Pucker

by Melanie Gideon

  My mother takes my hands and places them back in my lap. “You’ll have the face you were meant to have had the fire not happened. But it’s only temporary, Thomas. Once you come back, the Maker’s magic will fall apart. Do you understand?” she asks.

  I don’t answer her.

  “Do you understand, Thomas?” my mother asks again, gently tilting my chin upward, forcing me to look at her.

  I nod dully.

  “Tell me what I just said.”

  “When I come back, I’ll be Pucker again.”

  Her eyes bat involuntarily as if I’ve struck her, and I wrench my face out of her hand. Adrenaline surges through me. I have the sudden need to destroy something. I grab a figurine of a rabbit, a gift from one of her clients.

  “Not that!” my mother shrieks.

  “It’s from the freaking Hallmark store!” But I obey her. I put it back on the bureau and grab a pillow. I ram my fist into it again and again.

  “I’m sorry. Thomas. Please, stop!”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re asking of me?” I scream.

  “I’d go myself if I could,” she moans. “I swear I would.”

  She erupts into another coughing fit. This one’s really bad, brought on by me, no doubt. She’s not faking it.

  “It’s like somebody’s shredding my bones,” she sobs.

  “Stop talking,” I tell her. “Just stop it. Conserve your strength. You’re making it worse.”

  After a bit, when the pain has subsided and she’s caught her breath, she touches my cheek softly. “It’s horribly unfair. It’s too much to ask of you, but I don’t have a choice,” she says.

  And here, finally, is the truth. It sits in the room with us like a long-lost relative just come back from a war.

  TWELVE

  I DON’T SLEEP AT ALL that night. I sit in the kitchen and watch the clock until it’s morning; then I call Patrick. His mother answers the phone.

  “He’s in the bathroom, sweetie; I’ll have him call you right back.”

  Clara Graves is a second mother to me. There’s nobody who knows more about what it’s like to be a burn victim than she does.

  “That’s all right. Just give him a message. Tell him we’re going to breakfast this morning. My treat.”

  There’s a pause. “Everything okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah, fine.” It isn’t fine; it’s so far from fine. I have the sudden urge to confess everything. Where we come from, what I am about to do.

  I want to be little again. I want Clara to invite me for a sleepover. She fed us chocolate milk and Three Musketeers bars for dinner.

  “Is it Meg?” she asks softly. “I don’t think he’s that serious about her.”

  I don’t answer. My throat feels like it’s wadded up with cotton.

  “Your Meg will come,” she says, and much to my surprise, her voice is all rough and pebbly. “I promise, Tommy.”

  Oh, how I love her for lying.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say. “Tell Patrick I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  THIRTEEN

  YE OLD EGG SHOPPE IS PACKED. There are no seats, but I know the password.

  “Huguette,” I say, and they find a place for us at the counter. I look at the booth in the back where my mother told her first fortunes in this world: where she made her first friend. I wonder—will I be given a password to get back to Isaura?

  Patrick and I order. Eggs and ham on an English muffin for him, French toast for me, even though I know I won’t eat. I sip my coffee nervously. It’s my fourth cup.

  “So, what’s up?” asks Patrick, biting into his breakfast sandwich.

  “I’m thinking about going away for part of the summer,” I say.

  “Why?” he asks, his mouth crammed full. “It’s our last summer before senior year. Last summer of freedom. This fall’s gonna suck, man.”

  “It’s a favor for my mother. A family obligation.”

  “I thought you didn’t have any family: it was just you and your mom.”

  “I never told you about my aunt who lives in California?”

  Patrick scowls and pops a piece of my French toast into his mouth. “I hate this fake maple syrup crap. And you’re a pathetic liar, Quicksilver.”

  “I’m not lying,” I say.

  Patrick chews thoughtfully. “So this ‘aunt’ of yours? What’s her name?”

  “Betty.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Auntie Betty. And what are you going to do at Auntie Betty’s house?”

  I shrug. “Hang out. Go to Disneyland.”

  “Mm-hmm,” he says. “And just where does Auntie Betty live?”

  “California. I told you.”

  “Where in California?”

  “Oh. Oakland.”

  “Disneyland’s in southern California, pal,” Patrick says, sopping up his egg yolks with a heel of bread.

  I sigh. “Patrick—”

  He waves his hand at me. “Just don’t lie to me, Thomas. We’ve been through too much.”

  I don’t say anything. He’s right, of course. I slide my plate across the counter. A peace offering. He grunts his thanks and digs in. I signal the counterman for more coffee. Patrick puts his hand over my mug.

  “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” he asks, eyeing my leg, which has been jittering up and down the entire time we’ve been there. “How long have you been up, anyway?”

  “Too long,” I say. “All night.”

  Patrick shakes his head. “Oakland’s no Peacedale. You better be careful. Who’s gonna watch your back?”

  “Don’t underestimate Auntie Betty,” I say, and we both laugh. Then Patrick gets serious.

  “What do you need?” he asks.

  “Watch out for my mother,” I say. “Things have gotten . . . pretty bad. Can you stop by every now and then and make sure she’s okay? Huguette’s going to be staying there, but just in case some heavy lifting needs to be done.”

  Patrick looks alarmed. “Why don’t you take her to the doctor?”

  “It’s nothing a doctor can fix.”

  “How do you know if you’ve never taken her?”

  We’ve had this conversation before and it’s never ended well.

  “It’s too late for that,” I say.

  “Jesus, Quicksilver.” Patrick shakes his head. “She’s all you’ve got. Why the hell are you messing around?”

  Patrick doesn’t have a father either. We’ve never said it aloud, but both of us know: if something happens to one of our mothers, the other mother will take us in. It’s an unspoken promise.

  “Look, I’m going away so I can get her help. I can’t explain, but I’m doing the complete opposite of messing around. Now stop asking me so many questions,” I say.

  Patrick swivels around on his stool and crosses his arms. He knows he’s pushed me as far as he can.

  “All right. So when are you coming back?” he asks.

  “A month.”

  “You’re going to miss the Heritage Festival,” he says.

  “Oh yeah, I forgot.” I try to look like I care. But really, it’s no loss for me. Everyone a couple. Every ride made for two. My quick escape when the festival closes and everyone searches for a dark and private place to hook up. Me in the parking lot trying to start my bike quietly so nobody will notice I’m leaving alone.

  We finish our coffee in silence.

  “So how’s Meg?” I ask.

  “She’s good. She likes you a lot.”

  “She doesn’t even know me.”

  “She knows you,” says Patrick. “She knows me, so she knows you.”

  He’s been telling me this for years, in restaurants or playgrounds, in the backseats of cars, on the beach and in the pool—that we are alike.

  “You could bring her by,” I say. “I could make tacos.”

  I indulge myself in a brief fantasy of this dinner, one that includes me with my new face. Maybe we’re a four-some. Maybe I have a date too. I picture Meg laughing uproariously at
something I’ve said. The fantasy quickly dissolves. It’s a nice daydream, but it will never happen.

  Being an outsider comes with gifts. The first is a special kind of vision that has nothing to do with being the son of Seers. I can see around the edges of things. Patrick, Meg, Susie Egan—their birthright is their future. Everything lies ahead of them, and they don’t doubt for one moment that it’s their due. They walk into the future without even knowing it’s a privilege.

  Me, I have no birthright here. Soon I will be left behind.

  FOURTEEN

  THE RECRUITER, LYSANDROS CARO, BETTER known as Sandros, is a large man in his fifties. Not fat, but big: barrel chest, round face, belt slung under his belly. First-generation Greek, he claims. Often he roams the corridors of the VRC, speaking in a thick accent, quoting his beloved grandmother Daphne. One of the old woman’s favorites is, When a part of you falls asleep, wake it up, for Christ’s sake. He makes bread with olive oil and brings in waxed bags of sweet buns from the Middle Eastern bakery. I always found his jocularity annoying, and it’s even worse now that I know he’s a big fat fake. He’s Isaurian—no more Greek than me.

  “So, young man,” he says, on my coming into his office. “You’ve finally made it here. What took you so long?”

  Then he abruptly sits forward, his chair squeaking, and riffles through my file as if searching for something, some small piece of paper that would tell him why he hasn’t seen me until now. It’s an act. He’s waiting for me to fill the silence. Meanwhile I’m getting into character. I’m fully prepared to have a discussion about what methods of suicide I’ve been considering. Unfortunately, Sandros doesn’t seem to have any interest in the particulars of doing oneself in.

  He picks a leaf of basil and offers it to me. When I don’t accept it, he tears the leaf into tiny bits and chews it into a bright green cud. He pours himself some hot water, squeezes some lemon into it, and takes meaningful sips. Finally, when it appears I have wasted both his time and my own, he says, “What it must be like for you, Thomas, living in this world with a face like that.”

  His voice is incredibly gentle and his words sum up my entire existence. Is this a question? A statement? An invitation? Whatever it is that he said, it creeps inside and begins loosening everything up. I never realized how buttoned up every little piece of me had to be in order to make it through each day. I begin to weep and once I start, I can’t stop.

  Do we say anything else? Do we discuss anything after that? I can’t remember.

  “Our time is up,” says Sandros.

  I look at the office clock: two hours have gone by. He scribbles something on a prescription pad.

  Oh God, I’ve failed. He wants to medicate me. With trembling hands I read the script. You must go to a world where you can be whole.

  There comes a point in time when all history and faces are one. Sitting in his office, I could have been all of the forgotten and given-up-on boys: boy who climbs in the wrong car and is never seen again, boy in juvenile hall pretending he’s not afraid so he won’t be stabbed with a plastic butter knife, boy who goes to war and never returns home. But no longer. Somebody has come to drag this boy into the light.

  “I have a proposition for you,” says Sandros. “Are you interested?”

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “Then listen carefully,” he says.

  PART TWO

  FIFTEEN

  THE ROOM IS DISAPPOINTINGLY SMALL, the furnishings minimal. There are a chair, a table, a lamp, a green rug, and a tiny window through which a faint breeze blows. I focus on that window. I feel ensnared. Two days have passed since I’ve received the invitation to go to Isaura. Now the time has come to go, and the urge not to is overwhelming.

  “Sit,” says Sandros, gesturing to the chair.

  What are we doing here? I expected the portal to be somewhere outside.

  “I thought it would be different,” I say. Sandros crosses his arms and frowns.

  “You’re one of the lucky ones. You can walk; you can breathe on your own. Most of the people I recruit are in wheelchairs. You expected the journey to be some kind of a wild, psychedelic ride?” he asks in his heavily accented English.

  I nod, not trusting myself to answer. Even though I know he’s not a Seer, I’m still afraid that any minute he will be alerted to the fact that I’m not who I appear to be.

  “All right.” Sandros lays a hand on my shoulder. “Time to go.”

  I can smell his cologne, some sort of musk. His hand gets heavier on my shoulder. Soon it’s weighing me down.

  “Stop leaning on me,” I struggle to say, trying to bat his bear paw of a hand away.

  His scent becomes overpowering and I realize the legs of the chair are sinking into the carpet. With a grunt, Sandros pushes down on both of my shoulders hard.

  “Go easy now,” he says as I slide right through the floor with a pop.

  It’s every child’s nightmare, getting trapped beneath the ice. But in my case I’m trapped beneath cheap maple flooring from Home Depot. Panicked, I scrabble with my hands at the flooring. I’ve changed my mind—I don’t want to go. My heart thuds a fetal heartbeat. I feel like I’ve been buried alive.

  I can see Sandros standing above me. “Please, no,” I shout.

  “You’ll be fine,” he mouths.

  I won’t be fine, but this realization comes too late. Within seconds an invisible undertow sucks me under and away. Sandros gets smaller and smaller as I travel into the matter that separates the worlds. I float down through shafts of amber light. The current imprints itself like a thousand hands on my body. Sometimes I manage to stay seated; other times I hang on to the wing-backed chair for dear life. For some reason, the chair has come with me on my journey—I have no idea why. Finally gravity prevails. I fall to the ground like some animal on all fours, my hands groping around for something solid to grasp.

  “Quicksilver, Thomas,” a voice says. “Welcome. You’re the first to arrive.”

  SIXTEEN

  I COLLAPSE ONTO MY STOMACH, EXHAUSTED.

  “You have two minutes and forty-five seconds until the next immigrant is due,” the voice adds. “Garabedian, Rose, arriving in a Pacesaver Scout electric wheelchair, model RF4. At the speed she’s coming, her wheelchair could crush you. I suggest you move.”

  That gets me going. I spring to my feet and take a quick survey of my surroundings. I inhale feverishly, gulping in the smells like a deer, relying on a sort of animal GPS. My senses seem to have been amplified by passing through the portal and I’m assaulted by the forest landscape and its heady scents. Dizzy and disoriented, I stagger backward, fighting nausea.

  What hits me first is the fundamental scent of Isaura, a mixture of pine needles and sun. Somehow the smell is different from what it would be in America, more potent and energizing. Probably because there’s no pollution in Isaura: it’s the smell of a world that has remained stalwartly primitive. A part of me appreciates that, and a part of me despises it. I’ve grown rather attached to America, toxic waste and all.

  “Once you’re done retching, would you mind throwing your chair on the pile?” a voice asks.

  I forgot I’m not alone. There’s a large, muscular man standing next to a team of horses hitched up to a wagon. Another memory surfaces, threatening to topple me, and I see my father sitting in just such a wagon, leaning down to haul me up onto the seat beside him. I struggle to remain composed and move toward the man, my hand extended.

  “No need for that,” he says, averting his gaze. “Best way to help me out is to put your chair with the rest.”

  “I’m Thomas.”

  “I’m aware of that. You’re on the list,” he says.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “I’m Nigel 581. Please do as I ask.”

  It seems like business as usual. If the Isaurians are expecting me, they haven’t let on yet.

  Nigel points to a huge pile of items: wheelchairs, walkers, slings, and canes—all the accoutrements of liv
es left behind. I lug the wing-backed chair over, where it looks ludicrously out of place.

  Garabedian, Rose, arrives a minute later. She’s a middle-aged woman wearing a flowered housedress.

  “I’m here!” she cries, her eyes darting around wildly. I will later find out she has been paralyzed from the waist down since the age of twelve—clearly she had no qualms about leaving her life behind.

  Nigel retrieves Rose, carries her to the cart, and props her up on pillows. He will carry her everywhere after she’s Changed.

  “Do I have to leave my wheelchair?” asks Rose.

  I can imagine what she’s feeling. The chair’s her freedom. Plus it’s probably expensive. I don’t see how leaving it to rot in the woods will do anybody any good.

  “Couldn’t you use the parts for something?” I ask Nigel.

  “What parts?”

  “The motor?”

  “We’ve got no need for motors,” he says.

  Unable to help myself, I snort with derision. I have little nostalgia for a world with no flush toilets, no screens to keep the mosquitoes out, no hot showers.

  “You’ll get used to it,” says Nigel.

  I won’t be here long enough to get used to it, I want to say. Instead I try and appear jaded. The truth is, I know more about this world than Nigel 581 ever will. I know all about the brutal control behind this pastoral simplicity.

  I wonder how Isaura will appear to my fellow Changed. Will they notice the small differences that set the two places apart? The way the grass in Isaura is more blue than green? The way the sky has a lavender cast? The way the air seems thicker, stuffed with more molecules? All of this I have forgotten until now.

  Four more immigrants arrive that day: Jerome and Jesse, co-joined twins who are fused at the chest; Michael, who weighs five hundred and eight pounds; and a girl named Emma, who has xeroderma pigmentosum, a hypersensitivity to ultraviolet light.

  Once we’re all settled in the wagon, Nigel clucks to the horses and we begin to move. A strange restlessness throbs inside me. It’s like I’ve grown a second heart, one for each world I’ve lived in. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Two hearts might come in handy if one of them fails. Then again, two hearts will mean twice the heart-break.