Silly Girl (6 page)

Making her recoil, the man caressed her cheek with a bony finger.

But just as quickly—startling Amanda—the hand fell away, rising toward its own lifeless visage. Gripping the flesh behind his ear, he proceeded to peel off his face. Amanda was horrified! The face came away like paper. It took her a minute to realize it was nothing more than a carnival mask. Underneath, she was just as surprised to see her ageless polar bear. It was Wesley in disguise. He dropped the mask to the floor.

“God, it’s hot under that thing,” he said, taking a deep breath.

Her jaw would’ve hit the floor if not for the gag. Instead, Amanda’s eyes grew double in size. She hopped up and down in the chair with excitement. Wesley cautioned she might dismantle the legs and go sprawling, if she weren’t careful. He did not come all the way into death to mend a broken hip, he’d said.

Amanda made a gagging, whining sound. To her surprise, she noticed the other monsters had disappeared.

“
Jeez,”
Wesley said, irritated. “Why do they have to tie people up all of the time? You think they’d get tired of it! And a gag in your mouth! I bet that tastes fresh!”

Wesley, being the courteous polar bear he was, untied the gag, and threw it—disgusted—on the floor. He untied the ropes binding her hands and feet.

In the second she was free, Amanda Dear threw her arms around Wesley’s neck. She kissed him repeatedly, not giving him air to breathe.

“You taste like gasoline,” he said.

She smiled.
“Please,
Wesley, tell me this is the end,” Amanda Dear said. She was exhausted. “I don’t think I can take another
second!
I’m cracking
up
in this place!”

“Well, we’ve still got to run to the diner and pick up and order for Joe. He’s a good guy. You’ll like him. Then, there’s the baby shower at the Hilton’s. Charlene will be there with Rebecca. But I wanted to go out with the guys tonight, and I didn’t think you’d mind. The Angels are playing the Demons tonight on channel seven. We’ve got it all lined up at Michael’s Bar and Grille. And then, I thought we’d go out for ice cream. Butterscotch Ripple still your favorite?”

Same old Wesley.

“God, I missed you,” she said. She kissed him again.

“Ah, they always do that,” he said. “Something about appreciating it more. I think it’s a waste of time and a crock of shit myself. But hey,
I’m
just a security guard.”

Amanda paused, cocking her head. She furrowed her brows. “I don’t understand,” she said. “All this…I can’t remember much of anything. I think about you, or thought I did, but something about it…something told me none of it was real—what I remembered about you. That can’t be, can it?”

Wesley shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what you are,” he said, as if she’d just caught the joke. “You did that all the time in life, but you’re not pulling that crap here, missy.”

Amanda Dear, throwing a tantrum, stomped her feet. “Would you quit being so secretive and just tell me what the
hell
is going on?”

Wesley took his time replying, putting on a serious face. “If that’s the nicest way you can talk to me, you can just forget Butterscotch Ripple, young lady. I’m not running a day care here! You see any kids running around?”

“Wesley!”

Wesley laughed loud and heartily. “Let’s see,” he said, putting a finger to his chin. He gazed upward. “If I can access grilled-cheese sandwiches and
still
be the polar bear…that would make
you…”

It took Amanda all of her control not to slug him. Wesley continued, however, putting the jokes aside, and told her the truth the only way he knew how:

“You were, I like to think of, as the silly girl. That’s a compliment by the way. I was never there, Amanda Dear. Not in the life you had. You knew that all along. Those moments weren’t real, not with me, the cocoa, the snow, the thunderclouds, even the sandwiches. But
you
thought they were. You
made
them real. It didn’t matter what they were to anyone else as long as they were real to
you.
I was just an idle whim, a fancy in the span of seconds. To you, they might’ve been longer. ‘Out of hope, out of desperation, with the hope of knowing you are always with me. Dream beautiful.’ You said that to me once at a hot dog stand. You don’t remember, do you?”

“Am I supposed to?” she said.

Amanda Dear was deeply troubled, trying to piece it all together. She looked into the night sky, thinking, trying to understand how Wesley had been a beautiful imagined memory, and the others, such real nightmares. She turned to her polar bear.
They
had been real, and Wesley had
not?
Wasn’t that a bit cruel?

But wait! If she
changed
it…if she
reversed
it…

“See,” he explained, “the funny thing about
you
is there was one reality and something else altogether. Fantasy, I guess. Personally, I’d use another name for it, but hey, this is
your
death. The one reality that people—your mother, for example—denied. She told you to focus on the other, but you didn’t accept it. You believed in what you dreamed, what you imagined. You
made
the fantasy real, Amanda girl. A lot of people do not possess that particular talent. But
you
do. Everything was unfair in your life, the way your mother treated you, your relationships. Even death was unfair, but not
completely.
The belief you had in your vision gave you more power than you realized. The dreams and fancies that you have are what
make
you as beautiful as you are. It
was
unfair, everything in your life, even now. Sometimes, that’s just the way it is. We don’t
always
have a choice. It’s chance, I guess. But you dared to believe. When it got bad,
really
bad, you made the fantasies real. You made
me.
I was born from here,” he said, pointing to her head. “I was simply a thought to make the bad things
not
so bad, the good things a little better, more endurable.” Wesley paused. “And now I’m here,” he said, holding his arms out. “Surprise, surprise. Real or fantasy?” Wesley raised his very
real
eyebrows and smiled. “You decide.”

Amanda Dear looked around the ruined city. She grabbed Wesley’s hand—real, full of blood—warm, full of life. She couldn’t believe it.

“Whatever you dream, whatever you imagine,” he said.

“The things you always dreamed because you loved them,” Amanda continued, “because you
knew
they loved you in return. That’s the only truth you really know, you really get…From here,” Amanda finished, pointing to Wesley’s heart under the badge.

Wesley shook his head and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Leave it up to a woman to come to a conclusion like that.”

Amanda Dear was not offended. She smiled, thinking how the most impossible things—dreamed throughout her short, troubled life—had been realities more touchable
than
life. She could reach out and grasp them if she knew where to go. She owned limitless capabilities to her power. It derived from passion, hope, love, and beauty, the only things that made sense. In a word, it was a simple belief from which she never wavered. The images of her in the asylum were nothing more than thoughts her mother put into her head. Those moments had
not
been real.

“So,” Amanda said, looking into his blue eyes. “I
wasn’t
mad? I was never in the institution?”

Wesley grinned. “The funny thing,” he said, “was that you knew something no one else did.”

“What’s that?”

“That beauty can be obtained. You lived more in a life most people scoff at.
I
became more real to you than the life you actually lived. That’s what you wanted from me. How else was I supposed to repay you after what you’d gone through? I’ve been waiting lifetimes for you to come around, Amanda Dear. Thousands of years, in fact. Sounds impossible, I know, even ridiculous. But the fact is,
you
knew it was true just like
I
did. It was okay, because I knew this day would come. We’ve spent time together before, if only briefly. It’s like waiting lifetimes for a single, most memorable Christmas Day, and when it finally arrives…Well, my God! It’s like Heaven! The best gift you could’ve ever asked for.”

“I can’t believe it,” she said.

“Believe it,” Wesley said. “Polar bears got it pretty good, really. Better than most, in fact. Winters are always so sad for everyone. I happen to approach it like a summer festival.”

Amanda was puzzled. She furrowed her brows. “So what happens now? Out there?” she asked, indicating the rest of—

(Life? The World? Death?)

“Whatever you want it to be,” Wesley told her.

“Why?”

“Because Someone out there thought you deserved it. Maybe He saw something in you He’d never seen before. Maybe He has a thing for blondes.”

“You’re incredible, Wesley. I love you. I don’t know what to say except thank you.”

Wesley put his palms up and shook his head. “There’s nothing to say. You made me, remember? You were the one who did all the work. All
I
had to do was be patient, wait for you, and be there when you needed me most. To make things endurable, worth living—and I guess—worth dying for.”

“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Amanda said, looking at the stars in the world strangely taking shape around them. Was that her power bringing these images to life? Or was it chance?

“Actually,” Wesley said, taking her hand. “We just got started. This is only the beginning. Not the end.”

Together, they walked out of the ruined skyscraper and down the road. They had no particular destination.

“Wesley?” Amanda asked.

“Yes?”

“What do you believe in?”

He paused before he spoke.

“Unpredictability. That no matter how bad things get, in the end, it always turns out better than you expected. It’s not all that great, I suppose, but it’s the best we’ve got so far.”

Wesley smiled, and Amanda pulled him close. They walked into a foreign, alien city that didn’t exist to anyone but them.

“Like the conclusion of a good book,” she said. “‘The horrors of life and death slipped forever away, and they lived happily ever after.’”

Wesley kissed the top of her head.

Amanda Dear let out a sigh of relief.

All you loved and dreamed—in the light of purest passion—were the only truths that mattered. Its simplicity astounded her. You didn’t have to be a saint or attend religious ceremonies to obtain Heaven, she realized. All that was already inside. All you had to do was
look
for it. Obtaining enough sacred truths, even angels and demons switched sides in fear of how that knowledge would banish them utterly.

“Welcome to the real world, Silly girl,” Wesley said.

Now, in possession of every capability—to build seconds to last lifetimes—Amanda Dear clenched the polar bear’s hand. She thought about every possibility with each step she took.

“What do you want to do first?” Amanda asked.

“I’m dying for a grilled-cheese sandwich,” Wesley said. “I haven’t had one since this day I spent with this
really
great girl. Man, that seems like a
looong
time ago.”

“Really, what was her name?”

“I don’t know. She had a thousand names. She could create thunderclouds out of a clear, blue sky. She was magical.”

“Wow, I like her already.” Amanda smiled.

“You’re telling me,” he said. “One day, she promised we’d build worlds together. Just her and I.”

“And name them a thousand different names?”

“How could they possible fail?” Wesley said.

She didn’t reply. To her, it wasn’t a question.

Amanda Dear walked out of the ruined landscape with whom she loved, her beautiful and very
real
polar bear. Nothing else seemed real to her then, but that was okay…

In time, she’d create that, too.