Juniper Wiles, page 14
Sonora and I leave the house with just enough time to make it to O’Shaunessy’s to help Pearse with his new boxer. I’m hoping she’s not huge, but she probably isn’t. If she is, Pearse would have her sparring with one of the men at the boxing club. Actually, I’m not quite sure why this girl needs another girl for a sparring partner. Whenever I spar I do it with one of the guys.
There’s no one around when we get there, so I settle Sonora on a towel beside my backpack and change into sweats and a tee. I’m sitting on a bench wrapping my hands when Pearse comes in from the front of the gym. There’s a small woman trailing behind him. I don’t get a good look at her until they’re halfway across the gym, at which point I draw a quick breath. As they get closer I stand up and glare at the pair of them.
“What the hell is this?” I say.
Pearse gives me a puzzled look.
I focus my attention on the woman.
“Seriously,” I say. “What the hell, Allison? What are you doing here? And why do you look like that?”
Allison, who should be in L.A., is standing in front of me decked out like she’s playing her character Gabi Ramos from the TV show.
I’m staring at her. She’s got the spiky black hair and piercings. Her tank top and spandex shorts show off Gabi’s tats in all their glory. Except Allison looks just as confused as I’m feeling.
“Nora?” she says.
And then I get it.
“You two know each other?” Pearse asks.
I sit down heavily on the bench. Gabi sits beside me and takes my hand. I don’t want to look at her, but I do. It’s so disconcerting and really doesn’t make sense. Unless there is an otherworldly Crescent Beach that was born from the imaginations of readers and viewers…
I let the thought die.
Of course she would look just like this. It’s why she and Ethan think I’m Nora, because I played the role on the show. These are the images that most people carry.
Except the Gabi looking at me has pain in her eyes.
“What happened to you?” she asks. “How did you get here? We’ve been lost without you.”
A mix of sadness and frustration fills me. I gently lift her hand and place it back in her lap.
“I’m not your Nora,” I tell her. “I’m the actress who played her on a TV show in this world. My name is Juniper Wiles.”
“Does anybody want to fill me in on what the hell’s going on?” Pearse says.
I look up at him. “We need a moment here. I’ll explain everything to you later.”
He holds my gaze as though trying to read my mind, then gives a brusque nod and walks away to his office. I watch him go, collecting my thoughts before I turn back to Gabi.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” I ask.
There’s still a deep sadness in her eyes.
“Of course I do,” she says. “I’m not stupid. I was just hoping—I thought for a moment that I’d finally found you. Her, I mean.”
“How did you get here?”
“It was after you… Nora… It was after she disappeared. I was following one of those strays she’s always taking in.”
“Ethan Law?”
She nods. “You know him?”
“In a way,” I tell her. “Why would she befriend him? The guy’s a creep.”
I feel bad talking ill of the dead and all that, but come on. That blog of his.
“What makes you say that?” Gabi asks.
I wave the question off because it’s obvious she doesn’t know about his fetish porn. If she did, being Gabi, she’d have punched him in the face.
“Never mind,” I tell her. “You were saying?”
“He was acting suspicious, and Nora had been gone for a while by then so I tailed him, thinking he might lead me to her. Instead he crossed over to this world. I watched him step up to an intersection and then he just disappeared. It was the weirdest thing. But when I got up to where he’d vanished I found myself stumbling through a hole in the world and ended up here in yours with no way back.”
“And then you…just dealt with it? Being in another world, cut off from everything you know?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Curl up in a ball and start crying? I’m not that girl.”
“No,” I say. “You never were.”
She stares at me. “God, you’re just like her. Everything about you, from the way you look and talk, your whole vibe.”
“We had a lot of similarities,” I tell her. “The character and me, I mean. At least on the show.”
“I guess.”
“It must have been hard for you, ending up here all alone with no one to turn to. How long have you been here?”
“A couple of years.”
“The same as Ethan.”
“So you do know him.”
I shake my head. “Not really. You know he’s dead?”
“Yeah, I saw it on a newsfeed. I didn’t really know him either, but he was my only connection to the other Crescent Beach. So I feel bad—I just don’t know if it’s for him or for me. A bit of both, I guess. Is that shallow of me?”
“No, I get it.”
“You—Nora—always did.”
“How have you gotten by for two years? What did you do for money or ID?”
She just gives me a look. “I’m a hacker. What do you think I’d do?”
“Did you fix Ethan up with an identity as well?”
“No. Like I said, I didn’t really interact with him. You know, when you feel like there’s something off about a person?”
I nod, but don’t mention his predilections.
“But I kept tabs on him,” she adds. “In case he found a way back.”
“When the police were looking for him,” I say, “they couldn’t find any trace of him before two years ago. Nothing. No record of anything.”
Gabi smiles. “Well, you can tell I didn’t build an ID for him. The cops look me up and they’ll get a history that goes back to when I was born.”
“Because you’re that good.”
“I am that good. But not good enough to find Nora.”
“What makes you think she’s here?” I ask.
“She’s not in Crescent Beach, and since Ethan and I ended up here I thought she might have fallen through, too. I’ve been trying to track her down ever since I got here and there’s nothing but the books, some fanfic and the show. I’ve tried all the pseudonyms that she’s ever used. No leads.”
She pauses, cocking her head. “There’s not much about you online either,” she says. “A handful of movies and TV guest spots after the show ended, but that’s about it. No social media presence, no driver’s license. I had to hack into Internal Revenue to get an address.”
“I don’t use the internet much. Just for the odd email and lurking on socials. And to Google things from time to time.”
“Yeah, I can tell. I couldn’t even get an email addy for you.”
“It’s tams_sister@gmail.com.”
She smiles. “Well, no wonder. It doesn’t bother you to be known only as somebody’s sister?”
“I like Tam. And it’s better than having people track me down because they want to talk to me about the show.”
She nods. “I get that. People recognize me from time to time, but I just pretend to be a super-fan and they get over me.”
“If you hacked my home address, why did you never come around? Especially once you got to Newford.”
“I only just got here. But what would I say? I honestly don’t get how you’re so accepting about all of this. It’s like a serious mind-fuck. I thought if we ever met you’d just freak out and not believe a word I said.”
“Except you’re Gabi. Why would you lie to me?”
“Only you’re not Nora.”
“Right. But it looks like I’m as close as you’re going to get. I—you know, it’s weird. Even though I only know you because of a fictional relationship, I still really feel like I know you.”
She gives a slow nod. “I get it. Even though you’re not my Nora, I kind of feel the same way. Except I don’t know anything about you, apart from the bios online. And now I know that you box.”
“I only train and spar. I don’t have any real interest in getting in a ring.”
She smiles. “Me neither. It’s like the martial arts classes we took. I just want to make sure I can handle myself.”
We each took classes, but it was the other Nora who took classes together. I don’t bother to correct her.
“How come you didn’t cash in at cons,” she asks, “like some of the other actors on the show?”
“It’s just not me,” I say. “I like things to be quiet. I’m real serious about art—painting and drawing. And now I have a dog.”
Gabi smiles at Sonora who’s been gazing up at us, head moving from one face to the other, depending on who’s talking.
“She looks pretty special,” Gabi says.
“She is.” I wait a beat then ask, “Do you want to go back to the otherworld?”
“Are you kidding me? It’s a horror show over there. Charlie Midnight is like every monster rolled into one and then cranked up to a thousand. He can’t be stopped.” She gives me a pained look. “Except by Nora.”
“Because of the prophecy.”
“How do you know about that?”
“It’s in the book,” I tell her.
“What book?”
“There’s an unpublished Nora Constantine novel. The tone’s completely different. It’s like the writer was playing with the idea of turning the franchise into what’s popular now: a dystopia with vampires and monsters.”
“That’s exactly what it’s like.”
“I figured as much,” I tell her.
“Because of the book.”
I nod.
“Does that mean the prophecy’s real, too?”
“I have no idea,” I tell her.
“So are you still taking in strays?” she asks.
I point to Sonora. “Looks like. But she’s the first in years. I just found her and couldn’t let her go.”
Gabi gets an almost wistful look. “That’s how it was with us, too.” She catches herself. “I mean, it’s how I met Nora.”
“I’m not Nora,” I tell her, “but I remember that. I remember all we did together in the show and books. If you feel more comfortable, you can think of me as Nora. All the things she felt for you, I feel them too.”
She gives me a slow nod.
“You know what scares me most?” she says after a moment. “Charlie Midnight figuring out how to get over here. I have nightmares about it. I feel like he’s looking for me.”
“I’ve been having them too.”
“Yeah? So I guess we have to figure out what happened to Nora if we want to make sure those dreams don’t come true.”
“Maybe not. Some friends of mine and I have been looking into all of this since Ethan was killed and we’ve got some ideas.”
She smiles. “So you’ve put together a new team.”
“It’s not like that. I don’t go around investigating things and solving problems the way Nora does.” I pause. “Or I didn’t. But I’m doing it now. I think we have to. Not just because of what might happen here, but to help all those people in that other Crescent Beach.”
She gives me an admiring look. “Damn. You sound just like Nora.”
I duck my head for a moment, embarrassed. “Don’t make too much of it. Nora’s a lot braver and smarter than I am.”
“You only think that because a team of writers put her character together for the show. But you were the one who brought Nora to life.”
“I suppose.”
“Well, I’m in,” she says.
“In?”
“Whatever you’ve got going—I’m in.”
Of course she is.
“Where are you staying?” I ask.
“I’ve got a room at a hotel on Palm Street.”
I frown. “That’s not the best part of town.”
“It is if you want to stay off the grid.”
“Will you come stay with me?”
Her eyes open wide and then she grins. “You know what? I’d like that.”
I look down at my hands. One’s already wrapped with protective elastic bandages, the other’s half done, a long loose strip hanging from it.
“You still want to spar before you meet my friends?” I ask.
“Sure. How much of this are we going to tell Pearse?”
“As little as possible. Hey, how’d you ever end up in his club anyway?”
“Last place I lived was Chicago. I asked the guy running the boxing club where I worked out what the best place here would be and he directed me to Pearse. Even gave him a call to introduce me before I got here.”
I smile. “That’s the same way I found this place, only my recommendation came from a club in L.A.”
She starts wrapping her own hands.
“Enough talking,” she says. “Time to start sweating. The good thing about hitting things is that it stops you from thinking.”
“Amen to that.”
Turns out we’re pretty evenly matched, which makes it a fun practice. After we hit the showers and get dressed, we go talk to Pearse. I don’t want to lie to him, so I keep it simple. I tell him there’s a bunch of stuff going on and that I can’t talk about it now, but I’ll fill him in on everything later.
He looks from Gabi to me, studying us for a long moment.
“Does this have anything to do with that ghost you were telling me about?” he finally asks.
“It’s related.”
“You need any extra muscle?”
I smile. “Not now. But if it comes up, I’ll give you a call.”
“Don’t get in so deep you can’t make the call.”
“I won’t.”
“And you,” he says to Gabi. “Stop leading with your left. You have to mix it up so that it’s not so easy for your opponent to get a read on you.”
“I like him,” Gabi says when we leave the club.
“You and me both.”
We talk non-stop all the way to the house on Stanton Street, Sonora trotting happily in between us. I tell Gabi about how I had to leave L.A. after too many poor movie choices, and how becoming friends with Jilly turned everything around for me. She talks about her search for Nora, moving from town to town, staying off the grid, keeping tabs on Ethan and always looking over her shoulder for Charlie Midnight or one of his monsters.
“So you knew about his blog?” I ask.
She pulls a face. “Knowing what you know, why are you helping him?”
“I’m not sure. It’s partly because I said I would, partly because I like his partner Edward and he’s really broken up about it. And I guess I kind of feel sorry for him. And in the end, isn’t Rohlin really to blame since she’s the one who originated his character, and he’s just doing what she decided was in his nature?”
“Or he’s just a creep.”
I nod. “That, too.”
When we reach the house I unclip Sonora from her lead and she goes racing to the door. She barks once and is answered by a flurry of Bobo’s yips.
Gabi hangs back a little as we approach.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “Everybody here is cool.”
“But do they know what I am?”
“What are you?”
“A figment of somebody’s imagination.”
“Nobody’s going to think that for a moment. Trust me. These people have seen much weirder things than how you came to be.”
She gives me a skeptical look.
“Trust me,” I repeat.
“Okay.” She cocks her head for a moment. “What did you say your name was again? Because all I can keep in my head is Nora.”
I smile. “The alias I’m using for this mission is Juniper Wiles.”
She smiles back. “Right. Now I remember. It’s an unusual name.”
“But better than my brother’s. His is Tamarack.”
“You’re kidding.”
“What can I say? We grew up in a commune with hippie parents.”
I open the front door and step aside so that Sonora can dash in and run in circles in the hall with Bobo before the pair of them go tearing off to the greenhouse. The music from a solo fiddle comes drifting down from upstairs. Someone’s been baking bread today because it smells like heaven.
“Come on,” I say, leading the way.
Gabi pauses in the doorway of the greenhouse as three faces turn in our direction. Jilly and Joe look a little puzzled that I’ve brought a stranger. Wendy beams from ear to ear.
“Holy crap!” she says.
“Hey, everybody,” I say. “This is my friend—”
Jilly breaks in, holding up a hand. “Wait, wait. Don’t tell me. Let me guess. From Wendy’s reaction I’m going to say Joan Jett. Or maybe Joan Jett’s little sister.” She looks at Wendy. “Does Joan Jett have a little sister?”
“It’s Gabi Ramos,” Wendy says. “From the other Crescent Beach?”
Gabi gives her an uncertain smile, but lifts a hand in greeting.
“Watch out for Wendy,” I warn her. “She’s going to nerd out on you if you let her.” I point to the others. “This is Jilly and Joe.”
Joe’s got his crazy eyes thing turned up a few notches, but the warmth of his smile lessens the impact.
“Hey,” he says.
Jilly bounces up from her seat and crosses over to give Gabi a hug. I watch Gabi’s back stiffen at first, then she seems to relax into the hug and I smile. Jilly does that to people. She takes Gabi by the hand and leads her to the sofa.
“You guys want something to drink?” she asks. “We’ve got tea and beer. I don’t recommend you mix them, but hey, to each their own.”
“I think I need a beer,” Gabi says.
I nod in agreement and settle on the sofa beside her. I can tell Wendy’s dying to ask a million questions, but she manages to keep her curiosity in check. Jilly comes back from the kitchen carrying five bottles of beer. I’m impressed that her small hands can manage the task so easily. Once they’ve been passed around, she settles in her own chair and twists the cap off her bottle.
“So,” she says. “With Gabi here, I’m guessing everybody has some news.” She tips the top of her bottle toward Gabi. “Do you want to go first?”
