Unforgettable

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Susan watched them go. The hotel personnel all but took the door off the hinges in their haste to please.

  The crowd was satisfied. A girl as beautiful as that, it was only right that she should be rich enough to stay at The Jayquith. This was just the right father for her, too: distinguished and worldly. And, of course, she had a shrink. These super-rich kids, they knew their shrinks better than their mothers.

  It was getting late, and people were tired.

  The crowd broke up to consider important things, like which restaurant would be the best end to a long day.

  Susan wondered if maybe Michael would fire her for taking too much of a break. She would love to be fired. There had to be a better way to earn a dollar. Why hadn’t she been born to Jayquith Hotel money? She returned slowly to work.

  Mitch knew exactly what his sister Ginger would say about Hope’s character, and family, and how he should scrupulously avoid them.

  Mitch, however, could have lifted Hope’s footprints off the pavement and bottled her scent from the air. Hope, he thought. I love that name. It’s perfect. It’s the name I’ve been waiting for.

  All I need now is the last name to go with it.

  And the phone number of course.

  Not to mention the first date.

  Hope could feel the man’s humiliation. She could almost feel the history of their relationship: how she always hurt him, and he somehow went on being a loving father anyway. It shamed her to look upon his face, and see that tired endurance. She must have put those lines there. She must be responsible for those gray streaks.

  What she could not feel was any sense of familiarity.

  Hope? she thought. I am a spoiled brat debutante? A daughter who makes absurd pathetic attempts to get attention? I am rich? I live in a hotel suite? In Boston?

  She could get nothing out of it. She could connect nothing to it.

  She was having such trouble breathing now she was all but shoveling air into her lungs.

  Mitch had been watching her every reaction. She felt kinship with him; felt she’d known Mitch far longer than this man so politely escorting her away.

  Right. Fifteen minutes longer.

  I don’t have to go, she thought. I can say no. I can walk away. I can hold onto this Mitch McKenna and wait the father out.

  She tried to separate things: find common sense, find logic. But too much was happening and neither common sense nor logic came to mind.

  She went with the man in the light gray suit into whatever world Hope occupied.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Susan Nevilleson, who actually did believe it. “Amnesia. Piffle.”

  “You never believe anything,” Mitch pointed out. “You’re the most skeptical person I know.” Mitch was mostly thinking about what he could identify: the husky, close-to-tears voice that made him want to hug that gorgeous girl again. The hug he had given but, also, the hug which Hope hadn’t returned. He wanted her to return his hug. He wanted to feel the pressure of her against him, a two-way hug, the best hug. And that extraordinary hair, dark but sunny, that he wanted to twine between his fingers and brush across his lips.

  Mitch remembered Ginger, which brought him down to earth somewhat. You love hair that much, Mitch, quit Harvard and go to hair-dressing school.

  Susan, staring out the restaurant window, pretended to wait at Ben Franklin and Mitch McKenna’s table for some detailed special order. Flags whipped on tall poles. The final harbor tour boat was returning, and hundreds of passengers lined the immense bow. A reception had begun on the wedding-for-hire boat, and the bridesmaids, wearing a yellow so bright that Susan thought the guests should be handed sunglasses, were lining up for photographs. A Friday afternoon wedding. Susan wanted to marry Mitch, and she wanted a Saturday evening wedding. It seemed wiser not to discuss this with Mitch right now.

  The little commuter boat, which took businessmen to their homes across the water, rocked as the passengers trooped steadily aboard. Beyond these, down a steep wooden connector, and across a narrow wooden dock, a magnificent private motor yacht was tied up. The Lady Hope. Her paint was a vivid indigo blue, and she gleamed as if, over the paint, she wore many coats of clear nail polish. Susan felt that she herself had great yacht potential. She tried to imagine having enough money to possess a boat like that.

  Not that it was a boat Susan wanted to possess. She turned her attention back to Mitch. “If you’re so worried,” said Susan, “you should storm The Jayquith. Demand to see her.”

  Ben Franklin was confused. “Why should he do that, Susan?” Ben Franklin’s real name was Rusty Corder, the first name a leftover elementary school joke. All his college friends had adopted his summer job name. Even though he had long since put away his rimless glasses, and neatly hung his wig on a hook, he was still Ben Franklin.

  “Because Mitch doesn’t think she knew the man,” said Susan. “And the father refused to provide proof. Therefore she’s being kidnapped.”

  Ben Franklin was exasperated. “Mitch, there’s a lot missing from your plot. Why should the guy have to prove anything to you? And besides, why would you kidnap a person you don’t know?”

  “Either,” said Susan, who often answered questions directed to other people, “because you do know who she is, and she’s rich and is worth a fabulous ransom, or because it doesn’t matter who she is. You have evil plans for her no matter what.” Susan smiled gladly.

  It seemed to Ben Franklin that you shouldn’t be so happy at the idea of evil plans for that girl no matter what. “I’m not sure how easy it would be to get past the front desk at The Jayquith, anyway,” he said. “That’s why movie and rock stars go there. Because groupies can’t penetrate the security.” Ben Franklin watched Susan, whom he adored. Of course, she had to go and adore a stud. Namely Mitch. Mitch was flawless: every muscle developed; all profiles perfect; always tanned and never burned. His haircuts looked good even the first day. His eyesight was 20/20 and his voice was a beautiful tenor.

  Plus Mitch was rich. Oh, he pretended not to be. He was clandestine about his wealth. The budget-conscious schoolboy. Please. Everybody knew who had wealth, and Mitch was known. He persisted in thinking that he had pulled off his poverty act.

  Susan, of course, was just as drawn to Mitch’s family money as she was to his body and soul.

  Ben felt tired. He wasn’t amazingly brilliant, he wasn’t terrifically handsome, he wasn’t awesomely rich. He wasn’t a world-class athlete nor a world-burner in some fascinating subject. He was just solid. In all too many ways.

  He was the only one of them who had actually gotten an acting job this summer, but it wasn’t that great. He didn’t want to be remembered as Ben Franklin. Okay, so Rusty Corder was a dumb name. But it was him, and he wanted people to like him, not his stage self. Especially Susan. He loved how small she was. How cute.

  Nevertheless, he said out loud, cutting himself off at the knees, “What exactly would make you bother with Miss Amnesia at all, Mitch?” said Ben. “I mean, aside from the fact that she is physically perfect and unbelievably gorgeous.”

  “I’m in love with her,” said Mitch.

  Susan wanted to cry. Men. Boys. Ugh.

  I can’t bear it, she thought. He’s falling head over heels in love with somebody else while I’m right here next to him. “Life isn’t a chapter out of a storybook,” she yelled at Mitch. “You can’t just pick a girl off the sidewalk because she’s beautiful, and decide this is your eternal romance.”

  “Sure you can. My father did.”

  Mitch was the only person Susan knew whose parents were perfect. Mitch had no my-childhood-was-rotten stories. Mitch had no my-parents-always-fought stories. Mitch had no you’ll-never-catch-me-getting-married stories.

  “Don’t tell me about your father,” said Susan testily.

  But of course Mitch told her about his father.

  “Parents are boring!” Susan grumbled. “Talk about us.”

  Mitch grinned. There was no “us.”

/>   “It’s Friday night,” Susan observed gloomily, wishing that tonight, after the restaurant closed, she and Mitch would become an Us. She turned her face away from Ben Franklin, who was gearing up to ask her out again. Couldn’t he see that she had standards? And he didn’t reach them?

  Ben Franklin never kept up. Even in drama class, Ben had to have things explained to him over and over, in infuriating detail. Most people in drama class fantasized about beating Ben up even more often than they fantasized about being great actors. Susan wasn’t going out with Ben.

  Mitch picked up on none of this. He stared across the darkening square at the Lady Hope. The girl with the similar name floated lightly in the sea of his mind.

  Every surface of The Jayquith gleamed. Jet-black marble graced the floor. Silver pearl papered the walls. The dark sofas in the lobby were glitter-woven with metallic threads. Forests of dark ferns filled immense baskets of moss. It was remote and cold. It was a place where no one would gather to chat. Laughter would not ring, and giddiness would be out of place.

  Lobby hardly seemed the word. It was more like the elegant waiting rooms of palaces. Nor did hotel guests sit on the luxurious sofas. They strode through as if they never sat. Their lives too busy for mere sitting.

  Dreamy French piano music was played by a half-hidden musician, whose sleek black dinner jacket perfectly matched his black concert grand.

  It was music to be rich by.

  The girl with amnesia needed a different kind of music. Music to match her heart, which was going crazy trying to pump enough energy into her system. Music to match her thoughts, which were crashing like lightning from sky to earth.

  She felt surrounded by an army. All these uniformed people might have been employees of this strange man, and she might have been taken prisoner. As if this were no hotel at all, and never took guests, but merely pretended to do so.

  Yet the man patted her shoulder easily and gently; he had done it a thousand times before; he was just a father comforting his daughter. “Sweetie,” he said, “I never know what’s going on with you, but I do know this. We’ve fumbled our way through a lot of scenes, and now we’re going to fumble through this one.”

  They were not fumbling. They were moving as speedily as marathoners. Or was it her failing heart that made this seem so demanding? Perhaps along with everything else that had slipped out of focus, even her walk was receding.

  “Now, Hope,” he said softly, “it’s going to be all right.”

  They were passing through reception rooms like swifts heading south. Before them lay the double doors of three elevators.

  I cannot get into an elevator and enter a hotel room with someone I’ve never seen before in my life, Hope thought.

  Yet the man was a father. She could feel him being a father. The kind of father every girl wanted: strong and firm, kind and understanding.

  But I don’t know him.

  “I think I see what has happened,” he went on.

  A glittering hotel employee, dressed like a British soldier on the wrong side of the ocean, stood by the elevators. Two of those elevators could be opened by pressing UP or DOWN buttons. The third elevator required a key. The man smiled at them. “Good evening, sir.” He bowed slightly to Hope.

  Do you recognize me? thought Hope. Do I live here?

  Hope’s escort paid not the slightest attention to the elevator attendant. The man could have been an urn of lilies for all the response he got.

  “You went out shopping,” the father reminded her. “You wanted that new handbag. Remember? You left about noon.”

  It was true; she could remember a moment of wanting a new handbag. She tried to hang onto that moment, as she tried to hang onto her feet. Stop at the edge of this elevator, she said to herself. Don’t cross that crack.

  “I think you saw that terrible event in front of the hotel. That most unfortunate woman. We live in dreadful times. Considering the past and your nightmares, Hope, you have every right to be so deeply shocked. But I think we can work it through.”

  What unfortunate woman? What past? Work through to what? Who are you?

  And over and over again, like a drum roll, she thought, Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

  The elevator doors opened. Inside, the cubicle was lined with gaudy red and gold paper that seemed to have nothing to do with the dark sophisticated elegance of the hotel. It was like a circus, a totally wrong place, a clue if she had ever seen one that she, too, was in a totally wrong place.

  She could have refused to go with the man. She could have thrown herself down on the floor, yelled for the police. Could have screamed, I don’t know this man! She even looked down at the floor to decide. The black marble was like sky in a thunderstorm, and the white veins in it, circles of lightning.

  But she did nothing. Perhaps it was the elegant shimmer surrounding them; the quick pace of the guests; the urgent errands of the staff. Scenes did not belong in The Jayquith.

  Or perhaps it was momentum. The thing had a speed of its own.

  She thought of the rules for situations in which you sensed trouble: scream, kick, run. Give them your money, give them your jewels. Never, never, let yourself be taken hostage.

  Am I about to become a hostage?

  Or a daughter in need of a shrink?

  Chapter 4

  “GO ON, MITCH,” SAID Susan. “Take a chance! Live dangerously! Storm The Jayquith!” Why am I encouraging him? she thought. The last thing I want is for Mitch to see more of Miss Amnesia. “Demand proof!” she went on giddily. “If they feed you to the sharks, we’ll throw you a life preserver.”

  Because it’s so dramatic, she thought. I love the stage so much, I’m willing to do anything for drama, even if it’s the end of my hopes.

  The end of her hopes would be Hope. Perhaps there was a poem in that, or rock lyrics, and she could make a fortune by—

  “They don’t call them life preservers anymore,” said Ben, who was no poet, “because they often fail to preserve life. They just keep your chin above water if you’re lucky. Now they’re throwable personal flotation devices.”

  “Cute,” said Susan.

  “I believe,” said Mitch, “that Hope needs a throwable flotation device right now. Namely me.” He flexed his shoulders in anticipation.

  Ben laughed at him. “She already got rescued by a billionaire, Mitch,” Ben pointed out. “The guy has a suite at The Jayquith. She’s going to leave with a nineteen-year-old T-shirt seller? And what if she does come with you? Is somebody here planning to adopt her?”

  “You’re looking too far ahead,” said Mitch. “I’m just entertaining myself on a slow Friday night in July. The beach is too far away and Paul Revere’s house is closed.” Mitch was beginning to get an idea: a stage scene, complete with dialogue.

  Michael, the headwaiter, mentioned that it would be nice if Susan paid attention to her other tables. Nobody paid any more attention to Michael than Susan paid to her tables.

  “Mitch, Miss Amnesia went into The Jayquith without screaming,” said Ben Franklin. “You saw her. She doesn’t want to be rescued. Her father doesn’t want her to be rescued.”

  “And do we have proof that he’s her father?” demanded Mitch. Suppose, he thought, that I confronted the father and said that somebody else had been looking for this same girl! Then he’d have to prove to me that he’s her father, wouldn’t he?

  “No,” said Ben Franklin, “but the man’s had a long day. Whatever is going on, I don’t see him being very welcoming to some college kid who wants to practice his drama club improvisation class.”

  Mitch loved improv. It was scary, up on stage with strangers, not a minute to think about what to do, just winging it, making up the lines as you went, responding to whatever the others said. When he was on stage, he truly lived his part. He wasn’t Mitch McKenna, whoever that was. He was his role.

  I know, thought Mitch, figuring out his skit. I’ll say that some handsome college guy has been asking people if they’ve seen
his girlfriend, who didn’t show up for a date she would never have missed. I’ll say he had a photograph of her. I’ll say it sure looked like the very same person who was just claimed as his daughter. I’ll need a name. What name shall I give this supposedly missing girlfriend supposedly searched for by this supposed boyfriend?

  Mitch stood up. Six-two. Hundred and eighty. He took a deep breath and the T-shirt stretched. Susan giggled. “The Improv God,” she told him. Mitch bowed, in complete agreement. I’ll name my nonexistent missing girlfriend Susan, he decided. Easy to remember.

  Ben Franklin said, “Don’t, Mitch. There’s something wrong with the picture. You don’t wanna be in it.”

  Mitch grinned. The grin was so wide, so delighted, so masculine, that Susan blinked back tears.

  “I do want to be in Hope’s picture,” Mitch said. He got up from the table, handing Susan to her headwaiter, and the check to Ben Franklin. “Pardon me,” he said. “I have a hotel to crash.”

  They entered the elevator, just the two of them, and fluidly it moved upward. She pressed back against the inside wall and the velvety flocked circus paper was soft against her bare skin.

  But the father only sighed. Facing the closed doors, patiently waiting to reach their floor, he said tiredly, “You need dinner, Hope. You’re light-headed.”

  What a perfect description. She actually felt as if her skull had lost weight, ceased to be bone, was light and wind, and floating away from her.

  They got off at the seventh floor.

  Nothing—not one thing—was familiar to Hope.

  The door was held for her, and she walked into the suite in The Jayquith.

  Oh, but it was beautiful! You didn’t need a memory to appreciate such beauty. An immense living room sparkled as if with precious stones. Pearl, ruby, and amethyst. Huge windows were the perfect height above the wonderful harbor view.

  The room floated, like a magic carpet.

  She was awestruck … and a stranger.

  Yet splendid as the room was, it was definitely a hotel room. Luxuriant drapes, deeply stuffed sofas, gleaming cherry furniture, perfect symmetry, flawless condition … and not a single personal possession.