“Maybe?”
“You’ve never told me about this before,” Angie says. “Not so explicitly. You’ve talked of getting tired, but not of passing out.”
“Because it’s not that big a deal?”
“Wait—did you say you had a vision, Marlena?” Helen asks before Angie can say anything else. “What prompted it?”
I pull the blanket from the couch and drape it around my shoulders. Angie touches a panel on the wall and the vents stop working. “It was the MRI machine. I had my hand on it, and, I don’t know, I responded almost like it was a person in need of healing, except I started seeing all the people who’d ever been inside it, and what was going on in their brains. It was a lot to take in. So, eventually I passed out, I guess?” Angie is opening each of the windows in her office.
“I really wish you’d let me see inside your brain,” she says. “And not just because I’m curious about you. It worries me that you’re passing out.”
I wave her off. “This is just another day in the life of a healer. I swear.” Something occurs to me. “Um, where’s Finn? He wasn’t around to witness my dramatic collapse?”
Angie looks away suddenly. “No. He had somewhere to be this afternoon.”
As much as I want to see Finn, I’m relieved he wasn’t here to find me crumpled on the ground, skirt hiked who knows how high, my face slack.
Helen is staying at a safe distance. Like she’s afraid to touch me again, like my fainting and talk of visions reminded her of who I am. “You really are okay?”
I nod.
“All right.” To Angie she says, “Call me and we’ll set up that time to talk. I’m going to take Marlena out for a big meal, since I think she needs one.”
“I agree.” Angie stares at me hard. “Marlena, promise you’ll think about an MRI soon. Not for my sake, for yours. For your health.”
“Sure,” I say as though I’m really considering it, as though it’s no big deal. But as Helen and I are walking toward the exit, a rolling shiver passes over my body. I can’t bring myself to look in the direction of that big white tunnel that has the power to reveal all the secrets of the mind.
THIRTEEN
Helen takes a call on her phone after we arrive in town and get out of the car.
“Sorry,” she mouths. “I have to take this. Give me ten, fifteen minutes?”
I nod, and wander along the sidewalk of Main Street to kill time. A weird sensation stirs. Not like a vision. More like déjà vu, or when a place you know well suddenly seems unfamiliar, like if you leave your house and come back and someone has rearranged the furniture, but only a little. It takes me a minute to pinpoint what’s different. It’s seeing Gertie that does it.
She’s standing in the doorway of her shop, like always. The kite in the window is gone, replaced by long-sleeved T-shirts emblazoned with an image of me as a baby surrounded by a glowing halo, my tiny fist reaching, one finger outstretched. Next to it is something else I’ve never seen before. A doll, maybe a foot and a half tall, on a shelf. It’s made to look like me in one of the wedding gowns I wore at a healing. I recognize the dress from an audience last year.
It was an unusual audience, because it went on for hours longer than normal and I’d healed forty people instead of my usual six or seven. It caused a sensation, both for the sheer number of people I cured and also because I collapsed at the end of it. It wasn’t the first time I ever fainted, but the only time this has happened during an audience. The people present for my marathon healing began to call it the Day of Many Miracles. Word spread and the anniversary is coming up in October. My mother has been preparing for triple the number of people and tourists as usual.
Maybe that’s why this doll has appeared, with a perfect miniature replica of that dress. Gertie and the rest of the town plan to make money from the anniversary.
Of course they do.
A burning starts across my skin. Splotches of color dot my vision and all I can see are the rocks that pepper the garden lining the sidewalk. The urge to take one of those rocks into my palm and shatter Gertie’s window rises as the burning spreads deeper and hotter. I want to break the doll into a million pieces. I crouch down, push my head between my knees, and try to breathe slowly.
“Honey, are you all right?” Gertie asks.
I let out another long breath before I stand up again. When I turn to Gertie, I realize what is out of place. She doesn’t recognize me. She’s looking at me like I might be anyone, some tourist girl who wandered off from her parents. “Do you need me to call someone, sweetheart? Your mother?”
The burning I felt before retreats like a cool cloth across my skin. “Sorry. No. I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” I stare at her, unable to believe she doesn’t know that it’s me. A giddiness bubbles into my throat.
It’s my outfit.
The blue sundress. The sandals. The thin cardigan sweater I shrugged over my shoulders so I wouldn’t feel so bare, and that swallows me in a way Helen swore was both fashionable and practical after my fainting spell. The oversized movie-star sunglasses Helen lent me in the car, so big they practically cover the top half of my face. The fact that my long hair is pulled up into a high knot.
I look like a regular girl. Like I could be anybody.
Like I might be nobody. Nobody special.
But Gertie is looking at me strangely now, and I can’t decide if it’s because I am acting strangely or if I am starting to seem familiar and she’s trying to place me.
“I’m fine. Really.” I hurry off before it dawns on Gertie she’s talking to the real version of that stupid doll in her window.
I continue down Main Street. People pass by like it isn’t me they are seeing. Like they can’t see me at all. Like I’m not worth noticing.
Is this all it takes to become anonymous? To be free?
A pair of sunglasses? A sundress? A topknot?
I glance behind me. In the distance, Helen is still on the phone, waving her hand in the air, as though the person she’s talking to can see her. I veer a little, like I might be drunk. One after the other, the souvenir shops of the town appear and recede. I am tempted to enter, to see what else people are hawking in my name, something I don’t usually do. But I don’t want to press my luck and risk someone recognizing me, bringing this unexpected reprieve to an end. The ice cream shop appears on my right and I can’t resist. I duck inside and the cool air makes me shiver.
I’ve always wanted to go out for ice cream, to visit this place not as me, but as a person in the mood for a treat. The bell on the door rings as I enter, but Mrs. Lewis, the owner, is engrossed in her magazine. Some of the ice cream flavors are fluorescent in color, others more muted. There are the normal ones, like strawberry and chocolate. But some of the names have a theme.
Miracle Mash and Healing Hazelnut.
Espresso Ecstasy and Raspberry Rapture.
Visionary Vanilla.
Whatever. I don’t care. It’s not as though I’m surprised the flavors are like everything else in this town. This is my hour off from being Marlena the Healer and I’m going to enjoy it.
Mrs. Lewis must sense a customer, because she looks up. “Would you like to try anything?” She takes a pink spoon from a cup that is full of them, ready for me to direct her to a flavor I want to taste.
“Sure,” I say slowly, surveying the possibilities. There are so many and they all look so good. “How about . . . Miracle Mash.” I have to cover my mouth to stop from giggling. I have a secret. Anonymity, I decide, is my new best friend.