The Girl with the Wrong Name

by Barnabas Miller

  “I’m at the shelter. I’m in Room Nine.”

  “What are you talking about? You were supposed to stay in my—”

  “I remember everything now. I remember them lying together in that bed. I remember him crushing the life out of her, choking her till she couldn’t breathe.”

  Now I can’t breathe.

  “He just ripped them apart,” he says. “He ripped them all to pieces, and no one’s ever going to find them. They’ve fallen through the cracks. They’re all buried under the floor, burning.”

  “Who’s burning?”

  “We can’t let it happen to another girl, Theo. Do you understand? Tell me you understand.”

  “No, I don’t understand.”

  “We can’t let it happen to another girl. That’s why it has to burn.”

  In panic, I rise up from the floor. “Andy, whatever you’re doing, stop.” I’m done with the whispers. They don’t matter if he’s doing what I think he’s doing.

  “It’s what has to happen, Theo. You know it, too. You know this is what happens.”

  “Andy, listen to me, don’t! Please, just don’t!”

  He’s gone silent. So has the processional music. I spin around and see three hundred pairs of accusatory eyes. Emma has stepped out into the chapel room. And of course, there’s that other pair of eyes—closer, uncomprehending, deep blue—trying to figure out what has happened to his friend.

  I wish I could explain it all to Max, but now is not the time. Right now, I need to do what I’ve always done. I run.

  Andy is silent on the cab ride over; the line of communication appears to be severed. But there’s no smoke billowing from K.O.P.’s windows, thank God. I smack the dusty buzzer five times—

  Delores opens up. She looks alarmed and opens her mouth to say something, but I push past her, sniffing for fumes in the lobby. Nothing yet. Just the pungent odor of fresh paint. Mac isn’t at his security station. Maybe he’s at the wedding? It doesn’t matter—it gives me a straight shot through the lobby without breaking my stride.

  “Helena forgot her glasses!” I holler at Delores. I doubt Helena wears glasses, and I doubt Delores cares, but I’m through to the dorms. The rooms fly past as if in a countdown: thirteen, twelve, eleven . . .

  “Andy!” I shout. “I’m here!” I give my deadened legs one last push and burst through the door of Room Nine. “Stop it!”

  The room is empty.

  I’m not sure how long I stand there. My lungs are heaving; I’m dizzy; my feet are killing me in these shoes. But Room Nine hasn’t changed since the last time I was here. It’s the same dismal, empty shell: stained twin mattress, desk, dresser, mirror on the wall, that ugly blue throw rug on the floor. A mournful excuse for light trickles in from the tiny barred window by the ceiling.

  There are no signs of Andy, no signs of any fire.

  But I feel that weight again. First in my chest, then in my head, then in my quivering legs. The ceiling is threatening to come down, to smother me and everyone else here.

  They’re all buried under the floor, burning.

  I turn to the floor, and my eyes fix on the blue rug—the one thing that made this room different from Helena’s.

  I bend over to take a closer look. There are thick metal staples all along its edges. It’s fastened to the floor. I drop to my knees and dig my fingers under the edges, using the strength I have left to rip it loose, staple by staple. The feedback grows louder in my ear with each violent tug. It is a deafening assault by the time I toss the rug aside.

  I almost expect to find a trapped door.

  I don’t. But I see why someone wanted this patch of floor covered. It is pockmarked with tiny stains—messy droplets, almost black. Dried blood? There is a sea of wild scratches in the wood, vicious and unhinged. But floating in the middle of that sea is a group of scratches clear enough to form words.

  My name is not Sarah. My nam

  I remember what Helena said. She said some of the girls didn’t even give their real names when they came to K.O.P. She said Mr. Wyatt gave them temp names. Like stray dogs at the pound . . .

  “Are you pure?” Andy whispers in my ear.

  I stiffen. “Andy!” I shout. “Where are you?”

  “Are you pure?” he asks again.

  “What do you mean? Andy, if you’re here, just tell me what the hell is going on! Who is Sarah? What happened to her?”

  As soon as I’m done yelling, I hear shuffling in the hallway: doors opening, the sound of murmuring female voices. That was not smart.

  I hear a man shouting from the lobby. “Which way did she go, Delores?” his deep voice demands. It isn’t Mac.

  “To Helena’s room, I think?” Delores calls back, uncertain. “I thought she was authorized, no?”

  “It’s fine.” The voice is closer now.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wyatt,” Delores calls to him.

  Mr. Wyatt? He followed me here from his own wedding?

  “Down that hall,” Wyatt calls out. “Room Ten.”

  “This way?” another voice asks.

  The color drains from my face. That voice I know. It belongs to Tyler.

  “Yeah,” Wyatt calls back. “I’m right behind you.”

  I pull off my shoes and scurry out of the room, away from the lobby, past two more wide-eyed girls peeking through their doors, past a dilapidated TV room, and mercifully find a back stairwell. The office, I think desperately. Wyatt’s office is on the second floor. If Andy can get in through that window, then I can get out.

  “She’s taking the stairs,” Wyatt calls out. “This way.”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  They’re gaining on me, and all I can think about is that disgusting phrase. Are you pure? It makes me so nauseated and dizzy that I trip on the landing between the two floors and double over. I’m going to puke all over the steps.

  Breathe, I tell myself. Keep moving.

  I straighten up and try to climb the second story, but pain seizes my stomach like I’ve swallowed another shard of glass. I collapse on the landing, shrinking into the fetal position as my eyes tear up. The stairwell door opens beneath me. Determined footsteps come pounding up the steps. And then I can feel him hovering over me.

  “Jesus, Theo, what happened?”

  Lester Wyatt’s deep voice. Talking to me as if I know him. I look up through watery eyes. His face . . . I know it, but I don’t. I swipe the tears away, but he’s still a blur. Alien but familiar. Like someone I once knew. Like if I were beamed into the past, I’d know every inch of his face by heart.

  The room grows brown around the edges, flickering out like a dying bulb.

  “Theo?” His voice calls to me from further away, cutting in and out with the light. “Theo, can you hear me?”

  I try to force myself to stay conscious for one last look. I take in his crow’s-feet, the creases in the forehead . . . and that’s when the face clicks.

  His name falls from my lips as I watch him fade to black. “Andy?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The rumble of the road wakes me before I open my eyes. I slowly pull my eyelids apart and see lights of the city race past through a car window. I’m in a car. A nice car. The seats are plush leather. A Mercedes, maybe? In the front passenger seat.

  I catch a fleeting glimpse of a street sign. East Houston. I press my palms deep into my aching eye sockets. Then I turn and see his hands on the steering wheel. (Yes, it is a Mercedes.) I follow along the sleeves of his tuxedo jacket, past his broad shoulders, past his black bow tie, and finally to his face.

  The ski-slope nose, but with fewer freckles. The blond hair, but shorter and darker and more conservative. The perfect skin, but not so vibrant and smooth. The chestnut eyes, but housed inside lids that have taken more stress and strain. Eyes that have since lost their boyish beauty.

/>   The boy is gone. Now there’s only the man. Andy Reese, nine or ten years into the future.

  Is that where I am? Is that what this is?

  “Is this the future?” I’m in such a fog I actually ask the question aloud—to myself or to him, I don’t even know.

  “She finally wakes,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road. His smile is the exact same, even with those faint little lines around his mouth. But the voice is deeper now, with less of the Texan twang. “How’s your head?” he asks. “I think you took a pretty bad bump when you hit the floor. What were you doing there? Why did you run to K.O.P.?”

  A bump on the head? Could that explain it? I’m Dorothy, and the black interior of this Mercedes is my Oz? East Houston Street is my yellow brick road? Strange Future Andy is my Scarecrow, scaring the shit out of me? But why? Why would I dream Andy as an older man? Why would I turn him into Lester Wyatt?

  No. Never mind all that “am-I-dreaming?” crap. People know when they’re awake and they know when they’ve been dreaming. Confusing the two is just an excuse for David Lynch movies and stoner conversations at a late-night Denny’s.

  “Theo?” He shoots another glance at me, his grip tightening on the wheel. “How are we doing over there? You want to tell me why you ran back to the shelter? You want to talk about it?”

  “Back?” I mumble. I rub my throbbing temples. “I’m sorry, I don’t . . . I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay. I know there’s been way too much drama today. It’s been a hellish day for us all.”

  “No, I mean you. Who are you? Delores called you Mr. Wyatt, but you look just like . . . Why are you so old?”

  His eyes widen. “I’m thirty,” he says, sounding offended. “That is not old. Anyway, you look a hell of a lot older than the last time I saw you.”

  “When was that?”

  His laugh dies off. “You don’t remember?”

  Static suddenly invades my left ear. “Theo . . . Theo, can you . . . me?”

  It’s Andy. The real Andy—I think? Finally speaking to me again. Our FaceTime call never dropped. My earpiece is still lodged in my ear. I didn’t lose it when I hit the floor. My button cam is still feeding video to Andy’s phone. He can still see what I see.

  “Theo, you need to get out of that car. You need to get out right now. That’s him. That’s the face I couldn’t remember. Lester Wyatt, just like I told you. He’s sick in the head.”

  “Andy?” I press down on the earpiece. “Andy, where are you?”

  “I’m right here,” Wyatt says gently. “I’m right here, Theo.”

  “No, not you. Andy.”

  “I’m Andy,” Wyatt says, half amused and half concerned.

  I shake my head and try to back away in the seat, but I’m strapped in. The back of my head bumps the window. “No, you look like Andy, but you’re Lester Wyatt.”

  “Right. Lester Andrew Wyatt.”

  “Lester Andrew . . . ?”

  “You think I would have made it through puberty if I’d gone by Lester?” he says. “No way. My life would have been at least twenty percent shittier.”

  “Theo, listen to me—”

  “Shut up, Andy!” I yell into my collar. “You’re the one who was talking about burning the place down!”

  Wyatt slams on the brakes, veering to a screeching halt on Elizabeth Street. My neck nearly snaps as I’m thrown forward against my seat belt and back against the seat.

  For an excruciating moment, all is still. I stare at Lester Wyatt or Future Andy or whoever the hell he is. He turns off the ignition and closes his eyes. His jaw twitches. He takes a deep breath, opens his eyes, and turns to me. “I wanted to talk to you alone, because I really thought we could share something today. Just you and me. But you’re obviously not well. You’re obviously having a problem separating reality from fantasy.”

  “No, the only problem I have is you,” I whisper. “I can’t explain you.”

  “You can’t ‘explain’ me?” He squints. “You mean, like how old I am? Is that what you can’t explain?”

  My silence is the only answer he needs. A layer of sweat dribbles down my neck, dampening the back of my dress.

  “Theo, what year is this?” he asks.

  I know the answer. It’s 2015. Of course, it’s 2015. But I still have a seed of doubt. No, it’s more than a seed. There’s a whole cloud of doubt drizzling rain into the cracks and the gutters in my head. I can see it in his haughty, silver-flecked eyes: If I give him the wrong answer, he’ll think I’m crazy. He’ll think I’m the one that’s sick in the head. It’s almost like he wants me to give him the wrong answer.

  “Jesus, just answer him!” Andy pleads. “Answer him and get out.”

  “Theo, I’m not trying to upset you, all right?” Wyatt forces my eyes to meet his. “Just give me a year.”

  “Just tell him it’s 2003 and get out of the car!”

  “What?” I breathe into my collar.

  “Just tell me what year it is,” Wyatt repeats.

  “Jesus, Theo, how far gone are you? It’s 2003. The year is 2003.”

  “No, Andy. No, it’s not.”

  “What’s not?” Wyatt asks. “You know what? Let’s forget about the year.”

  He reaches for his seat belt. Dread overcomes me, and I take my chance. I flip up the lock, tug the lever and swing open the door.

  My bare feet can only last until Mulberry Street. I find an alcove under a front stoop and climb down the steps, balling myself up, hiding myself away—from Andy, from the world at large. For the very first time in my life, I think I might be legitimately insane. Is Andy so far gone that he thinks it’s 2003? Or am I so far gone that I don’t know it’s 2003? Or maybe . . .

  Crouched in this damp corner, rocking back and forth, I can’t help but think of all those nights in my room, huddled in the exact same position, listening to the Beatles over and over. “Number nine . . . number nine . . .”

  I think of all the overwhelming emptiness in that room, the bone-rattling pressure, the lack of oxygen, like some kind of black hole. But maybe not a black hole. Maybe a wormhole? Maybe I’m the one who’s fallen through the cracks? I’ve fallen through a crack in time, a tiny crevice where two timelines overlap—where eighteen-year-old Andy and thirty-year-old Andy coexist. Because he is Andy—the man I just escaped, Lester Andrew Wyatt. He’s not a dream, he’s not the Scarecrow, he’s not an impossibly identical older brother or anything other than the same man. The boy and the man: two separate people, but one and the same.

  I pull my phone from my dress pocket, but gently, keeping it plugged into the button cam. “Andy? Andy, are you still there?” No reply. “Andy, you saw his face, I know you did. You keep saying he’s the one that did it, but he’s you, can’t you see that? Help me understand it.”

  Dead silence.

  I open my browser and type in “Lester Andrew Wyatt.”

  The first hit is a website for K.O.P. The second is Wyatt and Emma’s wedding announcement. The third is something I very much wish I’d seen seven days ago.

  HEROIC TEEN LOSES GIRLFRIEND IN FIRE

  It’s an article from The New York Times, dated Monday, September 2, 2003.

  Heroic teen . . .

  I remember something Helena said about Mr. Wyatt at the bridesmaids’ party: “It’s totally true what everyone says about him. He really is an honest-to-God hero, you know?”

  The article’s microscopic text starts at the bottom of the page, but the near-full-screen photo tells me the whole story.

  It’s a photo of Andy Reese, perched on the back of an ambulance. An EMT is draping a gray blanket over his shoulders as he stares into a sea of black smoke. It’s my Andy Reese, the Lost Boy. In a picture from twelve years ago. Even on a four-inch screen, the look in his eyes breaks my
heart. It’s like I’m there with him, feeling all his pain as he stares at that burning building.

  That fire must have taken her life.

  Sarah is gone. Long gone. She died in 2003, I know it in my heart. But Andy doesn’t know it. He still hasn’t let her go. He’s still trying to find her.

  Never mind all my time-traveler nonsense. I think I know what he is now.

  I scroll down to pinch open the article, but droplets of water splash across the screen. I cover it and look up to the sky for signs of rain, but it’s a clear and cloudless night. Of course it’s not rain. I should know that by now. It’s not the thick layer of sweat on my face, either. The droplets are my tears. I wipe the screen and my eyes with the hem of my dress.

  “There you are.”

  Lester Andrew Wyatt stands over me, at the top of the tiny staircase. He’s taken off his bow tie and unbuttoned his collar. Aside from that, his tux is as crisp as ever. He must have ditched the car and chased after me on foot.

  I stare at all the changes in his face. This man has seen so much more than the boy I know. His eyes have lost all of Andy’s innocence. In that moment, I know I believe Andy. My Andy. But then, wasn’t he the one I heard whispering those nauseating words?

  Are you pure?

  My brain is beginning to fry. This is all too much. There are too many pieces that don’t fit, too many pieces that break the rules of logic and reason.

  Wyatt reaches down to me. “Come on, Theo, let’s get you back in the car, okay?”

  I nod and allow him to help me out of the hole I’ve crawled into.

  Then I whirl and kick him, barefoot, in the crotch.

  As he doubles over, I sprint down the street. I’ll find a bus. I’ll find a cab driver who won’t be scared off by a scar-faced, barefoot Elvis impersonator in drag. I’ll tell him to take me to the only safe place I know.

  When Max opens the door, I fall right into his arms. If my incessant pounding (not to mention another disappearance) bothers him, he chooses not to show it.

  “Oh, God, Thee.” He tightens his embrace as I bury my scarred cheek in his chest. He’s still wearing his dress shirt and pants, but the tie with half of my face on it is thankfully long gone.