ARC: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

by M. G. Buehrlen

  Alex.

  My fist flew to my temple, and I swore under my breath. Porter’s voice elbowed its way inside my head, just as startling and unsettling as the first time.

  “You OK?” Blue asked. “Is your head still hurting you?”

  You can’t fall in love. It’s against the rules.

  Love? Dammit, Porter, who said anything about love? Why did he keep forgetting that I was only seventeen? I fought against him again, like pushing my way out of a bramble bush, and Limbo’s hooks popped loose, one by one. I managed to shut Porter out faster than before. I refused to let him take this night away from me.

  The best night.

  Couldn’t he just wait a few more hours?

  “Just a little twinge,” I told Blue, settling back into his arms.

  We turned around so we could see the skyline bathed in sunset oranges and pinks. Glittering lights switched on here and there as the city came to life. There was an energy, a charge, streaking and zigzagging through the air, making the hair on the back of my neck prickle.

  I could feel my time running out. I only had a few more hours in 1927, at best. Then the black would take me. I needed to make those last hours count.

  I told Blue I needed to roar.

  He took my hand. “I know just the place.”

  CHAPTER 10

  STAR GAZING

  “You coming, Sousa?”

  I looked up at Blue, hanging by one arm from a fire escape ladder. His suit jacket flapped in the wind. We were in a dark alley, behind what appeared to be an abandoned shoe factory. It didn’t look very roar-worthy to me. “That’s just to throw off the coppers,” Blue had told me.

  “I don’t know about this…” I rubbed my arms. The night had gotten progressively cooler, and I’d never been too fond of heights.

  “Climb on up here,” he said, smiling down at me. “I’ll warm you up.”

  I tried to give him a disapproving look, but I’m pretty sure I failed. “I don’t think that’s what your mom meant when she said ‘Show her a good time.’”

  He laughed, a deep belly laugh that echoed down the alley. “Too bad. She should’ve been more specific.”

  I hesitated, still rubbing my arms. Blue climbed up a dozen more rungs. The farther he climbed, the more alone I felt in the alley. And the last time I found myself in a Chicago back alley? Things didn’t go so well.

  I stepped up to the ladder and closed my fingers around one of the rungs. A layer of rust coated my white gloves. When I tried to dust it off on my coat, it only made the stain worse.

  On the one hand, if I climbed all the way up, the gloves Helena gave me would surely be ruined. On the other, my first kiss might be waiting for me on the roof.

  My heart thudded at the thought.

  I took a deep breath.

  I pulled myself up.

  “Attagirl,” Blue called down.

  I laughed and shook my head as I made my way to the top. When had I become this person? Chasing a kiss to the top of the sky?

  He helped me onto the roof, and we gazed out at the city, breathing in the night and listening to the distant street sounds. The stars seemed close enough to fog with your breath.

  We owned the city. We owned the stars. It was all ours for the night. And I would’ve stolen my first kiss right then and there, but Blue had other plans.

  He led me to a trap door at the center of the roof. It swung open with a rusty squawk, and we both kneeled down and looked inside. A ladder affixed to the side led down into a dark room. Amber light from the buildings across the street tried in vain to shine through grime-coated windows. It was a storage room of sorts, stacked to the ceiling with odds and ends, but I couldn’t make out anything in particular in the shadows.

  “I’ll go first,” Blue said, swinging his leg over the edge and stepping down. “There are a few rungs, then you have to drop the rest of the way. Not too far, though.”

  He got to the last rung and dropped down. I heard his feet hit the ground, followed by a stumble and a thud, and then he swore. Only he didn’t say any of the words I was acquainted with. I distinctly heard him say, “Applesauce.”

  “Applesauce?” I threw my head back and laughed. I’d never heard anything so adorable in all my life.

  “Stop laughing at me and get yourself down here,” he called back.

  But I couldn’t stop. I laughed all the way down the ladder and kept laughing as I dropped to the floor. It was farther than I thought it would be, and I lost my balance like Blue and fell right on my butt. I laughed even more until tears stung my eyes and my ribs hurt.

  “Oh, come on,” he said, hauling me to my feet. “It’s not like you’ve never heard that one before.” I could hear the red coloring his cheeks. He was embarrassed, which made it even more adorable, but he wasn’t the type to stay embarrassed for long.

  He pulled me over to a thick, heavy metal door and said, “Ready to roar, Sousa?” He shouldered it open with a creak and a groan, like it hadn’t been opened in years.

  All at once, the squawk of trumpets, the growl of saxophones, and the happy gallop of piano keys rushed out to meet us. A puff of smoke-filled air ruffled our clothes. We stepped out onto a darkened storage balcony, following a sultry woman’s voice below us. She stood on a stage before a full orchestra, caught in the net of a blue spotlight. Her sequined dress hugged her every curve. It winked up at us as she whipped her hips to the side, like it knew we were spying. She threw her arms in the air and sang about naughty eyes and a new kind of lovin’.

  I was utterly transfixed.

  Blue pulled two chairs to the edge of the balcony. I sat beside him, his knee resting against mine, my arms folded on the railing in front of us. Two birds alone in the rafters. Two shadows. The crowd below, laughing and dancing and swirling their drinks, never knew we were there.

  We were star gazers.

  “Is this a speakeasy?” I whispered, unable to tear my eyes away. The amber glint of liquor flashed in the hand of every guest.

  Blue rested his chin on his forearms beside me. “Yup. It’s called Peg Leg. Fifth Street runs it. But Frankie and the guys are never up here dancing. They stay downstairs. And you don’t want to know what they do down there.”

  I didn’t even begin to let my mind wonder about that. Instead I drank in the light, the jazz, the beaded fringe, the striped jackets and dandy shoes. I wanted to remember every detail. “How did you know how to get in?”

  “Frankie showed me a year ago. There’s a piano in the storage room back there. He knew I liked to play. I come here every now and then to practice. No one can hear me while all this is going on.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “You play the keys?”

  He grinned. “Yup.”

  “Hmmm.” I looked away like I wasn’t interested. A man in a fedora flipped a woman over his shoulder. She flashed everyone a glimpse of her garter belt.

  “I hear some women can’t resist a guy who plays piano,” Blue said.

  I shrugged. “Some women may have weaknesses like that. Not me.”

  He laughed and nudged my elbow with his.

  The band transitioned to a slower tune, and a trombone and clarinet pursued each other through the twists and turns of a mournful duet. Couples swayed and glided across the dance floor.

  I turned my face to Blue, my cheek resting on the back of my wrist. There was something magnetic about him that I couldn’t explain. No matter what glorious sights 1927 Chicago had for me, my gaze never failed to find its way back to him.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked him. “You know, when you grow up?”

  He furrowed his brow. “When I ‘grow up’?”

  “Yeah. When you’re out of school.”

  “Been out of school for a while now. Had to start working because of Frank.”

  “Oh, right. Good ole Frank,” I muttered.

  “Yup. Good ole Frank.” He propped his chin on his fists. “I don’t know. I’ll probably just keep working at the deli
.”

  “But if you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?”

  He squinted out over the crowd, thinking. “Maybe become a pilot. Or play in a jazz band. Or join the Police Academy.”

  “Hm,” I said. “That last one wouldn’t make you very popular around here.”

  “Good thing I don’t care about being popular,” he said with that easy grin of his. “What about you, Sousa? Got any plans of grandeur?”

  “I really don’t know.” A week ago I was content to follow in Dad’s biomedical engineering footsteps. Now I wasn’t so sure. “Maybe I’ll join the Academy with you. Put some of my back alley fighting skills to good use.”

  “Don’t you think that might upset your gangster husband?”

  I groaned. “I don’t have a gangster husband, Blue.”

  “Blue?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  I laughed, feeling stupid. I knew I’d slip up eventually. “It’s your nickname. The one I gave you before I knew your name. It’s just something stupid I do in my head. I do it for everyone I meet.” I tried to shrug it off, my silly little quirk, but he grinned.

  “Not stupid. I like it.” He looked out across the crowd. “Blue and Sousa. Has a nice ring to it.”

  “Speaking of rings,” I said, waggling my bare ring finger at him. “See? No husband.”

  “Pfft. That doesn’t mean anything. You could’ve hocked that old handcuff when you got into town.”

  I laughed at his choice of words. “Well, even if my life was like that, even if I was on the run from some gangster, I’d never go back to that life now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this life is better.”

  “How do you know this one’s better if you don’t remember the old one?”

  “Because I didn’t know you then. Now I do. That makes this one better.”

  His mouth hitched up on one side. “Aw, you can’t say things like that to me.”

  “I can’t?”

  His hand found mine. “Not without expecting me to ask you to dance.”

  He pulled me to my feet, and then it was my turn to be embarrassed. “I’m not very good at this sort of thing,” I said, looking down at my feet.

  Believe it or not, I had danced with a boy before. Once. It was Jamal Webber, and it was during rehearsal for our fifth grade play. Everyone had a dance partner because it was set at a sock hop. I tried really hard to learn the moves, but I was hopeless. I stepped on Jamal’s brand new sneakers at least a dozen times. By the end of rehearsal, Jamal had another partner, and I was given backstage duty.

  I started to second guess stealing a kiss from Blue. I was probably even worse at kissing.

  “Just follow my lead,” he said. “We don’t have to get fancy.”

  His hand slid around to my back and pulled me close. We swayed with the mournful trombone and clarinet. I felt the warmth of his hand on my back and his chest against mine. He danced better than Dad. Better than Pops.

  I rested my head against his lapel. I swayed. I committed it all to memory.

  The singer’s words hung in the air around us like mist. She sang of loving her sweetheart night and day, of him leaving her all alone, of her tears. She told him he’d regret it, that his heart would break one day. He’d miss the dearest pal he ever had. Someday. After he was gone.

  The words caught me up and wouldn’t let go. Every minute I spent with Blue brought me closer to the moment I had to leave. I could feel it all fading away – that yawning, empty feeling that comes with the ending of things.

  Something told me this was the last time I’d ever see Nicholas Piasecki.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed the thought from my mind. It was just as unwelcome as Porter.

  “You know,” I said, smiling up at Blue and trying to ignore the heaviness in my heart. “The boys back home in Annapolis don’t like to dance.”

  “What?” He was incredulous. “Why not?”

  “They think it’s stupid. They’d rather play video games.”

  He tilted his ear closer to my mouth. “Video what?”

  “Sports, I mean.”

  “Sports?” he scoffed. “What a load a’hooey. Don’t they like girls?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, they like girls.”

  He shook his head. “If you’re stuck on a girl, dancing is the fastest way to get your hands on her. What kind of goof wouldn’t want that?”

  “I guess no one’s ever been stuck on me enough to ask.”

  He lifted my chin with his knuckle. His mouth hitched up on the side again. “Been hanging out with a bunch of blind guys, Sousa?”

  I laughed and buried my face in his jacket. He wrapped both arms around me and rested his cheek on the top of my head.

  Your heart will break like mine, and you’ll want me only. After you’ve gone, the sequined jazz singer sang. After you’ve gone away.

  CHAPTER 11

  PLAY IT, SAM

  When the song was over, the band leapt back into a lively swing, but I didn’t feel like being upbeat just then. Instead, I led Blue back toward the storage room and pushed him through the doorway.

  “Want me all to yourself?” he said with a laugh, clapping a hand on his cap so it wouldn’t fall off. “All you had to do was ask.”

  I gave him one more playful push, then heaved the door shut, leaving the sounds, the laughter, the lights, and the smoke behind us. “I want you to play for me.” I spoke the words into the dark. Blue was a silhouette against the dim amber lights outside. I wanted him to play for me the way Sam played for Ilsa in Casablanca.

  “OK.”

  I followed him to an old grand piano standing by a wall of grimy windows. Stacks of boxes and crates were mounded all around it, but the top was propped open. He dusted off the bench and we sat side-by-side. He lifted the fallboard, flexed his fingers, then played a sweet and lilting melody, his hands moving like shadows across the faint ivory keys.

  He played effortlessly. Happily. Passionately. He played so that I envied him and wished I had a speck of discernible musical talent within me.

  When he hit the last note, he lifted his hands with a flourish, and we laughed. He wrapped an arm around me and gave my shoulders a squeeze. “How was that?”

  “Perfect.” I pressed one of the black keys. Then one of the white. “Did you write it?”

  He laughed at me. “Yup. Just call me Hoagy Carmichael.”

  “Who?”

  He squeezed my shoulders again. “Never mind. You just remember it’s called Stardust. It’ll be our song.”

  I tucked our song into my pocket. I buttoned it closed. There was no way I’d ever forget it.

  “Ready to go?” he said after we sat there for a while. “There’s one last place I want to show you.”

  I nodded, even though I didn’t like the word last.

  TWO WISHES AND A TAXI CAB

  We walked hand-in-hand toward the lake shore once more. Neither of us said a word. Silence always seemed to make time tick a little slower.

  Across Michigan Avenue, we strolled through Grant Park to a wide-open plaza at the edge of the lake. In the center of the plaza, a huge fountain sent a single shaft of brilliant white water soaring into the air. Three massive round tiers, illuminated by dozens of dazzling lights from within, made it look like a wedding cake. A giant shallow pool, reflecting all the light like smooth onyx, was its pedestal. I’d seen some beautiful fountains in Washington DC before, but this was by far my favorite.

  “It’s brand new,” Blue said, as we approached. Our shoes crunched on the gravel. “The Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain. One of the biggest fountains in the world. Mom and I were here when they dedicated it. John Philip Sousa was here too,” he added with a grin.

  “Well, it wouldn’t be an event without Sousa, would it?”

  We stepped up as close as we could, but it was blocked off by a low railing. “Damn,” I said. “I wanted to make a wish.”

  “What’s stopping you?”


  “I’d have to cross the railing.”

  He shrugged. “So cross the railing.” He jumped over it in one smooth motion and walked right up to the edge of the fountain. I hesitated, half-tempted to follow.

  “Come on,” he taunted. “You need to make that wish of yours. It feels important.”

  He was right. It was important.

  I looked all around, but we seemed to be the only ones there. The diamond lights of Chicago glittered behind us. The fountain lights played across Blue’s caramel-colored suit.

  I climbed over the railing.

  He pulled two pennies from his pocket and handed one to me. He pressed his lips to his own, then flipped it into the water. I closed my eyes and clutched my penny to my chest. I wished long, and I wished hard.

  I wished that I would see him again.

  Somehow.

  Then my wish became a flash of copper, sinking to the bottom of the onyx pool.

  “What did you wish for?” Blue asked.

  I smiled at the fountain. “Can’t tell you.”

  “No?” He stepped closer to me, his teasing, easy smile making me feel shy all over. His hands closed around mine. “But you told Clarence Buckingham.”

  “Only because he can keep a secret.”

  “Ah. I guess you’re right. I don’t think he’s let one slip yet.” He pulled my white gloves off one-by-one and tucked them in his pockets. Our fingers entwined for the first time, skin to skin. “I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” he said, smiling down at our hands. His were smooth and cold. His fingernails were wide and squared off at the tips.

  It was the first time I’d ever held a boy’s hand. I started to shiver and hoped Blue wouldn’t be able to tell. I prayed my palms wouldn’t get sweaty.

  “What did you wish for?” I asked him. It came out like a whisper compared to the rush of the fountain. The roof of my mouth had gone dry.

  He looked up, glancing at my lips before his eyes met mine. “You really want to know?”