First Edit: Les is Out, Again. (Probably be back in by the time I finish the third draft.)
{“Robin? What are you doing?” Robin isn’t her name and she frowns up at me as I walk over to her.} (You can forget this even existed. Her name is now, and forever will be, Robin.)
"I told you to get ready an hour ago. She’ll be here any time now and you’re lying here drawing . . .” Birds. One draws birds, one draws eyes. There is no accounting.
“I’m bored. I just want this whole thing to get over and done with. Where is she?”
“I’ll be right back.”
I shift quickly. She’s sitting in the car, a half mile down the road. She has pulled to the side and is crying. Again.
At this point I really want to scream. “Knock it off!”
I know she can’t hear me, but I shout in her face anyway. Every second is an eternity to me. So much for promises.
I wait until she wipes her eyes and starts the car, then I shift back to the child. “She’s just down the road. Having another breakdown. She’s fine, now. She’ll be here any minute. Go and get ready.”
“I’ve been ready. Forever.” Brat! She doesn’t know from forever. We could trade places next time. See how she likes it.
She gets up slowly and walks back to the house. Why am I even here? She turns and smiles at me. “Well, come on, silly. We haven’t got all day.” Blue eyes light up the world and I remember why I exist.
I hear the car door slam as soon as we get to the porch. I turn around and she’s standing there. Damn it, but she’s beautiful. Long, sandy-blonde hair, big blue eyes.
“That’s her? I thought you said she was pretty. Pretty average.”
Brat! “Fifteen years, Robin. Fifteen years.”
“I know. I know.”
The child walks down the steps and right up to the woman and puts out her hand. “Hi. My name is Robin Leigh Morgan. Everybody calls me Robin. What does everybody call you?”
The woman looks around. “Everybody calls me a stranger. Since when do little kids talk to strangers. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”
“No. But you’re not a stranger, are you? Les told me you were coming.”
“Les? Who’s Les?”
The child turns and looks up at me. Brat! “He’s my guardian angel. He tells me everything.”
“Imaginary friend. I don’t remember that,” the woman mumbles under her breath.
“Of course not, “ I say. “You’d barely remember your own name if -- never mind!”
“Boy. You really irritate him for some reason.”
“I’m sure he’ll wind up irritating me, also.” She sighs and looks around. “Where is your mother, little girl? You aren’t here alone, are you?”
“Why would I be alone? I’m only six. Plus, didn’t you just hear me say Les is here.”
“Yes. Sure. Now where is your mother?”
The child growls and stamps her foot. “She’s in the kitchen. I’ll go get her.”
“Good girl.” The woman pats the child on the head and I still myself for an explosion that I know won’t come. It’s all shadows and mirrors, after all.
A minute later the child comes to the door, dragging her mother with her.
“See, Mom. I told you we had company.”
“Uh-huh. Sorry,” the mother says, looking down at the car in the driveway. A ’75 Mustang convertible. Cherry red and dusty and driven in circles for two thousand miles, but still a beautiful automobile. “I didn’t hear you drive up. I was in the back doing dishes.”
The woman walks up the steps and touches the mother on the arm. “My name is Leigh Gold and I need to talk to you about something very important.”
The child walks up to me and says, “What is she, a door to door salesman? Who talks like that?”
I shake my head. “It’s not her fault. She’s been rehearsing this day for a couple of years. She just needs to relax.”
The two women walk inside and I move to follow them.
“Wait! What are you going to do, now?”
“I’m going to go and watch this conversation and hope things go well. You go to your room. I’ll come get you when it’s time to go. Or before, if I need you to prevent disaster.”
“There could be a disaster?”
“Knowing you? Anything is possible.”
“Hey!”
I ignore her and shift into the kitchen where the two women are already sitting.
The mother is staring at the other one, almost as if she recognizes her. I take a deep breath and wait for the inevitable.
“Do I know you from somewhere? You look very familiar.”
The silence is cloying. I think for a minute about going and getting the brat.
“There’s a reason I look familiar. We’re related.”
She did not just say that. What is her plan here? I’m looking hard at her now and I suddenly realize what her plan is -- The truth.
“What I’m going to tell you is impossible to believe. I’m sitting here and I barely believe it. If I hadn’t lived it for the past seven years I wouldn’t believe it.” She’s hyperventilating and I’m suddenly afraid that she won’t get through it.
“Okay. What is it?”
“Seven years ago, In ’68, I woke up in a motel room in California. I had an id that said my name was Robin Leigh Morgan and that I was 24 years old. I wasn’t sure if any of that was true. I had memories of something else, but nothing that I could really focus on. I had five hundred dollars and a suitcase full of clothes. I didn’t know where I was or what I was going to do.”
‘Too much information,’ I mutter. ‘Just get on with it!’
“I felt like I was losing my mind. I hid the money and walked up and down the beaches all day. When I got back to the motel that afternoon my mind was a little clearer. I remembered who I was, or who I thought I was and I realized that something strange had happened to me. Maybe something miraculous.”
“You have my daughter’s name. I don’t understand.”
I stare at the mother. ‘Look closely for two minutes. Pay attention!’
“Mom! I am your daughter. It’s me, Robin. I don’t know how to explain it, but I’m here. Maybe it’s not exactly me. Maybe I’m from somewhere else, but somewhere not far away. I know you. I know this place.”
“Okay. Get out!” The mother is shaking. Shit! Disaster! I start to shift but Leigh stands up and shouts, “I know everything that’s going to happen in your life! I know about your father! I know about your husband! I don’t know how I got here, but I know why I’m here! I’m here to save . . .” She stops. How do you say the impossible? “The child!” Not bad. “I’m here to save Robin! I’m here to make sure she has a better life. She’ll have a good life with my husband and I! If I leave her here, which I won’t do, she’ll never have anything. This family is cursed. All of you.”
What the Hell? What is all this about a curse? Where did she get this crap? But there’s a flash in the mother’s eyes. ‘Hold on! It’s working! Keep going.!’
“Somehow, someone or something is trying to break the curse. Maybe they’re using me to do it. I don’t know for sure. But I know I can save her! And maybe I can save you, too.” She slips the bag she’s been carrying off her shoulder and puts it on the table. “Open it.”
The mother looks down at the bag. “What is it?”
“Open it and find out.”
She reaches down and unzips the top of the bag. There’s a large stack of money and she looks away for a second.
“There are fifty bundles in that bag. Each one is a thousand dollars. That’s fifty thousand dollars. There will be another one just like that every year for the rest of your life. Fifty thousand dollars a year. You can go anywhere, do anything. Just sign these papers and let me take her with me. You’ll never be able to give her what we can. She’ll be safe and happy. She won’t be either, not ever, if I leave her here.”
“What do you know about anything?! You can’t know anything! You’re just some crazy woman who’s walked into my home and tried to buy my child! I can have you arrested. I’ll call the cops!”
“From where? Down the hill at Uncle Jacob’s! What do I know?! I know your father is a monster! I know your husband is a violent drunk and dope dealer. I know you’re going to wind up ruining your daughter’s life! What the Hell don’t I know?!”
Minutes later the two women are still sitting in silence, tears falling uselessly down both of their faces. I hate waiting. I’ve had to learn to deal with it, but I hate it. I shift to the child.
She’s sitting on her bed, crying. Of course she heard everything. Half of Alabama could hear that woman shouting.
“What is it?”
“Why is she yelling at my Mom? I don’t like yelling!”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“Because I’m upset!”
I sit down beside her and put my arms around her. “Sometimes people yell to make other people listen. I yell at you sometimes, don’t I? When I think you’re not paying attention.”
She sniffs. “I guess.”
“She’s just trying to make sure your mother is paying attention. It’s very important that she pays attention. More important than you can imagine.”
She hugs me and I stand up. “You do have your things ready. We’ll be leaving soon.”
“What if Mommy won’t let us go?”
“She will. We’re not going to take no for an answer.”
“We who?”
I smile back at her. “We -- you and I, are going to stay here for a little bit and wait until they reach a decision, or until my head explodes. That shouldn’t be long, now. Then we’ll know what to do. There’s always something to do.”
“I hope so.”
So do I.
An eternity and a half passes while I sit and stare at the child. She’s drawing, again. More birds. What is the point to all the birds?
Suddenly the mother is standing at the door, wiping furiously at half-dried tears.
“Robin, sweetheart. This is your -- cousin, Leigh. You are going to go and stay with her and her family for awhile. Out in California. Won’t that be fun.”
“Sure, Mommy. I’m all packed.”
“What?” The mother looks at the little girl as if she is just seeing her for the first time.
“I’ve been ready since yesterday. Les told me she was coming.”
Both women look in my direction and I’d almost swear they can see me. They can’t of course. But they do suddenly almost believe in me.
“Just tell your mother goodbye, Robin. I’ll be waiting outside.” I say, very softly, as if somehow the women might hear me.
“Okay.”
I start to shift, but change my mind and walk through Leigh as I’m heading outside. She shivers and I laugh.
“Boy, Les really doesn’t like you very much,” the brat says, dissolving the moment. I glare at her and she sticks her tongue out. Shaking my head I walk outside, but I notice the look on Leigh’s face. Maybe a memory that she shouldn’t have. Good for her.
I shift back and forth from the door of the house to the car several times while the brat hugs and kisses her mother and says an interminable goodbye and I contemplate finding a way to blow up the car. Did I mention I hate waiting?
