by Marta Acosta
Then I glanced down at myself and screamed. I jumped away from the man. “What kind of sick freak are you to dress me like this? Did you drop a roofie on me? Because I know people—”
“Milagro, calm down.”
He knew my name, but I stayed out of his reach. I glanced around at a vineyard with swaths of lupine, blue-eyed Susans, buttercups, and golden poppies growing between the rows of vines. There were California live oaks just beyond. I was in wine country.
Then I took another look at the man. He was just under six feet tall, lean and eminently boinkable, and so I tried to recall if I had boinked him. What else could I have done?
“It was a wild night, wasn’t it?” I said, trying not to sound as scared and bewildered as I felt. “Alas, a girl must get home to her very concerned and proactive friends. They’ve probably already filed a police report that I’m missing. Do you know where my purse is?”
“You didn’t bring one inside. Check your truck,” he said, pointing toward a humongous white vehicle.
“Ha, ha, and ha. I don’t have a truck and certainly not a gas-guzzler like this atrocity.” I put my hand in my pocket and felt a few bills.
“Milagro, this isn’t funny.”
“I’m well aware of its unfunnyness,” I said haughtily. “Very nice knowing you—not!—and I’ll, um, well, it’s been real and it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun.”
I turned and walked quickly down the lane toward a street beyond the fence. When I reached the gate, it automatically swung open, and I tottled forward in too-big heeled boots onto the asphalt road.
I took the bills out of my pocket and counted eighty-nine dollars, which was the most money I’d had in ages. It would have to go straight to my landlord.
I looked both ways, but couldn’t see anything but road and trees. There weren’t even any sidewalks.
The man was coming down the lane toward me. He stopped at the gate. “Milagro.”
“If you would just point the way to the nearest bus or train station, I’ll be on my way.”
“You’re disoriented. You hit your head.”
I was disoriented, but other than this ookiness, I felt fine. I reached up and touched my noggin. “I don’t have any bumps or soreness. Did I hit my head, or did someone hit me?”
“You fell off your truck and knocked your head against a rock,” he said.
“My truck again.” I laughed. “At least you committed to the joke.”
He put his hands on his hips, and they were nice hips indeed. “Milagro, as much as I’d like to see you leave, I think you better let me examine you further.”
“Nice try, but you had your thrills last night and I hope you don’t have any communicable diseases, because the last thing I need is to catch some incurable condition from a casual encounter.” I’d go to the free “Does It Itch?” clinic as soon as I got back to the City.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
The air here felt so light and warm, so clean, and the sky was the vivid blue of bachelor’s buttons.
“Okay, I’ll go along with this idiocy. I was going to a party for a very dear friend, Sebastian Beckett-Witherspoon, the acclaimed novelist,” I said, although I hated Sebastian with the fire of a thousand suns. “I was dressed quite chicly. Obviously, I, um … perhaps I had too much to drink, and here I am. Where exactly is here?”
“The ranch.”
“Thank you for your total lack of specificity,” I snarked. “If you’re not going to be helpful, I can manage on my own.” I turned right and began walking.
He followed me, and I said, “Don’t try to stop me because I’ll scream.”
“I won’t try because you’ll throw me across the road.”
“You’re hilarious except for the being funny part of hilarity.” As I kept walking, I recalled leaving my crappy basement apartment to go to the party. I remembered waiting for the bus and worrying about seeing Sebastian, who had become successful while I was still patching together part-time jobs. What the hell had happened after that?
The hunky dude said, “Milagro, on the off chance that this is not a really desperate attempt to make me feel sorry for you, you need to come back with me. You can call Mercedes to come get you.”
I stopped. “You know Mercedes?”
“Yes, I know Mercedes. Come back to the house.”
“You won’t try anything?”
“You’re the one who always starts things, not me.”
“Prove that you know me. What’s my favorite color?”
“Trick question. Leopard print.”
“Lucky guess. What’s my favorite music?”
“Anything you can crank up too loud and play over and over. Your favorite clothes are too revealing. Your favorite drinks have paper parasols.”
“What’s my favorite book?”
“How should I know?” he said. “You quote Twain a lot.”
“So I really know you? I mean, before last night.”
“Yes, Milagro, we know each other.”
I was comforted by the annoyance and exasperation on his face, expressions not uncommon with men who knew me, and I said, “Okay, but keep your distance.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.” He led the way back down the lane, stopping to push a button that closed the electric gate.
Magnificent English walnut trees lined the way, and ahead I saw an impressive pale gold sandstone house. Across a field was a pretty little white cottage.
Straight ahead was a brown barn and there was a blocky building off to the side. Horses ambled in the fields that led to tree-covered hills.
We walked by the big white truck that was most definitely not my truck.
“This place is very beautiful,” I said.
He led me around the house toward the back entrance. Old roses, their perfume floating on the air, clambered on a fence that enclosed a marvelous garden.
I peered over the fence and saw a slate patio beneath an ancient oak, espaliered pear trees, and all sorts of deciduous shrubs in spectacular bloom. “Your roses are gorgeous, but they should have been pruned.”
“I can’t do everything.”
The man wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, so I smiled and said, “It’s still a fabulous garden. You’ve got many of my favorite species of rose and your viburnum are just bursting, aren’t they?”
“Let’s go inside.”
“Okay. I’m embarrassed that I don’t even remember your name.”
“It’s Oswald.”
“I’ve never met anyone named Oswald before,” I said as we stepped into a mudroom with an extensive display of sunhats and baseball caps.
Oswald put his cap on a hook and led me through a spacious kitchen done up in Monet shades of bright blue and yellow with high-end appliances, through a dining room, past a Mission-style living room, and into a study.
“Very manly man,” I said, looking around at the leather furniture, dark paneling, and built-in bookshelves. “Whose house is this?”
“Mine.”
“Yeah, right.” House sitter was my guess. I flopped onto the sofa and said, “You’d think whoever owns this place could afford to buy a few novels. The Merck Veterinary Manual doesn’t exactly sound like a dynamic read.”
“You’d change your mind if you read the section on acute respiratory diseases in chickens,” Oswald said, and his lips went up at one corner in a crooked smile that I found enchanting. “Let’s go over any other symptoms.”
“Maybe you should take me to the nearest free clinic.”
Oswald went around the desk and brought out a black leather medical case with OKG monogrammed in gold.
“Who’s OKG?” I asked.
“Oswald Kevin Grant, MD. Me, Doctor,” he said, and I smiled because it was kind of funny.
“You’re really a doctor?”
“I take care of the animals here. Do you have a headache?” he asked. “Any dizziness?”
“No to the headache, but I’v
e always suffered from the occasional bouts of ditziness,” I said as he took a stethoscope from his bag.
“Chest or neck pain? Nausea? Cold hands or tingling?” He took my hand, sending a buzz through me.
“That!” I said. “When you touch me, I get this zizz sensation, but it’s nice. It doesn’t itch.”
“I didn’t ask if it itched.”
“Well, I know things aren’t supposed to itch. It feels … good.”
“That’s not new with you.”
“Of course it is. It’s not normal, is it?”
“You’re not normal.” He slipped the stethoscope under the torn collar of my sweatshirt and listened, his long-fingered hands tantalizingly close to my girly parts.
I’d finally meet a fabulous man with impressive veterinary skills and I was dressed like an extra in Flashdance. “Oswald?”
“Yes?”
“Did we, you know …”
“Let’s concentrate on your health now, why don’t we?”
It would have been easy to lean forward and kiss him.
He asked, “How’s your vision?”
I blinked and looked at the bindings on the bookshelves. I could read even the smallest print clearly. “Hard to tell with my contacts in, but it seems terrific.”
“You don’t wear contacts, Milagro.”
I licked my finger and touched my eyeball to feel around for the lens. I poked a few more times until Oswald pulled my hand away.
“Did I get Lasik?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he went to the desk and began tapping away at a computer. “I’ve never dealt with memory loss.”
“Can you tell when a chicken has memory loss? Regardless, I’m sure I’ll remember every fascinating detail of my exciting life in a few minutes and you won’t have to bother Mercedes.”
Although I tried to relax and let my brain recover, I was distracted by Oswald. He had wonderful cheekbones, a clear, pale complexion, and a most intriguing, wide mouth. His chestnut brown hair was brushed back off his broad brow.
“I think you probably have transient global amnesia,” he said. “It doesn’t happen often, and lasts about six hours on average.”
“Six hours is a piece of cake,” I said. “I once took mushrooms as research for a story about a shaman and I was hallucinating all weekend, which was altogether too long. So it’s like that?”
“Except that you’re not hallucinating and you might regain your lost time. If you were anyone else I’d recommend an EEG and a CT, but your body heals itself.”
“No offense, but I really think you better stick to diagnosing animals. However, I’m willing to wait six hours.” That meant that I could recover in time for weekend clubbing once I got back to the City. “You want to tell me how I got here?”
“I told you, you drove, but you can’t drive back since you’ve had a period of unconsciousness. I hope Mercedes can pick you up, because you can’t stay here.”
I was glad I didn’t kiss him. “Oswald, you’re a little full of yourself, aren’t you? As you may recall, I was trying to leave here, not stay. I have a busy social calendar filled with people far more scintillating than some random veterinary assistant.”
“Yes, I know. There’s always a party somewhere.” He picked up his phone and made a call. In a second, he said, “Hi, Mercedes. It’s Oswald. Sorry to call you this early.” He paused. “She got here about an hour ago, and she can’t stay under any circumstances.”
He had a real attitude and I was relieved to learn that I hadn’t spent the night with him.
“She fell and hit her head and may have some memory loss. Of course, there’s the strong possibility that she’s faking it.”
“I’m not faking it,” I said loudly so Mercedes could hear me.
Oswald said, “She says that the last thing she remembers is getting ready to go to that party for Sebastian Beckett-Witherspoon.”
“My dear friend Sebastian!” I shouted.
Oswald shook his head and continued talking on the phone: “She’s even lying about that jerk. Anyway, there are two kinds of amnesia. One is caused by a head injury and the other’s more serious, caused by severe emotional distress, but disasters bounce off her like water off a duck, so—”
He stopped talking to listen to Mercedes, and I gazed out the window at a wisteria that was about to bloom. It must be wonderful to have so much space for gardening.
“What? Are you sure?” Oswald said and gave me a worried look. He listened longer, and I was sure she was telling him off for being so rude because he looked upset.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I’ll do whatever is best for her.”
He held the phone to me and said in a kinder tone, “Mercedes wants to talk to you.”
His eyes glistened and he turned away. Mercedes could be stern, but he was a big baby.
I grabbed the phone and said, “Hey, sweetie pie, come get me!”
She said, “Are you faking this? Just say yes, and I won’t tell Oswald.”
“No, and I’m deeply crushed by your accusation, mujer. What kind of nitwit would fake amnesia? It’s not as if I have a habit of crazy antics. I’m a serious and sincere woman.” I glanced toward Oswald to see if he was convinced of my value as a human being and a potential girlfriend.
Mercedes said, “Milagro, I need you to stay where you are until you get better. Oswald will take care of you.”
“I know you don’t think that I work, but I have to go do a shift at the nursery. They’re getting in a shipment of dahlia tubers and need me to do the bin display. There is, after all, the matter of paying my rent.”
“I’ll take care of those things. Stay there, promise me.”
“You are making a big deal out of it. I feel perfectly fine. What day is it?”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Saturday! That means I’ve lost two whole days! The nursery may have fired me and that doesn’t even begin to explain how or when I got Lasik.”
“This is not the time to worry about those things. Now, if you really aren’t faking this, Milagro—”
“Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”
“Okay, I believe you. You need to stay there until you get your memory back. Oswald and his family will take care of you.”
“I can call Nancy to come get me, or take the bus back to the City.”
“No, you can’t, Milagro. Try to listen to me for a minute. You’re safe there. That’s why you went to the ranch, because you needed a safe place to stay.”
“You’re leaving me in the hands of a veterinary tech?”
“He’s a real doctor, Milagro,” she said. “If you need to call me, use this line until we figure things out. Don’t call any of your friends or leave the ranch.”
“But—”
“Milagro, this is absolutely critical. Promise me. Either you stay where you are and do as Oswald says, or our friendship is over.”
Mercedes didn’t bullshit, and she was so serious that I said, “Okay. I’ll wait to get my memory back. But I think you’re overreacting. Where am I exactly?”
She told me that I was just north of Nancy’s favorite, overpriced wine country town. Well, I’d never had the opportunity to relax in the country before.
I handed the phone back to Oswald and he said good-bye to Mercedes and hung up. His expression was dolorous, I guess because he’d wanted to get rid of me.
“So I just came here this morning? You don’t know where I was?”
“You were with Mercedes last night.”
That was reassuring. I knew that nothing too crazy could have happened if Mercedes was with me. I yawned. “I could sleep like the dead.”
“You can nap in your … we have a room with its own bath, if you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind?”
Oswald led me to a room on a short hallway off the kitchen. It had a lumpy full-sized bed, an old wooden desk, and a bookshelf with paperbacks.
“You’re sticking the Mexican girl in the
maid’s room,” I said.
“You like this room because it faces out to the garden,” he said, and, indeed, the view out the window of the garden was charming except for a dead mock-orange.
“You need to pull out that bush,” I said. “This climate is far too cold for it anyway.”
I peered into a white-tiled bathroom with a claw-foot tub and said, “Sweet.”
Then I caught sight of someone’s awful reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes dull and hollow, her skin sallow, and her hair was several inches longer than mine. I stared until I realized the person in the mirror was me.
Oswald came close and said, “Milagro.”
I turned to him and cried, “What day of the month is it? What year?”
When he told me, I turned to the wall and said, “No, no.”
Oswald’s arms were around me, and he pulled me to him while I said, “No, no.”
“It’s temporary. You’ll get your memory back. I’m calling a professional to help.” His lips grazed my forehead in a gentle kiss. “You’ll get better soon. You always do. Come rest now.”
He helped me to the bed and pulled off my stupid shoes. Then he covered me with a comforter and stayed sitting beside me. I kept saying, “No, no,” and crying while he rubbed my back and said, “It will be all right, Mil.”
“What happened to me?” I asked. “Why do I look this way?”
“You’re stressed out. Go to sleep. You’ll be well again soon, I promise.”
I stared at him, waiting for recognition to come. “Oswald, how do I know you?”
He hesitated for a few seconds, and then he said, “You were the gardener here.”
eleven
Countrycide
When I awoke, I looked at the clock by the bed. It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon, and I still didn’t remember this place or Oswald. He’d said that this kind of amnesia lasted an average of six hours. I’d paid enough attention in my math course at F.U. to know that the median was more important than the average.
Something terrible had happened to me to make me look like I did. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just a wild week, or I’d finally gotten the flu or had contracted a slight case of Mad Cow. I hoped it wasn’t the latter because I could hear my mother Regina’s comments now.