Stranger With My Face (2 page)

When we came around the bend in the road, we could see the crowd already assembled at the dock. Rennie and Mary Beth were
always there early, because their dad ran the ferry, and there were a bunch of younger kids running around, proudly toting
backpacks and pretending to try to shove each other into the water. Jeff Rankin was standing by himself over by the seawall.
And I saw Darlene and Blane. Then, a little beyond them, I saw Gordon talking with Natalie.

I raised my hand and waved.

Darlene waved back at me, but it was an odd sort of gesture. She raised her hand halfway, then glanced at the others and slowly
lowered it again. Gordon didn’t seem to see me, which was strange because he was looking right at me.

I slowed my pace, and Meg trotted on ahead of me, glancing back over her shoulder.

“You coming, Laurie?” she called.

“Yes,” I told her.

Something was the matter. I could feel the vibrations of hostility stretching to meet me. My apprehension mounted as I drew
nearer, and I found myself walking more and more slowly.

“Hi,” I said as casually as I could when I came up to them. “What’s going on?”

No one smiled, or even tried to. There was a moment of silence.

Then Natalie said, “You missed a good time last night. It turned out to be a pretty great party.”

“I’m sure it was,” I said. “I felt so bad canceling on you. You wouldn’t have wanted me, though, in the condition I was in.”

“You seem okay this morning,” Gordon said without even saying hi first.

“I am,” I told him. “It’s like a miracle.”

“It seems that way. When did it happen?”

“When did what happen?” I glanced in bewilderment from one unfriendly face to another. “Hey, what’s with you guys?”

“The miracle,” Gordon said. “When did it happen? Pretty quickly after you called my mom?”

“Look, Laurie,” Natalie said, “you can cut the act before it gets any more embarrassing than it already is. We know you weren’t
sick.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. We know you’re lying. That was twenty bucks’ worth of lobster dinner you cost my dad. If you didn’t want to come,
you could have said so in the first place.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I turned to Darlene. “What is she talking about?”

“It’s not like it was a backyard barbecue or something, Laurie.” Darlene’s soft little voice was gently accusing. “This was
a formal party. Nat’s folks had gone to all kinds of trouble getting things set up with a band and all that awesome food.”

“If I’d known you didn’t want to come, I would have asked someone in your place,” Natalie told me. Her pretty, heart-shaped
face was flushed with anger.

“Where are you getting this stuff about my ‘not wanting’ to come?” I was beginning to get angry myself. “What choice did I
have? People don’t get sick because they want to. I guess you think it’s my idea of fun to lie there in bed when all the rest
of you are out partying!”

“Come off it, Laurie,” Gordon said. “You weren’t at home in bed any more than I was.”

“I had the flu,” I said. “If you don’t believe me—”

“I don’t.” His voice was flat and hard. “Because I saw you.”

“You—
what
?”

“The band took a break, so I went outside to get some air. The moon was bright, and I saw you on the beach.”

“Gordon, you’ve got to be crazy!” I stared at him incredulously. “I never left the house last night. You can ask my parents.”

“I don’t need to ask anybody. I saw you. So answer me something—who were you meeting there? And don’t try to tell me ‘nobody,’
because I’m not going to buy it. It was one of the summer guys, wasn’t it? Which one—that dude from Princeton? Or that one
with the beard who’s been giving you the eye at the Tennis Club?”

He was furious. I had never seen Gordon so livid. His jaw was set, and his eyes had narrowed to slits of glimmering green.

Mr. Ziegler gave the boat whistle a toot, and I realized suddenly that we were the only ones who hadn’t boarded.

“I won’t even try to answer that,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster. “There isn’t any answer. I was home, sick
in bed. Period. If you saw somebody on the beach, it wasn’t me.”

For a moment nobody spoke.

Then Natalie said quietly, “That’s not true. I was with Gordon. We both saw you. There’s no way in the world it could have
been anyone else.”

It was a long, strange day.

There were all the usual things that have to be done at the start of a new school year. I went to the office for my locker
assignment, filled out registration forms, and located my new classrooms.

People I hadn’t seen since the previous spring greeted me in the halls, and I smiled, said friendly things, and gave appropriate
answers to routine questions.

“No, we didn’t go anywhere special for vacation. Did you?”

“I swam a lot and played some tennis and just generally hung out. What did you do?”

“Oh—thanks. But it would be weird if I
didn’t
get a tan, living on the island.”

And all the while, beneath the surface, I was seething. How could Gordon have had the nerve to accuse me with such certainty
of something I
knew
I didn’t do? “I saw you,” he had insisted, not just once but several times, without a hint of doubt in his voice. And Natalie
had confirmed it. “We both saw you”—when I hadn’t been there to be seen! My denial had counted for nothing. They hadn’t believed
me. Natalie had actually come right out and said, “We know you’re lying.”

And what exactly had Gordon and Natalie been doing out on the beach together, anyway? That question occurred to me midmorning
when I was standing in the library. Natalie was supposed to have been with Carl, her date for the evening, not strolling around
in the moonlight with my boyfriend! Here Gordon was, acting so furious about something that hadn’t happened, when
I
was the one who had a right to be upset and angry.

I collected my books and took them to my locker. My next-door locker neighbor was a tall, freckled girl named Helen Tuttle who had just transferred from a high school in the Southwest. It turned out we had the same split period for English,
so we ended up eating lunch together in the cafeteria. Darlene and Mary Beth Ziegler came in soon after we did, but they never
glanced in my direction. They went to a table at the far end of the room, and before long Blane and Tommy Burbank and some
of the other island kids joined them there.

I had a ham sandwich and a Coke for lunch, and they went down perfectly. I almost wished they hadn’t. If I had been sick right
there in the lunchroom, Blane or somebody surely would have told Gordon, and it would have given credibility to my story of
having been sick the night before.

Helen must have noticed my mind wasn’t on our conversation, because she followed the direction of my gaze and asked, “Who
are you looking at?”

“Oh, just some kids who live out near where I do,” I told her. “They’re sort of a clique.”

“I guess you find those everywhere,” Helen said lightly. I was tempted to tell her I had been part of that clique only the
day before, but I decided against it. I was too confused by the situation to explain it properly to somebody I had only just
met.

When school let out, I stayed back a little and let the others start for the pier without me. I’d been snubbed harshly enough
that morning that I didn’t want to repeat it. In the process of trying to widen the gap between us, I dawdled too long and
finally had to run the last fifty yards or so in order to make the boat. I clambered on board just as they were casting off
and, as luck would have it, grabbed a nearby arm—which happened to belong to Gordon—for balance.

“Excuse me,” I said coldly, removing my hand as quickly as possible.

“You’re excused,” he said, and then added in a low voice, “Look, Laurie, I’ve had time to calm down. Be honest with me, and
I’m willing to listen to your side of the story. What were you doing out—”

“What a coincidence!” I snapped back, interrupting him in midsentence. “That’s exactly the question I had for you. What were
you and Nat doing wandering around on the beach together when she was supposed to be hosting a party?”

I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I shoved my way past him and climbed the ladder to the narrow upper deck, which was
where my brother, Neal, always liked to ride. When I reached it, I remembered that the elementary school operated on an abbreviated
first-day schedule and the younger kids had undoubtedly gone back on the noon ferry. Having made the trip up, however, I wasn’t
going to turn around and go back down again, as if I were disappointed that Gordon had not chased after me, so I made my way
along the catwalk to the small seat that overlooked the bow.

Jeff Rankin was already planted there, reading a book.

He acknowledged my arrival in his usual ungracious manner. “How come you’re not downstairs with the party? Did you have a
fight with the boyfriend?”

“That’s putting it mildly,” I said, sitting down beside him. Jeff ’s abrasiveness didn’t bother me. I figured he was entitled
to it; I knew that if I were in his place, I’d hate everybody in the world.

Mr. Rankin had moved to Brighton Island four years before to open a craft shop, and Jeff, who normally lived with his divorced
mother somewhere in northern New York State, had started spending summers with his dad. He was fourteen that first year, with
the sort of dark, flashy good looks that should have belonged to someone much older. The second summer he came, he had a motorcycle,
and there was always some squealing girl sitting on it behind him with her arms wrapped around his waist and her chin on his
shoulder. Sometimes her hair was dark and sometimes blond and sometimes red, but it was always long and shiny, flying out
behind them like the tail of a comet as they went roaring down the road.

I turned fourteen myself that year—a skinny, flat-chested fourteen—and I dreamed at night about what it would be like to be
one of those girls.

The island guys were all jealous of Jeff that summer, even though they wouldn’t admit it. There was a lot of talk about how
wild he was, and rumor had it that several fathers among the vacationers complained to Mr. Rankin about his son’s activities
with their daughters. The girls themselves never complained, of course, and since most of them were older than he was, I thought
they could take care of themselves. As it happened, it was a good thing Jeff did have that summer, because halfway through
the next one a can of lighter fluid exploded and burned off half his face.

They took him to the mainland by helicopter. The others who were at the cookout when the accident happened—Rennie Ziegler was one of them—described the details to everyone who would listen.

“The medics were shaking their heads when they put him on the stretcher,” Rennie said. “He kept making these gurgling noises
like he was trying to scream and couldn’t. There’s no way he could live after that—I swear it.”

Jeff did live. They even managed to save his eyes, thanks to the fact that he had been wearing sunglasses. He came back to
the island at Christmas, but nobody saw him; Mr. Rankin explained that he wasn’t strong enough yet for visitors. Soon after
that he went back to the hospital for another operation.

The next summer he returned to the island, this time to stay. The left side of his face was fine. If you saw him at a certain
angle, you’d have thought he was the best-looking guy you’d ever seen. But if you saw him from the right, you had to stop
and swallow hard. That side of his face was welted and purple with the mouth pulled up at the corner like a Halloween mask.
Everyone tried to be nice to him and act like there was nothing wrong with the way he looked, but he made it clear that he
didn’t appreciate their efforts. He stayed in the house most of the time; his dad said he was supposed to stay out of the
sun. When September came, we thought he’d go back to New York, but he started school with the rest of us. He had lost a year,
which put him in my grade. None of us knew why he had decided to live on the island instead of with his mom, and nobody wanted
to ask him.

As Rennie put it, “You can’t talk to somebody who snarls at anything you say to him. His personality’s gotten just as messed
up as his face.”

Now, as I settled myself on the bench beside him, I didn’t really care what his personality was like. I was too absorbed in
my own anger.

“To say I’ve ‘had a fight’ with Gordon is a major understatement,” I said. “I don’t care if I never see him again. You know
that party Nat Coleson threw last night?” Immediately, I could have cut my tongue out. You don’t discuss parties with people
who weren’t invited.

“Nope,” Jeff said, not making things any easier.

“Well—she had one,” I continued lamely. “At the Inn. I didn’t go.”

“Then you must have been sick,” Jeff commented.

“As a matter of fact, I was. Which is what this whole thing is about.” The words came pouring out of me. I knew there was
no reason for Jeff to be interested, but he was there next to me, a captive audience, and I had to talk to somebody or I’d
burst. “Gordon won’t believe me,” I told him. “He swears he saw me out on the beach. He accused me of pretending to be sick
so I could sneak off with somebody else.”

“Gordon Ahearn thinks that?” There was a note of sarcasm in Jeff ’s voice. “That’s crazy. Everybody knows he’s got you on
a string.”

“He does not!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, he does. You’re as faithful as a puppy dog. He snaps his fingers, and you jump. That’s how it’s always been with Ahearn’s
girlfriends.”

“You don’t know one thing about my relationship with Gordon,” I said irritably. “I do what I want to. Nobody runs my life
for me.”

“Then you were there making out with some other guy?”

“No, I wasn’t!” I exploded. “I just told you, I was home sick in bed. Gordon didn’t see me on the beach.”

“Then why does he say he did?” Jeff asked reasonably.

“I don’t know.” I paused, and then threw out the final piece of information. “It’s not just Gordon. Natalie was there too.
They both say they saw me.”

“So there are three possibilities.”

“Like what?”

“Number one—you were there and won’t admit it. Number two—you weren’t there, and Gordon and Nat are in cahoots.”

“And number three?”

“They saw somebody who looks exactly like you.”

Hearing it presented that way, there wasn’t much I could do except nod. Those were, indeed, the only three alternatives.

“But why would they make up a story like that?” I asked in confusion.

“That’s a good question. You tell me.”

“There isn’t any reason.”

“So where does that leave you?”

“With—number three. That there was someone who looks like me on the beach last night. But Gordon says there was bright moonlight.
It’s hard to believe he and Nat would both be fooled, especially when they weren’t expecting me to be there.”

“You do look kind of unusual,” Jeff said.

“Well, thanks a lot!”

He didn’t apologize—not that I had expected him to. He turned and looked at me appraisingly. It was always a shock to have
Jeff look at you straight on like that, because the two sides of face were so different. I’d been sitting on his good side,
so when he turned toward me I had to adjust for a second.

He studied me for a moment, then shook his head.

“No, there aren’t many people around here who look like you,” he said.

He reopened the book, which had fallen shut on his lap, and it was apparent that he meant for our conversation to be over.

The whole way to the island I brooded over his comment. Rude as it was, it was true. On my best days I liked to think of myself
as exotic-looking. Gordon kidded sometimes that I could be part Native American with my dark coloring, high cheekbones and
almond eyes. “Bedroom eyes,” he called them, meaning they were sexy. My father referred to them as “alien” because they were
the same shape as the eyes he gave to the maidens from other worlds in his novels. When I looked at my parents—both of them
so fair—and at Neal and Meg with their light blue eyes and freckled noses, I wondered sometimes how I had managed to be born
into such a family.

So did it mean there was another girl who looked “unusual” also? That she was living on Brighton Island and I’d never run
into her? That seemed impossible. In the summer, of course, there was an influx of tourists, but few stayed on into September,
especially those with children. Rennie worked the ferry with his father during the summer months, and he made it his business
to inspect the girls. If there had been one who could have been my identical twin, he would have mentioned it, if only to
tease me.

Which brought me back to Jeff ’s proposition number two—that Gordon and Natalie had invented the girl-on-the-beach story.
But why would they do such a thing? What purpose would it serve? If Gordon wanted to break up with me, there were easier ways
to go about it, and Natalie wouldn’t have to be involved at all.

“It has to be that they lied,” I said to Jeff as we descended the ladder to the main deck. “But it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Don’t lose any sleep over it,” he muttered. “Ahearn’s not worth it.”

Any other time I would have resented the statement. Now I wanted to believe it was true.

We disembarked at the landing and walked side by side along the pier to the road.