

  Whatever it was, I was ready. I wanted to see it all.

  After the movie, Blue wanted to show me the lake. We walked to the shore, the setting sun at our backs. We stood shoulder–to-shoulder on the edge of a little concrete pier and looked out across the water. The breeze ruffled my skirt. Seagulls squawked overhead.

  I never knew Lake Michigan was so vast and beautiful and alive with waves. I thought it would be boring, like any old lake, but I was wrong. It was just like the ocean back home. A view at the end of the world.

  The wind kicked up and made me shiver. Blue wrapped a strong arm around my arms and pulled me close. I leaned into him, my cheek against his chest. Why couldn’t I meet a guy like him in Base Life?