Stranger With My Face (8 page)

“Don’t talk that way, Laurie. I don’t want to hear it.”

“But why?” I asked reasonably.

“Because it’s unnatural.”

“In the Navajo world it isn’t. You told me that yourself.”

“You’re not in the Navajo world,” Helen said. “It’s not about your heritage. You haven’t been trained in this. You’d be messing
around with something you don’t know how to handle.” There was a note of real panic in her voice. “It’s dangerous. You have
no idea what might end up happening. I want you to promise you won’t even try.”

“Then you believe it would be possible that I could learn?”

“I guess it’s possible,” Helen said reluctantly. “But if you do, I just know that you’ll regret it.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so scared by the idea.” I settled back on the pillow. My heart was pounding. “You talked about
it so matter-of-factly when it was Luis’s father. If he could project himself to watch the birth of his son, why shouldn’t
I do the same thing to find my sister? She’s somewhere in the world, a living person, not just a mirror girl. I could go to
her the same way she has to me.”

“There are better ways,” Helen said. “You’ve written to the adoption agency. Any day now you’re going to hear from them. Maybe
they’ll send you an address. Then you could write or call her.”

“I don’t think they’re going to answer,” I told her. “It’s been almost a month now. And if they do, you said yourself they
might not be willing to tell me anything.”

“Give them a chance,” Helen pleaded. “Give them a little more time. They might come through. We can’t be sure. Please, believe
me, it would be so much better that way.” She paused, and when I didn’t respond she continued, “Promise me, Laurie. I want
to hear you say it.”

“All right,” I agreed reluctantly. “I promise. I’ll wait a little longer.”

The letter arrived three days later. Helen brought it to school, and I read it standing in a stall in the girls’ restroom.
It was the only privacy I could find.

The writer, Mrs. Kelsey, was the daughter of Margaret Hastings.

“Your letter was forwarded here to Phoenix,” she wrote me. “The agency was closed after my mother’s death. The records are
sealed and have been placed in storage. I do recollect that there was once a case in which there were twins to place. It was
an unusual enough occurrence that my mother used to talk about it. She was disappointed that they could not have been placed
together. One child was adopted, and the other was reclaimed by her mother. Some years later the mother died, and the child
was again brought to the agency. I believe she was placed in a foster home.

“I’d advise you not to concern yourself further with this matter. I’m sure you have a good home. Let the past stay buried,
and enjoy your present. I am sure that is what your sister is doing.”

But I knew better. I folded the letter and placed it in my purse.

The following week, Lia returned to Brighton Island. But not to me.

I learned about her presence from Jeff.

“You shouldn’t go walking around out on those rocks by your house,” he told me. “They’re slippery as hell.”

We were standing at the railing on the top deck of the ferry with Neal wedged between us, and the wind whipped the words from
his mouth as soon as they were spoken. I was not sure he had said what I thought he had.

“I never walk there,” I told him across the top of my brother’s head.

“You did yesterday,” Jeff insisted. “I saw you.”

“We never walk out there,” said Neal, echoing my words. “Not any of us. It’s dangerous. I fell once when I was little and
almost died.”

“You’re damn right, it’s dangerous,” Jeff said. “Those rocks have crevices between them. One little slip, and you’re done.”

My mind had stopped several sentences back, at the words “I saw you.” It was like a replay of the scene with Natalie and Gordon
on the day after Nat’s party. There was no way Jeff could have seen me on the rocks by Cliff House. I hadn’t been there.

I gazed out across the water at the dark shape of Brighton Island growing larger and larger as we approached it. The girl
on the rocks had been Lia. About that there was no question in my mind. Somewhere up ahead, on the rocks or beaches or cliffs,
or even more likely in the quiet sanctuary of Cliff House itself, she was waiting. Soon now I would find her.

But it didn’t happen. I went to bed early that night, tense with anticipation, and lay awake until dawn. When the outline
of the bedroom furniture became visible, and the sky beyond the glass doors went from black to gray and softened into pink,
I finally closed my eyes. Disappointment accentuated my exhaustion, and I slept like a dead thing for the hour that was left
before Meg was sent to wake me.

She’s gone again,
I told myself. But once more I was wrong. That afternoon when Neal returned from his usual after-school wanderings he seemed
surprised to find me in the living room reading.

“I thought I saw you out on the dunes,” he said. “I was riding my bike down Star Point Road toward the cranberry bogs, and
there was this girl up at the top of one of the sandhills. The sun was behind her, but I was sure it was you.”

Meg, who was occupied in leading a group of stuffed animals through a third-grade spelling lesson, glanced up with interest.

“I bet it was Laurie’s ghosty again,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Neal asked.

“There’s this ghost thing that goes around peeking at people. I see her all the time. At first I thought it was Laurie, but
now I know better.”

“That’s crazy,” Neal said disdainfully. “There’re no such things as ghosts, and if there were, they wouldn’t come out in the
daytime, and they wouldn’t belong to live people.”

“This one does,” said Megan.

Neal, finding the subject too ridiculous to argue about, went off to the kitchen to ransack the refrigerator. As soon as he
was gone, I turned on my sister.

“Did you really mean that, about seeing a—a ghost person—more than that one time when you thought it was me looking in your window?”

“Sure,” Megan said. “Sometimes she walks down the hall. Neal’s bed is over against the wall, so he can’t see out the door
the way I can. She looks in at us, but she doesn’t stop. She goes on up the stairs.”

It was more than I could take. Here I was reaching for Lia—trying with all my strength to make contact—with no success, while
my brother and sister and even someone as remote from my life as Jeff Rankin were seeing her everywhere. What could be the
reason? Was I trying too hard and in some way blocking communication? Or did Lia simply not want me to find her? If that was
the case, why would she be coming here at all? She must want me to know about her continued existence, or else she wouldn’t
go where the others could see her. It was as though she were playing some cat-and-mouse game with me, filling my ears with
elusive whispers of her presence, but keeping herself always out of sight.

With a sigh, I got up from my seat on the sofa and went over to the window. The sun was low in the sky and shielded by a thin
layer of clouds so that the world was awash with cold, gray light. The water looked dull and flat with a metallic cast that
gave it the illusion of solidity. I could almost imagine some adventurous soul attempting to walk across it to the mainland.
Off to the west I could see the chunky shape of the ferry making its late afternoon trip back to the island with its load
of office workers and those high school students who had stayed for meetings and sports activities.

Gordon would be on that ferry. Suddenly I wanted nothing in the world so much as to be there with him on the deck of the bow.
I was tired of worrying, tired of wondering, tired of the emotional exhaustion the past few months had brought upon me. I
wanted to fly back in time and circumstance to those fine, fair summer days when life had been so simple and I had been no
one and nothing except Laurie Stratton, secure in my identity, secure in my relationships, with nothing more to fill my mind
than sunning and sailing and falling in love.

I turned abruptly away from the window.

“I’m going out for a little while,” I said to Megan.

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “It’s really cold outside.”

I regarded her with astonishment. “Okay, Mom,” I joked.

“I don’t think you should go out there,” she said very seriously. “That ghost thing is on the dunes. Neal said so.”

“That ‘ghost thing’ is anywhere she wants to be,” I said crisply. “From what you tell me, she’s around this house more than
anyplace else. She hasn’t hurt anyone yet, has she?”

“I’m not scared of her here,” Meg said. “Not when we’re all together. Out there it’s different. You’ll be by yourself, and
she might not let you come back.”

“You let me worry about that,” I told her. “Actually, I’d love to run into the ‘ghosty.’ There are a lot of things I want
to ask her. In the meantime, I’m going down to the pier to meet the ferry. Maybe I’ll bring Gordon back with me.”

I left my young sister surrounded by her animals, all of whom seemed to be staring after me with worried glass eyes. At the
bottom of the stairway I got my jacket out of the coat closet and opened the front door and stepped out into the cold.

Megan had been right about the temperature. It had taken a sudden drop in the latter part of the day, as though to keep pace
with the graying of the water and sky. The air had the smell and feel of approaching rain. I zipped my jacket up to the collar
and thrust my hands deep into its pockets and started down the Beach Road toward the landing.

The passenger load on the Brighton Island Ferry changes greatly after Labor Day weekend. During the summer months the boat
is jammed on the 5:15 run from the island back to the mainland. There are crying babies and sandy, salty children and weary
parents clutching diaper bags and picnic baskets and empty thermoses that started the day filled with lemonade. They crowd
the dock, shoving and snapping and nursing their sunburns in feverish concern that if they are not the first on board they
will be left behind. In the winter it’s different. Daytime visitors to the island are few. When I reached the pier the only
one waiting there was Mary Beth Ziegler.

“Hi,” I said, sitting down beside her on the plank bench by the seawall. “Are you going somewhere or are you meeting someone?”

“Neither, exactly. Mom sent me down to bring my dad’s dinner.” She gestured toward the insulated bag that she had set on the
ground between her feet. “What about you?”

“I’m meeting Gordon,” I said. “He stayed after school for practice.”

“Darlene waits in the afternoons for Blane so they can ride back together.”

“She must really like basketball.”

“Darlene likes Blane.” There was a moment’s silence. Then Mary Beth said carefully, “You know, it really hurt her feelings
that you didn’t show up on Saturday. Even if you couldn’t make it, you might have given her a present or sent a card.”

“A present?” I said. “Why?”

“It’s expected on birthdays. Especially when there’s a party.”

“Was Saturday Darlene’s birthday?”

“Oh, Laurie, come off it,” Mary Beth said irritably. “Of course it was her birthday. Nat and I gave her a surprise slumber
party and I invited you myself. If you couldn’t come, you should have called me.”

“You invited me?” My voice came out thin and strange, rising into a squeak at the end of the question. I drew a deep breath
and forced it into control. “You must be wrong. Maybe you meant to ask me, but you didn’t. I didn’t know anything about a
party.”

“I definitely asked you,” Mary Beth said firmly. “That day last week when it got so foggy. You were out in front of the post
office when I was coming out with the mail.”

“And I said I’d come?”

“You didn’t say you wouldn’t. You smiled and nodded. I was in a hurry—Ren was waiting with the car—and I thought you’d call
me if you wanted more details. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I’m sorry. I guess I was thinking about something else and didn’t hear you. It was the day of the fog?”

I vaguely remembered the day. Fog is common on the island in November. The mists rise from the water, and when the sun doesn’t
break through the clouds to burn them off, they settle upon the village like a blanket. It had been on Wednesday—no, on Thursday.
And where had I been? Did I go into the village for the mail that day? It was definitely possible.

No—I hadn’t been there; suddenly, I remembered. Mom had been crating some oils Thursday for a show in Boston. Crating paintings
was always a family project, and I had gone straight home after school to help. The fog had been thick on the Beach Road,
and I hadn’t been able to see Cliff House until I reached it. Then it had appeared directly in front of me, as though a curtain
had been jerked away to reveal it. I had entered and climbed the stairs to the living room and gone directly to the window.
It had been like standing in the middle of a cloud. I hadn’t even been able to see the water.

No, on Thursday I had not been in the village.

“You heard me,” Mary Beth was saying. “I was just a couple of feet away from you, and you looked right at me.”

“I said I’m sorry,” I told her.

“That’s not good enough. You’re going to have to do something about yourself, Laurie. You’ve changed so much since last summer.
Everybody’s noticing. You’re like a different person. Nat says your parents must be getting divorced or something.”

“Nat says what?” I exclaimed.

“Well, maybe they’re not, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to anybody. People who shut themselves away like they do are usually
having problems. It would explain why you’re acting so withdrawn and weird lately. Nat says—”

“I don’t care what Nat says!” I exploded. “My parents are very happy, thank you. A divorce is the last thing in the world
they’re considering. Nat and the rest of you have a lot of nerve! My parents’ personal life is their own business!”

“Laurie, calm down, please.” Mary Beth looked nervous. “I didn’t mean to get you all upset. Gordon had said something to Nat
about—well, about how you’d found out something that was causing problems between you and your parents. He didn’t tell her what it was. We just assumed—”

“You have no right to assume anything,” I said angrily. “And as for Gordon—”

“Don’t be mad at Gordon,” Mary Beth said. “He was trying to make excuses for you, that’s all.” She got to her feet and bent
to pick up the bag. “Here comes the boat. I’ve got to take this down and give it to Dad.”

I got up too. I was shaking with anger. My hands were balled into fists in the pockets of my jacket. I had confided in Gordon!
I had trusted him! And he had turned right around and spilled everything to these people I barely knew! He had told them—but,
no, in fairness I had to admit that he hadn’t told them about my adoption; if he had, Mary Beth would definitely have mentioned
that. And these weren’t strangers. They were my friends as well as Gordon’s, or at least they were supposed to be. It wasn’t
their fault that I had drawn away from them. As Mary Beth had said, I was the one who had changed since the previous summer,
when I had been thrilled to be included in every activity. Mary Beth, Natalie, Gordon—they were just the same now as they
had always been. If they were looking for answers to explain my own odd behavior, that was understandable.

“Mary Beth,” I said. “Wait a minute.”

She had started down the pier. Now she turned to glance back at me.

“What is it?”

“I’m sorry,” I said for the third time. “Really. I’m sorry I missed the party. I have had a lot on my mind, but it doesn’t
have anything to do with my parents’ marriage.”

“I’m glad,” Mary Beth said coolly. “I hope you get it—whatever it is—worked out.” Her mouth had a tight, pursed look to it,
as though to make clear to me that people didn’t get mad and raise their voices to the likes of Mary Beth Ziegler.

She turned her back and started again down the pier. Suddenly I recalled the day I had brought Helen to the island table in
the school cafeteria. Mary Beth’s mouth had condensed itself in the same way then.