The Memory Key

by Liana Liu

  “Well, perhaps I wasn’t being completely honest when I said I had no contacts there. The truth is, I’ve been cultivating a new source in the company,” he says, then pauses to smile charmingly. “And why were you at Keep Corp?”

  “None of your business,” I say.

  He raises an eyebrow. The message is clear: if I won’t, he won’t.

  “I had a problem with my memory key. I had to get it replaced,” I say. “So what kind of information have you gotten from your new source?”

  “Your mother’s death was no accident.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “According to my source, Keep Corp hired a ‘specialty firm’ to take care of the problem she posed. I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”

  “But—” says Tim.

  I interrupt. “Why? Why did they do it?”

  “I was hoping you’d have some ideas,” says Carlos.

  “All I know is that she discovered something strange about the new line of memory keys, but I have no idea what it was.”

  “What about those people? The ones in the sketches you showed me, and in that photograph with your father. Who are they?” Carlos asks.

  “They’re the ones who took her away. They must have worked for that specialty firm.” I describe my memory of that night, of watching the two strangers lead my mother out the kitchen door.

  Carlos frowns. “And your father knows them?”

  “No. That photograph was from a Keep Corp fund-raiser. He doesn’t remember who they are. We still haven’t figured it out.”

  Carlos Cruz strokes his chin as he thinks. He narrows his eyes. “Will you lend me that photo? I’ll try to identify those people for you.”

  I pull the picture from my bag and rip it in two—feeling a little guilty since it doesn’t exactly belong to me—and hand over the piece with the strangers. I keep the piece with my dad. “Will you tell me? As soon as you find out?”

  “If I can find out, yes,” says Carlos.

  “Can we eat our sandwiches now?” asks Tim.

  We eat our sandwiches now. Tim bolts his down, as if he hadn’t been eating pizza at the pizza place just an hour ago. After gulping his last bite, he gazes pleadingly at me. Or, to be precise, he gazes pleadingly at my sandwich. I continue eating. With pleasure.

  “Hey.” Tim looks reluctantly away from my food, to Carlos Cruz. “If you have a source at Keep Corp, why would you go there looking for him? Wouldn’t that put him in danger?”

  Carlos nods. “The problem is, I haven’t been able to get ahold of my guy recently. I set up a meeting and he didn’t show. I’ve called him and he hasn’t returned my calls. I was worried, so I went by to check out the situation.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “I didn’t see him but it seems like he’s all right. Still coming to work. I suspect it’s a case of cold feet—he said he’d get me some documents that would prove Keep Corp’s involvement in your mother’s death, but now I think he’s scared to deliver.”

  “What documents?” I ask.

  Carlos Cruz shrugs and keeps chewing.

  And even though he didn’t answer my question, I smile. Because I’m thinking this could be the solid evidence that Jon said we needed. Solid evidence that would give us leverage over Keep Corp. Solid evidence that would make it possible for my mother to stay here. With me.

  By the time the baker rattles down the metal grate, closing shop, our sandwiches are finished and our talk is finished too, for the time being. We gather ourselves up from the bench, brush our clothes clean of crumbs, discard the greasy scraps of waxed paper, and exchange some surprisingly cordial good-byes. Carlos promises he’ll tell me if he learns anything about the two strangers in the photograph. I promise I’ll tell him if I learn anything about what my mother discovered.

  “By the way,” I say. “What kind of car do you drive?”

  He answers in exquisite detail but all I register is that he does not drive a silver sedan, that he would never drive such an uninspired car. “Why do you ask?” he asks.

  “Just curious.”

  “All right, I admit he’s good-looking. Like, unnaturally good-looking,” Tim says as he drives us home. “Why didn’t you tell him your mother’s alive?”

  “You think I should have?”

  “He could probably help her.”

  “He doesn’t have to know in order to help her. Once he gets those documents from his source, I can do the rest,” I say.

  “You can do the rest?”

  “I mean, we. Jon Harmon has connections, and I’m sure my parents . . .” I stare out the car window, at the sky bruised purple by the setting sun.

  “Yeah?” prompts Tim.

  “You know what doesn’t make sense? If Keep Corp hired people to kill her, how’d she end up in that fancy retirement home?” I say.

  “Maybe they had second thoughts? Developed a conscience?”

  “For some reason I doubt it.”

  “Same here,” he says.

  “I hope this stuff isn’t messing up your internship for you.”

  “I’m actually not surprised there’s something shady going on. I majored in medical technology because I’m into tech, and I want to help people. But at Keep Corp, it’s so easy to forget the helping people part. Everything is about business and the bottom line.”

  “Have you thought about working at a med-tech hospital instead?”

  “I interned at a hospital last summer and honestly, it wasn’t that different.” Tim sighs. “Not that I’m complaining when we should be figuring out what happens next. So what happens next?”

  “I’ll talk to my parents and Jon tonight.”

  “Then I’ll talk to my friends in the key department tomorrow.”

  “And maybe . . .” I don’t finish my sentence. Because what I was going to say was that Wendy might have some helpful ideas, too.

  Tim parks in front of my house—windows dark, no one home—and we swivel subtly in our seats, searching for black SUVs and silver sedans. There’s nothing noticeably suspicious, but I wonder if this fact is suspicious in itself.

  “Maybe I better stay till your dad gets back,” says Tim.

  “You think? You don’t have to.”

  “Do you not want me to?”

  “I want you to. If you want to.”

  We go inside and turn on every lamp downstairs, blaze the rooms up in light, banishing darkness and shadow, banishing a few of my worries, a little of my fear, though I still wonder where my father is and what he’s doing, whether he’s all right, whether they are all all right.

  “Do you have anything to eat?” asks Tim.

  “Really? You’re hungry?” I say, but I lead him into the kitchen and we make ice cream sundaes with chocolate sauce and whipped cream fizzed from the can. I dig out the ancient jar of maraschino cherries from the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. I know they’re Tim’s favorite.

  “Lora,” he says. “About what happened the other day. In the parking garage.”

  “What?” I almost drop the jar of cherries. “I mean, I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. You’re with Raul. I shouldn’t have presumed.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. You have nothing to apologize for.”

  “Good.” He takes the jar from me. “These are my favorite.”

  I blurt it out before I think it out: “Anyway, I broke up with Raul.”

  “You did?” He sets the cherries on the countertop.

  “Yeah, so what’s the deal with you and Becky?” I ask.

  “Becky? We—we’re just friends.” Tim seems suddenly confused, as if he can’t recall how he got here: into this house, into this kitchen, into this conversation; and I’m embarrassed, so embarrassed, about my blurting and my asking. I turn away from him, but before I am completely away he catches my wrist and spins me back around.

  Then he kisses me.

  It’s not the fever of mashing mouths that was two days ago, but something le
ss desperate, more tender. Neither is it the tentative touch of lips that was two years ago, but something more honest. Though we briefly part to smile, and briefly part so he can whisper that my hair smells good, and I can whisper that he has the nicest mouth, our bodies are always resting together, our fingers always entwined.

  For a long time we stay like this, and only separate when we remember our melting ice cream. But once separated, I’m immediately uncomfortable. I’m thinking about just-friends Becky.

  “Is something wrong?” asks Tim.

  And I can no longer ignore what I’ve been conveniently ignoring: even if Tim was the reason I ended things with Raul, Raul was not the only reason keeping me from Tim. “We shouldn’t . . . That was a mistake,” I say.

  “Because of what happened before?”

  I wish I could say no. I say yes.

  “You don’t trust me,” he says.

  “No, I trust you,” I say, and I do. I do believe him when he tells me there’s nothing between him and Becky. But it’s not enough.

  “Then what’s the problem?” He’s upset. Of course he’s upset. Because this is how it works, this cycle of hurt and anger, our cycle of hurt and anger. And the only way I can think of stopping it is by telling him the humiliating truth. So I do.

  “The problem is I don’t trust myself,” I say.

  For I now understand that what happened before wasn’t only his fault: I had been the one to carefully keep his careless rejection, I had been the one to let it sink me down for far too long. And I’m afraid it will happen again. And I’m tired of pretending otherwise. I tell him this, all of this.

  Then I wait for Tim to smirk or thunder or inform me I’m overreacting. But he says, “I think I get it,” and his face is serious but not angry. His voice is regretful but not hurt.

  “Yeah?” I say.

  “As long as we can still be friends—we can, right?”

  “If your allergies don’t interfere.”

  “Very funny.”

  Then we eat our melted ice cream and joke about what good friends—no, great friends—we’ll be. “We should probably have a secret handshake,” he says.

  “And a password.”

  “And a special code.”

  “And a coordinated dance routine.”

  He groans. “You mean an uncoordinated dance routine.”

  We smile at each other and I know this is the sensible thing. Still, if I’m going to be totally, absolutely, and completely honest, I have to admit the sensible thing pretty much sucks.

  Tim and I are watching TV when my father gets home. He comes into the den to sit with us, still wearing his T-shirt and gym shorts, but now his white socks are sagging around his ankles. He looks exhausted.

  “Is everything okay?” I leap up from the couch.

  “Yes, everything’s fine.” Dad flops into his armchair.

  “Good,” I say, and sit slowly back down.

  “How are you, Timothy? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Except for at the graduation party, Mr. Mint.”

  “Ah, that’s right. That was a nice party, wasn’t it?” My father removes his glasses, rubs his eyes, then puts his glasses back on, crookedly.

  “It was, but, um, I should probably go now. I have work early tomorrow.” Tim stands up and says good-bye, good night, and thanks for the ice cream.

  I walk him to the door to see him safely to his car.

  “Sorry that was uncomfortable,” he says. “I had to get out before I congratulated your dad on the fact his wife is alive. Would that have been inappropriate? You think they make greeting cards for this kind of occasion?”

  “If they don’t, they should,” I say.

  We linger awkwardly on the front step, as if we don’t know how to say good-bye to each other, though we’ve said good-bye to each other a thousand times before, but now it seems that we’ve both forgotten how to do this simplest thing.

  Then, simultaneously, we remember: secret handshake.

  When I come back into the den, the television is still on but my father is asleep in his chair. I turn off the TV and he jerks awake. I apologize.

  “What? I wasn’t sleeping,” he sputters.

  “Sure, Dad.”

  “Really!”

  “Okay. But we need to talk.” I tell him about our meeting with Carlos Cruz, and the possibility of getting some definite proof of Keep Corp’s crimes.

  My father looks bewildered. I had hoped he would have overcome his bewilderment by now, but apparently he has not. “Who is this guy? How do we know we can trust him?” he says.

  “Carlos is friends with Jon Harmon. And Mom, too, I guess.”

  “Well, I suppose you better talk to Jon about this.” My father speaks with no particular urgency and I’m puzzled by his lack of response. This is beyond absentmindedness.

  “Don’t you understand, Dad? Maybe she won’t have to go!”

  “But we’ve already spent the day getting everything together—the papers, the tickets. It’s all arranged.”

  “Arrangements can change,” I say.

  “Lora,” he says. “She’s leaving tomorrow.”

  “No,” I say. I gaze down at my hands. My nails are painted darkest red from when Wendy and I got graduation manicures two weeks ago, forever ago, and the darkest red polish is now chipped at the edges, revealing the paleness underneath. “No,” I say again. “She can’t.”

  I get up. I walk down the hall to the phone in the kitchen and call Jon Harmon. I tell him about Carlos Cruz. I tell him my mother doesn’t have to go.

  “Lora, what did I say about staying out of this?” he bellows. “This is dangerous business! And telling Carlos, of all people! That man would sell out his mother for a story.”

  “But he can help us,” I say, and it feels strange to be defending Carlos after I’ve thought so many similarly bad things about him. “Anyway, I didn’t tell him she’s still alive.”

  “At least there’s that.” Jon sighs. “Perhaps this will go somewhere, but in the meantime we still need to keep Jeanette safe, and the only way to do that is to get her far away from here.”

  “Why does it have to be tomorrow?”

  “I know it’s fast, but you’ll have time to say good-bye. I’ll call you in the morning and we’ll plan something.”

  “I have to be at the library at noon,” I say. I can’t call in sick again.

  “Then we’ll plan for something before noon,” he says.

  I hang up the phone. I go back to the den. My father has not budged from his chair. “She’s leaving tomorrow,” I say.

  “I know. I told you,” he says.

  “Don’t you even care?” I say.

  “What does it matter?” he says.

  I look at him with utter disbelief.

  But then I notice that he is crying, his face like crumpled paper, his hands clenched in his lap, doing nothing to hide the drip of his eyes. “Dad?” I say, and it’s all I say because it’s all I can say.

  “This is a stressful time, that’s all.” His voice is hoarse.

  “Don’t worry, Dad. We’ll get the proof we need, then she can come home, and everything will be normal again.”

  “Yes, normal,” he mumbles as he lunges out of the armchair. He goes into the bathroom. The door shuts.

  I don’t know what to do. I sit. I wait. I try to think of what I’ll say when my father comes back. I’ll tell him we’ll figure this out, because we always figure it out, because we’re a team—not like a superhero and sidekick, but two sidekicks, fair and square. I’ll tell him we’ll figure this out and everything will be normal again.

  But when my father comes back his eyes are clear, his mouth is smiling, and he doesn’t give me a chance to tell him anything.

  “Sorry about that,” he says briskly. “I haven’t been getting much sleep recently; I must be overtired. Aren’t you tired? It’s late. We should both go to bed. I teach early tomorrow, and you have work at the library, don’t you? How�
��s that going, by the way? How’s Cynthia? Wow, it’s really late. Definitely bedtime.”

  The only way to respond to his cheery chatter is with cheery chatter. Together we go upstairs and make the smallest small talk until he turns to go into his room and I turn to go into mine.

  “Good night, Lora,” he says, still smiling.

  “Good night, Dad,” I say, trying hard to smile back.

  29.

  I’M SURE THERE MUST BE SOME MISTAKE—MY PHONE CAN’T BE ringing, not at this hour, in this darkness—but yes, it’s ringing and so I answer. “Hello?” I gurgle.

  “Lora Mint, did I wake you?”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “It’s nine in the morning,” says Carlos Cruz.

  “It is?” I glance at the clock. He’s right. I untwist my body from the blanket and get up; I go over to the window and pull back the curtain. The glass is streaked with water. The sky is a heavy gray.

  “I’ve got strange news and bad news,” says Carlos. “What first?”

  “Strange news,” I say, scratching the sleep from my eyes.

  “I haven’t been able to identify your two strangers. Apparently, they don’t work for Keep Corp. Nor do they work for that specialty firm.”

  “Then who are they?”

  “Nobody knows, that’s what’s strange.”

  “Okay. And the bad news?”

  “My source has disappeared. No one’s seen him since yesterday.”

  I sit back on my bed. “It’s only been a day. He could reappear.”

  “Sure, anything’s possible,” he says. “Which reminds me, I need your friend Tim Laskey’s telephone number.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I want him to check on something at Keep Corp.”

  “How did you know he works there?” I say accusingly.

  Carlos sighs. “Are we playing this game again? He mentioned it yesterday.”

  I frown. I don’t remember him mentioning it yesterday.

  “Listen, Lora, your friend could help get the evidence we need to prove Keep Corp’s involvement in your mother’s death. Don’t you want that?”