by Robert Hill
The Looking Glass (Part Two of The Wonderland Series)
Robert Hill
Copyright 2014 by Robert Hill
Even after several minutes, Lupita still couldn’t believe what – no, who – she was staring at in the bathroom mirror. But there he was, the scientist from Antarctica.
“After what I saw the first time we met, I’ve been worried about you ever since,” he said to Lupita, while displaying a thin grin tempered by squinted, hazel eyes – concerned. Then Bernie Skarpinski’s grin bloomed into a fully delighted smile, like a cherub-faced child discovering a new toy. “Although we’ve had quite a bit going on here trying to figure things out with the mirror anomaly, I have to admit there has not been a day I haven’t thought about you. I’m glad to see that I was able to find you again.”
Still, Lupita just stared back at the man in her bathroom mirror where her own reflection should be. Although this had happened before, two months ago, it was difficult to get her mind around the fact that a research scientist garbed in a parka was communicating with her by using some mysterious mirror ‘device’ that had been found underneath the ice at the bottom of the world. She was one of just a very few that had been, quite by accident, contacted using the – what did he just call it, an anomaly -- right there in her bathroom in a run-down neighborhood in Corpus Christi, Texas.
More so, she wasn’t even sure if she should say anything. The first time Bernie had shown up in her mirror, the situation had resulted in Raul overhearing her brief conversation with Bernie, which led to her nose being broken when Raul, in his drunken and jealous state of mind, slammed Lupita’s head against the edge of the vanity sink. Tonight, as was the same that night two months ago when Bernie first appeared, Raul was just outside the bathroom passed out on the bed from drinking enough tequila to knock out a donkey. She didn’t want to wake him and have him think that she was, like the last time, talking on her cell phone to a lover that didn’t exist.
Inwardly, she laughed at the thought. Oh, how she wished she had a lover. It would have at least made the broken nose worthwhile. But no, instead, she had Raul; an alcoholic boyfriend who knew nothing of love or of being a lover. He was just a presence in her life. A brooding, controlling, abusive presence, which Lupita wished she had the guts to escape. But then if she did, where would she go?
“Are you alright?” Bernie then asked when she remained fixed and silent for some time.
“Uh … yes. Yes, I’m fine. Just a little shocked, you know,” she said, the volume of her voice barely above a whisper. “How did you find me again?”
Bernie laughed. “Well, when we talked before we had only just discovered the anomaly and really had no idea how to operate it. The instant we uncovered it from the ice, it just started working. It was randomly jumping from mirror to mirror all over the Earth, and we really did not know how to start or stop it. But over the last couple of months as we continued excavating the area we found there was an entire complex here.” He then leaned in closer, tossing a furtive glance over his shoulder as if he did not want anyone to hear him, and then he said, “We found some apparatus that allowed us to ‘tune in’ on different locations. Sort of like a radio receiver. It took some trial and error, but we think we’re starting to figure out how the anomaly works.”
“Really, and so then you were able to find me?” Lupita whispered back.
“Yes, even though I really wasn’t supposed to,” Bernie replied, the volume of his own voice dropping. “The station chief has been directed not to attempt any further contact using the anomaly until some experts can be brought in to study it.” Bernie glanced back over his shoulder again, and then once more faced Lupita. “I just couldn’t … I just kept wondering if you were okay after what happened.”
Lupita brought her hand up to her slightly crooked nose. It had healed and the bruising was long since gone, but the memory was quite vivid. “I’m fine,” she said through fingers that trembled a bit.
“It was my fault,” Bernie said, “what happened to you. If I hadn’t shown up in your mirror...”
“No, it was all mine,” Lupita interrupted. “I shouldn’t have woke Raul.”
Bernie nodded, lips pursed. “We’re still waiting for the Antarctic winter to end. So we’re still shut down from any outside assistance from anyone that could come down here and study this thing, but I think you might have been right about this being made by, what did you call them – martianos. It certainly looks extra-terrestrial.”
“Really!” Lupita said a little too loud, and she clamped her hands over her mouth as she glanced over her shoulder at the closed bathroom door, and then back at Bernie.
“Is he your husband?” Bernie asked, timidly, as if he really didn’t want to pry.
But Lupita wasn’t offended by the intrusive question. She could tell that the man who was looking at her was just concerned. And Lupita had to admit she had been more than embarrassed by what had occurred that last time Bernie appeared in the mirror. Still, there was something alluring about the gentle-seeming, nerdy, white man, who again was staring back at her where her reflection should be. Perhaps, it was his heart? Perhaps, it was his hazel eyes that seemed inquisitive and caring at the same time.
“Raul?” she said, almost laughing. “No, he’s not my husband. But we’ve been together for many years. We didn’t marry, but he was there for Alejandro while he was growing up when his father was not, I suppose.”
“Can’t you just leave him?” Bernie said, abruptly.
Lupita shook her head. Yes, she wanted to leave. She wanted to be anywhere, even as cold a place as Antarctica, rather than there with Raul. But really how could she? Yes, Alejandro had recently moved out on his own -- still a boy -- and already with a girlfriend and an apartment, but how could she just pack up and leave? Raul would never let her go, anyway, even if she had the courage. He would find her and bring her right back here. He had done it before once. That was years ago, when Alejandro was not even a teenager and she still had an ounce of free will left in her. But Raul beat that out of her. It took only once, and from then on she knew she would never go anywhere ever again … at least not without Raul.
“What happened was my fault. I shouldn’t have woke him.”
Bernie frowned, but he did not say anything. She could tell he knew, like her, that it was just a lie made to bandage over the wounds of her domestic situation.
“I am glad to see you again, believe it or not,” she then said.
“Me, too, Lupita. Strange as our encounters may be, I am glad to have met you and … and to see that you are – well, that you are okay.”
Suddenly there was pounding on the bathroom door. “Lupita!”
Her eyes went wide as she turned to the door, and then back to look at Bernie. The scientist was leaning in closer on her mirror. “Lupita, is it him?” he whispered.
“Jes! You should go! Please!” She turned away from the mirror just as the bathroom door swung open and there stood Raul teetering in the doorframe.
Raul’s hair was sticking up on the left side of his head, his shirt was unbuttoned all the way, and he stunk like a tequila-drenched tortilla. But Lupita knew that despite his disheveled appearance, Raul was at his most dangerous.
“Who were you talking to?” he ordered.
“Lupita!” Bernie yelled from the mirror reflection.
“Who the hell is that?” Raul asked, his bloodshot eyes going wide as he stumbled forward in to the bathroom, staring madly at the strange man in the mirror.
“Raul, no!” Lupita said, trying to step in front of two h
undred and fifty pounds of drunken machismo.
Raul grabbed her and turned her toward the mirror. “What is this?” Then Raul let go of her and turned to look behind him as if he would actually spot the man – Bernie -- standing there in the bathroom directly opposite of the mirror reflection. Never mind that neither Raul’s nor Lupita’s reflection shown in the mirror, or that if Bernie had actually been there in the room, that his own reflection in the mirror would have been obstructed by Raul’s massive frame standing there. Raul appeared convinced there was a man in the bathroom with his woman.
“Get your hands off her!” Bernie yelled, the voice clearly coming from the direction of the bathroom mirror.
“Who is that?” Raul said, confused and staring down at Lupita. “Where is he?”
“Raul, I can explain!” Lupita said, trying to grab Raul’s arm as he twisted away and spun about the bathroom, searching for the man whose apparent reflection was in the bathroom mirror.
“Mujer, what is this?” Raul demanded, still not comprehending that the man in the mirror was not in the bathroom.
Lupita clutched the front of Raul’s unbuttoned shirt, and instinctively he shoved her backwards, causing her to spin about and tumble, face first, at the mirror.
In that instant Lupita closed her eyes and tossed her hands up in front of her as