The Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare (22 page)

Poor Jim. I couldn't help but feel a teensy bit sorry for him. After all, his baby ran off with another man. A young man to be exact.

I guess he should've kept away from Runaround Sue.

CHAPTER 16

 

 

After half an hour without headlights behind me, I pulled off to the side of the road to look for a map. The bad thing about the 1960 Corvette? No glove box. And of course no GPS.

In the trunk, I found a towel, a black purse, two empty bottles of Tequila, and an overnight bag. The purse contained a pearly pink wallet with a ten dollar bill and Susan Summers' driver's license, a half-empty pack of cigarettes, and a tube of lipstick so red it was almost orange. At least the overnight bag proved helpful with extra clothes – a pencil skirt and sweater – but how was I supposed to find my way to Porter's bank without a map?

I shimmied into the spare clothes, then started off again, hoping my instincts would guide me to Cincinnati.

At around one in the morning, after over a dozen U-turns, I spotted the city lights in the distance. I pulled into a breakfast diner parking lot and wrangled the convertible top into place. Then I slept, rather uncomfortably with the garment box under my feet, until dawn.

 

A knock on the driver's side window jerked me awake. “Hungry, sweetie?”

I opened my eyes to the oval, cheery face of an older woman with pointed glasses. Her silver hair was teased in a beehive, and she wore an apricot-colored waitress dress. The name tag at her breast said LAMERLE.

“Come on in, sugar,” she said, waving me toward the door of the diner. “I've got grits. I've got hash. I've got flapjacks.” She kept listing foods as she walked, but I couldn't hear her anymore.

After I checked to make sure the Portrait of a Young Man was safe and secure, I opened the passenger door and almost fell out onto the pavement. Every muscle was stiff, and my stomach growled, demanding a living sacrifice. LaMerle unlocked the diner and held the door open for me. I fell into a blue vinyl booth by the front windows so I could keep an eye on my hundred-million-dollar Corvette. A drumline marched and pounded inside my head.

“You look like you could use some coffee,” LaMerle said. She shuffled behind the counter. The coffee maker was filled, then set to percolate. “You like ice in yours? Folks say I'm crazy, but I like mine with ice. You let me know if you want ice.”

I sat there, forehead and nose pressed to the laminate tabletop, wondering if I was experiencing a hangover. My mouth certainly felt rank enough, but maybe I was just tired. I didn't feel drunk last night, but then again, I wasn't sure if I would've noticed anyway. The only time I ever had alcohol was when Uncle Lincoln handed me a frozen peach schnapps at Christmas and told me it was a slushy. I spit it out on his salmon corduroy pants.

I downed LaMerle's coffee, without the ice cubes, even though I hated the stuff in Base Life. In this body, though? Coffee was a sweet, dawn-kissed beauty. It was a pure need, like warm blood and fresh air. Like life couldn't start without it. It was strong and helped shovel the heaviness of sleep off my back.

LaMerle whipped up some fried eggs and a strange kind of sausage made with pork and oats she called goetta, and I devoured those as well. When the breakfast crowd picked up, I left her a nice tip for letting me sleep in her parking lot and giving me directions to the bank.

The Cincinnati Mutual Bank and Trust was a two story brick building at the center of town. Porter had descended back to 1953 a long time ago and opened an account there, which he still had today. He chose that particular bank because it was one of the only ones still intact, having never moved their safe deposit boxes or gone through the renovation after a fire or flood. I was to leave the painting in his box, where it would remain hidden until he collected it in Base Life, over fifty years later.

Which, you had to admit, was pretty freaking genius.

But first, I had to find the key.

There was a post office across the street from the bank where Porter kept his safe deposit box key hidden on the roof. That was so he could retrieve it throughout time. I thought that was pretty ingenious too. I found a fire escape ladder at the rear of the building and climbed. I was still afraid of heights, but since I'd climbed a much taller building with Blue, this three story number wasn't such a big deal. At the top, I found the air vent on the north side Porter told me about. My hair whipped and swirled as I searched for a loose brick in the low wall surrounding the roof. When I found it, the cement around its edges brittle and flaking away into dust, I pried it out of its pocket with my fingernails.

A flutter of triumph. The tiny brass key winked at me from inside.

I retrieved the garment box from the car and entered the bank. It smelled like new carpet and cigarette smoke. I lifted my chin high. I told the portly, mustached teller exactly what Porter said – that my name was Casey O'Neil and I wanted to open my family's box, number fourteen.

I expected some resistance, but the teller just nodded and brought me back to a vaulted room with hundreds of narrow brass doors. He stuck his own key into one of the doors and unlocked half the lock. I unlocked the other half with my key. Then he slid the safe deposit box out of its cubby. It was a larger box than all the others – nearly three times the size. He set it on a metal shelf, then left the room to give me privacy. I lifted the long, wide lid.

Inside, there were treasures. A drawstring pouch full of pearls. Several stacks of cash, all in different currencies. An etched, wooden box with gold coins. Dozens of passports, driver's licenses, and birth certificates. It was Porter's secret stash – one he could access across time. I ran my fingers over the pearls, the cash, the coins, just to feel the thrill of all that wealth kiss my skin. Then I placed the painting in the box, still wrapped in a sweater.

It was hard to say goodbye, to leave the Raphael behind in that cold, sterile bank vault. But I'd trusted Porter this far, Lord knows why, and I hadn't caught him in a lie yet. I just hoped we were doing the right thing. That I was on the right side. (And that stealing the Raphael from Gesh would feel like a good kick in his balls.)

 

 

After I replaced the safe deposit box key in its hiding place, I stopped at a small hot dog joint for lunch. Two construction workers across the street whistled at me when I climbed out of the ‘Vette, which had certainly never happened to me before and took me by surprise. I considered flipping them the bird, the sexist jackasses, but wasn't sure about the kind of impact that would make. It couldn't have made much of a difference, right? But I was too scared to chance it. So I flipped them the bird in my mind.

I stopped short before I entered the restaurant, confused by a sign on the window and the two separate entrances. In large painted letters, one side of the sign read: WHITES with an arrow pointing to a door on the left. The other side had an arrow pointing to the right and read: COLOREDS.

The hell?

Of course I'd learned all about segregation in school, and read about it last week when I did my last minute research on the Sixties, but seeing it in action was enough to turn my stomach. I didn't want to eat on the WHITES side. I'd much rather sit on the COLOREDS side, but if flipping the bird at those construction workers might've caused a stir, then making a radical statement like that certainly would.

I turned back to my car. I wasn't hungry anymore.

What good was traveling back in time if you couldn't change things? If you couldn't make a difference? Tell people of their ignorance? Warn them of the outcomes?

I rested against the fender of the Corvette, my arms crossed over my chest, and watched all the boat-like, flashy cars cruise by. I marveled at the hairstyles.

On the thinly veiled surface, the Sixties didn't seem too different from Base Life. There was an obvious absence of personal electronics and digital technology, but I liked the mechanical knobs on the ‘Vette, the real handed clock towers across town, and the way music sounded floating through tinny speakers. I was fascinated by the bits of conversation I overheard as people walked by, of bomb shelters and the Russians, and how JFK was the hippest Catholic ever. It all seemed so quaint and innocent, but it was a lie. Scratch an inch beneath the surface and you'd find the ugly things they swept under the rug. The segregation, the riots, the hate. All that hate covered up by fluffy hairdos and modest hemlines and bright orange lipstick.

It made me sick. And I wanted to go home.

I let myself enjoy one last cruise in the Corvette, winding through the country hills back toward Jim's house. I sang along to When the Lion Sleeps Tonight and Only the Lonely and Will You Love Me Tomorrow. I couldn't remember the last time I'd listened to the radio – I streamed all my music from the Internet back in Base Life. The jokes the Sixties DJs inserted between each song were so silly they were hilarious and made me miss commercial breaks. A little. And it made me want to take Claire's advice and fix up an old car of my own.

Now that I knew how to drive.

A few miles away from the Mitchell estate, my hair-swept cruise through rolling farm fields came to an unexpected end. I pulled off onto the gravel shoulder as the ‘Vette sputtered and rolled to a stop. Glancing at the gas gauge, I saw the needle was well past E. If it had been any other issue, I probably could have gotten the car rolling again, but the thought of fueling up hadn't even crossed my mind.

Talk about failing Driving 101.

Without a cell phone to call for help, I lay on the hood listening to the radio for almost an hour – shielding my eyes from the sun and letting it warm my skin – before I heard the distant rumble of a single vehicle. It was a dirty, rusty, mint-green Chevy truck with a huge chrome grill on the front. I hopped down when it slowed and pulled to the side of the road in front of me. It sputtered and wheezed, then sighed and settled on its tires.

The driver's door squawked open, and a young guy with dark hair in nice-fitting jeans and a white T-shirt – sleeves rolled up like James Dean – climbed out. “Need some help?” He flashed me a charming grin as he approached, wiping his hands on an oil-stained rag he pulled from his back pocket.

I nearly collapsed where I stood.

It was Blue.

CHAPTER 17

 

 

“What are you doing here?” The words tumbled out of my mouth, raspy and dry.

Blue stood before me, as sure and as bright as the sun. As real as the wind. As alive as my swift pulse. But it didn't make sense. How could he be here? In 1961?

He nodded at the Corvette, still wiping his hands on the rag and answered my question literally. “You broke down. Thought I'd stop to lend a hand.”

He looked almost exactly the same, except he was a few inches taller, and the bridge of his nose was wider. His skin was tinged red from the sun. His hair was a bit longer, a bit shaggier, with the top sticking off to the right like he always ran his fingers through it that way. His eyes were just as shocking blue-green as before. The laugh lines around his eyes were mischievous. Teasing. His voice, kind and smooth, sent a shiver through me. I stepped toward him and lifted a hand to touch his face. “I thought I'd never see you again.”

He frowned and leaned away from my hand. “Do we know each other?”

I lowered my hand.

He didn't recognize me. I looked completely different than I did in Chicago.

“It's me, Sousa.”

He stuffed the rag in his back pocket with a slight shrug. “Doesn't ring a bell, sorry.”

I couldn't speak. My heart had seized. It was hooked on my ribs.

Maybe it wasn't him. I mean, it couldn't be, could it? He was just a lookalike. It had to be my guilty conscience playing cruel tricks. “Sorry. It's just... You look like someone I used to know.”

“I do?” He popped the hood on the Corvette and leaned in to have a look. “What was his name?”

“Nick Piasecki.” I expected his head to pop up, for him to react to the name somehow.

He didn't.

“Don't know anyone by that name. Is it your carburetor, do you think? The carburetors on these new ‘Vettes can be testy.”

It took a moment before I processed his question. I was too caught up in the way his white T-shirt stretched over his shoulders. The way it had in his kitchen in Chicago. The shape of his back, his waist, his hips, even his butt – they were all the same. “Uh, no,” I said, swallowing. “Just ran out of gas.” The words fell like dust to the ground. They kicked up in the breeze and swirled away into the fields.

“Oh, well that's no problem. I always keep a spare tank on my truck.”

I leaned against the ‘Vette, my arms crossed, watching him. How could this guy look so much like Blue? Maybe Nick was a distant relative, but this guy said the name didn't ring a bell.

He came back to the ‘Vette, carrying a red metal gas tank with a nozzle. He stuck out his hand. “Jack Baker. It's a pleasure.”

His hand even felt like Blue's. It was rougher, but the shape, the size, everything matched. “God, even your fingernails are shaped the same,” I said, turning his hand over.

“As that guy you knew?”

I nodded.

“What happened to him?”

I slid my hand from his and re-crossed my arms. “He died.”

He pressed his lips together in a sincere frown. “I'm real sorry to hear that.”

I swallowed again and nodded. This guy wasn't Blue. He was just his ghost, sent to haunt me the day after Halloween.