The Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare (5 page)

“We're watching that one again?” Claire says, tossing a throw pillow onto Mega Couch from the other side of the room. “We've seen it a hundred tiiiiimes.” She bends down to swipe another pillow off the floor. Her chestnut hair spills in front of her face.

I've always been jealous of how much she looks like Mom – perfect apple cheeks, dark eyes, willowy frame, that satin hair – while Audrey and I look just like Dad. Dusky blond hair, pale gray eyes, button noses. But one thing Claire didn't inherit from Mom is her penchant for drama. She doesn't have one ounce of Mom's calm manner and even temper.

“It's Alex's turn to pick,” Mom says. “What she says goes.”

“But it's so unfair.” Claire flings the other pillow across the room. “We never watch anything new. I can't talk to my friends about these old movies. They haven't heard of any of them.”

“So?” I say, kneeling down on the floor and sticking Charade in the DVD player.

“So you don't have any friends. You don't know what it's like.”

Mom unfolds one of Gran's afghans and drapes it over the back of the couch. “That's not true. Alex has friends.”

Claire fists her hands on her hips. “Name one.”

Mom's face goes a little blank as she thinks about it. Then she says, “Paisley,” and smiles at me. “She sits next to you in Sunday School.”

I turn my head to the side so she can't see me grimace. Paisley isn't exactly my friend. She does sit next to me in Sunday School, but we never speak. She's weird, even for my standards. For one, she always wears flannel pajamas and hiking boots. To church and to school. And two? She always has a handful of mayonnaise packets in her backpack.

Which she snacks on.

During class.

I shudder just thinking about the sound she makes sucking on those packets.

“And what about Jensen?” Mom says. “He's been your friend since you two were in the church nursery together.”

I roll my eyes. “Mom, just because Paisley and Jensen are in my general vicinity at church and school doesn't mean they're my friends.”

“See?” Claire says. “Jensen isn't her friend. She just has that huge crush on him still.”

I don't even attempt to dispute it like I normally would. Claire's like a pit bull when it comes to arguing. Once she sinks her teeth in, she doesn't let go. And I don't have the energy to spar with her tonight. Besides, it's not like my crush on Jensen was ever a secret in this family. Even Pops knows about it. He used to pinch me right above my knee where it tickles, and if I laughed, it meant I was “boy crazy.” Boy crazy for Jensen Peters.

I laughed every time, dammit.

“Can't you just try a new movie?” Claire asks, sticking a brightly colored DVD case under my nose. It looks like some sort of tween musical. I resist the urge to gag. “I saw it at Madeline's and it's so awesome. I know you'd like it if you just gave it a tryyy.” Her whining is truly an art form. She's as incessant and irritating as the seagulls down at the docks in the summer.

Again, I'm too tired to argue. I pull the DVD case from her fingers and pop it open. “Fine. You guys watch this, and I'll eat in my room. Happy?” I flip Charade out of the disc drive, and I shove Claire's movie into the player a little too hard.

Mom notices. “No,” she says, kneeling beside me. She switches out the DVDs and hands Claire's movie back to her. “We're watching Charade.”

“This is so stupid!” In a fit of pent up frustration, Claire slams a foot against Mega Couch.

“Hey.” Mom pushes herself to her feet. Her fierce expression dares Claire to continue with her tantrum. But Claire never stops once she gets going. Punishment be damned.

“Do you know how embarrassing it is being her sister?” Claire says, flicking her wrist at me. “Everyone makes fun of her. I mean, she's scared of movies. We live on the coast and she freaks out if she gets too close to a boat. We can't have a cat, even though Audrey really wants one, because it'll ‘upset Alex.' Everything ‘upsets' Alex. Why can't she just be normal?” She storms out of the room just as Dad and Gran come in bearing trays of pizza. Mom darts after her to lay down the law. I sit on the floor, poking at a seam in the carpet, reminded yet again of the huge wake my visions leave behind.

If only Claire knew how much we both want the same thing.

If only Dr Farrow had listened to me and given me some sort of medication. I'd be well on my way to becoming the person my family needs me to be. All their attention could go back to Audrey, where it belongs. But I guess since I've gone seventeen years without any medication, Dr Farrow thinks a little while longer won't do any harm.

She couldn't be more wrong.

CHAPTER 4

 

 

The next day at school goes by just like any other. Classes are slow, teachers lecture in sensible shoes, and the cafeteria pizza is so greasy I have to blot it with a stack of napkins before it's remotely edible. In Driver's Ed, I fail the parallel parking test. Again. Madame Cavanaugh keeps me after French to let me know my grade is slipping. Again.

Same old, same old.

In English, Mr Draper taps and screeches his way across the chalkboard, filling its surface with definitions of words like denouement and omniscient. He loves deconstructing classic literature and pointing out symbolism his students would never discover on their own. For him, that's what makes the text come alive. For me, it's what helps keep my grade above a D.

Turning fiction into mechanical puzzle pieces – like something you could manufacture in an assembly line – was the only way I could pass his literature assignments. Plug protagonist into slot A. Attach conflict and dramatic irony, using two minor characters and one antagonist. Rotate ninety degrees and locate symbolism. Slide climax into place, and fasten with resolution. Use the provided bonding compound if structure seems unstable.

No problem.

We're right in the middle of discussing hidden meanings in The Great Gatsby when the classroom sounds fade away, leaving only a faint resonance like the school bell after it rings. Mr Draper is still talking and gesturing. I can see his lips moving, but I can't hear his words. Papers shuffling, books opening and closing, pages turning, sneakers scuffing the tile floor – it all disappears.

I grip the sides of my desk as the darkness slinks in and around Mr Draper and my classmates like satin cloth, swallowing them whole. I curse the fact that Dr Farrow refused to write me a prescription, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I just have to let this new vision run its course. It'll all be over in a few minutes.

They never last longer than that.

 

 

When the darkness receded and the light poured in, I found myself standing smack in the middle of a busy city street. Cars puttered past on either side of me. They were classics – old Fords, Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles – but they looked brand new, all shiny and black with tall, whitewall tires. I gaped at them as they passed by, their engines sounding like ratchets. The drivers gaped back, some even shouting at me to get out of the road. One of them honked a horn behind me, and its throaty ah-ooga! almost made me jump out of my skin.

That's when I realized I had a body, and if I didn't want it flattened, I better get moving.

I scurried through a break in the traffic to the sidewalk in what felt like stiff ankle boots. My hands were shoved in the pockets of a long wool coat. A row of brick mid-rise buildings stood before me, and I stopped short when I caught my reflection in a bakery store window.

I'd never seen my reflection in a vision before.

I stood and stared, running my fingers down my mess of long, dark, wavy hair. It was pulled back in a loose ribbon at the back of my neck. Soft, wavy tendrils framed my face, gently brushing my red cheeks in the crisp autumn air. I leaned in closer to the glass and touched my cheekbone. Deep brown eyes, the color of coffee, stared back at me. I wasn't wearing contacts, but I could see everything clearly. (I guess one doesn't necessarily need glasses during a hallucination.)

With the dark hair and dark eyes, I half expected to have a completely different face, but everything else was the same – my nose, my lips, my chin – only I looked thinner, possibly two sizes smaller beneath that long wool coat. A plain black skirt peeked out from under the hem, falling just past my knees, and thick thigh-high black socks drew my eyes down to my battered, black boots.

When I traced my eyebrows, my nose, my lips, the sensation beneath my fingertips felt the same, but I couldn't get over how different I looked. Like I dyed my hair, lost fifteen pounds, and bought colored contacts. Dad would've killed me. He was so proud that I shared his gray-blue eyes and dusky blond hair.

A knock on the window in front of my face made me jump. I peered through the glass past my reflection and saw a hefty man in a white apron shooing me from his display window. I guessed I must have looked like a lunatic to his customers inside. I waved at him, mouthed I'm sorry, and started down the sidewalk with no idea where it might lead.

It was a brisk autumn day, the pale blue sky streaked with half-hearted wisps of clouds. A biting breeze cut across the street every now and then, and I was thankful for the warmth of my coat and thick socks. Tall brick shops and apartment buildings stretched on down the road as far as I could see, and the sidewalks were filled with people, some in a hurry, others milling about and chatting with neighbors. The clothing styles made me think my vision was set in the Twenties. Prohibition. The Great Depression. But there was only one way to find out.

I heard the newspaper boy's voice before I saw him, shouting the latest headlines over the putter of the traffic, the clopping of horses' hooves pulling wagons, and the murmuring pedestrians. Men in suits and long coats stopped briefly at the boy's stand to swipe a paper from one of the stacks and push a few coins in his gloved palm. The fluid motion of it all meant it was a daily ritual for them. The newspaper. I wondered what they'd think of its modern day death or the dawn of the Internet.

A thought tugged at the back of my mind, tiny at first. If Dr Farrow was right, and this was all a hallucination, what was stopping me from having a little fun? I decided to do a bit of self-diagnosis.

I leaned over the nearest stack of newspapers, The Daily Herald, and caught the date at the top. Friday, October 21, 1927.

The date was off. It was October, yes, but it wasn't the twenty-first nor a Friday. And it definitely wasn't 1927.

If my vision was right, and the twenty-first landed on a Friday in 1927, how would Dr Farrow explain that? I really didn't think I could retain those kinds of details in my subconscious mind. I couldn't even remember all the dates I'd spent so much time memorizing for history last year.

The newspaper boy caught me staring and approached, his hand held out. He was tall and thin, with a youngish face, sunken eyes, and a cap set askew on top of greasy hair. I patted my coat pockets for change, but they were empty. Did teenagers really wander the streets without any money in 1927? I didn't think I'd ever left the house with less than a five dollar bill.

The boy shooed me away the moment he saw I was broke.

But this was my vision. My hallucination. It wasn't real. It was all in my head. So who said I had to pay for anything?

I slid a newspaper from the top of the stack and started off, tucking it under my arm.

That's when things got ugly.

“Stop! Thief!” The boy leaped over his newspaper stacks like a pole vaulter. His long, gangly legs landed him at my side in an instant. He seized the paper with both hands, but I mustered my best vise grip. (Having two younger sisters who were always getting into your stuff helped perfect the art.)

“I don't have to pay,” I said through gritted teeth, my arms tangled in his as we wrestled. He smelled like sauerkraut and woodsmoke.

“Everyone has to pay. It's two cents or nothing.” His boot came down on mine in an effort to shake me loose.

You wouldn't think a smashed toe would hurt in a hallucination, but the white-hot, blazing pain was the first clue on my way to learning the inevitable: Dr Farrow was a complete and utter idiot. There's no way I could've dreamed up the detailed agony that was my throbbing toe.

I wasn't that creative.

The boy yanked the newspaper from under my arm, and I let him do it. I couldn't care less about the paper now. All I could think about was my toe – my poor, mangled (the nail probably split in two) toe – and the fact that these visions were definitely not hallucinations.

“Is there a problem here?”

I hadn't realized another boy had approached, or that a crowd had gathered around us for that matter, until he spoke. He looked to be the same age as Newspaper Boy and me, but the serious expression he wore was mature beyond his years. His voice was calm and purposeful. His eyes were a striking blue-green, like the color of Audrey's glass insulators, his dark hair was cropped short with faint sideburns, and he wore an oversized wool coat with black leather gloves. He was handsome, like those resolute soldiers in old tintype photographs. So handsome, in fact, just looking at him made my ears warm.

I took a step back, feeling stupid for making a scene. Newspaper Boy swept his cap from the ground, which had fallen during our struggle. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair and situated the cap back in place. Then he pointed a bony finger in my direction. “She tried to steal from me. Said she didn't have to pay.”