Stranger With My Face

  “Did it say how he did it?” I asked.

  “There wasn’t a set of rules, but it talked about this special sort of energy he uses. When he’s out of his body he looks like he’s asleep, but the scientists could tell the difference by measuring his brain-wave patterns.”

  “I want to read about it,” I said eagerly. “Can I come over and get them?”

  “I was thinking—” He paused.

  “What?”

  “What I was going to say was maybe I could bring them over tonight. Except I just remembered, it’s Christmas Eve. I guess you probably have something planned.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll just be here with the family.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll stop over, then. There’s nothing going on at my place. My dad’s going out on the mainland with this woman he’s been seeing.”

  “Why don’t you have dinner with us, then?” I asked him.

  “On Christmas Eve? Your parents wouldn’t want an outsider there.”

  “They’ll be glad to have you,” I said, hoping this was true. “Mom invited you over before, remember?”

  “Well, I don’t know—”

  “You’re going to be coming, anyway, to bring the books. You might as well eat while you’re here.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to starve,” Jeff said, trying to make a joke of the situation. “There’s plenty of stuff in our refrigerator, and I’m used to cooking for myself.”

  “Then come early and make the gravy,” I told him. “That’s something none of us are good at. We’ll see you around five thirty, okay?”

  “Well, okay. Thanks.”

  I hung up the receiver and went down to the kitchen to tell my parents to expect a dinner guest. The place smelled great. Dad had two plates of sugar cookies cooling on the counter and was in the process of putting another batch into the oven. Neal had his golden starfish drying on a piece of newspaper and, flushed with this initial success, was busy gilding a conch shell. Mom was relaxing in a chair, doing nothing, looking happy and limp the way she does when one painting project is completed and she hasn’t yet started on another.

  “That was Jeff on the phone,” I said. “I invited him for dinner. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Is this the guy who came over the other night and wouldn’t come upstairs?” Dad asked, frowning. “Who is he, anyway? This is a special night, you know.”

  “It’s the Rankin boy, Jim,” Mom said. “You remember, the one who got burned so badly a couple of years ago?”

  “Pete Rankin’s kid? Sure, I know who he is. I’ve seen him in the village.” He turned to me. “Is he a particular friend of yours, Laurie?”

  “Yes,” I said, surprising myself with the firmness of my reply. “His father isn’t going to be home tonight, and I thought—”

  “Of course,” Mom said. “Jeff ’s a nice boy. I’m glad you thought to ask him. What time did you invite him for?”

  “I told him five thirty,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean we need to eat then. He does the cooking at his place, so we can put him to work in the kitchen.”

  “Those bachelor pads!” Dad exclaimed. “How do men survive like that? If one of us weren’t here to burn dinner for the family every night—”

  “Now, Jim, stop that,” Mom countered. “We haven’t burned a meal in ages.”

  “Of course not. We’ve been eating nothing but sandwiches.”

  “We’re all very busy. Including you, I might add!” And they were off and running, squabbling along in the way they do when they’re both feeling on top of things. Neal looked up from his artwork and grinned. I winked at him, feeling happier suddenly than I had in a long time. On the way out of the room I stole a couple of cookies.

  I went up the stairs, glancing in at Megan, who was up on a chair, redecorating the Christmas tree, and continued on to my bedroom. The first thing I noticed when I entered was the light. It was funny light, slanting in through the glass doors and bouncing back and forth off the walls with a dizzying effect. I stopped and blinked. My eyes felt strange, as though my pupils were expanding and contracting in rapid succession. I blinked again, closed the door, and went over to the bed.

  I sat down on the end of it and found myself gazing up at Lia.

  She was there, standing over me. In broad daylight. In early afternoon. She was there, not as a shadow, not as Megan’s “ghosty,” but real. Solid-looking. Less than a foot away.

  “Why did you ask that boy over?” she demanded.

  I stared at her, stunned by the fact that she was here in this absolute form. I almost felt that I could reach out and touch her.

  “Because I wanted him here,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because—well, he has the books—”

  “He can’t come!” Her eyes were blazing, those almond-shaped eyes so much like mine, yet now so radically different. I knew my eyes could never look like that. I knew I wouldn’t want them to. The fury in her voice was like extension of the anger I had heard there before, but intensified.

  I felt a flash of fear, but I kept my voice steady.

  “I like Jeff. I’ll see as much of him as I want.”

  “He doesn’t belong in your life!”

  “He does if I want him there,” I said defiantly. This was a different sort of confrontation from any we had had before. There was no shield of darkness to separate us. I would not be intimidated. “Who are you to tell me who belongs in my life and who doesn’t?”

  “I am your twin sister!” Lia hurled the words at me as though they explained everything.

  “So what if you are? That doesn’t give you the right to run my life! You can’t tell me what to do! You can’t choose my friends for me!”

  “Oh really?” She let the question hang there a moment between us and then asked more gently, “Just who are your friends, Laurie?”

  “My friends are—well, they’re—they’re—” I couldn’t give an answer.

  “Gordon? Natalie? Darlene?” She enunciated the names with exaggerated care. “You used to consider those people friends, didn’t you?”

  “Yes—but—”

  “Blane? Tommy? Mary Beth?” She was laughing at me. “Helen?”

  “What have you done?” I whispered in horror. “What the hell have you done?”

  “If you care anything about this Jeff, you’d better call him now,” Lia said. “Tell him not to come. Tell him never to come here again. If you don’t, you’ll carry the guilt on your shoulders for the rest of your life.”

  “Get out of my room,” I said shakily. “Get out now! Go back to wherever it is you come from!” Helen had been right; Lia was evil! Helen had recognized this, even when I had insisted otherwise.

  “You’re alone,” Lia said quietly. “You have no friends—not anymore. Your parents are not really your parents. The kids you think of as your brother and sister are no more to you than any other children you might pick out on a school playground. Our real mother is dead. Our real father deserted us before we were born. I am all you have, Laurie. All you have.”

  “Go!” I told her. “Go! Get out of here!” My voice went out of control. It rose with a shriek. “Go, and don’t come back!”

  “Laurie?” My mother’s voice called from the far side of my door. “Laurie, what’s the matter?” She didn’t wait for me to answer but threw it open and stood there, framed in the doorway.

  I stared at her as though seeing her for the first time. The pale, freckled skin. The sky blue eyes. The fine, light hair, beginning at the sides to soften into silver. She and Dad, Neal and Megan, were a unit in themselves. They were the Strattons. And I—who was I?

  There was one thing I was sure of. I was not like Lia! I might look like her, but there the resemblance ended.

  And for the first time, there was someone who could see us together!

  “Mom, look!” I cried. “Now you know what’s been happening!”

  But even as I spoke, Lia was gone. I was pointing at nothing
. The room was empty. Everything was as it should have been, except for the bouncing patterns of the afternoon light.

  “It is odd, isn’t it?” Mom said, thinking this was what I meant. “I’ve never seen light quite like this. I was going up to the studio to study it a bit, to see whether there was some way I could use it in a painting. Then I thought I heard you call out. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “Fine. It wasn’t anything.”

  “Are you sure?” She was looking at me oddly. “You look tired. Your eyes are funny.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well lately.” That was true enough.

  “You’re worried about Helen,” Mom said with an understanding nod. “It’s terrible to have a situation drag on like this. Perhaps there will be good news soon. That’s what Christmas is all about, isn’t it? Good news? We can hope.”

  “I’m hoping,” I said. “All the time.”

  “Why don’t you stretch out and take a nap? You’ll want to feel rested for tonight and for tomorrow. You know what happens when Megan and Neal get into the Christmas stockings.”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to smile. “It’s a wild day.”

  After she left the room I did lie down on the bed and shut my eyes. I didn’t mean to sleep, but when I opened them the odd, sparkling light was gone and the room had settled into shadows.

  It’s past five thirty, I thought, struggling to drag myself back to consciousness. Jeff is probably already here. I should have been down there to greet him. It’s rude to leave somebody who’s never been here before to try to make conversation with the family.

  But when I put on a fresh shirt and brushed my hair and went downstairs, I realized there was nothing to worry about. Jeff hadn’t arrived yet.

  At six fifteen I called him. There was no answer.

  “He must be on his way,” I said to Mom.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I didn’t plan for us to eat much before six thirty, anyway.”

  At six forty-five, when Jeff still hadn’t come, I called and listened to the repeated sound of the phone shrilling unanswered through an empty house.

  At seven ten we sat down to dinner.

  “Is this what being ‘stood up’ means?” Meg asked with interest.

  Christmas Day began early for us as it must for every family with young children. Neal and Megan were in my room at dawn, bouncing onto my bed and jerking me into consciousness with shrieks of excitement.

  “Santa came!” Meg squealed. “The stockings are lumpy!”

  Neal, from the mature vantage point of his eleven years, said condescendingly, “She peeked already,” and then added with honesty, “So did I. That pile of stuff under the tree got higher since last night.”

  At their ages there was no way in the world that either of them could still have been a true believer, but the game was not to admit it. “When people stop believing in him, Santa stops coming,” Dad had always told us. “That’s when they stop having stockings.” Faced with this ultimatum, I myself had professed absolute belief until I was almost thirteen.

  Even now the anticipation and the sense of wonder continued. There was still something magical about rising on Christmas morning to find that sometime while I had been sleeping gifts had appeared.

  This morning, however, it was different. I felt tired and uncaring. The pale gray of the sky outside the balcony doors made me want to roll over and press my face into my pillow.

  “The sun’s not even up yet,” I snapped at the children. “Why don’t you go back to bed for a while? The presents will still be there an hour from now.”

  “But it’s Christmas!” Neal exclaimed. “Dad and Mom are getting up. They said to come wake you.”

  The astonishment in his voice made me feel guilty for my Scrooge-like behavior.

  “Okay,” I said more gently. “Run on down and get started. I’ll be there in a minute, as soon as I can get myself into gear.”

  They went rushing off like racers hearing the starting gun, and I sank back onto the pillow, fighting the desire to haul the covers up over my head and bury myself again beneath protective layers of sleep.

  But I couldn’t. I was awake now. The day must be faced, and with it the ego-shattering reality of the fact that, as Meg had so bluntly put it, I had been “stood up.” It was something that had never happened to me before. Whatever Gordon’s faults may have been, he, at least, had been reliable. If he and I made a date to do something, we did it.

  “That Rankin kid needs a lesson in manners,” Dad had remarked last night as he attempted to force a carving knife through a loin of pork that had shriveled into a dried-out lump. “If he wasn’t coming, he could at least have let us know, so we could have eaten while the food was still chewable.”

  “Maybe he didn’t understand Laurie was asking him for tonight,” Mom said. “He might have thought she meant tomorrow.”

  “He understood,” I told them. “Some emergency must have come up. He’ll call and explain it, I’m sure.”

  But the evening had passed, and the phone had not rung. We finished dinner and sang some carols and read through the Christmas story, which was our holiday custom. The kids hung up their stockings and were sent to bed, and Mom decided she was sleepy, too, and Dad said he thought he would forgo his evening writing stint and turn in early also to fuel himself for the morning.

  “I think I’ll try calling Jeff again,” I said.

  Dad regarded me with disapproval. “I wouldn’t push it, Laurie. He’s the one who ought to be doing the calling. If he forgot us, let him do a double take in the morning and get himself over here with an apology.”

  “I can’t believe he just forgot,” I said. “It’s not like Jeff has such a busy social life that he can’t keep track of his invitations. I’ll sleep better if I can get in touch with him and find out what happened.”

  But when I dialed what was getting to be a familiar number, there was still no answer. I let the phone continue ringing for a long time. At last I replaced the receiver on the hook and went up the stairs to my room. It was an empty room. There was no sign of Lia. I changed out of my clothes and got into bed, hesitating a moment before reaching for the light.

  Then I thought, What difference does it make? She’s gotten strong enough that she can appear in daylight as well as darkness. If she wants to come, she’ll come, whether the light’s on or not.

  Defiantly I clicked it off and closed my eyes. Sleep didn’t come quickly, but when it came I slept heavily, undisturbed by dreams.

  And now it was Christmas morning, a time for joyful celebration, and I was not in a mood for it. Overnight my concern for Jeff had turned to anger. No matter what had happened, there was no excuse for not calling. I thought we were friends, but friends didn’t treat each other this way.

  “Laurie!” Dad called from below. “Get a move on! We can’t keep the kids on hold indefinitely!”

  “I’m coming!” Resolutely, I shoved the whole thing to the back of my mind and got out of bed. It was Christmas, after all, and I might as well try to enjoy it. I put on my robe and went downstairs to a living room that was a-twinkle with tree lights and the children’s sparkling eyes.

  The stockings took five minutes. The kids tore through them like wild animals. Then we had breakfast, another family custom, because it made the suspense last longer. When we did get to the presents under the tree, we took turns opening them in order to prolong the excitement as long as possible. Everybody exclaimed happily over everything, and my own pile of loot rose higher and higher as clothes and books and CDs accumulated.

  The last gift was the present from Helen. I held it gingerly, wondering how a box so light could contain anything at all.

  “I don’t think I should open it,” I said softly. “I think I should keep it wrapped and open it later after she’s well.”

  “It’s a Christmas present,” Mom said. “She meant for you to have it today. I’m sure that’s what she would want, honey.”

>   “I guess you’re right.” Yet, still, I sat with the tiny box in my hands, reluctant to unwrap it. I had a strange feeling that once this was accomplished, the last remaining link between Helen and me would be broken.

  “Go on, Laurie,” Neal urged impatiently. “Let’s see what she gave you!”

  “I bet it’s jewelry,” Megan said. “The box is so little.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m opening it.” I untied the ribbon and drew the box out of its encasement of silver paper. Everyone leaned forward to see.

  “Toothpicks!” Neal said, reading the label. “That’s crazy. Why would Helen give you toothpicks?”

  “I’m sure she didn’t,” Mom said. “She just used the box to put something else in.”

  The lid was secured with Scotch tape. I slipped my fingernail across it, and the top sprang up, exposing layers of white tissue. I moved them aside with the tip of my finger and caught a flash of blue.

  “It’s a bird!” exclaimed Megan.

  Carefully I lifted the turquoise figure from the box. It was suspended on a thin chain of silver beads.

  “A gull?” Neal asked.

  “It’s an eagle,” I told him. I held it out on the palm of my hand so the rest of the family could view it. The wings of the bird were spread wide, and the head was thrust forward as though it were in flight. It seemed to be looking down, examining the earth below.

  “That’s Native American,” Dad said. “And it’s obviously hand-carved. Look, you can see the outline of each of the wing feathers. I wonder if she got that in the Southwest.”

  “She did,” I said. “A Navajo boy carved it for her. She wore it all the time. I can’t believe she would give it away.” My eyes stung. “I don’t deserve this. If she were here, I’d make her take it back.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Mom said. “If Helen gave it to you, it’s because she wanted you to have it to wear. The fact that it meant so much to her makes it doubly meaningful. Here, let me help you put it on.”

  I lifted the chain to my neck, fumbling awkwardly with the tiny clasp. Mom’s deft hands took over, and she had just succeeded in getting it fastened when the telephone rang.