by Ryan Schow
Then I think of Jake. How he absolutely ruined me with that first kiss. How he wants no part of me now that we’ve slept together and he knows I’m a GMK. At least he’s not going to be returning to teach this year. Last he said, he was taking a position at Astor’s companion college, which reached completion this summer. I didn’t even know there was a campus being built until he said something. Then again, few people even know Astor Academy exists, unless they have children going here, or they’re in the top one percent of the top one percent.
We start unloading the truck even though we can hardly see outside. I’m not tired, not at all exhausted. Rather, my memories are haunting me, making me question my decisions in life. I want my old dorm room. My old bed. More importantly, will I ever get these memories of all my prior selves out of my head? How can I wipe the slate clean and start fresh if my emotions keep picking at me the way they do?
To some degree, I regret ever letting the Abby stand-in live. Maybe when she gets here, I will end that version of her and take her place. I can always have Holland return me to the Abby I was, can’t I? Maybe I can, but I won’t.
No, I’m going to do what I said and start a new life as a new person. It’s then I see a girl so blonde her hair is nearly white. She’s standing in the open archway of the entrance to Astor’s main hall a good fifty feet away. Her skin is pale, and there’s a night shine to her eyes, almost like you’d see on a cat. I’m both drawn to her and strangely repulsed. Like she’s calling to me, or something in my gut is warning me. Like she’s carrying a mixed energy about her, one that’s disturbing on some paranormal level.
WTF?
I blink and she’s gone. Reaching for her with my mind, I search the area, but she is gone. Only a wash of emptiness in the ethers. I extend my reach. There’s but a blank space where she stood. Where is she? I stop, sniff the air, try to rationalize the moment. Is she…is she blocking my thoughts? Blocking my reach?
My feet have me walking in her direction. Then there’s a little puff of sound, like a sonic wave surging past me, and the blank spot in my mind is filled with the space the blonde girl once occupied. Whole air and sound.
“What are you doing?” Holland asks back at the truck. He’s got a lamp in his hands and that look on his face like he’s pissed that I’m taking a break.
“I saw something.”
“The box on the end of the truck, it’s all books,” he says. Translation, it’s heavy. I use my mind to lift the box from the truck onto a dolly without ever taking my eyes off the spot the girl just vacated. Behind me, I hear Brooklyn gasp. She doesn’t know about me.
At least, she didn’t. Until now.
6
When Rebecca got to the Swann’s, Brayden could hardly believe it. He was so happy to see her, it seemed like the only good thing to happen to him over the summer. Even though it wasn’t by a long shot. The impossibly beautiful Orianna was delighted to meet her, and Abby was curious about her (he could see the sadness on Rebecca’s face when Abby didn’t have any recognition of her). And Christian? He was all hugs and watery eyes and shit. Which Brayden kind of was as well. The crimes they committed to find her, to try to save her, they were heroic and awful. He found it baffling to think of how much that one girl had defined his summer. And now there she stood, no longer pregnant, moving beyond him, searching for the one thing in Abby she would never find: recognition.
It was gratifying to see her, and sad for who she was, what she survived. Needless to say, things got really awkward. For him. He was like the fifth wheel and feeling it. Before leaving he spoke with Rebecca for a few minutes, then gave her his cell number and said, “Once you’re settled in, you’ll probably need to talk. Just call me.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling.
“Walk me to my car?” he said.
No one seemed to object, but everyone was polite enough to at least say a thoughtful, if not empty, good-bye. For Abby, if given the choice between having her period or him sticking around for a few more minutes, Brayden imagined she’d begin rooting around in her purse for a tampon.
On the way out to his now dreadfully embarrassing hearse, Rebecca said, “I know Abby had a bad accident, but that doesn’t feel like Abby. Whoever that is, it isn’t her.”
“I know what you mean,” he muttered under his breath.
At his death-mobile, he said, “Who was that you drove here with? In Dr. Gerhard’s—I mean—Dr. Holland’s Porsche?”
“Raven.”
“Why did she bring you here?”
Rebecca’s hair was healthy looking, thicker than he remembered. Brayden brushed a strand out of her eyes. For as beautiful as she was, he wasn’t interested in running game on her. And there was no way he thought about sex with her. More than anything, he wanted to protect her, the way a big brother tries to protect his little sister.
“She woke me. Said she sort of knew me.” The sun was in her eyes, so she shaded them with her hand while keeping perfect eye contact with Brayden. He could see the twelve year old side to her in that expression, which made him grieve for all the things she survived.
“I’ve never seen her before,” Brayden said, remembering the black hair, the averted eyes, the way she bolted after dropping Rebecca off.
Rebecca shrugged her shoulders. After a minute of them looking at each other, he took a step toward her, hugged her and said, “Anything you need, seriously, call me. I can be here in a couple of hours.”
“I will. Thanks, Brayden.”
Just then, Jacob’s door opened and he stepped outside, saw us and hesitated.
“Oh, and stay away from that freaking clown,” Brayden said, nodding over Rebecca’s shoulder.
She turned and said, “He’s kind of cute.”
“He’s a hedonistic douche knuckle.”
She laughed like a twenty-year old would: more mature sounding, not so eager to have everyone look at her. It was unnerving to think of how old she was inside. It was even more unnerving to think of how she was going to feel when she was mature enough to realize what was done to her, the injustices heaped upon her body, mind and soul.
“Okay,” she said. “Whatever that is that you just said.”
They said good-bye to each other, and then he left, heading to Sacramento. He received a text while backing the hearse out of the Swann’s driveway. It was from his father. Ted Breyers, his father’s associate, would have the new Mustang ready for him to pick up in the morning. On the way down to Sac, Brayden booked a hotel a couple of miles from the Roseville Automall.
If everything hadn’t felt so sour, Brayden would have been thrilled to get his new car. As it was, he was more like some guy going though “to-do” list items than an enthusiastic seventeen year old waiting for his badass new ride.
The next morning, he woke up late, then met Ted Breyers at the dealership to pick up his new Mustang. It was exquisite. Unreal. The smile that cut his face in two was gigantic. One of the few genuine smiles he even remembered having the entire summer.
“Man do you look different,” Ted said, rubbing Brayden’s nearly shaved head. His lively eyes looked over Brayden’s new nose and chin, over his more fit physique. Then he gave a nod to Brayden’s nose and said, “Your old man know you gave away the family nose?”
“It’s not the family nose, Ted, it was my nose. And no, he doesn’t.”
“Can’t imagine he’s gonna be too thrilled.”
“I’ll have to be thrilled enough for the both of us,” Brayden said, still grinning.
“Well it looks good, but don’t tell him I said so, otherwise I might be looking for work next time you decide to come home.”
“Deal,” he said. He couldn’t stop staring at the lowered, electric blue Mustang.
“I see you like the car,” Ted said, handing him the keys and the appropriate paperwork.
Ted had power of attorney on many matters in his father’s affairs. Brayden’s dad didn’t like to travel much. In any case, Brayden found the circumstances o
verly-convenient. He knew his dad would be furious when he saw the plastic surgery, so he hadn’t planned on heading home until Christmas. Or later, if that was possible.
The Ford salesman appeared beside them, a twenty-something kid in a white polo shirt with the company emblem embroidered in yellow.
“What you did to this thing is sick,” he said to Ted, then Brayden.
“Yeah, man. It sexy as fu—” he started to say, but stopped himself because he knew Ted was a church-going man.
Ted cleared his throat and introduced Brayden to the salesman, who was looking eager to go over the vehicle with him. “Marco here is going to show you how to use everything, and I’m going to drive the hearse to San Francisco. I’ve got a contact there who wants to restore it for a collector.”
“That thing is sweet,” Marco said, looking at the hearse. “Totally original. If I had the cash, I’d buy it right now.”
“It served its purpose,” Brayden replied. He wouldn’t miss it, but it did mark his journey out of nerdiness and into the time of Enigma and the art of seduction. He was a different person now, grown up, more confident, changed. He turned and snapped a photo of the hearse with his archaic phone because the Feds said no smart phones for him until his community service was complete, and depending on how things went, maybe not even then. This would be his memento of the vehicle. His only one. The photo would be enough.
Brayden turned and hugged Ted and said, “I appreciate you doing this for me.”
“And your father,” he said. Ted was not a good looking man, but his jovial personality and his infectious smile made him agreeable. He’d known Ted several years now. His father trusted and liked him, so Brayden trusted and like him.
“What are you going to do?” Ted asked Brayden.
“See what kind of night life I can rustle up in this town before school starts,” he told Ted. “I’ll be staying at the Hilton, just up by the Galleria Mall if you need anything.”
“I’ll tell your father.”
Ted then reached in his jacket pocket and withdrew an envelope. He gave it to Brayden. He lifted the flap, creased an opening on top and found it thick with hundred dollar bills. “Your father wanted to make sure you were doing alright.”
Brayden took the money and said, “I’m good. Then he peeled off five bills right in front of the salesman whose eyes were wide and said, “Thanks, Ted. Enjoy San Francisco.”
Ted put up his hand and said, “I have an envelope of my own.”
“Well then,” Brayden said, “Godspeed.”
“Godspeed.”
Ted took the keys to the hearse and left while Brayden turned back to the salesman and said, “So I guess you’re going to show me how everything works, then?”
After taking a half an hour with Marco to go over the features of his car, he drove out of there and headed straight for his hotel. The muscle car was everything he dreamed it would be, except faster and meatier sounding. He called to thank his father. He got the voicemail instead. He left an excited message, told his dad how grateful he was for what he’d done, then hung up.
At the hotel, it was only when he laid down that he realized the toll the summer had taken on him. He slept two days straight, heading out only once to wander through the nearby Galleria Mall. Then it was back to the room, back to room service and back to sleep.
7
School was about to start and Abby would be heading back to Astor Academy. Christian called ahead to alert Headmistress Sylvia Klein of Abby’s condition in the hope that she would do what she could to pave the way for Abby’s successful return.
Either way, for Orianna, it was scary. Her daughter heading to a place for smart people, moneyed people, when Abby seemed neither intelligent nor affluent…talk about her new worst nightmare!
The upside, however, was Abby adored Orianna, a feeling Orianna had not had in her entire life with either Savannah or the pre-killed Abby. Her daughter, the version who hadn’t died, she made her hatred for Margaret clear. She was downright abusive at times. But there were moments after her rehabilitation when Orianna (then Margaret) thought their relationship might mend. Abby, however, always found a way to eviscerate those dreams.
Now they were at lunch. It was easy. No fights. No talk of the past. Just two changed people eating a meal talking about things that had nothing to do with her past or all the ways she ruined Abby’s life.
It was a Saturday afternoon, so people were out and about, their work week and all their problems forgotten. Lunch was a sidewalk café, Café Brioche on California Avenue in Palo Alto. The crowd was sophistication mixed with opulent nerdiness mixed with some French slag who really liked speaking in her native tongue louder than everyone else. Like she was proud of it, or somehow felt superior. Like no one had ever heard someone speak French before.
Just as she was about to say something to Abby about the woman, Abby turned and said, “That uppity bitch needs to drop the volume a bit so the rest of us can have some conversation,” loud enough for the woman to hear.
The French woman indeed heard her, making the sour face to prove it. Her volume did come down, though, and conversely, the volume on everyone else seemed to normalize.
“You were saying?” Abby said to Orianna.
“I was asking if you’re nervous about going back to school.”
“Of course I am. Unless you told me, I’d never know where I went to school in the first place.”
“I mean, are you concerned about fitting in and all?”
Their waiter arrived with their food. He was a handsome young man with black hair and pressed clothes of no more than twenty with the kind of look that said he was toning it down for work.
“Blanc de Dinde,” he said, handing Abby her sandwich (oven roasted turkey breast, black olive tapenade, roasted peppers, basil and Brie cheese on sliced batard), and for you madam,” he said, smiling like he was enchanted to see her, “Coq au Vin.” Orianna eyed her food: marinated chicken, roasted potato, Cipollini onions, & baby carrots.
Oh, how she loved this place!
And she loved the attention she was getting as Orianna. It was everything she wanted when she was Margaret. What confused her most now, was Abby.
She was not herself. She’d never even been this person.
Abby dove into her food, chewing loudly, her mouth mostly closed, while Orianna held her fork in limbo, her horror barely restrained.
“Sorry,” Abby said, her cheeks turning the lightest shade of red, “I’m starving.”
“It’s fine,” Orianna said. “I’m just glad you’re here with me.”
With food in her mouth, she said, “So are you doing my dad or what?”
Orianna cleared her throat, looked around to see if anyone heard the comment, and tried not to let her embarrassment show. “No.”
“It’s just girl talk,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. She went back to the sandwich, chomping vigorously, but thankfully, not as loud as before.
“So what do you know about your mother?”
Abby stopped chewing, stared at her for a second, then started back up again, chomping a little faster, then swallowing too soon. “My mother…I don’t know…apparently she and I didn’t get along so well. From what the tabloids say—”
“You went to the tabloids to learn about her?” Orianna asked, appalled.
“Yeah. My dad says she was always trying to be a better mom. That sometimes drugs, alcohol and her obsession with the paparazzi made that difficult, but that I loved her anyway.”
“You did?”
Abby shrugged her shoulders, then said, “If I did, I sure don’t remember it.”
“If you think back to your relationship with your mother—”
“Are you practicing to be a shrink?” Abby said, just before taking another monstrous bite of her sandwich. A fleck of roasted pepper skin stuck to her lip; she licked it up and sucked it in her mouth with the rest of the food.
“No.” Orianna hadn’t even touched her foo
d. She set her fork down and said, “I never had a good relationship with my mother. She was backwoods, and quite frankly she was stupid.”
“I think my mother was stupid, too. I mean, look at how she did nothing with her life but try to get her picture taken and go to country clubs and now go vacationing for who knows how long? That seems pretty stupid to me.”
“I knew your mother,” she said. She was treading on dangerous ground. Doing what she promised herself she wouldn’t do, which was bring up their past. “Margaret loved you, though it was hard for her to express it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She was also a very shallow woman. When you were born, you didn’t look the way she hoped you would. But that’s exactly how she was born, too. Not pretty. She couldn’t stand her body or her face, or how beautiful other women were when she felt so ugly inside.”
“Really? But she’s beautiful.”
“She didn’t feel like it. Besides, half of her body is plastic surgery and liposuction and treatments and fillers. She felt beautiful after all that, but fake. Like true beauty shouldn’t cost money, but hers did. A lot of money. In the end, what she confided in me was that she never felt worthy of your love. Like she was embarrassed by who she was, who she’d become. And that’s why she left. Not because she wanted some magical life without you. She wanted so much more for you, and in her own way, she thought you could have it without her around.”
Abby stopped chewing. She was looking at Orianna with blank eyes. Then the French woman said something crass in French as she was leaving, which broke Abby’s gaze. The girl gave the French bitch a snarky fuck you smile, followed gracelessly by two thumbs up. Beside them, someone coughed and someone snickered.
“You were never like this,” Orianna said, low so the giggling girl beside them couldn’t hear.
