Stranger With My Face (5 page)

“Tuba City,” Helen told her. “That’s in Arizona on the Navajo reservation. My parents taught at the school there.”

“Wow!” Darlene exclaimed politely. “That must have been interesting.” Then she turned to Blane and started talking about the
weekend sailing meet, and Mary Beth directed her attention to the other end of the table, and that was that for Helen.

Not that it seemed to bother her. She just kept on eating and didn’t appear to notice that she was being excluded from the
conversation. She kept her ears open, though, and on the way back to class she said, “It must be great living on an island.”

“It is,” I told her. “It’s really beautiful out there. You’ll have to take the ferry over sometime before the weather changes
and it’s too cold to enjoy the beaches.”

“That would be great,” Helen said. “When should I come?”

That was when I realized that Mary Beth had been right about New Englanders; you didn’t become one just by moving across the
country. Nobody I knew would have taken my casual comment as an invitation for a personal visit.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said awkwardly. “Not this weekend. I’m going to be crewing for Gordon during the sailing race.”

“Any time that’s good for you will be fine for me,” Helen assured me. “I don’t know enough people yet to have made plans to
do anything.”

“Let’s just leave it open for now,” I said, “and I’ll let you know.”

Even as I spoke, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get out of it. I was going to end up having Helen as a houseguest. And
as good-natured and likable as she seemed to be, I didn’t want her to come. There was no way in the world she was going to
fit in with the crowd from the island, and I had serious doubts about how she would go over with my parents. They were so
protective of their privacy and their work schedules; entertaining an outsider wouldn’t be their idea of pleasure.

So the day dragged by with one stupid irritation piling on another. Little things, but provoking. The heel on my shoe came
loose, and a bra strap broke. A gel pen came open in my purse and leaked all over everything. On the ferry ride back to the
island, Natalie plunked herself down on the seat on the far side of Gordon to finish an “interesting conversation” they had
started over lunch, and I suddenly realized that they shared the same lunch period and would probably be eating together every
day. It didn’t exactly make me jealous. After all, they were friends, weren’t they? Why shouldn’t they eat together? Still,
the thought of it made me uncomfortable, especially when I recalled that “couple of kisses” they had exchanged the night of
Nat’s party and the fact that Gordon hadn’t seemed to feel all that guilty about it.

We separated at the landing area, Gordon and Nat and the rest of them all headed toward the village while Meg, Neal, and I
headed out to Cliff House. Neal took off immediately on those winged feet of his, and I had Meg to myself.

“I want to ask you something,” I said to her. “Last night when I was pulling up your blanket, you said something about my
being ‘up high.’ What did you mean by that?”

“I don’t remember you pulling up my blanket,” Meg said.

“That part doesn’t matter,” I told her. “You were half-asleep. But I went into your room, and you talked about my being ‘up
high.’ You must have meant something.” I paused and then prodded gently. “You said you looked out the window. You were peeking
at Gordon and me, right?”

“I was not!” Meg exclaimed hotly. “I didn’t even know Gordon was over. He never came in the house.” She was so outraged at
my accusation that I almost believed her.

“He was over, though,” I said, trying to sound casual. “So if you looked out the window you must have seen us together.”

“I didn’t look out the window,” Megan said. “You looked in.”

“In your window? That’s impossible. I would’ve had to have been standing on a ladder.”

“That’s why I couldn’t understand,” Meg said. “You were up so high. How did you get up there?”

The strange thing was, her response didn’t surprise me. I had actually been expecting it. I was becoming numb to surprises.
I felt the way you do when you’re moving through a dream and the most impossible things are happening and you’re accepting
them as normal. Perhaps I was dreaming. Perhaps if I hung on long enough and kept myself calm and tried not to be too frightened,
my eyes would snap open and I would find myself back where I had been yesterday on the morning after the stomach flu with
school about to start and everything in my life in order.

But, of course, that didn’t happen.

As I was drifting off to sleep that night, I became conscious of the girl’s presence at my bedside. I couldn’t see her in
the darkness, but I knew she was there.

“Who are you?” I asked her. “What’s your name? What should I call you?”

I felt her lean across me, and her breath was light against my cheek.

“I am Lia,” she whispered. “I am your sister.”

And then for many nights she didn’t come
again, my sister Lia.

My
sister
Lia?

I had a small, plump sister named Megan Stratton, a light-haired little girl with sky blue eyes and a sprinkling of freckles
across her nose. I had been there to welcome her when my parents brought her home from the hospital, tiny and red-faced, howling
lustily from the depths of a fuzzy blue receiving blanket that had at one time been Neal’s. I had no dark, strange Lia for
a sister. Even in dreams I could not, would not, accept her. She was no part of me.

“Go away!” I told her fiercely as she leaned across my bed. “Go somewhere else, whoever you are. I don’t want you here!”

And—she was gone.

There was no movement, no rustle of sound to signify her leaving. It was simply that one moment she was there beside me in
the darkness, and the next, she was not.

I drew a long breath and let it slowly out again in a silent sigh, then turned my face into my pillow. I slept that night
without dreaming. And the next night, and the next as well. By the end of the week I was able to tell myself that it was over.
I was rid of the crazy obsession that had gripped me. The mirror girl had left me. I was free.

That weekend I crewed for Gordon at the sailing races. We came in third, because we had some problems maneuvering the final
buoy. The following week I invited Helen to come out next Saturday to tour the island and stay overnight at Cliff House. Since
the visit was inevitable, I could see nothing to be gained by postponing it. Besides, as the days passed, Helen and I were
getting to be better and better friends.

To my surprise, my parents didn’t seem at all disturbed by the prospect of a houseguest.

“We can set up the air mattress for her in your room,” Dad said. “Just be sure she doesn’t expect to be entertained.”

“I’ve explained things to her,” I assured him. “Helen’s so easygoing, anything’s okay with her.”

“It’s nice you have a new friend,” Mom said, and she even made some vague reference to baking a cake “if I can get around
to it.” I knew it wouldn’t happen, but the thought was hospitable.

It was Gordon who objected to the visit.

“You don’t mean you’re going to be stuck with her overnight?” he demanded irritably. “I thought we’d talked about going to
a movie on the mainland on Saturday.”

“We can still do that,” I said. “Why don’t you try to fix Helen up with a date?”

“Somebody six-foot-ten with failing eyesight?”

“That’s mean,” I said. “She may not be drop-dead gorgeous, but she’s really nice. Rennie isn’t dating anybody special, is
he?”

“Rennie wouldn’t be seen dead with Helen Tuttle,” Gordon told me. “He likes his chicks cute and cuddly. What have you latched
onto that loser for, anyway, Laurie? Even the girls don’t like her. Mary Beth says she’s annoying as hell.”

“She isn’t annoying,” I corrected him. “She’s just friendly. People are a lot more outgoing where she’s from. What about Tommy?
He’s tall, and that summer girl he was going with went back to Vermont.”

“Forget it,” Gordon said. “It’s not worth the effort. I don’t want to spend Saturday night dragging Helen around. Have a great
weekend with your new friend, and I’ll see you Monday.”

The conversation left me feeling depressed and sort of empty inside, but the sight of Helen’s face when she arrived on the
Saturday morning ferry was enough to lift my spirits considerably. Her red hair was wild from the wind, and her eyes were
shining.

“That was really awesome!” she exclaimed, clambering onto the dock and almost dropping her canvas overnight bag into the water.
“Captain Ziegler—isn’t he Mary Beth’s father?—was great. He let me sit with him in the cabin and do part of the steering. And the rest of the time I rode up top where
I could see all over! Do you know this is the first time in my life I’ve been on a boat?”

“You’re kidding!” I said incredulously.

“No, it’s true. The only water we had back home ran down the arroyos after a rainstorm. I can’t get used to the idea that
you take a ferry to school the way I used to take a bus.” She drew in a deep breath of the sea air. “It smells so clean. You’re
so lucky, Laurie, actually living year-round in this beautiful place!”

When she caught her first glimpse of Cliff House from the bend in the road, she was even more ecstatic. “It looks like a castle
out of a fairy tale!” she exclaimed. The closer we got, the more enthusiastic she became. With each step up the curving stairway,
she was gasping and exclaiming, and when we entered the living room, she gave a spontaneous cry of delight.

“It’s gorgeous!”

In the years since we had moved to the island, I’d come to take our home more or less for granted. Now, however, I found myself
seeing it as though for the first time, through the eyes of a newcomer—the high, weathered beams running the width of the
ceiling; the massive stone fireplace flanked by two of Mom’s haunting seascapes; the expanse of picture window facing out
over the sea.

“Mom’s upstairs working,” I said to explain the lack of inhabitants. “My brother, Neal, is too; he takes painting lessons
from her on Saturday mornings. Dad sleeps in because he writes nights, and my sister—”

“Is right here!” Megan announced loudly, popping up from the far side of the sofa. “I’ve been teaching school, and it’s snack-time.
My students are starving.”

I introduced her to Helen, and the three of us went down to the kitchen, where Meg went through the ritual of juice-and-crackering
herself and a menagerie of stuffed animals, while Helen and I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and loaded them into
a backpack.

Dad came downstairs before we were finished, greeted Helen pleasantly if sleepily, and got his eggs out of the refrigerator.

“Are you girls off on a picnic?” he asked.

“I thought we’d take the bikes the length of the island,” I told him.

“Fine—fine. Sounds like a good plan. I’ll see the two of you at dinner, then.” His mind was already slipping away to focus
on his world of aliens.

I slid my arms through the straps of the pack, hoisted it to my shoulders, and led Helen down to the storage shed where we
kept our bicycles. I let her have my ten-speed and took Neal’s smaller bike for myself, and we set off.

We covered the island that day, from Cliff House at the northern point to the vacated summer cottages at the southern end.
The sun burned down on our heads, and I could practically see new freckles popping out on Helen’s face and arms as we pedaled
along. We stopped several times to pick wild grapes and some last remaining blueberries, and for Helen to examine fishnets
drying in the sun. We ate our lunch in a hollow between the dunes on the east side of the island and, leaving our shoes with
the bikes, walked along the beach at the water’s edge where the icy surf lapped up to attack our toes.

Later we lay sprawled in the sand and talked, and I began to discover what it was like to have a nonjudgmental friend to confide
in, someone with whom I could be myself, and not just “Gordon Ahearn’s girlfriend.”

We talked about school, our families, and—of course—boys. I told Helen how shy and unattractive I had felt when I was younger,
and how much my life had changed when Gordon started dating me.

Helen told me about a boy named Luis Nez.

“That was the name he used at school,” she said. “I wasn’t allowed to know his Navajo name. The Navajos are a private people.
Luis was my boyfriend, but there was so much he couldn’t share with me.” She paused, and then raised her hand to touch the
tiny turquoise carving at her throat. “When I left, he gave me this.”

“What is it?” I asked, hoisting myself up on one elbow so as to see better.

“A fetish—an object that’s believed to have magical power,” Helen said. “It’s an eagle, predator of the air. When Luis found
out we were coming east by plane, he carved it for me. Turquoise is the Navajo good-luck stone. A turquoise eagle protects
the wearer against evil spirits from the skies.”

“It must have been hard for you to move away,” I said.

“Yeah, it was. But I know it was for the best. I was starting to care too much, and it never could’ve worked out. It was fun
living on the reservation when I was little. The differences didn’t matter so much then. Later—well, do you remember that
first day we ate lunch together, and I said to you that there are cliques everywhere?”

“I remember,” I said.

“It’s even worse when cliques are all about culture. You can’t break through.”

“You didn’t have girlfriends?”

“Not ones I could talk to.”

“I’ve never had friends like that either,” I said, realizing it fully for the first time. Darlene and Mary Beth and Natalie
were surface friends. They had permitted me to become part of their world because of Gordon, but if and when Gordon decided
he was tired of me, I would be out of it again.

“Nat’s had her claws out for Gordon since before I started going out with him,” I told Helen. “Just a few weeks ago she threw
a party. I was sick and couldn’t go, and the minute my back was turned—” And there I was, spilling out the whole story—Nat
and Gordon on the beach—the “couple of kisses” Gordon had confessed to—and then, because it followed naturally and was so
much a part of my thoughts these days, I told her about the girl they had thought was me.

“But it wasn’t,” I said. “I was home in bed the whole time.”

“You weren’t using astral projection, were you?” Helen asked.

“Using what?” I said in bewilderment.

“You know—sending your mind out from your body? Luis’s father used to be able to do it.” She paused. “But if you had, you’d
have known it. It’s something you have to work at.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “What did Luis’s father do?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” Helen said. “Luis didn’t talk much about it. He seemed to take it for granted. The medicine men could
do it whenever they wanted, I think, and some of the others too. The way Luis described it, the person has to will himself
out of his body. It takes tremendous concentration.”

“I still don’t understand,” I said.

“Well, think of it this way. It’s like the soul leaving the body when you die. It lifts and goes, right? Except that with
astral projection you’re not dead. The soul or mind or whatever you want to call it—the identity part of you—is focused away,
just for a short while, and then comes back.”

“Where does it go?”

“Wherever you want to be. Distance doesn’t make any difference. Luis told me that when his little brother was born, their
father was away on a hunting trip. The baby wasn’t expected for another month. When his mother was in labor, she looked up
and saw her husband standing at the end of the bed, smiling down at her.”

“That’s wishful thinking,” I said. “She must have wanted him there so much she dreamed him up. There’s nothing so unusual
about that.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Helen insisted. “When Luis’s father came home two days later, he knew all about the baby—​exactly when it had been born and that it was a boy—​everything. He had been there!”

“He couldn’t have been,” I said. “There has to be some other explanation.”

“I know it’s hard to accept, but a lot of Christian beliefs are, too, if you haven’t been raised with them. The Virgin birth,
for instance, and water turning into wine. I told my parents what Luis said. Dad’s the one who gave me that term, ‘astral
projection.’ Luis didn’t call it that. Dad says there are people doing scientific studies on it, so it can’t be all that crazy.”

“Maybe not,” I conceded. “Still, it has nothing to do with me. I wasn’t ‘projecting’ anywhere that night. I was wiped out.”

“Okay, I believe you,” Helen said. She looked at the sun in the sky. “Do you think we should start back pretty soon now? I’d
really like to see the village.”

“It’s right on the way back,” I told her. “Most of the tourist shops are still open, and there’s even an art gallery. Mom
has some of her work there—the paintings she hasn’t sent to New York.”

We got to our feet, brushing off the sand as well as we could, and wheeled the bikes back to the Beach Road. Helen was right;
it was later than I had thought it was. I’d lost track of time, and the sun had been sliding steadily down the sky as we had
talked.

On the outskirts of the village we passed the Rankin cottage. Jeff was out in the front yard, slapping blue paint on the shutters.
He had a visored cap pulled down over his forehead to protect his face from the sun.

I waved casually, and Helen called, “Hi!”

Jeff turned toward us, surprised, and raised the paintbrush in greeting.

“What are you doing here?”

“Visiting Laurie,” Helen called back. “I came over on the ferry.”

“Good thing you explained that. I was thinking you swam over!”

“Yeah, right!” Helen said, laughing.

“How do you know him?” I asked her as we pedaled on. “I’ve never seem him be so friendly.”

“He sits in front of me in second period. Rankin—​Tuttle—you know, alphabetically. We joke around. Is that place over there a hotel?”