Saving Alice (29 page)
But something had gone terribly wrong.
I looked across the room and saw Nina smiling at me. She wandered over and giggled with delight, staring at something in my hands. “Well, that’s gonna look good on my finger!”
I looked down and saw the ring. Startled, I dropped it to the table as if it were a giant spider.
Nina frowned. “You okay?”
“What day is it?” I blurted out.
“Day?” She looked mildly entertained. “Stephen, you’ve been studying way too much. It’s Friday.” She twisted her wrist. “And it’s quarter to four.” She smiled humorously. “You want the date too?”
I smiled, playing along. She gave me the date. May 12. I was waiting for Alice. I was about to propose.
“You okay?” Nina asked again.
I closed my eyes tightly, took a deep breath, and opened them again. Nina sat across the booth from me. “You don’t look good, Stephen.”
I shrugged, trying to clear my head.
“Stephen?” Nina’s voice rose.
I twisted in the booth and looked over toward the entrance. In fifteen minutes, Alice would come walking in that door. And when she left—if I didn’t stop her—she would be hit by a car.
Nina patted me on the hand and rose from her seat. “Pull yourself together, partner.”
I barely noticed her slip away. I tried running at it again, like a mathematician recalculating his formula, but no matter how many ways I figured it, the same result glared back at me. I’d thrown myself into a paradox.
Alice was about to die. Could I let that happen? But if I saved Alice, I would never marry Donna, and therefore Alycia will have never existed.
I would kill my daughter … forever.
I looked at the ring. I had to follow the first script. I had to do everything the way it happened fourteen years ago. When Alice left the room, I had to let her die.
My soul shuddered. How could I do that? How could I let her die … all over again?
I had no choice.
I looked at my watch. 3:55. There had to be a way out of this.
My brain twisted like a pretzel. I’d spent a lifetime longing for a second chance to relive this day, and here it was. Alice was alive. Any minute she’d come walking through that door.
I heard the squeal of brakes, the sound of a muscle car turning the corner. Just like before. Nina stopped by my table again. “You still don’t look good, Stephen.”
Nina glanced toward the door. “Well, look-ee here.”
I turned to see her—Alice was descending the steps into the restaurant. She smiled, but it wasn’t very bright.
“Pull yourself together,” Nina said again.
Alice was beautiful, just as I remembered. I stood up. Alice reached for me, and I hugged her back, holding her physical form in my arms. Her perfume mingled with her own scent, and I kissed her.
She broke away, holding on to my arms, “Stephen, are you okay?”
“I’m just so happy to see you,” I replied.
She kissed me again. I touched her soft cheek and gazed into her eyes, and she winked. “You act like you haven’t seen me in a while.”
“It’s been…”
“Twenty-four hours?”
“Too long,” I said.
As she settled into the booth across from me, her brunette hair shimmered in the light. The moment she sat down, a shadow descended across her face, just like before. I reached for her wrist and felt her skin beneath my fingers.
“You seem troubled,” I began.
Alice shrugged. “It’s … nothing.”
Nina came over, meeting my eyes with a knowing smile. Alice ordered a soda. She grinned at me. “And Stephen will have a lemonade.”
I glanced at my watch: It was 4:05. Fourteen years ago, we had talked for nearly fifteen minutes before she’d rushed out of the shop.
I could barely concentrate. The question churned within me:
Can I let her go?
“Are you okay, Stephen? You look a little pale.”
I pulled at my collar. “You know … I am feeling a little … strange.”
She touched my hand. “Where’s Donna anyway? Did she say something to you?”
I glanced at my watch again. It was way too early for Alice to ask this question. Somehow, the script had already changed.
Alice hesitated. “Well … maybe that’s a good thing because … I did something terrible.”
My heart slammed against my chest, and she fixed me with a guilty expression.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I found it…” She hesitated again, and I braced my hands against the table, ready to leap after her.
She shook her head, sighed loudly. “I have to show you…”
I was already slipping out of the booth when I realized that Alice hadn’t budged. Instead, she’d reached into her purse and removed a diary. Donna’s diary.
“Where are you going?” she wondered aloud.
I sat back down across from her. “It can wait,” I croaked out.
Alice looked at me strangely as she clutched the diary. An image of the contents in Donna’s memory box came back to me. Her leather-bound diary had been nestled in it with the rest of her items.
“I was going to leave it in the car, but I couldn’t,” Alice told me now, tears slipping down her cheek. “I shouldn’t have been snooping, but …”
She looked away, then wiped her cheek.
What had she read?
When she looked up again, her eyes locked with mine, and something shuddered through me. She seemed suddenly different to me, as if I were now looking at her through the eyes of a thirty-six-year-old man. I remembered what Donna had said to me the day of our divorce.
“She was exotic. You wanted her life.”
I reached for her hand, to console her, my mind swimming helplessly, trying to determine how to proceed. Sensing my reticence, Alice expelled a breath and grabbed her purse. “I shouldn’t have done this. I’m so sorry. I have to go, Stephen.”
I stared in disbelief as she slid out of the booth. I glanced up at the clock. Exactly fifteen minutes had elapsed. Although our conversation had somehow veered from the original, the moment of her leaving was exactly the same.
Desperately, I reached for her, but she broke free, muffling a sob. By the time I could slide to the edge of my own seat, she was halfway across the room.
“Alice, wait!” I shouted.
Let her go!
something screamed within me.
I couldn’t help it. I leapt to my feet, headed for the door, and ran smack into Nina, who was balancing a tray of plates on her upraised arm. The plates went flying, and I grabbed Nina to keep her from falling. By the time we recovered, Alice was already at the door.
“Alice!” I screamed just as she slipped out. I raced up the steps to the door, narrowly avoiding another waitress, twisting in between a group of students. I reached it and frantically pulled on the door handle.
Let her die!
Reaching the sidewalk, I glimpsed her at the curb preparing to cross. She stepped down and took several steps. I continued screaming.
It happened within seconds … the squeal of brakes that seemed to last forever … racing across the sidewalk between the door and the street … Alice’s forward movement even as she was turning toward me…
This time, however, I reached her, grabbed her slippery blouse with every ounce of strength, pulled her toward me, hoping against hope that the material of the blouse wouldn’t rip … feeling the whisk of air … the brush of a car speeding past us … breaking through the space that had been occupied by Alice a split second earlier …
My shoulder hit the pavement, and she fell on top of me, and I held on to her. I heard the squealing stop, and at first, neither of us moved. I felt her body twist in my arms, her chest breathing in and out, the stunned and incredulous tone in her voice: “Stephen? What happened?”
A small crowd was forming around us.
“Are you okay?” Alice said, sitting up. I just lay there, breathing heavily. When I finally sat up, Alice hugged me tightly. “How did you know?”
Someone touched me on the shoulder. “Dude … you’re a hero.”
After fully appraising my surroundings, I helped her to her feet. I was still catching my breath, unable to let go of her blouse. More people had gathered.
What have I done?
I thought.
“I’m okay, Stephen. You saved me.”
My vision wavered.
“Stephen?” Alice asked. “Are you hurt?” Her face came into focus for a split second.
I was speechless. She hugged me again. “I’m sorry, Stephen. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
The flickering continued.
Alycia was gone forever.
Everything went black.
I
awakened slowly, slipping in and out of consciousness. Hazy images danced in the back of my sluggish mind. I heard a muffled
whooshing
sound in the distance. It seemed to increase in volume just as it receded. Alycia’s voice echoed in the back of the whooshing:
“I need to talk to you, Dad. Do you promise?”
An image of a blue rose crossed my vision. I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling first, a spackled popcorn texture.
Where am I?
I looked around the brightly lit room, and not until that moment did I recall fragments of the latest dream.
The Soda Straw. Nina, the waitress. And Alice. Dear Alice
.
I’m sorry I ever doubted you,
she had said.
This room appeared to be a large bedroom. On the opposite wall was a dresser and mirror above it. Slightly to the left an arched entryway to another room. Apparently the bathroom. I heard the trickling sounds of what seemed to be a shower. To my right, curtains twitched with a subtle breeze. Radiant light struggling at the edges, and I heard that strange
whooshing
again.
Glancing back to the left, I heard the sound of humming emanating from the bathroom—a woman’s voice. I flung the covers off and swung my legs over the bed, hoping that a sitting position might jog my memory, then noticed my attire. Pajamas.
I touched the speckled cut-Berber carpet with my toe, expecting it to give way, but it didn’t. I pressed down harder, but the floor was solid. I stood up, slowly making my way to the beige curtains.
Taking a deep breath, I grasped the inside edges and pulled them apart, squinting into the light. Beyond the patio door was a wooden deck, and beyond that … miles and miles of distant, cloudy blue horizon. I grabbed the patio door handle, but it resisted. Fumbling for a lock, I pulled it open.
The sounds came alive—sea gulls, the roar of the ocean, the salty wind against my face. I tested the floor and found myself standing on the wooden deck, about ten feet by ten feet. I went to the railing and stared out into the blue-green of light-dappled waves washing against a deserted beach, part of a protected cove with the shore curving away on both sides. I took several deep breaths of the salty ocean wind. Images flickered at the edge of my mind.
I breathed deeply, struggled to remember, and the entire dream suddenly came to me:
I had saved Alice
.
And now … this.
I took another deep breath and turned toward the room, taking in the full scale of the beachfront home—the kind of house associated with the very wealthy.
Remembering the woman humming in the shower, I cautiously entered the bedroom, feeling the plush carpet beneath my feet, aware of the Mediterranean design of the room, the broadly textured walls, the vaulted ceiling, the elaborate built-ins.
I heard the humming again.
How old was I? And where was this? California? I went to the mirror and stared at my reflection. I appeared to be in my mid-thirties. My hair was shorter, closely cropped, and I had the vestiges of a one-day beard.
I opened the armoire cabinet and found a TV. Searching the room with my eyes, I saw the remote on the nightstand. Grabbing it, I thumbed through the buttons until I found the on button.
The woman was humming again. The shower water continued. Any minute it would stop.
The TV blared to life. Flicking through the stations, I found the Weather Channel. In the lower panel, the local weather was scrolling—Connecticut. I flipped through more channels and found another local station, a news announcer:
Here in Southern Connecticut, it appears the rains have subsided….
Humming came louder from the bathroom.
In the upper corner, the date seemed familiar. It was November.
I slumped down onto the bed again. Alycia was gone. I couldn’t even mourn her “death.” No picture of her existed. In this world, no one would understand. How could I explain the “death” of someone who was never born?
And who was the woman in the shower? Alice?
The shower stopped, and I prepared myself. I wiped my face and practiced a smile into the mirror, one that turned out to look rather ghoulish. More humming, clearer this time, familiar somehow.
As I quickly dressed into the only clothes I could find—khaki shorts and a white-and-blue Polo T-shirt—I was startled by the sound of stomping, beyond the closed bedroom door. The frantic twisting of the doorknob. Locked. Frenzied knocking. “Dad! Open up! She’s finished!”
A horrified moment passed. I’d had another child. Such a thing hadn’t even occurred to me. Of
course
Alice and I would have had children—maybe several.
“Dad! Hurry up!”
I rose and went to the door, twisted the lock, gripped the doorknob. I pulled it open, bracing for the worst—the physical reality of a child I didn’t even know.
The door burst open. I jumped backward, and a brunette girl leapt into the room, her face beyond my vision. Her head was turned away from me toward the shower area. She whipped her hand behind her to grab my hand, whispering frantically: “C’mon!”
With my hand now in hers, she was pulling me out the door and down a hallway. “That was close, Dad!”
I tightened my grip, resisting her forward momentum. I hadn’t gotten a good look at her face. She twisted around and faced me. “Dad! C’mon, we have to get in place!”
Alycia
.
She frowned. “What?”
Speechless, I stared into her face.
“What’s the matter, Dad?”
My throat closed up. Instinctively, I reached for her and pulled her to me, hugging her near, and reluctantly she hugged me back. “Da-ad! We don’t have time for this!”
She fit in my arms just as I remembered. She’d never gone to Melgaard Park to meet Sean. She’d never cut her wrists in Sally’s bathroom.
She pushed away from me. “Dad … are you okay?”
Swallowing, I nodded. “It’s just so good to see you, honey.”
“Parents are so weird,” she muttered with some expressive eye rolling. “You’d think I died or something.”
My grin felt wobbly.
“C’mon, Dad, we have to go!”
I released her, and she gave me her
get-it-together
expression.
“She’ll be walking out any minute,” Alycia whispered urgently. “You left the note, right?”
“The note.”
She stopped. “You forgot the note?”
“Uh, I don’t remember,” I said.
“Da-a-ad!”
“Sorry.”
Her mouth was working vigorously from side to side. “Okay,” she said, heading back through the hallway. “No problem. I’ve got everything under control.”
I watched her sneak to the door. Slowly she pushed it open, then peeked inside again. She glanced back, and made a
so-far-so-good
face. She slipped inside.
I waited, and it seemed to take forever. Looking around, I noticed the balcony railing, the elaborate windows. Leaning over, I noted the entryway, just downstairs. Glancing to my left, I saw a large framed print, a Broadway poster of
Titanic, the Musical
. A brunette woman stared rapturously into the face of another man.
Only his love could save her …
the headline intoned.
The woman was Alice.
Suddenly, Alycia burst out of the room, her face ablaze with excitement. She giggled loudly and grabbed my hand again as she passed me, as if my hand were a baton. “C’mon!”
This time I went willingly. She pulled me down the steps, and when we reached the bottom, a hardwood floor, she turned to me, “Mom was dressing in the closet. I wrote it on the mirror!”
“The mirror?”
“It was foggy. C’mon, Dad, keep up.”
She took me around a corner, released my hand, expecting me to follow, and headed through another door. We ran down another set of stairs, and when we reached the bottom, Alycia giggle-sprinted across the darkened room and disappeared behind a long wooden bar.
I hesitated. Was I supposed to follow? A tiny whisper erupted from the darkness. “Oh, Da-a-ad. Over here.”
I followed and, despite the blackness, spotted her leaning against the wall. She held up a small electronic device that resembled a TV remote control. “I programmed it,” Alycia whispered. “When I press this button …
Voila! …
the lights come on.”
She rubbed her hands together. “This is going to be
so
cool,” she said excitedly. “So she really thought we forgot?”
“What?”
“You didn’t
tell
her, did you?”
“No,” I said, still unsure of the occasion.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Stick a needle up your nostril?”
“Uh … yeah.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m old,” I whispered.
“No kidding, but that’s nothing new.”
“Sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” she said, and then tensed. “Did you hear that?”
“No.”
“Are you listening?”
“Of course.”
A moment of silence passed. “You forgot the presents, didn’t you?”
I had to think fast. “No … but I forgot where I hid them.”
Alycia sighed with supreme exasperation. “In the downstairs closet?”
“Well, then. They must be there.”
She expelled a breath. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I guess we were up late.”
My eyes had acclimated to the dark, and I saw her eyebrows merge into a frown. “Oh, gross. Information overload.”
“All I said was—”
Her hands flew to her ears. “Ewww. La la la la … I can’t hear you … la la la la la.”
She dropped her hands. “You and Mom have been married for fourteen years, you know. That stuff should be old hat.”
“What stuff?”
Hands to the ears again. “La la la la.” Her eyes widened. “Did you hear that?”
“How could I?”
She plastered her clammy hand against my mouth. “Ssssshhhh.”
We listened but heard nothing.
She turned and frowned at me. “Why do you keep staring at me like that?”
“I like your face paint.”
She frowned. “Oh yeah. The makeup. You actually like it?”
“Of course not, but you did a good job. You know. For a kid.”
“I’m not a kid anymore, Dad. Acclimate.”
She reached for me, but I grabbed her hands with one of mine and tickled her. She sputtered a giggle before snatching her hands away and slapping her mouth shut with both. Through her muffled hands, she sputtered, “D-a-a-ad! Look what you made me do.”
The stair squeaked loudly, and we both heard it. Alycia sucked in a breath. “Did she hear us?”
I hope so,
I thought, grinning like a fool in the dark. The ability to process this, to make heads or tails out of what was happening, would come later. In the meantime, my daughter was still alive.
“Are you ready, Dad?” she whispered.
“Ready for what?”
“She’s standing in the hallway!”
I heard repeated clicking of a wall switch by the stairwell entrance. “That’s strange,” someone murmured. “The light must have burned out.”
The voice was familiar, and by now I was dying to stand up and yell, “Surprise!”
“Are you ready, Dad?”
“Roger, dodger.”
“We need to buy you some new lingo.”
“Someone down here?” That female voice again, so familiar.
Alycia grasped my hand. “Ready?”
“Say the word.”
“Now!”
Hand in hand, Alycia and I leapt to our feet and yelled “Surprise!” at the exact moment the entire downstairs was engulfed in lights and I heard the blaring guitars of rock music, which I immediately recognized as the Beatles’ rendition of “You say it’s your birthday…”
The room exploded with illuminated balloons and streamers and banners, and across the room a woman squealed with delight. I didn’t recognize her at first—for a completely different reason than someone might suspect: because this woman wasn’t Alice. Not even close. I watched her, now ecstatic with delight, twisting around and around, taking in the entire room. “You guys, you guys, what did you do? I thought you forgot my birthday!”
Alycia squealed, and by now the woman had crossed the room and was reaching for me. Holding out her hands, she grabbed my waist, and by then there was no doubt in my mind.
Donna kissed me sweetly on the lips, and then squeezed my cheeks. “Hey, Lover Boy, when did you plan all this?”
