She'll Never Know

by Hunter Morgan

  Jillian's heart skipped a beat. Did they? That was silly, of course, to think that in two days' time she could get in a car and drive home. But it was fun to fantasize about, if only for a moment.

  Ahead, she spotted beach dunes covered in sea grass to prevent erosion and signs warning that cars would be towed for parking in unmarked spaces. It was a dead end. She pulled into the last parking spot on the end of the street, parallel to the sidewalk, just in front of an old restored motorcycle—vintage fifties. She got out of the car, leaving her purse and locking the door. Jillian had no idea where she was going or why. Her new sneakers seemed to have a life of their own.

  Gazing up at the brilliant blue sky, she heard the crash of ocean waves and smelled the tangy salt air. The wind whipped at her hair as she stepped off the cement sidewalk onto a wooden one that led around the cottage directly ahead of her. She followed the creaky path around to the front of the house that faced the ocean. It was small, with a painted white front porch, flowerless window boxes, and pale green shutters that looked like they still worked. An orange Vacancy sign hung in the window, framed by pale yellow gingham curtains.

  Jillian gazed up at the house, at the single small window on the second story that faced the ocean. She hesitated, glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching her, and then mounted the steps to the porch. Obviously, no one was staying here if there was a vacancy sign in the window. What harm would it be to have a look?

  The painted gray floorboards beneath her feet creaked and gave way slightly as she walked to the window, cupped her hands over her eyes and looked in. There was a bright, cheery kitchen with a round wooden table and dish cupboards with glass fronts. She crossed in front of the front door to look in the other window. It was a living room or maybe a parlor. Furniture was covered in pale sheets, but instead of seeming ghostly, the room beckoned her.

  "Have I been here before?" she whispered, pressing her fingertips to the cool glass windowpane.

  The house gave no reply.

  After a moment, Jillian turned around and hooked her arm around one of the wooden posts that fortified the porch. A path led directly from the steps, through a break in sand dunes, onto the beach. It was a breathtaking sight, the mounds of fine white sand, the waving dune grass, the wide beach that fanned out in either direction as far as the eye could see, all leading directly to the Atlantic Ocean's edge.

  She smiled and slid down to perch on the top step. The wind tangled her hair, but it was a hot, humid wind. On impulse, she slipped her feet out of her sneakers and peeled off her new white athletic socks. She wiggled her toes, enjoying the freedom. This was a nice place. Maybe a nice place to stay a few days? Ralph's description of the upcoming Independence Day parade sounded charming.

  She thought of the vacancy sign in the window behind her and wondered how much the cottage would cost to rent for a few days, maybe a week. Probably too much. She had money, but her resources, for now, were dependent on Angel and the Amnesia Society. She didn't want anyone to think she was trying to take advantage of the generosity of her benefactors, staying in an ocean-front house when she could very well take a room a few streets back at a budget motel.

  But there was something about this cottage....

  A long shadow fell over the sand in front of Jillian, and she glanced up to see a young man with sun-bleached blond hair, wraparound sunglasses, and a great tan walking over the crest of the dunes. He was shirtless, wearing fluorescent orange swim trunks and carrying a gym bag that had the Red Cross symbol on the side. A lifeguard.

  She found it fascinating that she could recognize the symbol for the Red Cross, or know a vintage motorcycle when she saw one, but she couldn't remember her own name. Funny how the mind worked.

  The lifeguard stepped onto the wooden walk that ran directly in front of the cottage. As he approached the house, he gave a nod and offered a lopsided, boyish grin. He had a nice smile that made her want to smile back.

  "Hey," he greeted her.

  She nodded.

  He walked past the front steps, barefooted, swinging the bag. He looked like he was headed home. It had to be five-thirty by now. Quitting time?

  She watched him pass, admiring his muscular, tanned shoulders. It was one of the interesting quirks she had learned quickly about herself. She obviously liked men. Found many sexually attractive. She couldn't remember having sex, yet she knew, innately, that she had enjoyed it a great deal.

  The lifeguard got to the end in the walkway, about to disappear around the side of the house, when he turned around. "Can I help you with something?"

  Before she could reply, he lifted a tanned shoulder in an easy-going half shrug. "You look kind of lost."

  Jillian threw her head back and laughed, surprising not only the young man, but herself as well. He walked back toward her. He was still smiling, but obviously puzzled.

  "I'm sorry," Jillian said, pressing her hand to her mouth, still chuckling. "I didn't mean to be rude. No, I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

  But the lifeguard didn't go. He stood there, all six-foot-something of him, looking down on her sitting on the step, still smiling. "I gotta ask. What's so funny?"

  She looked up, squinting in the bright sunlight, still amused. "What you said, it was just so... apropos." Apropos? What kind of person had she been that she used words like apropos?

  "Why's that?" He slid the bag off his shoulder and parked one bare foot on the bottom step beside hers.

  "I just—" She shook her head, burying her face in her hands for a minute. How pathetic was it for a woman her age to be spilling her guts to a kid who looked to be young enough to be her son?

  "Got lost on I-95? Thought you were in Maine, and you wound up in little old Delaware?" he prodded teasingly.

  She lifted her head. "Actually, even more bizarre than that." She hesitated, but there was something about the lifeguard's warm hazel eyes that just made her want to tell him her whole wretched story. "Before I go on with the crazy story, do you mind if I ask you a crazy question?"

  "Shoot."

  "Have you ever seen me before? I mean, I realize that obviously you don't know me, but I don't suppose, by any chance, you've seen me around town?" She sounded so pathetically hopeful.

  He shook his head. "Nope. I'd remember your eyes if I had." He seemed to sense her disappointment. "But I only live here in the summer," he went on quickly. "I grew up here, but I've been gone a while. I just graduated from Penn State."

  Jillian did the quick calculations in her head. That only made him twenty-two or twenty-three. He was young, all right... but not young enough to be her son.

  "So tell me your crazy story," he said. "I'm dying to hear it now."

  She took a deep breath. "Well, I am sort of lost because... because, I'm not exactly sure who I am." She said it without giving herself time to think, to get the words out of her mouth before she lost her nerve. She hadn't told many people about her predicament yet. So far, most people she encountered already knew.

  "Interesting." He nodded his head, not sounding as if he quite believed her, but intrigued.

  "Amnesia," she explained. She threw up her hands and let them fall to her pale, bare knees. "I know. Sounds like something out of a soap opera, but I was injured and left at a hospital without any identification on me. When I woke, I didn't know who I was. I still don't," she finished, thinking it sounded pretty far-fetched to her, too.

  "Wow." He thrust out his hand. "I'm Ty."

  She clasped his hand, warm and firm. He smelled faintly of coconut suntan lotion. "Jillian Deere."

  He looked at her as if to say Are you for real? "As in Jane Doe?" he asked.

  She laughed. "You know, you're the first person that's gotten it." She made a face. "I just couldn't see myself spending the rest of my life as Jane Doe. It would be like toting a red flag around that said, I'm an idiot. I don't who I am or how I got here."

  "Nah, I don't think anyone would say that. But I like it." He waggled the finger he poi
nted at her. "Pretty cool, actually." He dropped his bag in the sand and crossed his arms over his chest. "Out of curiosity, how did you find your way to Albany Beach, Jillian Deere?"

  She liked the way he said her name. "I just got in the car and drove here. I've been in Virginia recuperating in a hospital; I was in a coma for a few days. Then I woke up with the amnesia. When I was released, some nice people helped me out. They loaned me a car and some money."

  "Sounds pretty scary." He leaned on the porch rail, closer to her than he had been before. "I don't know if I would have had the guts to do it."

  "It didn't seem like I had much of a choice."

  "And no one came to the hospital looking for you? No one contacted the police or some missing persons bureau or anything?"

  She shook her head. "The police said it could be that I was there in Portsmouth on vacation or business. But who knows? I just could have gotten off the interstate in the wrong place, or had a change in flight plans and wandered from a nearby airport into some kind of trouble. Someone could be looking for me, but in another part of the country. They say it happens."

  "Wow, spooky," Ty said thoughtfully. He glanced at her. "So you could, like, have a husband, kids, and not know it?"

  "Well, the doctors say I've never given birth, so I suppose that's good." She lifted her left hand. "And no wedding ring, either." She stared at her finger. "Somehow that seems a little sad to me."

  Jillian met his hazel-eyed gaze for a moment, then looked away, surprised by the emotion that stuck in her throat. Most of the time she could remain pretty removed from all this. Often it was as if it was happening to someone else. Like she was watching a movie.

  "Well, I just got off work." Ty broke the silence. "Lifeguard. And I'm starved so I'm going to get something to eat." He paused, then pointed in the direction of the street. "You wanna come?"

  "Oh, no, I couldn't." She raised her hand. "Thanks, but—"

  "But what? You've got someone holding dinner for you? Got somewhere else better to go? Or are you just trying to get me off your porch?"

  She laughed. "Well, obviously it's not my porch."

  He tilted his head in the direction of the street. "Then come have something to eat with me."

  Jillian hesitated. What kind of thirty-something woman went to dinner with a twenty-two-year-old?

  "Come on, it'll be fun," he dared her. "You know it will."

  He was cute. And nice. And she didn't like eating by herself; it reminded her of just how alone she was. "Okay." She hopped up, grabbing her sneakers. "Sure. Why not? It's not like I have anywhere to be, is it?"

  On the street, Ty walked up to the motorcycle she had parked in front of and strapped down his bag with a couple of bungee cords.

  "So that's yours. I was admiring it earlier."

  He rubbed something akin to rust on the gas tank with the heel of his hand. "An old Chief made by the Indian Company."

  "A 1958," she said. "The last year they really made them until the company was bought in '99.'"

  "How'd you know that?" he asked, obviously surprised.

  Not as surprised as she was. She stood there staring at the red and black painted motorcycle. "I have no idea," she murmured.

  He studied her, blond brows furrowed as he slipped into a pair of ratty sneakers from his bag. "You recognize a bike from the fifties, know its obscure history, but you don't know your name?"

  She opened her arms; his easy-going nature seemed to be contagious. "I told you it was a crazy story."

  He laughed as he mounted the bike. "You just want to follow me?"

  "Sure."Jillian jumped into the Honda and made a U-turn in the street. Ty pulled out, and she followed him back toward the center of town. They ended up in the parking lot of the diner she'd been at less than an hour ago.

  "What's funny now?" Ty asked, waiting for her when she climbed out of the car. He'd pulled on a wrinkled Radio Head concert T-shirt.

  "I was just here." She pointed at the silver building that looked as if it had been constructed from an old railway car, with an addition tacked to the back. "When I came into town, I stopped for a drink."

  "Two-for-one burger night. Loretta makes a mean quarter pounder with cheddar cheese. None of that Velveeta crap."

  They walked side by side across the gravel parking lot.

  "Hey, Ty!" A blond woman about his age stuck her head out the window of a car in the parking lot.

  Ty took a second look and broke into a smile. "Anne. I didn't know you were home." He hooked his thumb in Jillian's direction. "This is Jillian. That's Anne." He pointed. "We went to high school together. She's at Virginia Tech now."

  The blonde lifted her hand in greeting. "Nice to meet you." She started the engine of her car. "I have to run, Ty. Take-out for my mom and dad. But I'll catch up with you. You'll be home awhile, right?"

  "'Till August tenth." He thrust his hands into his pockets, and he and Jillian headed across the parking lot for the diner.

  "So what degree did you graduate with?" she asked.

  "American literature." He glanced at her, a wicked grin. "I know. What am I going to do with that? My dad says the same thing about twice a week."

  "Actually... I wasn't going to ask you that."

  "What's that?"

  "I wasn't going to ask you what you were going to do with the degree."

  He grinned. "I like you already, Jillian Deere."

  She thought for a minute. "Although I guess that should be my response."

  He lifted one shoulder in what she now recognized as one of his favorite gestures. "As much as I hate to admit it, I can see my dad's point. He paid sixty-some thou for four years of partying, and I'm now qualified to lifeguard on a beach—the same thing I've been doing since I was seventeen. My older sister is an engineer making boo-coo bucks in Texas for some oil rig company." They walked up the steps, and he held open the diner's door for her. "But I'm going back and getting a master's—I've been accepted into a program that will pick up most of the tab. I think I'd like to teach high school, but not in a regular high school. Maybe on an Indian reservation, or one of those schools for problem kids. You know, the kind where you make them climb mountains, live in the desert. I want to do something cool like that before I really have to become an adult."

  She laughed.

  "You know what I mean."

  She nodded. "I don't know how I do, but I do."

  Inside, they passed the cash register with Loretta at the helm and took a booth toward the rear. There was new assortment of customers from the ones she had seen before, but somehow they all seemed like friendly faces. In addition to the diners in tees and flip-flops, with bathing suits showing beneath their clothes, and a security guard of some sort, she noted a table of teens dressed in black, their hair dyed black. One girl had a ring through her nose and was sporting black lipstick. Goths. She'd seen a couple in Portsmouth. Apparently every town had them.

  Ty slid into a booth, and she took the crackly fake leather bench seat across from him.

  "Want a menu?" He offered her a laminated single page he plucked from behind a chrome napkin holder.

  She dropped her purse beside her. "You don't need it?"

  "Nope. I always get the same thing on burger night. Two quarter pounders with cheddar, pickles, ketchup, and mustard. No rabbit food. Side of boardwalk fries."

  As she took the menu, her fingertips brushed his, and she felt a rush of warmth. She glanced up at him, her response surprising her. Not only had his touch not scared her, but it had felt good. He didn't seem to notice.

  She pulled the menu from him, feeling silly. She didn't know exactly how old she was, but she knew she was too old for this kind of nonsense. She needed to get her hormones in check. "What are boardwalk fries?" she asked, reading the menu.

  "I can tell you one thing, you're not from around here." He leaned back on the Naugahyde bench and stretched out a lean, tanned arm. "Just take my word for it. Order the boardwalk fries." He winked.


  She tossed the menu on the table. "Okay, but I think one burger will be sufficient."

  A college-age waitress in a pair of denim shorts and a tight-fitting white knit shirt approached the table. The only giveaway that she was a waitress was her sensible white sneakers, the straws sticking out of her pocket, and the notepad in her hand. "Hey," she said, grinning at Ty.

  "Hey. You off soon?" Ty remained relaxed against the bench seat.

  The cute, blond-haired, blue-eyed woman grimaced. "Not until ten. I have to work an extra hour to get Loretta through the after-movie crowd."

  Ty motioned to the waitress. "This is Kristen Addison. My cousin. She's staying with us for the summer."

  "I just couldn't go back to PA and suffer the summer with my parents again," she confessed.

  "Kristen will be a senior at the University of Delaware this fall. She's going to be a nurse."

  Jillian smiled. She liked Kristen immediately. She had that all-American freshly scrubbed look. She was beautiful without makeup. "Hi, I'm Jillian."

  "I picked her up on the beach," Ty said.

  Jillian laughed, feeling her cheeks grow warm.

  Kristen just shook her head, seemingly used to Ty's humor. "Nice to meet you, Jillian. You visiting Albany Beach for the week?"

  "I'm thinking about it."

  "So what can I get you?" Kristen poised her pencil. "I already know what goof ball over there wants."

  "I'll have a burger with cheddar, mustard, and relish." She eyed Ty teasingly. "With the bunny food. Boardwalk fries and a Coke."

  "I'll get your order right in."

  Kristen headed for the kitchen to place their order, and Ty began to systematically fold the paper placemat in front of him, advertising local business, into a paper airplane. "You serious about maybe sticking around a few days?" he asked.