Stranger With My Face (21 page)

“Remember the first time you saw me? You were sitting here, as I am now, brushing your hair. This same hair, with this same
brush. You saw what you thought was a reflection. Then, slowly, you began to realize that it wasn’t. What you didn’t know—couldn’t
know—was that I’d been here many times before.

“Back when I was a child our mother told me the name of the people who had adopted you. I never thought much about it. I took
it for granted that your life was not much different from my own. After Mom was gone, though, I started wondering about you.
I wasn’t adopted the way you were. The foster families who took me in had children of their own. Those were the ones they
cared about, the ones who would inherit. If those kids hadn’t existed, I might have stood a chance.

“The Abbotts were my one real hope. They had money, and they were willing to adopt me. The problem was that they had Kathy.
She would always have come first with them, even if they made me legally their daughter. If things had gone as I planned,
I would have been their only heir.”

The smile was gone now. Her voice was thick with bitterness.

“She lived long enough to turn them all against me. The lawyer the state assigned me was worse than nobody. He told me that
if we submitted a plea of insanity I’d get off free. Free! That’s a laugh! They shut me up with a bunch of loonies. That’s
when I decided to find you. I knew where you were. Kathy had brought home a book from the library one day by a writer named
James Stratton. There was a picture of him with his family on the back of the jacket, and the biography said they lived on
an island off the New England coast. I recognized the name, and the black-haired girl in the photo looked exactly like me.
It had to be you! You had it all! And I had nothing!

“Then I came and saw it—the island, the house, your parents! And I knew I would do anything to be in your place.”

So you became Laurie. And what about me? Who, then, am I?

She didn’t need to hear the question.

“You have no more substance than the wind. And you’ll become even less as time goes by. The force of the mind is drawn from
the brain. To keep it alive, you must retain physical contact. Think of a flashlight operating on battery power. If the batteries
aren’t recharged, what will eventually happen?”

She got up from the bed and laid the brush back on the bureau top. Then she turned and began to fold back the blankets. There
was a gentle thumping sound as she plumped up the pillow.

“Good night, Laurie,” Lia said softly. “Good night—and good-bye.”

Lia did not attempt to communicate again.
It seemed that as far as she was concerned, that formal farewell was to be her last acknowledgment of my existence. The explanation
for her actions had been given without apology. In her mind, a wrong had now been righted; an injustice remedied. Whatever
obligation she might have felt to prepare me for the inevitable had been fulfilled, and she was through with me.

Lia had what she wanted. I was free to go. But to go where?

To die? She had not offered me that option. I was not to be allowed to move, soul intact, into that natural realm of ultimate
projection. Instead, I was to fade, to whisper away, until—

I could not complete the sentence. Until what? Was the process endless?

I closed my mind. I couldn’t begin to handle so immense a concept. Instead, I grasped frantically for alternatives. Lia’s
body lay vacated. I could go and claim it. But what sort of life sentence would I be claiming along with it? To live out Lia’s
years for her in an institution was hardly less awful than to have no physical identity at all.

Perhaps I could travel. All I needed to do was to think myself someplace, and I would be there. I had never known anything
other than New England, but now I could explore the world.

Nor was I confined by the earth! Ingo Swann had been to Mercury! A chapter in the red-covered book had detailed his journey.
On his return he had reported that the planet had both an atmosphere and a magnetic field. Astrophysicists and astronomers
had declared this impossible, but a short time later a NASA spacecraft, Mariner 10, had provided data to confirm Swann’s observations.

The idea of astral space travel had excited Jeff tremendously.

“If you can get a grip on this thing, you’ll be able to explore the universe!” he had exclaimed.

“No way,” I told him emphatically. “I’m not that much of an adventurer.”

I had meant it, or thought I meant it, when I said it. Now, however, things were different. I had nothing to lose that I hadn’t
lost already. Why shouldn’t I, in whatever time of consciousness was left to me, experience the impossible?

Because—because—

Because I couldn’t. It was that simple. The people I loved were here on Brighton Island.

And so I stayed. In the days that followed, I grew to know my family well. I spent many mornings in Mom’s studio, watching
the thin, clever fingers manipulate the brush as she layered colors upon a canvas. The painting was of a windswept beach,
and the sky above it was alive with gulls. Their gray wings formed a pattern of arches against the deeper gray of the winter
sky. The picture had a haunting quality that held me so I could not look away. Was the painting really so unique? Or was my
reaction due to the fact that this might be the last of her paintings I would see?

At night, after the rest of the family had gone to bed, I stood at my father’s shoulder as he was writing. I listened as he
mumbled aloud to himself, trying out lines of dialogue.

“‘What is this world that man could choose to live here? Is it, in truth, so beautiful that he would turn his back upon the
stars?’”

Yes,
I answered silently.
Yes—yes, it is
.

The ones I spent the most time with were the kids. I followed them into the village for the mail and to the homes of their
friends and to the landing to board the ferry for school. The boat was back in operation two days after the storm was over,
and Meg and Neal, in parkas and boots, clumped their way every day down snow-covered Beach Road, teasing and shoving each
other and sliding with shrieks of delight across wide patches of blue-black ice.

Lia walked a bit behind them, unsure about the snow. It must have been the first she had ever experienced, for she dipped
her boots and then lifted them quickly, like a cat. I could almost see the pads of her feet draw up behind the claws.

When Neal, in a moment of eleven-year-old exuberance, tossed a snowball in her direction, she gave a scream and threw up her
arms to shield her face.

“Laurie’s a sissy!” he yelled, starting to run in premature reaction to the retaliation he expected.

“You brat!” She breathed the words, but Megan, who had fallen back to form a snowball of her own, heard.

She stood, molding the ball with her mittened hands, her eyes on Lia.

“You’re weird,” she said.

“What do you mean by that?” Lia asked sharply.

“You don’t act the same as you used to.”

“What am I supposed to do, let that brother of yours smash my face in?”

“The snow wasn’t hardpacked.” She paused, frowning. Megan was frowning a lot these days.
Megan, be careful!
“He’s your brother too. Why do you call him
my
brother?”

“Because you’re two of a kind, both spoiled rotten. Is there anything you’ve ever wanted that you haven’t been given? Why
should you be so much luckier than other people?”

“That’s what Mom was saying the other night.” Meg tossed the snowball lightly from one hand to the other as she spoke. “Then
they got talking about Jeff. Do you know what they’re going to do?”

“What?” Lia asked without interest, beginning to walk again.

“They’re going to get Jeff ’s face fixed.”

“They’re going to do what?” Lia stopped dead in her tracks. Shock wiped her face clear of expression. “You just said that
to upset me, didn’t you?” she said accusingly.

“To upset you?” Meg repeated in surprise. “I thought it would make you happy.”

“Well, it doesn’t!” Lia’s voice was shaking with the effort it took to suppress her fury. “Plastic surgery to repair a mess
like that would cost a fortune. People don’t throw that kind of money away on strangers!”

“Jeff ’s not a stranger,” Meg said. “He’s your boyfriend.”

“He most certainly is not. That’s been over for a week now. Gordon and I are seeing each other again. We’ve got dates for
both nights this weekend. I’d die before I’d be seen in public with a freak like Jeff Rankin.”

“That’s not how you used to feel.”

“It’s how I feel now,” Lia said shortly. “How do you know your parents are planning to help Jeff ?”

“They’re
our
parents, not just
my
parents.”

“Stop talking back and answer my question.” Lia’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “How do you know? Did they tell you?”

“No, I heard them talking last night after dinner. Dad was saying he called the hospital on the mainland, and they’ve got
some special doctor visiting from a clinic in Boston. He does plastic surgery on burn victims. Dad said he asked him to examine
Jeff ’s face when he goes in next week to get his walking cast. If he thinks he can do the operation, Dad’s going to pay for
it.”

“Why hasn’t anybody told me about this?”

“Mom asked Dad not to. She said she didn’t think they should get your hopes up or Jeff ’s either. She wants to wait first
and see what the doctor says.”

“So you decided to jump the gun and break the news yourself ?”

“I wanted to see what you’d say.”

“What did you expect?”

“I thought maybe you’d say, ‘That’s great,’ or something like that.”

“It isn’t great,” Lia said harshly. “They have no right to do this. It’s thousands of dollars we’re talking about. Without
my permission, they’re planning to hand away a part of my inheritance!”

“Don’t talk like that,” Meg said. “You don’t inherit things until people die, and Dad and Mom aren’t old or sick or anything.”

“The time people die isn’t always determined by how old they are. People can have accidents.”

“Like you and Jeff on the rocks?”

“There are all sorts of accidents. Nobody’s immune to them. I don’t think Jeff will take the money. He’s got too much pride.
He’ll refuse the offer, especially when he realizes what’s behind it.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Meg said.

“It’s a bribe, of course. It’s a bribe to keep him out of my life. Our parents are protective. They don’t want me hounded
day and night by some half-faced freak when I could be going out with a guy like Gordon. They’re willing to pay off Jeff with
plastic surgery or anything else he wants in order to make sure that he leaves me alone.”

“They don’t have to do that,” Meg objected. “Jeff won’t call you if he thinks you don’t want to see him. He’s not like that.”

“That’s not what our parents think. They know what disturbed people are capable of, and they’re afraid for my safety. What’s
that thing that Rennie says? Mary Beth repeated it to me just yesterday. It’s something about Jeff ’s personality being as
messed up as his face.”

The ferry horn sounded, cutting through the conversation with three short, imperative blasts.

“We’d better hurry,” Meg said with nervous relief. I knew she was upset, not only by the things Lia was saying, but by the
fact that they were coming from a respected older sister.

“You’d better run,” Lia agreed. “When you get on board, tell Jeff to get off and wait for me at the end of the pier.”

“Tell him to get off ? But the boat’s getting ready to pull out!”

“You heard me,” Lia snapped. “Tell him I need to see him. We can miss school one day without the world coming to an end. It’s
more important to get this thing straightened out before Dad gets to him.”

“Don’t tell him what you just said to me,” Meg pleaded. “It’ll make him feel terrible. Dad and Mom like Jeff. I know they’re
not scared for you.”

“I’ll talk to anyone I want and say what I choose.” Lia’s voice held a note of command. “Go! You’re going to miss the boat
if you stay here arguing. Tell Jeff to get off and wait for me.”

The ferry sounded a final warning. Meg shot Lia one last look of bewildered outrage. Then she whirled and took off like a
startled rabbit down the snow-covered road.

Lia stood, watching her. She herself was breathing as rapidly as though it were she who was running. Her warm breath made
short puffs of steam in the icy air.

“Accidents happen,” she repeated softly. “And you, Miss Know-It-All, are first in line to have one. Or maybe you’ll be second.
Jeff had better not try playing any games. I haven’t come this far to lose out now on what should be mine.”

She began to walk unhurriedly toward the pier, following the erratic line of the children’s footsteps. She was wearing my
favorite winter hat, a bright red one with a tassel. Neal had given it to me for Christmas the year before. Her hands were
thrust deep into the pockets of my old ski jacket. The fur-lined boots on her feet were mine; the scarf around her neck was
my red plaid one with the fringe.

She looked like Laurie. She was dressed in Laurie’s clothing. And yet—

I drew ahead so that I could see her approaching as Jeff would see her—a familiar figure, cheeks flushed with cold, eyes squinted
against the brilliance of sunlight on snow. Would he be deceived as easily as my family?

As much as I wanted to believe he wouldn’t be, I knew it was doubtful. I could see the differences. Lia’s walk wasn’t the
same as mine—it was more careful, more precise. Although the features were my own, the set of the mouth was not. But these
things were too subtle, and Jeff wouldn’t be on the alert for them. He would be expecting Laurie, and it would be she whom
he would see.

I hadn’t been with Jeff since the day before the storm. I could have, of course, if I’d chosen to. I had the ability to go
to him at home or at school. I could stand at his shoulder while he did his homework; I could rest beside him when he slept.
I hadn’t done these things because I couldn’t bear to. I didn’t want to see the effect of what Lia had done to him.

The phone call had been short and brutal.

“It was a mistake,” she had told him. “I must have been crazy to have let myself get involved with you. Gordon and I have
patched things up, and I don’t want you bothering me anymore.”

I had stood there, helpless, cringing as I listened to the sound of my own voice speaking the incredible words. I knew the
hurt they were inflicting, but I was powerless to prevent it.

Just as I was powerless, now, to stop the thing that was going to happen on the pier.

Jeff, believe her—accept what she tells you—react as she hopes you will! Tell my parents to keep their rotten bribe money!

I hurled the words with all the strength my mind possessed. Would he sense the message? It was the best I could hope for.
If he didn’t, there was nothing more I could do to warn him. Jeff was strong, but he was balancing on crutches, and the water
at the pier’s end was cold and deep.

The ferry was already three hundred yards offshore now, chugging along like some huge, determined water animal. Its decks
were empty, so Lia didn’t have to worry about witnesses. Gordon and Nat and the others would be down in the cabin, protected
from the wind, laughing and chatting and, perhaps, wondering why Laurie Stratton was skipping school.

“
I talked to her last night,
” Gordon would be saying. “
There was nothing wrong with her then. In fact, she sounded more like herself than she has in months.
”