Equilibrium (6 page)

“I suppose. I honestly don’t know where to start. Can I ask you a few things first, so I can get things clear in my head before I try to explain them to you?”

“Sure,” she sighed.

“Have you seen Simla or Justin this weekend?”

“Simla or Justin? No, but then I’d no reason to. Why?”

“What about Ariele? Have you heard from her since Saturday?”

“No. She said she would call once she got to California, but she’s probably been too busy getting settled in. Have you heard from her?”

“I have, sort of,” I replied hesitantly.

“Sort of?”

“I actually saw her.”

“Skype?”

“No, not exactly,” I said, wondering how to continue with this conversation. Luckily the school came to view and we had to stop talking anyway as Monica pulled into the parking slot and stopped.

“We’re going to be late, can we continue with this later?” I asked hopefully.

“Well, I guess,” she said unhappily, clearly dissatisfied.

I started walking toward my first class, English, aware of the many looks I was getting. I had fleetingly forgotten all about my blond hair. I was reminded now. Puzzled looks all around me, everyone trying to figure out what was going on. I wondered if I was recognizable, if everyone knew it was me. Perhaps they thought I had lost my mind and tried a different look. Perhaps they thought I was a new student. Either way, no one approached me. That suited me just fine until I saw some of my ice-hockey teammates walk up the corridor toward me. I had to make a quick decision–throw my hood over my head and make myself as invisible as possible by keeping my head down, or flash them a cheeky grin. I opted for the latter and smiled widely, winking at them as they approached me with their mouths gaping open. I laughed. “What’s up, guys?”

“
A
?” they said in unison and then started laughing.

“Hello, boys,” I replied as I flicked my hair and fluttered my eye lids.

“Geez,
A
. Stop! You’re making my stomach hurt.  What’s with the hair?” Christian managed to splutter between guffaws.

Christian Taylor was captain of the team. I had never noticed how hot he was before. At six-foot two-ish, blond hair, green eyes, he was smokin’! Why was I just noticing this now? We had known each other for years. Before, I had only ever noticed his gross stench after games. I tried to suppress this new aspect of my observations because it was clearly a Darley thing. Laughing along with Christian were Brandon, Noah, Kyle and Nick. I waited for them to stop before I continued.

“Like it?” I asked mischievously.

“I think you look hot,” said Noah, sounding surprised at himself. The others looked me up and down and nodded in agreement.

“It’s not just your hair,” continued Christian. “Your face looks different too somehow, it’s–I can’t think of the right way to describe it–pretty?”

Nick and Kyle exploded into another fit of laughter.

“You look like a
girl
,” Brandon added with a smirk.

“Well, I
am
a girl,” I said, rolling my eyes at them.

“We hadn’t noticed,” retorted Nick, “well, until now.”

“Get used to it,” I said, and dismissed any further talk about my looks, quickly changing the subject.

“Have you seen Justin?”

“No,” Nick replied looking around at the others. “He missed practice last night.”

“Yeah, he’s in trouble. At least you texted Coach,” said Christian.

“Did he go to the party on Saturday?”

“No, he wasn’t there, either. Why are you asking about him anyway? Where have
you
been? Did you go to that girl’s hockey camp you swore not to go to? Is that the reason for this new look?” Brandon asked looking at me curiously.

“Nope,” I said before he could press me any more, and pushed past them to get to class. “See you guys later.” I could feel them gazing at me as I walked down the corridor, so I stopped momentarily to flick my hair at them.

As I was sitting in English class, it occurred to me how differently people reacted to me here than they had in my alternate Darley life. My short stint as a Darley had exposed me to a certain familiarity with my fellow students that I had sort of grown accustomed to. The feely-touchiness in Darley land had been uncomfortable at first, and looking around I could well understand it. I knew everyone in my class fairly well, had known most of the people in this class for years. Yet they seemed detached toward me. They were all
normal
and affectionate with each other, but not with me. That’s because I had spent
years
making sure that people stayed at a distance. I wasn’t really sure why. I had put myself in a situation where my fellow students almost
feared
me. They all treated me with respect and were friendly enough. I noticed them glancing over at me, being careful not to linger to avoid angering me. There were occasional friendly waves, smiles and several quizzical looks at my new hair do. There would be no hugs or touching of any kind, not even from my closest friends. There never was.

When I had arrived in New Jersey from England, I was about eight-years old. My life in England had been very different from the life I was suddenly faced with here in Princeton. In addition to the obvious trans-Atlantic differences, I had moved from a life in an all-girls boarding school to a day school. Suddenly, instead of spending my evenings with my friends, I had to deal with my parents. My parents had been so much easier to deal with in small doses. When we lived in England, I always went home to stay with them during the weekends. I spent Saturdays doing fun stuff with my dad while my mom–or Mum, as I used to call her then– worked and then they switched on Sundays. It worked really well. Both days were filled with activity; I went to my karate, junior dressage, soccer, tennis and swimming classes. There was never a dull moment. My days at the boarding school were fun. We had classes during the day and the evenings were reserved for homeroom, which meant homework followed by downtime with the girls and then lights out at nine. The routine suited me.

Then, when we moved here to New Jersey, everything changed. I was suddenly faced with having to deal with my parents every day. Not ideal, in fact, far from it. I very quickly discovered the severe flaws in their characters and the sham of a marriage they had. They clearly couldn’t tolerate each other. I could see that, even at the age of eight.

I quickly attached myself to my dad. After all, despite his issues with gambling and alcohol, he was laid back and easy to deal with. Mom and I butted heads all the time over absolutely everything. I came to hate her. By the time I was twelve, I expressed my frustrations and anger physically. This led to broken windows and walls with holes. I was eventually sent to a shrink and spent a short stint at a behavior unit, which had been awful. However, I did learn to control my anger and with that my emotions. I had become unaffectionate, distant and unapproachable. I developed an even deeper hatred for my mom, after all, she was to blame. She’s the one who sent me to the shrink. I had detached myself more and more from her, my dad and my friends, blanketing myself in a safe, untouchable façade.

So why was it that I now seemed to crave the physical affection that I had so deliberately excluded from my life?

“Arizona Stevens, pay attention!” Mr. Jackson’s voice boomed.

Attention to what? I wondered. I sighed and rolled my eyes at him, and was handed a detention slip. Back to normal.

I really missed the comfortable feeling of having Kellan sit behind me in Physics. Sheesh, I almost missed physics class! Once again I felt like I was all alone. This feeling stayed with me during the next class, where I forgot to pay attention, as usual. The initial curious glances at my blond hair quickly subsided. I was glad to see Monica waiting for me outside the cafeteria at lunchtime.

“Geez,
A
, it’s gonna take some time to get used to your new look. I’d completely forgotten and barely recognized you coming down the hall!”

I rolled my eyes, thumping her shoulders. We went into the cafeteria and headed over to sit with the hockey bunch, as we saw them beckoning us.

“So,
A
, what’s with the new look?” Christian smirked.

“Oh, give it a rest, will ya! What’s up with you suddenly being so interested in hair?” I muttered.

“Well, just be glad it’s the end of the season and we don’t have any more games. Imagine going out on the ice with you looking like this! We’d get smoked,” he chuckled.

“Well, as you say, no more games, so stop making a big deal. It’s just hair.”

“And a bit of lip gloss,” Monica snickered.

“Lip gloss? Seriously?” Brandon laughed.

“Oh, shut-up!” I yelled. “I can still take every one of you little sissies down.”

“Charming, as always,” Nick said, as he rolled his eyes.

“Okay, nuff!” I said and changed the subject. “Why are we having yet another practice this afternoon if the season’s over?”

Christian shrugged and said, “Coach wants us to keep going and not slack off. Anyway, no biggie. It’s not like we have other plans, or do you?”

“No,” I admitted freely. Hockey was my life. It’s all I ever did. Here in Stevens land anyway.

“My lacrosse coach is the same,” added Monica. “He wants to keep going with practice until the end of the school year.”

“Do you want me to pick you up as usual,
A
?” Christian asked.

I nodded and then dug into my burger, I was ravenous.

“Gross,” Brandon muttered. “You’ve got sauce all over your hair. I guess the new look didn’t come with instructions on how to eat nice.”

I threw the remainder of my burger toward him, just missing his face, but making a satisfying mess on his shirt. He didn’t look particularly pleased and aimed his pizza at me. I ducked in time and it hit Nick’s shoulders. Food fight, followed by a round of detention slips. Back to normal, that’s for sure.

I skipped out on my afternoon classes, hiding out in the library, making phone calls. The stink from the leftovers of the food fight stuck on my clothes was disgusting, but I’d have to put up with it until I got back home. I called Ames again, and luckily got the same lady from before on the phone. She was really nice, but had no further information for me. She said that she’d passed on my information and hopefully someone would get back to me. I called Mountain View High, in case of a freak chance that I could somehow contact Kellan there. No one had heard of him, me or Mom. I closed my eyes trying to figure out a possible link that would allow me to make contact with Darley land. How?

The only possibility I could think of was Ariele. After all, she was from Stevens land and she was legitimately in Darley land. Wasn’t she? Sort of, anyway. Her mother had been offered a job at Ames, so surely she must have been offered it from this dimension?  There was only one way to find out. I called the lady at Ames back again. Someone else picked up.

“Ames, how may I direct your call?”

“Could you put me through to Dr. Glenda Moreau?”

“One moment please.”

I heard a series of clicks and a man answered the phone.

“Hello, this is Kevin Sanderson. You’re trying to contact Dr. Moreau?”

“Yes. May I speak to her?”

“May I ask who I’m talking to?” the man asked.

“I’m Arizona Stevens, a friend of Dr. Moreau’s daughter.” There was a dead silence. I though we got cut off. “Hello? Mr. Sanderson, are you still there?”

“Arizona Stevens, Olivia’s daughter?”

“Yes, do you know me?”

“Not exactly,” he replied. “I do know who you are. I’m very surprised to hear from you. May I talk to your mother?”

“She’s not here.”

“Arizona, where are you?”

“Look, I don’t even know who you are. I shouldn’t be talking to you. I need talk to Dr. Moreau. Can you put her on?”

“Arizona, this is very confusing. Dr. Moreau is not available. She’s with your mother, I presume. If you are talking to me, you must somehow be
back
. That concerns me. You need to tell me everything, so I can help you. Are you in Princeton? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I whispered fearfully. “I am so scared.”

“Where are you at the moment?”

“In the library, at school.”

“Good. What’s on your normal schedule for this evening?”

“There’s hockey practice, but I don’t particularly feel like it, so I thought I would go home. Dad’s away, so I have the house to myself.”

“Arizona, listen. I think it’s better if you stay with your friends until I get there and we can figure out what’s going on. Go to practice and then could you wait for me with one of your friends?”

“I guess.”

“Okay, I’m going to take the next flight available. I won’t get there till very late tonight or early tomorrow morning. I’ll call you when I land. Don’t worry, you can trust me. We’ll figure all this out.”

“Okay,” I said unconvinced, but I decided to play along at least until I knew what was going on. I was not about to just trust him. After all, he could be the one responsible for kidnapping me in the first place.

The final bell rang. I rushed out to meet Monica by her car.

“Skip class again?” she sighed at me.

“I had to make some calls.
M
, can I hang out with you after practice tonight, maybe even sleep over?”

“Sure,” she said surprised. “Maybe you can tell me all about the new look and what’s up then? And about Ariele. Or perhaps you could start now?”

“Monica, I don’t know what’s going on. I woke up like this–with my hair blond.”

“No way!” she said, and brought the car to a halt. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged and a tear broke loose and trickled down my cheek.

Monica looked at me, confused and very concerned. “
A
?”

“I just don’t know what’s going on.”

“Okay, calm down,
A
. We’ll figure it out.”

“No we won’t!” I cried, covering my tear stained face with my hands.

“Get a grip of yourself, Arizona. Better not let your dad see you like this. I’m going to drive you home. Christian is probably there waiting for you already. So, clean yourself up.”