The Girl Next Door

by Lisa Aurello

  It was curious that Mel had never seen it before. Was it just the weight loss or were there more differences? She forced it out of her mind for now and focused on their conversation. “Any new memories to report?”

  Jane tried to shake her head but was impeded by the neck brace. “No, not really. Dr. Lavelle advised me to get a journal and write in it every day. He said sometimes that helps trigger memory recall and even if not, he said it’s a helpful exercise in emotional recovery. So… yeah, I guess I will.”

  She looked up at her friend and smirked. “I’m going to be so bored, stuck at home until my injuries heal a little more and I can go back to work. Might as well pick up a new pastime.”

  “There’s always Netflix and you can load up your e-reader with bestsellers. You have to look at it like an extended vacay.”

  On the heels of that comment, a middle-aged nurse sailed into the room, smiling. “Well, Miss Jane, it looks like it’s goodbye forever. Are you going to miss me?”

  Beaming at the petite nurse, Jane went to give her a hug. “Of course, I’ll miss you, Tina… but I’ll especially miss those delicious meals your chefs whipped up and brought me three times a day. Going home is going to mess with my weight-loss plan.”

  The nurse guffawed. “Who wouldn’t miss limp green beans and lime Jell-O, right?”

  “Right, limp and strangely yellow green beans.”

  “Wouldn’t that make them yellow beans then?” Mel winked at the nurse.

  “I guess I should wish you happy eating, Jane. Now you take care of yourself. Listen to your friend here and stock up on movies and books. Relax, put your feet up, and enjoy the downtime.”

  “I suppose. I’m still going to be bored though. It’s not as if I can sit on the beach.”

  Mel snorted. “This is true… though I suppose you can go to a beach resort to recuperate. I mean, what’s stopping you, right?”

  “Hmm. I guess.”

  “Well, c’mon, let’s get a move on.”

  “Yeah,” Jane grumbled, “I never want to see another pastel again. Thank you for everything, Tina. Tell everyone else I said goodbye.”

  “I will, Jane. You take care now.” She offered a sweet smile. “You were a model patient.”

  Mel laughed. “It’s strange, though, about the pastels because the lobby is done in this industrial high-end design but when you get to the patient rooms they look like the usual hospital fare—mauve and gray or blue and yellow vomited all over the rooms.”

  Jane shrugged, lowering herself into the wheelchair, and Mel steered it in the direction of the door, leaving Tina to remove equipment from the room. When they exited into the hall, another nurse hurried over to push Jane’s wheelchair, so Mel walked beside Jane, and as they made their way down the antiseptic halls, Mel chatted.

  “So why did you never tell me about the smoking hot dude who lives next door to you?” she wagged her finger. “You’ve been holding out on me, chica.”

  “Really?” Jane perked up, turning her head slightly. The neck brace didn’t allow for any real range of movement. “Either I didn’t know or I totally don’t remember. Probably the latter.”

  “I think you’ve never met him because he would be massively hard to forget—even with amnesia. His name is Mason Caldwell. Ring any bells?” She bent around to look at Jane’s face and had to lean in to hear her soft-spoken response.

  “Hmm.” Jane’s eyes lost focus. “No, but that name is sooo familiar. I must know him, right?” She bowed her head down and gently rubbed her temples. “Why can’t I remember?”

  “I know, maybe you and he began a clandestine affair right under his hated and dreadful wife’s nose?”

  “He’s married?”

  “Yep,” Mel said, her face contorting. “Life is so unfair, right?”

  “Oh wait, wait, wait. I know why it sounds familiar. I went to school with someone named Mason Caldwell.”

  “Really? Did you grow up in Riverdale?”

  Jane shook her head. “No. Why?”

  “Isn’t that weird?” At Jane’s questioning tone, she replied. “You buy a house and then your new next-door neighbor is someone you went to school with? Big coincidence, don’t you think?”

  She screwed her lips to one side. “I suppose… it’s not that far, though. From Pleasantville.”

  Mel shrugged. “Hmm. I think he said he moved in a few weeks after you.”

  “I don’t remember any of that… but… I think I do remember now that he was very hot back in middle and high school. If memory serves, I had a major crush going on for him.”

  “Well,” Mel said, smirking, “don’t even look at him now. He’s fucking devastating. But married, of course. Some be-otch got to him before either one of us, Jane. Them’s the breaks.”

  Jane gave her a crooked grin. “Pfft, nothing new there.”

  Chapter 10

  “Cate?”

  Cate Caldwell heard her husband calling up to her but couldn’t make out more than her name. His natural voice was in such a deep register that from any remove it was hard to untangle his words into coherence. She’d been upstairs getting her laundry together so Sahara could do a few loads while they were out. She sang out, “Coming.”

  Now her husband’s voice became louder and with evident irritation as he moved farther into the house and yelled up the stairs. The man had absolutely no patience and never had. “You are aware that attorneys charge by the hour, Mrs. Caldwell? We’re supposed to be there in twenty minutes. Get your perfect little ass down here.”

  Cate rolled her eyes—silver-shadowed and accented with black liner. For God’s sake, they had plenty of time. Shaking her head, she nonetheless rushed to finish loading all of her things into the basket. She’d asked Sahara to do their wash separately—even the dog’s—because Mason liked to throw his gym clothes into the hamper when they were still damp with sweat and everything reeked accordingly. She wrinkled her nose just thinking about how rank it could get—she’d rather share a laundry hamper with Harper. Once she had the three baskets ready for laundering, she stepped lively to the front of the house, grabbing her keys and handbag from the foyer table on the way out.

  ******

  Mason was waiting in front, sitting in the retooled Porsche that he adored so much. As his wife advanced toward him, he noticed one of his male neighbors checking her out. He tried to decide if he was jealous. A year ago, he would have been, no doubt about it. Now, he wasn’t sure.

  When she reached him and saw the car, he grinned sheepishly. “Hop in. Weston is waiting on us to go over the paperwork.”

  “Is Jake meeting us there?” she asked as she folded her tall frame into the sports car.

  Fingers tapping on the steering wheel and knee bouncing under the dash as he waited for her to close the door and strap in, he answered, “He’s supposed to, yeah. He had an earlier appointment and was planning on coming straight from there.” His eyes swept over her, head to foot. “You look good. Are you going into the office today?”

  She shrugged. “I thought I might, for a few hours.”

  He shifted the stick into first, easing off the clutch as the car leapt forward like a graceful panther. “When you signed on with them, you promised them two to three days a week. You’ve been going in four or five lately. Are you going full-time?”

  “Eh, I’m considering it. I can’t make a living out of showing or breeding, now can I?”

  “Definitely not breeding,” he griped, flashing her a dirty look. “What about when we sell the company?”

  “I’m not sure yet, Mason. I’m trying to find my niche.”

  He grunted. “I’m just glad you convinced Jake to split me in as a full partner. I’m still not sure how you pulled that one off.”

  Cate reached over to pat her husband’s cheek, her chunky diamond ring flashing fire in the sunlight. “Jake loves you, Mason, always has. I’m sure that’s his motivation.”

  Mason looked straight ahead. “Yeah. Not sure I deserve it.
He’s always been a lot kinder than I am. And yet,” he turned to her with a smug grin to add, “I’m not going to turn down the offer to become a full partner.”

  “Well,” Cate said as she examined her manicure, “as you well know, it wasn’t exactly Jake’s idea to do that.”

  “But still...” His handsome face clouded momentarily. “When he finds out we’re going to sell, he’ll fucking hate us, Cate. That company is his baby.”

  “Yes,” she said, smoothing her golden blond hair, the platinum highlights competing with her diamond ring for shimmer. The wind blowing in from Mason’s open window was mussing up her ‘do. Not that he gave a shit. “I know. But the way I see it, if not for my generous cash infusion, he’d never have been able to get it off the ground. Could you close your window, please?” She paused, looking at him expectantly.

  Annoyed, he flashed her a look but grudgingly put the window up.

  “As I was saying,” she continued, still messing with her damn hair, “in addition to my cash contribution, without all the work you’ve done, all the value you’ve added with your schmoozing and your networking, it wouldn’t be worth as much today. He’s already turned down two incredibly attractive offers from bigger companies. I refuse to allow him to turn down another. I want the damn money.”

  Cate was unequivocal about it and once the girl made her mind up… Mason knew it was pretty much a done deal, a fait accompli as fucking Cate would say in that irritating way of hers. “Well, when I’m a partner, it’ll be two against one.

  “Yes. Just don’t let him find out before the transfer goes through, please. Today is just to go over details. I tried to get Ron to join us—”

  “Ron?” he interrupted. “Our accountant?”

  Cate’s eyes drifted up as she blew out her breath. “Do we know any other Ron? I thought it would be good to have him there to advise us on the tax benefits of cutting in another partner—whether we should incorporate or do a limited liability or whatever.”

  She shrugged. “Anyway, he couldn’t make it. It’s not impossible we’ll be able to get Jake on board for real, you know. After all, he can wind up much better off without the damn company. He’s holding a lot of debt.”

  “True.”

  She reached over and grabbed his arm. “Let me do the talking, Mason.”

  He briefly glanced down to where she touched him and admired the way her golden hand with red-lacquered nails looked against the silvery tones of his suit jacket.

  Running her finger down his cheek, she continued her favorite pursuit of patronizing him. “You just look pretty and keep your mouth shut as much as possible. If Jake feels manipulated into this by us—especially by you—he’s liable to bail on us.”

  Mason shot a sidelong glance at his model-beautiful wife. She looked so much more attractive when she wasn’t brimming with snark. Lately that was never. “You know, if you always try to take all the credit, you also get all the blame, apple cheeks.”

  “Don’t call me that—my face is not chubby. And what the hell does that remark mean, Mason?” she snapped. “For God’s sake, you’re so damn thin-skinned.”

  He returned his focus to the road ahead. “Whatever. I wasn’t referring to those cheeks, by the way. If it makes you feel better, my lips are sealed. I’ll let the perfect Cate Caldwell, née Cobb do all the talking. You probably only married me to keep the alliterative C in your last name,” he muttered.

  “Wow,” she said, clapping her hands, “big word. Bravo. Look, Mason, don’t worry about it. Jake will be fine with everything. Just leave it to me.”

  “Shut up already,” he said without rancor. “I’m not worried. I’m pretty certain that once Jake has all that money in hand, he’ll be all good about it. Lately, he’s been talking about doing other things. Maybe he’s splitting me in because he wants out, wants to sell. Maybe this is his passive way to manipulate that outcome so he could forge ahead with his other interests.”

  “Yeah? Like what?” Cate prodded with piqued interest.

  He shook his head, smiling. “He’s on this kick… wants to sail a catamaran around for a while, see some new places. We went to sailing camp when we were kids. Jake stuck with it… but you probably know that.

  “He’s also been writing music again. He sold a song last month—did I mention that?”

  “No, you didn’t,” Cate carped. “You never remember to tell me anything, Mason. To whom and for how much?”

  “He sold it to a producer for a new artist to record. I don’t know how much he got, but I think it was respectable, judging by his reaction. He was seriously buzzed about it.”

  She leaned forward. “Why didn’t you ask?”

  “Because it’s none of my business—or yours.” His face twisted into a frown, Mason looked down his nose at her—she was as gossipy and as damn nosy as those TV housewives, for God’s sake.

  Relaxing back into the seat, Cate jerked down the visor mirror and checked her lipstick. “Well, well. Maybe Jake can forge a new career path with songwriting. That would be great for him, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, it would.” He met her gaze briefly before flicking back to the road. “Having buyer’s remorse?”

  Cate just rolled her eyes again—those crackle-glass-blue eyes that he found unnerving when they were trained on him.

  He’d purposely kept his tone light, but that he’d even say such a thing probably alerted her to the fact that he was still bothered by their history more than he ever let on. This, despite knowing that she and Jake had barely dated and were never serious—Jake was just as happy to move on as Cate was when he introduced her to his cousin.

  “Of course not, Mason. It’s not always about you. And for heaven’s sake, get rid of that garish tie,” she sniped. “I don’t want to catch you wearing it again. It’s tasteless.”

  Mason shook his head, shifting into third as he picked up speed after the red light. He loved this Porsche and the way it handled. Even better, it had no long blond dog hair in it. Not a single strand. “Whatever,” he said dismissively. But what he was thinking was entirely different.

  What he was thinking was that someday Cate was going to pay for being such a twat.

  Chapter 11

  —Jane’s Journal, mid-September

  Who am I?

  I write the question in big black letters with a Sharpie because really it is the burning important question in my life at the moment.

  Picture this: you wake up in a hospital bed, and you have no clue who the hell you are or how you got there.

  No. Fucking. Clue.

  The last thing you remember is finishing ninth grade… and you’re twenty-five.

  You need to look in a mirror just to remind yourself what you look like. Those few details are the extent of your self-knowledge as an adult.

  Scary, right?

  That is exactly what happened to me.

  A bad car accident stole my recent past, leaving me with memories from long ago but erasing my current life. Through some divine or cosmic providence (I don’t even know if I believe in God or not), I still have my future but the landscape is radically altered—unless or until I get my memories back.

  OK, so I know my name, but I don’t know who I am, what I believe in, what kind of person I am, what I like or don’t like. I’m a clean slate. It makes daily life challenging. Intriguing but challenging. And lonely.

  Speaking of which, it stretches out in front of me unendingly: an open road, a blank canvas with a charcoal in my hand. It’s time, I suppose, to start. I can’t wait on life, hoping to get my memory back, because it may never happen, not fully. Instead, I have to reinvent myself in the literal sense, not in the annoying self-improvement way. So… my doctor told me to start this journal. He said it might help jar my memory and if not, it will help me organize my thoughts, perhaps even prove cathartic.

  Maybe.

  By writing things down, you sort of have to commit to them. They go from an idea floating through your head to a black-a
nd-white plan. Today I decided that I have to start trying on new identities, maybe using people around me as inspiration. Or I could watch TV for ideas. I could be a domestic goddess or a DIYer. Or maybe a brilliant hacker with a conscience. Or even a criminal, like maybe a Robinhood type who steals from the rich to give to the poor—it would have to be a good criminal, I think. Or an activist who fights for the voiceless, like children and animals or maybe immigrants or something. Or a corporate cog in the wheel, my only driving ambition to make shit tons of money and not care whose backs I have to step on to get there.

  Maybe it will be like trying on shoes. Some look just so beautiful on the shelf: sexy, expensive stiletto heels from, say, Manolo Blahnik, or platform designer shoes like Louboutin or Jimmy Choo but when you slip your foot into that kind of shoe, they maybe don’t look as good. Today, trying on the shoes in my closet, I felt like a little girl playing dress-up with her mother’s shoes. Which I used to do. I only stopped when I began to detest my mother.

  That I remember.

  The expensive stilettos in my closet threw me. Could they be mine? They didn’t fit with all the other shoes, like a pattern test for kids: which one of these is different from the rest? Definitely those. But when I tried them on, just as the glass slipper on pretty little Cinderella’s foot, they fit perfectly. In fact, I paraded around the room in my underwear and the heels, getting a serious charge out of it until my ribs and back started throbbing. High heels maybe aren’t so good for the body, especially one that has been bent and broken by hellacious G-forces.

  But then again: if the shoes fit, put them the fuck on.

  Now imagine trying to find a personality that fits comfortably. It’s not easy. I have to keep doing it, though, until I find the right one—the glass slipper of personalities.

  It’s not all bad though. Little by little, I’m getting files back in my catalog of memories. It’s like gathering bits of moss, putting them away until you have a respectable amount in your basket. I have people in my life to help me, tell me things. Sometimes it’s all about good facts that make me happy. Like the fact that I’m twenty-five years old—I like the age: not too young and not too old. Even better, last year my salary made it into the mid-six-figure range. Not too shabby for a person two and a half years out of grad school.