“You should have looked.” I closed my eyes and fought for control. Every second was precious now. Because I knew I’d cling to every one of them for the rest of my life. I forced myself to recall what she’d told us in the car just before Bo had attacked. “Did your mother give you that name? Aja?”
“Yes. My father was away when I was born.”
“What does the name mean?”
With the tip of her finger, she touched between my eyebrows. “Two inches beneath that spot, inside your head, is the ‘Aja.’ ” Then she put her hand on my chest. “It’s also here. Aja is the spiritual eye through which the Big Person can be seen.”
“Did your mother know you would be born a saint?”
“I wasn’t born one.”
“What happened? How did you change?”
She spoke in a weary whisper. It was all she could manage. “Like I said, I was five years old when the cartel sent three men and a woman to kill my father. I was playing outside when they came. They carried machetes. My mother rushed to pick me up and carry me away but they stopped her. They herded the three of us inside. They’d come to kill my father. But they wanted him to suffer. They made him watch as they . . . they cut my mother’s throat.”
“Oh God.” I wanted to weep for that little girl. “They made you watch?”
“Yes. It was horrible. So horrible the child in this body—her mind, her identification with this body, even her sense of ‘I,’ they all fled and ran away and tried to hide and were lost. That’s how I was changed. Nothing was left of that girl. In the deepest way possible she became . . . no one.”
Aja stopped to struggle to catch her breath. The same way Bo had struggled. All of us had been so in awe of her healing ability but I couldn’t have hated it more right then.
“That was the day I became the Big Person,” Aja said.
“Why did the men let you live?”
“The woman felt the change in me. She felt something powerful enter the room. She dropped her machete and picked me up and carried me away, into the jungle.”
“And your father?”
“The men chopped him to pieces. The same with my mother. They left nothing behind. Nothing but blood.” Aja paused. “The woman who saved me was Angela. You saw her at the PTA meeting.”
I was stunned. “Principal Levitt’s lover?”
“Yes. Being there, at that moment, changed her.”
“She became psychic?”
“Yes. But I think for her, the gift was something of a curse.”
“She knew her daughter would die.”
“Yes.”
“From then on you lived mostly in the jungle?”
“Yes. It was more comfortable for me to be in nature than to be near people.” Aja nuzzled my cheek and I felt her dry lips. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I was happy after the Big Person came. I was always happy.”
I struggled to keep my voice from cracking.
“Are you happy now?” I asked.
She sighed. “Yes and no. I’m sad that you’re sad.”
“I’ve been sad most of my life. Why should it change?”
“That’s not true. Everything changed the day we met.”
I nodded, sniffed. “I’m sorry, Aja. Honestly, I’m happy you came into my life. And I’m happy just to hold you right now.”
“That’s better.” Her head fell back on my chest; she lacked the strength to hold it up. I could hear her heartbeat, could feel it slowing down. Taking her hand I squeezed it. She tried to squeeze mine back but she was too weak. It wouldn’t be long.
“What does the name ‘Fred’ mean?” she asked.
“ ‘He who loves goddesses.’ ”
“Really?”
“It does now.”
Aja smiled faintly, her eyes closing. “I knew I chose the right boy when I chose you.”
I felt a stab of fear; I shook her gently. “Don’t go, not yet. Please?”
Her eyes opened. “It’s okay, Fred. I’m going home.”
I felt a wave of panic sweep over me. It was a tidal wave but I was no ocean, not like Aja, and suddenly I felt as if I could not bear it. Tears burned my eyes. I pulled her closer.
“No! Wait!” I cried, losing all control, sobbing. “Please don’t go! Use your power! For God’s sake, Aja, heal yourself!”
“Shh, Fred. It’s okay. You will be okay.” Straining, using the last of her strength, she placed her hand over my heart. “I will be with you here. I will always be with you. I promise.”
My agony did not stop.
Yet somehow her touch made it bearable.
I leaned over and kissed her. “I love you.”
She closed her eyes and settled back on my chest.
“I love you,” she whispered.
She died minutes later.
EPILOGUE
TWIN AMBULANCES TOOK us to a nearby hospital—St. Vincent’s. I rode with Aja in the back. Janet stayed with her father. The paramedics who examined Aja were dismayed. They could find nothing wrong with her. No logical reason why she had died. They kept apologizing to me, telling me how sorry they were that they hadn’t attended to her from the start. I told them it wasn’t their fault. They covered Aja with a white sheet, from head to toe.
I was in shock.
At the hospital Aja’s body was taken to the morgue. I managed to get ahold of Bart. I told him they wanted to perform an autopsy. That it was the law. That they needed to find out exactly how she had died. Bart told me to wait and he would call me back in a few minutes. When he did he told me that his lawyer, Mr. Grisham, had made an “arrangement” with the hospital and they would no longer press for the autopsy. I assumed money or favors had changed hands.
While Bart drove from Elder, Janet and I were treated by a couple of competent ER doctors. They set my nose back in place, taped half my face, and did an MRI on my knee. I hadn’t torn any ligaments but they said I’d need arthroscopic surgery to remove three large chunks of frayed cartilage. I was given a pair of crutches to get around and a bottle of Vicodin for the pain. I swallowed a couple of the blue pills but didn’t feel any better.
Janet’s broken arm was more serious. The ER doctors called in a specialist to operate. She ended up needing a metal plate and a host of screws to stabilize the bone. While she was in surgery, Bart arrived and obtained the release of Aja’s body. The two of us spoke briefly about what we should do next and swiftly came to an agreement. A local mortuary was contacted to bring her body back home.
The ER doctors performed a dozen tests on Bo.
They never did find anything wrong with him.
I rode back to Elder with Bart. We followed the white hearse from the mortuary. We didn’t talk much; I suppose there was nothing to say. But one thing was clear. Bart was not in the least bit surprised that Aja had died. His absence of shock, though, did nothing to alleviate his grief. He looked as if he’d aged twenty years since I’d last seen him.
“She told us before we moved here that the days of her body were numbered,” Bart said.
“Is that why she wanted to come here? Was there a purpose to her coming?”
Bart nodded. “It’s nice to think so. That the Big Person was kind enough to give the rest of the world a glimpse of who she was.”
I shook my head. “My classmates turned out to be almost too loyal. As far as I can tell not a single student gave the press a recording of what went on at the PTA meeting. And without proof that Aja could heal people . . . well, she’s already becoming just another fading headline on YouTube. Outside of Elder, I doubt anyone will be talking about her a month from now.”
Bart looked at me. “You’re forgetting one thing.”
“What?”
“You.”
“What about me?”
“You’re the one who will keep Aja alive in people’s memories.”
“Are you serious? How? And why me?”
“ ‘Why you’ should be obvious. You were closer to her than anyone. And that
includes Clara and myself. And as to ‘how’ you’ll keep her story alive—I’m not worried about that. You’re a smart guy. You’ll think of something.”
It was dawn by the time we reached the Carter Mansion. Bart told the two guys from the mortuary to lay her body on her bed upstairs. They did so and left. And after spending a few minutes with Aja, Bart left me alone with her. But I could hear him down in the garage; I knew what he was up to.
It was peaceful to sit beside her, to be alone with her in the bedroom where we’d spent such wonderful nights, surrounded by the paintings and sculptures her father had made of her mother. She had on the same black slacks and white blouse she’d worn in LA. I tucked her under a woolen blanket Clara had knitted for her when they lived in Brazil and brushed her hair so that it spread over her pillow and down around her shoulders.
I couldn’t stop staring at her face. Honestly, I couldn’t believe she was dead. All the love I’d always felt in her presence, the power, the grace—they were still there. Her body may have died but was she dead? Sitting on the edge of her bed, holding her hand, staring at her serene expression, the idea seemed ridiculous.
Still, I couldn’t talk to her anymore and I knew I’d never hear her voice again. Nor would I ever hold her again. The Big Person inside her may have been alive, as unchanging as ever, but I was just a guy who loved her, a very mortal guy, and already I was beginning to miss her.
TV shows that deal with death and dying, along with cop shows and medical dramas, often speak about how quickly the human body decays. I was lucky Aja granted me one last miracle. The odor emanating from her could not have been more sweet. Her body smelled like a combination of daises and camphor, sandalwood oil and fresh air. I know it makes no sense but somehow she smelled like the dawn breaking outside her window.
Sadly, on top of the divine aroma, through a crack in her bedroom door, I caught a whiff of gasoline and knew it was time to say good-bye. One last time, I leaned over and kissed her lips.
“Thanks, Aja. Thanks for everything.”
I stood and, using my crutches, walked out of her room and down the stairs to the front door. Bart had been busy—the odor of gasoline was growing. Yet he had not overdone it. The fumes would burn off quickly and by the time the firemen arrived there’d be no trace left to say the fire hadn’t been caused by an electrical short. And if later Aja’s remains were found, then it would be up to Bart and his lawyer to talk to the authorities. Yet I had a feeling the police and firemen would find nothing.
Standing on the front porch, Bart handed me a single wooden match. I was surprised to see him smile. “What is it?” I asked.
“In her will Aja left everything she owned to you. Besides the money, that includes a half interest in this house. If you light that match, you’ll be several million dollars poorer.”
“Does that bother you?” I asked.
“Not at all.”
“Good,” I said, striking the match on the top of a nearby wooden post, watching the tiny flame flare bright, before I tossed it through the front door and onto one of the many expensive rugs spread throughout the house. The fire ran from us in half a dozen different directions. A gust of smoke forced us back.
Within minutes flames were pouring out of both ends of the house and again we were pushed away and had to jump in Bart’s car and head to the end of the driveway. There we got out and watched as geysers of flame shattered the mansion’s many windows and leaped toward the gray sky. Fortunately the house was isolated. We were two hundred yards from the blaze and still we could feel our cheeks burning.
“Good-bye, Aja,” I said as I stared at the inferno. At some point Bart took my hand and I thought I heard him utter a few last words. But what they were I could not say, lost as I was in my own thoughts.
• • •
Ten years have gone by since I met and fell in love with Aja. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say I’ve spent the better part of that decade trying to figure out who she was. I suppose like most people I like to think the years have granted me more insight—not just into Aja but into life itself.
Yet I’m afraid, even after all this time, that Aja remains as much a mystery as when I first saw her sitting in the park across the street from my old high school, picking flowers and staring at the students as they walked by in the hot summer sun.
Writing about the time I spent with her has been very satisfying—therapeutic in its own way. It’s caused me to recall with razorlike clarity moments that the years had begun to blur. It’s also caused me to feel her near me. That, I think, is what’s most precious about her story. Because simply reviewing what she said or where she went or who she spoke to or even what miracles she performed doesn’t begin to convey who she was.
Of course most people will say that’s crazy, especially when it comes to her miracles. They’ll say that healing Mike Garcia and Lisa Alastair and Barbara Kataekiss—and others we don’t even know about—was what made Aja unique. Just as the miracles Christ performed in the Bible are what caused Christianity to become the most popular religion on earth.
That’s fine, I say. I still think I’m right. Aja was much more than the person we saw walking around and living in Elder. She said it herself many times. She wasn’t the body. She wasn’t the mind. She was none of those things we like to think about when we stop to remember a person.
But that said—how are we to remember her? Even more important—for those who never met her—how are we to imagine her?
Fair questions that deserve reasonable answers.
I only wish I had the answers to give.
But let me come back to that in a minute.
Two months after Aja died, after the nasal sound caused by my broken nose had vanished, I flew back to Los Angeles and rerecorded “Strange Girl.” The song was released too late to take advantage of the holiday season but it managed to get decent play on the radio and rose as high as number ten on the Billboard Chart. Paradise Records asked me to cut a full album. I asked if I could wait a few months. My grief over losing Aja had yet to diminish; if anything it was getting worse. Richard Gratter said no problem, he understood, take all the time you need. I don’t know why I was surprised when he refused to take my calls when I called him four months later. But hey, that’s the music business. You’re lucky if you get one shot.
Yet my music career was far from over. After graduating from Elder High, I left town with my acoustic guitar and bummed around the country, playing short and long gigs at whatever clubs would hire me. I didn’t have a manager—Janet had gone off to Harvard—but I got by. Although “Strange Girl” never became a major hit, it quickly developed a cult following. That one song became my calling card. And since I refused to live off of Aja’s money—I gave it all away to charities—the song literally fed me for years.
Still, no major labels came knocking.
Maybe it was my voice, I thought. Maybe it was my face. Whatever, I eventually decided I could make more money writing songs for existing stars rather than trying to become a star myself. And that’s what I’ve been doing up until this day. I’ve written exactly one dozen top-ten hits. Naturally, outside of the business, no one knows my name. A funny thing about the celebrities I write for. They like to take credit for everything they sing. Actually, they insist upon taking credit. I’m well paid but I never get invited to walk the red carpets.
That’s okay. I get to do what I love for a living.
I can’t complain.
After graduation, Mike and Dale moved to San Francisco and got involved in the health food industry. They started a company that sells herbal formulas that are supposed to do everything from increase a person’s IQ to make Viagra a thing of the past. I tried their products but didn’t notice much. Then again, what do I know? They’re making money hand over fist and they’re lucky. Because Mike married only two years out of high school and his wife quickly popped out four kids.
I played at Mike’s wedding; Dale was his best man. And t
he male actor Dale was with that day—two years ago I heard they got married. I was in Europe at the time, playing mostly London clubs, and didn’t make it back for the ceremony. But I just heard through the grapevine that Dale and his partner are close to adopting a child.
Shelly . . . it’s hard to talk about Shelly. Only a year after Elder High released us into the big bad world, she entered a liquor store late at night in New York City where she was attending NYU and stumbled upon a holdup—a messy one. It appeared at the start that the owner didn’t mind handing over his money, but the instant the robber turned to leave, the owner went for a shotgun he kept behind the counter.
The owner got off one shot; the robber two. The robber’s first bullet hit the owner in the shoulder, which threw off the man’s aim. When the owner did pull his trigger his shotgun was pointed at Shelly’s left leg. The blast came close to amputating the limb; it definitely ruptured her femoral artery. Shelly bled to death before the ambulance could arrive.
The robber’s second bullet struck the owner in the hand. The man made a full recovery, while the robber escaped with fifty dollars in cash. Dale, Mike, Janet, me—we all returned home for Shelly’s funeral. It was good to see everyone again, especially Janet, but it was a grim affair. I was told Shelly had finally met a guy she was wild about. Actually, I met the guy; he was at the funeral. Everyone said how much he looked like me.
I still think about Shelly every day. It makes no sense but I seem to care more about her now than when she was alive. But I don’t blame myself for what happened to her and I have no regrets about how I treated her when we were in high school. Aja taught me a few things. One was that guilt had nothing to do with love.
My parents, they divorced. They split up right after I left home. My mom kept the house and remarried within a year. Another wedding I played at. My stepfather—he’s all right. He doesn’t talk much, which is never a bad thing.
My dad, he remarried as well, twice. The first time was bad. The woman was coming out of a marriage too and the double dose of rebounding made them both sick of each other before the honeymoon was over. But the third time was the charm for old Dad. He’s happy; at least he acts like he is. Yet it does worry me that he just happened to buy a house around the block from where my mom lives.
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