There was the shoulder-length brown hair, green eyes, light brown skin, a turban wrapped around my head. Beside that face was my porcelain white skin, brown eyes, my black hair pulled into a topknot with a Sangtugwan to hold it in place. Beside that face, there was me with dark brown skin, brown eyes, my head shaved, and war beads around my neck. Followed by the version of me that had white skin, a thick beard, and blonde hair that was braided at the top of my head and shaved at the sides and stained with the tribal ink. The longer I stared, the more faces I saw—my faces. In different eras, it was never-ending.
Raising my fist—
“Malachi?”
I froze, my fist hovering in front of the glass. Dropping it I stripped down and changed into the jeans and the black long-sleeve shirt he’d gotten me.
“I need to go for a ride to clear my head,” I said as I opened the bathroom. There were two doctors dressed in their white coats who were standing beside him.
“They wanted to check on you before you get discharged,” Alfred said as he tossed the keys to my motorcycle at me. “And before you ask no one else rode it, I had it delivered here on the backs of angels.”
“Perfect and I’m fine,” I said catching the keys before I bent down to put on my boots which were by the door.
“Mr. Lord, when you came in we ran an MRI scan on you—”
“Do I have a tumor?” I asked as I tied my laces.
“No, we—”
“Was my brain bleeding?”
“No—”
Rising I stood looking at the two men who stood in front of me. “So why am I not being discharged?”
“Mr. Lord, if you’d let us explain—”
“My brain lights up like a Christmas tree.”
They looked back at each other than at me. “You know this?” The older of the two of them asked.
“Doctor, I’m sure Mr. Noëlle has given you my full medical history and in so doing you’ll note that I was in and out of hospitals quite frequently as a child. Nothing is wrong with me.” Nothing medicine could help anyway.
“Have you ever thought about trying to figure out why this happens?”
“Nope. And I prefer to not be a lab rat while you and every other doctor try to figure it out,” I replied and nodded at Alfred as I moved to the door.
I needed to get back home. The longer I stayed out like this the greater the chance of running into her became. She could have been anyone. A patient, a doctor…anyone. I’d gone to the grocery store because I wanted steak. Of course it was the primal need for food which had put me in this situation.
“Just because you’ve lived a thousand lives does not mean you get to be rude,” Alfred muttered.
“Allow me to be rude, if not this curse comes with no perks whatsoever,” I replied as I followed him towards the reception desk. I kept my distance and head down trying to be as invisible as I could be.
“Oh my gosh! Mr. Lord!”
I jumped at the feeling of a small hand on my arm and I instinctively backed away from the woman while doing my best not to look her in the eye. Instead I stared at the duck covered scrubs she wore and focused on the pattern.
“My sisters and I love your books! Will you sign mine?” she asked as she stuck a white covered book out at me.
“No,” I replied stepping away from her and moving toward the exit.
“Mr. Lord is not feeling well at the moment. He was just in a car accident as you may well know so please understand.” I heard Alfred kindly try to cover up for me. But I didn’t care if people called me a horrible person, or if I was being rude, or an asshole. What if I signed her or anyone else’s book and by some twist of fate it managed to be her? Their opinion of me meant little when pit against my life…her life.
Just as I’d made it to the front door and I thought I was free, I found a worn out copy of Sophocles’ Antigone at my feet. I stared at the cover and without thinking I bent down to pick it up. The moment my hand touched it so did hers. My heart stuttered and the scar burned so badly that my eyes hurt.
“Malachi Lord?” She gasped.
I could hear my heartbeat echoing. Releasing the book I tried to escape but she blocked my path.
“Wait! Sorry, I know you must have had people in your face all day but I just wanted to say—”
“Li-Mei?”
Turning at the sound of his voice, I watched as he stood beside me and spoke to…her.
“Mr. Noëlle. Good morning. I’m sorry I forgot you came here too!” she said. “Mr. Lord I just wanted to thank you. You saved my mother today.”
I shouldn’t have but I looked at her in shock. Really looked at her—her blonde hair was pulled into a bun and her brown eyes were filled with tears. It was her? Her mother?
“Your mother?” Alfred asked because I could no longer find the words to speak.
“The woman in the BMW, yeah. I just…thank you. Really. Thank you.” She sniffled quickly and I tried to walk around her but she stepped into my path again. “Have we met before? I swear it’s like a feeling of déjà vu.”
It was her.
The moment I thought it, the pain came back.
Biting back the pain I glared at her. “No, we have not.”
Taking the key out of my pocket I moved around her and towards the dark red motorcycle that sat in the parking lot. I was trying to figure out how to run. How to undo this before it started again? Before Li-Mei realized she hadn’t just met me in this life but in almost a thousand previous lives.
“I refuse to do this again.”
I’d had enough pain. Enough.
4. DREAMERS AND INSOMNIACS + MARY-MARGARET BONDURANT AND FRANCIS
ESTHER
“Do you have any idea what time it is, old man?” I questioned as I flicked on the light as he came into the flat.
“Jesus Christ—ESTHER!” He hollered gripping his chest. “You almost gave me a dang heart attack!”
I couldn’t help but smile. I was not letting him off the hook but I’d always wanted to do that. “Grampa, it’s two a.m.”
“I know, which is why I’m going to crawl into bed…” He yawned the last part as he took off his coat and ascot.
“Oh no you don’t.” I leaped off the seat and ran in front of him before he could move to the stairs. “What happened with Malachi Lord?”
He groaned. “Esther.”
“Grandpa.” I crossed my arms and waited.
“Shouldn’t you be more worried about me? Like helping me to bed or something?”
“You said the moment I helped you to bed would be the last time you ever got out of bed. Which, now that I think about it, is a horrible thing to say to a ten-year-old.”
“Noted.” He nodded as he tried to walk around me again.
“Grandpa, seriously!” I frowned trying to give him my puppy dog eyes while pouting. But he pushed my head back with his index finger.
“That look has no effect when you try so hard. Move it.” His voice much more serious now and so I moved but I didn’t give up.
“Grandpa, you know why I love Malachi Lord’s books?” I asked him and he stopped mid-step to hear me out. I’d never given an explanation before and he’d never asked. “I love them because the pain he puts his characters through allows me to live optimistically. Mom abandoned me before I was even a week old and my father is dead. I continually feel like I’m failing to live up to some obscure greatness, and just as everything is bubbling to the top, just as I start to panic and want to hide away in my room forever, Malachi Lord releases a new book. I read it and reread it, sobbing over the pages, and you know I’m a crybaby, I cry at the most random things, but I never sob, never really weep, until I read his books. Afterward, I take a deep breath and smile, because I get to live on even though the characters died. What am I going to do in the future if Malachi Lord stops writing? Oh, the horror!” I added the last bit as I placed the back of my hand over my forehead and tilted my head upwards like the women in those old Hollywood movies did.
When he didn’t say anything I had to look back at him. He was staring at me with those old brown eyes of his. “Put your hand down.”
I did so immediately and when I did he flicked my forehead.
“Ouch!” I flinched moving back. “Grandpa!’
“Esther.” He mocked me even rocking his head. “What are you going to do in the future if Malachi Lord stops writing? I ought to kick you in the rear. What kind of question is that? You will live like the seven billion other people on this planet and you will be the bringer of your own happiness and optimism. Not a book. Not a man. But you.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “Wait, why am I being lectured? Plus you’re the one who told me to be passionate about the arts.”
“The arts. Plural. Not a single author or book. This is how I know you’re not ready to take over the publishing house. You’d probably turn it into the Malachi Lord foundation. Huh!” He huffed eyeing me up and down before heading up the stairs.
I stood there dumbfounded for a second. Not a single question I’d wanted to ask was answered and worst of all... I got lectured, and the evil eye too, as if I’d done something wrong. My shock shifted to amazement and my amazement to amusement. Nodding to myself, I clapped my hands together and then turned to the stairs.
“One of these days, Grandpa I’m going to…to…to figure whatever it is that you do to make me forget all my questions!” I hollered up at him.
“Good luck!” He yelled back and he laughed so hard he started to cough. But before I could ask if he was alright he shouted, “I’m fine. You gotta be quicker than that.”
“You gotta be quicker than that.” I mocked under my breath making a face at his now closed door.
“I heard that!”
“No way,” I whispered backing up and tiptoeing back to my room. Why was I tiptoeing? God, I was so lame! I could legally drink, get married, and go to war in every country in the world and yet I still felt like a kid playing grown up. With a sigh, I headed back towards my room behind the stairs. I dragged my feet across the bright red Persian rug and crawled into my futon-styled bed opposite the massive windows that overlooked the city.
“Ahhh,” I moaned happily wiggling under the sheets. The downstairs bedroom was meant to be the master bedroom. However, when I was four, I’d always came down to sleep in my grandpa’s room…not on his bed but on my pillow by the window. Every time I was high up on a bed I ended up falling off. When I was ten, a certified big kid, my grandpa gave me his room. And now I could look out at the city lights which looked like stars once I got really sleepy.
Like now… I could feel my eyelids getting heavier when all of sudden the sound of Beethoven’s Für Elise began to play softly. I listened, feeling as if the bed and I were spinning, drifting, floating, and just as it was getting good it stopped and it felt as if I were being abruptly pulled out of the sky by my ankles and back to the ground. Sitting up, I picked up my phone from the wood frame of the bed that was just thick enough to hold my laptop and phone. Looking at the screen I saw that I had not only missed Li-Mei’s call but also her text…
“Are you up?”
“No…because no one but doctors, 911 operators, and cops should be up at this hour. Goodnight,” I replied and no sooner had I leaned back did Beethoven’s Bagatelle start to play again. Groaning I kicked my feet out as I answered.
“You better be dying,” I said into the phone.
“I think I’m in love,” she said, speaking in Mandarin, not English.
“With whom?” I sat up, the idea of sleep was now erased from my mind.
“Guess?”
“I suck at this game just tell me.” I was excited now.
“Fine. But only because I’m excited.” She paused.
“Well?”
“I wanted to let the suspense build.”
Rolling my eyes I laid back down. “You do that but fair warning while the suspense is building I might fall asleep.”
“Fine. Gosh. It’s Malachi Lord.”
I froze, unsure of what to say.
“Silence is not the reaction I was expecting, Esther.”
“Sorry…” I started to drift off but caught myself. “Malachi Lord? As in the author Malachi Lord?”
“New York is a big place but I doubt there are many who share the same.”
She had a point. “I just don’t understand, how can you be—?”
Her laughter cut me off. “Esther you’re so naïve and sweet sometimes it’s funny. Of course I don’t love him. I just mean I have a crush on him. Like a huge heart churning crush. And I’ve been trying to cyberstalk him, you know, to get more information on him, but there isn’t much and your fansite is down.”
It took me a second to process…I really was that tired. It was then that all the questions I’d wanted to ask my grandfather came back into my mind. “Wait. My site is down?!”
I sat up quickly grabbing my laptop again.
“Really your site that’s what you’re worried about I—”
“Li-Mei! It’s not down! You nearly gave me a heart attack! Are you sure you have the right link?”
“Forget about the damn site! My love life is evolving!”
I took a deep breath closing the laptop. “Fine, rewind. You met Malachi Lord today? What happened? What did he say to you? I bet he’s really nice—”
“He’s a total asshole.” She snapped. “And a bit weird…he barely even made eye contact with me. He was like this wounded wolf—if you got too close he’d bite your head off.”
Everything I’d pictured my favorite author to be like had just been incinerated in two sentences. No, wait…
“Well in his defense he did just rescue your mother from a burning car. He was probably just injured and dealing with the stress of it all.”
“Maybe…” She trailed off. “A few nurses were fans and asked for his autograph, apparently he said no and walked away.”
“Well…” I didn’t have an excuse for that one. “Wait, then why do you love him—I mean have a crush on him?”
“Esther,” she said like she couldn’t believe I was asking. “First, he is so handsome. Even more so in person. He’s muscular but not like a meat head, so I guess more fit than muscular. I just wanted to reach out and touch his pecs. Oh, and by the way, he glares with those sultry blue eyes like he knows you know. He’s so handsome he could totally…”
“Secondly?” I cut in before she went down that rabbit hole.
“Oh, right…secondly he saved my mom. And thirdly he saved my mom from a burning car like Superman. And fourthly—”
“Why did you say he saved your mom like it was an afterthought?” I laughed then remembered I hadn’t asked about her mother. “How is she a? Are you in Jersey now with her?”
“Why do you think I’m speaking Mandarin?”
“Li-Mei it is an ungodly time in the morning, does it seem like I’m functioning enough to think right now?”
“I’m speaking in Mandarin,” she went on as if I hadn’t said anything, “so that my mother, who is in her room now, will hear parts of our conversation and be satisfied that I have Chinese friends.”
“Li-Mei…I’m black.”
“She doesn’t know that,” she said it happily and I had to laugh. “Seriously though, you’d think a woman who just had a near death experience would be more worried about herself. Nope! Instead she’s using this as motivation to get me married, because apparently if she died I’d be all alone with my cats who, when I die of old age or of depression or both, will turn on me and start to eat my face because no one would realize that I’d died!”
I held back the laughter that was fighting to break free. With my hand over my mouth I managed to say, “You’re making that up.”
“Oh, that was actually her being kind. When I was twenty-four, we went back to Nanjing in China, for what I thought was a funeral for my uncle…guess what happened?”
“There was no funeral?”
“There
was no uncle!” She hollered and I couldn’t help it.
I laughed so hard the tears rolled down my cheeks.
“No uncle. No funeral. Just my great aunts, my mom’s old friends, their sons and me, for this big, weird matchmaking ceremony.”
“Your mother is a savage.”
She laughed. “Yup, a trait I inherited. Since then I’ve refused to keep my hair black and I only speak English whenever I’m around her in protest. Now is just a treat because she almost died. ”
Are all mother-and-daughter relationships a battle of wills like this?
“Which is why Malachi Lord is also my perfect husband.”
“You’ve lost me again.”
“He has everything I like in my guys—”
“You said he was an ass!”
“Exactly!” she replied and now my head hurt.
Shifting onto my side I sighed and said, “Explain.”
“All girls like bad boys. It’s the truth. Howard is nice and all but oh my god, he’s like a puppy—”
“Hey! Puppies are cute!” I pouted.
“Then why did you break up with him?”
I had no response to that and it was annoying. I had broken up with Howard but that was only because I wasn’t sure what I wanted and I didn’t like the idea of just having him on standby. I didn’t want to jerk him around. However, he, didn’t seem to get it and had simply said that he’d give me space…though he still texted me daily.
“Exactly. Cute is nice but sexy is better.” She gloated. I didn’t need to see her face to know she was probably grinning from ear to ear. “Malachi…he’s not a puppy. He’s got that whole mystery to him. Like why does he live in places like Ho Ho Kus, New Jersey—”
“I’m sorry, where?” I asked thinking my mind hadn’t translated correctly.
“Ho Ho Kus, New Jersey. Let me guess, you haven’t heard of it?
The name rang a bell but I had no idea as to why.
When I didn’t speak she continued. “Yeah I grew up there, the Chihohokies Indian tribe say that Ho Ho or the Hohokes…”