But she just backed away from me again and moved closer to Lottie, repeating, this time in a whisper, “What have you done?”
Great. If they were going to start whispering, I was going to miss half of this.
“I didn’t mean to do anything, I swear. Look, you know how I told you I was going to Biloxi a few weeks ago? Well, I didn’t.” Lottie glanced over at me. I had the bottle open and was pouring wine into their glasses. When I stopped, she motioned for me to keep going. Apparently, this conversation required a great deal of alcohol consumption. “I didn’t go to Biloxi. Obviously. I went to Houston.”
“Lottie!”
At least she wasn’t whispering anymore.
“Lydia, I promise you, it wasn’t to meet him or anyone else! It was just the city,” Lottie sighed and slumped down into one of the seats at her table and took the wine glass closer to her. “Remember those dreams I told you about when we first …?” Her eyes swept up to me, then dropped back down to her wine glass. She took a long sip.
“Of course, I remember,” Lydia offered kindly, despite being clearly terrified of some Jabberwocky in the room. I still wasn’t sure how I had turned into that literary monster.
“They weren’t dreams … exactly.” This was news to me as well. I took the other chair at the table. It didn’t look like Lydia was going to come anywhere near me anyway. “The thing is, from the beginning, ever since I woke up, I had these … memories. They felt just as real as mine. But they weren’t mine. They were hers.”
“Lottie, that’s impossible,” Lydia’s voice was gentle, reassuring, the way a mother might talk to a child who was scared of the boogeyman in his closet. At least, I imagined that’s the way a mother would talk to a frightened child. Mine had hardly ever talked to me, let alone to reassure me of anything. She had once assured me the milk in the fridge wasn’t sour. I supposed that was close enough. If it hadn’t actually been sour.
“I know it’s supposed to be. But I just felt so … alone. And then as time went on, I realized it wasn’t just her memories, but her feelings and behavior and … look around. None of this is even mine. I don’t know if she’s me or I’m her or we’re both, I just know I’m not me. I just wanted to see the city because it all seemed so real and everything else had already been exactly the way she remembered it …”
“What else?” we both asked her at the same time. She looked from Lydia to me then back again.
“Aren’t you going to drink that?” Lottie pointed at the other wine glass that Lydia still hadn’t touched.
“Lottie. What else? You’ve done this before?”
“This is a really good wine. You should try it, Lydia.”
“Lottie, what else?”
“Well, there are other places we’ve been to.”
“Like where?”
“Wait, she doesn’t know why you live here?” I asked. Lottie glared at me and I moved the wine bottle out of her reach.
“Here? What does he mean?” Lydia asked.
“I grew up here.”
It was the first time I had heard her use a first person pronoun when talking about Lottie’s life. It took both Lydia and me by surprise. Maybe all of us.
“You mean Lottie grew up here?” Lydia’s voice had risen at least two octaves. She was nearing hysterics.
I pushed the wine glass slowly across the table. “I won’t bite. Seriously. Drink. These feel like real crystal. They’ll shatter you know.” Lottie suppressed a smile. Lydia just looked confused.
Lottie shrugged, her attention still on Lydia. “Isn’t that what I said?”
“No, you said, ‘I grew up here.’ You most certainly did not. You grew up with me. You remember that, don’t you?”
I hadn’t thought it was possible, but Lydia’s voice had risen another octave. I drank her wine instead.
“Of course, I just misspoke. It’s no big deal.” But Lottie looked like she was definitely uncomfortable with the idea of having misspoken at all, no matter how much she tried to reassure her friend now.
“Why would you move us to a city where you knew she had grown up? You wanted to come here! This was your idea!”
Lottie ran her fingers along the edge of her wine glass, growing more and more uneasy the longer this inquisition lasted. I wanted to help her, but how? I couldn’t even get Lydia to drink. In fact, I had done the exact opposite of that. I had finished her glass of wine. “For the same reason I went to Houston. Sometimes, I don’t know where her life ends and mine begins.”
We both stared at Lottie silently after that, both with very different thoughts weighing on us. Lottie’s death was supposed to have meant a new life for them, maybe an exciting one, although I failed to see how working at a chain bookstore or driving a Yaris would qualify as exciting. But Lottie’s death had also been a sort of death for Lydia’s best friend, hadn’t it? She would never be Kyrieana again either. At least, I selfishly hoped not. If there were some loophole, some way to extinguish whatever part of Lottie had resurfaced, then I didn’t want them to find it. I wanted Lottie back.
Lydia finally spoke, quiet, still so patient, loving. Unendingly kind. No, I could never mistake her for Jamie. “You went looking for … him, then?”
“No, I told you, that was an accident. It was a stupid, stupid mistake on my part. I wasn’t even going to go anywhere near where I might run into him, but I was driving around and not really paying attention to where I was going, and then I looked over, and there was this coffeehouse, and I used to love it, so I just stopped …” she had caught herself this time, that first-person pronoun slipping out again before she could stop it. She picked up her wine glass and finished it off.
“But you didn’t think he might be there?”
“Dietrich.” I offered. I was getting annoyed by the constant references to myself in the third person like I wasn’t there.
“Oh, sorry. Dietrich, I mean. You didn’t think he would be there?”
Close enough.
Lottie shook her head. “No, he doesn’t really drink coffee.” She suddenly looked up at me, tilting her head and squinting at me as if suddenly realizing I had been the one who had fucked up. “What were you doing there?”
“I was thirsty.” I picked up the wine bottle and refilled her glass. Maybe I could at least get one of them drunk long enough to forget she was pissed off at me.
“Oh, God, Lottie, this is such a mess. What are we going to do?” Lydia sank into the couch, her long legs stretching under the coffee table, one arm thrown over her eyes.
“I don’t understand. Why is this such a huge problem?” I eyed the wine bottle but decided against drinking anymore. I was pretty sure the hotel had a bar in it, and I definitely needed something stronger than a red wine anyway.
“Because you know we’re here,” Lydia explained. She had that tone of voice again like she was explaining this to a child, patiently and sweetly, but part of me suspected she thought I should have figured that out on my own.
“Dietrich would never tell anyone,” Lottie immediately jumped to my defense, and I sank a little lower in my seat.
“Um.”
“What.”
It hadn’t been a question but a demand. It’s not like she had told me not to tell anyone though. Lydia had uncovered her eyes and was watching me now too. Resignation. Fear. The Jabberwocky.
“Just Eric, Lottie, and come on, think about him if you can’t remember him. Try to. You know you can trust him.” I believed that. He was the only person I had ever trusted besides her, and he and Lottie had been good friends. I would have trusted her life with him.
“I should have known you would tell him.” Good God, how much did she remember? “What did he say?”
“Well … he would like to meet you.” I thought about telling her he was down the street. I wasn’t sure she’d had enough wine for that.
“Ungh, and I thought work was bad.” Lydia muttered. Her face was buried under both arms now.
“Lydia, we aren’t
going to … what are you even worried about? Isn’t there some movie with a government agency that tracks down aliens?”
“Men in Black?” Lottie guessed.
I shrugged. “If that’s what you’re worried about … I’m almost positive no such agency exists. Well … like 97% sure. But that’s pretty good, though, right?”
“You still haven’t seen that movie have you? We wouldn’t be worried about Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones trying to keep track of us. They helped hide the existence of aliens in this world; it’s the public we worry about. We can die just as easily as anyone else, you know.”
I thought about Lottie being hunted. By the government. By a scared and angry Tea Party mob. By some crazy vigilante anti-extraterrestrial gun-loving militia group from Montana. No one was going to hunt her. No one was going to hurt her. Nobody would ever lay a fucking hand on her. No one except me.
I hoped the wine was affecting her by now. I reached across the table and took her hand, her left hand, still ringless, still decorated with those three freckles that formed that wide triangle with the perfect, smooth white skin inside. “Lottie,” I said softly, “you know I can keep you safe. I will. And Lydia. Nobody will hurt you. I promise.”
Lottie looked down at our hands. I tensed, waiting for her to rip hers away from mine, to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing, to remind me … again … that she wasn’t really my fiancée. But she slowly exhaled, stretched her fingers out, lacing them between mine, then held on tightly. “I know, Dietrich,” she breathed. “I know you will.”
Chapter 5
Lottie sat crosslegged on one of the beds in my hotel room, watching Eric curiously as he vacillated between disbelief and shock. I sat on the opposite bed watching Lottie. When I left her apartment the night before, Lydia had finally started drinking and Lottie was trying, somewhat futilely, to calm her down. She had promised me she would come by in the morning to see Eric – and me – but I was still surprised when she had actually knocked on my door, her thin frame and short stature always giving her this pixie illusion that was exaggerated this morning by the pale pink tank top and high ponytail.
She had kicked her flip flops off by the side of the bed, and was telling me, in a way that was almost like Lottie would have, about how despairing Lydia had been once I’d left; how convinced Lydia was that her best friend, the person she loved most, had something terribly wrong with her; that the more she drank, the more she seemed to think it was like some sort of cancer that would just get worse and worse. Lottie had tried, repeatedly, to assure her that in two years, it hadn’t changed, she was herself now, it was just a different self, but Lydia had as much trouble understanding that concept as the rest of us.
Eric listened attentively, watching our exchange, Lottie’s hands – she talked with her hands just like my Lottie had – her facial expressions, my reactions to it all. And then he asked her to explain how this process worked or what she thought was different about her. But when he asked her why she’d never tried to contact me in over two years if she remembered me so well, my heart sank into my stomach. Or maybe my stomach jumped into my chest. Of course I had wondered that, too, but I’m not a masochist; there was no way in hell I had ever planned on asking her.
Lottie’s face paled and she looked toward me as if I could save her from this humiliation, from this intrusion into her innermost secrets. I had the sudden urge to throw Eric out of my hotel room.
“Eric, it’s not that simple,” she said, seeming so much smaller than usual.
“Why not? He hasn’t moved, his number hasn’t changed, his email is the same. It seems pretty simple to me.”
“Because I’m not the same!”
“But here you are,” Eric persisted.
“Eric, what the fuck are you doing?” They were logical questions, but she was close enough to my Lottie; I didn’t care what reasons she had, he was upsetting her, and I couldn’t let him.
“It doesn’t make any sense, Dietrich. She claims she’s Lottie, sort of, and if that’s true, I don’t believe for a second Lottie wouldn’t have come to you the first chance she had.”
“But I’m not! I’m not her!” Lottie protested.
Eric pulled a chair away from the table by the window and sat down. Lottie had to turn to see him now. “I don’t get it,” he said. “You’ve said you’re Lottie and this other girl, but not Lottie and not this other girl. So you’re like … what? Half Lottie and half … you?”
Lottie shook her head. “No. I don’t know. I’m not sure anymore who’s me anyway.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Have you ever tried having two people in one head?”
I looked at Eric now. She’s got you there, Buddy.
“All of Lottie’s in there then?” he asked cautiously.
It was Lottie’s turn to sigh. She was getting impatient. She and Eric had been such good friends, and maybe that was why she found his reluctance to believe her so frustrating. Of course, I hadn’t believed her at first either, but I hadn’t told her I didn’t believe her. “Again, it doesn’t work that way. There’s no in there, it’s just me. I’m both Lottie and Kyrieana, and I’m neither.”
“So you’re Lottiana?”
I rolled my eyes. So did Lottie.
“How do I know,” he continued, turning serious and thoughtful again, “that what you’re telling me, these aren’t just memories you’ve picked up from conversations with Dietrich recently or shit you just guessed correctly? Like the thing with the lightning whelk. It is our state shell, after all.”
Eric had had no fucking clue it was our state shell until a few days ago when I told him about the conversation between Lottie and me.
“I mean, if you’re really Lottie or half-Lottie or whatever,” he continued, “then what happened at Daniel’s Christmas party two and a half years ago?”
Lottie’s eyes widened, her posture stiffened and she hissed, “Shut. UP.”
I sat up straighter. “What happened.” I was glaring at Eric. I didn’t remember anything unusual happening at that party, other than the fact that I had actually been talked into going in the first place.
Eric never took his eyes off of Lottie. “Tell him,” he suggested.
Lottie shook her head quickly. “Are you suicidal?” she spit it out, like she couldn’t believe he would even venture into this memory. I couldn’t either, actually.
“Eric, I will fucking kill you. What the hell happened?” Whatever excitement I had felt over Lottie showing up this morning had completely vanished.
The corners of Eric’s eyes had started to wrinkle, a small smile turned the corners of his lips. He knew that Lottie was clinging on to this memory, this secret they had kept from me. I was starting to think Eric must really have a death wish. “You’d better tell him, Lottie. You know how he is. He’s not going to wait much longer, then he probably will kill me.”
Lottie exhaled angrily, still scowling at Eric, and through gritted teeth, breathed, “Fine.” She slowly turned her attention toward me. My chest was burning. A stabbing, burning, sickening kind of pain. What the fuck did Eric think he was doing?
“Remember how drunk Eric got? I mean, hell, we had to take him home.”
I nodded. I also remembered having to pull over so he could throw up on the side of the road and not in my brand new Alabaster Silver Metallic Accord.
“He tried to kiss me at the party.” Lottie had folded her arms across her chest in that defensive way of hers and although she had tried to speak those words nonchalantly, she was still disturbed by that memory or maybe it was the tension in the room. I am pretty sure all of the tension was coming from me.
I tried to unclench my fists, reminded myself this was Eric after all. I inhaled. “You what?” I asked slowly.
Eric just shrugged and flippantly responded, “She was standing under the mistletoe.”
“That was not a mistletoe kiss!” Lottie shot back. Now she was angry. Apparently, I wasn’
t the only one growing increasingly pissed off by Eric’s dismissive attitude.
I looked to Lottie. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”
Lottie waved her hand irritably at Eric. “That’s why. The next day, he was all like, ‘God, Lottie, I’m so sorry, that was really stupid,’ and I was like, ‘No shit, and if you ever tell Dietrich, he’ll kill you, so you’d better keep your fucking mouth shut. And off of mine.’” Lottie sank back into the bed and muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “Fucking men.”
Eric looked at me, eyebrows raised, eyes full of wonder. He wasn’t at all concerned about this kiss. It was old news to him. But he had dragged a secret memory out of Lottie that she had, quite literally, taken to her grave, and she had retold that story exactly as Lottie would have told it. There was no hesitation, no self-doubt, no fumbling over word choices or wrestling with the spirit of another person who didn’t want to be reliving this memory. This was Lottie. My Lottie. That little voice that so often whispered in the back of my brain that something wasn’t exactly right when I was around her had been silent, and it wasn’t just because of my own fury. There was no Kyrieana in that moment. Just Lottie.
“Don’t kill him,” Lottie finally mumbled. She was eyeing me, maybe waiting to see if I really was going to try or if I would let the past go. I swallowed, a hard knot seemed stuck in my throat.
“Why did you do it?” I finally asked him. I’m not sure if I meant why he had tried to kiss her in the first place or why he had dredged up this secret, this betrayal. He apparently decided I meant the former.
Eric never looked away or dropped his eyes. That’s not the kind of man he was. I knew him well enough to know that he would have told me exactly what had happened the day after the party if Lottie hadn’t asked him not to. That didn’t make it hurt any less. “I don’t know, Dietrich. You had just gotten engaged, Brooke and I had just broken up, it was the holidays, I was lonely, and I was really drunk. I really did just mean it to be a friendly kiss. You know I’d never hurt either one of you. You know that.”
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