We’re walking three feet apart at this point.
Considering my bleak situation, what should I care if some equally screwed-up but gorgeous girl I just met thinks I’m an ass? But every second she’s silent, an aching divide is widening between us.
Finally she turns to me, her anger bubbling over. “The point is, why didn’t you run when I said run? I would have done it.” But I didn’t run, I think, and nothing happened. “Why didn’t you just trust me? Like I trusted you.”
I know what she’s talking about. How I pushed her down into the corner behind the bed, out of sight of the bald man. Quietly I say, “Why did you trust me? You had no reason to.”
“Why?” The intense look in her eyes melts a little. It’s like she knows what I’m really asking. I’m asking her to tell me who I am, in her eyes. It’s fucked up, but I’ll believe whatever she tells me. “You seemed so sure I would—should—trust you at the time,” she said, “and that’s probably part of why I decided to. Something about you . . . felt safe.”
Her saying that makes my chest hurt, and I want to reach over and take her hand. I want to smooth things over, say “I trust you too. I believe you. Next time you tell me to run, I’ll run.” But after her weird hallucination just now, I really am concerned, and something in me doesn’t want to lie to her. Instead I say simply, “Thank you.”
She breathes a huge sigh, and I glance up and this time I see exactly what she’s seeing: a big green street sign with white letters, the first sign we’ve seen. Main Street.
We let out spontaneous whoops and high-five each other.
“We made it!” I’m so excited, I throw my arms around her. At first she stiffens at my touch, then cautiously she gives me a small hug back. Though I’m a foot taller, our bodies instantly find a way to fit just right together, making me wonder how many times we’ve stood this close. Or lain this close. The peaches-and-summer-grass scent of her skin is driving me insane, reminding me of this morning . . .
As if she can read my mind, she pulls away and takes a step back from me. “So, um, which way do you think the clinic is?”
I look out to the right, at a faint row of moss-green hills on the horizon line. The biggest more like a mountain. “Downtown’s probably away from the hills, not toward them.”
After seven or eight blocks, the road widens and the little wood-panel houses give way to public buildings. A squat, brick, square post office. A church with a spire. A library with Greek columns. I feel a deep sense of relief to be in a town. Even if it’s not an especially bustling town. These buildings look new—brand-new—but they’re old-fashioned. There are no chain stores. The shops look ancient, independent. Founders Pub. Hinklebeck’s Antiques. Mollie’s Milkshakes. In the window of Mollie’s we linger a second in front of our reflections, which look faint and ghostly.
“My face doesn’t look like my face.” She frowns at herself, then turns away.
I know what she means. I’m not used to my own face either. The guy in that photo on the wall looked like a jackass, so it bugs me to think she pegged me for him.
The center square features a bronze statue of an austere man in a morning coat and top hat. The square itself is empty except for a young woman lying asleep across a picnic table, pale limbs sprawling, mouth wide, raggedy carrot-colored hair blowing in the breeze.
The girl leans toward me. “You can see her too, right?”
I nod. “Creepy.”
We pass a tiny police station with a single squad car in front. Colorado plates.
“Maybe we should go there first,” I say, thinking aloud. “Missing-children reports get sent everywhere around the country, and if our families are looking for us—”
“Families.” She stops walking, covers her mouth with her hand. “I just realized, I don’t even know if I have one.”
“You do have a family.” I pat her back. “You have a name and an identity and people who love you. I’m sure of it.”
“Thanks. I’m sure you do too.”
It’s kind of sad, but it’s the nicest thing we can think of to say to each other right now.
Right across from the post office is the Main Street Clinic. She turns toward it. “If I’m going to sound crazy,” she says, “I’d rather talk to a doctor than a cop.”
“We’re not crazy. But you may have a point.”
We power walk into the empty waiting room and march right up to the front counter. The receptionist glances up from the pages of her supermarket glossy. She’s twenty-something, with fiery eyebrows dyed to match her hair, and the moment she lays eyes on the girl she crosses her arms over her pointy chest. “So what’d you do now, Miss Prom Queen?” she asks in a cheerful drawl. “Bang your knee? Break your little finger? Your ankle seems to be doing okay,” she adds.
The girl and I look at each other. First Hazel, now this extra-quirky receptionist. This town has too much character for its own good.
“Excuse me.” The girl takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—have we met before? I’m having memory problems. I—we—need to see a doctor as soon as possible.”
The receptionist swallows. “Now that’s not funny,” she says finally, her smile fading at the edges, voice tinged with disapproval.
“It’s not supposed to be,” the girl says, frowning. “We need to see a doctor as soon as possible.”
“The doctor doesn’t appreciate it when people pull pranks.”
Okay, I’ve had enough of local color. “Lady, this is not a joke!” I bang my fist on the counter. “Look, I can see why you’d be suspicious, given the likely fact you probably watched a ton of soap operas where people got amnesia. But sometimes it happens to real, live people too. And those people need to set up doctors’ appointments, which happens to be, you know, your job.”
She shuts her mouth and gives me an appraising stare, as if she just now noticed my existence. Then she tosses her hair, lets out an uncomfortable laugh, and turns back to the girl. “Damn, when’d you get yourself a new boyfriend?”
I glare into her eyes and speak slowly and clearly. “We need medical help. Can. You. Help. Us?”
“Don’t you worry, hon, I’ve got the cure for what ails you.” She picks up a beige phone receiver and her pink oval nails click on its lit number buttons. “Sheriff Hank, I got a couple of truants here. Yep, malingerers.” Fluffing her hair in a flirty way. “Could you please escort Miss Alton to school again?”
Miss Alton? The girl’s last name is Alton?
“She’s got a partner in crime this time—no, it’s another kid. It’s . . .” She squints at me. “Well, that’s funny, I can’t place him.” She looks troubled for a moment, then says, “You’re right, he’s got to be one of Liz’s guests.” The phone snaps back into its cradle.
The girl, aka Miss Alton, and I stare at each other, both of us shell-shocked.
She recovers first. “So I guess we’re going to the police first after all.”
Chapter 7
HER
Alton. My last name is Alton. I turn the word over in my head, but repeating it doesn’t help ring any bells. “Kerry,” I say, reading the receptionist’s name tag. “Can you . . . please tell me what my first name is? Where do I live? How old am I?”
The receptionist rolls her eyes, licks her finger, flips a page in her magazine. My face turns hot. What did I ever do to her? But as I watch her fish a compact from her oversize purse and treat her lips to a fresh coat of hot pink, I wonder . . . What did I ever do to her? I’ve been assuming I’m a decent person. A person people would want to help if she were in trouble. But how do I know? Before I lost my memory, I could have been any kind of person at all. For the millionth time my mind flashes back to that moment of waking up: naked, in a boy’s bed. Is he my boyfriend, or is there some other explanation for how we woke up? Or . . . my heart sinks . . . was I just the kind of person who went around taking my clothes off in random guys’ beds?
We can hear the sheriff’s boots
before the door swings open. He’s a youngish man, with a steady, ice-blue gaze and sandy curls. The star on his mushroom-colored uniform is so shiny it looks fake, like a prop from some old Western. His sleeves are rolled up neatly to show off his biceps, but his uneven, sandy mustache ruins the effect for me.
But not for Kerry.
“Hank, you’re a lifesaver!” A whiff of hair spray hits my nostrils as she sashays by to squeeze the sheriff’s bicep. You’d think he was rescuing her from cannibals.
“Just doing my job.” He gives her an easy smile. “Let’s go, Elyse.” The sheriff’s hand feels intimidatingly large against my shoulder blades. “You are going to school if I have to handcuff you and drag you there.”
“Why do you care more about my attendance record than my health?” I clench my teeth.
“Elyse,” Dark-Eyed Boy repeats under his breath, and it dawns on me then. That’s what the sheriff just called me.
I thought for sure when I heard my own name that I would know it . . . that it would sound right. Elyse doesn’t sound right at all. It’s girly, brittle. I hate it. It’s not me. I’m not an Elyse.
I burst into tears.
“I’m not named Elyse,” I manage to say between sobs. “And I’m not going to school. I don’t even know where the fucking school is. I just want to go home. But I don’t know where home is either.”
Everyone stares at me, including Dark-Eyed Boy. First the invisible mommy incident and now a hysterical cry-fest—he must think I’m cracking up for sure. Then Kerry and the sheriff lock eyes.
“Sounds like she forgot her own name,” he says, and nervously he peeks behind Kerry at the closed door to the clinic proper. “Aren’t we supposed to tell the—”
“No, it’s not worth bothering him yet.” She lowers her voice. “We’ll wait and see if she gets better. Kids her age almost never get sent away.”
Sent away where? My breathing’s gone rapid and shallow. What do these two know that we don’t? Dark-Eyed Boy moves to stand in front of me. He must be wondering the same thing I am: What happens if this doctor finds out we have amnesia? Is it some kind of crime around here?
“She’s just having a moment,” Kerry says. “Just part of life. We all get them.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Sheriff Hank muses, rubbing his big chin. “Well, I wouldn’t want to waste the doctor’s time. I’ll take ’em both to Liz.” Who is this Liz? I think, but I don’t say it out loud. I’m scared now. “Get in the car, Elyse.” Once again he uses the name that doesn’t feel like mine. “Bring your new friend. We’re going home.”
—
I stare out the window, numb, as Sheriff Hank’s squad car barrels past the downtown building cluster and hangs a sharp right toward the hills. Hemlock and fir trees surround us, scenting the air green with their needles.
Strapped into the backseat next to me, Dark-Eyed Boy reaches for my hand. I wipe mine on my skirt, clenching the fabric in my fist, before taking his.
I lean toward him and whisper, “I’m nervous about meeting my own family.”
“At least people recognize you,” he whispers back. “No one remembers me at all. It’s like . . . I never existed.”
“You exist, believe me.” My life would suck even more without you.
He looks me in the eyes. “I don’t even know my name.”
“I think of you as Dark-Eyed Boy,” I say, blushing before the words are even out of my mouth.
“Gonna have to take your word for it. I’ve never looked in a mirror.” He squeezes my hand before letting go. “Check that out.”
I look up to see that the trees have given way to an amazing view. Pouring down the side of a green mountain capped with a shining white glacier is a waterfall. The drop is dramatic, more than a thousand feet down to the lake below. As we get closer the sounds of pounding water grow louder, and I can’t stop staring, turning my head to gaze at it even after we’ve driven past.
There’s a turnoff ahead and a green sign with an arrow reading: “To E. Preston State Mental Health Facility, 5 miles.” Dark-Eyed Boy and I look at each other. For a terrible moment I’m worried that Sheriff Hank is driving to the insane asylum, but instead he turns onto a long, winding concrete driveway.
A still blue lake looms into view, and the house in front of it looks more like a mini castle.
“Here we are, gang!” Hank announces in his superhero-smug baritone. “Preston House, on the lake.”
I blink up at the three stone stories with a tower at each end, then at the eight-foot-high wooden door. “I live here?” All the houses in the neighborhood we walked through would have low self-esteem if they could see this place. “Just . . . me and my family?”
“And all the tourists,” Hank says cheerily.
“Oh,” we both say, getting it at the same time. It’s an inn, a bed-and-breakfast. It isn’t just our house.
I’m relieved. I don’t think I would want to be that rich.
Hank parks between two new white, midsize cars—rentals, I’m guessing—and we step out onto smooth white concrete. As we cross a picturesque bridge over a man-made stream just to get onto the lush front lawn, I see a woman working on her knees in one of the circular purple flower beds. An elegant woman in oversize sunglasses, light brown hair tied up in a fancy twist. She sets down her weeding tool, yanks off her gloves, and rushes over to us. “What’s the trouble now, Hank? Must be bad if you had to pull her out of school.”
“Liz.” The sheriff takes off his hat. “Sorry to interrupt your busy day.”
“It’s no interruption.” Her voice is silky, reasonable, one of those voices companies use to record phone announcements. “Being a mom is my most important job.”
Then why didn’t you know I stayed out all night and wasn’t even in school?
“Elyse showed up in the clinic again.” Hank lowers his voice. “Seems to be having another moment—”
“You mean all this fuss is over a moment?” Liz rips off her sunglasses, revealing tired blue eyes and crow’s-feet. “Hank, what are you talking about?”
“Are you actually my mother?” I blurt out. “Because you sound like an idiot right now. Let’s be clear, I’m not having a moment. I have no memories. Of anything before this morning. As in, you’re a stranger, and if I’m on some experimental reality TV show, I just want to say to the fans out there: I did not sign up for this bullshit.”
She pats her forehead with her fingers, like she’s checking herself for fever but never takes her eyes off me. “Honey. Are you trying to scare me?”
“Of course she is, Mrs. Alton,” Hank says, though his sureness sounds forced. “Acting out for attention. I know you’ll straighten her out. She’s so young, still.”
She’s only a kid. I feel a chill remembering the receptionist’s hushed tones when she said it would be better for the doctor not to know. “It’s not, like, a crime to have amnesia, is it?”
“Elyse.” Dark-Eyed Boy’s eyes scream at me, Back off on the amnesia. “Stop pretending, okay?”
Weirdly, Liz takes that moment to notice Dark-Eyed Boy at last. “Oh, hello there,” she says, tilting her head and squinting as if she can’t figure out how he got to be where he is, so close to us, listening in on our conversation. Finally she snaps her fingers. “Ah, you’re Jim. I didn’t make the connection before.” Jim? “You stayed with us a couple years back, right?” She flashes a friendly, professional smile at Dark-Eyed Boy—as if all this ugliness with her troublemaking daughter is now behind us all. “Welcome back to Preston House. How was the flight from New York?”
New York? Baffled, we both stare at the slim-wristed, diamond-ring-fingered hand she’s extending.
Then, with barely a moment’s hesitation, Dark-Eyed Boy shakes it. “Not too bad,” he says, studiously not making eye contact with me. “But then I got lost downtown. Thank goodness the sheriff offered me a ride.”
What the hell? I don’t know who he is, but I do know he spent the past few hours sleeping and
running and searching for help, not flying here from New York. He just lied, cold-blooded lied.
And his lying means he’s not backing up my story. Which makes me look crazy. Crazier. So much for us being a team.
“My work here is done.” Sheriff Hank tips his hat as he puts it back on.
Liz thanks him for all his hard work and waves him off. “You must be so tired,” she says to Dark-Eyed Boy as the sheriff-mobile’s engine starts up. “Here, let me give you the grand tour. Oh, where are your bags?”
“Lost at the airport,” he adds smoothly. “I’ve had quite the day.”
Quite the day. I marvel at the way he’s managed to make himself sound older, mature enough to book a hotel room. Same way he was able to make himself sound more Boy Scout harmless when he was talking to Hazel.
Liz clucks. “They say travel can be so stressful.” Her voice is bright again. Either she’s really good at hiding her feelings, or the reality of my amnesia hasn’t quite sunk in. Or hasn’t upset her. I hope she’s hiding her feelings.
Dark-Eyed Boy squeezes my shoulder, a silent thank-you for not ratting him out, and together we follow Liz toward the mini castle. Up the stone steps, onto the vine-covered porch, where a carved wooden swing blows eerily in the breeze, into a cavernous, mirrored, marble foyer. Liz shuts the door behind us.
Chapter 8
DARK-EYED BOY
Sure. I lied. I told that woman what she already wanted to hear, and running that con didn’t even make my pulse speed up. But I did it because I had to.
I’m not leaving Elyse alone here, not until I know she’ll be safe.
Even if she is glaring at me from the front parlor sofa while Liz—chattering nonstop about the house and its hundred-and-twenty-year history—leads me down a wide hallway toward the room Jim reserved.
The hallway is carpeted in deep blue and lined with blue-painted doors, the wall space between them plastered with black-and-white photographs. Judging from the doors’ nameplates, proudly scripted in silver, the rooms are competing for cheesiest name ever: Suite Nostalgia Lane. The Summer Romance. The Happy Family Suite.
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