The Night I Escaped From The Zoo : 1 / 5

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

It’s not every night that you escape from being put in a zoo, but this was no ordinary night. Not by any means. In fact, “not being put in the zoo” was only the beginning of my night.

Generally speaking, my life was going pretty well up to that point: I was a freshman at State with a football scholarship, the full ride. Sports commentators were already calling me “an up-and-coming talent” -- on national TV!

And, best of all… there was Mayda. She wasn’t just my girlfriend, she was the one. She didn’t know it yet, but I was going to marry her. We were perfect together. Or at least *I* thought so.

I know I shouldn’t blame Mayda for what happened that night, but -- well, honestly, I *do* blame her. If she wasn’t so pig-headed, if she didn’t always have to have her own way, if she ever cared about what *I* wanted, everything would have gone differently!

Tonight was a special night: our six-month anniversary. My plan for the perfect evening was (1) a nice steak dinner at The Ultimate Steakhouse, followed by (2) a romantic walk along the Riverway, and then (3) back to my place for some long, hot recreational sex. I’m in great shape. I’m a running back, so I’m strong, fast, and agile. Mayda plays soccer -- I think she said she’s a center midfielder, but she runs all over the field. She has a body to die for. She’s tall, has the hint of a six-pack, a pair of impressively round, firm breasts, a smooth, cute ass, and long shapely legs. When she’s on the field, she wears her dark brown hair in a long ponytail that almost reaches her waist. I love to watch her hair bounce as she flies after the soccer ball. Soccer itself, though... I don’t understand the game at all. I had to say “center midfielder” to myself over and over for weeks before I could remember the words. Nearly every time the referee blows the whistle, I have no idea why. The only way I can watch a game is if Mayda’s playing. She’s a knockout, and nobody moves the way she does. She can run for 90 minutes plus, and still have energy. So… needless to say (but I want to say it), the sex was very good.

If we’d stuck to my plan for the evening, we’d still be together. I’d be the man, she’d be the woman, and we’d go on to spend the rest of our lives together. Instead, everything turned inside out and upside down.

The first snag, though, I should have foreseen: Mayda was never, ever ready for a date. I don’t know why I thought tonight would be different. She was punctual for everything else in her life, but dates? Always at least a half hour late. Minimum. This time it was forty-five minutes before we left her apartment, and we ended up arriving at the steakhouse an hour later than I planned. As usual, while she dried her hair and chose her clothes and put on makeup, I wandered around her apartment like a moron. What else could I do? She periodically assured me that she was “ready” or “almost ready” or “only had to put on her shoes,” but (as usual) none of that was true. I’ve learned to not take what she says seriously, and to never ask for an estimated time of departure. There is nothing I can do to speed her up, and experience has taught me that asking or prodding actually slows her down. We’ve had two really fierce arguments about how long she takes to be ready, so I avoid the topic as if it were a bomb. There was no way to know how much time she’d need. The only signal that had any meaning was when she’d walk to her door.

When at last, she emerged from her bedroom, hanging her left earring on her ear, I was fiddling with a glass turkey. She had this figurine on her kitchen counter: a turkey, made of orange glass. It was about the size of a football.

“Oh, do you like that?” she asked. “It’s super cute, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “It weighs a ton. What’s it for?”

“It’s decoration!” she said with a laugh. “For Thanksgiving, obviously.”

“Thanksgiving is what… six months away?”

“I saw it and I couldn’t resist it.”

I hit the second snag right there, but I didn’t know it at the time. It suddenly struck me that this was the first time Mayda had ever bought something for her apartment that wasn’t 100% functional. She called the turkey decoration! Nothing else in the apartment was decorative. Her place was about as personal as a hotel room.

Of course, I was overthinking it. I was making a big something out of a little nothing. I took the purchase of the glass turkey as a fundamental change, when it was nothing but a whim. I took it to be the first indication she had started nesting: settling in and making a home. The thought buoyed me up, and gave me even more hope for our life together.

Mayda grabbed her bag and headed for the door. When she opened it, a current of air fluttered the curtain of the window behind me. She’d left her window open! “Hey!” I called to her, “Do you want me to close that window?”

“Naw,” she replied. “I have to change the air. It seems kind of musty in here.”

I gave a couple of sniffs and told her that the air seemed fine to me.

“Why do you care?” she asked, smiling. “Just leave it.”

“Somebody could climb in that window,” I told her. “It’s not safe.”

She scoffed and left the apartment. I followed her out the door into the hallway. Before she shut the door she started digging in her bag. “I made a spare key. I need to hide it in the hall someplace.”

“That’s not safe, either!” I told her. “Can’t you just call your super if you forget your key?”

Without answering me, she took a paperclip from her bag, unbent it to an S-shape, hooked the key to one end, and hung the paperclip behind a light fixture next to her door. “See? Now it’s hidden. The paperclip is a little handle so I can get it out.” To demonstrate, she used her fingernail to lift the key from its hiding place. Then she put it back again, smiling triumphantly.

“It isn’t safe,” I repeated. “Anyone could take that key and let themself in.”

She scoffed again, and walked to the exit stairwell.

I don’t know whether this is the third snag, or still the first, but -- because Mayda had taken so long to get ready, we couldn’t get a table at The Ultimate. They don’t take reservations, which I guess doesn’t matter because we wouldn’t have made it anyway, but if we’d arrived at 7, as I planned, we could have gotten a nice table by the window. Instead, now that it was 8 o’clock, there was already a waiting list. They told me they could seat us in an hour, if we wanted to wait.

I managed to hide my irritation and annoyance, but Mayda wasn’t disappointed at all. In fact, she was happy about it: “We can try Ebbidles!” she exclaimed. “It’s right across the street! I’ve wanted to go there forever! And look! They have plenty of tables!” So that’s where we went.

It turned out to be a vegan restaurant, so goodbye to the steak I was expecting.

“You don’t need to eat so much meat,” she told me.

“I’m a football player,” I told her. “I need those dense, yet tender, units of protein and fat.”

“Tom Brady is a vegan, you know,” Mayda told me. “And look at him!”

“I don’t want to look at him,” I told her. “I can’t stand that guy.”

After a meal of what seemed like hay and nettles, washed down with beet juice flavored with dirt, I suggested the (romantic) walk by the river. As if she hadn’t heard, Mayda said, “You know what I’d love to do now? You know what would be REALLY great? We could drive out to the desert! There’s this spot I know where we can look at the night sky. It’s really clear tonight, and once we get away from the city lights, the sky will be full of stars.” She smiled at me. “We’ll be far from civilization. We can spread out a blanket and have some fun... out in nature, under the moon and stars..”

That wasn’t the fourth snag, but it was well on the way to it. I don’t like nature, but I do like fun, so I went along with her idea. “How long will it take to get there?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Forty minutes, tops.” Actually, that didn’t sound bad. It would give us time to talk.

"Fine," I agreed. "My pickup's just a couple blocks from here."

Once we left town, and the lights and buildings were disappearing behind us, I opened my mouth to speak, but Mayda started talking first. “I’m glad we can do this,” she said. “Tonight’s a special night, and I want to celebrate with you.”

“Yes, I know it’s a special night,” I replied with a smile.

“You know?” she asked, in a surprised voice. “How could you possibly know? Did my mother tell you?”

“Your mother? What does your mother have to do with it? It’s our anniversary!” Did Mayda really not remember?

“Anniversary?” She was genuinely puzzled.

“Six-month anniversary of when we started seeing each other!”

“Ohhh! Right. Is that today?”

Obviously, she hadn’t remembered.

A little irritated, I asked, “If it’s not our anniversary that makes tonight special, what is it?”

“Okay,” she said. Her face was shining with excitement. “I was going to tell you later, after we made love, but I guess I can tell you now. I might EXPLODE if I don’t tell you. I’m going to play for Barcelona!”

“Barcelona, Spain?”

“Yes!”

“Barcelona, Spain,” I repeated.

“Do you know another Barcelona?”

“Playing soccer?”

“Yeah. I’ve been trying to get on a European team for a while now, and what I’ve done so far at State was enough to impress a couple of teams to invite me. Can you believe that?”

I hardly knew what to think. I was in a state of shock. I couldn’t find any words, except to ask when she’d go.

“I’m leaving at the end of the month! Isn’t it exciting?”

“You’re dropping out?”

“I’m leaving college, yes. But college was never my dream. It was just a place to play soccer. Now I can play for real, professionally. So fuck college! I’m going to Spain! I’m going to see Europe!”

My jaw dropped. I pulled over to the side of the road and turned the engine off. “But what about us?” I demanded.

“What about us?” she asked. “It’s not like we’re getting married or anything. I mean, I like you -- I like you a lot -- but I *never* led you to think I wanted anything more. We’ve only been seeing each other for a couple of months--”

“SIX months!”

“Okay, six months. Honestly, though, I thought you’d be happy for me. If an NFL team wanted you, I’d be happy for you.”

“It’s not the same!” I shouted.

“Why not?”

“Because we’re supposed to be together. We belong together!”

She withdrew to the far side of her seat and gave me a wary look. In a quiet, careful tone, as if walking on eggshells, she said, “Ross, we don’t belong together. I’m sorry. We don’t. I want change, adventure, uncertainty, change -- okay, I said ‘change’ already -- but any way, I’m pretty sure you want exactly the opposite. You want solid, stable--” She stopped herself, but I knew the next word was going to be stuck.

“Is soccer really that important to you?” I demanded.

“No, honestly, it’s not,” she said. “I love soccer, but mostly it’s a way out. Like right now: it’s taking me to Spain! Ross, I need to get away from here. I need a bigger life.”

“I’m confused,” I said. “College is just for soccer, and soccer is just to get away from here? So what is Barcelona?”

“Barcelona is Barcelona. It’s far away and exotic. It’s the doorway to a different kind of life.”

“Are you planning on coming back?”

“I don’t know. I have to see where life takes me. This is the first time I can take a big, bold step, so I’m taking it. I would kick myself forever after if I let a chance like this slip by.”

We argued back and forth. Well, really, *I* argued. She was calm, and she tried to calm me down. She pointed out that she’d never misled me, or made me any promises. “Every time you talked about the future, I always pressed the brakes. Haven’t I?”

At last, I played my clever, psychological card. I challenged her: “Okay. Then tell me this: What about that glass turkey? Are you taking that to Barcelona with you?”

She looked at me like I was completely crazy. “No, of course not. I’m going to leave it at my parents’ house. Why?”

“I think you bought that glass turkey because you’re nesting!”

Her eyes popped wide open in disbelief. After that, both of us really went at it, hammer and tongs. We revisited our entire history -- which, as it turned out, was a history of misunderstandings. Apparently our relationship was “built” (if I can use that word) on a series of events that meant one thing to me, and something entirely different to her. Over and over, it seems, I saw glowing significance in things that she found nice, but unremarkable.

I have no idea how long it took for us to get to the end of all that, but eventually we both ran out of things to say. After six months of seeing each other, we finally arrived at a moment when -- for the first and only time -- we really understood each other. In the awkward silence that followed, I reached for the ignition, to turn my car back on. There was nothing else to do but bring her home. But my hand never touched the key. In that instant, while my hand was still rising, an intense bright-white spotlight hit the car. I put my hands up to shield my eyes. “What the hell?”

“Where’s it coming from?” Mayda asked. “I don’t hear a helicopter.”

“Me neither,” I said, and everything went black.

 

---

 

I awoke in a dimly lit room. There was a nebulous glow above me. If there was a ceiling beyond, it was too far off to see. The glow grew lighter by slow degrees. I was naked, and lying on a slab of smooth slate. I turned my head to the left. I could see the wall, but it was distant, and the room empty. I turned my head to the right and saw Mayda lying naked on a slab, like me. There was a gap of about six feet between us. Her eyes were closed. I tried to sit up, but the only part of me that moved was my head and neck.

“Mayda,” I called. “Mayda! Can you hear me?” Her eyes opened, and she quickly looked around her.

“Where are we?” she asked. “Why can’t I move?”

“Okay,” I said. “Put it all together -- the light, losing consciousness, waking like this -- I know it sounds crazy, but I think we were abducted by aliens.”

“Huh,” Mayda replied. “For real?” She sounded more interested than afraid. As she scanned the room, I looked her over. I’d seen her naked plenty of times, but never from this angle. She looked spectacular. I had a view of her entire left profile, from her long, sculpted legs, to the soft curve of her ass resting on the table, up her flat stomach to her round, perfect breasts. And of course her face was beautiful as well. “I can only move my head,” I told her.

“Yeah, me too,” she replied, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was still looking around the room. “Do you think they’ve done the anal probe yet?” she joked. “I’d hate to have missed it.”

“How can you joke at a time like this?” I asked her. “We’ve got to find a way out of here!”

“Don’t panic,” she replied. “They aren’t going to hurt us; we’re not cows.” Then she laughed! “Maybe they’ll draw crop circles in our hair.” She giggled at her own joke.

The aliens entered at that point. One of them came and stood between us, so that he (I presume he was a he) could look into our faces. He resembled Mr Toad from the old David Petersen illustrations for The Wind in the Willows, except that our Mr Toad was wearing full body armor. Four of his cohort remained by the door.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” he said.

“Why did you knock us out?” I demanded. Mr Toad seemed taken aback by the question.

“We needed to examine you,” he replied, as if the answer were obvious. “We had to make sure you were in good health, without any physical anomalies.”

“Why did you need to know that?”

Again, he seemed surprised by the question. He answered in the tone of an adult explaining something simple to a slow child. “We’re going to take you to one of our planets. We have a lovely environment set up where you can live. I’m sure you’ll like it. We already have many human specimens-- Oh, that reminds me!”

He reached out his hand, and one of the other aliens gave him a small box that resembled a garage-door opener. He pointed it at Mayda and pressed the button. Nothing happened. Then he pointed it at me and pressed the same button.

I gasped. My back lurched. My penis hardened into a fierce erection. It was so hard it almost hurt. A wave of perspiration bathed my entire body, and my heart began to pound. I felt so sexually stimulated, I thought I’d explode in a nuclear orgasm. I heard myself groaning. I tensed all over. I writhed and twisted, my body arched so it rested only on my heels and the back of my head. God, I was so close… another moment and-- Then, before I ejaculated into the air, Mr Toad let go of the button. I went limp instantly. My body relaxed so abruptly, it landed with a loud slap! against the table. “Sweet Jesus!” I gasped, when I was able to speak. “Why did you do that?” I wanted to ask Why did you stop? but it would have been too embarrassing. I was still trembling and breathing unevenly and my voice was shaky.

Mayda’s eyes were saucers, but her lips showed a half-smile of amusement and interest.

Mr Toad held up the garage-door opener as if it were one of the seven wonders. With a touch of pride he explained, “This amazing device enables us to distinguish human males from human females.”

“You’re kidding!” I exclaimed. “You can’t just tell by looking?”

“Obviously not!” He sounded indignant. Mayda giggled.

“Listen,” I said. “I don’t want to go to your planet. I don’t want to live in your environment with your other specimens. Especially if it smells anything like this spaceship. I just want to get the hell out of here. Now.”

Mr Toad appeared shocked and confused. He was at a loss for words, as if my attitude was utterly unexpected and beyond comprehension.

“I’ll go,” Mayda said. I shot her a look. She held the look, and gazing straight into my eyes, she repeated it: “I’ll go to your planet. I’d love to go. I’m ready now.”

Mr Toad looked back and forth several times between the two of us.

“Let him stay here,” Mayda said. “Take me with you. I want to go.”

“Don’t do this because you’re angry with me,” I told her.

“I’m not angry with you. This isn’t about you. I want to go to their planet.”

“Don’t sacrifice yourself for me,” I said. “If it has to be one of us, I’ll go.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “It’s not a sacrifice! I’m going. I don’t care what you do, but I’m going. Here is the chance to see another planet; to see more of the universe! I can’t believe you don’t WANT to go.”

“Of course I don’t want to go! This is my home! This is your home, too!”

She shook her head.

“Hmm,” Mr Toad mused. “We have a conundrum. The reason we’ve come all this way is that recently we were embarrassed to discover that all of the human specimens we’ve collected so far are female. Of course, we had no way to tell, but there we are. We were specifically tasked, first, with developing this device -- so that we can tell the difference -- and second, to bring home a number of male specimens. With that in mind, we’d have no compunction in leaving you behind.” He addressed that to Mayda. To me, he said, “You, as we’ve determined, are a male of the species, so we must take you with us. It’s not as though we have a choice in the matter.”

“Of course you have a choice in the matter! There’s a whole planet full of men here! Pick somebody else! Take out an ad on Craigslist, for Christ sake! I DON’T WANT TO GO!”

Now, the next thing Mayda said was the last snag. This one was the atomic bomb of snags. It would be hard to find a bigger snag than this. It was the last thing I ever heard Mayda say. I’m sure she was joking -- I’m pretty sure she was joking -- but there are places and times that you should NEVER make a joke.

What she said was, “Too bad you can’t just, like, swap our brains, you know? That would be a win-win-win, right?” And again, she laughed! I glared at her. She smiled. Laughing, she stuck out her tongue at me. She was only teasing, I’m sure.

Then everything went black.

The next thing I knew, I was standing, naked, with Mayda’s breasts hanging off my chest. I looked down at myself and was shocked to discover that I *was* Mayda! I mean, I was me, Ross, but in Mayda’s body. They’d actually done the damn brain swap!

“What did you do to me?” I shouted in Mayda’s voice.

Mr Toad sighed in exasperation. “You are never happy, are you. You’ve done nothing but complain the entire time you’ve been here! I’m glad that we’re leaving you behind. What did we do? Obviously, we’ve done the body swap, exactly as you suggested. Your companion now has the male body, and you have the female one. He will go; you will stay.” He hesitated for a moment, and speaking to himself said, “Better be sure, though, before we let you go.” He picked up the garage-door opener from a table nearby and aimed it at me. I braced myself, and he pushed the button. This time, nothing happened. Visibly relieved, Mr Toad said, “Good, good. It’s important to be sure.”

“But -- but -- I don’t want her body!” I told him.

“What difference does it make?” he asked. “You look the same as before! It’s a well known fact that humans can’t tell each other apart.”

“Of course we can tell!” I shouted. “Believe me, we can tell!”

“I find that difficult to believe,” he replied. “Now: we’re going to leave you in the exact same spot where we picked you up. I’m sure you’ll find a way to complain about that, but we’re done trying to accommodate your every whim. Ready?”

“No, no!” I told him. “Not yet! I need my clothes... and my personal belongings.”

He huffed impatiently, as if I were an unreasonable child, but he left the room and returned a moment later carrying a tray, which he set in front of me. “Pick up whatever you need,” he instructed. “We will send you down in five seconds.”

“But these aren’t MY clothes!” I protested. “I mean these are mine, Ross’ clothes, but I need Mayda’s things!” I grabbed my flannel shirt and lifted it to see if any of Mayda’s things were underneath. They weren’t.

“You’re not making any sense. They are all the same,” Mr Toad replied in a weary voice. “Two seconds.”

“No, they aren’t the same at all!”

“Goodbye, you tiresome creature,” said Mr Toad, and in a moment I found myself in Mayda’s body, standing alone in a spotlight on the side of a country road, stark naked, clutching the flannel shirt I was wearing when I was Ross.

“You couldn’t even leave my truck?” I shouted, and the spotlight went out.

The Night I Escaped From The Zoo : 2 / 5

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

I didn’t hear a sound as it went, but I could tell that the spaceship was gone. When I looked straight up, nothing blocked my view of the Milky Way. There weren’t any planes or weather balloons. There were no blobs of light or darkness that could have been alien ships. There wasn’t a cloud; the sky was a cold black backdrop to the stars. The moon was just above the horizon. I was thankful for its strange, pale light -- otherwise I would have been left standing in total darkness. There was nothing above me and nothing around me. The desert was as empty as the sky. Here I was: naked, alone, and far from everything. Not only had the aliens left me in the wrong body, they’d made off with my truck. What could they possibly want with that old clunker? It was probably just carelessness. For sure, they weren’t a very tight operation. A month from now, they’ll stumble over my truck, somewhere on their spaceship. They’ll wonder what it is and why they have it. They’ll use that garage-door opener on it to see if it’s male, and when it doesn’t rear up and groan, they’ll toss it over the side.

Yes, those stupid aliens took everything. All they’d left me was the shirt I was wearing when I was Ross, and not a single thing that belonged to Mayda -- aside from her body! -- no clothes, no keys, no cards, no nothing.

All this time, as I turned to look around and above me, I was distracted and disturbed by the bobbing of my breasts and the swaying of my butt. Shocked and still unbelieving, I looked down at myself. I clutched my breasts; I shoved my hand into my crotch. There was too much on my chest and not enough between my legs. And my ass! Somehow, the most disturbing part of being naked in public was the sensation of having my butt on display. I couldn’t see it, but I could easily picture what I looked like from behind. I’d seen it often enough, and I didn’t want to give that view to the general public. I blushed as I felt how large and smooth it was. It was wrong, all of this. So utterly and completely wrong.

”WHY?” I shouted. ”WHY? WHY WHY WHY? WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING HELL!” I balled up my fists and screamed into the night. I howled and wailed and raved. It hurt my throat, but I didn’t care. I fell to my knees and cried until I ran out of breath.

How can I ever play football ever again? The question struck me hard, and the answer hit me even harder: I will never play football again. Not seriously, which was as good as saying “not at all.” And if I can’t play football, I’ll lose my football scholarship. No -- I lost my scholarship already, just by ceasing to be Ross. Hell, I lost my truck, my girlfriend, my balls, my “up and coming” status… everything!

Now what was I supposed to do? Go live in Mayda’s apartment and pretend to be a girl? Was I supposed to go to Barcelona and play soccer? I knew zip about soccer! Shit… Mayda was a star. I’d be a total beginner. How could I possibly step into her place? Still, it was a stupid game; how hard could it be? I mean, if you get the ball you run into the left corner and kick it across the net. Once I figured out what the referee’s whistles meant, I think I’d be set.

I’m kidding, of course. I trained and worked hard for years to be the football player I am now. I mean, the player I was until a half hour ago. Mayda had trained and worked just long and just as hard. Sometimes when we worked out, I had a hard time keeping up with her! If I sucked at soccer, what would I do? Somehow, I’d have to hit the ground running. After all, I couldn’t get any slack by explaining to the coach that I was really Ross. And what about our friends? What would I tell them about Ross? What would I say to my parents? My face went white. What would I tell Mayda’s parents?

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It was insane. I couldn’t tell anyone anything! They’d lock me in the zoo.

Shit.

Still, I knew I did the right thing. I was right to stay behind. There was no way I could go and live in an alien zoo. But what about Mayda? Will I spend the rest of my life worrying about her? Wondering whether she was okay, out there on another planet? I still don’t understand why she wanted to go. Was it something I said? Something I did? Was it that stupid glass turkey? I sighed. It could have been anything -- how could I know? I felt guilty. I didn’t want to feel guilty. I didn’t think I should feel guilty.

Oh, God.

For some reason I started to cry again. I only stopped because it was making my abs hurt and I had no more energy left to scream with. I sniffed and snuffled, and when I looked up I saw headlights in the far distance. Whoever they were, they were heading east, back toward town. Hopefully they’d stop and give me a ride. Otherwise, I’d be walking for hours. Barefoot..

I quickly put on the flannel shirt. It fit me like a circus tent. I rolled up the sleeves into two big cuffs.

As the lights grew closer, I waved with both arms and jumped to get the driver’s attention. He stopped a few yards back from where I was. There was a rack of lights mounted on the roof, which told me he was a cop. He turned a spotlight on me. I blinked in the light, but made an effort to not cover my face. Then he swept the spot to my left and right. Making sure this is not an ambush, I figured. When he stepped from the car, I could see from his uniform and his buzz cut that he was a state trooper. He was a tall, lanky guy, over six feet easy. “Need help, miss? Are you alright?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m just trying to get back to town.”

“What are you doing out here all alone?”

“I -- uh -- I had a fight with my boyfriend.”

“Huh!” the cop grunted as he walked around the car toward me. I was a little puzzled by that, and asked him, “It’s a little chilly -- could I get into your car? Can you give me a ride back to town?” He didn’t answer. He walked across the beams of his headlights and looked me up and down. The expression on his face made me very uneasy. That, and the fact that he had his hand over his badge. He tried to make it seem a casual pose, like he was just resting his hand, but it was obvious: he was hiding his badge number. I wanted to run, but how could I? Where would I go? I knew that Magda was fast, but I was barefoot in the middle of nowhere. He’d catch me in a flash, and then I’d have to explain why I’d run.

He came very close and said, “A fight, huh? Did he hurt you?” Again, his eyes scanned me, this time lingering on my bare legs.

“No, I’m not hurt. He didn’t touch me. I’m fine.”

“What’s his name? And your name?” he asked.

I answered, “He’s Ross Ghulyan, and I’m Mayda Zakaryan.” It was the first time I claimed her name. It felt like a lie, but I knew I’d have to get used to it.

“He just drove off and left you?” I nodded. “It must have been a hell of a fight. So, this fight… was it a verbal fight, or a physical fight? Did he hit you? Did you hit him?”

“It was a verbal fight,” I said. “It was an argument. Nobody hit anyone.” I didn’t like where he was going with these questions.

“And uh…,” he reached up and fingered the collar of my shirt. “This fight… was it a naked fight?”

I looked up into his leering face and swallowed hard. “Part of the time, yes,” I said.

“Then the bastard took off with your clothes, didn’t he.”

“Yes.” I cleared my throat and repeated, “So... can you give me a ride to town? Or towards town? I see you’re heading in that direction.”

“Yes, sure, I can do that,” he said, and he slowly licked his smiling lips, looking me directly in the eyes the entire time. He said, “This shirt -- it isn’t yours, is it.”

“No,” I replied, my voice shaking. “It belongs to Ross.”

“So, it’s stolen,” he said with a nod. “I’m going to need to confiscate that shirt. And then I better give you a good looking-over… to make good and sure that he didn’t hurt you.”

I began to protest, but in a well-practiced move, he spun me and gave me a shove, and I ended up with my hands resting on the roof of the police car. He placed his forearm between my shoulder blades to keep me from moving.

“Now you just take it easy,” he said. “I’m going to search you; I have to make sure you’re not carrying any weapons or drugs or any other stolen goods.”

I began to point out that I obviously wasn’t carrying anything, but he cut me off by saying, “I’d hate to have to arrest a pretty young girl like you for assaulting an officer and resisting arrest -- to say nothing of indecent exposure. Do you understand me?”

He slid his hands slowly up my right leg, stopping before he reached my crotch. He did the same with my left leg. It was agonizingly slow. Clearly, he was going to take his time and make this grope session last as long as possible. He drew a big, slow breath as he ran both hands over my butt, caressing it, touching it, lifting it, grabbing it. His hands moved up my sides, over my breasts, and then he lifted my shirt completely off me. He tucked it into the light rack on the roof of his police car.

“Keep your hands on the car,” he instructed. “For now.”

Now that I was naked, he touched every inch of my skin all over again, this time starting from the neck on down. I felt his breath on my shoulders and back. As he fondled me, he made lots of noises: heavy breathing, sighs, exclamations. He hadn’t yet put his lips on me or come near to touching my pussy. He was clearly saving that for last. I’m glad to say that something happened before he ever arrived there.

He cupped my breasts for a long time, then he pressed his hips against my buttocks and rested his chin on my right shoulder. “Oh, God,” he said, “your hair smells fantastic.” His hands slowly worked their way down my stomach, heading for my crotch, when suddenly -- headlights appeared from the east, heading away from town, moving fast. Even while they were far off, I could hear music from inside the car -- the volume was cranked up way past eleven. It boomed and thudded like a concert or a club. From this distance, all I could hear was the thud of the bass. As it came closer, other sounds filled in the mass of noise. It took me half a minute before I finally was able to recognize the song: It was (of all things) Aerosmith’s Dude Looks Like A Lady.

The headlights came up and over a low hill. On the downside, when the lights dipped and no longer hid the vehicle, I saw that it wasn’t a car; the moonlight made it clear: it was a van, a white service van. The van was tearing up the road. It came up on us with frightening speed -- it had to be going at least 90 miles an hour -- and the driver clearly wasn’t in full control. The van lurched and swerved all over the road, straying off to the shoulder and screeching back to the asphalt.

“God damn it!” the trooper shouted, and then, “WATCH OUT!”

As he shouted, he wrapped both of his arms around my waist, and threw himself backwards with all the force in his legs. His leap carried both of us well away from the road. He grunted as he landed heavily on his back. I fell with all my weight directly on top of him, and his arm squeezing my waist hurt me badly. But his move saved us both: the van barrelled into the police car, knocking it three feet sideways. If the trooper hadn’t jumped, the police car would have hit the both of us.

With the sound of metal grinding metal, it took two tries for the van to back away and free itself from the crumpled police car. We heard cackling laughter over the music, and the van took off, heading west.

“Shit!” the trooper shouted. He shoved me off him, dumping me to the ground. He jumped to his feet and started for his car. As if he’d forgotten and suddenly remembered, he looked back at me and called, “You hurt?” I shouted NO -- I had to shout over the music. The commotion was fading, but it was still pretty loud. He nodded and made a gesture with his open palms that I think meant Hang on, I’ll be right back -- which of course didn’t reassure me at all. He ran around to the other side of his car and swore. Clearly, the driver door had taken the impact of the crash. I got to my feet and watched him put one foot against the side of his car as he pulled with both hands to try to open it. At first, the door didn’t move at all. Before his second try, he took a big deep breath, then bellowed like a weight-lifter as he tugged with all his strength. The metal screamed and banged as he struggled. When the door abruptly gave way, it fell completely off the car, and cop landed hard on his ass, just missing being hit by the heavy door. He got up, swearing, and managed to dig deep down inside for some fearful oaths as he picked up the door and hurled it off the road on the other side. He jumped in, swearing nonstop.

I ran to the car and tried to open the passenger door. He looked at me, startled, as if he had no idea where I’d come from. The door didn’t open; it was locked. “Take me with you!” I shouted. “You can’t leave me here!” He looked at me, his face in turmoil, and he said, “I’ll be back! I’ll be right back!” I had to jump out of the way as he pulled a wild U-turn. He very nearly fell out the door-hole, and struggled to keep upright by clutching the steering wheel. Then he grabbed his radio and stomped on the gas pedal. He took off like a shot, chasing the van.

“HEY! Hey, you jackass! What about me? WHAT ABOUT ME!” He turned on his siren and lit his roof lights. There was my shirt, flapping next to a red beacon. “My shirt! MY SHIRT, God damn you! You asshole! You asshole! MY SHIRT!”

There was no way he could have heard me, I know. By the time I started yelling about the shirt, he was already well out of earshot. Great.

And then, a small miracle! As I watched, fuming with anger, my shirt unfolded itself, ballooned, and freed itself from the light rack. It fluttered a moment before dropping into the road. It wasn’t too far from me; maybe 60 yards. So I started walking. What else could I do? I was intensely conscious of my nakedness. The sensation of that sleezebag’s hands on me lingered unpleasantly on my skin. I shuddered and twitched in disgust, and realized I was shaking as I walked: it was my adrenaline kicking in. I’d just have to wait for it to pass. Why did I ask him to take me with him? What a stupid thing to say! I no more wanted to go with him than to live in that smelly alien zoo. I was just desperate. It was my fear talking. Clearly, what I really needed to do was to get the hell and gone out of there before he came back. Or else I’d have to find a place to hide until he passed, but where? There was nothing around me as far as the eye could see: just desert, low hills, a road, the moon. And me, a tall, naked girl, walking on tiptoe. Why was I walking on tiptoe? Was I trying to be quiet and not attract attention? Maybe there was some muscle memory in Mayda’s body. Would Mayda’s muscle memory know how to play soccer, even if my stupid brain had no idea? And speaking of muscles... I felt my stomach and sides gingerly. I knew I was going to have some bruises where he held me when he jumped. I suppose the trooper saved my life, or at least prevented some serious injury, but if he hadn’t felt the need to grope me; if he’d simply given me a ride like he was supposed to, we wouldn’t have been out there at all! He’d have been sitting behind the wheel when the van approached, and he could have swerved to avoid it. I’d be on my way home, instead of walking in the moonlight.

After I’d gone about halfway to my shirt, another headlight appeared in the east. Another car leaving town. I knew that I should run to grab the shirt and put it on, but I didn’t have the energy, and when I tried to run, the effort hurt my abs and sides.

For that reason, I was still naked when an old beige pickup truck pulled up next to me. Thankfully, there was a woman driving, and the first thing she said was, “Get in! Get in! Hurry! Come on!”

Once I climbed in and shut the door, she pulled a blanket from behind the seat and gave it to me. “Wrap yourself in that,” she told me. “Cover yourself good and warm. Are you hurt? What happened? Do you need a doctor, the police, a telephone?”

“No,” I told her. “I’m fine. I had a fight with my boyfriend and he left me out there without a stitch.”

“He didn’t rape you or hurt you did he?”

“No. He just… left.”

“Men are bastards, honey,” she said, shaking her head. “They have their moments, but they’re all bastards.” She glanced at me, then asked again, “You sure he didn’t hurt you?”

“No, he didn’t hurt me. He just left me.”

“Cause if he hurt you--” she looked at me, nodding “--I’ve got a couple of guns. We can go hunt for him.”

My jaw dropped in astonishment. “You’re not serious, are you?”

The woman smiled, then guffawed, throwing her head back as she laughed. “No, hon, no -- I was just kidding! But you shoulda seen the look on your face!” She imitated my expression so comically that I had to laugh, too

She introduced herself as “Lemon -- like that girl on 30 Rock.” She looked about sixty, a wiry, outdoorsy sixty. She had short gray hair and was dressed in tight jeans and a gray t-shirt. She asked me what I needed.

“I just need a ride to town,” I told her. “I know you’re going the other way, but it would mean a lot to me.”

“I tell you what,” she said. “I think that right now what you need more than a ride is a decent set of clothes. You look about my sister’s size, especially up top. Right now, though, I need to get home. I can’t turn around and head back to town just yet. I’ve got some supplies that are needed directly, tonight. If you come with me, I’ll dress you and feed you and give you a bed for the night, and when morning comes, I’ll take you wherever you need to go. How does that sound?”

When I considered the fact that I had no alternatives -- other than waiting for the creepy trooper to return -- it sounded just fine.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, there’s something else you need, and that’s a good bath. You look like you’ve been rolling around on the ground -- not that there’s anything wrong with that!” She laughed again, popping open her eyes and mouth, then throwing her head back and cackling loudly.

Lemon was pretty friendly, and I warmed up to her right away. Soon we were chatting like old friends. I had to give her a somewhat altered version of how tonight had gone. Telling it from Mayda’s point of view made me realize a few things about myself and how I’d behaved with her.

Strangely enough, as we talked, and as Lemon spoke of her own life, I got the feeling that if I told her about the aliens and the brain swap, she’d believe me, and maybe even help me find my way as a newly-minted woman. Unfortunately, and as you’ll soon see, we never got to that point.

I told her about my experience with the state trooper. She listened attentively, and when I was done, she gave me a very serious look, and stopped her pickup in the middle of the road. She put it in park and turned off the engine.

“You mentioned the police. I know it was a very unpleasant experience, but I get the feeling that you’re a girl who lives on the straight and narrow. Am I right?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” I replied.

“Well, then--” she fixed her eyes on mine “--I have to ask you something, honey, and I want you to tell me your true feelings. Do you have any legal or moral objections to meth -- to methamphetamine? Do you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“We’re heading to my house right now. Let’s suppose, hypothetically, that my nephew has a little shed out back where he cooks meth. If you knew of such a thing, would you feel obliged to tell the police? Would it make you loathe to accept my hospitality tonight? Or, if you accept my hospitality, would you feel obliged to lead the police back to my place, so they could arrest me and my family and friends?”

Again, considering my utter lack of alternatives, I told her that it was all fine to me, as long as I wasn’t involved. I assured her that I was perfectly capable of seeing nothing and noticing nothing, and that I was sure I’d forget everything immediately after.

“Good!” she exclaimed, and with a big smile she started the truck, put it in gear, and stepped on the gas.

Even if I did want to tell the police, I doubt that I’d ever be able to lead them back to Lemon’s place. After we crossed the desert, to where the trees began again, Lemon turned off on a by-road, and -- in a darkness that the moon couldn’t entirely pierce -- she took one dirt road after another, easing her way over deep potholes, until, after a steep concrete incline, we pulled into her driveway.

By that point, I was expecting a shack or a cabin or a little trailer, but instead she had a cute two-story bungalow. A real house, with a porch swing out front and two gables up top. It was well-kept, at least as far as I could see in the moonlight. The lawn was cut and flowers were planted. There wasn’t any trash around, or a goat tethered in the yard, or a pot-bellied man in a rocking chair, or any of the other stereotypes I was expecting. It was like a suburban home planted out in the woods.

Inside, everything was neat and clean and cozy. She brought me upstairs and showed me her guest bedroom. It was so nicely appointed, I felt I was in a bed-and-breakfast. The guest bathroom (which was in one of the gables) had a clawfoot tub, which I’d never before seen in real life. She was quite proud of it, and immediately opened the taps. She poured in some bubble bath. “You can use any of the shampoos or conditioners. The towels are here: this one’s for your head, and the big one’s for the rest of you. The wash cloths are here, and you can help yourself to the loofahs and brushes and what-have-you.” She set a new unwrapped toothbrush on the sink.

Then, as the tub filled, we poked through her sister’s things, and Lemon picked out some shoes and underwear and a nice dress, but I’m not going to describe any of them (as pretty as they were) because -- as you’ll soon see -- I never got to put them on.

If you’ve never seen a clawfoot tub, I’ll describe it for you: it’s an old-fashioned, free-standing tub. They’re made of cast iron and covered with white enamel. The reason we call them “clawfoot” is because the tub rests on four legs, and each leg is traditionally shaped like a bird’s claw. They’re beautiful and luxurious, and I had my first moment of feeling my femininity when I put my hand on the side of the tub, lifted my leg, and stepped into the soapy foam. It was such a girl thing to do, like a picture in a magazine, and here I was, happily doing it.

After I’d been soaking for five or ten minutes, Lemon came in with two mugs of hot tea. As we chatted, she absent-mindedly took my hair and with an elastic band and some hair pins, she wrapped in up in a bun. I have to admit, it did enhance the soaking experience.

After Lemon left me to soak in the steaming water, I inevitably fell asleep. When I awoke, the water had cooled quite a bit, but that wasn’t what woke me. It was the people yelling outside. Their shouts, as far as I could tell, were quite consistent in their content, and they stressed two points above all: the first was that “It’s gonna blow!” and the second was “Watch out!”

Personally, I’ve never found “watch out!” to be a particularly useful warning, mainly because it’s so lacking in details. In the present case, it was no help whatsoever.

On the other hand, “it’s going to blow!” was quite rich with information. In spite of its terseness, it delivered a key message, and did not leave anyone asking for more. I’m sure that no one was standing in the yard waiting to ask -- or demanding to know -- exactly which it was going to blow. There would be plenty of time to find the antecedent to the pronoun AFTER “it” blew. For the present, everyone who heard the warning would simply run and duck for cover, or both.

Lemon had mentioned the meth lab. I knew that meth labs were highly volatile, so I supposed that this was the it in question.

I heard a soft whump! that vibrated in my body. Some instinct drove me to pull my head under the bathwater. As I did the entire house shook, and I saw a ball of fire pass over the tub. When I raised my head, the roof and walls were gone. The floor seemed to have withstood the blast. I was sitting at the top of the house, with a nearly unobstructed 360-degree view. The gable had been roughly torn away, leaving me in an open-air bathroom. I lifted my soapy head higher, and looked into the woods that surrounded the house. A small tree had caught fire, and several other trees had been knocked flat. I had to turn my head all the way around to get a look at the meth lab. To say that it was on fire is to drastically understate the case. From the size and shape of the inferno behind me, I could tell that the lab had been about the size of large trailer home. It was burning so brightly, that I had to squint to look at it, and I couldn’t look at it for more than a second at a time. If someone had told me that a chunk of the sun had fallen into Lemon’s backyard, well, of course I wouldn’t believe it, but it would be hard to think that anything else could be that bright and that hot. Two stories up, I could actually feel the heat from the blaze. I sank up to my neck in the water and considered my next move. Certainly I’d have to get out of the tub, dry and dress myself, and find Lemon. I’d have to get the hell out of here before the police and fire department showed up. I took another quick look around me. Behind me was the burning meth lab. People were still running around, shouting. In front of me was the woods, dark and silent. I’d probably have to head that way and hope to find a trail.

I swear, I had just taken a glance at Lemon’s sister’s clothes, lying intact on the bed, and I was just about to get up and out of that tub, when there came a cry that rose above the rest: “There’s another one! Run! Run for it!” and two seconds later a second explosion rocked the earth. I couldn’t react fast enough to duck this time, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing blew over or past me. This time, it hit underneath. Something hard, heavy, and fast-moving, struck the tub. I felt the impact jar my backside. The impact was so strong that it tore the bathtub free of its plumbing, and lifted it off the floor.

At first I thought that it was going to hurl me down to the lawn and leave me naked on the grass. I wish that it had done so! Instead, the tub was propelled like a jet ski high into the air. It shot in a graceful arc over the ruins of the house and over the lawn strewn with debris. I clutched the sides of the tub with white-knuckled hands and did not blink for the next several minutes. As I shot through the air, I was sure my life would end with me smashed into a cartoon pancake between a massive pine tree and a cast-iron clawfoot tub. At least a death like that would have been one for the record books.

But no -- my life, and my flight, didn’t end there. The tub veered slightly to the left, missing the massive pine. Still airborne, we ripped past saplings and hanging vines. I wanted to cover my face with my hands, but I didn’t dare release my death-grip on the sides of the tub.

I estimate that we flew 100 yards before the tub hit the ground, and there I expected our trip to end, leaving me walk back through the woods, wearing only suds. But that is not how it ended.

Somehow -- and we will see exactly how -- the tub kept on going, digging a path through the ground, like a mad apocalyptic plow. Miraculously, it missed every tree solid enough to interrupt its forward momentum, so on we went. God knows how far we travelled! We dug through the earth and ripped through the forest until the tub’s propellant finally gave out at the banks of a stream.

I gasped in relief. My eyebrows were stuck in the UP position, high on my forehead; I couldn’t bring them down. A more immediate issue was my hands: I couldn’t peel my fingers off the tub! I’d been gripping it so tightly for so long that my muscles were locked in that position. After several fruitless attempts to work them free, I ended up using my forearms as levers to slide my fingers down past the outer edges of the tub’s rim. Once that was done, I only needed to turn my hand a little farther to pop my thumbs off the sides of the tub. As far as the rest of my body went, I didn’t feel any cuts or bruises. I moved my arms and legs; it didn’t seem like any bones were broken. You might wonder why I didn’t just look down at myself to take inventory, but the strange fact was, that the tub was still full of water and bubbles. Well, there were little branches and leaves sprinkled on the surface as well, but somehow the tub -- like a juggernaut’s car in miniature -- managed to keep both me and the water intact as it tore through the forest, uprooting saplings and ripping apart vines. I submerged my hands and pressed them against the sides of the tub: I needed to work my fingers until they could move again. Then I put my stiff fingers to my face, and brushed away the debris as well as I could. Lastly, I rubbed and tugged at my eyebrows, to try to relax them and bring them down off my forehead.

My eyebrows came down by themselves later, I don’t know when -- as you’ll see, I got pretty distracted soon enough.

Something more urgent seized my attention. The tub itself -- which was, remember, formed of cast iron -- inexplicably and suddenly began to heat up. The temperature rose so rapidly that I leaped from the water, afraid of being scalded. I stood looking at it puzzled, rubbing my derriere. My butt wasn’t burnt, but it did feel a bit tender.

The tub reached such a high temperature that the ground around it, which was a little damp, began to sizzle and smoke. The radiant heat reminded me of a cast-iron stove. I had to back away. The next morning I discovered that the front of my body looked like it was sunburned -- just from standing next to the red-hot tub.

Not to be left out, the water in the tub gently bubbled and steamed, but the bubbles quickly swelled and multiplied until a full and powerful boil was underway. A great steam arose, and a fierce, violent, turbulent boil was well underway.

I bent, almost kneeling, to look behind and under the tub to discover the source of the heat. Keep in mind that I had to keep my distance from the incandescent tub, but I wouldn’t have seen the source at all if a nearby bush hadn’t dried up and withered away before my eyes. Once the bush was out of the way, it became obvious: There were a pair of metal canisters that were hissing and glowing red. They were jammed in and securely wedged between the back legs of the tub. Basically, they were stuck right under my butt for my entire crazy ride. These were the propellants that shot the tub through the air and drove it across the ground! This was the source of all that destructive power! Somehow during the second explosion, the canisters were thrown into my bathroom, where they lodged underneath the tub. Mystery solved!

I realize that you might be wondering what insane chemical madness was housed in those deadly little tanks? If there ever was a label on them, it had long since burnt away, and I wasn’t curious enough to dare a closer look. Whatever rocket fuel was inside, it had finally given out near this stream. It couldn’t push that tub another inch. Careful though: it didn’t look like the canisters were ready to retire for the night. They still had work to do.

The pair of them were hissing ever louder. By now, the water in the tub had completely evaporated, and the white enamel cracked and flaked from the heat. The canisters began to shake, as did the tub. The enamel let off a cloud of black smoke, then burst into flame. The tub and the two tanks bucked and rocked like an insane mechanical bronco. I could tell they were ready for an apocalyptic night on the town -- they were raring to go. In the absence of music, the three metal pieces let off a fearsome banging noise, like Thor’s hammer on a bender.

This time I didn’t need anyone else to shout it’s going to blow! or even watch out! Clearly something drastic was about to happen; something I wanted no part of. I backed away anxiously, looking around me for cover: a big rock or huge tree to hide behind, but there was none. Luckily (!) as I flailed and panicked, my heel caught in a tree root, and I fell backwards, landing on my soapy derriere in the mud. From there, I rolled down the dirty slope toward the water, landing on my back among the rotten leaves and mud.

Still: better there than in that madcap tub!

I didn’t see it, but I heard it. The canisters erupted as one with a deafening blast. The bathtub lifted off in a grand farewell that sent it high into the air. One end glowed an angry spanked red, and while the white enamel burned and smoked like a flaming tire. It flew straight and true, still upright, as it sailed over the creek, but once it reached the height of the tree tops, it began to flip end over end. It kept its trajectory, though, and kept gaining altitude. I could still see the flames and the red-hot glow even after it passed the trees.

At last it flew out of sight. The noise, the flames, the heat were all gone, and I was surprised to hear the gurgle of the creek. Now that the tub had taken its party elsewhere, the woods lapsed back into a quiet and a stillness such that the crickets and the gentle ripple of the water were the loudest sounds I could hear.

And yet I listened, straining to keep still. I felt sure that I’d hear the crash when the bathtub came to earth. Instead, I heard nothing but the crickets and the stream. Oh well. Maybe it never landed. Maybe the tub was destined to never fall. For all I know, it landed on the moon. Or maybe it struck Mr Toad’s spaceship and did enough damage that he’d have to bring Mayda back. We’ll probably never know.

Alright then! Here I was once again, naked in the middle of nowhere. A few clumps of suds still clung to me. My butt was covered in mud and slime. In addition, the explosion had thrown several bucketfuls of dirt, sticks, and pebbles all over me.

I stood up cautiously and peeked over the bank. The canisters were ripped open by the blast. Their salad days were over. Whatever damage they were born to do, they had done it. I had nothing more to fear from them.

Sighing, I tried to brush some dirt off my arm, but it only smeared and muddied. I dipped my toe in the stream to see if I dared to slip in and rinse myself off. It was cold. Not icy cold, but too cold for a sane person. Okay: naked and dirty it is.

Taking stock: Mayda’s clothes (which should have been mine) were on a spaceship flying off to an unknown planet. My plaid shirt was lying on a desert highway, unless that creepy cop returned and picked it up. Lemon’s sister’s outfit, which I could have worn, was probably blown to bits or burned along with the rest of Lemon’s house. My truck was lost in space. The tub -- like Mayda -- had flown off to parts unknown, to have its own adventure.

What was next for me, then? An answer was quick to come: I looked downstream and saw a metal rowboat, caught in the weeds and muck on the opposite bank.

“Anybody mind if I borrow the boat?” I called out loudly, to no one in particular. I didn’t expect a response. No one was there.

The Night I Escaped From The Zoo : 3 / 5

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

Looking back on that moment, I’ve never been able to understand why I didn’t consider walking back along the path that was plowed by the atomic bathtub. It would have been pretty easy to follow, even in the places where the trees were too thick to allow the moonlight to penetrate. The legs of the tub had dug two deep furrows in the earth that I could have followed all the way back to Lemon’s house.

The short answer is: it just didn’t occur to me, not even for a second.

Looking back, it might have made more sense: Lemon would have helped me; she would have at least helped me to get somewhere safe. Lemon could have lent me some clothes. Certainly having clothes to wear would simplify my journey home.

But… maybe it was the sum of many little things that unconsciously prevented me from considering that path: (1) I’d have to walk past and over the exploded canisters. They were blown into tatters and fragments, any one of which could cut my feet to pieces, and it was dark enough that I couldn’t be sure of seeing every bit of shrapnel before I put my foot down. (2) The woods were dark. I’m not a fearful person, but I had heard stories of bears, coyotes, and feral dogs on the local news. (3) I didn’t see any light in the direction of Lemon’s house. The burning of the meth lab was so intensely bright that if it was anywhere nearby, I should have been able to see it -- at least, as a glow in the sky. Instead, there was only blackness.

It’s possible that the trees were too much an obstacle for my line of sight. It’s possible that I’d gone downhill, and Lemon’s house was over a rise, from my point of view. It’s also possible that I’d traveled so far, that by the time I walked back, no one would be there except for police and firemen. Another encounter with the forces of order seemed dicey. They’d have to assume I was somehow associated with the meth lab. I’d have a lot of explaining to do, but no good explanations to give.

In any case, I didn’t go back to Lemon’s house. I saw the rowboat, and it looked like fate.

Of course, the rowboat was trapped on the opposite bank. I’d have to cross the stream to take possession of it. I don’t know who it belonged to, or what it was doing there. There were no trails or roads nearby that I could see. Nor were there houses, cabins, or even little shacks. Just a boat, all on its own. It wasn’t tied up; as far as I could see it had floated down of its own free will and decided to settle here, much as the bathtub had. At least until the bathtub had second thoughts and took off for the sky.

There was nothing for it, but to wade over and climb inside the boat. If I was lucky, this stream would carry me closer to town. I’m not an outdoorsy type, but my sense of direction told me that the stream was heading toward town. If I was right -- or if I was really lucky -- this creek would empty into Robbins River, which cuts across town. Just to add an injury-by-reference, Robbins River is where I intended to take that romantic walk with Mayda, earlier tonight.

The bushes were pretty tight along my side of the shore except for where my tub had landed. So I waded directly into the stream. The water was cold, yeah, so I tried not to think about it: I just kept stepping in, one foot after another. It didn’t look deep, but it was a full ten yards across: plenty of room for surprises. Also, the surface of the water was rippling and moving fast, so I took my time, fighting the cold, stepping as carefully and intentionally as possible..

It was frigid enough to make my teeth chatter, and when I stepped in deep enough for the cold water to hit my crotch, I winced and gasped. I felt the cold acutely on my derriere, and then on my lower stomach. With each step, the water was several inches deeper. The rocks were slippery, too, and I could see there was a high probability that I’d lose my footing and be carried downstream. If that happened, I’d have to swim like hell. At this distance, I could easily miss the boat entirely.

At last, I got to the point that water was up to my lower ribs. I held my arms high, out of the water, and I was trembling like a bad report card. I stood there like an idiot, wasting time for a few moments, and then decided to go for it. I threw myself forwards, diving headlong into the water and making a swim for it.

Instantly, I regretted it. The cold water sucked the energy right out of me. It was instantaneous: not only did the cold make weaker, the sensation of losing motive power was so startling that my fear only made things worse. As soon as I was immersed, my arms and legs seemed weak and powerless. It was so frightening and shocking that I had to fight against panic as well as the water. The current carried me like a tiny bit of flotsam. Still, knowing what was at stake, I struggled to keep my head up, and managed to kick and thrash in the right direction. As soon as I was near enough, I clutched the side of the boat, first with one hand, then the other.

If you’ve never been immersed in a cold stream, you’ll probably think that everything I said was imagination and exaggeration. It’s not. It’s fine if you don’t believe me. I’m just telling you what happened.

There wasn’t enough oomph in my arms and legs to haul myself out of the water, so I worked my way around the boat, hand over hand, toward the shore where it was shallow enough to let me stand and fall into the boat.

A yellow waterproof jacket was lying on the bottom of the boat. At first I draped it over me like a blanket and lay there shivering, waiting for my energy to come back. Then I sat up and slipped the jacket on, and closed the clasps in front. Even though it was rough and basically a rubbery plastic, it was WAY better than being naked. I did feel a bit warmer, though I wish the coat were long enough to cover my butt, or that a pair of pants was part of the offering. Clearly, whoever lost the boat had zero consideration for the wardrobe needs of its next occupant. Oh, well.

There was nothing else in the boat but a single oar.

The boat was jammed up against a tree root and held in place by weeds and a clump of flotsam. I used the oar to poke at the floating trash and leaves. It didn’t want to give at first, but as soon as I opened a channel for the water to flow through the middle of the mess, the pieces began to break away and glide off. In a trice the blockage was washed out, the boat was freed, and we went gliding downstream at a fast clip.

Although I was able to keep the nose of the boat pointing downstream, my attempts to use the oar to actually steer were abject failures. The idea of a rudder was clear to me, but every time I’d stick the oar in the water, the boat would respond by promptly turning around and trying to run ass-first. The boat was also clearly designed to entangle itself at the bank, any bank, so I mainly employed the oar to push off any approaching mass of weeds and rocks or to back out of one that managed to catch me.

The moon set as we went along, the boat and I. In spite of my precarious situation, I fell asleep three times, and each time I woke the boat was stuck again on some plant or rock. I’d push off, and we’d resume our speedy flight downstream.

The channel grew wider and deeper. I saw the glow of city lights on the horizon, and felt assured that I was heading in the right direction.

I fell asleep a fourth time, but this time I woke to find myself well and truly stuck. The boat decided to ram into a huge rock, a boulder, that sat in the middle of the current. The jolt very nearly threw me from the boat. We’d gone aground in the middle of the river -- for by this time I found myself in a serious stretch of water. The speed of the current and the distance to the shore on either side was enough to make me doubt that I’d be able to swim to safety -- if indeed safety was to be found on either bank. There was nothing to see but trees, from the edge of the water on back.

The boat sat pretty high on the rock. We weren’t quite “high and dry” -- the tail of the boat was still hanging in the water. Apparently the boat had jammed itself in pretty tightly somewhere -- the rock was pinching the rowboat and wouldn’t let go. I tried, but couldn’t push off using the oar. In fact, I pressed so hard that the oar let out a loud crack! that frightened the hell out of me. I examined the oar carefully, feeling every inch of it, but couldn’t find a break or split. After laying the oar carefully under the seats, I tried putting one leg out and pushed with one foot. That did nothing. I tried lying on my back and putting two feet against the rock, but there wasn’t enough leverage, and I clearly wasn’t pushing in the right direction. The real problem was that I was afraid of getting too far out of the boat. However, after various fruitless attempts, it became clear that the only place where I’d have enough leverage to free the boat was standing on the rock. After what I’d been through, and what was to come, I think it’s saying a lot when I tell you that this was the most frightening part of my adventure. One highly likely outcome was more than obvious: I could get out, stand on the rock, lose the boat, and end up sitting alone in the middle of the river, wondering if or when someone might find me.

By now, the sun was up, so I was able to get an accurate picture of my predicament: I hadn’t hit *one* rock; I’d run into a group of rocks, and the remedy wasn’t a simple case of pushing off. I’d have to haul the boat up and onto the rock and then launch myself off the downstream side. The rock surface was fairly big, which was reassuring; there was enough space for two rowboats, or a rowboat and a bathtub, should one come sailing down from the sky.

I checked the clasps on my coat, took a big, deep breath, and -- clutching the boat the entire time -- stepped onto the rock. It was clean, not slippery. So far, so good. With a few frightening pushes and oaths, I managed to haul the boat out of its jam and onto the rock. Then, never letting go of my vessel, I studied the safest way to launch it. I saw that I could drop it on the downstream side, where it would be stuck on another part of the rock. Then, I’d climb in, and from inside the boat, push off with one leg and be on my way. After several fear-filled recalculations of my plan, I said to myself, Let’s do it! and soon I was on my way again.

That small episode did wonders for my mood. I felt powerful, clever, and resourceful. The sun was shining. It was a beautiful day. My exertions had warmed me, and I was even beginning to perspire under that plastic jacket. So I undid the clasps and let the air play under my arms and over the front of me. My back was pretty hot, but I didn’t dare take the yellow jacket off. I’d had enough of public nudity and couldn’t chance being separated from my only piece of clothing. I leaned back and enjoyed the sun, the beautiful sky, and my interesting trip on the river. I was still convinced that I was heading back toward town. I congratulated myself on my prowess as a sailor, and even went so far as to wonder whether a word like sailoress or sailorette existed. Of course, my feeling that everything was going well was exactly the signal to whatever perverse deity was designing my journey that it was time to stir the pot.

While I was musing and praising myself, the water had grown rougher and faster. It didn’t alarm me -- at first. It wasn’t as though I was heading for a waterfall or anything like that. The boat collided many times against rocks -- not as large as the one I’d escaped, but still quite dangerous. These unexpected jolts arrived with such speed and without warning that I was afraid the rowboat would be wrecked. Once, the current threw the boat up so high against a rock that the boat tilted sideways, nearly spilling me out into the river. The boat kept moving, though, and quickly dropped back to level. Soon, though, the water was so rough that the boat was striking rocks and scraping against them almost constantly. The boat rocked and lurched so violently, that I found myself gripping the sides with the same intensity that I’d gripped the flying bathtub. Several times the boat was tipped sideways, but never went all the way over. It always righted itself and kept on its way.

After many shocks, drops, scrapes and bangs, we hit a patch of clear, fast water. I don’t know how fast we were going, but I was hanging on for dear life. Then, without any sound or warning, the boat flipped over. I have no idea how it happened. It felt like we slid up a ramp that got so suddenly steep, that finally the boat gave up. It threw in the towel and went over. It happened fast -- I didn’t see it coming at all. All I could do was hang on. One moment I was sitting on a quiet stretch of that rollercoaster, and the next moment I was in the water looking up at the upended boat, canopied above me. I reached up and grabbed the seat. I didn’t panic, but I didn’t know what to do. I had to hang on, and I needed to surface, so I tried to do both at once.

It all came apart when my back hit a rock and I lost my grip on the boat. The current twisted and turned me and threw me head over heels. It was like falling into a washing machine. At one point I couldn’t tell which way was up. I didn't know where to go for air. It was scary, but I didn’t give way to panic. Finally, my foot touched bottom and I pushed off hard.

At last my head broke the surface. I gasped and cried and struggled to keep my face above water. A lot of things went through my head at once. In one single moment, (1) I saw my boat far off, flying downstream. It was probably looking to hook up with that bathtub from hell and form a gang of cursed inanimates. (2) I wasn’t in the middle of the river, but neither was I near to shore. And (3) during my exertions under water I lost that supposedly waterproof plastic yellow jacket. It would have been handy to have, considering that once again I was naked without any prospect of finding clothes, but that damn thing was heavy. It weighed me down in the water and functioned like a sail, making it easier for the currents and flows to push me around and keep me under. It wasn’t as though I took it off, but as I felt it slipping down my arms I made no attempt to keep it. It was a question of survival.

Now that the waters had had their way with me, the flux calmed. As I floated on my back and tried to catch my breath, the current gently carried me to the shore on my right. If I was going to choose, it looked like the way to go: the left side had rougher water and visible rocks. The water near the right side was not exactly still, but it was quieter and less rippled.

As soon as I felt ready, I turned over and started kicking and swimming for the shore. I couldn’t take a direct line for it; the current was still pushing me downstream, though not as violently. As I came closer to the shore, I spotted a break in the trees up ahead. I kicked harder and headed for it. Three times I stopped to test the bottom. The fourth time, my feet touched, so I gratefully started walking. There were smooth rocks and pebbles under my feet, along with some mud. The weeds ended when I reached the break in the trees.

Judging by the height of the sun, it had to be at least ten o’clock.

When I made my way around the last tree and stepped out of the water, I was surprised to find myself in someone’s backyard. It was a fairly deep backyard, with two levels, each with a well-tended lawn and flowers. Down where I was, there were two lawn chairs and several children’s toys strewn about. On the higher level I saw a swing set. Okay: so this was the house of a family with at least one small child. Maybe they’d see it in their hearts to help a girl find some clothes and make her way home.

I can’t just click my heels like Dorothy, I told myself. Then, I couldn’t help it: I began picturing a version the story The Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy starts off by losing her clothes in the hurricane, and lands naked in Oz. From there, she -- like me -- would try over and over to find something to wear AND a way home.

I didn’t get very far in my musings, because I suddenly became aware of a little girl. She was probably about ten years old. I didn't notice when she appeared, or whether she’d been standing there all along.

“Hello, little girl,” I said. “My name is Mayda. What’s yours?”

“You’re NAKED!” she exclaimed, her eyes as big as saucers.

“Yes, I am,” I admitted. “Are your mother and father at home?”

“You’re NAKED!” she repeated.

“Yes, I know,” I replied. “Do you have a big brother or sister, maybe?”

“You’re not supposed to be naked,” she informed me. I could see she had a future in law enforcement.

“I don’t want to be,” I told her. “But I was shipwrecked.”

Her mouth fell open and her eyes grew even wider. Then she turned and ran toward the house. She climbed a set of stairs off to the left edge of the property. Before following her, I looked around me for a towel or any kind of cloth or clothes to cover myself with, but there was nothing.

At the top of the stairs I found the little girl standing near a teenage boy. He was sitting on a lawn chair. The little girl continued to eye me with profound suspicion, as if I were a fugitive from justice. “See? I told you!” she said to the boy.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed, gaping at me. “Are you real?”

“No,” I replied. “I’m an angel. Are your parents at home?”

“They’re at CHURCH!” the little girl replied, putting heavy stress on the last word, as if it should have been obvious. Then she added, “Don’t you know ANYTHING?” to underline it.

“They’ll be back soon,” the boy told me.

“I’d like to wait for them,” I said. “And in the meantime, do you have a towel or a blanket I could cover myself with? I fell into the river and lost everything.”

“Yeah, for sure,” the boy said. “Follow me.” He turned and walked into the house.

“We’re not supposed to let strangers in the house!” the little girl cautioned.

“It’s okay,” he said. “She needs our help.”

“Do you have a sister who might be my size?” I asked. “I need to borrow some clothes.”

He stopped and looked me up and down. Then he gestured toward the little girl with his chin. “Rebecca’s my only sister. My mother is about your size, uh, especially up here.” With an embarrassed grin, he cupped his hands at his chest to illustrate how large her breasts are. “Oh, there--” He pointed at a drying rack where some clothes, mostly lingerie, were hanging. “There’s one of her dresses. You can hold it up and get an idea.”

”SHE CAN’T HAVE THAT,” the little girl declared. Her jaw was set. She clearly felt that her home was being invaded and she alone was defending the castle.

“She’s not taking it,” he told her. “She’s just getting an idea.” To me he said, “I’ll get you a blanket. I’ll be right back.” When he turned away from me, I saw him look off to the right at a large mirror. He was trying to sneak a long look at my naked body. I pretended not to notice. After all, he was only the second helpful person I’d met since the aliens left.

While he fumbled and searched in the other room, I picked up the dress off the drying rack. It was a shirtdress with thick horizontal white and black stripes.

“You can’t have that!” the little girl shouted.

“I’m not taking it,” I told her. “I’m just looking.” She was beginning to get a little tiresome. She actually balled her fists and stamped her foot. I held the dress up in front of me, and looked in the mirror. Mayda gazed back at me. Of course she looked wonderful. Of course the dress would look lovely on her. It was weird as hell to know that the girl in the mirror was me.

I don’t know what material the dress was made of, but it felt incredible. It was knit, but unbelievably soft. It hung down to my mid-thigh. Thankfully, their mother was pretty much exactly my size. Hopefully she’d be as kind and helpful as her son, and not as suspicious and antagonistic like her daughter.

I was soon to find out.

The front door wasn’t visible from where I was standing, but I heard it open. A female voice called out, “Sean! Rebecca! We’re home!” A male voice called out, “We’ve got bagels!”

The little girl took off like a shot, talking a mile a minute. “Mom! MOM! There’s a NAKED GIRL here and she’s stealing your clothes! She came out of the river and told Sean that she’s an angel. And he BELIEVED HER. She’s not an angel -- she’s a THIEF!”

“Oh God,” I sighed to myself. In a louder voice I called out to them, “I’m not a thief. I fell into the river and lost my clothes. I just happened to come ashore in your backyard.”

The father drifted in first, blinking in surprise. He gaped at me and repeated, “Lost your clothes?” His wife came in, glowered at me, then turned her baleful, offended glare on her husband. “Bill! Bill! Close your mouth! What’s wrong with you?”

He stammered and gestured toward me. “She -- eh -- she’s lost her clothes. You can see.”

“Yes, I can see,” his wife repeated. “I can see far too much!” To me she said, “What are you doing with my dress? Put that down!”

“I was just--”

“PUT IT DOWN!” she commanded. Clearly (and unfortunately) she was more like her daughter than her son.

I sighed. “I’m just trying to see if you’re my size! If you could let me borr--”

With a fury that shocked me, the woman grabbed her dress and tossed it behind her, onto a chair. Damn it, I was naked again. By now I was getting pretty tired of it, so I didn’t bother to cover myself. The father’s eyes went everywhere. He wanted to look at me, but absurdly he didn’t want his wife to catch him looking. I couldn’t help but notice that he was sporting a long, hard, impossible-to-hide boner. His wife followed my gaze, then her eyes flashed fire. She started punching him in his arm.

“Hey! Hey!” he protested. “What did I do?”

“You know what you’re doing!” she exclaimed. “I want you to stop!”

He gestured mutely in my direction.

“Look,” I said. “I’m sorry to disturb you all, but the only thing I want to do is get home. And it would be a great help if I could borrow some clothes. Once I’m home, I can pay you for them, or wash them and give them back to you.”

In a soft voice, Bill asked, “Where do you live?” His wife socked him in the arm again.

“Damn it, Joan, that hurts!”

“Ooooh, you said a bad word!” the little girl cautioned.

“Look,” I said. “If you’re not going to help me, I’m just going to leave. Again, I’m sorry.”

“You’re leaving… dressed like that?” Bill gestured at me, clearly indicating my nakedness. He turned to his wife.

“No, she’s not leaving,” Joan replied in a brisk tone. “I’m going to call the police. Breaking and entering, theft, robbery, whatever it is… and INDECENT EXPOSURE!”

“Oh come on!” I protested. Sean was quietly watching from the next room, holding a blanket in his hands. I was about to gesture to him, to toss me the blanket. With that, I could at least cover myself. But he looked away and tossed the blanket out of sight.

What the hell? I asked myself, but then I saw him sneak behind his parents and grab the black and white dress. His mother was busy punching 9-1-1 into her phone. The little girl was glaring at me. The father was gawping at me. No one was looking at Sean except me. He signaled for me to go out the door behind me and go around the house to the right, where he’d give me the dress.

The mother was speaking into the phone. “Yes. My emergency? Well, I had just come home from church, and when I walked in the door, my little girl-- what? Aren’t you listening? I’m trying to tell you my emergency! I came in the door. I'd just come home from church--”

I turned and ran.

There was some fumbling and banging and shouting back in the house, but I didn’t stay to listen or look. I just ran. When I turned the corner at the back of the house, Sean was waiting at the front corner, holding the black-and-white dress in one hand and his little sister’s bicycle in the other.

He shoved the dress into my hands and said, “Take this bike and ride down the hill. That’ll get you far away fast. At the bottom of the hill is a bike rack in front of an apartment building. Leave the bike there, and I’ll tell my dad to pick it up.”

“Thanks, Sean,” I said. He blushed. I laid a big kiss on his left cheek and smiled.

Then I jumped on that little girl’s bike and started pedaling like mad.

The Night I Escaped From The Zoo : 4 / 5

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

If you consider the topic Making Good Choices in Life, you would not normally include the idea of riding buck naked on a child’s bicycle in broad daylight through the suburbs on a Sunday morning. However, if you consider that the alternative was allowing a legalistic and judgmental suburban church-goer to have me arrested, I think that riding buck naked, etc., etc., was the best choice I could make under the circumstances.

Think about it: the police would find themselves wondering why I’d crawled naked from the river, which means I’d have to tell the story of the boat. Naturally they would want to know how I came to be alone in a rowboat at night, and that would lead to -- well, I could leave out the bathtub, but could I leave out the meth-lab fire? For sure, I’d have to leave out the aliens and the perverted state trooper, but if they wanted to retrace my steps last night, what parts would I be able to tell? I don’t think I could construct a big enough lie that would get me from Ross’ pickup truck to the rowboat.

And so, to avoid the police and their questions, I pedalled as hard as I could out of that driveway, naked once again. I would have stopped and put that dress on if I could have, but the mother was hot on my heels, shouting things like, “Sean! What have you done? What have you DONE?” and “Bill! Grab that girl! GRAB her! Don’t let her go!” and “911? 911? Don’t hang up! DON’T HANG UP! I’m not done talking yet!” That’s why I jumped on that little bike and pushed off without getting dressed first.

My idea was to put a little distance between myself and that woman, and then to slip the dress on. Across the street and down a ways I spotted a high hedge, so I swooped in behind it. I stopped, and put both feet on the ground.

Yes, I did. And then I looked up. The hedge shielded a driveway. I had expected that much. What I didn’t anticipate was that the driveway led to a parking lot, and in the parking lot was a great big church. There was the church, there was the steeple, the doors were all open, and there were the people, milling around in the parking lot, gaping at me.

None of them were near enough to grab me, so I quickly pulled the dress over my head and shoved my arms into the sleeves. Not the ideal circumstances for putting on a dress, but I had no reason to expect the situation to improve. I pulled the hem down as far as my belly button before realizing that I’d put the dress on backwards. So up it went, baring my breasts again. I pulled my arms out, turned the dress around, shoved my arms back in, and tugged the dress all the way down to the middle of my thigh.

Finally! I was dressed! I had clothes on, like a normal person! And I didn’t look half bad, either. The dress fit as though it were made for me. I have to say, the black and white stripes hugged my curves in a very flattering way. Fraught as that moment was, it was the first moment that I not only enjoyed wearing women’s clothes, I delighted in wearing them.

The churchgoers were nowhere near as pleased as I was. In fact, they were shouting at me. Mostly they were saying “Hey!” and “HEY!” but a few of them managed to let off some longer phrases, like, “This is a house of GOD!” and “How DARE you!” and “Cover yourself! What’s WRONG with you!”

I know that for the church people, my nakedness was an unexpected addition to their habitual religious practice. I knew that I’d invaded their morning: my appearance was a great big deal, maybe the story of the week or the story of the month, but for me it was only one fleeting moment in a long, crazy trip home. A trip that had grown pretty old by now. I’d had enough. Frankly, I was pretty well pissed off. I understood that they were upset and angry and offended, but it was just an accident! I wanted to shout, Get over it! Grow up! but I didn’t. None of this was their fault. So, rather than shout back, I settled for sticking out my tongue at the church people before I turned and pedaled away. Okay, so maybe I ruined their Sunday church experience, but at least I didn’t give them the finger or swear at them. Above all, I had done my best to keep my exposure to a minimum.

At the end of the driveway, I stopped for a moment and took a look down the road. When Sean said “hill,” I didn’t think much about what the word meant, aside from my being able to coast to the bottom. Now that I was about to start my descent, my heart skipped a couple of beats. The hill was pretty damn steep and pretty damn long. It’s called Bellen Avenue in Duxbridge, if you want to look it up. I want to say that it was a 45-degree slope, but honestly I feel that it’s steeper. I rolled down a little, experimentally, so I could test the brakes. An older couple was climbing the hill, so when my dress ballooned and flew up, she gasped, “Oh my!” and he said, “Quite inspiring,” in a goofy voice.

The good news was that the brakes worked fine. I apologized to the couple. The man smiled like a child with an ice cream cone, while the woman commented, “You know, you can’t go around like that. You may think it’s funny, but it’s not.”

“Believe me,” I told her, “I don’t think this is funny at all.”

She harrumphed in disbelief, and they continued their trudge up the hill.

I pulled the dress tight across my thighs, gathered it behind me, and sat on the scrunched-up part. Then I rolled down the hill without fear of making a spectacle. I pumped the brakes the entire way down. I couldn’t risk going fast -- my poor bare feet would be torn to shreds if I had to use them to stop. Accompanied by the frighteningly loud squeal of the bicycle’s brakes, I made my way pretty quickly to the bottom of the hill.

Another sound accompanied my descent: it was only in my head, but it was as persistent as the high-pitched screech of my brakes. I didn't know at first how it got there, but one line from a Bob Dylan song kept going on a loop and I couldn’t make it stop: Lay lady lay / Lay across my big brass bed. It was driving me crazy. It took a minute or two to figure out how that particular tune got started, but then I got it: the man who said “Quite inspiring” had a weird dippy voice, just like Dylan’s in that song.

As I said, the hill was incredibly steep, which made me think that the river must decline at a similar angle. A slant like that would account for the speed and violence of the current.

As I neared the bottom of the hill, I began to recognize a building here and a corner there, and soon I knew more or less where I’d ended up. I knew that Bellen Avenue was the big main street in Duxbridge. Even though it’s the town right next to mine, I don’t know Duxbridge very well. I’d only been here once or twice. It was only when I reached the very bottom of the hill and saw the bike rack and the apartment building mentioned by Sean, that everything clicked in my memory: I was in front of the building where Charlotte lives! One of the last times I’d seen her was when I helped her move in.

I coasted up to the bike rack and pushed the front tire into it. For some reason -- maybe because the tires were much smaller than an adult bike, or maybe because I was doing it wrong -- the bike didn’t want to stay upright. I had to move it to one of the end slots and lean it against the bike-rack’s frame. While I bent over to wrestle Rebecca’s bicycle into a stable position, an unexpected breeze lifted the back of my dress, exposing my legs and derriere and everything else all the way up to the small of my back. Of course, a random man who looked like an overgrown frat boy was passing close by at just the right moment. He saw the whole show. When I straightened up, blushing with embarrassment, he smirked and said, “Don’t feel bad. You have the most beautiful backside I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, do fuck off,” I told him, and the smirk fell from his face. I pushed past him and trotted up the stairs into the apartment building.

By the way, that was the last time that the wind caught me unaware. From then on, I developed a seventh sense: I was always aware of the state of my skirt vis-à-vis the flow of air.

I didn’t remember Charlotte’s apartment number, but I did find her name: RAFFLYAN. There wasn’t any answer when I pushed the button, so I waited a minute, then buzzed her again. After I tried a third time, I saw a car pull up at the end of the building’s walkway, next to the bike rack. Rebecca and her father, Bill, got out of the car and walked up to her bike. I didn’t have anywhere to hide; there was nothing but the walkway and the glass of the entryway between me and them. I tried the inner door. It rattled loudly, but it was locked. I buzzed Charlotte with a little more urgency.

Then Bill looked up and saw me. His jaw fell open. He was enchanted; it was easy to see. He reached down and turned Rebecca by her shoulders so she faced her bike with her back to me. Then Bill waved, with a wide-eyed, empty-headed look. If I could have, I would have smacked him, but I couldn’t. So I waved back. I tried to smile, but my lips put up a struggle against it.

I want to say, for the record, that I do (still) feel guilty about stealing a bike from a little girl -- “borrowing without asking” is no better. It’s no excuse. Rebecca may be pushy, suspicious, and unwelcoming, but she is still just a little girl.

Then, I was saved from Bill and Rebecca: the door behind me opened. A man was going out, and with a smiling show of gallantry he held the door open for me. I scurried inside, smiling and saying thanks. As I brushed past him, he involuntarily jerked away from me as if he’d been struck. I saw him stiffen. His eyes widened. He tried to smile politely, but he shot out of there as quickly as he could. I was puzzled, but I retreated from the entrance until Bill and his daughter were no longer in view.

That’s when it hit me -- or hit my nose, rather: I was finally in an environment where the air was still. Until now, I guess I’d been upwind of myself. What I mean to say is, I stank. I reeked, in fact. That’s why the man at the door changed so quickly from gallantry to get-me-out-of-here.

I don’t why I smelled so bad. After all, I’d spent an entire night in the river, and that water seemed clean. Before that, I was soaking in a bathtub. It was clean by definition.

Then I remembered: I had rolled around in some mud and rotten plants. I did wear that disreputable jacket. And who really knows what’s in the river? In any case, no matter how I came by it, I was putting out a military-grade stench.

So, where was Charlotte’s apartment? I glanced at the elevator and the door to the stairs, and then it came to me: the third floor. We said it often enough during the move, when we were lugging her stuff upstairs. I pushed open the door to the stairs: Someone was waiting for the elevator, and I couldn’t inflict my funk on them. Once I climbed to the third floor, I was guided by the memory of hauling all those boxes and pieces of furniture: turn left, left again, all the way to the end, last door on the left. There it was: 319, Rafflyan.

I rang. I knocked. I listened. It didn’t sound like anyone was home.

Okay. So I didn’t truly need to stop at Charlotte’s. Sure, I smelled awful. Yes, I was hungry and had no money. HOWEVER, I wasn’t naked any more. That was one huge problem out of the way. I could simply walk down the streets of town all the way to Mayda’s apartment. Getting home, which was my other huge problem, was not such a big deal any more: It was only about two miles. Still, it would be nice to shower, maybe change, maybe eat something, possibly borrow a pair of shoes, before trudging across town. Charlotte would let me do all that. Or some of that. Probably.

Then too, it might be better to NOT see Charlotte. I only ran into her building on impulse, to hide from Bill and Rebecca. I came inside because I didn’t want to be arrested for stealing a little girl’s bicycle, along with all the other crimes Rebecca’s mother had listed.

Did I really want to see Charlotte? Charlotte was a complicated person, to put it mildly. She could be very kind, helpful, and giving. She was also my ex-girlfriend, and she could be intensely, obsessively jealous. I broke up with her a few months before I started seeing Mayda. Charlotte had become too difficult. I got tired of walking on eggshells. She started reading things into every little word I said, until finally our relationship became a series of mind games that I never wanted to play.

Something else about Charlotte that I didn’t see it at first was that she kept creating situations where I’d have to choose between her and… well, between her and everything else. We’d been going out for about three months when she mentioned her “heart thing.” One day she was on a bus when she suddenly felt palpitations in her chest. She broke out in a sweat and became very frightened. She asked the bus driver to stop in the middle of the block to let her off. An older woman helped her off the bus and sat her down near a fountain to try to collect herself. “The lady dipped her handkerchief in the fountain and used it to bathe my head,” Charlotte told me. “She took my pulse and said it was very irregular.”

“So, have you been to the doctor?” I asked. Charlotte had shot me a look that said, What the hell are you talking about? Aren’t you listening to me?

After that, her “heart thing” would pop up occasionally. She was pretty smart about it; she didn’t play the card too often. The first time, we were going to have dinner with my parents, but she had “an episode.” I had to sit next to her, take her pulse (which was normal), and put cool compresses on her head. We ended up not having dinner with my parents.

The same thing happened when one of my best friends, Jack, enlisted in the army. I was going to see him off, me and a bunch of the guys. He was heading out in the morning, but Charlotte’s “heart thing” intervened. Instead of saying goodbye to an old friend, I ended up refreshing cold compresses for Charlotte and feeling her pulse.

I know I might sound heartless, but I looked up the symptoms of heart attacks, and they were nothing like what Charlotte described. Also, she didn’t seem to be in any real distress. But the thing that convinced me that they weren’t serious was Charlotte’s refusal to see a doctor about it.

Finally I had enough. It wasn’t until after we broke up that I understood how she drove a wedge between me and the other people I loved. At the time I was just tired of this convenient malady that kept us from doing things that *I* wanted to do. Her “heart thing” never once came up when we were doing something she wanted to do.

I decided that the next time she had “an episode” that I’d take her to the emergency room. I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The day it happened, the last time she ever had her “heart thing,” I was about to go to football practice. In my whole life, I have never missed practice. Never. Not even when I was sick. Charlotte asked me to get a compress for her forehead and to feel her pulse. Instead, I called a taxi and bundled us inside.

The ER doctor did an EKG, took some blood work, asked her describe the symptoms. In the end he told her that she’d had a panic attack. “Your heart is fine,” he told her. “It’s perfectly healthy.”

I didn’t say anything on the taxi ride back, but once we reached her house, I took off to practice. It was nearly over when I got there, but I had to make the effort. I had to at least show up.

That was the beginning of the end. Charlotte moved from the “heart thing” to talking about marriage and children, and that was the final straw. I realized I didn’t want to be tied to her for the rest of my life, and I broke up with her.

So… considering all that, it was probably better to give Charlotte a miss. My stomach rumbled; I knew I smelled bad, but oh well. Time to start walking.

I turned my back on Charlotte’s door and made my way toward the elevator. The light for floor number one winked out and number two lit up. I caught another whiff of myself and realized that I’d better take the stairs before the person, whoever they were, arrived. The light for floor number two winked out and three lit up. As I pushed open the door to the stairwell, the elevator doors opened, and Charlotte emerged, dressed in hospital scrubs and looking tired.

“What are you doing here?” she asked in a sullen, suspicious tone.

Then it hit me: I was a complete idiot. In spite of everything I just said, Charlotte probably would have come to Ross’ rescue. But I wasn’t Ross any more. When I knocked on Charlotte’s door, I was thinking as though I was still him: In my mind, Charlotte was my ex-girlfriend. She might help grudgingly, but she would have helped -- Ross. But Mayda? Charlotte hated Mayda. In Charlotte’s mind, Mayda was the bitch who stole her man. She’d said it several times. She blamed our breakup entirely on Mayda, and now *I* was Mayda. Charlotte would happily burn me alive and laugh about it.

But then, an idea occurred to me. There was a card I could play. It might work. It would probably work. But oh, man! If it didn’t, I might as well hightail it out of here.

Charlotte repeated her question, with a bit more venom.

I swallowed hard and told her, “Ross dumped me. For good. I didn’t know where else to go.”

Her face lit up, like a child on Christmas morning. Her hostile demeanor fell away. A smile transformed her face. She zoomed over to me and grabbed my arm. Then she immediately recoiled and backed away. She wiped the hand that touched me on her pants, while she pinched her nose shut with her other hand. “Oh my God! Did you swim here through the sewer? What the hell?”

“I, uh, fell into the river,” I confessed.

“Listen,” she said, ignoring my reply. Her tone was gleeful and excited. “You have to come inside. Take a shower, get cleaned up. I can rinse out that dress and hand-wash it. It’ll take all of fifteen minutes. We’ll have some breakfast, and you can tell me all about it.” She turned and started walking toward her apartment. With her back to me, she groaned in disgust and said, “No offense, but you really stink. I mean, you stink like mad. I can even smell you with my nose shut. You smell so bad I can taste it. Yuck!”

Once inside, with a face full of revulsion, she pulled my dress off me and roughly pushed me toward the bathroom. “Oh, come on,” I protested. “I can’t smell that bad!”

“OH MY GOD!” Charlotte exclaimed. “You DO smell that bad, and then some! Please, for the love of God, get in the shower. I’ll wash your dress in the kitchen.” I was about to shut the bathroom door, but she stopped me with her hand. “Make sure you wash your hair,” she said. “But be quick. I worked last night and I need to eat and sleep. But I want to hear everything about the breakup. Hurry!”

She pushed me into the shower, then she grabbed a bucket and a bottle of Woolite. She carried them out of the bathroom with my dress. When I finished washing and turned off the shower, I saw that she’d hung a bathrobe on the door. I wrapped my hair in a towel, the way I’d seen Mayda do, and gratefully put on the robe. I say gratefully because it was wonderful to once again have clothes to wear, and clean clothes at that. Charlotte was sitting at her little table with a breakfast spread before her. I sat at the place she’d set for me. My dress was draped over the back of the chair, drying. I sniffed it. “It smells clean,” I commented. “Thanks!”

She gestured at my plate and said, “Dig in!”

She’d prepared eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. It was perfect. As we ate, I told her a highly-edited version of my evening. Of course, I left out the aliens, the groping trooper, Lemon and her flying bathtub… Even if she had believed me, she wouldn’t have listened or cared. The only part she wanted to hear about was the argument and the breakup. So I told her. I reversed the roles, saying “I” and “me” instead of “Mayda” and “Ross” and “him” instead of “me, myself, and I.” I started with the dinner, explaining how I’d managed to land us at Ebbidles. I even said, as Mayda had, that “I wanted to eat there since forever.”

“Ugh! That shitty vegan place?” Charlotte cried. “He hates that stuff!” She shook her head knowingly. Clearly she saw Mayda as a selfish idiot, and that was fine with me -- at the moment, anyway.

I told her how Ross wanted to walk along the river, but I insisted on driving to the desert. She gave me a look that said You are a complete imbecile.

When I got to the part about my moving to Barcelona, she didn’t care about Spain or playing soccer as a professional. The only thing she heard was me saying that I had dumped Ross, and she refused to believe it. “No,” she said, “No, no. No, no, no. You didn’t dump him. That couldn’t happen. He dumped you.”

“Nobody dumped anybody,” I told her. “We weren’t engaged or anything. We were just dating and then we stopped.”

“OH MY GOD!” she shouted, "YOU ARE SUCH A FILTHY LIAR!" With her hands in her hair, she rose to her feet. My heart froze. I suddenly felt as though I’d been thrown back in time to other occasions when I’d seen her throw a fit like this. With her hands still clutching fistfuls of her hair, she walked over to a strictly ornamental fireplace. There on the mantle… oh God, a chill ran through me… in an embossed silver frame, was a photograph of her and Ross.

Thunderstruck, I blurted out the obvious: “You’re still in love with him!” The words fell out of my mouth. I was astonished. (At least I managed to say him instead of me, which was the horrific element here.)

“Of course I’m still in love with him!” she shouted. “He’s my soulmate! He’s my one-and-only! He’s the man I’m going to marry, and he knows it, too! But you, YOU just had to steal him away, with your long stupid hair and your sports. You had to get in between us!”

“Okay,” I said. “If that’s true, I guess that’s why it didn’t work out between us.” Here I was, walking on eggshells again.

“What do you mean if that’s true? Of course it’s true!”

“Okay,” I agreed. “That’s why we didn’t work out.”

I looked around the room and -- as if they were hidden before -- many pictures, all of them framed, of Ross and Charlotte. I counted six. For the first time, I was honestly grateful that I wasn’t Ross any more.

“That’s right!” she said. “That’s right! It didn’t work out with you. Because you aren’t his soulmate!”

I didn’t know what else to say, so I told her, “You’re right. I admit it: you're right.”

She went on for another ten minutes. While she ranted, she gathered up the dirty dishes and pans and threw them violently in the sink. It made a lot of noise, but somehow nothing got broken. When she finished describing her imaginary relationship with the man I used to be, she took a deep breath and looked at the woman I am now.

“So where is he now?”

Oh! That was a question I wasn’t prepared for. “I don’t know,” I replied. “I guess he’s out there, somewhere. You know, in his truck.”

She frowned. “You mean he’s driving around?”

“Probably.” This was no time for frankness. I wasn’t going to tell her that Ross (who wasn’t really Ross any more, but was now the woman Charlotte hated) had flown off in a spaceship, and was now on his way to be an exhibit in an interplanetary zoo. I was sure that the truth wouldn’t go over well at all. Instead, I said, “Why don’t you call him?”

“That’s a good idea,” she replied, with a thoughtful look.

“I’m sure he’d be glad to talk to you.”

“Of course he would! What a stupid thing to say! I talk to him all the time. He always calls me -- even when you two had your little fling. He would call me.”

I knew that none of that was true, but I said, “Wow, I had no idea.”

She smirked and told me, “You had no idea about a lot of things, missy. Let me tell you.”

I picked up on her hint and asked, “Are you saying the two of you were sleeping together--”

“While he was seeing you? Yes. And it was hot.”

Another lie, but I pretended to be surprised and a little hurt.

“Look,” she said, feeling triumphant. “You can wait for you dress to dry. If you want, you can crash on the couch. Just close the door when you go, and don’t wake me up. I’m going to get some sleep.”

With that, she walked into her room and closed the door. I moved some of the couch pillows to the floor and lay down. I was pretty tired. Through Charlotte’s door, I heard her leave a message on Ross’ voicemail.

“Hey, Ross. Hello, honey. Do you miss me? I know you do. I miss you, too. If you want to talk, you know how to find me. If you want to see me, you know, um. Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.”

I felt sorry for her. I felt sorry for lying to her, and for going along with her lies. I had no idea that she’d constructed this fantasy relationship with me. With the old me, the previous me. I sighed.

Then I started thinking about Barcelona and soccer. There was so much I needed to learn, and I needed to learn it in a hurry. Spanish and soccer. Mayda’s training schedule. Mayda’s friends and family. Oh, boy. I was going to need a great big chart and lot of checkboxes. I wish I’d paid more attention to her while she was with me.

As crazy as Charlotte is, one thing I learned from talking with her is that as Ross, I’ve been a selfish, self-absorbed lout. Charlotte, and then Mayda, were just add-ons in my life. I never really thought about who they were, how they lived, what they wanted from life, how they fit into the world, and how they related to the people around us. All I really knew was Ross, and only knew him from the inside. Until now, I didn’t really know how others saw him.

While all this circulated through my head, I fell asleep. Deeply asleep. And I had a dream. I dreamt that I was back in high school. It was early morning, and I was dressed in hospital scrubs. It was the typical anxiety dream: there was a big test that I wasn’t prepared for.

There was a weird twist to the dream, though: I wasn’t Ross. I wasn’t even Mayda. I was Charlotte, and I was frantic. And the test? The test was that I had to find Ross.

The Night I Escaped From The Zoo : 5 / 5

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

I woke to what seemed at first a clicking sound. It took me a few moments to remember where I was and to figure out the time of day. At first I thought it was early, about sunrise, but as I came back to myself I understood that it couldn’t be morning. The reddish golden glow was that of sunset. I was still at Charlotte’s apartment, and I’d slept through most of the day.

I groaned and stretched. I still needed to get myself home. To Mayda’s. That was “home” now.

Charlotte’s voice suddenly and softly asked, “Where is he?”

“Oh my God, Charlotte! You startled the hell out of me!” I jerked up to a sitting position. Charlotte had pulled a kitchen chair over, close to the couch. She’d obviously been watching me while I slept. And-- “Hey!” I exclaimed. “What are doing to my dress? Are you cutting it?”

I snatched it from her left hand. She held a pair of scissors in her right. She’d cut a series of three-inch vertical slits all the way round the waist. I could still wear it home; the slits would show a little skin, but nothing that would get me arrested. “Charlotte, you’ve ruined this dress! It was a beautiful dress, and now it’s--” words failed me “--it’s -- it’s ruined.”

“You ruined my life, I ruined your dress.”

I looked at the scissors in her hand. I looked at her face. A sudden horrible thought hit me, so I put my hands to my head to check my hair.

“I didn’t cut your hair, you dope,” she said, as if that should have been obvious. “I’ve been calling Ross all night -- I mean, all day -- and he hasn’t answered. I’ve left him one message after another, but he still hasn’t called me back. Now his phone goes straight to voicemail, and his voicemail is full.” She sighed heavily. Then she lifted her face, looked me straight in the eye, and asked, “Is he still alive?” She followed that with a whispered, ”Did you kill him?”

”WHAT!?”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said. She set the scissors on her coffee table. “I don’t mean it. I know you didn’t. I know you wouldn’t. I’m just so sad. And hurt. And angry. And SUPER-ANXIOUS. I’m so anxious. I think I might be getting depression.” She paused. When I didn’t say anything or react in any way, she ventured, “I feel like I wasted all these years when you were with him.”

“Charlotte, Ross and I only dated for six months. That’s all.”

Big round tears began to flow down her cheeks. “I’m sorry about your dress. I didn’t mean it. I’ve been up all day when I should have been sleeping. I’m all wound up and I don’t know what to do. I’m so upset, I can’t go to work tonight. Once his voicemail filled up, I got so frustrated… I saw you sleeping… You were lying there as if nothing at all was wrong in the world. I was mad at you, but I couldn’t hurt you.” After a pause she added, “So I cut your dress.”

After another deep, heavy, ragged sigh, she told me, “You can borrow something of mine if you want.”

“Really?” I said. “That would be great,” and I visually compared her foot size to mine. She saw where my eyes went, and pulled her feet away from me. She quickly added, “No shoes, though.”

“Well, never mind then,” I conceded. “Barefoot’s not so bad.” I pulled the black-and-white dress over my head. It didn’t hug my curves as well any more, but it would get me home.

“I’m going,” I said. “Thanks for all your help. The breakfast, the couch, the listening... I wish you hadn’t cut my dress, but-- thanks. And don’t worry about Ross. I’m sure he’s fine.”

She started to say something else, but I closed the door on her and quickly got the hell out of her building.

My feet were still bare, so I keep a wary eye on the ground ahead of me. I couldn’t afford to hurt or cut my feet. I was a soccer player now. Still, it was true what I’d said to Charlotte: barefoot wasn’t so bad. It was kind of nice, actually. The temperature was fine, and I was pretty sure I knew the way. I followed Bridge Street, which (like its name) crossed the river. That damned river. I stopped and frowned at its roiling current. I wanted to throw something in, just to show my frustration; make it a matter of record. But there was nothing to throw, and I knew it was a stupid thought anyway. I scanned upstream and down, but there was no sign of the rowboat in the river. No trace of the bathtub in the sky, either. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if that clawfoot monstrosity came crashing down right next to me. Still, it wouldn’t have spoiled my mood: I was back in my town, back in the normal world. Everything was right again, except that I was someone else, and had a month to learn a new language and a new sport. Perfectly normal.

The sun had set while I was at Charlotte’s, and the half hour of twilight was fading. My stomach growled with hunger, and my throat was dry as well. I wasn’t starving, though. I could easily hang on until I reached Mayda’s apartment. Compared to the rest of my experience, being hungry and thirsty was not so bad. At least I wasn’t naked any more.

I followed the riverway. In spite of what that idiot water had done to me, I had to admit it: the river was lovely. The street lamps were starting their slow progression from dim light to full glow. I knew the moon would soon peek over the horizon. I passed a few people walking the other way, and they all smiled and greeted me. A few looked with curiosity at my bare feet and the gashes in my dress, but nobody pointed or made any remark. It was fine: I was back in the real world. My crazy adventure was nearly over.

Then, a bit of luck: I spotted a twenty-dollar bill lying on the ground. It was stuck against a little rock. Otherwise, it would have blown away. I scooped it up happily. Now I’d be able to stop somewhere and eat! Someone was going to be unhappy about losing that money, but I didn’t see anyone scanning the ground. So I folded up the bill and held it in my hand. Yes, of course: like so many women’s clothes, the dress had no pockets! Another thing I’d have to get used to.

I made a detour away from the river. There was a diner a few blocks in that direction that I used to visit as Ross. Mayda never liked the place. She said it wasn’t clean, and that it smelled bad, but I didn’t agree. Besides, they served huge portions, and they were well-known for serving “Breakfast All Day.” That sounded pretty good right about now. So, buoyed with anticipation and my new-found wealth, I walked in. Immediately, the man behind the counter shook his head at me. “What?” I asked, not understanding. In answer, he tapped a sign on the wall that read:

NO SHIRT
NO SHOES
NO SERVICE

Then he pointed at my feet. I sighed and walked out.

I trudged back to the river. I wasn’t quite as happy now. There were other places to eat along the way, but all of them were much nicer and more high-toned than the diner. I didn’t think they’d allow a barefoot girl with a slashed dress to eat there.

As I walked, I thought about soccer. I’d half to start watching films. I’d have to learn all the basic moves. I’d have to work on dribbling and shooting. I thought about the way that Mayda played: one thing that struck me, over and over, was easy to say, but it meant a lot: Mayda was a team player. When I was Ross, I was a team player as well, but it means something entirely different in football. I’ve seen Mayda take shots at the goal, but far more often she set up the shot for somebody else. They did a lot of passing on her team. A LOT of passing. Seemed like every player tried to give every other player a chance. They trusted each other. I’d have to learn to do that, too. Mayda had some clever moves, some fancy footwork, but she didn’t rely on it. Her real secret weapon was that she paid attention. She seemed to know where everyone else was, even when she wasn’t looking at them, and she’d often pass the ball to an empty space — not to where a player was, but to where the player was going to be. And she never stopped. She had the stamina to tear up the entire field, even at the end of the game.

I guess I knew more than I thought. Still, I’d have work hard and train hard, the way that Mayda did.

While I was absorbed in my thoughts and plans, I covered a lot of ground, and now I was nearly home. I could see The Ultimate Steakhouse and Ebbidles. Mayda’s apartment was just a few blocks away. Twenty bucks wouldn’t go far at The Ultimate (and they probably wouldn’t let me in anyway), so I went into Ebbidles. I want to say that I went there grudgingly, but it wasn’t true. I was too hungry to be picky, so right now Ebbidles looked like heaven to me.

When I’d gone there with Mayda yesterday -- wow! Seriously, it was only yesterday? -- anyway, when we visited Ebbidles yesterday, I was a little angry and frustrated. I didn’t want to be there; I wanted to be at The Ultimate, eating a thick, juicy steak. Now, after everything I’d been through, I understood why Mayda was attracted to this place. It had a nice atmosphere. Everyone was smiling: the customers, the staff, the cooks. The kitchen was open: I could watch them working. Everything was clean and calm. And oh, it smelled so good.

The hostess greeted me. I asked her whether my bare feet were a problem. She laughed and said, “No, come on in.” At the waitress’s recommendation I ordered a meatless hash that came with meatless bacon and potatoes. It turned out to be pretty tasty and filling. The coffee was good, too.

After I’d eaten and was enjoying a second cup of coffee (with nondairy creamer, of course), the hostess chatted with me a bit. After some hesitation, she asked me, “What happened to your dress?”

“Revenge,” I answered.

She took my answer in, rolled it around in her head, and then she got it. “Did you steal somebody’s boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “That’s what happened.”

“But how could she cut your dress with you in it?”

“I was asleep.”

We both nodded sagely, as if to say We’ve all been there. I knew I was supposed to nod at that point, but seriously, I don’t know. Has every woman been there?

I left the whole twenty to cover the bill, which meant an almost eight dollar tip. I really enjoyed the meal and the experience, and after all, it wasn’t my money.

After I’d walked about two blocks, a police car pulled up next to me. The cop stayed in the car. From the very first moment, I didn’t like the guy. For one thing, his head was about even with my butt, and his eyes kept drifting there as we talked. Or rather, while he interrogated me.

He asked where I was going, I told him I was going home. I didn’t tell him the address. He asked why I was barefoot. I told him that walking barefoot is good for your feet and legs.

“You do have nice legs, I have to admit,” he commented, nodding. Then he asked, “What’s with all the slashes in your dress?”

“It’s the new fashion,” I told him. “It’s called slasher chic. You’ll see lots of dresses like this in the days ahead.”

“I think somebody was mad at you and they cut up your dress,” he observed, nodding some more. I really wanted to slap him to stop that nodding, but instead I just said, “Yeah, you guessed it. That’s what happened.”

“Ooh! Was it a cat fight?”

In case it isn’t clear, I was getting pretty irritated and offended by this moron. I knew that men could be this stupid. I’d seen a lot of it. However, it was not much fun being the object of the stupidity. I was sure he wouldn’t dare step out and grope me the way his colleague had done, but still, he was taking advantage of his badge. If he wasn’t a cop I would have walked away before he even opened his mouth.

“A cat fight?” I replied. “No, it was a lingerie pillow fight that got out of control.”

That stopped him. His head quit bobbing. His mouth even dropped open a little. He froze for about three beats, then said, “I wasn’t sure those things existed.”

“Can I go, officer?”

“Well, look,” he said, “I actually stopped you to warn you. We’ve had reports of break-ins and of women being assaulted in this area. It’s not a good night to be walking alone. If you hop in, I’ll give you a ride.”

“No, thanks,” I replied. I wasn’t going anywhere with this guy. “I just live two blocks that way. I’ll be careful.”

“Okay,” he said, clearly disappointed. “Keep your eyes open.” Then, after taking one last long look at my butt, he drove off.

When I got to Mayda’s apartment door, I examined the lamp where she’d hidden the key. I had to admit, it was a good hiding place. Even though I knew the key was there, I didn’t see it at first. And if I didn’t have fingernails, I wouldn’t have been able to fish it out.

When I got inside and shut the door, I felt an enormous sense of relief. I didn’t turn the lights on at first; Mayda had left the bathroom light on, and the dim light was kind of restful. I pulled the dress off over my head and dropped it on a chair. Then I noticed the window she’d left open. I remembered wanting to close it before we went out last night, but Mayda didn’t let me. So I walked over and closed it now. Being by the window made me conscious of my nakedness, so I drew the blind. I was about to turn on a lamp, when a rough male voice said, “Leave the light off, baby. I can see you well enough.”

I swore silently, inside my mind. Fuck this guy. He had to be the intruder the policeman warned me about. Well, whoever he was, whatever this asshole thought was going to happen here, was absolutely NOT going to happen. I’d had enough.

I turned to face him. I couldn’t make out his face because he was back-lit by light from the bathroom.

In a throaty whisper he said, “God! Look at you! What a beauty! We’re going to have some fun tonight, I can see that.”

“You want some fun?” I shouted. “Have some of this!” I quickly stepped forward with my left foot, at the same time swinging my right elbow in an arc. When it connected with the man’s forehead, the blow had all my weight behind it. He staggered back a few steps and collided with the wall, but he didn’t go down. He grunted in surprise, then he quickly dove at me, grabbing me around the waist. As he pushed me to the floor, I locked my left arm around his neck and began squeezing with all my might. The two of us fell to the floor with a loud thump.

When I was Ross, I’d been in a handful of fights, and I won most of them. Well, some of them. Okay, honestly, I won a couple of them, but I at least I had more experience fighting than Mayda. But as Ross I was much stronger, and right now I missed that strength. My attacker easily freed his head by grabbing my arm and pulling it off him. I balled up my fists and pounded his head, over and over. He grabbed my wrists and pushed them to the floor. Now I was thoroughly frightened, but there was no way in hell that I was going to be beaten that easily. He was sitting on my stomach, so I started kicking him, whacking his head with my heels. Now I felt some power: Mayda had strong legs.

“Stop it, damn you! Stop it!” he growled softly. He didn’t want the neighbors to hear. Well, I did. I began shouting for help.

“Shut up!” he whispered, and let go of one my wrists. Before he could cover my mouth with his hand, I cocked my arm back and hit him hard in the throat. I hit him as hard I could, with all the force of desperation and fear. He reared back, choking and struggling to breathe. In that moment I found the leverage to push him off and stumble to my feet. I ran to Mayda’s dining table and threw one of the chairs at him. I knocked the other chairs over as well, making as much noise as I could. Then I threw over the table, putting it between him and me. It made one hell of a racket.

“I should fucking kill you,” he muttered.

“NOT IF I KILL YOU FIRST!” I shouted back. He took a step forward and grabbed the table. With one hand, he tossed it out of his way. I could see that given time, he’d overpower me. I wanted to run out the door, but given our positions, he’d grab me before my fingertips touched the doorknob.

Then I saw the item that became my salvation: Mayda’s glass turkey was sitting on the counter, right behind me. It was the same silly turkey we’d fought about last night. It was hard and heavy, and about the size of a football. I grabbed it, cocked my arm like a quarterback and threw that damn glass turkey as hard as I could, putting the force of my whole body into that throw. That ugly glass lump nailed him full in the face. He fell back heavily, landing on his ass. “ARE YOU HAVING FUN NOW, YOU ASSHOLE?” I shouted. He held one hand up as a mute plea for mercy, and put his other hand to his head. I could see he was bleeding badly, but this was no time for tenderness. I looked around for something else to hit him with, in case he stood up again or drew a weapon. I spotted exactly what I needed leaning in a corner near the kitchen counter. There it was, the perfect weapon: a half-size baseball bat, a Louisville Slugger. I snatched it up and tapped the floor with it. I was trying to find something menacing to say, as the intruder struggled to his feet. “You bitch,” he said thickly. He stumbled his way to the door, one hand to his head, the other hand warding me off.

I wasn’t sure whether to hit him again, or let him get away. He managed to fumble open the door and escape to the hallway. Forgetting my nakedness, I chased him.

I’ve been to that apartment building often enough to know that there are only a handful of doors in that hallway, but in my memory I can see a dozen, stretching off in the distance, and a neighbor leaning out of each and every partly-open door. Their heads were twitching back and forth between the fleeing, bleeding intruder and me, the naked girl with a baseball bat.

A woman two doors down across the hall was on the phone with 911. “You’ve got to hurry!” she said. “He’s running away! He’s bleeding from his face.” Then her head swiveled, and her jaw dropped. “And she’s naked,” she told the operator. “Naked with a baseball bat. A little one. No, the baseball bat is a little one. She’s tall.”

I nodded thanks to the woman on the phone, and coolly scanning the faces of the others I rested the bat on my shoulder (like Harley Quinn!) and called out, “Okay, folks, the show’s over.” That’s what you’re supposed to say in situations like that.

After I shut the door and threw the deadbolt, I leaned against the doorjam and slid to the floor. I don’t know how long I sat there, shaking. I don’t know why I wasn’t crying. I just sat there, my butt on the floor, my knees drawn up, watching my hands tremble.

What an outrageous night it had been! I should have had that guy from the Princess Bride with me, exclaiming “Inconceivable!” at every turn.

I looked at the clock. 7:45. Twenty-four hours ago, Mayda and I had walked out this door together. She was still her. I was still me. Now Mayda, dressed in my body, was gliding off to the stars. As far as I could tell, she was happy to go. Not that she was happy to leave me; that wasn’t it. She just wanted more. She wanted adventure, the unknown, the unexpected. It wasn’t that she didn’t want me, per se. It’s just that I wasn’t enough. If I thought she didn’t want me, or didn’t love me, or didn’t care — I don’t think I could bear it. But knowing that I wasn’t enough? It hurt. It was humiliating. But I knew eventually I’d come to live with it. I wanted her to be happy, even if happy meant living in a zoo on another planet.

I sat there for what seemed like an eternity, but only two minutes later someone started pounding on the door. I jumped to my feet.

“This is the police, miss. Are you alright in there? We had reports of an intruder.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I replied through the door, but my voice was pretty shaky.

“Are you alone in there, miss? Are you safe?”

“Yes,” I said. “He’s gone. I chased him off. I told you, I’m fine.”

“Could you open the door, please, miss? I need to know that no one is in there with you, threatening you.”

“Yeah, sure, fine,” I said, “just give me a second to put some clothes on.”

“Miss! Miss! Please open this door. RIGHT NOW. I’m concerned for your safety.”

My temper was starting to rise. “I will open the door as soon as I put some clothes on! Did you not hear me? I’m going to put some clothes on!”

“Miss? Miss? If you don’t open this door by my count of three, I will have to break it down. I need to know that no one is in there threatening you.”

“Fine!” I shouted, grudgingly giving in. I undid the deadbolt and opened the door. The cop — the same cop I’d seen on the street, the one who wanted to give me a ride — burst in. He had his gun drawn. To his credit, he carefully searched the room before he gave me a good looking-over. He pulled the door out of my hands so he could see behind it. He jumped back to check the kitchen. He poked the curtains. He looked behind furniture, even where there was no room for a person to hide. He was pretty damn throrough..

While he did his thing, I shut the door and walked toward Mayda’s bedroom.

“Wait!” he cautioned. “I haven’t cleared that room yet!”

“I’m getting dressed,” I told him. “If you want to stop me, you’re going to have to shoot me.”

He followed me into the bedroom. Mayda had left a light blue shirtdress on the bed. It wasn’t as luxurious as the white-and-black dress I’d stolen, but it was the same kind of dress. I pulled it over my head in one movement. Then I told the policeman, “You’re standing too close to me.”

“Sorry,” he said, backing away. While he checked under the bed, in the closet, and in the bathroom, I went to the kitchen and got myself a glass of water.

He came out of the bedroom talking into his radio. Really it looked as though he was talking to his shoulder — where his microphone was clipped to his shirt. He stopped near the glass turkey, staring at it. “Whose blood is that?” he asked. “Were you hurt?”

“Only my dignity,” I told him.

“Did he steal anything?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I haven’t had a chance to look. It doesn’t seem like anything’s missing, but I’ll have to look around.”

He asked me to tell him what happened, sometimes asking me to act it out a little. Other police arrived. They took pictures. They bagged the glass turkey. “Good job,” one of the technicians said to me. “Primo DNA.” They wanted to take the baseball bat, but I didn’t let them.

Just before they left, one of the policewomen told me that the man was in custody. He’d run from here to the Emergency Room, and told the nurses that he’d fallen. It just so happened that one of the women he’d assaulted earlier was there as well. She saw him, identified him, and the man was arrested on the spot.

The police stayed in my apartment until eleven. When they finally left me alone, the woman across the hall, the one who called 911, knocked to ask me if I was okay. “Let me know if you need anything,” she said. “I’m always good for a cup of tea and a listening ear.” My eyes teared up at her kindness, and she gave me a hug. I thanked her and told her I was fine.

She left. I locked the door and all the windows. I looked in every corner and cabinet and under and behind every piece of furniture. I needed to be sure I was alone. I also needed a shower, but I decided to wait until morning, when it was light.

Although it wasn’t cold, I fell asleep wrapped in a blanket, clutching the baseball bat, sitting on the floor next to the couch. It was the only spot from which I could see the whole apartment.

When it was finally light out, a knock came on my door. I didn’t want to open it. I just yelled, “Who’s there?” and a voice I knew called back, “It’s Mom, honey. Can I come in?” As she asked, I heard her key in the lock, and the door opened. It was Mayda’s mom. My mom. Mom.

If you have a human heart, you know what followed: Lots of crying. Lots of holding each other. Lots of saying it’s all right and you’ll be okay.

She asked whether the man had hurt me. I said no, then ended up telling her the whole story of how he’d gotten in and how I’d fended him off. Then it struck me (so I asked her): How did Mayda’s mother know I’d been attacked? She pulled a newspaper out of her bag and showed me.

It wasn’t the headline at the top of the page, or even the one after that. In the bottom right on the first page, the headline read: NAKED GIRL STOPS RIVERWAY RAPIST.

“Rapist?” I repeated. It really hadn’t struck me until I read the word. “He wanted to rape me,” I said, realizing it in that moment. When the policeman on the street said that women had been “assaulted,” that’s what he meant: they’d been raped. I was stunned.

“But you stopped him, honey,” Mayda’s mom said to me. “Now he’ll be in jail for a long time, hopefully.”

The story began on the first page and continued on page 29, inside. There was another story, about the other women, with this idiotic headline: VICTIMS GET EARLY THANKSGIVING, THANKS TO GLASS TURKEY.

“That’s really a stretch,” I commented, and my mother laughed.

Yes, I called her “my mother.” I told her how Ross and I broke up, and I cried again. Not just because it hurt to be left behind, but also because I was lying to this kind and loving woman. Her real daughter was gone, and I was left in her place.

She cooked me breakfast. I ate, then we drank coffee together. After we’d talked ourselves out, she asked me, “Are you going to be okay sleeping here tonight?”

I took a deep breath and said, “No.”

“I have an idea,” she said. “I was going to propose this today anyway, before any of this happened. In one month, you’ll be leaving to play for Barcelona. Tell me what you think of this idea: You go all out to get ready for Barcelona. (1) You drop school. You can check with your teachers, see if any of them can see their way clear to giving you a grade rather than marking you incomplete. (2) You break the lease on this apartment and move back home. It’s month-to-month, so there'll be a penalty, but we can help you. It won’t be too bad. (3) We spend this last month together, you and me. I’ll train you. I’ll take you back to basics, as if you never played soccer before. We’ll work on every part of your game, and seriously concentrate on your fitness, in a holistic, sustainable way.”

I stared at her open-mouthed. With a half-smile she prodded me, “I used to be a damn good player, you know. And a good coach. I’ve still got a lot I can teach you. What do you say?”

“It’d be a dream!” I said, and we hugged each other. “I’m going to need to watch a lot of games, too,” I told her.

“There’s some reading you can do as well,” she added.

I took a shower before we left the apartment, and as I stood under the stream of deliciously hot water, I wondered, Do I dare ask her to explain the offside rule to me? I’ve never understood it.

 

---

 

POSTSCRIPT

After the story of the Riverway Rapist and the Glass Turkey went national, I got stuck with the nickname Naked Girl. The name followed me to Barcelona. Even though it should go without saying, I’ll say it: I made damn sure that no one saw me naked in public ever again.

The news media reached out to my future coach in Barcelona for a comment, and he said, “We welcome a player who has so much fight and determination. We expect her to bring her energy and fierce unstoppableness — can you say that? Unstoppableness? However, I suggest that she leave behind her glass turkey. Ha ha! A glass turkey! Can you imagine?”

 

---

 

POST-POSTSCRIPT

I played four years for Barcelona. They were a great four years for me as a player and as a person. Of course, during that time, I met a man, fell in love, and had my heart broken. It hurt much more than I ever thought it could.

I was still licking my wounds when I came back to the States. Barcelona wanted me to stay, but new professional teams were forming in the US, and and I wanted to contribute as a player. I was ready. They wanted me, I wanted them. Plus, I felt it was time to represent my country.

Two weeks after I got back, the Utah Highway Patrol found Ross’ truck. It had turned up, apparently abandoned, on a lonely road. They recovered my bag — I mean, Mayda's bag — but, apart from some very old trash and dried-up fast-food wrappers, they didn’t find any trace of Ross.

I can’t help but think that Ross is back as well — that he’s out there somewhere.

If he is, could he be looking for me?

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 1

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage.
— Peter Brook

---

 

It was like watching a play. Up goes the curtain, and you see... something.

Or, it's like turning the TV to a random channel, where you happen upon... a scene, already in progress.

You don't have any preparation for what you see. No one hands you an explanation. There's no summary; no scorecard. No list of players. The story unapologetically kicks off at a certain point: Maybe it's the beginning. Maybe it's the end. You don't know. Even so, you don't mind. It's perfectly fine: you're confident that as the situation unfolds you'll understand. You'll piece together who's who and what's what.

Everything will click.

In the meantime, your only clues are the things you see and hear. So you pay attention.

Of course, the scene in front of you, right here, right now, isn't a play. It isn't a TV show. It's not even a documentary. It's one big slice of real life: real people, real events, as they happen. And you are there.

I watched, expectantly, puzzling over it... trying to put it together... asking myself Am I a part of this? or just an observer? At the moment I found myself sitting, watching, at a medium distance, waiting for a gestalt to form, expecting an ah-ha! moment to light up my brain.

What I could see were two cars, both of them badly smashed up. One blue, one white. The aftermath of a car accident, a car crash. That much was clear.

A long, straight road separated the two cars: one car sat off the road on the far side, the second car ended up off the road, but nearer to me. The road itself was empty -- clear and unencumbered, completely devoid of traffic. Clearly, what happened before, what I'd somehow missed, was that the two cars were driving on that road, heading toward each other, and somehow couldn't avoid smacking into each other.

When the two cars hit, one went this way and one went that way, like two billiard balls that collided.

Unlike billiard balls, the cars left a lot of debris on the roadway: broken glass, mostly. Skid marks. Odd bits of metal and plastic.

The road itself was a thick, dark-gray line, stretching off to infinity in both directions, as straight as if you'd laid a ruler down on that flat, empty landscape and traced along that ruler with a big fat grease pencil.

Because, yes, aside from the cars and the road, there was nothing but brown, flat, desolate landscape, as far as the eye could see. No trees, no grass -- no plants at all, except for an ugly tuft of scrub grass here and there.

In a word, a desert. I was sitting on the ground in the middle of a desert. Not a desert of sand, though: there wasn't a single grain of sand. Just death-dry dirt, hard-packed dirt, dirt cracked by days, weeks, months of relentless sun.

Of the two cars, the blue one was closer to me. It looked by far the worse of the two. Even though it stood square on all four wheels, it had obviously rolled over, at least one complete tumble, but judging by its distance from the road, it most likely rolled over twice. The roof was uniformly flattened, pressed down into the car, all its windows reduced to horizontal slits a couple inches high.

The motor was roaring, as if someone's foot was heavy on the gas, but the car wasn't moving.

The white car sat farther off. As I said, the crash had obviously blown the white car off the road as well, although it somehow managed to remain upright. It seemed, at least from my vantage point, that all the damage was taken by the front end, which was crushed, smushed, pressed like an accordion -- and then peeled open, ripped back, baring the left front tire completely.

The windshield, on the other hand, was intact, with nary a crack or chip.

The airbag had deployed, filling the driver's window, hiding the driver, if the driver was still in there...

Where *are* the drivers? I asked myself. There are two cars; there must be two drivers.

Right on cue, the door of the white car popped open, just a bit... only slightly ajar. The bent metal held it, requiring more effort on the driver's part. He struggled with the airbag, wheeling his arms. Then he leaned into his door and pushed, hard. I could him grunting with effort, and after a particularly loud expletive, the door gave way, squealing and screaming as it slowly opened, but only far enough that the man could venture one foot to touch the ground.

He made quite a lot of noise, groaning and swearing; whining and nearly crying. I followed his progress with interest. After his foot, one hand emerged, then his head, followed by the other foot. Soon he stood upright, wobbling unsteadily next to his car.

He blinked and winced at the sun, as though he'd just woken up, or had crawled from the darkness of a cave into daylight. He was dressed well. He must have been on his way to someplace important. Even at this distance I could see the shine of his shoes. His clothes were clean. His pants had a sharp crease, his shirt bright-white and wrinkle-free. A dark blue tie finished off the look.

He looks like a lawyer, I told myself. Every inch a lawyer.

The man ran a hand through his thick mop of hair as he took a few uncertain steps. His head swiveled anxiously, this way and that. Then he stopped for a moment, stock still, and covered his face with his hands.

He's frightened, I told myself. He's afraid. He's very afraid.

The lawyer took a few more steps before he bent down and rested his hands on his thighs, staring at the earth between his feet. I thought he might pass out, or throw up, or maybe start to cry, but he didn't do any of those things. Maybe he'd only stopped to gather his wits?

Then it came to me: He's drunk, I told myself. Very drunk. It's early in the day, but he's already drunk.

I didn't judge him. I didn't know him. I only watched him. Every movement in his pantomime told me something.

He was one of the drivers. He was driver number one, the driver of the white car.

He stood with his back to me, surveying the damage to his car, gesticulating with open arms, emitting gasps of disbelief.

He's upset about his car, I observed to myself. It seemed pretty obvious, but as it turned out, I was wrong. Or at least, he was far more upset about something else.

The driver made a half turn, clasped his hands, and folded in on himself, bending his elbows and knees. Was he hurt? Was he about to fall over?

No -- neither. He was overcome with emotion. He let loose a litany of laments, curses, cries, and imprecations. Jesus figured heavily in his tirade, but not in a good way. He finished up by exclaiming over and over that he was fucked, totally and completely fucked. "This is the end!" he cried. "I'm through! I'm done!" After he poured out the cup of his bitterness and desperation, he heaved a heavy, heart-breaking sigh.

That done, he turned toward me. His eyes large and liquid, his mouth partway open, his eyes ping-ponged between me and the blue car.

"Were you the driver?" he shouted.

"I don't think so," I shouted back. Then I clutched my head and squeezed my eyes shut, tight. Pain, like bolts of lightning laced with lava, shot through my skull. Ow-wow-ouch!!! Shouting made my head hurt! It made my head hurt a lot, a hell of a lot, for some strange reason.

My answer seemed to puzzle him. "If you're not the driver--" He muttered fretfully as he crossed the road and came closer to where I sat. As I said, I was sitting on the ground. I don't know why, but there I was.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I laughed. "Of course I'm okay. Are you okay?"

"No," he replied. "Well -- physically I'm fine, but-- are you hurt? I mean, apart from those bruises. They must hurt like hell." He pointed to my arms and legs. "And you were clutching your head."

I took a look at myself, astonished. My left leg, my left arm, were well-covered in bruises. "What the heck?" I asked aloud. "Where on earth did those come from?"

He pointed to my forehead, and was about to speak, but first his eyes swept over me, from my feet to my... chest. The expression on his face changed from despair to alarm. He froze for a moment, then asked in a soft, cautious voice, "Are you... are you... a cop?"

"No," I replied with a scoff and a frown. "I'm not a cop. Why would I be a cop?"

"Your shirt," he explained, pointing first to his own heart, then to mine.

I checked my chest, and sure enough, there was a design printed in white on my enormously oversized shirt: it was a perfect drawing of a police badge surrounded by the words ROBBINS POLICE DEPT.

"Huh!" I exclaimed. "Where did that come from?" Clearly, the shirt wasn't mine. It was way too big for me. Way, way, too big. It was practically a dress. A mini-dress, at least.

"So, if *you* weren't driving...," he began, and glanced over his shoulder at the blue car. Its motor was still roaring.

"I'm going to check on your friend," he told me. "My name's Wade. What's yours?"

"Mason," I told him. Mason? It sounded right. Mason, I repeated to myself. Again, he seemed perplexed by my answer, but he turned away and dashed to the blue car. He bent down and peered into the slit that used to be the driver's window. "Hey, buddy. Hey. How are you doing in there, man?" he called. "Can you hear me? Are you alright? Are you conscious? Are you awake? Are you in pain?"

After a moment, a weak voice answered, nearly crying. "I'm banged up pretty bad." A soft sob followed, then the question, "How is Deeny?"

"Deeny?" Wade glanced at me. "Your name is Deeny?" I shrugged. It didn't sound right.

"She looks okay," Wade said, "She's got a big lump on her forehead. Must have banged her head." Wade pulled out his phone. "It was just the two of you in this car, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm calling 911. What's your name?"

"Amos Casshon."

"Can you turn off the engine? And tell me: what kind of shape are you in?"

Amos, after some coughs and whimpers, shut off the engine. The roaring stopped, but even in the silence that followed, I had to strain to hear Amos' weak, almost whispered, replies. "I'm banged up pretty bad. I think my left arm is broken. My legs are pinned under the steering wheel, and it hurts like hell. I can wiggle my toes, though. I guess that's a good sign. I'm all doubled over and the roof is pressing down on my head and shoulders. It's really tight and uncomfortable in here. I'm trying to stay calm, but..."

Wade got on the phone and asked for two ambulances. "You'd better bring the jaws of life," he told the dispatcher. "Amos is trapped inside his car. The roof is crushed flat on top of him. I'm going to try to get him out, but I don't think--" He stopped; the dispatcher was talking to him. His shoulders sagged. "Yes, alcohol was involved. I've been drinking. Yes. Yes. A lot. No, I'm pretty sure the other parties were not. Not at all. No. No." He pressed the phone against his chest and groaned, "I'm fucked. I'm completely, totally fucked. This is it for me. This is the end. This is the fucking end. I'm done."

"Hey," I called to him, in as loud a whisper as I could manage, "Wade! Try to keep it together! You're doing all you can right now!" Talking still hurt my head, but less than before, especially if I was careful not to shout. Once the pain of talking passed, I tried to get up. I meant to go to Wade, to put my hand on his shoulder, to encourage him, and to see if somehow together we could pry Amos out of the wreck. I rolled to my side and got up on my hands and knees.

Before I could straighten up and stand, the world began to spin around me, violently. It was like a kaleidoscope, a calliope -- what was the word? Merry-go-round? Tilt-A-Whirl? The earth beneath me pitched and yawed. I feared for a moment that the whole scene would flip over and I'd fall into the sky. "Whoa!" I shouted, "whoa, whoa, whoa! Turn it off!" and held steady on all fours. I clutched some scrub grass with each hand to keep from rolling off and away. Squeezing my eyes shut, I did my best to keep still... I didn't want to fall... in any direction. Panting and huffing, it became crystal clear that if staying on hands and knees took so much energy, standing would be completely out of the question. The spinning didn't stop or even let up, so I gingerly rested my hip back down on the ground, and carefully lowered myself onto my side.

"Oh my God," I cried once everything stopped moving. "Did somebody slip me something? Holy mother!"

"Hey! You better take it easy," Wade cautioned. "You're pretty banged-up, in case you haven't noticed."

"What the hell happened?" I cried out. "Were we at a party? Did I take something? Did somebody give me something? Was it roofies? I don't remember a goddamn thing!"

"Are you out of your mind? A party? What the hell are you talking about? We were in a car accident! Just now!" he shouted back. "Look around you! What do you *think* happened?"

"A car accident?" I gasped, clutching my head. "A car accident? That much I know, thank you very much! But what about *before*? What happened before?"

Wade groaned with disbelief, and turned his attention back to Amos.

Muttering defensively and huffing impatiently, I said, "I want to get up. I want to help. I just have a few questions, that's all."

 

---

 

So... a car accident. I mean, sure, I'd already gotten that far on my own. But before the accident... before the cars were crumpled and thrown, they must have been moving, one going from A to B, the other going from B to A. I was in one of the cars. Probably. I must have been going somewhere.

I had so many questions. Questions... about... pretty much everything.

While we waited for the ambulances to arrive, nothing changed much, at least for Amos and me. He was still trapped inside his car, while I was, essentially, glued to the ground. I tried several times, without success, to get up, but each time the world aggressively swirled around me like my own personal tornado, pushing me back down to the ground again.

"Just stay down!" Wade told me, several times, each time a little more impatiently. "You don't want to fall. That will only make things worse."

"I want to help!" I protested. "Maybe together we could get one of the doors open... get Amos out of there."

"You don't look especially strong," Wade objected. "And these goddamn doors are crushed shut. I've been trying. You've seen me. They will not open. Except for that one..." He pointed to a blue car door, lying on the ground, off on its own, apart from the wreck. Wade explained that the passenger door in back, on the far side, had been torn off when the car rolled over. It didn't leave much of an opening, though: Wade was able to stick his head and shoulders in, but little more than that. The insides were so compressed that he could only see bits and pieces of Amos: the side of his face, his hip, his elbow.

But he did find a large black umbrella in there, on the floor. He unfurled it with a snap, and presented it to me.

"It's not raining," I told him. "In case you hadn't noticed."

He knelt down, took my hand, and wrapped my fingers around the umbrella's handle. "You're getting badly burned," he countered. "In case you hadn't noticed."

He was right. My thighs, my legs, my arms, and even the tops of my feet, were a fiery red. I needed the shade. After I curled my legs into the new-found shadow, I looked the umbrella over, and was struck by sudden recognition. "Hey, this is mine!"

"Good for you," Wade commented in a distracted tone. He ran his hand through his hair. I looked up at him, at his face. His expression was easy to read: Wade was worried. Very worried.

"You're a very responsible person," I observed.

"I'm glad *you* think so," he scoffed.

"And it looks like you've sobered up."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"No, I mean it. Before, you were stumbling and slurring your words a little. Now, you look all... here... now. Attentive. Responsible, like I said."

"Please stop saying that word."

"Which word?"

"Responsible."

I shrugged and nodded.

"It would be wonderful if you were right," he confided, "But there's no way I'll pass the breathylizer or a blood-alcohol test. And I can't pretend I wasn't driving."

"Maybe they won't do the breathylizer," I offered. I wasn't sure what a breathylizer is, but I managed to say it right.

"No, they'll do one for sure. I have a record. There's no point in trying to lie; it would only make things worse. I'm a lawyer... I'm supposed to be at a hearing right now, representing a client. Clearly, that's gone to hell. Worst of all, this will be my third DUI. I'll get disbarred for sure. I'll lose my law license, my drivers license. Everything in my life will go to shit..." He gestured across the road. "My car is totalled. I'll be found at fault. There's no two ways about it: I'm about to lose everything. Everything. My life was a wreck already; now the disaster will be complete."

I scratched my head. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to tell him to look on the bright side, but for the life of me Wade's bright side was pretty hard to find.

He stared at a the ground for a few moments. Then he lifted his head and looked at me. "So what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Do you really not remember the crash?"

"No. Not at all. I mean, for all I know, I was just sitting here minding my own business when the two cars collided."

He scoffed, and almost laughed, but not quite. His lips bent back down to a frown. He rubbed his chin. "Okay...," he said slowly, drawing out the vowels. "You must know that that's not what happened. I mean, there's no way you were just sitting here when the crash occurred."

He studied my face for a bit. "And did you seriously think we were at a party? Were *you* at a party?"

I tightened my lips. Was he making fun of me? Aggressively changing the subject I asked, "How is Amos?"

Wade blew out a long breath before answering. "I wish the ambulance would hurry up and get here. Maybe I should have told them to send a helicopter."

"We should go over and sit by him," I suggested.

"What am I supposed to do? Drag you over there? I might be able to carry you, but it's not a good idea, moving an accident victim. It would only increase my liability."

We looked at other for a few moments. Then he said, "I'll go back to Amos in a minute. It's hard, though. I don't have anything helpful to say to him."

"Okay.""

He rubbed his hands together, and after searching for a topic of conversation asked, "So tell me, what's the first thing you remember?"

I gestured at the two cars. "I was sitting on the ground here, and I saw the two cars. It was just like turning on a TV and seeing a show already in progress, you know? Then you got out of your car, and... you know the rest."

"Amos told me that he picked you up hitchhiking. Do you remember that?"

"Hitchhiking? No. Me, hitchhiking? Where? Like, out here, in the desert?"

"Yeah, maybe a dozen miles west of here."

I tried to put it together, but the pieces didn't fit. "Hitchhiking... dressed like this? Barefoot? With an umbrella? What-- did I drop out of the sky? Like Mary Poppins, with the umbrella?"

Wade shook his head and shrugged.

"Did I tell Amos anything? Did I explain? Did I tell him where I came from?"

"No. He said you didn't want to talk much. You told him your name is Deeny. You asked him the name of the next town, which is weird, I guess -- not that any of this isn't weird."

"What is the next town?"

"Going that way, which is west--" he pointed left "--is Aldusville. That's where I was headed. That direction, which is east--" he pointed right "--is Robbins. That's where you were going."

"Robbins," I repeated. "Like my shirt."

"Yeah," he said. "Which probably means you were heading back to Robbins, but, uh, if you didn't have amnesia back when Amos picked you up, before the accident, it's weird that you didn't know where you were heading."

A shiver ran through me when he said the word amnesia. "Fuck," I muttered, mainly to myself.

The two of us sat in silence for a quarter of a minute, when Wade got up and visited with Amos for a spell.

 

---

 

I watched Wade struggle with the doors again. Without success, again. He conferred with Amos for a while. Time passed. I must have been in some kind of a daze because I couldn't tell whether the minutes were moving quickly or slowly. I can't say I was thinking, though. My brain seemed full of fuzz, static, stuffing. A line from a song came to mind: If my head was full of stuffin' / I could be-- I could be what? I didn't know. Eating muffins?

I tried to look into my own head. There was nothing there. No thoughts, no memories, no worries, no words. It didn't feel like I was waiting for anything. No active processes running.

The blue car started up. It roared for a moment, then dropped to a normal idle and kept going. Wade conferred with Amos for a half minute, then returned to me.

"Amos was getting cooked in there," he explained, "It was like an oven, so I suggested he start the car to get some AC."

"Did it work?"

"Yes."

"Good for him."

"He managed to move his foot off the accelerator. It's a good sign, that he was able to do that."

I nodded.

Wade seemed a little more animated after his conversation with Amos.

"I think I know how the accident happened," he told me, nodding. His eyes were sharp. He had the hint of a smile. "I assumed it was all my fault, but, uh, Amos played his part as well. Not that it helps me much."

"Okay," I said, noncommittal.

"AND, now I know why you were in the back seat, instead of up front with him!"

"How do you know I was in the back seat?"

"The door that got ripped off when the car was rolling -- it was the rear door on the passenger side, okay? So, you were thrown out, or fell out, or got out, or something. Maybe you crawled a little. It doesn't matter.

"The thing is, Amos says that the passenger seat belt in front is broken. If you sat there, it wouldn't be safe. In fact, if you HAD sat up front, you'd probably be dead right now. Or worse. Besides that, Amos could have gotten a ticket if a cop saw you without your seat belt. Last of all, the alert, the beeping, would never stop, because you wouldn't be able to lock your seat belt. That's why he told you to climb in the back."

It sounded complicated, but since I didn't remember, I didn't comment.

Wade actually smiled for a moment, which was nice, and I was just about to ask him what he'd worked out about the accident, when the ambulance siren cut through the air.

Wade had requested two ambulances, but they only sent one, along with a police car, and a pickup truck from the fire department.

The firemen set to work right away, prying Amos' car open with the jaws of life. I wanted to watch, but the EMTs popped me onto a stretcher and pushed me deep into the ambulance, where they checked me over. "Gotta get you out of the sun," they said. "You're pretty red already, and you're going to get redder." Blood pressure, temperature, blood oxygen... They checked for broken bones, cataloged my bruises, and... "You've got a nasty bump on your head there," one of them told me, pointing above my right eye. "It's about the size of a golf ball." I cautiously felt around the edges of the thing, and told him, "Hopefully it's only half a golf ball, right? I mean, I don't want half a lump inside, going the other way, am I right?"

The EMT laughed, told me I was "a trip," but he didn't answer my question.

While one EMT looked me over, another checked Wade, who sat on the edge of the open back door. While the EMT treated Wade's cuts and scrapes, a policeman stood nearby, watching, as if he expected Wade to jump up and run off. I could have told him that Wade wasn't going anywhere -- and not only because there was nowhere to go. Wade's body language read dejection, resignation, acceptance of his fate.

Outside, out of sight, the jaws gave off a noise like a big electric mixer, punctuated with loud and soft pops. The pops were the doors being pried off, and the roof being pried up.

I kept asking for progress reports, but the EMTs pretended not to hear me. Before they were done extracting Amos, a medevac helicopter landed, and in the midst of the roar of the rotors the policeman bent forward and spoke into Wade's ear. Wade nodded. He gave me a grim wave goodbye, his lips pressed together in a tight line. Then he offered his wrists to the policeman, who cuffed him and led him away.

The EMTs waited for the helicopter to carry Amos up into the sky before they closed up the ambulance and drove me to Robbins.

 

---

 

The ride was pretty quiet. The EMTs talked basketball. Every so often they'd shine a penlight into my eyes and have me squeeze their hands. "Neuro checks," they explained. I closed my eyes for a moment, and one of them nudged me. "No sleeping!" he said.

Everything changed the minute we hit the city. "Time to make some noise!" the driver sang out. He switched on the sirens and lights. He kicked the ambulance into high gear, driving faster through the city streets than he had along the desert highway. He also seemed to favor sharp turns, twists, swerves, and bumps. I'm sure he drove over some curbs, and he leaned heavily on the horn -- a horn that didn't toot or honk. It let off a rock-splitting, get-the-hell-out-of-my-way blast.

By the time we arrived at the Emergency Room, my heart was already racing, but if we were in high gear before, we were in overdrive now. After a whip-sharp turn, the ambulance driver violently jerked the transmission into reverse and backed rapidly toward the admitting doors.

One of the EMTs kicked open the back door of the ambulance. In response, two enormous, lead-weighted Emergency-Room doors flung themselves open. Happily, no one stood in the path of those doors; they would have been tossed aside like rag dolls.

Six people dressed in blue scrubs streamed from the opening, converging on me, everyone talking at once -- each of them talking with each other, over each other... none of them talking to me. But then again, I had nothing to say. I was overwhelmed. I felt, more than anything else, like a freshly delivered package. Grabbing hold of the sheet beneath me, they shifted me with a one-two-three, sliding me sideways from the flimsy ambulance stretcher to a more solid hospital gurney. They didn't give me a word of warning or so much as a by-your-leave. Zip! There you go!

But it was fine. I mean, no one was unkind or unprofessional. It was all very quick, impersonal, unemotional, efficient. They wheeled me into a small, curtained-off area and hooked me up to a heart monitor. They snapped a clothespin-like thing on my finger to track my blood oxygen level. And of course I still had the IV that the EMT had started in the ambulance earlier.

Once all that was settled, they drew curtains around me and left me alone. There were curtains on three sides, and a solid wall behind me.

I listened. The flurry of activity I experienced on arrival seemed to have calmed down, died down to nearly nothing. Behind the curtain on my right, a man coughed softly. Probably an old man. I didn't hear anything behind the curtain on my left. I turned my head every which-way, looking for a clock, listening for any tell-tale sounds. I didn't see a clock. I didn't hear any noise that I could try and decipher.

What was supposed to happen next? I didn't know. Did they expect me to call out? To volunteer some kind of information? There wasn't any button or signal near me, that I could press and ask for help. But then again, it wasn't help that I needed. It was information. Clarity. Explanations.

After a few minutes a young woman with an honest-to-God clipboard ambled in. "Deeny Mason?" she asked.

"I guess so," I replied. She gave me the stink eye, so I amended my response to "Yes."

"Date of birth?"

No answer came to me. "I don't know," I told her. "Honestly, I don't know."

She lowered her clipboard and fixed me with a baleful look. I shrugged. Her expression didn't change.

"Do you have your insurance card?"

"No."

"Do you have insurance?"

I licked my lips thoughtfully, then: "Sorry, but-- I don't know. I swear."

She cut me off by handing me the clipboard and a pen. "Sign down here."

It was a brief paragraph stating that I would be responsible for the payment of whatever treatment I received not otherwise covered by insurance. I hesitated a moment, then did a quick series of scribbles. It would have to do.

To my surprise, she seemed satisfied by my meaningless scrawl. Now that she had it, she pushed her way out through the curtains and was gone.

As soon as she left, the curtain parted again and a small blonde nurse walked in. "Hi, I'm Emma," she told me, and gave me a quick smile. "How are we doing today?"

"Fine," I replied, automatically.

"Good. Are you in any pain? Do you need anything? Is anyone with you?"

So many questions! "I, uh, yes. I have a headache. It seems worse now that I'm out of the sun. And I have these bruises on my left arm and leg. They don't hurt. I mean, they don't hurt yet... anyway. And I'm really really thirsty."

"Okay, I'll get you some water. Let me just get your vitals first."

She took my blood pressure. Jotted down some numbers from the machines on the wall behind me. Then, "So... Deeny Mason. What's Deeny short for? I'm guessing Denise."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. That kind of made sense. Deeny, Denise. I could see it.

"Is that right?" she asked, her eyes bright, thinking she'd hit on the right answer.

"I don't know," I replied. I felt a little guilty, as though I'd let her down.

In fact, her face fell, a little bit. "Sorry," I told her. "I don't remember."

She gave me a concerned look. Her eyes went up to my forehead. "You have quite a bump on your forehead," she said. "Does it hurt?"

"I have a bad headache," I repeated. "I don't know if it's from the bump or from the sun. Can you give me something for it?"

"The doctor will have to write a prescription."

"I'm not asking for anything serious," I told her. "I don't need a prescription. I just want aspirin or tylenol, that's all."

"Sorry -- the doctor will have to see you first." As she spoke, she slowly stretched her hand out toward my face. "Can I--" and she touched the bump.

A blinding flash of pure white light and a searing, red-hot pain drove through my head. It felt like a madman lifted an axe, hot and fresh from a blast furnace, and drove it with all his might, slicing my head neatly in two, from forelock to brain stem.

It was not as much fun as it sounds.

"MotherFUCKER!" I screamed. It was completely involuntary on my part, I swear. Emma, her face gone white, jumped backward, throwing herself into the curtains and nearly falling. The old man in the next bed, the man behind the curtain, jumped. I heard him bodily lift off his gurney and drop back heavily to earth. "Language!" he exclaimed.

I didn't bother to excuse myself. For one thing, I was speechless, as I waited, gasping, for the blinding pain to subside. For another, Emma was busy babbling effusive, barely articulate, apologies, more enough for the both of us.

"Yes, it does hurt," I assured her, once I was capable of speaking.

"Would you like some ice?" she offered.

"No," I said, feeling my patience wearing thin. "I just want aspirin, tylenol, ibu-pro-whatever it is. That's all I want."

"Okay," she conceded. "I'll... uh, go get you some water and make sure the doctor comes right away."

I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands, careful to not touch the swelling above my right eye.

The sound of the curtain swished open and closed again, telling me that Emma was gone. Immediately after her departure, I heard the swish-open/swish-close once again, so I opened my eyes and peered through my fingers to see who was there.

A short, stocky man had stepped inside. He wore khaki pants and a shirt with red and white horizontal stripes beneath a long white lab coat. His eyeglasses had round, wire rims that blended into the wrinkles of his face. His hands were blocky, stubby, with thick fingers. A stethoscope hung around his neck, and his name tag read "Dr. Thistlewaite, Neurosurgery."

I smiled when I noticed he was wearing bright green sneakers. I liked him right away. He didn't exactly look like a garden gnome, but he put me in mind of one.

"Hi there, hello," I said, before he had a chance to open his mouth. I really wanted to get in there first. "Are you my doctor? Can you give me something for my headache? It really hurts. I asked the nurse, but she said she couldn't."

His smile broke a little. "I'm not-- uh--"

"I'm not asking for oxy-condone--"

"Oxycontin," he corrected.

"Whatever! All I want is, like, tylenol or aspirin. Something simple. My head is splitting, and when I talk it makes it worse."

He hesitated, but after looking me in the face a moment, he said, "Hold on. I'll get you something. Don't go anywhere." He left quickly and returned a few moments later followed by a tall, skeletally thin male nurse. He held a shallow pleated paper cup that contained two white pills. In his other hand he had a huge, big-gulp-size container filled with ice water. I tossed the pills in my mouth and drank mouthful after mouthful of water.

"You were thirsty, weren't you!" the nurse marvelled.

"I woke up in the desert this morning," I informed him. His eyes widened. I'm not sure he believed me. It hardly mattered, though: he took the empty pill cup from me, and left.

Thistlewaite nodded, smiling. "I hope that helps."

"Thanks. The water helps a lot."

"Good. I'm Dr Thistlewaite. I heard you're having trouble remembering things."

"You could say that. Yes, some things. Most things. Practically everything."

"You were in a car accident this morning?"

"It seems that way."

"But you don't remember being in an accident?"

"No. I remember the aftermath. I saw the crashed cars. I talked to the drivers."

"Do you remember anything that happened before the accident?"

I stopped and considered his question. I tried to look into my memory. Mentally, the effort is a lot like looking back over your shoulder, except that you're really looking behind your eyes. Usually there's plenty to see. This time, though, I came up empty. I looked. I really looked. I asked myself. I wondered. I looked up. I looked down. I searched my mind. It was like walking through a house, a big house, full of large, empty rooms. It was clear that things were missing -- there was no furniture; there was nothing on the walls. But I couldn't tell you *what* was missing. I had no idea what was supposed to be there.

"No, nothing," I told him, feeling the beginnings of a state of existential alarm.

"It's okay," he said, in a calming tone. "Don't worry. Memory loss like yours is usually temporary. When I say temporary I mean that it's usually brief, like days, or even hours. It will all come back to you."

"Is there any way you can speed it up?" I asked him. "Are there any pills I could take? Or maybe hypnosis? Or electric shocks?"

"Good lord, no!" he exclaimed. "Electroshock would likely have the opposite effect -- make you forget even more than you have already -- and hypnosis is not recommended. You'd be as likely to recover fantasies as actual memories. The best way to go is to simply let your memories come back on their own."

"And if they don't come back?" I asked.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 2

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away!
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

---

 

"What if my memories don't come back? What if I forget even more?" I didn't mean to panic; I didn't want to panic... and yet... panic was there, waiting to pounce, ready to devour me.

In spite of my rather obvious distress and incipient fear, Dr Thistlewaite struggled to keep an amused half-smile off his face. "How could you possibly forget more?"

My eyes widened in disbelief. "You just said I might forget even more--"

"No, no," he interrupted. "I was talking about electroshock, and why it's a bad idea--"

"Because I could forget even more than I have already. That's what you said. Just now."

He fumbled. "Look--"

I interrupted, imperative. "What if I wake up tomorrow, and I don't remember today? What if I forget the little I remember right now? Don't laugh at me — please; I'm serious."

"I'm not laughing," he quickly (but not convincingly) assured me. "The thing is, it doesn't work like that—"

"How do you know?"

"Because you aren't the first person to go through this," he replied. "Also, because medical science knows pretty well how the different parts of the brain handle their specific functions. Listen to me. You were in a car accident. You hit your head. You don't remember the accident, and you don't remember anything *before* the accident. This is a fairly common pattern, for this sort of amnesia." He smiled, warming to his subject. "As I said: you aren't the first person to experience this. What you have is called PTA, or post-traumatic amnesia. As the name implies, it was caused by a trauma — the car accident, the blow to your head—" he pointed above his right eye, to the spot where I had the lump— "It's retrograde, which means you don't remember old memories. It doesn't affect new memories, memories formed *after* the trauma. Okay?"

I shrugged helplessly. What could I say?

"The pattern, in these cases — cases like yours — is that the amnesia doesn't last very long — as I said, hours or days. It's not a long time. Little by little — or all at once — your memories will all come back to you."

"And if they don't?" I repeated, insisting.

"They will," he assured me. "Believe me, they will. And — and — if you were going to forget more, you'd be forgetting things already." He covered his name tag with his hand. "Tell me: what's my name?"

"Thistlewaite."

"See? And that's not an easy name! Now tell me: how many cars were in the accident?"

"Two."

He spread his hands, palms up, as if say, you see?

I twisted my mouth to the side as I digested this. Then I asked, "What about this: why *do* I remember new memories? And how come I still know how to talk? Why didn't I forget that, when I forgot everything else? Do I have to worry about that disappearing?"

He shook his head no. "Different parts of the brain," he said. A sound outside the curtain distracted him. "The brain isn't all one thing. It has a lot of compartments... components... different components have different jobs to do. Okay? Listen, I'm going to have to leave you now. I'll see you upstairs, after you're admitted. Okay? In the meantime, try not to worry. Try not to stress! Stress makes it harder to remember. Don't rush things."

He put his hand to the curtain, then stopped himself. "Oh! I just remembered something that might help! Have you ever heard the saying Don't push the river; it flows by itself?"

"No," I told him. "I'm pretty sure I've never heard that."

His eyebrows danced. "Interesting that you put it that way! Well, in any case, it's something Fritz Perls said. It suits your present situation perfectly. Don't push the river."

"Okay," I said. "No river-pushing. I promise."

There came a cough from outside the curtain, a cough that signalled someone else wanted their turn. Thistlewaite gave a quick smile and a wave before he swished the curtain open.

"Hey!" I stopped him. "Can we talk about my name? I'm not sure this Deeny thing is really my name."

He glanced at the person outside the curtain for a moment, then told me, "Upstairs. Okay? We'll can pick up our conversation at that point.. Alright?"

With that, he was gone.

As Dr Thistlewaite exited, a trim, business-like woman entered. She wore a long white lab coat and had a stethoscope around her neck.

"Hello, Deeny," she said. "I'm Dr Lukkenbocher, but you can call me Dr Sandy. How are you feeling?"

I tried to work up a witty remark about doctors with long names, but Dr Sandy was like a train. Once she started, she was ready to move on, with or without me.

As she spoke, her eyes danced over the machines in the wall behind me. She picked up my arm and took my blood pressure.

"Any aches and pains?" she queried, and shined a penlight into each of my eyes in turn. She asked me to grip her hands and squeeze them.

"Follow my finger with your eyes," she directed, moving her index finger in front of my face, up, down, left right.

"Good!" She consulted my chart. "I see you got some tylenol for your headache. Did it help?"

"I guess," I said. "Will it be hard for me to get more if I need it?"

She seemed amused. "Was it hard to get it the first time?"

"Yes," I answered, a little nettled. "It *was* hard. I had to ask ten times. I had to insist pretty hard. They told me a doctor had to give it to me, so..."

"I see. I'll write an order. Every four hours, if you need it. If you ask for it."

"Great."

She reached forward and, starting gently, dug her fingers into the soft tissue of my shoulders and neck. "Any pain up in here?"

"No."

She had me move my head in every direction. She asked about my bruises. As she talked to me, she poked and prodded my arms and legs. She ran her hands over my scalp. She looked at the lump on my forehead, but didn't touch it. "Does it hurt?" she asked.

"I have a headache. I don't know if it's from the lump or from the sun. The bump hurts like hell if you touch it."

She pressed a finger into my right forearm, the arm that isn't bruised, and let it go. "You're very red," she observed. "I'm worried about sun poisoning. Make sure you drink lots of water, okay? We're going to keep this IV running, to help hydrate. And I'm going to order you some aloe vera gel. Will you remember to apply it? Cover all the red, all the burn, even on your face and scalp. Don't forget the back of your neck and your feet. Okay? The nurses can take care of your back."

She asked a lot of questions. She wanted to know whether I had any allergies to foods or medicines. Of course, I had no idea, but I told her that I didn't think so. Then she told me she was going to do a general examination, to see if I had any injuries I wasn't aware of. "Another thing: The police asked me to check for distinguishing features," she informed me. "so that will be part of the examination."

"The police? Why?"

"Well, you're a Jane Doe, an unidentified female. Hopefully someone reported you as a missing person."

"How can I be missing?" I asked, laughing. "I'm right here."

She gave me a serious look. "Imagine someone who loves you. Someone who has no idea where you are. You lost your memory, haven't you? You have no idea how long you've been away. Maybe it's only hours, but for all you know, you've been gone for days or weeks or even longer. Think about that. And imagine: the people who know you... imagine how they must feel."

What she said made me confused and seriously uncomfortable. "Who would... Does somebody have to be... I mean... who's allowed to report me missing?"

"Anyone," she answered. "Anyone can file a missing person report. It could be a friend, a neighbor, someone in your family, a roommate, a boyfriend, your husband. The police will match you up, if they can."

I scowled at the words boyfriend and husband. "No boyfriend, no husband," I told her.

"For someone who lost their memory, you sound pretty sure," she said with a smile.

"How could I have a boyfriend or a husband?" I scoffed.

"Woo!" Dr Sandy exclaimed, puffing out her cheeks. "How? Are you seriously asking that question? At your age? Didn't your mother explain to you about the birds and the bees?"

I blushed, but didn't know how to respond.

She let me stew in my embarrassment for a few moments, then, quietly teasing, said, "I'm quite curious as to whether you've forgotten all that!"

Dr Sandy pulled down the neck of my hospital gown so she could look at my chest. My jaw dropped when I saw a pair of breasts sitting there, stuck on me. They were obviously my own. I'm sure I was vaguely aware of them this whole time, but actually seeing them was quite a shock. I almost blurted out Where in hell did *those* come from? but stopped myself in time.

She caught the look on my face, and quite bemused, asked, "You look surprised. Are they different from how you remember? Is this something else you've forgotten?"

"Ahhh — I don't know," I replied, drawing out the vowels. "I guess I, uh, hmm."

Sandy's face reverted to a perfunctory professional half-smile as she had me turn first to the left, then to the right, so she could check my back. "We probably ought to take photos of these bruises," she observed. "I'll have one of the nurses come in afterward to do that. Okay?"

"Sure."

Next she checked my feet and legs. "Your legs are very smooth," she commented. "I assume you wax them."

"Um— I guess?"

She gently lifted the hem of my gown, when a loud clang! made her turn her head away. "Somebody dropped a bedpan," she explained with a laugh.

Thank goodness someone did! If Dr Sandy thought I looked surprised when I saw my breasts, she would have been astonished at my reaction when I saw the... nothing... the space... the gap between my legs! Where the... what... I wanted to gasp, but I bit my tongue.

"Okay," she concluded, pulling my gown back into place and covering me with the sheet.

"So how do I rate, as far as distinguishing features are concerned?" I asked her, a little nervously.

She made a vague gesture. "You don't have any. Which is nice for you, as far as your appearance goes, but it doesn't help the missing-person process. No tattoos, no birth marks, no piercings, no scars..."

"Scars?"

"Sure, from accidents... I mean previous accidents... or surgeries."

"Surgeries?" I repeated. "Oh! Like operations?"

"Well, yes, of course," she replied, with an amused smile. "Surgeries, operations... they're the same thing."

"But what if— what if— it was an internal operation?" I asked. "Could you still tell?"

Dr Sandy was puzzled by my question. "Do you mean, like, having your tonsils removed? Or some kind of umbilical surgery?" She considered for a moment, then added, "Or are you talking about a D&C? Something like that? It's possible I'd miss something along those lines — but... do you have any reason to think you've had a surgery like that?"

"Well, not like that," I replied.

"Then I don't know what you're getting at," she said. "Most surgeries leave traces that I would see." She scratched her head. "Still, I'm really curious to know what you're thinking, especially given your memory loss. If you could be a little clearer, more specific, I'd have an easier time giving you an answer."

"I guess I don't know what I'm thinking," I told her at last.

"There's one last thing," she said, hemming and hawing a little. "The police also asked whether I could do a rape kit. I told them I'd need your consent before I could do that."

"A rape kit!?" I exclaimed. "What the hell! Why?"

Sandy dropped her voice just above a whisper (which made me realize I'd been shouting.). "Look at it this way: you don't know where you've been or who you've been with. Anything could have happened to you."

"Not that, though!" I assured her. "Not that!"

"How you can be so sure?" she countered. "I mean, superficially it doesn't look like you've had sex recently... Maybe they'll be satisfied if I tell them that... If they push it, I'll tell them you refused. How's that sound?"

I nodded.

"Excellent teeth, no cavities, crowns, or bridgework," she said as she scribbled on my chart. "Your ears are pierced in three places — that's interesting, but so do a lot of women your age. No nail polish, but nails are carefully tended. As I said: no tattoos, no body piercings, no scars, no birthmarks."

She scribbled some more, her head down. When she finished, I said, "Dr Thistlewaite told me I was going to be admitted. Um, I have some questions..."

"You had a head injury; probably a concussion. We want to keep you overnight for observation. Tomorrow, if everything looks good, you can
go home! Okay?"

Without waiting for my answer, she swished through the curtain and was gone.

"Home?" I repeated lamely. "Home," repeated the old man behind the curtain, sounding as though he spoke in his sleep.

Home, though. Home. It ought to be evocative, shouldn't it? Home. I kept repeating it, expecting to get a mental image, a picture: a house, a street, a yard... a tree? A tire swing? Something. Anything.

Instead, I got nothing. I drew a complete and utter blank.

I didn't even get a feeling. No sense of who I might find at home, of who I'd expect to see at home. Of who *I* was, when I'm at home.

Nothing. All a blank. A tabula rasa.

And speaking of blanks... of a tabula rasa... I slipped my hand down between my legs, to my groin. What happened there? I wasn't about to tell the doctor this, but I felt sure that I used to have a penis. Seems impossible, given its absence. It's hard to believe I'd *imagine* something like that. And yet, my certainty... how reliable was my certainty, given my amnesia?

Was it possible that I used to have one, and had it lopped off? Was I transgendered? Seems like I'd remember that. Wouldn't I?

I didn't exactly want to come out and ask the doctors, though. They'd think I was crazy, and I didn't want that.

I gave my breasts an experimental squeeze. They were thoroughly real, as far as I could tell. Then my hand drifted down, back to my... zone. It didn't feel bad or wrong. It was just... puzzling. Unfamiliar. New. But how could it be new? I didn't venture to explore any further. I was too nervous. Too frightened of what I might find or feel.

Good thing, too, because the moment I'd settled myself, with both hands chastely above the hospital sheet, the police walked in. Of course, they said "knock, knock" and didn't open the curtain until I answered "come in," but I'm glad I was ready. I didn't want to be making furtive movements in front of the police. I didn't want to look embarrassed, or have something to explain. I *especially* didn't want to explain something that I didn't understand.

 

---

 

The police, in this case, were a pair of young, polite, professional women. One was a detective, Carly Rentham, and the other a uniformed officer, Tatum Scrattan.

The detective, Carly, started off by asking how I was feeling, pointed to the lump on my head, made an ouchy! face and said, "God! That must have hurt!" and so on.

Once the brief obligatory chit-chat was over, Taturm, the uniformed cop, opened her hand-sized notepad and poised, pen at the ready. She looked me full in the face and asked whether it was really true that I'd lost my memory.

"Yes, it's true," I replied. "I don't remember the accident or anything before the accident, but I remember everything since then."

From there on, they pretty much alternated in throwing questions at me.

Carly: "You weren't driving, were you?"

Me: "No."

Tatum: "How would you know, if you don't remember?"

I opened my mouth to answer, then hesitated. How *did* I know?

Then it came to me: "There were two cars, right? I saw Wade climb out from the driver's seat of his car, the white car. Amos was trapped in the driver's seat of the blue car. Both cars were all crumpled up when I first saw them. It was hard for Wade to open his door, and Amos couldn't open his at all. So nobody could have been hopping in and out or changing places."

Carly: "Were you under the influence at the time of the accident? Drugs or alcohol?"

Me: "No. I mean, I was in a daze, but that's 'cause I was knocked on the head." I pointed at my forehead, as evidence.

"Was anyone else?"

"What? Under the influence?"

Carly nodded, so I replied, a little unwillingly, "Amos, I don't know. Wade told me that he was, himself, but you know, I didn't smell his breath or see him drink." After a moment I added, "But he behaved very responsibly. The whole time."

"Good for him," Tatum commented. I couldn't get a read on her level of irony.

Carly: "Okay. So you don't remember anything at all from before the accident: your name, where you were going, where you were coming from... nothing."

Me: "That's right."

Carly: "And no idea where you got that Robbins Police t-shirt? You don't know who gave it to you?"

Me: "No idea. Is that important? I mean, it's just a shirt, right?"

Carly bristled. "No, it isn't just a shirt. And yes, it's probably *very* important, because there's only two ways you could get a shirt like that: you'd either have to be a cop here in Robbins — which you're not — or a cop would have to give it to you." She paused, tight-lipped, then: "And we're not supposed to give those shirts to anyone."

Tatum touched her pen to her lips, thoughtful, and added, "There is a third way you could get one of those shirts: you could steal it from a cop. But you didn't do that, did you?"

I frowned, offended. On the other hand, I had no idea what I did or didn't do to get that shirt. Still, I wanted to express my indignation. She called me a thief! Then, a sudden thought struck me: There was an upside to my having this shirt. My eyes brightened. I bounced a little as I sat up straighter. "So— that means— somebody must know me! Somebody on the police force right here! They must! Right?"

Carly gave a one-shouldered shrug: "It's possible. Seems likely. We'll ask around."

Tatum smirked and said, "We'll put your photo on the MOST WANTED board."

Carly shot Tatum a look. "She's kidding," she informed me.

"Yeah, I got that," I lied.

Tatum frowned at her notebook for a moment, then returned to her questions. "Do you remember anything at all about the accident... anything that happened before the accident — I know you said you lost your memory, but maybe you've still got pieces of memories? Even if it's just a sound, a smell, an impression... anything?"

Carly gave Tatum a dubious look and half a frown, but she let the question stand. I cast my mind back. To my surprise, my mind didn't seem so completely empty now. In answer to Tatum's prompt, there wasn't anything you could call distinct or clear. Even so, instead of finding empty rooms full of nothing, I encountered a jumbled mess of something in my head. There wasn't any timestamp on it, but I could sense that it stood on the other side of a fence; the fence that divided me from the world before the accident... the universe before my personal big bang. I peered into a mess formed of cobwebs, static electricity, and softly plumed tumbleweeds. Tatum's word impression echoed, and a dim glow appeared in my inner brush pile.

I carefully drew the fragment into the light and examined it. There was an unmistakeable texture under my fingers. "Finding something?" Tatum queried.

"A scratchy blanket," I told her as I touched the memory. I felt like a psychic, weaving together the uncertain threads of someone else's message — even though this message was my own. "A blue scratchy blanket." I shrugged apologetically. "Heavy. Kind of stiff. But clean." More of the memory emerged. I saw myself in the blanket. "It was nighttime. I was sleeping, wrapped up in a blue blanket. I was naked. I was shivering. From the cold. It was so frickking cold."

Then it was gone. The memory lost its tactile sense and faded away.

I shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, but you said *anything*."

She poised her pen over her little notebook. "You said scratchy. Scratchy like wool?"

"Yes, exactly like wool." There was something else in my mental hodgepodge... "Oh, yes! And a big black umbrella! It was on the floor near me. I'm sure about that! After the accident, Wade found it — the umbrella — in the back seat of Amos' car. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was mine, from before. Before the accident!"

Carly and Tatum exchanged glances. Tatum shrugged and scribbled in her book.

Carly: "You've mentioned Wade and Amos by name. If you have amnesia, how do you know their names?"

Me: "I met Wade when he climbed out of his car. So that was *after* the accident. He introduced himself. And then Amos... I've never actually met him or talked with him. That I remember, anyway. I've never even seen Amos. I don't know what he looks like. He was trapped in his vehicle. Wade went back and forth, talking to me, then talking to Amos."

"Why didn't you go over to Amos? Save Wade all the back and forth?"

"I couldn't stand up. Every time I got to my hands and knees, the world would start spinning, hard, violently. It was pretty bad. So I couldn't move, And Amos was trapped in his car. He couldn't move, either. They had to cut him out with the jaws of life. I didn't get to see that; I was already stuck inside the ambulance."

The women nodded. Tatum scribbled in her notebook.

"Hey," I ventured, "Do you think I could go talk with Amos? Do you know what floor he's on? Do you know what kind of shape he's in? Maybe he could fill me in on some of the things I don't remember."

"No," Carly replied, shaking her head. "No, you can't see him. He's too far away. In fact, normally the two of us would question everyone involved in an incident like this, but Amos is all the way up in Chatterbridge. It's a long drive. See, you came in an ambulance to Robbins Memorial, because it was the closest town, but Amos left the scene in a helicopter, and the medivac only goes to Chatterbridge, which is a regional trauma center."

"Oh," I muttered, crestfallen. "Well, when you find out how he is, will you let me know?"

"Sure thing," Tatum replied.

"And if he can tell you anything about me, I'd be very interested to hear it. I mean, apparently he picked me up hitchhiking, so we probably exchanged some words before the accident."

"You were hitchhiking? In the desert?" Carly asked, eyebrows high.

"Apparently. That's what Wade said Amos told him."

Carly blinked several times. "Hitchhiking? In the desert? Barefoot? Wearing only a t-shirt?"

Tatum, with a half-smile, supplied, "It was an extra-large t-shirt."

"And I guess I had the umbrella," I added. "I must have had it, because I had it later."

The two of them took all that in, in silence.

Once that information was digested, we went through what little information I could provide about the accident. The two women tried to come at it from every direction, taking various tacks, but always running aground on my amnesia.

On the other hand, I was able to tell them plenty about the accident's aftermath.

After what seemed the fifth loop through the same material, my energy began to flag. So many questions! So many questions repeated, over and over, in different ways... and in the same ways!

Still, I kept at it, kept up with them, until they were satisfied. Once they finished with their questions, they set to work on identifying me.

For the sake of matching me up with a hypothetical cop who might know me, or of finding me on a missing-person report, Tatum took several photos of my face.

Then, in case I was "in the system" for one reason or another, she used a high-tech inkless pad to get my fingerprints.

"Wouldn't I have to be a criminal to be in the system?" I asked.

"No," Carly answered. "There are plenty of legitimate reasons for an ordinary civilian to be in the system. People who work in finance, people in the military... and other professions, have to give their fingerprints as part of their background check."

Tatum added, "Also, many elementary schools fingerprint their students... you know... because of—"

"Abductions," Carly abruptly finished the thought.

"Now for your DNA," Tatum announced.

"Oh, DNA!" I exclaimed enthusiastically, as she produced the swab. "Will you tell me the results?"

"The results?" Tatum echoed, amused, with a slack-jawed smile. "Well, yeah — we'll tell you if you match up with any record already in the system. We're not going to do the ancestry thing, though, if that's what you were thinking. We don't do your ethnic breakdown."

Carly, with a half-smile and side glance to Tatum, said, "Did I ever tell you that I'm 65% Scottish?"

Tatum blinked a few times, not knowing how to respond at first, and then: "Yeah? Well, anyway, we're not going to do that. We'll just check and see if you're in the system."

"In the system," I repeated. "What if it turns out that I'm a criminal?"

The two women laughed. Carly responded, "Honey, if you're a criminal, we'll lock you up!"

"I don't think you're a criminal," Tatum quipped.

"Still... you never know!" Carly teased.

"You can laugh," I said, "but I have no idea who or what I am. I could turn out to be some kind of monster... or some kind of crazy person!"

At that, Tatum burst into laughter. She caught herself, stopped laughing, and quickly apologized. "Sorry, but have you looked in a mirror lately? You're not a monster. You're just a regular girl. I mean, woman. You're not a crazy person."

"But if you do turn out to be a monster," Carly added, teasing again, "We'll put you in the zoo, with all the other monsters. Okay?" She took a breath and smiled. "And if you're crazy... uh..." She stopped, unsure of how to end that phrase without saying something offensive. After a moment, she gave up. "Okay, I don't have a punchline for that. But listen: don't worry. The doctors say your memory will come back quickly, and everything will be alright. In the meantime, with what we've got — your picture, you prints, your DNA, we'll probably find out who you are... before you do! I mean, we might get the results before you have time to remember. In any case, we'll let you know. And we'll be back. Okay?"

They gathered up their equipment, preparing to leave. Tatum closed her little notebook and stuffed it into a pocket.

I stopped them. I asked, "Hey... what happens if I don't remember who I am?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, suppose tomorrow the hospital wants to discharge me, and I still don't know who I am. Where do I go?" I looked from one face to the other, helplessly.

"Uh— the doctors are pretty sure that's not going to happen. Okay?"

I persisted: "But what if it does?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Carly asserted. "In the meantime, there are a lot of ways this could resolve. We've got a nice handful of leads here. Missing Persons might know who you are, right off the bat. One of our cops might ID you, just like that!" She snapped her fingers. "Your prints might tell us, your DNA might tell us... And then, of course, there's your memories... you know? You've got plenty of eggs in your basket. At least one of them is bound to hatch."

I opened my mouth to object, but Carly held up her hand. "Nobody's going to toss you out on the street," she assured me. "Okay? You're going to be fine. Don't worry."

With that, they were gone.

 

---

 

I liked the two policewomen. I felt I could trust them.

But what about the Missing Persons department? Or was it a bureau? What did I know about them? What if some nefarious person came forward — someone who has nothing whatsoever to do with me — no legitimate tie — what if *they* claimed me, the way a thief takes someone else's suitcase at the airport? What then?

I should have asked the police about that before they left.

I mean, Dr Sandy said that anyone could file a missing-person report. So... could anyone come here and claim to be my sister or brother or whatever? Even if it wasn't true? They could pick me up and take me away, and that would be that.

"She was never seen again," I said aloud, then kicked myself for talking to myself.

I didn't even have time to ask Carly and Tatum a more practical question: if the hospital kicked me out, and I still didn't know who I was, would the police let me sleep a night or two in a jail cell? At least there I'd be safe and warm.

 

---

 

While I lay in the hospital gurney, fussing and upsetting myself, Tatum returned, sticking her head through the curtains without preamble.

"Hey," she asked. "Where's your stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"Your phone, your clothes, your wallet..."

"I don't *have* any of that!" I exclaimed. "That would make it too easy, wouldn't it! Maybe it's back in Amos' car, or somewhere on the ground nearby?"

"What about the clothes you were wearing?" she asked.

"You mean the police t-shirt? I don't know where that went."

"I have that," she replied, a little irritated. Then, as she got what I was saying, her eyebrows popped. "That's all you were wearing? Seriously? No underwear? No shoes? I thought you were joking earlier."

"I said I was barefoot," I reminded her. "I wasn't wearing anything but the shirt," I assured her.

"And you were hitchhiking."

"Apparently, yeah."

She took a breath and blew it out. "Okay. Our team is still out there. I'll give them a call. If they turn up anything of yours, I'll let you know. But here's another thing... When the medivac carried Amos to Chatterbridge, they spotted another car, a third car, in the desert, about thirteen, fourteen miles west of your accident. Does that ring any bells?"

I shook my head no, and asked, "Do you think my stuff might be in that car?"

"It's possible," Tatum acknowledged. "Kind of seems likely, doesn't it? Not that I'm promising anything! Anyway, Carly and I are going to drive out and take a look at it. If we find anything that relates to you, we'll let you know. But first we're going to drop off your picture, your prints, and your DNA at Missing Persons. We'll tell them that someone on the local force might know you. If they figure out who you are, you'll be among the first to know." She paused and looked me in the eye. "By the same token, if *you* remember who you are, or if you remember anything relevant, you'll let us know, right?"

I nodded yes and said, "Of course!"

"We'll be back to see you. If not later today, then sometime tomorrow. In any case."

With a swish of the curtain she was gone again.

Damn. Once again, I missed asking whether I could sleep in a jail cell.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 3

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

"The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never never forget!"
"You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it."
— Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass

---

 

When I say that my mind goes blank at times, I don't mean anything bad by it. At least, I don't *think* it's bad. It's just that... there isn't a whole lot going on inside my head. Could it be that my brain goes quiet because it has no memories to play with, to play off? Is this why I drift into mental doldrums?

But then, see? That word doldrums! I know the word, somehow! It conjures up a picture of huge sailing ships, far out at sea, utterly still, unmoving, *becalmed*... their sails slack for lack of wind. Where there's no wind, theres's no movement.

The same with my brain: it wasn't broken; not really. It was becalmed. My mental sails hang slack. Since they aren't driven forward by memories, my cognitive gears slip into idle.

And it's weird, yes, that I can come up with all those words, concepts, and metaphors: doldrums, cognitive gears, and so on... Honestly, it's disturbing! Almost infuriating! I have no problem pulling words out of my invisible vocabulary, and yet I can't remember my home, my family, my friends... I can't remember my own life! I can't even recall my birthday.

In spite of all I can't remember, I *do* know that when a person is still, with no immediate task and no one to talk to, what would otherwise be internal silence is filled by visuals playing on an inner screen — like a TV left on in the next room. You can hear it, though the volume goes up and down. You glimpse its images through the doorway, but you can't necessarily change the picture. You might have the remote control at times, but if you aren't paying attention your subconscious will grab the remote and change the channel, and of streams, images, snippets, music... he has an endless supply.

I know this; I remember experiencing it. Don't ask me how. Thistlewaite would say different parts of the brain; different components have different functions as if that explained everything. It doesn't.

Well, my TV — the one inside my head — was on the blink, as though I had no cable hookup; no network connection. The power was on, but the screen was dark. My streaming services were disconnected. Apparently my subconscious, with so little to do, had gone on vacation. All quiet and dark back there. System reboot required.

Time passed, or didn't pass... I wasn't aware of either state. I mean, I knew time was passing. That's what time does. But how much time was passing? I had no way of measuring the quantity. A little time? A lot of time? My inner status was... Waiting... I was simply waiting. Not waiting for anything in particular. I had no impatience or concern about when whatever-it-was would arrive — whatever waterever-it-was was. A clock would have helped, but only as a measuring stick. If I could see a clock, I'd be able to say, "I've been sitting in this ER for two hours" or "It's been thirty minutes since anyone's poked their head in here." Instead, I only knew that I'd been here, sitting, doing nothing, knowing nothing, with little to do but listen to the occasional cough of the old man behind the curtain to my right.

At some point an anonymous orderly pushed open the curtains as wide as they could go, and he rolled my gurney out of the Emergency Room. Down a hallway, into an elevator, up to the sixth floor. Room number 632. He didn't say a word to me the entire time. I searched my brain for a conversational prompt or ice breaker. All in vain! In the end, I didn't say a word to him, either.

The bed in room 632 was, like most hospital beds, raised up to waist high, so I had a great view out the window. It happened to be a view of a river, snaking its way to the horizon. There were roads and rooftops on both sides of the river, filling all the available groundspace, ending in the distance at a rough arc that traced the city limit.

The orderly pushed the now-empty gurney out of the room and away down the hall, leaving me alone with a nurse. She was young and blonde. She radiated positive energy, and looked very soft. I don't mean *fat*. I mean that she struck me as a person without any hard edges. She gave the impression of a person who is kind, empathetic, a bit excitable and emotional. A person in whom all those traits were reflected in her physiology. Soft. In a nice way.

She hadn't spoken yet, but clearly she was brimming over with barely-suppressed excitement. She subliminally bounced. I thought she might explode at any moment. She bit her lower lip; her eyebrows danced high on her forehead.

"Hello," she greeted me in a stage whisper. "My name is Jen, and I'll be taking care of you. How are you feeling? Oooh, that's a nasty bump on your head!"

"Um, I'm okay, I guess," I responded, cautiously.

She drew a deep breath and her eye lashes fluttered. "Are you the woman with amnesia?" she asked, all breathy, still whispering.

"Yes, that's me." I replied. "But you don't need to whisper. It isn't a secret." I meant it to be funny, but it sounded a little mean when I actually said it.

"Ah, right," she acknowledged, biting her lower lip again. "So... you don't remember anything?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I remember everything since the accident, but nothing from before."

"So, you don't know your name?"

"Nope."

"Oh my God! I can't imagine!"

I really didn't want to have this conversation, honestly. I didn't want to sift through the details of my not-remembering. At the same time, I didn't want to hurt the poor woman's feelings. So I tried to change the subject. Gesturing with my chin, I asked, "What's the name of that river out there?"

"Oh, that! It's the Robbins River."

"And we're in Robbins, the town of Robbins?"

"Right. Robbins. Robbins River. And we're in Robbins Memorial Hospital right now. We're not very original with names in this town." She smiled at her little joke.

"Hey, you know something?" she began, now speaking at a normal tone and volume. "My boyfriend and I, we were watching this new series called The Tourist — do you know it?"

I lifted my arms and shoulders slightly in a helpless shrug.

"Oh! You wouldn't, would you! Well, it's about this guy — Jamie Dornan — do you know who he is?"

I took a breath and looked at her. I wanted to ask Are you kidding me? but instead I only shook my head. Gently, so as not to agitate the bump on my forehead.

"Fifty Shades of Grey? No? Right. Right. So he is in a car accident — just like you! — but he's in Australia and he has NO IDEA who he is."

I scratched my head. I wanted to ask Why Australia? but instead I prompted her to continue by saying, "Like me."

"Right! Like you! Pretty much. And he doesn't even know what kind of FOOD he likes — and he doesn't know who the Spice Girls are!" She let out a little giggle. "Can you imagine?"

As she spoke, I realized (to my chagrin) that I, too, had no thoughts or memories of food types and food preferences. I know what food *is*, but I have no idea what I like... and as for— "Did you say Spice Girls?" I asked. "Are they, like, famous cooks or something?"

With a gasp, the nurse put her hand on mine, and exclaimed, "You don't know either, do you! Oh my GOD!"

It was distressing, to say the least. Not the bit about the Spice Girls, whoever or whatever they were, but this sequence of reminders of all the elements of life that I didn't know or couldn't recall.

I saw she was about to launch another unintended offhand assault, so this time I cut her off, saying, "Listen, I know you mean well, but I have to tell you that this is not in the least bit funny for me. Honestly, it's pretty frightening."

She was so shocked, her face went white. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't think— I didn't mean— it's just— it came pouring out of me. I mean, I don't — we don't — we don't see people with amnesia very often..."

"How often *do* you see people with amnesia? I mean have *you* personally dealt with an amnesia patient before?"

"Well," she replied, calming down a little, "Not a patient, no, but a friend once, yeah."

"You had a friend who lost their memory?"

She seemed embarrassed by her recollection, but after a brief inner squirm, she came out with it. "Okay, so, when I was 16 — right, I was 16 —, my boyfriend and I were climbing a really high fence, and he fell off and hit his head. I jumped down and asked him if he was alright, and he gave me the strangest look, and he asked me Who are you?" (Here she grabbed my arm, a little hard.) "I thought he was joking, so I laughed and laughed. He didn't laugh, though. He kept saying, No really, who *are* you? Please stop laughing! But I couldn't stop laughing until he grabbed my arm really hard—" Here she squeezed my arm more tightly— "and I realized he was afraid... and angry, too, but mostly afraid."

She drew a breath and held it a moment, reliving the events, as if they were happening now. "Later he told me that he would have run away from me, except that he had no idea where we were or what was nearby."

Jen let go of my arm (thank goodness!). She stopped and looked at the floor for a moment.

"What happened next?"

"I brought him home, to his house. He had no idea where we were going — he kept asking me where I was taking him, like he didn't trust me. His mother was there. He didn't remember her, either, and he didn't recognize his house or anything. He afraid to be left there, so I wanted to stay, but his mother made me leave. It was pretty freaky."

She stopped, as though that was the end of the story. "And then?" I demanded.

"Oh, well," she admitted, "The next day he was fine." I could tell from her face, from her eyes, that she was looking into her past, seeing it, watching it happen, living it all over again. I got the feeling that her boyfriend's bout with amnesia changed him ever after. Made him foreign to her, maybe. As though he'd gone to some strange land, and returned, forever altered, yet unable to describe where he'd been or what he'd experienced.

And yes, I really did get all that from the look on her face, from the reflection in her eyes.

I had to ask: "Was he still your boyfriend after that?"

"No," she said, scoffing, regretful. "His mother blamed me, as though it was MY fault." She frowned. "It wasn't fair."

Still, there was one encouraging thing for me in her story; one glimmer of hope: the next day, his memories had come back.

"Hey," I asked, "that TV show you mentioned... was it a true story?"

"Oh, no," she laughed. "It was too crazy to be true."

"Did that man get his memory back?"

"Oh!" she softly exclaimed, her eyes widening. "Well, yes and no. He took, uh—" and then she stopped, and looked me in the face. "Um, well, it's kind of a spoiler. Are you sure you want me to tell you?"

"A spoiler!" I exclaimed, not so softly. "I couldn't give a— look, I don't care! Just tell me what happened."

"Well... and so... he took LSD, and he remembered all kinds of things, but it came to him in weird bits and pieces, all mixed up. Afterward he wasn't sure how much of what he remembered was even true. And it wasn't everything anyway. Important parts were missing."

"Hmmph," I grunted, and scratched my cheek thoughtfully. That was one show I'd be sure to miss.

Then, remembering her duties, the nurse took my blood pressure, temperature, and did my neuro checks. "I'll be back in a bit," she promised. "Oh — do you need any pain medication? It's been four hours since the last dose. You can have Tylenol if you like."

"Yeah," I told her. "Somehow my headache returned."

She nodded and left the room.

 

---

 

While she was gone, I stared out the window, empty-headed, like before.

Strangely, I liked it better up here, in room 632, much better than the Emergency Room. Definitely better than the ambulance or the desert. "The best place I've been all day," I said aloud, and laughed.

Talking to myself... should I worry that I was talking to myself?

Strangely — as I was saying — strangely, in this room, looking out the window at the river, I felt fairly peaceful. Up to now I've been pretty... how was I? Unsettled? Nervous? Worried? Fearful? And a hint of something else. A sense of betrayal? What kind of sense did that make? But yes, that was definitely one of the flavors in my blend of emotions. Before I could unravel myself any further, the nurse returned, holding a tiny scalloped paper cup, and a huge glass of water. Same type of enormous water container as they had in the ER. I popped the two white pills from the little paper cup into my mouth and took a big sip of the icy water to wash them down. As I did so, I read the nurse's name tag: Jen Columbus.

She saw me reading her tag, and smiled, pointing at it, and in a cutesy voice said, "1492, right?"

"Ah... 1492?" I repeated. I gave my head a little shake.

Her mouth fell open. Her eyes grew big as saucers. "1492? Sailed the ocean blue?" She gaped at me in utter disbelief. I shrugged.

"Columbus!" she exclaimed, her body bent forward, her arms thrust out in child-like disbelief. I couldn't help but burst out laughing, even if it hurt my head a little.

"Oh," she said, calming down a little bit. "You're pulling my leg, aren't you?"

"No," I told her. "I have no idea what on earth you're going on about."

She made a "Hmmph" noise and tossed the tiny paper cup in the trash.

She stood there in silence for a few beats, looking down into the little trash can, as if studying the crumpled paper cup she'd thrown there.

At last she took a breath, straightened up, and looked me in the face. "I'm sorry," she said. "I realize that this is probably scary and weird and frustrating for you—"

I nodded and gave my eyebrows a little bounce.

"—but you know, from the outside, like, for me, it's one of the most exciting things that's ever happened! I mean, look at you! You could be anybody! Do you realize that?"

I didn't know what to say to that, so I cocked my head and listened. Jen went on:

"It's like a movie, isn't it? I mean, in a way, isn't it just glorious?"

I couldn't help but give her a puzzled, frustrated frown. "In what way is this glorious? I'm lost, Jen, do you understand that? Do you really think I could be anybody? Anybody at all? It's a hell of a lot more likely that I'm nobody! Nobody at all. A person alone. Connected to nothing. Nowhere to go, nothing to be or do. I mean, everybody keeps telling me that my memories will come back, but what if they don't? That must happen sometimes. I don't find that prospect 'glorious' at all."

"Okay," she replied in a cautious tone, as if walking on eggshells, afraid of offending or setting me off any further, but unable to let go of her excitement. She sincerely believed I had soap-opera, fairy-tale possibilities, so she couldn't stop herself from insisting. Her palms faced forward and down, pumping the emotional brakes. "Okay. Okay. Maybe so. Maybe so. But keep in mind that what you just said is only *one* possibility. Even if that's how it goes, we'll find a way to work things out. You won't be alone. Robbins is a nice place, full of really nice people. Everyone who hears about you will want to help."

"I'm a curiosity," I acknowledged.

"Yes, I guess you are." She gave a little smile. "There are worse things to be, though, aren't there? And even so... you know, the nobody thing — like I said, that's only ONE possibility. On the other side... I mean, really: you could be anybody. You could be somebody's evil twin!" Her eyes lit with another possibility: "Oh! You could be like Jason Bourne!"

I gave a loud, unapologetic sigh. "Who's Jason Bourne?"

"He lost his memory when he fell into the ocean, and he turned out to be an international assassin!"

I couldn't help but chuckle. The idea was beyond ludicrous. "No." I told her. "That's not remotely possible." And then, suspicious: "This Bourne guy, was he a real person? Or is this another TV show?"

"No, neither: it was a movie."

"Oh." Disappointing.

"Or... you could be a lost heiress, or the president's daughter! Or a princess, like, um, Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries."

"Another TV show?"

"No, a movie."

I shook my head. "All of those things are extremely unlikely, if not impossible."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, her hand to her mouth, suddenly remembering something.

"What?"

"Anne Hathaway didn't have amnesia in The Princess Diaries."

I smiled. "I guess that means I'm not a princess, right?" and I laughed.

"The point is..." Jen insisted, turning a slight shade of red, "the point is, that now we — you — don't know anything. Everything is potential, right? The sky is the limit."

"That's only the upper limit," I countered.

"Whatever," she replied dismissively, sweeping my lower limit away with her hand. "I have to check on my other patients. I'll be back later. Press that button if you need anything."

 

---

 

The conversation with Jen Columbus left me irritated and frustrated. It wasn't only because she kept harping on the things I didn't remember... and it wasn't entirely her fault. What bothered and puzzled me were the things that I *did* remember. For instance, I knew about movies and TV shows — at least, I knew what they *are*, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember a single film or TV program, least of all the ones Jen mentioned.

And vocabulary! How could I know so many words, in spite of forgetting everything else? Sure, the neurologist said it was "different parts of the brain," but his explanation struck me as a bit glib. And see? Right there? How could I know "vocabulary" and "glib"?

Honestly, it pissed me off.

 

---

 

The feeling didn't pass. I sat there stewing for I don't know how long, until the sun slipped down and rested on the horizon.

The sky filled with rosy light, which for some reason disgruntled me even more.

At that point, Dr Thistlewaite came in, beaming. His smile faltered when he saw the look on my face.

"What's up?" he asked. "Did something happen?"

"No," I grumbled. "Everything's fine."

"Everything's fine? You need to tell that to your face."

I gave a little scoffing laugh. "It's this stupid amnesia," I explained. "It's got to be the most idiotic... whatever it is! Can you call it an illness? An injury?" I frowned as I cast about for the right word.

"You can call it a syndrome," he offered.

"Well...," I responded, rolling the word around in my mind, "As a syndrome, it leaves a lot to be desired."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I *do* remember a lot, but it seems like... nothing particular. I mean, like, a nurse was in here, talking about TV shows and movies. What's weird is that I know what movies are, right? But I can't remember a single one. What kind of sense does that make? I know what food is, but I can't name a single dish. See? And I know all those words I just used, but I don't know my own name. How is any of this possible?"

"For one thing," he replied, "It's pretty lucky."

"Lucky?"

"Imagine that you couldn't remember anything at all AND that you forgot all about words! You wouldn't be able to talk or understand."

I could easily imagine that. It would be like being a prisoner in my own head. "That would be horrible."

"Right. So, while *some* of your internal connections are down, at least you're still in contact with the outside world."

Okay, so things were not as bad... or as awful... as they potentially could be. I grudgingly admitted it, and then I fell silent, in a sulky funk. Conversationally, emotionally, I found myself in a cul-de-sac.

Thistlewaite bent down, so he could peer into my eyes. "Where are you now?" he asked.

"In a cul-de-sac," I told him. Another vocabulary word! I looked up at him. "At a dead end."

He nodded. "Downstairs you wanted to talk about your name. You didn't think Deeny Mason is your name. How do you feel about it now?"

"I don't know. Deeny. Deeny? What kind of a stupid name is that?"

"I don't know. It sounds like a nickname. In any case, where did it come from? Why did you think it's your name?"

I thought for a moment. "*I* didn't think it was my name. First time I heard it was after the accident. Wade told me that Amos told him that I said it, before the crash."

He opened his mouth; tried to recollect. Couldn't. He asked, "Who are Wade and Amos?"

"The drivers in the accident. I was in Amos' car. Amos told Wade that I'd said my name was Deeny."

"Well..." the doctor ruminated, "Not to throw another wrinkle into the mix, but Amos might have heard it wrong from you, and Wade might have heard it wrong from Amos... like a game of telephone."

"Or I might have lied to Amos," I found myself saying.

Thistlewaite, taken slightly aback, asked, "Why would you do that?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you say that, just now?"

"It was spontaneous. Like I said, I don't know. The words just came out of my mouth," I assured him, in all truthfulness.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go with this, then. We've thrown the name Deeny up in the air, or out the window. What about Mason?"

"Mason sounds about right," I said.

"Okay. What comes to mind when you think about the name Mason, when you say the name Mason, when you hear the name Mason? Or if you take Mason simply as a word?"

As I weighed Mason in my mind, Thistlewaite prompted me: "Just whatever pops into your mind. Don't worry about making sense. Just—"

"Police." I interrupted. He nodded.

"Cops." I added. "Detective." I tried saying the name Mason several times aloud, then: "Black and white."

Thistlewaite smiled, as if he knew something I didn't. "That's interesting. Black and white?"

I didn't know, but I ventured the very next thing to pop into my head: "TV?" And then, finally, I came to a name.

"Perry Mason," I said. It felt almost as though I was repeating sounds from a foreign language, but in spite of that, it sounded right. Very right. One word led to the next, and the trail ended up at Perry Mason, and there it stopped. "Could that be my name? Perry Mason? I like the sound of it."

"Uhhh," he temporized, drawing out the sound. "Hmm. Do you get any mental pictures when you hear the name Perry Mason?"

Irritatingly, I did get an image in my mind. It was the image of a *man*. A big guy. Not a fat guy, but a solid man with wide shoulders, and an intense, unblinking look on his face. Oddly, only in black and white. Oddly, only in flashes. "I don't know," I confessed. "A man? I don't know! Who is he?" I heard the word he come out of my mouth, and it stopped me. "Wait. Damn it, is Perry Mason a man? Does that mean it can't be me?"

"I don't know — I suppose Perry *can* be a girl's name," he said. "It's an unusual name, anyway, for anyone, man or woman. Still, many people do have unusual names. Could Perry be your nickname?"

"So who was the *man* Perry Mason?" I repeated, a little impatiently.

He hesitated, as though he didn't want to tell me. I gave him an impatient look, and he responded. "Perry Mason was a fictional detective, on an old-time TV show of the same name. The show was based on some noir mystery novels. Oh, wait — the courtroom... right. He wasn't a detective per se; he was a lawyer. But he solved crimes. Sorry, I don't remember it very well. The show was before my time. It had a great theme song, though: horns, piano... strong, cool jazz. Very noir, as I said."

All of that sounded right and fine to me. "Okay," I acknowledged. "In spite of all that, I can more easily accept that my name is Perry Mason — a hell of a lot more easily than Deeny Mason. Jeez! I'm *sure* that Deeny is wrong. It's not my name. Perry Mason sounds right."

As I spoke, Thistlewaite nearly squirmed in discomfort. "What's the matter?" I asked.

"Okay," he said. "I understand that you don't like the name Deeny. But if you're going to call yourself Perry Mason, people— well, people are going to, uh, react."

"React? React to what? Do you mean they'll laugh? Or they won't believe me? Because of the old-timey TV guy?"

He rolled his shoulders and tilted his head as a mushy affirmative.

"People will laugh?" I demanded, growing a little angry. "And if it's really my name? Fuck them! That's what I have to say: Fuck them!"

My fury stopped him cold. For once, he didn't know what to say.

"Look," I demanded, "Can I insist? What if I told you that I remember that it's my name? Do you realize that this is the first thing I actually remember?"

"Do you?" he queried cautiously. "Do you remember?"

"I don't know... I don't know!" I admitted, nettled, "I don't even know what remembering feels like, but THIS is the first thing that's felt right to me since this stupid amnesia thing began."

The two us shared an awkward silence.

"Okay," I asked, trying to calm myself. "What if I had no name at all? What if neither name came up? What if Amos hadn't said Deeny and I hadn't said Mason?"

"Do you mean, what would we call you, if you didn't remember your name at all?"

"Yes."

"Jane Doe," he replied as if the answer was obvious.

"Why?"

"That's what we call an unidentified female. Would you rather be called that? Jane Doe?"

"Why Jane Doe?"

He let out a breath. "Well, John Doe, Jane Doe..." he said it as if were somehow obvious.

"So?" I didn't get it.

"I don't know," he fumbled with his answers, as though I'd knocked him off balance. "I don't know how it started or where it comes from. It's a convention. It's what we call people when we don't know their names."

I thought for a moment. "What would you call a *second* unidentified female?"

He seemed surprised by the question. "She'd be Jane Doe number two."

"Oh." I was disappointed. "That's pretty prosaic. And then a third would be Jane Doe number three? I was hoping you'd have a list of names to choose from."

"No, nothing as clever as that. Besides, this way, if you say Jane Doe, everyone knows it's not a real name."

The name Perry Mason drifted into the front part of my brain. It was so concrete I could almost feel it, see it. As I looked at the name in my mind, I drifted into a meditative silence. I gazed off into space. I didn't realize I had floated away... forgotten where I was... forgotten that the doctor was standing there.

Dr Thistlewaite watched me, let me muse a while, before he asked, "Where are you?"

"Robbins Memorial," I replied, waking back up to the present reality.

"No," he clarified, "I meant, what were you thinking about?"

"Perry," I said. "The more I think about it, the more sure I am."

He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped himself.

I covered my face with my hands for a moment, rubbing my eyes, my eyebrows. I was angry, a little angry... and frustrated, but just a little. I dropped my hands and looked at him. "Listen: I can see you're trying to convince me that I'm wrong, but you can't. I will fight you on this. I'll insist. I'm going to tell everyone who walks in here that my name is Perry Mason."

He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, but I pre-empted him. "If I can't trust myself on this, how can I trust anything I remember?"

That stumped him. He made a gesture of surrender with his hands. "Okay," he said. "I don't want to rile you up or argue. I don't want to make you upset. I'm sorry." He looked down at himself, at his jacket, right and left. "Here, let me give you this, and then I'll get out of your hair."

He reached into one of the pockets in his long, white doctor coat, and extracted a small notebook. From his breast pocket he took a pen, a nice one, and he handed the book and pen to me.

I opened the book, fanned through the pages. It was blank, just like my mind.

"This might help," he explained. "You can write whatever you like in here. Things you remember, questions you have... anything at all."

It was a nice little book, bound in brown faux leather, pages lined with faint horizontal blue lines.

"Is this, like, homework?" I asked.

"No. This is just for you. No one else needs to see it, unless you want them to."

"What do I do? Write random shit in here?"

"Yes. Whatever happens to pop into your head."

As soon as he said pop into your head, a phrase did exactly that. So I said it out loud.

"Person woman man camera TV."

He looked surprised. Very surprised. His lips twitched as if he wanted to laugh.

"Does that mean anything?" I asked.

"Does it mean anything to you?" he countered.

"Oh Jesus!" I exclaimed. "Never mind! Why does everything have to be difficult?"

He gestured at my book and pen. "Just write it down," he suggested, a little lamely. "Just write it."

"Why?"

"Because one string pulls another. You've already remembered Perry Mason and this... you're going to keep remembering things. If you note each memory as it emerges, more will follow."

"Do you really think so?" I asked, doubtfully. "It sounds like BS to me."

"Do you have a better idea?" he asked, eyebrows raised. My resistance was getting him rattled. When I didn't answer, he said, "Well, all right then. I'll come see you in the morning. Okay?"

"Don't push the river," I called to him, as he was leaving. I meant it as a joke, but it sounded like an oblique fuck you.

"I'll try," he replied. He seemed a little offended, but that was fine with me.

"Don't block my river," I muttered, once he was out of earshot.

 

---

 

Now that I was alone, I opened the blank book, and wrote my name inside the front cover: Perry Mason. I opened to the first page, smoothed it with the back of my hand, and uncapped the pen.

"Assignment One," I announced aloud. "Random nonsense phrases, please."

I wrote down Person Woman Man Camera TV

I wrote Don't Push The River

I wrote Don't Block My River

I chewed the end of the pen for a moment and scribbled Asa Nisi Masa

"It popped into my head!" I explained (to no one), justifying. "If it doesn't mean anything, there's no harm."

Then: Better dead than wed — even I was taken aback by that one, but it popped into my head, so I wrote it down.

I closed the book and capped the pen. I looked up at the ceiling and one more phrase came to me. This one felt significant, like it had weight:

Charlotte had a boyfriend

"Who is Charlotte?" I asked aloud, and I wrote the question on a fresh page. Maybe Dr Thistlewaite would know. Maybe Jen, the nurse, would know. Maybe Charlotte was famous. Maybe it was an old saying. Maybe it didn't mean anything at all.

Then, something else came to me. A song. First as an echo, then bit by bit... The first line... chunks of the next lines. I half-sang it to myself silently, and recovered the next three lines. At first they were full of something-something and meaningless rhymes, but with effort and repetition, I unearthed the whole thing: a full-fledged, discrete chunk of an actual song.

Deep Space Nine, the cow said 'fine'
The monkey chewed tobacco on the railroad line
The line broke, the monkey got smoked
And they all went together in a little motor boat

I wrote it all down. It made no sense to me, but that didn't matter, did it? It wasn't about making sense, it was only about remembering. Maybe I had to clear my remembering pipes of a bunch of junk and trash, before I could remember any of the important stuff. All the nonsense that floated on the surface was meant to get skimmed off (like dead leaves in a swimming pool) and thrown into my little book.

Apparently, though, those four lines of song lyrics busted my recall pipes. Nothing more came to me, not even after I put the little book away.

About a half hour later, Jen Columbus came back to take my vitals and to babble about yet another amnesia-themed movie. This one starred Tom Berenger (whoever he was). "See — he had amnesia, from a car accident — like you! — and this woman convinced him that he was her husband. She even had plastic surgery done to him, so he looked like the guy!"

Once again, for Jen, it was only a story. A movie. Something she'd seen on TV: a little moving picture with dramatic music in the background.

To me, it was a vivid, existential threat. I sat up stiff and straight in bed and froze, still as a block of ice. My whole body went white with fear, I could feel it. My breathing was shallow and I found myself unable to swallow or blink.

It took a while for Jen to notice my state. She very nearly left the room without seeing the effect her recitation produced in me.

"What's wrong?" she asked, grasping my arm. "Are you alright? Are you in pain, are you in distress?"

She gave me some water, which I gratefully drank. "Should I call for a doctor?" she asked, gasping with concern.

"No," I said. "No. Just— talk to me."

"About movies?" she asked.

"No," I said firmly. "For God's sake, no. No more fucking movies."

It took maybe five minutes before I was calm enough to explain why I was frightened.

She couldn't relate to my fears. Not in the least. "You honestly believe someone would come in here, pretending to be your husband or your father or brother or whatever, and he'd carry you away?"

"Yes!"

"That couldn't happen," she assured me.

"Why couldn't it?"

"Well...," she began, but I could see she didn't know. She no idea whatsoever. Were there any safeguards in place? If so, Jen Columbus was not aware of them. She could only give me assurances, based on nothing. She didn't have any answers. But after a few moments she said, "Well, they'd have to prove it, wouldn't they?"

"Would they?"

"Sure! And... and you'd remember, wouldn't you?"

"I hope so," I told her, feeling helpless, vulnerable. "So far, all I remember is Deep Space Nine."

"The TV series?"

"Is that what it is?" I asked. "I thought it was a song."

Jen gave me a strange look, shook her head, and left the room.

"Maybe it's the theme song," I hazarded, as if Jen was still there.

 

---

 

Nothing happened for a couple of hours. All I did was look out the window and try to deduce what I could about Robbins. There weren't many tall buildings. The only structure as tall or taller than the hospital was a brick chimney — a smokestack? — on the edge of town, off to my left. There were two steeples, neither of them very high: one of gray stone, the other of wood, painted green. The rest was a sea of roofs — rooves? No, 'rooves' was wrong: they were roofs. From my point of view, from six stories up, it looked as though a person could walk from one end of Robbins to the other, in any direction, simply stepping from one roof to the next. I was sure it couldn't be that simple in reality, but from this angle, I couldn't see the gaps. There were only a handful of streets that followed my line of sight to the horizon.

Spring-heeled Jack came to mind. I took my book and wrote it there. I didn't want to think about it; I didn't care what it meant. It was something I remembered; that's all. Writing it was enough. If I had to analyze every single thing, I'm sure I'd stop remembering entirely.

At some point I zoned out. I went on test pattern. I had the empty mind that Zen practicioners seek.

I picked up my little book and wrote Zen practicioners. By now I think I'd caught onto the trick. There wasn't any point in asking myself how I knew something or why I was able to remember it. The thing was remembering and nothing more. What and why didn't lead me anywhere; only remembering: the action, the process, the wheels in motion.

Don't push the river. Don't ask where it comes from or where it's going. Just let it flow.

It was already dark outside. The only light in my room came from the hallway, from the door, which was both wide and high. There came the sound of a heavy cart, of metal doors, of food trays and cutlery. In moments it came into view: I knew it was called a food truck, although it was more like an a big steel box on wheels. It stood about five feet high, with louvered doors on the side, hiding shelves full of food trays for us patients. There was a large electric cord coiled and hung on the front. When plugged in, it would power the heating elements in the cart, to keep the food warm. Somehow I knew all this.

As big and heavy as it was, the juggernaut was pulled by a single, skinny girl with jet-black hair. She, like the nurses, was dressed in white, but with the addition of a blue apron and a blue paper cap that covered most of her hair. I liked her right away.

When she entered my room, she held her hand near the light switch. "Lights on? Lights off?"

"On, please," I replied, and she complied. Then she asked, "I don't have an order for you, so I brought all three choices: chicken, beef, and vegetarian. What'll it be?"

"Oh," I said. "I'm not sure..."

She paused for a minute, then a glimmer came into her eye. "You're the one with amnesia, right? Yeah, that must suck. Don't remember what kind of food you like?"

"I guess not."

"I'd go with the chicken," she suggested, and so I did.

She waited until I'd taken a taste and nodded before she turned to go.

But she stopped at the foot of my bed, her hand resting on the footboard. "How's it going?" she ventured, "If you don't mind my asking." She seemed genuinely interested. Sincere.

"No, I don't mind," I replied. "I'm okay. Physically, I'm fine. But I'm afraid that my memory won't come back at all, and I'll never know who I am."

She nodded. Made no comment.

"And I worry that somebody could come here and lie and pretend that I'm their family or wife or whatever, and the hospital will let them take me away."

She froze. Clearly she didn't expect that response, but she seemed to be the first person to understand the sense in what I was saying. She stood silent a moment, mouth slightly agape, blinking. She rubbed her eye, unsure of what to say.

Before she could comment — and expecting that she'd only tell me not to worry — I continued, "Most of all, I don't know where I'll go or what I'll do if the hospital lets me go before I get my memory back."

Her expression changed from alarmed and puzzled to simply uncomfortable. She shifted from one foot to the other... made some small gestures with her hands, and moved her lips as though she was about to speak.

I sighed.

"Hey, look, I'm sorry," I told her. "You were being nice, and I dumped all my angst on top of you. Sorry."

"No, no, it's fine," she assured me, with a half smile. "I asked. You answered. This was my first dose of — what was it? Angst? My first dose of angst today."

She stood at the foot of my bed for a few beats, tapping the footboard thoughtfully. She looked at me, nodding, not speaking. Then she turned her gaze to the window, as though an answer was out here, written in the sky. At last, she spoke and said, "Okay, listen. My name's Lucy. I'll be back for your tray in an hour, and we can talk then. No promises, but I might have, uh — a solution for you. Maybe. But mum's the word." She put her finger to her lips.

"Okay," I agreed, without knowing what exactly I was agreeing to.

"No promises, though!" she cautioned, pointing at me with a serious face.

"No promises," I repeated.

She turned to leave, then stopped with her hand on the door frame. Turning back, she told me, "Seriously, though: Don't tell anybody that I said anything, okay?"

I nodded, and she was gone.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 4

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

In a work of art, chaos must shimmer through the veil of order.
— Novalis

---

 

Lucy said, "No promises," but she did make one promise: that she'd be back in an hour.

I wasn't surprised, but I was disappointed, when Lucy didn't show. A different girl — young and skinny like Lucy, but with long, blonde hair — came, dressed in a blue apron and paper cap, to silently collect my dinner tray and leave me with nothing.

I have to admit, my disappointment made me feel like a prize idiot. Lucy's young; she must be in her early twenties... probably 21? What did I expect her to do? Look at me: apparently thirty, with no idea how to get on in life. Did I honestly believe Lucy, ten years my junior, could resolve my existential dilemma?

Honestly, though, yes, I guess I did. I did expect it from her. She said — her exact words were — I might have a solution for you. Sounded like she meant to resolve, or propose to resolve, one or both of my problems: my fear of having nowhere to go, and/or my fear that an ill-intentioned stranger would claim me and carry me off.

I'd be over the moon it if she had a way past both issues, but I'd gladly settle for getting *one* of the two issues out of the way.

Maybe I deluded myself... maybe I was too quick to pin my hopes on her, and why? For no other reason than the fact that Lucy could do the one thing I wasn't able to do: Lucy could remember life before yesterday. A working memory is an advantage not to be sneezed at.

Even now, even if Lucy had come to realize that she couldn't help me, I was still curious to know what she had in mind. If she had an idea that was only half-baked, maybe I could work it up into a real solution. Or possibly, she conceived a plan beyond her ability to execute. Whatever she had in mind, the merest hint from her could possibly trigger a more solid idea in me and bloom into a feasible plan in my mind, or in the mind of one of the adults around me: one of the doctors, one of the cops.

Outside, in the thickening darkness, lights came up in the city below. It took a few minutes before I noticed, but I spotted a cluster of bright lights — the brightest lights in the entire landscape. They lay on the river, which now resembled a thick wavy stroke of black ink. As I watched, the cluster of lights broke away from the side of the river and slowly slid off, turned left, in line with the river. It sailed away from me, toward the horizon. The river lay wide and dark, and this glowing aggregate drifted into the middle of it. As I watched, the central lights in the cluster went dark for a moment, then came back with a vengeance: flashing, pulsing, multicolor. It had to be a dance floor. If my window could open, I would have pushed it open then, to hopefully hear the music, the shouts and the laughter I imagine emanated from the floating party.

It wasn't exactly hypnotic, but as empty-brained as I was, I sat gaping like a loon, watching the slow progress of the festive lights as they pushed their way upriver (or was it gliding downriver?). Try as I might, I couldn't see the people onboard; they were too far off, too far below; far too tiny.

I'd nearly forgotten Lucy... she was nowhere in my mind, when she quietly, unexpectedly appeared, bright-eyed. She quickly, furtively slipped into my room and pulled up a chair close to my bed, between me and the window, on the far side, away from the door. She slumped down in the chair to avoid being seen.

"Don't talk too loud," she cautioned, smiling. "I'm not supposed to be here." In fact, she'd doffed the blue apron and paper hat, giving her a fairly effective, albeit superficial, disguise. Without those visible signs, she could easily be taken for a nurse — as long as no one bothered to check her name tag, reading LUCY DEERSHAW above and in smaller letters below, FOOD SERVICE.

"Listen," she confided. "I called my brother. We had a little talk." She paused and cocked her head, listening to footsteps in the hall. When those footsteps faded, she picked up the thead again. "He doesn't know what you can do about someone pretending to know you and taking you away. He says the police or the hospital would know best, but he did suggest that if someone comes to claim you, you should insist on their showing two forms of ID, photos of yourself with this person, and some third thing..." She searched her memory.

"Oh," I acknowledged, feeling somewhat relieved. "That's good! I didn't think of that."

Lucy smiled. "Yeah, Hermie's pretty smart." She bounced lightly in her chair as she remembered: "Oh! The third thing: if someone really knows you, and you're really missing, they ought to be able to produce YOUR documents, right? Your passport, drivers license maybe? Your utility bills?"

"Wow." An enormous weight lifted off me. "That's fantastic! That's a better answer than anyone's given me so far!"

"Yeah, like I said: Hermie's pretty smart," she agreed, proudly.

"Hermie?"

"Herman," she confirmed, almost apologetically. "But he tells people that Hermie is short for Hermetic." She studied my face, interested in my reaction.

"Hermetic," I repeated, triggering a response from my inner dictionary: "Secret, esoteric."

Lucy's face lit up. "Wow, vocabulary girl! Not many people get that. He'll like that." She grinned. "Anyway — unless you don't want him to — Hermie's coming to meet you tomorrow. If he agrees, you can stay with us."

"Stay with you?" I repeated, hardly believing.

"Yeah. We inherited a house from our grandmother. It's not a big house or a fancy house, but it's a nice little house, and there's an extra bedroom. And frankly it's not a big room. It's pretty tiny, but it's a nice little room with a big window. It's a good place to land, if you want it."

"And you'd let me live there?"

She shrugged. "For a while, yeah. Sure. If you behave. If you're a good citizen. If you clean up after yourself and help around the house. There's a lot to do: cleaning up, fixing up..."

"That I can do," I assured her, "but — putting all my cards on the table — I don't have any money, as far as I know."

"I didn't think you did," she said. "In time, though, you can get a job. I'm sure you could get a job here, in the hospital, in fact. You won't have to explain yourself; they already have your story on file. You know?"

I was silent for a few beats, taking it in. "That's really nice of you," I told her. A single tear formed in my left eye. I don't think Lucy noticed. If she did, she ignored it.

"Okay, cool," she said, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket and showing it to me. Written on it was the name Lucy and a phone number. She put in the drawer of my bedside stand.

"I don't have a phone," I said (without meaning to).

"Oh, that sucks," she said. "How do you look stuff up?"

"What do you mean, look stuff up?"

She gave me a puzzled look, then answered, "Well, anything." She cast her mind out, and hit on something. "I mean, you have amnesia, right? I imagined you'd be looking things up like mad! Like... for instance... okay: how much do you know about Robbins?"

"The town?"

"Yeah."

"Almost nothing."

"Okay. If you had a phone you could find out everything: history, geography, climate, fun facts to know and tell. Or... you could look up your doctors. You could read about amnesia." While that soaked in, she came up with some more ideas. "You were in an accident, right? You could look *that* up, see if there are any news stories about it. Find out things you don't know. Find out who else was involved."

"Oh, I know that part. I know their names. Amos Cashon and Wade... uh... Wade—" I paused looking back into my admittedly shallow memory. "Huh! I don't know Wade's last name! I guess he didn't tell me."

"You could find out easily, if you had a phone," she told me, in a bright tone.

"Shit. My phone is somewhere out in the desert, I suppose." (It actually wasn't, but we'll come to that later.)

"Hey," I said, suddenly struck by an idea. "One of the doctors told me to jot down random things as they came to me, and he gave me a book to write them in. I don't know what any of them mean, but he told me not to worry about that."

"That's stupid," Lucy declared. "What's the problem with knowing?"

"I don't know," I replied.

"Let's look 'em up!" she offered, firing up her telephone and pointing with her chin at my book. "Tell me the first one."

I read it off: "Person Woman Man Camera TV."

Lucy groaned.

"What does it mean?" I asked.

She fidgeted. "Do you know who's president now?"

"I'm not sure. I want to say Obama?"

"A lot of people want to say that, but it's not. It's Donald Trump."

The name meant nothing to me.

"Okay. So, his doctors gave him a cognitive assessment." She paused, gave me a querying look. "Do you know what that is? They probably gave one to you, too. Do you remember?"

"Right, yes. In case I had a concussion." I paused for a moment. Then I asked: "Why did they give the president a cognitive assessment?"

"Oh, Jesus," she muttered. "Can we skip this one? It's complicated. You can remember it or not. It isn't important. It really doesn't matter. What's the next one?"

I skipped the two about pushing the river, and read the next: "Asa Nisi Masa." I had to spell it out for her.

She frowned at her phone. She scratched her head, fussing, and told me, "It's a complicated thing from a Fellini movie." As my mouth began to open, she cut me off: "Don't ask who Fellini is — or was. Sheesh! Don't you have any easy ones? Have you got anything normal there?"

"Okay," I acknowledged, and read the next one: "Better dead than wed."

Lucy's face registered shock. "What the hell?" she exclaimed.

"Isn't that, like, a saying? An old saying? Like, a thing people say?" I asked her.

"No! Nobody says that! Not even *guys* say that!" She tilted her head and stared open-mouthed at me. Scoffing, half-laughing, she teased, "Who are you?"

"Oh, my God," I babbled. "I"m sorry! Okay, how about this one: 'Charlotte had a boyfriend.'"

"Who's Charlotte?" Lucy asked.

"I was hoping you'd know."

Lucy began to laugh, and didn't seem able to stop. Each time she'd slow down, she'd glance at my face, and kick off laughing again.

"Is Charlotte someone famous?" I asked her, but the question only evoked a fresh cascade of giggles.

At last, she got control over herself, and clutching her sides, asked, "I don't know anybody named Charlotte, famous or not." She took a deep breath to steady herself and lifted her face to peer into my book. "Is that it?"

"No, that's not it," I informed her, proudly. "I remembered the 'Deep Space Nine' song."

Her eyes were wet from laughing, and she was clearly ready to kick off again. "The 'Deep Space Nine' song?" she repeated. "Uh-oh. I'm afraid this one might just kill me. Let me check the hall before you lay it on me."

She scurried to the door and peeked out, quickly returning to whisper, "The nurse is coming. I'm going to hide until she's gone. I'm not here, okay?" Lucy scurried into the bathroom.

A moment later a nurse entered my room, took my vitals, asked if I needed anything, and left. A few moments later, Lucy returned to my bedside.

"Okay," she said, bracing herself, the corners of her mouth twitching with incipient laughter. "Let's hear it."

I read it off:

Deep Space Nine, the cow said 'fine'
The monkey chewed tobacco on the railroad line
The line broke, the monkey got smoked
And they all went together in a little motor boat

Lucy's face was a study in animation as I read. Her eyes widened, her jaw worked, opening and shutting, and she kept clasping herself with her arms. She was fighting the urge to chortle. A few snorts escaped her.

"Oh my God!" she softly exclaimed. "I want to scream with laughter!!"

"Do you recognize it?" I asked her.

"Don't talk! Shh! Shh! Don't get me going again!" she cautioned. "I'm trying SO hard to not laugh! Don't say any more!"

"What is it? I mean, I got it right didn't I?"

"Shh! Shh!" Lucy cautioned, struggling to keep still. Then the dam broke: "No," Lucy breathed, her voice rippling with suppressed laughter. "It's wrong, all wrong, from beginning to end. Gimme."

She took my book and read the lines several times. "I can't believe it," she muttered. "My mother used to sing this to us. I mean the real song, not this. Can I fix it?"

"Um, yeah, sure."

At first Lucy corrected one word, then crossed out another. Then she gave it up and crossed out all the entire four lines I'd written.

At the bottom of the page, in a clean empty space, Lucy wrote this:

Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine
The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line
The line broke, the monkey got choked
They all went to heaven in a little row-boat

I read it, frowning. "Are you sure about this?"

"Absolutely!" Lucy responded, dancing, miming a silent clap, softly singing the words.

"How are these words better?" I demanded.

"It's not about being better," Lucy replied. "It's about being right."

At that point, we hadn't exhausted the random phrases from my book, but Lucy was tired.

"Hey," I called to her, "Could I borrow your phone?"

She gave me a sideward, canny look. "To make a phone call?"

"To look things up."

"No, sorry. I need my phone. It's my connection to the world."

"Yeah, I get it. Sorry for asking."

"No problem. Doesn't hurt to ask. Okay. Anyway, remember: I don't know *when* Hermie's coming tomorrow, but he'll be here, okay?"

"Okay."

 

---

 

After Lucy left, I turned my attention back to the dark world outside the window, and searched out the lights of the party boat. It was still visible, wending its way back now, fresh from its trip to the horizon, heading in my direction, the direction of the hospital, toward me. Before it reached its berth, the dance-floor lights stopped flashing, stopped pulsing. Yellow and white lights came on, only to dim right away.

The boat executed a neat ninety-degree turn, pulled into the shore, and stopped moving. The tiny cluster of brilliance was still easily visible. Even dimmed, they were the brightest lights on the dark river. On either side of the black strip of water, the isolated, fainter glows of Robbins were colder: Pale yellows and blues of street lights. Hazy blurred auras eminating from sources shielded, hidden by curtains and shades. An incandescence pointed inward, from houses, from offices and stores closed for the night.

It's like fireflies, I thought. A city lit by fireflies.

While my eyes were busy searching for signs of life in the scattered, glimmering pools down there, out there, half the lights of the party boat winked out. As soon as their absence pulled my attention back to it, the rest of the party boat fell into darkness, apart from one blue light that bobbed up and down — with the waves, I supposed.

"What are you watching?" the night nurse asked me. I hadn't heard her come in.

I raised my hand to point out the blue light, explained about the party boat, how I'd watched it pull out, sail off, and return.

She stood at the window, looking. I could sense that she didn't find the same romantic strangeness I felt. For her, I guessed, it was the same old Robbins, same as yesterday, same as tomorrow; closed down, rolled up for the night. Still, she looked. She scanned the empty rooftops and the dark stripe of the Robbins River. At long last she said, "I hope you can enjoy this time you have: to sit, to think, to watch."

"I am," I replied. "I do. A little. Some. When I'm not afraid."

"Afarid? Afraid of what?"

"Afraid that my memory won't come back."

She nodded. "Is that why you're having trouble sleeping?"

"Oh! I guess so."

She gave me a tired smile, but thankfully didn't tell me I'd remember soon. She didn't make the mistake of assuring me everything would be alright. All she said was, "When you get tired enough, you'll sleep."

Which is exactly what happened. My bed was one of those hospital beds (naturally!) where little motors bend the knees up and raise the head. The night nurse lowered the knees down flat, and brought the head down to a very slight angle. She gave me a sip of water and covered me up well. The lights were already dim, but she turned them off, and left me alone. There was still a low level of illumination coming from the hall, but not a sound to be heard.

I rolled onto my left side, facing at the window, and wondered whether I'd remember today when I woke up tomorrow. I didn't have a high level of confidence.

In spite of my apprehensions and taut nerves, I soon fell deep into dreamland, where I found myself fully engaged in a vivid, hyper-realistic dream. Have you had dreams like these? Dreams full of colors, people, relationships, connections, conversations, places... dreams as populous and complex as real life. All of it cooked up and molded out of pure fantasy; none of it taken from real life. Above all, these dreams are full of action and rich with emotion. I, me, my dream-self, was completely taken in. A total, involuntary, abrogation, suspension, and nullification of disbelief. The critical sense was so far in abeyance it may as well have never existed. I believed I was awake, alive, in this amazing world: it was real, it was life. In this dream I had a name, I had friends, I had a home, I had a job. It was wonderful, entertaining... totally immersive, funny, and full of fun. There was one weird twist, though: in the dream, I was a man. A guy. A young man, in my twenties.

I had a girlfriend or a wife, I'm not sure which. But she was there, in that dream, next to me, holding my hand...

Until...

There came a lurch in the dream. A mote to trouble the mind's eye... Specifically, somebody shouted "Hey!" so loudly, so unexpectedly, that it jolted me awake. I lay there, not quite trembling, bathed in sweat. One moment I was holding someone's hand, and in the next moment I was acutely aware of the beads of perspiration on my forehead. Confused, disoriented... not sure for one brief half-moment which was real: the dream or the hospital bed. Even while my inner gears shifted to engage with waking reality, I couldn't parse that shout: had an actual, breathing, living person shouted, or had an internal circuit-breaker overloaded in my dream? Had two cerebral wires crossed and caused a short-circuit in my subconscious?

My head was wet. My hospital gown was soaked. My sheets were damp. And yet I felt a grand sense of relief, as though a fever had broke. A powerful thirst came on me. I grabbed the big water container and drank three huge swallows of ice-cold water. I had to stop drinking because the gellid intensity made my sinuses ache.

My thirst slaked, I rolled onto my back and did my best to recover whatever bits of dream-memory I could snatch, as they slithered away. The threads were disappearing — yes, they were vivid, compelling, packed with meaning... and naturally, I meant to piece together whatever shards I could find. Unfortunately, by now, reality had uprooted and totally supplanted the dream. The moment I knew where I was, the door to dreams was closed.

Every trace of the dream had gone, evaporated. Even the bit about my gender... I wasn't sure how that part worked, how it was. All I was left with was a sense of the action, of the people, of the connections. None of the content. Even so, I felt quite sure it was all dream-stuff; it wasn't my old life, my forgotten life. It wasn't my real life. It wasn't my memories. Just fluff my subconscious dredged up: the dryer lint of my inner world: random bits, flotsam and jetsam, vigorously tossed in the mixing-bowl of my skull along with super-long strands of psychic spaghetti. A feast for my sleeping mind... but not approved, not allowed, for daytime viewing. I struggled mentally to get beyond and behind the fading sensations, but it was no use. All I could remember was the impression of its vividness and the shock of someone shouting hey.

In the real world, in the hospital ward, everything was quiet. The world was still dark. I had no idea what time it was.

Probably, I should have asked for dry bedclothes. Maybe I intended to do just that. I'm not sure, though. I did waft my sheet and blanket, lifting and letting it fall like a parachute, to pull some fresh air in, to dry it off just a little. While I considered calling the nurse, I rolled onto my right side, facing the door. I blinked twice, and bang! in an instant, I fell sound asleep again, as if I'd turned off a light.

 

---

 

This time my sleep was deep, dark, and dreamless. I slept like a dead man. Of course I have no idea how long I slept. I had no way of telling time. It could have been minutes or even seconds. It could have been hours.

Until... at some moment, for some reason, I opened my eyes.

To my shock and amazement, another pair of eyes stared straight back into mine. It was a woman, a young woman. She blinked. I blinked. I felt surprise, but I wasn't afraid. Not at all.

I think... in those first moments... and after my previous dream and awakening, I wasn't 100% sure that the woman was actually there. For all I knew, she could easy be a vivid hallucination, a remnant of an as-yet unfaded dream.

In spite of all that... in spite of the fact that... well, what I mean to say, is that in a single moment I understood several things at once, at a glance. For one thing, it was still the middle of the night. I could tell by the darkness out my window and the dimness of the hallway light, as well as the general hushed silence that only comes when all the world's asleep.

And, yes, in spite of the fact that I'd just woken from a deep slumber... I could plainly see... and well, to not put too sharp a point on it, but, obviously, the woman was disturbed. To put it more broadly, I was sure, through and through, that this woman, who stood next to my bed in the night's darkest hour, staring at me — well, she had a few screws loose. She was a few eggs short of a dozen. She was nuts, if we're still allowed to say that world.

So why wasn't I afraid? Because somehow, I *knew* her... I recognized her. I'd go so far as to say that I had history with her. Isn't that wild? She was Charlotte. And I already knew something about Charlotte, didin't I? My jaw fell slack, and I said it. In a whisper, that cryptic phrase: "Charlotte had a boyfriend."

In that same moment, my eye skipped from her face to her name tag. It read CHARLOTTE RAFFLYAN, R.N.

"Charlotte," I breathed, sotto voce. I can't explain why. Her name tag was a confirmation, not an explanation, if that makes any sense.

Charlotte's reaction, on the other hand, was explosive to say the least. She swallowed hard. Her eyes popped. Her jaw started working and her hands and forearms shook.

She let out a blood-curdling scream.

And sure, it hurt my ears. It made me jump because it caught me unawares, but it didn't frighten me. It somehow seemed natural, expected. It was like... well, if you see a duck, it's no surprise if it goes quack-quack. In the same way, here was Charlotte, screaming in my face. That's what Charlotte does, isn't it. It startled me, but it didn't surprise me.

That's why I didn't reach for the call button. I didn't ring for the nurse to come. I did what I always did — somehow I knew, I remembered (I guess you could say I remembered) — that this was what I always did: I waited to see what Charlotte would do next.

What did she do? She backed away from me, as though *she* was frightened. "How do you know me?" she shouted. "How?"

By that time, the night nurse had come. She bravely placed herself at my bedside, between me and Charlotte. In another moment, a second nurse appeared at the door. She said, "Security's on the way." In a third moment, an old woman — another patient, one of my neighbors — stood in the hallway, peering past the nurses into my room.

"You don't need security," I told them all. "It's okay."

They all ignored me. They must have thought that *I* was off my rocker as well as Charlotte. The nurse near my bed faced Charlotte and demanded in a low, serious voice, "What the hell are you doing?"

Charlotte gestured at me and ventured, with shaking hand, "She was found in the desert."

"Oh," the night nurse groaned, getting it.

"Two years ago—" Charlotte stammered. The night nurse, put her hands in the air, with the air of one who'd heard it one too many times before, and tried to cut Charlotte's recital off, right at the start, saying "—I know, I know..."

Charlotte, insisting, finished the thought: "—my boyfriend disappeared. In the desert. And that—"

"That's enough, Charlotte," the nurse commanded, with the voice of authority. The look in her eye forced Charlotte to end her explanation there.

Then the night nurse turned to look at me. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Do you know her?" She gestured at Charlotte.

"I know that her name is Charlotte. I'm pretty sure I know her. Somehow." I scratched the back of my head. "I don't know how."

Charlotte frowned, angry now. "You don't know me from shit!" she hissed. "And I don't know you!" Appealing to the night nurse, she pleaded, "She said Charlotte had a boyfriend! She knows something!"

The night nurse turned back to me. "Do you know anything? About Charlotte? About her boyfriend? About things that... things that might have happened in the desert?"

"No," I said. "All I remember is that phrase: Charlotte had a boyfriend—" Charlotte winced as I said it "—and I recognized her as soon as I saw her. That's all."

Charlotte shook her head. "No. No. I reject it. She doesn't know me. She read my name tag. I saw her looking at it." She gestured to her tag. "My name's right there. That's the proof. She looked at it, then she said my name."

The night nurse turned to me again. "You sure you're okay?"

"Absolutely. Except for my memory."

"Which seems to be coming back," the nurse observed. I shrugged.

Turning to Charlotte, the nurse asked, "Which floor are you supposed to be on?"

"Nine," she replied.

"You'd better get back up there."

Charlotte nodded, acquiescent.

The night nurse added, "And don't come back down here, waking up my patients, understand?"

Charlotte nodded again, chastened. She took a few steps toward the door, then stopped. Turning to me, she asked, "Why is your name Mason? Why?"

I was stumped. She was obviously waiting for an answer, but all I could tell her was, "I don't know what to say."

 

---

 

After Charlotte left, the nurses had to put some of the other patients back to bed and in general quiet things down. There was soothing to be done and explanations (or excuses) to be given. I took advantage of the fact that I'd been left alone: I pulled out my little book and pen, chanting the entire time Rafflyan, Rafflyan, Rafflyan so I wouldn't forget the name.

Once I got the book open I scribbled

Rafflyan
Charlotte Rafflyan, RN

After a moment's thought, I added Charlotte's question:

Why are you called Mason?

 

---

 

Thistlewaite came to see me early the next morning. The nurses had already informed him about Charlotte's visit, but he wanted to hear the whole story from my point of view.

"I knew her — I recognized her!" I exclaimed, perplexed, excited. "But she said she didn't know me! I don't know what to make of it."

Thistlewaite hemmed and hawed and kept turning my questions back on me. (What do *YOU* think?) He was so obviously hiding something, that at long last I lost all patience and demanded that he tell me whatever he knew.

"Okay," he grudgingly admitted. "You might have seen her on TV. On the news. Maybe."

"Why would she be on the news?"

Again he squirmed, uncomfortable.

"What the hell?" I asked. "Why can't you answer my questions? Look: if you won't tell me, I'm not going to talk to you. At all. How does that sound? Would you like that? I'll throw your fucking book in the trash! Tell me: Why are you clamming up on me?"

"I want your recollections to come organically," he admitted. "I don't want them to come from suggestions and explanations. You might believe you remember something only because you heard it from someone else, because it fills in a blank for you."

"And in the meantime I flounder, like an imbecile, wallowing in ignorance? Is that your idea?" I shot back.

"Okay, look," he began. He seemed profoundly unhappy about breaking down and giving me information. "I'll tell you. About two years ago, Charlotte's boyfriend — his name was Ross something-or-other — disappeared in the desert... probably in the same general area where you had your accident. Anyway, he was a college freshman with a promising football career ahead of him. He was widely regarded as a rising star, as one to watch, you know? The general consensus is that he ran away because couldn't handle the stress of success and the weight of expectations."

"Okay."

"Charlotte, on the other hand, believes that Ross was murdered."

I nodded. That explained her intensity.

"And what do you think? What do the police believe?"

"The police found no evidence of foul play. Like I said, the general consensus is that he ran off."

I rolled this information around in my mind. "I don't see what any of that has to do with me. I mean, why would Charlotte want to see me? What could she possibly want with me?"

"It doesn't have anything to do with you at all," Thistlewaite said. "Charlotte is grasping at straws."

"It sounds like you know her well," I observed.

"I provide counseling for many hospital employees," he replied. "But that's all I'm going to say."

"Okay. Well, thanks for that much." I considered what he'd said while I replayed last night's incident in my mind. "You know, she asked me why I'm called Mason. Can you make any sense out of that?"

He shook his head. "None." When I shot him a challenging look, he protested, "Seriously! I have no idea."

We spoke a little while longer, but not about anything significant. I was pretty irritated with him, but before he left me, he partially redeemed himself: "I'm not making any promises, but I am trying to pull some strings so you can get another night here in the hospital. That is, unless your memories return or someone who knows you comes forward."

I appreciated his efforts, but I took the opportunity to tell him my fears that a stranger with bad intentions might come forward and claim me. He actually laughed! He laughed and told me, "That wouldn't happen."

Which did nothing to calm my fears.

 

---

 

Around mid-morning, a young man knocked on my door frame (the door was always left open) and entered my room. He was a little rumpled looking, with a long shock of dark hair falling to the top of his glasses. He radiated nerd. My eye fell on his name tag. It was unusual in that it was covered by white tape. The words OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY were handwritten on the tape with black ink.

"Don't look at that," he said. "It's bullshit. Camoflage. Lucy's getting me a better one in a bit." He walked quickly toward me and sat in the chair to my left, between me and the window.

"I'm Hermie Deershaw," he informed me. "Lucy's brother." He scratched his head. "So... amnesia, huh? That must suck."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"You're a little older than I expected," he observed, tactlessly. "What are you, about thirty?"

"Just about. I guess."

"Did they find your phone yet? Did they give you a phone yet?"

"No."

"Okay." He pulled a smart phone and its charger from his pocket, and handed them to me. "This might help. It's an older model, but it will get you on the internet," he explained, apologetically. "In fact, it will *only* get you on the internet. You can't make phone calls. I've already connected it to the hospital wi-fi. Lucy said you need to be able to look things up."

"It would help," I admitted. "It will help a lot. Thanks! The doctor is trying to keep me in the dark. He wants to wait and see what I remember organically."

Hermie twisted his mouth to the side. "Sounds like you don't appreciate that approach."

"No, I don't!"

"My feeling is this—" Hermie declared "—what if you don't remember? What if your memories never come back? Then what?"

"That's what I've been saying!" I exclaimed.

"At least with this phone you can connect with the world. Understand what's going on around you. Otherwise, you're running blind."

He made sure I knew how to search the internet. It was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. But I got it. I looked up a couple of things just to be sure.

"Maybe you better hide this from your doctor," Hermie said.

"Probably."

"Okay," he said. "I'm going to get out of here now, before they throw me out. It's happened before."

I laughed, but he didn't. In fact, he was quite serious the entire time he was there.

"Wait," I called to him as he was about to leave. "Can I ask you something? If I tell you my name is Perry Mason, what's your reaction?"

He considered for a moment, then answered, "Perry? Like Katy Perry? It's a nice name, a good name. It suits you." For the first time, he smiled.

And then he was gone.

 

---

 

About an hour after lunch the two policewomen returned. They found me standing at the window, looking at Robbins below, trying to penetrate the mass of rooftops and get a glimpse of life; to see something of the people of Robbins. Unfortunately, as I observed earlier, most of the streets didn't align with my line of sight. There were only a few short stretches of visible street. The wider streets that ran left to right showed up as dividing lines.

It had just occurred to me that I could call up a map of Robbins on my phone and line it up with my view. Before I could do that, in the moment that I turned from the window, Carly Rentham, the detective, walked in with her sidekick, the uniformed officer Tatum Scrattan. I was happy to see them.

"Hey!" I exclaimed. "Do you have news for me? Have you figured out who I am? Did you find any of my stuff?"

"Your stuff?" Carly repeated, as though she had no idea what I meant. There was an aggressive undercurrent in her tone. I was taken aback.

"Yes," I replied. "My phone, my wallet... you said there was another car in the desert, not far from where Amos found me hitchhiking. You said you were going to check it out."

They didn't answer right away. Their manner, their attitude toward me changed since yesterday. They were considerably less friendly. Gone were the chatty pair I'd first met. Now these two were definitely cooler... more cautious with me.

"Yes, we did check out that car," Carly admitted, "but the only thing we found belonging to you was your fingerprints."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Well, okay. I guess that's not entirely surprising, right? What does it tell us?"

"We found something else," Tatum put in, skipping over my question. "Remember you mentioned a scratchy blue blanket, like a wool blanket?"

"Yeah, sure."

She turned her phone screen toward me, showing a photo of a rumpled blue wool blanket, lying on the floor of a car. The back seat of the car.

"I guess that could be it," I agreed. The picture itself gave me that scratchy sensation I recalled.

"AND... we're pretty sure we know where you got that Robbins Police t-shirt," Tatum continued. "The car belonged to a Robbins policeman, Hugh Fencely. Does that name ring a bell?"

"No," I replied, letting the name echo in the empty chambers of my mind. "Not at all."

"Hugh is Robbins cop. That car in the desert? It's Hugh's car. Hugh is a big guy. He's extra-large." Tatum fiddled with her phone for a moment, then turned it to show me a picture of a young, husky, likeable guy. "Look familiar?" I studied the image, waiting for a feeling of familiarity, of some kind of seen-before echo inside me, but nothing came. I shook my head. Tatum turned her phone back toward herself and went on: "Another thing about Hugh: he's a bit OCD, especially about his car; he always keeps emergency supplies in the trunk — obvious stuff like flares, a flashlight, bottles of water... and less obvious things like the woolen blanket, for instance, and a complete change of clothes, sealed in a vacuum bag. The bag was ripped open, and all his other clothes were tossed around the trunk, discarded: pants, underwear, socks, shoes — but there's no shirt of any kind."

I nodded.

"Does any of that sound familiar?"

"No, sorry. Not at all. Do you figure I opened the bag and took the t-shirt?"

"Is that what you think happened?"

"I don't *know* what happened, but it makes sense, sure. If he was a big guy, none of his other clothes would fit me. Why don't you ask Hugh? Have you asked him? What did he say?"

The two women glanced at each other. Tatum informed me, "We love to ask Hugh, but we can't. Hugh has gone missing. No one has seen him since yesterday. He's not answering his phone. We're trying to put together the timeline... trace his movements since he left work yesterday."

The word trace triggered a random memory; a loose fact jarred loose. "What about— what about— you said trace—" the idea was coming through, taking form "—isn't there a way to trace somebody's phone, so you can see exactly where they are?"

"You remember that?" Carly asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"I guess, I don't know. Can you track him? Track his phone?"

Carly hesitated before answering. Then: "Yeah, normally we could do that. But his phone is either out of range or out of power or damaged or broken."

I didn't know what to say. My eyes went from Carly's face to Tatum's, and back again, several times. I had nothing more to offer.

Carly hung fire, for dramatic effect. Then she dropped the bomb, looking me in the eye as she told me in a level tone, "You could be the last person to see Hugh."

A wave of gooseflesh washed over my arms, then up my back and neck.

"In fact," she added, "all indications are that you WERE the last person to see him."

Her eyes glued to my face, Carly finished up in a tone that felt like the distant threat of heavy thunder, "If there's anything you can tell us, now is the time."

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 5

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

We are often unable to tell people what they need to know, because they want to know something else.
— George MacDonald

---

 

My eyes opened as wide as they can go. "Anything to tell you?" I repeated. "But I don't remember ANYTHING!"

"Nothing?" Carly challenged, her eyes afire. "Nothing at all?"

"Well... I remembered that my name is Perry Mason," I told her.

She gaped at me in offended disbelief and shook her head. "Don't jerk me around," she warned.

Her reaction confused me. Carly was angry, and didn't make any attempt to hide the fact.

Then, again, maybe it was the name. Thistlewaite resisted it, too, and warned me that people would "react" if I said my name was Perry Mason. It clearly wasn't the time to plant my flag on that issue, so I ignored her response and pushed on, telling her, "I did remember somebody. I recognized a person... someone I knew, or know, somehow."

"Who?"

"Charlotte Rafflyan. She's a nurse here in this hospital. She's about this tall—" I began to describe her, but Carly quickly cut me off with an angry, barking scoff. "Charlotte Fucking Rafflyan? I know who she is! Hell, we all know who Charlotte Rafflyan is. Every cop in this town knows who she is. Believe me, you're not doing yourself — or anyone else! — any favors by mentioning *her* name."

In that same moment, Tatum's phone buzzed. She took a step back as she read a series of text messages. While she read the first message, another buzzed in behind it, then another, and a fourth. Others continued to arrive, buzzing like a swarm of bees, as she blinked, reading as quickly as she could, struggling to keep up.

"Charlotte had a boyfriend," I recited.

Carly returned a look that was even more annoyed and impatient than before. "I know that! Everybody knows that! Charlotte won't let anyone forget it!"

"No," I insisted. "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what it means when I say it. All I'm telling you that it's something I remembered."

Carly swore. "The one thing — the ONE THING you remember is the one thing everyone else wishes they could forget! Congratulations!"

"When I saw Charlotte, I knew her name."

"Wait — what?" Carly shook her head, perplexed. "What do you mean, you *saw* her? When did you see her? Where? In your mind's eye? In your memory?"

"No. Here in the hospital. She came to my room last night. I woke up, and she was standing next to my bed, like right here, right next to me, staring me in the face."

Carly twitched as if a spider had crawled down her back. "That's pretty damn creepy! What the hell did she want?"

Tatum, still absorbed by her reading, let out a deep, throaty, profane oath.

"I don't know what she wanted," I replied. "She didn't say much, but she did ask me why my name is Mason." Tatum glanced up at me for a moment, startled.

"What kind of stupid question is that?" Carly began, her face registering annoyance, puzzlement, and curiosity all at once.

"That's — uh — actually a really good question, actually," Tatum put in, hesitantly. She turned her phone so that Carly and I could see a picture of a young man, twenty-ish, with light brown hair. "See this guy? Do you know who he is?" I shook my head no and shrugged my shoulders. Tatum pushed me a little, "Want to guess his name? Go on, take a shot."

"No," Carly demanded, near the end of her patience. "Just tell us, will you?"

"Alright. I'll tell you. His name is — get this — Mason Rafflyan."

"What the fuck!" Carly shouted. "Is this a joke? What the actual fuck!"

"Why are you showing us his picture?" I asked.

To say that I felt lost was a gross understatement. I began the day at lost and now, under their barrage of questions, I was fully at sea. Totally at sea, with no sight of shore. Frightened, agitated, worried, confused — and worst of all, the police seemed to be blaming ME for all the things THEY didn't understand, and — to make things worse — they didn't appear to understand anything.

It was a lot of weight for an amnesiac to bear.

Consulting her phone, Tatum explained, "I'm showing you his picture because forensics found three sets of prints in Hugh's car: yours—" she gestured at me "—Hugh's, obviously, and this guy's: Mason Rafflyan."

I felt as though the floor had dropped out beneath me. The world ceased making sense — not that it made much sense before. "What does this mean?" I asked plaintively, helplessly. "I don't know either of those men!"

Carly scoffed, a disgusted scoff, and said, "I'll tell you what it means: it means, unfortunately, that we're going to have to talk to that goddamn lunatic Charlotte Rafflyan. It also means that your name isn't 'Mason' after all—"

"No," I insisted. "That's the one thing that I'm sure of. The one thing. The only thing. My name is Mason. Perry Mason."

Carly shook her head and covered her face with both hands, groaning, growling.

Tatum added, "It also means that you're not going anywhere. You can't leave town until we have some answers about Hugh Fencely and this Mason guy."

"That's not a problem! I have nowhere to go!"

Carly blew out a breath and spoke to Tatum. "I'm going to talk to the chief. Maybe he can get the hospital to keep her for an extra day... or two or three."

Tatum, half-joking, quipped, "We have some empty jail cells down at headquarters, if it comes to that!"

"Fine with me," I said. "It's better than being homeless... It beats being out on the street."

Carly waved her hand dismissively, prompting Tatum to add, "I was only joking. I'm sure we can find some temporary place to put her."

"We need to widen the call for missing persons," Carly told Tatum. "Somebody's missing this girl, and obviously she knows more than she's telling."

"Through no fault of my own!" I protested.

Carly scratched the back of her neck, thinking. She nodded toward Tatum's phone. "Anything else in those texts?"

"The chief launched a helicopter search for Hugh. Over the desert."

"It's a waste of time," I found myself saying.

Two sets of cop eyes fixed on me, flashing, intense. "What's that supposed to mean?" Tatum demanded.

"I don't know!" I replied, terrified. "Those words just came out of my mouth! I don't know what it means!"

Carly shook her head, angry, teeth set. "You better get busy remembering, girl! Or I don't know what's going to happen to you!"

 

---

 

They left me in a state of agitation, to say the very least.

Neither Carly nor Tatum came out and accused me of anything. At the same time, they had clear and obvious doubts about my amnesia.

I suppose if I were actually guilty of something — or NOT guilty of something — my own awareness and self-knowledge would give me an inner rock to rest upon, a sort of psychological shield. I mean, no matter what the police could accuse me of... well, *I* would be confident of who I was and what I'd done — or NOT done.

Unfortunately, since I couldn't remember, I didn't have a clue.

Carly's aggression and irritation were more than a little frightening, since I had no idea what part I may or may not have played in the disappearance of the two men.

Thistlewaite popped in a half-hour later, delivering the news that I'd had been granted another night's stay in the hospital. He didn't say why or how it had happened. I assumed it was the work of the police; to Thistlewaite's credit, he didn't boast that it was due to his own "string-pulling."

He didn't intend to stay long. Just long enough to deliver his news and to get a cursory memory check. So I stopped him.

"Can you do me a favor?" I asked.

"Sure, what is it?"

"Take me seriously," I said, and paused until he was about to respond. Then I cut him off, repeating my request, more firmly this time: "Take me seriously."

His eyes narrowed with curiosity. "I *do* take you seriously! What makes you think I don't?"

"You laugh at a genuine, existential concern of mine. You've done it several times."

"Existential concern? What are you talking about?"

"I told you that I'm worried that a stranger might come, pretending to be a relative, and take me away under false pretences."

"I'm sorry I laughed — I'm not sure that I did — but for some stranger to carry you off? That just couldn't happen!" he declared.

"Why couldn't it?"

"Well," he blustered, "there are safeguards in place, aren't there!"

"I don't know," I shot back. "Are there? What are they?"

That stumped him. Clearly, he didn't know. He had no idea how to give a serious answer my question. For once, he was silent, looking down, searching for something to say. When he lifted his head, I could read what was coming next. It was written all over his face, so I cut it off before he could even take a breath.

"Don't tell me that I'll remember or that I'll somehow 'just know.' For the love of God, please park that assertion at the front door. It's been hours. Maybe it's been a whole day by now, and all I've remembered is random shit, none of it important, and some of it (apparently) just plain wrong. I don't care what you do or say or believe, but *I* have to assume the worst case: that I won't remember, okay? That I NEVER remember. Can we work from that assumption? Just to be on the safe side?"

"Well..." he temporized, looking a little pale. "Honestly, I can't accept that drastic a prognosis. Honest and truly. As to your other question: Okay, I'll admit it: As far as safeguards and procedures are concerned, I don't know. I've never had to deal with a situation like this before." His face went from white to red. "And... I'll confess, I did get carried away by your situation. A case of such pure retroactive amnesia is very rare." He stopped and took a breath. "That said, I imagine that if someone comes here, they'll need to establish their own bona fides..."

"Bona fides?" I repeated. "Do you mean they'll have to prove their own identities?"

"Yes, that. And they'll have to demonstrate their relationship to you." He gave me a sort of imploring look.

Truthfully, he hadn't said much, and he didn't give me any reason to believe that the hospital had any sort of definite protocols for a case like mine, but the fact that he finally acknowledged my grave concern gave me a small sense of relief.

"You're not going to be alone," he said. "It's not as though someone can walk up to the front desk and claim you, as if you were a undelivered package or a lost pet."

"Okay," I said, softening.

"There's a note in your chart to call me if your memory suddenly returns. I'll amend that note to have someone call me if anyone says that you're their missing person, and to not release you without my okay."

"Thank you."

He looked me in the eyes. "Also — and I don't want to scare you — but I can assure you that the police will have plenty of questions for anyone who comes here, anyone claiming to be connected to you. I heard that the police were here earlier. One of their own is missing: a young policeman named Hugh Fencely."

I shook my head. "They did ask me about Hugh, but I don't have anything to say."

He shrugged. "Not right now you don't, but it may turn out that you have vital information. The police aren't going to let go of you, even if your entire family, clan, or tribe come clamoring for you. They're trying to nail down young Fencely's timeline, and you're probably the last, or one of the last, people to see the man."

I smiled grimly. "So they say..."

 

---

 

After he left, I spent some time nervously looking things up: news regarding my accident, anything I could find about Hugh Fencely, Mason Rafflyan, and Charlotte Rafflyan. I took notes in my little book. Wade's last name, as it turned out, was Burdleton, and he had a brief but colorful history. He was, apparently, a bright, talented attorney. I didn't understand all the details of his work history, but in addition to being smart and successful, Wade had a serious drinking problem, and had (as he told me) twice been arrested for driving under the influence. Now that he'd hit his third DUI, the expectation was that he'd be disbarred.

I didn't find much about Amos, aside from the fact that he had accounts on Instagram and Facebook. I wasn't able to access either one.

The same was true of Hugh.

Mason, as it turned out, had a Twitter account that was mainly about fitness, running, and an upcoming civil-service exam. His entire timeline was pretty sparse, but I didn't find any references to Charlotte, Hugh, or the town of Robbins.

Charlotte, on the other hand, was in a class of her own. She was everywhere and nowhere. She was nowhere in the sense that she didn't appear to have any social-media presence at all. She didn't post anything to the internet herself... didn't have an account anywhere... and as far as I could tell she was unaware of, or indifferent to, all of the online activity that swirled around her. In that sense, she was nowhere online. At the same time, Charlotte was everywhere in the sense that armies of other people had boatloads of things to say about her. The predominant flavor of their remarks was indignation. These folks were outraged on Charlotte's behalf. Specifically, they resented the way Charlotte was being SILENCED and IGNORED (always in caps). Aside from those two words, I couldn't make out what exactly they believed Charlotte's message to be, or who specifically was silencing and ignoring her. It didn't help that all the material produced by her followers was written badly. At its best it was muddled, meandering, and confusing. As if that wasn't bad enough, each piece asserted a connection to more complicated conspiracies: no matter how brief the message, it was invariably peppered with references to alien abductions and crop circles. They were also occasional hints that the earth is either flat, hollow, or only 6000 years old. Nearly all protested that "the media" is manipulated by the CIA, the Illuminati, and/or by lizard people.

It made my head ache. I did look up crop circles, but couldn't see the connection. At long last, I found myself turning off the phone. I stopped reading and put the phone on charge. Charlotte's web made for tiring reading, and none of it triggered any memories.

 

---

 

Mid-afternoon, around 3:30, the two policewomen returned in the company of Dr Thistlewaite. The policewomen seemed... well... not contrite (if I can use that word), but they'd certainly lost their combativeness, their aggression, and (apparently) their mistrust of me. From the way they behaved, I got the idea that they'd been talking with Thistlewaite about my amnesia and together had worked up a plan in my regard. They was an air of seeking common ground. I mean, there was no way they'd all happened to waltz in together, at the exact same time, and as they stood around my bed, they kept glancing at each other in a way that suggested they'd agreed on everything except who was supposed to speak first.

Although I doubt they'd ever totally buy into Thistlewaite's don't push the river idea, he must have at least convinced them that threatening me not only wouldn't help, but also could hinder me from remembering.

Even so, Carly started off by asking me, "Tell me this: would you be willing to submit to a lie detector test?"

Thistlewaite's jaw dropped open, his face clearly reading This is NOT what we talked about!

"Absolutely," I agreed. "I'd do... whatever! Lie detector, hypnosis, truth serum... anything that might knock something loose in this amnesia thing."

"No!" Thistlewaite protested, with a baffled, offended tone. "We've already discussed this! None of those things will help! Hypnosis could easily produce a coherent fantasy — like Bridey Murphy, for example. As far as a so-called truth serum is concerned, there is no such thing!"

"It's called sodium pentathol," Tatum offered, "I'd think you'd know that."

"I know what sodium pentathol is," he shot back. "It's a barbituate. The idea is that lowering a person's psychological resistance will make them more likely to tell the truth."

"Isn't that what we want?" Tatum challenged.

"No!" Frustrated, the doctor made vague motions with his hands, as if trying to conjure up a strong refutation. "You might as well get the poor woman drunk — on the theory of in vino veritas—"

"If you think that would work!" Tatum responded with a smirk.

"I don't think it would work. Here, in the present case, Deeny has no resistance to overcome! She *wants* to remember. She'd be happy to tell you everything she knows!"

"That's true," I agreed.

"About the lie detector, though—" Carly began, but the doctor cut her off.

"The polygraph only detects intentional, willful lies, at best," he told her. "It doesn't magically detect truth."

"But it does show emotional reactions to questions and to words, right? Couldn't that be useful? It might show us her hotspots?"

"Hotspots?" I asked.

"Triggers," she explained. "Things that make her uncomfortable or provoke some visceral response."

"I don't see how that would help," the doctor told her.

"It's just an idea," Carly replied, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm looking for a way forward. Trying to find some light in the darkness." She turned to me. "I appreciate your willingness, though. It does mean something."

After a moment of hesitation, I threw out an idea. "Hey, uh, listen... something occurred ot me... maybe a way to restore my memories. It might be a little crazy, but what I'm thinking is this: I got a knock on my head and it wiped my memory, right?" I pointed to the bump on my forehead. Dr Thistlewaite gave me a wary look. "What if I got a knock here—" I pointed to a spot on the back of my head, opposite to the lump on my forehead. "Couldn't that second, opposite, knock, undo the effect of the first knock?"

"NO!" Thistlewaite thundered. "No, it would NOT! Please, do NOT try that. It won't work, and in your state, it could cause permanent brain damage!" He bristled for a moment. "You can't un-knock a knock. The 'opposite' of getting knocked on the head is NOT getting knocked on the head. Okay? In any case, you've already gotten the knock on that side."

"What are you talking about?"

"Have you heard of coup contrecoup injuries? No — of course you haven't, or you don't remember. See, your skull is a hard box, while your brain, on the other hand, is a soft, spongy mass. In a traumatic event like a vehicle collision, while your skull gets dinged here and there, your brain is shaking and bouncing around inside this very hard box. It's banging into your skull on the inside.

"So, sure, you hit your forehead there, and you've got an obvious external injury, and yes, naturally your brain took a hit there as well, but at the same time you have an injury to the opposite side of your brain, when it rebounded. It bounced back, away from injury in front. See? Your head was jerked forward, hit something, Your brain banged into the inside of your forehead, then bounced back and hit the inside of the back of your head."

He let that information sink in. Then: "Consequently, right now, that blow to your head—" he pointed to the lump— "caused two injuries: one in front, and one in back. You've got to let those injuries heal. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I acquiesced.

The four of us were silent for a moment.

Tatum cleared her throat to get our attention. She held up a dark marking pen and two packs of post-it notes for us to see. One pack was yellow and the other light green.

"If we're done with the medical pleasantries? Yes? Okay — We're here right now to talk about Hugh Fencely, the policeman who disappeared. We're obviously still concerned about you—" (here she gestured at me)— "about finding out who you are, where you come from, and so on, but right now it's looking like your appearance and Hugh's disappearance are somehow tied together."

"It's almost as if the two of you switched places," Carly commented, half-joking. "He drove out to the desert, abandoned his car, and disappeared. You were either there when it happened, or showed up soon after." She shook her head. "Of course, that isn't what happened. It doesn't make any sense. Something important is missing from the story, but we have no idea what it could be."

"Are there caves out in that desert?" I asked. "Could Hugh have fallen into a hole, like a sink hole or something? Or down a big crack, where he got stuck?"

Carly shrugged. "Anything's possible. We're going to talk to the state park service after this." She nodded to Tatum, saying, "Make a note to ask them about caves and holes and such."

Carly went on, saying, "Hugh's case is high-profile, high visibility. He's a policeman — one of our own — born and raised in Robbins. As you can imagine, there's a lot of pressure from his family, his friends — as well as from the police chief, the mayor, and pretty much everyone else who lives in Robbins.

"Unfortunately, we don't have many real, demonstrable facts to go on." She took a deep breath to steady herself before saying, "On the other hand, there's a lot — in fact, a ton — that's weird in this case, and plenty of gaps in what we know. However, I don't want to dwell on what's *not* here. We can jot down questions along the way—" here Tatum lifted the light-green post-it notes to show us all— "but I don't want to get lost in speculation. No running off into the weeds. We're going to line up the honest-to-God facts and see where they take us."

As she mentioned the "honest-to-God facts," Tatum lifted the yellow post-it-notes and waggled them for our attention.

Without meaning to, I glanced at Dr Thistlewaite. Defensively he explained, "I'm here to see fair play."

First, we went through Hugh's timeline, starting with Monday. For each step, for each sighting, for each interaction, Tatum jotted the time and a few words on a yellow post-it, which she stuck on my window. Hugh worked a normal daytime shift; he was seen twice at headquarters: once, just before lunch, doing paperwork, and later at five-thirty, clocking out to go home.

"We need more detail," Carly pointed out. "We need to know whether anything unusual happened on his shift."

"Does he have a partner?" I asked.

"No," Carly replied. "We're short-handed, so a lot of our officers work alone."

Hugh was next seen at Ebbidles, a local restaurant, at 8 PM, in the company of a man fitting Mason Rafflyan's description. The pair stayed there until 8:40. Ten minutes later, they were captured on a traffic camera at the edge of town, heading west. About 40 miles out, he turned and drove off the road, about half a mile into the desert.

After that, there was nothing, until his car was spotted by the medivac helicopter the next day, Tuesday.

"Obviously, we need to fill in the gaps," Carly pointed out, directing her comments to Tatum, who jotted them quickly in her little book."What did he do between 5:30 and 8 PM? Was his car caught on any other cameras in town in the ten minutes after he left Ebbidles?"

"And whether anything unusual happened during his shift," Tatum added, catching up.

"Right."

Very soon we had a horizontal line of yellow post-its, marking the little we knew of Hugh's Monday. Several green post-its, representing questions and lines of inquiry ran in short verticals below the yellow facts.

Next we ran through Mason Rafflyan's timeline, which was even more sparse than Hugh's. His first sighting was at 4 PM on Sunday, when he checked into Robbins' Good Old Inn. According to the desk clerk, Mason stayed in his room all night, until he emerged at 8:30 AM on Monday for the free continental breakfast. He took his time over his food and his phone. He left at nine AM. He didn't check out, but he never returned. The staff at the Inn had little to say about him: only that he was quiet and polite.

He was next seen at the police station at 9:30AM.

"What was he doing there?" Carly queried.

"He wanted to talk about Charlotte Rafflyan," Tatum replied in a cautious tone, as if she were risking her big toe at the edge of a minefield. She knew how the mere mention of Charlotte's name could set Carly off.

In fact, Carly took a deep breath, and her face turned red, but she managed to keep her negative comments to herself.

"The desk sergeant told Mason to leave," Tatum added. Carly nodded, as if that was the proper action to have taken. Grudgingly, unwillingly, she added, "We need to find out exactly what Mason said, what he asked, and what the sergeant told him." Tatum nodded and made a note of it.

"Did Mason and Hugh intersect there, at the station?" Carly asked.

"I don't think so," Tatum replied. "It's true that they were at the same location at the same time, but Mason didn't get any farther than the front desk. If Hugh was writing reports, he would have been at a desk in the back. They aren't likely to have seen each other."

"Unless... unless...," Carly cautioned. "Unless Hugh happened to stick his head out. Unless Hugh finished quickly and ran into Mason on his way out of the station." She frowned. "Remember, Hugh tries to keep quiet about it, but he's into all those conspiracy theories — UFOs in the desert, alien abductions... the whole nine yards."

"Get a couple of drinks in him, and it all comes spilling out," Tatum commented.

Carly nodded grimly, in acknowledgement. "So, there's a possible connection between Hugh and Mason — at least they have a shared interest."

"There are cameras at the front door and at the front desk," Tatum said. "We can check the footage; see if the two of them intersect."

It was a good thing I'd taken a dip into the internet earlier that day, and gotten an idea of all the baggage the name "Charlotte Rafflyan" brought along with it. Otherwise I'd have been both confused and full of questions.

"I hate to say it," Carly added, "But, as I said earlier, we're going to have to talk with Charlotte Rafflyan to find out whether Mason had any interactions with her." She sighed heavily. "There's a pretty obvious chance that the two of them are related." She rolled her eyes at the prospect.

Tatum scribbled Charlotte / Mason: related? on a green post-it, stuck it to the window, and returned to her little pad. "The next sighting of Mason is dinner with Hugh at Ebbidles at 8 PM. What did he do in between? How do Mason and Hugh connect? Did they know each other before? Do they belong to the same Charlotte Rafflyan conspiracy club?"

"Is there really such a club?" I asked, naively.

"No," Carly snorted. "It's just a bunch of crazies on the internet. They aren't organized, thank goodness."

"So... what are you going to do? What's next?" I asked. "Do you have to go through all the CCTV in town, tracking their movements?"

Tatum shook her head. "Robbins doesn't have cameras placed around town. Privacy concerns put the kabosh on that. We do have a few traffic cameras and red-light cameras, but those are focused on drivers and license plates, not on pedestrians. You don't get any background in those shots."

"What about stores?"

"Well, sure, a lot of stores have cameras, but they're generally pointing inside, at the merchandise and the shoppers, not outside at the sidewalks or the street."

Now we had two horizontal lines of yellow post-its, each with green questions hanging below. As you can imagine, the points on Mason's timeline were few and far between.

The two policewomen cast about for more facts, for more yellow points, to add to the rather sketchy timelines. Though they were unable to add any more yellow post-its — representing known, demonstrable facts — they did rack up another handful of green questions: dark corners in need of light and clarity.

A lot of the questions had to do with Mason Rafflyan. Who was he? Where did he come from? What was his connection to Hugh? Was he responsible for Hugh's disappearance? Or was he a victim, like Hugh? Sharing the same fate?

Tatum consulted her tablet. "Mason's driver's license shows that he lives in Amsterholt."

"Where the hell is that?" Carly asked. "Nebraska?"

"No," Tatum replied. "I had to look it up, but it's way up north, near the state line. I've got a call in with the sheriff's office—"

"The sheriff?" I echoed, surprised.

"Amsterholt is too small to have its own police force, so the county sheriff has to cover whatever, uh, law-enforcement needs arise up there.

"Oh!" she suddenly recalled, "speaking of law enforcement, we also know that Mason wants to be a police officer. In fact, he just took the civil exam for the second time—"

"The second time?" Carly repeated.

"Yes. He failed it both times."

Carly shook her head.

"Is it a hard test?" I asked.

Carly looked at me for a few moments, but didn't answer.

"Okay," Tatum intoned, looking over the colored note-squares decorating my window. "I think that's as far as we can go with the boys." She took out her phone and snapped some pictures of the timeline. Then she turned to face me.

"Now we need to figure out how you come in," she said.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 6

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

“The Silver Shoes,” said the Good Witch, “can carry you to any place in the world.
All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times
and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go.”

“If that is so,” said the child joyfully, “I will ask them to carry me back to Kansas at once.”

— L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

---

 

"I was beginning to wonder what I was doing here," I told them, and found myself looking at Doctor Thistlewaite.

He lifted his hands in a defensive gesture. "Don't look at me!" he said, half-joking. "I know why I'm here. I wanted to be present if some memories shook loose, and—" he glanced back and forth between the two young women— "Like I said earlier: I'm here to see fair play. I wanted to make sure these two didn't bully you." He managed to make it come off as a teasing joke, but he clearly felt a sense of proprietary protectiveness.

"As if!" scoffed Carly.

Tatum grinned. "We wouldn't have gone beyond a light grilling," she quipped. Then she scribbled "CAR CRASH 8:20 AM" on a yellow post-it and stuck it on the window on the far right. "With you, we'll start at the end and work our way backwards. What's next?"

"Amos picks me up, hitchhiking," I offered.

Tatum wrote a telegraphic version of that data point. "Let's say ten miles earlier, ten minutes earlier?" and wrote "8:10 AM," before sticking it on the board.

"That's it, isn't it?" I asked.

"No," Tatum replied. "We know you spent the night in the back seat of Hugh's car, wrapped in a scratchy blue blanket. That was your first memory, and it's supported by trace DNA and fingerprints." She set her little notebook on my bed, where all four of us could see it. "Pretend that this is Hugh's car," she instructed. "Hugh's fingerprints are basically on the driver's door and all over the dashboard. Mason's fingerprints are on the passenger-side door and on the dashboard on the passenger side." She gave us all a glance and added, "I'm generalizing, but that's pretty much how it is.

"Now, Deeny, on the other hand—"

I interrupted, insisting, "My name is not Deeny."

Carly and Tatum glanced at each other. "Okay," Tatum acknowledged. "But if we call this guy Mason and you Mason, it gets confusing. So bear with us, okay? Just for now, to speed things along?"

I nodded but I didn't like it.

"Deeny, unlike the two men, left fingerprints all over. Outside, on both driver-side doors — front and back — and on the trunk. Inside, her prints are on the steering wheel, the gear shift, the ignition key, and the dashboard. Trace DNA shows that she sat in the driver's seat and slept in the back seat."

"How do you know she 'slept'?" Carly asked, with an obvious insinuation.

"There is no sign that any sexual activity took place in the vehicle," Tatum replied. "At all. There is also no evidence that Deeny was ever physically inside the trunk. I mean, she didn't hide there and wasn't put or kept there."

My heart began beating faster.

"So why did the two boys bring her out there?" Carly asked in a gentle voice.

"I don't think they did bring her out there," Tatum replied. "See, she wasn't in the trunk. Forensics established that. Which means, if she was in the car before it left Robbins, the only way she wouldn't be seen on the traffic camera was if she was crouching down in the back seat." She scratched the top of her head. "But... that only brings a new set of questions. It suggests that she left voluntarily. But why would she hide? What was she hiding from? And why would she leave without her clothes? Or where did they go, and when?"

"Well..." Carly drawled, opening her hands, palms facing upward.

"No," I said. "Didn't happen. Wouldn't happen."

Carly's eyebrows popped. "You sound awfully sure."

"I am."

"Why?"

I hesitated. Yes, why was I so sure? "I don't know," I told her. "But I'm 100% sure."

"You're also sure that your name is Perry Mason," she retorted.

"And what is the problem with that?" I demanded, hotly.

Tatum held off for a few moments, waiting to see if any fire followed that exchange. Then: "Just looking at the evidence," she said, "We can't prove that Deeny drove out to the desert with the boys. We can't rule it out, but we don't have anything to suggest that it was the case. It seems far more likely that she met them out there, where Hugh's car was found."

"What about other cars?" Carly said. "Can we follow up on cars that went in or out of the desert in that same time interval? She must have come in with someone else."

Tatum looked down at the floor. She clearly didn't want that task. "I'm sure we can put somebody on that," she demurred in a quiet voice. Then, after another pause, she laid it out: "What I think happened, and I believe this is supported by the physical evidence, is that the three of them were never at the car together. The two men drove off the road, into the desert... for some reason that we don't know. They either shut off the engine, or the car died--"

"Why do you say that?"

"The battery is dead. Once they turned off the engine, the cold killed whatever power was left."

"Why would they turn off the engine?" Thistlewaite queried.

The four of us looked at each other for a moment. "Star gazing?" Tatum ventured. "Out there, away from the city lights, the sky is packed with stars. It's pretty powerful."

"Okay," Carly acknowledged. "Anyway... for whatever reason, they shut off the engine and couldn't restart it. What do we think? Did they start walking?"

"We don't know," Tatum replied. "Unfortunately the scene wasn't cordoned off until after it was too late. Police cars, police men, pretty well wiped out any tracks or treads between the car and the highway. Luckily, the other directions weren't contaminated, so what we DO know is that they didn't walk off into the desert. They must have gone back to the highway." She shrugged.

"And that's where we lose them," Carly stated. Tatum nodded in confirmation.

"Anyway... AFTER the two men walked back or got picked up by someone else, or whatever the hell they did, Deeny arrived at the car. It was night, it was dark. She tried to start the car. Her prints are on the key. Unfortunately, car battery was dead, so even if she wanted, she couldn't drive off. I think we can assume that if the boys were still there, Deeny would have left with them."

Carly nodded. Then, an objection occurred to her: "All of that makes sense, except for one detail. Hugh left his keys behind. Not just his car key, but the keys to his apartment, to his police locker, and every other key he possessed. That's not like Hugh. We both know that he's more than a little OCD, especially about his car. Knowing Hugh, he would have closed all the windows and locked all the doors before he walked away, and he would have taken his keys with him. But that's not how it was. The car was completely unlocked, with the keys right there in the ignition."

"True. And agreed: it's not like Hugh. But that goes to support the idea that Deeny arrived after the boys were gone. Forensics show that she jumped into the driver's seat and tried to start the car. She wouldn't have done that if Hugh was still there. Unless she was alone, I don't see Deeny trying to start the car and then rummaging through the trunk. And for sure she wouldn't have shivered through the night alone."

"Okay," Carly conceded. "And then in the morning, when the desert started heating up, the car still wouldn't start? Am I right?"

"Correct."

"By now, the blanket is now too heavy and too hot, so she leaves it. But she takes her umbrella — Hugh's umbrella — and follows the tire tracks back to the highway."

"Amos picks her up, and then bam! The accident."

That seemed to sum it all up. Still, after a pause, the doctor put in, "Can I ask a question? I've been on that road. It's long, straight, and flat. If a car's coming towards you, you can see it coming miles away. And it was broad daylight. How on earth did two cars collide head on?"

Carly's face broke out in a grin. "I shouldn't smile," she said, "but honest Amos confessed: Deeny had to sit in back because Amos' front passenger seat belt was broken. And she — she must have forgotten that she had nothing on, underneath her t-shirt — because she was putting on quite a show for the poor boy!"

My face burned. "I was not! Was I?"

"Sounds like it was inadvertent on your part," she conceded. "Unfortunately, he couldn't keep his eyes off his rear-view, and apparently was drifting all over the road. The other driver — even though impaired by drink — did his best to avoid the the collision, but Amos took one glance back too many, and the second driver's reflexes couldn't respond in time." Then she added, "Consequently, boom!"

The doctor, emboldened, offered another question: "Isn't it possible that Deeny came down the road from Aldusville?"

"No," Carly replied sharply. "It couldn't have happened. The state troopers have a road block where the desert road hits Aldusville."

"We've already checked with them," Tatum informed the doctor.

"Then she must have come in from across the desert," he concluded.

Carly gazed at him in disbelief. "From where?" she asked. "If you don't come by the one and only road, there's nothing and no place anywhere nearby. If she crossed the desert, unless she dropped from the sky, the only place she could have come from is Mariola. Problem is, Mariola is like, 300 miles away. And it's 300 miles of nothing, as the crow flies!"

"Mariola?" the doctor repeated. "Is that— um— I've never heard of it."

"Exactly!" Carly said. "It's a tiny little nowhere town on the other side of the desert. Unless she flew, there's no way she came from Mariola."

"What about a small plane? Maybe one of those little, experimental aircraft?" Tatum ventured.

"I guess that's possible," Carly conceded. "If she got dropped off there, naked, for some crazy reason. Otherwise, I mean, if you're thinking there was a crash, the helicopter search didn't spot anything like that. And if that's the answer, it means that either Deeny here is a pilot, somebody else is lost out there."

"I'm just brainstorming," Tatum said defensively.

"It's fine, but right now we want to stick to provable facts. We can keep an open mind on the small plane idea." She thought for a moment. "There's likely to be a small airport near Mariola; we can call and ask whether anyone flew in or out Tuesday night." Tatum scribbled a note on a green post-it and stuck it to the glass.

 

---

 

I didn't want to say anything at the time, but the name Mariola rang a bell. A strange bell. Not as though I'd ever been to Mariola, or came from Mariola, or knew Mariola, but each time someone said it, I had the distinct, unsettling feeling I'd heard that name before.

For some reason I kept that feeling to myself.

 

---

 

Another minute of discussion followed. Nothing significant. Tatum photographed the layout of notes stuck to my window, then peeled them off into an orderly pile that she placed in an envelope and stuck in her pocket.

Dr Thistlewaite took my hand and asked, "You okay?"

"Uh, yeah," I responded. "I'm a little... uh... my heart is beating fast. I don't know why." I caught his look, and added, "Before you ask: no, I didn't remember anything. It's just that hearing all those things, about me and the car and being... naked... in the desert. I just—"

Carly listened, silent, interested.

I continued, "I just wonder: What on earth happened to me? What was I doing there? Why were the two men there? Do I even know them?"

Carly blew out a big breath. "All great questions. We have those exact same questions. Don't worry — we'll find out what happened to you. We'll find out who you are and how you got there."

I nodded.

"You're going to remember, I promise you," Thistlewaite assured me.

"You shouldn't make promises," I told him. "I think this is going to come down to plain old detective work. Shoe leather."

"Shoe leather?" Carly repeated, cracking up with laughter. "Who are you?"

"Who is she?" Tatum echoed, "She's Perry Mason, that's who!" and the pair of them, laughing, left my room.

"Shoe leather," Thistlewaite repeated. "You should write that in your notebook. Have you been using it?"

"Using what? Shoe leather?" I challenged, deliberately obtuse.

"No," he replied cautiously, picking up on my mood. "The notebook I gave you."

"Sure," I told him. "I've been writing in it. All the random, meaningless bullshit."

"That's fine," he said. "You'll get used to remembering."

I didn't answer. Ironically, in that exact moment, I did remember something. I'd been asking myself why the name "Mariola" rang a bell. I meant to look it up on my phone the moment Dr Thistlewaite left my room, but my subconscious got ahead of me, and tossed up the answer.

An image appeared on the inner screen of my mind; an image of me. I don't know what was going on before or after, and I don't know where it happened, but I must have been standing in front of a full-length mirror. I say that because I could see myself, my whole body, looking back at me. In this memory, I was naked (go figure!), but I didn't seem to care. In fact, I was smiling. In this memory I was talking to someone, someone I couldn't see. Or else I was talking to myself. It was hard to tell.

This memory came and went in a flash, but I took it in completely. It hit me like a bolt from the blue. It came to me so vivid and true, I relived the moment, as if were happening here and now. In this memory, a sardonic grin pulled up my mouth's right corner. I had the sense that I was talking already, but in conclusion I declared, "I am NEVER going back to Mariola! Never!"

That was it; the whole thing. It came and was gone, but not completely. I couldn't see it any more, but I could picture it, the way you can recall a movie scene that strikes you. Not with the crystal clarity of a moment earlier, but as a kind of mental video clip; a close-up of my face: the sardonic smile, the declaration.

What was Mariola to me, or me to Mariola?

Thistlewaite waited in expectant silence, watching my face.

"Did you remember something?" he asked, with barely suppressed excitement.

"Why should I tell you?" I shot back, with more bitterness than I intended.

Thistlewaite took a step back, away from me, clearly startled.

"I'm sorry," I told him, "but I'd prefer to keep this to myself."

"Why?"

"Because you — and the pair of cops who just left — laughed when I told you my name. None of you call me by my name. Not Perry, not Mason. You keep calling me Deeny. You don't believe me."

"But D—" he began, and stopped. "It's so improbable! It can't be your name!"

"I remembered it," I insisted. "I'm sure about it. If you don't believe *that*, why would you believe anything else I remember?"

His expression filled with dismay. "No, no, please—" he protested.

I cut him off. "You think you can decide which of my memories are real." I shook my head. "That doesn't work for me. You've got this lofty idea of not pushing the river, but at the same time you want to lay down the rules about where and how the river can flow."

He struggled to find the words to contradict me, but I waved his efforts away. "Just let it go," I said. "It doesn't matter. If I ever remember everything, I'll let you know. I'm feeling more and more certain that I'm *never* going to remember anything. We'll see who's right: you or me. But you're just going to have to wait and see, just like me."

He didn't answer. To his credit, he didn't offer excuses. At the same time, he didn't say sorry, either. He limited himself to asking a few pointless questions about my general state of feeling. I assured him that I was fine, just a little agitated by our discussion. I was also more than a little angry about the way the women laughed at my name, but I'd already told him that.

After Thistlewaite left, I tried to cool off, to calm down. But then I thought, Why should I calm down? I have a perfect right to be upset!

And so I sat there, fuming uselessly, looking at my reflection in the window, studying my angry look. It was stupid, but I couldn't find any other channel for my frustration.

When suddenly...

A strange feeling welled up inside me. It's hard to describe. It came on me quickly, almost like a strong feeling of nausea, rising from my belly like a wave that rode, relentless, to my head, where it overwelmed me. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and tilted my head down. I found myself clenching my fists, clenching them so tight that my arms were shaking.

And then...

A memory, sharp and clear, came in, like a image on bright, brand-new television: a woman, a nice woman, sitting at a kitchen table opposite me. I have no idea who she is or was, but I liked and trusted her. Completely. She looked to be just south of fifty, with a fair amount of gray in her short, curly hair. She smiled and leaned in, towards me. She had a story to tell me; a story that didn't begin with the well-known phrase once upon a time, but with one that was equally improbable. She did her best to hide her amusement before she took a breath and began:

"Charlotte had a boyfriend."

It floored me. The memory was almost more than I could bear. The woman — I knew her. I was this close to calling out to her, to calling her by name. I know — I almost knew — who she is or was to me. It was tantalizingly close, but I couldn't reach it. My breath caught in my throat and nearly choked me.

Who is she? Why did she care that Charlotte had a boyfriend? *I* didn't care. Why should anyone care?

Was it supposed to be funny? That woman clearly was amused, but didn't want to show it.

This memory — and I'm sure it was a real memory — weighed on me. Why? Because it carried a sense of loss and a strange kind of pain. I wanted more of that memory, but I didn't want the pain that came with it.

What in the name of hell is going on with me?

 

---

 

Lucy arrived a few minutes after 5 PM, dressed in her white uniform. She found me with my head in my hands.

"Is everything okay?" she asked, with obvious concern. "Did something happen?"

"Oh!" I responded, sitting up. "I didn't realize I was sitting that way. But yeah, I've remembered something... I mean, I remembered somebody." I looked her in the face. "It's the first person I've remembered." I shook my head. "And seeing her face gives me all these feelings I don't understand."

Lucy stood there silent, watching the emotions play across my face while she considered what to say.

"Do you think it's your mother?" she asked, quietly, cautiously.

"I don't know. Maybe."

"How do you see this person in your memory? Are they happy, healthy, good?"

"Yeah. Yeah. All those things."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?"

"I guess so."

Lucy nodded and stepped closer to me. She scratched her ear in a distracted way.

I was about to say, And do you know what's weird about it, though? and tell her how this woman told me that phrase, "Charlotte had a boyfriend," but I held back.

Weirder still, Lucy herself said it. "Listen... Hermie told me a thing to tell you. I didn't remember it — don't remember it, because I was only 16 when it happened, and I was pretty... consumed with, uh—" She took a deep breath— "I didn't follow the news already, but it all happened around the same time that my parents... died." She took a breath to steady herself. "That thing you said: Charlotte had a boyfriend — turns out it's something pretty much everybody, anybody around here would know. But like I said, I wasn't paying attention at the time, and it was just too wacko—

"So this Charlotte is Charlotte Raffy-something—" (I didn't interrupt) "—and, duh! she had a boyfriend! This guy Ross, the boyfriend, was a football player, a college freshman, supposed to be a rising star, an up-and-coming talent, blah blah blah, and one night, two years ago, he went into the desert with another woman, and he was never seen again."

The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood at attention.

"Also, his pickup truck — never seen again, either."

"What about the woman?"

"Oh, *she* came back. Said they had a fight and she ran off." Lucy shook her head.

I didn't know what to say. Some of it intersected in a bizarre way with what happened to me, or maybe to Hugh Fencely and Mason Rafflyan. A parallel; a variant running on a different track. Like an echo, vibrating in the past. Or maybe we were the echo...

But — enough with the metaphors. I prompted Lucy: "So..."

"So, the police investigated. They found no signs of foul play. Everyone figured that Ross couldn't stand the stress of success, so he ran away." She shrugged. "I guess that's a thing that happens. I wouldn't know."

"Huh."

"Anyway, Charlotte convinced herself that the other woman had murdered Ross, or whatever his name was, and she pestered the police until they took out a restraining order against her! Can you imagine? The *police* took out a restraining order against her! The *police* felt they were being harassed!"

"I guess I can imagine it," I told her. "One of the cops who visit me goes ballistic every time she hears Charlotte's name."

"Well, that's the story," Lucy concluded. "If you need to know more, Hermie has all the details, so you can ask him. In fact, he said he wants to talk to you about it. Which reminds me—" She fished a little flip phone out of one pocket, and its charger out of another.

"Hermie figures you're getting out soon. This phone isn't good for much. It was actually my grandmother's. It's fully charged, but you have to keep an eye on the battery level. There's no lock code, and the only numbers in there are Hermie's and mine. Hermie works from home, so whenever the hospital lets you go, you can call him and he'll drive over and pick you up."

"He doesn't need to do that," I protested. "I can walk to your house, or take a bus or something."

"No," she said. "Hospital rules. They won't let you go unless someone comes to pick you up in a car."

I gave in with a smile. "Okay. Thanks, Lucy, and thank Hermie when you see him."

 

---

 

Naturally, I was surprised (at first) by the apparent coincidence of my "Charlotte had a boyfriend" memory and the arrival of Lucy with her explanation. My surprise didn't last very long. Clearly, the boyfriend's disappearance in the desert was a big deal in Robbins. There was no denying: it was a curious event. As a wound in the town's social fabric, it was fairly fresh. After all, two years is not a very long time.

Even if the town somehow managed to gloss over or shrug off the boyfriend's disappearance, Charlotte was always ready to stir the pot, to keep the case on the radar. She must have been a colossal pest, if the police had gone so far as to take out a restraining order against her. I want to say that I'd never heard of such a thing, but of course I don't know whether I have. It seems awfully extreme.

Not only was it extreme, but it seemed an unlikely, improbable move; maybe you could go as far as calling it a desperate move — akin to the fire department declaring that they wouldn't bother to show up if a certain person's house was on fire.

Clearly, the boyfriend's disappearance and Charlotte's subsequent agitation was a major nerve running through town. It was hard to avoid touching it, and if you did hit that nerve, even lightly, there was no telling what sort of response you'd get.

For Dr Thistlewaite, the mention of Charlotte's name evoked a sense of sadness, almost pity.

Carly's response, on the other hand, was more like a volcanic eruption.

Tatum managed to keep fairly neutral, although she probably moderated herself to balance out Carly's anger.

And none of it was imaginary! Charlotte was a real person. I'd seen her myself.

Not only had I seen Charlotte, I'd also witnessed her *intensity* for myself, and clearly the other nurses had experienced it as well. Their response was a measured you again? with an implicit threat. They sent her back to her own floor, and she obeyed without being asked twice. It wasn't hard to divine a series of excesses on Charlotte's part, followed by several talkings-to and/or disciplinary actions. Charlotte folded immediately when she was challenged, and left without protest. She knew she'd gone as far as she dared, and could go no farther.

 

---

 

Somewhere around nine PM a young uniformed policeman stuck his head in my door. He was so boyish and fresh-faced, he resembled a high-school student in a police costume. "Deeny Mason?" he asked.

"Close enough."

"We got a ping from missing persons. Your family reported you missing late today! Isn't that wild? And here you are!"

"My family?" I asked. The words echoed in my head without producing any response whatsoever. No images, no feelings, no words or names.

"Yeah. You're the chick with amnesia, right?"

"Yes."

He nodded and was about to leave, but I caught him, by calling, "Wait!"

He stepped into my room with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Aren't you going to tell me anything?" I asked. He frowned, not getting it.

"What's my name?" I asked. "It's Perry Mason, isn't it?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed, the light dawning. He pulled out a small notepad, much like Tatum's. He flipped a few pages, and started reading. "Okay, so — your name." He smiled at me, drawing out the suspense. I wanted to smack him.

"Turns out you're *not* Perry Mason — I did hear that one, heh! You're not Deeny Mason, either. Your name is—" He stared at his notepad, trying to form his mouth around the sounds before he actually said it. "Okay, I hope I can pronounce this right. Your name is Celandine Lisente, aka Deeny Lisente." He looked at me, eyebrows high on his forehead.

"No," I said. "No fucking way."

"Unfortunately," he said, "Your family has the receipts: they're bringing your documents, pictures of you, clothes... and stuff." He consulted his notepad again. "Your younger sister is on her way here, now."

My heart froze in my chest. "Now? Like, right this minute? Dr Thistlewaite said he'd be here if someone tried to claim me."

The cop tilted his head back, taking that in. "Okay...," he acknowledged. "Okay. That sounds fair."

"Is she coming tonight? This sister-person? When will she get here? We have to call Dr Thistlewaite!"

"She's got a long way to go," he informed me in a calming tone. "I mean, if she really hauls ass, she could get here in four and half, five hours. Minimum. Realistically, though, if she gets here that fast, nobody's going to let her in. If I was a betting man, I'd say she'll aim for early morning, somewhere between six and nine. You know?"

"You haven't talked to her, then?"

"No. Oh—" he looked again in the book. "Her name is Sheba! What about that? Your family really goes in for the exotic names, don't they?"

I asked him for "my" name again — Celandine Lisente. I took out my notebook and wrote it down. It sounded all wrong, so wrong, in oh so many ways.

The cop, smiling a trifle foolishly, confessed, "Seriously, no offense, but I have never heard that name before, in all my life. Celandine."

"Me, neither," I agreed. He smiled. The man struck me as a little dim, but well meaning. He appeared unable to grasp the implications of amnesia, about forgetting, about not knowing.

"Kinda sounds like those tiny oranges, am I right?"

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I let the remark blow by. "Is there anything else you can tell me?" I asked. "Keep in mind that I don't know a single goddamn thing about myself."

"Um—"

"Where is this Sheba woman coming from?" I asked him.

"From your home town, duh!" he laughed.

I regarded him with disbelief. "Which is?"

Finally he got it. "Ah, right — amnesia! It's Mariola. You come from Mariola. It's way the hell that way." He waved his hand vaguely toward the wall. "Does that ring a bell?"

"Maybe," I hedged.

"Progress, then!" he commented, nodding several times. "Remembering stuff!"

 

---

 

We spoke a little bit more. He assured me at one point that "Detective Rentham and Officer Scrattan" (aka Carly and Tatum) would talk to me and my "sister" before they let me leave. "They won't let you go without a fight!" he joked.

"I hope so," I agreed. "All joking aside, I hope you're right."

 

---

 

I didn't know what to make of the news. There was nothing I *could* make of it. Aside from the name "Mariola" none of it rang a bell, or made an echo, or sounded familiar in any way. In particular, that name — Celandine Lisente — I felt one thousand percent, absolutely sure that I'd never heard the name in my entire life, amnesia or not.

Ditto for "Sheba Lisente."

Going back over what the young policeman told me, I turned his phrase over and over in my mind: "They won't let you go without a fight!" Yes, I hoped Carly and Tatum — and the Robbins police force — would fight my corner. It made sense that they wouldn't let me be taken away. Wouldn't they want to keep me in town? Wouldn't they want me to wait here until my memories returned, so they could find out whether I knew anything about Hugh's disappearance?

In any case, if the police didn't fight for me, I formed a determination to fight for myself. I wasn't going to go without a fight.

I immediately revised that resolution: I wasn't going to go at all. After all, no one could compel me. I was an adult, and I had a place to go. Just to reassure myself, I flipped open my new phone and turned it on. The contact list, as Lucy said, had only two numbers in it: Lucy's and Hermie's. There was also an extra button marked HOME.

"There's no place like home," I said, feeling a kind of magic in the saying of it, as though if I said that phrase and pressed that button, in a flash I'd find myself transported — somewhere. Who knows where. Robbins? Mariola? The desert?

In any case, I felt my resolution, rock-solid within me. I wasn't going anywhere until I had a good reason to go. "Good reason" meaning a reason that made sense to me, not one that made sense to anyone else — anyone else at all.

Even if my so-called family arrived, armed with "receipts" — documents, photos, whatever — I had to be true to the little that I knew of myself, and one thing that I knew for sure is that I'd already once in my life declared that I'd never go back to Mariola.

 

---

 

I expected that what with the news, the revelations, the imminent arrival of my so-called sister, and above all after my two flashes of memory, that I wouldn't sleep a wink all night. Oddly enough, the moment I leaned back on my pillow and closed my eyes, I fell deeply, soundly asleep.

 

---

 

I slept until there was daylight outside, and when I woke, I lay quietly, looking at the scene out the window. Somehow I managed to hold off all the preoccupations and fears that today could bring: the arrival of my "sister," my release from the hospital, possible fights or arguments about where I'd go and stay and what I'd do.

Obviously, my memories hadn't yet returned, in spite of Thistlewaite's sanguine predictions and promises.

This amnesia business had gotten old pretty quickly. I felt just about ready to say to hell with my memories and to live my life here and now, as Perry Mason, as if I'd been born fully grown at that accident in the desert.

Sure, the business about Hugh's car — the disappearance of the two men — the question of how I even got there and what became of my clothes — all those things were troublesome, mysterious, and possibly even sordid (?) — Even so, those were questions I could live with, I think. Of course, they wouldn't be material for light conversation, but everyone has some sort of secret, don't they?

Quite a philosophical morning! All calm and full of wisdom! I felt ready for whatever the day was about to throw at me — except of course for the one thing that actually happened.

A small sound in the hallway caused me to turn my head to my right, and there I saw resting on my bed, the tousled blonde head of a young woman. Her sleeping head rested on her crossed forearms. She sat in a chair, leaning forward. How long she was there, I had no way of knowing. In any case, I was pretty sure I knew her name.

"Sheba?" I called softly, as I debated whether I should touch her head with my hand. My fingers paused there, two inches from her head. It seemed like the natural thing to do, if you woke to find someone's head resting on your bed. But it was as though there was a barrier between her and me, and that barrier was the fact that she was a total stranger.

I called her name again. "Sheba?"

Her head twitched slightly. She took a quick sniff of a breath, a wake-up reflex. Her head turned slightly, slowly, as her consciousness crept slowly up toward morning. Then, abruptly, her head jerked up, turning to face me, eyes bright, an open-mouthed smile showing an unblemished set of pearl-white teeth. I'd been studying my own face in the mirror, and this young woman had that same face, albeit a younger, cuter, more attractive version. It would be hard for anyone (even myself) to doubt that we were sisters.

"Deeny!" she exclaimed. "I *knew* you'd remember me! Ha! They said you have amnesia, but I told everybody, Deeny will remember me! She has to!"

Then, as she studied my face, took in my reactions, however slight, her happy confident expression fell apart.

"Oh, Deeny! Don't look at me like that!" Her hand rose; her fingers covered her mouth. "It's creepy!"

"I'm sorry," I replied. "Sincerely. But how am I looking at you?"

"Like you don't know me! Stop it!"

I heaved a big breath. Here I'd been preparing myself to put up a fight against a family of strangers who'd come to take me away. Instead, I found myself facing off against a childlike near-twin. In the moment, I was less concerned with remaining in Robbins and more concerned with not hurting Sheba's feelings.

"Hey, I'm sorry," I repeated in as soft and conciliatory tone as I could manage. "Amnesia is a bitch. I honestly don't remember anything."

"Anything at all? Then how can you talk?" She challenged, incredulous.

"The doctor says it's different parts of the brain. Where I got hit is all about long-term memory."

She touched her forehead, unconsciously, vicariously feeling the lump above my eye.

"The lump is going away," I told her, "it doesn't hurt as badly as it used to."

She seemed bewildered. "Deeny — you really don't remember me? Nothing at all?"

I shook my head, no.

Her face fell, and it looked as though she could start crying. So I reached out, touched her hand, and asked her, "So tell me all the things that I don't know."

"Like what?"

"Like the family. Parents, brothers and sisters..."

She laughed.

"Is it just you and me?"

"No, of course not!" she scoffed. "There are four of us. I'm the youngest girl. Nate is 18 months younger than me. He's the only boy. You're the middle girl, and Cameron is the oldest."

"So... Cameron is a girl."

Sheba's eyes popped wide in amusement. "Oh my God! Scandalous! She would be so upset to hear that! Not only that, but she is the only one who's actually married... to Andre, and they have two adorable little girls. Nate just got engaged. They'll still working on the date, but probably some time next year, September probably. And you—" Here her gaze turned to my left hand. Her jaw dropped and her face went white.

"Oh my God!" she cried, "Where is your ring?"

"What ring?" I asked. My heart rate doubled. I could feel it. An existential dread came over me. "What ring?"

"Your engagement ring! What other ring would it be?"

"I don't know, Sheba. Remember: I don't know anything. Anything at all. I'm engaged to be married? To a guy?"

"Yes," she answered, as if talking to a simpleton. "Of course to a guy. Oh my God! Barney is going to flip!"

"Barney?" I repeated. "I'm engaged to someone named Barney?"

Sheba's eyes twinkled. "Yes, like the dinosaur!" She began to sway back and forth, singing I love you, you love me, la la la la la la la...

"Uhh. Sheba, I can't make any sense of that."

She huffed in frustration. "This is going to be weird," she observed, nettled.

"It already *is* weird," I informed her.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 7

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

That's the thing:
Do you recognize the bells of truth
When you hear them ring?
Won't you stop and listen
To the children sing?

— Leon Russell, Stranger In A Strange Land

---

 

"Okay," I drawled, feeling as though I was playing along, "So, tell me this: if I'm engaged to this Barney person, why isn't he here?" The thought expanded like a pool, and I added, "... and the rest of the family... is there a mom and dad? Why isn't everyone here, if I was missing?"

Sheba, a little irritated, but half-joking, huffed, "As if I'm not enough!" I smiled in response.

"Am I simply not that important?" I threw out, teasing. She was so cute, open, and vulnerable, she made it easy to feel at ease with her.

Sheba scolded, reaching one step back in our conversation: "... what do you mean Is there a mom and dad? Mamma! Pappa! You *must* remember them!"

"Sheba, I don't remember anything!"

"Anyway, today is Friday, you ninny. Everybody has to work!" She fussed for a bit. "Jeff's not here because he drove all night and has to sleep." (Jeff, as it turned out, is Sheba's boyfriend.) "Also, he doesn't like hospitals. He's downstairs, sleeping in the car." She took a sip from her water bottle, then turned on me, saying, "You can't expect everyone to drop everything every time you pull one of your stunts. Besides, it took us a couple days to start worrying, and then when we heard about your amnesia, of course none of us took it seriously!"

"Wh— what?" I stammered. There was a lot to unpack there! I paused for a puzzled moment, then tried to parse out what she'd said. "Okay, so no one in your family believes I have amnesia? Is that what you're saying?"

"My family?" her voice rose in pitch. "It's your family, too, you know!" She frowned, full of disapproval. "Just stop it, will you?"

"Why did it take several days before anyone even *started* to be concerned about me? What's that about?"

"You really have to ask?"

"Yes, Sheba. I really have to ask. How many times do I have to tell you? I don't remember anything."

She glared at me for a few moments, then her expression softened slightly. "Okay," she conceded. "I shouldn't have to tell you this, but you're a flake. And a drama queen. It's a well-known fact, so don't try to deny it: You're a flake."

She watched me closely, cautiously, as though she'd just tossed a psychological hand grenade into an emotional mine field. She expected explosion on top of explosion. Instead, I only nodded and said, "Okay. Tell me more."

Surprised by my lack of response, she went on: "This isn't the first time you've up and ran off for no good reason. We all figured that you and Barney had a fight, even though he said you didn't."

 

---

 

Everything she told me sounded so strange... so very disconnected from me, from anything I felt or could feel. I was interested, very interested in every word she said, but I didn't experience a single flash of recognition. Sheba fed me anecdotes; she told me things I'd done. She meant to shock me, surprise me, make me laugh — and she did do all those things, but not in the way she expected. My amnesia gave me a distance. A phrase came to mind: Anything is funny as long as it happens to someone else. Sheba's intention was to remind me, embarrass me — and to humble me, as far as she was able. She was never unkind, but at times I had a feeling... a response inside... that I nearly said aloud a few times: I'm glad she's not talking about me!

Of course, she was talking about me. The entire time.

I had no reason to disbelieve anything she said. I took it all as gospel. Sheba was utterly guileless. She didn't have an ounce of trickery or deceit in her. She laid out simple truths from her family's lore about me, about them, about her.

Oddly enough — yesterday or the day before I would have given ANYTHING for this kind of information. Now that the information had arrived... my reaction was very ho-hum. Anticlimactic. None of the stories sparked any light in me. No echoes of memory. They didn't help me recover anything.

Sheba showed me photographs, which I found immensely interesting. I wish she could have left them with me, but they were on her phone. The pictures spanned years and years, and yes, there was Mom and Dad — or Mamma and Pappa, as Sheba called them.

Here were "the four of us": Cameron, me, Sheba, and Nate. Cameron's wedding to Andre. Their two little girls, whose names flew from my head the moment I heard them. Nate and his girlfriend (whose name I also promptly forgot). Me and Barney.

Barney?

"I can't see myself with this guy," I confessed to Sheba. "I don't get it."

"Yeah," she agreed. "I told you many times that he's the wrong guy for you, but you never listen."

"And I've run off before? To get away from him?"

"What?" Sheba asked, her face coming up all puzzled. "Where did you get that from?"

"I thought that's what *you* said!" I protested.

She scoffed and shook her head.

It took me a moment, but I recovered what she'd said: "You told me that — on the night I disappeared—" I had to stop there for a moment, it sounded so strange to say it— "that Barney claimed we didn't have a fight, but no one believed him. Right?" I could see Sheba was about to protest, so I cut her off: "You said that. I know you did."

"Whatever *I* said, it didn't happen like... it wasn't like what *you* just said," she explained, backtracking, a little perturbed. "See, look, uh — Cameron — Cameron's very direct. When we talked about who saw you last, it turns out that it was Barney. The two of you went out back, by the dumpster, behind the VFW Hall—"

"Why the dumpster?" I blurted out the question. "And what's the VFW?"

Sheba scoffed impatiently. "The VFW!" she exclaimed, as if saying it again somehow clarified the concept. "It was a party for Mamma and Pappa's 30th Anniversary. Come on!"

"Okay," I conceded. "So, why the dumpster?"

"How in the world would I know?" she protested. "Barney said it was your idea. One of you, or both of you — or one of you — wanted to talk in private. Next to the dumpster is about as private as you can get, when it gets going down at the VFW." Sheba saw I was about to launch some more queries in her direction, so put up her hand and said, "Wait. Let me tell you. Anyway, Barney came back inside by himself and went straight to the bar for a shot of whiskey. You didn't come back. At all. Nobody saw you again after that. Until now."

I put my hand to my forehead, processing what I'd heard. "Then—"

"Oh!" Sheba exclaimed, picking up the thread again. "I forgot what I was telling you! Barney drank his whiskey and grabbed a beer and went over to talk to Nate and Andre. They have this stupid 'bro' thing, you know. I don't know how Nate and Andre can stand him! Of course, Cameron was nearby and she came in hot. She noticed that you and Barney — well, the two of you went out together, but he came back alone, so she pointed her long, bony finger at Barney and asked him, Did you have another fight with my little sister? I wasn't there to see, but she said Barney's face went all funny, but he shook his head and said No."

"Okay," I acknowledged. It was a lot to take in.

"Okay?" she repeated, blinking several times. "Is that all you can say?"

I held up my hands in mute surrender, then I told her, "Sheba, I—"

What I wanted to say was, Sheba, I don't know ANY of these people! You might as well tell me stories from a random TV show.

I'm glad I didn't say it. Turns out I didn't need to say anything. Sheba was tired. Tired from her long-night drive, tired emotionally. She expected our interchange would be a sisterly give-and-take. She arrived convinced that I was faking and that sooner or later I'd trip up or fess up. When at last she saw I wasn't faking, she expected to be able turn my memory back on. When *that* didn't happen, she came up empty. Sheba had nothing more to give.

Sheba expected an emotional feast for herself.

Instead, she got nothing.

All the energy, all the fun, all the sisterly scheming and secrets — all fell flat. They simply weren't there to be had.

She kept tossing her emotions like a ball to me, and never, not even once, did I catch the ball and toss it back. I couldn't. I had too many questions.

She stood up and gathered her things. "I need some breakfast," she declared, as a prelude to making her exit.

I had the presence of mind to ask for her phone number (she protested that I *knew* it — then remembered that oh! I didn't).

After putting the number into my phone, I asked her another question:

"Near that dumpster, behind the V—"

"VFW Hall," she supplied.

"Right. Do they have any cameras back there? Any CCTV?"

"Oh, aren't you the little detective, all of a sudden!" She thought for a moment. "I'll ask Cameron."

 

---

 

The rest of my morning was a series of visits: the morning nurse, who took my blood pressure; the skinny blonde girl from food service, who brought my breakfast, and the pair of policewomen, who'd been notified of my impending release.

In between the breakfast and the police, I got a call on my phone. Unknown number.

"Hi, Deeny, it's me."

"Sorry, I uh— I don't know who you are. Sorry."

"You're really going to stick with this amnesia bit?" It was a woman's voice, strong, challenging.

"Look," I said in a firm voice, "If you don't tell me who you are, I'm hanging up."

A moment of silence, then: "This is Cameron."

"My sister, Cameron?"

I heard a sharp intake of breath on her end, and a mild expletive. Then: "Sheba told me you asked about the camera behind the VFW Hall. I'm way ahead of you. I got them to give me the tape from the night of the party. I'll send you the interesting part."

"Thanks."

"And by the way, I, uh, recovered the ring. I just happened to see it. Nobody knows that I've got it. You can play that little fact any way you like."

"Okay," I acknowledged, uncertain what she meant.

Reading the hesitancy in my reply, she asked, "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

"No, sorry, I really don't."

Cameron made a disappointed, disapproving sound, and said, "Well, watch the tape, then. You'll figure it out."

She hung up. A moment later my phone gave a plink!: a video had been shared with me. First I saved Cameron's number into my contact list. Then I downloaded the video and watched it.

There was no audio. It was black and white. It was an excellent view of the dumpster. Dumpster fans would approve. The timestamp was from last Monday at 22:13. I walked into the frame. It was definitely me. Barney immediately followed, moving past me. It didn't look as though either of us were aware of the camera. Throughout the video we shifted back and forth, changed places, moved in and out of view. The camera was definitely all about the dumpster, but it caught a lot of our expressions and gestures.

Me and Barney were having an intense discussion. It was clearly hot — by which I mean angry. It wasn't physical, though. There were plenty of gestures and pointing, but no grabbing or pushing or hitting. It went on for several minutes, until Barney turned and exited the frame. It must have been the point when he re-entered the VFW Hall.

I saw myself on the little screen ball up my fists and scream in rage. It was a little frightening and disturbing to watch. The scream was an ugly, full-body scream, from the soles of my feet, up my legs, to my clenched fists. My head was thrown back to face the sky. After the body-shaking howl, I growled and stamped and threw my arms around like an animal, punching the air and continuing to scream. I guess no one must have heard, because no one else appeared. Then I struggled to pull a ring off my hand — off my ring finger. My engagement ring. It had to be. It was hard to take off; I made several tugs and tries, but I couldn't do it. So I turned to run off, in the opposite direction from Barney, away from the VFW Hall.

After a few steps, I stopped and turned back toward the dumpster. I'd finally slipped the ring over my knuckle and worked it the rest of the way off my finger. That done, I reared back and threw it — aiming for the dumpster, meaning for it to end up in a landfill somewhere far away. Instead, the ring hit the metal lip of the container, and ricocheted down. It hit the ground and bounced underneath the dumpster. I stared for a few moments, before at last turning to leave. I watched myself run off, my tiny figure shrinking smaller and smaller until there was a bright flash and I was gone.

Somehow I knew — not remembering, but reading in my face on the video — that in those moments when I stared back, what I was doing was debating internally: did I see any point to going back and dropping the ring directly into the dumpster? Was it worth taking the extra moments to consign it definitively to the trash? Instead, clearly, the thing I wanted most was to get away. To leave Mariola, and never return. That flash of memory came to me once again: I saw myself in the mirror, declaring that I'd never go back. Never.

 

---

 

When the police came, they didn't have much news for me. But then again, they hadn't come to give me news. So, I pressed them.

"How's Amos?" I asked.

"Still in rough shape," Carly informed me, "but he's getting better. I don't think he has anything more to tell us."

"He didn't remember anything more about me? Anything I said?"

"Uhh— well, he said you mentioned something about a hotel." She gave me a sly look. "He thought you were asking if he wanted him to take you to a hotel."

I felt a little uneasy. "And then?"

"You told him there wasn't any point, which hurt the poor guy's feelings."

"Okay," I said. I didn't know what else to say.

"We didn't find anything of interest in Hugh's car. CSI towed it in and went over it with a fine-tooth comb. Same with Mason's car."

"Mason's car?"

"Yeah, we told you: he slept one night in the Good Old Inn. His car was still in the parking lot, but it didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. We're trying to get in touch with his family. I'm afraid we might have to take a little trip to Amsterholt and look his people up."

"Amsterholt..." I ventured. It kind of rang a bell.

"Yes, we've talked about this before. It's way the hell out in the sticks. You have to drive all the way to the middle of nowhere, then take a left and drive for another hour. That's how you get to beautiful downtown Amsterholt, as long as you don't blink and miss it.

"Anyway, though: Let's talk about you, girl! So much news! Now we know who you are and where you're from. Right?" Carly nodded to Tatum, who consulted her little notebook.

Tatum read, "Celandine Lisente, aka Deeny Lisente—"

"Not my name," I interjected, but they ignored me.

"Resident of Mariola—" [here she read my street address] "—Mariola, born and raised." [here she read my birthday] "The good news: you're not yet thirty. The bad news: you're almost thirty."

"Don't worry," Carly interjected. "Thirty's not so bad."

"It's not bad," Tatum quipped, "It's awful!" They laughed, and I found myself smiling.

"Anyway, though," Carly put forward, "If your sister can be believed, you were in Mariola last Monday evening / Monday night. We need to pin down the times as well as we can. Thing is, Mariola is almost 300 miles away as the crow flies, but you're not a crow. You can't fly. You'd have to drive, straight west, then straight south. It takes like four, five hours, hauling ass."

"Unless you cut across the desert," Tatum put in, "But at night? That's a pretty chancy shot, and there wasn't any moon that night."

I pondered this, and offered, "So it's more of a puzzle than before."

"Au contraire, my dear Celandine!" Carly retorted with a broad smile. "It gives us a lovely data point to stick in our timeline! Finally, a fact! A fact relating to you!"

She seemed enormously pleased; I felt her reaction was out of all measure.

If she was happy before, she was over the moon when I showed her Cameron's dumpster video, which (at their request) I sent to Tatum's phone.

They also asked me for Cameron's phone number.

"Now, we have to talk about where you're going and where you'll be," Carly began. "If you're intending to leave with your sister for Mariola—"

"I'm not going to Mariola," I declared.

"You're not?"

I explained about Lucy and her brother, and their offer to me. They wanted the address, along with the phone numbers of Hermie and Lucy.

"They aren't going to get in trouble for this, are they?" I asked.

"Course not," Carly responded immediately. Then she asked me to call Hermie on speaker phone so she could verify the arrangements.

 

---

 

Dr Thistlewaite bustled in, red-faced, at the end of all this, a little put out at not having participated in any of it, especially for his having missed my "reunion" with my sister.

Chiefly he was afraid that my memories had returned while he wasn't there to witness it. Now that I was being released, he worried that he'd lose touch with me, so I asked for his business card and assured him I'd keep him posted on my progress, if any.

"I've pretty much gotten used to the idea of never getting my old life back," I told him. "I'm going to learn to live without my memories. I'll make some new ones. They'll be better."

"You feel that way now—" he warned, but I shook my head.

"If things change, I'll change," I said. "I'm fine with the way things are, right now."

 

---

 

After that came paperwork, things to sign. Sheba brought with her a bag of clothes, my clothes, along with my documents (birth certificate, drivers license, bank cards, insurance, library card). Either the police or the hospital had warned her that she'd need to produce bona fides to show not only who I was, but who she was to me.

She, or whoever packed the bag, did a great job. I know this will sound stupid, and I'm glad no one was around to hear me say it, but when I tried on the clothes in the bag, I exclaimed, astonished, "Everything fits!"

Yes, of course they fit: they were my clothes.

And then came the difficult part. I must admit as I'm telling this, that I realized that — whoever or whatever else I am or was — I'm kind of an asshole, and not very considerate. I say that because I called up Sheba to (1) thank her for coming and bringing my things, and (2) to give her the address where I'd be staying.

At first she didn't speak. I thought the connection had dropped. "Sheba? Sheba? Are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here," she said. I sensed danger on the line. Her response started out low and slow, but she built up to a tirade that really cleaned my ears out. "What is wrong with you?" was her first shot across my bow.

I knew the question was rhetorical, but I croaked an "Uhhhh...." as a sort of reply.

She pointed out the effort that she — and even more than she, that Jeff had made, driving through the night, through the darkness, and for what? "For what?" she asked. "For a selfish sister who only wanted a change of clothes? No thank you!"

She acknowledged that, yes, Barney was more than likely a jerk who deserved to be dropped into the dumpster behind the VFW Hall and left there, but that didn't give me the right to run off and pretend to have amnesia and live with some weirdos who were probably hippies, communists, and scam artists.

I don't believe I need to go through her entire takedown of my personal issues, faults, and offenses. She was quite throrough, and I took a few mental notes, building a profile of Deeny-as-seen-by-her-younger-sister.

At the same time, I was shocked at myself, by my own callousness in thinking I could easily, simply brush off a young, open, vulnerable person who saw me as one of her closest blood relatives, as a person she'd known her entire life. Was I really so insensitive that I thought a matter-of-fact change-of-address notice would be enough? Apparently yes, I *was* that insensitive.

Sheba quickly, effectively shot down every one of my "sorries" as if they were clay pigeons.

She ended by demanding to know what time I'd be released. I told her. She replied, "I'll be there," and hung up the phone.

 

---

 

A few minutes later, Cameron called. She cut through my hello, telling me, "You've always been a selfish, narcissistic child, but this time you've really taken the cake." With that, she hung up.

The two calls left me so nervous that I paced my hospital room, back and forth, running my hands through my hair, stopping every now and then to blow a raspberry. Don't ask me why — it just came to me.

I didn't think anyone could hear me, but eventually one of the nurses came to my door, and with a cautious look asked me in a quiet voice, "Is that you? Are you having problems with gas?"

Oh, no, of course not! I explained what I was doing. Not farting, for the love of God! She gave me a dubious look and asked that if I had to make a noise, could I make some other noise instead? "I'm sure you don't realize it," she said, "but that sound is going everywhere."

Okay, fine. Instead of raspberries, I went into the bathroom to splash water on my face.

My phone rang again. Another unknown caller.

"That you, Deeny-pie?" A woman's voice inquired. There was a strong Texas twang coming through.

"Mamma?" I ventured.

"See that? I knew you were fakin', girl! You can't fool your old mamma! Tell me, now, what on EARTH are you telling your sisters? You've got the pair of them worked up in a tizzy!" She let out a brisk tsk!

"But, look — Mamma—" [I had to make a conscious effort to say that name] "—I really do have amnesia, and—"

"Stop that! Stop that, now! Do you hear me? No child of mine is going to run around having amnesia! No such a thing! You're embarrassing yourself! You're embarrassing the family! You stop it now! Just stop! In the name of Jesus! No daughter of mine is going traipse through the state telling people she don't know her own name! No, sir! No, ma'am! How can I DARE show my face—"

"Mamma, it's real," I told her. "I have amnesia. I only guessed that this was you calling, but I swear to God, I don't remember you, or Sheba, or Cameron. I lost my—"

"Do NOT take the name of the Lord in vain!" she thundered. "We raised you to know better!"

At that moment, a group appeared at my hospital-room door: Dr Thistlewaite, the two policewomen: Carly and Tatum, and a hospital orderly pushing an empty wheelchair.

My phone buzzed. I could see that Hermie was calling.

"I'm sorry, Mamma, but I have to go. They're releasing me from the hospital. I'll call you."

She was still talking — or, rather, shouting — as I hung up.

I picked up the other call. "Hello, Hermie?"

"I'm parked at the front door," he said. "They told me to wait for you here."

"I'm on my way down," I told him.

"Good," he said. "Uh— your, oh, your sister Sheba is here, and she is— uh—" I could hear Sheba's voice in the background: is that her? Give me that phone! Is that her? I'll strangle her! "She's— uh—"

"Don't worry, Hermie. Everything's going to be okay," I assured him. "Hang tight. I'm on my way."

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 8

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

You should have heard the oohs and aahs
Everyone wondering who she was...

— Lerner and Loewe, You Did It

---

 

"Everything all right?" Thistlewaite asked me.

"It will be," I said. "My sister is downstairs. Earlier today I told her that I'm staying here in Robbins. She didn't take it very well. And so... she's downstairs now. I don't know whether she's simply waiting to tell me off one more time before she leaves, or whether she plans... or expects... to take me back to Mariola with her." My voice trailed off. I let out a heavy sigh. Carly gave me an expectant look, so I explained: "I was a real asshole about it. Sheba is upset with me. She's... agitated, and that's making Hermie anxious."

Carly spoke: "Look, I appreciate the melodrama. I have a family, too, but this is serious. This goes way beyond hurt feelings and family drama. There are two men missing — one of them a Robbins cop, and you — fortunately and unfortunately — are our only lead and the closest thing we have to a witness. I can't let you leave Robbins."

"I'm *not* leaving Robbins," I assured her. "This may sound crazy, but everything and everyone I know is here. I've *got* to stay here, at least until my memories come back. If they ever come back."

"Be that as it may, but what I'm telling you is that memories or no memories, you're not leaving town. I'll lock you up as a material witness if I have to."

"I just told you," I said, holding up both hands in mock surrender. "I'm not leaving Robbins. I don't know how many ways I can say it. I'm going with Hermie, to his house, just as we agreed."

"How much of a scene is your sister going to make, downstairs?" Tatum asked.

"Honestly, I don't know. I mean, I don't really know her. All I can tell you is that when Hermie called just now, he had a note of panic in his voice. Maybe it's just Hermie being Hermie, or... well, I hate to say this, but he's a little afraid of her, of Sheba."

Carly and Tatum glanced at each other. Carly frowned, then told Tatum, "Why don't you head down there, right now, so you can head things off. Make sure Hermie feels secure. As for Sheba... the key word is de-escalate."

"Look, I was pretty cold when I told her I wasn't going back to Mariola," I confessed.

"She's a big girl," Carly commented dismissively. "She can nurse her hurt feelings on that long ride back to Mariola." She nodded to Tatum. "Get going."

After Tatum left, I had misgivings about almost everything I'd said. "I hope we're not making a big deal out of nothing. I don't want to get Sheba in trouble."

Carly impatiently pointed out, "Look: forget about Sheba, will you? First and foremost, the real issue right here, the one thing that's important right now, for all of us, is finding Hugh Fencely. And Mason Rafflyan. If Sheba gets in trouble, that's on her. It'll be on account of something *she* does, not because of something *you* say."

"Okay," I acquiesced, and dropped the issue.

The lanky orderly, who'd been silent so far, cleared his throat to signal he had a question.

"What is it?" Carly asked him, tilting her head back to look up at his face. He stood at maybe a foot and a half taller than her.

"Is there, uh, some kind of situation going on downstairs? Are we stepping into some kind of bear trap?"

Carly grinned at him, amused. "Are you worried? There's a uniformed cop downstairs waiting for us, and you're getting a real-life, flesh-and-blood police escort—" here she tapped her own chest— "all the way down. What more could you want?"

He took a breath. Hesitated. I imagine he wished the police at hand were two big, burly men, instead of a pair of women, both of whom were under average height.

At last he suggested, "We could call Security."

She regarded him with an open-mouthed smile for a few moments before answering. "Let's just see how it goes, okay? Come on, it's time to rock 'n roll."

"Don't worry," I told him. "I'm pretty sure Sheba's bark is worse than her bite."

The orderly scratched his head. "Okay," he concluded. "Just for the record, though, it sounds like you-all are worried, but you're telling ME not to worry." Then, resigning himself to whatever awaited us downstairs, he patted the handles of the wheelchair. "Okay, ma'am. Have a seat. Before you ask," he informed me, "Even though you're up and walking and feel perfectly great, you still have to ride in a wheelchair all the way from here to your car. It's protocol."

"Insurance," Carly offered, by way of explanation. "The hospital doesn't want you to fall down and get a second lump on the head — at least not before you're out of here!"

Fine with me! I plumped myself down in the chair and set my feet squarely on the footrests. The orderly backed the chair out of the room into the hallway, and rolled me to the elevator. The four of us descended to the ground floor and followed a long hallway to the hospital lobby.

The moment we entered the lobby, I immediately spotted Sheba, far across the room and outside the windows that flanked the entrance. It was the arm-waving that made her stand out. Next to her I saw a young, fit-looking guy with brown hair. He had to be Jeff, her boyfriend. Sheba's expression was a mixture of anger and determination... and (to my surprise) a heavy dose of embarrassment. Why didn't I realize earlier how humiliating this must to be for her? To have come all this way, only to be casually dismissed?

She and Jeff stationed themselves near the hood of a dull green car. Hermie stood to their left, near the trunk of a old silver-colored car. The poor guy wiped his face with a shaky hand. Obviously, he felt painfully anxious and nervous. Tatum had placed herself between Hermie and my family. Hermie's eyes kept darting at the young policewoman, for reassurance. She stood there, in her blue uniform, representing authority, arms crossed, chewing gum to show how relaxed she felt. Just your friendly neighborhood cop. Keeping the peace.

That was the scene waiting for us on the sidewalk, outside. At the sight of it, the orderly came to a halt. Probably it was Sheba's state of animation that gave him pause.

I turned my head so I could look up to both him and Carly. "Hey," I said. "I know what to tell Sheba. Let's go."

Carly reached up high and put a hand on the orderly's shoulder. She grinned and said, "Let's do it. Roll her up to the first car, the black one."

I couldn't see his face, but I heard him mutter, "Still time to call Security!" but it fell on deaf ears. He bravely (?) pushed my wheelchair through the big glass doors, out to the wide sidewalk. Hermie opened his passenger door, The orderly positioned my chair alongside the opening and locked the wheels.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Sheba called in a loud voice. "Hold on there! No, no, no-no-no! She's coming with me. She's coming back to Mariola with ME!"

I stood, put my hand on the roof of Hermie's car, and turned to face her. "I'm sorry, Sheba, but I need to do this. Besides the whole thing with my memory—"

"Which is bullshit," she cut in.

"There are two men missing. One of them is a policeman from Robbins. As far as anyone can tell, I was the last person to see them. The police won't let me go until the men are found."

Sheba's jaw worked, twisting this way and that. She could argue against me, but I'd just invoked city hall. It's hard to fight city hall.

Carly backed me up. "She can't leave town until we have all the answers. I've already told her that I'll lock her up as a material witness, if that's what it takes to keep her here. Our priority is finding our man. The two men."

Sheba shot her a look. A defeated look. Her shoulders slumped. She got the message. I'm sure that if it was only a matter of *my* wanting to stay in Robbins, she would have fought tooth and nail to carry me back. But the police? She didn't like it, but she had to go along.

"I'm sorry," I told her in a soft voice.

"Oh, fuck you and your sorries!" she replied, but now she spoke in a more normal tone. Her anger lost some of its heat, but her resentment still burned; an eternal flame. She was looking down, talking to the ground. "It's just that — I'm your SISTER! I'm your sister, God damn it! I drove all night to pick you up and bring you home, but you don't care! You're supposed to come home, with me."

"I know this must be difficult—" Thistlewaite began, addressing Sheba, "but—"

"Oh, do shut up!" Sheba barked. Thistlewaite pressed his lips closed.

Sheba took a step in my direction. Tatum took a small step as well, blocking the way. Sheba cleared her throat and said, "Don't worry. I just want a hug." Tatum nodded and stepped back. My sister and I stepped forward, both of us clumsily banging into the wheelchair. Sheba shoved it away, and we hugged. She squeezed me like a wrestler would, hard, pressing the air out of me. I know it was her excess of emotion, but even so it alarmed me, and hurt the bruises on my side, but I tried to just go with it. She buried her face in my shoulder, and clung to me.

In a low voice, meant only for her, I said, "I love you, Sheba." It seemed like the right thing to say, even if I didn't feel it.

"Oh, go fuck yourself," she replied, letting go and taking a half-step back. I wasn't sure how to take what she said, but when she caught the confused expression on my face, she burst into laughter. She laughed as she wiped tears from her cheeks.

She gave me an affectionate shove that knocked me back a half-step, and with a wry smile said, "God almighty, Deeny. You're so selfish, and you're never going to change." Shaking her head, she walked back to Jeff and took his hand.

I very nearly said "I'm sorry," once again, but held my tongue. Instead I said, "I have your number. Thanks for coming and telling me who I am. Dr Thistlewaite says I should get my memories back soon — I probably should have gotten them back already — and when I do, it will change everything. For right now, though, I need to stay here... stick with what little I know."

Sheba shook her head vigorously the whole time I spoke, and when I finished, she broke down and began to cry. "How can you do this?" she sobbed. "How? What is wrong with you? Why are you like this?" Jeff, alarmed by her abrupt outburst, looked to her, unsure of what to do. Should he hang onto her hand? Give it a squeeze? Should he let go and hug her... or simply leave her emotions to run their course? His indecision was written all over his face. Before he could decide, Sheba calmed herself, at least enough to stop crying. She snuffled hard. She dried her tears, stood up straighter, set her jaw, and told me, in a very dramatic tone, "Mamma prays every day that the Lord will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Did you know that? This is your heart of stone in action, for everyone to see." She let off a loud tsk! and added, "You never care about anyone but yourself!" It sounded like a recitation, maybe something our mother often said? Turning to Jeff, Sheba told him, "Let's get out of this awful little town. Let's go home."

In a quiet voice, he asked her, "Don't you want to see where they go?"

She nodded almost imperceptibly and got into her car. She sat stiffly, as if sitting in a church pew, her eyes fixed directly ahead, studiously avoiding looking in my direction. Jeff took a breath, and knowing Sheba couldn't see, gave a quick nod hello and a quick flash of a friendly smile to me. I nodded back. Jeff called to Hermie, "I'll just follow you, to know where Deeny is, okay? Don't worry. As soon as you get to where you're going, we'll blast off back to Mariola and be out of your hair."

Hermie, who by this point was thoroughly frightened, replied, "Sure. Sure." He scurried to get behind the wheel of his car, and I sat on his passenger side. The orderly closed my door. I rolled down the window so I could hear Carly. She bent down and told Hermie, "We're going to follow you as well. You're doing great, Hermie. Just keep calm, drive slowly and safely, and everything's going to be fine."

As Carly walked back to her car, Hermie exhaled, maybe for the first time that morning. "Thank God for the police!" he said to me in a low voice. "Your sister scares me to death!"

"Oh, Sheba? She's a pussycat," I assured him, hoping it was true.

I rolled my window back up and reached over to squeeze his hand. "Are you alright? I can drive if you don't feel up to it."

"No, I'm fine to drive," he replied. "It's only that... I wasn't expecting the, uh, friendly fire back there. I'm not big on drama."

"Yeah, sorry."

He glanced at me. "You don't think your family's going to try anything, do you?"

"Try anything? Like what?"

"Like... like try to kidnap you? Or give me grief? They couldn't sue me, could they?"

"There's nothing they could sue you for! As far as the rest of it... honestly, I don't know," I answered. "Just remember: if things get difficult for you and Lucy, I'll leave your house right away and go somewhere else, agreed?"

"Yeah, that— um, agreed," he answered, fumbling with the gear shift, very nearly taking off in reverse.

 

---

 

Hermie, taking Carly's encouragement as a direct police order, drove as slowly as a senior citizen, carefully using his turn indicators, doing the hand-over-hand movement on the steering wheel... His eyes did a regular dance over his rear-view mirrors, as well as scanning ahead left and right, checking for pedestrians.

I didn't speak, afraid of breaking his concentration.

Our little three-car parade wound its way slowly through the streets of Robbins until we climbed a little hill, and — with the appropriate turn-signal flashing — Hermie pulled into the driveway of Craftsman-style bungalow.

"I hope that Lucy didn't oversell this place to you," Hermie mumbled as he took my bag, the bag Sheba brought me. "It was our grandmother's house. We haven't done anything to it. It's little and old, and our extra room — the one you can stay in — is little, too."

"Little and old," I said, smiling. "Sounds great."

I'd forgotten until now, but in that moment I remembered Lucy telling me that their parents had died. "Did you live here with your grandparents, then?" I ventured.

He looked at me in surprise as if he didn't expect the question. "Uh, well, we did, yeah. We lived here with Grandma, any way. Until, you know, she... went."

"Sorry," I offered, feeling utterly inadequate.

"It's okay," he responded. "That's life." As he spoke, he looked off to the right, to the curb where Sheba had parked. The police pulled in right behind her. "I've never been so happy to see the police," he commented. "Your sister is pretty scary."

Sheba was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, hands on her hips, looking the little house up and down as if her negative judgment could burn the place to the ground. If she could call down fire from heaven, I'm sure she would.

In a quiet voice, Hermie asked me, "I'm sorry if I keep asking, but do I have to worry about her?"

Carly and Tatum slowly emerged from their car, eyes on Sheba.

I put my hand on Hermie's shoulder. "Why don't we have a little conversation with the police about that, before they go, okay?"

A shade of relief came into his face at that.

"And I know I just said this, but remember, if my staying here gets difficult for you or Lucy, I'll go. Right away. Okay?"

"Deal," he acknowledged.

As we stood there, Carly walked over to Sheba and started talking to her, quietly.

"Let's go in the house," I suggested. Tatum broke off from Carly and approached us.

"Aren't you going inside?" she asked. Before we could answer she added, "Can I come along?"

Hermie, still spooked, glanced over at Carly and Sheba. "Is, uh, Carly going to be alright there?"

"All by herself?" Tatum replied, finishing his thought. She grinned. Almost laughed. "You know, Robbins' cops have to take self-defense, martial-arts classes."

"And Carly's really good?"

"She's the teacher." Tatum grinned, her tongue in her cheek.

I couldn't tell whether the tongue-in-cheek expression meant that Tatum was joking, teasing, or just plain lying. Maybe she'd spoken the simple truth, and found that truth amusing. In any case, Hermie found comfort in it, so I kept my doubts to myself. Carly clearly had set the tone of the exchange: Sheba calmed down quite a bit, in deference to authority. She'd stopped making animated gestures and angry faces, and when she spoke she used short phrases and quick nods instead of long tirades.

Hermie's house stood on a small rise, which we climbed from the side. A set of concrete stairs cut the front lawn neatly in two, but we didn't go that way because that's where Sheba had planted herself.

As we climbed the three wooden steps to the front porch, I began to see what Hermie meant when he said "we haven't done anything to it." The left handrail wobbled, hanging on by a couple of nails. The porch itself was level, but a few boards here and there were broken or missing, and the entire thing needed a coat of paint. The walls of the house were not as bad, but a little paint would go a long way to brightening the place up.

Once we stepped inside, it was like traveling back in time. It was obviously still Grandma's house. All the furniture, the wallpaper, the rugs, the light fixtures, were old and dusty. The place didn't smell bad, exactly, but it needed a good airing out. There was a faint aura of naphthaline (the scent you find in vintage mothballs), but it was so faint I may have imagined it. The armchairs and the couch were draped in large, faded white sheets — probably because the upholstery was too worn to be seen.

"Cute," I said.

Hermie gave an appreciative smile.

The kitchen wasn't as bad as I expected. The cabinets, counters, and appliances were all dated, but they were in good repair. The entire room was spic-n-span from the cabinets to the floor. There was only one plate, one fork, and one coffee mug in the sink. "No dishwasher," I observed.

"Naw, we're the dishwashers."

Tatum opened the fridge. It was remarkably clean inside, smelling fresh, and nicely in order. There were small stacks of leftovers in glass and Tupperware containers, as well as fresh vegetables, fruit, and other items. "Wow!" Tatum exclaimed. "I wish my fridge was as well stocked as this one!"

"Lucy," Hermie said proudly, by way of explanation. I nodded.

Hermie's bedroom was on the first floor. "This used to be the dining room," he told us. "Then, you know, her last nine months, Grandma couldn't handle the stairs, so she set the room up like this." His breath caught for a quick moment as he said, "I, uh, took it after she—" The bed was unmistakably a hospital bed, complete with side rails. The other furnishings were purely functional: enameled-metal items like you'd find in a hospital room.

Hermie didn't appear to have an ounce of self-pity or sadness. He seemed unaware of the sense of tragedy that overlay everything here. Still, it weighed on him. It was as if a sad song was playing over and over in the background, that by pure repetition became a sound he couldn't hear any more. It was simply life as it was. Tatum gave me a glance that told me she felt it as well.

At the time I didn't understand why Hermie left the room that way, as if his grandmother could return at any minute. How could it not upset him, to see it, to live in it, to SLEEP in it, day after day? He could easy sell the hospital bed, I'm sure, and set up a normal bedroom for himself. It wouldn't take much.

After getting to know him, I realized there were two reasons: first of all, it never occurred to him. For Hermie, his environment, the house he lives in, is a given, not something he's used to making decisions about. The second is, that even in the moments when he'd wish that things were different, he had no idea how, specifically, he wanted those differences to appear. For instance, sure, he could paint the walls, but that would mean he'd have to choose a color. And that's where his design paralysis set in.

Upstairs, by way of contrast, was Lucy's room: well-ordered and very clean. It had the air of young teenage girl. A few stuffed animals occupied strategic vantage points. There were frills and stars, fairy lights and pictures of big-eyed kittens. Odd, wasn't it? I imagined Lucy as made of sterner stuff. Hermie smiled as he showed us the room, a smile that showed how much affection and love he felt for his little sister.

Finally, he showed me a tiny room, fitted with a day bed, a bare metal rack to hang clothes, and a tall narrow bureau with seven drawers. "This is basically a box room," he explained, apologetically. "This was my room when we first moved here," he said. "I'm sorry it's not nicer, but if you find some way to fix it up for yourself... go for it."

"Thanks," I said. "Much appreciated. I like the window. Lots of light." In fact, the room featured an enormous, wide window, as tall as me, whose sill was only two inches from the floor.

Tatum looked the place over as though it were a crime scene, but kept her thoughts to herself.

As we descended the stairs, Carly entered the front door, which was still standing open. Behind her, in the street, Sheba stood next to her car, talking on her phone. Tatum closed the door and threw the bolt, and the four of us stepped into the kitchen.

"You gonna be okay here?" Carly asked me.

"Yes, I think so," I replied. "As long as my new-found family doesn't cause trouble for Hermie and Lucy."

"Do you think they might? Cause trouble?"

"I don't know. Remember, I don't know anything about these people, aside from their names, and the fact that they're from Mariola."

"Right."

"But—" I added, "it just occurred to me: I can call my sister Cameron. She seems to be the most level-headed in the bunch, at least so far. Maybe I can get an idea of what they will or won't do. Apparently I've always been causing them grief, and this isn't the first time I've run off, so maybe they're fed up and will leave me alone."

"What do you mean, it's not the first time you've run off?" Carly quizzed.

"I don't know," I told her. "It's something Sheba said." I shrugged.

"Okay," Carly acknowledged. "We can hang out until they drive off."

"I'd like that," Hermie told her, gratefully.

"You have our phone numbers, right, Hermie? Mine and Tatum's?"

He said he did. Still, he checked his phone, just to be sure.

Carly looked around her, then asked, "Do you mind if I take a look around the outside? Get a sense of the place?" After she exited through the kitchen door, Hermie — for lack of anything better to do — offered to show us the basement. We followed him down a set of stairs, sturdy, but made of rough, unfinished wood.

The basement had a gray, concrete floor. The walls were cinder blocks, and the windows were flush with the ceiling. They were typical basement windows: simple two-pane affairs, just over one foot high and about two feet wide. The washer and drier were down here, along with a rack for drying clothes, a metal closet full of empty shelves, and some wooden half-walls that I recognized as the remnants of a coal bin, now stuffed with broken lawn chairs, beach umbrellas in need of repair, and other bits of — well, other bits of trash, frankly, in need of tossing.

It was spacious, and in spite of the few, small windows, full of light. And it was clean, not musty and dusty, like everything upstairs. Strange to say, but it's as if the tragedy that lay over the upstairs floors hadn't been able to penetrate down here.

"Hey, Hermie — would you mind? I mean, would it be okay with you if I slept down here? I obviously don't need the whole space, just enough room for a bed, you know? and if I could use that metal closet?"

He looked around, blinking. "You want to sleep in the basement?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "It's pretty nice for a basement. It's light, it's dry... I can clean it up. Maybe hang a curtain for privacy?" He considered it — I could see the idea of using the space in any way had never occurred to him.

"I can take apart that bed upstairs and haul it down here — if that's okay with you."

"Um, wow," he said. I could see I'd taken him utterly by surprise. "Let me see what Lucy says. If it's okay with her, it's fine with me."

"Okay, cool," I said.

He scratched his neck, thinking. "You know, we might have an inflatable mattress up in the attic. If we do, and if it works, it would be easier to carry that down, rather than lugging that bed."

 

---

 

After Carly's inspection outside, she recommended that we put a new lock on the kitchen door, and that we secure the bulkhead door on the inside. At present, she said, it wasn't locked at all.

"I can do that," I said.

"Can you?" Tatum asked.

"Yes," I replied. "Somehow I do. I know I do." I could see it all in my head, as if it was a video, the steps to changing a lock... and the pieces I'd need to secure the bulkhead.

 

---

 

After Sheba left, Carly and Tatum left as well. I idly wondered whether they'd follow Sheba's car to make sure she left town, but I didn't bother to ask.

I took a good look at the back door and the bulkhead. Hermie gave me directions to the closest hardware store. I also asked about an ATM. There was one along the way.

As soon as I left the house, I took out my phone and called Cameron. We spoke as I walked.

"This is a surprise," she told me, in a dry, flat tone. "You never call me."

"Well, I'm not myself," I quipped.

"You've really hurt Sheba's feelings. I mean, if that matters to you at all. Mamma is incandescent."

Incandescent? I pictured a middle-aged woman, glowing like a lamp. I wanted to jokingly ask Cameron whether being incandescent was a good thing or a bad thing, but I wisely kept my wisecrack to myself.

Instead, I told her, "I'm sorry about that, but I have to follow this through down here. There are two men missing. One of them's a cop, and I may be the last person who's seen them. I have to stay here until I get my memories back."

"You're really not giving up on this amnesia caper, are you?"

"It's not a caper. I swear to God, I have amnesia."

Cameron was silent for a beat, then asked, "Then why are you calling me, if you don't know who I am?"

"You seem like the most rational person in the family. Can I ask you a few questions about myself?"

Cameron let out a scoffing groan. "Oh, God — oh, yes, by all means! Let's do your favorite thing! Talking about yourself."

"Am I really that self-centered?"

"Well, look at yourself, right now, and tell me what you think? You've got the entire family up in arms. You've left your little sister furious and in tears. Her poor boyfriend is stuck in a car with her on a five-hour drive while she fusses and cries and fumes. You've got the whole damn town of Robbins wound up, wondering oooh! who is the mystery girl! And you've foisted yourself on some poor little guy who's afraid of his own shadow. What's his name? Bernie?"

"Hermie," I corrected.

She gave a derisive snort. "Hermie. Are you sleeping with him?"

"No! Of course not!"

"There is no of course not with you on that score," she countered, as if she was reminding me. "When you say no, you mean, not yet."

"No! I have no intention of sleeping with him! And he has zero interest in me. In that way."

"If you say so."

"Am I that bad? In that way? Really?"

"Yes, really. And please — I am not going to discuss your amorous adventures, past or present, or any of your ill-advised couplings. God! Honestly, you have an infallible instinct for knowing when a man is rutting."

"Rutting?" I repeated, bewildered.

"Look it up," she snapped.

"Okay, sorry," I said. "Can I just ask you one thing? Sheba mentioned in passing that this wasn't the first time I'd run off. What did she mean? Did I run away from Barney once before?"

Cameron didn't answer for a few moments. Long enough that I thought perhaps the line had gone dead.

"Cameron?"

"You really do have amnesia, don't you?" she said, more of a statement, almost a realization of fact. Not so much a question.

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Why would I pretend?"

"Because it's exactly the sort of thing you'd do," she explained, but now her tone was more patient. Tentatively patient. "This is really strange, I have to admit. I mean, you're a terrible liar and an even worse actor, so I can't get over it. Talking to you now is like talking to a person I don't know."

"Tell me about it!" I said.

"Okay. So, no, you haven't run away from Barney before, but in the past you have disappeared for days at a time — usually with a man, some completely inappropriate random man, and when you reappear, you have a shaggy-dog story..."

"A shaggy-dog story?"

She made an impatient sound and then, "A shaggy-dog story! You talk a lot of nonsense until people get tired of trying to get the truth out of you. You have this... inexhaustible supply of silly stories that no one could possibly believe, while you insist they're God's honest truth.

"As far as Barney goes..." She blew a raspberry. "I never liked him. Never. Neither does Sheba. I'm not sure what Nate really thinks. Nate and Andre and Barney have this idiotic 'bro' thing going — the less said about that, the better. Then again, Nate likes everybody. Mamma LOVES Barney because he's got money and pretends to be all about Jesus. Mamma loves to say how Barney loves the Lord, which is a big load of horse manure. AND she believes he's your last chance at marrying. You know, Mamma was raised with that conservative Texas church culture... She got married way too young and she believes the Lord wants the three of us to do the same."

"Huh."

"So don't worry about Barney. You're better off losing him than finding him again. But it's your choice! If you want to marry him, go right on ahead and marry him. That said, I'd bet good cash money that the two of you wouldn't last more'n nine months! A year, at the very most. That's why I say, if you don't want to marry him, that's even better. You don't *need* to get married, you know. I mean you, not you and Barney. You. Maybe you're just not the marrying type. Or maybe you'll get married when you're old, or older, after you've sown your wild oats. Lord knows, that'll take some time — I mean, as far as wild oats go, you seem to have an endless supply."

"Huh."

In the background of the call I heard children's voices. They grew louder until it was clear that the children were right there, next to Cameron. She said something muffled that I couldn't make out, then she told the girls, "I'm talking to your crazy auntie, girls."

"Deeny! Deeny!" they began to shout. I had the feeling they were jumping as they spoke.

"Say hi to my baby girls," Cameron told me, "I'm putting you on speaker."

Of course I had no idea what to say, or what their names were, but I called out, "Hello, my little cuties! Hi, this is your favorite auntie! Are you having fun?"

The two of them replied together, jumbling the sounds into a confusing racket.

"Did you get that?" Cameron asked. "They're asking when you're coming home."

"Oh, jeez," I said, "Put me on the spot, why don't you?"

"Just say you're coming soon," Cameron said. "They're too little to know when you're lying."

"I'm coming soon!" I called out to the little strangers. "I love you!"

"We love you, too, Aunt Deeny!" they crooned.

I hung up, feeling like a heel.

Of course, I'd entirely forgotten the reason for my call. What I really wanted to know was whether I had to worry about Sheba — or any other member of my family... would they come to get me, to kidnap me, to try to force me back to Mariola? Would they make life difficult for Hermie and Lucy?

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 9

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

Between the two of us a great chasm has been fixed,
so that you cannot come to where I am,
nor can I come to you.

— Luke 16:25

---

 

I stopped at an ATM and used my card to check my balance.

That act in itself is pretty extraordinary, when you consider that only a day ago I had no idea who I was or where to find my home.

Yet, here I was, inserting a card in my name — a name that's still foreign to me — and typing in my PIN. Looking at my balance. *My* balance. With no idea where the money came from.

You're probably wondering how I knew the PIN for my account. The answer is that one of the items Sheba brought me was my wallet, and one of the items contained in that wallet was a laminated 3x5 card with all my usernames, passwords, and PIN numbers written on it, covering both sides.

I have to say: the handwriting was very neat, and the lamination impressed me. It was a lot of trouble to go for a 3x5 card.

At the same time, it was a little troubling to find all that information so easily accessible.

I think at this point, I need to split myself in two, and talk about myself BEFORE amnesia as "Deeny" and myself AFTER amnesia as "Perry." The more I learn about Deeny, the more she seems a whole 'nother person.

As a case in point, let's talk about this 3x5 card: it's efficient, and even (in a certain sense) elegant, in the way that it provides all the keys to my financial life: my bank account, my credit cards, my Amazon password, and the passwords to other online accounts. If anybody else found it, any literate person on earth, they'd have complete access to all my assets. They could empty my bank account, order whatever they liked from Amazon, and so on.

They could steal my IDENTITY! Think about that: too bad they couldn't steal my amnesia! In fact, the past few days would have been a perfect time to steal my identity: exactly when I not only wasn't using it but also had no idea where to look for it.

One again, the stupidity of this syndrome, or whatever you want to call amnesia: I'm the same person that I was. So how could I see the same thing so differently? So fundamentally differently?

If Perry, the "me" I am now, sees this card as a dangerous vulnerability, why didn't Deeny, the "me" I was before, see it in the same way?

Then again, who knows? Maybe I *did* see it that way, but figured the convenience outweighed the danger.

Still, this, the question, the resulting inner dialog, all makes me feel more and more as though amnesia has turned me into a different person. Cameron said so as well. Where did this other me come from? Maybe all of my personality, my behavior, my way of living and talking and carrying on with life — maybe all of that was simply an overlay; a reaction to Mariola and my family. (Apparently my parents were forceful personalities.)

One actual memory that backed up my theory was the emphatic way the old Deeny-me declared that I'd never return to Mariola.

It was beginning to look as though my amnesia allowed me to drop the "self" I developed as Deeny Lisente. Now, as Perry, I was a tabula rasa, a clean sheet.

In any case, according to the ATM, I had just under $13,000 in checking and $900 in savings. Surprise, surprise! I wonder what it is I do for a living? Was anyone missing me at my job? If they were, I suppose Sheba or Cameron would have said something about it. I withdrew $100, and used my credit card at the hardware store to pay for a new deadbolt for the back door and a chain and padlock for the bulkhead. I hurried back home and a half hour later the work was done. It was simplicity itself. Seemed as though I'd done it before.

So many questions!

Lucy was already at work, so I offered to either take Hermie out to lunch, or order something in. He chose a third option: calling in an order to a Mexican place nearby, and walking over to pick it up. A nice compromise.

It was great to be out in the open air, walking, moving, listening to the wind rustling the trees, without anyone taking my blood pressure or asking whether I'd remembered anything.

"I feel like I've spent half my life in the hospital," I told Hermie.

"I guess you would feel that way," he replied, scratching his head.

We sat on the porch, sharing our lunch. We finished off the meal with some churros, which — like all the rest of the meal —were new to me.

Hermie was quiet. It seems to be his natural state. I wanted some conversation, but didn't want to talk about myself, so I asked, "Hey, Hermie — if you don't mind my asking — what do you do?"

"Do you mean, what do I do for a living? I used to do computer repairs, phone repairs. Sometimes I help out a friend who has a storefront in town. When he gets busy, he calls. I jump in and help him clear the case load."

I nodded.

"Lately, though, I took some time off because I want to fix up the house. I know it needs it. It's embarrassing. The thing is, I have no idea what to do, how to start. I don't even know how to make a plan, or how to make good decisions. I feel like I'm supposed to be breaking down walls, but then what?"

"Really?" I asked. "Do you want some help? I mean, I'd say, first of all, don't break any walls just yet. Don't start something you don't know how to finish. There's a lot you can do before you start busting stuff and leaving holes in the walls. Why not start with what's most obvious?"

"And what would that be?"

"The porch. Fix the handrail. Replace the broken boards. Scrape the flaking paint. Re-paint it."

"And then?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself. First the handrail. Then the porch. Finish the porch and then think about what's next. What's the next thing you'll be able to start and finish." I emphasized the last two words.

He nodded.

In spite of my advice to him, of not skipping ahead, I found myself thinking You could fix your bedroom... turn it into... well, a into a bedroom! "I can help," I repeated.

"But what about what *you* do?" he asked. "I mean, for work. At some point you have to make money, right? I can't pay you for what you do here. I don't have that kind of money. Besides, I want to do it myself, as much as I can."

"Right," I agreed. "But I owe you for letting me stay here. As far as what I do... I'm going to call my mother tonight and see whether she knows what I do for a living."

Hermie found that last statement so nonsensical, so silly, that he started laughing and couldn't stop for several minutes.

It was good to see him smile.

 

---

 

After we ate, I borrowed the vacuum cleaner and went to work on the basement. Luckily the vacuum was one of the bagless variety, because the recepticle filled up quickly, over and over; there was so much dirt and dust. Every few minutes I had to stop, dump the load of dust in a garbage bag, and rub the dust out of the filters with my fingers. I probably should have rented a more industrial-strength machine.

It soon became clear that it was the wrong tool for the job. After cleaning the vacuum cleaner, I switched to trying to wash the floor. I say "I tried" because the dirt was so ingrained, I had to keep changing the water. It turned black so quickly! It also took forever to dry, so Hermie suggested I sleep in the box room upstairs the first night.

By then, it was 8:30. It seemed a good time to call "Mamma." She was much calmer this time, though still chock full of judgment.

I wasn't sure how I could ask what I did for a living. It was a pretty strange thing to ask of someone who doesn't believe in your amnesia. I figured I'd have to watch for an opportunity if she didn't let it slip herself. So, I listened as she vented and preached at me. Mostly she dwelt on what an embarrassment I'd become, what an embarrassment I'd always been, and how difficult I made it for her (Mamma) to "raise her head" among her friends, and what on earth she could say if the pastor "asked after me" at church.

"Without lying, of course," she said, adding some precision to her critique. "You know that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, and Satan is the father of lies."

I wasn't sure whether I could throw in an "Amen" or a "Hallelujah," but when I told her that I was trying my best not to lie any more, she seemed pleased.

I figured that the "any more" was a safe addition, based on my conversation with Cameron.

Honestly, though, I had to literally bite my tongue several times to keep from laughing. I tried my best to sound respectful and contrite. All the church talk, and Mamma's way of bringing Jesus into everything seemed comical to me, but I absolutely did not want to offend her by letting on.

After we'd spoken for a while, she asked if she could pray with me. I squeezed the laughter out of my face and managed a sincere-sounding, "Yes, Mamma, I'd like that."

Mamma's prayer was a conversation with God that involved a brief inventory of my many faults, and a request to open my heart and shine his light and so on and so forth. Amen.

"Amen," I echoed.

"Well, bless you, Deeny," she told me, "Bless you! That's the first time you've ever let me pray over you on the telephone. Ever. Did you know that?"

"No, ma'am," I said. It seemed like the right thing to say.

"Well, listen, you're not a bad child. You're a wild seed, blown and tossed by the wind, but deep in your heart you have the word of the Lord and the love of Jesus."

"Uh, thanks," I told her.

"And the Lord will watch over you. He'll protect and guide you — if only you'll let Him. He will hold you in his everlasting arms."

"I'm glad."

"Now what about your laptop?" she asked, out of the blue.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? Deeny! How can you do your work without your precious laptop? Your researchin' and your stock-tradin' and all your fiddlin' and diddlin'. Do you want me to send it on to you? Out there in the wilderness?" She chuckled at her own joke.

"Yes, thanks," I told her. "Let me give you the address."

"Oh, I've got that," she responded. "Sheba sent it round to all of us. I'll get Cameron to send that laptop on to you tomorrow. She's better with that sort of thing, knowing how to pack it up safe and all."

"Thanks, I appreciate that, Momma."

 

---

 

So... researchin' and stock-tradin'... What could that mean?

"Sounds like you're a day-trader," Hermie concluded. He explained the concept to me.

"Wow," I said. "How on earth do I do that?"

"Uh... like your mother said: researchin'. You study, then you make decisions," he said. "Stock-tradin'. What do you think it means? You buy low, and sell high."

"I don't know," I told him. "What if my mother had told me I was a brain surgeon? I wouldn't run to the hospital and pick up a — whatchacallit — a spatula."

"A scalpel," he corrected, laughing. "I guess I see your point. I don't know. Maybe you have notes on your computer, or some kind of plan, that could guide you until your memories come back."

"And if not, I dunno..."

"If you learned how to do it once, you can learn it again," he asserted. Then he said, "Let me see that card with your accounts and passwords."

I handed it over. "See these lines here? This chunk of accounts are stock market news sites, and this one here is probably the account you deal from." He handed the card back to me.

"At least I know I don't have a boss who's looking for me."

 

---

 

That night I had trouble sleeping. A number of things kept me awake. One was the house, the room, the bed. Not that I would know, but I don't think I've ever been sensitive toward... toward what? Places? I had a feeling that I could sleep pretty much anywhere. But here...

It's not that the house was creepy. It wasn't creepy at all. It was musty, yes. And dusty. I wanted to say "and rusty" just to keep up the -usty thing, but rusty, at least, was one thing it was not.

There was an air of sadness over it all. If I had my facts straight, Lucy and Hermie's parents died when Lucy was 16 or so, which would have made Hermie 20? Then the two of them moved here, to live with their grandmother, who must have died some time in the past two years. Two years in which the ground was torn from beneath their feet, twice in a row.

The house would have felt quite different while their grandmother was alive, but... that dining room... certainly she'd been sick; sick enough to set up the dining room as a surrogate hospital room or hospice. That couldn't have been too pleasant for the kids. Did that leave Hermie to deal with everything? Caring for an elderly relative... and then the funeral, the house, probate...

Probate? How did I even know that word? If I still had that stupid notebook Thistlewaite had given me, I'd write it down there.

Despite my wakefulness, at some point I fell asleep, and didn't wake until a bird began to chirp loudly right outside my window. I sat up and saw it, a little ball of feathers, sitting directly on the sill. Cheep! Cheep! Not an unpleasant sound; no, not at all. It was nice, in fact, and cheery. But goddamn it was loud. Piercing. All that volume from such a tiny body!

Now I was awake. Irreversibly awake. I pulled on some underwear and a sundress. It seemed the easiest thing. I slipped my feet into a pair of sandals.

For a moment, I recalled my fear in the hospital that I once had a penis, and had somehow lost it. I laughed to myself. How different getting dressed would be, if I were a man! I imagined sliding on a pair of underpants with all that gear and tackle in the way. Funny.

I tried to be quiet, descending the stairs, but Lucy was already awake and nursing a mug of coffee. She greeted me with a shy smile, told me she hoped I liked it here and had slept well... AND

"You've got amazing timing! A lady just got out of a cab outside with two little girls," she said, gesturing toward the front window with her mug. "She looks a lot like you, except she's blonde. You can invite her in if you want." Lucy's casual hospitality made me realize she hadn't encountered my sister Sheba.

"How long has she been there?" I asked, stupidly, sleep still clouding my brain. I ventured a peek outside. The moment I moved the curtain to looked out the window, the woman saw me. She waved. I waved back.

"I told you," Lucy said. "She only just now stepped out of a cab. Do you know her?"

"I don't really *know* her," I replied. "I don't *remember* her, but she's my sister, Cameron, with her two little girls. I recognize them from a picture."

I went out the front door and trotted down the stairs. "Hi, Cameron!" I called "Hello, girls!"

While the girls chorused, "Deeny! Deeny!" Cameron said, with a smirk, "See? I knew this amnesia stuff was all bullshit. You know me."

"I recognized you from a picture Sheba showed me," I retorted. "How on earth did you get here? You couldn't have driven, not with the girls. Did you fly?"

I didn't mean it seriously, but one of the girls shouted, "We flewed! We flewed in an airplane!"

"Wow, that's special," I told her. The two little girls held hands and danced around each other for a moment, then stopped and examined some flowers.

Cameron handed me a bag. "Here. Why don't you go put this inside the house? It's more clothes and other stuff."

"Is my laptop in here?"

"Yes, your precious laptop is in there. With its cord or whatever. And your phone. You ought to switch back to using your own phone, you know. You're paying for it."

"Do you want to come in?"

"No," Cameron said. "Just leave the bag inside. Then you can walk with me." She abruptly grabbed my hand, looked me earnestly in the eye, and said in a low tone, "The ring is in there, too. The ring. Got it?"

"Ring?" I asked, blanking out for a moment.

"Your engagement ring, you ninny!" she murmured, too low for the girls to hear.

I nodded, getting it.

She gestured to the front door. "So go. Drop the bag inside. Then get your skinny ass back down here. There's a cafe down the street. I promised the girls pastries."

 

---

 

We had to keep pausing as we walked because little girls get distracted by every little thing. Once it was a balloon, caught in a tree. Then there was a paint stain on the sidewalk. They stopped for what seemed an interminable amount of time to play with a puppy who couldn't stop licking their faces, much to the girls' shrieking amusement.

"Their names are Addison and Madison," Cameron told me while the girls were distracted.

"Could you tell that I didn't know?" I asked. "I'm sorry."

"Of course I could tell," she answered. "For one thing, I'm not an idiot, and for another, I'm their mother. I can always tell when someone doesn't know my children's names." She glanced at me before continuing: "It was especially noticeable coming from you, since the Addison/Madison thing was your idea."

My eyes popped wide open. "My idea?" I repeated. And here I was just thinking how dumb it is, to give twins rhyming names.

"My God," Cameron whispered, watching the thoughts play across my face. "You really *do* have amnesia, don't you?"

"Yes, of course I do!" I answered. I noticed, though, that I wasn't as irritated in saying it as I'd felt in past days. "I thought you understood. Why are you saying that now?"

"Deeny," she said, "The name thing. It wasn't your idea."

"What? What are you telling me? Now I'm confused."

"The names! The names were Andre's idea. When he first said it, you thought he was joking, and said some things..."

"Oh, God," I said. "Did I hurt his feelings?"

"Yes, of course you hurt his feelings. You blissfully ran roughshod over his happy little idea. You hurt his feelings badly! Like you always do. You're always hurting somebody's feelings."

"Really?" This was pretty disappointing news. "Am I such an awful person?"

"Not awful, really," Cameron said. "Incredibly self-centered, though. Fairly inconsiderate. Lacking tact and empathy..."

"Jeez," I exclaimed, and heaved a heavy sigh. "Why don't you give me the *bad* news?"

"DON'T BE SAD, AUNT DEENY!" one of the little girls shouted, smiling. The other twin repeated the phrase.

"Okay," I responded with a smile. "Which one are you? I can never tell!"

"Guess!" she challenged, then immediately declared, "I'm Addie!"

"Okay, Addie, thanks," I said.

"Don't feel too bad," Cameron said. "Feel bad, yeah, but not too bad. The good news is, I like you a lot better this way. A *lot* better. In fact, you should seriously consider never getting your memories back."

"I don't think that's an option," I said, "Although I feel more and more that they never will come back."

"I think we'd all be better off!"

 

---

 

We talked about one thing and another. She answered some of my questions. She reassured me that the family was no threat to Hermie and Lucy. She found hilarious the idea that Hermie was afraid of Sheba.

The conversation came in bits and pieces. The little girls demanded a lot of attention. They interrupted constantly.

Still, Cameron confirmed one fun fact: as it turned out, I actually was a day-trader. Hermie was right.

"Do I making a good living at it?"

"Yeah, you do make money. I don't know how much, but as far as I know, you do alright. If you want an exact figure, you could look at your bank statements and your tax returns — if you really can't remember."

"I made enough to pay my rent and expenses, right?"

Cameron gave an amused snort. "Rent? You live at home, you goof, with our parents, in the room above the garage. So, let's say, yes, you're covering your expenses." She laughed lightly, then said, "Seriously, though, you seem to be good at it."

Eventually we arrived at the cafe. The girls ate pastries. I had two croissants and two cappuccinos. One just wasn't enough. Cameron picked up the tab.

Not that it was a big bill, but I began to wonder what Cameron — and/or her husband Andre — did for a living. Her clothes and her daughters' clothes were pretty nice — not that I knew anything about clothes or fashion, but they seemed new, neat, and much nicer than what anyone else was wearing. And her hair, her nails, her shoes, her bag — *everything* about her was perfect, flawless. Plus, she'd flown here, on the spur of the moment, for no other reason than to see me.

As if reading my thoughts, Cameron informed me, "Obviously I came here to check up on you — to see if this amnesia stuff was for real — but one of my college friends lives in Duxbridge, which is the next town over."

"Okay," I acknowledged.

"I'm not inviting you to come along, because you'd be bored silly and in the way. She's got children, and she and I have a lot of catching up to do."

"How long are you staying?"

"We're flying back tomorrow morning. You can come with, if you like."

"Back to Mariola?" I hesitated a moment, then shook my head.

"Fine," she said, dismissing the topic with a wave of her hand. "Tonight me and the girls are staying in a hotel by the river," She smiled. "You should come. The girls would love to have a sleepover with you."

"Sounds great," I said, sincerely appreciating the invitation.

"I'll text you the address."

"I'll be there."

She paused for a few moments, a smile playing across her lips. "Listen," she said in a conspiratorial voice, "Don't get your memories back. Please don't. Let 'em go. Just let 'em go. You're better off without them. You're a much nicer person without them. I mean this with all my heart." Then she hugged me, tight, and the two little girls ran up and wrapped their arms around both our legs.

 

---

 

As I was walking away, before I was out of earshot, Cameron stopped me. "Hey," she called loudly. "Did you really think your name is Perry Mason?"

"Yeah, I did. Why?"

"You are such a goof!" she cried with laughter.

"It sounded right to me!"

"Do you still think that's your name?" An old woman stopped to listen to our exchange. She wanted to hear the conclusion.

"No," I said, turning slightly red, embarrassed by the stranger. "I'm pretty much used to this Deeny thing."

Cameron nodded, smiled, and turned back to her girls. I waved to the old woman, who was embarrassed in her turn.

 

---

 

Feeling self-consciously awkward, I took a step in the direction opposite to Cameron's, then stopped, not knowing where exactly I meant to go. After a quick glance at Cameron's retreating back, I ran to the next intersection and took the cross street at random, just to get out of Cameron's line of sight more quickly.

The sun was bright, and very hot on my bare arms, face, and neck. I could feel the rays of hot sunlight through the light cotton of my sundress. All of which reminded me that I was in need of aloe vera, and that I had to use it before I started peeling. I felt sure I'd be peeling like mad, all over, once it started. Luckily, I spotted a pharmacy in the middle of the next block, so I trotted over to the shady side of the street and entered the store.

The pharmacy was quite empty. I wandered up and down the aisles. I found bottles of sun block — an enormous variety of sun creams and sprays — but not a single drop of aloe vera. And not a single employee that I could ask for help.

Except for the pharmacist, busy behind her counter. She was helping a middle-aged man, who appeared to have an endless supply of questions and follow-ups. I waited patiently — after all, there was nowhere I needed to be. When at last he made his purchase, the pharmacist asked his phone number, his birthdate, and his address. I didn't pay attention to his answers, until he gave his address: something-something Solon Boulevard.

Solon Boulevard. For some reason, that name rang a bell. A distant bell. Still, it was a chime with meaning. The meaning was barely out of reach, but there it was, tantalizing.

Anyone else would have let it go, let it roll into the heap of auditory spam we hear all day, but I, me — a person with precious little to remember — felt my ears perk up, actuated by the promise of significance. I repeated the name to myself, over and over. Solon Boulevard. Solon Boulevard.

Was it a name from my past? From life before the accident? Ruminating, rolling the name around and around in my head didn't seem to help pull any strings. Whatever was going to happen inside my head was exhausted by recognizing the bell.

So I took my telephone, stepped outside, and did an internet search.

First of all, yes, there was a Solon Boulevard in Robbins. Unfortunately, my search pulled up nothing but real-estate listings. I started thinking: if Solon Boulevard is in Robbins, then whatever I know about it must be post-accident. Did someone I'd met live on that street? It wouldn't take long to run through my list of acquaintances. First I searched for Amos Casshon. He didn't live in Robbins. Next came Wade Burdleton. Bingo! Wade Burdleton lived on Solon Boulevard at number 532. Wade Burdleton, one of the drivers in my accident, the car accident that was, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of my life. He was the lawyer, the frightened, drunken lawyer, who thought the accident spelled the end of everything for him.

I was a little disappointed, though, that this wasn't a memory from before my big bang. Instead, it was a simple, ordinary memory, picked up after the bump on my head.

Still, I had to wonder how poor Wade was doing. Was he still afraid? I could see him in my mind's eye, bent over, hands covering his face. And later, when he held out his wrists to the police, defeated, resigned to his fate, manacled, and led away. Was the aftermath of the accident as apocalyptic as he feared?

The map on my phone told me that 532 Solon Boulevard was a mere 25 minute walk, and the weather favored the effort. It took a minute to understand in which direction I was meant to begin, but soon I was heading at an easy pace to visit the unfortunate Wade.

As I walked, my mind was active. I had plenty of time to think. About Wade, about me... about my name.

I'd told Cameron that I was getting used to being called Deeny, but it was a lie. I hated the name. It sounded stupid. It sounded hokey. It was asinine, as far as nicknames go. To say nothing of Celandine! What sort of name was that to foist upon a child? It sounded like a chemical or some type of mineral. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and decided that I needed legal advice from Wade: I needed to know how to change my name.

Of course, being angry, I didn't notice how quickly I walked: the anger quickened my pace, so that by the time I stood on Wade's front porch, I felt warm. Not hot, not perspiring, but even though I'd kept to the shade the entire way, my skin radiated heat. I glowed. I was fairly incandescent. In a good way.

I knocked. Wade opened, wearing gray cargo shorts and a light blue t-shirt. His feet were large and bare. He had a day's stubble on his cheeks and neck, and his hair was damp as though he'd just emerged from the shower. He looked exactly as I remembered him: tall, lanky, with a big mop of straight, dark hair. He ran his hand through it, just as he had after the accident.

"Wade?" I said, though I knew quite well it was he. In that same moment, he pointed to the lump on my forehead, glanced at my firey-red legs, and exclaimed, "You!"

"Hi, Wade," I began, feeling foolish and awkward. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd see how you're doing."

"Oh, no, no, no!" he cautioned, holding out his palms to ward me off. "You should NOT be talking to me."

"Why not?"

"Because we — you and I — are on opposite sides of an insurance claim, and possibly civil or criminal suits," he replied. "Any discussion without the presence of, uh, our respective lawyers could be compromising, and even be seen as witness tampering."

"Ah," I said, taken slightly aback. Then: "What if we don't talk about the accident?"

"Oh, Christ!" he exclaimed as his eyes roved over me, from the bump on my head to the sandals on my feet, and straight back up again.

"Besides, I want some legal advice," I threw in.

He let out a barking laugh. "Ha! Legal advice! At the moment," he said, "I'm forbidden to practice law. I can't give you any legal advice, other than to tell you to look for another lawyer."

"But— I don't want to ask about the accident, or anything complicated."

"Look," he said. "I'm in enough trouble already, what with the DUI and whatnot..."

"I only want to know how to change my name."

"Change your name?" he repeated, as if I'd spoken in a foreign language.

"Can we just talk about that? And you can tell me how you're doing?" He hesitated. I wondered whether he'd been drinking. He didn't seem drunk, but he wasn't exactly on the mark.

"And I can tell you how *I'm* doing," I added.

He puffed out his cheeks and blew out his breath. He glanced at my breasts, then jerked his eyes away. He shrugged. He turned so his body no longer blocked the doorway. He stepped back, and with a sweeping gesture, invited me in.

I walked past him, toward his dining room. It could easily have been my imagination, but I swear I could feel his eyes laser-focussed on my derriere. Which of course made me self-conscious as I walked. Did I sway? Did I not sway? Was I walking funny? He pulled out a chair for me, then sat himself at the head of the table. I lowered myself into the chair he set for me and crossed my legs. His eyes gravitated toward my knee and my thighs, then rode up to my eyes.

"So... you want to change your name," he said.

"Well, before that, tell me: how are you?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm peachy!" he responded, in a bitterly sarcastic tone. "I couldn't be better. My law license is suspended, pending review and a hearing. My drivers license is gone, I'm not sure whether I get it back in three years or five. I'm trying to cut down on my drinking, but it's difficult. Abstinence is impossible, but at least I haven't fallen into a full-blown bender. Not yet, anyway."

"Oh," I responded in a small voice.

"Something to look forward to," he muttered sardonically.

I bit my lower lip. Maybe this visit wasn't such a great idea after all.

"So that's me!" he exclaimed. "Now let's hear about you!" He tilted his head and looked me full in the face. I felt a large drop of perspiration run down the side of my face. Wade watched, opened mouthed, then exclaimed, "Where are my manners? I haven't offered you anything to drink!" He got back to his feet. "What would you like? Something cold, I'm sure! I have cold water, I have iced tea, I have some juices... well, really, mixers..."

"Iced tea would be great," I cut in.

He got up and went to the kitchen. I heard ice cubes falling into a glass, followed by the sound of a liquid being shaken in a bottle, and poured into a glass. Then a second glass.

Wade returned holding a tall glass in each hand. "Speciality of the house," he said, setting one in front of each of us, and sitting back down.

I raised my glass as if toasting him, then took a sip. Which made me sputter and choke.

"What the— oh!" he exclaimed. "Damn! I should have warned you. It's Long Island Iced Tea."

"Ow! Is there alcohol in it?"

"Well, yes," he confessed, "but — in my defense — far less than you'll find in the standard recipe. It's part of my effort, my strategy to cut down on my alcohol intake. I'm sure I can whip up some ordinary iced tea in a moment. Just give me a sec to boil some water."

"No, it's fine," I assured him. "Just... don't be offended if I can't drink it all... or much..."

He gave another of his barking laughs. "That's fine! I'll finish it for you." Then he gave a sly look and added, "It will be like getting a kiss by proxy."

I let that blow by without comment, and took a second, smaller sip. It had a kick, but the taste wasn't bad.

"So you want to change your name?" he asked. "What's wrong with Deeny Mason?"

"Oh! That's not my name, as it turns out. My actual name is Celandine Lisente."

"Whoa, that's a mouthful! Even so, it has its charm. Celandine. At the very least, it's unique. And — if I might venture to add — it suits you. Honestly. Well. That said, you want to be called— what?"

"Perry Mason," I said.

He bit his lower lip and regarded me intently for a moment before asking, "For real?"

"Yes! What is the problem with that name? Why does everyone give me shit about it?"

He cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair. "Because Perry Mason was a fictional character. He was a depression-era lawyer who incidentally solved crimes. It's a part of that whole noir ethos, expressed as a series of novels. It spawned a TV series with, uh, what's his name, Raymond Burr, as Perry Mason. He was a big guy. And recently they've done a new version with a different actor, who always seems to need a shave and a shower." He searched the air for the second actor's name, but not finding it, went on.

"So," he concluded, "everyone who hears that name will think of that guy, Raymond Burr, or the other guy. Or the depression-era novels. Look him up if you don't know what he looks like. Read one of the novels. That's why people give you shit. And why people will continue to give you shit in future."

"But when you say people — you mean people over a certain age."

''Touché," he breathed dramatically, placing a hand over his heart. Then he leaned forward and rested his hand on my thigh. "Look," he said. "You can change your name to anything you like. Anything at all, and no one can stop you. In fact, you don't even need to follow any legal process. You simply start using the name. It's perfectly legal as long as it's not for purposes of fraud."

His hand was heavy and refreshingly cold on my red, glowing thigh. It lay there, heavy and still. I didn't flinch. I didn't ask him to move his hand. I only bit my lower lip lightly, then I asked, "What about a bank account?"

"Simplicity itself! You go to a bank, any old bank, and tell them you want to open a DBA account — Doing Business As — and they will make the name of the account Celandine Lisente, doing business as Perry Mason. They'll use your normal social security number, so it's all on the up-and-up." He rubbed my thigh, slightly, lightly. I couldn't tell whether he did it unconsciously. The thing was, I didn't want him to stop. I didn't come here to be fondled, but now that it was happening... I wanted to go along with it. I took another sip of my iced tea and uncrossed my legs. I wet my lips with my tongue. He looked me full in the face and slid his hand around from the top of my thigh until his palm rested against my inner thigh. I grew very conscious of my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. He studied my face, waiting to see my reaction. For a few seconds he watched the movement of my breasts as I breathed. Time to be bold, I told myself: I took another sip of tea and spread my knees apart.

I never went there meaning to have sex with the man. I certainly never thought it would happen so quickly. The thought never occurred to me at all, not even as a remote possibility. I didn't enter his house with the idea that he'd be touching my most intimate anatomy. I have to say, though, for the record, while it was happening, I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew that each step I took would give him permission to go a little further with me. And I was fine with that. More than fine.

Once I opened my legs to him, and lifted the hem of my dress, things escalated quickly. Very quickly. In no time at all, his hand was welcome and at home in my crotch, gently caressing me while the two of us made out like a pair of teenagers.

I placed my hand on his chest and pulled my head away from his for a moment. I had to catch my breath. He misunderstood my signal, and began to remove his hand. I grabbed his wrist to keep him in the breach. "Wait," I said, "Don't stop. Please don't stop. I just have to tell you something first." With my free hand, I took a healthy swig of tea.

"Do you really need that?" he asked. "I mean, do you need that to do this?"

"No," I replied, "but it helps with my resolve, a little. See — as far as I know, I've never done this before."

"Oh, get off!" he scoffed. As he laughed, I felt the hand between my legs relax and rest against my curves down there.

"Look, I lost my memory! I can't remember anything before this bump," I explained, pointing to my forehead. "I mean, anything!"

"Okay," he replied, in a husky voice, heavy with desire, "Don't worry about it. It's like riding a bike. It'll come back to you, and if it doesn't, I'm sure you'll be a quick learner."

The two of us laughed for for two gasping seconds, then locked lips again and got to pulling each others' clothes off.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 10

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

Where are we really going? Always home.

— Novalis

---

 

During our pre-coital moderately-wild abandon, Wade tossed to the floor of his living room every cushion from his couch and every chair. He covered the mare's nest with towels, sheets, and blankets which he drew from I know not where, and then we fell into it, naked and squirming.

It was soft. Hot, from all the blankets and towels, but soft. I don't know what lying in field of heather is like, but I romantically imagine it would be like this... except not at baking temperature.

We went at it, thoroughly. Not in a frenzied way. Smoothly, calmly, enjoying each... well, yes, every inch of it, bit by bit.

By the time we finished, we were both soaked, dripping as if we'd fallen in the sea, and lying in a sodden mess of cloth.

I was spent, empty, but happy to my core.

"Do you want to go again?" Wade asked.

"Oh God, I would," I cried, "but do you have air-conditioning?"

He burst out laughing, but in spite of his declaration that "Air conditioning is for chumps!" I had to get up and out of that melange of heat-trapping softness. "I feel like a boiled potato," I told him.

"Seems like you remembered how it's done," he observed, grinning.

"The basic principles, yeah," I replied, smirking. "I think we did alright."

He stretched his body out, a huge long X of a man, there on the mess of cushions. It was plain to see, he had the wherewithal to make another assault on my castle. I wanted to go again, as well, but the heat... the heat was simply ennervating!

"Praise the Lord!" Wade cried out abruptly in a voice loud enough to make the house echo. "I'm cured! I'm healed!"

"Healed of what?" I asked.

"Of everything: of life, of pain, of confusion!"

"That's a lot to lay on... what just happened."

"Yes, I know," he agreed. "You're absolutely right. That's why I think... I believe... I'm sure we'll need to do it again, and again. I'll need more treatments, quickly, soon, in future. At least twice a day, if not more."

I burst out laughing. "I can't commit to that!"

"No, of course not," he agreed, sitting up. "Nor could I."

"Aren't you hot, lying in there?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. "But it's good practice... eventually I'll be living in Hell, so this... this is a tender prelude."

"Oh, Wade!" I scolded.

 

---

 

I dried myself as well as I could with a tea towel, and asked for some cold water, which I drank greedily.

Before I left, we each made a profession of non-committment. No promises, no expectations, no requirements...

"Although each of us is always free to ask for a roll in the hay, and the other is under no obligation to comply," as Wade put it.

Wade was bouyed up, energized, elated by our encounter, but he quickly pulled back the curtain to reveal the dark underside of his ecstacy.

"I want to tell you," he began, "About an old silent video I once saw, of a drunken man, in broad daylight. It must have been somewhere in California, someplace with lots of hills. Outside his house there were three flights of stairs that ran all the way down from his door to the street, a long straight shot. Somehow he falls down the first flight, head over heels, breakneck speed. He stops and stands on the first landing for a moment, and then he falls down the second flight, and after a pause, he tumbles down the third. And it's fast: fast as a ball rolling downhill."

"Oh my God!"

"And then, once he reaches bottom, he stands in the road, straight and tall, just getting his bearings, and boom! he's hit by a car! Goes flying in the air, head over heels, and lands flat bang in the middle of the street."

"That's awful!" I exclaimed.

He waved his hand, dismissively. "It's all staged of course. It's slapstick comedy. It isn't real. But even so, sometimes I feel that way: that I'm that man. Except I'm the opposite: I mean, I go in reverse order. First I got hit by a car, and now I'm falling down one staircase after another."

"I hope I'm not one of those staircases!" I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Oh, no, not at all!" he said. "You're one of the landings, where I can stop for a moment, stand up, take a breath, and believe for a brief moment that it's all over."

Soon after that, I left to head back to Hermie and Lucy's house. Strangely, although everything Wade said was disturbing and wrong, his tragicomic view of life didn't touch me; it didn't get as far as my heart. I knew his sorrows and misfortunes were real, and I wished he didn't suffer from them, but at the same time, they somehow felt staged, like the video of the man falling and falling and falling...

 

---

 

There was one other thing that happened at Wade's house. I'm going to relate it without comment.

As I was leaving, I noticed a large framed print. It portrayed a woman in a field, reclining in an odd sideways pose, her upper body raised up by her arms. She's looking at a house in the distance. "Do you like that?" Wade asked. "It's called Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth. I bought it after the accident." He came to stand behind me and rest his hands on my shoulders as I admired the picture. I say admired, but honestly the picture disturbed and settled me. Her twisted pose suggested that she was unable to walk, and yet somehow she'd been left (abandoned?) in a field, in view of her home, but unable to get there.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because when I first saw you, there in the desert, you were lying just like that: with your legs bent exactly that way, resting on your arms exactly that way."

I imagined myself in the picture, getting up on my hands and knees, and the sense of the world spinning wildly around me.

I know that the picture sounds creepy, but in that moment — seeing myself in it, with the world whirling — it struck me as almost funny. "Hey, Wade! Maybe you could get an artist to add the two smashed cars — you know, to paint them into this picture!" It sounded funny to me. Of course, I wasn't serious, or only half-serious... but then again, why not?

Wade gave me an open-mouthed offended look. "I tell you that you remind me of a classic work of art, and you tell me how to turn it into a Far Side cartoon!"

Of course, I understood what he meant even if I didn't get the specific reference.

Wade found a way of glossing over our cultural misalignment by reaching down and squeezing my naked butt.

I took that as my signal to get dressed and start walking.

 

---

 

Lucy was eating lunch when I got back to her house. She had assembled a dagwood: one of those sandwiches that stand several inches high because of all the tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, meat, and other ingredients stacked between two slices of bread. On the table, among the fixings, I saw an empty tin of sardines, which I had to imagine were buried somewhere inside Lucy's creation.

"Oh, hey," she said. "You want one of these? I can whip one up in a minute."

She's must have a high metabolism, I told mystelf. Aloud I said, "No, that's fine. I'm not hungry at the moment. I think I'll take a shower."

She gave me a knowing look. "You were out somewhere getting laid," she observed. "Who with? It couldn't have been Hermie, right?"

"No," I said, "It was... this guy." I looked at her, wondering how she was going to fit the tall sandwich into that little mouth of hers, AND wondering how she knew I'd just had sex with someone.

"How—" I began, but she cut me off with a laugh.

"I can SMELL you!" she said, "And besides, you have this goofy smile on your face that only means one thing."

"Ah."

"Who was it? Some rando off the street? I don't understand how that can happen. It's never happened to me. Did he approach you? Or did you walk up to him? Did you cock your hip and say, 'Hello, sailor'?"

"It wasn't some rando. It was the lawyer from my car accident."

She somehow managed to extract a bite from her construction, and chewing, asked, "I've dealt with lawyers, too, but never ended up in the sack with them." She reflected a moment. "Although... at the time I was a minor. Maybe things would be different now."

I blushed. A full and solid red.

"No," I said. "No. It was just..." and I told her the whole thing. She listened in silence. By the time I was done, her sandwich was gone, and she was drinking a tall glass of milk.

"I don't think something like that will ever happen to me," she observed.

"Because you wouldn't want it to?"

"No. Because why would it? It's not the normal order of things."

I thought about that for a moment, then said, "I better take a shower."

 

---

 

Before I got into the shower, I took a look in the attic, which was accessed via a trapdoor in the hallway upstairs. I did find — among grandma's old mothballed clothes, Christmas ornaments, military memorabilia (from Lucy and Hermie's grandfather, presumably) — the inflatable mattress as well as a sturdy rug made of wool. Lucy, who was about to leave for work, had no desire to get all sweaty by helping me muscle down the rug and mattress, but I managed to not-exactly-drop them from the attic and then drag and muscle them down the two flights of stairs to the basement by myself.

By the time I got that far, I was filthy, soaked in perspiration, and smelled bad enough that even I couldn't bear it. I left the unrolling of the carpet and the testing of the mattress until tomorrow. For now, I peeled off my stinky sundress and stepped into the shower.

Say what you will of grandma's house, one thing it did have was plenty of hot water. It felt glorious, running over my sun-red skin. After towelling off, I realized I hadn't picked up any aloe vera. I tried to substitute an old body cream that looked like it once belonged to grandma. It didn't do the job. It didn't absorb or penetrate. It lay slick over my skin like Vaseline, and didn't feel as though it had any healing effect.

I had to wipe the cream off my hands on a towel before I was able to deal with the bag Cameron brought me. I dumped its contents onto my bed, the bed upstairs in the box room. After pushing the clothes to one side, I tried my laptop, but the battery was dead. Ditto with my old phone. I plugged them both in, and took a look at my engagement ring.

I'm by nature a scoffer — as far as I'm able to tell — but even I was knocked back by the ring. Barney had really outdone himself. The band itself wasn't a yellow gold, which I was glad of. It was white metal. I guessed it was platinum, or white gold, and I liked that. The diamond — I can't guess at the carats, but the stone surprised me by its size. Big. Again, I'm not a gemologist or jeweler, but I was impressed. The stone was so bright and clear that gazing into it was like looking into another world. I sat on the floor, gaping at it. I wanted to put it on my finger, and almost did, but something stopped me. Sure, I wanted that stone with me, so I could look at it always, but I didn't want what what came along with it. I didn't want what the ring signified. I felt that if I put that ring on my finger, it would be like putting a collar around my neck, a collar with a tag that read, "I belong to Barney. If found, please return her to Mariola."

So I held the ring, staring at the diamond, breathing unexpected sighs. Okay. Spectacular. I put it back in its box, closed the box, and pushed it to the bottom of Cameron's bag.

 

---

 

From the pile of clothes Cameron brought me, I selected a pair of khaki shorts, some walking shoes, and a loose, short-sleeved blouse with a dress collar. Then I went down to the basement. It was, as I said, the least tragic place in the house, and I wanted to get some idea of how I'd arrange things down there. While I mentally placed the rug here... or there... and the bed and the closet over there... my phone rang. It was Cameron.

I heard a happy bedlam behind her. "Hey, Deeny! I'm about ready to head over to my hotel, so any time you want to get there is fine, okay? You still want to come, don't you?" She sounded a little tipsy. A happy tipsy. A glowing tipsy.

"Uh, yeah," I agreed. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Do you, uh, do you have your car with you? Because if you could give me and the girls a ride, it would be like two birds with one stone, you know?"

"I have a car?" I asked her. Cameron burst into gales of laughter.

"No, you don't have a car, you ninny! I'm just goofing on you... testing you, amnesia girl." She laughed some more. Then she added in an arch tone, "Or am I?"

"Okay," I said. "What will you do? Take an Uber? Or what?"

"I think I might take a What," she laughed. "No, of course, I'll take an Uber. And you can take an Uber. Okay. You have the address, right?"

"No, I don't, can you send it to me?"

"I'll just tell you," she said, and after she gave me the hotel name, she hung up.

 

---

 

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but Cameron didn't have a simple hotel room; it was more of a suite. There was a large bedroom with two king-sized beds in it, and of course a good-sized bathroom. It had a sitting room equipped with a small couch, two arm chairs, a serious-sized desk, and a round table with four chairs, suitable for dining. There was also a second, smaller bathroom off the sitting room.

As soon as I walked in, she breathlessly gave me the plan: "First we'll give the girls their bath, and get them ready for bed. Then we'll get room service. As soon as they have some food, they'll fall asleep."

I expected them to want to play, both in the tub and after dinner, but they were tired from their travelling, the poor little things. They asked me to read to them, and Cameron had brought a supply of their favorite stories. We sat on the little sofa, one on each side of me, and by the time I got about two-thirds of the way through the second story, they were out, leaning into me so I couldn't move. Cameron carried them into the bedroom and lay them in the middle of one of the enormous beds.

Then she curled up with her legs under her on the little couch, while I draped myself sideways over one of the armchairs. The two of us sipped prosecco and ate chocolates and salted cashews.

"Do you want to send down for anything else?" she offered. I didn't.

"So... Barney," she began. "He hasn't called, has he."

"No."

"What do you think that means?"

"I wouldn't know! What do *you* think it means?"

"I think he's afraid. He did something... something bad enough to make you throw your ring away." She mused for a moment. "And it's a really nice ring." She pondered. "It would be nice to know what he did." She looked at me. "But you have no idea, do you."

"None." And that reminded me: "How did you know to go look for it?"

"Look for what?"

"The ring! by the dumpster!"

"I didn't. I went out to find *you*, and just happened to notice it. The light glinting off..." she let the words trail off. Which reminded her of something. "Oh, you know, I had a visit from your police friends, that duo — Carly and what?"

"Tatum."

"Yeah. They came to see me. They had SO many questions! Maybe THEY can find out what Barney did!"

"What?" I struggled to keep up. "Wait. Why did they come to see you? How did they even know you were here?"

"It looks like they're working their way through the family, calling each one of us in turn. They want to 'nail down your timeline' — that's the phrase they used. They're puzzled about how you got from Mamma and Pappa's anniversary party to a random spot in the desert. It's like, hundreds of miles in the dead of night. No moon."

"I know," I said. "It's a mystery."

She snorted scornfully.

"How much did you have to drink today?" I asked her.

"Enough," she replied. "Enough, but not too much. More than usual, but not to excess. Look, I never have a chance to let go like this, so don't harsh my vibe, if you can manage that."

"Okay." Certainly I didn't want to spoil her mini-vacation, but I did want to unwind some of the things she'd said. "It sounds like *you* don't think my crossing the desert is any kind of mystery."

"No, of course not! I'm sure you did what you always do: you found a spectacularly inappropriate man, who no doubt had a souped-up dune buggy, and he carried you across the desert like Lawrence of Arabia. And then, he either had his way with you and left you naked, or he *tried* to have his way with you, and you ran off, naked. It's pretty simple, and very much in line with your long personal history."

I sat in stunned silence while Cameron smiled to herself, before I could manage to ask, "Did you tell the police that? All of that?"

She reflected a moment, then admitted, "Yes, all of that, except that I didn't mention Lawrence of Arabia. That bit only came to me now, in this moment."

"So... what happened? The police called you? You told them you were in town, and they came to see you?"

"Yes, exactly. I imagine they'll call all of us. Even Nate."

"Nate. And will Nate have anything to tell them? Does Nate know anything about my disappearance?"

She breathed out a long breath. "Oh, Nate, Nate, Nate. Nate is a lovely little brother. You could not ask for a better brother, but keep one thing in mind: Nate is a boy, and boys miss things. Something wild and enormous can happen right under their nose, but they won't see it. They won't notice at all."

She got up to look out the window. After a half minute, she said, "What a lovely view! There's a river out there."

"It's the Robbins River," I informed her.

"What an unimaginative name," she observed. The alcohol made her fumble through the syllables of unimaginative, as though she was forming the words by lining up wooden building blocks.

One the girls let out a whimper in her sleep, and Cameron was in there like a shot. I heard her soothing the little girl, and once all was peaceful, she returned to sit on the couch.

"Can I ask you something, Cameron? Do you like being a mother?"

She gave me a look that I understood. She wanted to know whether I was mocking her, or challenging her, but no, I was only curious.

"I'm not a mother," she replied. "I'm a mom. That word, mother, is too clinical for me. But yeah, it's wonderful. You can't imagine how wonderful." She took a tiny sip. "Still, I have to admit, I have help. A lot of help."

"From Mamma?"

She laughed, a snort of a laugh. "From Mamma? Hell, no. I mean that I have a maid service that keeps my house clean, and a cook who not only cooks our meals, but cleans up afterward."

"Isn't cleanup part of the job?"

She gave me a level-eyed look. "It sounds like you've never done either part. Whatever idea anyone has about it, cooking and cleaning up afterward are two jobs. They amount to two jobs; they're two jobs worth of effort. Anyway, the fact that I don't have to worry about all that, or about whether we'll have a roof over our heads, it leaves me free to be a mom to my little girls. Most people aren't that lucky."

"Are you saying that you might love it less if you didn't have all those advantages in life?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying." As she spoke, she pulled out a throw pillow from behind her and threw it at me, hitting me right in the head, almost striking the lump on my forehead. "How dare you," she told me, but without any intensity. Her objection seemed pro forma.

"Seriously, Deeny, one thing nobody can tell you is how much you will love your children. You can't understand it until it happens to you. Those two little creatures, they lived inside me. Can you imagine that? Having two actual people living in your belly? And then they come sliding out, crying and slippery and needy. And you know, when they're born, they—" she paused, feeling the narrative thread slipping away from her.

"There's a bond," she concluded. "A physical bond. It's physical and metaphysical. It's emotional and—" she searched for a word— "commotional. Whatever."

"Okay," I acknowledged. "I didn't mean to offend."

She shrugged it off.

"So," she asked, after a pause. "Are you going to call him?"

"Who? Barney?"

"Yes!"

"Cameron, I don't know who he is!"

"That's the spirit!" she chortled.

For some reason — maybe it was just to fill the silence — I was about to tell Cameron about my having sex with Wade, when Cameron sniffed, rubbed her nose, and said, "I'm not going to ask you whether you want to come back with me. I know that you don't. You've never wanted to live in Mariola."

"Really?"

"Even as a little girl. You'd draw maps, you'd make escape plans... and whenever we went away on vacation, you'd cry when it was time to go back." Cameron sighed.

"Why does that make you sad?" I asked her.

"Oh, fuck!" she exclaimed, wiping tears from her cheeks. "I never want to be a maudlin drunk, a weepy drunk, but look at me!"

"It's okay," I said in a soothing voice. "It's okay." I was about to go to her, to embrace her, but she warned me off and warded me off with her hands.

"It's sad because it always ended the same way," she said. "You would stand up on something and declare, I am NEVER going back to Mariola! Never! and then Pappa would grab you, drag you off, and spank the living daylights out of you. Then *he* would declare that he was not about to listen to you complain about having food to eat and a decent roof over your head for the entire ride back home."

"Oh, my God!" I exclaimed. "That's terrible!"

"The pair of them — Mamma and Pappa — have always believed in that 'spare the rod and spoil the child' bullshit." She waved her index finger at me. "Mind you: that's one thing I've refused to do with my children. I've never raised my hand to them. Neither has Andre." I must have had the question on my face, because she answered it immediately: "And no — their grandparents have been warned in no uncertain terms that they dare not — never. No. If they want to see their grandchildren, there'll be no swatting or slapping or spanking." Her face darkened, then cleared. She sniffed, and took a deeper breath.

"Look at me, all teary-eyed," Cameron mused, as she wiped her tears with the palms of her hands. "And then of course we'd all pile in the car, head back to Mariola, and be the happy God-fearing family until next time."

"Whew!" I said, trying to take it in, blinking at a few stray tears of my own.

Cameron stood up, sweeping the wrinkles from her dress and arranging the pillows on the couch as she rose. She wobbled briefly, but after grasping the arm of the couch to steady herself, she straightened up and got her bearings.

"Well, how 'bout that!" she declared. "I've saved you five years of psychoanalysis right there!"

I laughed. She gave a wry, lopsided grin. "I don't usually drink this much. I don't usually drink at all."

"Make sure you drink a lot of water," I recommended, then wondered where that suggestion came from.

"I'm going to bed now," she announced. "You've seen it: it's a great big bed. You're welcome to crawl in with me, or you can work out some way to be comfortable out here. Just — whatever you do, don't wake the girls."

She came over and kissed me on the forehead. "I'm glad you came, little sis."

"Me, too," I told her. "Do you need me to wake you in time for your plane?"

"Oh, no," she laughed. "I have two little curly-haired alarm clocks in the bed next to mine. You'll see."

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 11

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

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

— Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

---

 

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.

 

---

 

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.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 12

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

"I've got to find out what happened. I guess I must have had a bump on the head in the auto accident."

— Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

---

 

Barney drove well. He drove with confidence. With a casual sense of control. Aside from the initial vroom! vroom! he navigated the streets safely and calmly. He didn't speed. He didn't challenge other drivers; he was, in fact, courteous to a fault. Aside from the occasional glance in my direction, he kept his focus on the road ahead.

"That's a hell of a bump you've got there," he commented, pointing to a spot on his forehead, above his right eye. "Is that from the accident?"

"Yep."

"And that's supposedly the cause of your amnesia?"

I gave him a bit of side-eye, but he didn't notice. "Yes, I guess it is," I answered, drily.

"Does it hurt?"

"Only if something touches it. It's getting smaller every day. It was double the size when I first got it."

"Hmm. So once the bump is gone, you won't be able to claim to have amnesia any more, right?"

"What? No! It's not as though the bump is full of amnesia. It's just a bump!"

He smiled in mild amusement, then asked, "What about the bruises? They must hurt like hell."

"They're a little tender, yeah, but it's not bad. The look a lot worse than they feel. I wish they weren't such a weird green color. Another week, though, and they should be gone."

He nodded.

"No broken bones, though, right?"

"Right."

"No internal injuries?"

"No."

"You were lucky there."

"Yeah."

"So... the bump is real, the bruises are real. It must have been a bad accident."

Real? Of course they're real! I sighed, silently, internally. "It *was* a bad accident, yeah. One of the drivers is still in serious condition. The car I was in flipped all the way over, twice."

"Twice?" his eyebrows lifted. "How do you know that?" he challenged.

"I was there," I replied, a little testily.

"But you had amnesia." He said it in teasing sing-song, as if he'd caught me in a lie.

"I saw the wrecks *after* the accident. It was clear what had happened."

He lapsed into silence for a minute or two. Then he took to nodding his head. He gave a quick three nods before turning to study my face. He kept his eyes on me for so long I nearly shouted Eyes on the road! Eyes on the road! His gaze returned forward, but a few moments later he did it again, staring at me as if he'd never seen me before.

"What?" I asked. "Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my face?"

"Something on your face?" he repeated, as if I'd said something funny. "No, in fact. You don't have something on your face. It's just that— uh— Hey." Abruptly, strangely, his demeanor changed. He flipped from being cocksure and arrogant to being cautious and hesitant. He gave me the strange impression of being afraid of me. "Now, don't get mad when I ask you this—" he continued, shooting me quick, uncertain glances— "it's just a question, okay? Because— You always look great, okay? But, this— uh," he scratched his cheek nervously. "This, uh, no-makeup thing. Is it a new look you're trying out? For good, like? Or is it just temporary? You know, like, part of your amnesia shtick?"

"Shtick?"

"Routine? Uh... scheme? Uh—"

"I get it," I told him, interrupting. "It's not a scheme. Come on, Barney! I have amnesia. For real. I don't remember anything. I don't remember you, or Cameron, or Sheba, or my own mother. I don't know who I am or how I got here."

He twisted his mouth in doubt. "And you don't remember how to put on makeup? Seriously?"

"I guess I don't! Makeup? I haven't thought about makeup even once. This is the first time anyone's even mentioned the word! Do I usually wear makeup?" I didn't mean to get riled up — but I could hear myself talking louder, more forcefully. Barney took a few quick breaths. He seemed unnerved.

"Oh my God!" he exclaimed. "I'm a guy! How can I answer that? Makeup? I— I don't know!"

"You don't know whether I usually wear makeup?"

"No— it's not— that's not— Look, don't back me into a corner, okay? I don't know what I'm supposed to say! I don't want to say the wrong thing and piss you off!" Then carefully, as if tiptoeing through a mine field, he said, "Look: I just... I mean, I notice that right now you're not wearing any makeup. Okay? Which is fine. It's just that you look different without it. And so... You say you have amnesia, and yet and still you know how to walk and talk and how to put on your clothes. I assume you know how to tie your shoes, right? So..." He gave me a glance, to gauge my mood. "You just look different, is all. That's all I'm saying."

I remembered Barney saying Talking always gets us into trouble. Here, now, we were probably at the shallow end of that "trouble." And it wasn't about anything important! In a measured, even tone, just asking for information, I quizzed him: "How much makeup do I usually wear? Right now, do I look good different? Or bad different?"

"Oh, fuck me, I'm not going to answer that! Remember: *I* didn't say 'bad different'. *You* said 'bad different', not me," he stated defensively, sounding as though he suddenly found himself standing in the middle of a lake, on thin ice, hearing cracking noises all around him.

The sudden change in Barney threw me. A moment ago I was talking to a man in charge of things. Now he seemed a hen-pecked husband. What did that make me? I wasn't pecking at anything! "Barney, What's with you?" I asked. "Why are you freaking out, all of a sudden?"

"Oh, my God," he said. "See, this is what every man dreads. It's like... you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't."

"If you don't what?"

"Look— look— the classic example is: a woman asks her husband, Does this dress make my butt look big?" He shot me a look, to see how his explanation, his example, had landed.

"Chill out," I told him, laughing. "I'm not going to ask you about my butt. I don't mind your telling me about... my face, or whatever. I need to find out about me. I don't know what I usually do. I'm trying to put together a picture of who I am, or who I used to be. Does that make sense? All I have to go on is what you and my family tell me." A sudden thought hit me. "Hey — what about my friends?"

"What about them?" Barney face still had that haunted, bewildered look.

"I do have friends, don't I?"

"Sure you do. Of course you do. Why are you asking me?"

"Because I don't remember," I replied, with some emphasis.

"Oh, boy," he muttered.

"Would they be in my phone?" I asked.

"Oh, fuck me," Barney said. "Can we change the subject?"

"Why? Why can't you just tell me? Why are you all defensive?"

Barney groaned. "Because this is all girl stuff! Makeup! God! Like I know anything about makeup! And now you want to talk about your friends? Okay, I'll tell you about you and your friends: One week you're all super BFFs, all happy together, and the next week nobody's talking to—" he paused, unwilling to name a name— "one of you. Okay? The week after, that one's back in the mix, and somebody else is on the outs." He scratched his head. "I can't keep track. I don't understand how it works. If I tell you a name, I'm sure it'll be the wrong one, and then you'll be angry with me. That's all I'm going to say."

Am I really such a bitch? Obviously that was another question I couldn't ask, but the answer was: apparently so. I flashed to that video of our fight by the dumpster.

"Huh," I said, trying to find my way around his objections. "How about this: we can go through my contacts, and you tell me who's who? I can take it from there."

He looked completely uncomfortable. "Why didn't you do this with Sheba or Cameron?"

"I didn't think of it until just now."

Barney muttered something I almost couldn't catch. It sounded like "Fuck my life and then some." After that, we kept an awkward silence until we got to the hotel. He simply drove, without talking or looking at me. I scrolled through the contacts on my phone, reading the names. Silently, so as not to frighten Barney. None of the names meant anything to me. Of course I had questions, but for the moment, I kept them to myself.

At the same time, I did keep an eye on the streets as Barney drove, and I noticed that we kept crossing the river. As it turns out, Robbins has four bridges spanning the river, and Barney took us over each of the four, first to one side, then back to the other. Was this the scenic route? Did he want to take in these views of the river? Or... did he do it for my sake? So that *I* could take in the view of the river? I tested my last guess by thanking him for hitting all the bridges. He smiled, but didn't speak.

When I saw him smile, I felt Whew! Talked him down off that ledge! He'd lost that harrassed, bewildered look, thank goodness.

Unfortunately, of all places, he pulled into the parking lot of the Good Old Inn and turned off the engine. "This place?" I exclaimed, involuntarily. Honestly, it was a bit of a shock.

"Why?" he asked. "Is something wrong with it?" He grinned and teased, "Don't tell me the little guy with the drill brought you here."

"Oh, stop it," I answered. "It's just that this place..." I paused. "One of the men who disappeared stayed here."

He looked at me. He took it in, nodding. "Okay," he drawled, stretching out the word. "It's just a coincidence, Deenz" he assured me. "I didn't know. This was the most economical choice and it's actually a lot nicer inside than it is outside. You know, when I came down here, I wasn't sure you'd even want to see me, let alone come back to this place. And I had no idea that one of the missing guys stayed here. But, look — if this place creeps you out, we can go someplace else. Okay?" He waited a moment for my answer, and when I gave none (I didn't know what to say!), he declared, "Hell, why not? We'll go someplace really nice! Spurge a little! Celebrate your amnesia! What do you say?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but he cut in, settling the decision for both of us. "We'll go someplace else."

He ran inside to check out and to retrieve his bag. While I waited, it occurred to me that I had tacitly agreed to stay the night with Barney, a man I'd met only moments ago; a man I had doubts about. What was the point of getting a nicer hotel room if I wasn't staying the night? But then again, it was Barney who made the assumption.

On the other hand, his assumption was perfectly natural, from his point of view. After all, we're engaged, aren't we?

Then again (backtracking, trying to justify myself here) I hadn't explicitly agreed to stay, so I could exit the scene at any time — (I sighed at my own misleading behavior). Yes, I could leave Barney flat-footed, just as I had with Sheba. My amnesia gave me that much license. Didn't it?

Still, even if amnesia gave me that license, it didn't mean I had to use it.

Then too, staying together in a hotel didn't necessarily mean having sex together in that hotel, right?

I'll admit that my it doesn't mean sex argument was pretty thin and not very convincing. Not even to me. Sure, it was true, in a literally sense, in a theoretical sense, but it was pretty damn unlikely. Especially given Barney's nature and my physical response to him.

For a moment, I wished I could confer with Thistlewaite, but then again, I doubt he'd be of any real help. The problem — and I'd already told him this — is: how much can I trust myself? My perceptions, my motives... Was any of the old me in there, subconsciously directing, leading me one way or another? Or was the old me gone? Under a haystack, fast asleep? Were all my responses, decisions, perceptions, truly new? Were they ex nihilo or ex materia? (Another phrase for my little book; one that only compounded the question.)

What puzzles me is that I don't remember Barney at all. Or Sheba, or Cameron, or my two little nieces. I'm not talking specifically about the effect of amnesia here. What I'm saying is that I don't find in myself any residual feeling toward any of them. Not a scintilla. I'm a pot that's been scrubbed clean. But — shouldn't there be some sort of visceral memory? I'm not sure what I'm even trying to say here, but feel I ought to have memories of touch, of smell, of the sense of being together? I remembered the sensation of that scratchy blanket, didn't I? Was that just a one-off? Or are all of those functions, those senses, do they all fall under the same department... are they too complex to persist? Or are they all susceptible to being coated with, covered over by, amnesia now?

For Sheba and Cameron (and Cameron's little girls), I'm sure that all my feelings for them, about them, developed after the accident.

What was my problem, then? My problem is the way I find Barney so easy to be around. Super-easy, in fact. It's true that he irritated me when we first spoke on the phone, but from the moment I walked down the stairs to his car, I felt a sense of relaxed, casual familiarity. Barney is easy to talk to, easy to tease and be teased by. What do I make of that?

To be safe, I had to suppose that this was just Barney being Barney. That he would be this way, and I would feel this way, even if I'd never met him before today.

Or was I at ease with him because he keyed into old memories, habits, vibes?

This is where amnesia gets to be a huge pain: when you try to sort out the old from the new.

I'd have an easier time of it if Sheba and Cameron hadn't warned me about Barney, if they hadn't spoken ill of him. With their distaste for Barney in mind, they'd given me another puzzle, another problem: I couldn't understand why I don't see what they see? Are they wrong? Are they simply not susceptible to Barney's charisma?

A further wrinkle, that I blush to mention, is I can't help but wonder what sex will be like with Barney. I had a feeling it would be good. Deep-down good. Wade was great, but I was willing to bet Barney would give him a run for his money.

Of course, I don't want to give the impression that I'm a woman of loose morals, or to go so far as to call myself promiscuous (even if Cameron had already told me I am). The thing is, while I'm still without my memories, I feel as though I'm living in a lawless state, an interregnum, a space and time in which the normal rules of my life are suspended. Here, now, ignorance is bliss, and there are no real consequences. Of course, I don't mean that I could go so far as to kill someone and think I'd get away with it, but up to a certain point people can't hold me responsible... at least, not for the things I can't remember. As far as holding myself to account, I'm keeping track with a very light pencil, so I can go back and erase my bad deeds later, if need be.

To put it simply, I was setting my reputation on the shelf for the nonce. At least for the night, while the prospect of sex with Barney was in the cards. I just had to be sure to not wear that ring when it happens.

 

---

 

Barney woke me from my daydream when he opened the trunk and tossed in his suitcase with a loud thunk!

"Sorry I kept you waiting," he told me with a grin, after he slipped behind the wheel. He leaned in toward me, tugging his seat belt around himself, and lifted his face toward mine for a kiss. Probably something we often do — a move that was both efficient and cute — but I missed the cue and left him hanging. He kept his head there, poised toward mine, looking a bit hurt.

Fumbling, I met his lips with mine, just as he was pulling away. It wasn't the kiss he expected, the kiss he meant it to be.

"Sorry—" I began (about to explain), but he waved it away.

He drove out of the parking lot, and kept to the riverside until the Inn was well out of sight. Then he parked the car and climbed out. "Let's stretch our legs a bit," he recommended, and went to lean, elbows resting on the wall, his back to me, overlooking the water while he checked hotel-room availability on his phone.

Getting out of the car wasn't as easy for me as it was for Barney: he was wearing pants, after all. The car was so low-slung, I was practically sitting on the ground. It took a bit of twisting. I planted my feet on the ground, then used my arms to haul my backside out of my seat. Once my hips were over my feet, I lurched forward and stood upright. And I managed it all without exposing myself — quite a feat!

The mis-timed kiss bothered me. It bothered me more than it should have, but I understood why. As I approached Barney, I had a vivid image in my mind: Sheba's baffled, angry, hurt expression, when I refused to get into her car. Sure, I had/have amnesia, and that ought to give me some leeway, but at the same time it didn't amount to a license to kill. I don't want to run roughshod over the feelings of everyone I know. I don't want to foul the nest I might want to return to. I couldn't treat Barney like a complete stranger.

Sheba expected a welcome. She counted on an emotional payoff. Cameron, on the other hand, made things easy for me: she took me as she found me. She adapted to the new me.

Barney struggled, the way that Sheba had stuggled. He was a confident person, but I kept tripping him up in his attempts to reconnect.

I have to say, though, that Barney has something that neither Sheba nor Cameron have.

He has an aura. He gives off this... I don't know what. Do men have pheromones? Can you tell when a man has lots of testosterone? Barney wasn't tense, or pushy, or demanding. He wasn't a macho guy, thank God! He didn't wear desire on his sleeve, or on his forehead. Even so, the man was sexy. He effortlessly radiated sex. He was clearly ready, but not randy: he wasn't vulgar or crude. Well, maybe a little. Maybe more than a little, but not too much. Even so, as odd as it sounds to say, Barney's approach, his attitude, toward sex struck me as very *zen*. His vibe, as far as I could tell, was that he was always ready for sex. He wanted it, and he'd take it when he found it, or it found him, but he didn't force the issue.

Which only added to his charm.

Barney's acceptance of the moment made it easy to be around him. I stood a little closer to him. I rested my hand on his shoulder, and watched him work his phone.

The Good Old Inn — cancellation confirmed.

Hotels near me...

 

---

 

"Here, look," he offered, pointing to another hotel, swiping through photos of the room, the lobby, the view...

"It looks nice," I agreed.

He punched a few buttons, said, "Okay, done! We're booked. It's got a great big tub and a welcome basket."

"A what?" I asked. "Why?"

"Amenities," he commented, with a grin. "Amenities are the spice of life."

"Oh, Barney," I groaned, and gave him a playful shove. He grinned back at me, an open, happy grin. It warmed my heart to see it, but at the same time I was 100% sure that no, I didn't remember him, not at all, but wow, it took no effort to be with him, none at all. I figured I might as well tell him, 'fess up to everything.

"You know," I said, beginning my confession, "I really, honest and truly, have lost all my memories— of everything before the accident—" Here he gave a cocky half-smile that wasn't hard to read. It meant that he didn't believe a word I said, but he'd play along, considering there was likely to be sex after... "—but you are so likeable and easy to be around—"

"I've got charisma, baby," he declared, with arms outstretched and an open-mouthed smile. "Everybody says so!" He paused. "Well... almost everybody."

"—and you're not full of yourself, are you!" I groaned, grinning, shaking my head, as if scolding him.

"What can I do?" he muttered, chuckling. "This is me!"

"It's like— I mean, it's almost as though we've always known each other."

He stopped. His smile fell. He was taken aback. "But we have always known each other," he protested in a small, weak voice. "Come on. Don't do this. We have always known each other. From when we were kids." He studied my face for a few seconds, hoping for me to backtrack, to admit that I was only pretending. When I did neither, he gave up and turned to look at the river.

I don't know what Sheba and Cameron have against him, I found myself thinking. He seems so senstive, so sincere! I placed my palm on his back, between his shoulder blades, and moved my hand in a soft, small circle.

That's when I caught myself. I'm falling for this guy! I realized, shocked. Am I that much of a sucker? I don't know this man. I don't remember him; I don't know him. Not at all!

"I took tomorrow off," he informed me without turning around. "We can sleep late, have a relaxing morning, and head back to Mariola whenever we're ready."

"Oh, that," I responded, taking my hand from his back. He said the magic word that broke the spell: Mariola.

And he knew he had. Barney rubbed his face, frustrated. He took a breath and said. "Fine. Let's see what tomorrow morning brings. How does that sound?"

"Ah—" my voice cracking "—it sounds okay?"

He caught all the uncertainty in my voice. He read the meaning in my incomplete responses. He watched the river for a few beats. He blew out a big breath, then turned to face me. He set his hands on my hips and looked into my face. I looked into his eyes, but I didn't move. I didn't rest my hands on his shoulders, which somehow I knew is what he expected.

"Okay," he said at last, dropping his hands, resigned. "Let's check out our gift basket."

 

---

 

In retrospect, I'd forgotten something that stood in the background of all my interactions with Barney today: our fight by the VFW dumpster.

It was foremost in Barney's mind because he actually remembered it; the experience still vibrated in him. He came to Robbins not knowing what sort of reception he'd get. He half-expected that I wouldn't want to see him.

For my part, I knew that our fight had happened, but it was almost like something I'd seen on television. Other people fighting.

Barney interpreted all my moves, all my words, all my tiny facial expressions and missed timings as fallout from our fight.

I'd look at him at times and wonder why he was sad, or confused, or why his confidence slipped. For me, the fight was something I had to remind myself about.

Something else I'd forgotten was the gift basket. I'd been so absorbed in my thoughts and my observations of Barney that I didn't know for half a minute what he was referring to, but I didn't ask. He noticed, though, and it nettled him.

At the hotel, a valet took Barney's car, nodding in approval as he gripped the key, "Nice ride, man, nice ride!" Barney grinned and slipped him a tip — I couldn't see how much.

Their exchange put me in mind of the engagement ring. The ring — expensive. His car — expensive? I guess so. The valet seemed impressed. And this hotel — it was nothing to sneeze at. But then again, last night he'd gone for the Good Old Inn, which was more a motel than a hotel, and — as he said, "the most economical choice."

A question for later.

The bellhop took Barney's bag and gave me an enquiring look. Barney sidled up next to him and gesturing with his chin in my direction, told the young man in a confidential tone, "She doesn't have a bag. She doesn't need a bag. She's going to be buck-naked the entire time we're here." He nodded seriously and sagely.

The bellhop knew better than to respond. For a moment, he gaped at me. Then he quickly averted his eyes, looking down at the floor, and he swallowed hard. I'm sure he knew I was blushing. Barney chuckled silently to himself, nodding at me and the bellhop.

When we got to the room, the poor boy fumbled with the key card, putting it in upside down at first, then backward. He dropped it, caught it, fumbled, and finally got the door open — whew! and tripped over his own feet once inside the door. He caught himself before he fell.

He set Barney's bag on a low bench, and shot me a glance — a wistful x-ray glance, trying to divine how I looked underneath my clothes. He was blushing more furiously than I.

Barney gave him a tip and walked him to the door, his hand on the bellhop's shoulder. He muttered something to him, and the boy responded, "Yes, sir."

My cheeks were burning. "What did you say to him?" I asked after the door closed.

"What?"

"You said something to him at the door just then. What was it?"

"Oh," he shook his head, blowing out a breath. "Nothing consequential. I told him to have a drink on me. That's all." He smiled.

I didn't know whether to believe him. No, that's not true. I didn't believe him. "You made me feel like a two-dollar whore!" I exclaimed, with no idea where I'd gotten that phrase.

"Did I?" he asked. A smile played across his lips. "It's fun to make-believe sometimes, though, isn't it?"

"Oh, Barney!" I groaned, and found myself laughing in spite of myself.

"There she is!" he called, smiling when I smiled, and walking over to embrace me. He held me, and we looked each other in the face.

Then he pulled in close, his cheek pressing mine. He murmured a word in my ear: "Amenities." Then, again, "Amenities, baby."

"Amenities?"

"You're the best amenity there is," he quipped, giving my butt a quick, light pat. "But let's see what the hotel provided."

What indeed! There was a large gift basket resting on the table, wrapped in clear paper and gauzy white and blue paper, and a knock on the door brought us a bottle of honest-to-God Vueve Clicquot in an bucket of ice and water. Barney wrestled the champagne open, poured two glasses, and set to ferreting through the basket, as if he was looking for one thing in particular. It was (as I said) a large basket, packed with fruit, nuts, chocolate treats, cheese, crackers, ...

I grabbed a cylindrical tin filled with macademia nuts and started noshing.

"Here it is!" Barney exclaimed, holding up a small bottle of bath oils. "This has your name written all over it! What do you say to a nice bath?"

"For the both of us?" I asked warily.

And yes, I realize how stupid, naive, whatever, that sounds, given the fact that I'd already tacitly agreed to spend the night, but honestly, I wasn't thinking about sex at that point. My goal here was to find out whatever I could about myself. I wanted the insights, memories, facts, that Barney alone could provide. I wanted to know what our argument by the dumpster was all about.

I wagered he was a lot more likely to talk to me here, than... well, than anyplace else.

"No," he answered. "Soaking in a hot tub is not my thing. Watching YOU soak... now that is my jam! This little bottle is for you. Only for you." He frowned a little at my reaction — or lack of reaction. "What's with that face? You love baths! And hey! This is probably good for your sunburn. How about that? Look: it contains Vitamin E oil. That's good, right? And fragrant whatevers, as well. Rose-something. Moisturizing... healing... This shit is right up your alley!"

He carried the little bottle to the bathroom and ran water in the tub. I munched the macademias. Took little sips of the bubbly. I scratched my left clavicle, absent-mindedly, until I realized that itching could be the harbinger of general peeling. Not that peeling is such a bad thing. Who cares, anyway? Everybody understands peeling.

I wandered to the window, stared at the river, and listened to the tub filling in the next room. Is this the sort of life I'd have with Barney? I wondered. I shouldn't alienate the guy before I really knew who he is. I didn't want to toss out the man with the bathwater.

"Barney? What do you do for a living?" I called.

"What?" he responded in a loud voice. "Are you talking to me? This water is pretty loud! I can't make out what you're saying."

I tilted my face back and tipped my glass high, emptying it. They were little glasses, anyway: champagne glasses. I refilled it, and went to stand by the bathroom door. Barney was on one knee, his hand in the water, mixing. "I started of with just hot water, you know, to heat up the tub itself, so now of course, the water's way too hot," he explained, "but it's getting there. Almost bearable." He held his hand, red, parboiled, under the cold water from the tap. "The bath oil smells pretty good, though, doesn't it? All those fragrant whatevers and such?" He smiled up at me. "So what were you saying to me?"

The mirror above the sink had fogged up. So had the glass in my hand. The bathroom was warm and steamy, but not unpleasant.

"I asked what you do for a living," I told him.

The smile on his face fell apart, leaving a look of disappointment. "Come on," he said softly, in a tone of reproach. "Are you kidding, right now? Do you really have to stick with this amnesia shit? With me? Now? When we're alone?"

"It's not an act!" I protested. "I don't know who anybody is, least of all myself—" I would have continued, but he raised his hand in a gesture of STOP. He looked tired.

"I don't need this," he said, standing up, looking down. Behind him, the tub continued filling. "I don't care if you pretend to the rest of the world. I'll be right there with you, backing you up, saying what you say. But when it's just you and me... come on." He looked me in the face. "I mean, seriously. Can't you just—" He let the words fall, unsaid. Then turning, reaching down, he shut off the tap, abandoning the regulation of the water temperature.

"I came all the way down here, hoping to patch things up," he told me. "I sat through all that bullshit with the police, just for you."

"I appreciate that," I assured him. "I really do."

"You really do?" he repeated with a scornful laugh. "Listen to how you talk! How do you do that? I never knew you were such an actress! You make it sound like you don't know who I am. Like you and I never met before." He sounded glum, looked glum, at the end. He pushed past me and went to stand at the window.

I stepped out the bathroom, which was by now too steamy for comfort. "I don't know how I can prove it to you," I told him.

He tilted his head a little to the side and seemed to analyze me. Then he grinned and, changing tack, said, "Okay. Let's play your game. I don't mind a little roleplay. You'll be the girl with amnesia and I'll be the... oh! you won't know WHO I am, right? Or, I guess, I could be the boyfriend you don't remember? Or... am I?"

"Uhh—" I wasn't sure how to reply.

"Because you're not 100% sure that I am who I say am, but at the same time... you don't leave, because you want something from me," he proposed, pitching his story line.

"Information," I offered, truthfully. "I want information."

"Mmm, I like that," he agreed. "Information. And what will you do to get it?"

I took a breath. What *would* I do to get it?

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 13

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

Tiptoe from your pillow
to the shadow
of a willow tree
And tiptoe through the tulips with me

— Al Dublin and Joe Burke, Tiptoe Through The Tulips [song]

---

 

"Information," I offered, truthfully. "I want information."

"Mmm, I like that," he agreed. "And what will you do to get it?"

I took a breath. What *would* I do to get it?

"You don't realize it at first," he narrated, warming to his roleplay theme, "but it turns out that you'll do whatever it takes, won't you." He licked his lips and rubbed his palms together. "Yeah, yeah — but we'll get that that. Oh! Let's think about what you'll let me do to you, for your precious information?" He cackled. "I'll tell you what you *can* do, now, young lady. First of all," he prompted. "You'd better slip out of those clothes and slip into that bath... Let's say I surprise you in the bath. I've got a key to your room, but you don't remember me, so— No! That's too complicated!" His eyes glistened. "Listen... maybe— you realize that you might persuade me better... to give up my... information... if I was the one undressing you?"

"Ohhh!" I responded, a little surprised. Not by his suggestion, per se. I was surprised that I didn't *mind* his suggestion. I was also a little surprised that we'd gotten to this point so quickly, just as I had with Wade. Was it something about me? Was I doing something wrong? or doing something right? Was I navigating the signals the right way? I'm sure there's no manual on how to be a woman, but I felt the need to find someone — another woman — to talk to about this. Lucy's comment about falling into bed like this "not being the normal order of things" suddenly (and inconveniently) came to mind.

Even so, right now, returning to the case at hand, Barney's suggestion sounded good to me. It fit our story. It sounded like fun. I blushed. It sounded like sex.

I enjoyed having sex with Wade, and, as I said, I had a strong suspicion that I'd like sex with Barney even more. AND... we were supposedly engaged, weren't we? So that made it... legit? I imagine we must have done all this before.

It hadn't taken much thought or much time to get the ball rolling... although (spoiler alert!) the actual sex came much later, after dinner. The bath, the dinner — Barney's idea that this was "roleplay" — as it turned out, roleplay was foreplay. Barney liked a long game.

I won't bore you with the step by step, button by button, clasp by clasp of clothes slipping off... toe dipping into bath water... I'm sure you can imagine it well enough, as long as you add an excess of steam, the sheen of condensation, and tiny droplets of water on everything: my skin (my legs! the backs of my hands!), the walls, the mirror, Barney's face and arms...

Even so, even given my willingness, I never expected things to go the way they did. My only experience of sex (the only experience of sex that I can remember) was a simple falling naked into each other. This, now, was radically different: leisurely, stretched out, delayed gratification, the certainty of the coming apex, but no telling when it would arrive. The delay didn't add intensity, stress; not at all. There was, instead, what I want to call a frisson, but a frisson means chills, gooseflesh, a flash of feeling. Imagine that flash, that flush, turned down low, like a hum in the background. It heightened the sensuality of our interactions; made waiting for pleasure a pleasure in itself. Barney took off my dress with painstaking slowness, then got down on one knee to finish adjusting the water temperature. As he knelt next to the tub, he helped me off with my underwear, kissed my thighs and pressed his cheek against them. He made a particular study of removing my bra and adding all the preliminary kisses and caresses he could invent before guiding me into the water. Perspiration poured like rain off his forehead and face, dripping from his chin. Once I fully entered the water, he scurried out to change into a pair of running shorts. When he returned, he sat, sometimes on the floor, sometimes on a chair he brought in for the purpose. I lounged in the tub like an odalisque, sipping champagne... alternating with ice water. I finished off the macademias. Barney's eyes played over me. His hand occasionally dangled in the water, touching me here, trailing his fingers there. His chest was muscular and hairy — but not extremely. Not in a bad way: it was a light covering, not like a rug, not furred. It was just enough; not too much.

What did we do then, the two of us? We talked. And talked. And talked.

What did we talk about?

Of all things, we talked about Mariola. Imagine that! More accurately, Barney talked about Mariola. I listened, I laughed. I asked questions.

Not wanting to break his flow, I tried to keep my questions to a minimum. My receptiveness relaxed him, made him open up. He let one story follow another: stories of our childhood, of my family, of the town, of the church, of my crazy mother...

It was perfect, at least as far as filling the hole of my lost memories. He not only handed me the puzzle pieces of my forgotten life; he also fitted them together, one anecdote buttressing another. Barney answered questions I didn't know to ask. In a word, he gave me Deeny. He poured out from his endless supply of snapshots, impressions, and epitomes, summing up my life; my life as he'd seen it.

Before meeting Barney, I thought I only needed to know the details of our fierce argument at the VFW; that the subject of our heated discussion was the one, single bit of information I required of him. Sure, I was curious about our engagement, but not overmuch. I'd already discounted any possibility of marrying a man I didn't know, or at least didn't remember.

Instead, I got an overview of my life, as seen by an interested observer.

He mentioned in passing that my mother called me a scapegrace. I wasn't familiar with the word, but I got the rough sense: "grace" had to be God's grace; a grace I'd escaped from, or missed out on, or maybe even refused.

Barney's version of my life fit with everything I'd heard from Sheba, Cameron, and even my mother.

From a very young age, I was rebellious, confrontational, and often ungovernable. According to Barney, I was famous for speaking out of turn in school, in church, and at home. I was a prankster and a vandal. Several times I barely missed getting into serious trouble, including three episodes in which I very nearly ended up in jail.

"Do I have a police record?" I asked in alarm.

"No, but it's not for want of trying!" he quipped, laughing, cackling, clapping his hands.

I smiled to encourage him, but honestly I didn't find it funny. I didn't find it funny at all.

"So..." I ventured, "those times, those three times, when I sat at the police station while they tried to decide what to do with me: what happened? How did I get off? Did they take pity on me because I was just a kid? Did I convince them that I'd be good?"

"Hell, no!" he snorted. "What are you talking about? Your daddy came and bailed you out! What do you think happened?"

That threw a new wrinkle into my picture of my father. But then, I reflected, "I suppose he followed up with that spare-the-rod business, didn't he?"

"Uh, no, actually," Barney replied, looking thoughtful for a moment. "The only thing he ever said about it was I blame myself — of all things!"

"Hmmph," I responded.

The more that Barney revealed to me about myself, the less I liked this Deeny character. More and more I understood Cameron's suggestion that I not recover my memories.

Barney, on the other hand, found all of it charming, endearing, amusing.

Soon I had a clear idea of what attracted him to me, or to Deeny, the old me — and what drew the old Deeny to him. We went for the wildness in each other; we liberated each other. In his anecdotes we took turns leading each other in and out of trouble. He didn't blamed me for any of it, whatever the consequences. He loved me for breaking convention, for defying rules.

"I never told you this," he confessed at one point, tears forming in the corners of his eyes, "but because of you,I can see outside the box. To tell the truth, I don't even see the box any more. Rules are made to keep us line, to deny our individual success. You taught me that."

Oh, God! I exclaimed internally. I ruined you, Barney, didn't I? You're not the dangerous one — it's me!

Then, of course, he laid out a set of stories in which he attempted to paint himself as just as bad as me.

It was a lot to take in.

I mean, if I went back in my memory to my very beginning, as I sat on the ground in the desert, I would have said of myself that I was a nice person, a good person, a law-abiding person, a person who would want to live in harmony with others. I must have been that way at birth, wasn't I? And then, as I grew, I accumulated bad behavior, antisocial tendencies, selfishness, disregard for others.

And yet, I couldn't blame Mariola or Jesus for all of that. Cameron didn't end up like me.

And so, I had to hope that if my memories did NOT return, that I could stay this way, the way I am now: a part of society, a friend, a neighbor.

Conversely, I also had to hope that if my memories DO return, that I can fend off my old life, my habitual behavior, that it isn't somehow written into the essence of who I am.

At that point, Barney changed the course of his narrative. Did he notice that my attention had flagged and turned inward? Certainly he noticed that I'd stopped laughing. I'd submerged my mouth and simply watched and listened.

It's a good thing he changed tack and took a new narrative direction. Otherwise he'd have left me depressed, or at least very sad. Uninterested in sex, to say the least.

Wisely, he turned instead to stories about other people. People we knew — or at least, people *he* knew. People I don't remember. He called them "the gentlefolk of Mayberry" — a reference lost on me.

Barney is a born storyteller, a raconteur. I did say he's a charmer. He sketched out the members of my family for me. He described the church people and the Sunday service. He stood and gave a comical impression of the preacher, which I imagine was true to life: the Reverend's pompous stance, his exhortations, his farfetched alliterations.

Barney graphically described three of Mamma's elaborate hairstyles, and imitated her voice to a T. He got me laughing again.

After all that, I had a sense, a picture, a feeling, for my family, and for the town of Mariola. As much as Barney appeared to love the place and its people, his word paintings didn't draw me back there.

I had a much clearer idea as well of what I didn't like about the church. Although, I have to say, Barney left me with the strong suspicion that if he was truthful with himself, he'd admit that actually likes church life, and only pretends not to, for my sake.

Then Barney complained that his jaw was tired, and he prompted me to talk. He asked about the accident, about the hospital, about Thistlewaite and the policewomen. He tried to puzzle out the disappearance of the two men, but of course he got nowhere. Like Cameron, he didn't see any real mystery in how I crossed the desert and lost my clothes. Those two particulars seemed par for the course in his eyes.

By the time we waded through all that, I was more than ready to get out of the tub. I was fully cooked. The air was not as steamy as earlier, but it was certainly hot. The water still held some heat. My soak made me sleepy, but I didn't want to sleep. I needed food. But before getting out of the water, I took a breath, held it, and slid my face under the water, feeling the hot oily water on my face and covering my lidded eyes. It seemed to penetrate my skin, the residual heat radiating down to my deeper layers, while the oils caressed and healed the surface layer. I kept my eyes shut and drank in the sensation. The tub was long and deep, a perfect measure. I didn't need to bend my knees to submerge myself. It was wonderful.

When I lifted my face from the water, Barney scrambled to his feet and said... something. I didn't catch it, there was still water in my ears, but I couldn't ask because he left the little room. I didn't blame him; the air was awfully close in here. It had gone from steam room to sauna.

I stood slowly, lightheaded from the long bath. After rubbing most of the water out of my hair with a thick towel, I pulled on a knee-length, white bathrobe. Way too heavy for my rubescent body and the oven-like room. I slipped my hands into the pockets and flapped the robe, like a pair of wings, to generate a breeze to cool my glowing skin.

I turned on the fan, to draw off the heat. We tried to use it earlier, but the motor was unpleasantly loud, making conversation impossible.

Still flapping my wings, I emerged from the bathroom. Barney wore the same shorts as before, but he'd pulled on a gray t-shirt. Standing next to him was the same bellhop as before. Now he had no need for x-ray glasses; the only way I could have been more naked was if my robe dropped from my shoulders and fell to the floor.

If the bellhop's eyes were big as saucers earlier, now they were as large as dinner plates.

"Jesus!" I shrieked, and flapped my bathrobe closed, clutching it tightly to me. "Barney, why didn't you tell me he was here?" and to the bellhop, I said, "Sorry!" He shook his head and muttered, "No problem! No problem! My fault. All my fault."

Barney handed the man another tip, and watched in amusement as the poor boy stumbled to the door and fumbled it open. The moment the door clicked shut, Barney guffawed, "Wow! You really made *his* day! That was bold of you, very bold!"

"Why didn't you tell me he was there?" I repeated. "What the hell, Barney?"

"I *did* tell you," he retorted. "I waited until you pulled your head out the water and told you. I said, 'oh, room service is here'. Didn't you hear him knocking?"

It sounded plausible. He sounded sincere. In the end, I didn't really care. It's not as though I lost something or hurt someone. It was hard to be angry with Barney — at least the way he was behaving right now. I knew we'd fought in the past, though. I'd seen the video. That image of me screaming, full-bodied, brimming with anger and frustration, was vivid. It stayed with me. It was even more of a mystery now, now that I'd formed an utterly new picture of Barney as the good person in our relationship, and me the wicked one. I needed to know what the fight was about, and now, while my emotions were bivouacked in a no-man's land, or demilitarized zone, there was probably no time better to get into it.

But— first things first: I was hungry, and the discussion could wait until after dinner.

My skin felt smooth, refreshed, wonderfully clean and hydrated. So damn hot, though, that I ate dinner without any clothes, and without any feeling of embarrassment. Like Eve in the Garden. (If I had my little book, I'd write that phrase down!) Barney kept to his shorts and shirt. We had steaks, baked potatoes, and green beans. Barney's choice. Along with a bottle of cabernet. I only drank half a glass. Same for Barney. He knocked the cork back into the bottle and set it aside.

Much of the time we were silent, both of us, and it was fine. After dinner was done, neither of us wanted the dessert: a double-chocolate cake. We didn't ask for it; it came with the dinner.

"I was hoping to get... information... from you," I reminded him.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I forgot. All that steam sapped my energy. So... what? I think you better ask me questions, if you really want to know something particular. I could just start talking again, but I don't know what you want. Besides, what's left to tell? Honestly, I forgot we were playing that game, anyway."

"Can I ask you some questions? For real?"

Barney turned one of the armchairs to face the window and its view of the river, and sat down. He lifted his heels and rested them on the window sill. He patted his lap with his right hand and held out his left by way of invitation. I took his hand and sat in his lap. I felt surprisingly comfortable, at ease, especially after I nestled in and rested my head on his upper chest and shoulder.

I asked him how we met. How long we'd been seeing each other. I asked him to describe his proposal of marriage. I asked what he did for a living. I asked about his family: his parents, his siblings. He answered frankly and freely, although he wasn't at all expansive. Just the facts, the bare facts.

Then... one last question: I asked what we'd fought about, next to the dumpster, behind the VFW Hall.

"Oh," he groaned in protest. "Do we really have to do this now? When we're getting on so well?"

"Yes," I told him, lifting up my head so I could look him in the face. "But I doubt that I'll react the way I did before. Tell me the whole thing, as if I really have amnesia, like I know absolutely nothing about what happened."

He studied my face for a few moments. Then he lifted my left hand and rubbed my naked ring finger with his thumb, considering. After a deep breath, he began:

"Okay. Here goes. You and me, you and I, we have a open relationship. I mean, within reason. We don't go crazy, though, right? Neither of us are tramps; we don't sleep around indiscriminately, but there's always the option, if we want to go for it, okay? We don't give each other shit about sex with other people, as long as we don't rub each other's nose in it. It can be tricky. Sometimes it's a tight-rope walk, but as long as we don't make each other look or feel foolish, everything is cool. Are you with me so far?"

"So far, yes."

"Okay... the thing we fought about is... Well, it's kind of a natural next step. It started when I asked you whether you knew what polyamory is."

"I don't," I told him.

He paused. He looked into my face, perplexed. I pointed at the bump on my forehead and said, "Amnesia." He seemed doubtful, even confused. He still didn't believe me.

"Okay," he continued, but gingerly, cautiously. "I asked you whether you ever considered a relationship with three people instead of two."

"You mean a threesome? Two men and one woman?"

That gave him pause. "No," he said. "That's what you said last time. And the answer is no. This isn't about sex per se. It's a way of living, a way of life. I was proposing that we live together: you, me, and another woman." He watched my face, ready for the worst. When I didn't react, he continued. "Polyamory is multiple intimate relationships. I asked if you could share me with another woman, on a—" he gestured vaguely— "well, on a permanent basis."

I thought about it for a moment. "So, three of us. We'd live in the same house?" I asked, to clarify.

"Yes."

"And do you have another woman in mind? Someone specific?"

He scratched his neck and studied my face. He was stumped by the fact that I wasn't reacting the way I had by the VFW dumpster.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"See... here is where you started breathing fire," he said, clearly uncomfortable, not ready to jump back into the fray.

"Is it someone I know? I mean, if I had my memories, would I know her?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Oh, yes, definitely. You know her. It's Dana Rampiri," he answered, and held his breath, watching me.

"I don't know who that is," I informed him.

"Oh, shit!" he exclaimed. "Come on!" He looked me hard in the face. I shrugged. I said, "Sorry! Amnesia!"

That was the moment when the light broke upon his face. He realized, he understood, he finally got it: I really, truly, didn't remember anything. So he explained, with a little more ease.

"Dana Rampiri is engaged to be married... to your brother Nate."

I couldn't help it: I burst out laughing.

"Why are you laughing?" he demanded. He wasn't sure whether to feel offended. "Don't you believe me?"

It took me a while to stop giggling. Then he made a confused face, and it set me off again.

"Okay," I asked, when I was able to stop. "So, Dana: is she up for it?"

"Oh, yeah," he responded, nodding his head enthusiastically.

"And what about Nate?" I asked. "It all sounds pretty complicated."

"Oh, yeah. Nate is all for it. A hundred percent. See... Nate travels a lot for work, so it makes sense that Dana would live with you and me. That way she isn't alone when he's gone, and of course, when he *is* home, she's there for him, and he's there for her. Nate is definitely good with it."

I pondered the proposal for a few moments. "You get the best of the arrangement, though, don't you?"

"How do you mean?"

"How do I mean?" I laughed. "I get one man: you. Nate gets one woman: Dana. You get two women: me and Dana. And, you get more of Dana than Nate does."

"Well," he pointed out defensively, "Dana gets two men, right? Me and Nate." I mused over it.

"Also," Barney added, "Not everybody *wants* more than one partner."

That stopped me. "That's true, I guess."

"Besides, if other people wanted to... join..."

"Oh," I said. "Like a commune?"

He sighed. "You said that last time, too. No, not a commune, as such. More of an intentional community. That's actually a thing. That's what it's called. Adults, couples, families, living together. Of course there'd be rules and all that. I mean, though, if that happened, it would develop slowly. And it wouldn't be a sexual free-for-all."

I wasn't so sure about the "developing slowly." It could easily catch on like a brush fire. But that wasn't what I wanted to know. I gave Barney a searching look and asked, "So, this is what we fought about? This is why I ran away?"

"Yes," he said, still watching, worried that I'd explode again.

"And what exactly set me off? At what point did I lose it?"

"When I said that Dana was, uh, the other woman."

"Hmmph," I said. "Why? I mean, if our relationship is all open and all that?"

"Yeah. Um, see... it's because of your brother. At first you said I was cheating on your brother, as if that was even possible. Or, better — you said I was deceiving your brother, which I wasn't, and that Dana... something about butter melting in her mouth, or *not* melting in her mouth... I've never understood that phrase. Anyway, you took everything the wrong way — sorry! but you did! As if all three of us betrayed *you*, all at once. A conspiracy. You started making all kinds of hurtful accusations, based on nothing—" Barney warmed to his topic.

"Okay, okay," I told him. "Don't go back there. We're here now. You explained, and I listened. Okay?"

"I guess," he said slowly. "So, what now? I mean, are we good? You and me?"

"You and me and Dana and Nate?"

"Well, uh, right now, I'm only asking about you and me."

I fell quiet. I wasn't sure what to say — or more accurately, how much to say. Unfortunately, the longer I was silent, the lower Barney sank. I could see his thoughts on his face: It's over. I know it; it's all over.

"Look, Barney — I hope you can believe me, but I swear to God, I don't remember anything that happened before last Tuesday, before the accident. I don't remember Nate or Dana or our discussion — let's call it that. All I know is what I feel right now and what I remember from the past few days. Because of that, I can't commit to a life with you. At least not right now, not the way things stand. Maybe after my memories come back, we can pick things up again, if you still want to, but I can't promise anything right now."

"What if your memories never come back?" he asked. "Where does that leave me?"

"I don't know," I told him, and my answer made him sad.

"But see...," he began after some rumination, "I won't even *know* whether you remember, unless you tell me. It's just... not fair."

I was still there, resting on his lap. He was a study in melancholy. Mr Glum. I stroked his hair, as if he were a pet. The thought made me smile, little flashes of a smile, and then before I knew it, I kissed him, right on the mouth... and that's when the next phase of the evening started.

One kiss followed another. Each kiss deeper, warmer, more passionate. I felt his body warming to me.

Barney lifted me from his lap to the bed. In an instant he was out of his clothes and lying on top of me. Slowly we began, and slowly the tempo increased. I squirmed and tensed and arched my body and ran my fingers all over him. We carried on for what seemed a very long time — a long, hot, glowing, passionate time, until eventually neither of us could go any more. "That was great," he murmured, out of breath. He rolled off me and after ten minutes Barney was deep in the land of dreams.

It was good, sex with Barney. Very good. It was better than good. Better than sex with Wade, which was saying a lot. Barney and I have a physical chemistry that you can't buy in a bottle. His skin on my skin... mine on his... gives me a sensation so extraordinary that must be unique. I mean, unique to him and me. I doubt that even he and Dana have that same feeling, when skin touches skin. I'm sure that other sets of people out in the world find the same experience. It must be rare, but it must happen. It doesn't make us soul mates, but it does make us — what? Sex mates? No. That sounds cheap. It sounds tawdry. We have a physical affinity. It doesn't make us soul mates; it makes us a chemistry set. I smiled at my own foolishness, and I liked it. Barney and I are a chemistry set.

It's possible that that's all we are. I don't know at this point.

I got up, cleaned myself, brushed my teeth, and examined my face in the mirror. I wanted to make some sort of wise comment to my reflection, but unfortunately I had nothing particularly wise to say. I only found myself wishing for a cup of coffee, as late as it was, but didn't want to go to the trouble of making one, so I climbed back in bed, and stared at the ceiling.

Now I have all the pieces that *I* need, I told myself. I don't have any of the answers the police are looking for. I certainly don't have the recovery that Thistlewaite so earnestly predicted. Be that as it may: I'm ready. I'm good. I'm ready to be me, just as I am right now, knowing only what I know here in this moment. I'm in a place where I can live and move forward without worrying whether I ever remember. In fact, I'm fine with never remembering.

Starting here. I'm starting here, right where I am, just as I am.

Of course, after making that declaration, I fell soundly and perfectly asleep.

When I woke, I found myself still on my back in exactly the same position, in exactly the same spot in the bed. Pre-dawn light softly lit the windows, and I considered my situation, congratulating myself on what I'd achieved. I think this is called self-actualization, I told myself, and if it's not, I don't care. I like the sound of the word.

Barney was dead to world, utterly asleep, relaxed, inert as a slab of beef, if beef could snore like that. I smiled to myself. It felt pretty damn great to be me at that exact moment in time.

And that's when it happened. In an instant.

The word self-actualization triggered it. Not that I achieved it, or even knew exactly what the word truly meant, but first came the word, and then comically, I had a song in my heart: If I Only Had A Brain. Amused, I let the words and music silently, internally, play:

I'd unravel every riddle
For ev'ry individ'l
In trouble or in pain

With the thoughts I'd be thinkin'
I could be another Lincoln
If I only had a brain

That's when it hit me: I remembered.

I remembered everything. All my memories returned. Everything, all at once. Not in a flood, though. Not as a sequence of pictures — flashing or flowing or streaming. Quite simply, a toggle flipped; my store of memories went from unavailable to available.

Yesterday, the inside of my head was a vast unfurnished library: room after room of empty bookshelves and abandoned storage units.

Today: boom! All the shelves, all the rooms, are full. The storage units are back online. As though the moving van arrived and unloaded. Now, whatever I wanted to remember was there, free, for the taking. Anything!

My name, for instance. What about that?

Perry Mason? I shoved half my fist in my mouth to keep from laughing. Now I understood. Thistlewaite will flip when I explain.

Then, as Thistlewaite rightly said, "one string pulls another": I saw everything that everyone was waiting to know: It came, playing back to me, playing backwards, starting from the accident. The car rolling over and over, the collision, me hitchhiking holding the big black umbrella, the night I spent in Hugh Fencely's car, shivering naked under a scratchy woolen blanket. All the questions the police wanted, answered. I had the answers now.

I remembered Hugh Fencely. Vivid, in my mind's eye. I *was* the last person to see him. Plain as day, as he was carried off—

"Oh, shit!" I exclaimed aloud, and immediately clamped my hand over my mouth. My stomach spasmed; I thought I might vomit. Smothering my own gasp, I bit down hard on my finger, desperate to keep silent. My other hand dropped to the bed, and accidentally grazed Barney's naked back. My head jerked left, staring at Barney, whose sleeping face was thankfully turned away from me. I would have screamed bloody murder if I'd seen his face. As it was, my eyes popped open to three times their normal size, and trembling, I shrank back from the vision of Barney's head, his shoulders, his muscular torso, his waist... all that naked skin! I scrabbled desperately sideways, crab-like, in the bed, recoiling in horror.

Without meaning to, I scrabbled myself right off the edge of the bed and onto the floor, bumping the back of my head noisily against the bedside table. Damn it!

Miraculously, all my noise, movement, and whimpers hadn't woken him. Barney hadn't even stirred. And yet, although I was pressing my luck, I couldn't help crying out softly, "I'm really in the shit!"

Then, softer, I whispered to myself. "Shit! Shit! Shit! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! What am I going to do?"

If I wasn't so afraid of waking Barney, I would have lost my mind right then and there, and turned into a quaking puddle of fear, confusion, and terror.

I couldn't fall apart — at least, not yet. First I had to get the hell out of that room, out of that hotel.

More easily said than done.

I shook so hard, there was no way I could stand, so I scurried on all fours into the bathroom and hauled myself to my feet by clutching the sink. I watched myself in the mirror frantically freaking out. "Okay, okay, okay," I told myself, over and over. "Okay, okay, okay!" After three more sets of "Okay, okay, okay!" I managed to switch to telling myself, "Keep it together! Keep it together! Keep it together!" and then at last, fiercely whispered, "Get dressed, get out, get dressed, get out!"

And that's what I did: still whispering my magic formula to myself (get dressed, get out! get dressed, get out!) I quickly, quietly gathered my clothes. Frightened out of my wits, I pulled my underwear on backwards — and almost left them that way. But it felt too weird. My follow-up was the struggle to NOT put my bra on inside-out. I nearly did the same with my dress. The whole time my eyes were locked on Barney's sleeping form, fearful that my shallow breaths would wake him. If I could have dressed in the hallway, believe me, I would have.

In spite of my shaking, in spite of my disorientation, I managed (with re-tries) to pull my clothes on properly, but oh Lord my poor clothes were funky as hell after all the action they'd seen yesterday. And sure, it wasn't only the clothes that smelled bad: I needed a shower, as well. I smelled of Barney: his scent, his sweat, all mixed with my sweat and the remnants of the fragrant bath oils.

My hair needed a good brushing, but I didn't dare take the time; I couldn't risk making the noise. (I didn't have a brush, in any case,)

After setting my shoes by the door, I searched in a panic for my bag. I couldn't find it anywhere until I realized I was clutching it in my left hand. I shook it stupidly for no good reason, then opened it to make sure my phone and wallet were inside. Anything else? "Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!" I cried out in despair as I spotted the little black box at the bottom of my bag. "God! God! God!" The damn engagement ring!

Then, I had my first coherent thought: At least there was one door I could close for good, right here and now. I fished the engagement ring out of my bag, and took a sheet of hotel stationery from the desk in the room. I wrote Sorry! at the top of the page. I checked that the ring was safely inside the box, and set the box on the page, as a very expensive paperweight. Okay — no one needs to tell me: Sorry! hardly covers what I've done. Worse yet, I knew Barney would take my "Sorry!" to mean Goodbye!

Of course, that *is* what it meant.

Then, once again feeling very much the heel that I am, I eased the door open, using every ounce of quiet-ness I could muster. I slipped through, holding my breath, and finally closed the door with supernatural gentle silence. I didn't make a sound, apart from a final click! that made me wince.

From there, barefoot, I furtively scurried to the elevator, grimacing at the impossibly loud ding! when it arrived. Clutching my shoes in my hand, I shot quickly out the hotel's front door, ignoring the startled staff's early-morning greetings and offers of help.

Once outside, I breathed a little easier, but I didn't stop at the entrance.

I escaped along the river way, holding my breath and running silently, on the tips of my toes, although the time for tiptoe was long passed.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 14

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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And there's an ocean in my body
And there's a river in my soul
And I'm crying

— Conor Joseph O'Brien, A Trick of the Light [song]

---

 

The big, the one-and-only, natural feature in Robbins is the river. It's wide; it's deep in parts and it flows in a graceful curve around Robbins, cupping the city in its hand, so to speak. During its salad days, the city constructed four bridges — they could have easily done with two or even one, but the bridges were built for beauty, and in the hope of attracting tourists. The city also laid out riverside walkways, one on each bank: lovely wide landscaped paths that run in neat parallels. They have the added benefit of offering prime locations for shops and condos.

The erstwhile city planners didn't foresee that in the early hours of the day, before anyone ventured outside (anyone, that is, other than stray cats, shift workers, and people like me), the river becomes be the perfect place for a breakdown.

The river flowed dark and heavy with a low rumble. The scene was inherently philosophical; a low-key, American version of Sturm und Drang. You couldn't help but feel a massive power, a force greater than yourself; at least I couldn't. Here, Nature turns a gargantuan cold-shoulder, not specifically to me, but to all mankind. I wasn't swept up or swept away by its indifference; I only happened to be standing there in mute witness. My little inner world, my slightly larger social world, in that irresistible contrast, left me insignificant, small. Not even a cog in the whirling of the world.

The river carries its own built-in insights: one, very Siddhartha-like, a meditation in itself; if I stood there long enough, agape, I could merge into the infinite — I could, if only my brain, my heart, weren't so loaded with my recent histories and disturbing contradictions.

Inevitably, too, it brings the Heraclitus moment; his famous quote — no man can step in the same river twice; it's not the same river and he's not the same man — but I could go him one or two steps better: here in Robbins no one can step into the river at all. You'd have to climb over fences, over walls, scrabble down rocky declines, negotiate an abrupt dropoff... the only practical way to step into the river is to pitch yourself off one of the bridges, but there was no way I was doing that.

Even so, the ancient Greeks knew everything, didn't they: Heraclitus was right. We call it "a river," as though it was one thing, but all the while the water continuously changes, renewing itself several times over, even while I stood there. The water I saw when I first arrived was far off somewhere, at the edge of town or beyond. The river. We give it one name (the Robbins River, in this case), but it's here, there, everywhere, and ever changing.

I changed as well, definitely and radically. Weirdly, in spite of— or because of— those changes, I was well beyond asking Who am I? I know not only who I am, but also who I *was* as well. Who I appear to be and who I am inside.

Honestly, though, "knowing yourself" is not all it's cracked up to be. I wish I didn't know. I really do. Life was easier, life was good, life was manageable, when I didn't even know my own name.

Turning back to the river, now:

In addition to the bridges and the walkways, the city of Robbins also set a number of overlooks at strategic sites along the river: large round platforms, perfect for selfies and scenic photos; ideal spots for a casual lunch or a rendezvous with a friend.

My first steps away from the hotel followed the river way, and I immediately hit on one of those overlooks. I stopped to catch my breath and to look over my shoulder.

No one was following me. Barney was probably still snoring softly. I counted the hotel's windows up to our floor. I wasn't sure which window was ours, maybe the third or fourth from the end, but there was no one at any window, nobody looking out. Still, if Barney chanced to stand at the window, even for the briefest moment, he'd see me right away.

Not that I was afraid of Barney — not at all! I was only... too... what? Bewildered? Confused? Guilty? Or was I simply fucked up in the head? Who did I think I was, taking everyone else's lives and affections so lightly?

Uppermost in my melange of emotions and feelings, was a sense of betrayal. That by spending the night with Barney I'd betrayed him and betrayed myself as well. If I'd known who I am, I never would have slept with him. Hell, I wouldn't have taken my clothes off!

What disturbed me, what disturbed me most, was the clear, indisputable fact that I enjoyed the sex tremendously. The sensation of it was still upon me, all over me. I felt wrong for doing it, wrong for enjoying it. Sex with a man! I had sex with a man! Two men, actually. Two! Was I so... what? Deviant, perhaps? If I had to put a word on it, the word that came to mind — again — was betrayal — a feeling I'd spend a long time unpacking. A long time, later on.

For now, I looked up at the sky. The sun struggled to rise above the horizon. It clearly hadn't yet decided whether the day was worth the candle.

Then— a funny feeling rose inside of me, without warning. I stood up straight, stiff, coughed twice, gulped hard, then abruptly bent over the stone wall and blew the contents of my stomach onto the rocks at the water's edge. It came out in a single copious rush, one slick, sick-tasting liquid blast. On the positive side, after that long, mighty heave, there was nothing left inside me. Only a bitter taste. No aftershocks. My stomach was empty, and my retching smoothly transitioned into wracking sobs.

I had no time to indulge my sobs. Immediately, fearfully, I got a grip on myself. This was not the moment for crying. I glanced again at the hotel. Still no one. Not a single person at any of the windows, but... here I was vulnerable, here I was exposed. I couldn't face Barney. Not now, anyway. Maybe never. I don't know. I turned and ran, still barefoot. I didn't stop until, panting like a set of bellows, I came to the second overlook. I don't know how far I'd run, but now, with the help of distance and the river's curve, I was well out of view of the hotel and its thousand eyes — I mean, its myriad windows.

This second overlook was different in design from the previous. Stone, like the first, but different colors, different layout. And next to it, a feature the current city fathers hoped would catch on, but hadn't quite yet: along the walkway at this point was a short, spartan stretch of chain-link fence. Its function was to prevent people from pitching down the steep incline, where they'd suffer a painful descent to the water. What was hoped for, to mitigate the ugly fence, was the idea of locks, love locks, the kind you'd see on the Pont des Arts in Paris: where lovers pledge their eternal bond by writing their names on a lock, fastening it to the fence, and throwing the key into the water.

Unfortunately, you'd need a major-league throwing arm to get the key into the water while you stood by the fence. If you took the trouble to look, you'd spot a few keys lying on the ground on the rocky decline between the fence and the water.

Love, I said to myself. As if it's that easy to lock down. Maybe sometimes it is. Barney's plaintive declaration echoed in my mind: Right now, I'm only asking about you and me. Yeah, you and me — but I'm not the same "me" you knew. I'm another person entirely. I've been swapped out, Barney. Sorry. I really am.

Of course, from Barney's point of view, he'd see my running out as a total rejection (which it was). He'd have to feel that I'd used him; or at least that I'd cynically saved my second thoughts for the worst moment possible, when they'd do him the most harm. Breaking "our" engagement, abandoning him, after a sensuous and exciting night of — what? Love-making? Baby-making? God help me. Whatever it was, it wasn't just sex. It was oh-so-good, it was God-given glory, but everything about it was wrong. Fundamentally wrong.

I sat on the ground, half-hidden behind the overlook's stone wall. I could see the path ahead; anyone heading *toward* the hotel would see me right away, but anyone coming *from* the hotel wouldn't see me until they were right on top of me. I doubted Barney would venture this far, if he searched for me at all.

Still heaving big breaths, recovering from running, I swallowed hard. God, what a mess! Things were bad but negotiable while I had amnesia, but now that I knew everything... not only who I am, but also who I am to everyone else... I found myself in a muddle, to put it mildly.

Now that I have all the answers, there's no way I can share them. Not with anyone. Not with the police, not with the folks in Mariola, not even with Thistlewaite. Could I trust him to keep my secret? Yes, he's a professional. Yes, he has a duty to maintain my confidentiality, but does he also have a duty to talk to the police? To tell them... well, to tell them things — does he have a duty to report unusual, guilty-sounding things to the police?

Would Thistlewaite believe me, if I told him what happened to me? Would the police? If I told them?

First of all, my name: God, what a mess! Nominally, I'm Celandine Lisente (of all the fucked-up names on earth!). That's what it says on my birth certificate, my social security card, and my drivers license. I'm known to friends and family as Deeny. Unfortunately, all of that is surface. It's not who I really am. In reality, on the inside, I'm Mason Rafflyan.

It's simple, don't you see? Just your common-or-garden-variety brain swap. Or body swap. Whatever.

Good luck getting anyone to believe that!

And how did it come about?

People talk about alien abductions all the time, but no one actually believes in them. I mean, no normal person does.

Yet here I am, both victim and witness to one. I'm sane enough to know how crazy I'd sound if I told anyone the simple truth. I have the explanations for everything. I have the answers to everyone's question, but what good does it do me?

What makes it worse, is that once I tell the *simple* truth, I'd have to follow up with the complicated truth — and THAT is too big a pill for anyone to swallow.

The abduction is the simple part of my story, or at least the simplest part. The rest is utterly absurd, completely nonsensical, but absolutely true.

The abductions went like this: a simple two-step. Deeny (the real Deeny), was running blindly away from Mariola — in no particular direction, just away — when she saw a bright flash of light.

A few moments later, Hugh and I saw a similar blast of intense white light as we stood in the desert outside Robbins.

Three of us, hundreds of miles apart, were scooped up in a matter of moments, like rabbits from a pen.

I know exactly what happened next, though I wasn't awake for it. Even so, I know for sure that we were knocked out and brought onboard an alien spaceship, and that the ship smelled like a barn, but not in a good way.

While we were unconscious, they took our all our clothes and belongings laid us naked on slabs that felt like slate.

Deeny woke first. She woke Hugh, since he was closest to her. Hugh kicked up a ruckus, and ended up being carried off by five of the aliens. Yes, five. Hugh is a big guy, and the spacemen had a hell of a time trying to subdue him.

I'll tell the whole story in more detail later. For now, you only need the highlights.

The point is that Hugh resisted. He fought, he shouted. His shouting woke me up. I saw him carried away.

Deeny and I were left alone for ten minutes or so, locked in vast, dimly-lit room. We were total strangers to each other, and in the moment I had little to say. I'd just woken up, already bewildered and confused, and in my first waking moments, I couldn't make heads or tails of Hugh's struggle and capture. On top of that, I had no idea who Deeny was or where she'd come from. I couldn't help but wonder whether any part of my experience was even real.

Deeny, on the other hand, was angry, animated, and wouldn't stop talking. She went on and on about Mariola, assholes, marriage, hypocrites, and so on...

God! That woman is infuriating! What happened next was all her fault: It wasn't the *aliens* who swapped my body with hers — it was that damn Deeny herself who did it. To top it off, they kept *her* onboard and dumped me in the desert — alone, cold, and naked.

Not that I wanted to stay on that stinky spaceship, but still...

Do you see now? Do you understand the position I'm in? Those are the bare facts, told plainly and truthfully. That's the the *who* and the *what* of it. The *why* of it all would take endless explaining, if I got that far.

Where does that leave us? I'll tell you where it leaves us: It leaves Hugh and Deeny (living in MY body!) somewhere in outer space, on route to parts unknown.

It leaves me, on the other hand, sitting on the ground in beautiful downtown Robbins, stuck forever in Deeny's body, having had sex with two men in two days, while believing I'm a woman.

I squirmed at the thought, not sure how to look at myself.

As far as explanations were concerned, if I HAD to explain it all, if I WANTED to explain it all, first I'd need to draw a diagram to make clear who's who. Then I'd have to give the step-by-step of how and why the god-damn body-swap came about. Last of all, I'd have to tell them why the aliens kept two — only two, and not all three of us — on their ship — and why those idiotic aliens made off with my clothes, leaving me in darkness, with nothing to work with but a car and a dead battery.

If I was a good citizen, if told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I'm sure they'll either lock me in a jail or in a psych ward.

What on earth was I supposed to do? What the hell could I possibly do?

Then, like a light turning on, the most obvious strategy occurred to me; the simplest way out:

I'd have to pretend that my memories hadn't come back.

Of course, I'd need to keep up that pretence for the rest of my natural life.

That was my only way forward; my only way out.

Could I? Would it work? Did I have it in me to maintain a life-long fiction?

I'd have to. Wouldn't I? There's no other choice.

 

---

 

Then, inexplicably, uselessly, I started to cry.

Not sobs. My cries didn't wrack my body. It was nothing more than simple boo-hoo-hoo crying, poor-little-me! weeping. It left my cheeks soaked by my tears.

I stopped blubbering after half a minute, because crying made my nose run, and when it ran, it ran like crazy. Stupidly I remembered a tall, thin girl named Frances, back in elementary school, who once exclaimed, "My nose is running with blood all over my face!" and we all laughed. Yes, we were only children, and certainly not the most empathetic group... Now, here I was, like Frances, my nose running all over my face. I was a mess. Sorry to be disgusting, but I had nothing to wipe my nose with, other than the back of my hand. And the palm of my hand. I almost went from there to using my forearms as well, but that was a bridge too far. The sight of my as-yet-undefiled forearm stopped my tears cold.

There was no water fountain nearby... nothing to clean my hands with... except for the grass at the edge of the river walk. I crawled over (yes, hands and knees, furtive) and wiped my hands on the even, well-manicured lawn. There was enough dew to wet my hands, and the grass served as a natural brush. After the state of my hands was improved, I had another go at wiping my nose, and cleaned my hands on the lawn a second time.

Sorry for the brutish detail, but it's an important prelude for what follows, the hygenic deus ex machina.

As you can imagine, my face and hands were cleaner, but not really clean.

I crawled back (hiding? keeping my head down?) and sat on the ground in the same spot as before, leaning against the wall.

Would I have to live a lie? Was there any alternative? Or could I simply run away? Was that even possible, in this day and age? Where on earth would I go that I couldn't be found? Who would I say I am?

Was there any way I could live my life without hurting others — hurting them simply by being who I am now?

Questions, questions, questions. Questions without answers.

I didn't get very far with those questions, before I saw a person approach. They were facing me, which meant they were heading toward, not coming from, the hotel.

A woman, a tall woman, and obviously well-intentioned. Like a motto, good intentions was written all over her. Her smile was the most earnest I've ever seen. Earnest, strong, unfeigned.

Around her neck, on a fine silver chain, she wore a thin silver cross. It was small, a little over an inch high, but so shiny and bright, it was like a beacon, impossible to miss. It reminded me of a sign I once saw when driving by an inner-city rescue mission: JESUS SAVES, in bright red neon, inside a green neon cross.

For the rest, she looked as though she'd stepped out of an illustration in a children's picture book. She carried a woven rattan bag with a pair of round handles, big as a tote bag. She wore a long, chaste, cotton dress with a floral design and a ruffle at the bottom hem. Even I, with my limited fashion sense, recognized it as a daring rescue from a second-hand store.

Ordinarily, I never notice such things, but I clocked that she wore no makeup, and no jewelry apart from her tiny silver cross. Her nails needed trimming and so did her hair, which was blonde and curly, but frizzy and dry.

Her most striking feature (apart from her aggressive smile) was her eyes, a luminous cobalt blue. That's where my gaze was drawn, and why our eyes met.

She smiled, and like the Good Samaritan, was happy to have found a soul in need. The first words out of her mouth confirmed all the religious meaning I found in her appearance.

"Praise the Lord," she said. "Praise Him. Isn't this a blessed day?"

I blinked at her. I struggled to find a snappy comeback, but in my present state of mind, a comeback didn't come. Finally, some part of me tossed up the barely-adequate phrase I'm glad that you're pleased with it. As combacks go, it was hardly my best work. Still, I said it. She smiled and asked me, "Do you need any help?"

"No, I'm fine!" I replied, in a weary, offended tone. It came out sounding far more rude and aggressive than I intended, so I added apologetically, "Sorry! But no, I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

She nodded, and in a brisk, business-like way, reached into her tote bag, and zip! zip! zip! zip! zip! pulled out a handful of wet wipes which she held out to me.

I stared at her stupidly, open-mouthed for a few seconds, taken by surprise, then accepted them. "Thanks." I wiped my face, my hands, my arms. I even dared to wipe under my arms, over my shoulders, and across my upper chest.

Next, she handed me a tiny pack of facial tissues, which I used to dry my eyes and blow my nose. She opened a paper sack and held it toward me so I could discard the things I'd used. She was ready for everything!

"My name is Judith," she informed me, added "Praise the Lord," as if it were her last name. Then, as if there was nothing odd about my sitting on the ground, she stepped over to her left and ran her eyes over the locks on the fence. It was a tactful move, giving her an excuse for staying with me.

"I'm—" I began to reply, but got stuck right off. Who am I? In this exact moment, and going forward, who am I to be? "My name is Deeny," I told her at last, taking the easy way out. "Don't ask. It's a dopey nickname."

Judith nodded. "Nice to meet you, Deeny. It's not a dopey name at all. It's cute."

After glancing at a few of the locks, she rhetorically asked, "Have you seen all this? The locks? Most of them are the same type," she observed. "Small and inexpensive. The kids buy them at the convenience shop over there—" she pointed. She touched a few of the locks, turning them this way and that to read the names. She chuckled. "Look: here's one that says 'Cole' on one side, and 'Beatrix' on the other. Then over here, not more than a foot away, is one marked 'Cole' on one side and 'Ashley' on the other. Same handwriting."

"Hmmph," I grunted, noncommittal. I was glad she didn't draw the obvious moral of Cole's inconstancy.

"Look at this great big, honking lock, smack dab in the middle!" She exclaimed, turning it, like the others, one way, then the other. "Oh I see why: the smaller locks are fine if you have a short name. 'Ashley' and 'Beatrix' are pretty much the limit. If you have a really long name, you need a bigger lock. See this one? It says 'Ross' on one side, which fits, but—"

I groaned. It wasn't hard to see what was coming.

"Does it say 'Charlotte' on the other side?" I called.

"Yes, it does! Do you know them?" Before I could answer, her face lit up. In a teasing, confidential tone she asked, "Did mean old Charlotte steal your boyfriend Ross away from you?"

"No," I scoffed. "I don't know Ross. Charlotte is my—" I sighed. "Charlotte is my cousin."

I almost said my stupid cousin, as I normally do, but somehow (and in spite of everything I'd been through in the past week on her account) for the first time in my life, I felt a sense of pity for my stupid cousin. It was a new feeling for me, in her regard.

"Well!" Judith said, returning to her mission: "Do you need help? Medical help? Do you need to talk to the police?"

"No," I replied, managing to contain my alarm at the mention of police. "I'm fine. Everything's fine."

Judith looked me over and delivered this unasked piece of advice: "Don't feel too badly about what happened."

"About what happened?" I echoed. "What are you talking about?"

"Come on, honey. It's clear as day. We've all been there, Deeny. No one can judge you. Least of all, me."

"I wasn't asking anyone to judge me, thank you very much," I was grateful for Judith's wet wipes, but it didn't give her the right to stick her nose in my private affairs. I clicked my tongue in irritation and told her, "Since you mention it, Judith — not that it's any of your business — I don't think *anyone* has found themselves in the kind of mess that I'm in right now."

Judith chuckled in a condescending way. "I know I look like straight-laced schoolmarm, Deeny, but you should know: I've had a colorful past. A very colorful past. Believe me! I have been exactly where you are now."

I sighed. It was stupid of me to argue. I tried to end it with, "This isn't a contest, Judith."

"No, it's not a contest, but I can tell you with confidence: I've been exactly where you are right now."

I scoffed.

Judith tapped her chin knowingly. "Fine, Deeny. But first, let me guess. Okay? This morning, a few moments ago, you woke up next to a man and found yourself regretting what you and he did last night. Then, you took your shoes in your hand and snuck out on tiptoe before he woke up. That's the long and the short of it, isn't it?"

I was taken aback by her rather accurate summation, although I shouldn't have been. It wouldn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out where I'd been and what I'd done. I was so focused on getting away from Barney that I didn't realize how obvious was my plight. Until that moment I didn't see what was plain to Judith, and honestly to anyone else who'd happen to see me: I was the very picture of the walk of shame.

Even so, I had to protest. "It's a little more complicated than that."

She waved her hand dismissively. "That's not important. The details are not important. What *is* important, Deeny, is that we *forgive* ourselves, just as the Lord forgives us."

I scoffed. "I don't think the Lord is particularly interested in what's happening in the greater Robbins area."

"He is, Deeny! He is! His eye is on the sparrow," Judith quoted, "and I know he watches me. Matthew 10:29."

"Good old Matthew," I quipped. "He always knew the right thing to say." I wasn't scoffing or making fun. I wasn't negative. I only meant to give a gentle hint that I wasn't interested in having my soul saved at just that moment.

"Can I pray with you?" Judith offered, earnestly.

"No," I replied. "I don't need prayer. What I need is a lawyer." I didn't know it until the words came out of my mouth, but a lawyer was *exactly* what I needed, as soon as possible. Legal advice, right away, before I spoke to another living soul.

Judith laughed. "What a thing to say! A lawyer! Deeny: if you need help with a moral question, a question of right and wrong, prayer can always help. You might even find that when you seek the Lord and listen to His voice, you won't need a lawyer after all."

I rubbed my eyes and groaned. If I wanted someone to pray with, I could always call "Mamma" Lisente, back in Mariola. And I wasn't about to do that.

"Judith, believe me: my problem is far too complicated for prayer."

Judith didn't buy it. She shook her head.

"Look," I said, leveling with her: "My problem is that I know things. Things the police want to know. But if I tell them, they won't believe me, and they might even lock me up for my trouble."

She raised her head a little, curious. "Have you done something wrong? Have you committed a crime?"

"No. I haven't done anything."

She frowned. "Then why wouldn't the police believe you?"

I heaved a big breath. "Because in this case, the truth sounds absolutely crazy."

"That's not your fault," she said. "You're obliged to tell the truth. The truth, plain and simple. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Matthew 5:37. If they really don't believe you, and go so far as to lock you up — Honestly, Deeny, I can't believe they would! — Remember: It is better to suffer for doing good, than for doing evil. I Peter 3:17. You can't be responsible for their reactions. You can only speak your truth." Then, her jaw working, she declared, "Deeny, I'm going to pray over you right now. I'm going to ask the Lord to watch over you, to guide your ways, and let you feel His hand upon you! I'm going to ask Him to anoint you now to speak the truth among men! Hallelujah! Praise Him!"

She closed her eyes and raised her hands, palms turned toward me, and she began to pray, much in the way Mamma Lisente does: not so much a prayer-prayer, not a prayer to God as such, but more of an exhortation to me.

I grabbed my shoes with one hand and my bag with the other. While Judith shouted Hallelujah three times, I stood up quickly and quietly and once again running on tiptoe, exited, stage left.

I never saw Judith again.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 15

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

Mason said, "I thought you should have an opportunity to rehearse your story."
"What story?"
"The story you're going to have to tell police and newspaper reporters later on.
You can try it out on me and I can question you and point out any contradictions."

— Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

---

 

Holding my breath, I ducked around the closest corner in a tight right turn, then scurried to the next street up, where I hung a quick left. Judith hadn't seen or heard me go; I left her in the dust with no way to follow.

After two deep breaths of free, fresh air, I dug out my phone so I could get my bearings.

The little dots on the screen directed me straight to Cymbeline Circle, a cute pedestrian zone, landscaped with grass, hedges, and small trees — a neighborhood park in the midst of downtown. The only human being in sight at that hour was a young man in a green apron, at medium distance from me. He was already working in a leisurely way, setting up tables outside his cafe. At that exact moment he was turning a wobbly table this way and that, a few degrees at a time, searching for the spot where the table stood level. I wished I could tiptoe past without his noticing me, but no. He stopped fiddling with the table so he could look up, wave, and smile. Nervously, and for some reason absurdly conscious of my breasts bobbing as I walked, I returned his greeting, my shoes dangling like silly ornaments from my hand as I waved. He beckoned, inviting me to come, sit (he gestured first at the wobbly table, then the others), but I couldn't. We were still in the quiet of the morning, too early for loud voices, so I made a series of weird gestures that were *meant* to convey that I couldn't stop. Instead, I think I mimed that I was trying to catch a cascade of falling packages and push them up the street. He smiled as if he understood.

Of course I felt foolish and awkward, but it was far from the dumbest thing I'd done today. And it was still early!

I took the second right, away from Cymbeline Circle, away from the river. My phone informed me that Hermie and Lucy's house was precisely a 27-minute walk. It neglected to tell me that I'd be climbing a hill, almost to the top.

Fine. Not a problem. Can't expect a little phone to know everything.

Yes, I could have called an Uber, but that would mean another close interaction with a stranger — a potentially talkative, inquisitive stranger. I was nowhere near ready for that. Too much going on in my head!

First and foremost, the part of my brain that loves to scold repeatedly pointed out something painfully obvious (after the fact): That I needed to find a way to hobble my tongue! At least until I could speak with an attorney. My admissions to Judith were a terrible, incautious mistake. Certainly she provoked me with her insistent claim — as though it were REMOTELY possible that she found herself, once upon a time, exactly where I am now. As if! The colossal nerve of that busybody!

I'm fully aware that she had no way of guessing the crazy chain of events that led to me sitting on the ground by the river this morning. But even so!

Idiot me — I'd gone and told her right out that I know things. Things the police want to know. AND I'd told her that Charlotte is my cousin.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Either of those statements on their own was a damning admission. For one thing, they showed that I no longer suffered from amnesia. Until this morning, the "things the police want to know" were hidden in the cloud of my forgotten past.

Without considering the effects of shooting off my mouth, I'd gone and made it clear that the clouds had disappeared, and my forgotten past had risen from beneath the waves, so to speak.

If the police happened, for some ungodly reason, to talk with Judith, or if Judith took it upon *herself* to go talk with the police, well... my goose would be cooked.

Judith might do it, too! Yes, she helped me — she helped me clean my face and hands, anyway — but she was also a demonstrably legalistic busybody. She could easily deceive herself into thinking that she'd be HELPING me by making a statement to the police; giving me a nudge along the path of righteousness, a holy intervention, a re-enactment of Pilgrim's Progress.

Thoughts such as those hung and circled round inside my head, pestering me like a swarm of mosquitos as I trudged along.

The hill seemed like an endless staircase, but at least I walked alone. The walk saved me from babbling my secrets to another random person. If I babbled, I babbled only to myself.

Also, the physical activity was a great help. It siphoned off some of the energy I would otherwise have spent in worry. If I'd stayed by the river, sitting on my butt, I could have easily slid into a black hole of anxiety.

I missed the empty-headed days I spent at the hospital! When I stared at the river for hours, thinking nothing, my brain on test-pattern. Now, my internal world was infested by a thicket of bramble-bushes: thorns and chokepoints of fears and consequences. I'd wend my way through one, and fall into the next. Or maybe mentally I ran in circles? I could analyze one anxiety, take apart one fear, and in that way neutralize it, but didn't eradicate the damn thing! None of that crap stayed in the trash, where it belonged. They kept coming back. Each worry, every problem, all my guilty fears — stood in a long line of complex feelings, all of them dancing with impatience, each waiting their turn to be parsed and listened to. Sometimes several would run at me at once, trying to overwhelm my defenses. I'd deal with one, settle it in my mind, only to see it scurry back to find a spot in the queue, fretting as if it in desperate need of a bathroom.

The most difficult knot to deal with was the sex: I could still feel Barney inside of me, on top of me, beside me, kissing me. Barney touching me, me touching Barney. At times I'd get so lost in recollection, I'd find myself caught up, staring into space, standing stock still on the sidewalk, holding my breath in remembered astonishment. It was so fresh, so tactile. Worst of all, they were among the best sensations I've ever experienced. In my life! In either life.

Guess which experience came in second?

Sex with Wade. Wade's exertions were still alive and quivering in my memory, as well: rolling around in that feverish, hot pile of pillows and cushions! There was plenty of material for riveting, immersive flashbacks. (Much to my shame and chagrin, both experiences happened only yesterday!)

Apart from those exquisite pleasures that were so hard to set aside, I had the visceral, bodily sense that I'd been literally invaded. What I mean is that each of them — Wade, then Barney — had been *inside* of me. Deep inside of me.

Not a sensation I'd ever associated with sex before.

Not a sensation I'd ever be able to forget.

Difficult to assimilate, mind-bending, baffling, paradoxical... it was all those things and more. I couldn't pretend that I didn't like it, or that didn't want it. The problem was that it was too different, too new an experience. I needed to grapple with it, to come to terms with this huge, fundamental physiological alteration.

Men. Sex with men.

In my defense, there was no way I could have know at the time that I wasn't really a woman. I mean, in my head. There was nothing to tell me to stop. I believed I simply didn't remember doing it before.

And for me to say that I... wasn't really a woman? Physically, now and forever, I *am*, I actually am, was, and ever will be a woman.

The weirdness I experience about it is all in my head. I did nothing wrong — at least sexually. It wasn't like riding a bike, but—

Honestly, as I walked, I sifted mentally through the things I'd done, and it was very clear to me: Soon I'd get used to having sex this way. And other ways. Not the old way; not any more. Frankly, I'd had quite an initiation: first with Wade, then with Barney. I was one lucky girl. If I had to be truthful with myself, Wade and Barney, as sexual partners, were miles ahead of what I was able to do, or ever did, back when I was fully Mason, in body and soul.

Midway through my climb, the sun emerged, lighting the world. At first gradually, then fully. I pulled the sunglasses out of my bag. Not only for the sun, but also for a soupçon of anonymity. Didn't want any casual passerby to read my thoughts as they raced across my face.

I didn't put my shoes on, though, the entire way. It felt like penance, not that I *need* to do any penance... I was only walking barefoot. It wasn't hard to watch my step, and the few tiny pebbles I did step on were no big deal.

 

---

 

By the time I arrived at Lucy and Hermie's house, I managed to achieve a general sense of calm, and gained at least the appearance of having a grip on myself. I kept the queue of fears and doubts quiet, for the moment, anyway, though I was acutely aware of them, standing in the wings, waiting for my attention to turn in their direction.

Up the stone steps, up the wooden porch steps. I noted in passing that Hermie had done a nice job of repairing the left stair rail.

The front door was open, to let in the morning air. Lucy sat in her habitual place, in the same pose as I'd seen her yesterday: curled up in an armchair, watching through the front window, her fingers knitted like a nest around a big cup of coffee, as if it were a warm little kitten.

She smiled when I came in.

"Oh, girl!" she called out to me, "The walk of shame? Seriously?" She shook her head, smiling in mock disapproval.

"I guess."

"Look at you! Did anybody say anything to you on the way home? It looks like you walked a long way." She took a second look at me and asked, "Barefoot?"

I held up my shoes and gave them a shake. "It seemed like the thing to do."

"Why didn't you take a cab?"

I shrugged. "I ran into a Bible thumper down by the river. She wanted to pray over me. After that I wanted to be by myself."

"A Bible what? How did you get away from her? Or did you let her pray?"

"When she closed her eyes I tiptoed out of there."

Lucy burst out laughing.

"So— the river?" She gestured vaguely down the hill. "Doesn't your lawyer live over *that* way?" With tongue in cheek, she turned her hand ninety degrees and waved in the general direction of Wade's house. Solon Boulevard.

"Wade is *a* lawyer, but he's not *my* lawyer. Anyway, yes, he does live that way, but I wasn't with him. I was—"

"Oh my God, girl!"

"I was with my fiance," I told her, defensively.

"Your fiance," she repeated, taking it in. "Does that mean you're cheating on the lawyer with your fiance? Or are you cheating on your fiance with the lawyer?"

"Uh—"

"Or—" she straightened up her chair, eyes lighting up, "Or, do you have some third man who puts the first two men to shame?"

"No," I said. "No. There's no third man. Absolutely not. Anyway, I broke off the engagement."

"Oh!" Lucy grew more serious. "I'm sorry to hear that. Unless... unless it's a good thing?"

"Well, yeah. It is good. I mean, I don't remember him. I can't commit to someone I don't know."

"Did he take it hard?"

I bit my lower lip and shrugged. "I guess, yeah. He will, yeah, I think. I pretty much ran out on him this morning."

"Oh!" Lucy frowned with concern.

"But— as it turns out, one of the last things I did while I still had my memories, apparently, was to break up with him. We had a massive fight. So I have a whatchacall — a precedent."

"Oh," Lucy said. Each oh of hers had a different character. This one sounded like she had a grip on what happened.

"So, last night, with your fiance, or ex-fiance, it was make-up sex."

"Maybe in his mind."

"And in yours?"

"It was an experiment," I replied, surprising myself by my admission.

Lucy took that in, silent for a brief moment. Then, "But now you're done with him?"

"Yes."

"Because you're taking up with the lawyer."

"No."

"No?" Lucy rubbed her eyes and forehead with one hand. After a big sip of coffee, she asked.

"If this usual for you? I mean, sex, lots of sex, with different men, falling in and out of bed? The walk of shame?"

"No," I replied decisively.

"How do you know, if you don't remember?"

My mouth started moving as if I was going to speak, but I didn't have an answer.

Lucy continued: "You know, I'll admit that I'm more than a little jealous. I'd love to have interesting men interested in me. But I gotta say that it worries me a little, too." She paused. "Because if you're going to carry on like this with all kinds of men, at some point they're going to come here, looking for you."

I wasn't sure what to say.

She went on, "Remember how you said that if your living here became a problem for Hermie and me, you'd move? Well, if *this* is going to be your life, it's going to be a problem. Hermie and I need stability. Tranquility. After what we've been through, we need a home that's home. Do you know what I mean?"

"A hundred percent," I said. "Yes."

She took another sip of coffee. "Do you think this is you, how you are, how you used to be, or is it, like, the amnesia drawing guys to you, like moths to a flame?"

"It's only two guys," I said. "One will probably never speak to me again, and the other, I'm done with."

"The ex-fiance is the one who won't speak to you, and the one you're done with is the lawyer?"

"Right."

Lucy didn't speak for a few seconds, so I told her, "Lucy, I'm done with sex. I'm through. So don't worry about all this, okay? It was just an experiment — because I didn't remember — but now it's over."

Her eyes sparkled with amusement. "For real?" she asked. "Are you sure? No more rolling in the hay? Ever?"

"For the foreseeable future, yes."

She smiled, thinking to herself, then asked, "Does the lawyer know he's been kicked to the curb?"

"No. I'm going to tell him today."

Her eyes widened again. "Tell him how? On the phone?"

"No, I have to go see him about some legal advice. I'll tell him then."

"Oh, man!" she exclaimed. "Legal advice? Are you kidding me? You're making my brain explode!" She set her coffee down so it wouldn't spill as she erupted in giggles.

When I saw she couldn't stop, I told her, "Listen, Lucy, I need to take a shower. I won't be long."

I saw her struggle to quit giggling. She held out her hand to stop me.

"Hey! Hey!" she gasped. "I have to ask you — when you're doing all this... experimenting... are you using protection? Are the men?"

My face when white.

"Oh, shit, girl! You gotta think about that! If you're going to be wild, be wild responsibly! You don't want a little Deeny or a little lawyer — or a little fiance — running around, do you?"

"No. I'm not ready for that. No."

"When was your last period?"

"I don't know." I searched my mind. Whenever it was, it happened before the body swap. "No idea," I confessed.

"Let's hope it's soon," she said earnestly.

 

---

 

I intended to take my time in the shower. It's great place for reflection, and symbolically perfect for washing away one's sins, bad feelings, or troublesome memories. Instead, I found myself thinking ahead to my meeting with Wade. I needed serious legal advice, but I wasn't sure how to ask for it. Inevitably I'd have to tell him my whole crazy story, but... Should I start with a condensed version, including my body-swap? or should I begin with the alien abduction and save the big surprise, the body-swap, for the end?

Of course, I couldn't decide. The inner conflict did speed up my shower, though, and by the time I got back downstairs in fresh clothes, clean feet and shoes, Hermie's face was buried in a bowl of meusli and yogurt, while Lucy added coffee to her mug.

She gave me a sly smirk and sidled up to me, holding her mug under her chin, bathing her face in its steam.

Touching an unexpected string that played on yet another of my fears, she took an unexpected conversational tack. "Hey — if... when... you get your memories back, you'll tell us, won't you?"

"Of course," I answered. I tried to sound normal, nonchalant, though she'd caught me so unprepared, it left me completely unnerved. Could she tell I was lying?

Lucy gave me a cute side-eye that seemed to mean I don't believe you, but it's fine: you do you.

Hermie lifted his face, blinking, his eyes going from Lucy to me and back again.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. "Did I miss something?"

"Everything's fine," Lucy and I answered in one voice. Hermie responded with a doubtful look, followed by an eyeroll.

"Do you want some breakfast?" he asked.

I *was* hungry, but I needed to go. "No, thanks," I told him. "I've gotta run. I have to see a lawyer."

Hermie waited a beat, and when my explanation went no further, he returned to his meusli.

Lucy chuckled. She had a wisecrack ready.

"You need to get into his legal briefs, don't you?" she asked, suggestively. Hermie raised one eyebrow.

"It isn't like that," I protested.

"It's the same lawyer, though, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"What makes today different from yesterday?"

"Because I say it is!" I declared, flustered, blushing.

Hermie, utterly at sea, set down his spoon and regarded the pair of us. "What are you two going on about?"

Lucy, pointed at me and explained in a saucy, teasing tone, "Last time she went for 'legal advice', she ended up fucking the guy."

Hermie frowned, and asked in all seriousness, "Does 'fuck' in this case mean 'had sex with'? or does 'fuck' mean 'she screwed him over'?"

Lucy screamed with laughter.

"Oh, my God, you two!" I groaned, exasperated. "Believe me, there will be no fucking — of any kind today!"

Lucy nodded. "Okay, okay. I believe you... SO much!" Then, after a moment, "NOT!"

I frowned, then grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a big, smothering hug, until she tapped my shoulder and gave a muffled cry of "Uncle! Uncle!"

"Okay," I declared, letting her go and mussing up her hair. "I love you both and thanks for everything. Now I seriously have to run."

Lucy put her hand on my shoulder. "Hey — just make sure you come back. You're turning into the big sister I never had."

"Awww," I purred. "You're a doll. And you, too, Hermie!"

Smiling, I dashed for the door.

Lucy called after me, a teasing sing-song, in as loud a voice as she could manage: "Remember to use protection!"

"Oh you little bitch!" I muttered (affectionately!) as I dashed down the concrete stairs to the street.

 

---

 

I took an Uber to Wade's house. Walking would have taken too long. I didn't need any more time to ruminate — I'd spent enough time doing that this morning. Also, I didn't want to arrived soaked in sweat.

Wade answered the door in bare feet, wearing a pair of jeans and a light-blue t-shirt. His clothes were clean, and he didn't need a shave. He also didn't smell of alcohol. All good signs, though he looked a little tired.

"Hello, Wade," I told him, jumping immediately to the point: "I'm in serious need of legal advice."

He blew a quiet raspberry in response. His gaze drifted down my body to my legs and feet, then back up to dwell on my breasts for a moment, before returning to my face.

"Oh, good," he said, ignoring what I'd said. "You know, our last session, in the pillows, helped me avoid alcohol today. Seriously!" He licked his lips, an involuntary movement. "From when you left, until now, I've been sober," he pronounced, pointing to his own chest. "And," he added grandly, "the love nest is still in place on my living room floor! All right! Come on now, in you get!"

He took my arm and drew me gently, but hastily, inside, and gave me a giddy-up smack on the butt.

"Wait, though, Wade, wait!" I called, resisting, stiffening, as he wrapped his arms around me from behind. I heard him kick the door closed behind us as he pressed his hips into my backside and rested his head against mine.

"No, Wade, no! Hold on, I said! No!" I reached down to push his hips away. "I need to talk! I need advice! For real! I'm in trouble and I need help!"

He cleared his throat and let go of me, passing his hand several times over his face.

Both of us did a half turn so we could face each other in his narrow entryway. He gave me a puzzled expression and made no effort to hide the erection standing out in his pants. He was obviously not wearing any underwear.

"I'm not kidding, Wade. I need legal advice. Literal legal advice. Not a roll in the hay."

"Hmm," he temporized, looking through a doorway to the mess of pillows strewn over his living room floor. "No hay? You've got hay fever, now, do you? Well, there's no hay in those pillows. Not even horsehair. It's all synthetic or something. So we're fine there. And I," he continued, taking a grandiose tone, "I have no legal advice to give! I am not allowed, at present, to practice law."

"Wade, I really am in the shit. Deep, deep shit. I need serious legal advice." How many times had I said it so far? I pulled a dollar out of my purse and held it out to him.

"Are you kidding me now?" he scoffed, "With that stupid television move?" He pushed my hand away, his face showing disappointment and even disgust. "If you were looking for a turnoff, girl, you found it. Put that fucking dollar away! That crap only works on TV. Try that with any real lawyer and they will throw you out of their office! Even if it *did* work, I told you: I am suspended. I am explicitly forbidden from practicing law. The only legal advice I can legitimately give you is to tell you to find another lawyer. In fact, I know some very good lawyers who would be more than happy to represent you."

"No," I insisted. "It has to be you." I pushed the dollar into his hand.

He slid the bill into my back pocket and left his hand there, resting on my behind. "I assume that — regardless of the specific type of shit in which you find yourself — that what you're really looking for is confidentiality. Am I right?"

"Yes," I answered, surprised that he'd gotten there so quickly.

"Well, that's a problem, see? Since I'm not currently allowed to practice law, you can have no reasonable expectation of confidentialty when you talk to me. Dollar or no dollar. If the police, for example, decided to question me about anything you say to me today, I'd have to truthfully answer whatever questions they ask of me. Or, if I was subpoenaed, I'd be obliged to tell it under oath."

My jaw dropped. "But what about attorney-client privilege?"

"I just explained it to you. You only get attorney-client privilege when you hire an attorney. Since I am not, at the moment, a licensed attorney, you can't hire me. You are not a client and I am not an attorney. Ergo, there is no privilege." He slid his hand around in my pocket, carressing my ass, and gave it a squeeze.

"Shit!" I exclaimed.

He placed his right hand on my left buttock, so that he was cupping my derriere with both hands. He pulled me close to him.

He paused for a moment, gazing into my eyes, then offered, "I'd wager things will seem a lot less bleak after a session among the pillows, yon." He gestured with his head toward the living room.

"No," I said, sadly, and covered my face with one hand.

"Okay," he conceded, with obvious disappointment, and let go of me. "Why don't you come in?" He gestured toward his dining room table. "If you really want to unburden yourself, I'll be glad to listen. As long as you understand that it's just as a friend."

"Okay," I agreed. It wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't what I came for... but it might be enough.

I followed him to his dining room, where the two of sat in chairs at the corner of the table.

"I know some excellent lawyers," he reiterated. "I know one in particular who'd listen to you—" he chuckled "—he'd listen for a dollar, but he'd probably want a hundred bucks if you want his advice. If you need representation, that would be another discussion... more money... and a contract. I know a guy right down the street here—" he gestured toward the wall. "I can give him a call, see if he's free."

I thought hard, looking at the floor. "Okay," I said. "But first, explain to me the thing about the dollar. Why doesn't that work? I mean, is it because it's too small an amount?"

"No, that's not it at all. See, if you want to hire a lawyer, *first* you have to explain your problem. And *then* at that point the lawyer decides whether they'll represent you."

"So— I have to spill the beans, tell them everything, and then, after I said all the things I want to keep secret, they might tell me to take a hike?"

He gave a sideward nod. "Hopefully they'd phrase it more gracefully than that, but yeah."

"What about confidentiality?"

"There wouldn't be any. They aren't your attorney; you aren't their client."

"So if the police ask them—"

"They'd have to tell the police what you said. They'd also have to answer under oath if they're subpoenaed."

"Damn it! So they could go and blab my private business to anyone they please?"

"No. That would be unethical. You could make a complaint to the bar. That sort of thing is taken very seriously."

I heaved a deep, distressed sigh.

"What did you do?" he asked, scratching his head. "Are you guilty of a crime?"

"No!"

"Because that's another thing — if you are committing or concealing a crime, an attorney has to report it. Are you committing or concealing a crime?"

"No. At least I don't think I am." I hesitated. "Fuck! If I have information that the police want, and I tell an attorney that I don't want to tell the police, would they have to report me?"

Wade looked down at the floor. It was his turn to heave a big sigh. Then he cleared his throat. "Not exactly. If you commit a crime in order to impede an investigation or an ongoing prosecution, your attorney would be obliged to report it."

I looked down at the table. "It sounds like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't."

"I can't tell you without knowing the facts," he said.

"Just to confirm that I understand this correctly: I could go, in complete good faith, to a lawyer, tell him or her my problem, and they could turn me over to the police?"

"If you've committed a crime, yes. Have you committed a crime?"

"I don't *think* so! I don't know!"

Wade debated with himself for a moment, then said, "Look, it's eleven o'clock in the morning. Here's what I propose: if you're not going to help treat my sobriety by rolling around in the pillows... what I propose is that we have some iced tea. You tell me your story, and I'll do my best to help you. Not as a lawyer of course! Just as a friend." With a sardonic smile he added, "If I drink enough, though, I might not remember what you said."

"That would be great," I replied. "Sort of. But I don't want you breaking your sobriety for my sake."

"If you really feel that way, you can take off your clothes and join me in there." He pointed toward his living room. "That would do me a lot more good than a drink could ever."

"I'm sorry, but I—"

He interrupted by holding up his hand, palm facing me. Then he went to the kitchen, from whence I heard the sound of ice cubes falling into glasses, liquids being shaken in bottles, and the clink of a spoon mixing the contents of a glass.

With a exaggerated finality, Wade re-appeared, carrying two large glasses of Long Island Iced Tea. "Last chance," he said. "It's a roll in the hay or a fall down the stairs." I didn't get his allusion at first, but — hard-hearted me — I pointed to the glasses of tea. He shrugged and set them on the table.

I remembered in that moment that I hadn't eaten any breakfast. My stomach let out a low growl.

Wade had set both glasses on the table, but he hadn't let go of either one.

"Have you eaten?" he asked. "I haven't. What do you say to pancakes?" he asked. "You can tell me your story while I make them."

"It's a deal."

 

---

 

We left the drinks untasted on the table and walked into the kitchen together. I held off speaking until after he'd mixed the batter and poured the first four pancakes onto the griddle.

"Okay," I said. "You know about Charlotte Rafflyan," I said. Not so much a question; more of a confirmation.

"Sure," he replied with a shrug. "Everybody in Robbins knows about Charlotte. She's a strange kind of internet celebrity."

"Okay. So first thing — and this is my first secret: I don't have amnesia any more. I remember everything. Everything. But at this point nobody knows this but you."

"Okay," he said. "Got it." He flipped the first four pancakes. "So far, so good."

"One of the few things I remembered, even when I couldn't remember anything else, was the phrase, Charlotte had a boyfriend."

"Right," Wade agreed. He piled the first four pancakes in a stack on a plate. They were a nice golden brown on top. "Ross Goo— The football guy. Ross something-or-other."

"Exactly. At first I thought that Charlotte didn't have a boyfriend. At all. I sincerely believed the whole relationship was imaginary. That it was all in her head."

Wade gave me a quizzical look before pouring out four more pancakes.

"So what?" he asked. "So she didn't have a boyfriend. Why does that matter? Who cares?"

"Well, it's important, because, I mean, he was her boyfriend before. Months before. But they'd already broken up when he disappeared."

Wade flipped the pancakes. "Jesus Christ," he groaned, shaking his head. "You sound like an old lady whispering rumors over the back fence! I can't believe I'm giving up sex for this! It's nothing but silly gossip!"

"No, really! If she hadn't lied about that, none of this would have happened! We wouldn't have had the car crash. I wouldn't have lost my memory. You'd still have your drivers license and your law license..."

"Maybe," Wade said. He seemed to getting angry. "But I don't see how. It sounds pretty damned farfetched." He moved the newly cooked pancakes to the stack, and poured out the last four on the griddle.

"Alright," I said. "I'm telling it badly. But see, the hardest thing about this story is that I'm not sure how to tell it. I keep going back and forth in my head—"

Wade made an impatient noise, smacked the spatula sharply against the griddle twice, and told me, "Just do what Humpty-Dumpty says." He gave me a challenging look.

"Humpty-Dumpty? From Alice in Wonderland?"

"Exactly. I've told many of my clients this. Many. In fact, in my office, I have the saying framed and hanging on the wall, where I can conveniently point at it. What Humpty Dumpty said is this: Begin at the beginning, go on till you come to the end; then stop."

I sighed. "Yeah," I said, "It sounds simple, but I'm pretty sure I have to tell you the end first, or the beginning won't make any sense."

Wade gave me a weary look. "Then maybe we'd better eat our pancakes first. Then we'll drink coffee... or tea... And then you can start from wherever the hell you want. But I'm getting a bad feeling. Deeny, I lust for you with everything that's in me. I want you to know that. And I'm not kidding when I say that sex with you seems to help me stay sober. So there's that. But I have to warn you, and I am dead serious: If this is some goddamned conspiracy theory, I won't listen to it. I reject that shit right out of hand. And as for butterfly-effect nonsense, no. Just a hard no. Ditto for shaggy-dog stories. I am all out of patience for any and all of that kind of shit."

His negativity surprised me. "Do you really hear much of... of... that kind of thing?"

"You'd be surprised. Clients try it on me all the time. Person A wants to sue Person B — and do you know why? Because their feelings were hurt! They are the worst kind of client. The absolute worst. They don't have any sensible or rational basis for a suit. And so, they come in, waving a dollar at me." He shook his head. "Sorry, but that fucking dollar really triggers me.

"And so, yeah — I get prospective clients who come in with crazy, complicated stories. They figure the more crap, the more details they pack into it, the better. If they pile on everything they can, they think a good lawyer will find a case in there somewhere. Honestly! People tell me the stupidest stories. I'd share them with you, but—"

"It's none of that," I told him, aware that I was stretching the truth by a good bit. "This is an honest-to-God, cause-and-effect, real-people story. But, it's not even a story. It's what really happened."

"Okay." He shrugged. "We'll see."

He dropped the last four pancakes onto the stack. We set the dining-room table, and the two of us sat down.

Both of us were powerfully hungry, so we made short work of the pancakes. They were pretty tasty. Wade followed up with two cups of espresso. He closed his eyes to savor the tiny cup, then waved his hand to tell me to begin.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 16

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

Humanity is a comic role.

— Novalis

---

 

As uncomfortable as I felt telling the story this way, I needed Wade's help, and he was determined to hear it chronologically. "Okay," I said. "Beginning at the beginning: Mason Rafflyan comes from Amsterholt. It's way up north, close to the state line."

Wade gave me a wary look. "And why do we care about that bit of geography?"

"It's where it all starts," I explained. "You said to begin at the beginning."

Wade sighed, a world-weary sigh.

"This isn't how I want to tell the story," I protested. "I told you: I need to give you the overview first. Otherwise, none of it makes sense."

"Hold on," he said, interrupting again. Maybe the coffee was waking up his brain. "You said you 'have information that the police want' and you start off talking about this Mason guy. Does that mean you know what happened to the two men? Hugh Fencely and Mason?"

He had a suspicious look on his face, and when he asked, it sounded very much like an accusation, "You were talking about changing your name to Perry Mason the other day. Is that somehow connected to this... story you're telling me."

I hesitated. Was it connected? It was and it wasn't. So I answered, "Yes, in a weird, tangential way."

"A weird, tangential way," he echoed, eyeing his glass of iced tea as if the word weird triggered a personal drinking game. He reached toward the glass tentatively. His breath caught in his throat and he withdrew his hand without touching the glass.

I hesitated again. I know I wasn't making him drink, but I didn't like this dynamic. "Do you really need to drink to make yourself listen to me?"

He made a melodramatic, world-weary gesture toward the pillows in the living room and answered, "Apparently I do. But don't worry about it. I can't make you responsible for my sobriety." He sniffed, cleared his throat, and asked, "Tell me then: do you know where those two men went? Do you know where they are now?"

Again I hesitated before replying. I considered the complexity of the situation, then remembered Judith's advice (let your yes be 'yes' and your no be 'no'), and cut the knot by answering a simple "Yes."

"Okay, look," Wade advised me. "You already have a problem. If you hesitate like that when you talk to the police, do you know what you'll be telling them? No matter what *words* come out of your mouth, your hesitation signals loud and clear that you're hiding something. When you do that, the cops are going to zero in, exactly there, at the places you stall or hesitate or squirm. Hesitation is not your friend."

I looked at him for half a minute, as I engaged in internal debate. I had a big problem: no matter how crazy my story sounded, I desperately needed help and advice — *legal* help and advice, so I bit the bullet and told him.

"Wade, this is the story in a nutshell: Me, Deeny, and Hugh we were all abducted. By aliens from space."

He scoffed and made a confused face. "What about Mason? Why wasn't he abducted? Does it have something to do with this Amsterholt place?"

It was time to release the payload. "I'm Mason," I told him, dropping the bomb. "The real Deeny is in *my* body — Mason's body — on a spaceship, heading to an intergalactic zoo, with Hugh Fencely. I'm Mason in Deeny's body."

"God damn it," Wade observed in a soft voice. At first, I couldn't tell whether he was angry or calm. Then it became clear: He was upset; so upset that he forgot to look at his drink. "What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Do you want me to tell you what the police would say, or what a prosecutor would say? You want to know what Hugh Fencely's family will say, if you tell a story like that?" He stared at me for a few moments. "Thank God, she's not a close friend of mine, but I went to school with Laura Fencely, Hugh's sister. I can't imagine— Jesus! She's one of the nicest people!" He wiped his brow, shook his head, and told me, "I gotta tell you, Deeny — or whatever the hell you want me to call you — I don't want to be standing next to you when you tell this story... to anyone!" He shook his head again, then asked, "Can you— I mean— can you just think for a minute: What would *you* say if some stranger popped up and told you that pack of horseshit? About someone you cared about?"

"It's the truth," I protested in a small voice.

Wade closed his eyes and tensed his body, as if he was in pain. "Jesus, help me," he lamented.

After a long look at me, he took an equally long look at the oversized glass of Long Island Iced Tea. It sat waiting on the table in front of him, wet with condensation. With a deep breath, like a man about to dive into a swimming pool, he said, "Okay! Here we go!" and drank deeply of the beverage, shuddering after he swallowed. "Go on, then. Let's hear it. Unload the whole stinking pile. I can't be your lawyer, so-- why should I give a shit?"

 

---

 

MASON'S STORY, TOLD FROM HIS POINT OF VIEW
 

My name is Mason Rafflyan. I was born in raised in Amsterholt, one of the smallest towns in our state. It's way up north, near the state line. I love it there. I never should have left it.

The biggest mistake I ever made in my entire life was coming to Robbins. As you'll see, I didn't want to. It was a bad idea from the start. I should never have set foot here. If only I'd stayed at home — or if I'd gone somewhere else, anywhere else, I wouldn't be in the mess I'm in now.

I never gave credence to destiny or fate. I never believed that God had a plan for me. I always felt that we each make our own choices, and those choices, like railroad switches, decide the paths our our lives will take.

Even so, from the very beginning of this adventure (if I can call it that), I've been in the grip of events and influences completely beyond my power to influence or control. Maybe I could have possibly put my foot down, at one point or another. Maybe I could have just said no or shouted 'stop' in a key moment; a moment when it would have mattered. Unfortunately, as events unfolded, the key points where I could have hit the brakes were never apparent. One thing led naturally to the next and the next and the next, until before I knew it, I was in it up to my neck. After that, there was nothing but the struggle to get to the next minute.

The whole mechanism of how and why I came to Robbins began innocently enough on Saturday, June 3, 2017: I received a letter. A white envelope from the State Civil Service Administration. I swallowed hard when I read that return address. I shook the envelope. I tapped it three times on the kitchen counter.

I knew what was in there, and for that reason I was afraid to open it. It contained the results of my civil-service exam. If I passed, I could apply to be a cop. Luckily, that one exam is used to qualify for state, county, and local police, so (assuming I earned a passing grade) I could apply to all three, tripling my chances of becoming a policeman. Although, since our town's too small to have it's own police force, if I wanted to go local, I'd have to apply to the local force in another town.

If I failed... well, I'd have to take the test again. I already knew what failing the test feels like. I failed it the first time I took it, the first year I was old enough. That was two years ago. If I fail this time, I'll have to wait two years, when they'll give the test again. I could live with that. My mother, less so. She was constantly pressing me to have a Plan B, to do something other than try to be a cop.

Honestly, the worst part — almost the only bad part about failing, would be my mother's reaction. As I said, *I* could deal with waiting another two years. It would give me two more years to study and prepare. Unfortunately, I knew my mother wouldn't see it that way. She'd take my failure as a sign that it was time for enact some kind of Plan B.

On the other hand, unlike two years ago, this letter from Civil Service was bulky, and that seemed a good sign. Two years ago the letter was nothing more than a single sheet of paper. Promising? I thought so. However, even with that promise, I couldn't bring myself to open it. Not yet. It was too early in the day. I decided I'd open it tonight.

 

---

 

Then, I admit, I made a tactical error: I stuck the thing in my back pocket. Of course, it didn't exactly fit in my pocket. A good three inches of bright white envelope stuck out, plain as day.

What I should have done was leave the letter at home. Then my mother wouldn't have seen it. If I'd left it at home, she might have asked me about it, but I could truthfully tell her that I didn't know what the letter said, and maybe she'd forget about it for a few days.

I'm not usually so fussy or tentative. It's my mother. If she could just chill and let everything work itself out, *I'd* be able to relax. Unfortunately, she tends to keep asking questions, wanting details, wheedling the story out of me...

Although maybe... I have to admit it's possible... maybe I brought the envelope with me so that she *would* see it. Lance the boil, so to speak. I don't mean that it was a purposeful move on my part. It had to be my subconscious that did it, working against my best interest. That's what the subconscious does, doesn't it?

Little did I know, that when my mother invited me for lunch, that she had an entirely different, unrelated agenda; not what I expected at all. Nothing I could possibly foresee. It came so entirely out of the blue, I had no reaction or response ready. Her plan for me was on a bigger scale than my test results. Not all-encompassing, but it swept up my civil-service exam as just another bit of grist for the mill.

Although, if I hadn't been obsessing over my letter, I wouldn't have been so blind. I probably would have noticed a few things, a few signs or warnings; I would have connected the clues. At the very least, I would have had my guard up.

 

---

 

First of all, Mom invited me to lunch on a Saturday. Nothing unusual there, but... as I rode my bicycle up to her house, I caught sight of her empty driveway, Normally there'd be two extra cars: my brother's and sister's. This time, neither one was there. At least, not yet.

"Hey, Mom!" I called as I entered the front door. "How're you doing? Where's the rest of the brood?"

"I thought it would be nice if it was just you and me this time." She smiled. "Besides, the rest of the 'brood' as you call them had other engagements." She counted them off on her fingers: all of them, athletic events involving my nieces and nephews.

Okay. That's not out of the ordinary either. But then... Mom had the grill going on her patio out back. She hates to grill. She always gets my brother to do it. My antennae should have gone up at that. But they didn't. (I was still obsessing over my exam results.)

"What's cooking?" I quipped. Yes, I know — not very original, but I was only making small talk.

"I thought you'd like a nice piece of steak — see that? It was on special." Holding a pair of tongs, she gave a delicate pat to a two-inch-high cylinder of pure beef. There were two of them. "These are for you. I don't want all that bloody protein. And then... I thought the steaks looked kind of small, so I picked up a few of those spicy Italian sausages that you like." Another tap with the tongs. "Over here we've got sweet corn on the cob. I saw it this morning at the farm stand over on Century. These little fellas in foil are potatoes, of course. They're just about ready to come off the grill. Earlier today I roasted some veggies. They're in the kitchen: zucchini, red onions, bell peppers, asparagus... They're just waiting for a little salt and olive oil."

The gastronomic excess made me feel a bit awkward, acutely conscious of not having brought anything. I had to ask: "Wow, Mom! It all sounds fantastic! But... is there some occasion I've forgotten? Should I have brought a card, or flowers, or something?"

"Who needs an occasion?" she challenged, jovially. "I was out buying groceries and the steak caught my eye. From there, one thing led to another, and so..." She spread her hands to take in the whole effort.

My mouth watered. "You've really outdone yourself, Ma," I told her.

She grinned and bustled inside for a moment, returning with two wine glasses and an open bottle of red wine from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. "The man at the store recommended this one to go with the steak. Let's see if he's right."

 

---

 

Alright. I'll admit: I made it easy for her, but I have to say, my mother played me like a violin. She was clever. She waited until I'd finished half the steak, one of the sausages, and two glasses of wine — before she lowered the boom.

And... clever thing! She must have deeper pockets than mine, or a better hiding place, because until that moment I had no idea that she had taken possession of my Civil-Service letter.

She held it up for me to see, then set on the table between us, flattening it with her hands. "What's this, then?" she asked, with a sly grin.

"Mom!" I exclaimed, honestly shocked. "Since when did you become a pickpocket? When did you — how did you even take that?"

"These are your exam results, aren't they?" she challenged.

"Yes," I breathed, with the air of a captured escapee. "I haven't opened it yet."

"I can see that. Why haven't you?"

I made vague motions my hands as I sought for the words to explain. I wisely didn't say anything, because how can a grown man explain to his mother that he was worried about her reaction? The mix of emotions I experienced were a serious blast from the past: the same anxieties I felt when I needed her signature on a bad report card, back in elementary school.

She gave me time. She waited through a minute or so of my inability to speak, and then finally said. "Let's open it then!" and without the slightest pause, snatched up a clean steak knife and slit the envelope open. I didn't quite gasp, but it felt as though she'd opened one of my veins — metaphorically, of course! Only metaphorically!

She extracted a pack of pages, six or seven of them. All but one of the pages, as it turned out, were explanations about the civil-service exam, when it was given, how it was used, etc., etc. All information I already knew by heart. Only the first page had any significance: it thanked me for having taken the exam, but that unfortunately I hadn't achieved a passing grade and so—

I knew the rest. I couldn't apply to be a cop. Not right now. Not at any level: not state, not county, not local. The letter advised me that I could take the exam next time it was given, which was two years from now. (Administrative details followed.)

"Oh, bad luck!" Mom said, although she seemed perversely pleased by the result. I endeavored to cut off what I thought was coming.

"Mom," I said, "Look: I know you think I need a Plan B, but I do have one. I can take this exam again in two years—"

"You'll be 23 years old," she pointed out. "And if you fail again, you'll have to wait until you're 25—"

"Mom, at that point, when I'm 25, there's a second exam I can take: to be a Private Investigator."

I fully expected her to scoff at that. I was prepared to hear the phrase pie in the sky, by and by, but that wasn't what she said at all.

In the tone of someone simply seeking information, she asked, "A private investigator? Are there any other requirements to be a private investigator? I mean, apart from the exam?"

"You need an associate's degree in criminal justice. I've got that — or almost got that. It's a two-year program; I just have to re-take one or two courses, and I'll be done."

"Is that all?"

I was more than a little surprised at her attitude of apparent acceptance, or at least interest.

"No," I said, warming a little to my subject. "I'd also have to go through firearms training and training in unarmed self-defense."

She nodded. Her face had a thoughtful look, as she considered what I'd said. "So, do you think you'd like to be a private investigator?"

I hesitated. I honestly had never considered that question. I'd only been thinking about what was possible for me, not about what I'd prefer. "Well, um, since you ask, honestly, I'd rather be a cop. But you said I should have a Plan B, and being a private investigator is a pretty good Plan B, for me, I think."

"Okay," she said, nodding. "Okay." Then, another big grin. "What if I told you there's a Plan C?"

My throat went dry. "Mom, I want to be a cop," I protested.

"I know, I know," she replied, waving my objection aside. "But you can't be a cop, at least for two years, and you can't be a PI, at least for four years. I have a job you can do NOW. It's private investigation. And it pays."

"I can't, though," I replied, a little perplexed. "I don't have any kind of license or training."

"You've got your brain," she retorted, "and you've got time on your hands." Then she sighed and looked down at the table for a moment before beginning. "There is a case that needs investigating, and the police won't touch it any more. You don't need to pretend to be anything other than a concerned citizen, and you'll spend your time looking into the case. Just use your head and your common sense and see what you can find out." She picked up her knife and fork and cut into her vegetables. "I'm surprised you're not jumping at the chance."

She found me flummoxed. I never expected anything like any of this. Mom quietly ate, without looking at me, giving me time to digest what she'd told me. I sat there like an idiot, blinking, not moving.

"Eat your steak before it gets cold," she directed.

I looked up at her. "What is this case? Tell me about it."

She pointed at my plate with her knife. "Eat now," she said. "I have a pile of papers to give you. After we're done with lunch. I'll tell you the story over coffee. I'll tell you everything I know."

"And this is paid work?" I asked.

"Yep," she said. "Cash money. Plus expenses. Plus a car! Now, no more questions. Eat!"

 

---

 

I ate, although I kept stopping to ask questions. Questions my mother refused to answer. "After lunch," she repeated.

At long last, we finished eating. We cleared the table and put away the leftovers, and finally — when I was ready to die from the suspense — Mom went into her bedroom and returned with a thick manila envelope, stuffed with papers. It was about two inches thick.

"This isn't everything," she explained, "but it's more than enough to start with." I reached for it, but she held on to it. "First I'll tell you the story, and then — if you want — we can look through this a little bit. But this is for you to take home. Okay?"

Well, I had to be okay with it: she was making the rules.

We sat again at the dining-room table, facing each other. There was still a half bottle of the wine left. Uncharacteristically, she poured me a generous glass.

"Alright," she said, leaning in toward me, a half-smile playing over her lips. "I want to start by saying Once upon a time, but as improbable as it is, this isn't a fairy tale."

"So how does it start?" I asked. My patience was near its end.

Mom leaned in a little closer, and trying to not smile, told me:

"Charlotte had a boyfriend."

"What? No!" I scoffed. "Come on. A boyfriend? Crazy Charlotte?"

"Okay, now," Mom cautioned gently. "Remember: Charlotte is your cousin, and she is the only daughter of my only sister."

"And this *case* is somehow about Charlotte having a boyfriend?"

"Yes, and that's why you have to be careful not to call her 'crazy'. Okay?"

"Okay," I conceded. "And hold on — you said I was going to get paid — AND get a car? From who?"

"From my sister. From your Aunt Hanna. She'll give you her old Corolla."

"For good?"

"Yes, for good. If you investigate this case."

I was about to ask more questions, but my mother stopped me. "Why don't you let me tell the story, in a nutshell. It won't take long.

"About two years ago, Charlotte was engaged — yes, she was engaged to be married — to a man named Ross Ghulyan. He was a freshman at the State University at Robbins, there on a football scholarship. Apparently he was a rising star, showed lots of promise and all that. Everything was fine until Ross started seeing another woman. Her name was Mayda something-or-other. I forget. Starts with a Z. Her name's in here." She patted the envelope. "One night, the two of them — Ross and Mayda — went out into the desert to look at the stars and whatnot, and Ross was never seen again."

"Just — gone?"

"Gone. Never seen again."

"What about the woman?"

"She came back. She said they had a fight and she ran away. She showed up — of all places — at Charlotte's apartment the next morning."

My brain began sorting through what I'd heard. "How did they get out to the desert?"

"In his truck — which also disappeared."

"What does this Mayda say happened to him?"

"She says she has no idea. She left him after they argued, and hitched a ride on the desert highway."

I pictured a desert. Empty, vast. Two years have passed. Whatever clues there might ever have been, were now long gone.

"The police investigated, didn't they?"

"Yes, and they figure that Ross ran off. That he couldn't stand the weight of all the attention, the early success."

"I guess that happens," I ventured. "I wouldn't know. So how do I come in?"

"Your cousin Charlotte is convinced that Mayda lured Ross into the desert and killed him."

The two of us sat in silence for a few beats, looking each other in the face. I decided to say it first: "Let me guess: the police didn't agree."

"Right. They found no body, and they found no evidence of foul play."

It was easy to guess the next step: "But Charlotte wouldn't let it go."

"No, she wouldn't. She hasn't. In fact, she pestered the police so much and so often that they took out a restraining order against her."

"The police took out a restraining order!?" I exclaimed. "That's pretty extreme!"

Mom smiled a grim, flat-lined smile. "Your cousin is pretty extreme."

I nodded in agreement. I sat in silence for a moment. It was a lot to take in. I swirled my wine in my glass and let out a long breath.

"Honestly, Mom, it sounds like I'd be getting paid for doing nothing. The chances of my finding something new are about zero. I'd be cheating Aunt Hanna out of her money."

"I know what you mean," Mom agreed, "and I'm glad to hear you say that. The thing is, if Hanna doesn't hire you, she's going to find an actual PI and pay him whatever a real investigator charges. In the end, either he'll agree with whatever the police said, or your aunt will run out of money."

I wasn't sure how to respond. I took a sip of wine.

"You know your aunt. She'll do anything for Charlotte. Charlotte is her baby girl. If Hanna meets the wrong PI, she could end up spending every penny she's got on tomfoolery that goes nowhere. At least with you, all you'll be spending is shoe leather."

In spite of all that my mother had said, I couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, my God!" I exclaimed. "So, according to you, I'm doing Aunt Hanna a favor by taking her money."

"We'll keep in touch," she said. "You and me. You'll let me know how much she's spending, how much she's giving you. In the meantime I'll try to find a way to intervene when it's time to put on the brakes. Make sure she doesn't put herself in the poorhouse."

 

---

 

The manila envelope Mom gave me had a lot of material. I spent a few hours that night and a few hours Sunday morning going through it... as much of it as I could. As I flipped through the pages, I had to wonder who put it all together. I couldn't see my mother being interested enough, or Charlotte or Aunt Hanna being disciplined enough. The pages were ordered chronologically, beginning with a short piece in the local Robbins paper about a "possible disappearance." Subsequent articles added details and background.

One of the most striking, inescapable facts (for me), was the fact that Charlotte wasn't mentioned anywhere at first. Not at all. Likewise, there was no mention of Ross being engaged to anyone.

Stories written in the first few weeks mentioned Mayda Zakaryan, but weren't clear on her relationship to Ross. Some articles called her Ross' girlfriend. Others said they had a "dating history." Clearly they were on a date the night Ross disappeared.

It wasn't until the end of June, a full month after Ross' disappearance that Charlotte first appeared in a news story. I got the idea that the reporters were walking on eggshells when it came to Charlotte. They didn't seem able to simply come out and say how odd it was that she waited an entire month before coming forward, and they didn't dare question Charlotte's claims outright. Then again, maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe my own experiences with Charlotte led me to connect dots that weren't really connected, but nothing I read clearly stated that Charlotte and Ross were engaged, or that they were even seeing each other. The papers (as far as I could see) hedged their bets by saying that Charlotte "claimed" or "asserted" or even "alleged" that there was an engagement. One reporter stuck her neck out and made the observation that there hadn't been a formal engagement announcement.

Obviously I'd need to dig into that. I made a note to check the papers for an announcement. I made a note to talk to Ross' classmates, teammates, and family — as far as possible.

Of course I'd have to talk to Mayda.

Unfortunately, my continued reading revealed that Mayda was living in Barcelona, Spain, playing on their womens' soccer team.

Interesting. She hung around for a month before taking off, and the police didn't stop her from leaving.

But then— oh my God! A light went on in my head. I flipped back a few pages. Charlotte didn't start making claims until *after* Mayda had gone!

I blew out a raspberry. This was going to be a minefield. A familial minefield.

 

---

 

Aunt Hanna's house was a bit far to go by bike, so my mother came and picked me up at 11:30. I dreaded the idea of lunch at my aunt's house, but at least Charlotte wouldn't be there.

"Where does Charlotte live now?" I asked Mom as I climbed into her car.

"Hello to you, too!" she responded. "She lives in Duxbridge."

"I imagine that's near Robbins?"

"Yep. It's right next door." She turned her head to grin at me. "Hanna says you can stay with Charlotte, if you want." She waited to see my reaction.

"Eyes on the road, Mom! Eyes on the road!" I called.

Mom, chuckling, straightened her gaze.

"There is no way in hell," I informed her.

"I know, I know," she said. "I figured it was better that you hear the offer from me first, so you don't react in horror when you talk to your aunt."

"Ah. Good idea."

"We could make a good detective team, Mason, what do you say?"

"Oh, wow! That's a great idea, Mom! You can be the whatcha-call, the family liason between me and Charlotte!" I chuckled at my own cleverness.

Mom gave a scoffing grunt in response.

The clock hit noon exactly when we pulled up in front of Hanna's house. "Here we are!" she announced in a cheery voice. "Out you go!"

My jaw fell open. "Aren't you coming, too?"

"Me?" she asked in an innocent tone. "You want me to come in, after you scoffed at my offer of working as a team?"

"Oh, Mom, no. Please don't leave me alone here. How am I going to get home, anyway?"

"Don't be such a baby! Your aunt is going to sign her car over to you, remember? It's recently serviced and has four brand-new tires! And don't forget: she'll put some cash in your hand before you leave. Remember that, while you're in there. She wants to give you that money and that car."

I took a deep breath, but I didn't move.

She put the car into park and turned to face me. "Look," she said, all serious. "I know my sister can be a bit... extra... and Charlotte even more so, but this is a job. A paying job. AND you get a car in the bargain. It's *exactly* the sort of thing you've been saying you want to do: investigating. Isn't that what you've been saying for years?"

"Yeah," I muttered, squirming in my seat.

"One more thing: you have a choice, right here, right now. You can either do this, which means putting up with your aunt and your cousin, and GET PAID for your trouble, OR you can get a job. A *real* job. A regular job with regular pay. Tomorrow, Monday. I have a list. It's a list of jobs that you won't like, but they're all jobs that you can get, and best of all: they are jobs that will pay you honest-to-God cash money. Is that clear?"

There was a book I was supposed to read in high school (but didn't). The title was Invitation to a Beheading. The title popped right and full into my brain in that moment. It suited my mood. It suited my mood exactly. I was being invited to my own beheading.

At least I'd be getting paid for it, right?

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 17

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," Mason said.

"The hell of it is," Drake groaned, "there isn't any bridge!
There's only a chasm, and when you come to it
you're going to have to jump."

— Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

---

 

I didn't get out of the car. I sat there, struggling with myself. I turned to my mother, and in an urgent tone, asked her, "Mom. Mom. Please, drive away for a little bit. We need to talk, okay? I really need to talk with you about this."

She stared at me, studying my face for a few moments. I could see her first impulse was to push me out of the car. The idea that you learn to swim when you're tossed in the deep end.

"Please," I said. "I have to tell you a few things before I walk in there. Okay? Please? It's important."

She huffed loudly, but she relented, putting the car in gear and driving slowly away. She didn't go far; just until we were out of sight of Aunt Hanna's house. Once there, she turned off the engine and said, "Okay. Talk. Tell me what's so important."

"Look," I said, nervous, anxious, fumbling, "Look. This isn't a thing that I can solve. I don't think *anybody* can solve it. I don't believe any crime was committed. What this is, is just Charlotte being Charlotte. Charlotte being crazy. Charlotte wanting attention. Charlotte getting everybody all worked up over nothing. I'm sorry, but that's what I see. I went through as much of that file as I could—"

Mom opened her mouth to interrupt, but I said, "Wait. Mom, please. Listen: what this is really about is Charlotte not letting go. But it's not even the guy she's not letting go of: she's stuck on yet another of her crazy ideas. That's all. She never was his girlfriend, let alone his fiancée. She didn't come up with this story until a month — an entire month! — after Ross disappeared. She didn't say a word about any of it until that Mayda woman was out of the country!"

"Mayda left the country?" Mom asked. I guess she hadn't read the file, or hadn't connected the dots.

"She moved to Barcelona, in Spain!"

"Why?"

"To play on their soccer team."

Mom scratched her cheek, thinking.

I added, "The thing is, Charlotte says that Mayda killed Ross. If the police even suspected that, they never would have let her leave the state, let alone the country."

Mom shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Neither of us spoke for a few seconds.

At last Mom admitted it. Her mouth twisted this way and that, and grudginly she said, "I know."

"You know?" I echoed. "And yet you still want me to do this?"

"Alright," she said. "Yes. I mean, I know the whole thing is a crock. And yes, your cousin Charlotte can be too much. And sure, your Aunt Hanna will do backflips to give Charlotte whatever she wants, whether it makes sense or not."

Mom glanced back over her shoulder in the direction of Hanna's house.

She took a steadying breath and went on. "Still... do you know what would make both of them happy? If they know, if they see, that you are digging into it, that you're running down leads, talking to people, looking for evidence, turning over every stone, seriously working it... You get the picture."

"And then? How long do I go on doing that?"

"Until you run out of road."

"What does that mean?"

"When there's nothing else for you to look at. When there's no one else to talk to. When there are no more stones to turn over. When there are no more questions to be asked. That's when."

I shook my head. "They aren't going to like it when I don't find anything."

She reached over and squeezed my hand.

"Don't worry, Mason. Don't worry. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. You go, and you do what you can. Investigate to the best of your ability. Be thorough. Take your time, be thoughtful. Keep notes, so you can write an extensive, exhaustive report at the end.

"When you get that far, talk to me. First you and I will talk. Okay? At that point, we'll work out a strategy. Somehow you'll have to present your findings, your report, to Hanna and Charlotte." She paused for a moment. "Maybe you should tell Hanna first, and then Charlotte."

She chuckled. "Maybe, if you're lucky, she won't want you to tell Charlotte your conclusions."

"God! That would be a load off!"

Mom got a sly look. "I might be able to steer Hanna in that direction. We'll see when that day comes. Anyway: Don't worry. Don't hurry. Do your best. Keep good notes."

"Got it," I said. "Okay. Thanks, Mom."

 

---

 

She started the car and put her hand on the gearshift. Then she stopped herself.

"Oh, I nearly forgot! Listen, Mason. New subject: This is something else entirely. Okay? Completely unrelated. Your grandmother's engagement ring: You know what it looks like, don't you?"

"Uh— no," I replied, drawing out the vowels. "Why would I know a thing like that?"

She gave me a disappointed look. "My mother's engagement ring," she specified, as if that clarified the matter.

I shook my head. The additional words didn't help.

Mom touched her ring finger with her right thumb and index finger, as though the ring was there. "It's a filigree gold band, with a tiny diamond between two tiny emeralds."

Huffing, Mom pulled out her phone, struggling with it until she arrived a picture, which she held out to me.

"Ohhh," I intoned, getting it. "I remember it now: The ugly ring."

"It isn't ugly," Mom corrected. "It's old fashioned. In any case, My mother gave it to *me*. While you're at your aunt's house, keep your eyes open. Look at your aunt's fingers. See whether she's got it. I'm pretty sure Hanna took it."

"Do you want me to just ask her?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Is it worth a lot of money?"

"I don't know. Maybe. The thing is, if it *is* worth money, the money doesn't matter. It has a lot of sentimental value. That's what's important." She was silent for a moment. "I think Hanna might have taken it and given it to your cousin Charlotte. It's the kind of thing she'd do. If you don't see it at Hanna's house, look for it at Charlotte's place. Okay?"

"And what do I do if I see it? Do you want me to steal it back?"

"What? No, of course not!" She considered the question again. "Unless... unless you think it— No, no. Don't do anything. Just tell me if one of them has it."

 

---

 

She brought me back to Aunt Hanna's house.

"Mom, listen: please. Will you please come in with me?"

She laughed. "Not a chance! I'm staying out here, in the real world." She patted me on the shoulder and mussed up my hair. "Don't worry. You're a big boy. You can handle it. All you have to do is listen."

I took a breath and opened the car door. Before I got out, Mom had one more caution to share with me.

"Mason, one last thing: I know I said this already, but it's important. Make sure you don't call Charlotte crazy or anything like that."

"I won't," I said, stepping out and closing the door. "Of course not."

Mom hit a button to roll down the window on my side. I bent down and looked at her.

"I mean it," she said. "You've got to put a hobble on your tongue. You call her 'crazy' a lot. Pretty much every time her name is mentioned."

I laughed. I suppose it was true. But anyway, I had to ask: "What's a hobble?"

She shook her head, and thinking I was joking, drove off, leaving me alone.

There was no way I could know it, but that was the last time I ever saw my mother.

Well... that's not accurate, strictly speaking. But it may as well be.

 

---

 

Aunt Hanna's house is a little cottage with a well-tended lawn and flower garden, surrounded by a white picket fence. It's the absolute picture of familial normalcy. The house was in good repair, freshly painted. The windows were so clean, they shone. It's hard to believe that this picture-perfect, apple-pie, Norman-Rockwell homestead could produce someone as furiously out-of-kilter as my cousin Charlotte.

Okay, I have to stop that. I have to quit putting down Charlotte in my head, or I'll end up saying something out loud that I should keep to myself. After all, I don't hate Charlotte. She's never done anything to hurt me. She's annoying. That's all. Unfortunately for everyone, she's annoying on a scale and intensity that's way out of bounds.

If you don't know Charlotte, can't have any idea how much work she can be.

For one thing, she's an incurable hypochondriac. She can't hear about a disease or illness or syndrome without thinking she has it. She expects everyone to take her imaginary symptoms seriously.

Just for example, if she sees a commercial — aimed at old people, by the way! — for a pill that treats restless leg syndrome, she watches wide-eyed, rapt, and the moment the announcer finishes listing the symptoms, Charlotte cries out, "I have that, too!"

I don't know how many times I've heard her say that silly phrase — about brain tumors, heart problems, communicable diseases — All the while, she's young and perfectly healthy. She's always been that way, as far as I remember. And I don't think she's ever been seriously ill.

Once, back when Grandad was alive, he was a week away from getting a second knee replacement. We were out in the backyard at his house. He was trying not to complain, but when somebody asked how he was feeling, he made a face and confessed that there are times when his bad knee simply *locks* and won't move or bend in any way. "There's nothing I can do but wait until it releases," he told us. It was very painful and inconvenient, and one of the reasons he was going for the operation.

Unfortunately, Charlotte was there. We were sixteen at the time, and as Grandad talked, her eyes grew bigger and bigger, and I thought to myself, God damn it, Charlotte! Don't say it! Don't say it! but she went ahead and exclaimed, "I get that, too!"

I wanted to curl up and die, but Grandad was good: he simply pretended he didn't hear her; he let it blow by.

Okay: so Charlotte is a trip. I've got to put that thought on a back shelf, or I won't be able to do this so-called investigation for my aunt.

I entered the gate, and stood on the path to the front door. I stopped for a moment and tried to clear my thoughts, pushing away my negative attitudes toward Charlotte. I needed to be ready, feeling positive, for Aunt Hanna.

I hope I haven't given the impression that Aunt Hanna is as difficult, intense, or off-kilter as Charlotte! No, not at all! Aunt Hanna is the nicest, sweetest person. Her only problem is that she gives 100% credence to all of Charlotte's crazy ideas, and that takes her off into the high weeds. As long as the conversation steers clear of her daughter, Aunt Hanna is just fine.

Unfortunately, Hanna is a widow; Charlotte is her only child, and she dotes on Charlotte. Her buy-in to Charlotte's worldview is so complete, it's practically cultish.

 

---

 

Aunt Hanna has a close family resemblance to my mother; she's got the same face, the same curly hair, and the same comfortable... padding, I guess you could say. Hanna is a younger, smaller version of my Mom.

Like Mom, she prepared a fantastic, overabundant lunch. First, three homemade pizzas: one with grilled steak and sauteed onions; the second, a simple margherita; the third, with roasted vegetables. Accompanied by a simple, but abundant, salad, dressed with oil and vinegar.

She didn't talk business or mention Charlotte while we ate. She asked for news of my family (which is funny, knowing how often she and my mother talk on the phone), and told me some of the town gossip. Once those topics were exhausted we discussed the weather and politics.

Hanna cleared away the dishes and the uneaten food, and set out coffee and cookies. Only then did she broach the business at hand.

I dreaded it, honestly, despite my mother's pep talk. At that point, I was totally convinced that Charlotte never had a boyfriend at all, let alone the poor guy who disappeared. Imagine my surprise when Hanna moved her chair in close to mine so we could look at the pictures on her phone together.

"This is Charlotte and Ross on the day they met," she narrated. "You can see it was a football practice. Charlotte happened to be walking by, and a stray football struck her in the foot. The pointy part of the ball hit her right on her instep! Ross came running over..." I'm leaving out a lot of details, but the way Hanna told it (which must be the way Charlotte tells it), it was a perfectly normal "meet cute" and as Hanna said, "It was the start of everything!"

Well, for several reasons (one of which I'll tell you below), I expected this to be the one and only photo of Charlotte and Ross together. But it wasn't! There followed picture after picture after picture: selfies of the two of them in various places... near a river, on a bridge, after a football game, fastening a lock to a fence (?), enjoying a picnic in the park, bundled up for a walk in the snow, eating breakfast at a sidewalk cafe...

They hugged, they kissed, they held hands, they smiled cheek to cheek... I couldn't get over it!

I was speechless. I was floored. She actually knew the guy!

And he looked normal! An all-American football boy.

"They were going to be married," Aunt Hanna told me, wistful, as she swept through the seemingly endless series of photos.

But then... the photos ceased. They abruptly stopped. We'd seen them get through Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, but nothing beyond.

"Christmas?" I asked, realizing what should have come next. There was no Christmas, no New Years, no winter break.

"Um, yeah," Aunt Hanna admitted, seeming embarrassed, as though I'd caught her out. "They were supposed to come up here for Christmas, but..."

"That's when they broke up?"

Hanna quickly sat up straighter, a little alarmed. "Oh, no, no, no. They never broke up. Don't *ever* say that when Charlotte's around: it will set her off. No, no."

"What happened then?" I asked. "According to Charlotte?"

"Oh, December... that's when that Mayda woman began casting her net, weaving her spell over poor Ross! Charlotte tried to give him space, to let him experiment, before she and Ross settled down, but unfortunately—" she heaved a heavy, tragic sigh "—the poor boy was murdered."

"Why, exactly, would Mayda murder Ross?"

"Oh, that's easy!" Hanna replied with a smile, happy at knowing the answer, as if this was a quiz about her favorite soap opera. "Mayda wanted to take him away from Charlotte, and when she realized that Ross would never leave my Charlotte, Mayda told herself, If I can't have him, nobody can!"

"I see," I said, keeping my tone neutral. "And does Charlotte have any idea *how* he was killed?"

"Of course! Mayda stabbed him in the heart with a hunting knife — a long blade with a serrated edge — and left his body in the desert, so it would be eaten by—" (she looked up to help her recall, then counted them off on her fingers) "—crows, vultures, coyotes, wild dogs, wolves, and hyenas."

"I don't think there are any hyenas in the United States," I ventured.

"Hmmph," Hanna scoffed, a little put out. "I guess Charlotte can explain that to you."

I let that blow by without further comment.

"Does Charlotte have any proof? For any of this?"

Hanna gave me an offended look. "Of course she does. What did you think? That she just made it all up?" She bristled a little before continuing. "We know that Mayda left his body in the desert, because it was never found! And because of the mess, the blood, the blood splatter, that's why she made the truck disappear, and got rid of all her clothes."

Now she lost me. "What are you talking about? She got rid of all her clothes?"

"Yes! Haven't you read the stories?" she asked. Stories?

"Do you mean, like, the news stories?"

"Well those, too, I suppose... yes! Anyway, Mayda, on the night of Ross' murder, ran all over the countryside in her birthday suit! Can you believe it? The brazen hussy!"

"No, honestly, I can't believe it. I didn't see that in any of the reports I read."

"I'm not surprised." She shot me a disappointed look, then informed me: "It's in the Iodine story. You know."

"The Iodine story?" I repeated. "I don't know what that is."

She huffed, clearly a little uncertain herself. "Well... look it up, then!" she exclaimed, and threw up her arms. "I don't know why you're asking ME all these questions. Shouldn't you be asking Charlotte?"

I scratched my head. "Honestly," I began, then quickly changed tack: "See, Charlotte, being immersed in the story, is going to be a lot more *emotional* in the telling, I'd expect. I wanted to get the big picture first, before I dig into the details with her."

Hanna nodded. "That makes sense." She ran her hands over her face. "Oh, Lord. You can't imagine, Mason, how much stress this puts on all of us. That's why I want you to dig into it, to get to the bottom of it. Maybe you can find his body... find his truck! At the very least, find out what happened. That's all we want." She shook her head. "But those lazy, good-for-nothing Robbins police have simply given up. *MY* guess is that Mayda bewitched the police... the police chief, maybe... but Charlotte says that's beyond her powers."

God help me, I almost laughed at that.

We spoke a little more, about money, about the car, and so on. Aunt Hanna gave me the title to the car, already signed over.

"How soon can you be in Duxbridge?" she asked. "If you get there next Sunday, a week from today, Charlotte has the day off, and she can brief you, or you can interview her... or whatever it is you need to do."

 

---

 

We were at the end, as far as I could tell, of all that Aunt Hanna was able to tell me. Although all we'd done was sit, talk, and look at pictures, I was tired, worn out. I felt as though I'd been through the wringer. I needed to stand up, stretch, and move around a little. I excused myself and went to use the bathroom.

I don't visit Aunt Hanna very often, but each time I do, I'm surprised by the same thing: the reading material in the bathroom. It's a throwback to my late Uncle Samuel, who'd sit on the toilet by the hour, reading. Somehow I never remember it's there until I see it, tucked between the throne and the window.

Back when I was a kid, the little collection seemed both magical and funny. My uncle kept a heavy wire mazagine rack near the toilet, stuffed with recent magazines, comic books, and one or two mystery novels. It wasn't a static collection, either: each time I'd go, I'd find a different selection, and I'd end up entranced by whatever comic book he happened to be reading.

I smiled to see that the rack was still in place, although the comic books were gone. They were replaced by womens magazines. As far as mystery novels, there was only one.

It was an old paperback with yellow, brittle pages, published by Pocket Books back in 1962. The cover art was mildly suggestive, showing a woman covering her naked body with a cloth that flowed out and became the title of the book, which was Perry Mason solves the case of the Glamorous Ghost, by Erle Stanley Gardner.

The idea that Aunt Hanna had taken up Uncle Samuel's habit of reading on the toilet — especially now that she lived alone and could sit in a more comfortable chair anywhere in the house — struck me as a little humorous. When I returned to her kitchen, I teased her about it. She brushed off my jibes with a slight sweep of her hand. "It makes me think of him," she told me, and of course I felt like a jerk for what I'd said.

Then she brightened up and asked, "Did you see the book I left in there?"

"Perry Mason?"

"Yes! You know your uncle was a big fan of mysteries... I've started reading them myself now. Agatha Christie, of course... but he has a few of those Perry Mason stories. I look at them every day, and finally, one day, they made me think of you!" She sighed and pressed her lips into a flat frown. "And then... and so—" she sighed— "when we weren't getting anywhere... I thought maybe you could be our detective." She smiled at me. "You could be our Perry Mason." She clasped her hands together. "You can take the book, if you like. It might inspire you!"

I understood what she meant: she was disappointed by the private investigator she'd hired. Then, inspired by her dead husband's old book collection, she got the idea of hiring me, instead.

 

---

 

As I was leaving, Hanna ran and fetched the book. She pressed it into my hands, insisting that I take it. "Be our Perry Mason!" she chirped, smiling and nearly dancing with excitement.

Then another thought struck her. Her expression abruptly changed, and she took hold of my arm. "Mason," she breathed, in a low voice, as if she didn't want to be overheard, "Don't mention Caleb to Charlotte. I'm not sure whether she's heard the news, but, I don't think you want to be the one to break it to her."

"Caleb?" I asked, puzzled. "Caleb Wrexler? What about him?"

"He got married," she hissed in a breathy whisper.

I blinked. I shook my head. I couldn't see what she was getting at.

Seeing the confusion on my face, Hanna frowned. "Caleb was Charlotte's first boyfriend," she explained, as though speaking to a five-year-old. "She's never gotten over— well, you know."

"Oh, yeah," I responded. It all came back to me in a moment. "Don't worry: mum's the word."

"Good." She smiled and patted me on the arm.

 

---

 

So... Caleb. He was a big part of the reason I didn't expect Charlotte to have any kind of boyfriend, let alone this Ross guy. You could have knocked me down with a feather when Hanna began scrolling through those photos of Ross and Charlotte. Until I saw the pictures, I assumed the whole thing took place, from beginning to end, strictly inside Charlotte's head.

Caleb was the reason why I thought that way. Not that I remembered him. Not really, not at first, until Aunt Hanna mentioned his supposed connection to Charlotte, but back when it happened, the experience indelibly colored my view of Charlotte.

We were all fourteen, fifteen, when Charlotte took a shine to Caleb Wrexler. He, for his part, had zero interest in her.

She tried all kinds of antics to get his attention. He was always polite — he was a nice kid. She took his civility as proof that he was in love with her. She kept trying to do things with him, to walk with him, to get partnered with him in school activities...

Caleb made the mistake of never saying a clear 'no' to Charlotte. Instead, he'd make polite excuses for not walking with her or not talking with her or whatever Charlotte proposed. Since he never closed that door, she kept knocking on it and peeking inside.

Finally, she hatched a plan. She brought four bricks, a folded-up cardboard box, and some packing tape in her backpack to school. Near the end of the schoolday, she went to the girls bathroom, where she packed the bricks with some wadded-up paper in the box, and sealed it up.

Then she lurked at the school's front door until Caleb came out. She appealed to his polite, gallant self, and asked him to carry the box home for her, "because it's so heavy."

He brought it to her house. She introduced him to her mother. He ate some cookies and drank some milk. Then he left.

For Caleb, that's where it ended. He did a favor for a girl in his class. He would have done the same for anyone. For Charlotte, that's where their love story truly began.

She told everyone they were girlfriend and boyfriend. She'd show up at his house, and if he wasn't home, she'd visit with his mother. (His father had no patience for Charlotte.) She gave Caleb cards, letters, and presents at school, and gave herself cards and presents she claimed were sent by him.

She pestered any girl who took an interest in Caleb, and was especially vindictive to any girl Caleb even smiled at.

It finally ended when Caleb's cousin Ellen came to visit just before Christmas. She was our age, really good looking, and a stranger to most of us. While she was in town, Caleb brought her along everywhere he went. She was friendly, nice, open, and funny. Everybody liked her. Except Charlotte. Her presence, her vicinity to Caleb provoked an extreme jealousy in Charlotte. Someone clued Ellen into Charlotte's delusion, Ellen thought it would be fun to poke the bear, so to speak. Anytime Charlotte was around, Ellen would vamp it up with Caleb, clinging to him, draping herself over him, leaning on him, hugging and kissing him, calling him "sweetheart" and "babe" and other silly names, all in a very exaggerated way.

It was great entertainment for the rest of us, but Charlotte was fit to be tied. Ellen's over-the-top behavior broke a dam, in a way. Before then, no one ever spoke openly about Charlotte's obsession. Charlotte was not only intensely jealous, she was fiercely possessive and vindictive. In other words, all my classmates were afraid of her. Or at least they didn't want the trouble that would follow from crossing her.

After Ellen returned home, Charlotte found that no one would listen or give any credence to her imaginary relationship with Caleb.

Nevertheless, Charlotte still continued, low key, to keep tabs on him, and Caleb didn't dare date anyone until he left for college. The general understanding was that he didn't want to subject a girl he liked to Charlotte's craziness.

But now he was married. For sure, I was not about to mention Caleb's name to Charlotte at all.

 

---

 

Oh, one more thing about Caleb: once, when talking about Charlotte's obsessions, he characterized her in this way: "Charlotte's approach to life is this: the only tool she has is a hammer, so everyone's head seems like a nail."

 

---

 

I decided I'd leave for Duxbridge/Robbins the next Saturday. That way I'd have a week to get ready; time to put all my affairs in order. For the trip itself, I'd take an entire day to drive down there, and after taking it easy Saturday night, I'd be as rested and as ready as a person can be, to face Charlotte Sunday morning.

I didn't really need all that time, but there was no point in rushing. There was no deadline, after all. In fact, there was a positive benefit to moving slowly and deliberately.

I spent my evenings that week sifting through the papers my mother had given me. After a certain point there was a lot of repetition. After all, the story was dirt simple: Two people went out to the desert. One came home; the other took off for parts unknown.

I made a lot of notes and did a lot of thinking. It occurred to me that the most promising avenue of investigation was finding Ross, who I assumed must still be alive. Absent a body, no one could prove he was dead, let alone murdered. I decided I'd start in Robbins, gather all the facts I could, and talk to anyone who knew Ross, including his family. I'd make a list of places Ross might go; places he felt safe, places he was curious about, places he wistfully mentioned from time to time...

I wouldn't tell Charlotte that I was looking for Ross until I absolutely had to. She wouldn't take it as good news; she'd take it as proof that I wasn't listening to her and didn't know what I was doing.

In fact, when it came time to say that I'd be spending my time and energy searching for Ross, I'd tell Mom to talk Aunt Hanna first, to get her on my side.

When Charlotte gets an idea, it's like a nail, driven deep into her brain. You can't move it or change it. So I'd have to be careful when I got anywhere near that nail.

 

---

 

Aunt Hanna's remark about "the Iodine story" puzzled me, but I didn't spend much time on it. She mentioned it in connection with Mayda returning from the desert naked — a fact (?) I didn't find referenced in any of the papers I had.

"It's in the Iodine story," Hanna said.

I googled it, but all I came up with were pages about the history of iodine: its discovery and use. Nothing related to Ross, Mayda, or Charlotte.

My mother had no idea what it meant, either.

 

---

 

Saturday, the day I intended to leave, was pouring rain. It was torrential. So I put off leaving for Robbins until Sunday.

I spent the day watching old Perry Mason videos. They weren't bad. It passed the time. I was surprised at the quality of the images, considering how long ago they were made.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 18

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, 'Did you sleep good?'
I said 'No, I made a few mistakes.'

— Steven Wright

---

 

I didn't sleep well Saturday night, knowing that Sunday I had to meet with Charlotte.

Anticipation gnawed at me, like a hyena worrying the flesh from my bones. I couldn't chase it away or ignore it. Tossing and turning didn't help. I tried lying on my back, lying on my side, lying on my other side. I tried lying on my belly with my pillow scrunched under my chin, but couldn't figure out which way to turn my head. Nothing worked. I couldn't switch off my brain or silence the alarm.

My memory was churning. When was the last time I'd been one-on-one with Charlotte? Had I ever? It was hard to remember... High school, maybe? No — back then, there were always other kids or teachers around. At family events, there was... well, family.

I began to think I'd never been alone with her. There was always a group, a collective human buffer to mitigate her wild vibe, her sense of impending crisis.

There were a few flashes of her and me — moments in passing, where we briefly intersected; just long enough for her to drop a crazy bomb before I escaped or she ran off to unsettle someone else.

Tomorrow would be an escalation of my relationship with Charlotte. A move to a whole new level: Charlotte and me, alone, with no one else to cushion her impact. Talking with her, listening to her, would mean slipping the moorings, drifting away from the shore. Leaving my solid, tactile contact with reason, with hard reality.

The image in my mind — the feeling — was of wild swimming: me, loose in a cold torrent, a powerful current carrying me away to God knows where. Hopefully there'd be no rocks to crash into or falls to slide over.

It would be all about survival: about keeping my head up. About not falling into her world, her maelstrom, where the connected becomes disconnected, and the disjoint becomes the rule.

My only salvation was time. At some point I'd have to leave. Aunt Hanna told me that Charlotte worked the night shift, and that (obviously) she sleeps during the day. She didn't tell me what time Charlotte goes to bed, but whenever it was, it would be a hard stop. For my part, I had to check into my hotel. I could make that a hard stop as well. Whichever happened first.

Good: Now I had an exit strategy. That helped my nerves a little.

Unfortunately, Charlotte wasn't the only issue. The whole "investigation" business bothered me. It bothered me a lot. The idea of taking money from my aunt — money and a car! — to pretend to investigate something utterly nonsensical? It was wrong. It couldn't be more wrong.

Mom's rationalization didn't sit well with me. Her idea, that I'd do less harm by taking less of Hanna's money than a professional would charge... it made some kind of sense, but I didn't relish the idea of being the lesser of two evils. The lesser evil is still evil.

I couldn't lie still. Hours passed. I lay on my back and put my pillow over my face. I tried sleeping without a pillow. I tried putting my pillow under my knees.

I don't know how long it took, but eventually I fell asleep.

It wasn't the most restful sleep. It ended abruptly when Charlotte sent a text at 4:30 in the morning. It was utterly disorienting. Emerging confused from the tangled world of sleep, it took me a full minute before I recognized the ping of my phone. A text. At 4:30 in the morning. Charlotte must be at work, I told myself. The message read:

MEET ME AT 11

All caps. Imperative. In the middle of the night.

I shook my head, yawned uncontrollably, blinked half a dozen times, and then, without thinking, responded

I'll be there.

As soon as I hit SEND, I was wide awake and kicking myself.

Eleven AM?

Robbins and Duxbridge are roughly 300 miles from Amsterholt. If I left at 5, I'd get there around 10.

Stupid, stupid, me. I meant to leave yesterday! If I had, I could have taken my time. If it weren't for yesterday's torrential rain...

The obvious solution was to tell Charlotte to meet me later. I picked up my phone and texted back:

Could we meet this afternoon?
Say, three o'clock?

I got up to use the bathroom. She answered while I was washing my hands.

NO WILL BE ASLEEP BY THEN

"I'm awake now," I said to myself. "Might as well get it over with."

I texted back:

See you at 11, then.

My bag was already packed. I added my toothbrush, got dressed, locked up the house, and started the car.

I don't drive much, so five hours behind the wheel is a lot for me. Luckily most of the roads are well paved, and traffic at that hour is almost nonexistent, so I made good time.

God help me, I did *not* want to talk with Charlotte. Conversations with her always hurt my brain. Charlotte is a lot of work. A lot of heavy lifting. I don't know how that poor Ross guy could have put up with her. And yet, it was clear from the pictures that they'd dated for months. Months! And he smiled! In *every* picture! He looked sincerely happy with Charlotte. Those photos were real, too: not photoshopped, not fakes.

Maybe THAT was something I could investigate. Their relationship. Find out how on earth they stayed together for as long as they did. There was a *real* mystery, at least in my mind.

My nerves kept me awake as I drove; tension, anticipation: If I had strings like a violin, you'd feel and hear those strings tightening up: their fibers straining, stretching dangerously, farther than they're ever meant to go. The pitch would keep rising, higher and higher, and with it the certitude that any second, those strings are going to pop. They'd break like a gun shot.

I drove on, mile after mile without stopping, shaking my head to keep clear. I didn't stop at all until I came to Aldusville. Last stop before Robbins and Duxbridge. I fueled the car, ate some breakfast, stretched, walked a bit, and then climbed back behind the wheel for the last hour and a half. It wasn't evident from the map, but the stretch from Aldusville to Robbins is a desert, with nowhere to stop: no food, no gas, no services of any kind. The man in the service station warned me, once he knew where I was headed.

"Good thing I'm filling up, then!" I laughed. "Wouldn't want to get stuck out there!"

He shrugged. "Eh, don't worry. Eventually one of the State Troopers would find you. Just make sure you carry plenty of water."

Speak of the devil! I met a group of troopers as I was leaving Aldusville, where the town ends and the desert begins. They'd set up a roadblock, a serious roadblock, a formidible one, with concrete barriers. They were stopping everyone. They photographed every license plate, checked everyone's documents.

There were four adults in the car ahead of me, and I noticed that all four occupants were asked for their IDs. That's some serious checking.

I never found out what it was about, but I could guess: When I pulled up, the trooper observed to his colleague, "Single white male, early twenties, traveling alone." The other answered, "Tell him to pull over there," pointing to the shoulder. Clearly I fit a profile.

They gave me a breathylizer (early in the day!), asked me who I was, where I was going, where was I staying. I had to show them my hotel reservation on my phone. While one questioned me, a second checked my license and registration, and a third searched my car. It was a pretty thorough search.

"What's this about?" I asked.

The trooper handed my documents back to me and said, "You're free to go."

"I'm just curious," I said.

"You're free to go," he repeated. He turned and walked back to the roadblock.

Irritated at not getting an answer, I started my engine, pulled off the shoulder, and took off down that long desert highway. I still had plenty of time, but didn't want to be late for my appointment with Charlotte.

 

---

 

About a half hour past the checkpoint, a sudden doubt hit me. I pulled off onto the shoulder and got out of the car. Did I bring the documents? The manila envelope my mother gave me? It wasn't on the front seat. I opened my suitcase and shoved my clothes this way and that. I felt the bottom and the sides. No envelope there. It wasn't in the back seat, the seat pockets, or the door pockets. Even though I was sure it wasn't there, I checked the trunk. I looked in the glove comparment. No joy.

Clearly I'd left the pack of papers at home.

If Charlotte hadn't woken me so early... if she hadn't insisted on meeting at 11... I would have double-checked myself. I wouldn't have forgotten the papers.

Mentally I kicked myself. Then I realized it was fine. It wasn't a problem. It really didn't matter. I'd read all the pages, and there wasn't much point in lugging them around Robbins. In spite of the volume of paper and ink, there was precious little information there. Once you say that Ross and Mayda went into the desert, but only Mayda returned, you've said it all.

Then again, maybe leaving the documents at home was a good thing: it gave me a handy, credible excuse if I needed to get away from Robbins and head for home.

And I had notes. In a little hand-sized notebook, the kind that cops use. I copied all the relevant information into the little book, and the little book was in my pocket. So I was all set.

Incidentally, I did find out who collected all those papers. It was the investigator Aunt Hanna hired. He made a great collection of clippings, of police reports (yes, thank you, the police reports were in there as well!), and he wrote a very thorough final report. I was impressed with his work. In fact, he'd done so much, there was very little left for me to look into. I'd be walking in his footsteps for a good long while.

Along with his report, he also presented his bill, for $5000. It referred to a list of itemized expenses, but that sheet was missing. Aunt Hanna or my mother must have taken it. I'd ask them for it; it could be useful. At the very least it would make interesting reading.

But five thousand dollars! The date on the final report and bill was May 15, 2017 — just two weeks ago. I was stunned. I know my aunt isn't rich. She's not the kind of person who can fork over that kind of money without batting an eye. And yet here she was, not two weeks later, ready to throw more money onto the fire. To throw money at me! Me, as if I were some big-time investigator.

All in the service of Charlotte's delusion.

I had the investigator's contact info in my notebook. Name: Ambrose Candelario. Location: Aldusville. I drove by his office on the way through town this morning.

I doubted that I'd call him, but you never know.

 

---

 

It was a relief to arrive in Robbins after such a long drive, particularly after the ninety endless minutes through the desert. Even though I was driving, the desert left my mouth dry.

My GPS directed me through the outskirts, guiding me to the Robbins River, which was surprisingly scenic. It looked like a nice place for a walk.

The river cut through Robbins and led directly to Duxbridge. Charlotte's building was right there, just past the Robbins/Duxbridge line, near to the river, at the foot of a long steep hill.

It was a six-story building. A building without much character. It was functional, plain, resembling nothing so much as a college dorm. The entrance was a long walkway covered by a corrugated metal roof. A bike rack ran all the way from the sidewalk to the building's entrance.

Four steps led to a glass-enclosed entryway and all the tenants' buzzers. Charlotte's was easy to find: in big black letters the label read RAFFLYAN, all caps, as in her texts to me.

The moment I touched her bell, she buzzed the door open and called out: "319. 319. When you get off the elevator it's left, left again, all the way to the end, last door on the left. 319."

I took the elevator up. Left, left again, all the way to the end... the last door on the left stood open. Charlotte was waiting for me.

Her apartment was much nicer than I expected. I'm not sure what I expected exactly, but I didn't expect normal.

What does a crazy person's apartment look like? I suppose there'd have to be something weird. Something unsettling, like a severed hand in a fishtank. I don't know.

I didn't see anything like that. The place was sparkling clean. It even smelled clean. There was no clutter. No disorder. She didn't have much furniture, but what she did have was tasteful and appeared new. There were photographs. nicely framed, normal photographs, here and there. I saw a photo of Charlotte and her mother, with Aunt Hanna's house in the background. The rest were pictures of Ross and Charlotte: smiling, cheek to cheek. On the mantle, a larger one showed Ross carrying Charlotte in his arms. It was sweet. They were beaming. I can't believe I'm saying it, or even seeing it, but yes, it was a sweet picture. Honestly romantic. Hard to believe, but there it was.

Charlotte really did have a boyfriend. At one time.

Here, now, the Charlotte who stood in the room with me looked different. Different from the Charlotte in the photographs. Different from any way I'd ever seen her in all the years I've known her. She appeared haggard, drawn, world-weary. Sure, I had to take into account the fact that she just finished a night shift at the hospital. Add to that the fact that I haven't seen her for two years. A lot can happen in a year or two, but the Charlotte I knew was always lively. Way too lively. Animated. Always talking. Nonstop.

A silent Charlotte was a good change, in a way. I found myself feeling sorry for her, but at the same time, her brooding demeanor seemed so unnatural, so out of character, it simply unnerved me. I couldn't help but wonder whether she wanted me there at all.

"Your mother showed me these photos on her phone," I said, gesturing around the room, trying to make conversation. "And loads more."

So far she hadn't spoken, and — apart from one sullen glance — she hadn't looked at me. Now, all she said was a taciturn, "I have coffee and croissants, if you'd like some."

"Yes, I would, thanks," I replied, and the two of us sat at the table.

It was very civilized. Her low mood made me wonder whether I'd underestimated Charlotte, or misunderstood her. Maybe she was capable of more depth of feeling than I ever knew. Maybe she'd finally grown up.

Then, of course, all the pity and fellow-feeling disappeared the moment she began to talk, as soon as she dipped into the well of her outlandish, disconnected illusions.

I took a bite of croissant and a sip of coffee.

Charlotte spoke.

"So you think you're a detective?"

"No," I said. "Good point. I'm not."

"Then what are you?"

"I'm a sympathetic man with time on his hands and an interest in this case." I'd come up with that on the drive down. I felt pretty proud of it.

"This case," she repeated, as though I'd minimized it. Or worse, gotten it entirely wrong. After a grim, flat smile, she caught me off guard by asking, "Do you know what a red notice is?"

"A red notice? No."

She scoffed, disappointed, and shook her head. "It's when Interpol—" she paused and gave me a doubtful look— "Do you at least know what Interpol is?"

"Yes, of course I do. It's the International Police Organization."

"The International Criminal Police Organization," she corrected.

"Okay," I conceded. (I checked it later; turns out she was right.)

"A red notice is an international request from Interpol for the arrest and extradition of a criminal. Do you think you can get one?"

"I can try," I said. "Are you saying you want a red notice sent for Mayda Zakaryan?"

"Yes of course for Mayda Zakaryan!" She spat the name from her mouth with distaste. "I've tried. God knows I've tried. I've called Interpol I don't know how many times, but they won't do it for me. They won't listen to reason." She touched her coffee cup, turning it slightly, still not looking at me. "I asked that stupid Candelario to do it, but he said it wasn't possible."

"He's the investigator your mother hired, right?"

"Stupid useless moron," she muttered. "He didn't do anything! He didn't even try!"

"Did he say *why* Interpol wouldn't do it?"

"He said there has to be an arrest warrant issued in the requesting country."

"And there's no warrant for Mayda."

"No, but there should be. Obviously."

"Okay, so that's step one," I said, playing along, humoring her. "Getting an arrest warrant issued."

"Also, of course," she went on, "I did something else that Candelario couldn't or wouldn't do: I called the Spanish Embassy. You know that Mayda's in Barcelona."

"Right. Let me guess: you wanted Mayda extradicted, but the embassy wouldn't do it. They also wanted an arrest warrant."

"Right!" she relaxed a bit, now that I was following along. "That idiot of a PI, he wouldn't even *ask*! He didn't even TRY to get Mayda arrested! He had no idea what he was doing. I've made complaints to the state and national boards. I'm trying to get that incompetent asshole's license revoked."

"Really?" I was taken aback. I knew from long experience that Charlotte is always extreme, but her vindictive streak is always a surprise. It's not something you ever get used to. Honestly, I was seriously shocked, and felt obliged to say something in the man's defense. "Charlotte, I have to tell you: I've read Candelario's report, and as far as I can see he was very thorough. Of course, I'm going to—"

"No, no, no! He wasn't thorough! He wasn't thorough at all! He doesn't even know the meaning of the word! He spent all his time — wasted all his time — trying to find out what happened. We know what happened! Mayda killed Ross!"

"Isn't it important to know exactly what happened? Details are important. I mean, if you want Mayda arrested, you have to gather evidence and—"

"NO!" she exclaimed, smacking the table, making the cutlery and china jump. "I just told you! We KNOW what happened. We don't need to go over all that!" Her blood was up. She was getting more and more animated. "All of that — all of it — is done, settled! What's important is getting that woman locked up! In jail! Indicted for murder! On trial for murder! In prison for murder! THAT is what's important."

"Okay," I said in a softer, walking-on-eggshells tone.

"All you have to do is prove that she's a liar. It's simple. She claims that she and Ross had a fight, and then she turned up here the next morning to gloat! Mayda has no conscience! She came here hoping to see me cry, to see me hurt."

"And the police!" she went on. "Oh my God, the Robbins police! They are worse than useless. They make the Keystone Cops look like the frickin' CIA! The so-called Robbins police were too lazy to even look — at anything! Mayda was smart, killing Ross out in the desert. The cops never bothered to go out there. The desert is vast. It's endless. It's so big, no one will ever find anything out there — especially if they're NOT LOOKING! Jesus Christ! For all we know Jimmy Hoffa's skeleton is lying in the sun out there, just a few feet from the road."

"Jimmy Hoffa," I repeated. I wasn't sure who he was, but I was afraid to ask.

"The police said that Ross ran away because he was 'afraid of success'. What a load of bullshit! Ross wasn't afraid of anything. He *should* have been afraid of Mayda, but no."

I felt that for appearance sake I ought to be asking her questions, but Charlotte had completely knocked me off my game. I didn't dare talk. Anything I could say was liable to set her off.

Then again, it didn't matter whether I said anything at all. Charlotte was on a tear. "Those same lazy, Robbins police, they say that I'm high strung. Me? High strung? I'll show *them* high strung! Do you know that they issued a restraining order against me?"

I nodded. "Hard to believe," I whispered. She grunted in assent.

"What about the FBI?" I offered, lamely.

She chewed her lip for a moment. "I've spoken with them. Extensively." She heaved a heavy sigh. "They said they can't do anything about Mayda. Jurisdictional issues. Apparently murder isn't enough for them. They told me that if Mayda had kidnapped Ross, or forced him to cross state lines..."

Knowing Charlotte, I'm sure she tried to claim that Mayda had done one or both of those things.

We sat in silence for a few moments. She closed her eyes and put her hand to her forehead. "This is giving me another brain tumor," she informed me, in all seriousness. "I can feel it growing every day, pushing my eyes out of my head." She breathed a series of deep, melodramatic sighs.

While her eyes were closed. I looked at her hand, the hand touching her forehead. Her left hand. There, on her ring finger was my grandmother's ring, the ugly ring: a gold filigree band with a tiny diamond between two tiny emeralds. Exactly like the photo Mom showed me.

"That ring," I said, pointing, "That's a beautiful ring. It must be worth a lot of money." I spoke as if I'd never seen it before.

"Yes," she said, proudly, showing it off, "This is my engagement ring. Ross gave it to me when he asked me to marry him."

"When was that?" I didn't mean to ask. It was automatic, the question. It just slipped out of my mouth.

"What?" she shot me a suspicious look.

"When did he ask you to marry him? What was the date? If might be important..."

"Of course it's important!" she retorted with anger.

"I mean, to Mayda's motive."

Charlotte shook her head. "Mayda is a bad person. She's evil. Some people are born evil. Everybody knows that. People go on and on about motive." She shook her head decisively. "As if that mattered! Motive is just so much bullshit."

She got up, opened a drawer in her desk and took out a printed card. "This is something I give to reporters, to news people, to interested parties." She handed one to me. It was a single paragraph, nicely printed on stiff paper. It read as follows:

Charlotte Rafflyan had a boyfriend. His name was Ross Ghulyan. It was a very serious thing. They loved each other, deeply and purely. They were engaged to be married, with a ring. And then, in the midst of this happiness, a terrible thing befell them: Mayda Zakaryan, a wicked, cunning woman of low morals corrupted his heart and led him astray. She insinuated herself between Charlotte and Ross. Mayda seduced Ross with her feminine wiles. She bewitched him and stole his heart. But soon, the spell began to lift. His heart yearned once again for Charlotte. He was ready to leave the wicked Mayda. He vowed to throw himself at Charlotte's feet and beg for her forgiveness.

I looked up at that point and asked, "Did he?"

"Did he what?"

"Throw himself at your feet and ask forgiveness."

Charlotte frowned. "No! He didn't! He never had the chance! Mayda lured him into the desert. She took off all her clothes and killed him."

Startled, I reacted. "What? I thought she got rid of her clothes because they were blood-stained. So why—"

Charlotte huffed impatiently. "These are facts," she insisted. "She drove a knife through his heart and buried him in the desert. Then she drove his truck into the river and it was never seen again."

The river? That was new. Killing him while naked? That was new as well. Of course I didn't believe it. It didn't surprise me that Charlotte would change her story. I'd make a note of it later.

Right now, though, I could feel it was time to leave. I needed to get out of that apartment. I'd had enough. Trying to wind up the conversation, I told her, "I have to be straight with you, Charlotte: I'm not a detective, or a private eye. I'm not a licensed investigator."

She gave me a look that drilled deep into me. "You just graduated though, didn't you?" she challenged. "With some kind of law degree?"

"Well, not law," I said. "Not law, exactly. I got an associate degree in Criminal Justice, but—"

"That's what we want," she insisted. "Criminal Justice. That's exactly what I need."

"Okay," I said. "I wanted to make sure you understood where I am, in terms of qualifications, or the lack thereof. Anyway, for now, I guess that's all. I should get going."

"You know," she said, trying to sound hospitable, "You can crash on my couch if you like. I do have funny hours, though — I work at night." It was clear from her tone that she felt obliged to offer, but hoped that I'd say no.

"Oh," I said, "Thanks! That's very kind of you! But you know, I already booked a hotel close to the Robbins Police Station. I'm going there first thing tomorrow."

She shook her head. "Those assholes won't talk to me. They don't even want to see me."

"I'm not you," I pointed out. "I've got a fresh face. We'll see how far I can take it."

She shrugged. "Worth a try!" She even smiled! The first time I'd seen her smile today.

I should have quit while I was ahead. Instead, a thought occurred to me, so I put it out there. "Oh, hey, Charlotte: one last thing. Your mother mentioned something... I tried to look it up, but couldn't find it."

She raised her eyes, listening.

"She said something about The Iodine Story. Do you know what that is?"

Her face stiffened into an angry, stony mask. Her lips closed in a tight straight line. "I want you to leave, right now," she growled. "I worked last night, all night, and now I need to sleep. Good bye."

She literally pushed me out the door and slammed it shut behind me.

 

---

 

I took the stairs down. Trudged past the long, covered bike rack and stood still for a minute, trying to come to terms with what just happened.

Obviously, the Iodine Story was a sore point for Charlotte. Obviously I needed to find out what it was, and what was in it.

It was clear to me that Charlotte hadn't changed: she was high-strung, high maintenance, and completely unmoored from reality.

At that point, under normal circumstances, I could have gone for lunch. The single croissant I ate a few moments ago did nothing to blunt my hunger, but right now I had zero appetite. Talking with Charlotte can have that effect. The way she distorts reality is bewildering — it practically qualifies as a psychotic break. Somehow she's able to plow through your mindscape, leaving a swath of broken earth. It's worse than unsettling. It's disturbing. It left me shaken.

It would have been nice if I could have gone right then and checked into my hotel. A shower and a sleep would do me a world of good. Unfortunately, check-in wasn't until 4 PM.

I basically pissed away the next four hours, wandering, dozing in my car. At last, I drove to the Good Old Inn at 4 PM precisely. When I saw the place, my heart sank. It looked like hell. The photos online did not do the place justice. The facade was exactly that: a facade, a cover-up. Very modern, very flat. A bunch of straight lines at right angles. Color blocking. Metal. The problem, though, wasn't that it's modern. I can live with the industrial look. This was just plain ugly. The design looked childishly simple, and the execution so cheap, you got the impression that they'd built it out of scraps discarded by other builders. You could call their school of design "What's in the dumpster today?" There was no telling what the building itself looked like, but the ratty, haphazard exterior suggested that it was nothing more than an abandoned warehouse.

It must look crap on the inside.

The Good Old Inn was the economical choice. Even so, I wouldn't have chosen it if the online pictures correctly reflected the Erector Set reality. I pulled up my reservation on my phone to see whether I was in time to cancel without penalty. Instead, I accidentally clicked on the reviews, and scrolled up and down trying find my way out, to get back to my reservation. The predominant message, I found, was that the Good Old Inn looked far better on the inside than it did outside. "Don't be put off by the facade!" was the top comment.

So I gave it a shot.

It turned out to be true, not that it was such a big win. But I was tired, and now I had a bed. A clean bed in a quiet room. So I crashed at the Good Old Inn.

 

---

 

I took the precaution of silencing my phone so that Charlotte couldn't wake me again.

Before I closed my eyes to sleep, I remembered my mother, and gave her a call.

She became quite animated when I told her about the ring. "I knew it!" she exclaimed several times. "I knew it! My sister is so sweet and kind, but she can be devious! Do you see that?"

"Mom, there's something else," I told her. "I'm not 100% sure that Charlotte wants me here. Not that she wishes it was someone else; that's not what I mean. I think she's realized that she won't get what she wants from an investigation. Or — I mean, what she wants isn't an investigation. I don't think she wants an investigation at all."

"What are you saying? What *does* she want, then?"

"She wants attention. She wants somebody to play along, to take the things she says seriously."

"Isn't that what an investigation gives her?"

"No. For Charlotte, the problem with an investigation is that it's going to keep butting up against reality. You can't take two steps without arriving at a fact she doesn't want to see. Charlotte doesn't want somebody digging, someone showing her the truth. She wants someone to agree with her, someone to go along with her sense of being offended and betrayed."

"That's very psychological of you."

"Mom, I have to tell you: I'd be happy to give the car and the money back to Aunt Hanna. I'd do it in a minute."

She was silent for a few moments, then said, "Do me a favor and hang in there for a bit, Mason. Let me think about what you said." She sighed. "I'll see if I can get your Aunt Hanna to back off, to give it up." After a pause, she added, "Or maybe find some other kind of person to help her. I don't know who or what that person would be."

"That would be great," I said.

We spoke a little more. We said our goodnights, then I remembered something else.

"Hey, Mom! Wait a sec... there's this thing that's come up twice already... I think it might be important. Even if it's not, I need to chase it down. Do you know what the Iodine Story is?"

"The Iodine Story? Didn't you ask me that already? No, I don't know what it is. Not the faintest idea. Does it matter?"

"It seems like it *does* matter. When Aunt Hanna mentioned it, she expected me to know what it was—"

"Why didn't you ask your Aunt Hanna about it while you were there? Right when she said it?"

"I tried! But she got all flustered. She threw up her hands and said she didn't know. She told me to look it up, which I guess means it's on the internet."

"I can try asking her again," Mom promised, "but if she doesn't know, she doesn't know. But, hey— when you were talking to Charlotte, why didn't you ask *her* about it?"

I laughed. "Hoo, boy! I did ask her! It didn't go very well. It didn't go well at all. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Charlotte's face went all dark and she threw me out of her apartment!"

"She threw you out?"

"Literally. Bodily. And she slammed the door behind me."

Mom clicked her tongue in disapproval.

I observed, "That tells me that there's something there. If there's one thing Charlotte can't stand, it's the truth."

"That's a little strong," Mom objected. "Okay. I doubt that I can be of any help with this Iodine thing, but I'll keep my ears open. Remember, Hanna's my only source. And if she doesn't know, she doesn't know."

"Okay. Well, don't worry about it. If it's important, it will crop up again."

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 19

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

"It sounds absurd because it is absurd."

— Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

---

 

I'm in the habit of leaving the window curtains open. I woke with the sun, as I always do.

I slept well. I had a good bed, a quiet room. The deep and restful sleep erased every trace of yesterday's bewilderment and uncertainty.

I'm ready to go. Ready for breakfast. Ready for the day.

It's Monday. Today, I've got one simple mission, one easy task: to visit the police station. My plan is to talk with someone who worked on Ross' case. It doesn't need to be the person in charge. I'm good with a foot soldier, a patrol cop. I'm not looking for inside information. I only want to ask a few simple questions: Is the case still open? (I'm assuming it's closed, but I ought to confirm it.) Is Ross being treated as a missing person? Or did they figure that, as a full-grown adult, that Ross had every right to wander off, and didn't need to be found?

I'm no procrastinator, but I had no reason to hurry. I have no deadline; I'm not punching a timecard. Besides, I have a rule about Mondays and Fridays. I try to avoid bothering office people on Monday mornings or Friday afternoons. Those are transition times; bad times for starting something new. People are changing gears: On Monday, still groggy from the weekend. On Friday, ready to rush out the door. No point in getting in the way of that.

My rule probably doesn't apply to the police, since they're 24/7. They don't follow office hours; they work in shifts.

Even so, there was no reason to jump in at the start of the day. So I dithered. I took my time. I walked along the river a bit. I know I talk a lot about the river, but we don't have one up in Amsterholt. Robbins River is simply a treat.

I arrived at the police station precisely at 9:30. There's only so much dithering a person can do. The hour seemed casual enough to me; not too early, not too close to lunch. No pressure.

Considering the fact that Charlotte had been slapped with a restraining order — meaning that she got on the cops' last nerve — the last thing I wanted to do was to put pressure on the Robbins police.

Police headquarters was a serious-looking structure: one-story, red-brick, with small, high windows. It wasn't very wide, but it was certainly deep, and the far end, the final third, was constructed from cinder blocks and concrete. The windows at that end were tall vertical slits: it was probably the local jail.

Overall: very official-looking. Quite intimidating. A heavy, solid building; all right angles and sharp corners.

The front door was tall, made of oak, and it took a good, strong push to open.

The air inside was cool, like an old cathedral. The first room, in fact, had lines of pew-like benches. A waiting room.

The only decoration was a pair of bulletin boards with glass doors. One listed community events. The other held six WANTED posters. I gave the faces a look-over. None of them were familiar.

A door to my left opened to a large, wide hallway with a high ceiling. Brightly lit. On the back wall, to my right, were criss-crossed staircases, one heading up and the other going down. Opposite the stairs, taking up the entire front wall, was an enormous desk. It stood about twelve feet wide, but it was high. The surface of the desk was even with my chin, so I had to tilt my head back to see the face of the desk sergeant.

It made me feel small. Like a supplicant.

The desk sergeant was a wiry older guy. He looked like a brawler. A guy who doesn't take any shit. His uniform fit him like a second skin. He didn't have a strip of fat on him. His right hand twitched, which drew my attention to the scars on his knuckles. He must have punched something or someone recently.

When I entered that hallway, he waited a few beats before he turned his head to look at me. "Can I help you?"

"Yes," I replied. I want to say so far, so good because up to that moment, everything was fine.

It all changed in a flash.

"My name is Mason Rafflyan, and I'm looking—" He cut me off. Immediately. His eyes narrowed. His stare cut into me like a laser.

"Rafflyan," he repeated. He shook his head. "You said Rafflyan. Any relation to—" he paused, as if he didn't want to say it— "Charlotte Rafflyan?"

"Yes, she's my cousin. Now, look, I know she's kind of a handful, but I was hoping I could speak to—"

"A handful," he scoffed. "A handful? She's a fucking neturon bomb!"

I hesitated. "Yes, yes, she is. You're right. And I'm sorry about that. But keep in mind: I'm not her. Now, so, well, I'm hoping to speak with to the person in charge of the Ross Ghulyan investigation."

He held me with his gimlet stare for a few moments, then asked, "What makes you think there's an investigation?"

I took a breath and held it. "Okay." I tried another tack. "If there *was* an investigation—"

"Get out," he said.

I blinked. I gaped. "But— I only— I haven't— Can I just—"

"Get out!" he shouted, his face turning dangerously red. "Get the fuck out of here! GET OUT!" With each shout his voice grew progressively louder. I heard a chair scrape against the floor nearby. Footsteps running toward us.

"I'm not here to cause trouble! I just want—"

"God damn it, boy! Get the hell out of here or I'll kick your ass and lock you up for... for trespassing on police property!"

"But I—"

From the corner of my eye I saw a big policeman approaching on my right. Built like a wrestler. Tall, wide shoulders, big upper body, narrow hips, skinny legs. The desk sergeant spoke to him and gestured at me, saying, "Hugh, will you throw this bum out of here? He's giving me a headache! It's another of those goddamn Rafflyans! See if you can make him bounce when his ass hits the sidewalk!" Shaking his finger at me, he commanded, in a voice full of venom, "Don't ever set foot in this building — ever again! Or you'll live to regret it!"

"Come on, buddy," the burly cop said. His voice was different: firm, but not hostile. "Let's take this outside."

I didn't want to take it outside, but there was no point in resisting. This big cop, Hugh, outsized me in every way. He could have picked me up and carried me out without breaking a sweat. What he did was grab my upper arms and propel me toward the entrance. Not roughly, though. Clearly he didn't carry the same animus as the desk sergeant.

Once we left the hallway, out of sight of the front desk, Hugh whispered, "We'll talk outside, okay? Just be cool. Play along with me for now."

He ushered me out the front door and gently guided me around the corner of the building, out of sight of the entrance.

"Look," he said, turning me to face him, but still holding onto my arm, "You can't say that name inside — Charlotte Rafflyan. It's like waving a red flag at a bull. Understand? You say that name, nobody will hear anything else that comes out of your mouth."

"Yes, I do understand. Charlotte's my cousin, so I know—"

The cop looked genuinely surprised. Taken aback, even. "Charlotte Rafflyan is your cousin?"

"Yes, so I'm well aware—"

"Well, shit. Look, my name's Hugh Fencely, by the way. What's yours?" He reached out and shook my hand.

"Mason Rafflyan. All I want to know—"

"I'll be goddamned! I know this is going to sound stupid, but it never occurred to me that she might have family!"

"Look," I said, "I just want to know the status of the investigation—"

Hugh let out a scoffing laugh and put his meaty hand on my shoulder. "Okay, dude. 'Investigation.' Heh. Listen," he said. "For the rest of this morning I've got work I have to do. There's a pile of paperwork this high that I absolutely have to get through, so I'm going to go back inside. But I'll tell you what: meet me at noon, at... uh... oh! meet me at Pizza Alright. Okay? Noon, at Pizza Alright. I'll do my best to answer your questions, and, uh, maybe you can answer some of mine. What do you say?"

"Noon at Pizza Alright," I repeated.

"Good!" He seemed pleased. He squeezed my shoulder, then patted it three times. "See you then!" He took a few steps away from me. Just before turning the corner to the entrance, he stopped, gave me a serious look and a caution: "Don't go back into the station, okay? It's not a good idea."

I nodded my head.

 

---

 

The first thing I did — after shaking off the experience of being yelled at and thrown out — was to locate Pizza Alright. It was only a couple minutes' walk from the police station, but in a very different neighborhood. After three blocks the general vibe shifted from pleasant suburban structures to dingy warehouses and loading docks. There were fewer pedestrians and far more trucks and vans.

I found Pizza Alright at the bottom of a U-shaped alley, wedged between a disreputable-looking shoe-repair shop and an abandoned gym (all windows, but nothing inside). It was hard to imagine a less inviting, less appetizing location. I didn't have high hopes for the quality or the cleanliness of the food. If the windows were any grimier, you wouldn't be able to see inside.

Unfortunately, there was no way to change our meeting spot — I didn't have Hugh's number, and I couldn't go back to the police station.

Two hours to kill, with nothing to do but walk and wander. I looked around; took in the town. Robbins seemed a nice enough place, once I put some distance between me and Pizza Alright.

As I trudged through the streets, I grumbled and groused to myself about my reception at police headquarters. It was hardly fair. I knew I was walking on scorched earth. I tried to take that into account. I *tried* to explain to the desk sergeant that I wasn't Charlotte — I actually used those words! I wanted to let him know that I wasn't about to be the pest that Charlotte turned herself into, but my good intentions did me little good.

I have to say, though, that for Charlotte to have agitated the Robbins police to that extent — to excite such negativity AND a restraining order (!) — she must have stepped up her game considerably; to a level I've never seen.

I could understand that she'd burned her bridges, but I never expected her to burn the roads that led to the bridges, and the land on both sides of the divide. There was no way I could reach out to the police... except through Hugh Fencely, the only cop willing to talk to me.

I wondered whether Candelario got the same reception. I didn't think so. I recalled that among the papers he collected, he had police reports. Where do you get police reports? As far as I know, you can only get them from the police.

I returned to Pizza Alright at exactly noon and found Hugh waiting for me. I was NOT in a good mood, but I tried to hide it. I needed to remain civil, at the very least. I couldn't afford to burn my one police contact.

Even so, I had to ask him, straight off: "Why did you choose this place?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, nodding, "Not exactly haute cuisine, right? Well, let me explain: You have to understand that *anything* connected with your cousin is just plain radioactive. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, unfortunately I do."

"If you're anywhere *near* a Robbins cop, do NOT say her name. Unless you're looking for trouble. Right? So... this place... this... dump... there isn't a cop in the city who would ever eat here. Not even on a dare. Which makes this, the perfect place to talk about your cousin Charlotte. We don't have to worry about being overheard. Alright?"

On Hugh's recommendation we got a large pizza to share. I said, "How about a side salad?" but he, with a wide-eyed expression of horror, shook his head no. So, one large pizza, paper plates, a pile of flimsy paper napkins, and two large Cokes.

The pizza was covered in oil. Hugh sopped up much of it with napkins. We let each slice drip for a bit before biting into it.

"Hugh, I have to say: Pizza Alright is definitely NOT alright." It was absolutely the worst pizza I'd ever eaten.

"Agreed," he said, "but if you only eat this stuff once in a blue moon, it won't kill you. It's probably great for your immune system. You know: the immune system loves a challenge, now and again." With a mouth full of pizza he said, "Hey — sorry about the way you were treated down at headquarters. It's too bad you didn't know. I guess you don't live around here, am I right?"

"No, I'm from Amsterholt." To his puzzled face I explained, "It's way up north and west, near the state line." He nodded.

"About my reception," I asked, circling back, "I have to ask: Charlotte's mother hired a PI—"

"Candelario?" Hugh offered.

"Yeah. Do you know him?"

"I know *of* him. He's an ex-cop. Retired. He was on the force here in Robbins. Before my time."

"When *he* was looking into Ross Ghulyan's disappearance, did he catch the same shit at the police station that I did?"

"No, no, of course he didn't. But he didn't walk in shouting Charlotte's name."

"Neither did I!"

"No, no, of course not. What I'm saying is, Candelario would have come in on the QT. You know. He's got friends on the force, contacts, you know. Buddy-buddy with the chief and all that. I can't see him pissing anybody off or stepping on any toes."

Not that I did either of those things, but anyway: "Hmmph. Seems like he's good at what he does."

Hugh shrugged. "He has a good reputation."

"Did you know that Charlotte has filed complaints against him?"

Hugh gave a disgusted scoff and set down his pizza. He used a few napkins to wipe oil from his fingers. "I'm not surprised," he said. "She filed complaints against every single cop she came in contact with. Did you know that?"

"No, I didn't!"

"Did she file one against you?"

He laughed scornfully. "No, I never met her, so I guess that saved me." He picked up a piece of pizza and took a bite. Talking with his mouth full, he added, "She was going to file one against the chief himself! That was the last straw. That's when the hammer came down and she got slapped with a restraining order." He shook his head. "She was turning the whole department upside down. It was insane! She made all sorts of accusations... none of them made a lick of sense, but even so! The DA told her that if she didn't stop pestering the police that she'd be charged with disrupting the public order, making false statements, and being a public nuisance."

I thought about that for a moment. "Isn't there a law against wasting police time?"

"Not in the United States. Not in those exact terms. There ought to be, though."

I changed gears and explained my situation to Hugh. He in turn asked questions about Charlotte. He seemed very curious about her lifetime of spreading disorder and confusion. At one point he observed, "It seems like, up to now, she's been disruptive on a personal level: one person at a time. With this, though — the Ross and Mayda business — she's really stepped up her, uh, her level of influence."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Let's hope she doesn't go into politics." After a bite of pizza, I asked, "You know, given Charlotte's character and behavior, one thing I'm really curious about is how on earth she and Ross were able to stay together. They dated for three or four months! And I've seen photos: they looked really happy together. I mean, the guy was smiling! A genuine smile! In every picture!"

"Yeah," Hugh agreed. He chuckled. "That was a big topic of discussion at the station. But we got to the bottom of it. Our detectives spoke to Ross' friends, classmates, teammates... and especially his ex-girlfriends... pretty much everybody who knew him, and they all agreed: Ross was a dog."

"What do you mean? A dog?"

Hugh's eyes twinkled. "It means, when it came to women, Ross only cared about the sex. He never dated any one girl for very long."

"So, you're saying that Ross and Charlotte had a great sex life?" I couldn't imagine it. I couldn't imagine it at all.

"Apparently! Ross used to boast about it to his teammates, in the locker room. He said she was a wild animal in the sack. That's a quote, by the way."

I groaned. "I don't know if I want to hear this."

"Anyway, the reason they broke up... it's just like it says in the Iodine Story: she started creating situations to make him choose between her and the other people in Ross' life. She became emotional, possessive. Way too possessive. The last straw came when she made him miss football practice. That, for Ross, was a mortal sin."

"Wait, wait!" I said. "Go back a second! Back up! You said 'The Iodine Story'. What is that?"

"You don't know?" Hugh looked surprised. "The Iodine Story," he repeated, as if saying it again somehow clarified it.

"I told you: I don't know what it is. Can you tell me?"

"Yeah, sure. Of course. It's about Ross and Charlotte and Mayda. About what happened. That fateful night." He seemed puzzled and surprised that I didn't already know.

"Where can I find it?"

"It's on the internet. I'll text you a link. What's your number?"

He fiddled with his phone for half a minute, and then my phone plinked. I clicked on the link Hugh sent me and found a page entitled The Night I Escaped From the Zoo.

"What is this?" I asked. "The zoo? Is this right?" I showed him the page.

"Yeah," he acknowledged. "That's the Iodine Story."

Confused, I didn't know what to say for a few moments. "I don't understand. Is this about a zoo, or iodine? How is it connected to Ross and Charlotte? And Mayda?"

"It's very much connected. It's all about them; it's all about the night that Ross disappeared. Or whatever."

"How does Iodine come into it?"

He reached over to my phone and scrolled down slightly to the byline. "See that name?" He made something impossible out of Iolanthe Portmanteaux. "Nobody can pronounce it, whatever it is, so everybody calls it The Iodine Story. It's easier than YO-lanth-ee or EE-OH-lanthy or EYE-OH-whatever."

"Why not just call it by the title? Why not The Zoo Story?"

"Oh," he said, as if that was a new thought. "I dunno. I didn't make it up. Anyway, that's what everybody calls it. That's The Iodine Story." He looked at his watch. "Sorry, but I gotta run. I have to get back. You read that—" he pointed at my phone— "and we can talk about it after. It'll be a whole lot easier to talk after you've read it."

"Wait!" I said, "Wait! Can you quickly tell me: is there still an open investigation?"

He scratched his left eyebrow. "Into Ross' disappearance? Uh... as far as the official police investigation, it was closed soon after he disappeared. And despite Charlotte's allegations, it was never a murder investigation. Our detectives never found proof of wrong-doing, never found a body, never found a motive for anyone to harm Ross, not even Mayda. Also, we never found his pickup truck, which suggests that Ross drove off.

"It was a missing-person case. In the end it was quietly dropped because his disappearance wasn't criminal. I mean, it wasn't fraudulent: he wasn't escaping debt. He wasn't running away from the law. Like I said, no evidence of foul play. Nothing like that. There was no earthly reason that Ross couldn't simply pull up the tent pegs and leave town."

"Nobody found his disappearance strange?" I asked.

"Well, sure. Everybody did. It *was* strange. The guy had everything going for him: scholarship, recognition... you know. You could see the dollar signs in his future. Even so, as I said, there wasn't any indication that any other person made him disappear. And we *did* look for him. Not just here, but across the whole state. We asked neighboring states for help. Talked to his friends, family, all the usual stuff. In the end we drew a great big blank. So..."

"I get it," I said. "What about Mayda Zakaryan?"

Hugh shrugged. "What about her? I know what your cousin thinks, but Charlotte's allegations don't lead anywhere. I mean, okay — Mayda was apparently the last person to see Ross, but that in itself is not a crime. And Mayda had zero motive."

"Okay." I struggled to formulate my next question. "Uh— there's something that Charlotte and her mother said to me about Mayda. Something about her running around naked the night that Ross disappeared. Is that just crazy talk? Or what?"

Hugh placed his hand on his stomach, and let out a loud burp. It made a sharp sound, like a trap snapping shut. He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably. "Okay, uh." He sighed. "Yeah, we can talk about that. But seriously, I need to book. Gotta get back to work. So... listen!" Struck by a sudden thought, he rested his hand on my shoulder. "How about we meet tonight? There's a restaurant called Ebbidles. They have actual food, not like this shit. Eight o'clock. What do you say?"

"It's kind of late for dinner. Why not earlier?"

Hugh chuckled. "You'll see why when you read The Iodine Story. Eight at Ebbidles, okay?"

"Sure," I agreed. "Eight at Ebbidles."

 

---

 

Hugh walked quickly away, one hand on his stomach. He repeatedly glanced at his watch. I stood stock-still on the spot, right in front of Pizza Alright. I put both my hands on my belly and let out a quiet whimper. I hadn't eaten *that* much pizza, but it felt like though a rock had formed in my stomach: a solid mass of rough, heavy stone. I bent over slightly at the waist and breathed gently.

I never suffer from indigestion, so I wasn't sure what I needed. An antacid? A cup of coffee? A walk? I decided I could try all three: walk until I found a pharmacy and/or a coffeeshop. Walking, as it turned out, was none too easy. I had to keep stopping to clutch my stomach. I've never in my life considered making myself vomit, but it began to seem an attractive option. (An option I didn't exercise, don't worry!)

I came upon a coffeeshop first. It was cute, very clean, and the coffee was fresh and tasty. It did seem to help. The barista gave me a small piece of dark chocolate, and that helped as well. I asked her how to get to the river.

"The shortest route is that way," she said, pointing down one street, "but you know, the river bends, and there's a really nice lookout if you go that way." She pointed a different direction. "And it's not much farther."

I followed the "not much farther" road, and pretty quickly came to a large, round platform that stuck out a bit over the river. My stomach had begun to hurt again, so I gratefully sat on a bench, and let out a searing fart. It didn't make me feel any better.

Probably I was in the worst state of mind to be reading anything, let alone The Iodine Story, but Hugh had more or less made it a prerequisite for our next conversation.

I didn't have any problem with the story at first. It was told from Ross' point of view. He and Mayda started off their evening at Ebbidles, at 8 PM — obviously, Hugh's inspiration for our meeting tonight. I guessed that he meant to do some sort of re-enactment of that evening.

I was not in the mood for any such thing, but again, Hugh was my only police contact, my only willing, sane, living source. I needed to stay in his good books.

Pretty quickly the Iodine Story went off the rails. Ross and Mayda find themselves abducted by some brainless space-aliens, and for idiotic reasons I won't go into, their bodies are swapped, so that Mayda is now Ross, and Ross Mayda. Mayda-as-Ross is carried off to an alien zoo, and Ross-as-Mayda is dropped naked, back in the desert. Don't ask why.

The rest of the story is basically about Mayda trying to find something to wear and not succeeding. She runs around naked, and has a series of absurd adventures, including a trip in a flying bathtub — just to give you an idea of how ridiculous it all becomes.

Honestly, it made me angry. It's a good thing the story was short. It almost made me mad enough to throw my phone into the river (but of course I didn't). I couldn't see any reason for Hugh to ask me to read it — unless he was simple-minded enough to believe the story was true. Tonight, I'd have to seriously bite the hell out of my tongue if I didn't want to alienate the one cop willing to talk to me.

 

---

 

After consuming the not-alright pizza at lunchtime, I doubted I'd have any appetite for dinner, and in fact when 8 PM rolled around, I judged my digestive system continued to be in a doubtful state.

During the afternoon I consumed three antacid tablets. I could have eaten more of them (I bought a good-sized bottle), but they did nothing to ease my distress, and left me with a horrible chalky taste in my mouth. I also tried eatings crackers and drinking seltzer water, but that didn't help much, either.

Food was the last thing on my mind when I arrived at Ebbidles.

Hugh showed up ten minutes late, wearing civilian clothes: a untucked Hawaiian shirt (blue background overlaid with gray ferns or fronds), slip-on loafers without socks, and a pair of chinos that ended mid-shin. He ambled up the sidewalk with a distinct, slow-rolling waddle that I hadn't noticed earlier. He also had a huge, ear-to-ear smile that wasn't in evidence at lunch time. He carried a disposable coffee cup in his hand.

He took me by surprise by pulling me into a bearhug. When he let me go, he left his arm resting across my shoulders. I took it as a expression of midwestern friendliness.

"So!" he exclaimed, gesturing with his paper cup toward a building across the street. "Ultimate Steakhouse! Where Ross wanted to eat!" Then, jerking his head back toward his shoulder to indicate the storefront behind us, "Ebbidles! Where Ross and Mayda enjoyed their last meal together."

"Sound ominous," I commented, just for the sake of saying something.

Hugh paused and took a step back, away from me. He looked me in the face for a moment, then said, "Hey, buddy, you don't look so good. Is everything alright?"

"Alright?" I echoed. "Like Pizza Alright?" I put my hand on my stomach as I spoke.

He chuckled, then let out an unexpected burp. He giggled slightly. His breath was rendolent with alcohol, though he didn't seem drunk, exactly. He was... happy.

"Hugh, that pizza is still sitting on my stomach like big, gritty rock. I've been walking all afternoon. I took some antacids, drank coffee, but it's still stuck right here." I touched my stomach.

He looked into his cup, let out a breathy "ah!" and handed the cup to me. "Drink that," he said. "It'll fix you right up. I guarantee it."

I looked into the cup, and was just about to ask what it was, but Hugh pre-emptively nudged my hand up toward my mouth, saying, "Just drink it — all in one go. Throw it down. Trust me, I'm a policeman."

It looked like whiskey, or something along those lines. I couldn't smell it because Hugh's breath covered whatever scent came off the contents of the cup.

"Come on, buddy!" he said in a jocular voice, "Toss it down! It's good for what ails ya!"

It couldn't make things any worse, I told myself, and tossed the drink down my throat.

A warming, wonderful glow slid down my esophagus, and when it landed in my stomach, it felt like the sun had come out in my belly.

I've had drinks before, but it never struck me like this. A warmth spread through my entire body, all the way to my fingertips.

"Good! Good!" Hugh exclaimed, patting my back over and over. He took the cup from me and tossed it into a nearby trash can.

Then, taking me by the shoulders, he turned me to face the restaurant, his big hands heavy on both my shoulders. He exclaimed, "Hay and nettles! Excaliber! Ross and Mayda! And Charlotte, too! Let's head on in and see what all the fuss is about!"

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 20

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

What did you go out to the desert to see?
A reed swaying in the wind?

— Matthew 11:7

---

 

The whiskey did clear my pipes, so to speak. The round, hard rock disappeared from my gut, and I felt... better, provisionally better. I'd already had episodes of relief throughout the day — moments where the discomfort seemed to have passed, only to have the stone roll right back again soon after, as bad as before. I wasn't ready to claim victory.

I felt... cautious, as though I was carrying a old, creaky wooden bucket, brimful with water, anxious to not spill a drop. I had to be careful what I ate and drank tonight. And probably tomorrow as well.

In spite of my tentative mistrust of my internal plumbing, Ebbidles appealed to me from the moment we walked in. The place was light, bright, and clean. Music played so softly, it was almost subliminal. The air smelled fresh, and carried a healthy, appetizing aroma.

I took in all of that at once. The next thing I noticed was that nearly every person in the place — customers and staff — was a young, attractive female. At least it seemed that way at first blush. When Hugh and I pushed through the door, a little bell tinkled, and every head in the place swiveled to look at us with expressions of mild curiosity. My breath caught in my throat. I stopped in my tracks. If you've ever walked into the wrong restroom by mistake, you'll know what I was feeling.

I realized my mouth was hanging open stupidly, so I closed it. I spoke to the hostess, babbling, uncertain — blurting out, without a thought, "Is it okay for us to be here?"

"Of course it is!" she replied, welcoming, smiling, slightly amused. "Table for two? Is the window okay?"

Hugh held up his finger. "Could we have something a little more... private? away from the window?"

Her eyebrows went up at that, but she didn't miss a beat. "Follow me," she replied, and with a smart about-face, led us to a table in the back, near the kitchen, behind a large fern and a half-wall. We could hear all the bustle and chatter from the kitchen, punctuated by the random whump! of the door as the waitstaff entered and left.

"Is this alright? It's not too noisy?"

Hugh looked over his shoulder toward the windows and nodded. "This is perfect," he said. "Thanks!"

I couldn't stop looking around us. "There's so many women here!" I exclaimed. I still felt out of place, a tresspasser.

The waitress turned her head and took in the room, as if she hadn't noticed until I mentioned it. "Yeah," she said, "You're right. We do get a lot of women customers in here. It's pretty popular with uh, you know, the vegan crowd." She smiled and pointed across the street, toward the Ultimate Steakhouse. "Men usually go for the meat."

After we sat, after she gave us our menus and went off to get us some water, Hugh explained, "I hope you don't mind sitting back here. It's just that... I... well, I don't want to advertise to the rest of RPD that I'm talking with you."

"What?" I asked him, utterly lost. My mind was stuck in another context. I had no real reason to be overwhelmed; there was nothing strange about a restaurant full of women. It just caught me surprise, is all. To be the only man, in a crowd of women was disconcerting... that moment when all those faces turned toward us, just pulled the rug out from under me. But of course, it was nothing. I shook it off.

"Sorry, what did you say?" I asked Hugh. "I was distracted by all the women."

With a slightly puzzled frown, he repeated, "All the women? Where?" With a glance over his shoulder, he scanned the other tables, then said, in a tone as if I'd told him that the sky is blue, "Oh, yeah. Look at that! I hadn't noticed." Then he repeated, "I said that I wanted to sit back here so nobody from RPD would spot me. Any of them could walk by and look in the window. I don't want them to see me talking to you. No offense."

I had to puzzle over that for a moment before I understood it. Then I got it: RPD was Robbins Police Department, and the problem with talking to me... "Because I'm Charlotte's cousin?"

"Exactly!" His eyes were on the menu. His mouth worked as he read, as if he was trying to decipher a foreign language.

"Do you know what's good here?" he asked me.

"No, I've never been here before. This is my first day in Robbins, remember."

"Ah, right, right. Yeah, sorry! I've never been here before either. Just wanted to get a feel for the place, you know?" He turned the menu over and looked at the back. "I can't make heads or tails of this."

The waitress returned and simplified things by suggesting the meatless meatloaf with mashed potatoes and cauliflower. We both agreed.

"Can you hold the cauliflower for me?" Hugh asked. "Not a big fan."

"No, it's mashed with the potatoes."

"What?"

"The potatoes and cauliflower are mashed together and blended with a rich vegan broth. It's good. You'll love it."

"Okay," he agreed, and we handed our menus to her. She nodded and entered the kitchen.

That done, I laid my hands on the table and asked, "Hugh, why did you ask me to read that crazy story?"

He chuckled.

"It reads like a cartoon!" I exclaimed. "Explosions! Flying bathtubs! Riding naked down a hill on a child's bicycle... I mean, what am I supposed to make of all that? Please don't tell me you *believe* that story!"

Hugh shifted in his chair. He glanced at the wall for a moment and tapped his fingertips on the tabletop, as he considered how to explain. "Listen," he began. "Before we get into that, I have to apologize for being late, but it was the birthday of a guy on my team, and obviously we all had a few, so..."

"It's fine," I said impatiently, trying to brush the topic aside. "I don't care about that. Forget it."

He shrugged. "No, it was rude of me. I didn't want you to think I stood you up." He took a breath. "But, anyway, look... about that story: I know it's wacky and hard to believe—"

"*Hard* to believe? It's impossible to believe! And how in the world can that writer use real people's names? and real places? Aren't you supposed to change the names to protect the innocent? Couldn't somebody sue?"

"Uh... you mean like Charlotte or Mayda? I suppose. Mayda doesn't care, though—"

"How do you know that? Did somebody ask her?"

"Yes, actually. People *have* asked Mayda about it. Several times. She always laughs it off and calls the story fan fiction. And Charlotte? I'm not a lawyer, but people who know have told me that she wouldn't have much of a case, if she wanted to sue for libel."

"Why not?"

"Uh..." Hugh blew out a brewery-scented breath. "Hell, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. Honestly, I don't care. If somebody wants to sue somebody else..." He threw up his hands. "It's no skin off my back. I don't want to talk about that. What I do want to talk about is a very important fact about that story. See, the thing is, what's important here, is that every incident in that story, every encounter or event that you can verify, all tracks. It all tracks!"

"What does that mean, 'it tracks'?"

Hugh reached over to briefly tap the back of my hand. "It's what I like to call 'objective correlatives'.^[1] It means that if you consider the parts that you *can* verify, they line up perfectly with the story. They mesh together like gears. Take the bit at the end, for instance, where Mayda beans the would-be rapist with a glass turkey—"

The waitress, returning with our order, heard the last few words and began to laugh. "Are you talking about the Naked Girl thing? The glass turkey?" She set down our order, her eyes open wide in delight. "I remember that! How crazy, right? It happened just after I moved here, to Robbins! My mother heard about the serial rapist and she was so worried for me! When I told her the glass-turkey story she didn't believe me! It sounded so silly, she thought I was making it up!" She laughed briefly, then paused for a moment, struck by a sudden, more serious, thought. "That guy, though: he's still in jail, right?"

"Yeah," Hugh responded, nodding. "He's in Combright Penitentiary. He won't get out for a long, long time."

"What about that chick? Do you know what happened to her? The one who brained him — it really was a glass turkey, right?"

"Yeah, it was a glass turkey, about yay big—" he indicated a football-sized shape with his hands. "And the chick, as you called her, is now playing soccer for the Barcelona team. In Spain."

"Wow!" she laughed again. "Such a weird, funny thing, right? Well, if that guy ever gets out, we'll have to bring *her* back again, right? From Spain?"

"Right you are," Hugh agreed jovially, jabbing the air with his index finger. "And we'll get another glass turkey lined up, ready to greet him with!"

After she walked away, Hugh returned to the charge. "See? That bit at the end— it actually happened. You can check. And the part before that— we know she showed up at Charlotte's the next morning because Charlotte herself says so."

"Yeah, but, come on—"

"The part before that? The ride down the hill on the kid's bike? A complaint was filed with the Duxbridge Police. A naked woman matching Mayda's description claimed to have come out of the river and wanted to borrow some clothes. I can play you the 911 call from the woman whose dress she borrowed. The call is word for word identical to the bit in the Iodine Story. The woman also reported that her daughter's bicycle was taken and later found at the bottom of the hill — directly in front of Charlotte's apartment building! Exactly like the story. Besides that, the Duxbridge Police have statements from churchgoers who saw a woman matching Mayda's description ride up naked in front of their church."

I took a forkful of the meatless meatloaf. It was suprisingly tasty. The potato-cauliflower combination wasn't bad either. Hugh was shoveling it into his mouth as if there was no tomorrow. In spite of the fact that he was doing most of the talking, his plate was already half-empty.

"Okay," I acquiesced. "But those things are not far from reality. Those things actually could happen, even if they're a little out there. And, okay — apparently some of those few things *did* happen. But the flying bathtub? I mean, you can't—"

Hugh grinned slyly. "Now THAT is an interesting tidbit. But remember what Sherlock Holmes said about how... the impossible can be improbable, but might end up being the truth? I have it a little mixed up, but you know, logically, what it means is that if everything lines up, cause and effect, and physical evidence, then it must be so."

"I don't know what Sherlock Holmes said," I told him, "but your logic sounds a little fuzzy. And I'm pretty sure Conan Doyle never wrote The Adventure of the Flying Bathtub."

Hugh blew a raspberry and waved my comment away. "As it happens, we have some facts. There *was* a fire at a house in the woods up near Aldusville that very night. The people in that house had a meth lab in an outbuilding near the house, and the lab happened to blow that very night, at just the right time to fit into Mayda's narrative. Not only that — and this is a matter of public record — the house belonged to a woman who calls herself 'Lemon'. What do you think about that?"

"Okay," I said, smiling in spite of myself. (I had a mental picture of Mayda sitting in a tub full of bubbles at the top of a house whose roof had been blown off.) "Okay. An explosion and a fire: that much I can believe. But for two chemical cannisters to fly up from the ground, attach themselves to the bottom of a bathtub, and propel that bathtub through the air? and then cut a path through the forest? Give me a break!"

"Ha!" he laughed. "What if I told you that I visited the site and found the trail dug by that bathtub? By now the ruts are overgrown, but I've got pictures—"

"No, no, no! Come on! Be serious, man! Be serious!" I protested.

Despite my entreaties, he went on: "I found shards of the chemical cannisters. I don't know what kind of chemicals they were — the labels were burnt off, but you can see there was a separate explosion right there, by the banks of a stream—"

"No," I said. "No, no. This is insane!"

"Yes," he insisted. "There was an explosion by the banks of a stream that feeds into the Robbins River. And—" he leaned back in his chair, trying to create some drama before his big reveal— "I actually found the bathtub! It landed in a field on the outskirts of Aldusville. A friend of mine and I hauled it away, and now it's sitting in his storage unit. See?"

He showed me photos on his phone. Different views of a burned-out clawfoot bathtub. "See these marks? We tipped it over and you can see— see the scratch marks there? And how the burn marks are different? That's where the tanks were jammed in, and — see? — this is all from the explosion. It's cast iron, remember. I can take you to the site. I can show you the bathtub. You can look at it, examine it, and then you'll see. It's hard to tell much from these pictures, I admit. The lighting is bad, and there's not enough contrast — but when you see it in real life, it's as clear as day. The business with the bathtub, all happened just like in the story."

I groaned. "Jesus Christ, Hugh. You're showing me pictures of an old bathtub that went through a fire! And some yokel dumped it in a field! It's no mystery! It doesn't prove anything!"

Hugh fell silent. His enthusiasm shrank away, and the smile left his face.

"It's alright," he said in a subdued tone, taking his phone back. He quietly added, "You have to see it to believe it. I understand. It's okay." His eyes moved from my face to the table, and looking down, he reached over and squeezed my hand, as if forgiving me for something.

The waitress came over at that point to see whether we wanted dessert or coffee. I said, "Neither, but I'm really curious: can you tell me what was in that meatless meatloaf? What's it made from? It's pretty tasty!"

"Oh, thanks! I'll tell the chef! Well... what's it made of... it's a secret recipe, you know? What I *can* tell you that it's mainly black beans and roasted eggplant. Then a little of this and a little of that, to give it the right flavor and texture."

Hugh ordered a triple-chocolate cake for dessert. He wanted to share it with me, but after the pizza and the meatloaf, I couldn't even think about taking a bite. He picked at it sullenly, put off by my reaction to the tub, and offended (I think) by my lack of interest in the cake.

Clearly, in his eyes, the burned-out bathtub was a smoking gun, an unimpeachable piece of physical evidence. And all I did was scoff at it.

It suddenly struck me that, with all my scorn and skepticism, I was alienating Hugh. Maybe I needed to back off, to not express my disbelief so forcefully. Maybe I should humor the guy, much the same way as I humor Charlotte. After all, what did it matter? He asked me to read a silly story, and now he wanted to talk about it. It's not like he was asking much. And probably, he had no one to talk to about his obsession, if I could call it that. It certainly seemed an obsession.

Charlotte has her alternate reality. Hugh clearly has one of his own as well. I was only a visitor to their worlds. I didn't need to correct either of them. I wasn't obliged to set either of them straight. I could just as easily listen and keep my thoughts to myself.

Okay. I opened my mouth to speak, to say something conciliatory, to try to smooth things over, but Hugh began first, in a wistful tone. "You know, I was kind of hoping to meet Charlotte. That maybe you could introduce me." He looked up at me. "I don't mean any kind of romantic thing. Not at all. It's just that... She's this huge presence here in Robbins, and she's cast an enormous shadow over the whole police department. I can't imagine what she must be like in person. So, you know, I'm curious... to, uh, experience that first hand."

"She's a trip," I told him. "A trip and a half. You can't think you'll come out unscathed. Charlotte can make you question your sanity. But if you really want to—"

He waved his hand. "No, no. I wish I could, but it's too big a risk. Sooner or later she'd find out I'm a cop, and probably she'd file a complaint against me for God knows what. And then I'd have to explain to the captain why I went and poked the bear, so to speak, and the whole department would be on my case..."

"Okay," I said, cutting him off. "If we can somehow find a way around all that, I'll be glad to set it up. Okay?"

He nodded, then fell silent. Despondent.

I reached out and touched his hand (it seemed to be his thing). He raised his eyes to look at me. "Listen, Hugh, I'm sorry I was such an dick about the tub and everything. I *do* want to see it. At your convenience, of course. You, ah, you mentioned those shards... did you pick up any of them, by chance?"

His face brightened at that. "I got all of them — all the pieces I could find! It was a little tricky: they're sharp as hell, you know?"

"Cool," I said. "I'd love to take a look at them. We should be able to figure out exactly which chemical... I mean, how hard can it be? It's got to be one or two of the ingredients they use to make meth, right?"

"Right!" he said, sitting up straighter, his enthusiasm returning. "Hey, look—" he glanced at his watch. "The timeline! We're still on the timeline, if we want to be! Right about now, on the night Ross disappeared, he and Mayda left this restaurant and drove out to the desert." He reached over, tapped my hand lightly three times. "What do you say — we drive out there now, check out the scene? What do you say?"

I took a breath and nodded. If that's what it took to humor the guy... and besides, it wasn't as though I was busy doing anything else. So, "Sure, bro," I said. "Let's go for it."

An eager smile spread across his face. "That's the way! That's the way, buddy! You're the man, Mason! You are the man!"

As we were leaving, he gave my shoulder a big squeeze. "I'm really glad you're up for this," he said. "Really glad!"

The waitress sang out to us as we left "Thanks, guys! Have a lovely night!"

 

---

 

Hugh's car was parked just around the corner from Ebbidles. It was sparkling clean, as though fresh from the car wash. Hugh looked it over, nodded approvingly. Then he pointed up to make me notice: "No trees on this side of the block. No trees, no birds. No birds, no crap on the car!"

"True," I agreed. "Your car is amazingly clean. Did you just get it washed today?"

"No," he replied, proudly. "A week ago. I do my best to keep it clean and shiny. I pay a lot of attention to my car. A *lot* of attention."

I pulled the handle on my side, but the door was still locked. Hugh looked at me across the roof.

"Uh, hey," he said, coming round to my side of the car. "A little thing: Do you mind if I check the bottoms of your shoes? I want to make sure you don't track in any... dog remains?"

I showed him the soles of my shoes, which were about as clean as you could expect. "Okay," he said, and unlocked the car.

I opened the door, and as I bent to get in, I felt an abrupt build-up of pressure in my lower torso.

"Get in, dude," Hugh called to me.

"One sec," I said, and took two steps away. With a mild groan and a great whoosh! I let out a fart of breathtaking volume. "Whew!" I exclaimed, and climbed into the car. "Excuse me!"

Hugh grinned. "Thanks, dude. I appreciate your discretion. That one would have really filled the car. Sounded like if we shot it out the tailpipe, it could have blown us halfway there!"

"Yeah," I acknowledged, a trifle embarrassed.

"Anyway, about the shoes... I hope it doesn't seem too OCD, but I'm, uh, very houseproud about my car, if I can put it that way," Hugh informed me.

In fact, Hugh's car was as fresh and clean inside, as it was outside. "Hugh, I have to say, I'm really impressed. I've never seen a car so perfectly spotless, unless it was brand new."

Pleased, Hugh turned the key in the ignition. The car made a noise like an old man clearing his throat. It didn't start.

"Huh," Hugh said, as if he was surprised. "Think good thoughts!" He turned the key again. This time, after two slow huffing sounds, the engine turned over. I would have joked that his car had symptoms of COPD, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings again.

"Good girl!" Hugh said, addressing the car, beaming, patting the dashboard.

"Hey," I said, feeling a little concerned, "are you sure it's a good idea to drive out to the desert? It sounds like your battery is on its last legs, doesn't it?"

"I don't know," Hugh replied. "Maybe. But someone who knows, told me that when the engine is running, it charges your battery. Now it's running, right? So, we're fine."

He ran his hand lovingly across the top of the dashboard, and said, "Armor All. I love it!"

"Hugh, sorry to be a pain, but one more thing before we go: are you okay to drive? I mean, you were drinking before Ebbidles, right?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Sure. Yeah. I did have a few. Although, not to brag, but I'm a very good driver. In fact, I actually drive *better* after a few drinks than before, because I'm a lot more careful; I pay more attention." He sniffed. "Also, keep in mind that I'm a cop, so nobody's going to give a ticket, know what I'm saying? So don't worry about it."

Honestly, I couldn't give a flip whether Hugh got a ticket or not. My concern was that I — we — didn't end up having an accident. But Hugh *seemed* okay. Aside from the alcohol on his breath, he didn't show signs of inebriation. I decided that if he did — if he starts taking chances, or drives erratically, I'll insist on taking the wheel. Anyway, as I said, for now he seemed fine.

We left the city on the desert highway, and soon there was darkness all around us. The headlights were on, high-beams up, but the light didn't penetrate far. It was almost as though we were driving into a big black box. Hugh's phone was fixed to the dash, and he kept glancing at his GPS.

After about twenty-five minutes, we passed through a series of low hills: up, down, up, down. He said to me, "Do you remember in the story, there was a van going up and down a hill as it approached? This was that hill."

"How do you know?"

"Two reasons. One, there are no more hills after this, until you get close to Aldusville. From here on, the road is flat and straight for miles and miles and miles. Two, there was a police report."

As he spoke, he pulled off the road, into the desert, and turned off the engine.

"What are you doing?" I demanded. I worried that the car might not start again. "Why are you stopping here?"

He gave me a surprised look. "This is the spot where Ross and Mayda stopped; this is where they were picked up by the aliens. Come on. Let's check it out. Just for a second or two."

He got out of the car and looked straight up. The Milky Way was a large, luminous cloud. The sky was chock full of stars.

"Let's just drink in the scene," he said, craning his neck and turning in a small circle. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"How do you know they stopped here?" I asked.

"Remember there was a state trooper? Creepy guy? His cruiser got hit by a van while he was groping Mayda? It happened right there." He pointed to the road. The trooper had to report the damage to his vehicle when he arrested the van driver, and he gave the exact location, which is right there. So—" now he pointed up "—Ross and Mayda were taken right here, truck and all."

Of course, I still didn't buy it. Sure, all the normal things — all the things that actually *could* happen — might "track" as Hugh put it, but that didn't mean that aliens from space had anything to do with Ross' disappearance. I mean, okay, so the Iodine Story packages this alien-abduction-slash-body-swap business with actual events, before and after. So what? Just because someone managed to take a chain of unusual, but real, events, and added a weird-ass fictional story to the chain is interesting. Maybe even clever! But it doesn't make it true.

I took a deep breath and looked at Hugh. After reminding myself that it was in my best interest to humor the guy, I asked him, "Why do you think the aliens took his truck?"

"That's an easy one. It's because they didn't get out. They just sat in the truck and argued."

"Okay," that made some kind of sense, if you were trying to make things make sense. Then I wondered, Is he hoping the aliens will pick us up as well? So I asked him.

"Hugh, is that why you wanted to come out here? Do you come out here often? Are you hoping to be abducted?"

He made a little scoffing sound. "As if!"

Smiling, I teased him a bit: "You're not hoping that the aliens will come and do a cute body-swap on you, are you? Is that why we're out here? Is that why we're looking up at the sky?"

"Hell, no!" he said, standing up a little straighter. "No fucking way! I absolutely do not, would not, want to be in their zoo. In fact, if they came and picked us up right here, right now, I would not go. I would flatly refuse. I would fight tooth and nail for my right to stay right here on earth. Terra firma! That's where I belong."

"Really? You feel that strongly?"

"I do. I absolutely do. I've got my reasons. Good reasons." He hestitated a brief moment, then decided to confide in me. "Listen buddy. I have a confession to make. I don't know whether you can tell, or whether you suspect... if you did, or do, I don't care. The thing is, I'm gay. That's it. I like men. Love men. Proudly, completely, without guilt or shame. These aliens, on the other hand, if we can believe The Iodine Story, these aliens are looking to even up the numbers of male and female humans in their zoo. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if that's their aim, well... it doesn't sound as though they're aware at all of same-sex couplings. Think about it: if they want one man for every woman... the implication's pretty clear."

"Did they say that, though? I thought they said their mistake was picking up only women, or mostly women—"

Hugh waved his hand dismissively. "I'm not taking the chance. That is not a life I want to live. It's a hard NO from me." He bristled a bit, then glanced at me. "What about you? Would you go?"

Since I don't believe in aliens, I'd never considered the question until that moment, but I didn't need to think about it. My answer was clear. "No, I wouldn't go. I couldn't go. My mother, you know? We're close. I couldn't leave her like that. With no way to say goodbye? No way to call home? No way to explain? She'd never know what happened to me."

We were silent for a few moments, then Hugh asked, "Are you an only child?"

"No, I've got a brother and sister, both older than me. And they've got kids. So my mother wouldn't be alone, but still..."

"Gotcha," Hugh acknowledged. "Well, I tell you what — it's a little chilly in this damn desert. Let's get the fuck on out of here."

Once we were back inside his car, before he touched the ignition, Hugh asked me, "What about your orientation, Mason? Are you gay? Bi? Curious?"

"Um, no, I don't think so," I told him. "I've never felt the urge."

"Hmm," Hugh mused. "Maybe you just haven't met the right guy."

"Who can say?" I replied, noncommittal.

 

---

 

Hugh turned the key. This time all it did was click. Click-click. No other sound.

"Oh, shit!" I said. "It's the battery! I told you, it's dead."

"Don't lose your head," Hugh told me. "Stay calm." He turned the key again. Click. And again. Click-click. On the third try, the engine groaned and grudgingly turned over. "See?" Hugh told me. "Good thoughts! Good thoughts!" He patted the dashboard. I felt an enormous sense of relief...

... until Hugh pulled back onto the highway and kept heading in the same direction as before: west.

"Hey," I cautioned, trying my best to not sound alarmed. "Hugh — Robbins is *that* way, back there, behind us. We're driving away from Robbins."

"I know," he replied, his eyes on the road ahead. "I thought you might want to take a gander at the place where Ross and Mayda were heading that night."

"What do you mean 'where they were heading'? We just came from the place they were heading. We just left it — that spot, back there!"

"No, no," he said. "That's not where they were *headed*. That's only as far as they got. Remember, Mayda said it would take 40 minutes to get there. We only drove for half an hour."

"Yeah, but—"

"The only reason they stopped back there is because Ross got upset. Mayda wanted to go to a Lovers' Lane, which is a couple miles off the road, up ahead. Where we stopped — where they stopped — that's no Lovers' Lane. It's just the side of the road." He looked at me, smiled, and patted my thigh. "Don't worry, it's fifteen minutes, tops. We'll have a look, turn around, and head straight back to Robbins."

He turned his eyes forward, to look at the road. Then he turned toward me again. "Don't worry, Mason: I'm not trying to make a move on you. I can tell you're not interested."

"I'm not worried about that," I responded. "I'm worried that if you stop this car again, that it won't start. THAT is what I'm worried about."

He considered what I said for a moment. He ran his hand over the car's dashboard. Then, "Tell you what—" he said. "I won't turn the engine off, okay? I'll keep it running until we're back in Robbins. Does that work for you?"

To tell the truth, I would have felt a lot better if he simply turned the car around and headed back to Robbins, but if he wasn't going to do that, well, then... not turning off the engine... that *should* be good enough.

"Okay," I acquiesced.

"Okay?" he echoed, smiling.

"Okay," I repeated.

 

---

 

After twelve minutes, or twelve miles, Hugh leaned forward and slowed his speed. He studied the right-hand side of the road, and gradually slowed to a halt. "Okay," he said, "here it is." Whatever he saw, I didn't see, but once we turned off the highway, our headlights picked up tire tracks heading into the desert. I'm no tracker, but I could see that they were a bit indistinct, partly blown away.

"Okay, now," he told me. "Just five more minutes. It's just about two miles."

I didn't want to be a wet blanket, so I didn't say a word until ten minutes had gone by and we'd seen nothing but the single pair of faint tire tracks.

"Do you know where we are?" I asked. "Are you sure this is the way?"

He replied with an uncertain "Uhhh."

"It's been ten minutes," I pointed out. "Shouldn't we be... wherever it is we're going?"

"Yeah," he admitted, coming to a stop. "Yeah, sorry, this isn't the place. I turned too early. Let's go back." Contrite, he looked me in the face. For a moment I was afraid he'd propose trying again further up the road. To my immense relief, he said, "Let's head back to Robbins. I'll check my intel. We can do this some other time."

I was feeling a lot better, knowing that we were heading back to civilization. Until...

... until Hugh, in order to turn his car around, moved his gearshift into reverse. The moment he did so, the car went dead. The engine simply died, just like that. There was a sound like a slam! and that was the end of it. No lights, no engine, no heater.

He turned the key, but nothing happened. There was no response. No response at all. No cough, no click, no groan.

Hugh, with a baffled, perplexed expression, said, "Well, now that was unexpected!"

My jaw fell open. I was astounded, stupified, stunned. I couldn't speak. I tried to gesture, but my arms only made small, helpless, spasmodic movements. When at last the power of speech returned, I said, "Was it, Hugh? Was it really? Was it really unexpected?"

He gave me a look as though he feared I'd lost my mind. "Well, yes of course, it's unexpected. I take good care of my car! I'm very fastidious about it!"

His statement struck me as so insane, I could only laugh. Admittedly, I sounded a bit hysterical even to myself, but didn't the situation warrant it? I covered my face with my hands and laughed. Not long, of course, because it wasn't funny at all.

Then Hugh, in an offended tone, asked, "Are you implying this is somehow MY fault?" It set me off again, and shaking my head, I got out of the car.

It was freaking cold out there. I thought it was supposed to be a desert, but apparently this is what happens when the sun goes down. And it was windy! I walked to the front of the car and warmed my hands by the heat of the hood.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. No signal, of course.

I didn't look at Hugh. I didn't want to start yelling at the guy. After all, we were going to have to walk out of here together. From the corner of my eye I caught the glow from his telephone — he was no doubt checking for a signal as well. And not finding one.

I waited until he climbed out of the car to join me. "Hugh," I said. "We're what — five miles from the road? We can walk it, follow the tire tracks. If we're lucky somebody will pick us up. Maybe a trooper..."

Hugh didn't answer at first. Then he said, "This happened to me once before. I mean, that the car wouldn't start at night, but the next morning, it did."

"Do you want to stay here all night?" I asked. I couldn't manage to hide my scorn.

"I have supplies," he said, gamely. "I've got water, power bars, and a big wool blanket in the trunk."

"No," I said. "I'm walking to the highway. If you want to join me, great. If you want to stay here, fine. I'll send help."

He looked at the ground for a few moments, then said, "Okay, let's start walking."

"Good," I said. "Before those god-damned aliens pick us up, right?" I laughed. He chuckled. I felt a small sense of relief when I heard his laugh. That meant we were good. Friends again. Everything was going to be alright. I hadn't managed to permanently alienate the guy.

Alienate him. Ha. Alienate, right?

Then a brilliant light swallowed up everything. It was so intensely white, I couldn't see the car. I couldn't see Hugh. I couldn't see my own hands in front of my face.

And then... darkness, unconsciousness, nothingness.

Nothing.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 21

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps their clothes on...

— Revelations 16:15

---

 

I didn't sleep; I lay suspended in darkness, both inside and out. I experienced nothing. How can you experience nothing? I'll tell you how: Imagine sitting at the bottom of a deep dry well, so deep that light from above can't reach you. You don't know where you are or how you arrived here. You're awake, but stunned to empty-headedness. No thoughts, no words, no sounds, no feelings. All you can do is blink and look around you, even though there's nothing to see.

That's the state I was in. Except for the blinking and looking around. I couldn't do that. I was only aware of being unaware.

Someone had flicked the main circuit in my brain OFF.

Time passed, I suppose. It must have done so; it's what time does. Things happened without my knowledge and volition; things were being done to me. Once whoever it was, completed whatever they were doing, they clicked my brain back on. I didn't wake up. I didn't "come to"; I simply opened my eyes and was aware once again.

I knew immediately where I was and what had been done to me. The vast room, the ambient lighting... the fact that I was lying naked on a slab. I was on that damn spaceship, the one I didn't believe existed. I'd been abducted, in the same way that Mayda and Ross were abducted before me. The aliens had taken my clothes and my belongings. They took my phone!

Luckily (?) I wasn't alone. There were voices, two voices: a woman's and a man's.

The woman, angry and fearful, shouted, "I'm going to SUE those motherfuckers, do you understand! I am going to take every penny they have, and every penny they ever make! I'm going to take their cars, and their houses, and everything they own! And *then* I'm going to have them thrown in jail! Are you listening to me? Are you listening to me?"

Hugh's voice, weary, harrassed: "Yes, I'm listening. You don't need to shout. I'm standing right here. I'm listening."

"Where are the cameras? Where did you pervs hide the cameras?"

"There are no cameras. I told you." Then, the anger in his voice building: "How many times do I have to say it? This isn't a prank, this isn't a TV show. I'm not a part of this; I've been abducted, just like you."

I couldn't move, except for my eyes. I could blink. I could look right, left, up, down. That was all. After a few moments I could turn my head left and right, but not up and down. Hugh and the woman were out of my field of vision. To turn my face toward their voices, I'd need to be able to crane my neck up and back, but I couldn't do that. I wasn't able to speak or even clear my throat. My body, from my jaw on down, was inert. I want to say it was lifeless, but that was an exaggeration: I was definitely alive. Alive, but limp. Alive and lying on a slab. There were two empty slabs to my left. His and hers.

Hugh and the woman continued to argue. She was hot, angry. I almost expected her to demand to speak with the manager; such was her attitude. Hugh, for his part, had the advantage of understanding the situation, and wanted nothing more than to get the hell off the alien ship. We'd been abducted, and he wasn't having it.

Which is why the next sound I heard was the boom! boom! boom-boom-boom! of his fist against a metal door as he shouted, "HEY!" More banging. "HEY, YOU ASSHOLES! LET US OUT! WHAT THE HELL? LET US OUT! WHERE *ARE* YOU? COME ON! SHOW YOURSELVES, YOU COWARDS! FACE ME!"

The woman, aggravated: "Will you stop that? All you're doing is giving me a headache. And you're not convincing me. Besides, if you're really not a part of this caper, you're doing exactly what they *want* you to do: freaking out so people can laugh at you on TV. They put us in a cage like a bunch of naked monkeys. They want us to dance and cry and throw fits."

Hugh, impatiently: "I've told you, over and over again: This is not a TV show. It's not a movie. It's not a prank. It's not some internet bullshit! We've been abducted by aliens, plain and simple! They're looking for human specimens for their zoo."

"Hilarious," she replied, her voice full of scorn. "Do you think I'm an idiot? It's a prank, and somebody's going down for it, the minute I get my clothes and my phone back. I'll sue you, too, and your little friend over there. I'm serious! This is kidnapping and false imprisonment! Those are capital crimes in my book! And theft! You've taken my clothes and left me naked! It's a sex crime! I'm going to make sure they throw the book at you jackasses! Let me tell you something: The next clown who walks in that door is going to get a nice kick in the balls for his trouble!"

Hugh groaned. "Will you stop? Can you listen? Think about what you told me: You said you saw the aliens. How can you—"

"I saw a weirdo in a frog costume, dressed in armor, with four of his friends. That's what I saw."

"It's not a costume—"

I must have groaned or sighed, because they turned to look at me.

"Look, you woke your little buddy," the woman said.

I meant to ask who the woman was, but — disoriented as I was — what came out of my mouth was, "God! It stinks in here!"

Ironically, involuntarily, I felt a fart ease out from under me, a swift, tuneful note that sounded clear and true, like middle C played on a trumpet.

"Phew!" the woman cried, waving her hand in front of her nose. "The stink is on you, fella! You've been dealing them out ever since you got here!"

"Sorry," I groaned. "It's that damn Pizza Alright. And the beans, I suppose."

"Get a grip on it," she demanded, crossly. "Maybe your weirdo friends can put a cork in it, if you ask politely."

"Well, aren't you nice!" I exclaimed sarcastically.

"You goons are in on this prank, aren't you?" She pointed her index finger at me, then Hugh. "Admit it: The two of you came in here together," she observed.

"I'm afraid this isn't a prank," I said. "But if what we've heard is true, they'll let you go as soon as they figure out that you're a woman."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she shot back angrily, offended. "Hello?" she shouted as she gestured to her breasts.

"These aliens can't tell the difference," Hugh explained. "They rely on a detector they built. It gives men orgasms, but does nothing to women."

"Figures!" she scoffed. "I mean, it's bullshit, but it scans." She paced, back and forth, impatiently. "These so-called aliens: is it a comic role? Are they supposed to be buffoons?"

"It's not a role," Hugh told her. "They're real. But no, they aren't very bright."

"Hey!" I called. "How come you two can move, but I can't?"

They walked over to where I was lying. Hugh told me, "Don't worry, buddy, it'll pass. We both woke up that way, but it wears off quickly."

Hugh stood to my right. The woman stood on my left. They were both visible from about the waist up. Both were naked. The woman was scowling, but even so, she was fairly attractive. I couldn't help but focus on her breasts: a pair of firm mounds, standing up well on her chest: two symmetric handfuls, without sag or wrinkle. Her nipples—

"You like them, do you?" she asked, nettled. "Are you getting a nice eyeful, you perv?"

"Sorry, but they're right there..."

She shook her head. "I am SO going to sue these bastards! I will make them regret the day they were born! I'll make sure they spend a nice long time in jail! This is a violation, a humiliation—"

Hugh looked at me and rolled his eyes. "I've tried to tell her," he said.

"What's your name?" I asked, in hopes of changing the subject. "I'm Mason."

"My name's Deeny," she said. "And don't give me any shit about it. The name is Deeny."

"Deeny," I repeated, "Is that a nickname for something?"

She looked at me as if I were a first-class idiot. "Who the fuck cares?" she asked. "What is wrong with you? We're locked in a room, God knows where, all our clothes and possessions stolen from us, with no clue what these bastards have in mind for us — but what is the first thing you ask: you want to know about nicknames! Get a brain, will you?"

"Just trying to make conversation," I shrugged, and noticed that some movement had returned to my shoulders.

"Do us all a favor, and don't," she muttered.

At that moment, the door slid open, and Mr Toad came ambling in, striding, insofar as a bipedal toad can stride. He was exactly as described in the Iodine Story: He was human-sized, walking upright, dressed in full body armor. I had the feeling his armor was not so much protective as it was a sign of status. He was followed by four frog-men, who wore loose brown robes.

Mr Toad looked the three of us up and down.

Deeny, for all her bluster about this being a prank, seemed cowed. Instinctively she must have recognized that these creatures were not wearing costumes and were not of this earth. Despite her alarm, she managed to angrily ask, as she showed the backs of her hands, "Why did you take off my nail polish? How dare you? I just had them done, today! Gels! Do you understand? You're going to pay for that, you armored ass-hat!" At a thought, she touched her face, her lips. "And my makeup! What the hell? Why did you do that, you filthy freaks! You had no right!"

Mr Toad, although surprised for a brief moment, recovered quickly. He answered in a slow, condescending tone, as if speaking to a child, "You did have a variety of... decorative... smudges, unlike the others. We had to be sure these smudges didn't conceal defects of some sort. I'm glad to say that they didn't. I've no doubt these colorings play a significant part in your—" he waved his hand to signal he was about to say something silly, something childish— "your mating rituals, such as they are, but—"

"And you took my clothes!" She bellowed, causing him to take a step back. "What the hell is wrong with you? You're a bunch of goddamn perverts, and you're all going to jail! Do you hear?"

Mr Toad scoffed and explained, "We took your coverings and trinkets simply because we had to examine you. What other reason could there possibly be?"

"What kind of examination?" Hugh demanded. His fists clenched and unclenched.

"Before you ask," Mr Toad replied, in the tone of a person who'd heard the same question a thousand times, "there was no anal probe. I cannot fathom why your species imagines there should be. We're not barbarians, after all! We perform a quite simple examination. You, like us, have a symmetric anatomy, with some minor differences: two upper limbs, two lower limbs. You have ten fingers, ten toes. Two eyes, two ears, and so on. We also check that your skin is intact and free from defect. I'll admit, we're rather cursory when it comes to checking your teeth..."

By this point I could raise my head and shoulders a bit higher. I saw that Deeny had one hand on her stomach and one on my chest; I guess to reassure herself. When Mr Toad mentioned fingers and toes, I tried to wiggle mine, without success.

"Listen," Hugh told the alien. "None of us are coming with you. None of us will play a part in your crazy zoo. We demand that you give back our clothes and our belongings, and put us back exactly where you found us."

"Wait," Deeny said. "I'm going wherever you two guys go. I'm not going back to Mariola." To Mr Toad she directed, "Just drop me with those two knuckleheads."

Mr Toad scoffed, and asked dismissively, "What is Mariola?" He held out his hand. One of his cohort responded by placing a box on his palm, a black rectangular item the size of a remote control. "Before you overly stress yourselves, may I point out that some, or all, of you may be making a great fuss over nothing? We can determine, right here, right now, which of you are male, and which are not." He gestured with the little black box, and declared magnamously, "If you're not male, we'll send you right back down with no further argument."

"What?" Deeny exclaimed, incredulous. "Are you an idiot? Isn't it obvious? Are you seriously saying that you can't tell men from women?"

"No, of course not," Mr Toad replied. "No, I am not an idiot. No, it is NOT obvious, and no, I cannot tell one of you from another. Naturally! No one can. It's a well-established fact. Humans are — or rather, were — indistinguishable from one another — until we created this marvellous detector!"

So saying, he pointed the box at Hugh and pressed the button. Hugh responded instantly. He clutched the slab I was lying on. His head snapped back. His chin pointed at the ceiling. His adam's apple stood in high relief. Hugh's body twisted as though an archer meant to bend his stiffened form into a bow. He rose up on his toes. His entire frame trembled and spasmed. He sprouted a enormous erection. Even I was startled by its size. His cries were inarticulate, strangling in his throat. He gasped and struggled with all that was in him. It was frightening to see.

Mr Toad took his finger off the button, nodding approval. Hugh's spasms ended. "Oh my God!" he cried, his chest heaving. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. His perspiration puddled at the floor around his feet. His body was drenched. He panted like a steam engine, leaning all his weight with both arms on the slab.

The four frog-men approached Hugh as Mr Toad said, "My assistants will take you to—"

"No!" Hugh shouted. "No way! No fucking way! There is NO WAY IN HELL!" Despite the energy he'd just spent, Hugh came to life with a awe-inspiring burst of power and energy, drawn from his deepest fibers of his being. He punctuated the last word (HELL!) with a powerful kick that sent one of his assailants sprawling. He picked up a second and tossed him across the room. With kicks and punches, grabs and throws, he quickly dispatched the other two, and was ready to cross the room and take on Mr Toad himself.

Mr Toad stood firm and unafraid. In some way that I didn't see, he had already called for reinforcements. They arrived in groups of four, in quick succession, one group after another, pouring into the room. Hugh fought manfully, and to tell the truth, the frog-men, for all their numbers, got the worst of it. They lay around the room like so many discarded rag dolls.

I began to feel sorry for them.

Mr Toad watched with some interest, though he didn't intervene. Apparently, he felt sure of the outcome.

In the end, the aliens couldn't overpower him, but they managed to overwhelm poor Hugh. It happened mainly by luck: one assailant, as he lay on the floor, tried to jerk his leg out of the way, to avoid being stepped on. Instead, his movement caught Hugh by the heel and sent him sprawling. As my friend fell, the enemy swarmed over him, piling on, each new frog-man throwing himself onto the heap, pinning Hugh to the floor, more by their collective weight than by muscle.

In the end (but with great difficulty), they carried him off, still struggling, still shouting, using every muscle to resist his fate. It took ten of the frog-men to bear him away: six to hold his legs and four to restrain his arms. Several others stood by, ready to jump in if necessary.

Once Hugh was out of sight and out of earshot, other frog-men came and quickly cleared away their own wounded. In the end Deeny and I were left alone.

At that point, I was able to sit up and bend my legs.

"Oh, *now* you can move!" Deeny exclaimed, her voice full of scorn.

"I didn't see you helping him," I pointed out, peevishly, childishly.

"Help him how?" she countered. "The way he was wheeling his arms and legs, he could have kicked me across the room without even knowing it. Besides, you're a man, aren't you? That's what *you* should be doing."

The two of us lapsed into silence, shocked by the violence we'd witnessed, and stunned by the finality of Hugh's capture and removal. There was no need for either to point out that we were next in line.

I turned and dangled my legs over the side of the slab, flexing my toes to make sure they worked. Deeny hopped up next to me. Her sudden closeness confused me. At first I didn't know what to make of it, or what she meant by it. The side of her thigh pressed up against mine. I've never sat so close to a naked woman before.

That is, I've never sat next to a naked woman before. I didn't know the protocol.

I couldn't help but stare at her thighs and take in how good she looked. In particular, her skin. She had lovely skin. She was in great shape — I wanted to ask whether she worked out, or did Pilates or yoga or whatnot, but didn't dare. I was afraid of setting her off.

It wasn't until she started talking that I realized she was trembling. It was almost imperceptible. Then I understood: she was frightened. That's why she sat so close. She was frightened and she tried to hide it by talking.

"I have to say, your friend is well endowed," she observed. "*Very* well endowed. As I'm sure you well know." She gave me a wink. I've never liked winks, and I didn't like this one in particular.

"We're not a couple," I informed her, blushing as I spoke. "Hugh is gay, but I'm not."

"I see," she acknowledged, nodding, one eyebrow raised. "I guess that's why you're blushing."

"Look: we're not a couple. We're not lovers. Hell, we're not even friends! We only just met today!"

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," she quoted.

Irritated, I shook my head. She grinned at me. She was only teasing.

I tried to change the subject, by going back to something she said earlier: "Hey, you mentioned Mariola. Is that where you're from? That's way on the other side of the state!"

"The other side of the state? What's that supposed to mean? Where are we now?"

"Well, Hugh and I were in the desert, near Robbins. It's, like, 300 miles from Mariola, I think."

"Yeah," she agreed. "More like 280, give or take... or let's say, 300. Whatever. Anyway, what I was going to say — before you jumped in — is that when I woke up here, I was alone, completely alone." She glanced at me before continuing. "At first I thought I was dead. Seriously. That I was in a morgue or a mortuary. Then I figured I'd been taken by some jackass serial killer and that he'd injected me with some drug to paralyze me.

"Then, after a couple of minutes, the big toad-guy in armor came in with his four friends. They just looked at me. I couldn't move. It was super-creepy. And I couldn't talk!" She kicked her legs a little, as if checking that she could move them now, then added, "After they left, you two popped up when I wasn't looking. That's when I figured this was all a perverted prank."

"Why?"

She gave me a look that asked What sort of imbecile are you? "Hello!" she exclaimed. "My clothes were gone. I couldn't move. My first thought was roofies... serial killers... perverts. And then I figured it was some asshole's idea of a prank."

"How did you go from thinking it was a serial killer to thinking it was a prankster?"

"The weirdos in their frog costumes. That was the first reason.

"Then, the way you two popped up— one minute you weren't there... a second later, you were. I figured it was some kind of special effects, right? That was the second reason.

"Then your buddy, Hugh, he comes to... and right off starts explaining everything to me. Which makes no sense, right? Because if the three of us were abducted by aliens, none of us would know shit! Am I right? Yet, here he was, with all the details..." She shook her head. "That was the third reason."

"That kind of makes sense," I agreed, "but there's this story, see..."

"You asked about Mariola," she said, interrupting. "What a hell-hole! It's all hypocrites and sheep! The tiny-town mentality: on the surface, it's all nice, all Norman Rockwell. Everybody smiles, like butter wouldn't melt, but no one is as nice as they seem. It's a vicious, judgmental little place! Everybody spends all their time watching each other, waiting for you to trip up... watching for the smallest mistake or indiscretion... looking for something to judge your for, something to gossip about, some way to one-up you... They try to push you in a box... put you in a cage... live the way they want you to live. It's ridiculous. It's toxic."

"If it's so awful, why didn't you just leave?" I asked. It seemed a natural question to ask. It was, unfortunately, the *worst* question one to ask. It really set her off. If she was ranting before, now she was afire.

She gave me a look that would have burned down a house. Her expression asked whether I was a fool, and not just a fool, but an offensive one at that. Offensive to her. Personally offensive.

She barked out her reply. "What — oh, *I* should leave, because I'm normal? Is that what you're saying? I should leave, when all I do is try to live my life without kowtowing to a load of silly rules and conventions? *I* should leave, according to you, because I'm awake, and not asleep? You think I should put on a pretty dress every Sunday and sing hymns with the rest of the sheep? What if I don't want to? Huh? What if I don't want to? I like the option of NOT doing those things. But, oh no! You think I should leave. Let them win. As if!"

She jumped down from the slab and scoffed forcefully. "Ha!"

"Did something bad happen in Mariola?" I asked her.

"Mariola, Mariola," she said in a sing-song whine, as if mocking the way I'd said it. "Yeah, something happened. I broke up with my idiot boyfriend." She grew angrier and angrier as she spoke. "We were engaged. To be married. But that's off! I sent that fucker packing! I threw his ring in a dumpster. The asshole! Let him go poking through a landfill, if he wants it back!" She scoffed loudly, disgusted. "I don't know why I ever said yes to him!"

Her jaw was set. Her fists clenched and unclenched. She was still trembling.

"Okay," I said, cautiously, neutrally. I didn't take her tone or her words personally. She was obviously frightened out of her wits. All her bluster and spleen was nothing but a cover.

"I've learned my lesson. I am *never* getting married. Ever. Why should I? Huh? Why should I? Better dead than wed, right?"

"Whoa! Uh — I've never heard that," I told her, taken aback by the acid in her better dead than wed.

"Besides," she said, "I already told you — told that armored toad — that I don't want to go back to Mariola. Weren't you listening? I wasn't about to let those fuckers *push* me out; I couldn't give them the satisfaction. I couldn't let them beat me. But look! now I'm gone." She grinned. "Three hundred miles away, or whatever! Now they'll have a little mystery! Now they'll be wondering, Whatever happened to Deeny?" She grinned at me, an aggressive grin — though her fear was plainly visible beneath her thine, angry veneer.

"Will they ever know?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said.

And then — with a sardonic smile, "Now I can say it: I am NEVER going back to Mariola! Never!"

"Okay," I said. "Good for you. I'm sure you know best."

She scoffed at me scornfully, in disgust. "You're one of those rabbits, aren't you? Afraid of conflict. You'd agree with anything I say, wouldn't you!"

"I guess so," I sighed, and paradoxically, my answer made her smile.

Then, "Hey!" she exclaimed. "Look what those fuckers left behind!" Her eye was caught by some items on an otherwise empty table by the door: two of the black boxes, the ones that resembled remote controls.

"Score!" she shouted, happily, "It's those orgasm things! Let's try 'em out! There's two — one for men, one for women, right?"

"I doubt—" I began, but she wasn't listening. She was examining the boxes. "There's only one button," she observed, "And the boxes look identical..."

She pointed one of the boxes (as it turned out, the detector) at herself and pushed the button. Nothing happened.

"I don't think you ought to mess with those things," I cautioned. "We don't know wh—"

She cut me off by turning the detector on me. I fell back onto the slab howling. A massive, overwhelming sense of sexual excitation abruptly filled every atom of my being. I couldn't stop shaking. My nervous system was on fire. When Mr Toad used it on Hugh, it had an equally violent effect, but only for a few seconds. Deeny kept going. She didn't seem to have any inclination to stop. She kept her finger on the trigger while I writhed and cried out. My heart pounded so violently, I feared I'd have a heart attack. "Stop! Stop!" I managed to painfully squeak. "Please stop!"

Laughing, she took her finger off the button. "Look at you!" she chortled. "It took you right up to the brink!"

I lay panting in a puddle of my own sweat. "Oh my God!" I cried. "Please don't do that again."

Ignoring my shocked state, Deeny walked over. "Try it on me," she demanded. "Maybe you can't do it to yourself."

I was too weak to move, so she put the little box in my hand, aimed it at herself, and pressed my finger on the button. Nothing happened.

"Crap," she said, setting it aside. "Fucking patriarchy, right? Here, try this other one." She pointed it at me, clicked it. Nothing happened. "This must be the woman one," she commented as she pointed it at herself and clicked.

I didn't feel it happen, but there was a sudden fundamental shift in the state of things. My vision of the room changed, by 180 degrees. It was like an out-of-body experience: I stood apart, looking at my body, which lay on the slab, slowly recovering from the powerful orgasmic shock.

What made it NOT like an out-of-the-body experience was that I was actually standing IN a body. A different body. A body not my own: Deeny's body.

"What the hell?" I asked, in her voice. I looked down at myself, at a pair of breasts, at a hairless body, a missing penis — and in its place, a mound of venus. Weirdly, the two details that struck me the most were (1) my intestinal distress à la Pizza Alright was gone, and (2) my appendectomy scar had disappeared without a trace. Due, obviously, to the body swap, but hey — we notice what we notice.

I have to say, my first impression of my new home was favorable — as wrong as it was — but I couldn't help but cry out (again in Deeny's voice), "What the hell happened, Deeny? What did you do?"

Even as I spoke, I understood everything, but I had an advantage over Deeny: I'd read the Iodine Story. So I got it in one: Deeny and I swapped bodies, exactly as Ross and Mayda had. I was now Deeny; Deeny was now me.

My body on the slab, my old self, moved, groaned, and asked, "Imposs... uh! Fuck! Did we just— Jesus!"

It was Deeny who asked, Deeny in my body — Mason's body, speaking in my voice. "Fucking box," she muttered, and picked up the male detector.

What happened next was decisive. It set both our fates, for an indefinite future, probably forever. When I replay these moments in my mind — as I have, many times — I believe that when Deeny picked up the detector, she meant to switch us back. She understood that one of the remotes had swapped us; she meant to use the same remote to swap us back again. But she was hampered, disoriented, by the swiftness, the seamlessness of the change. In addition, her mind was muddled by the violent effect of the detector, when she'd used it on me.

When she picked up the little black box, she failed to adjust for the fact that she wasn't in her own body. She thought she was still standing over here (where I was), and not over there (where she was). Her own body, me, still held the device that does the swap. But she couldn't make the paradigm shift. When she pointed the detector at me and clicked, she believed she was repeating exactly what she'd done before. She turned the device on herself and clicked, but naturally it did the other thing: it made her writhe with sexual stimulation.

I watched my old body rock, my face contort. I heard the strangled cry caught in my throat. I remember thinking, with absurd irrelevance, Deeny was wrong: you *can* use it on yourself. It was too much to bear. It was frighteningly strong, and for a second time today, I feared I might have a heart attack. I pushed her finger off the button. Her paroxysms stopped.

"We need to switch back!" I shouted to my old body. Idiot that I am, I should have simply done it. There was no need for talk or explanations. With two clicks, we'd each be back in the body where we belonged. Instead, I wasted precious seconds in talk. I wasted time in looking for consensus, or consent, or some such stupid thing.

"What tha wha?" I saw my Mason body ask — exhaused, befuddled, by the pair of electrical shocks.

Then, after wasting time in talk, I wasted time in fumbling: I almost dropped the switch. In retrospect, I can see that it might have been my subconscious, once again acting against my interest, as it does. In any case, for some foolish reason, I flipped the box so it was upside down and backwards. I looked it stupidly, turned it over, then spun it around to its correct position, pointing away from me. I stared at the button, about to push it... but... while my attention was wholly absorbed in trying to do the right thing with the right box in the right sequence of events, I didn't hear Mr Toad and his cohort enter the room.

"What in thunderation!" he exclaimed, making me jump. "You humans! You're like children! No, you're *worse* than children! We can't leave you alone for a moment!" He snatched the remote from my hand and picked up the detector from where it lay on the slab. "These precious devices aren't toys for you to play with! These are serious scientific tools, with galactic significance!" He fumbled with the pair of them for a moment before handing off one of the boxes to a member of his cohort. Then ("Just to confirm") he gave a quick shot with the male detector at Deeny-in-Mason's-body, who reacted painfully, but only for a moment. He nodded to his cohort, who picked up my still-writhing Mason-body, and began to carry it out of the room.

"Wait!" I called. "Stop! Will you wait a moment? Please! We accidentally swapped bodies! That's me that you're carrying out! Do you see? You need to change me back! Stop!"

"Ah," he said, with a deep rumble of satisfaction. "Do you see what comes when you lark about with things you don't understand? This is what you humans call a teachable moment for you; is it not?"

He paused dramatically, then turned the male detector at me. When he got no reaction, he said, "Do you see? Are you able to understand? It's no surprise, but I've been proven correct yet again. It's exactly as I told you, earlier. Do you see? Do you remember? I told you that you might be making a great fuss over nothing. You made your big declaration: You didn't want to come with us! You wouldn't take part in our zoo! Well, guess what? Now, you'll get your wish! You didn't want to listen, though, did you. No matter! No harm done! All is forgiven! We carry no grudges here! We'll return you promptly to your vehicle, and all will be well."

In a blink I found myself standing barefoot and naked in the desert, next to Hugh Fencely's car.

"Like Mayda," I said. "Or Ross. Whatever!"

It was night. It was cold. Damnably cold.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 22

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

God said, "Who told you that you were naked?"

— Genesis 3:10

---

 

Maybe the way I'm telling all this is giving the wrong impression. I have the feeling that I'm presenting myself, for the most part, as calm, level-headed, more-or-less in command of myself... which is not to say that I didn't bumble and fumble in some decisive moments. As a ready-to-hand example, if I really was clear-headed, I would have — quick as thought — clicked the swapper at my new self (Deeny) and my old self (Mason) and fixed the mix-up. Click, click: That's all it would have taken.

And yet, even if I had managed to keep cool and swap us back, it wouldn't solve the problem. Or problems, plural. Sure, Deeny and I would each be back where we belonged, living in our own bodies, but then what? I'd be the one flying off to a smelly zoo in the sky, while Deeny would be left here, shivering, naked, in the desert.

Who would be worse off?

Would my leaving and her being left, somehow be more fair?

There wasn't any win-win to be had. There was no way either of us could be a winner.

At least Deeny *wanted* to leave. To leave Mariola, specifically. Now, she had her wish... in a perverse genie-in-the-lamp fashion: where the genie grants your wish in the most literal, most unsatisfactory manner possible. Deeny didn't want to return to Mariola? Okay, fine: you don't want Mariola? Easy! Just forget about the entire planet. Bye!

Maybe I was rationalizing. Maybe I was being selfish. Maybe I was trying to justify the feeling that I'd cheated somehow. I did feel horribly guilty about not being taken to the zoo, about Deeny being taken in my place, but I was certainly better equipped than Deeny to navigate my current situation — that is: no clothes, the desert, the night. Deeny would have no idea where she was (although she might remember that I mentioned the desert near Robbins) and why she was even there. She'd have no idea how far she was from the highway, or why she'd been left standing next to a car whose battery was spent.

Would she even realize that she should wait for dawn, so she could follow the tire tracks out?

Granted, she had a good chance of arriving at that idea. Obviously, Hugh's car was pointing this way, which means it came from that way. She ought to get that far on her own.

But one thing I had, that Deeny didn't, was knowing Mayda's experience. I had that in spades. I *understood* what happened to me; it wasn't a total surprise. In addition, I had an obvious, if rudimentary, strategy, which was to fit myself into Deeny's life. How hard could that be?

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. While it's true that these thoughts automatically spilled out, rolled, and churned in my brain, I had an overriding physical need that required an immediate solution: For my basic survival, I had to get out of the cold! I couldn't *see* the color of my feet, but I could *feel* them painfully turning blue while the rest of me shook like an old jalopy clattering down a bumpy hill.

My hands trembled so uncontrollably, I needed both of them to pull open the driver door: each hand to steady the other; two hands to pull together. I leaped inside and slammed the door shut behind me. I yelped when my naked bottom touched the cold leather seat. I wiggled and twisted, whimpering the entire time, and in the end lifted my hips off the seat. This left my shoulders pressed against the seat back, but my shoulders were far less sensitive than my butt.

Without expectation of success, I turned the key. Nothing. No groan, no cough, no click. It was dead. I pumped the gas and tried again. Nothing. Swearing, I tried it three times more. Same result each time: nothing. Shivering like mad, but trying my best to not be frantic, I ran my hand across the dashboard. I opened the glove compartment and looked inside the console between the front seats. I stuck my hands in the door pockets. There was nothing helpful. All I found was material for cleaning the car: sprays, wipes, special cloths and tiny brushes.

I pulled the trunk release and heard it clank open behind me, but before going there, I crawled into the back seat and gave it a thorough search. It didn't take very long. Hugh kept his car so freakishly clean, there was little to find. There was NOTHING under the front seats, nothing in the seat-back pockets, nothing in the door pockets, nothing on the shelf under the rear window. Nothing at all.

The trunk was another story.

Before we were swept up by the aliens, Hugh mentioned that he had "supplies." They were all in the trunk. He had a six pack of water bottles — the large size — and an unopened box of twelve power bars. There were also two vacuum-sealed bags: one containing a blue wool blanket, and the other a full set of clothes. I noticed that he didn't have any actual safety equipment, such as flares or reflective triangles, an air pump, a flashlight, or a first aid kit.

No matter. I grabbed a bottle of water, the wool blanket, and three of the power bars. I slammed the trunk shut to keep at least some of the cold out of the car. By that point, I couldn't endure the frigid temperature for a single moment longer. My feet were in such pain that dancing didn't help. It felt as though knives were stabbing my feet on every side.

Also, as foolish as it sounds to say it, I felt very exposed out there in the desert, in the dark. I'm not talking about being naked. I'm talking about wild animals. I kept seeing/hearing a replay of my Aunt Hanna, counting off on her fingers the animals that (in Charlotte's telling) consumed Ross' corpse: crows, vultures, coyotes, wild dogs, wolves, and hyenas.

I knew full well that there are no hyenas in the United States, but it didn't stop me from being scared of them.

I closed myself in the car, in the back seat, and wrapped myself in the blanket. I held my feet in my hands, to warm them. It didn't seem to do any good: They felt like blocks of ice, and they hurt like mad. I nearly wept from the pain.

Soon, though, the wool began to do its magic. I stopped shivering. Now I was only shaking, and not that hard. I gobbled down the three power bars, one after the other, and drank a third of the water, cold as it was.

Once I was able to stop shaking and whimpering, I did something that made me laugh. After all those hours of intestinal distress, I kept catching myself putting my hand on my belly. What a relief! I did regret that poor Deeny was somewhere in space carrying a load of Pizza Alright inside her. Hopefully it'll pass through her digestive system soon, and that she, Hugh, and any companions of misadventure won't have to put up with those dreadful farts for long.

At the same time, running my fingers up and down my current stomach, I had to compliment Deeny on her abs. I don't know what sort of workout she's done up to now, but I decided then and there to find out what it is, learn it, and keep up with it.

 

---

 

Once my feet finally stopped hurting, I found a more-or-less comfortable way to lie down in the back seat, curled up, knees bent. I lay on the blanket, wrapped it around me and tucked it again underneath me. Picture me as a big blue, woolen burrito.

The wind was constant. It gently plyed over the car, making a constant whooshing sound that resembled running water. Like a toilet whose handle needs jiggling. The air current wasn't strong enough to rock the car, thank goodness. The only effect was white noise.

I locked all the doors and lay there, wrapped up, silent, alone, in the middle of nowhere. I don't often think about God, but I wondered in those moments what He, She, or It would make of me if they looked down from their stately palace in the sky. Would they know my thoughts? My emotions? My fears and hopes? My guilt and denial? Could they key into my state of attention, to the way I listened to every sound outside and around the car? Cocooned in blue wool, I had only my face exposed, though occasionally I lifted my head to expose my ears, in case there was something I needed to hear, like an animal pawing or sniffing. I couldn't shut out the mental image of a bear, poking around the car, full of curiosity.

Of course, again, there were no bears in that desert. Except in my imagination. Still, I listened for them.

Hearing is a passive activity: sounds come *to* us; we don't need to hunt them out. And yet, my hearing had never been more acutely, actively aware. Without wishing or wanting to, I reached out with my auditory sense to its farthest radius. Someone in a movie said, "No one can sneak up on you in a desert." I don't believe it. If you walked softly, came from downwind, sure... you could sneak up on someone. I couldn't help but keep my guard up. Way, way up. I'm sure that in a city I wouldn't be able to extend the reach of my senses as far as I did that night.

With all I'd been through, and with my nerves on high alert, I didn't expect to sleep. That was for sure. I wasn't tired. I wasn't wired, either. I was fully awake, simply that. Maybe it was simple paranoia, or possibly I was full of adrenaline. Maybe my negative imagination was working overtime. Out there, literally in the middle of nowhere, I expected someone to come upon me, to knock on the car, to try the handles, some time tonight.

Absurd, maybe. But that's where my head was, while my body was wrapped up and lying there.

I took an inventory of my current self, my current state. Even if my new body was unfamiliar to me, there were a few things I could tell. One I've already alluded to: Deeny was in good shape. She took good care of herself. Another, probably related fact was that — whatever else Deeny had done tonight, she hadn't consumed much alcohol. In fact, she probably hadn't had any. She hadn't taken any drugs, either. My body felt clean; my mind was clear and sharp. At least, as far as I could tell.

Now that I settled my big, immediate issue — which was how to survive the night and the cold, I ruminated over my real big question: how do I go about fitting myself into Deeny's life? It shouldn't be hard, right? After all, I had the price of admission: Deeny's body, her DNA, her fingerprints. Her history (for good or for bad) was mine now. I simply had to recover it.

Even though I only had two clues (the name Deeny and the town Mariola), it shouldn't be difficult to find out who she is, or was: How many Deenys could there be in Mariola (or anywhere for that matter!)? How many Deenys in Mariola broke their engagement last night? How many Deenys in Mariola broke their engagement last night and disappeared soon after?

I'll bet I could simply walk into town and people would know who I am, where I belong, and what they expect of me. Mariola's not that big a town; about on par with Amsterholt, where I grew up.

It sounded like the start of an old Western film, something like High Plains Drifter where a stranger ambles into town, right up the main street... but he's not really a stranger at all.

No, I wanted to walk in a little better prepared. I wanted to know what sort of hello I could reasonably expect.

It would help if I knew her last name. But I don't. I don't really know her first name, either. Deeny: that's all I have to work with. It must be be a nickname, but for what? Claudine? Nadine? D'neen? Shardeen? Aberdeen?

It could be anything. Once I got back to civilization, I could go to a public library and do all sorts of internet searches. Figure it out.

Maybe I could ask the police to help me. Would they? How would I explain that I didn't know who I am?

Amnesia? Not likely.

No one would ever believe anything that far-fetched. Besides, there's no way I could pretend to have amnesia. I'm not devious enough. I'm not a good liar. I always get caught out. Better stick to the truth. Or as close to the truth as possible.

Anyway, I doubt that amnesia ever happens in real life. It's like quicksand. You only hear about that kind of thing on old TV shows and soap operas.

The best plan, I concluded once again, just before I fell asleep, was this: find the Robbins library, look up my name, and get in touch with my — with Deeny's — family. Hopefully, they'd help me get back to Mariola.

That would be the beginning of my new life.

 

---

 

Once the sun came up, things got hot pretty quickly. I threw off the blanket and threw open the doors. Last night I was shivering; now I was sweating.

The first thing I did was try to start the car again. Of course, it was still dead. The battery hadn't miraculously come back to life. The engine didn't even acknowledge my attempts to turn it over.

So! Time to start walking! Before the sun got too high in the sky.

But first, I gobbled down three more power bars and drank a liter of water.

My nakedness was a different kind of vulnerability during the day. At night, my only problem was keeping warm. By day, I had several problems, different problems, mostly due to the intensity of the sun. Out here there wasn't the barest whisper of shade, and what rays didn't hit me directly, reflected up at me from the ground. It was hot. Damnably hot. I had to be careful to not get dehydrated or severely sunburned. Going barefoot was still a problem, but in the opposite direction. While last night, the ground was too painfully cold to walk on, soon it would be hot enough to roast the soles of my feet.

One last problem, a social one: Now that I was heading back to civilization, I needed to cover my nakedness.

I tore into Hugh's bag of emergency clothes — neatly vacuum-packed, no less! After ripping it open, I pulled out everything: shoes, socks, underwear, pants, and a t-shirt. The shirt, of all the colors it could be, was black. Not the best color for keeping cool!

Everything was extra-large. Hugh is, after all, one big guy. The t-shirt fit me like a minidress. Everything else was too absurdly big for me to use. The shoes were like boats; my feet slid around in them. They wouldn't stay on my feet.

In the end, I went off wearing Hugh's t-shirt and his socks. I used the clothing bag to carry two bottles of water and the remaining six power bars. In my other hand I held another of Hugh's "emergency supplies": a large black umbrella, which effectively kept off the sun, although at the same time it radiated a good bit of the heat its blackness absorbed.

There was one item I wished for, over and over, and that was a watch, or other some way of telling time. My phone, Hugh's phone, and (I'm guessing) Deeny's phone, were all up on the flying saucer, doing no one any good.

I walked. And walked. And walked. I'm guessing that I walked for three hours, but honestly I have no idea — which is why I wanted a watch! The entire way I kept calculating and re-calculating. I couldn't help it. I knew that last night, we drove for about twelve minutes from the highway. I'm sure we didn't go faster than 30 mph, so we covered six miles tops.

I figured I could reach the highway in two hours, if it wasn't so homicidally hot and I wasn't barefoot.

If I had a watch, I'd be able to estimate how far I was from the highway. Knowing me, I'd keep figuring best and worst case estimates, the entire way. I'd have a range of expections for when I'd see the highway.

I took my time and tried to stay calm. I didn't want to get overheated. I took occasional sips of water. I kept squinting my eyes, walking with my eyes closed to slits to try to deal with the intense sunlight.

The socks didn't serve me for very long. Even though (at first) they protected my feet from the hot ground, they were way too big. They shifted around on my feet. Once a hole appeared, the hole rapidly expanded. I turned the socks to present a fresh, unbroken face toward the ground. Soon, I ran out of ways to turn them; the socks were done. Consumed. Maybe they were cheap socks, I don't know. It doesn't matter. What I do know is that I reached a point where wearing them was worse than being barefoot.

At that point I did my best to keep to the scrub grass. If I stepped there, it wasn't so bad. My feet were getting blistered, yeah, but the scrub grass wasn't burning me.

Eventually I reached the highway. I remembered that left was east; left was Robbins. So I dashed across the road (God! was it hot!) and watched for traffic. Didn't see any.

Up ahead, on the other side of the road, was a sign that warned DO NOT LEAVE HIGHWAY. Damn it. I wish I'd seen it before running across the hot asphalt. Still... I made another mad dash and stood with my feet in the shadow of the sign. I crouched down under the umbrella. It was hard to get comfortable, but at least I wasn't walking any more. I'd arrived. I just had to wait for someone heading to Robbins.

Of course, if someone came along, heading for Aldusville, I'd happily accept a ride in that direction. Anything to get back to civilization.

I considered things for a moment, and realized I had to be about midway between Aldusville and Robbins.

Not that the relative distances mattered, once I was inside a car, but it suddenly occurred to me that I could shorten my plan — my plan to fit into Deeny's life — if I went straight to Mariola. Why not? Deeny certainly didn't make it sound very attractive, that could be due to her attitude, couldn't it. In any case, what choice did I have? What exactly did I mean to do, after all, when I landed in Robbins? I'd be looking for a way to get to Mariola.

Then again, there was something waiting for me in Robbins: the money Aunt Hanna had given me! Most of it was locked in the safe in my room at the Good Old Inn. The car she gave me was there as well, sitting in the hotel parking lot. So there was that: two reasons to go to Robbins.

In the midst of this idle musing, it suddenly occurred to me that I could have, and maybe should have, taken Hugh's keys from the ignition. It hadn't occurred to me at the time. I could get his address from the car registration, and that would give me someplace else to go in Robbins: a third reason. I had the impression that he lived alone. He never said so, but he had that vibe. At Hugh's house I could shower, dress the blisters on my feet, drink gallons of water, and find another enormous t-shirt to wear.

Oh, well. I was not about to go back. For a set of keys? Keys of dubious value? I wasn't about to subject myself to another barefoot trek through the desert, going and coming.

So I waited. I shifted when the sign's shadow shifted. Imagining the signpost's shadow as the indicator on a sundial, I figured I'd been there an hour, and hadn't seen a single car.

I remembered the words of the gas-station owner in Aldusville: "Eventually one of the State Troopers will find you. Just make sure you carry plenty of water." I still had some; about a third of a bottle, a third of a liter. I'd been pretty careful with it so far.

More time passed. I got bored with waiting, but there was no point in walking. I spotted a patchy clump of scrub grass across the road, so I made a third mad dash and sat on the grass. I examined my feet. They weren't too bad. I'd need to wash them and disinfect the broken blisters, but I'd come off pretty easy.

I finished the water. Then I got thirsty. I played with the bottle for a while, crinkling and popping it, the way a kid would do, to distract himself. Then, at that point, I somehow got turned around. Probably because of dehydration. I couldn't see the spot where Hugh turned off the highway, and somehow I wasn't sure how many times I'd run across the highway — not that it mattered really. I'd take the first car that showed, even if it was heading straight to Hell.

Oddly, in all my thinking, considering, planning, the one thing I didn't give much thought to was my new body. I was so wrapped up in the heat, in the walking, in which direction I was going, that I didn't have the energy to fuss about being female, being Deeny. Each time my mind driftedto the events on the spaceship, I turned away from those memories and thought about something else.

Then, finally, I saw a car.

While he was still miles off, not much larger than a dot, I started waving at him. I closed up my umbrella and shook it like a big flag. He flashed his lights at me and honked his horn to signal that he'd seen me.

After a seeming eternity he pulled up next to me and rolled down his passenger-side window. "What happened?" he asked.

"Oh, God!" I exclaimed. "What didn't happen? Can you give me a ride?"

"Yes, of course," he said. While we were talking, I didn't mean to be rude, but I kept flipping the door handle, trying to open the door. It was locked, though, and the guy didn't unlock it. "Don't open that door," he instructed. "You need to get in back. The front seatbelt doesn't work."

He had to repeat the same thing to me three times before it finally registered with me. Again, it was probably the effect of dehydration. In any case, I opened the back passenger-side door and climbed in. "What happened to you?" the driver repeated. "Did your car break down? Don't you have a phone? What on earth are you doing out in the desert, dressed like that?"

"Oh, God!" I exclaimed. "Long story. Long, complicated story. Hey — which way are we headed now? What town is up ahead?"

"It's Robbins," he answered, sounding a little puzzled. "Like your shirt."

"My shirt?"

"It says Robbins Police Department. Is that you? Are you a cop?"

"No, heh. I wish, though! But no, this isn't my shirt."

"Okay," he said. I was shifting around restlessly, and noticed he was watching me. His eyes were glued to the rear-view mirror.

"My name's Amos," he told me. "What's yours?"

"Uh— it's— uh, Deeny," I said, almost forgetting my new name. "I think I'm pretty dehydrated, Amos. Dangerously dehydrated. Do you have any water?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "There ought to be a bottle or two back there, rolling around." With that he swept his arm behind him, touching the floor between my feet, stretching to search under the front passenger seat. "Somewhere," he added. As he stretched his arm, his body followed, and his head turned completely around. He looked me full in the face, then his eyes dropped to my bare knees. His left hand (the hand on the steering wheel) followed the rest of his body, pulling the car to the right.

"Amos! Amos! Eyes on the road!" I exclaimed. "Eyes on the road!"

He quickly glanced forward and pulled the car straight. "Heh, sorry there!" he chuckled. "No worries! We're fine; we're fine."

"You almost drove off the road!" I pointed out.

His swerving caused a small bottle of water to roll out from under the driver's seat. I picked it up and showed him. "Can I drink this?"

"Sure! Sure! I think there might be more back there..." His hand continued to grope the floor near my feet, touching my ankle twice. He turned again to face me. "So where are you headed?"

I was busy making quick work of the water, so I didn't notice at first that he was staring between my legs.

He asked, "Do you have a place to go, when you get to Robbins?"

"Yeah,- my— uh—" I still had trouble thinking, and lapsed into silence for a few beats. "My hotel," I murmured.

"You want to go to a hotel?" Amos asked, grinning.

It was only when I said the words "my hotel" out loud that I understood something... something I should have understood earlier. There was no point in going to the hotel. They wouldn't know me. I wasn't Mason any more. If I were, even without my identification, I could have convinced them to let me into my room, but that wasn't possible any more. Alternatively, if I still had the room key, I could get into the room, take a shower, drink water, etc., and recover my money. Unfortunately my room key was now in the lost-and-found bin on an alien spacecraft...

No, everything in my hotel room was lost to me, unless I could break in and open the safe. Not very likely.

Aunt Hanna's car was lost to me as well. The key, after all, was up in the spaceship.

I couldn't call a locksmith; there was no way I could demonstrate ownership. I didn't have any money to pay a locksmith, anyway. So, goodbye, car!

"No," I said. "Never mind. No hotel. There isn't any point."

He seemed disappointed.

That's when I spotted the other car, up ahead. Amos didn't see it. His eyes were glued to the rear-view, looking at me as though I was a dish of candy. His arm was stretched back, his hand now touching my foot, his forearm resting against my calf, while he pretended to search for water...

"Amos!" I exclaimed. "Eyes on the road! God damn it! Eyes on the road! Come on, man! There's a car up ahead!"

He glanced at the car heading toward us. It was still a ways off. Amos jerked the wheel right, causing the car to wiggle and swerve into place. "We're fine," he repeated, and his eyes jerked back to the mirror. His car started drifting left, then right.

"God damn it, Amos! Keep your eyes on the road! There's a car coming, damn it! Watch that car!"

Finally he got a little anxious, but not enough. He did another slight course correction, wiggling the wheel.

We went through the same silly pantomime one more time, until I grabbed his head, turned it forward, and shouted, "LOOK AT THE ROAD!"

BAM! was the first noise, followed by crunches, metal squealing, glass breaking. There came a thousand small snaps and cracks, and the strange slow-motion non-sound of a car pivoting up in the air followed by the boom when it returned to earth. After all that, came the rhythmic crunch-and-release as the car did a full side-to-side rotation, three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, and then repeated the roll a second time. I was thrown forward, then backward. Upward against the inside roof of the car, and down again.

I don't remember getting hit in the head. I don't remember being thrown from the car. All I remember is the noise stopping, all at once. Followed by hissing and dripping and the roar of a car engine.

Suddenly, nothing made sense at all.

I landed on my butt in the desert, in a daze, looking around me, knowing nothing.

 

---

 

"And that's where I come in, isn't it," Wade commented. "I guess I know the rest."

"Yes, I guess you do," I agreed, surprised that I'd manage to reach the end of the story. It seemed at times that I'd have to keep talking forever.

"I will say this," Wade told me, "You tell it well. You certainly have the sincerity bit down pat. Big points on that score."

"Does that mean you believe me?" I asked.

He scoffed. "Are you kidding? Of course not! I don't believe a word!" After a pause, in which he regarded the two empty drink glasses on the table before him, he added, "I believe the real parts... the parts that could be real, I suppose. But the chunk that you cribbed from the Iodine Story is just... a non-starter. It's ridiculous and unoriginal. It's a big no from me."

He ran his finger along the rim of his glass. "There's really only one question I have to ask you. And not just me— I'm sure the police will ask you this as well: Did you really have amnesia? Or was that just an act?"

My jaw dropped. I stared at him, offended and surprised.

 

Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 23 (Final)

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

"That's an interesting expression," Mason said. "You wipe the slate clean. Why do you that?"
"To get rid of what's written on it," Dr. Ariel said, puzzled.
"No. It's because a slate is meant to be written on," Mason corrected.
"You wipe it clean so you can write something else on it."

— Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

---

 

Wade ran his finger along the rim of his glass. "There's really only one question I have to ask you: Did you really have amnesia? Or was that all an act?"

My jaw dropped. I stared at him, offended and surprised.

"It isn't just me who will ask that," he pointed out. "The police will ask you the same question, and if Fencely's disappearance goes as far as a grand jury, you can be sure they'll ask you the same thing."

"Of course I had amnesia!" I exclaimed. "Do you think I've been running around, pretending to be an idiot?"

"I didn't see you all that much," he pointed out. "And when I did see you, it wasn't as though we were probing your memories, if you recall."

"Okay," I said. "So what do I do?"

His eyebrows went up. "Are you asking me for legal advice?"

"Yes," I said. "That's why I'm here."

"I've repeated told you," he reminded me, "That I cannot give you any legal advice, other than to tell you to find yourself another lawyer. Someone other than me."

Just then my phone went off. The caller was a "Doctor Owens." I sent it to voicemail.

"Sorry," I said. Wade waved it off.

"Look," I said. "All I want to know is: what are my options?"

"Hold on," he told me, and went into another room. He returned with a sheet of blank paper and a pen.

"If anyone asks you," he said, uncapping the pen, "this is what I told you. Okay? This is everything I told you: the beginning and the end. I hope you understand: I need to protect myself."

He spoke as he wrote, and he wrote in a very neat, very legible hand. "First: If you want legal advice, you need to go to an attorney. I cannot give you legal advice. Is that clear?" I nodded. He continued, still writing as he spoke, "Second: Do not lie to the police."

There he stopped. He capped the pen and set it on the table. He pushed the paper in my direction.

"That's it?" I cried. "Don't lie to the police? Does that mean I should go to the police? Is that what you're telling me to do?"

"I suppose you could wait for them to come to you; that's your choice, but..." He scratched his head. "Those two policewomen... Do you find one of them easier to talk to? Friendlier? More open?"

"Sure. Tatum Scrattan. She's the police officer. Carly's a detective. She's a little pricklier, scarier."

"Right. And you have Tatum's number?" I nodded. "Call her. Ask her if she has time to meet you for coffee. Meet her and tell her your wild story and see what she says."

I sat there stunned, wordless. "That's your advice? Tell her my story? She's going to think I'm crazy!"

He nodded. "Crazy or lying, yes, that's probably what she'll think."

I made some inarticulate, helpless sounds, shaking my head. Then, "Then why I am telling her anything at all? Am I just supposed to hope for the best? Am I supposed to believe if I tell the truth, everything will come out fine in the end?"

Wade spread his hands flat on the table. "Look: if your story is bullshit, now is it the time to toss it aside and tell the simple truth. If, on the other hand, this is your story, and you're going to stick to it, you may as well tell it now and deal with the fallout. Otherwise, it will hang over you like the sword of Damocles."

I felt cheated. I felt like I'd been tricked. I wanted legal advice, but what Wade was telling me was no different from what the Bible woman told me down by the river.

"Should I go with a lawyer?" I asked him.

"Again," he stressed, "I'm not giving you any advice. I'm not going to tell you whether you do or don't need a lawyer."

"So... I *don't* need a lawyer?"

"I didn't say that. Don't put words in my mouth. Don't pretend I said anything more than what I actually said." He rubbed his hands together and set them back on the table. "Look, Deeny: having a lawyer doesn't magically make things easier. It doesn't magically save you from the consequences of your words and actions. For example, take a look at me. I don't think our auto accident was my fault, but it doesn't change the fact that I was driving drunk. All the lawyers on earth can't change that."

"But that's different," I protested.

"How is it different? If you have this story — which you know sounds crazy and false — you'll have to deal with the fact that most people, including the police, won't believe you. Two men have disappeared; that makes it a serious matter."

He let me stew in silence for a spell, then asked if I'd like some iced tea.

"No thanks," I said. "I guess I have a phone call to make." I stood up. "Thanks, Wade."

He made a shrugging gesture that said thanks for what? as if he'd done nothing. He stood up and handed me the sheet he'd written on. "Remember," he told me, pointing at the sheet. He walked me to the door.

 

---

 

I waited until I reached the nearest corner before I called Tatum.

"Hey, girl!" Tatum crooned, sounding relaxed and happy. "What can I do for you?" Her cheery, upbeat tone caught me off guard.

"Are you busy?" I asked.

"No, it's my day off—"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"No, no, it's fine! What's up?"

"Do you have time to meet for coffee? There are some things I want to tell you."

"Cool! Does this mean you got your memory back?"

"That's what I want to talk to you about."

"Should I pull Carly in?"

"Can I just talk to you first?"

"Sure! We can do that."

She asked where I was, then suggested we meet at the cafe in Cymbeline Circle.

 

---

 

Tatum was waiting for me at a table outside the cafe. She dressed very casually: jeans, sandals, and a red t-shirt with yellow lettering. It read, What does the fox say?

Curious, I asked her, "What *does* the fox say?"

"Oh," she replied, a little surprised. "Don't you know the song? It's been around for a while. Oh — you wouldn't know it, would you! Your amnesia, right?"

"No, it's not that. My amnesia is gone. I just never heard of that song."

"Oh, it's funny, it's silly. You'll like it. Anyway, great news, huh? No more amnesia! Now you remember everything, right?"

"Oh, yeah. It's great. SO great."

She studied my face. "And now you remember what happened to Hugh Fencely and Mason Rafflyan?"

"Yes."

She asked if she could record what I said, and I said yes. I sat down. She set her phone on the table between us, and I proceeded to tell her everything. I told it pretty much the way I told Wade, although this being the second go-around, I managed to streamline the story a bit, so it didn't take as long to tell.

Tatum listened. She didn't take notes. She didn't interrupt or ask questions.

When I finished, she looked at her hands for a few moments. Then she asked, "How many people have you told this story to?"

"Only one, so far."

"Was that person a lawyer?"

"Yes."

"But you didn't want to bring a lawyer with you here, now?"

"I don't know," I confessed. "I don't know whether I need one. I don't know whether I'm in trouble or what." When Tatum didn't respond, I asked her, "Am I in trouble?"

She twisted up her mouth to the side, thinking. Then she shook her head, which I took to mean No, you're not in trouble, but when she spoke, she said, "I don't know...," which didn't help me at all.

She drummed her fingers for a moment, took a deep breath, and turned off her recording. She leaned toward me, a little, and spoke quietly.

"You know, we were under a lot of pressure to close this case quickly. We were driven to find out what happened, find out who was responsible... if someone *was* responsible for something."

She paused. I had no idea where she was going in her explanation, if that's what it was.

Tatum looked me in the face. "I guess you know... I mean, you said you know... that Hugh is gay."

"Yeah, sure," I responded. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

Tatum continued in a low voice, "Also, you know — you seem to know — that Hugh isn't just a big guy; he's a big personality. He, uh, doesn't do anything halfway. Do you know what I'm saying?"

I shook my head. "I guess so... but—"

"The current thinking, the current theory, is that Hugh and Mason ran off together."

"What!?"

"The last time they were seen was at Ebbidles, like you said. They asked for a private table, a table in the back. Hugh told the waitress who sat them that they didn't want to be seen from the window. And... the waitress observed them holding hands throughout their meal."

"Oh, no — that's NOT how it was!" I objected, and found myself blushing. She put up her hand to quiet me.

"All the customers and staff in the restaurant that night saw them leave with their arms around each other, and Hugh was very excited, emotional, happy, and he said he was glad that Mason was up for it. Okay? Now, admittedly, we don't know what 'it' was, from the way the two of them behaved, we can make a pretty good guess."

"No," I said.

Tatum continued, "it seemed to all our witnesses that there was a strong interest there. We can call it a 'romantic' interest if you want me to spare your blushes, but the general impression was that it was sexual."

"No— come on!" I interrupted. "I told you—" She waved me off.

"See, the thing about *this* theory — that they were lovers who ran off together — it fits all the facts and answers all the questions."

"But—"

"You, on the other hand, have a wild story that can't be verified in any way. Not only that, it doesn't lead us anywhere. It's a collection of dead ends. Can you see that?"

"So... you don't believe me."

"Hello? Of course I don't believe you! I don't think you believe it yourself! Shit like that doesn't happen in real life. Besides, you obviously lifted the whole armored-toad-in-a-spaceship bit right out of the Iodine Story. Did you think that no one would notice?"

My hands dropped into my lap. I stared at her in dismay. "It's true, though! It really is!"

Tatum picked up the check, read it, and set it back on the table. "Can you get this?" she asked. I nodded.

"I'll tell you what we can do," Tatum told me. "I'll write up what you told me. It will be your official statement. I'll call you when it's ready and you can come in and sign it. Then I'll put it in the file. Okay?"

"But—"

"And then we're going to close the file. Basically, it's already closed, but you didn't hear that from me. Honestly, the only thing keeping it open was you. You were a kind of the last loose thread, with your missing memories and such."

"And now?"

Tatum smiled and turned up both her palms. "You're not a loose thread any more."

"I don't like it," I told her.

"At least you're off the hook," she pointed out.

 

---

 

After all that, after I settled the bill, I had to ask her something.

"Tatum, do you think I could be a cop?"

"You want to be a cop?" she asked, her eyes twinkling. "Wow. Well, I have to say, if you really want to be a cop, I don't think this story will help you get there."

"Oh."

"And you said you failed the civil-service test, right?"

"Yes."

"Twice?" She raised her eyebrows, as if to say, Draw your own conclusion.

"What about being a private investigator? Do you think I have a shot at that?"

"A PI? You think that if you can't be a cop, you could be a private investigator? You know what? Being a PI is *harder* than being a cop. It's a business, and businesses don't run themselves. Besides the investigating, you have to do all businessy stuff — taxes and paperwork and whatnot. AND you have to find work for yourself. Cases doesn't come flowing in just because you hang out your shingle."

Then Tatum grinned and pulled me into a hug. "Listen," she said, "one last thing: if I were you, I'd keep this story to yourself. Don't go writing a sequel to the Iodine Story, okay? Nobody wants to see that."

"It's a deal," I told her.

She grinned and stepped in close, sotto voce: "We don't need another Charlotte in Robbins, okay?"

 

---

 

I left her and headed up the hill to Lucy and Hermie's house. On my way there, Barney called. Out of the blue. I answered right away; I felt the need to make some kind of apology.

"Hey," he said. "Is it okay that I call?"

"Yes, yes! I'm glad you did. I'm sorry about running out on you; about running away."

"Whatever," he replied. "You had your reasons. I won't pretend it didn't hurt, but you had your reasons. Are you okay?"

"Yes, sure. Yes, I'm fine."

"Did you get your memories back? Is that why you left?"

"More or less, yes. That's what happened."

He took a breath.

"Must have been a shock, I guess."

"Yes, you could say that."

"And now that you remember everything, are we good?" he asked.

"We're not bad," I replied, smiling.

He sounded somewhat relieved. "Okay. Well... that's something, anyway. I can take 'not bad' at this point. So, uh, is there anything you want to tell me? Anything we need to talk about?"

"Uh, no," I said. "Nothing comes to mind at the moment."

"Okay," he said. "Well, um, keep me in mind, in case that changes. Any time, day or night."

"Okay," I told him, tickled by his day or night, but wanting to be conciliatory, I replied with a simple, "Will do."

 

---

 

Tatum's mention of loose threads made me think of Dr Thistlewaite for some reason. I still had a ways to go before reaching the house, so I gave the good doctor a call.

"Hey, Doctor, it's Deeny Lisente."

"Oh, hello. How are you doing? So... no more Perry Mason? you decided to go with your birth name?"

"Oh, uh, yes, my birth name. I guess so. And yeah, anyway, I'm good. I'm calling because I wanted to let you know that my memories came back!"

"That's good to hear," he replied. I was a disappointed, even taken aback, by his lack of enthusiasm. I expected him to be more excited. As we talked more, I did get the feeling that he was disappointed, as though I was telling him about a party he missed; a party he wasn't invited to.

Thistlewaite was deeply invested in my amnesia. He really wanted to be there when my memories returned. He wanted to watch them surface.

He asked me to describe how it happened. I told him, although I left out the presence of Barney and the way I ran off on tiptoe. I pretty much limited my story to the way I woke up one morning, remembered a song, realized I'd remembered something, and that all my memories were magically there, as if the shelves were restocked when I wasn't looking. As if nothing had ever been missing.

"So it simply happened? It was, like, a non-event? It wasn't a shock or surprise or anything?"

"Oh, it was a shock alright!" I replied. "I actually threw up!"

"Interesting," he said, sounding puzzled. "You threw up?"

"Well, I'm all better now," I assured him.

"Okay," he replied. "I'm glad you're better. If you ever feel like coming in and talking about it more, I'd be happy to see you. But right now, look — I'm sorry to cut this short, but I've got to go. I've got a patient here, waiting."

Okay. That was pretty anticlimactic. Still, I felt I owed him that much.

 

---

 

When I got home, Lucy was in the kitchen, packing away meals she'd prepared.

"Everything smells so good!" I complimented her.

"Thanks," she replied, looking me over. I think she expected to see me at least a little bit disheveled, showing signs of an amorous rendezvous. Failing that, she struggled to find a barb to toss, and had to settle for a mild one: "Looks like you avoided falling into bed this time! Didn't you go to the lawyer's house?"

"Yes, I did, as a matter of fact."

"And, uh, he didn't, you didn't, um—"

"No, he didn't come to the door in his legal briefs," I offered. "We actually talked about a legal issue."

"Oh! And did he mind that you kicked him to the curb?"

"Oh, what?" I said. Now she rattled me. "Oh, well, uh, I think he— uh—"

"It's okay," she laughed. "I'm just teasing."

She followed that statement with a searching look, so before she asked another question I told her, "My memories are back. No big deal, but the amnesia is gone."

"Good news, right?"

"Yeah," I breathed. "Good news."

"So... what about your ex-fiance?"

"What about him?"

"Your memories are back. Is that good for him or bad for him?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. Although it's funny you should mention him: He just called me, like five minutes ago."

"What did he want?"

I blew out a breath and shook my head. "Dunno. I guess he was just checking in."

"Okay. That's nice, isn't it?"

The two of us stood there for a few moments. Neither of us had anything to say, until she observed, "Is that your phone that's been buzzing?"

It was the voicemail from Dr Owens. She'd called while I was busy with Wade. I gave it a listen. Dr Owens, as it turned out, was a woman. She said that I'd missed an appointment this morning. "Give me a call, Deeny, I'm sure you want to reschedule as soon as possible, right? I've got some openings tomorrow. But if you want one of them, you have to call. Okay?"

I moved into the living room for the sake of privacy and called her back. I apologized for missing the appointment, explaining about the accident and amnesia.

"Wow, that's just wild!" she responded. "But you're okay, now, aren't you?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine."

"Okay, great, well, look, Deeny, I'm sure you want to get in here as soon as you can. I have an opening tomorrow at two. Does that work for you?"

"Um, look, Dr Owens, there are still some things I still don't remember... so don't be offended, but, uh, can you tell me, what kind of doctor are you? Are you, like, my GP?"

She laughed. "No, hon. I'm an OB/GYN. I've been your gynecologist since you were thirteen."

My gynecologist? "Okay. So what is this about? A routine checkup?"

"Oh, my God! No, really! Deeny, are you telling me that you don't remember?"

"No, honestly, I don't."

"Wow! Alright. So, last Monday you called me because you did a home pregnancy test—"

"A what!?"

"—and it was positive."

I couldn't speak for a few moments. Then, grasping at straws, I asked, "It could have been a false positive though, couldn't it?"

"Oh, hon. It's... unlikely. I mean, anything is possible, but frankly a false negative is far more likely than a false positive. You did say you were careful to wait for a week after you missed your period, so—"

"Holy shit," I said, and sank into a chair.

"See, and that means you're about six weeks into it."

"Six weeks pregnant? How is that even possible?"

Dr Owens laughed. "Come on, now. The birds and the bees. You must know by now, don't you? Anyway, you need to come in and get checked out as soon as possible, right? So, is tomorrow good?"

"I'm in Robbins," I blathered.

"Are you staying there? Or just visiting? You are coming back home, aren't you?"

"I guess I have to?"

She paused. "Well, that's up to you. What's important is that you see *somebody* at this point." She paused again, and speaking gently said, "Okay. Listen, once all this sinks in, call me and make an appointment. I'll fit you in. But don't sit on this. Don't wait on it. Okay, Deeny?"

"But wait, but wait. So, six weeks? That's from—"

"From your last period, the one before the one you missed."

"Okay," I said, "so you start counting there — but that's just a convention, right?"

"A convention? You mean, like it's just a thing we do, but it doesn't mean anything?"

"Yes, I guess, that."

"No," she replied, firmly. "It's real. Based on that, I can tell you your due date."

"My due date," I echoed, in a weak voice.

"Do you want to know your due date? Or will that freak you out completely?"

"Um, it would freak me out," I told her.

"Okay." She took a deep breath, and asked me to take one as well.

"Listen, Deeny, you're going to be a lot calmer after you come in and let me get a look at you. We can have a talk and go through everything."

"But hey—" I interrupted. "After the car accident, a doctor looked me over. Wouldn't she have noticed if I was actually pregnant?"

Dr Owens was quiet for a few moments. Then she said, "No, if she wasn't looking for it, and if you didn't tell her, she could easily miss it. Did she do a pelvic exam?"

"No."

Silence. Then, "Dumb question, here, but if she didn't do a pelvic exam, I'm guessing she didn't do an ultrasound?"

"Um, no."

More silence. Then, "How many days ago was this accident?"

"About a week. It was last Tuesday."

"Okay," Dr Owens sounded slightly relieved. "And since the accident, have you had any spotting, any cramps or abdominal pains?"

"Spotting?" I asked.

"Blood," she clarified. "Come on, Deeny. Don't play dumb."

"No, none of that."

"Okay. Well, listen. Get back here, okay? Don't fool around. As soon as you know when you'll arrive in Mariola, call my office. We will fit you in. Will you do that?"

 

---

 

After the call ended, I was so blown away I didn't see or hear Lucy enter the room. "Everything okay?" she asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I'm pregnant," I told her.

"Oh, wow! So... Congratulations? Is this happy news or scary news?"

"At the moment, it's pure scary."

"Dare I ask: Is it the lawyer's or the ex-fiance's?"

"It's not the lawyer's," I answered.

"Ohh-kay," she said.

 

---

 

I didn't know what to do, so I called Cameron.

Before I even told her why I phoned her, she asked, "Am I the first person you've called?"

"Yes," I replied, a little nettled. "It sounds like you already know why I'm calling."

"Well... maybe..." she said, laughing, teasing. "Why don't you tell me, just in case we're thinking about two different things."

I told her.

"Cool! Congratulations! I'm glad I rate the first call. I knew already, though."

"How? Did Dr Owens tell you?"

"No, of course not! She would never do that! Sheba told me."

"Sheba? How did *she* know?"

"She found a test stick in your bathroom trash. She was going to ask you about it when she came to Robbins, but you pissed her off, so she didn't say anything."

"She knew I was pregnant and didn't tell me?"

"Well no. At that moment, no. See, there was no red line on the stick. It must have faded away. So she couldn't know. She wanted to ask you about it."

"Then how could she tell you?"

"Dr Owens called Mamma's house this morning. You missed an appointment! Sheba answered the phone, so she asked, Is this about Deeny's positive pregnancy test?"

"The little devil! And then she told you?"

"Right."

A thought occurred to me. "Could she have told Barney?"

"She could, I don't know. I don't see why she would, though. Why do you ask?"

"Barney called me today. Wanted to know if I had something to tell him." Another thought hit me: "Oh my God — did Sheba tell Mamma?"

Cameron laughed. "Did Mamma call you?"

"No."

"Then Sheba didn't tell her. Listen, this might be a good time to call your little sister, make peace with Sheba."

"Good idea." One more thought: "Hey, can I ask you: what do you and Sheba have against Barney?"

"Oh, come on. Do you really want to get into that now?"

"Yes, I do. It's a serious question."

"I don't want to tell you and then have you screaming at me for what I said."

"I promise, I won't."

"Okay, it's pretty simple: The two of you together get up to some pretty wild hijinks. Things that aren't funny at all and are potentially harmful, both to yourselves and to others. Can I leave it at that?"

"Is it possible... have you considered... that maybe it was *me* who goaded Barney into doing... whatever we did? That it was all on me?"

Cameron was silent for a bit. "I guess that possible," she admitted. "The 'all on you' part, no, not really. It's the pair of you, together. That said, since you've been gone, Barney's been very quiet. Calm. Polite. I hesitate to use the word subdued, but it fits. And I probably shouldn't tell you, but he's sad. Almost sad. It's an interesting change."

After a pause she laughed and said, "Maybe your amnesia had a positive effect on him, too!"

We laughed. Then, after a moment of silence, I ventured the thought, "I guess I ought to make my way back... to Mariola."

"Mmm," Cameron said. "You probably should. There *is* a bus. Robbins to Aldusville to Mariola. The schedule's probably online."

"No private plane, then?" I asked, half-joking, but hopeful.

"How's your day-trading going?" she asked drily, by way of answer.

 

---

 

I called Sheba. She started out sullen, but got more excited, happy, enthusiastic, as the call went on.

Near the end of the call I thanked her for not telling Mamma. "Of course I didn't," she replied.

"I don't think I could deal with her... reactions," I said.

"It's not just that," Sheba said.

"What do you mean?"

"I want to respect your choices," she said in a firm tone.

"Ah, okay. Got it. Well, thanks," I told her.

"Sure," Sheba replied. "Listen, I gotta go, but can you do me a favor and quit being weird, talking weird? Can you do that?"

"I'll try," I promised.

When I finished the call with Sheba, I sat down with Lucy and Hermie to talk it out.

"You're going back?" Lucy asked. "You aren't going to be my big sister in the basement?"

"I'll stay in touch," I told them. "I don't know whether I'm going to want to stay in Mariola. I have to see. I appreciate all that you did for me, especially when I had no idea who I was."

"It's what people do," Hermie told me with an aw-shucks shrug.

"If your baby's a little girl, call her Lucy, and we'll be even," Lucy told me, laughing.

 

---

 

Last of all, I called Barney. He knew already, obviously. He'd heard through the Bro hotline: He didn't come out and say it, but clearly Cameron's husband Andre had told him.

Barney had a question for me. Or a statement, rather: "When we had that fight by the dumpster," he said, "you knew you were pregnant, didn't you."

I hadn't put it together until he said it, but— "Yes, I must have — yes, I did."

"That puts a different complexion on it, then, doesn't it?"

"I guess it does."

"Alright," he acknowledged, and asked, "Now, tell me: are you happy? frightened? or what?"

"I'm scared to death, Barney. I feel like I'm standing on a cliff."

"Um, well, um, well, I'm kinda scared too, if you don't mind hearing me say so. Can you imagine, while you're there on your cliff, that I'm next to you, holding your hand?"

"I'll try," I told him.

"Do you know what you want to do?"

"I don't," I said. "I have to get back to Mariola, see Dr Owens, do some talking, some thinking..."

"Well, look," he said. "There are no rules for you and me. We don't need to follow any convention, or anybody else's expectations.. We'll do what's right for you and me, won't we? That's the only rule for you and me."

"You and me and our little whoever," I said.

He laughed. "Here's to our little whoever!"

"Yikes," I said.

"Yep," he agreed. "It's all yikes from here on in."