Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 11

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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"She's sporting a wedding ring and a loss of memory."

— Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

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I'd showered earlier at Lucy's house, so all I needed to do before bed was wash my face, brush my teeth, and change into my pajamas.

After giving Cameron time to use her bathroom and settle down for the night, I peeked into the bedroom. The little girls made a tiny tangled lump in the middle of their huge bed, like a pair of kittens curled around each other. Cameron, by way of contrast, lay on a diagonal, her head toward one corner, her feet toward the other. Her body cut the space into two triangles. Her day clothes, in a disordered heap, occupied the free corner by the foot of the bed. She snored in a gentle rhythm, already asleep (!), knackered, no doubt, by all the alcohol she'd consumed.

I *could* have squeezed into the free corner by the head of the bed, if I curled up like an embryo.

Or if I gently nudged her, she might bend her legs or shift her bottom... As it was, she hadn't left me any useable space.

If she really was my sister, I thought to myself, I'd dump her clothes on the floor and shove her bodily until I freed up half the bed. Sisters do that sort of thing all the time, don't they?

If I really was my sister... I mentally echoed. Right. Well, she really *is* my sister, and I am hers. I know that. I believe it. I'm sure it can be proven, in any number of ways.

And yet, I couldn't make myself share a bed with her. Even if she is, biologically speaking, my sister, my sibling, well — in my heart and in my currently available memory, she's very much a stranger to me still.

I like her, sure — in fact, I like her a lot — but she doesn't *feel* like my sister. Not yet, anyway. I'm sure the feeling will come, even if I never recover our shared memories.

Pulling my head out of the partly-opened door, I closed it behind me and looked around the ample sitting room. The most obvious solution was to arrange the cushions from the couch and chairs, much in the way that Wade created a nest for us in his living room. I smiled at the recollection as I tossed and fitted the available cushions. I balled up a fluffy bath towel to use as a pillow. In the wall, near my head, was an electric outlet, where I plugged in my phone. That done, I lay on my back atop my Wade-like mare's nest, and stared at the sky outside my windows.

The room, the world, was quiet. My improvised bed was surprisingly comfortable. I interlaced my fingers into a little hammock for my head. Lying there, I immediately saw/realized/noticed that I'd left the lights on: in the room and in the bathroom. There wasn't much point in getting up and turning them off, though, was there?

Besides, I had the feeling that if I woke up in the night, I might not remember where I was. It would be good to be able to see the world I woke in. I wasn't afraid; I was only being prudent. And a little lazy.

While I waited for sleep to come, I pondered. Robbins. Mariola. Two names that define my world. Along with the desert in between.

Mariola, Mariola, Mariola. Did I have any reason to go there? Any *real* reason? Cameron made it clear that she'd spring for my ticket if I wanted to fly back with her. As much as I'd enjoy spending time with Cameron and her daughters, it wasn't enough to entice me to go.

True, I now knew that I had people in Mariola; people with claims on me, of one sort and another. People I ought to meet... eventually.

One of those people, and a special case all his own, is Barney, who apparently I was better off not knowing; a memory not worth recovering. Or so they said. Sheba said so, albeit indirectly. Cameron, on the other hand, came right out and declared it. I liked Cameron: so matter-of-fact, so on the level. She was the first person to take seriously the possibility that I might never remember my past. Not only that, she was decidedly positive about it! She welcomed the idea.

But then, come to think on it, Cameron wasn't the first. Hermie was first. Hermie was the first person to consider that my memories could be gone for good.

However, Cameron was the first person to regard it as a positive thing, as a situation to be welcomed and even celebrated.

Not a good advertisement for the person I was before, though. No, not at all.

In any case, her acceptance took a load off my shoulders. Finally, someone agreed with me. Finally, someone saw the situation the same way that I did.

As far as Mariola was concerned, well, Cameron lived in Mariola. So it couldn't be all bad. She made a life for herself up there. Sheba, too. And Sheba... I'd gladly do whatever I could (short of living in Mariola) to knit up our differences, to apologize for the way I'd offended her. That is, if she could see her way clear to giving me a second chance. I really acted like an ass, especially when you consider how she'd gone to so much trouble to reach me, to help me. Amnesia was a poor excuse for my behavior toward her.

Seems like offending people was a specialty of mine. One that amnesia hadn't wiped away... but hopefully it was something I could learn to leave behind.

Also in Mariola, was Mamma and Pappa... I'd spoken to Mamma twice now, and I had the distinct feeling that her Bible-thumping talk would be easier to handle at a distance — over the phone rather than in person. She wouldn't see the reactions on my face (voluntary and involuntary). If I needed to laugh or roll my eyes, she wouldn't know — and whenever I hit my limit of her prayerful conversation, I could always make an excuse and hang up.

Pappa: at this point, all I knew of him was the spanking — which was both long ago and something I don't remember experiencing. Still, it wasn't nothing. The whole praise-the-lord, let's-go-to-church, and don't-spare-the-rod lifestyle struck me as strange and foreign. Nothing about religion and Jesus was familiar to me. If I thought about Jesus, all that came to mind was: beard, long hair, long robe, sandals. What he said, what he did — if ever I ever knew it — was archived in my unrecoverable past, before my big bang.

Even so, and even though I don't remember my life before the accident, I can't believe my reactions to religion and religious people were purely random.

Maybe the Jesus stuff fueled my dislike of Mariola. It certainly seemed that way. I could easily see it as the mainspring of my resistance. Add to that: if I was wild, promiscuous, and a habitual liar, I wouldn't blend in very well at Sunday service. Apparently I was brutally tactless and inconsiderate, as well, although I began to suspect that the roots of those traits were grounded in my religious upbringing. Exactly how, I don't know. It was just a feeling I had.

 

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The next morning I was awoken by high-pitched squeals and happy screams. Addison and Madison thought I was playing hide-and-seek, and their joy knew no bounds once they found me "hiding" behind the couch. The pair of them literally pounced on me. They hugged me; they wanted hugs. Being an aunt to these two was one of the best things salvaged from my lost life. I couldn't help but smile at everything they did and said. They were that cute.

Cameron appeared none the worse for yesterday's drinking: a little tired, maybe. Less talkative, definitely. She managed to put away two glasses of orange juice, and tossed off two large cups of black coffee. The only solid food she consumed was half a slice of unbuttered toast.

She said very little, mostly directions to her daughters, and the three of them managed, without any rush or fuss, to get downstairs to the hotel lobby five minutes ahead of time.

Cameron didn't bother to ask me whether I'd come along. She knew I wouldn't. While the taxi driver loaded her bags, Cameron hugged me tight and whispered, "Stay like this. I'm serious. You're so much better this way. Nobody needs those memories, least of all you."

"I'll try," I promised.

"Do more than try," she exhorted, and with a wry smile bundled her little family into the taxi and away.

 

---

 

I took my time, walking back from Cameron's hotel to Lucy and Hermie's house. I needed time alone, time without talking, feelings without words or labels. I needed time to NOT think, to just be, to only walk, to take in the world around me, to listen to the birds, and to hear the soft wind rustling the leaves.

My path crossed Solon Boulevard. Wade's street. His house was... that way... down there... to the right. A 15-20 minute walk. I felt its magnetic pull, but I didn't turn. I didn't go there. I wasn't about to visit Wade, although I wanted to. I wondered whether this was how addictions begin: you do something once. Something you shouldn't do. You like it. You entertain the sense of how much you enjoyed it. You roll it around in your memory and you daydream. How good it would feel to do it again! At that point, you either satisfy your mouth-watering curiosity... you either give in to your desire to revisit the experience, or you don't. Each time you give in, it makes it easier to do it the next time, again and again, until eventually you're hooked. You keep going for it even if you don't want to, even if it's bad for you.

Yeah. Certainly there was more to addiction than that. Addiction's a disease. What I described sounded like the formation of a bad habit. In any case, I did take mental note that I regarded Wade as either a potential addiction or a incipient bad habit, but whatever he is or was or could be to me, as for today I simply crossed Solon Boulevard without looking left or right, and kept on walking.

After a leisurely hour's walk I arrived at Lucy and Hermie's little Craftsman bungalow. The whine of an electric drill was in the air. It was Hermie, hard at work on the porch.

"Hey, there!" he sang out.

"Look at you, Mr Handyman!" I greeted him, smiling.

"Yeah," he said. "Look it! I'm halfway done repairing the porch. See? I found a great video that explained how to do it. I watched it three times, and now I feel like a master carpenter." He laughed. "I'm kidding, though. This is all I know how to do so far."

"It's great work," I commented sincerely. As a rudimentary quality control, I pressed my toe into one of his patched planks. It held my weight; felt firm and strong. Well done! Half the porch was as good as new, as far as bare flooring went.

Hermie paused in his work and looked up, reflecting. "I had this idea," he said, "that I should do one thing at a time, starting with what's most obviously in need of repair. See? After this, I'll repair the handrail, then paint all of this. What do you think?"

"I think that's a great insight," I told him. I didn't feel any reason to remind him that it was me who gave him that idea. Yeah, no reason to point it out, although I was a little irked that he didn't recall.

"One thing at a time. Then I won't get overwhelmed."

I nodded. This was the happiest I'd seen him. Finally he'd stepped out from underneath his house's sad soundtrack. Out here, you couldn't feel the slow dirge, the heavy chord progressions.

"Hey," I observed. "Your back is covered with dead leaves and twigs and little clumps of dirt."

"Oh yeah. I had to crawl under the porch to put the cross pieces in, for support."

I moved my hand to brush away the debris from his shoulders, but he flinched at my touch, so I withdrew my hand.

"Just leave it," he said, brusquely.

"Sorry!"

"No, I'm sorry," he muttered by way of apology. "I'm not very touchy-feely. I never have been."

"Okay, good to know."

"Oh, and hey — I had an idea I wanted to run by you: at the hardware store I saw this paint: it's floor paint, made for concrete floors. It's thick and, um, it makes a smooth washable surface. I figure if we paint the floor down in the basement, it will be easier to keep it clean. Concrete's porous, you know, and the dirt is well in there."

"Yeah, that would do it," I said. "I could paint it for you."

He smiled and rocked his shoulders like a see-saw, as if to say, Yeah, you could, or I could... "We just need to choose the color. I was thinking a nice blue."

"Blue is good," I agreed. "Hey, is Lucy home?" I asked.

"Naw, she's working today. But she left us lunch and dinner. There's some rice and stirfry in the fridge: that's lunch. For dinner there's a roast chicken, salad fixings, and cheese and bread."

"Wow! I'm impressed. Does she always do that?"

"Cook? Prepare meals? Yeah, she always has, always does. We've had to take care of ourselves for years now."

I nodded at that and went inside.

 

---

 

Upstairs, in my little box room, I checked my computer and my phone. Both were fully charged, no surprise.

I winced when I saw that my phone had 24 missed calls and 137 unread messages. It took my breath away, so I placed the phone face down on the floor, deciding to sort it out later.

My laptop, once I logged in and started looking around, was equally daunting. Luckily, my former self had organized things very well. It was pretty clear that everything was driven by a file called TARGETS, which was a spreadsheet listing stock symbols, each one with either a buy price or a sell price, along with some other data. It opened automatically when I logged in, and as I watched, the data started flashing and changing, updating in real time, I supposed. So... Buy low, sell high, right? Sounds easy, looks hard. I looked at the spreadsheet's column headings for the word "price," and though some of the values had dollar signs in front of them, none of them were explicitly labeled price. What the hell?

My web browser also opened automatically, displaying a set of pages: my email, my portfolio account (I knew that's what it was because it was labelled "My Portfolio — Deeny Lisente"), and five other pages that monitored prices and news.

It sounds simple when I describe it, but it took me an hour and a half to get that far. After another half hour I still hadn't figured out where or how to buy and sell. At one point I clicked on the wrong thing, and I found myself accidentally buying something, I couldn't tell what — it was just a bunch of letters. Then, as I watched — doing nothing, mind you — the program began popping up warnings that I couldn't understand. I clicked every "Cancel" button I could see, but the computer seemed determined to execute the transaction. I tried hitting ESC, Delete, Back Space, over and over, but to no avail. At that point I slammed the laptop shut with a bang. If it was going to run and make decisions on its own, I wasn't going to sit and watch. Better to get away before the damn thing became sentient. I needed the bathroom, anyway. I needed a drink of water.

When I returned and opened my laptop, the situation hadn't improved. Did I confirm my BUY request? I hit ESC one more time and the whole thing finally rolled up and disappeared. Thank God. This mess was thousands of miles beyond me, from start to finish. I turned the laptop off, unplugged it, and shoved it under my bed. If I had a lead-lined box, I would have dropped it in there and thrown it into the sea, but we can't have everything, can we.

 

---

 

At two o'clock, Hermie and I had a late lunch together. He was still absorbed in finishing the porch repairs while I was at sea with my portfolio.

He beamed with DIY success. Me, on the other hand, felt as though I'd been hit by a busload of accountants. I shared my bewilderment with Hermie.

"I keep expecting something to click," I told him, "but it's not clicking. None of it. Nothing."

"You don't have your memories," he reminded me. "You can't expect to be familiar with things you don't remember."

"I guess," I conceded, "but I can't escape the feeling that I've never done any of that. I'm pretty sure I'm not smart enough for this stuff. I don't have that kind of brain."

Hermie gave me a doubtful look. "You used to, though. Didn't your sister tell you that you were good at it? That you made money at it?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "Maybe I could take some courses or something, or read a book or two, but at the same time... ugh! I have no desire for it. I've got zero motivation! I can't make myself care about this stuff!"

"Okay," he agreed. "Listen, though: after my parents — and then my grandmother — died, I had to learn something about that stuff. For my own sake and for Lucy's. Basically, it's pretty simple, but people find ways to make it complicated."

"Do you really believe that?"

He shrugged. "Yes. I mean, I think so. Yes. But listen: There were two things I learned that took a lot of the stress out of it, for me. Did you know that once some guy let a monkey — I mean a literal monkey, in the zoo — the guy let a monkey choose his stocks, and decide when to buy or sell? And guess what! It turned out that the monkey's porfolio did just as well as a professionally managed account."

In spite of my tension, I burst out laughing. "Oh, Hermie! That's got to be an urban myth! How could it even happen? What did he do? Give the monkey a pointed stick and the Wall Street Journal?" (By the way — I had to wonder where all that came from: urban myths? the Wall Street Journal? Maybe I saw it on the internet?)

"I don't know," he shrugged. "But listen to the second thing: I also heard this was this day trader—"

"Is this the same guy?" I asked, teasing.

"No, no — different guy. So, this guy would spend ALL DAY at his computer, buying, selling, fussing and fiddling — until, without any warning, he had to go leave the country, to go to Russia or somewhere, for three months. This was before the internet, I think. But anyway, he couldn't touch his account for three whole months! And guess what happened?"

"What?"

"His portfolio did better when he left it alone that it did when he was constantly messing with it! He made better money in those three months than he did during the rest of the year!"

I couldn't stop laughing. "Hermie, you're just making these things up!"

"No, I swear!" he countered. "I'll find those stories and show you! You'll see!"

"Any way," I told him, leaning back in my chair with my hands behind my head, "you've cheered me up. AND — I'm going to follow *part* of your advice. That is, unless I happen to find a suitable monkey, and figure out a way to communicate with him. What I *will* do is leave my portfolio alone until I feel ready to face it. Let's see if it prospers in darkness and neglect."

"Um... I want to say that's the spirit! but I'm not sure that's the message I meant to give," he mumbled, a bit perplexed at the way his comments had landed.

"It's fine," I told him. "It's all good. Thanks, Hermie."

 

---

 

Emboldened by my decision to do nothing with my portfolio for the present, I found the energy to examine my phone. Most of the missed calls were from Sheba, all of them made before her visit to Robbins. She also (before her visit) left a dozen or so voice messages, varying in tone: in some she was obviously worried, but in most she was angry, blaming, demanding. It was lucky that I listened to them as messages and not as live calls, because if I'd actually been talking to her, I've no doubt that I'd have shouted back and probably hung up on her. Instead, by listening to her entire catalog of missed messages all in one go, I realized that, regardless of the ostensible emotion, and apart from anything she actually said, the underlying emotion from beginning to end was fear. She was afraid that something had happened to me.

Nate left one message, only one. He was brief and to the point, without judgment or blame. He simply asked where I was, and hoped I was okay. He mentioned that he was in Chicago for the week, for work, but he assured me that if I needed his help for anything, anything at all, he would drop everything and hop the next flight home "or wherever you are," but in any case would I please get in touch with SOMEONE, ANYONE in the family "just to let us know you're alright, so we can all stop worryin'." He had a hint of West Texas in his accent. Don't ask me how I knew it was West Texas (as opposed to plain old Texas), but there it was.

Cameron left two messages before she came to see me: one irritated, one concerned.

Mamma left three messages. I couldn't listen to more than a few seconds of any of them. They were very basic, loud prayers that the Lord would open my heart, put my feet on the path of the righteous, and so on and so forth. In Jesus' name. I hung up well before the amen. Mamma's were the only messages I deleted.

No, actually, the first message I deleted was the sound of a fax machine squealing and crying. That's where I learned (after a half-dozen fumbling wrong guesses) that the number three erased a voice message. A handy lesson to learn, one that served me well when I waded into Mamma's calls.

No messages from Pappa. None from Barney.

The text messages had about the same breakdown, the same percentage of senders. Essentially, the same messages. Again, nothing from Barney.

Not that I wanted to hear from Barney! I know I keep mentioning him, but only because he's a piece of the puzzle — a *big* piece of the puzzle, and that piece is missing.

You see, Sheba, even if she didn't 100% believe in my amnesia, she still came armed with pictures and documents. She brought clothes. She arrived ready to help, and expected to bring me home. Even if she thought it was a game, she was ready to play along.

Cameron, too, had no problem in having to fill in the blanks for me. She arrived with MORE clothes and essentials — meaning my laptop and my phone, to say nothing of the VFW dumpster video and my engagement ring, delivered on the QT.

Nate more or less did his duty. He called, like a good brother should, offered his help, didn't criticize or scold.

Mamma was in her own world.

Pappa was a negative figure, like a shadow or a silhouette. Silent, absent, unhelpful (as far as I knew). Maybe he imagined his act or pose was God-like. I wasn't particularly curious about him.

But Barney —!

Alright, so I'd learned that I myself was no prize. That my character was combative, rebellious, irresponsible, and maybe — can I say... uncaring? unkind? At the very least, it seemed I wasn't particularly likeable, although my family apparently put up with me.

Perhaps Barney was my opposite number. Maybe he was my partner in crime. What on earth did he get out of a relationship with a cantankerous, unreliable woman?

Neither Sheba nor Cameron liked Barney. That was a bad sign. Mamma, on the other hand, LOVED him. Equally a bad sign.

And yet, this guy had gone so far as to ask me to marry him, and I had gone so far as to agree, to say yes.

Did I love him? Was I capable of love? Was it a marriage of convenience? Was I settling, just for sake of marrying? Was it about money? Stability?

And what about that ring? It was pretty damn expensive. At least it *looked* expensive, to my untrained eye. What did I know about jewelry? Nothing, at least nothing I could remember. Then again, Cameron made something of a fuss over it. If it was a cheap gimcrack, she wouldn't have bothered. I dug the ring up from the bottom of my bag and gave it another good looking-over. The verdict? It still blew my mind. I felt as though I was gazing into another world, into another dimension. The stone simply stupified me.

I reflected for a moment, holding the ring — without putting it on. Barney had no idea that I'd thrown the ring away, or that Cameron recovered it for me. You can play that little fact any way you like, she said, as if handing me a prop to use in the drama of my life.

In any case, I had a lot of the pieces of my life in hand by now — not that I remembered them, mind you, but I knew they were correct. I was in possession of my name, my phone, my family, my livelihood (if I could learn how to do it!), my bank account. Was I missing anything else? Sure, I didn't have my memories, but I had enough pieces to live a life, a connected life.

What else could I be missing?

How about a car? Did I own a car? Cameron had teased me about it, but didn't tell me one way or the other. I didn't have a house, that much I knew. Still living with the parents, as unthinkable as that situation seemed.

I needed to understand how Barney fit into the picture. I had to find out whether I owned a car, and I needed to talk to Barney. Once I had a handle on those two things, all my curiosity and questions about my past would be over.

I'd be ready to move forward, as though last Tuesday was the first day of the rest of my life.

I set the open ring box down on my bed and brought Barney's number up on my telephone screen.

If this was a story or a movie, I told myself, He would call right now, while I was looking at his name.

He didn't, though.

I telepathically willed him to call me. Call me, Barney. Call me now.

It didn't work.

Okay, then. If Mohammed won't come to the mountain... (I made a mental note to write that phrase in my little book, although — truth be told — I never did. I was long done with that little book.)

I pressed the green button, to call Barney.

"Hey," he answered. He had a surprisingly pleasant voice.

"Hey yourself," I answered.

"Well, how 'bout that," he said, in a relieved tone. "We've exchanged civil greetings. Two small steps for mankind, two giant steps for the pair of us — right? How are you, Deenz?"

Deenz? Another nickname?

"I'm pretty good, considering," I replied. "You know what happened to me, right?"

"I've heard stories," he said. "I'm not sure how much I believe."

"Who did you hear these stories from?"

"Your mother, for one," he paused a moment, then added, "But we both know: she often sails far from the shore, if you know what I mean."

"You mean you can't believe everything she says?"

"Right. Isn't that what I said?"

Then, answering the question I was about to ask, "Surprisingly, I got a lot more information from the police. They didn't mind telling me what they knew. And they knew quite a few details, which they shared when they spoke to me. Yeah. By the way, Deenz, just for the record, I don't blame you for running off. I know that I'm to blame. Full, complete admission here. Mea culpa. I could have unfolded things better, if I can put it that way, but now — well, hey! You sure taught me a lesson there, didn't you, taking off like that."

I wasn't sure which thread to pick up from that tangle, but he saved me the trouble by continuing to talk. "I just want to say though, if I may... I mean, my one and only objection is: I would have appreciated a little heads-up."

"Heads up?"

"About the police! The first time ever in my life that I've been asked to come to a police station... first time ever that I've been sat in an interrogation room, and the first time ever that I've been subjected to an honest-to-God interrogation. They fired questions back and forth at me." He paused. "A pair of women, no less. One on each side of me. I had to keep jerking my head one way and the other, like I was watching a game of ping-pong."

"Wait, wait—" I interrupted. He was getting too far ahead of me. "What do you mean by 'a pair of women, no less'? What does *that* mean?"

"Oh, no," he got his back up defensively, "No, no, no. Do not lay the feminist line on me right now. Now is not the time. All I'm saying is that these two chicks thought they were a pair of tough, scary cops, but they're not. That's all. Nothing about their being women, is all."

"Was it Carly and Tatum?" I asked.

"We didn't get on to a first-name basis. Their names were Scroggins and Rental, or something like that."

"Rentham and Scrattan," I corrected.

"Right," he conceded. "But see that? For a girl with amnesia, you've got a very accurate memory. And you know who I am, don't you."

"I can remember anything that happened AFTER the accident Tuesday, but nothing before it. I know who you are because Sheba and Cameron filled me in. They showed me your picture."

"Uh-huh," he acknowledged. "Keep in mind, neither of them are fans of mine."

"Be that as it may," I conceded. "Did the two cops come all the way to Mariola to talk to you?"

"Heck, no! They gave me a call while I was at work on Friday. I told them I couldn't talk at the moment, but that I'd be heading to beautiful downtown Robbins for the weekend. That's when they invited me to stop by and let myself be grilled."

I silently took in the implications of what he'd said.

"Yeah, I got into town late yesterday. Your mother told me you were with Cameron, so I held off calling you."

Somehow that phrase I held off seemed heavy with meaning. It didn't promise well.

"But then you *didn't* call me. I called you."

"Potatoes, patahtoes," he retorted. "I had my phone in my hand, just about to push the button."

"So where are you now?"

"I'm sitting in my car, outside the house you're staying at."

"How do you know where I'm staying?"

"Your mother gave me the address. I'm looking up at the place right now. Steep front lawn, red house, cream-colored trim, black detailing here and there. Weird little guy in safety glasses working on the porch. That's the place, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I admitted.

"So what's that guy's deal?" he asked.

"What do you mean, what's his deal?"

"Are you fucking him?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but no," I replied, hot, offended.

"As your intended, it actually is my business," he contradicted. "Although — as you well know — I'm very open-minded. Listen, come on out. It's better to argue in person."

"It's better not to argue at all."

"That's a new idea for you! Come on, now! You know you don't mean that. You know full well what arguing leads to."

"What?"

"Angry sex," he replied, and I almost heard his mouth water as he said it. "Hot, angry sex. Passionate, baby-making sex."

The box with my engagement ring was still open in front of me. I suddenly imagined myself snapping that little box shut, hard, like a snapping turtle's jaw, on the tip of his penis, and running off while he howled. Pure fantasy, of course. Never happened, never will, but I shut that box with a satisfying SNAP, dropped it into my bag, and told him, "I'll be right out."

 

---

 

I stopped on the porch to tell Hermie where I was going. "My fiance is here," I told him.

"Are you sure that's who he is?" he asked. "I mean, do you actually remember him?"

"No," I admitted, "but I've seen his picture, and his phone number matches what I've got in my contact list."

"Sounds legit," he conceded, still uneasy, "but for some reason I feel that you ought to be careful."

 

---

 

It was three wooden steps down from the front porch, and then a dozen concrete steps through the middle of the sloping lawn to the street. Barney got out of his car to watch me descend.

"Wow," he sang out, with a wolfish grin, "you make it look good."

I rolled my eyes, but at the same time it made me smile. I didn't want to smile, but (surprisingly) live and in person, Barney radiated a kind of animal magnetism. Even more surprising was the way I found myself susceptible to it.

When I reached the point where my knees were at the level of his eyes, he held up both hands and said, "Stop — hold it right there. Stand there on that step and let me drink it in, visually."

Unwillingly charmed, I stood there, twisting my mouth to the right, skeptical, but amused.

"You know what would make this better?" he asked.

"Sure," I said. It wasn't hard to guess what he had in mind. "You'd like me to do this naked. Turning, posing, bending this way and that."

He cackled. He guffawed. He bent over laughing and clapped his hands, once. "How well you know me! And yet and still, you pretend to have amnesia!" he chortled.

"I do have amnesia," I assured him. "For your information, you're a very easy read, let me tell you."

Barney was about an inch shy of six feet. His hair was dark brown, grizzled with gray. Curly, but cut close to his scalp. His skull was narrow with a sort of feral look. His eyes were not-quite-slits; he didn't have big, open eyes, in other words. He kept them half-closed as if he were facing the bright sun. His build was athletic, a swimmer's body — strong upper arms and chest, narrow hips and slim, muscular legs. His clothes were form-fitting, betraying an almost complete absence of body fat. I found my mouth watering slightly, and my reaction made me want to slap myself.

"Come on," he invited, opening the passenger door. Then his eyes fell on my naked ring finger, and his face went white.

"Don't worry," I said, "the ring is in my bag."

He opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He shrugged and said, "Let's go somewhere we can talk."

"Talk," I repeated. I didn't mean to echo him, but I doubt that *talking* was all he had in mind. For my part, on the other hand, all I wanted to do was talk with him, but it became clearer with each passing minute that he wasn't built for talking.

He rubbed his nose and murmured, "When you put it that way... well... we don't *need* to talk. Talking always gets us into trouble. Tell you what: Let's just go somewhere and see what happens."

I took a deep breath and slid into the car. Yes, I slid in. He watched my legs, studying them as I found my perch. I don't know what kind of car it was — I know nothing about cars — but this one was very low-slung. I felt as though my butt was only and inch or two away from the surface of the road below me, and when I sat down, my legs were stretched out nearly straight in front of me.

Barney, in a single, practiced move, jumped into the driver's seat.

He gunned the motor, so it gave off a pair of vroom! vroom! growls, before he pulled away from the curb.