M. Buehrlen - The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

She sits up and straightens her back. I wait for answers. She remains silent, watching me.

“So?” I say. “What’s wrong with me?” I push my glasses up my nose with my knuckle. AIDA’s founder continues to stare down at me from his portrait, a condescending look in his two-dimensional eyes. Something about his expression makes me feel uneasy, crazy even, and I look away from him, pulling my sleeves down over my wrists tighter than before.

Dr Farrow’s coral lips form a straight line. Her brow creases. She opens her mouth to reply, but closes it again.

Heat spreads across my skin. “You think I have schizophrenia, don’t you?”

She lifts her hands. “I didn’t say that.”

“Good, because I don’t. I read all about it. Not all the symptoms match. I’m not emotionally distant. I joke. I laugh. I can express ideas in a coherent, organized manner. I don’t think the government is out to kill me.”

“That’s true. And yet you’re experiencing extremely vivid hallucinations. You are unable to differentiate whether they are real or unreal.”

I start to shake. I fist my hands at my sides. There is a film of sickly, sweaty heat coating me beneath my sweater and cords. It clings to me like plastic wrap. Epilepsy was bad enough. I can’t have the kids at school thinking I have schizophrenia. Not to mention Mom.

I cock the pistol and fire all my burning questions at Dr Farrow. “If they aren’t real, then why do I have a scar on my chin? Why did I get seasick just by sitting in a Sunday School classroom? Why did I feel like I was starving after Jamestown? How can my visions show me things that really happened in history, before I even learn about them?”

She shrugs one bony shoulder. “You probably retained the knowledge subconsciously. You saw an advertisement, heard a song, saw a heading in a newspaper. Things like that can stick in our subconscious minds without us being aware of it. Seems like I remember something about the Starving Time in Jamestown, though I can’t place where I heard about it. So even though I never officially learned about it, it’s there, in my subconscious.” She leans forward again, her elbows on her knees. “Alex, I’m not saying you have schizophrenia. I’m not saying you have anything. All I’m saying is that I’d like to continue meeting with you. I want to know more about your visions. I’d like to dig deeper. And then, later, if I think it necessary, I might run a few tests.”

“What kinds of tests?”

“Mental acuity. Possibly a few brain scans.”

I shake my head. How long will all that take? “Isn’t there some kind of pill you can give me? Something that will stop the visions? Just so I can get through a normal day at school?”

The possibility of never having another vision, of being normal, tugs at my sleeve. It taps on the window. I look out through the glass and see myself sitting in the school cafeteria, talking casually to Jensen Peters, flipping my hair over my shoulder and flirting with him like I actually know what I’m doing. I see myself standing in front of Mom’s full length mirror, wearing a dress for the first time in my life, ready to go on my first date. I’m hanging out with Claire, laughing and talking about her latest Hollywood crush, whom I’ve never heard of, and I don’t feel the urge to make fun of her mercilessly. I’m reading one of the countless novels Audrey has recommended to me. I’m strolling through a college campus, I’m tall and grown up, and I haven’t had a sleepless night in years.

I look happy.

A pill could do that for me, couldn’t it?

“Why don’t we meet a few more times,” Dr Farrow says, “before we talk about medication?”

All my hopes deflate and fizzle. They drop to the floor at my feet with a thud, one by one, like dead birds.

I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

Normal is never easy.

MOVIE NIGHT

It’s an hour’s car ride back to Annapolis from DC, and I’m silent the whole way home. I feel empty and hollow, like Dr Farrow sucked everything out of me, leaving behind a cold, hardened-steel shell. My eyes glaze over as I stare out the window in the back of Mom’s Civic. The sun set long ago. Glittering lights fade to black as we leave the city, and then, one by one, they multiply again as we near the Bay. It’s the same route Mom takes every day to and from work. She knows it like she knows the freckles on my shoulders. If she’s tired of the same old boring drive, she’s never said. I know she’d drive all day, every day, if it brought her one step closer to Audrey’s cure. Still, I feel bad she has to make the extra trip just for me.

For me and my issues.

It isn’t until I’m back home in the kitchen and smell Gran’s lemon poppyseed muffins that I finally let my guard down. The hardened-steel shell begins to melt. I’m exhausted, like I ran an emotional marathon. All I want to do is trudge up the stairs and collapse face-first into my pillow, but a hug from Gran and a mouthful of muffin soon sets me to rights.

Thankfully, tonight is our family movie night – a time-honored tradition in the Wayfare house – which means homemade pizza, soda, popcorn, and no chance for serious discussion over the dinner table. I have no desire to fill the whole family in on my talk with Dr Farrow.

While Dad and Gran put the finishing touches on the pizzas, Mom enlists Claire and I for Mega Couch duty in the den. Ever since I can remember, we’ve always pushed our two couches and three ottomans together to make one massive lounging zone. Dad calls Mega Couch “the ultimate movie viewing experience,” and I totally agree. I can’t wait to sink down into the cushions, get lost in a film I know is “safe,” and worry about everything else in the morning.

“So what’s on the playbill tonight?” Mom asks me as she nudges the last ottoman into place with her knee.

I pull one of my favorite films out of the DVD cabinet: Charade, with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. It’s a delicious murder mystery, full of the best kinds of twists and turns. No one is who they say they are, and it keeps you guessing all the way until the end. I hold it up and Mom grins. It’s one of her favorites too.

She showed it to me for the first time when I was nine and laid up with chicken pox. It was the only thing that kept me captivated long enough to keep my mind off all the itching. I remember lying stretched out on Mega Couch, oven mitts on my hands, sipping chocolate milk through a purple curly straw. I remember falling in love with Cary Grant. I remember hating him when I thought he might not be a good guy after all. And most importantly, I remember not having déjà vu. No bad dreams. No visions. No escape from the chicken pox, not even for one second.

“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.”