Unforgettable

by Caroline B. Cooney

  By junior high, he sensed that you were not supposed to shuffle a girl off on somebody else. If she had a crush on you, she had a crush on you, and there you were.

  Mitch was guaranteed a lot of tears. But Mitch was good with tears. The thing was not to run away screaming, which was a reasonable boy’s reaction. The thing was to sit there and hand them your handkerchief, which hopefully was unused, and wait till it ended. They did all the talking, and you just had to nod and mop up.

  He gave her a crispy white handkerchief, thinking of his bandanna, wanting Hope to keep it forever.

  “There was no reason!” cried Derry. “Absolutely none! I’ve done everything just right! And they need me, Mitch! I was the only woman! They have to have a stewardess aboard because the female guests don’t like it when there are only men. The captain promised to give me recommendations. He just said that they couldn’t use me anymore.” Derry was sobbing and frantic.

  Mitch maintained a perfect one-handed hug while he managed a tourist transaction with his other hand. Size XXL Boston skyline in purple.

  Derry had curly hair, light brown, streaked by the sun. It did not compare to Hope’s. Nothing compared to Hope’s anything. Mitch smoothed Derry’s hair back, a nice safe neutral act of comfort, and pretended it was Hope’s hair. Hope, with whom he did not want things safe or neutral.

  “I didn’t even get to go aboard and pack my own things, Mitch!” Derry cried out. “The Senneths just handed my stuff to me! You would have thought I was some executive being fired from some huge company and they thought I would steal their precious formulas. Oh, Mitch, I tried so hard and I thought I was doing so well.”

  Mitch stared at her. “The Senneths?” He was astonished. “The Senneths own Lady Hope?” Wow. Hope not only has a suite at The Jayquith—she’s even got a yacht named for her. “Tell me about Hope,” he said to Derry.

  “She’s a wonderful boat. You know how it is when you crew. The owner’s hardly ever aboard, and you feel like it’s your own boat and you fall in love with her. You use the owner’s Jacuzzi and the owner’s bed and VCR and the bar and the Wave Runner and—”

  “No, no, Hope the person.”

  “There is no ‘Hope the person.’”

  “Yes, there is, I met her.”

  “Well, I haven’t met her. I’ve only met Kaytha the abnormal.”

  Kaytha Senneth. Mitch frowned, thinking.

  She had to be the girl who kept buying T-shirts. The one who flirted with him so annoyingly, and actually seemed to think he would ask her out because she bought a T-shirt every day. She had told him her name at least fifty times. Kaytha. And given him her phone number.

  Well, well, well. He just might have the phone number of Hope’s suite at The Jayquith.

  Derry made a face and took a deep breath. “Mitch, I have nowhere to stay.” The look of panic in her eyes was as deep as he’d seen yesterday in Hope’s. “I’m in Boston, which is a city I don’t know at all, we’ve never sailed here before, we’re normally at Deer Isle in the summer and in the Bahamas for winter. I don’t know a single person in Boston except you, Mitch.”

  “Do you have any money?” said Mitch. Money was key.

  Derry shook her head no. “I spent everything just yesterday. I went shopping at Quincy Market. They have such cute shops there, Mitch.”

  Mitch could not stand conversations about shopping. “I’ll ask my friend Susan if you can spend tonight at her place. She has a futon you can roll out. It’s totally uncomfortable, but you can start trolling for a new job tomorrow and things will work out, Derry, I’m sure they will.”

  “Here she comes,” muttered Derry, wiping away tears. “I can’t stand seeing her. She’s creepy. I’m out of here, Mitch.”

  When Hope was fully dressed, feeling safer, somehow, inside her own clothing, she pulled herself together physically: drawing in her muscles, stiffening her spine, filling her lungs. Now what? she thought.

  “Do we go shopping today, Hopester?” said Kaytha in her bright brittle voice. “I adore shopping.”

  Hope jumped badly. “I thought you were asleep,” she said, frightened out of all proportion to the event.

  “With you bumbling around pretending you don’t know where your own clothing is? Really, Hopesy.” Kaytha slid out of her bed. She, too, slept nude, and although she and Hope were the same height, had the same bones, Kaytha was horrifyingly thin.

  “Kaytha, aren’t you well? You’ve got to eat more. I can count your ribs. You look like starvation.”

  Kaytha said, “I love my body like this.”

  Hope found herself worried for Kaytha. “You need a big breakfast,” said Hope. “How about oatmeal or Wheaties? Certainly orange juice. Eggs and bacon.”

  “That’s disgusting. All that fat? You don’t eat like that, do you?”

  We live together, thought Hope. She must know how I eat.

  “You adore shopping, don’t you?” said Kaytha.

  “I love shopping,” said Hope, which was certainly true, “but I don’t have any money.”

  “You went and lost your purse. Uncle Ken will advance you money till your trust check arrives.”

  Hope considered that sentence. A very wealthy-sounding sentence. A very tempting sentence. Uncle Ken will advance you money till your trust check arrives. Hope drew chilly air into her lungs. Oxygen didn’t help.

  Kaytha dressed this time in a rather long and puffy flowered skirt with a romantic little crocheted top. Again it did not match the hair style. Her body had a separate personality from her head.

  Together the girls walked out of the bedroom and down the hall to the sitting room. Mr. Senneth was reading The Boston Globe as he sipped his coffee. “Good morning, girls,” he said, not looking up.

  This is so strange, thought Hope. I don’t even know these people, and they are so used to me, they don’t bother to glance my way. Good morning, girls. As if my cousin and I do this all the time, every day.

  Of course, this morning, the room was slightly familiar. She had been here before. She had sat on that couch and looked down at that coffee table. But this morning, her thinking was even more skewed. “I feel as if I should be doing something more important than having coffee,” she said to them. “I should be trying to figure out who—I mean what—”

  “We know who you are,” said Kaytha irritably, “so you can skip that part, Hopester. As for what you are, you are basically very annoying. The thing here is to find your purse.”

  “My purse,” she repeated.

  “Hopesy. The necklace? The reason why we’re all in Boston?” Kaytha was like a truly put-upon baby-sitter with a truly annoying little kid.

  Mr. Senneth said, “Kaytha. Calm down. Hope will think of it in time, I’m sure.” He poured coffee for his daughter. It had an odd sweet scent, not like the coffee at home. A flavored fruit scent.

  Memory and memory failure came and went like traffic. Her hand shook taking the saucer.

  “Sweetheart,” said her father gently, “I know it must seem odd to you that I’m not doing anything active. I didn’t call Dr. Patel after all, I’m holding off on medication, and we’ll wait till your regular schedule for therapy. You see, this is routine with you. If it isn’t one scene, it’s another.”

  She stared at her reflection in the highly polished table.

  “You really do seem confused, Hope, but you’re such a splendid actress, who knows what to think?”

  It was not she coming toward Mitch, but they.

  The bronze hair of Hope was easy to spot. Next to her was a head of hair even easier to place. Kaytha. Mitch enjoyed dramatic crazy haircuts, but not on himself or his friends.

  Kaytha must be Hope’s—what? Sister? They were the same height, and probably the same age, but Kaytha was proof that you could be too rich and too thin. Mitch did not like thin. He did not like the feeling that a girl might expire of starvation on a date.

  Mr. Senneth was right behind them. The keeper of the cash, Mitch supposed. Thes
e two girls looked as if they could go through a serious amount in one day.

  Why hasn’t Hope been with Kaytha when she’s bought T-shirts from me every day? he thought. Or was she in the background, and that was why I felt I knew her from somewhere? Come on, he thought, Hope could be a lot of things, but never never background.

  “Hey!” said Mitch. “It’s Miss T-shirt and Miss Amnesia!”

  Kaytha smiled. “I understand you met my cousin in a typical Hopester way, Mitch.”

  “Amnesia runs in your family?” said Mitch, laughing.

  “Insanity does. We’re all having a little trouble believing in the memory loss.”

  Mitch could not waste time looking at Kaytha when Hope was standing there. She still possessed nothing, was still in yesterday’s white shirt and taupe shorts. She still had those long tanned legs he could have spent all day with. It bothered him, though, that she had not changed clothes.

  “Mitch!” cried Hope. “Are these your dogs? I’ve never seen such adorable dogs.”

  They were small collies: gold, vanilla, and sable. Their muzzles were slim and elegant, and their coats brushed beautifully. They didn’t bark. They were well-mannered and although Mitch disliked bringing them to work, he’d had no choice today. It was hard on them: pavement, heat, strangers. It was hard on him, too: getting water, walking them, keeping them in the shade, making sure little touristy urchins didn’t roughhouse with them.

  “What are their names?” Hope said, laughing with delight. She was on her knees, snuggling with them, kissing them, rubbing her cheek against theirs. The dogs responded affectionately.

  Mitch loved a girl who loved his dogs. “Butter and Cotton.”

  “That’s perfect. This one is buttery and melted, and this one is fluffy and cottony.”

  Mitch’s pleasure matched Hope’s. There was simply no doubt about it, he decided. Hope and I are meant to be together.

  Behind them, Mr. Senneth and Kaytha stood very still.

  “Hope and I are going shopping,” said Kaytha. “Quincy Market. Hopester claims not to remember Quincy Market.”

  It was a very old, quite large square in the most historic part of Boston, filled with boutiques and fast food stores and tiny shops and odd little restaurants. Tourists adored it. It was very near: across the busy traffic where the woman had been shot at the other day, and over a few blocks.

  “We’re going to replace Hopey’s purse,” added Kaytha. “And we’re going to talk steadily about her old purse, jog her memory a little, because it was filled with very important stuff and we have to find it.”

  Mitch thought that was a strange thing for a city girl to say. If Hope had lost her purse, they were never going to find it. Especially if it contained valuables. And mostly, you didn’t lose a purse in the city. You had it stolen from you. And if Hope had lost it, somebody had found it by now, and they weren’t going to say so; they were going to keep all those very important things.

  “Maybe that’s what happened to you, Hope,” he said. “Maybe a mugger ripped the purse off your shoulder and shoved you to the ground and you hit your head.”

  She gave him her blurry look, the one that turned his knees to jelly. “Maybe.”

  “Move it, Hopes,” said her cousin. “We have a mission.”

  Mitch did not think he had ever seen a girl looking less able to carry out a mission than the confused blurry Hope.

  “Have a nice day, Mitch,” she said to him.

  How could he have a nice day when she was walking away from him?

  The two girls crossed the plaza, waited for the WALK lights, heading toward Quincy Market.

  “Mitch,” said Mr. Senneth, “I’m a little confused about the Susan Nevilleson story.”

  “Me, too,” said Mitch. He had forgotten Mr. Senneth. Hope’s father was not going shopping with them after all. He was going to grill Mitch.

  “I still need the name of the man asking after her,” said Mr. Senneth.

  “He never came back,” said Mitch, relieved to have a swarm of customers. Pulling the collies back inside the wagon, he looped their leashes over a hook and closed the little swinging door. He sold T-shirts to a whole busload of old ladies. When he dared look in Mr. Senneth’s direction, the man was gone.

  Good, thought Mitch, letting Mr. Senneth go from his thoughts as well as his sight. I can’t believe I’m letting Hope wander off without me. I have to get my priorities in order.

  He bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Derry! Derry!”

  “I’m right here,” she said. “I was crouching behind the wagon.”

  “You’re weird.”

  “I’m sane. Kaytha’s weird.”

  “Derry, sell T-shirts for me? I want to go shopping with the girls.”

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll skip town with your inventory?”

  “I wish you would. I’m pretty sick of Boston cotton.” Mitch showed her the details and ran. The girls could vanish into the rabbit warrens of Boston very easily. He wanted to catch up with them, spend the day with them, protect Hope from the world.

  “Mitch!” shrieked Derry.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t tell me this job included dog sitting. Take these beasts with you!”

  Mitch came back in a huff. He didn’t care whether Derry had a place to sleep now or not. Beasts, indeed. Butter and Cotton were the finest dogs in Boston. Perhaps the world.

  Although two collies were certainly going to clutter up a day with Hope, he gave his dogs orders, and they panted agreeably.

  The girls hadn’t gotten far. They were right by Faneuil Hall, half listening to a parks guard discuss the Revolution.

  “I know you, Hopey,” Kaytha was saying. “You cannot have lost it. You just want it for yourself. Where is the necklace, Hopester? You couldn’t really have lost it,” she repeated, as if she meant this: Losing the necklace was physically impossible. As if it was completely unthinkable for Hope to have lost this necklace.

  Necklace, thought Mitch. Must have been some necklace. They’re more worried about that than they are about Hope losing her memory.

  For some reason, “necklace” sounded familiar to him. As if he had been thinking about necklaces lately. But that was impossible. Mitch never thought about jewelry. Only about the women who wore it. “Hi, girls!”

  When they turned and smiled, Mitch knew he was in familiar trouble. Both Kaytha and Hope were very glad to see him. Story of his life. Too many girls in love at the same time. Cousins under the same hotel roof—not to mention yacht—would be much harder to separate.

  Mitch concentrated on giving two girls a wonderful Saturday, while convincing one to vanish.

  Chapter 7

  THE SUN BACKLIT MITCH’S blond hair. He glowed like a young god of health and beauty.

  I can’t believe, thought Hope, that on top of everything else, I am falling in love.

  The interior of her mind was now so confusing, she decided not even to use it. She would just walk along, enjoy herself, smile into the sun, admire the lovely dogs, and let her heart go to their handsome owner.

  Mitch transferred Butter’s leash to Hope, and Cotton’s leash to Kaytha. They walked girl and dog, man, girl and dog, filling the sidewalk.

  “Somebody should paint us,” said Hope, turning to laugh at the pretty picture the five of them made. “I bet we’re the most attractive group in Boston.” She had to kneel and hug her collie for a moment. Butter kissed her hand. “Don’t you love that in dogs?” she said to Mitch. “How they want to become friends so quickly? How they’re willing to trust in you, that you’re terrific, and worthy of them?”

  In the shafts of sunlight, like the smiles of fate, they gazed upon each other. Hope discarded her mental list of what she ought to be thinking about, and thought only of Mitch. It was Kaytha who was closest to Mitch, and had wrapped her free arm around Mitch’s, but she might have been a passing toddler, for all that he noticed her.

  Quincy Market was teeming with people. Crow
ds jammed the little outdoor booths. Sidewalk restaurants sold coffee, croissants, and blueberry everything. Baby strollers bumped over cobbled streets. Junior high kids traveled in packs. High school boys stole looks at Hope.

  “The whole city is developing a crush on you,” murmured Mitch.

  Kaytha paused in front of a women’s boutique whose clothing was so absurd, and yet so stunning, that Hope could not imagine ever wearing it anywhere, and was dying to try it on and invent someplace to wear it. Kaytha seemed the least likely woman in all Boston this Saturday to put that on her body.

  The collies pressed on, toward shade and sitting down.

  “Aren’t those darling?” cried Kaytha, halting next at a tiny outdoor shop.

  Hope could not imagine a person who cut her hair the way Kaytha did, finding anything darling, or wanting to. “Those are for ponytails,” said Hope.

  “Just because I don’t have any hair doesn’t mean I can’t admire scrunchies and hair clips. Look at that cute little teabag.”

  “Why,” said Mitch, “would any girl want to wear a teabag in her hair?”

  “Boston Tea Party?” reminded Kaytha. “You who sell four different Tea Party T-shirts ought to know the meaning of tea in this town.” Kaytha bought herself a tea bag pin.

  In the next booth, jewelry made from old-fashioned bottle caps lay in rows on black velvet. The names of long-vanished soda brands were printed in bright fifties colors. Somebody had turned the caps into necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and key rings. Hope touched them wonderingly. This was a fad somewhere, but not where she had ever seen it. Where have I seen things? she thought. What should I be seeing right now?

  “Looking at the necklaces?” said Kaytha. Her eyes were strange and bright. “Is that the kind of necklace you like?” It seemed to Hope that she was emphasizing the word necklace very strongly. As if it were a password. As if this whole walk, everything Kaytha and Mitch and Butter and Cotton did with her was a conceit, a trick: All that mattered was their missing necklace.

  Hope tightened both hands on Butter’s leash, like a little kid caught touching in a museum.

  “Would you like one?” said Kaytha.