by Maggie Way
“You don’t want to be her friend, Carl. Gretchen may not get that, but I do. You can’t tell me you’re fine just hanging around and watching her with another guy.” John was purposely trying to bait him, he wanted to know what this was really about, and it worked. Carl’s face turned red and his arms tightened across his chest.
“No, I don’t like it. It kills me to see her with you.” His shoulders dropped and his hands slid into his pockets. He stared up at the sky in defeat. “But that’s what Gretchen wants right now, so I’ll give it to her.”
John didn’t know Carl well, and at that point he really didn’t want to, but he found himself believing him. He was obnoxious and arrogant, but he told people the truth. How he never tried to cover up his feelings for Gretchen in front of John was proof of that. John couldn’t stand him, but he could at least respect him.
“Are you honestly saying that you aren’t going to try to break me and Gretchen up?” he asked.
“No, of course not,” Carl said. “I never would have. Sure, I tried to tell her that I thought you were a bad idea, but I never tried to get her to leave you. I stuck around and made sure she knew I was still interested, but at the party I realized how serious she was about you and decided to quit doing even that. But like I said, Gretchen didn’t want me to ‘abandon’ her, as she put it, so I won’t.”
John didn’t really have anything to say to that. Gretchen wanted Carl in her life right now. That meant watching the woman he loved date another man for Carl, but he was willing to take it if it meant making Gretchen happy. Shouldn’t John be willing to respect her wishes for the same reason? He didn’t understand why Gretchen felt she needed Carl around so much, but she deserved his trust on this.
“As long as you make Gretchen happy, I’ll stick to being just her friend,” Carl said. Then without warning, Carl clapped his hand on John’s back, knocking him forward a little. His irritating grin was plastered across his face. “That doesn’t mean that if she changes her mind about you I won’t be ready to swoop in and take her. You better watch yourself with her. I’ll do just about anything for Gretchen.”
And then he walked away, letting John think about his promise. Or was it a threat?
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sleeping Arrangements
Surprisingly enough, his talk with Carl actually did make John feel a lot better about him. Even when Gretchen insisted they double date with him and a friend she’d set him up with, John found he didn’t mind as much as he thought he would. John could make Gretchen happy. He knew he could. If that was true, he knew he didn’t have anything to fear from Carl. He still annoyed John beyond belief with his boisterous nature and incessant smiling, but after a while, he actually started to like him.
Carl, however, had nothing to do with why John and Gretchen were sitting silently at the kitchen table staring at her laptop. It was the exact opposite, in fact. Summer was winding down and Desi had invited them to go with her and her new boyfriend to Albuquerque for a week long art festival the city was hosting. Gretchen had jumped at the chance and easily convinced John to go.
In their excitement, though, they had neglected to consider one thing.
Sleeping arrangements.
Desi had already booked her hotel room and wanted them to stay in the same hotel. Neither John nor Gretchen knew much about Albuquerque, so that had sounded like a good idea to them. The problem was that the only rooms the hotel had left were singles.
“So, what should we do?” Gretchen finally asked.
“I don’t know,” John said.
John thought Gretchen had assumed, like him, that they would book a room with two beds and that would be that. There were two separate rooms they could book, but that doubled the cost of their trip. And that meant cutting out a lot of the other things they wanted to do in Albuquerque. Paying twice what they had expected was disheartening.
“Why couldn’t they just have one double left?” Gretchen complained.
“Why didn’t Desi mention this sooner so we could book our room further in advance?” John grumbled.
“That’s not the way Desi works,” Gretchen said. She smiled because she loved Desi, but the frustrated shake of her head said she agreed with John. Desi was a spur of the moment kind of person. There was very little planning involved in her decisions. Although, once she decided to do something, she went all out for it. John occasionally wondered how she ever got through college or managed to teach all year long. He would half expect her to just disappear one day because she decided to go on a month long hiking trip across Europe.
Tapping her fingernails on the laptop, Gretchen was quiet. John thought they both wanted to say to just book the one room, but neither of them did. John suspected Gretchen’s reasoning was tied to Steve, and in a way he totally didn’t understand, Carl, but his was something totally different. He wanted more than anything to lay in bed with Gretchen and have her fall asleep in his arms.
John’s hesitation had little to do with what his body wanted, but instead about what his mind wanted. The first few times John had seen some kind of flash, there had been a lot of noise. Gretchen only knew about the first two, so she thought the noise had triggered some kind of disorienting experience because John’s brain was still healing. He knew it was more than that.
More recent scans had proven his brain was technically fine, except for the amnesia, of course. If Gretchen was right, John shouldn’t have had any flashes lately. The fact that with a healed brain and no loud sounds whatsoever he was still getting the flashes proved the images were real memories. Not just random bits of subconscious thought. The woman he kept seeing was real.
It didn’t happen often, only a handful of times since the day he and Gretchen woke up on the couch after the wedding, but they had all happened when he and Gretchen were kissing or lying together. The feeling that something in his brain was trying to stop him from getting closer to Gretchen scared John. Who was this woman he kept seeing? That question had become a constant companion for him.
“You’re no help at all, do you know that?” Gretchen said, breaking up his thoughts.
“Sorry,” John said. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?” she asked.
Keeping the memories from Gretchen was deceitful, but he couldn’t bear to tell her about them. He knew how she would react and refused to be pushed into a nonstop search for the memory woman. “Just about the room situation,” he lied. “How about we just book the one room so we don’t have to spend all the vacation money on the hotel.”
“I don’t know, John.” She didn’t give her reasons for her hesitation, but she didn’t really have to.
Was her balking about trust? Didn’t John deserve that by now? “Gretchen, please, you know I’m not going to push you into anything. Just because we’ll be in the same room won’t change that. I know when you’re ready for more, you’ll let me know. And if you feel uncomfortable at all,” he said, “I can always sleep on the floor. I don’t want you to miss out on all the things Desi has planned for the two of you.”
“John, I’m not going to let you sleep on the floor.” Her soft smile showed she appreciated the thought.
“It’s fine, Gretchen,” John said. “I don’t want you to have to worry about it. Let’s just go and have fun. With the catering and the yard, we could both use a break. Besides, with everything Desi has planned, I’m pretty sure by the time we get back to the hotel every night, we’ll both be ready to crash.”
“She does have a ton of stuff planned, doesn’t she? I don’t know how she expects us to make it through two museums and the Aquarium in one day,” Gretchen said.
“I don’t think she realizes that not everyone has as much energy as she does. How does her boyfriend keep up with her?” John asked.
Gretchen laughed at that. “Jake is as crazy as she is. From what she’s told me about him, it’s a wonder he’s still alive. He sounds like a total adrenaline junkie.”
“He’s probably ma
king most of it up,” John teased.
Sighing, she looked back at the waiting computer screen. The “confirm” button waited to be pushed. Locked in indecision, she stared at it. John decided to take the lead. He reached in front of her and clicked the button.
She glanced over at him, and asked, “Are you sure?”
“It’ll be fine, Gretchen. Why don’t you go finish packing? Desi wants to leave at five a.m. tomorrow,” he reminded her.
Gretchen groaned. She really wasn't a morning person. John was probably going to have to drag her out of her bed in the morning, but that didn’t sound so bad to him. John doubted Gretchen would appreciate that.
“I made some blueberry muffins to take with us in the morning,” he said, trying to tempt her to put aside her hatred of getting up before the sun did.
“With real blueberries?” she asked.
“Of course.”
She tried to pretend she was still dreading waking up so early, but blueberries were her kryptonite. Slowly, her lips rounded into a smile as she reached up and kissed him.
“You spoil me too much,” she said.
John kissed her again. “I know.”
Pulling her up from her chair, John turned her toward her bedroom. “Now go finish packing. And remember to bring your swimsuit. The hotel has a pool and you know Desi is going to want to show off her new bikini,” John said. Gretchen started to walk away, shaking her head at her friend, but he caught her hand and pulled her back. “And I can’t wait to see yours, too. Desi said you looked great in it.”
“I can’t believe I let her talk me into buying that,” Gretchen mumbled as she pulled away from him. “I’m wearing a t-shirt over it.”
“You better not,” John said.
Wrinkling her face at him, she glanced down at her body as if gauging how good or bad she was going to look. She didn’t seem impressed. John had no idea what she would be able to find fault with, but being a woman, there would surely be something. Amnesia or not, that was an easy truth to figure out.
“You have to promise you won’t stare at Desi if she looks better than I do, okay?” Gretchen asked. She smiled as if she was teasing, but John could see the tinge of fear in her eyes. What did this Steve guy do to her? he wondered. If John ever met him, there was a good chance Steve would walk away with at least a black eye, probably much worse. John almost hoped he did meet him one day.
Pretending he believed she was only teasing with her last comment, John said, “Only if you promise not to stare at Jake, because Mr. Extreme Sports Man is almost certainly going to look better than I do in trunks. The only exercising I do is my physical therapy.”
John’s teasing worked, making Gretchen chuckle as she left to finish her packing. Well, it worked on her at least. As John remembered what Jake looked like when they went to dinner the week before, he actually started to worry. The guy was ridiculously fit. Jake worked out constantly while John cooked and taste-tested nonstop. His physical therapy was pretty strenuous, and he did ride his bike everywhere, but it wasn’t the same. Would he be able to hold his own against Jake? Gretchen’s t-shirt idea was suddenly sounding pretty good.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Simple Memory
“What number museum is this?” John whispered in Gretchen’s ear.
She smacked his shoulder with the pamphlet she was carrying and shushed him with a smile. Not that John didn’t like museums, he enjoyed the art, but his legs were killing him. Up early every morning, they had spent the last three days traipsing around Albuquerque at breakneck speed. It was like Desi never expected to visit again and was determined to see everything it had to offer in this one trip. John just wanted to sit down and take a break.
“Oooh, come on guys, you’re going to love the next exhibit,” Desi said as she dragged Jake down the hall after her. Despite Jake’s apparent fitness, he was flagging, too. So much for being able to keep up with her.
“Are we seriously going to go like this for another four days?” John asked when Desi disappeared around the corner. “The museums and galleries are great, but I could use a break. We should go watch a movie. Something that doesn’t require any more walking.”
“You big baby,” Gretchen said. Pressing up against John, she looped her arms around his neck and held onto him. He appreciated the hug, but the way she hung, John suspected she was trying to take some of the weight off her legs. He squeezed her and lifted her up off the ground a little. She smiled, and said, “A movie does sound nice.”
“Maybe if we all gang up on her we can get Desi to give us a break. Jake looks like he’s about to drop,” John said.
Gretchen giggled. “He does, doesn’t he? I think he underestimated Desi’s endurance.”
“I bet he breaks up with her when we get back.”
“John…” Gretchen said, smacking him on the shoulder, “that’s not very nice.”
“I’m kidding. Jake really seems to like her. And he’s a nice guy,” he said. “They seem happy together, when Desi’s not dragging him around museums, that is.”
Shaking her head, Gretchen glanced at the corner Desi and Jake had disappeared around. “They do.”
Desi looked back and saw John and Gretchen then and started waving them over. As the art teacher at the high school, Desi was in heaven spending the week gazing at her favorite artists. Every exhibit they stopped at, the group got another lesson from Desi. It was pretty interesting at first, but by day three, a lot of what she said started to sound like she was just repeating herself.
Trudging up behind Desi and Jake, John didn’t look at the exhibit immediately. Instead, he walked over to Jake and was about to recruit him to join the coup against Desi in favor of seeing a movie when the bright colors of one of the paintings caught his eye. Interested, he looked up and stared at the swirling design.
Its abstract strokes and vague outlines immediately registered with him. Something about the painting seemed familiar. The placard next to the painting named the artist as Sue Ann Mika, a local painter. The name held nothing for him. John didn’t recognize it. There was something about the painting, though. The soft pastel colors slid across the canvas, pulling him into it, until suddenly it was replaced by a whole other painting.
In the time it took to blink, John was somewhere else. The bright, textured walls of the gallery in Albuquerque had morphed into smooth, pale blue holding a uniform row of paintings. They were similar to the Mika paintings in their abstract use of color and shape, but at the same time they were nothing alike. This painting had deep, pulsing colors as opposed to the light, whimsical expressions in the Mika painting. The connection John had felt in the Albuquerque gallery was multiplied tenfold as he stared at this new painting.
Entranced with the image, John jumped in surprise when he felt someone touch his arm. He could feel a hand slip around his arm and link with his. The touch felt so familiar, so natural, John couldn’t help but look over to see who it belonged to. Halfway through the motion, though, his eyes closed. Fear held him. He knew who he would see.
His eyes struggled to open, even despite his desire to keep her hidden from view. He lost the battle and found himself staring down into her dark eyes. She looked up at him silently. Serene. That was how he would describe her. Standing there in the phantom gallery which had once been lost in his mind, John knew this woman loved him. He felt her pleasure at sharing the moment with him. She had no name or place in time for him but, in that brief moment, she had John’s heart.
The warmth of her skin against his made John forget everything else. There was no gallery in Albuquerque, there was only her and the moment they shared. They lingered there, on Memory’s edge, until John’s waking thoughts crept back into his mind. Where was this woman? Why had she abandoned him? That moment, it was one a person would keep forever and treasure. It was obviously important enough to his mind that it was revived when so many others weren’t. Why wasn’t that true for her as well?
If she had truly loved John, s
he would have found him.
John blinked back his frustration and everything disappeared.
Another blink of his eyes and John was back in Albuquerque, staring at the hidden image of a woman reclining amidst a wash of soothing colors. Sound returned next and he heard Desi telling everyone about the materials the artist used in her work. Everything should have felt right again, but he couldn’t seem to find any warmth in the room. His skin tingled in the chill even though it was the middle of a desert summer.
“Hey, you,” came a voice. Then hands wrapped around his waist. Warmth and sensation finally returned as John glanced behind his shoulder at Gretchen. “You like the painting?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s, uh, I don’t know. It just kind of grabbed me when I looked at it,” he said. That was basically what happened, if not in the way Gretchen probably imagined. Actually, John really wanted to stop looking at the painting now, not because he didn’t like it, but because it was threatening to pull him back into memories he did not want to face.
“I love the colors she used. I feel very peaceful when I look at it,” Gretchen said.
“Yeah, me too. Hey, where’d Desi go?” he asked. John really wanted to get away from the exhibit. He felt bad because he really did think the paintings were beautiful, but he couldn’t risk looking at them any longer. If he zoned out again in front of Gretchen, she would know something was wrong, and he was still determined not to let her find out about the memories.
“She and Jake moved on to the next exhibit. You really seemed to be into that Mika painting so she didn’t bug us to follow.” Gretchen looked up at John, a small frown on her lips. “Are you doing okay? If you’re too tired we can just head back to the hotel. Maybe go swimming.”
“You’d actually let me see you in your swimsuit?” he asked, glad for the change in topic. Hopefully she would forget about the first question she had asked.